by Sam Cheever
I laughed. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can see why Nerul would kill a demon for me so that I would feel obligated to spy on him.”
Dialle shook his dark head, causing the silky black hair to swing across his face in a strangely masculine way. “You have much to learn about the twistings and turnings of the devil mind, little Tweener.”
“On that at least we can agree, Dialle. Now. What the Hades are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to help you save your friend.”
My snort of laughter wasn’t very ladylike, it’s true, but it was heartfelt. “I don’t have time for any devil shit right now, Dialle. If I don’t do something pretty quickly, Emo’s going to die. I’d appreciate it if you’d just go away and let me think.”
He shimmered off so quickly that I gasped and fell forward, as if his presence had been holding me up. I cast my eyes around the room in disbelief for a moment before shaking my head and kneeling down beside my increasingly pale friend.
As my limited list of options scrolled through my head I started to really panic. I couldn’t take him to the hospital because human hospitals refused to treat devils. His angel blood wouldn’t help him because he looked like a devil and that was how he would be classified.
I thought briefly of Myra and quickly discarded the idea. She wasn’t Emo’s angel, she was mine and she didn’t like him enough to step outside of those boundaries.
I knew of only one devil physician and I was resisting that option because I knew I’d have to literally sell my soul if I went to him. That’s usually not a good option.
Emo coughed suddenly and a dark stream of blood spurted out from between his lips. “Shit!” That was it. My soul was gone. I had to save him.
Just as I had the thought, another thought chased it. Touch the wound. My head jerked up. For a minute I’d thought the voice had come from somewhere in the room around me. Touch the wound.
Despite my better judgment, my hand reached out and my fingers opened to slide around the claw. I placed my hand flat against Emo’s chest. Remove the claw.
“I can’t.”
You must.
Even as my head shook in denial, my hand began pulling on the disgusting claw. It didn’t move much at first and the gush of renewed bleeding stopped me again.
Concentrate. Close your eyes.
Tears came again. “I can’t do it, dammit. He’s losing too much blood, he’ll die.”
Concentrate.
I closed my eyes, gulping back tears. I took a few deep, calming breaths and forced my mind into that place where I knew it would be able to expand and focus on what needed to be done. I went to that place I’d learned to go as a small child, under the tutelage of my Aunt Diedre, on the devil side of my family tree. Aunt Diedre had taught me that I had magic and she had planned to teach me how to channel and focus it, but then my mother found out what she was doing and stopped her. Right at that moment I wished my mother had minded her own damn business.
Focus.
“I’m trying dammit. Quit yappin’ at me.”
As Aunt Diedre had taught me, I forced all of my thoughts into a pinprick of light at the very center of my consciousness and pushed them aside. Without conscious thought to serve as a barrier, the door opened to the power that lay behind it. The power initiated as a tiny, red spark that quickly faded away. As this initial spark left me, several others took its place and quickly forged together into a thin, tentative flame. Realizing that the key to using the fledgling power was linked to the strength of this hesitant flame, I focused on strengthening it into a blaze that I hoped would grow too large to be contained.
My body began to shake and tingle as the power thrummed inside me. I fought to concentrate the growing power into a single stream that could be channeled into something I could use. As the power built, I sensed a change in the air around me and something warm wrapped itself tightly against my back and arms. Dialle’s voice spoke in my ear now, instead of in my head. “I feel the power building, it is within you, only waiting to be used. Use it, Astra. Use it.”
I jerked as his words entered my focused thoughts but their meaning wasn’t lost to me. I could feel the power too. I knew it awaited only a channel to become useful to me. My problem was that I wasn’t sure how to channel it.
My eyes still closed, I concentrated on bringing the power forward. I felt it move along my arm and drain into my hand, which was still wrapped around the disgusting thing in my partner’s chest. The claw began to vibrate under my hand and then, as I visualized releasing it from Emo’s torn flesh, it shot into my hand and disintegrated with a pop.
I jumped in surprise, feeling the power dim a little as I fought panic at what I’d done. Dialle placed his hand over mine and pushed it onto the wound. I felt the warm rush of blood against my hand and dimly heard Dialle’s deep voice, grown husky with some kind of emotion, speaking words in a tongue that I couldn’t understand.
Like a match flaring to life, the power erupted in me again and shot into Emo with incredible force. My eyes flew open and I watched my friend jerk and twist under the force of it. It scared the shit out of me but I felt helpless to stop it. And then I didn’t want to stop it because I could feel Emo healing. I could feel the wound closing beneath my hand. I could feel the power coursing through my veins like hot lead, hurting me in an almost pleasurable way, until I knew I had to turn it off but I wasn’t sure how.
“Ssstop…nnow…” I managed to gasp out.
Dialle pulled his hand from mine but didn’t pull his supporting arms from around me. “The power is yours to stop, Astra.”
“Cccan’t…”
“Yes. You can.”
I closed my eyes again and formed a mental image of the power retreating. Slowly, my mind lowered the flame at the core of it and allowed conscious thought to return, gradually crowding the power out. The power dimmed and then died slowly away, leaving me weak but feeling slightly edgy, like the power had left behind a byproduct of adrenaline I needed to burn off. But mostly I was just really weak.
I would have collapsed across Emo if Dialle hadn’t been there. My unexpected ally continued to hold me up until I opened my eyes and struggled to my feet. In a fit of frustration and temper, I pushed his hands away as he tried to help me stand.
Emo began to stir and I quickly forgot my temper as I looked down at him in wonder. His color was normal again and all of his wounds were completely healed, even the ones on his arms and legs. I knelt beside him and felt for his pulse. As I did, I realized that my arm wounds were gone. My hand shot up to my chest and felt for the bloody gashes that had been there before I’d used my magic on Emo. They were gone. With a gasp my eyes found Dialle’s and he smiled.
“We have waited centuries for you to come, my Princess. You have come to us at last.”
I merely shook my head, too stunned to speak as he pulled me to my feet and dragged me into the curve of his body. “You have untold depths of power, Princess Astra. Someday you will be my queen.” His lips touched mine softly, possessively and then he was just…gone.
My knees gave way and I sank to the cold, hard floor again. My mind still buzzed with the aftereffects of the power cocktail I’d indulged in and my body continued to tingle wherever my personal emissary from the dark world had touched it.
I tried not to think about what Dialle had said. I focused on the fact that I would soon have to deal with Emo, who’d have some very reasonable questions about how I’d managed to heal him and myself completely in a matter of minutes. I didn’t want to think, didn’t want to consider what I’d just been told, so I pushed it away and tried to think about other things. But my heart was pounding hard enough to make me dizzy. Until finally, inexorably, Dialle’s words came back to me with the force of an explosion. In a rush of panicked horror, all of the blood left my head and I almost toppled over.
Somewhere in my sub-subconscious I knew that what he’d told me was true. I tried to deny it to myself but my self wasn’t having an
y of it. I had to face the facts. I had just summoned enough power to heal several deep, life-threatening wounds on two people. I had pulled the power into me, used it until I no longer needed it and then extinguished it. I had cavorted with the devil to save my dearest friend. And I had just been informed by said devil that I was some kind of long-lost devil princess, whose appearance had been awaited by the entire dark world for centuries. Never mind the fact that same said devil apparently had plans for my body that hadn’t been approved by the Astra Q. Phelps sexual partner approval committee of one yet. That would be me.
Oh yeah, I was really in it up to my armpits now. I was deep in the poo poo dungeon. I was mired in fecal quicksand up to my nose. I was swimming with the turd sharks in an ocean made of piss. I was just screwed. My life was shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
Chapter Thirteen
And Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House
Before her stood the Devil Court, its walls adorned with blood,
And ’Tween our hero and the door, vile creatures threateningly stood.
Emo sat up and grinned at me. It was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen and I couldn’t help smiling back. “Hey Astra, what’re we doin’ on the floor?”
Almost with relief, I realized he didn’t remember what had happened. I wasn’t sure I was up to explaining it all just then, so I simply nodded my head toward the stinking carcass on the floor. His devil eyes widened in shock. “Did we do that?”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
“Hades. I hate gargoyles.” He gave a little shiver in emphasis of this statement.
“Yeah. Me too.” I stood up and brushed my hands across my butt. I reached a hand toward Emo and he grasped it, pulling himself to his feet with little apparent effort.
Feeling suddenly awkward and not yet ready to explain to my partner and friend how his mortal wounds had just disappeared while he slept, I turned toward the outer door. “I’m going home. Will you call someone to dispose of that?”
He nodded. As I left the office I could feel his questioning gaze on my back. But I couldn’t stop and explain. I just couldn’t. I wasn’t even sure I understood it myself. So I just got the Hades out of there.
* * * * *
Later. As I was lying across my airbed in a dazed state. I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember making the trip home in the Viper. It bothered me that I felt so drained, so drowsy and disoriented. It didn’t bother me for long though, because my body quickly dropped into the deep sleep it craved and I was oblivious to everything for several hours.
When I finally woke up, the stars had crept across the night sky and were winking at me through the skylight above my bed. I yawned and stretched and was amazed to discover that my body didn’t hurt anymore and I felt totally refreshed. When the televisual beeped I jumped out of the bed and moved swiftly toward it. I said, “Respond to call, with visual” and Emo’s face swam onto the screen.
“Hey, Astra. I’ve been calling you for the last two hours. I thought you said you’d be home.”
I ran my fingers through my tangled locks and yawned. “I’ve been here. I lay down for a minute and dropped like an electron bomb. What’s up?”
“We’ve been invited to go to court.” Emo’s red face looked excited.
I frowned. “To court?”
“Yeah. Your new client, Deaver called. He said he needed you to visit the Royal Court and give a message to a guy named Nerul.”
I felt my pulse pick up. With everything that had happened over the last couple of days, I’d forgotten to tell Emo about Deaver. So he would have had no way of knowing that Deaver was already dead. “What did this caller sound like?”
Emo shrugged. “Deep voice, very businesslike. He told me that you were expecting his call.”
It appeared that Dialle wasn’t willing to wait for me to set a meeting up between Nerul and myself. Shit, I really hate pushy devils. “What is this message I’m supposed to deliver?”
Emo grinned at her. “I’ll tell you when I get there, I’m coming with you. See you in a few.”
His image shimmered away, leaving me with a sinking heart and some very blue language on the tip of my tongue. There was no way I was going to endanger Emo by allowing him to come with me into the devil’s lair, so to speak. Not after I’d almost lost him earlier.
I went into the personal hygiene room and took a quick shower, hoping to scour away the last of my dopiness. I emerged feeling slightly better and dressed quickly in ankle-length black pants that hugged my legs all the way down to my ankles so that they wouldn’t get in my way if I needed to get agile really quickly. I pulled on a black, high-neck sweater, which dropped to just below my hips, giving my knife sheath a place to hide. I put two platinum knives and a five-inch-long silver one in the sheath and dropped a vial of holy water into the side pocket of my pants. I fastened my belt of crosses over the sweater and pulled on a black jacket. I briefly thought about taking my gun too, but decided that wouldn’t be received well in Nerul’s court.
Finally, I fastened my favorite necklace, a small silver vial filled with angel dust on a long silver chain, around my neck. The vial was carved with tiny dancing angels and rested reassuringly in the valley between my breasts. Angel dust was my weapon of last resort and I rarely carried it. But somehow I figured that walking into a gathering of the dark world’s most powerful and evil creatures justified the extra precaution.
I took a final look in the mirror as the gentle tinkle of the visitor warning system announced Emo’s arrival. I opened the door, prepared to do battle.
Emo’s smile was wider than I’d ever seen it. His little brush with death and my magical intervention certainly didn’t seem to have hurt him much. Seeing my face, he held up one square, red hand before I could speak. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t bother, I’m going with you.”
“No you’re not.”
“I won’t let you go to the Royal Court alone, it’s too dangerous. And besides, I owe you my life.” He said the last with a slight frown and his already red face deepened in color as he flushed with emotion. “I finally remembered.” He looked up at me and a single tear coursed down his cheek. “I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but my soul is yours.”
I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. If anybody should understand what Emo was talking about it was me. I’d seen family members pledge their souls to those who had done them mortal favors. The fact that I was standing in front of Emo on that day was the result of one of those pledges. But that was another, very long story. Suffice it to say that my soul wasn’t my own either.
“Okay,” I said scowling. “But if you get yourself killed I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”
He grinned. “That should be interesting.”
* * * * *
Using sensors to see, the Viper sliced through the fog at the edge of the Mississippi River. As we neared the spot, just outside the industrial section of the city, where the entrance to Nerul’s kingdom lay, I turned to Emo and fixed him with an expectant eye.
He cocked his head at me. “What?”
“Are you going to tell me why we’re trying to get ourselves killed?”
He grinned, “Oh…that.”
“Yeah that.”
“Deaver wants us to tell Nerul that Prince Nille is alive and well, so far…” If he’d had an eyebrow—lesser devils don’t you know—Emo would have raised it meaningfully at this, “and that Dialle and Rayanne are willing to exchange him for their queen…and in the same condition she’s in.”
“Is that all?”
“No. He also said that we were to be allowed to view the queen and report her condition back to Dialle.”
My eyes locked on Emo’s thoughtfully. I guess he knows me pretty well because, although I thought I was just looking thoughtful he asked, “What’s wrong, Astra?”
My eyes never leaving his I replied, “Deaver’s been dead for, oh, about a week now.”
Emo’s eyes stayed
right with mine. “Oh. Well, that is interesting isn’t it? I don’t suppose you believe in ghosts?”
When I frowned he said, “I guess not.” He sat for a minute, staring out at the thickening fog beyond the Viper’s windows. Then he turned to me and said, “We’re in deep shit up to our armpits aren’t we, Astra?”
“Yep. We sure are, my friend.”
Arriving at the spot where I knew Nerul’s court to be, Emo and I squinted to peer through the thick, white paste below us and were surprised to see that no guards appeared to be stationed at the entrance. “Circle slowly and return to hover,” I told the Viper.
As we approached the area just above and slightly behind the entrance of the cave, Emo nudged me and pointed. With a disappointed sigh, my eyes focused on the two gargoyles that sat on a rough outcropping of rock about ten feet above the cave’s entrance. As we circled, they raised stubby, wet snouts to the sky and sniffed warily. Their large, rounded ears rotated with the movement of the Viper and, apparently not liking what they smelled, their razor-filled maws opened in a united roar of warning that caused those tiny hairs on the back of my neck to stand at attention.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu here.”
The Viper went full circle and returned to hover position in front of the entrance. I turned to Emo. “Well. What do you think?”
“I say we look for a back way in.”
“Har.”
Emo’s red face split in a devilish grin. “Nahhh. There’re two of them and two of us. Pretty good odds I’d say.”
I grinned back. “Wrong. There’re three of us. Check this out.”
I switched the Viper to manual and swung out over the river. Making a sharp turn so that we were facing back the way we’d come, I pointed the Viper’s nose in the direction of the cave and put it into hover. I smiled at Emo and then jammed the joystick forward full. The Viper bucked, coughed and then shot forward at about five hundred miles per hour.
Emo braced himself as the Viper screamed toward the cave’s opening.
