bedeviled & beyond 02 - bedeviled & bedazzled (19 page)

I was impressed by how smooth he was.

We ordered our lunch and then Raoul pushed the discrete silver button on the wall and sound deadening alpha waves shimmered down from the ceiling above to surround the booth.

He took a long drink from his fruity beverage and then set it down on the table in front of him, turning the tube this way and that with a thoughtful look on his face.

I assumed he was looking for a way to begin so I waited. It was his show and I didn’t want to get in the way.

After a couple of moments he looked up, his soft brown gaze serious. “What I’m going to tell you here has to stay between us, Astra. I’m afraid both my life and my career are at stake.”

I nodded.

He returned his attention to the fruity drink.

I waited.

Finally he said, “I admit to you that I’ve been practicing the dark rites.”

“Well der.”

His eyes slid to mine, ready to take offense. “However,” he said with some heat, “I have not been performing dark magic for the dark purpose as you have assumed.”

“What other purpose is there, Raoul?”

His gaze sharpened on mine, “The purpose of discovering what my coven is up to.”

A light came on in my brain. That sounded promising. On more than one level. First that he was actually doing what I’d asked him to do, despite the fact that he was not doing it the way I had wanted him to and secondly that he wasn’t the bottom feeder from a subterranean lunar waste pond that I’d assumed him to be.

“Go on.”

Our lunch took that unhappy moment to arrive and I spent the next couple of minutes trying not to chew my tongue off as the ditzy woman who served us presented and dithered and blathered around us in an attempt to ensure a healthier wait award at the end of the meal. I wanted to tell her that she was eating into the award with every word but a glare from Raoul kept my mouth sealed reluctantly shut.

Finally the woman left.

The food before us was beautiful, expensive and smelled divine. And it was probably going to be pretty much ignored.

Raoul pushed his around on his plate for a beat and then looked back up at me. “I have known something was going on in my coven for a while now but until you came to me I didn’t want to face it.” He sighed and placed his fork down next to the plate, giving up on eating altogether. “I had such high ideals when I joined the coven and I’d thought I was surrounded with people of like minds.”

“But you aren’t?”

“No. Those of us who believe in the good that magic can do have been systematically weeded out over the years. I can see that now. I’ve been feeling the pressure myself recently.” His glance was sharp, angry. “Which is why I did what I did. The only way I can fix this is from the inside.”

I swallowed a small bite of my lunch and shook my head. “Raoul, this isn’t a matter of scratching the right behinds in all the right places. You could have gotten people killed the other night in that clearing.”

“I had it under control.”

I blew an angry breath out and leaned across the table. “It didn’t look that way to me.”

“It would have been fine if you hadn’t shown up. I planned to vanish the demon before it could touch the girl. I was going to blame it on impureness of heart on the victim’s part or some such drivel. It wouldn’t have mattered at that point. I would have been accepted.”

I narrowed my gaze. “Was that you who made the fire demons go away?”

He gave me a sad smile that was touched with pride. “Yes.”

I nodded, clearly impressed.

“Anyway, the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I’ve found out at least part of what’s going on in the coven.”

I nodded, sitting back and taking a sip of the fruity drink Raoul had ordered for me. Not bad. A little too sweet for my taste but it had a nice jolt to it.

“You were right. The Supreme High Witch is trying to get a place on the dark world council. I heard the same rumors about her being behind the demon uprising.” His voice was filled with disgust. He seemed to be thinking about what he’d heard for a few beats and then he looked up at me and leaned across the table. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg it seems.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “That’s bad enough.”

He nodded, “I agree, yes. But I’ve also learned that there is a rival coven which is trying to usurp the Supreme High Witch in Angel City so it can take over this coven and acquire the power she’s striving to gain.”

I cocked my head at him in question, “Why go through the trouble to unseat her? Why not just work with the demons themselves?”

“Because the rival coven isn’t powerful enough and doesn’t have the right connections. They need her to complete the power grab and then they will reveal her to the PC and get her taken down. Their plan then is to sweep in and take over what’s left of the Angel City coven and gain an automatic seat on the council for
their
High Witch.”

I stared at him for a beat, amazed. “Holy gargoyle feet, Raoul, I never knew you witches were such a conniving lot.”

He shrugged. “Neither did I, Astra. This has really shaken me up.”

“So what are you going to do about it?”

He smiled and it almost reminded me of the old Raoul.

“I want you to go undercover with me to the rival coven, as a married couple.”

“What!” I managed to squeak out.

He nodded, “If we come to them as embittered ex-members of the Angel City coven I believe they’ll reveal more to me about their plans. Then I’ll be in a position to do something about them.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Burn Baby Burn

The demon’s homestead smolders now, a shell without a clue,

But our young lady sniffs the air and learns what she should do.

I was awakened the next morning by a disconcerting flick on the nose. I opened my eyes and glared at Myra. She’d been waking me up in that extremely annoying way since I’d been a very small girl.

I hadn’t liked it then either.

“What’s up, angel?”

Myra pulled the covers back and turned away. “Get up, Astra, I’m making coffee.”

That brought both eyebrows up to peak and I rolled reluctantly out of bed. I headed for the food prep area, yawning behind my hand, and dropped my weary butt into a chair.

Myra placed a steaming cup in front of me and I picked it up quickly, before she could snatch it back and tell me it was just a cruel joke.

She sat down across from me and sipped hers, closing her eyes in supplication to the gods of the rich, black brew.

Setting my cup down, I yawned again.

A glance at the universal clock on my wall told me it was six o’clock in the morning. Why the Hades don’t angels sleep in?

Myra stared at me over her coffee cup, knowing from years of experience that if she didn’t wait until I was at least partially awake nothing she would tell me would penetrate the brain fog.

I took one more sip and said, “Okay, hit me with it.”

“Dialle destroyed Demonica last night.”

My heart did a full stop and I held my breath, waiting for it to start beating again. “
My
Dialle?”

Myra lowered her delicate blonde eyebrows and scowled at me. “I’m not sure if your devil was involved in the attack but no, it was King Dialle who called for the destruction.

I nodded, more relieved than I should have been under the circumstances, Prince Dialle could still have been involved in the attack, in fact, he probably was. Not good.

A sudden thought brought my face out of my coffee cup. “Oh dear God, Myra, the hostages?”

She shook her head. “They apparently were not there. At least we can be thankful for that.”

I took a deep breath and returned to sipping my coffee. Slowly but surely my brain was gaining speed. A second thought occurred. My gaze flew to hers, “Alcott?”

Again Myra shook her golden head. “He wasn’t among the vanquished.”

I scowled, not sure if that was good news or not. “How many?”

She shook her head. “No way to know for sure. Most of them were melted in the inferno.”

I grimaced. Dark worlders sucked. Of course, when you piss off something as powerful as a royal devil king you had to expect to get bitch slapped in a big way.

“So it would appear that Alcott was expecting this and probably only had a few of his less important demons at the club.”

Myra stood. “Okay, you’re awake. Get dressed and let’s go.”

I gave a sigh and stood up on weary legs. Taking my coffee with me I trudged back to my room muttering about how those with endless, heaven-derived energy should have more consideration for those of us who had to make do with the pittance of energy stores we’d been born with. My angel of course ignored me and went for a second cup of coffee.

Moments later we shifted to a spot on the street by what was left of Demonica. The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was a cross between campfire and steak house. Since I knew what the burnt meat smell originated from it was enough to churn my empty stomach.

I reluctantly entered the smoldering remains of the building, Myra at my side in case something shifted and I needed celestial intervention. I grimaced at the wet, sooty mess that I had to slog thru with my pretty leather boots and noticed Myra had gone into float mode when she entered the building. I really wished I could float. It would save so many pretty boots.

A voice hailed me from across the burnt out space and it wasn’t a happy voice. A soft popping noise heralded the disappearance of my angel. I knew she was still there, she’d just gone into stealth mode.

A human firefighter lumbered toward me in a bulky, silver colored fire suit. I knew from doing some pretty extensive research that the suit was made out of a new alloy comprised of titanium aluminide and steel, for the ultimate in fire resistance and strength. It was also a very pretty, silver color.

In my line of work, I sometimes need serious heat resistance. I’d been looking into my fashion options with the new fabric. At the current point in its evolution, they weren’t good. I could either go bulky and baggy or baggy and bulky. Neither was a good choice for someone who’s barely five feet tall.

I’d look like a short metal retaining wall with red hair.

The man pushed his way through the debris and stopped in front of me with an incredulous look on his face. Despite the look of pissed off perplexity, it was a pretty good face.

“Hey!” I said, just a friendly meeting between two young, attractive people.

“Lady, are you frunkin’ crazy? What the hell are you doing in here?”

I tried to look harmless and innocent. I wasn’t good at either. Practically batting my eyes at him I said, “I was just here last night. Do you believe this used to be Demonica?” I gave a low whistle through my teeth and smiled flirtatiously.

His face lost a little of its confrontational aspect but he wasn’t entirely sure what he should do with me. “I repeat, lady, what are you doing in this building? Don’t you know it could come down on your head any second?”

I gave him an “I’m sorry” look and then waved a hand vaguely in the direction of where the main room had been. “I left my purse here last night. I wanted to get it back.”

He stared hard at me for a few beats and then touched me on the upper arm and started walking me out. “I think your purse is gone, honey. Maybe you should think about getting a new one.”

I looked around under the pretense of making sure the purse was really gone and felt him stiffen in an attempt not to laugh. “Maybe you’re right.” I fake tripped over a large chunk of charred ceiling beam and knelt down, rubbing my ankle while I threw my sensing power around the place. It was hard to get a bead on anything specific with all of the violent energy that was still hovering over the ruined club. But I did get something...

My eyes grew wide and I looked up at the fireman, counting on his need to nurture overcoming his need to protect. “My ankle really hurts, do you think I could just sit down over there on that rock for a minute? Then I’ll go, I promise.”

He looked at the “rock” I was talking about. It was actually a large, stone gargoyle that I remember had been one of twenty which had decorated the large dance room, hanging high over the dancers’ happily gyrating heads with malevolent expressions on their large, rock faces.

He gave a frustrated sigh and favored me with a stern look. “I’ll give you five minutes and then you need to get the hell out of here. This is no place for a dainty little thing like you.”

I heard a soft, tinkling laugh in my ear and knew my angel felt the same way I did about the dainty little thing comment. I smiled at him in what I hoped was a grateful way. “You are my hero.” I said with another almost eyelash batting.

To his extreme credit, he didn’t appear to fall for my sucking-up act in the least. He reached down and pulled me to my feet and then, the Big Guy save me, picked me up and carried me to the chunk of gargoyle and set me gently on top of it.

My heart sped up and when I looked up into his sooty but very sexy face I was pretty sure my cheeks were pink. It was great cover for my current persona but pretty embarrassing for the real me. “Thanks,” was all I was able to choke out of a suddenly clenched throat.

“I’ll just be over here.” Giving me a dazzling smile that told me he was on to my act but thought I was okay anyway, he walked away and started sifting through the debris close to the door.

“Be still my heart.” I murmured and heard Myra whisper into my ear, “Amen, sister.”

I grinned. Even the celestial female is a total sucker for the strong male hero type. Especially when he’s cute. I realized suddenly that no race did sexy male hero better than the human race. It’s in their genes to protect and care for anyone they perceive to be weaker than they are and they take such fierce pride in doing the right thing. I suddenly realized that, mixed with a strong and manly persona, it was a terribly sexy trait.

Sighing lustily to clear my clenched chest, I went back to work. I heard a small pop and turned to see Myra standing beside me. A quick glance at my fireman showed that he’d stepped outside the building for a moment to confer with some other firemen.