Light My Fire (20 page)

Obedama’s head snapped around to face me as Jim’s
black shape took form at my feet.

“Wow. Do you know you’ve got a herkin’ big sword sticking out your front?” Jim asked, peering around me to
look behind.

Obedama hissed something under its breath.

Jim turned to look at the other demon. “Oh. Hi there, Obi-Wan. Long time no see. I see you’re going for a fe
male form now. Nice.”

“My name,” the demon snarled back at Jim with delib
erate pronunciation, “is Obedama. You will remember
that, Effrijim!”

“Man, no sense of humor!” Jim dismissed Obedama
and turned back to me.

I gave it a look I thought it well deserved. “Do you
honestly think I haven’t noticed this sword?”

The demon shrugged. “I never know with humans.
So
...
is it the newest in fashion accessories? Or do you
just enjoy the skewered look?”

“God in heaven,” I swore to myself. “I can’t reach the
handle to take it out, you boob!”

“OK. Lean forward and I’ll get a grip on it with my
teeth . ..”

“No!” I shoved the demon back onto the floor. “You’ll
do more damage yanking it out! I need medical attention!

It’s not bleeding much now, and so long as I’m careful
how I move, it doesn’t seem to be getting worse.”

Jim rolled its eyes. “You’re immortal, Ash. A little
sword through your gut isn’t going to do any permanent
damage.”

“I’m not taking any chances. So, Obedama,” I said,
turning back to the demon who was studiously ignoring us. “What exactly does your demon lord wish to see me
about?”

It didn’t even look at me. “You are summoned before him. Anything else you will have to learn from Ariton
himself.”

“Fair enough. The problem is that I’m a bit busy at the moment, what with the impalement and all, so I think I’ll
take a rain check on visiting with your boss.” I leaned for
ward to talk to the taxi driver. “If you could let me out at
the nearest available stopping point, I’d be grateful.”

The driver didn’t answer.

“Um ... sir?”

“It will do you no good. You have been summoned,”
Obedama told me. “The driver will not assist you to
escape.”

“Look, I appreciate that you’ve been sent to bring me
to your boss, but right now is not convenient. So I’ll just be leaving, with or without your permission.” I had no
ticed we were coming up to a stoplight. By the time I had
finished my statement, we were stopped.

“Uh ... Ash ... that may not be a good idea...”

Jim’s concerned face was the last thing I saw. The instant my hand touched the door handle, Obedama raised
 
her hands. A brilliant white light burst behind my eyeballs, sending me spiraling down into oblivion.

A cold, moist, soft something pressed against my
cheek. “Aisling? You there?”

I cracked open one eye to find myself staring up Jim’s
nose. “Maybe. It depends. Am I still alive?”

“Yep. All in one piece, two if you include the sword.”

Gingerly, I pushed myself up from the soft surface that rubbed against my face, blinking to clear my vision. I had
been lying on my side on an old-fashioned dark maroon velvet fainting couch, tucked away in a dark corner of a room that seemed to my bemused eyes to be something taken directly from the set of the movie
Gaslight.
Flames
flickered in art deco gas jets that bedecked heavily
flocked gold-and-black wallpaper. Big rubber plants sat
in the four corners of the room. A huge marble fireplace
bearing ornate brass figures twisted in torment squatted
across from me, but my attention skimmed past all that to
settle on the man sitting behind a massive ebony desk.

“You are awake? Excellent. You have my apologies for
the methods my minion was forced to employ in order to
ensure your attendance at this most important meeting,
but I assure you such extreme methods were necessary.”

The man who rose from the desk and walked toward
me could have doubled for Charles Boyer in
Gaslight.
He
was of medium height, had slicked-back black hair and a pleasant face, and wore a black satin smoking jacket that would have looked silly on anyone else but seemed to fit
this room to a T.

“Um .. . you have to forgive my stupidity, but this has
been a heck of an afternoon. I assume you are Ariton, the
demon lord?” Carefully, so as not to jostle the sword, I got to my feet. I was rumpled and dirty, dripped blood,
and had a sword poking out of me, but by god, I was a
professional.

“I am,” the man said, stopping before me. He hesitated
for a moment, his eyes on the sword. “And you are Aisling Grey, demon lord and wyvern’s mate.”

“Yes. You’ll have to excuse my appearance.” I waved
a nonchalant hand toward my middle. “A dragon from an
other sept attempted to kill me earlier, and I haven’t yet
had time to have the sword removed.”

“Ah,” he said, considering it for a moment. “Then this
is not part of your normal appearance?”

I shuddered to think about the sort of people he must
deal with on a daily basis. “No, it isn’t.”

“Would you care for me to remove it?”

I was about to accept when some wild wiggling of
Jim’s eyebrows warned me to think carefully. The polite, well-dressed, and well-spoken man in front of me might
appear perfectly normal, but he was in fact a demon lord,
one of the eight princes of Hell, and commander of legions of demons ...
not
the sort of person I wanted removing a sharp, potentially lethal if mishandled, object
from my body.

“You know, it’s not really hurting that bad, so I think
I’ll just leave it where it is for now.” I offered the demon
lord a bright, cheerful smile.

He gave me a bland “you’re quite, quite insane” look. “Indeed. Well, shall we get to business?”

I headed toward the elegant Victorian armchair cov
ered in petit point that he indicated, pausing as I consid
ered best how to sit without moving the sword.

“Ah. You are having difficulties? Allow me.”

Ariton took ahold of the chair by the back. I assumed
he was going to remove the chair and give me a footstool
or something to sit on but stared in surprise as he simply
ripped the back off the antique chair, tossing the ruined part into the fireplace before returning to his own seat. I
stared openmouthed for a moment at the now-backless
chair, boggling just a little at how easily he had destroyed it, then snapped my mouth shut and took my seat without
comment.

“As a fellow demon lord, you are no doubt aware of
the lamentable recent events in Abaddon,” Ariton said, playing with a polished bone letter opener. I wondered
whose bone it was.

“Well...”

Jim sent me a pregnant glance.

“I am to the best of my ability, naturally. But you know, given the circumstances, I really don’t consider
myself much of an expert in the whole demon lord
business.”

Ariton frowned as he set down the letter opener. “Cir
cumstances? Of what circumstances are you speaking?”

I crossed my legs and tried to look as if it was a perfectly natural thing for me to be sitting in the den of a demon lord, a sword piercing my midsection.

“Well, I have only the one demon.”

We both looked at Jim, who was, come to think of it,
being unusually quiet. Jim looked back at me, its eyes
wary. “The number and ... er... quality of your minions
is not of importance at this moment. You are a demon
lord. You are a wyvern’s mate. Although I have heard a
rumor you have been seen in the company of a Guardian,
I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation for that. The
fact remains that you will naturally be interested in the re
cent happenings, and weighing the evidence of which
prince you wish to rule Abaddon.”

Jim coughed.

“I am never hasty in my decisions,” I said firmly, ig
noring the fact that I hadn’t been exactly truthful. “I need lots and lots of evidence before I make such an important
decision.”

“As I suspected.” Ariton leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled. “The reason I have brought you here is
to seek an agreement between us.”

I badly wanted to ask what the hell he was talking
about, but Jim had sent me enough warning looks to keep
me bluffing my way through the situation. I couldn’t
imagine what a demon lord wanted from me, but I knew that without a doubt, it wasn’t going to be anything good.
“What sort of an agreement did you have in mind?”

“A simple one by which we both benefit.” His eyelids
dropped until he was giving me a veiled glance that sent
shivers of uneasiness down my back and arms. “You sup
port me against Asmodeus’s attempt for the throne of
Abaddon, and I will rid you of any and all enemies.”

“I don’t have any enemies,” I protested, then glanced
at the sword. “Well, none that deserve being rid of by a
demon lord!”

Jim stepped on my foot. Ariton’s eyelids drooped even
more. “Do you not? I was under the impression that the
imp kingdom has sworn to have your head in exchange
for the murder of their monarch.”

“That was a mistake, and
...
oh, it doesn’t matter.” I stood up carefully, wondering where I was, praying it wasn’t too far from London. “I appreciate your offer, but
it’s just not going to work for me.”

“Do you mind telling me why you so abruptly spurn
my offer of friendship?” Ariton asked, his voice rich with
menace. Jim scooted over until its body was leaning against
mine.

“I haven’t spurned anything, and I’m sorry if it seems
to you that I have,” I said slowly, trying to pick my way
through a path that seemed to be fraught with nothing but
potential peril. “The truth is, I’ve got one little demon. I’m not a big, powerful demon lord. My support can’t
mean squat when compared to all the other demon lords
you could be rallying.”

“The six other princes have their own interests at
heart,” Ariton answered. “The seventh, Bael, will be leav
ing his throne. So you see, you
are
important.”

There was an undertone that raised goose bumps on
my arms. I badly wanted out of there, not just so I could
have the blasted sword removed, but to get away from
Ariton himself. There was a subtle, almost intangible mi
asma of evil around him, like darkness gathered, little
snaky tendrils of it reaching out to tease me.

“I’m not talking about you guys. I mean all the other
demon lords like me.”

“Like you?” One eyebrow rose.

“Kind of part-time demon lords, if you get my meaning.”

He was silent for a moment, then stood up and walked
to a curtained window. “There is no other like you, Ais
ling Grey.”

A little skitter of pain shot through me at the invoca
tion of my name. I took hold of Jim’s leash and wrapped one arm around myself, wondering if I made a break for
the door, whether I’d make it out alive. “Surely there
must be other demon lords—”