“I know you’re mad about my new demon BFF, but can you at least take a step back and look at it like a rational human being? He could be valuable to us.”
“What’s the first rule of demons?” Tyler asked.
“Don’t talk about demon Fight Club?”
He sat down in the chair across from us as though I had finally broken his spirit entirely and he simply no longer had the will to stand up.
I had that effect on people, I was told. Often.
“Please take this seriously.”
“That’s what I have you for.”
“Demons lie, Secret. That’s like the one absolute. They lie to get what they want. The lie to destroy human lives. They. Are. Liars.”
“Okay, sure, but I had a good feeling about this one.”
“You had…” He drifted off then stared up at the ceiling, taking in a deep breath through his nose. When he looked back at us again, his focus was on Emilio instead of me, like he couldn’t handle dealing with me for another second.
“Can you please explain this to her?”
“Do you want me to try in Spanish?” Emilio asked.
Haaaaaaa. Emilio was on my side.
I continued. “Can we just see what he tells us, and if any of it pans out, we can say, hurray, Secret was right! And also she’s incredibly smart and beautiful.”
“That seems about as likely as a demon telling the truth,” Tyler shot back.
“Enough, enough.” Emilio waved his hands. “I didn’t leave special ops to babysit bickering FBI agents. And I certainly never thought a former vampire-werewolf hybrid would have this much goddamn sass.”
“He started it.”
“You’re both grown-ass adults arguing over a demon like it’s a stray kitten Secret brought home and Big Daddy Nowakowski won’t let her keep,” Emilio chided.
“Can we please all agree to never refer to Tyler as Big Daddy Nowakowski ever again?”
Tyler raised his hand in agreement.
“Hopeless. Both of you.” Emilio pushed his chair back and got up from the table.
“Where are you going? He and I can’t be left alone together.” I gestured between Tyler and myself. “He thinks I’m going to kill him.”
“You’re going to kill us all one day, Secret.” Emilio walked to the door and opened it. “But for right now, we’re all going to go talk to a demon.”
Chapter Three
The nice thing about having an actual government budget to back you up was that you got all sorts of cool shit you could spend money on. Part of that for our office was a demon-proofed room in one of the labs. It was marked with protective sigils that would keep my new demon friend from vanishing at will, and also put a damper on his powers so he couldn’t simply possess someone if they were in the room with him.
This was our first time hosting a demon who had come in freely, and we’d never had one in the room longer than a day, so if this was going to be a long-term stay, it was as much a test of the room as it was learning what our little buddy knew.
We arrived in the lab, which was in a triple-secured area on the second floor. The first floor had been the original plan, but after hearing about a bank heist in L.A. where thieves had come up into the vault by drilling into it from below, we had made the decision to house all truly valuable artifacts and specimens on the higher floors. Our offices were on the main floor as well as the sparring rooms where I trained new recruits how to fight vampires and werewolves and come away with their lives.
Yes, I know my job is weird.
The three of us swiped our badges at the lab entrance and emerged into a clean white space, where three people in honest-to-goodness lab coats were milling around. There were microscopes and everything. They didn’t let me come in here alone, since I liked to poke at expensive things too much.
One of the labs techs worked exclusively in the development of weapons which was—no pun intended—a double-edged sword. It was great to have someone designing things that could help me do my job better, but at the back of my mind it bothered me that the government was funding the development of supernatural-specific weaponry. Having these toys was useful, sure, but was there an ulterior goal I wasn’t aware of?