Zayne stared at her. “If one of them eats my car, I’m going to kill them.”
She grinned. “We’re not letting them in the garage or the house, so your precious should be safe. I’ll go open it.”
Layla turned then and started back to the house. “You need to stay out of the driveway. If not, you’re going to get hit and no one will care.”
There were some grumbled responses, but the demons scattered as Layla jogged back into the house.
“I have seen a lot of weird things,” I said. “But this is superweird. It might even top the list.”
“But at least they’re all dressed.” Zayne shot me a grin.
“Those little red things aren’t,” I pointed out. “I don’t even know what kind of demon they are.”
“I think they’re sprites?” Zayne said. “I’ve never seen one before.”
I watched the red demon hopscotch along the driveway. “Is the one, like, four years old?”
“I...I kind of think it’s cute,” Jada admitted. “In a weird, demonic way.”
One of the garage doors shuddered opened, and Zayne carefully guided the car forward, eyeballing the demons the whole way. I didn’t think he breathed until the Impala was parked inside.
Layla waited for us at the door. “Normally our house is nothing like this,” she said the moment we joined her. “I know that may seem hard to believe, but we usually don’t have demons everywhere.”
Jada nodded. I thought she was handling all of this extremely well, but she’d always been curious. “It’s okay,” Jada said, smiling. “Except for the giant spider thing outside. That’s not okay.”
“I know, right?” Layla’s wide eyes swung between Jada and I. “I asked Roth what that was, and you know how he responded? He said it was just a house spider.”
“A house spider?” I exclaimed. “For whose house? Godzilla’s?”
“Exactly.” She led us through a short, narrow hall. “He then proceeded to tell me that there were even bigger spiders.”
“I would literally set myself on fire if I saw a spider bigger than that,” Jada said, and I shuddered.
“But what is it doing here?” I asked as Zayne curled his fingers around mine. “Did it come up from Hell?”
Layla glanced back at me. “I don’t know if you want to know that answer.”
“I kind of do,” Zayne said.
“Supposedly it’s been living in the subways,” she answered. “Eats the LUDs.”
“I am never getting on the subway,” I told Zayne. “Ever. I don’t care. Nope patrol right there.”
“Noted.” He shot me a grin. “But hey, at least it’s eating the LUDs.”
“It needs to do a better job at that,” I muttered. “So, Lucifer was able to find someone? He stopped watching Supernatural long enough for that?”
“Yeah, and that has made him testy.” Layla walked us through the kitchen and toward another narrow hall. “Which is why we’re in the sitting room. The floor is tile in there.”
I didn’t have to ask why tile floor was important, because I saw enough of what was going on in the sitting room. A human male stood in the center of the room, trembling. Thin rivets of blood ran out from the sleeves of his suit jacket, dripping onto the floor. The back of his trousers looked damp, and I had a feeling that wasn’t blood.
Lucifer stood in front of him, arms crossed over his bare chest. He seemed unaware of us as we entered the room, wholly focused on the man. I gave a quick glance around the oval-shaped room. Roth and Cayman were standing on the opposite side, the latter chowing down on a slice of pizza.
Jada came to a complete stop, her eyes widening as she stared at Lucifer.
“Now, Johnny-boy, you’ve been so helpful with just the littlest motivation required,” Lucifer said, his voice wrapping around the room like cool silk. “And I really don’t want things to get ugly in front of my new friends. Johnny-boy, say hello to my new friends.”
The man gave us a shaking glance. “H-hello.”
Zayne’s hand slipped free from mine. “What are you doing to this man?”
“Ah, don’t worry, Fallen. Johnny-boy here was always destined to come face-to-face with me.” Lucifer smiled, and there was a catch in my chest at how stunning that smile was. “It’s just happening sooner than later. You see, Johnny worked very closely with one Senator Josh Fisher.”
My gaze flew to the man. I hadn’t seen Fisher’s ghost since the night outside the church.
“Johnny-boy has already told us the names of every living person who was working alongside Fisher to aid Gabriel. They are being dealt with.” Lucifer lifted a finger, pressing it to the man’s cheek. “You don’t want to be dealt with, now do you, Johnny-boy.”
Smoke wafted out from the skin under Lucifer’s finger. The smell of charred flesh filled the air as a slice of skin burned off. The man jerked, letting out a low whine.
“Jesus,” Jada whispered, and I bet she was regretting her decision to come here.
I was starting to regret this decision.
“As if,” Lucifer replied, falling onto the chair by the window. “I’m nothing like that whiney, all talk and very little action golden Boy.”
Jada sat on a couch, I think so she didn’t fall down.
I turned to him. “Did you, like, know Jesus?”
Those unfathomable eyes met mine as he hooked a leg over the arm of the chair. “Who do you think was whispering in Judas’s ear?”
My eyes widened.
The corners of his lips curved and spread in a slow smile.
“Man,” I whispered, sitting down beside Jada. “You are so creepy.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment,” I murmured. “But whatever.”
Lucifer refocused on the man. “What I need to know is, where is Gabriel?”
“I don’t kn-know.”
“You don’t?” Lucifer tilted his head to the side. “What about Bael?”
“I d-don’t know where either of them are now. They were at that h-hotel. The one the senator was s-staying at,” the man said in a rush. “But they’re n-not there any longer.”
I wisely kept quiet as Lucifer studied the man. “What you’re saying, then, is that you’re virtually useless to me?”