Slow her down. Distract her. Sarael was helping Will. I still wasn’t always comfortable about working with our rivals, but we had some things in common.

Like valuing people’s freedom and ability to make choices.

Like not liking demons. Maybe if it hadn’t been for Tyz’vel I’d have had fewer problems with them, but he’d convinced me the entire breed were, if not as inherently evil as the lore said…

No, they had chosen to be evil, and how much of it was because they weren’t allowed to be good? I didn’t know, and I thought of fire giants.

Who were not evil. That much I was willing to give them. Not evil, at least not in the true sense of the word. They were opposed to the Aesir, but they didn’t always do bad things.

Odin often did. It was so much more complex than merely good versus evil, us versus them.

Maybe I could convince Surtur not to attack.

Maybe pigs would fly. Distracting the succubus was easier to think about, much less trouble than fire giant politics. I contemplated sneaking into the Red Flowers building and pulling the fire alarm, but that would also annoy a bunch of innocent people. It’s not like they owned it, after all.

What would be equally petty and only affect them? An anonymous tip to the vice squad? No, they left operations like that alone. Officially they didn’t sell sex. Officially they paid taxes.

And there was no sign any of the women were under age, more was the pity. Or there for any reason other than to make good money. If it hadn’t been run by a succubus, I’d have said it was a decent operation.

One thing I could do, though, was track down her demonic minions. One of whom I was now tailing through Georgetown. She hadn’t done anything yet, but she undoubtedly would when given a chance. She ducked into a bar and I followed, hoping the crowd would conceal me, and with the strongest wards against detection I could produce.

Of course, I was focusing on that not looking obviously under-21 and the barkeep scowled at me.

“Coke,” I said, firmly, as I leaned on the bar.

“Shouldn’t…”

“I promise not to try and get alcohol.”

He seemed to accept that and I glanced around the room. She’d found her prey – a businessman alone in a booth, looking like he was from somewhere else.

I couldn’t do anything about it in here, but when she tried to get him alone? Then I could move.