The bikers surrounded Azazel. They linked hands, and a black vapor wound back and forth amongst their bodies.
“Be gone, you foul little spirit!” Azazel growled. He rolled to the side, gripped Shunka by the arms, and stood up with him held out in front of his body. He tossed Shunka through the air as if he were no more than a sack of wet cement.
On impulse, I sent my magic skyward and caught my friend in a protective bubble. Once his feet touched the earth, Shunka transformed back into the form of an Alaskan Malamute and padded to my side. Whining, he rubbed his head against my leg.
“Aren’t you full of surprises?” I whispered to him.
He whined louder.
“It’s okay.” I patted his haunch. “I’m sorry I neglected to bring you here with me.”
The Sons of God continued to clasp hands. The motorcycles morphed from mechanical machines into their true smoke forms. They swirled into the semblance of monsters and beasts, shifting from one nightmare form into another or blending several forms into one. The creatures padded to their owners on vaporous paws tipped with long yellow claws. Their serpentine eyes lit the street with a Halloween glow.
None of the past memories except for the era of the White King had revealed these creatures, but I felt sure that whatever they were, the angels had found them in their prison world and trained them to obey their commands, to do their bidding by preying on the innocent and for tracking me down.
Enormous sets of wings sprouted from the bikers’ backs. Their clothes shredded and fell to the pavement in tatters. Their other garments simply vanished.
Quickly, I snatched up my clothes and stepped into my undies and shorts. I left the bra on the sand and jerked my T-shirt over my head.
“Ruby!”
The shout frightened me, and I stuffed my arms through the shirt’s sleeves and shoved my feet into my sneakers.
“Ruby, you have been a very, very bad little witch,” Azazel rumbled, his tone patient but touched with sarcasm. “I think you need to be punished, but I’ll do that after I take you as my mate.”
The angels tittered and snorted at his statement.
I forced my power along my arms and out my fingertips, drawing a protection orb around myself and Shunka. “You’re not going to win me over to your dark, twisted plans, Azazel. I’m going to banish you again.”
“Let me punish her,” the redheaded biker bitch whined.
“Patience,” Azazel replied. “There will be plenty of time to bend her to our will.”
The sound of collective footsteps permeated the haze of fear pounding through me. The dog woofed softly. I scanned the area for the source of the footfalls. A group of people walked down the center of the street toward us. Here and there, another person would emerge from behind a parked car, out of an alley, or step from the shadows to join them. As their numbers grew, one person stood out from the rest.
Solomon!
Azazel whirled and delivered bursts of short lightning bolts at the group. The power jolts hit an invisible barrier that briefly glowed silver and white before turning invisible again.
The Sons of God finished morphing into their desired forms. They stood over ten feet tall, including Azazel, each one sporting fangs, horns, forked tongues, and long, scaly tails. Leathery wings with pointed tips or talons blocked much of the streetlamps’ illumination or cast terrifying shadows over the moonlit areas.
The psycho chick transformed into a bright red, pebble-skinned creature that reminded me of a dragon. She met my gaze and bared her teeth.
As the others drew closer, I saw Maureen, my son, Alice, Wayne Blacktree and even Loretta Detzer. The group encircled the Sons of God and their steeds. Recognition flared in me. There, to the left of Loretta, stood the three witches from the St. Augustine B and B.
A coven!
Many races had joined to combine their powers and offer their support. I saw Cubans, African-Americans, Jamaicans, Haitians, Caucasians, and all of them softly muttered strange words in various dialects.
“RUBY, YOU MUST SEND THE SONS OF GOD BACK TO THEIR PRISON.” Alice’s gaze connected with mine. “I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU’VE DONE IT IN THE PAST, BUT SOMEHOW YOU’LL FIGURE IT OUT.”
Solomon looked at me, his gaze full of worry mixed with determination. Maureen grinned and offered me a thumbs-up.
My attention returned to Solomon. Something pulled me to him, something strong and overwhelming.
“Come to me,” I said to him. “I’ll protect you.”
Casting my power over him in a net only I could see, Solomon seemed to feel its presence and walked toward me.
“NO!” Azazel flapped his wings in agitation. Dirt, pebbles, and grit shot into the air from the motion. “She is mine!”
Alice, Anthony, and Maureen separated from the crowd and escorted Solomon to my side.
With the four of them divided from the coven, I sensed the protective wards lessening around my friends. I intensified my spell around them and myself.
Upon reaching me, Solomon drew me into his arms and kissed me with relief but most of all with love.
Once he released me, Maureen asked, “Are you okay, Ruby?”
I smiled at Anthony as he took my hand and squeezed it. “A little rattled,” I answered, “but other than that I’m fine.”
Deep reverberating laughter encompassed the area. I looked over at Azazel and his rogue angels.
“You think you’ve won so easily?” Azazel asked, his eyes aflame with fury. “What you don’t realize is that in summoning the power to winch open the dimensional doors, we’ve also learned how to tap power from other sources. The last one thousand years have given us plenty of time to gather magic and plan our return.”
Mounting the smoke creatures, the Sons of God leapt into flight. Their wings and the monsters’ combined stirred sand and debris to whip it through the air, across the landing, and up the street. Their flapping wings snapped and beat so loudly I thought of prehistoric flying dinosaurs. I glanced over at the coven, who had joined hands and formed a huge circle on the landing.
“What are you going to do?” Solomon asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I just know you’re part of it.”
“She belongs to me!” Azazel’s words rolled over the ocean in the form of thunder.
A bolt of lightning hit my magical shield. The strength of it nearly pushed me to my knees.
“Damn!” hissed Alice. “That was really strong.”
Shaking my head, I intensified the magic, feeling it flow out of me in a more concentrated form. My hair grew brighter and the illumination of it almost seared the eyes.
The angels circled overhead. They screamed and shouted taunts and insults.
The next jolt of power struck my ward so hard it bore us across the rocks and into the lapping surf.
“Run!” I shouted at my friends as our shield disintegrated. I sat up and snorted saltwater from my sinuses.
They scattered, taking Shunka with them, and slogged through the water to hide behind boulders and stony outcroppings.
Azazel roared with laughter, and the rogue hoard echoed his sentiments.
On the landing, the coven began to chant in a soft, determined manner.
“Pitiful mortals,” Azazel said. “You can do nothing to protect her.”
Something gripped my innards. It began in the center of my stomach, the sensation similar to a hot ember landing on my skin. It spread, growing hotter as it did so. I grimaced at the pain, but suddenly found myself raising my arms, hands up, palms out. The power burbled upward. It slipped into my breasts, over my shoulders and down along my arms. It rose into my neck and then into my head, the pain of it stripping me of rational thought.
The power exited my hands, mouth, and eyes in the form of white and lavender-tinted fire that felt both exhilarating and terrifying. It hit Azazel square in the chest. I pointed my left arm skyward and shot the same magic into the winged hoard.
Screams followed. The sound continue
d for several seconds, until finally I realized they stemmed from me. The screaming stopped, and strange gibberish tumbled from my lips.
The sky tore open, and blackness full of twinkling planets and galaxies materialized. A howling sound began, and the wind picked up, whooshing inland. I glimpsed the twister as it exited the prison world and moved into ours.
Something hit me so hard I lifted into the air. Pain sliced through my body. Warm liquid surrounded me, tossed me about.
Hands pulled me upward, air caressed me, and I cough hard several times. I spat seawater and coughed again as I tried to draw a breath. The grip on me tightened. With the tornado gone, the fissures started closing.
“Your power doesn’t work on us anymore,” Azazel said, his demonic face inches from mine. His long, forked tongue exited to slide over one of my cheeks. “The Sons of God will remain on Earth, and you will be my queen.” He gestured at my body. My clothes vanished to re-appear on the water and float away on the waves. “Once I consummate our union, you won’t be able to fight me any longer.”
He gripped me by my arms and lifted me into the air. The wind buffeted me, and gooseflesh awoke as the moisture coating my skin evaporated in the balmy air. I glanced down at Azazel’s eager cock and screamed my refusal. Movement caught my attention, and I looked over to see Alice standing waist deep in the water with the three B and B witches and Loretta. Alice shouted something I didn’t understand, and a silvery essence drifted upward from the five women that combined into a large, vaporous sword. It sliced through the air and penetrated Azazel’s ribs. He roared with pain and dropped me into the water. Momentarily wounded, he struggled to his feet and climbed back onto the rocky shore.
Shaking seawater from his wings, he gazed skyward. “Kill the others,” he ordered, “but Ruby is mine.”
“Ruby!” Solomon swam toward me and gripped me around the waist. “Let’s get out of here!”
Again, I felt a weird pull to Solomon. “I can’t. I have to send those demons back to their prison.”
“But how?” he whispered.
I looked sharply at him. “By making me remember my past, Azazel also gave me the means to collect my magic from the centuries, but the angels are stronger now too. I need you to help me strengthen my power even more so I can banish them even farther.”
“What?”
“Put one hand on my heart and hold my other hand. I’ll do the rest.”
“I’ll help,” said Maureen as she dog-paddled to me.
Relieved to have her support, I smiled.
“Me too,” Anthony offered.
“DO IT, RUBY, AND HURRY!”
Alice and her four witch comrades fired another silver fog sword at Azazel. The witches on the landing did the same, but shot them up into the angels flying above the shoreline.
Azazel shrieked in maniacal anger as the vaporous swords hit him over and over. The Sons of God echoed his cries.
Solomon stood behind me and threaded his fingers with mine. He wrapped his other arm around my torso and placed his hand over my heart.
“I love you,” he said. “Let’s get some payback for Gabriella too.”
His sister’s murder suddenly made sense. The Sons of God had been on Earth for the past couple of years searching for me, but had stumbled across Solomon in the process. They’d recognized him, so Azazel had his minions murder Gabriella to pay the White King back for winning my love.
I nodded, a sense of satisfaction wafting over me. “Yes, it’s time they get their comeuppance for her death.”
Maureen stood on one side of me and placed her other hand on my left arm while Anthony mirrored her actions on my right.
“You know I love you, right?” said Maureen.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ve been friends a very long time.”
She grinned.
“I believe in you, Mom,” said Anthony.
Startled, I blinked away tears and mouthed the words “thank you” before I lost my composure.
Once again, the power awakened in me. Its heat raced through my body and burst from the eyes and mouths of my friends and my lover. They cried out at its intensity. My heart ached for them, and I fretted that I’d caused them pain, almost stopping it.
Alice’s voice snapped loudly in my mind. “DO IT! DO IT NOW!”
The magic crackled from my hands and spewed from my eyes, mouth, and even my nostrils. White flames streaked into the sky and knocked the angels and their steeds from the air. They crashed into the water. As they struck the surface of it, each one screamed with fury.
Azazel howled his distaste and disbelief to the universe.
The water around us bubbled, and as the steam of it rose, the first firmament re-opened, followed by the second, but instead of the dry, dead world, another door split the space-time continuum, where indescribable things writhed and snarled. Beyond that one, a fourth popped open, the colors both bizarre and beautiful, but dread filled me at the sight of them. Finally, a fifth tear in the dimensional walls revealed utter darkness, a darkness heavy like sludge, suffocating everything within it with its weight. The putrid fragrance of brimstone and the tortured cries of souls reached us.
A tiny grain of poetic justice landed in my soul. Through the ages I’d always managed to open two dimensional doors, but now with Solomon, Maureen and Anthony’s help, I could push the angels farther from Earth, and hopefully they’d never return.
The tornado appeared. It lowered to the ocean’s surface and moved across it in the form of a waterspout. Azazel tried to flee, but the coven kept bombarding him with the mist swords. He screeched in pain and anger.
The Sons of God struggled to lift from the water and fly away, but the waterspout sucked them up, twirling them in its vortex, their outraged screams similar to the shrieks of seagulls.
Azazel finally broke free of the landing and sprang into the air, heading north, beating his fibrous wings faster and faster. “I will return, Ruby,” he bellowed with assurance. “You will be mine, and I will rule this world.”
No chance of that, you arrogant bastard.
The waterspout cut him off as he rose over the palm trees, wings pummeling the turbulent air. It dipped its funnel top and gulped him into a greedy mouth. With a last thunderous shout of rage, Azazel joined his fellow brethren.
My power subsided, and the four of us leaned upon one another as we stood in the tidal waters and watched the tornado ascend into the firmament where it passed through one fissure after another to deposit the Sons of God and their leader in the world of total blackness. The rents in the dimensions slammed shut one after another, the sound of them shaking the island’s foundations. Lightning scarred the sky, and thunder boomed.
A sudden, explosive quiet followed.
Chapter Thirty-One
We sloshed out of the water, over the shore, and up onto the landing. Solomon kept his arm around me, and Anthony flanked my other side. Behind us, Maureen called to Shunka, who barked and scrambled around the tidal wall and up to the street. The coven dispersed in singles and groups of two or more. Some disappeared without a trace.
“You just saved the world, Ruby. Once again The Banishment is complete,” Alice said as she approached me with Loretta on her left and Wayne on her right. The ocean breeze tousled the hem of the dark red-velvet cloak Alice wore. She lowered its cowl and swept the garment off her shoulders to throw it around my body.
As I drew the long cape over my nakedness, I met her gaze. Although admiration filled her eyes, it astounded me just how much we resembled one another. With her high forehead, widow’s peak, dark, penetrating eyes...she was definitely a Nutter.
“No,” I said. “We all saved the world.”
She smiled. “Indeed.” Gesturing down the street, she indicated that we should return with her. “Battling the Sons of God is a thankless job, and although only a few know the truth, it has been your destiny time and time again.”
“Lucky me.”
“Come, let’s fetch your belongings
and go back to my apartment.”
As a group, we walked to the parking lot, got in the Excursion and Mustang, and drove to Alice’s store where we parked the vehicles. Upstairs in her apartment, we took turns showering. Once it was my turn, Solomon followed me into the bathroom with our things and shut the door.
I started the water and shrugged out of Alice’s cloak as Solomon took off his wet, salt-encrusted clothes. He stepped in the shower first and offered me his hand, helping me into the square stall behind him. He first removed a bottle of shampoo from a shelf and poured some of the liquid into his hand. Turning me around, he began the arduous task of washing my long hair. I could only imagine the seasalt coating it, but he took his time and massaged my scalp, all the while his cock bumping and brushing against my ass. Although I knew Azazel’s seduction was pure magic to make me comply, it had still left my libido in turmoil. Gulping hard, I tried to ignore the persistent touches on my rear.
Solomon rinsed my hair then took a washcloth from the shelf just outside the door, soaked it and lathered it with a healthy squirt of vanilla-scented gel. Without a word, he drew me closer and began washing down my arms, over my breasts, and even scrubbed my back and legs too.
“When I awoke to find you gone from the apartment, I knew what had happened,” Solomon finally said as I rinsed the thick lather from my tired body. “I don’t know how I knew, but I did.”
“Our souls are connected,” I replied and put my face in the shower spray. Sputtering a bit in the water, I added, “I saw our past lives together.”
“Tell me about it, about us,” he said.
“Later...after I’ve had time to process everything.”
“I thought I’d lost you.” Emotion gripped his voice. “Ruby, you don’t have to love me in this life, but just know I will always love you no matter what.”
I stared at him, his pale gaze full of love, hope and sincerity. Could I tell him how I felt? Did I dare say the words? Although we’d defeated supernatural beings together, the scars on my heart still controlled parts of me.
Sudden rapping on the door penetrated the sound of the spray.
The Sorcerer King and the Fire Queen Page 29
