Love Spell in London

by Shereen Vedam

  Was Lucifer searching for him? If so, it was a blind hunt. He must know Dewer was nearby, but his shield held and so his exact location eluded the dark angel.

  Grateful for that small boon, he took the opportunity to search for the one who followed. Someone, unlike Lucifer, who could see past Dewer’s shield. What weakness allowed that to be possible? A shadow crept closer through the desolate landscape. It was a hellhound! Farfur?

  “What are you doing here?” Dewer mind-spoke.

  Farfur sat and stared at him with a forlorn gaze.

  Dewer knelt on one knee and pointed right in front of him. “Come here!”

  Farfur hesitated, as if thinking over the order. Then he stole forward, tail down, weaving his way over, as if past invisible obstacles.

  Once the hound had obeyed, Dewer said, “I told you and Bartos to follow Grace and guard her.”

  Bartos follows the Witch-who-heals, Farfur said.

  At the hound’s first words to him all day, Dewer’s heart warmed. He had missed the talkative hound’s constant chatter.

  I stayed, Farfur finished.

  “Why?” Dewer asked, but with more tolerance.

  Farfur never leave the master again. The hound raised his head and waited, apparently unwilling to bend on this important point again.

  Heart swelling with affection and gratitude for having a loyal familiar, Dewer leaned in and hugged Farfur, no longer holding back his love for this extraordinary hound. A wave of energy instantly spiked into him from Farfur, dispelling icy fears that had coursed through his veins since he and Grace separated. He had worried he might never see Grace again. That fear evaporated, and in its place rose hope of a grand future for all of them.

  How odd. Hope was a foreign sentiment in this realm.

  Dewer pulled back and then froze, his arm still slung around Farfur. They were in the midst of a legion of demons lit by a brilliant shine that made him squint as if he were viewing this perpetually dark realm beneath the glare of actual daylight.

  He jerked back, his arm slipping off Farfur.

  Darkness descended, re-painting the landscape as scorched, blistering, and empty except for himself and Farfur. He tentatively touched the hellhound. The demons once again became visible. Monsters of all shapes and sizes. Shifting around them, grunting in anxiety, exuding a pungent stench of fear and fury. The scent staunched his hunger but he would have killed for a drink of ale.

  Farfur whined. A nearby pack of hellhounds growled.

  Dewer raised a finger to his lips to warn Farfur to be silent and then extended his shield over the hound. What puzzled him was why he could suddenly see so clearly.

  Chapter 15

  LLELAND, GOD OF BRITAIN’S waterways, approached the slumbering dark fae. After Dewer dropped his mother inside his staff, Lleland fashioned a high bed for her, one befitting a queen. Since then, her features had relaxed and she slept as peacefully as an angel. A goddess in repose.

  After observing her for what seemed like hours, he was no longer able to resist temptation and approached closer.

  Queen Eolonde’s eyes snapped open. “Touch me,” she whispered in a tone that sent dread spiking through him, “and your hand will not be the only appendage you lose this day.”

  He cautiously withdrew his fingers from where they had been hovering over her silky thigh. His trifling curiosity about this sleeping beauty transmuted into a clarion call, awaking his rarely slumbering virility. Lleland loved a challenge.

  “You are within Kemp,” he said, in case she wondered about her whereabouts. This space was adequate. He had made it livable since her son agreed to their pact and then rudely stuffed him in here. Lleland could channel his power through a pole at the center whenever the lad requested assistance. Surprisingly, he had not asked as often as Lleland expected. The warlock possessed an extraordinarily independent streak. Must need it with this controlling magnificence for a mother.

  “You are the reason we’re all in this mess,” Eolonde said in an accusatory tone.

  Ah. She remembered his unfortunate association with her husband. Pity. A twinge of guilt stirred but he brushed off its clawing grip.

  “Your husband chose to befriend me,” he said in a gentle voice, not wishing to alienate her. He still envisioned seducing this divine dark fae. “Perhaps he sensed that one day you and your son would be beholden to me.”

  She swung her feet encased in delicate slippers to the marble floor and stood tall and regal in her tattered gown. Her glance strayed to the blood caking her skirt. With a shake of her arms, her clothing returned to its former glory, but not before Lleland caught a glimpse of her breathtaking bare form.

  A tease!

  Fae never did anything by accident. She was as taken with him as he with her. His interest skyrocketed from mild to mind-blowing. That Dewer might disapprove of him bedding his mother only increased the lady’s allure.

  He boldly drew closer again and inhaled her intoxicating nectar. He had taken many lovers in his lifetime, often chosen from the human realm, but a few fae, too. Though the latter could be demanding. Always wanting to exchange favors. Lleland disliked trade. He was a god of persuasion, his powerful allure tugging his conquests within reach.

  “How do we get out of here?” she asked.

  “We don’t.” Trapped in here, he had finally understood how Llyr must have felt after Lleland imprisoned his son for centuries within the druid’s water-wall. He owed the boy an apology. For now, this devious dark fae was stuck with him. Surely, they had a few minutes to spare for pleasurable pursuits before her son faced the dark entity. “Dewer has a service to perform for me. Then he will release us.”

  “What does he get in exchange?”

  Lleland sighed at the predictable fae query. Why must everything be in terms of bargains with them? “I promised to help him conquer Earth’s resistance to his Wyhcan magic.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “Do you intend to keep that promise?”

  Fair question.

  Lleland still owed her husband a penance for taunting Lucifer with his new protégé, a warlock willing to die to defend his friend’s waters. Which was why, when Dewer entered his underwater realm, Lleland had seized the opportunity to cancel that long overdue obligation, and help himself, too.

  Still, Dewer had obviously suffered from a lack of fatherly guidance. Case in point, his waiting for their mothers’ approval before consummating his relationship with Grace was the epitome of foolishness.

  A man needed no permission to claim a willing heart. He had told Dewer so. Not that the lad paid any attention. Showed the warlock was as stubborn as Llyr. Children! That thought gave him the perfect idea.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will teach him all he needs to know, as if he were my own son.”

  Her motherly gaze instantly softened.

  Lleland smothered his glee. Almost mine!

  DEWER KNEW ONE PERSON who might know why he could suddenly see as if he were in the upper world. He tightened his grip on his staff and mind spoke to the water god. “Are you responsible for this?”

  No answer.

  “Lleland? Can you hear me?”

  “What?” He sounded distracted and breathless

  “Are you responsible for helping me see past Lucifer’s veil?” Dewer asked. What was he doing inside the staff?

  “Not I!” Lleland said, surprised. “I do not have such power in this fiery realm. Is it hotter than when we arrived?”

  Was it? Is that why Dewer was so thirsty? Lucifer must have increased the heat just to make every creature here miserable. He excelled at subverting a person’s will power, and causing physical discomfort to weaken his enemy’s resistance would be the first pick from his arsenal. If Dewer were not so determined to succeed, he might have been tempted to go in search of a drink. He cocked his head. Was that a waterfall in the distance? He licked his dry lips and imagined cool water cascading over his hot perspiring skin.

  “I do sense divine inspiration behind t
his little visual miracle,” Lleland said, interrupting Dewer’s wandering thoughts. “Ah, I see the source now. A blessing Farfur received by the Laneast well.”

  “What blessing?” he asked, feeling lost again.

  “The one that primed him to become your familiar. Since he is a creature of darkness, only the Creator’s blessing allows Farfur to be a vehicle for bringing the power of light into the underworld. You, too, are able to sip from that well because you finally finished your bonding ritual by opening your heart to him. Took you long enough.”

  Dewer absorbed that wealth of information in astonishment, his thirst forgotten. Grace had said something similar before she left. About the Creator leading her to the dark entity. That they were being watched over, so he would be helped in this fight. If so, and this clarity of vision suggested she might be right, then he hoped she was also correct about him being shown the way back to her. Then another aspect of this mystery that had been puzzling him surfaced and he again reached for the water god.

  “Lleland?”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Doing what? Is my mother all right?”

  “She is awake and sends you her blessing. Now what is your question? It will be your last for the next half hour. I had forgotten how annoyingly interrupting boys could be.”

  Dewer shrugged aside the insult of being labelled a boy. Knowing his mother was recovering set his mind at ease. Awake, she was also more than capable of handling Lleland. Now, if this was to be his last question for a while, he’d better make it count. “What did you do to annoy Lucifer, that he felt the need to personally destroy you?”

  Once again, silence was his response. Nearby, nervous monsters broke into occasional bloody fights. Did Lleland plan to ignore him? Not that it was hard to imagine all the maddening things Lleland might have done. He was entirely difficult to get along with.

  “We used to occasionally play chess,” the water god said in such a soft tone, Dewer almost missed it. “He mistakenly assumed that meant we were friends. One day, he made a request, I refused, and he took offense.”

  “What request?” Dewer asked, intrigued.

  Lleland gave a heavy sigh but then he answered. “Humans are notoriously easy to manipulate, despite having the gift of free will. Give them a few dark days, some spoilt crops, an occasional lightning strike, and they believe their God has deserted them. Lucifer wanted me to rain on England, non-stop, while he worked to entice a few souls his way.”

  “It has been raining hard in England for the past few months,” Dewer said with concern. “Is that of your doing?”

  “I said I refused. The thin-skinned serpent took offense and decided to ensure the matter himself. He swore he would make me pay for what he considered my disloyalty. Your father offered to find out what he planned. I had just received your father’s message about an effort underway to create the dark entity when he was murdered.”

  Lleland had Dewer’s undivided attention.

  “For almost a decade, all remained quiet, so I hoped Lucifer had grown tired of this particular game. Then, a few years ago, word came that he was stirring a series of mountains in Asia, causing volcanoes to erupt, which in turn began to have a startling effect on the weather. I attempted to protect England. Then the worst eruption happened last summer. Ash blew in our direction, peppering the clouds. I am unsure how he could have managed it, but by winter, even the sun grew cooler, temperatures dropped and it would not stop raining. I might have still been able to help, except Lucifer had finally succeeded in creating the dark entity that consumes life and released it into my water.”

  “You took ill,” Dewer finished.

  “The insidious creature infected every portion of my waters. The only way I could stop it was by restricting its movement and absorbing what particles escaped. That resulted in the very thing I hoped to avoid. With me no longer at full power, the rains poured. Now go and find this monstrosity, so we can obliterate it and be done with the constant downpour. I will take care of your mother.”

  In a thoughtful mood, Dewer cautiously wove his way through the throng of demons that seemed to be thousands deep. A flare burst to his right, right beneath a three-legged creature. It screamed in agony before it, too, was consumed, leaving naught but charred earth.

  How many more would die before Dewer succeeded in his mission? A thread of sympathy stirred. Grace must be rubbing off on him. He hardened his heart to consider the matter with dispassion. What these random strikes meant was that Lucifer was willing to kill his own to find Dewer.

  The dark entity must be close, Farfur, he mind-spoke. These demons have probably been gathered to guard it.

  Darkness-that-consumes is that way. Farfur pointed with his snout, his nostrils flaring.

  “LEAVE,” a whisper spread through the demon throng. “NOT YOUR FIGHT.”

  Dewer swung around, searching, but no winged dark angel stormed toward him. Not that it would have mattered. Having heard of his father’s role in this fight had cemented Dewer’s determination to see this job through. There was a small matter of restitution still outstanding for his father’s murder. Besides which, while he may not survive to make his father proud by enacting a proper Wyhcan marriage ceremony, he would derive a certain amount of perverse pleasure in ensuring the water god won this fight.

  A flare scorched three demons at once. Their cries sank into the thick sulfur-laden air.

  The trickle of water in the distance turned into a deluge as the waterway came into view. A river flowed like a twisting serpent, with its tail rattling at the far end in the form of a white waterfall. Cool mist peppered Dewer’s hot face making him want to race in and dive under.

  “ARE YOU PARCHED?” that insidious whisper slithered through the throng of demons. “WHY NOT QUENCH YOUR THIRST.”

  He swallowed painfully past a dry throat. The offer was more tempting than he wished to acknowledge. The surrounding panting monsters kept their distance from that river. Was this a trick then? Or real, but deadly?

  Just in case, he tightened his grip on Farfur whose tongue was lolling as if he, too, were desperate for a drink. Farfur did not resist his hold. Wise hound.

  “I AM YOUR GOD.” The order boomed, as if Lucifer had lost patience with subterfuge. “BOW BEFORE ME!”

  The monsters instantly dropped to the ground in supplication.

  Dewer was more encouraged than cowed by that show of temper. If Lucifer was threatening him directly, he must be close. The dark entity must be near here, too. His excitement rose and he reviewed the steps to a spell he planned to cast to force Lucifer to put an end his own dark creation or risk losing all of his monsters.

  As for Lucifer’s latest demand, if Dewer were to bow before any deity, it would not be to a bully who could not handle a rebuff. He paused as that thought formed troubling connections. He, too, had acted the bully after Merryn rejected him. While witches had accepted the Creator’s ruling that subverting human free will was out of bounds, Dewer, along with every other warlock, had resented the constraint and been searching for ways to circumvent the decree. How were their responses any different from Lucifer’s petulance?

  Except, Dewer was no longer that man, that warlock. He now accepted Merryn’s refusal as her right to make that decision. He had also sworn to himself that he would never again attempt to use Wyhcan mind magic on a human. Not even if the water god lived up to his promise to show him how. Sometimes, No, must be accepted as, No!

  “Psst.” The sound came from ahead. Closer to the waterfall.

  Dewer’s hold on Farfur slipped and he was back in the empty landscape. He quickly touched the hound’s neck fur, wondering if that call had come from Lleland. The water god had gone ominously quiet again.

  The next “psst” was followed by a, “This way.”

  About to ask where, he caught a glimpse of light flickering ahead before it died.

  “Bother!” the voice muttered in abject frustration from that location.

  “Who’s there
?” Dewer asked moving toward that light.

  “Mr. Dewer,” the cloaked newcomer said. “Tis I, Alfred.”

  “Death?” This was the creature Grace had spoken to in the water god’s chamber in Wales.

  The figure bowed, revealing part of its skeletal structure. “His envoy, sir.”

  “If you are here for me, you are a little premature.”

  “Is the water god with you?”

  “Why do you ask?” Dewer asked.

  “I came to see if I could safeguard him on his way home,” Alfred said, and then showed him a rectangular object. It looked like a plain thin sheet of stone. “I did not see his name on my listing of all whom I am to collect this day, but I could have missed it. My tablet has been acting erratically.”

  Squinting, Dewer leaned forward to peer at the stone tablet. There was a lightning shaped crack that ran down the center of it, sending smaller cracks all along the main line. Lights flickered across the tablet, showing a list of names scrolling. Then the light died and the tablet returned to pretending to be naught but a piece of flat stone. Fascinating.

  “Why do you care about the water god?” Dewer asked, straightening to gaze at the skeletal figure robed in black. Could the Creator have sent Alfred? Was all of this part of a grand plan? If so, Dewer would definitely consider the Creator worthy of devotion. Especially since he had also gifted him Farfur as his familiar. That generosity deserved a heartfelt, Thank you!

  “His daughter would not like her father to be hurt,” Alfred said.

  So what?

  Dewer did not wish to be hurt either father or daughter. Then he understood. Alfred was not here at the Creator’s bequest. He was here, willing to go against his master’s orders, because Alfred was concerned about a lady’s feelings. The same reason Dewer had wanted to please Grace by saving Adramelech’s hornets, which he detested. There was only one reason a man would be willingly to perform foolish courageous acts. Alfred was romantically infatuated with the water god’s daughter, Llyn!