bedeviled & beyond 02 - bedeviled & bedazzled (24 page)

I felt Dialle’s mental shrug again.
You had to be there, Astra.

Yeah. I guess.

I struggled to get to my feet. That was a big mistake. The Orgick noticed my movement out of the corner of its eye and turned back to me.

Faster than you could say “soil your knickers” the gluey tongue lashed out and encircled me, drawing me inexorably toward that wide, fleshy mouth. The thing’s breath almost made me pass out, which would certainly have made things easier for the Orgick but would have been most unfortunate for me.

I tried to pull my power forward but I needed to work too hard to keep from being pulled into that gaping maw. I couldn’t concentrate long enough to gin my power up to the level I would need to blast the Orgick to smithereens, which was my fondest wish at that moment.

I finally settled for several, quick, stinging jolts on the sticky, gooey tongue.

I could only use my fingers and my aim was off because my arms were pinned against my body from just below the shoulders to my wrists by the nasty snakelike appendage.

I managed to hit the tongue several times despite my inability to move. Each jolt caused the tongue to loosen around me but not entirely let go.

Do something, Dialle!

I’m thinking, Astra. I can’t shoot it with enough power to kill it because it would kill you too. Can you pull a power bubble around yourself?

He shot a very focused jolt of power into the thing and it flailed around a bit, taking a couple of hops toward him but it didn’t do much damage.

No. It’s too hard to concentrate. And I’m losing feeling in my arms.

The glue-like substance that coated its tongue apparently contained some kind of numbing agent. My arms and body had begun to prickle and then lose feeling, making it even harder to throw my power darts at the ugly monster.

A sudden thought occurred.
Dialle, can you use your power to hold it in place?

He turned to me and a smile slowly slid into place on his face.
I can do that.

I had to force my mind to continue concentrating. The sticky stuff was starting to invade my mind and I was getting woozy. I shook my head and prayed I’d have enough time to do what I needed to do. At the very least I was going to make myself taste very bitter, so if the thing ate me it would be really sorry!

I felt Dialle gather his power and pulse it out in a sort of energy net that he settled carefully around the Orgick until everything but the tongue was held immobile.

The tongue loosened until I was almost able to climb out of its grip but then the Orgick jerked and the tongue tightened even more, suddenly squeezing me to the point that I was having trouble breathing.

Dialle felt my panic in his mind and adjusted the power net to include the first six feet of the tongue, stopping just where it started to wrap around my gasping form.

He slowly tightened the net until the Orgick’s froggy eyes bulged.

The tongue loosened again but not enough. I was able to take a few breaths and then focus on pulling a power bubble forward. The energy I expended flared and grew, and I sensed Dialle’s power intertwined with mine. In that moment, I thanked the Big Him for the daemon hickey Dialle had given me, which made it possible for us to share our energies.

When I had the bubble in place I turned to him. “Okay, I’m ready. Hopefully it will hold.”

He frowned slightly. “I’m not sure this is the best idea, Astra.”

“You got a better one?”

He thought about it for a minute and then said, “Yes. I think we should redirect my power through you instead of at the Orgick, forcing it to release you.”

I turned to look doubtfully at the frog-like creature in front of me and was surprised to see its buggy eyes waggling frantically about, as if it understood what we were saying.

I shrugged. “I guess that’s no worse a plan than having you blow it up while it’s holding onto me. Okay, let’s give that a try.”

My power flared bright, the charcoal gray of his aura joining with my silvery life force. When it had built to the point where I thought I’d explode, I let go of my protective bubble and allowed it to blast away from me.

The Orgick screamed as the wall of energy blasted into it, throwing the disgusting thing across the cavern to smack against the far wall.

The tongue, which hadn’t gone with the rest of the Orgick, pulsed once or twice around me and then slowly loosened and slid down my body toward the rock floor beneath my feet. It left a slime covering on my body everywhere it touched.

I raised my arms and looked at them, “Bleurgh!” I said as the slimy substance glopped off my arms and legs and landed on my pretty boots.

Dialle grimaced. “That’s extremely unpleasant, Astra.”

I looked up at him in annoyance. “You think?”

He shrugged. “I do, yes.”

Apparently sarcasm is lost on the royals.

I tried a low level burn of power throughout my body and it singed most of the slime away, leaving only a pasty residue behind. Pasty residue would have to do for the moment.

We turned to look at the Orgick. It was a mess of twitching and jerking flesh on the rock floor. We watched as it changed form several times, from gargoyle, to snake, to fish...

Fish? Who in Hades is afraid of a fish?
I laughed.

Dialle looked at me. “Do not say it, Astra.”

I bit my tongue and started walking again.

The first demon and gargoyle pair was only a few feet farther down the tunnel. They were both dead, lying in a puddle of green blood. The stench was stomach turning.

We moved on, hoping Gerch and Emo had been able to save the hostages. The next pair of dark worlders we came across were slightly less dead so we finished them off with a couple of jolts of power. We were nearly to the end of the passageway when we heard the sounds of fighting and came up behind Emo and Gerch.

They had a small crowd of hostages huddled in a natural nook behind them. The humans were pressed as far back as possible into the alcove to avoid the occasional, errant jolt of power that got past Emo and Gerch, blasting the rock wall which barely covered them.

Dialle glanced my way.
Speak to Emo telepathically and tell him we’ll be shimmering to a spot behind the demon. He must stop firing or he’ll hit us.

I nodded and complied.

Then Dialle grabbed my hand and we were momentarily suspended in time and space. When we shimmered back to the physical plane we were looking at the back side of the superdemon I’d battled at Castle Gregg.

It was a very nice view.

Emo was firing at the thing’s feet to distract it.

I glanced at Dialle and he nodded, then we shot our combined power into the demon’s broad back. Emo joined us with his own power force which, I noticed, had grown considerably since last I saw it in the clearing during the witches’ black mass.

Apparently the old, human adage was correct. Practice does make perfect.

The force of our three-way jolt raised the demon off the ground about ten feet to crash into the rock ceiling. His pretty red-gold head shattered the low ceiling and created an avalanche of rock, which began falling into the narrow tunnel around him.

It occurred to me that we were in danger of bringing the whole cavern down on our heads. I reached out and placed a hand on Dialle’s arm. “Stop! If we have a cave-in the humans will die.”

We stepped back to a place where the ceiling wasn’t raining down and waited. Every now and then I’d hear someone cry out and I said a quick prayer to the Big Guy that we hadn’t just killed all the hostages.

The large holo-screen in the big house flashed through my mind and I put my hands into prayer form, mouthing the words
help us
. Just in case.

When the dust finally cleared the demon wasn’t moving.

We walked over to look at it and Gerch reached down to clear some of the rock debris from its face. Its mask was gone and I saw it for the ugly sucker it really was.

“That really annoys me,” I murmured.

The three of them turned to look at me. Emo arched a midnight colored eyebrow in silent question and I shrugged. “I’ve never been taken in by a demon mask before. I didn’t think I could be.”

Dialle kicked at the thing’s face just to make sure it was dead. “It isn’t a mask, Astra. At least not the type of mask you’re referring to. The superdemons have two forms. They use whichever one suits them.”

I felt better. “I learn such useful stuff when I’m around you, Dialle.”

“Yes. That is true, Astra.”

A sound beyond the felled demon brought my gaze back to the huddled hostages. They had begun slowly moving out from the niche but they kept a careful watch on Gerch. Although he’d helped us save them, they weren’t at all sure he was playing for the right team. In fact, with all they’d endured, I wondered that they’d trust anybody, or anything, at that moment.

They were a sorry looking group, covered with wounds and bruises and, in one case, what looked very much like a broken arm. The women’s clothing was torn almost completely off their bodies and they had dark indentations on their arms and faces that looked suspiciously like claw marks. Every last one of them flinched violently when anyone moved too quickly.

I looked at Dialle and he gave me a nod.
I can take care of their memories. The physical injuries will eventually heal.

Then he did something I thought I’d never witness. He turned to Emo and said, “I would appreciate having your help. There are a lot of them.”

Emo stared hard at him for a few beats and then gave a slight nod.

I turned back the way we’d come in and Gerch fell in behind me. Apparently he was my escort out of the caverns. We passed the huddled group of hostages and I gave them what I hoped was a reassuring smile. The women stared at me as if they thought I was leaving them to a fate worse than the one they’d been enduring for the past several days.

Even though I knew Emo and Dialle would remove their frightening memories and start the physical healing process, it was all I could do to walk past and leave them behind.

Though it had been undeniably kind for him to offer to wipe their memories, taking away the terror they’d otherwise live with the rest of their short lives, a small part of me wasn’t entirely sure Dialle had their best interests at heart. He’d likely only helped save them because they kept popping up dead and it was causing problems for the royals. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be there with me otherwise. But I hoped like Hades I was wrong about that.

~S~

I’d only been back at my desk for about half an hour before the outside door opened and I heard footsteps in the outer office. When I went out there, I was surprised to see Margaret Coltran standing by the outer door, looking a little unsure of herself.

“Mx. Coltran. What a surprise. Are you all right?”

She nodded and gave me a small smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t call for an appointment, Mx. Phelps. I just wanted to come by and thank you for saving our lives.”

To my vast surprise she approached and gave me a hug. When she pulled away I felt a slight tug on my hair and she laughed, showing me a pretty, metal bracelet on her slender arm. “Sorry, this thing gets caught on everything.”

My eyebrows arched slightly. “You said our lives, so the chattel lived?”

“Septra.”

I cocked my head in question.

“The girl. Her name is Septra.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I never knew her name.”

Margaret Coltran nodded. “I know you probably think my husband and I are stupid for what we did... And we endangered a lot of people with our actions. I... Well, for what it’s worth, I just wanted to apologize.”

I crossed my legs and arms, leaning against the doorframe to my private office. I stared at her for a beat, unsure whether I should try lecturing her on the dangers of taking the law into her own hands or leave well enough alone.

She certainly seemed to have learned her lesson.

I never got the chance to do either. A huge explosion in the street outside my office shook the walls of the building and threw debris high enough into the air that I saw large hunks of it flying by my window.

I ran to the window and looked down.

There was a huge hole in the street below and something large and mangled lay smoking in the center. Several air vehicles had been thrown off course by the explosion and were careening wildly down the street. Two of them hit head on and plummeted toward the ground, adding to the mess and calamity in the street.

As I watched, a small air booger headed directly for the window where I was standing, a pale, young face visible behind the quickly approaching viewport.

I swore and dived under Emo’s desk, screaming, “Get down!” to Mx. Coltran. But the young flyer must have gotten the air vehicle under some kind of control because it missed a full on crash with the building and instead hit the corner with a horrendous wrenching noise and skittered away.

I jumped up and headed out of the office, meeting my cute and helpful neighbors, Ralph and Bob, in the hallway. The three of us hit the flash elevator at a run. We took the flash down to the street to see what we could do to help.

When I returned to my office two hours later it was empty. Part of me regretted the unfinished conversation with Mx. Coltran and another part decided it wasn’t that important.

Either the woman had learned a valuable lesson or she hadn’t. Either way I couldn’t do anything more about it.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Ugly Spies

Our lady and her friend do go, cavorting with their foes,

Soft and ugly in disguise, they sleuthed like a couple of pros.

There was a message from Raoul on my televisual when I got home. He informed me that he’d made an appointment for us with the Devil’s Glenn coven for midnight. Apparently we were invited to attend a new moon ritual to enhance healing and personal growth.

“Enhance this!” I murmured to the studious looking face on the televisual. Raoul took his moon phases very seriously.