bedeviled & beyond 05 - bedeviled & besmirched (14 page)

“Shit!” I swiped a shaky hand over my face to remove the sheen of sweat.

“Are you all right? You look terrible.”

“I’m fine. Talk to me about the case.”

Slayer watched me pace my office for a few beats, until I turned a glare on him. Then he expelled a breath and returned to the subject we’d been discussing before we were so rudely interrupted. “My usual connections have been unable to tell me where Mx. Davis might have been taken. There were no viable magic signatures to follow at the house. We’ve received no demands from any kidnappers. In short, we have nothing.”

My office door opened and Bob walked in. He gave Slayer an assessing look and then cast his unassuming gaze toward me. “You okay? You look like hell.”

I sniffed and increased my pacing. Sweat rolled down between my shoulder blades and my skin throbbed. “I’m fine. I wish people would quit asking me that!”

Being a werewolf, I was sure Bob was used to having people bark at him, but still, I felt immediately bad about it. I stopped pacing and turned to him. “Sorry. I’m having a bad Settling day.” I blinked. “Did I just say that out loud?”

Slayer snickered. “I’d be happy to take the edge off for you, Astra.”

I curled my lip. That was why I tried never to discuss my Settling. There was always some cocky male around who felt the need to offer me his services. “Har!”

Bob looked from one to the other of us and shook his head. “Pheromones are flying around this office like butterflies. I’m growing hair and feeling the need to howl at the moon just from being in here for thirty seconds. I’m thinking I should go back to my office and call you instead.”

My lips twisted as a smile threatened to emerge. Leave it to Bob to drag me back down to earth. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll stay way over here and try to keep my pheromones in check. Slayer will give you an update.”

The update didn’t take long since we knew nothing, and had even less of an idea where we were gonna go next.

Bob left and I sent Slayer away a few minutes later, needing to be alone with my physical and emotional pain.

Alas that wasn’t to be.

The air in my office shimmered and I jerked to a stop, pulling my power forward with something that felt like delight. Doing violence on some poor, unsuspecting schlug sounded really good at that moment.

A tall, dark form shimmered into view. For the briefest moment I thought it was Dialle and hope soared in my breast. But I quickly realized the intruder was about as far from Dialle as you could get.

As soon as he solidified, Milc looked around my office with a grimace, obviously judging it unkindly. “Quaint,” he informed me with a sniff.

“What the hell do you want, Advocate?”

He looked at me and his nostrils flared, scenting me.

I bristled. “Leave.”

He stuck his long nose in the air and strode nonchalantly toward my desk, his dark eyes skimming its surface looking for...something. “Congratulations.”

“Why?”

“Nobody’s tried to kill you in several minutes. That must be a record for you.”

“Har.” His smile made the heat on my body turn to ice, creating cold sweat where there once had been fire. “Why are you here?”

“My king has ordered it so. I must try to keep you safe, though it seems a daunting task.”

Mention of Dialle brought on sexual bipolar syndrome. My channel clenched with need at the same time my stomach tightened in pain. “I’ve told you...repeatedly...that I don’t need your help.”

“Yes.” His tone was cold and dismissive. “You have.”

“And yet, here you are again. Stalking me.”

He stopped fingering the things on my desk and looked at me, his cold face softening. My back stiffened. He was changing tack...playing me. “Surely you can understand that I am in a difficult spot, Mx. Phelps. I have been ordered to do something that you will not allow me to do. I cannot even force you because that would bring the wrath of the king down upon me.” He sighed dramatically, shaking his head.

I stared at him for a moment and then clapped my hands. “Nice pity party. I’m so sorry you invited me to the event. Now, can you leave, please?”

I blinked and he was on me, standing well within my comfort zone. He grabbed my wrist. My power tried to rise but his hand on my arm stopped it. My daemon hickey sparked and the advocate glared at it.

“You tasted of the insipid Brina. You allow her to protect you. But you disparage me at every turn.”

I narrowed my gaze on him. “So that was you she was fighting with in Mx. Diamon’s home?”

He yanked my arm and I fell into him. His cruel mouth turned up at the corners and he twisted the wrist he held. “You are so weak, halfling. I cannot believe you rule at the king’s side.” Pictures slid through my mind. Pictures of me with Brina on the bed. Pictures of me fighting my Settling over and over and over again, helpless against it. He pushed my weakness at me with the force of a charging laser train, turning my mind to mush and breaking my spirit into tiny pieces. I looked up into his evil black gaze and saw his hatred there, realizing my death was a mere twitch of his fingers away. I had a moment to wonder why he didn’t just kill me before he released my wrist and I fell to my knees, feeling them crack under the impact. I knelt there, shaken beyond anything I’d ever experienced before.

I was as weak as a kitten, panting, and feeling as if I’d been wrung dry of strength. Only my mind raced, frantic for action. His treatment of me could not stand. I had to do something to stop the advocate. He was much too powerful. And there was something else too. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was, but something about the advocate was bothering me. Whatever it was, I knew it was important.

He bent at the waist and kissed the top of my head. “Your missing client is at the court.”

My head shot up, my eyes narrowing. “You lie! Dialle would have told me!” Although, given our current circumstances, I wasn’t completely sure he would.

Even if I’d given him the chance.

Milc tapped the tip of my nose with a finger. “Not at all. Though I think you misunderstood, my queen. She is not at the court of Dialle the Second. She has been taken to the Court of Nille the First...the next king of the royal devils.”

~SC~

It was déjà vu all over again.

Instead of the Viper, however, the Red Knight sliced through the fog at the edge of the Mississippi river on the approach to Prince Nille’s court. It used to be his father’s court, but I was happy to report that King Nerul was currently soothing his backside with a fire extinguisher in Hell.

As we neared the spot, just outside the industrial section of Angel City, where the entrance to Nille’s kingdom lay, I found my gaze automatically searching for the gargoyles Nerul had had guarding the entrance on that fateful day, the day I’d first clapped eyes on the randy king and his degenerate court.

No gargoyles guarded the court. Which meant that, either Prince Nille didn’t know we were coming...or he didn’t care because he knew something we didn’t...namely, that he was gonna kick our asses before we had a chance to take him out.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, realizing that I might have to tap into my uber-devil, whom I’d been introduced to when my Settling started to get occasional control over my psyche. I really didn’t want to tap into that side of my nature. The last time I had I’d barely managed to climb back out.

“Are you sure this is the right place, Astra?” Slayer was frowning, probably thinking pretty much the same thing I was...well...except for the uber-devil thing. Slayer had already survived his Settling and had come out slightly weighted toward his Angel side.

That was the best possible outcome. I didn’t mind embracing a portion of my devilish nature. That was my fun side, my reckless and, yes, slightly mean side. But without it my world was way too vanilla.

Vanilla was white. Like life among the clouds. In Heaven, a wild day was one where you exchanged your white slippers for off-white ones.

Bleurgh!

“Assuming that Milc didn’t lie...” I shifted a wry glance toward Slayer and he snorted. “This was King Nerul’s court. I’m guessing that his son would locate his court here too. We need to at least start here.”

I dropped the Knight to the ground outside the cave entrance and we climbed out. “Lock, arm and climb,” I instructed my air vehicle. The Knight lifted into the sky, pulsing with the blue light that told me the protective magic had kicked in.

I turned toward the cave’s entrance and stopped, feeling the memories roll over me with painful insistence.

My mind formed a picture of me sitting beside Nille in my prison chamber. We’d been discussing his father’s next move, which included imminent death for both of us. At the time I’d believed Nille was the chosen one, the great unifier who’d been proclaimed by prophecy to unite the light and dark worlds.

Next my traitorous memory carried me to the epic battle within the court’s chambers, where Nille single handedly killed most of the court’s inhabitants and turned his awesome powers on me. If it weren’t for the angels’ intervention I wouldn’t be standing in front of the court to remember it.

And then later I’d dragged my partner Emo from the wreckage and bent over his dying form on the ground outside the cave... I shuddered at the memory, my eyes sliding toward the spot, thick with weeds and refuse.

“Astra? You okay?”

I jerked my gaze from the spot and my mind from the painful memories and turned to Slayer. “I’m fine. Let’s go get this son of a demon.”

The passageway into the Court was just as I remembered it. The space pulsed with green light that appeared to have no source. Unnaturally smooth walls dripped with cold, slimy moisture. The passage ended after a few minutes and forked in two directions. Going with previous experience, I took the passage to the right. As before, the cave’s entrance ended in a small cul de sac with no apparent openings. From my earlier experience, however, I knew how to move beyond the appearance of solid walls. I closed my eyes and lifted my arms, pulling my power forward to throb along the surface of my skin. Rather than focus the power, as in a power arrow, I allowed it to ease away from me in a cloaking wave.

The power undulated toward the walls of the enclosed space, illuminating the single portal on the wall I faced. I withdrew the power and refocused it in that area. With a rumble, a pinpoint of light appeared in the very center of the wall and grew, moving outward until a small archway was outlined there.

Slayer moved through the archway and I followed, allowing the power to retreat as I cleared the opening. The opening slid silently closed behind us.

“Nice trick.”

I ignored him as a fresh spate of memories rocked me.

We were standing in Nerul’s...or Nille’s office space. When last I’d seen it, the walls and ceiling had been fracturing into millions of pieces of rock and crashing down on our heads. The room, along with the court, had been destroyed as the result of my battle with the evil Barbie, Rayanne, King Nerul’s malevolent sidekick.

Looking at it now, it was if the battle had never occurred. Everything had been restored exactly as it was before.

Nille’s decorating habits were more spare than his father’s had been. The only furniture in the room was a large, glass-topped desk that was situated in the center of the room and a single, leather executive’s chair. I glanced at the floor, which, when I’d been in that office before, had been created from the hair of Nerul’s enemies, complete with the victims’ trapped souls. Releasing those souls to fight on my behalf had given me the edge I’d needed to defeat the evil Barbie. But I was glad to see that the carpet currently in the room was just normal, everyday high quality plush. Though ugly, in a garish red.

Slayer’s gaze slid skyward. I looked up too and recognized the stained glass representation of the devil sitting upon his flaming throne in the heart of his hellish kingdom. Around him, a variety of demons and lesser devils feasted on the unfortunate inhabitants of Hades.

“Gruesome isn’t it?”

“But strangely riveting,” Slayer said with a grin.

I scanned the room quickly, finding the door at the far side of the room. The pulsing green light beyond indicated the passageway we needed. “This way.”

Slayer slid into the passageway behind me, his sword clutched before him, ready for sudden attack. “Don’t you find it strange that we haven’t seen anyone yet, Astra?”

“No. They wouldn’t want to dissuade us before we get well and thoroughly trapped.”

Slayer grabbed my arm. “This is a trap and you know it?”

I looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Of course!” Shaking my head, I turned away, smiling meanly as I progressed down the passage. As Slayer fumed behind me, I did what I’d been dreading.
Dialle. I’m in Nille’s court. I’m pretty sure it’s a trap. You might want to show up with some of your guard.

How nice to hear from you, my queen.

Sarcasm. Frunkin’ awesome.
I might hate you at the moment, Dialle, but I don’t want you dead or your throne unnecessarily usurped.

I felt Dialle’s smile in my mind.
Unnecessarily? If it is necessary you are all right with it?

I’m not sure. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Dialle’s chuckle made my Settling raise its ugly head. I tamped it down quickly, praying it didn’t get a foothold before I could engage myself in some serious ass kicking. I had recently learned by accident that violence helped me fight off the effects of my Settling. With my suspicions about Dialle, along with the fact that somebody was trying to kill me, violence had never seemed a more welcome option.

I had heard that Nille was back, but why would you go there, Astra?

He stole my client. I need to get her back. And since he wishes to steal your crown I figured we might as well kick his ass now and get it over with.

Always practical, my love. And ruthlessly brutal.

I grimaced. Yeah, that part concerned me too.

We emerged from the passage onto a ledge that hung out over an enormous cavern, the walls of which were coated in blood and gore. “It hasn’t changed a bit,” I murmured.