“I’m sorry, Lord Feille. We didn’t want to risk allowing her to use her magic. She can fix herself now,” one of the scouts said.
Instead I spat a mouthful of blood and teeth onto the floor. “I’m sorry for the trespass, your lordship. I was trying to get to your gate and was in a bit of a hurry.”
He nodded, looking completely uninterested in my apology or my excuse. “You planned to use our gate twice, ride two times through our kingdom without even a by–your–leave? That’s beyond trespass, that’s rudeness.”
“As I said, I’m in a hurry. I’m not able go through our lands right at the moment, and your gate is the closest to my earth home. I didn’t intend to be rude. Is there something I can do to make up for my lack of manners?”
Because it all boiled down to favors. I’d owe him one, and he’d let me go. That’s the way it worked. That’s the way it had always worked.
He smiled. “Actually, there is a small service you could perform for me.”
I waited patiently, my shoulder screaming, and the lump on my head beginning to take on a life of its own. I truly expected my skull to erupt at any moment and another being to spring forth—kind of like Athena. My mind wandered for a while, envisioning a Xena–looking warrior woman popping out of my head, scantily clad in leather armor and grasping a sword. I was startled from my daydreams of a choreographed fight scene by the high lord’s voice.
“A sorcerer, one we call Gareth, has left without permission, taking valuable texts and objects with him. His apprentice has been foolish enough to accompany him. I would be very grateful if you retrieved them for me.”
I could have guessed that one. “It seems an awful high value you place on two uses of your gate and passage through your lands. And capturing a sorcerer, especially one that is not alone, is a very difficult task.”
I hoped he hadn’t recognized me. Maybe he and the other elves thought I was just some random demon they could press into service. We changed forms constantly, and it was very difficult to identify us. Without a way to read our energy we kind of all looked the same. Of course, the elves had special skills.
Feille smiled. “You have proven yourself capable in the past, Az. I am sure this sorcerer will not be beyond your abilities. I’m prepared to offer you permission to use our gate to travel through our lands for an extended period of time. Given the bounty on your head, that should be of great value to you.”
It was of great value to me. Normally I’d jump at it, especially since I didn’t know how long it would take to find this darned baby, but my schedule was getting full. I still wanted to hear the details though, just in case this was a better offer.
“So where do you think this sorcerer is?”
“We have been told he is in Eresh.”
Crap, that was way north of the elf lands, beyond the mountains. This wasn’t a quick job.
“His human apprentice met with demons in Dis and is alleged to have paid one for gate passage. We suspect he has left and is gathering information and supplies for his master. It would be a perfect time to capture Gareth while he waits in Eresh for his apprentice’s return.”
Why the heck were they so far apart? Eresh was north, in between two mountain ranges. Dis was due south. They were separated by several Elven kingdoms and tough terrain. They could have been at opposite ends of the world and they wouldn’t have been farther apart. Why? It would be an easier job with them both in one place. Time and distance weren’t the only issues though. Eresh was demon land and Dis was Haagenti’s homeland. I wasn’t about to stroll around in demon territory given my current circumstances, even if I did have time for it.
“Very tempting offer. I’ve got quite a lot on my plate right now, so let me put you on the list and I’ll get back to you when I have a better idea of when I can work on this project.”
“No. I need your services now. These other things will need to wait.”
“They can’t wait. And I’m not strolling around Eresh with a price on my head looking for your runaway. I need to take care of a few things, and then I’ll go find this guy for you.”
“You will go now.”
“Yeah, I’m going home now. I’ll go to Eresh sometime in the future, but not now.”
“The price on your head is very high, Az. Very tempting. Tempting enough that I could pay another demon to find my runaway and purchase a replacement sorcerer from another kingdom. You and I communicate well, so I would like to work with you on this, but if you refuse, I’ll turn you over and collect the bounty.”
“Okay, I’ll move a few things around on my schedule and make some time next month or so. But I cannot do it now.”
“Now,” he thundered, and I felt the net hover over me again.
“Fuck you,” I told him and pulled on the red purple deep within, summoning Gregory to me. Let’s see how much of a prick this elf was with an angel standing in front of him.
Nothing happened. Well, nothing besides the net closing around me and two guards grabbing my arms to drag me off. Again I pulled desperately at the network branching throughout me. I need you right now, asshole.
There was a disorienting flash, and I was standing with my nose buried in the cotton of a polo shirt—strong arms wrapped around me. I looked up at Gregory, astonished, then peeked around him to see busy shoppers outside a Yankee Candle store.
I gaped at the angel.
“Well, here I am. As you commanded.” He sounded amused.
“No, this is not as I commanded.” I tried to pull away, but he held me tight. “I commanded you to come to me.”
He laughed. “I’m not going to Hel. This seemed like an acceptable alternative.”
“It’s not acceptable,” I insisted. “I summoned you. You are supposed to come to me.”
“You’re not strong enough to make me go somewhere against my will, little cockroach,” he said, amusement still in his voice.
Against his will? So what good was this two way binding if I wasn’t strong enough to even use it to my advantage?
“Fine. Send me back then.”
“No, that would involve my going with you, and as I said before, I’m not going to Hel.”
“But I left my horse there,” I shouted at him. Shoppers glanced at us in mild curiosity. “You were supposed to come to me, and threaten an elf so he’d let me go. Then I could find my horse and come back the way I went in.”
“Well, I’m glad I didn’t come to you. This is a much better plan all around.”
“Except that I left my horse there, at the mercy of those shithead elves.”
“They’ll treat him well. Elves cherish horses.”
“That’s not the point. He’s my horse, and I want him back.” I suddenly had an idea. “Wait. Can you gate the horse here? Bring him to me?”
He sighed. “No, the horse is not bound to me. I have no way of knowing its whereabouts. And even if I did, I wouldn’t gate a horse into the middle of a shopping mall. That’s far too impish an action for me to even contemplate.”
“But I’ve marked the horse, and I’m bound to you, so can’t you just follow the trail to him and bring him back?”
He was amused again. “It doesn’t work like that little cockroach. I thought you were on good terms with the elves. Just go through the gate here, stroll right on in and ask for your horse back.”
“Elves don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Evidently they don’t take ‘later’ for an answer either. And I can’t go through this gate. It puts me in demon lands. Haagenti will grab me the moment I step through.”
“It’s past time for you to deal with this problem. Do it now.” There was an edge of command in his voice.
“I’m trying to deal with it in a way that doesn’t involve me dead or tortured for centuries. I’ve got some plans in the works that are better than strolling through a gate and trying to chop my way through a few hundred demons.”
He released me and raised his hands in exasperation. “You don’t need to kill them all. Just go in with a mi
ghty show of power. They will all switch sides in an instant. Demons have no loyalty. Be the Iblis and they’ll drop this other guy and rush to your side.”
What did he mean? Demons had plenty of loyalty.
I needed to figure out some other way to get Diablo back. I’m sure he headed toward the elf gate, but they’d be watching that like hawks now. It was only a matter of time before they caught him. If I didn’t get him back within a day or so, I’d need to plan on retrieving him directly from Feille. And I wasn’t sure how well that would go over after I cursed at him and vanished before his eyes. Even if I did retrieve his sorcerer, he probably wouldn’t be willing to return Diablo. Anger burned inside me at the thought of losing my horse, and as cushy as Diablo probably would find the elf world, he’d become bored with their restrictions. Elves weren’t appropriate owners for a demon hybrid. Clearly they weren’t appropriate mothers for demon hybrids, either.
“Fine. Can you gate me back to my house? I have a project I’m working on that’s kind of time sensitive.” I also needed to have word with Leethu and see what Dar managed to find out for me. And see if Wyatt would help me with yet another project. Wyatt. I’d been gone only a day and I missed him terribly.
The angel looked as though he was about to say ‘no’, then paused. “Okay, but you will owe me a favor.”
I was astonished. That’s the sort of thing a demon would ask for, not an angel.
“Done. As long as the favor does not contradict any vow I’ve made.” Standard language, just to clarify the terms.
He smiled down at me. It was a very naughty smile for an angel, and I began to wonder what exactly this favor would entail. His arms went around me, crushing the breath out of my lungs with an unnecessary firmness, and in an instant we were in my living room.
“And now you owe me a favor,” he murmured against my ear. His voice had that dangerous tone to it and I imagined all the favors I really wanted him to request of me. But I had a lot to do and no time right now to play hide the sausage, or the angel equivalent.
“And the favor is that I stand here and let you pulverize my ribs?” I asked.
“No.” He released me and stepped away. “See you in two days, little cockroach.”
Shit. The council meeting. And I had so much to do.
10
“Leethu,” I shouted the moment Gregory was gone. I knew she was here. She wouldn’t risk being nabbed by an angel, and she could hardly go home with an elf lord waiting to end her life.
A face peeked down from the stairwell. A beautiful Thai face with a waterfall of dark hair.
“Ni–ni, I’m so glad you’re home. I’ve been bored.”
Uh oh. That didn’t sound good. She crept down the stairs.
“Is that angel gone? I don’t like him. He wants to kill me.”
“Of course he does, Leethu. You’re a demon.”
“He doesn’t want to kill you.” She looked slyly at me as she crossed the room. “He wants to do other things to you.”
“Yes, I’m pretty sure he does. But he probably wants to kill me too.”
The pheromones were flying. Leethu had been bored, and her seductive self was very tempting. She reached up and ran fingers through my hair.
“You are covered in blood, Ni–ni. And many of your teeth are missing.”
Crap, I’d forgotten. I wondered for a moment why all the shoppers at the mall hadn’t been aghast at my battered appearance. It must have been Gregory’s influence. Humans were blind to a lot of things around an angel.
Leethu trailed a finger across my jaw and down my neck. “I’m so lonely, Ni–ni. Trapped in this house for days with only the Internet and your toys. Can you be with me?”
I was so hot for her I was ready to throw her on the couch and go for it, but I had a lot to do before that stupid council meeting, and once sucked into Leethu’s embrace, it would take far more willpower than I possessed to break free.
“You fucked an elf, Leethu.”
It was better than a bucket of ice water. She yanked her hand from my neck with a gasp. “Oh no, Ni–ni; not at all. The elves, they don’t find their pleasure with demons. I’ve tried, but they always refuse me.” She said the last with a little pout, but I wasn’t fooled.
“Cyelle, about nineteen or twenty years ago. You seduced her. She didn’t even know you were a demon. And then you had the stupidity to impregnate her. What the fuck were you thinking?”
Leethu made a gurgling noise.
“She carried the baby to term, in case it was an elf, but when a hybrid was born, she killed it and sent it over as a changeling. Now some rumor has gotten out and the elf lord, Taullian, wants your head on a platter and the baby’s body as proof. But you already know that, don’t you? That’s why you’re hiding out here, at my place.”
“That fucking elf,” Leethu gasped. “The bitch set me up.”
“Well, what do you expect? You’re lucky she didn’t accuse you of rape. It’s borderline. And impregnation? What the fuck, Leethu?”
“It was a deal, a contract,” Leethu said, her voice quivering with rage. “I assumed a form she would find pleasing and gave her the child she so badly wanted. In return, I got to fuck an elf.”
Now it was my turn to make that gurgling noise.
“She approached me. At one of their parties. It was her idea.”
Demons lie. But something about Leethu’s story rang true.
“She didn’t totally blame you, Leethu. She said she thought you were an elf from another kingdom, that she was distraught from some event and sought solace. She didn’t know you were a demon until you were actually doing the deed, and she was too ashamed of her foolishness to stop you. She hoped to deny everything and just pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Ni–ni, I vow on every soul I Own that she lies. She knew the whole time. She let me fuck her in return for a child.”
I snorted. “Oh right, because every elf wants a demon hybrid in their womb. Yes, they all desperately want a child, but an elf child, not a despised demon spawn.”
“She had lost two babies early in pregnancy. She’d discovered there was no hope of her ever having an elf child. Only a demon could give her a child. She could have aborted, but she carried to full term, knowing that she carried a demon hybrid.”
“She had the faint hope that it was an elf child. Leethu, she couldn’t have possibly thought she could carry off bearing a hybrid child and raising it as an elf.”
“I was careful,” Leethu insisted. “I formed the child so that it would appear to be an elf. It was one of my best works. Only a very subtle part was demon, a hidden part. I’m positive the baby could pass.”
No one was that good. Yes, humans are fooled all the time, but no one else. We can all sense even the faintest hint of demon in a being. Even as good as I was at keeping my energy deep inside, I couldn’t pull it off with regular, repeated contact. Eventually something would show. A baby would have no control. Her demon self would have peeked out constantly, no matter how carefully she was formed or how much of an elf she looked like on the outside.
“She was desperate, Ni–ni. I swear to you. She wanted this baby, didn’t care that it was half demon. She’d thought this out carefully, had made provisions to ensure the baby wouldn’t be exposed as a hybrid. She would foster it somewhere until it reached an age where it could control and hide the demon half, then she’d bring her child back to her.”
If Leethu was telling the truth, then the baby most definitely was alive. Loved, protected in a foster home. The human might be alive too. Plus, there would be more reason to hide the identity of the midwife, who under torture could reveal the fact that a live hybrid baby had been hidden away. I knew human mothers would readily die to protect their children; perhaps elf mothers were no different.
“Did she say anything about where she planned to foster the baby? Any clue about where the baby might be?” It was a long shot.
Leethu shook her head. “She had every intention of keepi
ng it when we made our deal. I’m assuming she’d made arrangements with a dwarven foster home. They normally don’t care for hybrids, but I’m sure if the price was right, one would consent and agree to keep their mouths shut. I never heard from her after we fucked. It’s not like I cared what she did with it.”
Dwarves, or a human foster home? I’d met the human changeling: Nyalla. All her paperwork had been in order. A human and a demon had gone through a gate, made an exchange and returned with a human baby. So either the hybrid was alive in a human foster home, or she was dead at the time of the exchange.
“Leethu, you are so fucked,” I told her.
Suddenly that shrewd look was back in Leethu’s eyes. “You are my Iblis. I request sanctuary. I request that you negotiate with the elves on my behalf as a matter of diplomacy.”
What the heck? I was the Department of State now? Should I send out regular alerts? The Iblis advises all demons not to fuck any elves. The Iblis advises all demons that the elf lord in Wythyn is a total asshole.
“Leethu, I’m an imp, I don’t negotiate. And I definitely don’t negotiate on someone else’s behalf. You’ve got to deal with this issue. Do you plan on hiding out here in my house for the next ten thousand years or so? Can’t go out, angels will get you. Can’t go home, elves will get you.” Can’t sleep, clowns will eat you, I thought randomly. “You’ll go insane within the next few days. You’re already going nuts.”
“They’ll kill me, Ni–ni. If you can’t work out some terms of immunity, they’ll kill me.”
“It’s a good possibility, but that was the risk you accepted when you fucked an elf, when you impregnated an elf. Even a willing one. That was our first lesson in school; remember? Evaluate risks, weigh the benefits, be willing to accept consequences.” I assumed she learned that too. Succubi and Incubi went to different schools than the other demons. It was good to keep them away from us at that young age so we didn’t kill them in our enthusiasm.
“Please, Ni–ni, as my sister, as my Iblis, I ask this of you. I will owe you many favors—put myself and my household under yours—anything.”
Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) Page 11