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The last asset was one I felt more than a little uncomfortable about, given the exact origins of the ability. Naturally, a huge international diplomatic conference is going to involve a lot of different spoken languages. While all the official business was in English, I'm sure you remember what I said about how much the official diplomacy was worth. When it came to backroom backstabbing, that usually happened in whatever language was most convenient and hardest to understand; listening in on a conversation didn't do much good if you couldn't understand a word they were saying. This made the fact that a few years back I had acquired the ability to speak and understand pretty much every language ever pretty darn handy.

The problem was, technically I wasn't an omniglot at all; the only languages I really spoke were English, Bad Latin, and So-Bad-Its-Incomprehensible Japanese.

The Fallen Angel who lived inside my head, on the other hand…

I guess I should explain. Remember that Denarian coin I'd picked a while back after my run-in with Nicodemus and his lot? Turns out, I hadn't gotten away from that experience as cleanly as I thought. While Lasciel's coin was still perfectly contained, in the basement of my Chicago apartment, in the brief time I held the coin the Fallen within it had managed to imprint an image of herself onto a my brain.

After a couple years, the image of Lasciel had gotten her act together enough to actually manifest within my mind. There had been warning signs that I hadn't fully escaped the coin's influence before then, like the fact that a few of my combat spells were getting supercharged with Hellfire, but finding out I had a full-blown simulacrum of a Fallen Angel in my head was still pretty jarring. It probably didn't help that she introduced herself to me using an illusionary woman only I could see or hear; before I figured out what was going on more than a couple of my friends thought I'd gone nutty.

To be fair, if magic wasn't involved, talking to invisible woman only you could see or hear would qualify one for a place in a mental institution, so I guess I can't really blame them.

Over the last few years, the image of Lasciel and I had worked out an odd sort of working relationship; hell's bells, I'd even given her a nickname, though I think that was less out of friendly affection and more just me trying to get under her skin. Getting along with Lash proved disturbingly easy to do; she wasn't your stereotypical 'I will eat your soul' demon or anything; most of the time she just seemed like a charming, witty person who genuinely wanted to use her abilities to help me. If she hadn't been a demon, we probably would've been good friends.

Of course, that was the hazard of it all. If I got in the habit of thinking of Lash as a nice friend who just wanted to help me out instead of a demon intent on corrupting me, I might start thinking that maybe I should dig up that coin buried underneath my basement so my good buddy could help me out some more.

Despite my caution, I have to admit that I'd gotten used to having Lash around, and adjusted to the various little ways she could help me out. Having access to Hellfire alone was a huge boon; Hellfire might only be useful for destructive spellcasting, and I'd learned over the years that there were risks involved in using it, but when you absolutely, positively had to kill something up, Hellfire was pretty hard to beat. Then there were the little things, like the fact that Lash had accumulated wisdom of a being who had been around since the dawn of creation, a dangerously sharp mind, and absolutely perfect recall.

And, to get back to the reason she was useful for a diplomatic mission, she spoke just about every language known to man, and a bunch that humankind had never heard of as well. I have to admit, I'd been glad when I learned that I didn't need to bother trying to cram a working knowledge of the Japanese language into my skull any more. Sadly, for all supposed wisdom and insight, Lash didn't seem up to date enough on pop culture to get it when I followed that up by asking if she could teach me kung fu in a couple seconds as well.

I guess the movie theatres in Hell haven't gotten around to showing that one yet.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7180034/4/