bedeviled & beyond 02 - bedeviled & bedazzled

by Sam Cheever

  You just had to slap at the bad guy and piss him off didn’t you, boss? You can’t just do what you came in here to do and leave can you? Oh no, you want to fight the stinking nasty gargoyles because, in your feeble little mind you think it’s fun don’t you?

  I was too busy taking a battle stance and readying my weapons to respond, but trust me, he would get a formerly pointed earful when we were back at the office. Assuming of course that we ever made it back to the office.

  “The one on the left is mine.” I told him in a low murmur, even as I turned to look at the demon on the right and his eight foot long, drooling charge on the straining end of a steel chain. The gargoyle on the right, seeing me looking at him, figured he was my target, leaving him open to an unexpected attack from Emo. It was one of our favorite tactics when dealing with creatures of lesser intelligence.

  Emo blew out a nervous breath and turned toward the one on the left. “Have I told you I hate gargoyles, Astra?”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “I think you might have.”

  Then all hell broke loose and we found it difficult to talk for a while.

  Keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the gargoyle and its handler on the right, I reached for my power core, opening the metaphysical door I used to shut it off when I didn’t want it leaching out all over the place and embarrassing me.

  Using the skills I’d been working on over recent days, I quickly stoked the tiny flame into a raging blaze and then jerked it forward and threw up a protective shield just as the gargoyle on the right launched itself toward me. The ’goyle hit my shield with a splat, spraying spit in a wide arc and sliding slowly down into a saliva drenched pile at my feet, claws outstretched.

  Emo reached out and hacked the ’goyle’s head off and then jumped back as blood spurted from the neck stump. Gargoyle blood burns like acid on angel skin and, like me, Emo was part angel.

  The demon ’goyle keeper dropped the slack chain and looked up at Emo. I, shot him with a jolt of power through the heart. He went down right on top of his smelly charge, twitching all four limbs at once in a manic death dance that might have been funny if Emo and I didn’t have at least six more stinky foes to defeat in that underground room.

  “To Hades with you fool, for God hath tired of you!” I murmured.

  Two down, lots to go.

  Emo turned his warrior face to the gargoyle on the left just as it lunged. He wasn’t quick enough with his shield and the thing was on him before I could kill it. A sense of unhappy déjà vu hit me between the eyes as Emo went down under a mountain of leathery monster and drooly yellow teeth. The sound of flesh tearing filled the room and Emo grunted in pain.

  In a panic I turned to help him but was brutally stopped by the less than gentle application of a thick steel chain around my throat. The second ’goyle’s keeper had reached me.

  I managed to get one hand under the chain and was able to hold it off my throat enough to breath but the demon was strong and outweighed me by about three hundred pounds. The thing about demons though, is that they generally aren’t very smart. And they aren’t agile at all. They’re basically just nasty brutes. And while I certainly had been known to be nasty, I had brains and looks to go with my attitude. I was betting I could outwit it.

  I threw my weight backward into the demon’s rock-like chest. Expecting me to try to pull away from the chain, the demon had braced himself on his heels and I caught him off guard. While, under normal circumstances my weight would have made no more impact than an insect, the momentum of my attack, along with his weight distribution, caused him to take several steps back in an attempt to regain his balance.

  Two things happened at once. The hapless demon relinquished his tight hold on the chain around my neck and he stumbled butt first into another gargoyle.

  I jerked loose from the chain just as the affronted gargoyle opened wide and sank three inch long saliva coated teeth into the demon’s left butt cheek and ripped, pulling the round, leathery body part right off, with a wet thwucking sound. The gargoyle whipped the fat chunk of demon derrière from side to side, throwing dark green blood around the room and looking mighty happy with his unexpected snack.

  The mono-cheeked demon ran screaming around the room—that’s what they do when they get upset, brain shuts down, feet kick in—until one of the other demons reached out an arm like a battering ram and knocked him cold. He went down with a whimper, trailing snot from his head and blood from his mangled posterior.

  I suddenly remembered Emo and whipped my head around to see how he was doing with his ’goyle. I was relieved to see that he’d managed to fight the thing off and was just putting the finishing touches on its unexpected trip to the afterlife as I glanced around.

  I turned back to discover that the rest of the gargoyles and their hapless handlers were heading our way.

  Le sigh.

  Taking a deep breath, I reached into my boots for my knives. Emo came up beside me panting like a virgin in a room full of gigolos. We squared off in anticipation of a full on attack but nothing happened. We stood there blinking when all things mean and leathery stopped in their tracks and stared, gape mouthed, at a spot somewhere beyond my right shoulder.

  I turned to see what they were staring at and came eye to eye with a very pissed off but decidedly yummy royal devil. He moved up to stand at my shoulder and put his arm possessively around my waist.

  I itched to shrug the arm off but knew that we needed a united front against the bogymen in that room.

  I had it under control.

  I could see that. But I wanted to play too. It was no fun up there all by myself.

  I rolled my eyes. How did you get past the mountain?

  It was his turn to roll his eyes. Please, Astra. Give me some credit.

  Point taken. He was after all a royal. And the mountain had been only a demon, if an ageless and infamous one. Well, in that case...what took you so long?

  Dialle turned to Alcott, who had found reason to straighten considerably in his makeshift throne. “You have much to answer for demon. King Dialle will not like the report I give him. You had better tell me that you will stop this treasonous behavior at once or I fear the king’s wrath will visit these premises.”

  Alcott’s featureless countenance faced Dialle for a beat of ten and then lowered only the tiniest fraction of an inch. “I apologize for your treatment here, Prince Dialle. It was inexcusable and I will make amends for it to the court.”

  Dialle’s dark eyes glowered at the demon leader but his body relaxed just the tiniest fraction.

  “However...”

  And the tension lurched upward again.

  “My demands remain in place. My people have served the Royal Court for millennia without question and with the utmost loyalty and we have earned our place at the council table. I will take that place now...either by decree of the king or through a less peaceful method. It is the king’s choice.”

  Dialle’s arm around my waist tightened to the point of pain and then suddenly relaxed. I looked at him and he smiled. “You dare to bargain for sovereignty on the backs of the human cattle? Humans are of no consequence to the Court. King Dialle cares nothing for their fate.”

  Alcott smiled, the unremitting black of his face splitting to show two rows of small, white teeth. His body language was smug to the point of insult. In fact, he laughed, causing Dialle’s arm to become an iron band around my waist.

  I tried to step away from the encircling arm but Dialle held on.

  Alcott lowered himself back into the throne chair with an air of disdain and a flip of one hand toward Dialle. I was pretty sure steam would emerge from Dialle’s ears at any moment.

  “The Royal Court cares nothing for the humans, I agree. My goal is not to cause your hearts pain. It is to cause the Court much embarrassment and trouble with the humans. Your unspoken truce with them is young and tender. It will be easily strained and torn by the discovery of thirty or so mutilated bodies. The obvious work of satanic
ritual.”

  Dialle stepped threateningly toward Alcott and the demon sat up just a bit straighter in the chair, obviously not as dismissive of Dialle as he tried to appear. “You declare open war on the Court? Have you gone mad?”

  Alcott shrugged. “I seek only what we have earned. You will choose how we gain it. I would peacefully take my throne if it were up to me.”

  Dialle was suddenly standing mere inches from Alcott, his hands clutching the arms of the throne chair and his face close enough to the demon’s to bite. All traces of white teeth disappeared from Alcott’s face and his body went rigid. He tried to lean farther back into the chair.

  I sensed movement in the gargoyle and demon ranks but Dialle threw up a hand and they stopped in their tracks, blinking at him in confusion.

  Dialle’s voice filled the room effortlessly when he spoke. It seemed to come from every corner and moved as if alive through the underground space. I wasn’t sure what it was doing to the bad guys but it was giving me a serious case of the heebies and I was on his side.

  “I accept your offer of war, Alcott and give you this pledge back. Your people will rue the day you went against the Royal Court of King Dialle the First. Your children will suffer for it, their children will suffer for it and their children will beg to be released from this life as a result of your tampering this day. You have my word on that, as the next in line for the throne of the Royal Court.”

  With that Dialle stood up straight, glared one last time at Alcott and returned to Emo and me. He said nothing as we ascended the stairs and headed back through the main level of the nightclub at street level.

  I glanced toward what was left of the Dis demon and grimaced, making a mental note to never piss Dialle off.

  As we left Demonica behind and stood on the sidewalk I turned to Dialle and smiled. “That went well.”

  He scowled back at me. “It appears we are at war.”

  I snorted indelicately, then sobered as I realized what a war between the two dark world factions would mean. “The casualties will all be on the human side won’t they?”

  His scowl deepened. “We will have to save the humans since they are too stupid to save themselves.”

  Just like that. No big deal. We will save the humans.

  Bring me a red cape and some pretty blue tights. Here we come to save the day. I rolled my eyes again and turned to Emo, “I want you to put all your resources into finding those hostages. Reach out to all your demon buddies, use every favor you have coming on this one. If even one of those hostages gets killed it will be on our backs. You got that?”

  He frowned at me but nodded and I continued, “How did you get here? Did you bring the Viper?”

  Emo opened his mouth to respond but I never heard his answer. Dialle’s hand found my arm and we were suddenly locked together in motionless space. My blood pressure skyrocketed at his cavalier commandeering of my body . Although my body was as helpless as a stump, my fertile brain was in overdrive, and when we landed wherever he was taking me he was gonna get verbally and possibly physically speared by a seriously pissed off halfling.

  See how soon I forget my mental notes to myself?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Clear as Mud

  A simple visit to a king, dost give our lady pause,

  She learns her journey’s complex, close friendships seem the cause.

  My sexy devil shimmered me into the middle of my office and then clamped those incredible lips onto mine before I could start screaming, thus saving us both from him having to disassemble my body as he’d done to the Dis demon.

  A change in the atmosphere in the room, with a slight electrical charge, warned me that we were about to have company.

  Emo appeared in the room and Dialle popped out.

  I glared at my partner, having no other royals in the room currently to glare at.

  Knowing me and my moods Emo just smiled. “Don’t take it out on me, boss,” he said. “He’s your problem.”

  That little reminder did not improve my mood. “Okay, then tell me what you said to the Dis demon to allow us to pass without Dialle.”

  Emo turned away and walked to his desk. But not before his smile widened. “Nothing, I just used some information I had against him. Something he doesn’t necessarily want Alleycat to know about.”

  I grinned, I couldn’t help myself. “Alleycat?”

  Emo dropped into his chair and clasped well-shaped golden hands on the desktop. “That’s what they call him. His brother was not well liked but Alcott is even less popular.”

  I nodded, my brow furrowing in thought. “Why was Dialle shunned? That was a huge tactical error on Alcott’s part.”

  Emo nodded. “I agree. His ego apparently gets the better of his judgment on a regular basis. It’s one of the things the demons hate about him.”

  I walked over and sat in the chair on the other side of my partner’s desk. Fixing him with the patented Astra Q Phelps glare, I waited for him to squirm.

  He didn’t.

  “Why won’t you tell me what you said to the demon?”

  Emo stared back, seemingly unaffected by my badass boss routine. Finally he shook his head and looked down at his hands. “I told you. I know something about that particular guard and used it against him. That’s all. Nothing sinister.”

  Sensing he wasn’t telling me everything, I continued to stare at him. “What about Dialle?”

  Emo grinned. “I wasn’t lying to you about that, Astra. The guard had orders not to allow Dialle to enter.” He grinned. “I would have kept him out anyway if I could have but as it turns out I didn’t have to.” The grin widened until I felt myself wanting to smile too.

  I looked away quickly so I wouldn’t be affected by his obvious amusement. “Well, regardless, Dialle is now seriously pissed off and I doubt his report to his father will favor the demons’ case. I’m afraid some of those humans are going to pay the price.”

  “I would agree wholeheartedly with that assessment, boss.”

  Hearing the smile in his voice I turned sharply. “And this is funny—why?”

  Emo shrugged but he was saved from having to respond when the air in the office suddenly became supercharged and something long, lean and decidedly devilish shimmered into the space between us.

  King Dialle the First wasn’t exactly in the room with us but his persona definitely was. My eyes widened as his soul form lowered its yummy derrière onto Emo’s tidy desktop and fixed me with its swirling black gaze. “Mx. Phelps, you will visit me in my chambers.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I’d rather take a supra demon up my left nostril but alas, per usual, I wasn’t to be given a choice in the matter. King Dialle’s soul form reached a long, elegant hand toward my arm and before I knew it I was locked in motionless time and space, waiting to land in the lion’s den.

  As soon as King Dialle’s rooms shimmered into focus I stepped away from his soul form and settled a power bubble around myself so he couldn’t sneak up on me. I prayed I had enough power to hold against him if he tried to smash me into the divan again.

  Taking deep, mental breaths to calm my mind so my mouth wouldn’t get me into trouble, I put my I-don’t-give-a-shit face on and turned to glare at the mouth-wateringly yummy creature behind the onyx desk. I prayed I was presenting him with the correct mix of don’t care and not worried, however, since my heart was trying to escape my rib cage, I wasn’t sure.

  He sat sprawled carelessly in his beautiful mahogany chair, one long, muscular leg thrown across a thick, shiny chair arm. His magical swirling gaze slid down my body and he smiled. “Mx. Phelps. I welcome you to my den.”

  Shit! Had he read my thoughts?

  Making use of the better part of valor, for once, I took a deep breath and smiled. “King Dialle, you’re looking...well.”

  He laughed. The sound was throaty, deep and loin tingling. “I regret that my son found you first. I might have been able to actually settle on your charms.”

 
; “I doubt it, Your Highness. I can be a real pain in the ass.”

  He laughed again. “I am certain that is true, Mx. Phelps but I have always been quite fond of pain.”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help it. He was very charming. “What can I help you with Your Highness?”

  He stood up and I tensed, expecting a full body slam to the couch. Instead of plastering me to the divan, he walked toward the wall of windows, assuming what appeared to be his favorite spot and pose in front of them.

  I waited for him to speak. It took a couple of minutes. I wasn’t sure if he was playing with me or if he was gathering his thoughts. Since he was the highest of the high devils, I was betting on the former.

  Finally he spoke without turning. “My son has informed me that we are at war with the demons.”

  I opened my mouth but wasn’t sure what to say. I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk him out of engaging in war with the demons. He and I and probably the demons knew that Alcott and his merry gang of snot-covered leather guys didn’t have much of a chance against the ageless power and inherent meanness of the Royal Court.

  I finally decided to give it a shot. “Is there no other way to address their concerns, Your Highness?”

  He looked at me as if I had four heads. “I do not negotiate with pets. They have been under our protection and subject to our whim for millennia and it will stay that way.”

  “What if they make good on their threat to start killing humans?”

  King Dialle waved a hand and looked disgusted. “The human cattle will be safe. Alcott does not have the fortitude of gut to take on the Royal Court. He is just making noise to test my resolve.”

  “I shook my head. I don’t agree, King Dialle. I believe they mean it. They have already taken hostages.”