Demon's Embrace

by Devereaux, V. J.

  To Miri’s surprise, she felt a sharp spurt of envy as she watched the easy display of love between them. It wasn’t something she’d ever known. Her parents had been distant, confused by their too-smart daughter and not given to expressions of affection.

  Ash’s warmth had been a revelation.

  Given the events of the last two days, she thought she needed something a little stronger than wine, though.

  “I’d like to try the mead, if you don’t mind and thank you.”

  A hand closed over her arm even as Ashtoreth’s tail wrapped around her waist to draw her close. He wrapped an arm loosely but possessively around her shoulders while he accepted the mug of mead passed to him by one of the others with his free hand. A deep contentment filled her as Ash leaned back a little against the counter, taking her with him, obviously comfortable with such displays. She brushed her cheek quickly against his shoulder.

  She didn’t miss the look of surprise – and delight – that Gabriel and Asmodeus exchanged at Ash’s gesture or her own response to it.

  Asmodeus’s brilliant red eyes whirled as Gabriel handed Miri a glass of her own.

  It hadn’t come as a surprise to Ash to see Gabriel and Miri hit it off so well, it would have surprised him more if they hadn’t. While Gabriel might be the tough F.B.I. agent on the job, she loved what she did. In return, she was respected and, although she didn’t know it, liked and admired. Academic that she was, Miri, too, did what she did for the love of it, it was her passion.

  What did surprise him was how natural she felt with him in this place, in this house he considered as much home as his own cabin in the woods. Time passed differently on the other planes but it did pass, yet in all that long time he’d never experienced the kind of peace he felt with Miri in his arms.

  He tightened his tail around her to draw her firm bottom against him.

  “So,” Asmodeus said while the others crowded in and got their drink of choice. “How does the search go? Well, I take it?”

  He canted an eyebrow at Miri and then looked at Ash.

  Those words brought Ash sharply back to earth, reminded him of his duty and the danger they all faced.

  In the face of his sudden seriousness, Asmodeus straightened. His tail wrapped instinctively around Gabriel and the precious life that grew within her. He pulled her closer to him.

  Ash could wish his fear wasn’t necessary but it was.

  “On one count,” Ash said as he tightened his arm around Miri’s shoulders. “As you can see, I did successfully meet with Dr. Reynolds.”

  Miri glanced back up over her shoulder at him with a lifted eyebrow and a grin. A look Ash met with a nod and a smile in return.

  Letting out a sigh, sobering, Ash continued, “Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who sought her.”

  The change in tone alarmed them all. As one, they reacted to the sense of threat, straightening, becoming more alert.

  “Templeton,” Gabriel said, shortly.

  It was interesting for Miri to watch the change from contented soon-to-be-mother to sharp-eyed, intent F.B.I. agent.

  Ash nodded, Miri felt it. “It seems so although we have no proof. I only met a man named Hammond, who said he was a representative of Prometheus Corporation.”

  “That sounds like Templeton,” Gabriel said, grimly, “the name is grandiose enough. Prometheus, the Greek God who brought fire to men.”

  One of the other Daemonae said, “I’m on it.”

  This was the one Miri had noted earlier, the darkest of them.

  Like all the others he was tall and beautiful, lean and sexy, but where Ash’s skin was red, his was like polished ebony with silver chasing beneath it like moonlight over a midnight lake. His eyes were like the moon with shadows and sparks that whirled within them.

  “Thank you, Moloch,” Gabriel said.

  Moloch folded back the doors of a pair of cabinets to reveal a large touch-screen computer display. His long, elegant, taloned fingers danced over it.

  At the sight of it, Miri’s mouth nearly watered in envy. She sighed. What she could have done with that at the University…

  “I have one at home,” Ash spoke softly in her ear. She felt his chuckle rumble through his chest. “You can play with it later.”

  “Tomorrow?” Miri wheedled, smiling, feeling the length of his hard body against her back. She had much better plans for later.

  Her voice was rich with promise as she looked at him over her shoulder.

  Ash smiled, anticipation washing through him at the look in her eyes.

  “What did this Hammond want?” Asmodeus asked.

  “To hire me, he said,” Miri said. “But he didn’t say for what.”

  “Because of what you know about the ethereal plains?” Asmodeus asked.

  Ash tightened his arms around her.

  “No,” he said, in answer. “I think because he somehow learned or realized she can open them.”

  That got their attention.

  One of the others, Ba’al, Miri thought, said, “So, she could lead him right to the damn Book.”

  Anger vibrated in his voice.

  Miri shook her head, “No. It’s not that easy and while I can see them, I’ve never crossed over into them.”

  Startled, Asmodeus stared at her. “Never?”

  With her hands wrapped around Ash’s forearm, Miri shook her head and gave Asmodeus a wry look.

  “I’m not very tall. I was the smallest in many of my classes growing up,” she said, by way of explanation.

  Giving his brothers the eye in warning, Ash said, “But she…adjusted and learned martial arts.”

  It wasn’t that they would poach on his territory, it was just instinct, to protect what was his.

  “Which are of little use, unfortunately, against some of the things I’ve seen on the ethereal planes,” Miri said.

  She shuddered at the memories.

  Gabriel nodded, grimly. “I know what you’re talking about, if what you see is anything like what I saw when we freed Asmodeus from Templeton’s magic circles.”

  She shivered reflexively, visibly.

  “What I saw there…” Her voice echoed her horror.

  Miri nodded and said with a small smile. “I know. I think I was born a scientist. That might have been what saved me. From the first moment that I knew that what I saw others couldn’t, I experimented to see what was different between there and this. I opened up a plane and put out my dolly. And I got it back.”

  Gabriel smiled and glanced up at Asmodeus.

  Seeing the look, Asmodeus gave a small nod and a smile in return..

  Ash could picture it, too, a tiny red-haired pig-tailed Miri with her doll.

  Would their child look as she did, he wondered, with her brilliant hair? The thought made him smile.

  Their son would resemble them both, but their daughter? Would she inherit her mother’s gifts? A small chill went through him at the thought, knowing that such talents tended to run in families. It was possible.

  “How old were you, Miri?” Gabriel asked, her tone curious.

  Miri smiled a little. “Four, five…I’m not sure.”

  Her smile faded.

  “Putting my dolls out, I opened the ‘doors’. Perhaps I should have stuck with them but out of curiosity I brought out my pet turtle. It may have been a good thing my parents wouldn’t allow me a dog or cat.”

  She took a deep breath, wincing at the memory.

  Miri shook her head. “It was as if something had been waiting…something lashed out of the shadows of one of the planes and took my turtle. Even wandering into the room would have been dangerous.”

  The result had shocked and frightened her.

  Worse, the turtle hadn’t come back.

  She’d cried for days afterward. Her experiments after that had been much more cautious.

  Ash, hearing the echo of that small loss through the bond between them, tightened his arm around her.

  For Miri her fifth had be
en a rough year. Not long after her birthday her father had left for reasons that she didn’t still understand. Neither parent had really understood their too-bright daughter.

  Miri watched and waited for the inevitable withdrawal, the pulling away of those who didn’t know what she was, didn’t know how to label her. She was used to it.

  It didn’t happen. She looked from face to face.

  Rapid mental readjustments were being made around the room, she could see it in their faces but no one flinched.

  Instead, there was a question from one of the other Daemonae.

  “We travel to the other plane all the time, why don’t we see these others?”

  To Miri’s surprise it was Asmodeus who answered, his voice grim. “It was a gift of magic, Ba’al. Zaebos’s mother was one like Miri. She had that talent, too.”

  “There were other planes but they weren’t suitable for us. Once we knew that place – for our purposes we’ll call it the Refuge – it was like conjuring ourselves there rather than conjuring something from it to here,” Asmodeus said. “Once we had the magical ‘map’, as it were, from this plane to that one it was simpler to stay on a familiar path than risk another, far more dangerous, one.”

  Tightening her hands on Ash’s arms, Miri took a breath and added, “And there are…other…much more dangerous ones. There are other beings…other sentience’s…there, for want of a better word. Different evolutionary paths.”

  “Some of them are dark,” she said. “Very dark.”

  Shadows moved in her pale and lovely eyes. Ash wished he could banish them. Unfortunately, he suspected he was instead going to take her closer to them rather than protect her from them.

  “I suspect few with my talent survive their curiosity and most of those who did went mad after what they saw, or were called that for speaking of it. I was curious, but against the unknown,” Miri said, with a lift of her shoulders, “and with no one I could trust?”

  She shook her head.

  “I was afraid.”

  Ash felt her shiver, just a little. He pulled her a little closer. It must have been terrifying. Especially alone.

  You have someone now, you’re not alone, not any more, Ash said, quietly, mind to mind.

  Nor was he.

  She glanced up over her shoulder and smiled.

  Gently, he brushed a kiss over her forehead.

  “But you can cross?” Asmodeus asked.

  Miri nodded. “Yes. I just never went close enough than was necessary to learn just how dangerous it was.”

  “So you can lead Ash to the Book?” Ba’al said abruptly.

  Hope was visible on the faces of all those in the room.

  Looking around, Miri hated to disappoint them. She sighed. It was all too clear how much this Book hung over all of them like Damocles sword.

  Taking a breath, Miri looked up at Ash. They’d had no time to talk about any of this yet.

  “Yes and no,” she said.

  Their expressions fell, all attention was riveted on her.

  It was a little daunting but Ash’s presence was at her back and it never faltered.

  “The temporal or ethereal planes aren’t like this one. Depending on which theory you believe they’re a different order of reality. Some think that time is a construct sentient life has created, something enough people have come to believe and so made real. In some, though, time passes quite differently.”

  Glancing at Ash, Asmodeus nodded. “We know this from our own experience with the Refuge once the priests declared us anathema. Nothing lives there that we could determine but time definitely passes more quickly there.”

  “Thank all the Gods,” Ba’al muttered as he helped Moloch search the records, tracing Prometheus Corp. through a seemingly endless maze of shadow corporations that popped up on the screen. “Or we’d all have gone mad.”

  Asmodeus glanced at him and nodded. “True enough. It was bleak. But you can take Ash to it, Miri?”

  Nodding, Miri said, “I think so, we just have to be fairly close to where it crossed over.”

  Concerned, frowning, Gabriel glanced at Asmodeus and Ash and said, “That could be difficult.”

  Miri looked at the three of them, puzzled.

  Looking to Miri and her clearly questioningly look Gabriel said in answer to the unspoken question, “Templeton Summoned Asmodeus magically and had me kidnapped because I was investigating him. I tossed the Book into the temporal planes to keep it out of Templeton’s hands. He’d rigged the room to explode. We escaped with seconds to spare but without the Book.”

  Tightening his arm around his mate, Asmodeus said, “Don’t, my angel. You did what you could to protect us.”

  He looked at Miri. “We were trapped, my Gabriel and I, but she Called Ash and arranged my escape even as she tried to wrest the Book from Templeton’s people. It took time to remove the iron that hampered my powers, time enough for them to close on her. We nearly didn’t reach her in time.”

  Ash added, “Even had you escaped with it, Gabriel, you know as well as we do that Templeton would’ve devoted his considerable wealth to hunting you down to get it back. Your status with the F.B.I. didn’t protect you then and it definitely wouldn’t have once he knew you had the Book. None of us would’ve been safe. Throwing it into the ethereal planes was the best thing you could have done, as you knew at the time. Miri and I will find it and destroy it in such a way that Templeton knows without a shadow of a doubt that it’s gone. It makes no sense to remove one threat only to replace it with another, if we have the choice.”

  Gabriel sighed, accepting the sense of it.

  “However, unbeknownst to Templeton,” she continued, “a money man and not an architect or builder, the explosion weakened the building dangerously. I sent inspectors to shut it down, to declare it unsafe. Which it was. Templeton didn’t like it but he couldn’t stop it. A small victory but mine own.”

  She smoothed her hands over her swollen belly and smiled fiercely.

  Miri looked at all of them. “What is this Book, anyway?”

  She looked up over her shoulder at Ash, then at Asmodeus.

  Ash’s breath caught, realizing that she didn’t know, that he’d never really explained it to her. He looked to his Prince.

  With a nod Asmodeus held up a hand to him and answered Miri’s question himself.

  “It’s called the Book of Demons,” he said. “It was created hundreds of years ago by the Church to summon our kind to their judgment.”

  He gaze went to Ash.

  Behind her, Miri felt Ash go still.

  “They used it to summon me,” he said, his deep voice tightly controlled. “You know the result.”

  Miri looked up over her shoulder at him, aghast.

  “Ash,” she whispered, feeling his memories move through him.

  She closed her hands on his arms and she pressed her cheek against his chest, trying to offer comfort against the horror of those images.

  “The spells in it can be used to summon any of us,” Ba’al said, his tone furious. “As they did with Asmodeus. We’re all at the mercy of it.”

  In that moment Miri understood just how important, and how terrible a threat, the Book was to them.

  “Especially once Templeton gets control of it,” Gabriel said. “He wants control of all the Daemonae and their magic. It’s why he Summoned Asmodeus.”

  She looked up at her mate, her hands curled around her belly.

  “He took me to stop my investigation,” she said, “and as punishment. He intended to feed me to Asmodeus.”

  She smiled, suddenly and radiantly. “He just didn’t know him.”

  “Nor you, my fierce Gabriel.”

  Asmodeus pressed a kiss to her forehead.

  “So, Miri,” Asmodeus said, “how close is close?”

  Miri shook her head. “I don’t know. I won’t know until I look.”

  “Won’t it be like looking for a needle in a haystack?” Moloch asked reasonably. “Among all the
temporal possibilities?”

  Pleased at his perception, Miri smiled and shook her head. “Not quite. That’s another reason why it matters to be so close. That book is a human artifact where and when a human artifact doesn’t belong. It should ‘stick out’ in a way, psychically. Which will make it easier for me to find.”

  Miri took a slow breath, leaned back into Ash’s arms for comfort and support.

  Her visions echoed through her. “And somehow it’s important in a different way, not just for the Daemonae but for all of us, humanity included.”

  Hearing something in her voice Ash looked down at her.

  The others caught it, too, a vibrancy in her tone, and straightened.

  Miri looked up at him and then uncomfortably at the others as the echo of Vision moved through her.

  She let the breath go, slowly. “I’ve ‘seen’ it. It’s important somehow in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how to explain it, it’s just something I feel.”

  “You’ve seen it?” Gabriel asked, sharply, puzzled.

  “What do you mean?” Asmodeus said at nearly the same time.

  “I’m clairvoyant,” Miri explained, wondering how she could explain temporal physics and string theory in combination with psychic abilities. “A clear seer. Whether you call it the ethereal planes or the temporal planes, it’s all the same to me. Time and space.” She sighed in frustration. “I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I can see the future, glimpses of what might be, what could be, like a filmstrip. Yet there are nexus points…and this appears to be one. So, I can see the Book, clearly…as a turning point, as one of those pivotal points in time.”

  At that moment a great void opened within her like a door, a great gusty breeze that rushed through space and time to blow through her. Suddenly she was thrust outside herself, suspended, with all the myriad possibilities spread out before her as a magician would fan a deck of cards and dare you to choose one, just one.

  Her voice drifted off as the vision caught her up.

  Ash sensed the change even as Miri quivered lightly in his arms.

  “’Deus,” Gabriel breathed, in awe. “Her eyes. Look at her eyes.”

  “I see it,” Asmodeus said quietly. “We’ve seen such before, haven’t we, Ash? The Oracles at Delphi?”