by Sam Cheever
“Hello, Mother.”
Danika Phelps barely deserved the moniker but still she insisted that I treat her as if she did. “Is that any way to greet your mother?”
She laughed and gathered my stiff body up into a hug that I knew was pure show. She’d never had the maternal feelings one would expect when one carries a life within one’s perfect body for six full months—Tweeners don’t need to cook for quite as long as humans do—and then spews it out through an impossibly small hole at great risk and pain.
Releasing me from the fake hug, she cocked her head and her beautiful oval face crinkled prettily in mock disapproval. “Where are your manners, Astra. Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
The word “No” shot up my throat from my roiling stomach and pounded on the back of my lips, trying to escape. But I clenched my teeth on the thing and opened the door wider, stepping back to let her pass.
“What are you doing here, Mother?”
She ignored my question and walked around my small living space, touching everything with a long elegant hand and passing silent judgment on each and every item.
I followed her into the living area and perched on the very edge of a padded arm of the divan, ready to explode into action if action was needed.
I waited silently for her to tell me why she’d come. It didn’t take long.
“I’ve come to make you an offer.”
My eyebrows peaked in silent question but I continued to wait silently.
She examined the cushions on my divan as if expecting to see poop on them and then gave them a swipe with her hand before she lowered her tight ass carefully down onto them. Then she looked at me and smiled again. “I’m sure you know by now that I’m part of the local coven?”
I nodded.
She stared at me for a long beat as if she expected me to make some comment but I just stared back.
Finally she gave a delicate little laugh and went on. “I’m sure that came as some surprise to you but, as you know, we have witches in our family and the powers and inclination have been passed down through the generations. I felt my calling when I was very young. I recognized the signs of my…um…talents in black magic even as a child in the Royal Court. In those days it was unheard of to practice witchcraft. It was considered a lesser art than royal magic and its practice was discouraged at Court.”
She looked at me but my lips stayed firmly closed.
Smiling a little less fake happily, she stood up and walked to the single window in the room. Staring out at the sky, which had finally cleared and was a bright blue, she continued. “I see the same inclinations in you, Astra.”
She turned back in time to see my eyes widen. Damn! I slammed my facial expression back to neutral and sat on silently.
“I want to bring you into the coven with me and teach you. From what I’ve seen and heard your powers have already grown beyond all expectation and continue to change and stretch. You’ll need help learning how to manage and use them.”
“For black magic?” My voice told her clearly what I thought of that idea.
Her fake emotion this time was sadness. “Witchcraft has both dark and light magic, Astra. You can practice any way you wish. I only want to help you.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Pretending my response hadn’t been dripping with sarcasm, she gave me a fake bright smile. “We’ll have so much fun together, darling. I’ve missed you over the last few months…”
“Years.”
She shrugged. Months, years, what was the difference?
I had absolutely no inclination to join my mother’s coven but I decided it made more sense at that moment to leave the option open until I could try to wrangle some information out of her.
“Before I would consider joining you I would need some information.”
She opened her arms and smiled at me as if she were an open book.
Right.
I transferred my butt to the divan in an attempt to seem more relaxed. I figured she’d be more willing to spill if she thought she was succeeding in drawing me in. “First I want to know what you’re up to with the king.”
She gave me fake shock on that one.
“The king? Astra I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“I felt your magic signature in the room he disappeared from. As well as Father’s. Prince Dialle almost killed me because he thought I was working with you.” Okay that was a slight exaggeration but it served my purposes for the moment.
This brought on fake thoughtfulness as she turned away to stare out my streaky window again and a little bit of fake reluctance. Finally she looked at me and said, “Okay, it’s true, we kidnapped the king. I just wanted to try to talk some sense into him. The witches are an important component of the council and he refuses to give us our due.”
“So you’re working to turn the demons against him?”
I think the surprise this time might have been real but who the hell knows?
“I needed a bargaining chip.”
I nodded as if I fully understood this reasoning. Actually I did but that didn’t mean I agreed with it. “So what’s next? What are you gonna do with him? Kill him?”
She laughed her tinkle-toned fake laugh that meant I’d struck a nerve and pissed her off.
I liked that laugh.
“Don’t be silly, Astra. Do you really think I’m capable of that?”
Rather than respond to that question, which I figured was rhetorical since we both knew she certainly was capable of that, I hit her in her soft spot again. “Who’s giving you all the power you’ve been exhibiting lately? A coven of witches shouldn’t be able to bespell devil princes and kidnap devil kings.”
“You underestimate our power, Astra.”
“Does that mean you’re denying you have a powerful ally, possibly from the celestial ranks?”
“Only your father of course.”
I knew full well that my father would have no part in bespelling me into having sex with Dialle to destroy the royals. “Who else?”
She spread her hands with her most outrageous fake ever, innocence. “Who else is there, Astra? Are you trying to tell me there are dark angels running around?” Deep beneath the fake innocence a sly spark lit her beautiful dark eyes.
“No.” I told her. “That would be crazy wouldn’t it, Mother?”
* * * * *
I was dreading what I needed to do. As I dressed all in black and prepared to follow my father around without him knowing it, my mind roiled in an effort to find another way. I wasn’t entirely sure why my stomach was in knots and my hands were shaking when I pulled my boot up to just under my knee and yanked my pant leg down over it. Maybe on some level I was afraid I’d see him do something I couldn’t excuse.
For all my disgust at Enoch because he didn’t have faith in his lifelong friend, there was a tiny voice whispering in my head that what I was about to do would be dangerous, in more ways than one.
Sighing, I wiped my sweaty palms down my slim, black slacks and went to my weapons stash. I pulled the picture to the side, placed my pinkie over the wall enclosure and waited as it slid quietly open. I selected a long knife to slide into each boot and hesitated. I didn’t think my current job would require my belt of crosses or my vial of angel’s blood. So I slapped my pinkie over the reader again to close the hidey hole and headed for the door.
I went to the Phelps fortress first and dropped the Viper where Emo and I had left it the last time we were there. A light shone from a window on the topmost floor. I knew it was my father’s sitting room, part of his suite of rooms.
I closed my eyes and visualized the living area on the main floor, praying for help as I felt myself enter the sphere without time or space. To my immense relief I returned to awareness exactly where I’d visualized. “No body parts in the furniture…hmmm…I’m improving,” I murmured around a grin.
Then
the reason for my stealthy visit returned to me and my grin faded. I moved as silently as I could toward the stairs and climbed them with sweaty palms and a heavy heart. I could hear movement and voices in my father’s rooms.
I reached the top of the stairs and scurried toward the large wardrobe in the darkened hallway. As I’d done when I’d been a child, I climbed inside the wardrobe and pulled the doors closed. Through the small crack I’d left in the doors, I could see most of my father’s sitting room.
A brisk fire burned in the fireplace directly in front of the doors. The voices came from the only non-visible area of the room, of course. I frowned as I realized who the voices belonged to.
I heard their laughter before I cast eyes on them. My father and mother walked into view holding glasses of something and sat down on the couch, close together. I watched in horror as my father placed his arm around my mother’s shoulders and gave her a soft kiss on the lips.
She placed a hand on his face and they smiled at each other for a minute.
My heart almost stopped beating in dread. This could not be good.
“So how did it go with Astra?” my father asked her.
She shrugged. “As well as can be expected. She’s stubborn like her father.” They shared a laugh at that.
I didn’t find it all that funny.
“Will she join us?”
Us?
My mother shrugged. “In time I think. She doesn’t agree with our methods I’m afraid. But once it’s all said and done I think we can win her over. She would be a great asset to us.”
My father nodded his pale head and turned toward the fire. They sipped their wine in companionable silence and watched the fire crackle.
I felt a tear rolling down my cheek and realized the doubt had crept back in. Surely this was all an act to gain her trust.
“We’ll have to kill the king soon.” His voice was sad but resolute.
She nodded. “I agree. I think he’s served his purpose. The demons have done everything we’d hoped they’d do. Now when the new king steps in and vows to make amends everyone will look upon the dark world council as benevolent and good.”
He nodded and sipped.
She cocked her head at him. “Will you like being king?”
I almost choked. I suddenly felt as if I would suffocate. The cramped space inside the wardrobe had seemed cavernous when I’d been small but now it closed in on me, making it hard to breathe. My heart was beating at a painful rate and it was pounding so hard against my chest I was sure it would give me away.
More importantly I didn’t want to hear any more. I had to get the Hades out of there. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the beach where the Viper hovered on silent jets of air. Tears dried on my cheeks as I shimmered there.
As my feet hit the sand my knees buckled and I sat hard on the wet, dirty sand. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be true. My father wouldn’t let her pull him that far down. Would he?
I knew she had a strange kind of power over him. Always had. But he was stronger now and he believed in the divine goal. Didn’t he?
I sat staring at the river’s rage for a long time. After the tears were done I felt numb. Sometime during that period of numbness I realized what I had to do.
I stood up and brushed wet sand off my butt then climbed into the Viper. I needed to find the king and stop them from killing him. To do that I would need help.
I headed for Emo’s place, calling Dialle along the way.
* * * * *
“We already searched the fortress.” Emo looked at me like he thought I’d lost my mind.
“I know but I saw him there in my vision.”
Dialle had been suspiciously quiet. “Is it possible the vision was created to confuse you?”
I frowned at him. That certainly hadn’t occurred to me before. “I guess it’s possible. Everything else is so frunkin’ strange why the hell not?”
“Then where do we start?” Emo seemed as frustrated as I was.
We sat and thought about it for a bit.
Suddenly Dialle stiffened and appeared to be listening to something only he could hear. Then he jumped up. “The demons are attacking the Royal Court.” Then he disappeared.
Emo and I looked at each other and he said, “This just gets weirder by the minute. It’s definitely the world according to Astra.”
“Har. Shall we go help?”
He shrugged, “Why not.” Then he grabbed my hand and we were off.
We landed in Prince Dialle’s quarters. He wasn’t there and neither was anyone else. Sounds of fighting could be heard not too far away.
We opened the door into the hallway and had to slam it again as a gargoyle flew toward us. The thing hit the closed door with a solid splat and slid down. Emo cracked the door again and we peered through. Not ten feet away several lesser devils were fighting it out brute strength style against several demons and their ’goyles. The lesser devils don’t have much in the way of powers, they basically just pound on anything that gets in their way.
We looked down at the floor and the ’goyle blinked as if it was coming around. I pointed a finger at it and zapped it with a strong enough current to blow a fist-sized hole in its chest. The thing jerked a couple of times, its evil gold eyes flew open once and then it collapsed onto the floor and bled all over the tiles. “To Hades with you fool for God hath tired of you,” I murmured.
Then I grinned at Emo and blew on my finger.
He laughed. “Way to kick ass, boss. ’Course he was already half dead.”
I glared at him.
We slid out of Dialle’s quarters and blasted the gargoyles closest to us. We hit them so hard and so fast they didn’t even have a chance to growl at us. The twin blasts launched them into the air and they smacked into each other. Then, as gargoyles will, they tore into each other with six-inch-long, curved claws and gore-coated teeth as they hit the ground.
We left them to finish each other off and blasted two more as they lunged at us. I got mine right between its beady eyes and it dropped like a stone on my boots.
“Shit!”
Emo swung around, ready to help me kill something. “What?” he said when he saw nothing trying to eat me.
I dragged a boot out from under the dead ’goyle. “It bled on my boots.”
Emo rolled his eyes. Then his gaze jerked upward and he whipped the long knives from his boots. I looked up from wiping green gargoyle goo off my left boot and saw Emo coming at me with the deadly looking knives.
“Duck!” Emo yelled and I complied, just as a lesser devil leaped toward my back. Emo quickly dispatched the slow, dimwitted creature. “Damn things, can’t even tell we’re on their side.” He wiped the knives on his pants and slid them back into his boots.
Sounds of heavier fighting came to us from the direction of the council room where I’d first been introduced to the ways of the Royal Court. I finished wiping my other boot and said, “Let’s go.”
We headed toward the main event.
When we entered the room it didn’t look anything like I remembered it. The long half arc of a council table had been smashed in several places and was being used, mostly by the demons, as blockades against the jolts of power the devils were putting out. Apparently this was the room where most of the royals had chosen to take a stand.
I didn’t see too many low level devils of the type fighting in the hallways. Those were easily discernible by their squat red bodies, complete with scales and horns. Many of them were not only ugly but they were also extremely stupid.
The hierarchy went upward in looks and intelligence from there. Until you got to the royals, who were as beautiful as they were dangerous. And no one would accuse them of lacking intelligence.
I looked for my Dialle and saw him across the room, engaged in a fearsome battle with the superdemon I thought we’d killed a couple of times. I nudged Emo and he followed my gaze. “Hades! I thought we killed that guy.”
“At least twice,” I adde
d.
Emo frowned and said, “You know, I think I remember from my demon studies that there’s a race of demons with several lives. They’re considered basically immortal because they have so many lives. That’s where the human wives’ tale about cats having nine lives comes from.”
I nodded. “Well this one is on at least his third life. Let’s hope he only has one more left.”
We pulled our knives out and skirted the room to get to Dialle. A knife in each hand, we fought the old-fashioned way rather than risk blasting the wrong critter in the crowded room.
A normal, ugly type demon with oily black skin and a warty face grabbed my shoulder as we neared Dialle and I spun too quickly for him to react, slamming my first knife into his thick-skinned gut and then slicing my other knife across his dense throat as he collapsed over the first wound. He went down with a thud, nearly landing on my boots again. I yanked them out of the way just in time. “Hades! Is there a frunkin’ sign on these that says ‘Land here’?”
Emo screamed my name and I turned just in time to meet another demon, this one the type with the supra demons all over its head. For a single beat in time we sized each other up. It didn’t take him all that long to size me up, since my head wasn’t all that far above my feet but I felt like I was eying a skyscraper up and down as my gaze took the demon’s measure. If this thing had been a tree it would have been an ancient redwood. Gulping silently, I swiped at the wormy headed thing with my knife but it managed to swing its upper body wide of my knife at the last second and take only a deep scoring across one leathery arm. Making sure I stayed clear of Emo’s wildly swinging knives, I sprang backward onto my hands and landed on my feet several feet from the demon, immediately launching myself back onto my hands and springing right back toward him. My feet landed in the middle of the thing’s ugly face and his snake-covered head snapped back but he didn’t go down like I’d hoped.
Instead he grabbed both of my ankles in one enormous paw and pulled me into the air upside down. I hung there, swinging wildly with my knives, as his upside down face peered at me.
Okay, so he wasn’t the one that was upside down but work with me here. From my perspective he was.
