bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered

by Sam Cheever

  The legless gargoyle landed on its belly several feet away from us and immediately started trying to shimmy along the blood and gore covered ground to get to us.

  Emo took one look at me and said, “Holy shit, Astra. Are you okay?”

  I nodded, “Just finish that thing off will you?”

  He shot the gargoyle in the chest with a jolt of all the power he could muster. It almost died. The huge jaws still snapped at us, the eyes glowing with hate and menace. Emo stalked over and, using his longest knife, sliced the head cleanly from the body. The thing finally stilled and the light left the red eyes.

  Emo helped me stand and we collapsed together onto a nearby bench, panting.

  “That was no ordinary gargoyle,” Emo finally said when he could catch his breath.

  I nodded. “It was being impelled by something. It didn’t even really seem to feel pain.

  Emo touched my face, his warm, slightly rough hand lingering there, “You need to heal that.”

  I nodded, placing my hand over his and gently removing it. “Just let me sit here a minute and breathe.”

  My daemon hickey sparked and Dialle was suddenly there. He glared at my partner before kneeling before me and placing a large, impossibly warm hand on either cheek. Pulsing heat entered my skin and I sighed as a pleasurable tingling replaced the pain of ripped flesh.

  Dialle leaned close and kissed me softly. I knew he was probably just making a show of it, proving to Emo that he had already staked a claim on me but I was too tired and it felt too damn good to complain.

  “Perfect again, my princess.”

  My eyes rolled open lazily and I stared into his black velvet gaze, “Don’t call me that.” Sadly, the words didn’t have as much oomph as I’d hoped.

  Dialle stood, glancing around. “Where are the rest of them?”

  I tried to stand up and my legs screamed at me. It took two tries. “Very funny.”

  Two elegant, black eyebrows lifted in surprise, “Are you serious? One gargoyle did this much damage?”

  I nodded, “Unfortunately. I think the thing was impelled.”

  His head swiveled to take in the numerous dead humans. “It certainly looks that way.”

  Screams broke the silence. I sighed. “Well, maybe it did have friends after all.”

  Dialle smiled at me, “Would you like some help?”

  Emo jammed his long knife back into its sheath and turned away, a scowl on his handsome face. “We don’t need your help to do our jobs, Royal.”

  Dialle’s jaw tightened as Emo stalked in the direction of the screaming. “As you wish, halfling.”

  Both men made the monikers sound like demon mucus.

  I shook my head and started to follow my partner. “Children.”

  Dialle grabbed my arm and pulled me close, capturing my lips with his and wrapping an arm possessively around my waist. Hot, sexually charged breath bathed my face as his soft lips devoured mine. I pulled his scent into my core and welcomed it with a purr of satisfaction. My toes curled and my happy place tingled in anticipation. I placed a hand on each perfect butt cheek and tugged him closer to the place where I needed him most. He groaned against my lips and captured my bottom lip with sharp, white teeth.

  I gasped as a drop of blood escaped from under his gently nibbling teeth. He released the lip and sucked the place where he’d drawn blood.

  I was skewered, cooked and arranged on a platter. Put an apple in my mouth.

  My hand slid inside his shirt and skimmed over the smooth, unnatural heat of his belly.

  I didn’t stop there.

  Pushing my way past the taut waistline of his jeans, I grabbed the hardest, warmest part of him.

  He gasped and captured my ear lobe with his teeth. “What about the gargoyles?”

  I shrugged, lost in a lust induced fog. “Emo can handle them for a couple of minutes. I’ll just be a minute here.”

  He chuckled and slid a hand up under my sweater. His long, talented fingers finding the highest point and pinching gently, nearly bringing me to my knees from pleasure. He was working his way under my thigh length skirt with the other hand when an unearthly scream pierced the air.

  I jerked away from him. “That was Emo.” I wasn’t sure how I knew but I did, with a certainty that came from being part of a long line of magic wielders.

  My partner had just been mortally wounded.

  I ran in the direction Emo had gone, Dialle running lightly behind me.

  I ran around a copse of trees, expecting to see a gargoyle. I certainly didn’t see what I’d expected.

  Emo was on the ground. He wasn’t moving. Standing over him, silhouetted against a roiling, purple sky, with a long, blood coated platinum knife in his hand, was a human male.

  I called out and his head jerked up, distorted by an angry sneer. He raised the knife toward me and growled. Spittle dotted his chin and snot ran freely from his nose.

  I could smell his hate and fear from twenty feet away. “Drop the knife buddy, we’re friends.”

  The sneer deepened, leaving him looking demented. “Magic users aren’t anybody’s friend.”

  I felt Dialle tensing to gather power and jerked my arm out to stop him. Clasping his shirt, I bunched it frantically in one hand. He’s mad. I don’t want to kill him unless we have to.

  I will not let him harm you.

  He won’t hurt me. I’m more worried about Emo. I’m going to try to talk him into giving up the knife and stepping away. If he won’t listen I’ll take care of him.

  Dialle’s husky voice remained silent in my mind for a beat. I knew he was fighting his instincts in order to let me do it my way.

  I’ll let him live as long as he doesn’t try to harm you.

  Agreed.

  “You need to drop the knife and move away from my partner now, bud. He and I came to the park to kill the gargoyle. We did it. We stopped him from killing any more people.”

  The man snorted and looked toward the spot where the dead ’goyle littered the park grounds, “That gargoyle was no better than you and your friends. All magic creatures are evil.”

  I cocked my head. “What makes you think that, friend?”

  His head jerked toward me and spittle shot from his mouth as he shouted, “Don’t call me that!”

  I raised my hands. “You got it. We’re not friends you and I.” He started to fidget and squirm, looking for all the world like he thought bugs were crawling across his filthy skin. I took advantage of his distracted state and stepped closer. “We’re not friends...but I don’t think you want to be enemies with me either. I don’t want to hurt you but I will if you don’t step away from my partner right now so I can help him.”

  The human stopped fidgeting, his gaze directed toward his feet, where Emo lay in a quickly building pool of his own blood. He reached the knife toward Emo and I tensed. But then he turned with an inhuman shriek and flung the knife toward me.

  I flinched as the knife hit a power wall and fell harmlessly to the ground. The rabid human followed his knife, covering the distance in an adrenaline induced leap that was borne of madness. Dialle raised a hand and shot a power arrow at him when he was still airborne.

  “No!” I screamed. But it was too late. The human crumpled to the ground with a smoking hole in his...shoulder? I turned to Dialle, “You didn’t kill him?”

  He smiled, giving a slight bow, “Prince Dialle of the Royal Devil Court at your service, Princess Astra.”

  On a reflex I opened my mouth to tell him not to call me that but I stopped myself and nodded. “Just this once...you can call me that.”

  He laughed.

  Running to Emo, I bent over his frighteningly still form. I turned him over carefully and gasped at the size of the hole in his chest. The knife had entered one side of his heart and the human had ripped upward, nearly severing a chunk of Emo’s heart.

  I looked up at Dialle. “It’s bad. I don’t think I can fix it.”

  Dialle only hesitated a fraction
of a second. Bending down he scooped Emo into his arms, carrying him like he weighed nothing. “Touch my arm, Astra.”

  We shifted and landed in Dialle’s quarters. Gerch waited by the door. Dialle barely gave him a glance as he laid Emo on his bed. “Get Celente, quickly!”

  “Yes, your highness,” Gerch was a big guy but he could move damn fast under orders.

  A moment later a beautiful Royal shimmered into place beside Dialle’s bed. She looked around at me and frowned slightly, then turned to Dialle. “What would you ask of me, My Liege?”

  “Heal this halfling.”

  She nodded and bent over Emo, placing her hands on either side of his gaping wound.

  Dialle took one look at my terrified face and said, “Celente is the Court’s finest healer. She will save the Halfling.”

  I nodded, sighing my relief. “I should call someone about the human. He needs medical and psychiatric help.”

  Dialle nodded and I pulled out my pocket televisual. PC Cheets’ tired face swam into view after several bleeps. “Hey Astra. What’s up?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Cheets. I’m afraid I just had an altercation with a gargoyle and a rabid human in the park.”

  She sighed and scrubbed a hand down her face. “I’ll take care of the gargoyle and report the human to the NMPD. What condition are they in?”

  I grimaced. “The ’goyle is in several pieces I’m afraid. I’ve never seen anything like it, Cheets. The thing wouldn’t die. I think it was impelled.”

  Her tired eyes sharpened, “Why do you say that?”

  I shrugged. “Emo kept hacking parts off it and it didn’t even seem to feel it. It was legless and the torso was still trying to get to me. That’s not normal, gargoyle behavior. They don’t like pain. Usually they’re great big, very ugly babies.”

  She nodded. “I agree.” She sighed, “What about the human?”

  I grimaced again. “He brutally attacked Emo,” Cheets’ eyes widened and color flooded from her face, “Is he okay?”

  I glanced at the bed, where Emo’s condition didn’t seem to have changed but Celente looked like she was beginning to wear down. “I don’t know. The human used a platinum knife and ripped it through Emo’s heart. He’s with the Court healer now. Dialle thinks he’ll be fine.”

  Something of my fear must have been in my eyes. “But you’re not sure?” Cheets asked.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “No. He looks really bad, Cheets. I’m scared for him.”

  Her eyes filled with the compassion that made her a good cop. “Will you keep me posted on how he does, Astra?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, so back to the human?”

  “He’s got a hole in his left shoulder and he’s completely mad. They’ll need a med and a psych squad out there to detain and restrain.”

  She nodded. “Got it.”

  I hung up with Cheets and walked back to the bed. I was relieved to see that Emo’s face had regained some of its color and his wound was considerably smaller.

  Celente looked dead on her feet. I knew from personal experience that healing was very taxing. Finally the last couple of inches of wound closed up and Celente straightened, nearly passing out as she tried to turn away.

  I caught her and led her to a chair. “Sit here. Rest for a moment.”

  The woman’s dark eyes glared at me but she did as instructed, probably too weak to defy me. Though it was clear she wanted to.

  I returned to the bed and verified that Emo would be fine. He sat up and I helped him to his feet.

  “Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.

  He frowned. “I saw a human on the ground, writhing and screaming. I ran over to him and asked him if he was all right.” Emo’s dark eyes were filled with horror. “He attacked me, Astra. The human attacked me.”

  “I know. Cheets will turn him over to the Non-Magic Police Department.”

  Emo didn’t seem to hear me. Staring straight ahead with his eyes slightly unfocused he murmured, “What are we going to do if the humans turn on us? We’ll have another Great War.”

  I shook my head, not sure what to say to him. He was right. If the human race turned against all magic users and dark worlders we would have no choice but to fight back. Our fragile truce would end.

  And so, most likely, would the human race.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A Slight Swimming Incident

  The demon flopped around the pool, a child upon its fang,

  Our heroine did bid him go, then dispersed him with a bang.

  I was sipping coffee in my new apartment and watching the human digital news on my information unit. I’d recently moved to the new place when the aftereffects of fighting off an Agar in my old place became too much for me. No matter how many times I’d cleaned the place I could still smell the aroma of garbage wrapped in electrical charges the Agar had left behind. Plus the thing had really screwed up the electrical works while trying to eat me.

  The human digital news was filled with stories of panic and violence from all sides. Reports of magical creatures attacking humans unprovoked vied with reports of panic in the streets and random attacks on everyone the human public even suspected might be a magic user.

  In the city, not too far from my office, a fairy smothered a young witch with fairy dust and then set her apartment on fire by knocking over her ritual candles.

  The human who’d attacked Emo was interviewed on the news and he admitted to killing several of the people we’d seen strewn about the park grounds. He’d marked them, fairly or unfairly, as magic users and killed them for that reason alone. The news reports named several who were as human as the man who killed them. I shook my head, disgusted by the hate that had turned the man into a monster.

  Uptown, several ghouls walked from the city’s largest cemetery and bit the heads off two people who were jogging past.

  Several other accounts of varying levels of violence against magic users and innocent humans caused my heart to speed up with dread and fear.

  The faces of the reporters had a certain pale twitchiness which told me more than anything else that the city wasn’t all that far from total chaos.

  And things were degenerating rapidly.

  Flick’s prophetic question slid through my mind unbidden. Can you feel it?

  I set my coffee down and reached for my cross. Placing it against my forehead I said his name.

  He popped, sprawled full length, onto my divan. His mousy brown hair was damp at the ends and stringy with sweat, his face looked even paler than usual and there was a certain gray aspect to his lips.

  “Are you okay?”

  He shook his head. “Devil’s Plague.”

  I winced in sympathy. Angels are not human and are therefore not susceptible to any of the human diseases. However, that didn’t mean that they never got sick. There were a few pretty virulent strains of illness that occasionally took hold of the angel population. Devil’s Plague, named thus for obvious reasons, was one of them. “Please tell me it isn’t widespread.” If the guardian angels all took ill the situation on Earth would be vastly worse...as if it weren’t already bad enough.

  Flick shrugged, “Don’t know. I’ve pretty much been tucked into my cloud spewing from both ends for days.”

  “Just awesome,” I muttered, trying not to think about where spewed things went after they left clouds.

  “What do you need, Astra?”

  I glanced at him, measuring my need against his misery. I finally decided he’d just have to deal with the misery. “I need to talk to a prophet.”

  He groaned, “The paperwork alone will kill me.”

  I shrugged, “Sorry, the world is collapsing around us and I need to know what’s going on.”

  He loosed a rare curse. “All right but you’ll owe me big time for this.” He popped off before I could pin him down on a time frame.

  “Jeesh! Cranky much?”

  Something crashed through my window and I
ducked, flinging myself behind the divan. A large rock rolled to within a few inches of my nose and sounds from the street flooded into the room.

  I waited a few beats to make sure more rocks weren’t coming my way and then scuttled over to the breeched window to see what was going on below. Hundreds of people were gathered on the streets below my window. It was a roiling mass of humanity with no apparent objective other than to cause the maximum amount of damage to everything they encountered.

  The crowd was throwing rocks and large pieces of metal through the windows of buildings all along the street. It appeared to be totally random violence. The faces I could see below reminded me of the human in the park who’d attacked Emo. Dark gazes projected unreasonable suspicion and hate.

  My heart thumped against my chest in sudden fear. Something was very wrong. The people in the street had completely lost it. They were out of their minds with anger over something only they understood. I needed to find out what was happening and I had to do it fast.

  As I watched, a woman went down in the midst of the chaos and I could hear her shrill screams as she was brutally trampled. I started for the door, not really sure what I could do but certain I had to do something.

  I grabbed a hooded jacket from beside the door and yanked it on. Pulling the hood up over my head and face, I went out into the hallway, taking the flash lift to street level.

  The double glass doors leading to the street slid open as I approached. Several rioters flew through the newly opened door, heading for the flash. Realizing I couldn’t let them have access to the building, I decided I’d have to use my magic to stop them. I yanked my power forward and created an impenetrable wall in front of the flash.

  Huge mistake.

  As the first couple of rioters pinged off the power wall and crashed onto their backs on the cold, marble floor, several stunned faces turned to look at me. Their hate-filled expressions focused on me with deadly intent.

  If I stayed there I’d have to kill them. But I couldn’t leave them in my building. In their maddened state they’d probably start killing people. I coated myself with a power bubble and headed for the door. Shrieking in rage, the magic haters followed me out of the building.