Free Exodus (Imp Series Book 8) by Debra Dunbar

overloaded with human offenders and not sufficient to handle three hundred thousand elves.
    “Here’s my plan,” I told him. “My angel can create a gate and we can send them back to Hel. We’ll round them up, deliver a stern angelic-warning, then send them home.”
    Bob laughed. He laughed so hard he almost lost consciousness. “And five minutes later they’re back across the gates in a different location. Seriously? That’s your solution?” He turned to Leethu. “I thought you said she was smart.”
    Before I could protest Leethu replied, “I said lucky. I never said smart.”
    Great. Et tu Brute?
    “Feel free to propose something else.” Yeah, I was grumpy. I had no idea what to do with these fucking elves. Actually my solution had been to kill them all, but I hadn’t even bothered to propose that, knowing Bob would be aghast. And Gregory would frown—which meant he’d drag me off by my hair and warn me against harming so much as the cartilage on one of their pointy ears. Killing a human bought me a two hundred page four-nine-five report and potential time in the angelic pokey. Fuck knows what elven genocide would cost me.
    Bob shrugged, the movement looking a lot like Leethu’s. “The Klee elves want to stay with the humans. We don’t care where you send the other ones. I’m just pointing out the improbability of success in your current plan.”
    Damn it all. Can’t kill them. Can’t make them stay in Hel. The only place they seemed to be unable to escape from was the human jail cell. Hmm, maybe I could convince Gregory to put together a giant prison to house the elves. Imagine the human jobs it would create and the benefit to the economy. A privatized incarceration system, run by humans with angelic oversight, specifically to house elves. Why the fuck not? They were ten times worse than any current illegal immigrant problem. What about The Donald’s wall solution? I’d build a wall around Hel to keep them in, and perhaps I could make the elves pay for it.
    Nah. That would never work. Elves were very good at climbing—trees as well as walls.
    “Fine. Is there a way you can narrow down the landing site as well as the date and time of these events? Give me even as little as five minutes notice, and we’ll be there.”
    The elf’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “I can give you a heads-up after the fact, but that’s it. The powers-that-be are hiding the exact time, date and location from us. That first wave is critical, and they’re being very secretive about it. I know some who have been chosen for that migration. I’ve got a communication device so they can tell me as soon as they get the go-ahead. But by the time I get the info to you, they’ll be there.”
    How could that be? “They need to meet at a central spot to use the gateway. There should be enough time from when they get their orders to move until they actually arrive to let me know. I want to be there with a six-winged angel by my side when they come through the gateway.”
    “Nope. Elf buttons are pre-programmed to the Hel-side gate location, and the coding is shielded. I managed to nab one and even our best sorcerer couldn’t decipher the spot. They get the word. They hit the button. They walk through an activated gate. I swear on the Goddess, by the time I get the information to give you, they’ll be among the humans.”
    Fuck. Giant, sucking donkey-balls fuck. And if all four groups went at once, we’d be doubly screwed. Gregory and I could only be one place at a time—well he could be more than one, but I lacked his ability to create aspects of myself, and this was a task that really needed the pair of us. Damn.
    “Thanks. Just let me know as soon as you can.” I got up to leave and saw the elf fall in beside me.
    “I’m coming with you.”
    “He’s coming with you,” Leethu repeated, as if that was going to make any of this more acceptable.
    “Like fuck he is.” I had Nyalla, Nils, Dalmai, and a rotation of