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I nodded, my stomach souring. “He’d lost control of his demon energy, and I realized he wasn’t an angel. That was before my memories came back, so I acted on instinct and charged him. I held him with my sword at his chest while he told me…everything.” I swallowed past a lump in my throat. “When Derdekea and Dahariel showed up with half a dozen angels, they saw me with my blade poised to strike him, and they figured I’d caught and confronted him.” My hand holding the glass trembled. “Derdekea even congratulated me for doing such a good job. And they promoted me to throne.”
Naamah narrowed her eyes, a calculating expression on her face. “Good. We can use that.”
“How?”
“You will convince Derdekea to help you join the ranks of the angels in charge of Azazel’s torture.”
I reared back and almost dropped my glass. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t need to actually torture him,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “You just need them to take you where they hold him at least one time so you’ll know the location and can scope out the layout of the place. Once you know that, we can kick off the extraction as soon as possible.”
“Why would they let me in there? How am I supposed to convince Derdekea to allow me access?”
“You’ll need to play the role of ambitious up-and-coming angel.” She pointed at me with the hand holding her glass, her index finger extended and wiggling in my direction. “Your reputation just got a huge boost from your supposed capture of the first demon to ever infiltrate Heaven. That’s big, and you need to capitalize on that. Sure, they promoted you for it, but you have to act like that’s not enough. You want more, you are ready for more, you’ve got amazing potential, and they’ll be stupid not to put your talent and instincts to good use. You sniffed this demon out, and you deserve a spot on the team that gets to work on him. Remember that ambition gets rewarded here in Heaven, and if you show drive as well as talent and skill, they’ll nurture that.”
I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. After a moment, I managed to gather words. “Have you met me?” I asked with a squeak in my voice. “What makes you think I can pull off a feat of acting like that? I stumble over my own words at the best of times!”
“You underestimate yourself.” She tilted her head. “I have full confidence that you can perform under pressure.”
“Well, I can try, but I have to warn you—I can’t hit a note to save my life, and I really don’t remember all the lyrics, so I will make up some random words at some point during the song.”
The look she gave me was half indulgent, half amused. “See? That’s what I mean. Don’t ever think you don’t have any talent for pivoting on the spot. You are good with words, Zoe, especially when it counts.”
“You’ve never seen me try to order food on the phone, then,” I muttered.
The corners of her mouth twitched up. “You are resourceful and quick-witted. Don’t worry. You’ve got this. Just channel your fear for him and your determination to save him into the ambition you need to show to get yourself a spot on Raphael’s torture team. The fact that he wants to keep this hush-hush works in your favor here. He won’t want to involve too many angels in order to keep this secret, which means he’ll try to keep the team small, but he’ll also need a certain number of angels to be on watch duty and to rotate in and out of the torture sessions. You have the advantage that you’re already privy to the fact that a demon was caught—you apprehended him, after all. By allowing you on the team, Raphael gets one more angel to do his dirty work without having to bring someone into the loop who doesn’t yet know about the demon.”
“Damn, you’re good,” I murmured.
Her smirk was all sorts of wicked. “You do remember who my father is, don’t you?”
“All too well,” I grumbled.
“It’s settled, then.” She leaned back, crossing her legs. “You’ll go ask Derdekea for a leg up by vouching for you to join Raphael’s torture team. Remember to play up your hunger to prove yourself and to jump on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of having caught a demon invader and wanting to make the most of it. The higher-ups are always looking for driven angels who display potential for growth and power coupled with unshakable loyalty. Angels aren’t much different from demons in that way. Make them understand that you’d be wasted on anything but a fast track to more authority, and that Raphael will gain by training you better.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm my fluttering nerves. All right, I could do this.
For Azazel, I could—would—do anything.
I’d crawled before Lucifer for him, and I’d willingly walked into torture for him as well.
I would damn sure be able to banish my social anxiety long enough to act my way into his prison.
CHAPTER 18
I stood before the door to Derdekea’s office in the main mansion, staring at the white wood and hyping myself up to play my part.
In truth, I’d been hyping myself up for the past hour before coming here, channeling all the women in my life with way more confidence than me. Taylor, Azmodea, Naamah, Elle Woods from Legally Blonde… Look, if Elle could make it into Harvard out of spite to get back at her douchebag ex and then stand in front of him with the saucy retort of, “What—like it’s hard?” I could at least be able to lie through my fucking teeth about wanting to torture someone.
I just…had to imagine someone I would actually want to hurt in place of Azazel. Oooh, like Azrael, the turd of a father who was such a spineless coward that he’d leave his son, whom he professed to care about, to suffer and die.
My hands balled into fists at my sides.
Yep, that did it. I really wanted to hurt a certain someone right now.
Good, good.
Channeling the Emperor from Star Wars, I let the hate flow through me.
