“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”

―Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio

“Miss Brodeur, to be frank, you don’t have a strong case here. Emma Carter’s character has proven unstable. She’s classified as a high risk to the de-monic world. The information that you will share with her is highly sensitive and we can’t risk that kind of exposure,” said Judge Michaelstone, looking at me with his sharp brown eyes.

I shifted my body to the side, feeling suddenly very uncomfortable. This entire hearing reminded me a lot of a battle from the twelfth century between mongrels and other creatures in the underworld. I didn’t actually know if that battle ever took place, but I’d read about it in one of Ricky’s books. The small courtroom in central London was filled with demons that I didn’t recognise, de-mons that weren’t even supposed to be here. Ricky mentioned that there wasn’t going to be any problem, that we could secure the licence for Emma within a few minutes, but so far I was facing a lot of obstacles. Judge Michaelstone wasn’t planning to make this easy for me at all. He was the main head of Berith’s fac-tion. The judge didn’t look like a typical demon; actually he looked nothing like I imagined. He had a long white beard that disappeared somewhere under the ta-ble, small pale eyes, and partly bald head. Yep, I couldn’t stop comparing him to the wizard from classic tales for children read to them by human adults before bedtime.

I had discussed this case with Ricky over and over and we both agreed that Emma was ready to hear the truth about the demonic world. We didn’t want to tamper with her thoughts any longer, and since she had started working for us that became almost inevitable. She was strong enough to know that demons had been living amongst humans for as long as I could remember.

“My business partner, Mr. Donovan, and I have worked with Emma for over two months now. She’s capable of dealing with any demonic exposure. I run a detective agency, Judge, and every case requires a certain level of knowledge from her, and we can’t carry on tampering with her mind. We don’t want to replace her. She’s an excellent assistant,” I said, acting like a parrot. I had been repeating myself over and over again, but it seemed to me that Judge Michaelstone wasn’t listening. “She’s a single mother that just got out of an abu-sive relationship and she needs this job. I understand that she might be a high risk, but I’m willing to take on full responsibility for anything that might happen after we share the truth with her. I can assure you that she is strong enough to understand the truth about our world.”

There was another demon that stood behind Michaelstone, and he kept whispering stuff into his ear. I had a feeling that this arsehole was purposely try-ing to jeopardise my case. I hated the fact that I had an audience, but these were the rules of demonic court. Every case needed to be witnessed by selected demons from various factions. Besides, the word in the city had spread fast, and my pre-vious connections weren’t working to my advantage after I left the security busi-ness. Prince George went missing a couple of months ago and I had brought him back, but no one knew how. I was willing to bet that during this hearing there would only be a handful of demons that were on my side. Somehow my success made others uncomfortable.

Michaelstone was listening and nodding to the guy behind him and I was ready to hit him with one of my charms. I had no idea who he was, but clearly he was doing everything he could to prevent me from getting that damn licence. The old judge kept smoothing his long white beard, eyeing me intensely.

“Humans are incapable of keeping things about us to themselves, Miss Brodeur. The court fully sympathises with the needs of your business, but there is no guarantee that Miss Carter won’t talk. Unless you have any other argument that you would like to put forward then I’m afraid that I’m unable to grant you a relief licence,” the judge stated, leaning over the bench. Okay, I was truly screwed then, but I wasn’t willing to give up just yet. Emma needed to know the truth, and that was the bottom line.

The demon behind Judge Michaelstone curled his lips in a nasty smile, and I clenched my fists, thinking about the ways that I could hurt him. The head of Berith faction wouldn’t normally approve a relief licence unless the demon that presented the case provided strong supporting evidence. Now I needed to come up with something good, and fast.

“Emma left her abusive husband, took her small daughter, and ran away in the middle of the night. During our first meeting I had to rescue her from the hands of two convicted demons that were planning to drain off her lust. She was nearly killed that night, but after using a very mild … let me repeat, very mild calming charm, she was absolutely fine, Judge Michaelstone,” I fired out, know-ing that certain questions would follow through, but I didn’t care anymore. These bastards needed some motivation to grant me that damn licence. Maybe I was putting myself at risk. I had never reported that incident to Watchers, so the judge could easily order me to travel downstairs to report what exactly had hap-pened that evening.

After I blurted out such a thing, the guy behind the judge almost lost his glasses. Michaelstone frowned, and his energy circulated around the room.

“Miss Emma Carter was attacked by two convicted demons? That’s im-possible, the Watchers would have picked this up and brought it to our attention. This would have been in your case files, Miss Brodeur,” the judge stated, raising his voice. Okay, so I might have just opened a Pandora’s box, but deep down I wanted to piss off that demon that stood behind Michaelstone.

“I believe Watchers purposely left the two convicted demons out of their sight … obviously following someone else’s orders. Emma could have died if it weren’t for me. I had to use my abilities that night in order to save her life. On top of that, a demon close by had opened the gates to the underworld, knowing that there was a human nearby,” I continued, throwing up accusations, and then added, “I had never been interested in politics, Judge Michaelstone, but it seemed that night someone was working against faction interest. God knows what would have happened to other humans if I hadn’t stopped those two convicts then.”

Other witnessing demons that were standing behind me started whispering between themselves. The old judge used the wooden hammer, shouting “order” a few times. I simply pointed out that there was someone within Lucifer’s faction that was most likely conspiring against him. Most of the time this wasn’t the case, but I wanted to make them believe that something like that was a strong possibility.

“So why haven’t you reported this to Berith’s faction, Miss Brodeur?” the judge asked, leaning so far forward that his beard was now falling over the bench. The guy behind was trying to break through my wards. His face was red and tense, but he wasn’t strong enough to challenge me like that.

“I used my powers in front of a human in order to save her, being aware of the consequences. I was running late that day and I couldn’t afford to wait for Watchers,” I explained. “I’m certain that if I passed such valuable information to Lucifer himself he would vote in my favour. That licence is very important and it could really transform my business.”

Michaelstone wasn’t going to report to Lucifer that his men failed to keep an eye on two convicted demons. This could ruin him and his career. It was an embarrassing flop that Michaelstone needed to keep tightly sealed. There were more snippets and whispers that spread around the room, and a moment later the door opened up. I was quite shocked seeing my old friend Cyril. He was wearing the same kimono-style outfit, with a long Japanese sword that hung over his hips.

“Miss Brodeur, I presume that your assistant should be able to verify your story if the licence is granted?” the judge asked, looking at me like he wanted to toss me down to the underworld without any further questions. Maybe I was tak-ing this too far, but I had nothing to lose. My name was already on the faction radar, and if they needed me downstairs then they would have to drag me down by force.

“Yes, I can release the calming charm, but I’m reluctant to mess further with her mind. She has gone through a lot in the past few months,” I replied.

“Right, Miss Brodeur, please give me five minutes. I need to consult with another representative on this matter,” Michaelstone said, sounding irritated, and suddenly got up. He disappeared behind the doors with the guy that stood be-hind him during the entire hearing. I nodded with a smile, sitting down on my bench. This either was going to shift in my favour or not. I just had to see.

Rodriguez was aware that Alexis had initiated her movement against Luci-fer and right now I was only pointing out the obvious, at the same time hoping to gain something out of it.

Michaelstone didn’t need five minutes; he came back after two, this time without the glasses guy. He had that strange, concerned look on his face. Tension rippled through the room, and I wondered if I should have kept my mouth shut. That incident from two months ago could have gotten me into a lot of trouble.

The judge shuffled some papers on top of his long desk and then looked at me. He was using his demonic energy to assess that I wasn’t making this whole thing up. I felt his powerful wave of magic deep in my bones. My hands started to tremble slightly as energy inside me vibrated.

“Relief licence granted, Miss Brodeur. You’re responsible for the human in question. The faction will look into the possible breach of protocol with regards to the two convicted demons that had attacked Miss Carter back in February. The session is now closed,” Michaelstone stated, finishing with a loud bang of his wooden hammer.

I flopped back on my seat feeling relief, still not quite believing that I had managed to secure the licence. A few of the witnessing demons started leaving the room, and some stopped by my bench congratulating me. Some time later, after I was holding the relief licence in my hand, Cyril approached me.

“Great job, Maxine. You got what you wanted, but I thought that you needed to keep a low profile. Telling Michaelstone about two convicts wasn’t too wise,” he said, looking ahead. His overbearing energy was circulating, stinging my bare shoulders. I was sober enough to realise that we were the only two peo-ple left in the room.

“I hate messing around with human minds. Emma is part of my business now and I need to protect her,” I explained, putting all my paperwork back into the white envelope. “We both know that someone is working against Lucifer, and I wanted to point this out to Michaelstone. Those two demons were out on the streets for a reason. I know it and now you know it too.”

He stared back at me, not convinced that I was telling him everything.

“Maxine you’re putting yourself at risk. Your name has been on my radar for a while,” he said with a heavy voice, like he was hoping I would understand that he had to investigate me. “Try to stay away from any further trouble. I’d hate to pay you another visit. The agency is clean, but the factions won’t see it that way. You’re attracting too much attention to yourself.”

His words froze me in place for a moment. We had only met once, but Cyr-il had struck me as the decent kind of demon. After all, he was doing his job, and now warning me that he was going to investigate my involvement in other inci-dents in the city. Crap, and I was really hoping that today would be an easy day.

“I have done nothing wrong, only saved an innocent human from the hands of two convicts,” I told him, knowing that this wasn’t an issue. Someone had opened the gates of hell without following the protocol, and that was a huge no-no.

“Yes, we can agree or disagree, but you need to remember that things are changing. Members of the faction want to push other orders and after today’s performance they might see you as a threat.”

“So, what are you doing here? Why are you telling me this? Maybe you should take me down yourself. That way you’ll save me a lot of hassle,” I snapped, losing my cool. All right, so yeah, I had saved the young prince, but the faction didn’t care about my achievements. They only cared about power and politics.

“I don’t really know why I’m warning you, but for some reason I like you to remain on earth. Other mongrels need someone like you,” he said. Cyril was right. Recently there had been more Watchers patrolling the streets and more de-mons had been disappearing from the face of the earth. Something big was going on downstairs.

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll follow the protocol from now on, but I have to make a living somehow,” I said, thinking about all my unresolved cases.

“Just be careful, keep your ears and eyes open. Think about the future,” Cyril said, got up, and headed towards the door. I scratched my head, wanting to ask him what he meant, but a moment later he disappeared. Dark clouds began filling my head and the voice of reason reminded me that my days on earth were somehow numbered.