bedeviled & beyond 01 - bedeviled & beguiled (16 page)

I mustered up the energy to respond, “Bite me.” Or at least I think I did, because Emo jumped a bit. And then the world went black.

~SC~

The next time I woke up I was in my own bed. Sounds from the other room alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t alone. I pushed myself to my elbows and groaned. Sharp needles of pain jabbed at me from every conceivable spot on my body. When I pried my eyes open they stung with even the very dim light that filled the darkened room. It was definitely going to be a twelve pain blocker day.

Emo was slaving over the food service provider when I stumbled in. He nodded toward the main living area and I gratefully sank onto the nearest padded surface. He handed me a large mug of strong black coffee and waited while I gulped it down.

When it appeared I was going to live, Emo sat down across from me and cocked his head, giving me a devilish grin that warmed my battered heart to its core. I smiled back.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself. I guess we survived?”

“It would appear that we did.”

“How’d you get us out?”

Emo’s sweet, red face clouded up. “I’m not sure. I think they let us go.”

I nodded and instantly regretted it. The contents of my head bobbled around painfully, crashing into my skull bones with alarming results. Closing my eyes I didn’t move for several seconds, except to raise the cup to my lips. “You’re probably right. Which begs the question. Why?”

Emo shrugged. He said nothing for a long couple of minutes and then, squirming a bit on the divan, he asked the question I’d been dreading. “Where’d you get royal powers, Astra?”

“Damned if I know.”

He scowled at me. “Come on, partner. I watched you open a wall and vaporize several lesser devils. I suspect that you are using telepathic powers too. I think I deserve a better answer than that.”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s a long story, Emo. I think my aunt had some of this power too. But my parents wouldn’t let her school me on it. I suspect she wasn’t even allowed to tell me too much about it but she did start teaching me how to use it when I was really young. After my parents found out she stopped working with me and just started watching me like I had two heads for the rest of her life. Once she died I kind of convinced myself I’d imagined the whole thing.”

Emo looked thoughtful. Finally he nodded and took a sip from his steaming mug. “You and I have more in common than you know, Astra.”

I reshuffled my limbs on the soft divan and sighed, bringing the mug to my lips again before I responded. “Like what...exactly?”

He’d been staring into his coffee, but after a short silence, during which I thought he wasn’t going to elaborate, he raised his eyes and stared at me. My eyes began to sting and I squeezed them shut again. When I opened them I almost dropped my steaming coffee in my own lap. I let out a bark of fear and reared back.

For just a second, not much more, I’d been looking at a stranger on my divan where my friend had been sitting. For just a flash I’d seen a handsome golden face where there had been a sweet, red one. For just a fraction of time I’d seen long, lean limbs and silky black hair that rested on broad, muscular shoulders. For just a mere sliver of time I’d seen a royal devil sitting on my divan where Emo had been.

But then Emo reappeared and the lightning bolt came. My mental drawers were invaded again.
Things are not always as they appear, Astra. The words came to me in Emo’s voice, but his lips never moved.

“Well frunk me from here to Hades,” was all I could say.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

True Confessions with a Devilish Flavor

Choices given choices made, will ever show us true,

Friendships given, friendships made, should never run us through.

Emo got up and took the mug from my shaking hands. He carried it into the food service area, more to have something to do I suspected than because he thought I needed more coffee. I just sat there wondering if I was ready for what he was about to tell me. While I waited, I thought I’d try just a little test.

I closed my eyes and my mouth and said his name with only my mind.
Emo
?

When I opened my eyes again a moment later, he was standing before me, holding the mug out with steady, red, familiar hands. He looked down at me and his eyes were dark, black pools with tears shimmering in them. It hurt me to look into those eyes, but it hurt me even more when he said,
Yeah
? and his lips didn’t move.

I pushed the breath I’d been holding out of my lungs on a sigh and took the outstretched mug. I couldn’t look up at him. “You’re royal.” It wasn’t a question. He knew that. He just turned away and sat down across from me again.

After a moment of silence he started talking. His story just about broke my heart all the way through.

“My mother was an angel. She gave herself up to spy on Nerul and his renegade court.” He looked at me to gauge my reaction. I wasn’t surprised, I’d known his mother was an angel, I just hadn’t known how special and incredibly brave she’d been. I nodded as I took refuge behind my steaming mug, refusing to meet his dark gaze.

He got up and started to pace, putting the divan he’d been sitting on between us. “She was very successful in her task. For many years Nerul and others took their pleasure with her and whispered their horrible secrets in her tender ears. They did it because they knew she was powerless to stop them and that, as an angel, her powerlessness would eventually kill her with pain and frustration.

I set my mug down and rubbed my eyes hard, smothering a strong desire to cover my ears. I was suddenly so tired. The feelings I’d had when talking to Prevara about her captured friend came rushing back again. I was filled with awe at what the angels had given up and a ripping fear that I wouldn’t be able to do the same if it was asked of me.

Emo had stopped talking and was staring out at the gathering dawn, his wide, square back to me and his arms arcing away from his powerful body. I could sense rather than see that he was holding himself rigid against the pain of his memories. He’d loved his gentle mother very much. I’d known that almost from the first day we’d met. What I hadn’t known was that her life had brought her almost as much pain as it had joy. Maybe more.

I suddenly wanted to hold him and give him comfort. It wasn’t customary for us to touch each other unnecessarily. Almost from the first we’d instinctively kept our physical distance from each other. Emo and I are two sides of the same coin. I think we both fear what would happen if we ever came together.

But I pushed those fears away and went to him. I put my arms around him from behind and rested my head against his broad, warm back. He jumped a little and then gave a shuddering sigh, covering my hands with his own. After a moment he continued his story.

“My father was on the Royal Court. He was considered weak because he had no taste for unnecessary cruelty. I don’t think he was weak, only practical. He was a carnal creature and his only interest was in carnal pleasures. His gentle nature in such things bought him a certain loyalty from my poor mother and she allowed her heart to be captured by him.”

I felt a tear land on my arm and Emo sighed. My partner stood silent for a long moment. He appeared to be gathering up his strength.

“When my mother discovered she was going to have me, she knew that she would keep me. She was risking much by that decision. Up there...” his head jerked skyward, “they had expectations that any angel spy who found herself in that position would take her own life rather than bring a halfling bastard into the world. My mother loved me even before I pulled my first breath into lungs that were half angel and half devil. Half good and half evil...”

He jerked away from me and started to pace again. I sat on the back of the divan and waited.

“Anyway, shortly after I was born Nerul threatened to have me killed. My father managed to talk him out of it somehow. I’m not sure how or why, but we were allowed to leave the court. For years we were left alone. We lived as outcasts but we somehow never found ourselves in need of anything. I think my mother’s influence was good for my father. He was gentle with me and kind to her.”

Emo turned to me with haunted, angry eyes. Once again, his head jerked upward angrily, “
They
rejected her. It was the only thing that caused her pain during that time away from the court.”

His gaze was so intense it took my breath away. I didn’t know what to say to him. I just nodded and Emo resumed his angry pacing.

“When I was ten years old, Nerul came to us and demanded that we return to the court. My father resisted but Nerul said something about paying a debt that was owed and we eventually returned. Nothing was ever the same for us after that.”

Emo suddenly sagged with exhaustion. Moving around the divan, he sat down across from me again and, resting his elbows on his knees, covered his face with his hands.

“My mother was taken away from us and given to Nerul’s favorite courtier, who was easily the cruelest member of the court at that time. He wasted no opportunity to torture and abuse her. My father became a recluse. He left his chambers only when Nerul demanded it of him and that was generally to make certain my father had to watch my mother being tortured and degraded.

“I learned to hate Nerul at a very tender age. But as he’d brought me out of my father’s chambers and into his own, I was tied to him in a way that made it impossible for me to escape his attentions. As with my mother, he wasted no opportunity to abuse me.

“But then one day Nerul came to me and announced that I was to begin my training to join the court. I couldn’t believe it. Up until that time he’d only ranted to me about my unsuitability for anything having to do with the court. Despite that, within days I was being schooled in my powers and was learning court history...Nerul’s version of course.”

Emo looked at me and I smiled. His return smile was sad and bitter.

“Nerul knew how to reach the heart of a young devil buck. He introduced me to the carnal delights of the court and, like my father, I relished them. I was golden and long limbed and could choose nearly any woman I wanted, on the court or off. It was heady stuff.

“Over time I began to lose my distaste for Nerul and even started defending him to my father. I never talked of him to my mother though. I was never that far gone. It would have killed her to know how he’d corrupted me. Looking back now, I think that was what he wanted from the first. I believe it is why he allowed us to live quietly and happily for those early years. He knew we would grow close and feel safe. And then he could drag us back and prove to everyone that he was powerful enough to corrupt even a halfling. The fact that my corruption would destroy my mother was an added bonus I think.” Emo sighed and shook his head.

“Eventually, without realizing what a mistake it would turn out to be, Nerul demanded something of me that would remove me permanently from his sphere of influence. It was probably the only thing that he could have done to push me completely away by then, I was so sunk into his terrible universe.”

Emo looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were contemplating something he’d never thought of before. “I don’t think he ever imagined that I would choose another over him at that point.”

I was almost afraid to ask. “What did he do?”

“He demanded that I kill my mother to prove my loyalty to him.”

I gasped and his black gaze sought my face. “He killed them Astra, because I wouldn’t destroy the one person who had shown me love and taught me why I should be good. He slaughtered them both before my eyes and laughed as I cried. I’ve hated him with my soul’s passion since that day.”

I watched him but said nothing, knowing he wasn’t finished.

Emo gave a bitter laugh. “King Nerul made me what you see today, Astra. He made me a monster because I refused to become monstrous like him and give up my soul.”

I gulped audibly. “You were cursed?”

Emo raised his hands, palms up and stood before me. “This handsome package, my sweet Astra, is a gift from my loving king.” As he said it his lips curled with hate. “It is only the memory of my gentle mother that has kept me from tearing him into little pieces for what he did. And her tender cells within this stinking leather carcass.”

I just sat there for a long time after Emo left. I couldn’t believe the story he’d told me, mostly because I hadn’t known that Emo would keep that kind of information about his life secret from me. Obviously he wasn’t proud of his past, but not much of it was actually his fault. I suddenly realized that he’d been right when he’d said that he and I had a lot in common, we’d both grown up with different expectations than those we had now. Our lives had been changed for us. We really hadn’t had much control.

Before I could bury myself too much more deeply in “woe is me” shtick, something shimmered into view on the edge of my vision. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Good or evil? Heaven or Hell? The way my luck had been running, I was pretty sure I’d turn around and find a whole gaggle of gargoyles standing there drooling on my rug. Imagine my relief when the scent of spring flowers engulfed me. I opened my eyes and tried on a weary smile. “Hey, Myra.”

She just sat down on the other end of the divan and stared at me with those impossibly blue eyes. Under the onslaught of her angelic, if a bit angry, gaze I fell apart. I cried like I hadn’t cried since I’d been a tiny little testicle buster. Like I hadn’t done since I’d grown into a slightly larger ball breaking demon hunting super woman.

Myra produced a beautiful, lace-edged silver square of cloth from a hidden niche in her wispy robes and handed it to me. I took it gladly and promptly drenched it. “Thanks.”

“Emo’s story hurt you.” She said it simply, without the usual window dressing of an understanding expression and a comforting shoulder. She knew that was how I wanted it. It wasn’t often that tough little me broke down and I was trying really hard to pull it together. Any gentle comfort from her would have destroyed my hard-won composure again.