bedeviled & beyond 01 - bedeviled & beguiled (13 page)

“Cccan’t...”

“Yes. You can.”

I closed my eyes again and formed a mental image of the power retreating. Slowly, my mind lowered the flame at the core of it and allowed conscious thought to return, gradually crowding the power out. The power dimmed and then died slowly away, leaving me weak and jumpy, like the power had left behind a byproduct of adrenaline I needed to burn off. But mostly I was just really weak.

I would have collapsed across Emo if Dialle hadn’t been there. My unexpected ally continued to hold me up until I opened my eyes and struggled to my feet. In a fit of frustration and temper, I pushed his hands away as he tried to help me stand.

Emo began to stir and I quickly forgot my temper as I looked down at him in wonder. His color was normal again and all of his wounds were completely healed, even the ones on his arms and legs. I knelt beside him and felt for his pulse. As I did, I realized my arm wounds were gone too. My hand shot up to my chest and felt for the bloody gashes that had been there before I’d used my magic on Emo. They were gone. With a gasp my eyes found Dialle’s and he smiled.

“We have waited centuries for you to come, my Princess. You have come to us at last.”

I merely shook my head, too stunned to speak as he pulled me to my feet and dragged me into the curve of his body. “You have untold depths of power, Princess Astra. Someday you will be my queen.” His lips touched mine softly, possessively and then he was just...gone.

My knees gave way and I sank to the cold, hard floor again. My mind still buzzed with the aftereffects of the power cocktail I’d indulged in and my body continued to tingle wherever my personal emissary from the dark world had touched it.

I tried not to think about what Dialle had said. I focused on the fact that I would soon have to deal with Emo, who’d have some very reasonable questions about how I’d managed to heal him and myself completely in a matter of minutes. I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to consider what I’d just been told, so I pushed it away and tried to think about other things. But my heart was pounding hard enough to make me dizzy. Until finally, inexorably, Dialle’s words came back to me with the force of an explosion. In a rush of panicked horror, all of the blood left my head and I almost toppled over.

Somewhere in my sub-subconscious I knew what he’d told me was true. I tried to deny it to myself but my self wasn’t having any of it. I had to face the facts. I had just summoned enough power to heal several deep, life threatening wounds on two people. I had pulled the power into me, used it until I no longer needed it and then extinguished it. I had cavorted with the devil to save my dearest friend. And I had just been informed by said devil that I was some kind of long lost devil princess, whose appearance had been awaited by the dark world for centuries. Never mind the fact that same said devil apparently had plans for my body that hadn’t been approved by the Astra Q. Phelps sexual partner approval committee of one yet. (That would be me!)

Oh yeah, I was really in it up to my armpits. I was deep in the poo poo dungeon. I was swimming with the turd sharks in an ocean made of pee.

I was so completely and totally screwed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

And Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House

Before her stood the Devil Court, its walls adorned with blood,

And ’Tween our hero and the door, vile creatures threateningly stood.

Emo sat up and grinned at me. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen and I couldn’t help smiling back. “Hey Astra, what’re we doin’ on the floor?”

Almost with relief, I realized he didn’t remember what had happened. I wasn’t sure I was up to explaining it all just then, so I simply nodded my head toward the stinking carcass on the floor. His devil eyes widened in shock. “Did we do that?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

“Hades. I hate gargoyles.” He gave a little shiver in emphasis of his statement.

“Yeah. Me too.” Climbing to my feet, I offered Emo a hand up and he grasped it, pulling himself to his feet with little apparent effort.

Feeling suddenly awkward, I turned toward the outer door. “I’m going home. Will you call someone to dispose of that?”

He nodded. As I left the office I could feel his questioning gaze on my back. But I couldn’t stop and explain. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t even sure I understood it myself. So I just got the Hades out of there.

~SC~

I was so drained, drowsy and disoriented I barely remembered the flight home in the Viper. It didn’t bother me for long though, because my body quickly dropped into the deep sleep it craved and I was oblivious to everything for several blissful hours.

When I finally woke up, the stars had crept across the night sky and were winking at me through the skylight above my bed. I yawned and stretched and was amazed to discover that my body didn’t hurt anymore. I felt totally refreshed. When the televisual beeped I climbed out of bed and called out, “Respond to call, with visual”.

Emo’s face swam onto the screen.

“Hey, Astra. I’ve been calling you for the last two hours. I thought you said you’d be home.”

I ran my fingers through my tangled locks and yawned. “I’ve been here. I laid down for a minute and dropped like an electron bomb. What’s up?”

“We’ve been invited to go to court.” Emo’s red face looked excited.

I frowned. “To court?”

“Yeah. Your new client, Deaver called. He said he needed you to visit the Royal Court and give a message to a guy named, Nerul.”

My pulse spiked. With everything that had happened over the last couple of days, I’d forgotten to tell Emo about Deaver. So he would have had no way of knowing that Deaver was already dead. “What did this caller sound like?”

Emo shrugged. “Deep voice, very business-like. He told me that you were expecting his call.”

It appeared that Dialle wasn’t willing to wait for me to set a meeting up between Nerul and myself. Shit, I really hated pushy devils. “What is this message I’m supposed to deliver?”

Emo grinned. “I’ll tell you when I get there, I’m coming with you. See you in a few.”

His image shimmered away, leaving me with a sinking heart and some very blue language on the tip of my tongue. There was no way I was going to endanger Emo by allowing him to come with me into the devil’s lair, so to speak. Not after I’d almost lost him earlier.

I went into the personal hygiene room and took a quick shower, hoping to scour away the last of my dopiness. I emerged feeling slightly better and dressed quickly in ankle length black pants that hugged my legs all the way down to my ankles so that they wouldn’t get in my way if I needed to get agile really quickly. I pulled on a black, high-neck sweater, which dropped to just below my hips, giving my knife sheath a place to hide. I put two platinum knives and a five inch long silver one in the sheath and dropped a vial of holy water into the side pocket of my pants. Fastening my belt of crosses over the sweater, I pulled on a black jacket. I briefly thought about taking my gun too, but decided that wouldn’t be received well in Nerul’s court.

Finally, I fastened my favorite necklace, a small silver vial filled with angel dust on a long silver chain, around my neck. The vial was carved with tiny dancing angels and rested reassuringly in the valley between my breasts. Angel dust was my weapon of last resort and I rarely carried it. But somehow I figured that walking into a gathering of the dark world’s most powerful and evil creatures justified the extra precaution.

I took a final look in the mirror as the gentle tinkle of the visitor warning system announced Emo’s arrival. I opened the door, prepared to do battle.

Emo looked alert and healthy. His little brush with death and my magical intervention certainly didn’t seem to have hurt him much. Seeing my face, he held up one square, red hand before I could speak. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t bother, I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not.”

“I won’t let you go to the Royal Court alone, it’s too dangerous. And besides, I owe you my life.” He said the last with a slight frown and his already red face deepened in color as he flushed with emotion. “I finally remembered.” He looked up at me and moisture sparkled in his gaze “I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but my soul is yours.”

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. If anybody should understand what Emo was talking about it was me. I’d seen family members pledge their souls to those who had done them mortal favors. The fact that I was standing in front of Emo on that day was the result of one of those pledges. But that was another, very long story. Suffice it to say that my soul wasn’t my own either.

“Okay,” I said scowling. “But if you get yourself killed I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”

He grinned. “That should be interesting.”

~SC~

Using sensors to see, the Viper sliced through the fog at the edge of the Mississippi river. As we neared the spot, just outside the industrial section of the city, where the entrance to Nerul’s kingdom lay, I turned to Emo and fixed him with an expectant eye.

He cocked his head at me. “What?”

“Are you going to tell me why we’re trying to get ourselves killed?”

He grinned, “Oh...That.”

“Yeah that.”

“Deaver wants us to tell Nerul that Prince Nille is alive and well, so far...” If he’d had an eyebrow (lesser devils don’t you know) Emo would have raised it meaningfully at this, “and that Dialle and Rayanne are willing to exchange him for their queen...and in the same condition she’s in.”

“Is that all?”

“No. He also said that we were to be allowed to view the queen and report her condition back to Dialle.”

My gaze locked on Emo’s. I guess he knows me pretty well because, although I thought I was just looking thoughtful he asked, “What’s wrong, Astra?”

My eyes never leaving his I replied, “Deaver’s been dead for, oh, about a week now.”

Emo’s eyes stayed right with mine. “Oh. Well, that
is
interesting isn’t it? I don’t suppose you believe in ghosts?”

When I frowned he said, “I guess not.” He sat for a minute, staring out at the thickening fog beyond the Viper’s windows. Then he turned to me and said, “We’re in deep shit up to our armpits aren’t we, Astra?”

“Yep. We sure are, my friend.”

Arriving at the spot where I knew Nerul’s court to be, Emo and I squinted to peer through the thick, white paste below us and were surprised to see that no guards appeared to be stationed at the entrance. “Circle slowly and return to hover.” I told the Viper.

As we approached the area just above and slightly behind the entrance of the cave, Emo nudged me and pointed. With a disappointed sigh, my eyes focused on the two gargoyles that sat on a rough outcropping of rock about ten feet above the cave’s entrance. As we circled, they raised stubby, wet snouts to the sky and sniffed warily. Their large, rounded ears rotated with the movement of the Viper and, apparently not liking what they smelled, their razor filled maws opened in a united roar of warning that caused those tiny hairs on the back of my neck to stand at attention.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu here.”

The Viper went full circle and returned to hover in front of the entrance. I turned to Emo. “Well. What do you think?”

“I say we look for a back way in.”

“Ha.”

Emo’s red face split in a devilish grin. “Nahhh. There’re two of them and two of us. Pretty good odds I’d say.”

I grinned back. “Wrong. There’re three of us. Check this out.”

I switched the Viper to manual and swung out over the river. Making a sharp turn so that we were facing back the way we’d come, I pointed the Viper’s nose in the direction of the cave and put it into hover. I smiled at Emo and then jammed the joystick forward full. The Viper bucked, coughed and then shot forward at about five hundred miles per hour.

Emo braced himself as the Viper screamed toward the cave’s opening.

The first gargoyle just had time to open its mouth to voice its displeasure before the gleaming, red machine plucked its tick-like body off the ledge and carried it, screaming in terror, high into the clouds. The thing was torn between its desire to escape the nose of the Viper and its instinctive knowledge that the alternative wasn’t a good one. Fortunately for the gargoyle, I was fully capable of making that decision for it.

Emo and I waved gaily at the screaming monster before I put the Viper into a nearly vertical dive and dropped its unpleasant nose cargo into thin air.

As I pulled the Viper’s nose back up, Emo grinned at me. “Now that’s the way you should always hunt ’goyle.”

I couldn’t disagree.

By the time we returned to the cave, the second gargoyle had figured out that something was amiss in wonderland. It had dropped from the ledge and was ambling clumsily around in circles in front of the cave, screaming its fool head off. As the Viper buzzed it, the thing sprang almost fifteen feet off the ground and swung a tree-like arm at us. Its claws glanced off the Viper with a terrible screeching sound and I swore. “Watch the paint job, bud!”

“This one won’t be quite so easy, Astra.”

I smiled at him. “Wanna bet?” Swinging out over the river again, I turned the nose of the Viper to face the cave’s entrance once more and dropped to hover about 5 feet off the ground. Then I eased it forward until the pacing gargoyle was within sight. It didn’t take long for the thing to see us and make a move.

With a roar, it took three great hopping steps, springing fifteen feet off the ground with each touch of its powerful feet and legs, and landed on top of the Viper. As the thing scrambled around above our heads, I thanked the Big Guy that I’d spent the extra money to get the indestructible metal frame as well as the essential rust proofing and eased the Viper straight up into the air. I kept it flat so I wouldn’t lose my cargo before I was ready.

Emo chuckled. “You know he’s gonna tear Hades out of your paint job when you try to slide him off.”

I just smiled.

When I couldn’t see the ground anymore, I pushed the stall button and, as the Viper performed the expected drop, I hit restart and drove the stick forward. The gargoyle, which had been left behind when the Viper dropped, grappled for the machine’s sleek surface as it shot away from him, but came away with nothing but two paws full of air. We listened to its screams at it rushed to meet the broken spine that was waiting for it on the hard ground below.