Free Red Demon by Deidre Knight

reason, Eros thought of the arrows and bows hanging in his hall of weapons, how the god before him had taken that battalion of brave men and robbed them of everything, made them useless.
    And had always wished to do the same to him.
    “So what inspires your visit, Ares?” He kept his voice chilly, refrained from calling the god by either a worshipful title—or a familial one.
    Surprisingly, the deity smiled. “Well, well. A spirit of rebellion has been birthed in my son after all this time? Perhaps self-denial has toughened you as I’d hoped.”
    Eros held his tongue, waiting. There would be more. There was always more whenever his vain father spoke, and often much was revealed because of Ares’ insane self-adoration.
    Glancing up at the painting again, Ares narrowed his eyes. “One must admire the intense passions of these humans, son. And for that, I do give you long overdue credit. Imagery such as this, well, it almost reminds me of battle . . . the thronging bodies, the need for domination.” He pivoted, facing Eros again. “I believe I’ve been overlooking the possibility for a critical alliance.”
    Eros’s heart thundered at the words. Alliance? Did his father intend to extend some sort of partnership or approval? He’d waited, for so many millennia, waited and hoped that one day some other mystery of love would bring his father here, compel him to love his own son as he should.
    He swallowed. “What . . . partnership do you have in mind?”
    “Ah, not a partnership, per se. A joining of our skills for battle. Intrigued?” Ares lifted a golden eyebrow, smiling openly.
    “Absolutely, father.” He nodded vigorously, not listening to the doubts that tried to surface in his mind. The urgent reminders that Ares was a bloodthirsty, craven god and not to be trusted. “I am eager.”
    Ares extended a hand, ready to shake on the arrangement. “I suppose even fighting with me is better than sitting uselessly in the palace all day.”
    His father’s hand was there for the taking; a bargain; an alliance. For one last moment, Eros hesitated. “This is love spelling you want from me, correct? I do not have the skills of warfare and battle that you trade in.”
    His father’s smile grew blindingly bright. “That is precisely what I want from you, Eros. Your divine skill with love’s bow and arrow. Strategic, powerful, relentless. You will be a welcome addition to my current fight.”
     
    The desert was balmy at night. Eros remembered that much about Iraq during late October, although he’d not visited the bleak, sand-burned land in almost a year. There hadn’t been much love to make or conjure in this forsaken place, not for a while.
    He reminded himself of the reason that he’d traveled here tonight. After so many, many millennia, his father needed him, wanted his help. That assignment had led him here, the first phase of his quest, part of a much larger and overarching assignment. Once he found his quarry, he would take her to Savannah. The rest of the pieces would fall into place then.
    Layla. Layla Djiannis. She was the one he sought here in the heavy blanket of darkness. When he’d stared into the cascading pool, the heady waters that often revealed intimate love and relationship knowledge, hers had been the first face that he’d seen; he’d also quickly grasped the multitiered mayhem she could cause in the arena of love. At least for his father’s targeted group. Layla, it appeared, could solve quite a few problems on Eros’s behalf, not least, helping him earn his father’s long-denied approval . . . and all in the name of love.

    Sable kept to the shadows along West Jones Street. Clomping his centaur’s hooves on the uneven cobblestones angrily, he castigated himself. As he always did upon returning to this piece of human land, night after cursed night.
    Why, by the name of every unholy thing, was he—a Djinn demon—lurking around a mortal’s home? And not even because he hoped to consume