bedeviled & beyond 01 - bedeviled & beguiled (7 page)

An hour and a half later I’d learned that devil royalty were nearly indestructible, which I already knew and that their beauty was directly proportionate to their power, which I already knew and that they could indeed invade your dreams, which I didn’t really want to know.
Shit
.

I was gonna move forward with the assumption that my beautiful devil had been in my head as I slept the night before. I wasn’t happy about it, but I was a realist. I would keep it to myself, however, just in case I hadn’t been invaded by anything but an overactive libido the night before. A girl doesn’t want that kind of thing to get around about her.

Sighing unhappily, I decided it was time for a conference with Myra. Putting my cross to my forehead I said her name in my mind and waited. It took her a full ten minutes to shimmer my way. When she finally appeared I glared at her. “I’m damned glad I wasn’t about to get eaten or something. What took you so long?”

She shrugged and yawned expansively. “I had a long night. Something’s stirring up the demons and minor devils. I had three maulings and a couple of people killed by demons last night.” Her smooth pink and white forehead creased in thought as she plopped herself heavily into a nearby chair, with her bare, pink feet dangling over the side. “I’ve never seen the spirit world so riled up. The council thinks something really big is brewing.”

I stood up and moved into my little food service area, to my drink valet, to make myself some more coffee. Pulling a clean cup out of the cupboard with one hand, I punched directions into the valet for a very hot, very strong cup of café mocha with the other. I raised a questioning eyebrow at Myra and she nodded.

Coffee is Myra’s weakness. Angels aren’t supposed to overindulge in human stimulants but, being angels, they pretty much work under the honor system. I knew from firsthand experience that, where coffee was concerned, Myra’s honor was a tad bit tarnished.

I filled the two cups and handed her one. Sitting down across from her I considered how much I should tell her about what I’d found out the night before. I decided I would start with Deaver.

She listened with uncharacteristic patience and sipped her coffee thoughtfully. When I’d finished she nodded and set her cup down on the low, glass table between us. “Now tell me the rest of it.”

I gave her my best, innocent look but she wasn’t buying. She’d known me since I was a little girl. Finally I shrugged and told her about my unplanned visit to the royal chambers.

Halfway through my tale she stood up and started pacing. Her movements became more and more agitated as I spoke. I wasn’t used to seeing my angel so troubled and it was starting to make me a little jumpy.

“What do you think this all means?” she asked me when I’d finished.

I shrugged. “My sense is that the two royal families are working up to a big confrontation. And if my hunch is correct, a gargoyle murdered a human last night. Add to that this thing that attacked me last night, which is like nothing I’ve ever battled before and it’s a little disconcerting. I don’t mind telling you I’m worried about how this is all gonna turn out.”

Myra nodded with that same furrowing of her brow. “I don’t like it either. The council has called a special meeting for tonight to discuss it. I’ll tell them what you just told me. Maybe they can come up with something to head it off.”

“I’d like to be there.”

She turned her pale blue eyes to me and they sparkled with laughter. “In your dreams, Astra.”

The reference to my dreams caused me to wince and she noticed. She cocked a golden eyebrow at me but, fortunately, she was too preoccupied to pry.

“I’m serious, Myra. I think I may be in way over my head here and I haven’t been able to learn enough about the royals to help me out. For some reason they’ve chosen me to be their little messenger girl and I have a very strong suspicion that I won’t survive the task. The more I can learn about them the better.”

The sparkle dropped from Myra’s beautiful eyes and she narrowed them thoughtfully. After a moment of intense scrutiny, she pulled her gaze from my face and nodded, giving me a very uncharacteristic pat on my arm. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s highly unlikely, but....well...we’ll see.” And then she was gone.

~SC~

The summons came as I was escorting my new client from my office. As I closed the door behind him I suddenly felt as if my limbs were lined with lead. I watched my hand slide away from the door panel in slow motion, my eyes tricking me into thinking I could see movement lines as it shifted. I heard a whoosh of air and my vision darkened to the point of blindness. After a few seconds, I realized that there was actually a pinpoint of yellow light at the center of my visual universe. I squinted at the light far off in the distance and tried to look down at my hands and feet, which I couldn’t feel. My head wouldn’t move but the light was moving steadily nearer, or I was moving nearer to it, I couldn’t really tell. Overall, it was a crashin’ strange feeling, but somehow I wasn’t afraid.

After what felt like several long minutes, I met the light and the feeling in my arms and legs returned. I realized I was standing in the back of a large room filled with warm, golden light. Before my startled gaze could fully comprehend my surroundings, I felt Myra’s presence beside me and turned to grin at her. She frowned crankily, motioning for me to follow her to a chair that was placed ridiculously close to a couple of tall, potted palms. I sank into the chair and realized I could barely see or be seen through the foliage. It occurred to me that Myra might not want anyone to know I was there. I craned my neck to view the room as it filled quickly with “people” for lack of a better word, who didn’t exactly glow, but whose skin was almost iridescent in the golden light.

I watched Myra take her seat at a long table in the front of the room. Unbidden, my mind made the connection to that other room I had recently found myself viewing against my will. Those critters had been like photo negatives of the crowd I was currently watching. From the creatures themselves to the room’s décor, the two courts couldn’t have been more different. And what really bothered me was that I wasn’t at all sure I preferred the Angel Court to the Devil Court. A part of me had been more at home among the slavering disgustables in Dialle’s concrete and velvet world.

I shook off my uncomfortable thoughts and turned my attention back to the angel at the front of the room. Myra glared back at me as if to warn me not to move or speak. I grinned, waving enthusiastically.

She was not amused.

The last seat, located pretty much at the center of the table, was about to be filled by a tall, hard-faced angel with cappuccino colored skin and a lean, muscular body. He was dressed, or rather wrapped, entirely in swatches of cloth that appeared to be woven from gold thread. The gold cloth was gathered together at his narrow waist with a belt of intricate, mesh silver and fell to the floor, where it pooled around the spot where his feet would be, if he had any. I couldn’t see any feet and he seemed to be hovering above the floor. The stern looking cappuccino angel with no feet gaveled the room to silence as he floated into his chair. His chiseled features panned the room while those who were assembled there settled silently into attention. Apparently he was in charge. The cappuccino commander. Capcom for short. Being just a little over five feet tall myself, I’m really into short.

Once he’d ascertained that the room was sufficiently quiet and attentive, the Capcom turned to scan the faces of the other angels sitting at the council table. When he addressed them, his voice was surprisingly deep and invasive, insinuating itself under my skin and pulsing there. I shivered under the effect.

“We have called this council because we are in crisis. The spirit world is in an uproar of violent activity and we have been charged with the task of discovering why this is happening and figuring out how to stop it. Who will be first to report?”

Several hands along the table went up. The Capcom nodded toward a chubby, red-haired angel to the left of him at the long table. She stood and floated around the table to address the entire council. I watched in amazement as her widely made, clumsy looking body floated across the floor with apparent ease and grace. She stopped in front of the Capcom and bowed slightly, hovering above the floor without the benefit of wings.

Neat trick.

The red-haired angel lowered her eyes as she spoke to him, peering through some of the longest, thickest lashes I’d ever seen. The room was hushed as she opened her full, peach colored lips to speak. Her voice came out in a breathless southern twang. “High Council, I have communicated with our spies on the court of Nerul. They have confirmed our suspicion that he is planning a retaliation for the death of his son. He has Queen Kaline of Dialle’s court in his chambers and is threatening to torture her slowly to death so that her soul cannot seek refuge with her people after she is dead. He is also assembling his forces to attack Dialle’s court within the fortnight.”

The Cap...okay...High Council...nodded without apparent surprise and raised a large, square hand in dismissal. The red-haired angel floated back to her seat. The next angel was a long, stringy-limbed man with thick dark brown hair that fell sharply across his eyes as he floated around to address the council. As I watched him bow meekly to the High Council, I let my mind wander away from the scene in front of me long enough to think about what I’d just heard.

If what the red-haired angel’s spies had told her was true, my handsome devil had lied to me about Nerul’s son. He’d said they had the Prince in their chambers, but he hadn’t claimed to have killed him. I frowned as I realized I’d taken him at his word, despite the fact that he was about as devilish as they come. I would have to be very careful about that. I wondered briefly if that was one of their powers, to make you trust them despite what you knew about them.

The long angel, like the angel before him, spoke with lowered eyes. “High Council, I have spoken with Abrine, the king of the demons and he has denied knowledge of any forthcoming battle between the royal devils. He was very adamant on the point and seemed angry at the suggestion that he would be unaware of such an occurrence.”

His highcouncilness raised one, dark eyebrow and turned to the rest of the council. “I wish to hear from the council elders regarding this new development.”

Myra stood and looked the High Council directly in the eyes, almost glowering at him. “Abrine is obviously lying, High Council. Those of us who were charged with cleaning up the demons’ mess last night have seen the turmoil his people are creating. There can be no other reason for the vigor of their violence.”

A short, muscular angel stood and addressed his-high-and-mightiness from the opposite end of the table. He too looked the High one in the eyes, “High Council, I concur with Myra, if the demons don’t know what’s going on specifically, they at least know something is up. King Nerul has made no secret of what he is planning.”

A murmuring commenced around the table. Several celestial heads bobbed in agreement.

The High Council nodded. “I have to agree. Abrine would have to be a fool to be unaware of Nerul’s plans and the demon king is no fool. So we move forward with the understanding that the demons are involved in Nerul’s plans but are unwilling to admit it for whatever reason.” His soft, brown eyes traveled around the room. “Where do we go from here?”

I felt his eyes land on me and watched the furrow develop between them. I shrank back into the potted palms hoping he would decide I wasn’t important enough to pester. I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

He rose from the chair and hovered there as he glared at me. One by one the entire council turned to face me until I felt the enormous weight of their hostile gaze bearing down on poor little me of the potted palms. I glanced at Myra and she was glaring at me too, as though she had no idea how I’d gotten there. I made a mental note to wring her scrawny neck the next chance I got and stood up to take my medicine. I tried a smile but it was so false it probably just looked like a passing gas attack.

His-high-and-mightiness raised an arm to point accusingly at me. “You do not belong here.”

I shrugged and wondered if it would do me any good to be diplomatic.

Naahhh.

I glanced around, raising my hands as if I were helpless to address the problem, “It appears I
am
here, though....sir.” I thought the sir part was pretty diplomatic.

“What gives you the right to observe the council? You have not been given permission.”

I shrugged again. “I didn’t exactly walk in here myself. I was summoned by someone. Maybe you should yell at somebody else.” I made a very determined effort not to look at Myra, though I was oh so tempted.

His highcouncilness finally removed his piercing gaze from my poor, pierced face and moved it around the room. “Who is responsible for bringing this mortal here?”

A long silence filled the room. I crossed my arms and tried to look like a victim. It probably didn’t go over. I don’t do victim very well.

Finally Myra stood up and floated, yes floated, around the table to stand in front of him. She bowed slightly, though the stiffness in her shoulders told me it pissed her off to do so. “I brought her here, High Council.”

The stern countenance of his-high-and-mightiness turned upon my angel and he skewered her with eyes that had darkened to the color of pasture dirt under lowered black eyebrows. “By whose command?”

Myra raised her eyes and simply stared at him, elevating her own eyebrows meaningfully.

His Highness’s features raised and expanded with the shock of her unspoken statement. “Why would He want her here?”

Myra turned and looked at me, motioning me forward with her usual disapproving glare. As I joined her in front of the council table she placed a hand on my arm and looked the High Council directly in the eyes. “She has been chosen as our interface with the royals.”

I turned to her and my mouth dropped open in shock. Myra kept her gaze determinedly turned away from me as I stared at her with floppy fish mouth. I knew my angel too well to think she was pulling my leg. If Myra said the Big Guy wanted me to work for them, it was true. And I was in deep, deep, shit, shit, shit.