Devil's Paw (Imp Book 4) by Debra Dunbar Read Free Book Online Page B

couch keeping Nyalla company, and I intended for Wyatt and I to remain awake and active all night, celebrating his survival of yet another year. Humans didn’t live very long, and I wanted each one I shared with Wyatt to count. All that was going to make for a very rough time of it at the Ruling Council meeting tomorrow. Normally I wouldn’t mind sleeping through it, but this one was all about me and my endless stream of four nine five reports.
    “Is this the meeting for the report I’m protesting, or to go over the other ones?” I rubbed a crick in my neck, stiff from both a night on the couch and the prospect of six angels chewing my ass out.
    “All of the above.”
    Shit. Well, no use fretting about what tomorrow might bring, especially when I had this lovely head on my dining room table. “So, what’s up with this guy?” I poked a cheek with my finger. The skin was damp and cool with a waxy sheen.
    “Do you know him?” Gregory asked.
    Yes, definitely déjà vu. I reached for the head and ran a thorough scan. Empty. It appeared to be human, but oddly stripped. I looked at the facial features, but didn’t recognize this as the Owned form of any demon I knew.
    “Another cryogenically frozen human?” I turned to the angel, searching for the slightest reaction. “How are you finding these, and why are you bringing them to me?”
    “I lied at the council meeting. The head I brought you this winter was a demon, and so is this one.”
    He lied? Not that angels seemed to be adverse to falsehood, but why would he have lied to his peers, the other angels on the council? What reason would he have to hide a demon death from them?
    “So just mark it as a dead demon by unknown causes and move on. Why bother to lie? It’s not like anyone would care about a dead demon.” I certainly didn’t care about a dead demon. I didn’t know him.
    His black eyes bored into mine. “This type of death is very similar to one I’ve encountered before, but there are differences. I suspect that this is not what it seems, that someone may be employing misdirection. If so, I don’t want them to know I’m on to them until I figure out who is doing this, and why.”
    I frowned. I knew politics were convoluted up in Aaru, but Gregory seemed more suspicious than usual. “And you can’t trust the Ruling Council? Do you suspect one of them?”
    He shrugged. “In Aaru, you quickly learn to trust no one.”
    But he trusted me enough to tell me this much, at least. A demon. I shook my head at the absurdity of it all.
    “Do you suspect an angel killed them?”
    Gregory’s eyes met mine. “I don’t know. It seems implausible, but the manner of their death gives me cause for concern.”
    “Why do you care?” I asked softly. “It’s just a demon. A demon who has clearly violated the treaty by his presence on this side of the gates. Dead is dead — by your hands or someone else’s — it shouldn’t matter to you.”
    His shoulders tightened as he clearly struggled to decide how much to confide in me. “There is no reason I can think of for an angel to cover up the execution of a demon, or to kill one in such a fashion, but if one is doing so, I need to know why.”
    My mind darted back to yesterday, to the angel so determined to kill me. But Gregory was right. There was no reason for an angel to cover up the execution of a demon like this.
    “What if it’s not an angel killing them? What if…” My voice trailed off as I remembered my conversation with Dar this winter. The hypothetical one where he’d casually mentioned a devouring spirit could erase demon energy to this degree. A devouring spirit like me.
    “No matter who’s killing them, you’re the Iblis. It’s your duty to assist me in the investigation and attempt to protect your people.”
    He obviously had a different job description for Iblis than I had. None of the demons outside of my own household recognized any increased authority with the title. And demons really