“Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”
I love you too, Corazon.
Happiness filled me at the gentle brush of his mind against mine. Even if Sally didn’t sell us down the river, I knew the future wasn’t going to be easy, but somehow, none of that mattered anymore. Stay still, Alec. I’ll be right there, and then we’ll find you a doctor.
A doctor wouldn’t know what to make of me. Kristoff will find a healer, I’m sure, but it’s you I really need.
“Cora!” Pia called, gesturing to me. “Alec’s alive! He’s alive!”
“I’ll be there in a second,” I yelled back, then turned to pin back Sally with a look that should have scared her witless.
She was watching me, which startled me right out of my antagonism. “Well?” she said.
“Well? ”
“Shall we do this, or not?”
“Do which—take out Bael, or grind Eleanor into lich dust?”
“I beg your pardon!” Eleanor said in an outraged tone.
We ignored her.
Sally’s eyebrows rose. “Which would you prefer?”
I glanced at Eleanor. She was my past self, a previous version of me. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been killed, or brought back after our soul was in use by me.
But she almost killed Alec. Willfully, deliberately, and with more malice than I could understand. “Will you do what I want?” I asked Sally, hesitating to commit myself.
She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I will agree to abide by your desires.”
“You’ve been summoning Bael. He doesn’t seem to be here,” I pointed out.
“Hey!” Eleanor said, waving her hands to get Sally’s attention. “She’s got a chip on her shoulder about me. She also has my soul and my man, although I don’t quite understand how he survived when he should have been blown to kingdom come. I think if there is any grinding into dust to be done, it should be her and not me who’s destroyed.”
“The summons hasn’t worked because you have not allowed it to do so,” Sally told me.
“I can do that?”
Sally nodded.
“How come I couldn’t stop the power when Brother Ailwin used me?” I asked, exasperated.
She gave a little shrug. “He does not have the ability to truly master the Tools. In the hands of amateurs, your control will lessen just as theirs will. But I am different.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, eyeing her before turning my attention to Alec. Kristoff was wrapping torn bits of his shirt around Alec’s neck while Pia was doing likewise to what remained of his shoulder. Once again I was overcome by the sight of so much blood, and the destruction that Eleanor had wrought. Are you going to be all right? I asked.
He smiled into my brain. Yes. The damage is too extensive for me to fully repair by myself, but I am not dead. That is something.
It’s not something; it’s everything to me. We’ll get you a healer to fix you up.
Kristoff has already called for one. Finish with Sally, Beloved. Only then will you truly be safe.
He was talking about Bael, I knew, but the same thing could be said of Eleanor. I eyed her. Will you rest now? You sound tired.
I will rest, he agreed, and just the fact that he did so told me how much it was costing him to remain in contact with me.
“What if I want both?” I asked Sally. “What if I want both Bael and Eleanor pounded into pulp? Would you do that?”
“Of course,” she said promptly, taking me by surprise for some reason. I guess it was because I was expecting her to hinder me every step of the way. Heaven knew she’d done a good job of doing that ever since she popped onto the scene.
“I protest this wanton abuse of power,” Eleanor shouted. “She has an agenda concerning me.”
“Oh, please.” I may have snorted a little as I curled a lip at her. The two vampires from the vamp council headed toward me with a look in their eyes that did not bode well.
“I don’t think I like you,” Diamond told Eleanor, who just looked shocked in response.
“How about them?” I asked, pointing at the two approaching men. “Can I wipe out them, too?”
“I just love someone who thinks like I do!” Sally said, clapping her hands with pleasure. “Is there anyone else you’d like destroyed?”
The two vamps froze, their eyes big as they looked from me to Sally.
Beloved . . .
I know, I know. It’s no answer to our problems. But awfully darned tempting, you have to admit. Go back to sleep, or whatever it is you’re doing to fix the fact that half of your neck is missing.
“I suppose I shouldn’t,” I said with a sigh, giving the two vampires a meaningful look.
Sally shook her head. “You just have no followthrough. You’d never make a demon lord if you can’t follow through with such interesting ideas.”
“I don’t want to be a demon lord,” I protested as the vampires started toward me again, and added in a rush, “But I don’t want them here, either. Can you zap them away? ”
“Of course,” Sally said, and with a blinding smile at them called for Sable again.
“Now, wait—” one of the vamps started to say as Sable appeared and bowed to Sally, obviously waiting for her orders. “We have no quarrel with you, Beloved. Our business is with the Dark One.”
“Cora?” Sally asked, nodding toward the vampires. “Death or just a little relocation, and please don’t say the latter because that always makes Sable pout.”
I hesitated for just a second. “Just get them out of here.”
“You do not know who we are—” the first one said, strangling to a stop when the demon grabbed him by the throat. The second vampire squawked as Sable hauled them both through the opening torn into the fabric of space, presumably out of Abaddon itself.
“Nicely done, although it’s not you who will have to put up with a petulant wrath demon,” Sally said. “I’ve always said that having the least amount of witnesses possible when you are conducting heinous acts is the best policy. Now, as to your former self . . .” She inclined her head in question toward Eleanor. “Kill, dismiss, or banish? ”
“That’s it!” Eleanor snapped, struggling to free herself from the binding ward. “I’m done being nice! Release me this instant so that I can go back to the caves and Jane!”
“Can she get back to the Underworld? ” I asked Sally.
“Of course. Mind you, it would mean having a Summoner, and we don’t have one, so the only other way will be to kill her, and I, naturally, couldn’t do such a thing. I’m a very hands-on sort of person, and it would completely ruin my manicure were I to do so, but you could.”
“What?” Eleanor screamed. “Don’t encourage her!”
Alec?
No, mi corazón. You do not wish to stain your soul with her death.
I sighed again. “Then I guess it’s back to the cave with her. Jane can deal with her.”
“I protest this high-handed . . . wait, you’re sending me back to Jane?”
“Do you agree to be bound to her union? ” Sally asked.
“Yes!” Eleanor said quickly, blinking a couple of times as Sally snapped out a command, Sable appearing out of nothing for the third time. “You’re not going to punish me for killing Alec?”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten what you did, or the intention behind it,” I told her, and hoped she accurately read the depth of my fury visible in my eyes. “But we’ll settle our differences later, once we’ve taken care of more pressing issues.”
Eleanor started to smile, but was yanked through the tear before she could do more than say, “I can’t believe you’re so—”
“I just hope the word that follows that is ‘generous’ and not ‘gullible,’ but I get a feeling it isn’t,” I said softly.
“Possibly not,” Diamond agreed, then looked over her shoulder at Sally. “Are we going to continue? I really should get back to my
husband, and my great-grandma is sure to be demanding I see her to explain everything that’s been going on.”
“That’s up to Cora,” Sally said, nodding toward me, one eyebrow cocked in question.
I glanced over to where Kristoff and Pia worked at binding Alec’s wounds. You hanging in there?
I am mending myself as quickly as possible, but am somewhat hindered by loss of blood.
Help is forthcoming—just let me take care of this and I’ll open up the diner. “Let’s do this,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“At last,” Sally said with a slow, satisfied smile. “Now we begin.”
Chapter Eighteen
Alec had heard the phrase about senses “swimming” in the past, but he never truly understood just what it meant until he woke from insensibility to find not just the room spinning around him but apparently the entire world.
He knew he was gravely wounded by the fact that he didn’t have the strength to reach out mentally to make sure Cora was not harmed in any way. The fact that he felt as drained of life as when he had given up in the Akasha told him the rest of what he needed to know—that damned Eleanor had killed him.
Well, almost killed him. The bitch. And to think he’d spent centuries mourning her death.
After a few minutes of thinking indignantly about that fact, and dwelling, with much pleasure, on the thought of how Cora would fuss over him once he was recovered enough to tell her that he had almost died, the distant nagging of a familiar heat warned him that his body was making a tremendous effort to repair itself.
He stopped struggling to reach Cora, and relaxed, letting what remained of his energy focus on healing the damage. It wasn’t until a sense of her despair reached him that he tried again to reach her mind, reassured by the joy evident in her thoughts that she really did love him as she claimed.
He smiled to himself as Cora ranted to him about Eleanor, aware now of the faint sounds of Pia and Kristoff speaking over him as they bound his wounds. With that awareness came pain, intense pain, an agony that seared through his body and left him breathless with the need to scream, but he knew that would be a wasted effort.
Instead, he pushed the pain down, fighting to keep his mind clear of the agony that threatened to consume him. Only when he was in control of it did he open his eyes and look up at Kristoff as his arm was bound to his chest.
“Thanks,” he said, his voice coming out cracked and rough with pain.
Kristoff gave him a smile, but was immediately pushed out of the way by Pia, who bent over him, her face wet with tears, as she said, “Alec! Don’t speak!”
“Hello, Pia,” he said, summoning up a little smile for her.
“Hush! And stop trying to move. Kristoff has bound up your neck and shoulder, but you shouldn’t try to move anything until after the healer comes to take care of you.”
He was touched by the evidence of Pia’s tears, but his thoughts, inevitably, turned to Cora. What had she thought when she first believed he was dead? Was she angry? Sad? Relieved?
Try devastated beyond human belief, and if you don’t do what Pia says and relax so you can heal, you’ll find out just how cranky feelings of devastation make me.
Alec relaxed, smiling once again to himself at the gentle caress of her mind, ignoring both the hunger that gnawed deep inside him and the pain that lingered even as his body struggled to make whole once again that which had been destroyed.
He drifted for a bit, jerking back to awareness only when some vague sense of danger finally permeated his dulled senses.
With tremendous strength, he shoved himself away from where he was slumped against the wall, staring with growing fury at the scene before him. “You would do this now? ” he snarled in a rough, almost unrecognizable voice as he struggled to his feet, one arm still bound to his chest. “Kris, you should have stopped Sally.”
“Oh, for the love of god,” Pia muttered, hurrying over to him. “Don’t distract Cora! Sally said it’s very important that no one disrupt the process, or she’ll lose control of Bael.”
Beloved, what the hell do you think you’re doing?
Cora shot him a startled glance before facing the monstrosity that snarled and screamed in front of her. I’m helping get rid of Bael. You’re the one who said that’s what needs to be done. Why are you up? How do you feel? Are you in pain? You are, aren’t you? I can feel you hiding something from me. Lay back down, you silly man, and I’ll feed you as soon as I’m done here.
“I am not a child that you must order me around,” he answered, trying to wrap his dignity around him, but it was difficult to do so while listing heavily to one side.
Cora must have noticed the list. “Sit down before you hurt your owies.”
“I am a Dark One!” he said, managing to stand upright at last, ignoring the pain and tearing feeling on his left side. “We do not have owies! We have grievous, nearly fatal injuries!”
The entity that was Bael in his true form writhed and twisted upon itself as it cursed in Latin.
“Seriously?” Sally said, tsking and shaking her head at the horrible sight. “I don’t think you’re in any position to make threats like that.”
“Pia,” Cora said, not taking her eyes from the nowconstantly morphing figure of Bael, his form changing from human to demonic and all variations in between. “Would you please get Alec a chair before he does more damage to, or topples over from, his grievous, nearly fatal injuries?”
Bael shifted his form from that of a horned, pustulated, slimy demonlike being to the form he wore previously. “You will suffer as no one has ever suffered,” he told Sally, his eyes literally glowing red. “Do not think that my generosity with you in the past will affect my punishment of this insurrection.”
“It’s mutiny, I think. Isn’t it?” Sally asked Diamond.
Alec lurched over to Cora’s side, wrapping one arm around her protectively. Do not fear, Beloved. I am here to protect you.
My fear is for you, not me, silly, she answered, but with her words came a warm rush of love so great it almost brought him to his knees in profound gratitude. You idiot man, you.
“Death will seem like heaven by the time I’m done with you,” Bael snarled at Sally, impotent to act, clearly bound by his own power that Sally was using against him. The three Tools stood in a semicircle before her, their hands touching, providing an arc through which the power was focused directly at Bael, bathing the demon lord in a blue-black light.
“Here, Alec, sit in this.” Pia dragged the mangled remains of a chair over toward him. He didn’t spare it so much as a glance.
“Your death, when it pleases me to end your torment, will be my most exquisite act yet,” Bael promised her, his voice stretched thin as he fought the bonds of his own power. “I will make you wish that no woman had ever pushed you from her body!”
Diamond giggled.
“Oh, Bael, and I hoped we could do this without threats and name-calling,” Sally said, sadly shaking her head.
“Hope has deserted you,” Bael growled in a voice that made Alec want to push Cora behind him.
“You think?” Sally tipped her head to the side, and smiled. “You know, for one of the most powerful beings on the planet, you’re awfully careless about what goes on in Abaddon, specifically . . . but no, you probably aren’t interested.”
“Careless? I am never careless. Every action, every detail, has been part of my master plan.” Bael looked almost insulted at such an accusation. “Do not allow your ignorance to confuse lack of attention with indepth schemes the like of which you will never understand.”
“Really? ” Sally gave a one-shouldered shrug. “So then you knew all along who I am?”
Alec heard something in her voice that had him (painfully and with much stiffness) turning to look at her. Kristoff’s eyebrows were raised, indicating that he, too, had picked up on it. He glanced at Cora. She seemed perfectly in control, her expression serene.
Bael’s eyes narrowed until they wer
e little black slits. “Your role in my plan has always been minor, and thus, your origins concern me not.”
“Oh, you say things like that and I just can’t resist showing you,” she responded with a light, tinkling laugh, and for an infinitesimally small fraction of a second, a golden flash of light blinded Alec. It was gone before he could even blink, but he knew by the expression of profound disbelief on Bael’s face that he hadn’t imagined it.
“You . . . that can’t . . . how . . .” Bael got a grip on himself and took a deep breath, obviously in preparation for what was likely to be a group-wide curse. Alec couldn’t risk Cora being injured, and lurched toward the demon lord to stop him.
“Silence!” Sally commanded, her voice a whipcrack that was almost painful to hear. Alec hesitated, glancing at her. “As delightful as it would be to chitchat more, Diamond has things to do, and Cora’s Dark One appears to be under the misimpression that he is well enough to stand, so I’ll cut this short and simply say that Bael, known also as Beelzebub, premiere prince of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by this light, by my virtue, by my being, I do banish thee.”
Bael’s scream of pure hate was a horrible thing to behold, the rage in it so great, it slammed through the room with the impact of a small bomb. Alec staggered backward, doing his best to protect Cora from it despite the pain that seared through his still damaged body. He gritted his teeth, fighting to keep from losing consciousness, determined with every atom of his being to protect her or die trying.
So melodramatic. Are you going to be like this when you get a cold? Because my ex-husband used to be the biggest baby in the world whenever he got sick or hurt, but he has nothing on the sort of thing you’re thinking right now. As if I’d let you die.
You seem to be confused about our roles, he answered, slowly straightening up as the last echo of Bael’s scream faded. He helped Cora over a small table that had been sent flying toward them. I am the Dark One; you are the Beloved. I protect you. That is my role in life.
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