Much Ado About Vampires do-10
Page 21
Alec stared at the woman in utter disbelief. “Cora threatened you? Why would she threaten you?”
“Oh, you know how it is,” Sally said with a wide smile as the others gathered around them. “Misunderstandings, misconceptions, a little binding spell or two . . . these things get blown out of proportion, and then poof! Someone threatens someone else with drawing and quartering, and it all goes downhill from there.”
He rubbed his forehead. Either he was going insane, or the world was. “Cora threatened you with drawing and quartering?”
“Well . . . no, perhaps that was me, but she definitely said unkind things to me when I called the Dark Ones to take her and the lich away. Uncalled-for unkind things.”
Alec’s blood froze solid in his veins. “The messenger has her?” As he was about to demand to know more, her words filtered through the fury and fear for Cora that held him in such a tight grip. “You called them?”
Sally tried to step back, but he was too fast. His roar of rage made her wince as he lifted her off the floor to shake her. “Where the hell is my Beloved?”
“Abaddon,” she corrected him, her eyes wide with surprise as he snarled a few threats of his own into her face. “Oh, my! I see where Corazon gets her ideas! That was . . . really? With Popsicle sticks? I never thought about that, but I suppose if you sharpen them first . . .”
“Alec, stop,” Kristoff said as Alec wrapped his hands around the woman’s neck. “You won’t achieve anything attempting to throttle her to death, so it’s not worth wasting your time. Where is Cora now, Sally?”
“I told you,” Sally answered as Alec released her. “Abaddon. Well, the part of the house that’s in Abaddon. Technically only the north side is in the mortal world, although I was thinking about reclaiming the west garden—”
Alec was off before she finished the sentence, Kristoff on his heels.
“Stay here!” Kristoff bellowed to Pia, who answered with a terse, “In your dreams!”
“I’m going to stay here,” Diamond told them. “My great-grandma would have kittens if she knew I went to Abaddon.”
The house was filled with antiques, a showcase that should by rights be on a historical register, but Alec appreciated none of that as he tore through the large entrance hall, heading for the opposite side. The hall itself was divided down the middle by what looked like a curtain of dark light, delineating the part of the house that projected into the mortal world from that which resided in Abaddon. He passed through the ebony field, stumbling over the twisted tiles of the floor as he entered the hellish side.
The antiques here were grotesque parodies of furniture, all the angles skewed, odd little legs and arms projecting, twisted, into space, snaring the unwary passerby. The light was different, as well, feeble streams of light from the other side of the hall dying a quick death in the murkiness inherent in Abaddon. “Corazon!” Alec bellowed, jerking his jacket from the grasp of what was once an armchair. Where are you?
Alec? What the . . . run, Alec, run! The vampires are here!
I know, he answered grimly, starting off down a side hallway just as Kristoff and Pia entered the Abaddon side of the building.
“Good god,” Pia gasped, clutching Kristoff. “This is horrible! Look at that couch. It looks like it’s been tortured. Who in their right mind would torture furniture ?”
“A demon lord,” Kristoff answered.
“I had to practice my persuasion techniques on something,” Sally said, her voice reaching Alec as he ripped open door after door searching for Cora.
“Sally, really, I must insist you unhand me. What’s my great-grandma going to say?” Diamond objected.
“Don’t be such a sissy,” Sally answered. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Where’s your gumption? Where’s your desire to see the seamy underbelly of life?”
Are you harmed, Beloved?
No, but, Alec, you have to leave. Sally is evil! She’s working with Bael, and she called up the vamps to tell them that you were going to be here, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, she did something to Ulfur’s horse that made him not a ghost anymore, so now he can’t go invisible.
“It’s back on the non-Abaddon side of the house,” Diamond grumbled.
Alec jerked open one of a set of double doors that led into a grand ballroom, once obviously the pride of a bourgeois heart, and now a horrible battleground made up of black and mildew-stained parquet tile that erupted upward in sharp spikes, as if the ground itself couldn’t bear its unholy existence. The walls were likewise stained, tatters of once beautiful flocked wallpaper hanging in despondent strips, a broken and twisted chandelier drooping almost to the ground. But it was the group of people at the far end that caught and held Alec’s attention. Two men crouched behind an upturned broken sofa, its wooden claw feet clutching at nothing as an enraged horse snorted and pawed the ground, clearly protecting the two people behind it.
“Alec!” Cora screeched, then clapped her hands over her mouth. Oh, my god, I’m sorry. Now they know you’re here.
The two men, the messenger Julian and a Dark One Alec didn’t recognize, both turned to look at him.
“It’s all right, Beloved,” Alec said with dark intent as he stalked forward toward the two men, who hastily—but with one eye on the horse Ragnor—got to their feet. “We have nothing to fear from them. They, however, should be extremely worried.”
“You threaten us, Alec Darwin? ” the messenger asked.
“You took my Beloved,” he answered, the thought of anyone touching her fueling a rage unlike anything he’d known.
Alec, I’m all right. They didn’t hurt me. In fact, they haven’t been near us since Sally zapped Ragnor.
They took you. They will die for that.
“You cannot be serious,” Cora said, moving around the horse and heading straight for him. “It’s not really their fault, anyway. Well, part of it is, because we wouldn’t be here if Sally hadn’t told them that you were going to show up, but really, it’s all Sally’s fault.”
“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?” Sally entered the room with a still-protesting Diamond. “I do hope so, because really, how can one call oneself an effective demon lord unless one’s name is taken in vain all over the place? Oh, good, you found the Dark Ones.”
“Smite her!” Cora commanded, pointing at Sally, a furious look on her face. “She’s pure evil!”
Smite her?
“Oh, not pure, surely,” Sally said with a little giggle. “And, you know, I did say I was naughty, not truly evil.”
You can’t smite?
“That’s right, she is,” Diamond said, giving Sally a gimlet look. “Although I am willing to bet that Great-grandma Disin is going to have a thing or two to say about you dragging me here. You know how she gets.”
Not that I’m aware.
Sally shuddered, her smile dissolving as she muttered, “She wouldn’t know anything if you didn’t tell her.”
Well, hell. It sounded so dramatic, too.
Alec moved quickly, pushing Cora behind him as he faced the messenger. “You will say what you have to say to me, Julian. Then I will destroy you.”
“Alec—” Kristoff said, sighing as he stepped forward between the two men. “You can’t do that.”
“No, he can’t,” Cora agreed, shoving Alec on the back before moving around to his side.
He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close, needing her warmth, needing her light to banish the darkness that threatened to claim him again. “It is a crime for one Dark One to threaten the life of another’s B eloved—”
“We made no threats against her, nor did we harm her,” Julian protested. “Give us a little credit, Alec. We simply wished to talk to her . . . and you.”
“Oh, sure you do!” Cora flung herself in front of him, her arms held wide as if to protect him.
He would have found the idea laughable, but he felt in her a determination to save him.
You already have, love.
“You wish to talk, messenger? What do you have to say to me that doesn’t include a command of punishment?” Alec demanded to know, gently but firmly moving Cora back to his side. Now is not the time for relationship talk, mi querida.
I’m a woman—there’s always time to talk about relationships, she answered, digging an elbow into his side when he spent a few moments wishing he had a sword. No decapitating, Alec. It’s not nice, and besides, they really aren’t to blame.
“I’m thinking that if you’ve got something to say, you’d better hold on to it,” Sally suddenly interjected, strolling over to the mangled remains of a table, leaning one hip on them. Diamond, looking vaguely uncomfortable, trailed after her.
“Why’s that? ” Cora asked. “Are you going to do something else ‘naughty’ to us? Maybe bring Bael in to torture us a bit? Burn down hell? Destroy the entire planet? ”
“You see?” Sally whispered to Alec with a little nod toward Cora. “Anger management counseling would do her a world of good.”
Cora sputtered something extremely rude under her breath, and started toward Sally. Alec caught her and held her tight against his body. “Beloved, I know you are enraged at her—as am I—but as Kristoff pointed out, it can do no good to think about beating her with a two-by-four. Nor dropping her in the La Brea tar pits. No, not even feeding her to a tank of hungry sharks.”
Sally gasped in horror, her eyes huge. “Sharks! Cora!”
“It was just a thought,” Cora muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “A damned good one, too, if you ask me.”
“No one did,” Sally said, looking decidedly disgruntled.
“Why should we be quick?” Kristoff asked, clearly curious as to Sally’s warning.
“And tar pits? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to clean tar off of wool—what? Oh, we’re about to have company.”
“Who? ” Alec asked, his eyes narrowing on the woman.
“Some liches,” Sally answered, gesturing to Ulfur. “Other than you, dear boy. Come over here so I can pet your nice horse.”
“Don’t do it, Ulfur!” Pia warned. “It’s some sort of a trap!”
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have your mind for all of the minions in Abaddon,” Sally said, giving Pia a look. “Such suspicions!”
Ulfur moved slowly toward her, the horse, now perfectly solid and not in the least bit ghostly, at his side.
“What liches? ” Alec asked. “The lichmaster who lives in the caves nearby?”
“I expect she’ll be here, too,” Sally said, giving Ragnor a pat on the neck. “She’s smart, Jane is. She’ll see Brother Ailwin sniffing around, and know he’s up to no good, so no doubt she’ll follow him here.”
“Brother Ailwin!” Pia clutched Kristoff. “He’ll use Cora and Ulfur! We have to get out of here!”
“Too late,” Sally said, waving. “Welcome to Abaddon, Brother Ailwin. Oh, I see you brought your monks with you. Mercy, a whole army of them. Welcome, gentlemen.”
Chapter Seventeen
“You ever have one of those days when everything just keeps getting worse?” I asked Pia from where we stood huddled together behind the solid wall made up of two large, angry vampires.
“I think I’m having one now,” she answered, casting a worried look over to the table where Sally sat with composed grace, her eyes bright with excitement as she watched Brother Ailwin and about twenty men in monk outfits pour into the room.
“How come Brother Ailwin gets to wear modern clothes while they have to wear the brown robes? ” I asked Pia in a whisper.
“Dunno. But they have swords and he doesn’t, so that balances things out, don’t you think?”
“Hmm.” I slid a glance to the side. The two vamps from the Moravian Council stood leaning against the wall, watching everything, but making no attempt to grab either Alec or me.
“At last I have found where you cower and attempt to hide from me,” Brother Ailwin announced in a bossy voice as he marched into the room, trailed by two lines of sword-bearing monks. “The two Dark Ones will not keep me from you this time, Tool.”
“I really hate being called that,” I said to no one in particular.
“You will be mine, and with you, I will—” Brother Ailwin’s eyes, which had been on me, widened as he glanced toward Sally. Both Ulfur and Diamond were next to her, and I knew the moment he realized that they were the other two Tools. His jaw dropped down a good couple of inches for the count of ten; then he gave a triumphant crow and pointed at them. “The three Tools of Bael! Together! God has indeed cast his blessings upon me, for with the three Tools, I will rule the mortal and immortal worlds! Brothers, you are witnessing an historic event! With the joining of the three Tools of Bael, I will become the most powerful being to ever exist! A new age is dawning, the age of the lich, and as its leader—”
“Christ, don’t you ever shut up?” Alec interrupted, and, to my utter amazement, pulled out a gun and shot Brother Ailwin.
Alec! I yelled.
Hmm?
You shot him!
Brother Ailwin looked down at his chest in surprise. As he was clad in a navy suit and pale blue shirt, the dark red stain that blossomed across his middle was clearly visible. He touched a hand to it, his expression full of disbelief as he examined the red on his fingers. “I’ve been shot.”
Yes, I did.
My mind spun around like a hamster wheel for a few seconds. Oh. Well done. Although where did you get the gun?
Kristoff gave it to me. He thought we might need it.
“That is a gun. I’ve been shot. With a bullet,” Brother Ailwin said, turning to show the blood on his fingers to his mini-army. The monks looked back at him in confusion. “The Dark One shot me.”
“Liches,” Sally said in an aside to Diamond.
“They always state the obvious,” Diamond added, and nodded.
How come you didn’t shoot the vamps?
It wouldn’t have done anything but make them angry.
Brother Ailwin evidently got over his stupefaction, for he straightened up and glared at Alec. “You will die for that—”
Alec shot him again, this time in the leg. Brother Ailwin lurched to the side, his leg buckling.
“You can’t kill a lichmaster, can you? ” I asked, watching as Brother Ailwin stared for a moment at his leg.
“No, but I can put him out of commission for a bit,” Alec answered, his mind filled with grim determination to keep me safe. “Kristoff?”
Love swelled within me. I couldn’t deny it any longer—it was love that I felt for him, this bloodsucking fiend, this nightwalker, this utterly adorable, sexier-than-sin man who I knew would literally give up his life to keep me safe.
With a sigh, Kristoff pulled out a small gun.
“This is intolerable!” Brother Ailwin yelled. “I will not be—”
Kristoff shot him in the other leg.
“Stop that!” Ailwin screamed as he fell to the ground. “Stop shooting me! I will not be treated in this manner! I am a powerful lichmaster, and the wielder of the three Tools of Bael, and—oh, bloody hell, I’ve lost the feeling in my left leg. Brother Anton, assist me to a chair so that I might destroy those two Dark Ones.”
“This is almost as good as watching the Black Knight scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I think we should probably not wait around until he’s nothing but a torso,” I suggested with a wary look at the two vampires lounging against the wall, watching the scene with identical expressions of polite interest.
“’Tis but a flesh wound,” Pia quoted, nodding.
“Get them!” Brother Ailwin said, waving toward us as one of the monks hefted him up and set him less than gently down on a mangled remains of what was once probably a quite pretty dining chair.
The other nineteen monks started toward us, but paused when Alec and Kristoff leveled their guns. “We have enough bullets to shatter the b
ones in all your legs,” Alec told the monk army. “You won’t make it ten feet.”
The monks looked at the two vampires holding guns, down at their swords, then over to Brother Ailwin before turning back to our little group.
Alec smiled.
The monks, as a group, turned and in perfect formation marched out of the door.
“Wait!” Brother Ailwin screeched, glaring furiously at them. “I did not order—you cannot leave now, not when I’m about to claim the greatest victory known to lichkind! I demand that you come back here! I demand that you destroy the Dark Ones! What’s a few shattered thighbones when it comes to . . . damnation! You cowards! Come back here! ”
“I told you that a lich army was a bad idea, if you recall,” Sally said, getting to her feet as two women burst into the room. “They just have no backbone, any of them, and collectively, they’re sponges. But I’m sure you see the wisdom of my advice now, don’t you, Ailwin? Oh dear, your blood is going to stain the floor if it keeps up like that. You really should stanch the flow of it. Jane, my dear, how lovely to see you again. Is that the new T-shirt design? You must send me a gross or two, and I’ll order my minions to wear them.”
“You!” Brother Ailwin spit, glaring up at Jane as she stopped next to him, giving him a confused look. “I might have known you’d find out about the Tools. No, no, Brother Anton, not that leg, you fool, this one. The one that’s bleeding all over the place. Wrap it tight so I can stand up long enough to wield the Tools.”
“What . . . the Tools?” Jane looked even more confused as she glanced around the room. “Hello, everyone. Er . . . is this a Dark One convention or something? ”
“Tools as in plural?” asked Eleanor, who stood with Jane in matching Liches rule, others drool, especially revenants T-shirts. She frowned at me for a moment before narrowing her eyes on Sally. “I could swear I know you.”
Sally batted her lashes and gave a little smile and shrug, but said nothing.
Great, just what we need, Brother Ailwin clueing in Jane as to what we are, and how to use us. Can you shoot him again? I asked Alec.