Excerpt: In The Mortal City

"Do we have any idea who is doing it?" Tay was asking as I tried to process that information. War? It couldn't be quite as bad as that, could it? Maybe they'd retaliate, kill a demon or two, which was bad, sure, but not war, right? But looking at Tay's face as she earnestly tried to get information on the situation, I could tell she wasn't exaggerating. She'd lived through a direct assault on the compound before, back when she was just a kid. Sixteen, and she'd gone out to meet the angels attacking with no weapon to try to convince them to back down.

"Believe me, Taylor, if I did, I would be sending you out to retrieve them," El said, his tone dry. "Unfortunately, I have no proof it was anyone but a demon, and thus have no basis to contest their assumption.

Tay frowned a bit. "Right. Okay. If they're planning a full-scale assault, it'll take them a day or two to organize. We have a little bit of time to either find proof or get ahold of Vince. Not impossible..."

"But very difficult," El finished. "I hate to ask it of you, but you are the only one of my staff who can safely enter their territory right now. I'm hoping you can turn up something that will convince them to at least hold off until we've discovered who did it."

"Yes, sir," Tay said, and I swear to god she would've saluted if El wouldn't have found it ridiculous. "Anything else?"

"Only that the angel who was killed was an Angel of Knowledge by the name of Carrie Donner. Maybe that will give you somewhere to start. Thank you."

Tay nodded curtly and stalked out the door. I followed without saying goodbye. However nice he might be, Elashte was kind of the most powerful demon in North America right now. Knowing someone with that much power sort of made me nervous. I loped after Tay, catching up with her quickly.

"This is exactly why I told Vince he needed to leave one of the old crew in charge," Tay growled. "I'll be lucky if I can figure out what fucking country he's in now."

"Won't Mitsuki know how to contact him?" I asked. Vincent Sterling was a prominent general (of sorts) among the archangels world-wide, having been the second-in-command to Romana Angelos herself before she went nuts and lost her wings by killing an innocent woman in the attack on the Gauche so many years ago. He was also, in my opinion, something of a father-figure to Tay, since her own dad was a douchebag, but I'd never gotten any confirmation on that. Mitsuki was his... well, "assistant" isn't giving her enough credit. Technically, she just supplied his munitions and communications technology, but she was the brains behind his operation. Nice woman, I'd met her once or twice.

"As far as I know, yeah," Tay said, "but it's not always as easy as that. Sometimes Mitzi's pretty hard to reach herself, especially if she had to deliver something to him recently. So it's sort of a toss-up if we'll be able to get either of them."

She flipped her cell phone open, though, and scrolled through numbers until she got to Mitsuki's office. It rang a few times, and then I heard a faint voice say, "Moshi moshi?"

"Hey, it's Tay Barnam, in Chicago," she said, assuming that whoever had answered would know who she was. They should, really, or at least recognize the last name. The Barnams were sort of a big angelic presence in North America, mostly on the east coast these days. "I need to talk to Mitsuki right now." There was a bit of talking and Tay raised an eyebrow, as if this person could see her. "Excuse me, I am Taylor Barnam. If you don't fucking know who I am, ask someone who's worked there longer. I am trying to get ahold of Vincent Sterling on a matter of life or death importance, and the best way to get to Vince right now is through your boss. So interrupt her fucking meeting and get her to the phone."

There was a moment of silence, then the sound of what might've been stammered apologies, and Tay smirked. "Seriously," she said, "I think if I was a nobody and I acted like they should know me, they'd do the same thing." I snorted. She brightened a bit, and held out a hand to make sure I didn't make noise. "Mitzi! It's Tay. Yeah, sorry about that, we've just got something of a situation going down here, and I need to get in touch with Vince." A pause. Tay's face fell, and she rubbed the back of her neck absently. "Right. Okay, well if you can try to get in touch with him in the next day or two, it would be really appreciated. Yeah. Just... tell him the angels think we broke the treaty, okay? He'll know how serious it is. Thanks."

She sighed a bit as she snapped the phone shut. "Let me guess," I said. "Vincent is out of communications range right now, for one reason or another."

"Yeah," she said, and grimaced. "She's not sure she can reach him any sooner than early next week. Which, of course, would mean that we'll be dead or under seige already." She groaned a bit, and hit the back of her head gently against the wall behind her. "As if this city fucking needs them doing something big like this."

I didn't get a chance to think of something to say, because Anna appeared carrying coffee for everyone, and a bag that probably had a muffin or two in it. "Hey guys!" she said cheerfully. "What'd I miss?"