by Sam Cheever
Myra’s gowns rustled behind me as she uncrossed her legs. What would the coven have to gain by this?”
I shrugged. “Raoul thinks they want to take over the Angel City Coven. If that’s true maybe they’re trying to weaken the coven by creating chaos. Maybe they think my mother will care if I have trouble and that will distract her.” I snorted in a very unladylike way. “Which proves they know nothing. Or maybe Raoul’s wrong and they’re working with the Angel City Coven instead of against them, to create turmoil between the demons and the royals.”
I turned away from the window to find Myra frowning thoughtfully. She glanced up. “Which means that both covens are working under the assumption that they have help in powerful places.”
My eyebrows went north. “They do have help. Powerful help. They shouldn’t be capable of half the stuff they’ve been doing.”
And I was just dying to tell her who their help probably was. But I knew the time wasn’t quite right.
~SC~
As soon as Myra left I made myself a cup of strong black coffee to give me strength. Settling the cup onto my desk, I pulled the cross I always wore from under my sweater where I kept it for protection. The cross was almost three inches high and ornate. It was centuries old and filled with its own special kind of magic. Specifically, it could be used to call members of the celestial army. It had other, more practical uses too but I rarely needed its special kind of power for anything except communicating with Myra. Or my father, I thought with a smile.
I sat staring at the cross for a few minutes, dreading what I needed to do. But I couldn’t think of another way so I finally placed the cross over my heart, closed my eyes in a quick prayer for guidance and said his name.
Enoch exploded into the room in a blast of light and sound. His entrance was a far cry from the gentle pop Myra generally used when she visited. I knew he was being flamboyant and trying to prove something to me. It didn’t make me like what I was about to do any better.
He stood just inside the door to my office with a smug smile on his face and his large hands folded in front of him. “I see you’ve decided to see reason.”
I bristled. “I can still change my mind.”
He shrugged and floated across to the window behind me, looking down at the human type chaos below with a soft smile on his lips.
I swiveled to keep an eye on him. The feeling of not being able to trust an old family friend was like wearing a favorite dress that the cleaner had accidentally ruined trying to remove demon brains. The dress no longer quite fit and rubbed me raw in strategic spots but I was still emotionally attached to it. I couldn’t wait to take it off but knew I’d feel naked without it.
“But you won’t change your mind. You inherited your father’s sense of duty and desire to do the right thing.” Enoch turned away from the window. “It’s a particularly human trait that has caused him no end of trouble over the centuries.”
I peered at him, wondering when he’d lost faith in the divine goal and decided the bad guys had more to offer. “Yet you suspect him of being a dark angel?”
He turned away, but not before I saw a spark of genuine pain in his dark eyes. “It is not my wish to distrust him.”
I said nothing for fear that I’d blurt out my suspicions about him.
“So,” he said without turning, “you will monitor your father’s activities and report back to me what he’s doing and who he’s doing it with?”
Try as I might I couldn’t get my jaw to unclench at the thought. I cracked my teeth just enough to respond in an unnatural way. “Yes.”
He nodded once. “Good. I’ll appear before you occasionally to get your reports.”
“Awesome.” I murmured sarcastically.
“It will be a pleasure for me too, Astra.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Mommy Dearest
The devil knocked upon her door, a smile upon her face,
The demon slayer let her in but kept her in her place.
Sometimes, if events keep you from visiting the devil, he finds a way to visit you. That sad reality also occasionally applies to mothers. I was putting the finishing touches on my makeup the next morning when the door monitor announced that Danika Phelps was standing outside my door.
I was sooooo tempted to just leave her standing there. If I’m being honest, I was actually tempted to find a snug corner and assume the fetal position. But in the end I decided to be a man about it and let her in.
I opened the door and recoiled. She was smiling. Terrifying. “Hello, Mother.”
Danika Phelps barely deserved the moniker but still she insisted that I treat her as if she did. “Is that any way to greet your mother?”
She gathered my stiff body up into a hug that I knew was pure show. She’d never had the maternal feelings one would expect when one carries a life within one’s perfect body for six full months—halflings don’t need to cook for quite as long as humans do—and then spews it out through an impossibly small hole at great risk and pain.
Releasing me from the fake hug, she cocked her head and her beautiful oval face crinkled prettily in mock disapproval. “Where are your manners, Astra. Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
The word “No” shot up my throat from my roiling stomach and pounded on the back of my lips, trying to escape. But I clenched my teeth on the thing and opened the door wider, stepping back to let her pass. “What are you doing here, Mother?”
She ignored my question and walked around my small living space, touching everything with long elegant fingers. I gritted my teeth, sure she was passing judgment on each and every item.
Following her into the living area, I perched on the very edge of a padded arm of the divan, ready to explode into action if necessary. I waited silently for her to tell me why she’d come. It didn’t take long.
“I’ve come to make you an offer.”
My eyebrows peaked in silent question but I didn’t open my mouth for fear all the bad words clanging against my teeth might escape.
She examined the cushions on my divan as if expecting to see poop on them and gave them a swipe with her hand before she lowered her tight ass carefully onto them. Then she looked at me and smiled again. “I’m sure you know by now that I’m part of the local coven?”
I nodded.
She stared at me for a long beat as if she expected me to make some comment but I was still clamping down on my errant opinions lest they befoul the air between us and get me eaten.
Finally she gave a delicate little laugh and went on. “I’m sure that came as some surprise to you but, as you know, we have witches in our family and the powers and inclination have been passed down through the generations. I felt my calling when I was very young, recognizing the signs of my...um...talents in black magic even as a child in the Royal Court. In those days it was unheard of to practice witchcraft. It was considered a lesser art than royal magic and its practice was discouraged at Court.”
My lips stayed firmly closed.
Smiling a little less fake happily as the result of my silence, she stood up and walked to the single window in the room. Staring out at the sky, which had finally cleared and was a bright blue, she continued. “I see the same inclinations in you, Astra.”
She turned back in time to see my eyes widen. Damn! I slammed my facial expression back to neutral and sat on silently.
“I want to bring you into the coven with me and teach you. From what I’ve seen and heard your powers have already grown beyond all expectation and continue to change and stretch. You’ll need help learning how to manage and use them.”
“For black magic?” My voice told her clearly what I thought of that idea.
The fake emotion of the moment was sadness. “Witchcraft embraces both dark and light magic, Astra. You can practice any way you wish. I only want to help you.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Pretending my response hadn’t been dripping with sarcasm, she gave me a fake bright smile. “We’ll have so mu
ch fun together, darling. I’ve missed you over the last few months...”
“Try years.” I tapped my lips with a fingertip. “It might even be decades.”
She shrugged. Months, years, a lifetime...what was the difference?
I had absolutely no inclination to join my mother’s coven but I decided it made more sense at that moment to leave the option open until I could try to wrangle some intelligence out of her.
“Before I would consider joining you I would need some information.”
She opened her arms and smiled at me as if she were an open book.
Right.
I transferred my butt to the divan in an attempt to seem more relaxed, figuring she’d be more willing to spill if she thought she was succeeding in drawing me in. “First I want to know what you’re up to with the king.”
She gave me fake shock on that one. “The king? Astra I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“I felt your magic signature in the room he disappeared from. As well as father’s. Prince Dialle almost killed me because he thought I was working with you.” Okay that was a slight exaggeration but it served my purposes for the moment.
That little tidbit brought on fake thoughtfulness as she turned away to stare out my streaky window again, as well as a little bit of faux reluctance. Finally she looked at me and said, “Okay, it’s true, we kidnapped the king. I just wanted to try to talk some sense into him. The witches are an important component of the council and he refuses to give us our due.”
“So you’re working to turn the demons against him?”
I thought the surprise at my accusation might have been real but who the hell knew?
“I needed a bargaining chip.”
“So what’s next? What are you going to do with him? Kill him?”
She laughed her tinkle-toned fake laugh that meant I’d struck a nerve and pissed her off.
I liked that laugh.
“Don’t be silly, Astra. Do you really think I’m capable of that?”
Clink, clink, clink...words beat against the back of my teeth, ruthlessly clamped.
Rather than respond to that question, which I figured was rhetorical since we both knew she certainly was capable of that, I hit her in her soft spot again. “Who’s giving you all the power you’ve been exhibiting lately? A coven of witches shouldn’t be able to bespell devil princes and kidnap devil kings.”
“You underestimate our power, Astra.”
“Does that mean you’re denying you have a powerful ally, possibly from the celestial ranks?”
“Only your father of course.”
I knew full well that my father would have no part in bespelling me into having sex with Dialle to destroy the royals. “Who else?”
She spread her hands with her most outrageous fake ever, innocence. “Who else is there, Astra? Are you trying to tell me there are dark angels running around?” Deep beneath the fake innocence a sly spark lit her beautiful dark eyes.
“No.” I told her. “That would be crazy wouldn’t it, Mother?”
~SC~
I was dreading what I needed to do. As I dressed all in black and prepared to follow my father around without him knowing it, my mind roiled in an effort to find another way. I wasn’t entirely sure why my stomach was in knots and my hands were shaking as I pulled on soft boots. Maybe on some level I was afraid I’d see him do something I couldn’t excuse.
For all my disgust at Enoch because he didn’t have faith in his lifelong friend, there was a tiny voice whispering in my head that what I was about to do would be dangerous, in more ways than one.
Sighing, I wiped sweaty palms down my slim, black slacks and went to my weapons stash. I pulled the covering picture to the side, placed my pinkie over the wall enclosure and waited as it slid quietly open. Selecting a long knife to slide into each boot, I hesitated. I didn’t think my current job would require my belt of crosses or my vial of angel’s blood. So I slapped my pinkie over the reader again to close the hidey hole and headed for the door.
I went to the Phelps fortress first and dropped the Viper where Emo and I had left it the last time we were there. A light shone from a window on the topmost floor. I knew it was my father’s sitting room, part of his suite of rooms.
I closed my eyes and visualized the living area on the main floor, praying for help as I felt myself enter the sphere without time or space. To my immense relief I returned to awareness exactly where I’d visualized. No body parts in the furniture thank the Big Guy.
I moved as silently as I could toward the stairs and climbed them with sweaty palms and a heavy heart. I could hear movement and voices in my father’s rooms.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I scurried toward the large wardrobe in the darkened hallway. As I’d done when I was a child, I climbed inside the wardrobe and pulled the doors closed. Through the small crack I’d left between the doors, I could see most of my father’s sitting room.
A brisk fire burned in the fireplace directly in front of the doors. Of course the voices came from the only non-visible area of the room. I frowned as I realized who the voices belonged to.
I heard their laughter before I cast eyes on them. My father and mother walked into view holding glasses of something and sat down on the couch, close together. I watched in horror as my father placed his arm around my mother’s shoulders and gave her a soft kiss on the lips.
She placed a hand on his face and they smiled at each other for a minute.
My heart almost stopped beating in dread. This could not be good.
“So how did it go with Astra?” my father asked her.
She shrugged. “As well as can be expected. She’s stubborn like her father.” They shared a laugh at that.
I didn’t find it all that funny.
“Will she join us?”
Us?
My mother shrugged. “In time I think. She doesn’t agree with our methods I’m afraid. But once it’s all said and done I think we can win her over. She would be a great asset to us.”
My father nodded his golden head and turned toward the fire. They sipped their wine in companionable silence and watched the fire crackle.
A tear rolled down my cheek and I realized the doubt had crept back in. Surely he was just perpetrating an act to gain her trust.
If so, he was too frunkin’ good at it.
“We’ll have to kill the king soon.” His voice was sad but resolute.
She nodded. “I agree. I think he’s served his purpose. The demons have done everything we’d hoped they’d do. Now when the new king steps in and vows to make amends everyone will look upon the dark world council as benevolent and good.”
He nodded and sipped.
She cocked her head at him. “Will you like being king?”
I almost choked. I suddenly felt as if I would suffocate. The cramped space inside the wardrobe had seemed cavernous when I was small but in that moment it closed in on me, making it hard to breathe. My heart was beating at a painful rate and it was pounding so hard against my chest I was sure it would give me away.
More importantly I didn’t want to hear anymore. I had to get the Hades out of there. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the beach where the Viper hovered on silent jets of air. Tears dried on my cheeks as I shimmered there.
When my feet hit the sand my knees buckled and I sat down hard on the wet, dirty sand. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be true. My father wouldn’t let her pull him that far down. Would he?
I knew she had a strange kind of power over him. Always had. But I’d thought he was stronger and wiser than before. And he believed in the divine goal. Didn’t he?
I sat staring at the river’s rage for a long time. After the tears were done I felt numb. Sometime during that period of numbness I realized what I had to do.
I stood up and brushed wet sand off my butt and climbed into the Viper. I needed to find the
king and stop them from killing him. To do that I would need help.
I headed for Emo’s place, calling Dialle along the way.
~SC~
“We already searched the fortress.” Emo looked at me like he thought I’d lost my mind.
“I know but I saw him there in my vision.”
Dialle had been suspiciously quiet. “Is it possible the vision was created to confuse you?”
I frowned. That certainly hadn’t occurred to me before. “I guess it’s possible. Everything else is so frunkin’ strange why the hell not?”
“Then where do we start?” Emo seemed as frustrated as I was.
We sat and thought about it for a bit.
Suddenly Dialle stiffened and appeared to be listening to something only he could hear. He leaped to his feet. “The demons are attacking the Royal Court.” Without another word he disappeared.
Emo and I looked at each other and he said, “This just gets weirder by the minute. It’s definitely the world according to Astra.”
“Har. Should we go help?”
He shrugged, “Why not.” He grabbed my hand and we were off.
We landed in Prince Dialle’s quarters. He wasn’t there and neither was anyone else. Sounds of fighting could be heard not too far away.
We opened the door into the hallway and had to slam it shut again as a gargoyle flew toward us. The thing hit the closed door with a solid splat and slid heavily to the floor. Emo cracked the door again and we peered through. Not ten feet away several lesser devils were fighting it out brute strength style against several demons and their ’goyles. The lesser devils don’t have much in the way of powers. They basically just pound on anything that gets in their way.
We looked down at the ’goyle on the floor and it blinked as if it was coming around. I pointed a finger at it and zapped it with a strong enough current to blow a fist sized hole in its chest. The thing jerked a couple of times, its evil red eyes flew open once and then it collapsed onto the floor and bled all over the tiles. “To Hades with you fool for God hath tired of you,” I murmured.
I grinned at Emo and blew on my finger.
He laughed. “Way to kick ass, boss. ’Course he was already half dead.”
