“What are you doing?” he demanded. “Or rather, what aren’t you doing?” He pointed to his computer screen. It didn’t have Wikipedia on it for a change. Instead, it showed pictures of the demonstration for a local paper’s website. “You were supposed to stop this kind of thing! Did Jerome send you here to sabotage me and spy?”

“No! They did this without telling me. I’d actually convinced them this morning not to do this other thing with a Zamboni, and then they went behind my back because their Angel of Darkness allegedly spoke to them.”

As quickly as I could, I recapped the day’s events and conversation. When I finished, his glower hadn’t changed. He still clearly didn’t believe me.

“Jerome said you were good, but I had no idea you were this good. You manipulated this group right under my nose.”

“No,” I repeated. “I’ll swear to you by whatever you want. I tried to stop them.”

He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “I am going to get shit for this from everyone. Our own people are going to come down on me—in addition to making me a laughing-stock. And eventually, the other side is going to raise an eyebrow too. They don’t like this kind of overt attack.”

The other side. Heaven. The angels.

Angels . . .

“Who’s your counterpart here?” I asked. “Among the angels. There must be an archangel here too, right?”

The question caught him off-guard enough that his pissed-off look momentarily lifted. “Of course. Her name’s Isabelle. Why?”

“Well . . . Evan and the others keep saying they’re directed by an angel. All this time you thought they were just worshipping some all-purpose Satanic ideal. But what if a real angel is controlling them? I mean, Jerome’s given up the fight with you. If anyone had reason to give you shit, it wouldn’t be our side. It’d be theirs.”

Cedric was silent for several moments. “This isn’t their style. It’s not Isabelle’s either. I’ve known her for a long time.” When greater immortals said “a long time,” they usually weren’t kidding.

“Is she blond?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean anything. We can look like anything we want. Someone appearing to this group—and I don’t think anyone is—could easily make themselves blond or bald or whatever. I think you’re trying to shift the blame off yourself and Jerome.”

“I’m not! Look, I don’t want to get mired in any of this. I just want to finish my job and go home. And if you ask me, I think someone’s trying to work you over and send you looking in the wrong places.” Good Lord. I sounded like everyone else now. Soon I’d be telling him he was “getting played.”

“Isabelle wouldn’t do it,” he maintained. “We’re friends . . . well, kind of.”

It was funny that demons lied and betrayed each other all the time, yet he somehow stood by the character of someone who was technically his enemy. I understood it, though. Jerome maintained a similarly bizarre friendship with Seattle’s archangel, Carter.