by Sam Cheever
My eyes finally popped open and I turned to look at Dialle. His head was lying on the pillow next to me, our hair tangling in a soft mix of sleek midnight black and wavy auburn, his eyes were closed.
“Dialle.”
“Mmm?”
“Where the hell are we?”
He opened his eyes and grinned. “In the fairy mound. No exterior magical influence can penetrate the mound. I wanted to make sure nothing interrupted us this time.”
I grinned back. “Brilliant.”
He nodded and climbed out of the sinfully soft bed, pulling his arrogance back around him like a cloak. “Of course.” But his lush lips tugged upward in a grin that softened the arrogance a bit. “What else would you expect from a royal?”
I snorted in an unladylike way. Sitting up, I glanced around for my clothes. My eyes landed on my dissected underclothing and I slanted him a look.
He shrugged. “Would you like me to clothe you?”
Remembering the wet dream ensemble he’d conjured up the last time he’d dressed me my “No!” was a little too fast and frantic.
Chuckling softly, my devil shrugged. “I bow to your wishes as always.” He waved a hand and my skirt and sweater appeared in my lap. I looked down at them and bit my lip. I so didn’t want to go save my father with a naked butt under my skirt and my boobies jiggling around under my sweater.
But even more I didn’t want to ask him to make me something. I was pretty sure whatever he conjured wouldn’t suit either.
Dialle stepped closer and leaned down. I looked up and he captured my lips in a gentle kiss. When he pulled away he was suspiciously sober but his lips were twitching. “Is that better?”
I looked down and saw that I was wearing white cotton granny panties. The elastic waist band hit me somewhere around my lowermost rib and bloomed out around my hips as if someone had filled them with air. The matching bra could have been used to sling a good sized demon across the room without breaking and was held up with industrial strength straps that were an inch wide on my shoulders.
I heard a suspicious snort and looked up, glaring at him with the appropriate amount of disdain. He was struggling mightily not to laugh. No doubt fearing my wrath if he did.
He burst into laughter, tears flooding his sexy eyes.
Or not. “Very funny, Dialle.”
“You look very pretty in giant panties, Astra.” He wiped the tears from his eyes.
“Bite me.” I pulled my sweater over my head and slipped into my skirt. “At least I won’t have to worry about my butt hanging out,” I murmured.
Dialle tilted his head and peered at the skirt, which was pretty short. “I’d be more worried about the giant panties hanging out.”
I gave in to the urge to stick my tongue out at him. “I don’t care.”
“They make the skirt look a little puffy...”
“Oh shut up! I’m so outta here.” I glared at him and turned away, intending to leave. Looking around I realized there were no doors. Not even any windows. The room was circular, with a dome like ceiling and looked as if it had been chiseled out of pure rock. I looked back at Dialle. “There are no doors!”
He grinned. “Fairies don’t need doors.”
“But there are no windows either.”
“We’re two hundred feet below the ground, Astra, windows would be impractical.” He smirked at me and I felt my devil rising in a big way. Suddenly I could not remember what I had ever seen in the...sneaky...damn...”
I didn’t see him move but he was suddenly pressed full length against me. His hot, smoky breath sweetly caressing my lips and his hands branding my waist with unnatural heat.
Oh yeah...that’s what I saw in him.
Then we were locked in space and time and I remembered another one of his more useful qualities. He could spaceshift us from one place to another without embedding us into demons or furniture.
That was always a plus.
We landed in my office and Dialle closed the last quarter inch of space between us and kissed me languorously and thoroughly. I was all atingle when he pulled away. “Now, about my father...”
I shook my head. “I need to help my father first.”
Dialle narrowed devilish black eyes at me, “Help him? How do you intend to do that, Astra?”
He had me there. “I’m not sure. But I have to do something or he’s going to be branded a dark angel and dropped into a fiery circle. I can’t let that happen.”
Dialle stared hard at me for a moment but I crossed my arms and glared at him, letting him know with every rock solid line of my body that I wasn’t budging. He must have decided arguing with me would be fruitless because he finally nodded.
Score a point for my side.
“I guess the old man can stay in his little glass cage for a while longer. Maybe it will cool his temper a bit.”
I shook my head. “Don’t count on it. I’ll probably need to take a vacation in another part of the galaxy when he gets out.”
Dialle smiled. “I meant to ask you about that but I had other things on my mind at the time.”
I smiled too.
“What did you say to him.”
My grin turned mischievous, after all, he wasn’t the only one in the room with devil blood. “Not telling. It’s my little secret.”
He grabbed my butt with both hands and yanked me up against his, shall we say, firmer regions, grinding gently against me. “You’ll tell me. Eventually.” Then he gave my butt a tentative squeeze and said, “I never knew giant panties could be such a turn on.”
I laughed. “Dream on, bud. Me and my granny panties are hittin’ the road.”
I headed for my office door and opened it, then had a thought. “Is it safe to use the elevator?”
His beautiful gaze narrowed on me and his head tilted in question. “Why would it not be safe?”
He was either a damned good actor or he knew nothing about my passionate elevator experience. Which left me wondering who the hell I’d had sex with in the elevator.
Holy bent gargoyle toes!
That damnable pearl dropped back into my stomach and started growing. My temper flared unreasonably at the perplexed-looking devil standing in my office.
I turned and stomped out. My life was just Hell!
~SC~
Ignoring posted speed laws as usual, I had the Viper up to about three hundred m.p.h. and was shooting aimlessly around with my mind roiling. I needed to reach the Big Guy but Myra had been ignoring my calls. I really hated to do it but I decided I would need to use the very special, only to be used in extreme emergencies, function of my cross. I’d never used it before and was really struggling with using it now. If I misjudged, or if I was wrong about any of the things I was about to report, there could be dire consequences, not just to me but to everyone I knew and cared about and for the world in general.
Requesting a direct audience with the Big Guy was a catastrophic decision. I’d had that drilled into my head from the moment the cross was laid upon my palm by one James S Phelps. And I did not take my decision to use the cross for the purpose lightly.
But my father was in extreme danger from those he trusted and loved. I saw no way around it.
I took a deep breath and held the cross to my forehead.
The televisual in the Viper bleeped and told me DD Raoul was on the line.
“Accept transmission.”
Raoul’s face came online and he looked grim. I noticed right away that he seemed pale and tired. “Hey DD, you look like hell.”
He gave me a half-hearted smile. “Thanks, Astra. That means a lot coming from you.”
I snickered. “No really, what’s wrong?”
He swiped a large, dusky brown hand over his face. “I’ve been poking around the coven...”
“Which reminds me...why didn’t you tell me my mother was the Supreme High Witch?”
He flipped a hand impatiently. “That’s not important now, Astra.”
“It is to me.”
&nbs
p; “Dammit, Astra!”
I held up a placating hand and swerved to avoid a very large, very pissed off looking bird. I think I might have winged it...pardon the pun...because a long, striped grey feather had thwucked onto the view port on my side. “Okay, okay, we’ll talk about that later. What did you learn?”
“I’ve gone as deep into the coven as I can and I’ve had to do some things I’m not proud of but I think I’ve discovered stuff you need to know.”
“Okay, spill.”
He shook his dark head. “I can’t talk to you on the televisual. I need to meet with you in person. Now.”
Since he really did look like hell and my instincts still told me to trust him, I pushed back a very strong desire to argue. Sighing in frustration I asked, “Where?”
He looked over his shoulder and his face paled. “Where we left Deaver hanging. I have to go.” The screen blacked out and I sat staring at it with my mouth open.
I felt my face pucker in confusion. “Where we left Deaver hanging?” What the hell did that mean? I thought about it for a minute and then realized he had to mean the Church of the Twined Hands, where one of my clients had been killed a few weeks earlier.
And hung from his antique ceiling fan to drip dry.
Raoul had been the DD officer who’d been called to the scene of what I’d suspected at the time had been an attack by gargoyles. I had since learned that a royal she-bitch from Dialle’s court had been holding the ’goyles’ leash at the time.
I programmed in the church location and sat back thinking. I had a pretty good idea what Raoul was going to tell me. But I was concerned for his safety. He’d looked pretty scared when I’d spoken to him. And something else. He looked... sick.
The Church of the Twined Hands was in an upscale part of town that had been an abandoned hellhole until the city decided to orchestrate a comeback for the beaten down area and the mayor had created encouragement, in the form of tax breaks and low-interest loans, for people to purchase and rehabilitate the battered-down buildings.
The renovated area sported the latest in modern architecture. The stainless steel and glass structures that predominated on Bridge Street looked cold and sterile in the bright light of day. At night, with no sunlight to burnish their sterile faces, they were downright dingy looking.
The Church of the Twined Hands squatted in the shadow of the two ten or twelve-story buildings of stark stainless steel on either side of it. It was built of timeworn golden rock and was only about three stories high, with a tower that rose above the church, extending another three stories. Its windows were round, in the architectural style of churches from the early nineteenth century and filled with golden glass. Like lace on a hemline, gargoyles of various shapes and sizes banded the entire roofline.
Unlike the last time I’d visited the church, all of the ugly, little creatures appeared to be sleeping. The last time I’d visited the church, some of them had had roving eyes of red fire, which told me they were a little too mobile for comfort. Most of them had claws the length of my hand and teeth that could rip the Viper apart with little effort. I was glad they appeared to be sleeping soundly on their assigned perches and prayed they’d stay that way.
As I pulled open the heavy, iron-studded front door of the church I wondered if Raoul would be in Deaver’s office. The thought of climbing the dark staircase to the empty second floor didn’t appeal.
The church had been built on a spiritual pathway that led into the shadows, a murky, formless place where those with dark magic felt comfortable and their magic was at its strongest. But to me and anyone with light magic as part of their makeup, the shadows were a place of fear and uncertainty. A place that sucked at your powers and threatened to engulf you in shifting nothingness.
I shivered as I remembered the one time I’d visited the shadows, supposedly with Prince Dialle at my side. But inexplicably, when we’d arrived, I’d been all alone. It hadn’t taken me long to find trouble there either.
Finding trouble seemed to be my destiny.
The only light in the musty-smelling foyer of the empty church came from the street lights outside. I ordered lights on full and nothing happened, so I left the doors open and picked my way carefully up the stairs. The floor was littered with discarded trash and the smell of urine assailed my nostrils.
Something crashed to the floor above and a dark figure flew down the stairs toward me. I gasped and reached a hand out but something in the way it moved stopped me before I released an energy arrow. The figure shoved me hard in the chest as it passed and my head banged against the wall behind me with a jarring thud. The man continued on down the steps and ran out of the building through the door I’d so thoughtfully left open. The odor of unwashed flesh and despair made my nose wrinkle.
Just a human bum.
I rubbed my head as I continued on up the stairs. Praying there were no more surprises waiting for me in the dark.
The smell was much worse upstairs. The hallway floor was almost totally obscured by scraps of cloth and bags of refuse. It looked like the bum had been going through trash bags looking for treasures. The pile of cloth was probably his bed.
A small halogen flash spun on the floor as if it had just been dropped, the thin beam of strong light blinking against the walls as it spun.
I picked it up and pointed it down the hallway. Nothing seemed to be moving.
I stepped through the garbage to Deaver’s office.
Other than a strong aura of violent death that clung to the room, it was surprisingly clean.
I guessed the foul aura kept even the most desperate human refuse from bunking down there.
I set the small light on the desk and dropped into Deaver’s chair. It wasn’t long before I heard footsteps on the stairs and Raoul calling my name.
I met him in the hallway, shining the light on the filth-covered floor so he could pick his way through the trash.
“What a frunkin’ mess,” he said as he approached.
I nodded. “Bums have taken up residence.”
He cracked a tired smile. “Better than what was here before I guess.”
I smiled back, remembering the evil Rayanne and her slavering gargoyle pets. “No contest.”
He stopped in front of me and I couldn’t help thinking, again, that he looked ill. His gaze was weary and a little haunted. “I feel like everything I ever believed in has been a lie, Astra.”
I waited.
He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I was wrong about the Devil’s Glenn Coven. They weren’t trying to take over the Angel City Coven. Danika reported that they were to the Council but that was a lie.” He narrowed his gaze, looking like he was on the verge of tears. “Your mother is pulling the scam of a lifetime, Astra.” He turned away and I glanced at my shoes to give him time to collect himself. “And God help me, I don’t know how to stop her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Powerful Magic
The devil’s cage is hard to breach, of special magics made,
But magic light and dark will mix and cause the walls to fade.
I felt that damned pearl in my gut again. Placing a hand on Raoul’s arm I bent closer. “Talk to me, Raoul. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
His gaze when it met mine was filled with fear. He shook his dark head. “You can’t help me. That’s not why I came. I came to help you. Your mother needs to be stopped or the world will never be the same.” His dark eyes sharpened and he grabbed me with both hands, clutching me hard enough that I wanted to pull away. I’d have bruises on both arms.
“I can help you release King Dialle. We’ll need his help to defeat them.”
I nodded, thinking fast. “Okay. I’ll take all the help I can get, Raoul but you need to tell me everything you know. I can’t work in the dark like this.”
He flung his hands up in frustration. “We don’t have much time. But I’ll give you the highlights. Your mother’s working with a very powerful angel...”
“I know who it is. It’s not my father.” I hastened to add. It was really important to me to protect my father’s rep.
“I know, I know. I’ve felt your father’s magic and this is...I don’t know...darker, oilier somehow. It’s definitely still light magic but only just.” He cocked his head. “Do you know what I mean?”
I nodded.
He blew out a breath. “Anyway, they have an agreement that they’ll get rid of the king and the angel will step in and take over running the Dark Council.”
“You mean the Royal Court?”
He shook his head. “No. The entire Council. Think about it Astra. They’ll have the devils, the demons and the witches behind them. Through those main factions they’ll control all the lesser dark worlders. They’ll have it all.”
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah, my thoughts exactly. But it gets worse. Your mother has planted the seed with the Witches Council that Devil’s Glenn is trying to take over her coven but she’s actually setting it up to look that way so she can merge the two. The council would never allow the two covens to merge because their power would be too much for the council to control. And that’s smart of them because the power the two covens have managed to cobble together with this angel’s help is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.”
He stopped and looked at me, the terror of what he was about to say making his gaze bright. “Your mother plans to chain the angel who’s helping her, Astra. She plans to take over everything herself. And with a pet of that kind of power at her beck and call, nothing could stop her. Nothing, Astra. And she has very ugly plans for the human race.” He shivered as if to underscore his frightening revelation.
My mouth opened but no words would come out of it. In my worst nightmares I would never have thought my mother would try to enslave Enoch. The thought of that enormously powerful and arrogant creature as a chained angel nearly broke my heart. Despite his current plans. I sighed. “You’re right, we have to stop her.”
He nodded, “Unfortunately I think your mother knows that I’ve discovered her plans. They hunt me even now. I’ll most likely be killed.”
I shook my head. “No! That’s not going to happen. We need to release King Dialle the First and kick some serious ass.”
