by L. A. Banks
“Good. Then get up off this nasty, slimy shit, and be a man,” Carlos said, pure disgust entering him. He snapped his fingers and the wetlands dried into desert region. Immediately, huge black serpentine Amanthras rushed forward, gasping.
“Your Excellency,” the presiding member of the Amanthra Congress croaked. “We beseech you—we cannot survive without the liquid slurry of dark dreams and fetid desires.”
Carlos watched the body of the huge serpent begin to decay without emotion. Once-gleaming black scales withered and began to peel off the beast, dripping yellow and green acidic blood to the dry ground, as they fell like singed roofing tiles to the hot sand. The gills behind its Volkswagen-size, serpentine head struggled open and then shut in shuddering gasps of agony. Smaller serpents squealed and writhed closer to their leader, until a knot of smoldering demon flesh began to melt in one putrid heap.
“Yo holmes,” Carlos said smiling at his messenger. “Ain’t these the guys that sided with Fallon Nuit against me and my lady?”
“Yeth, thirrrr,” the messenger lisped, his eyes glowing red within his faceless hood. “Traitors.”
The huge Amanthra banged its head against the hot sand, and Carlos watched the sand heat go from a low blue glow, to red, to white hot.
“Please …,” it croaked, a viper fang dropping off and torching on impact as it hit the sand.
“Turn off the water on Levels Three and Four,” Carlos ordered. “Send the wetlands to the fucking ghosts gangs—and let’s see how they like their new decor on Levels One and Two. Fuck the terror cells, too. No more dry boulders and canyons for those motherfuckers to hide in. Let the succubae and incubi drown in their own bullshit. Vamanos.”
Long agonized wails of pleas and shouts followed him. The word nooooooo still echoed in Carlos’s ears as he materialized not far from where his Jeep had been wrecked.
The messenger bowed. “Your instructions will be adhered to with all the resources of our realm, sir.”
“Cool,” Carlos said, walking away. “Kill the sulfur and take your raggedy ass back from whence it came. Don’t come up here unless I call you.”
“Sir, your wish is my command. However, do you need protective escort?” The messenger seemed frightened and confused as it stared at Carlos. It began to amass a dark cloud around itself as a precaution in case Carlos’s temper flared at the question. “Someone of your stature could be a direct assassination target by the dreaded Light,” the entity added in an apologetic, shaky voice.
Carlos hesitated, and held up his hand, making his courier forestall his departure. The two stared at each other. The courier lowered his gaze and waited for instructions. Carlos wasn’t angry, just concerned. In truth, he’d never considered that aspect of risk. But then he brushed aside his doubts.
He wasn’t worried about the other demon realms, visiting them had told him all he needed to know. They had been sufficiently punked down. Anyway, the Light had sent him back down there to get the book. This was their mission, so why would they smoke him? The book was missing, and like before, he’d come back stronger and with critical information—plus he’d really fucked up the realms as a show of good faith. They knew the deal. Power was worthless unless one used it, and power always demanded that it be used. He could handle this shit, just like he’d handled everything else before.
True, he’d taken an accidental tumble in the chair he wasn’t supposed to sit in, and had gotten a little blood in his mouth, but he also found out the semi-accurate location of the book. So, it was all good. It had to be. If it was topside, with all this new power at his disposal, he could get to it in no time—so what would be the problem?
Carlos yanked on his suit lapels to straighten them and lifted his chin, smoothing his collarless black silk shirt with a cool palm. “Naw, man,” he finally said. “I always roll solo, and I don’t need no witnesses to the throw down I’m about to lay on my woman.”
The entity smiled as a sulfuric plume swirled at the hem of its robe. It cut into the earth with its scythe, creating a ragged fissure that belched black smoke. “As you command, sir. Always as you command.”
The Chairman looked out over the pristine, deserted beach that sprawled beyond him like a crystalline white carpet beneath the moon. He’d always loved the Mediterranean, and had forgotten how majestic it was. A clandestine meeting with her, here? He’d already been seduced by her voice from the moment she called.
If she would agree to meet him here like this, alone and unarmed, her potential for getting whatever she wished to extract from him was excellent—even if she didn’t need to know that.
He’d worn Greek gladiator armor for her, to suit the occasion. Had she any idea of what she did to him just from a call? He smiled and tried to stem the roiling anticipation that waiting for her produced. He just hoped that the diversions he’d thrown in the searchers’ paths would keep his father off his trail at least for the night. But when he didn’t immediately see her, it began to occur to him that his father’s powers could have produced her call.
Panic swiftly set in. Topside pressures and atmospheric distortions had possibly eroded some of his keen perceptions. He should have known….
“It’s been a long time, Dante,” a low, gentle female voice said.
He watched her melt away from a palm, shimmering like the dark waters of the sea. It had been so long since she’d allowed him to even glimpse her that his mouth went dry.
As she turned to face him, her gleaming silver, heart-shaped Sankofa tattoo at the base of her spine became a beacon. His eyes followed the low ruby cut of her backless gown, drinking in her voluptuous body.
“Eve,” he murmured as she slowly approached.
“Dante,” she quietly replied. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me like this.”
He nodded. “When you called … how could I deny you?” He opened his arms for her, hoping she’d fill them. “I’ve missed you so.”
She stepped forward a bit, but not close enough for him to embrace her. “I was a young girl, and you took advantage of me that way before.”
He smiled and slowly lowered his arms, disappointed. “I was a young man, rash and impetuous, passionate. Yes, I took advantage of you, my love, but that doesn’t mean my emotions were fraudulent.”
She nodded and sighed sadly, and then flipped her long Egyptian braids over her shoulders. “I know, but—”
“Tell me, my still-gorgeous Neteru, do you ever think of that time we shared in true paradise?”
“I try to focus on the present, Dante. It’s best that way.”
He neared her and cupped her cheek. When she didn’t flinch away, he closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve missed you so, Eve. Level-Six banishment wasn’t Hell. Being without you was.”
Her hand covered his. “Then I suppose we both experienced our own brand of said same.”
Her admission lowered his head to her neck and created a shudder that they both quietly shared. But she covered her jugular with her graceful hand.
“We need to talk about my younger sister Neteru.”
“After so many years, might a lengthy discussion wait until near dawn?” he asked, breathing the question.
She smiled as his fangs crested and she stroked his dark, curly hair away from his face. “You came to me as Achilles,” she murmured.
“You have caught the irony of this choice, yes?”
“It was very, very sweet of you to do that,” she said in a soft, breathy whisper.
“You were always my weakness from the moment I laid eyes on you … you know that. Invincible to all but you.”
She smiled and he traced her mouth with the trembling pass of his thumb.
“At least I can still make you smile, even if I can’t bend your will to commit to me. I’ll settle for that much right now.” He studied her face, his thumb etching a distant memory into it. “When I look at you, I think of our son. How is he?”
“Well,” she whispered, her gaze becoming pained. “Still rese
ntful of his banishment sentence, but he seems resigned to serve it without incident.”
The Chairman nodded. “He gets that from my side. The ability to endure until opportunity knocks. But I still think it was harsh to imprison a being with such potential and passion for life into a realm practically devoid of sensory—”
“Cain killed his brother.” She looked at him hard, stepped back from him, and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Don’t ever forget that, Abel may have been Adam’s progeny, but he was still my child … one who, like Cain, I loved with my complete heart and soul, Dante. Do not minimize what Cain did.”
He neared her and delicately collected her into his arms and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry. I know you were always torn…. This is why I didn’t want to belabor a conversation laden with guilt and pain when there are so many other pleasurable things we could do tonight. Let me make it up to you now.”
She shook her head no.
He sighed and loosened his hold on her. “Yes. I forgot. How is Adam? Still coruling the male Neteru round table with Ausar and wielding an iron fist, or has he mellowed, like me, with age?” Jealousy swept through him as he stared at Eve. “I’m surprised he was secure enough to even allow this visit. What has changed?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
Her statement riddled him with desire adrenaline. “You came to me on your own, unsanctioned? Again … like old times?” He was barely breathing as he stared into her dark, exquisitely beautiful brown eyes. “I promise you,” he whispered through fangs, “I’ve learned so much more over the centuries, your transgression will not be in vain.”
“Aset sanctioned it. My queen sisters know I’m here, but what stays at our oval table remains between us.”
Her admission stabbed him. For just a fleeting moment he thought that she’d finally come to resume what had been torn asunder. There was no way for him to mask the disappointment. “Then I take it you are here on a mission, rather than for a tryst.”
“Dante, please. This involves your realm as much as it does mine.”
She had his attention. He wondered how much she truly knew of his Level-Six banishment.
“Lilith burned you,” Eve said, placing her hand in the center of his chest. Then her hand went to his jaw as his once-brown eyes began to flicker red then black. “As long as you remained on your throne and the portals were closed, our respective sides kept a margin of order.”
He captured her hand, kissed the back of it hard, and walked away. “That is what I always so loved about you, Eve. You were always the epitome of diplomacy. A gorgeous, fair, sensual diplomat that could always understand both sides of the equation and appreciate the delicate nature of things. But that bitch, Lilith—”
“I know,” Eve said carefully. “However, our young Neterus were too emotionally traumatized to act quickly enough to behead her. It was their child. In Lilith’s sloppy departure she left the gates opened from her previous scheme. Initially, the dark Realm’s food sources, the Damned, began to escape sporadically. Now all original demons from those realms are currently flooding topside, like lemmings fleeing from something chasing them underground. But no order has yet been given to commence outright war. I came to you to understand why you would destroy your own human soul supply, and would allow your own armies to be turned to ash, if—”
“It wasn’t me,” he said flatly. He kept his gaze on the ocean. “You might as well know that my throne has been turned to rubble for assisting Lilith. I cannot return subterranean, even if I wanted to. Father’s orders.” He looked at her hard. “We go back many years, and I trust that you and I have at least some honor between us. For helping the young one I lost all that I owned. This stays between us.”
Eve nodded. “Fair exchange.
He nodded. “Then do not rob me of my dignity.”
“I won’t.” Eve allowed her voice to drop to a sensual murmur. Dante didn’t need to know that they were fully apprised of his reasons for helping the Neteru team. She moved in closer to him, baiting him with his oldest vice—herself.
“I always loved you,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she murmured. “I could also never get you out of my mind. It cost me a throne, too, Dante. Aset rules the Council of Queens, not me. That is why I had to inform her.”
“They made a very poor choice, then,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. “The first Neteru on the planet … soft, innocent, trusting, and beautiful beyond comprehension … one that trailed ripening like …” He closed his eyes briefly. “There’s been no other made like you.”
She covered his hand and allowed a well-timed sigh to escape her lips as an answer, and watched him swallow hard.
“There’s been no other like you, ever, Dante,” she whispered, her tone husky enough to lower his fangs to passion length. She hadn’t lied in any of her statements, therefore there was no way for him to detect fraud. She’d never forgotten him, or how he’d deceived her. There had been nothing like him ever created. It was all the truth.
“I was a virgin when we met,” she added in a wistful tone. “Do you remember?”
“How could I forget?” he whispered, now embracing her fully and allowing his hands to trace her shoulders. “You still remember …”
“Vividly,” she said, nipping his neck and eliciting a gasp from him. “Where’s your lair?”
“The Himalayas,” he murmured, beginning to slip her gown off her shoulders. “We could go there tonight, if the Mediterranean doesn’t please you.”
She briefly captured his Adam’s apple between her teeth, then released it, and spoke hotly against his skin. “Show me in my third eye, first. I need to be sure we won’t be discovered or that Lilith won’t intrude.”
“You would allow me to lock with you?” he asked, his voice now gravelly as he began to move against her while nuzzling her hair.
“Only if you are honorable and do not attempt to harm me.”
“I proved honorable when I assisted the current Neteru, did I not? Harming you, dear Eve, is the last thing on my mind. Believe me.”
“I don’t know,” she said, pulling back a bit to string him along. She theatrically glanced at the sky and then back to him as though a lightning bolt might strike her. She used seconds to her advantage. Her hesitation made him pause and give her a bit of distance for her safety, not wanting anything to spoil the opportunity. But in the brief silence, she could feel his anxiety crest like his fangs.
Their side knew his actions had nothing to do with honor, but self-preservation, and a chance to keep what would have become his father’s second heir from taking over the world so that he could. She was only here because Damali’s call had registered on every ring of Heaven. The Neteru Council of Queens had dispatched her as the most efficient assailant to get critical information from the only source that had it.
“It was a very odd bargain,” Eve finally said. “But you helped our Neteru and kept the Antichrist from the planet for a few more years. Thank-you.” She glanced around nervously again. “Maybe if you let me know where to meet you, we can work something out.”
He held her face with both hands and placed a kiss on the center of her forehead, making it burn. “Meet me there,” he whispered, “and whatever they do to you for the offense will be worth it in the morning.”
“It had better be,” she chuckled. “Nzinga will cut my heart out, if you-know-who doesn’t get to me first.”
“Then tell Him to send you to me. Shit … I’ll resurrect you,” he said, becoming bolder as his desire built.
“Can you do that without your throne, and the assistance of the fallen angel … since I’m already dead?” she asked as innocently as possible, already knowing the answer was no. “Because, then …” She allowed the possibility to hang between them.
The Chairman sighed, appraising her beauty and wishing the tedious conversation could wait until another night.
“You are well aware that my father is insane and took issue with his
wife’s treachery … and my assisting your Neteru to injure her. Since the embryo went into the Light, Level Six cannot procreate. Vampiric turns are going to ash, until he is finished with his rage. I may have overstated my capacities at the moment, but for you, dear Eve, I would endure another thousand years of his wrath.” He chuckled sadly. “If you visit me, and they find out, at least we’ll be together in the realms, hmmm?”
“Oh, Dante,” she whispered, her hand going to her mouth, avoiding the twisted offer and decisively changing the subject. “What does that mean for the vampire nations—and you?”
“Nothing,” he said as calmly as possible, her concern for him a torch to his libido. “He simply replaced me with his other heir apparent. That’s who flushed the pit in the midst of his young, blind fury.”
Feeling suddenly trapped, the Chairman stepped away from Eve, walking back and forth as the gravity of the situation and the indignity of it accosted him. He began to talk with his hands as he sputtered in outrage. “Young, stupid, insolent bastard! He thought he could just step into a ruling-level throne and run six realms without grooming and experience!”
The more he paced, the more fury entered his system as Eve stared at him. “I would have shown him everything I knew … brought him into his season with majesty in due time! But the sonofabitch pulled one of the most treacherous coups I have ever witnessed. Then, he threw it all away by flooding the realms instead of closing the breach and rebuilding layer by layer. His dark energy is scattered, affecting everything, bringing notice!” He parted his hair with his fingers and stared at Eve for answers. “What is wrong with our children? What has become of our future? They don’t take a stand. They waffle from the Light and into the darkness, and back. How can either side empire-build on sand?” He looked down at his Grecian sandal–clad feet and then bent to collect a fistful of the grainy beach, allowing it to filter away through his fingers.
She came to him and hugged him, and her compassion almost made him sob. “I don’t know, Dante,” she whispered. “I don’t know. We have the same problem on our side.”
