Back Up In Smoke
Chapters (29)
  1. Praise
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Ten
  19. Chapter Eleven
  20. Chapter Twelve
  21. Chapter Thirteen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-one
  26. Chapter Twenty-two
  27. Chapter Twenty-three
  28. Chapter Twenty-four
  29. Chapter Twenty-five

“Madame Northcott? This way, please,” a pretty woman said, giving Gabriel a not-very-subtle eye before she turned and started down a hallway.

“This is going to get old very fast,” I grumbled, taking his hand in a show of outright possession.

He grinned, and tickled my palm with his thumb.

“My darling wife!” Magoth said when the policewoman opened a door to a small interrogation room, standing aside for us to enter.

I stopped, glaring at him. “Do not call me that.”

“Why not? You are my consort, my queen, my second in command . . . or at least fifth or sixth in command. I have a cadre of wrath demons who are above you, I’m afraid, but you’re definitely in the top ten. Possibly twenty.”

I slid a worried glance to the policewoman. “I think that’s just enough about your cadre.”

He rolled his eyes. “Why you insist we play these games when things could be so much easier . . .”

“Magoth! Are you all right? Have you been abused in any fashion?” Sally asked, slipping around me to hurry to his side. “I don’t see any blood or even some bruising. Shouldn’t there be some blood? I expected there to be blood!”

“I like how your mind works,” Magoth told her.

She preened.

I felt it was time to break up their admiration society. “What in the name of the spirits of sanity were you doing to be arrested for indecent exposure?”

“Nothing at all,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hands. Someone had found him some clothing, a T-shirt and pair of jeans that weren’t his usual style, but he was incredibly handsome in them, regardless. “It is all a misunderstanding. I was visiting a quaint little fountain outside of a church, that’s all. No different from any other tourist.”

“A church?” Sally asked, startled.

I frowned. What was he doing near a church? Demon lords tended to avoid those places that were respected as holy ground, no matter what the religion. All too frequently sites were chosen because the ground was founded, or seeped in that quality that enhanced abilities that could be used against those of dark origins.

“Monsieur was witnessed by a wedding party of two hundred, including three cardinals, and a papal legate, as he attempted indecent acts with a stone mermaid that sits on the top of the fountain,” the policewoman said, turning her attention on him.

“Sins of the master,” Sally swore, looking at Magoth with something that looked very much like respect.

“You were trying to have sex with a statue in a fountain?” I asked. Gabriel’s lips twitched as if he was having a hard time keeping from laughing.

“It was a very large misunderstanding,” Magoth told me before switching his attention to the policewoman. The look he sent her was positively lecherous. “If you get my drift.”

The woman slid me a quick glance.