by Sam Cheever
I needed a plan. The first thing on the list had to be removing myself from the unfortunate demon on the floor with me. Second was vowing never to spaceshift again. Third was kicking Dialle’s ass for giving me a dangerous power and not telling me how to use it. Fourth was kicking Nille’s ass and defeating Abrine and the demons to save the world.
All in a day’s work.
Since I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish any of the things in my plan, I just lay there for a minute and listened to Nille.
“Dialle will be here any minute. When he discovers what his lovely lady has done to herself he won’t be pleased. I need to be sure your people are set to act as soon as he’s spotted.”
Abrine’s frosty tones floated my way, seeming, if possible, even frostier than usual. “I’ve told you, your Highness, my people are situated at every portal and will let us know as soon as Dialle and his followers arrive. They will notify us and then flood the entrance to all portals so Dialle cannot escape. Their deaths are assured. You have nothing to fear.”
Nothing to fear? Interesting. It seemed while we’d been occupied with being afraid of Nille, he had been busy being afraid of us. Well...he was afraid of Dialle anyway. It’s hard to fear a halfling who’s moronic enough to spaceshift into a demon. My predicament had undoubtedly lost me just a tich of respect from the dark worlders. I fought back a sigh. Being laughed at made me want to overcompensate. I’d been that way since I was a tiny little testicle buster. It was probably small woman syndrome. But whatever. I’d just have to use their low opinion of me to my advantage.
Focusing my thoughts and power within, I pulled a thread of energy from its core and sent it out, probing the room. I touched the demon’s brain and found nothing. She was gone. The warmth that had entered my body in my unconscious state had given me feeling back in my lower extremities again and I concentrated on moving my toes. All ten toes moved. I opened my eyes just enough to peer through my eyelashes and determine if anyone had noticed the demon’s body moving with my embedded toes. Nothing. They were too busy plotting mean and nasty things to pay much attention to the mess on the floor behind them.
If I could wriggle my toes then I was still a separate, albeit very embedded, object. Which meant I should be able to spaceshift back out of old Wormhead. Which is exactly what I would do. But before I went spaceshifting willy nilly around the room, I needed to have a plan.
Another plan.
I risked opening my eyes completely and scanned the room. Nille, Abrine and their assorted nasties all had their backs to me and were clustered together several yards away. In the wall directly opposite where I lay, was the door that, in the physical world, would have corresponded with the door into the tower room of the Church of the Twined Hands. I saw no other doors. I didn’t know what stood on the other side of that door but I didn’t see any other options. I wasn’t confident enough to try to shift to a spot behind some piece of furniture. Not only would that not give me a way out once they discovered me missing, but I didn’t trust myself not to become the piece of furniture. I was visualizing my head and arms sticking out of the divan as I made my final decision. I’d go for the other side of that door.
I gathered my power and thought about being on the right side of the heavy, wooden door. The room blurred and whirred past and I was suddenly standing in the shadows looking at the other side. Breathing a sigh of relief, I looked around. I was standing in a space at the top of a shadowed staircase that looked very much like the murky stairway leading up to Deaver’s church tower.
A huge, claw-laden hand clamped itself onto my shoulder and I would have screamed, except someone laid a well-shaped golden hand over my mouth. A lean, hard body pressed itself against the length of my back and a sexy, familiar voice whispered into my ear.
“Where have you been, Astra? We’ve looked all over for you.”
I quickly forgot that I wanted to kick his ass and turned to stare into those beautiful blue eyes. “Dialle. It’s about frunkin’ time you showed up. Where the hell did you go?”
As I fought to regain my shaken composure, I found myself praying that he’d never hear about my unfortunate “spaceshifting into the demon” episode. I might be able to survive a hit like that to my dignity, but I didn’t want to. In the meantime, I was damn glad to see him and Gerch, who finally released my shoulder as I reached up to rub the spots where his claws had broken through the skin.
It occurred to me that I was really in trouble if a two members of the royal devil court were looking good.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
To Kill to Kill
At last young Miss has found her friends, the future looks less bleak,
But how to kill the slavering Beast, with arrows made of cheek?
A burst of sound from inside the shadowland version of the tower room informed me that the room’s inhabitants had finally noticed my absence from old Wormhead. I turned to Dialle and he touched my hand.
The world shifted into neutral and we emerged in another part of the shadowland church. Looking around, I quickly realized it was Deaver’s office, or at least its mirror image. I doubted that the baptismal font on the other side of the room held holy water. It probably held blood.
The room was very crowded. In addition to Gerch and his army, I was extremely surprised to see several familiar but unexpected faces.
“Hello angel.”
Myra gave me one of her rare smiles and reached out to touch my cheek with a pale hand. “I’m glad to see you whole again, Astra.”
I threw Dialle a guilty look and then tossed a scowl at Myra. I tried to shoosh her with my eyes before she could share the entire, embarrassing predicament with Dialle and his assemblage. Myra’s grin told me she would make good use of my embarrassment in the future.
Before I realized what she was doing, she moved her hand from my cheek and laid it gently over my nose. Intense heat permeated my sinuses, followed by a slithering motion in my nostril. The sub-demon I’d inherited from old Wormhead lay squirming in a slimy pool in her hand. With a small pop the thing disintegrated, leaving behind a brown smear that Myra wiped carelessly on her beautiful robe.
I widened my eyes meaningfully at my sneaky angel and she grinned. Damn her.
Fortunately for me Dialle and his band of merry men had bigger things on their minds and weren’t paying attention to my little “worm in nose” event. Thank the Big Guy. They were huddled together across the room, plotting or something. By the time Dialle turned to Myra, I’d gathered together my small portion of remaining dignity.
“Are the armies assembled?” Dialle asked my angel.
She nodded. “We have troops in place at each portal. Abrine’s men have been...taken care of.”
I felt my eyes widen. Never have I viewed the celestial army as being an army in the truest sense. Imagine my surprise to learn that God had real troops that “took care” of things.
“Has word come back to Nille?”
Myra shook her golden head. “Abrine’s men were dispatched quietly. We allowed a few to escape and report back. Of course they reported what we wanted them to report.”
Dialle nodded. “Then let us join our friends in the tower room. We have much to ‘discuss’ with them.”
Like fireflies on a hot, August night, the angels disappeared from view in a single blink. Dialle reached out a hand and I laid mine over it. For once I was glad to have him doing the driving. My steering sucked.
When the world became noise, color and motion again we were standing just inside the door to the tower room. I felt, rather than heard, Dialle’s men joining us as the air shifted behind us.
I could clearly see the surprise and anger in Nille’s pale, golden face and wished I could be amused by it. But my blood turned to ice under his glowing, blue gaze. “I see Abrine has let me down again.”
Beside him, the demon king stiffened and turned his featureless face toward Nille. But he said nothing. It’s a little hard to argue that you haven’t failed
when abundant evidence of your failure was standing across the room from you.
Still stinging from my last attempt at taking Nille on in that very room, I stood silently beside Dialle and let him take the lead. I know it was cowardly, but I doubted Nille and his men would have vibrated about the knees if I’d threatened them anyway. Not after the Wormhead incident.
Dialle’s voice came to me simultaneously as he spoke to Nille. It was like having two holographic films running at the same time in the same room. I found it incredibly disconcerting and I also wondered that he was able to manage it. Remember, Astra, show no weakness.
Too late.
To Nille he said, “The minds of Abrine’s men are simple and easily controlled and their king is too ambitious for his own good. He assumes too much, attends too little and his loyalties are easily swayed.” As if to prove the point, Dialle turned his vibrant, blue gaze on the demon king and locked it there. After only a few seconds, Abrine’s head drooped forward and he fell to one knee. Spreading his arms wide, palms up, Abrine’s frosty countenance lifted again to gaze upon Dialle. “My Prince. I beg your forgiveness for my opportunistic behavior.”
Nille’s beautiful features twisted and, for so brief a time that I almost thought I’d imagined it, his form shivered and faded as if he would shimmer away. But almost as quickly as he’d waned, he became solid again. He moved one finger of the hand closest to Abrine and the demon king flew sideways, skittering across the stone floor with an outraged cry. Abrine’s body smacked against the stone wall with a sickening crunch. He crumpled to the floor in a boneless pile, looking for all the world like a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream.
Dialle didn’t wait to see if Abrine had survived, he raised both hands toward Nille, palm outward and an opaque cylinder of power shot from the outstretched palms and slammed into the devil prince.
Nille stumbled back slightly but quickly recovered and lifted his arms to retaliate, shooting his own power in a pulsing, red blast toward Dialle.
At first the two devils appeared calm. But as the moments wore on I could see signs of their strength draining away from them. Sweat the color of human blood began to bead upon their smooth, golden brows and run into their identically glowing blue eyes. After another moment, Dialle’s body began to tremble slightly, and then more desperately and I knew with a sudden, horrible clarity that Dialle was going to lose the battle.
Dialle’s power began to retreat under the force of Nille’s pulsing, red energy and he seemed to almost shrink into himself. It was like watching a holograph of Dialle’s life which had been locked into hyper forward and then accelerated even more to the speed of light. Before my eyes, his skin began to grow thin and fold in upon itself, while it gained a grayish tint that looked like death. Fear ate at me as his body bend forward until he had the stooped posture of a very elderly man. It all happened in just seconds, much too quickly for me to react and way too fast for me to even weigh my options.
Suddenly, the mark on my neck gave a single, painful throb and I knew what I had to do. I ran to him and ducked under his arms so that my back was pressed into his chest. Forcing myself to ignore the husklike feel of his body against mine, I placed my hands over his. The once beautiful hands were like bone-filled parchment paper. I feared they would crumble under my touch.
I grabbed at my power and focused it toward Nille, sending it piggyback along with Dialle’s energy. My added power created a slight wave in the connection between them but didn’t do much more than cause Nille to jump a bit.
I could still feel Dialle drying up behind me. That was when I started to panic in earnest. What was I doing wrong? Why wasn’t our power merging? I wondered if, as I’d done in Nerul’s office against Rayanne, I had to refocus the power to make it more effective. Figuring it was worth a try, I gathered the energy back and shot it into Dialle’s hands.
Almost immediately I felt Dialle stiffen and straighten behind me. Nille’s expression changed from smug to “oh shit” in the space of a heartbeat and I almost laughed in relief. Slowly at first and then more aggressively, the combined power we shot at Nille started to drive him back.
Nille’s face grew pale and his tall form hunched with the effort of pushing our combined power back. I knew we had him on the ropes. That was good, but I could already feel myself drooping and I wondered if the power would hold.
A moment later my worst fears were realized as Nille seemed to strengthen, his energy once again, shoving us back. Wondering where the power was coming from, I took my eyes off Nille just long enough to throw a quick glance around the room. What I saw in that brief glimpse made my skin bubble with a grave-like cold.
All of Abrine’s men were dead on the floor. Their bodies looked like someone had put them into a drying machine and sucked all of the moisture out of them. My mind flashed me a picture of the thousands of crumpled, dried up bodies I had waded through on the floor of Nerul’s cavern chamber and I realized that, as he had done to Abrine’s men, Nille must have fed on their power until he’d drained and killed them all. He’d grown strong as they had died.
Then it occurred to me that Gerch and his men hadn’t moved to stand at our backs as they should have. I feared that we no longer had an army at our backs and I was pretty sure I knew why. Nille had drained them all dry.
But was it possible? And if so, wouldn’t he eventually run out of power to drain? The answer was yes, but the real question was...would we survive until he did?
My vision was starting to waver and fade and I could hear a deafening roar in my ears. My knees felt like rubber and I was having trouble holding my arms up, even with Dialle’s hands under them. I suddenly realized that it was happening to me. Nille was draining me too.
Dialle whispered my name and I knew he’d realized the same thing. We sagged to the ground together, hitting the stone floor with our knees, probably shattering our knee bones with the impact. We were too numb to feel it.
Our power cylinder was beginning to sputter and weaken and I knew we wouldn’t be able to hold Nille off much longer. I faced death for the second time in just minutes and it really pissed me off. There had to be something we could do to stop him from killing us. The angels wouldn’t have sent us there just to die.
Then it hit me. I thought of Rayanne and our magical tug of war in Nerul’s office. I fought through the weariness that was clogging my brain and overruled the thunder in my ears. I had to get Dialle to understand. We had maybe three seconds before we were toast.
Dialle, reverse the power. Draw him in. Remember what you told me? The power of the shadows runs counter to mine. We can’t feed him our power, we have to use the power of the shadows against him.
For a minute I didn’t think he’d heard me. Or hadn’t understood. But finally he inclined his chin in agreement.
Together we reversed our power and Nille, not expecting the reversal, shot toward us. As his full, healthy body slammed into ours I thought he would crush us, but almost instinctively we grabbed for him. Dialle grabbed his left hand and I his right. The power of the shadows used the channel we’d created and flowed through us, into us, around us.
Dialle and I flew off our knees and shot skyward, taking a screaming Nille with us. The power preceded us and carved a hole into the top of the stone room. We shot through the circle, out of the shadows and into a bright, clear sky, where shadows had no chance of surviving.
Almost immediately the celestial army surrounded us. Power infused heat vibrated against our skin and I absorbed it gratefully. Our bodies quickly regenerated, growing strong under the healing waves of power.
Nille’s screams pierced the air as the white power ran through his black soul. He writhed in agony while the goodness burned and tore at his flesh. He tried to pull away but the three of us were forged together by the power. Locked into the channel between the shadows and Heaven, where the very air burns the flesh of evil like acid. Even if we’d wanted to let him go we couldn’t have. Nille’s screams ended abruptly. He diss
olved into sparks and shot away from us toward the heavens. Where I had no doubt he’d be made most unwelcome.
With a joy I thought I’d never feel again I threw back my head and screamed, “To Hades with you fool, for God hath tired of you!”
Then I suddenly found myself wrapped in the strong arms of the long awaited devil Prince, whose existence had been prophesied by both the dark and the light worlds for two thousand years and more and whose blazing blue eyes presently consumed mine with greedy heat as he pulled my body hard against his and pressed his delectable lips against mine. All thoughts of Nille vanished just as he had vanished, into a meaningless puff of smoke, which was quickly consumed and obliterated by the fire Dialle and I began to forge between us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
To Live to Live
When all is said and all is done, our lady still doth live,
And in her arms a fiery embrace, her newfound love doth give.
All I wanted was to go home, turn on all of the lights and take a three hour shower before dropping into bed to sleep for at least a decade. Alas, it was not to be. I needed to check on Emo before I could rest. Something told me there wasn’t much time.
Leaving Dialle to do whatever long-awaited devil princes do, I followed the faithful Gerch, who had somehow managed to escape Nille’s power sucking act, to the room where I’d left my dying partner. At the door Gerch threw me a glance filled with something that looked like pity and stepped to the side, leaving me to face the horror of what lay beyond that door all by myself.
As I entered the room my worst fears were realized. Knowing that our kind, rapture-like, reverted to soul state and went immediately toward those pearly gates when we died, my stomach landed in the soles of my feet when I looked at the empty bed. I moved quickly toward the bed and, kneeling beside it, laid my cheek against the indentation Emo’s body had left behind.
