Light My Fire (33 page)

Fiat smiled. “Unfortunately, I told Renaldo to acquire
you. I did not think to specify that you should be clothed
first. Not that it is difficult to look upon you as you are.”

I tugged the towel down my thigh a smidgen. “Let’s start this whole conversation over again. Why are you
kidnapping me?”

“Cara, cara, cara,”
he said, tsking and shaking his
head at me in mock sorrow. “So demanding. So forceful.
If I did not know better, I would think you were a dragon.”

“Where are we going? Why did you kidnap me?” I
asked again, keeping firmly to the subject that mattered.
Fiat was notorious for banter, but I didn’t have time for
that any more than I had time for an impromptu kid
napping.

He spread his hands wide. “Such antagonism. Do you
not trust me to keep you safe?”

“Trust you?” I goggled at him. He had to be insane.

“And yet, I am the one who saved you recently from
certain death. I understand the red dragons have dealt a
death sentence upon you. Surely you cannot fear one who
has saved you from their wrath?”

“I don’t fear you, Fiat. I’m annoyed by you and these
games you insist on playing, nothing more. And stop try
ing to get into my mind. The
no trespassing
sign is up,
if you haven’t noticed.” Ever since I’d woken up, I was
aware of the brush of his mind against mine, trying to get
into the inner sanctum to read my thoughts. But one of
the first things I’d learned when entering the Otherworld
was how to close out my thoughts from Fiat and his sept
of mind readers.

He sighed, an exaggerated, martyred sound. “Very
well. I can see you are in no mood for polite talk. You are
coming with me to the challenge of your mate because
there is something I wish to do there, and you are vital to
my success.”

“Fiat, so help me, if this is another one of your at
tempts to cause trouble between Drake and the other
wyverns, I’ll...”

A smile flirted with his lips, his eyes mirroring the
amusement. “You are naked and in my power, surrounded
by my men. What exactly do you think you have to
threaten me with?”

I sat up a little straighten “I am a Guardian. I have
resources.”

“Perhaps. But in this instance, you are helpless. And if
you attempt to escape me, as you have done in the past”—
he leaned forward and placed a hand on my knee; I tried to brush it off, but his fingers tightened. Jim’s lips pulled back
in a silent growl—”I will be forced to subdue you. And
that,
cara,
I can assure you will not be pleasant. If you co
operate, all will be well.”

“Define
well.”

He let go of my knee and sat back. “You will be with
your mate.”

“What is it you want me to do?”

“Very simple.” He brushed off an infinitesimal bit of
dirt from his pants. “I want you to—”

The car slammed to a stop with a horrible shriek of
brakes applied to tires. The back end of the limo fish-
tailed out to the side, sending the occupants of the back
flying to the opposite side, bodies colliding, limbs entangled,
and in my case, my head crashing painfully into the door
handle.

I touched the top of my head, my fingers coming
away red. “Holy . . . ow! I’m bleeding! . . . cow. What
happened?”

Fiat and Jim were tangled together on the floor, each
trying to rise by using the other as leverage. Beneath
them both was Renaldo. Before anyone could answer me, the door I was slumped against opened, and I tumbled out
to the ground, striking my head again.

“Right. That’s it. I officially call an end to today. I’m
going home and going to bed until it’s over.” I rolled over
onto my side and propped myself up on one hand. A pair
of shoes appeared next to me, attached to a woman’s legs.
I followed the legs up to the rest of the person.

“The lord Ariton wishes to see you.
Now!”

“Oh, hi, Obedama.” I grabbed Jim’s collar in an at
tempt to help me to my feet. “Sorry about those Guardians
sending you back to Abaaaaaaaaaa—!”

Before I could finish the sentence, Obedama wrapped both hands around my neck and yanked me backwards,
wrenching me with a horrible, sickening feeling right
through the fabric of time and space.

It was such a nauseating experience that when I was
released, I fell to my knees and vomited right on the mid
dle of Ariton’s plush Victorian rug, one of my hands still wrapped around Jim’s collar. The demon didn’t say any
thing, but its cold nose pressed against my cheek in sym
pathy as I clutched myself and tried to keep from barfing
a second time.

“You come at last,” Ariton said, rising from behind his desk, his eyes narrowing as I wiped a tendril of saliva off
my lips. “Do you think I am such a fool that I do not see
through your idiotic scheme to put me off? Who are you
working with?”

Ariton grabbed me by my hair and brutally yanked me
to my feet. I squawked with pain and outrage.

“What are you talking about? I’m not working with anyone! I’m sorry I’ve been too busy to see you, but—”

“Silence!”
he bellowed, power crackling off him as he backhanded me. I flew across the room, slamming against
a thankfully bare spot on the wall, my head whacking
painfully against the solid wood paneling. The room spun before my eyes for a moment as I tried to regain my wits.
“You will cease this deception!”

“I am not deceiving you,” I snarled back at him, pain
chasing fear enough that it kept me on my feet. I have
never been one to take abuse, and I wasn’t about to let
Ariton be the first. “And you can stop with the rough treatment! I am a fellow demon lord! You can’t treat me
like that!”

He laughed, a horrible sound that made my soul weep.
“Do you seriously believe I cannot destroy you where
you stand?”

I rubbed the back of my head as he walked around me. Obedama stood next to the door, a sentinel of silence. Jim
sat a few feet away, its eyes dark and unfathomable as it watched us. I could order Jim to attack Ariton, but there
was no way it had the power to defeat a demon lord.

“Do you know what it would take to destroy you,
Guardian?” Ariton stopped in front of me, his face hard.

I lifted my chin on the principle that offense was the best defense. “I am immortal. You can’t destroy me.”

A slow, blood-chilling smile slid across his face. “Not
kill, no. But there are other forms of death. There are
ways to destroy your mind but leave your body intact.”

Horror skittered down my back at the depth of evil in
his eyes.

“You cannot kill a demon lord. But you can destroy
one. Once you have the soul, you can render the physical form inert, and banish the essence of what remains to the Akashic plain, where it will be trapped, powerless, for an
eternity.”

“Demons don’t have souls,” I said, my voice a croak.

The power that surrounded him in a dark aura snapped
around me, sending little frissons of pain deep into my
being. “But demon lords do. It is what gives us our power.
Would you like to see how that power can destroy you,
Guardian?”

I licked my lips. I knew as I did it, Ariton could smell
the fear on me, but I was struggling as it was to keep a
grip on myself in the face of sheer, utter, almost incom
prehensible evil. “I think I’ll pass on that.”

He turned away, his voice as smooth and polished as it had been the first time I’d met him. “You will tell me with whom you are working, or I will break your body, corrupt
your soul, and banish you to an eternity of torment.”

Every inch of my body broke out into a terrified cold
sweat as I frantically looked around the room, desperate
for some way to escape, or something I could do to
distract Ariton long enough to get away. But other than Jim and Ariton’s minion, we were alone. There were no
weapons, no handy Demon-Lord-Begone spray, not even
the slightest hint of an idea of what I was going to do to
get out of this.

“I really wish I could help you, but I just can’t. I’m not
working with anyone,” I told Ariton, desperation swamp
ing me.

Ask him about his soul.
A voice spoke into my ear. My
head snapped around to the left, but there was no one
there.
Ask him to show it to you.

It’s a pretty good indicator of the state of my mind that
I ignored the suspicion that arose as to the wisdom of fol
lowing the disembodied advice from who-knew-what
being. For the first time in my life, I was truly terrified, not for my body, which I was sure would survive just
about anything, but for my soul. If that was destroyed, it
would mean Drake’s death, as well. The other demon lord I’d had a brief brush with had been frightening, but everything had happened so quickly, I hadn’t really had time to
be terror stricken.

This time it was different.

“About your soul,” I started to say. Ariton closed his
eyes, lifted both hands toward me, and began to chant.
Each word he spoke struck my body like a barbed missile,
pain sweeping through me. Frantic, I pulled on Drake’s
dragon fire to give me strength. “If you’re going to destroy
me, the least you can do is tell me why demon lords have souls if demons don’t. You’re bigger and badder and infi
nitely more nasty than any one demon, so why do you get
to have a soul?”

A little flicker of relief rose in me when Ariton paused
his cursing, or whatever he was doing to destroy me, in
order to answer my questions. “You mock me with these foolish questions, pretending ignorance for some reason I
cannot fathom. You know of the Fallen. You know of the
six classes of demons.”

I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep from screaming for mercy. Ariton was clearly not going to believe me if I tried to convince him of my innocence in the
ways of demons and their lords. “Of course I know. But
you were born human, not a demon.”

“And as a weak mortal, I was burdened with that most
heinous of gifts—a conscience. Once I rid myself of that,
once I purified myself by bathing in the pool of the Dark Master, then I became what you see. You wish to see my
soul, Guardian?”

Be ready,
the voice to my left spoke into my head.

Ready for what? Every inch of my body sweated
beads of sheer terror. What was I supposed to be ready
for?

“Behold, the true being, the One Form!” Ariton threw
open his arms, a brilliant black light bursting from his
chest, creating a corona of pure power around him.

Banish it! Banish it now!
the voice screamed in my
head.
Send it to Akasha and you will be free of him
forever!

Banish? Like I did when I sent Jim to the Akashic
plain? I didn’t stop to think, didn’t reason out whether or
not trying to banish a being so well versed in dark power
was a smart move. I didn’t pause for even a second to
consider what such an act might do to me. I had no
choice—either I saved myself or Ariton would destroy
me, and by association, Drake and Jim as well.

The mental door in my mind was flung wide open as I
welcomed the roar of Drake’s fire. “Ariton, known as
Egyn, seventh prince of Abaddon, leader of the twenty-
two legions, by this light, by my virtue, by my being, I do
banish thee!”

Ariton clearly wasn’t expecting that from me, because
he stared at me in surprise for the count of three before
releasing a roar of such hideousness, the walls around us
cracked. “You dare?”

Power, black and evil, washed over me as he recom
menced his chanting. I struggled to breathe, my body be
ginning to fail under the influence of his will.