SWNOVELS Prince Of Lust: Chapter 15
Friday night, Gaap showed up at The Deacon and made himself at home as if he hadn’t been gone for years while the rest of us had taken up the slack.
The Prince of Sloth lived up to his name in more ways than I could count.
I’d told him to meet me in the office at midnight, and in true Gaap fashion, I had to go hunting for him down in the privacy rooms.
He was pacing the floor of my office now.
Ezequiel and Dabria stood behind me, waiting for him to explain himself. I knew the Hunter he was running from by the name Alessio De Santis. Alessio was from the Order of Exorcists and had caught up to Gaap and several others in the last few years. This Hunter was far too good at his job, and unlike Hunters before him, he had no favors to grant for leniency.
Alessio had trained under the infamous Gabriele Amorth, the last chief exorcist of the Vatican. Before his death, Amorth had slipped into madness and had taken up arms against all Earth-residing demons.
Theirs was a secret society, almost as shrouded as ours. Most humans would scoff at the thought of the modern-day church believing in such practices, brushing off a common demonic possession as mental illness or a mental break.
Much like the one my fellow prince was having in my office.
“It’s been a long time, Gaap.” I sighed from the plush leather chair behind my desk. “Or have you become too accustomed to your stage name, Ezra St. Croix?”
“Scoff all you want, but I haven’t had to hear my true name in decades unless I wanted. You can appreciate how any name moaned just right can feel more powerful than your gifts, can’t you, Prince of Lust?”
“What do you want, Gaap?” Ezequiel’s gruff tone was different from his usual breezy demeanor and set my nerves on edge.
Gaap sent a lethal warning glance to Ezequiel but did not respond directly to the Watcher Angel we all knew he despised. He cleared his throat and said directly to me, “The Hunter that’s been tracking me. I need your help, brother.”
“Brother?” Ezequiel interjected once again. “You abandon your duties, leave every one of us behind to clean up your mess, and now that you need him, he is your brother?”
I could hear the pain behind Ezequiel’s words. We were all born of the same creator, with no blood shared or womb to call home before becoming fully formed entities. When it came to what was considered “brotherly,” Ezequiel was the closest I could ever compare to what the human race considered family.
“Do you really want to start comparing abdications of duty, Watcher?” Gaap said with poison dripping from his metaphorical fangs.
“Enough.” I stood, tired of the infantile bickering. “Gaap, where is the Hunter?”
“Here. In Los Angeles.” Gaap crossed his arms over his chest, unable to look me or Ezequiel in the eye.
I hung my head and let out a curse. Gaap was a selfish prick for leading him directly to one of the last establishments that had a peace treaty between angels and demons. There had been somewhat of a truce between the Order and us many years ago, but that was with the understanding that if they ever caught up to one of us and found a way to keep the trail, they had full right to track us to the ends of the Earth if they felt so inclined.
Obviously, Alessio had decided that banishing the Prince of Sloth back to Hell was a conquest worth pursuing across continents and oceans.
My skull was too tight, and my temples ached from the pounding anger rushing through my veins. This was the last witch hunt I needed at my doorstep. Dabria’s quests were a handful enough without the Order getting brave enough to breach the walls of The Deacon to snatch the head from one of my brothers.
I pounded a fist on the desk, a childish show of aggression, but the stress was becoming too much. I didn’t hear the breaking of the glass I had been sipping on earlier, but it cut into my palm nonetheless.
Dark blood gushed over the miscellaneous papers and polished wood of my desk. I was too caught up in watching the slow flow of fluid to notice that Dabria had come to my aid. She took off her black uniform T-shirt and wrapped it tightly around my hand. I stared at the side of her beautiful face. She clenched her jaw as she cleaned what she could, then looked up at me.
Caught in a silent exchange that was more feeling than verbal expression, I reached for her cheek with my free hand and brought her temple to my lip.
“I’m fine,” I assured her, bringing her eyes to meet mine once more before she finished tying off the shirt and stepped back to Ezequiel, who was waiting with one of the club’s promotional sweatshirts.
He gently assisted it over her head and down her body before wrapping his arm around her once again.
“Sitri, I didn’t know where else to go,” Gaap said, his desperation coming through now that my cool had been lost.
“Have you completely lost your grip on reality? You lured the Hunter here to Los Angeles?” Ezequiel’s anger was still gritty and deep, but he had softened his volume for Dabria.
“I knew the club would be the safest place to be for now.” Gaap finally addressed Ezequiel and me together, knowing he was losing this fight by having it with only me.
“Just kill him.” Dabria’s sheepish voice came from behind me.
The three of us gawked at her.
I dropped my head with a forceful sigh at her inability to understand the complexity of the situation.
“If it were that simple, I would have when he cornered me in Paris,” Gaap answered.
“Killing him would be seen as an act of war. Every Hunter and lesser angel would be up our asses,” Ezequiel further explained and pulled her deeper into his side. “No, it’s best to influence or spell him away. Not raise any flags or cause any closer inspection.”
Gaap surveyed the three of us. He had a puzzled look on his face that made me believe he needed to be shuffled out before he drew too much attention to the Prince of Lust and his Watcher Angel companion sharing a Reaper.
“He’s warded his skin. Not just with ink, but he scarred it with hellfire.”
A Catholic priest and Hunter with hellfire-marked wards on his skin? Now, that was truly a surprise.
Dabria snorted. “That’s a little overkill.”
Ezequiel gave her a sideways glance. She was adopting more human phrases by the day.
“What do you expect us to do about it?” I countered. “Hide you until he grows too old to pace the threshold of The Deacon?”
Gaap ruffled his hair then hooked his fingers around the back of his neck, working out what it he could reasonably ask for.
“You’ll stay in one of the spare apartments upstairs,” I said finally. “We’ll spread word that you’ve gone back to Hell. He won’t retreat immediately, so make yourself at home until he gives up.”
I tossed him a set of keys from the desk drawer. The tag on the metal ring read the floor and unit number.
“I’ll call Eligos. Perhaps he can help,” Ezequiel announced, which was an oddly insightful idea.
Eligos, a duke of Hell, was a useful being to have in our corner. He might be able to conceal Gaap and the magic signature the Hunter was following.
“You have my eternal gratitude, brother.” Gaap held my gaze, the keys tightly gripped in his praying hands.
“Don’t make me regret this,” I warned as I rounded my desk to usher him out of my office. “You may have made a name for yourself as a rock god among the humans, but our brothers believe you to be a coward and not worthy of your title.”
“Prince of Sloth returning to his throne by force. Who would have thought that day would come?” Ezequiel shouted, causing Gaap’s neck to tense and my mouth to quirk a cheeky smile.