Instead he slammed the succubus against the floor and held her there with all his weight, one hand on the back of her skull.
“The trouble,” he panted, “with going off of Sairche’s memories is that she’s seen this girl twice. Too many details to get wrong.”
“What do you-”
“She knows what a shitting erinyes is,” he went on. “And you’re about an inch too short and a shade too pale, and entirely too forward, so quit pretending I haven’t figured you out!”
“Close enough to confuse you,” the succubus said, calmer now. She wriggled under him. “Maybe you just like this version better.”
At that moment, Lorcan figured he’d had enough succubi for an eternity, regardless of who they did or didn’t look like. The shape-changing devils were renowned for their skills of seduction-a well-deserved reputation, he knew-but he’d also seen close up how dangerous they could be. Even one low-ranking enough to be compelled by Sairche.
“Are you watching this, Sairche?” he called.
“Please,” the succubus said. “You underestimate how much she loathes you. She doesn’t want to see you enjoy yourself.”
“So that’s her clever plan? Seduce the way around the warlock’s binding spell out of me? Did you really think that would work?”
“No. She thought you’d show me the way back. But no one said I couldn’t amuse myself.” The succubus arched her back, and he fought to hold her down. “I can always do it the hard way.”
He didn’t doubt it-if he let her get too close, she’d have him charmed and his thoughts spread out like wares on a market blanket.
“You can’t hold me forever,” she said.
“I can do it until Sairche comes back and sees how you failed,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure that was true. If she changed form and sprouted wings again she’d knock him right off. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, piecing together secrets and scenarios. This might work. “But you stay on the other side of the room, understand?”
“You’re going to take my word?” she said. “How sweet.”
He moved off her, swiftly as he could, and was back, in front of the window, before she gained her feet. “You’ll find I’m a lot more … accepting than my sisters. If you wanted to stay a demon, you had the whole Abyss to hide in.”
The succubus didn’t change her form and so Farideh stood there leering at him in a disconcerting way he didn’t want to think about. “What’s the deal?”
“What’s Sairche want from you?”
“She wants the warlock. Nothing less.”
“And I can’t give her that.” Not a lie-Farideh had to take Sairche’s offer as much as he had to undo the pact. “But I can tell you why she can’t find her.”
The succubus shook her head, sending Farideh’s dark locks shifting unnaturally in the dim light. “Not enough. She wants the key to undoing it.”
Lorcan eyed her a long moment, weighing his options. “I can tell you how I managed it.”
“And I can take that from you, easy as you please.”
“Or,” Lorcan said, “you can trade with me. Make no mistake, if you try to take it, I’ll go down fighting, and even if you win, I’ll make sure it’s not easy.”
The succubus smirked. She’d made the upper lip too thin, he thought, and the lower too full. “That’s what they all say. What do you want to trade?”
“I want to know why she’s stopped torturing me,” he said, “and who her buyer is. And I want a message carried for me.”
“Back to the warlock?”
“No,” he said. He took a deep breath, hardly willing to ask it. But he needed a portal, and quickly. If he gave Sairche the information about the protective spells, she’d be one step closer to Farideh-and one step closer to killing him-unless he could move quickly.
“To the succubus aeries,” he said. “To Invadiah.”
The succubus didn’t laugh like Farideh either. “That I’ll do, just to see her face when I tell her that her traitor son wants a boon.”
“A boon that will thwart her twice-traitorous daughter,” he said. “Invadiah is vicious but she isn’t a fool. By now it should be clear that Sairche doomed us both. You have portals to the other planes in the aerie-tell her I beg use of hers. Tell her it will bring about Sairche’s downfall. And tell her it will exile me; I won’t come out of this well either. Find out what she wants for that.”
The succubus nodded. “That I can do. I don’t know the buyer-I’ve heard things, here and there. A collector in Phlegethos. A collector in Minauros. Another archdevil. People talk, even about the dull fancies of collectors, but this one … it’s clear there’s something else going on. It’s a select group that wants this one.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “That wasn’t part of the deal. But we can always renegotiate.” She paced along the wall, daring closer. “Tell me the key.”
Lorcan wished she’d change form already, but the succubus seemed to sense his discomfort, and relish it. She’d edged closer, still technically on the opposite side of the room. “There’s a protection laid on her,” he said. “Laid thick. If it’s not the result of some god’s old interest, then I’m meant for Ao’s army. No amount of scrying will get around it, no matter the method. And whoever Sairche’s found to take up the pact will find that connection isn’t enough either.”
“But you found a way?” the succubus said skeptically.
“There’s more to me than first blush,” he said. He waited, holding tight to the last secret, turning it over as if there were some way to substitute it with a lesser detail. “She’ll regret what she’s doing,” he said. “Or perhaps, someone could make sure she regrets it.”
“And how is that?”
“When I was taken, before I was brought here, the archduchess spoke to me. Told me to be careful as she would have need of me and the Kakistos heir in the future.”
Farideh’s odd eyes narrowed. “What for?”
Lorcan hadn’t the faintest idea. Glasya’s counsel had come without warning, and her presence had vanished the moment she’d delivered it. “Now that wasn’t part of the deal,” he said with a smile. “Especially when I gave you Glasya’s interest in Farideh for free.”
The succubus tilted her head. “Farideh. Is that her name? How ugly.” She sucked her lower lip, deep in thought. “They say it’s because of Glasya that Sairche stopped torturing you.”
That surprised Lorcan. The archduchess was well known for her elaborate methods of torment. “That hardly seems likely.”
“Well, we all know she had you close to death,” the succubus said. “I hear she had plenty more surprises for you too. Then the archduchess called her to court out of nowhere and said if she’d like you to be tortured, then she should hand you over to her lordship’s tender mercies.” Farideh’s gold and silver eyes flashed with the succubus’s amusement. “Sairche declined, they say. How could she do anything else, if what you’re saying is true? You might tell Glasya what Sairche needs to know. What I need to know,” she said, coming nearer, close enough now to reach out and trail her knuckles down his arm. Shitting demoness, he thought. “You want to renegotiate? I’ll tell you what I’ve heard about your Brimstone Angel. You give me a peek inside.”
Lorcan kept himself from flinching. What a perfect example of Malbolge, here in front of him-something to make him want to recoil in horror and throw himself headlong into corruption at the same time. Maybe he’d been locked away too long. Maybe he was tired of waiting to die. Maybe he did like this version better.
“It’s very boring, I assure you,” he said. “Go ahead and see for yourself, if you really want to be pulled into the archduchess’s mess.” The succubus’s piercing gaze wavered, and she eased back, hardly at all, but enough to notice. Enough to be confident she wouldn’t touch him.
“You owe me still,” the succubus said. “The key to getting past the protection.”
Lorcan shrugged, insouciant. “She has to find something that isn’t affected by the spell.”