Otherworld Nights (15 page)

—a lesson you won’t soon forget
, a voice boomed.

I jumped. Mom put a hand against my back. The lights flickered, but no one else seemed to notice. As Gran continued lecturing the director, a tendril of chaos wrapped around me, tugging me deeper into the museum.

Oh, hell, where was Karl? And what was he getting into?

I excused myself and hurried into the back hall.

No sign of Karl. I closed my eyes and concentrated. I could pick up blips of chaos from the party. Anger. Jealousy. Envy. When I tuned that out, I got a jolt of the real stuff, coming from the jewelry exhibit.

Oh, hell.

I jogged along the dark corridor.

Thrall of Lucifer, heed my words!

I spun, nearly tripping. The hall was empty.

You have rained down chaos and destruction for long enough. May you spend eternity suffering the torment you have visited on so many
.

Something wrapped around me, tight as a mummy’s bindings. I struggled to get free, shrieked, and shouted curses in languages I didn’t recognize—

“Hope!”

I snapped out of the vision to find myself on the floor, lying across Karl’s lap.

I scrambled to my feet. “You took it, didn’t you?”

“What?”

“The Amulet of Marduk. Damn you, Karl, I asked—”

“I didn’t take anything.”

I grabbed his tuxedo lapel and reached inside the jacket for the hidden pocket.

He caught my hands. “If you want to undress me, there are better places to do it. In fact, I saw a suitably dark—”

“What did you steal?” I asked.

“Nothing. Yes, I was in the room with the amulet. Yes, I have every intention of taking it. But not tonight. I wouldn’t do that when—”

Something small and furry scampered past a doorway.

“Rat?” I said.

He inhaled and frowned. “No, it smells like …”

Chattering erupted. Then the sound of tiny nails skittering across the floor. The creature darted out of a dark adjoining room and launched itself at me. That’s when I smelled the thing—an awful stink of formaldehyde and badly stored fur. The beast thumped onto me, claws clutching the front of my dress. A tiny spider monkey face turned up to mine.

A tiny
dead
spider monkey.

Its eyes were beads and half its teeth were missing. At every joint, the fur and skin had ripped open. Sawdust spilled out. Through the openings, I could see bone and the wire that had held the monkey in a pose—until it’d been reanimated and no longer cared to be in that pose.

Karl grabbed the monkey by the scruff of the neck and whipped it away from me. It hit the wall and exploded. Sawdust and fur flew everywhere, including into my mouth. I spat and clawed it out, gagging.

Again, the sounds of tiny scrabbling nails filled the hallway. I looked up. One arm and one leg were still attached to the monkey’s torso as it pulled itself toward me.

Karl strode forward.

“You can’t kill a reanimated corpse,” I said.

“I can try.”

He stomped on it. The arm and leg launched from the torso like rockets.

I winced. “Better hope the SPCA doesn’t catch you doing that.”

He snorted and kicked the bits into a storage room.

I stared at the tufts of fur and curls of sawdust left behind on the polished floor. A top-notch necromancer can reanimate long-dead corpses, but what was the chance that one was practicing his craft during a museum charity event? At the same time that Karl was poking around ancient artifacts?

“Show me where you were,” I said. “And what you did.”

He’d been in the traveling jewelry exhibit, checking out security so he could return another day to steal the amulet. It was still there, though, and he swore he hadn’t even touched its glass box. What he
had
handled was a display in an identical case. As a test run, he’d opened it and closed it again.

“And that’s all?” I said.

“I picked up that,” he said, pointing to a small jewel-covered box inside the case. “The sign says it’s bronze with semiprecious stones. It’s wrong. The stones aren’t valuable, but the box itself is gold. I considered pocketing it, but …” He shrugged. “Not while we’re invited guests.”

“And not when it’s an object of historical significance.”

He said, “Hmm,” which meant that was open to interpretation and he’d interpret it for himself when he came back for the amulet.

I bent to read the plaque. As I did, I saw the pattern on the box he’d picked up—symbols that told me this was not, as the museum claimed, a fifteenth-century noblewoman’s keepsake box. It
was
meant for keeping something, though.

“You opened it?” I said.

“Not intentionally. It seemed sealed, but when I was examining the jewels, the lid popped open. I closed it.”

“Not fast enough.” I straightened. “It’s a soul box for demons. Used by witches and sorcerers powerful enough to bind one.”

Shoes squeaked outside the door.

“I’ve found you,” a breathless voice said.

Nelson strode across the room, gaze fixed on me as if he didn’t even see Karl.

“Uh, sorry, we were just looking for the ladies’ room. I need to, uh, freshen up.”

“Why?” Nelson stopped in front of me. “You are already the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Umm, thanks …”

Behind me, Karl growled.

Nelson dropped to one knee. “I am yours, mistress. I live to serve you. To worship you.”

“Guess that demon soul isn’t in the monkey anymore,” Karl murmured.

“You don’t think I’m worthy of worship?” I said. “Maybe—”

Demon Nelson started licking my shins.

Karl turned to me. “You were saying?”

“Never mind. You’re going to need to disable him. Just don’t—”

Karl grabbed Demon Nelson by the back of his jacket and started swinging him toward the nearest display.

“—do that,” I said. “Don’t break any displays. And don’t break him.”

Karl paused, as if considering whether he’d heard me.

Demon Nelson squirmed and shrieked. “Defiler! You are not fit to speak to my master’s daughter. You will pay for your—”

Karl dropped him headfirst onto the floor. Then he pinned him under one Italian loafer. I walked closer, staying out of licking distance.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He didn’t pause. “Nybbas, mistress.”

He went on, giving his demon equivalent of rank and serial number. He was a demi-demon under Lucifer. He’d gone
AWOL
a few thousand years ago and had himself a rollicking unauthorized shore leave in ancient Sumer, leaving death and destruction in his wake, until—as I’d seen in my vision—he’d ended up trapped in that box.

Now he was out and very, very grateful. He recognized me as Lucifer’s daughter and presumed I was the one who’d set him free. It didn’t seem wise to argue.

“I will repay your kindness, mistress,” he said, tongue extending, unsuccessfully, toward my shoes. “I will be your humble slave until my debt is paid, and then you shall tell your lord father how useful I have been, and he will take me back.”

I’ve never met my father. Never wanted to. Again, though, I didn’t set him straight.

“That’s very sweet,” I said. “I’m sure you’d make a wonderful demon slave, but it’s the twenty-first century and there are laws against that sort of thing. So how about I just let you go back to hell, where I’m sure Lucifer will be happy—”

“Nooo!” he howled.

He leapt to his feet, catching Karl off guard, and darted out of his reach.

“I must prove myself first,” he said as he dodged Karl’s lunge. “If I please you, my master will be pleased.”

“Fine, then. Clean my condo for a few days and we’ll call it even.”

“I must show my respect properly. I will prepare a feast in your honor. A feast of chaos. The sacrifice of a hundred souls—”

“No! No sacrifices. I command—”

“Hope?” A quavering voice called from the hall. “Is that you, dear?”

Nybbas stopped and smiled. “The first offering.”

“No!” I said. Then to Karl, “Catch—”

Karl dove at Nybbas and knocked him to the floor. I raced into the hall. Outside the exhibit room, I slowed and tried to look sheepish.

“Hey, Gran,” I said. “Caught us doing a little unauthorized touring. Karl wanted to see the Amulet of Marduk. He read about it in the paper.”

“Is that what he said?”

She smiled as her gaze traveled over my dress and hair, which was in even more disarray than usual. She tried to peer into the room. When I blocked her view, she chuckled.

“Not in a state to be seen, is he?” she said.

“Uh, no, he’s just—”

“Karl is a very attractive man, Hope. Very powerful. Very … virile.” Her eyes shone with something that looked frighteningly close to lust and she tried, again, to peer around me. “It’s not easy to keep a man like that happy. It takes a lot of time and effort.” That sparkle again as she smiled. “But you seem to be doing a fine job of it. A fine job.”

“Er, thanks …”

She patted my arm. “I’ll cover for you two. Just don’t be too long.”

I returned to the exhibit to find Karl kneeling on the struggling demon.

“She’s old,” the demon whined. “Let me sacrifice her, so she may do some good in her final days.”

“That woman is my grandmother,” I said as I walked over.

The demon stopped writhing. “She gave birth to his lordship’s chosen vessel?”

It took me a second to figure out that he thought Gran was my mother’s mother. Though two weeks in Nassau had given my grandmother a nice tan, no one was likely to mistake her for
Indo-American. But if this demon had racial identification issues, I wasn’t setting him straight.

Nybbas lay still for a moment, then he bucked, knocking Karl off. He leapt up and danced back out of Karl’s reach.

“
This
one would make a suitable sacrifice,” Nybbas said. “A werewolf is a base creature, unsuited to be consort to a demon princess. Your father would be pleased if I rid you of this embarrassment.”

“You want to kill me?” Karl bared his teeth. “You need to come a little closer first.”

He grabbed for the demon, who backpedaled then feinted and dove at Karl, managing to snag his leg and send him crashing to the floor.

“Enough!” I said, jumping between them. “He’s not my consort. He’s my bodyguard.” I turned to Karl. “Stop playing with your prey and catch him. I command it.”

Karl arched an eyebrow, but charged. This time he foresaw the demon’s feint and threw him down, then pinned him on his stomach again.

Nybbas glanced over his shoulder. “I suppose, as a bodyguard, he is suitable. Sacrifices must be made, though. I will begin with my host.”

Karl hesitated and looked down at Nelson’s body beneath him. Then he backed off, just a little. I glowered. He sighed, then leaned on the demon again.

“The princess says you may not sacrifice your host,” he said. “Sadly.”

Nybbas nodded. “And the princess must be obeyed.”

“She must?” I said. “I mean, yes. She must. The princess commands that you are not to kill that host or my bodyguard. In fact, the princess asks that there are to be no sacrifices made on her behalf. She commands you to leave that body and begin your journey home.”

“As you wish.”

Nelson’s eyes glowed yellow, then faded to their normal brown as a warm wind circled the room and his body collapsed, motionless, under Karl.

“He’s gone,” I said.

“Hmm.” Karl rose.

“Too easy?” I asked.

“I’d say so.”

“Damn.”

I grabbed the soul box before we left the exhibit. When I caught up with Karl, he glanced at it and nodded.

“Good idea. It’s more valuable than the amulet. Particularly given its purpose. It could fetch a small fortune on the supernatural black market.”

“Very funny. I’m borrowing it, then returning it to the exhibit as it was before you tampered with it—demon soul and all.” I tried to hand it to him as we walked down the back hall. “You open it; I’ll turn on my chaos detector.”

“Open it?”

“That’s how the soul got out. Just do whatever you did before. And quickly.”

I pressed the box into his hands.

“I think this demon princess business is going to your head,” he said.

“Open it.”

He took the box and examined it, grumbling that he didn’t know how he’d done it the first time so he could hardly be expected to do it again. I concentrated on picking up tendrils of chaos.

I caught a blip of fear. I was homing in on it when a wave of chaos hit. I stumbled back. Karl caught me.

“I think—”

Darkness enveloped me. Voices chanted. A scream drowned them out. The rich coppery smell of blood filled the air. Hot droplets spattered my face. Someone intoned an incantation. The shrieks continued. The screams of a demon about to be cut from his mortal form and shoved into a very tiny box for a very long time.

I yanked free of the vision. Karl was holding me. I was still standing this time, which was always a plus.

“Did you find him?” Karl asked.

I shook my head. “Just another flashback of him being stuffed in that box. Maybe we should split up while you try to open it.”

“And if I can’t open it?”

“Just keep—”

A shriek cut me off. Karl spun toward the noise. A real scream, then, not a chaos playback. Some days it was tough to tell.

We took off in the direction of the scream. Everything had gone silent now, but I could feel undercurrents of chaos throbbing through the air. Karl headed straight for them, following voices I could barely detect.

We turned the corner to see a beefy security guard with a partygoer pinned against the wall. Beside him, a red-haired woman bounced, doing absolutely nothing to help her date, just whimpering and jabbering.

“We were looking for the ladies’ room,” she was telling the guard. “The other one was full. We didn’t know this part of the museum was off-limits.”

“You broke my fucking nose,” her date mumbled, trying to talk with his face mashed against the bloodied wall. “Call 911 before this psycho kills me, Tara.”

“You don’t need to yell at me, Rick,” she whined.

I recognized the voice and the names. Tara Dunlop. During our debutante year we’d approached something like friendship, ending when she caught Rick with me in a back hall a lot like
this one. The fact that he’d been pinning
me
to a wall at the time hadn’t mattered. I was the little slut who’d tempted her boyfriend. When I’d had a breakdown as my powers hit, she’d made sure every one of our acquaintances knew why Hope Adams missed her high school prom: because the psych ward didn’t grant day passes.