Dead Harvest

  "Ah," she said, "very prudent. Keep the poor unfortunate soul far away from little old me. Or is there perhaps another reason you brought someone else? Perhaps you didn't care to discover her blood was not so innocent as you'd hoped?"

  "Could be I thought that. Could be I figured whoever set her up might have worked some mojo on the girl that woulda kept her blood from doing the trick. Tell me, what do you know about a demon named Beleth?"

  "Of Beleth I know volumes. I know he's a demon of great influence and power. I know that he's a fierce warrior, and a fiercer lover. I know that he's taken quite an interest in you of late. But none of that is what you wanted to know, now, is it? What you really want to know is could Beleth have orchestrated the girl's collection? What you want to know is what he would stand to gain should the girl be taken? Really, Collector, you should know better than to play coy. That invocation of yours binds me to secrecy– your equivocating accomplishes nothing but the waste of both our time."

  "Fine, then. Did Beleth set up the girl?"

  "I haven't the faintest."

  "Could he have?"

  She thought a moment. "I suppose. I mean, obviously, it's never been done before, so I couldn't say for certain, but a being of his power could certainly make a go of it. The question, though, is why?"

  "Maybe he was bored. Maybe he had grown tired of the truce. Maybe he's a fucking demon, and this is just what demons do. His motivations really don't concern me much – what concerns me is undoing what he did."

  She was peering at me now, as if for the first time. A puzzled frown darkened her exquisite features. "Tell me, Collector – why the past tense?"

  Fuck. Rookie mistake. Best to play dumb: "I don't follow."

  "He was bored. He had grown tired. What do you know that I don't?"

  "Nothing," I said, a bit too quickly. "I only meant –"

  She cut me off. "He's dead, isn't he? He's dead and you killed him."

  I said nothing for a moment, just squirmed beneath her withering glare. "Yes," I said. "I killed him. Merihem, too."

  "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

  "They would've done the same to me," I said.

  "Yes, I suspect they might have – as would have been their right. But for all your talk of protecting the balance by refusing to collect an innocent, you sure have a funny way of maintaining it. This could well lead to the very thing you claim you're trying to avoid."

  "Yeah, but if Beleth set up the girl–"

  "You idiot – Beleth couldn't have set up the girl! For a creature of his kind, his power is inextricably linked to his being, his essence. If he had set her up as you claim, his death would have released her, and I assure you it did not." Lilith saw my face drop. Again, her smile came out to play. "You really thought he did it, didn't you?"

  "I hoped he had, yes," I replied.

  "Then tell me, why on Earth did you kill Merihem?"

  "Merihem's death was an accident. We needed information. He was something shy of cooperative."

  "Should I take that as a warning, Collector? Perhaps I should endeavor to be more forthcoming. Still, I thought the two of you were… not friendly, exactly. Collegial, I suppose. I'm surprised you had it in you to kill him."

  "I did what I had to do."

  She appraised me a moment, frowning. "You're lying. It's written all over your face. You didn't kill him, did you? It was the girl."

  "One of his kind killed her family," I shot back. "She saw a chance to even the score, she took it. You can't blame her for that."

  "Of course, of course. Or perhaps the girl worried that Merihem might expose her for the charlatan she is? After all," Lilith said, caressing my cheek with the back of one blood-colored nail, "how long do you think she'd last without her big, strong protector watching over her?"

  "You're wrong about her," I said.

  "Maybe, maybe not. It hardly matters. They sent another to collect her, you know."

  "I suspected they might. Collectors I can handle."

  "Don't be so sure. This Collector is one of Beleth's own. A thousand years he's walked the Earth since Beleth first sired him, and not a shred of humanity remains. He's more demon now than man."

  My stomach dropped. "Bishop," I said. "They sent Bishop, didn't they?"

  She raised an eyebrow. "You know him?"

  "We've met."

  "Ah, but of course you have! Then you know full well what the girl is in for. You, too, I'd imagine. As I understand it, he was something of a pet to Beleth. You see, he thinks of Beleth as his Savior – his one true God. What do suppose a creature such as he would do to the man that killed his God?"

  I said nothing – just stood there, stunned. She approached me then, and draped one arm around my neck, pulling me close. Her body pressed against mine, and my head swam with the scent of her, all jasmine and spice and sex. I clenched shut my eyes to steady myself, but it wasn't any use. As her lips brushed against my ear, she spoke.