by Sam Cheever
“Childish antics will not get you out of this cage, King Dialle,” Raoul said with as much dignity as he could pull back around himself. “But I can if you’ll stop being difficult.”
Dialle the First chuckled meanly. “You? A mere witch? And a human one at that? I think not.”
Ignoring the cranky twitterfly in the cage my father turned to Raoul. “Do you know how to break it, young man?”
Raoul shook his head. “Not break it no. But I know how to open it.” He glanced at me before returning his earnest gaze to my father. “It has a seam.”
“I couldn’t find one,” I piped in.
Myra shook her blonde head. “There is no seam, human. I’ve searched carefully.”
Raoul turned to Myra, ignoring me. “You wouldn’t see it because you are of the light, Archangel Myra. It’s visible only through dark magic. And only then if you have some idea of the magical components in it.”
“But I have dark magic, Raoul and I can’t see it,” I argued.
He nodded without looking at me. He’d begun to run his hands over the entire surface of the cage, murmuring something that sounded like an incantation. “Your mother placed a special protection on the lock so you couldn’t see it, Astra. She knows of your relationship with Dialle the Second.”
As if on cue my Dialle popped into the room.
He strode toward us a bit arrogantly. Looking at his father he chuckled. “I see you’ve managed to make your life even more of a living hell.”
Dialle the father scowled at him. “Stop jabbering boy and get this thing open.”
My Dialle looked at me and his gaze grew heated. I cleared my throat and swung my eyes meaningfully toward my father. He grinned mischievously so I shuffled his mental drawers and said, Redeep.
He frowned. How long will you hold that over my head, Astra?
I grinned back. Until I find something better, Dialle.
He stared hard at me for a beat but then his lips twitched. Remind me to kiss your ass later, Astra.
My grin widened. Don’t you mean kick my ass?
He winked at me. No. I said exactly what I mean, Tweener.
I forced the grin off my face and gave my Dialle the highlights of the situation. He nodded and looked at Raoul. “Can you release my father, human?”
Raoul’s gaze when it slid to Prince Dialle was not friendly. I couldn’t help remembering the animosity he’d shown toward my Dialle when we’d been discussing the demon’s first victim that day in the church. When he’d seemed determined to blame the royals for the murders. I wondered what was going on between them and made a mental note to find out later.
“I can.” Then he turned back to the cage and resumed his searching and quiet chanting. Finally he stopped and placed his hands over a specific area. His chanting grew louder and I could feel the distinct tang of black magic rising in the air.
Gooseflesh pebbled my arms and I rubbed at it.
I noticed the angels stepped back from the rising black tide. When confronted with black magic it was an angel’s duty and inclination to remove it. They were no doubt fighting that inclination mightily.
I watched Raoul’s hands carefully. Very slowly something started to appear beneath them. After about a half hour of solid chanting, the lock to the cage was finally visible.
Raoul stepped away, clearly drained.
I walked to the lock and reached for it.
Raoul grabbed my hand. “No!”
I looked at him in surprise.
“You must not touch it. It needs to be deactivated first.”
My father stepped forward. “How?”
Raoul looked at him. “That’s why I need you and Archangel Myra. We need really powerful light magic to counter the dark magic Prince Dialle and I will be adding to the mix.”
I frowned. “What about me?”
Raoul and my Dialle both said, “You stand back.”
I almost stamped my foot. “Excuse me?”
Raoul expelled a breath and took my hands, though I almost snatched them away because I was seriously pissed off at the idea that they were trying to exclude me.
“Look, Astra. Every time I use dark magic it leaves a stain on my soul. It’s why I’m such a mess right now. I’ve had to use a lot of dark magic over the last few weeks and I’m feeling the effects. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
Myra, damn her soul, chimed in, “He’s right, child. Your soul doesn’t need to get any blacker.”
My Dialle snorted and I glared at him. “I don’t care. I’m doing this.”
Prince Dialle’s eyes met my father’s and I knew what they were going to do but I couldn’t move fast enough to stop it.
My father waved a hand toward me and I was suddenly encased in a hard bubble of air, clear across the room. I commenced to pounding on the clear bubble and sharing my vast knowledge of unacceptable language with everyone in the room.
My father glared at me like a father and shook his head at my language. But then he turned his back and ignored me. I wound down after a few minutes of being ignored and stamped my foot. It didn’t help but I did it again anyway.
Damned fools.
My mental drawers suddenly shuffled and Emo’s voice greeted me. Hey, boss. Where are you? I’ve been looking all over for you.
I’m at Castle Gregg. We’re trying to release the king.
That’s good because all Hades is breakin’ out here.
I frowned, momentarily distracted from the fact that I was being excluded from the goings on across the room. What’s up?
I’ll tell you when I get there. You on the main floor?
Dungeon.
A heartbeat later Emo popped into the room. He stood looking at the gathering around King Dialle for a moment and then, looking confused, cast his eyes around the room. He didn’t even try to hide his start of surprise when he saw little ole me, encased in a power bubble across the room.
All by myself.
To his credit he did quickly squash the smirk that tried to climb onto his face.
Almost before I saw it.
I bristled as he sauntered over to me.
“Don’t say it!” I glared at him.
He drew a zipper across his lips and then grinned at me. “Always on the outside looking in aren’t you, Astra?”
I scowled in a very unattractive way. “Bite me. Get over there and find out what they’re doing and then come back and tell me.”
He saluted cockily and sauntered back across the room.
I tried not to notice the way his jeans molded over a very round and muscular backside as he went.
I really did.
I mean…it’s not like I had anything else to do in that damned bubble.
He joined the circle and received a pat on the back from my father. Then he bent his dark head as they continued planning. Whatever it was they were going to do seemed complex because there was much discussion and head shaking going on.
The only bright spot to the whole damnable situation was the way it was truly and thoroughly pissing off the king to have to stand there in his cage and wait patiently.
Finally there was sustained and uniform head bobbing and they broke up to circle the cage.
Emo started to turn away and walk back toward me but Myra grabbed his hand and yanked him around to the back of the cage. He cast a glance at me over his shoulder and shrugged.
“Son of a flaming gargoyle bitch!” I screamed into the room at large.
“What about his soul? Doesn’t anybody care about that?”
Other than a brief, guilty glance from Emo, nobody paid any attention to the pissed off little Tweener with the long auburn hair which was currently, I was fairly certain, standing straight up in the air like the needles on an agitated porcupine.
I could only watch helplessly as the group extended their respective arms so that their fingers just touched in a circle around the cage. Raoul began to chant and, even through my bubble, I could feel the air beginning to change
.
Black magic pulsed and throbbed around me, bringing my devil out in a big way even from across the room.
I watched as the air inside the flesh and blood circle started to thicken and grow substance and light. Pinpricks of color and flashes of light pulsed in time to Raoul’s chanting and wrapped the clear cage in a pulsing layer of power.
Inside the cage King Dialle was visibly affected. His eyes were closed and his head thrown back to rest against the clear wall of the cage behind him. He’d placed his hands flat against the cage and I could see the fingers twitching as if they wanted to caress and fondle something.
My gaze ran around the circle and saw that Dialle and Emo were having the same reaction. But my father and Myra looked as if they’d lost ten years of their lives. Their faces were gray and pinched, as if they were in severe pain.
I figured they probably were.
I suddenly realized that they were seriously outnumbered. Yes, Emo had light magic in him but he also had dark. Raoul was using pure black magic to close and ignite the circle of power and Dialle was pure black.
I sent my sensing power out and was surprised to find it could move beyond the power bubble. I concentrated on assessing the circle of power and saw that it was a dark, pewter-like gray.
It needed to be much lighter if they were going to achieve the perfect mix that would open the lock. Not to mention that it was killing the angels in the circle.
When Myra’s knees started to buckle I cried out and my hands flew to the power bubble in frustration. I had to get out of there somehow. Something wasn’t right.
Drawing all of my reserves of power I concentrated it into a pinpoint area and drilled it into the bubble, I focused on that pinpoint spot for several minutes.
Nothing happened. The bubble didn’t weaken even the tiniest little bit.
I gave up and leaned back against the bubble panting. My mind worked frantically for a solution. Finally, in desperation I shuffled my mental drawers and called Dialle.
Dialle, the black magic is too strong, pull back your power. Now!
In response I got the telepathic equivalent of static and forced myself not to make snide comparisons to dead air space and Dialle’s mind. But after a few beats he said in a fairly strained voice in my head, I’ll try.
He pulled his power back and the effect was nearly instantaneous. Raoul dropped to his knees and Emo doubled over at the waist. My sensing power showed me a power circle that was way too light, nearly white.
Dialle, rejoin the circle, hurry!
Make up your damn mind, Astra!
Why was everybody always saying that to me?
He threw his power back into the circle and the Angels looked like they’d taken a jolt. Myra wavered on her feet.
Plan B, I screamed to Dialle in my mind. I’m going to try to add some light magic to the circle through you. I briefly considered the effect it might have on him to be a conduit for my light magic but I didn’t have any choice. Myra had dropped to her knees and my father looked decidedly wobbly.
This could get ugly. I told him.
Just do what you need to do.
All righty then.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on my link with Dialle. I knew I’d tapped into it when the daemon hickey on my neck started to throb.
I pulled my power forward and channeled it through the open connection. I opened my eyes to see the effect and knew it had hit the circle when I saw Myra jerk and then look at my father. His eyes widened and his gaze flew to me.
Myra stood up and followed his gaze. I expected her to glare at me but she gave me a slow smile instead.
I was so shocked I almost lost my concentration.
The circle had grown a bit too light so I pulled back a little until it was the right mix of dark and light.
I knew I’d hit it just right when a small explosion on the clear prison announced that the lock had finally been breached. With the lock no longer active, the king’s prison dissolved into mist around him.
Raoul stopped chanting immediately and everyone in the circle stepped back, their heads drooping in complete exhaustion.
My bubble disappeared with a pop.
I strode toward the exhausted group a little cockily. I fought to keep the grin off my face because I like to believe I’m not that much of a jerk.
Pretty darn close though. It was all I could do not to remind them that the weak little Tweener they’d thought wasn’t man enough to help out had saved their sorry asses in the end.
Okay, this might be one of those less stellar moments in my life the Big Guy had been talking about.
Sigh.
I reached down into my vast stores of maturity and managed to pull myself together enough to ask if everybody was okay.
Everyone except Raoul nodded. I peered carefully at him and decided the experience hadn’t improved his sickly appearance at all. In fact he looked decidedly worse.
“You okay, Raoul?”
His head, which had nearly been resting on his chest, slowly lifted and he fixed pain-filled brown eyes on me. His face was literally gray and he looked like he’d aged twenty years since he’d come to Castle Gregg. His lips twitched as if he was trying hard to give me a smile but he couldn’t pull it off.
“I need to go,” he said in a raspy voice.
Myra reached a hand toward him but he jerked away. “No more magic. I need to go the old-fashioned way.”
I opened my mouth to argue that he was in no condition to leave on his own but he was already striding toward the door. Moving much more quickly than I thought he should be capable of.
I started to follow him but my father stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Leave him be. He has poisoned himself with dark magic. He must deal with it on his own.”
My stomach felt as if it were filled with lead. What had I done to my friend? He’d gotten involved in this mess because of me. Because I’d asked him to. It was all my fault that he was sick.
As if reading my mind my father gave my arm a squeeze. “We all make our own choices, Astra. This was his cross to bear. Your involvement didn’t change his fate.”
Emo approached my father. “Sir, the demons are whispering about a coup your wife is planning. If it’s true it would be world-shattering. We need to take steps to stop her if we can.”
My eyes flew to my partner. “You mean about her planning to chain Enoch?”
Myra gasped and my father jerked as if he’d been jolted. “Absurd!”
I shook my head. “Raoul went deep undercover in the coven and discovered her plans. That’s why he came here with us today. He knew we’d need the king and the Royal Court behind us to defeat Mother and Enoch’s dark army.”
My father looked as if he’d been struck. “It’s not possible. How can she think she’ll succeed?” He took a step back and for a moment I thought he would fall. I reached out a hand but he shook himself and his eyes focused on Myra. “This will seal her fate, sister. I cannot save her from this.”
Myra’s eyes shimmered with tears for my father’s pain. She nodded and reached for his hand. “If it’s true.”
Emo nodded. “I believe that it is, Archangel Myra. The demons are in a state of great excitement because they believe they’ll rule the dark world under Danika. They will be allowed to have their own Court. In fact,” he glanced at me, “that’s why I was looking for Astra, apparently Alcott is so giddy he’s lost his mind. Some of the demons have gone out into public and are showing their true faces. Humans are panicking and some have been hurt. I came to get Astra. We need to go kick some demon ass.” He grinned at me and then it seemed to sink in who he was speaking to and I watched the color leach from his face. “Umm, sorry sir, ma’am, it’s just an expression.”
I snorted, “A very accurate one.”
My father looked at Myra and said, “You must go to Him and tell Him what transpires.”
Myra frowned. “And what of you?”
“I must find Enoch and try to speak rea
son to him.”
I could tell she didn’t like that but she finally nodded and turned to me. “Go, child, deal with the demons who torment the humans. But watch your back. I’ll be busy elsewhere and won’t be able to save your butt if you get it into a fling.”
I laughed, “You mean sling?”
“Whatever.” She frowned at me and disappeared with a pop.
My father leaned down to kiss my cheek. “Go with His love and protection, Astra.”
“Blessed be, Father.”
And he was gone too.
I turned around and realized for the first time that Dialle the First and Second had disappeared too. Apparently they were anxious to get their own house in order.
Emo touched my arm. “The demons have returned to the Court. The king and Dialle were needed there.”
I nodded and looked into my partner’s beautiful black eyes. “I guess it’s just you and me then, partner. Care to kick some demon ass?”
He favored me with a slow, sensual smile that made me tingly in all the right—I mean wrong—places. “I’m always ready, boss.”
He offered me a hand and I reached toward it. “Let’s party.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Time to Shop
The demon sauntered down the aisle, selecting carefully,
His purchases were made of flesh and screamed quite frantically.
We landed in the Sky Mall, in the middle of complete chaos.
Clothing and shoes and various items of human beauty were strewn around the floor, spilling from dropped bags and hanging from toppled racks that had been ripped off walls and dragged out of stores into the middle of the mall.
The sound of screaming pinged off my ears and bounced around the mall, changing volume and octave as it came to us from several different directions.
As we stood among the mess, taking in the pandemonium, we didn’t know where to start.
A woman came shrieking out of a nearby store, half dressed and falling over her jeans, which were halfway down her legs as if she’d been trying to pull them on or off before she was rousted out by the maggoty demon that was hot on her trail.
