No, they would not close the portals between the worlds, trapping Jael and his thousand Dominion soldiers on the other side for humans to “deal” with. On this they might agree, though for different reasons.
“Jael will be dealt with by me,” said Liraz. She spoke quietly, tonelessly. It was unnerving, and had the effect of sounding incontrovertible, like a fact long established. “Whatever else happens, that much is certain.”
Liraz’s reason was vengeance, and Karou didn’t fault her for it. She had seen Hazael’s body, as she had seen Liraz grief-torn and bereft, and Akiva at her side, just as anguished. Even from within Karou’s own black well of grief that night, the sight had gutted her. She wanted Jael dead, too, but it wasn’t her only concern.
“We can’t put this on humans,” she said. “Jael is our problem.”
Elyon was ready with a response. “If what you tell us of humans and their weapons is true, it should be easy work for them.”
“It would be if they saw them as enemies,” she said. Jael’s “pageant” was a stroke of cunning. “They will worship us as gods,” Jael had told Akiva, and Karou didn’t doubt he was right. She said to Elyon, “Imagine your godstars unfasten themselves from the sky and come down to stand before you, living and breathing. How exactly would you ‘deal’ with them?”
“I imagine that I would give them whatever they asked for,” he replied, adding, with damnable, faultless logic, “which is why we must close the portals. Our first concern must be Eretz. We have enough to deal with here without picking a fight in a world not our own.”
Karou shook her head, but his words had knocked hers askew, and for a moment she could find none. He was right. It was imperative that Jael not succeed in bringing human weapons into Eretz, and the simplest way to stop him would be to close the portals.
But it was unacceptable. Karou couldn’t simply dust humanity off her hands and turn her back on an entire world, especially considering that Jael’s pageant traced directly back to her. She had brought the abomination Razgut to Eretz and turned him loose with such dangerous knowledge as he possessed—of warcraft, religion, geography—and he had gifted it to Jael. She had brought this down on the human world as surely as if she’d match-made that pair of foul angels herself.
In the second that she searched for words, she scanned for support around the stone table and met Akiva’s gaze. It was like a kick to her heartbeat, that burning stare. He was blank; whatever he was feeling toward her—disgust? disappointment? bone-deep, baffled hurt?—it was hidden.
“Shutting a door is one way of solving a problem,” he said. He stared straight at Thiago. “But not a very good way. Our enemies do not always stay where we put them, and tend to come back on us unlooked for, and all the more deadly for it.”
There was no doubt that he was referring to his own escape and its consequences. The Wolf didn’t miss his meaning. “Indeed,” he said. “Let the past be our teacher. Killing is the only finality.” A glance at Karou, and he added with a very small smile, “And sometimes, not even that.”
It took the rest of them a second to realize that Beast’s Bane and the Wolf were in agreement, icy agreement though it was.
“It would be too uncertain,” Liraz said to Elyon. “And too unsatisfying.” They were simple words, and chilling. She had an uncle to kill, and she planned to enjoy it.
“Then what do you propose?” asked Elyon.
“We do what we do,” said Liraz. “We fight. Akiva destroys Jael’s portal so he can’t summon reinforcements. We take the thousand out there, and then we come home by the other portal, close it behind us, and deal with the rest of them here in Eretz.”
Elyon chewed on this. “Setting aside for the moment ‘the rest of them,’ and the impossible odds there, the thousand in the human world makes nearly three to one, their favor.”
“Three Dominion to one Misbegotten?” Liraz’s smile was like the love child of a shark and a scimitar. “I’ll take those odds. And don’t forget, we have something they don’t.”
“Which is?” inquired Elyon.
With a glance first to Akiva, Liraz turned to regard the chimaera. She didn’t speak; her look was resentful and reluctant, but its aim was clear: We have beasts, she might have said, her lip a subtle curl.
“No,” said Elyon at once. He looked to Briathos and Orit for support. “We’ve agreed not to kill them, that’s all, though we would have been within our rights to do it after they broke the truce—”
“We broke the truce, did we?” This from Ten. Haxaya, rather, who seemed to be enjoying the deceit, in a way only she could. Karou knew her true face. She’d been a friend, long ago, and her aspect wasn’t lupine, but vulpine, not so different than this, really—only sharper and more feral. Haxaya had claimed once that she was just a set of teeth with a body behind it, and the way she smiled Ten’s wolf jaws was like a taunt. I might eat you, she seemed to be thinking, most of the time, including now. “Then why is it our blood that stains the cavern floor?” she demanded.
“Because we’re quicker than you,” said Orit, all disdain. “As if you needed further proof of it.”
And with that, Ten was ready to launch herself over the table at her, teeth first and truce be damned. “Your archers are the ones who should answer for this, not us.”
“That was defense. The instant you showed hamsas, we were free of our promise.”
Really? Karou wanted to scream. Had they learned nothing? They were like children. Really freaking deadly children.
“Enough.” It wasn’t a scream, and it wasn’t Karou. Thiago’s snarl was ice and command, and it tore between the facing soldiers and set both sides rocking back on their heels. Ten dipped her head to her general.
Orit glared. She wasn’t beautiful like Liraz, like so many of the angels. Her features were ill-defined, her face full, and her nose had been broken some long time ago, smashed flat at the bridge by blunt force. “You decide what’s enough?” she asked Thiago. “I don’t think so.” She turned to her kin. “I thought we were in agreement that we wouldn’t proceed unless they proved their good faith. I don’t see good faith. I see beasts laughing in our faces.”