Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) (33 page)

The room looked almost the same as the one I’d had previously. I gently put the bag on the bed, noticing the horrified winces of the guards.

“So when can I expect to meet with his Lordship?”

“Unfortunately Lord Taullian is out of the city on business, but we have notified him and he will return by late this afternoon.” The guards shifted, exchanging nervous glances. I wondered what that was all about.

“A sorcerer will be here shortly to relieve you of your, uh, your baggage,” one of the guards said, looking at the baggage in question as if it held the most virulent plague in Hel.

“Not happening,” I told him. No way I was handing this thing over to anyone but Taullian. I had a bad feeling it would disappear, or be replaced by a corpse other than the one I brought. “This will have to stay in my possession until his Lordship arrives.”

They nodded, and bowed, making a quick exit and leaving me alone. I checked the door and wasn’t surprised to find it locked. I’d been given a lot more freedom last time, but then I hadn’t been carrying around the remains of a shameful abomination: demon spawn. Still, a bored demon isn’t a good thing, and I
was
surprised they hadn’t provided me with some sort of entertainment. I wasn’t bored long. With a soft knock on my door, an elf arrived pushing a cart full of food. Another elf accompanied her, carrying what appeared to be a basket of rats. My entertainment had arrived.

There’s only so much fun I can have with a basket of rats, and I wasn’t particularly hungry. I occupied myself splatting various fruits and tarts against the walls. Lucky for them I was summoned before I set the curtains on fire or exploded myself an exit through the beautifully inlaid oak floor. Again it took us forever to reach our destination as we roamed the entire castle, weaving through halls and circling through rooms sometimes three times. At last we turned onto a wide, gilded hallway and paused before a set of indigo and gold doors. They opened and inside was … nothing—or rather, nobody. Empty chairs sat around a vast table.

“Please have a seat, Iblis. His Lordship will be here momentarily.”

I certainly hoped so, because this was boring. I looked over at one of the guards remaining with me and resolved that if this asshole didn’t show up in ten minutes I was going to pop the guard’s head off. Keep me waiting, huh?

The guard was spared a nasty fate by the prompt and ceremonious arrival of Lord Taullian. He strode in like he owned the place and walked over to where I’d placed the duffle bag. Behind him, her arms held by two guards, was the elf woman Tlia–Myea, face pale with fear. Her eyes met mine, searching for reassurance.

Lord Taullian frowned down at the duffle bag. “It’s rather small. Did you put both the incubus and the girl in there?”

“It’s the baby.”

His head shot up, eyes steely. “Baby? Not ‘girl’? And where is the incubus? This Leethu?”

“Baby. The incubus in question denies involvement. As she is a member of my household, you will need to prove to me that she sired the child before we can even begin to negotiate punishment.”

Taullian’s eyes grew cold. “The mother says it was this Leethu, and I believe her.”

“You believe her about the identity of the sire, but are convinced she lies about everything else?” I scoffed. “We all look the same, constantly change forms and share names. Succubi and incubi are particularly hard for non–demons to identify. What makes you so sure it was Leethu and not someone else?”

He was silent a moment, shaking his head in disapproval. “Fine. Where is the human?”

“The human is dead,” I said in my best “duh” voice. “You didn’t say you wanted his body, too.” I was a terrible liar. This wasn’t going to be easy.

“I
do
want the human.” His eyes bore into mine, as if he could bend me to his will simply with his gaze. I’d been shrugging off an angel’s compulsion for months now; this guy couldn’t do anything to me.

“Oh
yes
, your Lordship,” I gushed. “Shall I get you a partridge in a pear tree while I’m at it?”

He looked affronted, but I didn’t care. “Do you want this fucking baby or not? Because I’m sure your buddy over in Wythyn would be ecstatic to have it.”

“The human is dead?” He’d flinched slightly at the mention of Wythyn, but recovered in a blink.

I inclined my head toward the elf woman. “She said the human was dead, and I can assure you he is, in fact, dead. Dead, dead, dead. And if you want me digging up and hauling around more corpses, then we need to renegotiate.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to renegotiate. From what I’ve heard, you’re in rather desperate circumstances.” The elf lord waved his hand over the duffle bag. “I’m feeling generous though, so I’ll accept the body of the demon spawn as fulfillment of our contract. Assuming that you’ve delivered me the actual body, and not some hacked up forgery.”

I felt a bead of sweat roll down my back and hoped that Dar was as good as he said he was. Pushing the bag toward him, I gestured for him to take a look. Wisely, he took a quick step back and motioned for a guard and sorcerer to come closer to the table. The sorcerer murmured a string of incantations and the bag glowed faintly white.

“All clear, your Lordship,” he announced.

At a slight motion from his liege, the guard stepped forward and unzipped the bag with shaking hands. I was never so tempted to scare the fuck out of everyone by screaming and jumping aside, but I restrained myself and stood quietly, with my hands clasped in front of me. With the bag unzipped, the slightly green guard stepped back and again to allow the sorcerer to do his work. Satisfied that the corpse wasn’t going to explode or transform into a giant piranha, he stepped back.

“Well, go ahead,” Taullian said to the reluctant guard, his voice full of irritation.

The guard took forever to edge his way to the table. With a deep breath, he reached in and removed the tiny bundle from within. He carefully laid it next to the duffle bag then began to unwrap the towel. And there she was. Looking just as she did in her grave. Perfect and beautiful. Returned to her homeland, her features changed slightly, shedding the human mask they’d held to fool the grieving parents. Features became impossibly symmetrical, ears elongated to delicate tips, cheekbones and chin sharpened slightly. The baby glowed and everyone in the room gasped, for a moment their prejudice slipped away and all they saw was the most precious thing in all of Elven existence, a baby.

“That’s not a demon spawn,” Taullian said, his voice full of reverence.

For a moment I thought we’d failed, that as good as Dar was, the baby hadn’t even passed physical scrutiny. Then I looked over toward Tlia–Myea and realized that the other elves in the room were seeing what she’d seen when she looked down at her baby—a child, beautiful, even if only half an elf. It was a shame that the others wouldn’t have been as forgiving of the demon under the exterior. She’d been right to send Amber away. The child’s chances with the humans were far better than they would have been here, with only her mother to protect her against such bigotry.

“My Lord, hybrids can be very deceptive,” the sorcerer spoke up. “Please allow me to check.”

I tried to keep my breathing even. Now was the moment of truth.

The sorcerer stepped forward and took a green stone from his pocket, placing it on the baby’s forehead between her sparse, blond eyebrows. The stone instantly lit up, green and pink. He nodded.

“There is demon energy in the baby,” he announced.

“Of course there is,” Taullian said impatiently. “Demons aren’t idiots. She’d hardly present us with a true elf changeling baby and think we would believe her. Check the composition. I want to make sure this is really the demon spawn and not some doctored up fraud.”

That was pretty insulting, but he hadn’t exactly been friendly from the moment he’d seen the contents of the bag. He clearly had expected me to bring back a fully grown woman, dead or alive. He didn’t believe Tlia–Myea, didn’t believe that she’d killed the baby. And he wasn’t about to take this corpse at face value.

The sorcerer cleared a space around the baby and pulled a piece of chalk from the pouch at his side. We stood, watching as he drew intricate symbols and flowing Elven text around the baby. He finished one circle then began another. This was going to take fucking forever. I didn’t think my nerves would hold out. I snuck a peek at the elf woman. She was pale with a tearstained face, staring resolutely at the baby on the table. She wouldn’t look directly at me, but I noticed she kept me within her peripheral vision. Her hand moved slightly, flicking an index finger. One? Or was I supposed to look in the direction of the finger. I fidgeted, moving side to side and released an enormous sigh.

“Is this going to take much longer? Cause I got things to do.”

They ignored me. I turned slightly, looking around the room for something interesting and specifically looking to see where Tlia–Myea had been pointing. One of the guards. Was he someone important? Or maybe she’d meant something different. Maybe she just had a twitchy finger. Fuck, these damned elves were so impossible to understand. Nothing was clear and straightforward with them.

“It appears to be a hybrid,” the sorcerer said. But there was something in his voice that told me I shouldn’t be celebrating yet.

Taullian looked pissed. “But?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” The sorcerer scratched his balding head in a typically human gesture of puzzlement. “Everything is in the right place, it’s the right amount. It just seems … too right. It’s not degraded at all. After almost twenty years in a grave, the demon energy should be a mere echo. It should have dissipated.”

Fuck. Dar hadn’t taken that into account. He probably hadn’t studied any long–dead–and–buried hybrids to know. I was a terrible liar, but it was time to bluff like my life depended on it.

“For fuck sake! Don’t you guys seal these babies in stasis?” I threw up my hands in dramatic exasperation. “How do you expect demon energy to ‘dissipate’ when you’ve got the corpse preserved like Joseph Stalin?”

Taullian frowned. I knew he didn’t want to believe me, that he really wanted to prove that Tlia–Myea had been lying. He walked forward, overcoming his reluctance to be so close to demon spawn, and reached a finger tentatively down to touch the baby’s skin.

“This preservation is very well done. Could it be possible the demon energy was sealed in stasis?”

The sorcerer was unmistakably in a tight spot. A lot was riding on his determination. Yes, Tlia–Myea would lose her life regardless, but her reputation in death hinged on this. If he confirmed this baby to be the hybrid, and he was wrong, an abomination was free to walk the world. If he declared it wasn’t, and he was wrong, an elf woman’s name would forever be smirched and countless resources would be wasted hunting a non–existent demon spawn. I’d wind up facing Haagenti’s wrath too, but I doubted my fate weighed that heavily on his mind.

“My Lord,” he stuttered. “I need to do further testing. In my lab.”

Taullian nodded, and the guard came forward to carefully wrap the baby, glowing stone and all, back in the towel before gently placing it in the duffle bag. He followed the sorcerer from the room, carrying the bag.

“We’ve all seen that baby,” I said to Taullian, waving my finger in what I hoped was a threatening manner. “That human of yours better not pull a switcharoo or anything.”

He turned on me, fury and menace in his face. It was far more effective than my waving finger. “If you have lied, if that baby is a fake, then our deal is off.”

I nodded. Yeah. I figured that.

But he wasn’t done. He took a few steps toward me, standing closer than he normally would have if not overcome with anger. “That’s not all. If that baby is a fake, then you have not only violated our deal, you’ve desecrated a precious Elven baby. That is an unforgivable act. It’s an act of war.”

It would be really nice if these elf fuckers would let us know these things ahead of time. That really upped the stakes. Not that I could do anything about it now. I could only hope Dar had done a good job and that all the shit I’d thrown up in the air landed in a beneficial manner. Still, I couldn’t help but yank his chain.

“Shit, I had no idea. What about all those elf babies I’ve dug up over the centuries and let my hellhound have for dinner?”

Taullian dove at me, and before his guards could react, I’d thrown him aside to crash into a chair and roll across the floor. I was held flat against the table before I could do anything more.

“Keep your pants on elf boy,” I said mockingly. “It’s the real thing. Think I’d fake something this important with Haagenti breathing down my neck?”

He stood up, straightening his clothing and strange comb–over hairdo.

“Take her to her room,” he announced.

The guards hauled me away, but not before I saw what his odd hairstyle had been hiding: a mangled ear, the top point completely missing.

28

A
fter twenty–four hours trapped in my room, I was longing for Haagenti’s torture. I no longer cared what the sorcerer determined, I just wanted out of this damned room. When a knock finally came, I raced to the door in joy. The face at the door wasn’t a guard, but a human—a human mage. I stared at him blankly a moment before I realized this human was Kirby, the mage from the disastrous winter festival. He quickly slipped in the door, opening it little more than a crack and shutting it quietly behind him.

“I’m sure the guard outside saw you,” I said wryly.

“He’s one of Tlia’s. A fourth cousin twice removed.”

Ah, so maybe she
had
been pointing at him, identifying him as someone I could rely on when the shit hit the fan. I was perplexed though. How would a fourth cousin twice removed be loyal, when her own first cousin, Taullian, was determined to see her dead and dishonored? Was it the Wythyn blood in her veins? Elven politics were like a fucking soap opera.

“You need to get out of here.”

No shit, Sherlock.

“No way,” I told him. “I’ve got a business deal with the High Lord, and I’m not leaving before he delivers on his end of the contract.”