by Sam Cheever
The High Council stood and nodded at Myra, who swung haughtily away from me and floated toward her seat at the council table.
“Mx. Phelps. I want to thank you. The council has very much appreciated your impromptu, little lesson in gutter language. It isn’t often that we hear words of such color in these chambers.”
I tried a weak laugh that was strangled off by his dark glare. “Sorry, sir. But I do have a life and I deeply resent being pulled here on a whim.”
His scowl deepened. “A whim, Mx. Phelps? This council does not function on whims. You will just have to resign yourself to the fact that you have been called into our service and nothing you do from this point on will be entirely your choice. You cannot hope, with your low and I do mean low, Mx. Phelps, status, to know more about how these things should be handled than does the Angel Council. The idea is preposterous and borders on sacrilege. Do I make myself clear?”
My teeth were grinding together so hard that I thought I’d have to gum my dinner later, but, political creature that I am, I simply scowled at him and nodded.
He heaved a sigh and lowered himself back into his gilded chair. “Good. Then let us continue. What have you learned?”
I took him through the adventure at Nerul’s court, leaving out most of the details on my growing powers and my discovery that Emo was a disenfranchised royal. I figured old High and Mighty could find those things out for himself since he appeared to think he was so special! Okay, it was childish but, Hades, it was all I had at the moment.
I informed them of the letter from Deaver and was surprised by their apparent lack of surprise. My blood pressure rose at the High Council’s unwaveringly, blank expression. As I finished up by relating my intended plans for the evening, before I had been so rudely interrupted. I looked at him with what I hoped was an accusatory expression. “You knew about the Prince being held at the Church.”
His HighCouncilness stared at me for a long time. He appeared to be weighing the possibility of not telling me anything. But apparently he wasn’t ready for Advanced Gutter Language 201 at Phelps University. “Yes. We have followed the developments in this war very closely since Nerul was evicted from the court of Dialle the First some two thousand years ago.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you already know everything you’ve dragged me here to report?”
The High Council shook his head sadly. “Alas, no, Mx. Phelps. We followed the abduction of Prince Nille by Princess Rayanne, but we have lost his trail. We need your help to find him.”
“Why?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “Why, Mx. Phelps? Do you question our intentions?”
“Yeah. I question your intentions. Why do you care what happens to the evil progeny of a monster like Nerul?”
A collective gasp rose from the council table. My angel stood up and focused her most forbidding scowl on me. “Astra! Hold your tongue.”
The High Council raised a hand to Myra. “Sit down, Myra. I’ll overlook her impertinence because I recognize that she has been put into a difficult spot.”
“Difficult would be a vacation.” I know I should have held my tongue but, well, you probably have me figured out by now.
The High Council shook his head and looked at his nearly glowing, cappuccino colored hands for a long moment before speaking. When he raised his head I was surprised to see a sparkle dancing in the brown of his gaze. “Mx. Phelps, you really should make more of an effort to hold your devil in check, especially while in these chambers.”
I thought about that for a second and then nodded. Even I could agree with that.
The High Council stood and floated around to me, motioning as he rose for the rest of the council to stay seated. He stopped in front of me and looked down into my eyes. His voice, insinuating as always, deepened as he lowered it to speak only to me. “I cannot explain, halfling Phelps, why the council has taken a special interest in this young devil. You must trust that we have good reason to want him found. All is not as it seems in this situation.”
“That’s an understatement of galactic proportions.”
He nodded. “I will tell you this. Your friends in this are not necessarily your friends and your enemies may not be what they appear.”
I laughed. “Hey, thanks. That clears things right up.”
The High Council frowned. “Do not ever forget you’ve been selected to work in His service, halfling Phelps. Trust in Him and all will become clear.”
“Does that mean that I have the Council’s protection?”
He looked a little pained at this. Turning away he motioned for Myra to come. “To the extent that it is possible we will protect you, Mx. Phelps.”
“I’m underwhelmed. Thanks.” Myra touched my forehead and we did the statue dance back to my office. As soon as my parts would work again I opened my mouth to fire questions at my angel. But she was having none of it. She shimmered away before I could get a single word out.
Stinkin’, damn, angel.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Get Thee Behind me Satan
And in the lair the devil sat, his placid face adroop
He waited for his maiden fair, to rid the fan of royal poop.
I entered the church through the same doors I’d entered when I’d found Deaver twirling from the office ceiling fan. Standing in the musty smelling, dimly lit foyer, I wondered at the change in atmosphere from the last time I’d been there. A quick search of the main level showed me that the only way up was the staircase I’d climbed to Deaver’s office.
With a feeling of foreboding that surprised me a little, I retraced my steps of that fateful night. I quickly found myself immersed in total darkness as I ascended the staircase to the second floor. At the landing I looked for a moment toward the hall that fed the church offices and suppressed a shiver. Something evil was resting nearby. That knowledge didn’t exactly entice me to move ever higher into the profound shadows which awaited me as the stairway climbed away from the second floor.
I pulled out the palm-sized canister light I’d placed in my coat pocket before leaving my office. “Light on full.” The powerful Halolight X14 clicked on, illuminating the staircase and throwing the levels above me into bright relief. I took a deep breath and started climbing again. Three floors later I emerged onto the final landing and stood facing a heavy wooden door that looked like it had been ripped from the stone wall of a sixteenth century castle.
The heavy planks of the door were bound together with rusted, metal straps that were about four inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick. The entrance was “locked” by way of a heavy wooden plank, which rested in thick flat metal hooks that were mounted into the stone wall on either side. Embedded in the ancient, blackened wood were several crosses, which glowed with a familiar green light. I tapped the door and felt a jolt. Apparently it had been touched by royal magic. I realized that, primitive as the latch was, backed up by royal powers, it would be immensely effective for keeping prisoners in the room that waited beyond.
Tentatively I reached out again and pressed the surface of the door with my palm. I found that the tingling sensation of power it emitted was bearable if I pushed back at it a bit with my own power. Reaching to lift the plank, I learned that it was at least as heavy as it looked.
With some sweating and swearing I managed to lift the wooden plank and then nearly dropped it on my toe when I had it free. The noise I made all but ensured that if anything was waiting for me behind that door it would have no doubt that I’d arrived.
With some serious feelings of dread, I pulled an eight inch silver and platinum dagger from the sheath I wore around my waist and dragged the door open just enough to allow me to squirm through.
Heavy silence met me, along with a slight sulfur stench that told me dark worlders had recently visited the room.
I shined the search light into the inky darkness that engulfed the tower room and swung it in a slow arc before slithering the rest of the way through the door. The spac
e was circular, about ten yards in diameter and had stone walls. With a feeling of disgust, I noted the beefy-looking rings of some kind of ancient metal, maybe iron, which were bolted into the wall high and low, apparently so that they could restrain some unfortunate victim’s wrists and ankles.
The walls seemed to glow with that strange green light I’d noticed in Nerul’s court. Looking up, I saw that, although the room did not appear to be open to the night air, the ceiling was either extremely high or was masked behind some kind of spell. I shone my powerful light above my head but I couldn’t see the top of the room. My guess was that some kind of masking spell had been used to hide it, for whatever reason.
In the center of the room a ring of crosses stood about fifteen feet tall. The wood that formed the crosses looked to be about six inches square and had the deep, black patina of extreme old age. In fact the wood appeared to be petrified and I figured it would be nearly impenetrable.
Crucifixion crosses, endowed with ancient magic.
The arms of the crosses met to form a non-breaking barrier that would hold whatever had been imprisoned there within their grasp. Within the circular prison, the floor was littered with burnt out candles and discarded utensils, as if someone had eaten and held a series of ceremonies there for an extended period of time.
I moved into the room and immediately stumbled over something squishy and rank smelling on the floor. The beam of my search light illuminated the mangled and rotting carcass of a dead gargoyle. I stepped over the disgusting thing and moved toward the circle of crosses.
Touching one of the crosses, I was surprised to find it warm against my hand. I was even more surprised when the thing started to glow and hum.
I pulled my hand away as an image of blood and pain tore through my mind. My hand, where it had touched the cross, was pulsing with the same strange green light and tingled unpleasantly. “Shit.”
As the cross gradually lost its glow, I forced myself to touch it again and was immediately assailed by the disgusting vision of gargoyles feasting on the tender flesh of a young man, whose pale, tortured face seemed to stare right into my own. As I watched in horror, his bloody lips split in a gruesome scream, the intensely blue eyes begging silently for my help.
I yanked my hand away from the cross once again and shrieked. Taking several quick steps away from the ring of crosses, I clutched my dagger more tightly in a sweaty hand. When I realized I was panting, I took several deep breaths in an attempt calm down. The spot on my hand where I’d touched the cross still tingled painfully.
What had I seen? Was that young Prince Nille who’d looked into my eyes in the vision? I’d watched the gargoyles tearing his flesh, devouring it as they ravaged his beautiful, young body. Had I viewed the past, or the future? Was I too late to save him or just in time? Was he already dead or still alive somewhere, sending me a message to let me know he needed my help? And where the hell was he if he was still alive?
My head began to scream as a brutal headache closed in on me and my thoughts went fuzzy through the pain. I closed my eyes and tried to think, think, think. What was it about that pale face that had clutched my heart and made me want to rescue him? I’d seen his father doing his evil thing and the reality was that, like the ancient human saying goes, the cumquat never falls too far from the bush. Or something like that. Which told me that Prince Nille of the tortured blue gaze was almost certainly a monster just like his father. So why then did I feel such pain at his apparent death? And what had I seen in that pale, blood-covered face that was clutching at my soul and making my head pound with tension?
“We meet again pathetic halfling.”
I jumped and whirled around. Standing just inside the ancient wooden door...the only door into or out of the prison space...was beautiful and coldly evil Princess Rayanne with a bone-chilling smile on her stunning face. And behind her, drooling with ravenous anticipation, stood a band of gargoyles that looked suspiciously like the ones I’d just seen eating Prince Nille in my blood-drenched vision.
Frunk me.
“It is indeed unusual to see a non-royal receive visions of that clarity and intensity. I wonder that you’ve managed it. Apparently there is more to you than the court realizes.”
I counted the slavering disgustables behind the evil miss and felt my stomach tumble with nerves. Six drooling gargoyles. Six hungry looking, flesh eating gargoyles. So much for the ancient human wives’ tale about gargoyles bringing good luck.
Humans are such incredible saps.
A snarling arose as two of the gargoyles started to peck at the rotting carcass of their fallen comrade on the floor. One of the nasty things tried to sink its fangs into his hungry friend and the snarling increased in intensity and volume. While everybody was distracted by the disgusting display, I decided it would be a good time to put some distance between me and the evil Barbie. I backed up a few inches, glancing around to get the measure of my chances for escape.
Rayanne raised a hand to silence them and, reluctantly, they ambled away from the carcass. Apparently she had no trouble handling her gargoyles.
I wondered what she was doing there and decided the best way to find out was to just, well, ask. “So, what brings you here, Princess Sunshine?”
Her full, perfect lips parted in a blood-red smile. “Still more guts than brains I see, pathetic halfling. I hope you don’t think your angels will protect you from me.”
My eyebrows flew skyward before I could stop them.
She laughed. “Yes. I am fully aware that you have the ear of the Council. Is that where you draw your power from?”
I shrugged and slowly dropped the hand with the dagger in it to my side. If I was really lucky she’d forget I had it. Not that she couldn’t take me out from a distance, but hey, give me points for trying. “What powers?”
Her eyes sparkled. “The powers I saw with my own eyes. It doesn’t matter. Do not think they will dirty their pale, pristine hands in this business. They have sent you to draw our fire.” She cocked her dark head and the thick braid of hair tumbled over her shoulder to puddle on the floor beside her. “I wonder what they hope to gain.” When it became apparent to her that I considered her question rhetorical, she shrugged and smiled her icy smile at me. “It doesn’t matter. For you the end result is the same.”
She raised a hand and the gargoyles dropped to their more natural four-footed stance and started moving forward. I began to back slowly toward the cross prison, forgetting about its painful effects as my eyes slid back and forth across the limited space, looking for a way out. The gargoyles began to whimper and slaver as they came closer, their bear-like gaits becoming more predatory and careful as they realized from my stance and the fact that I held an eight inch long platinum and silver knife in front of me that I would fight back when they attacked.
The leader was slightly larger than the rest and seemed a little more intelligent. As I stared into his leather-encased eyes, I saw hesitation there and maybe a little dread. That intrigued me and I decided to test it.
Closing my eyes, I quickly searched the core of my power and released it. I allowed it to flow out and form a circle of protection around me. The power bubbled to the surface and pulsed there, coating my body like a suit of impenetrable armor. I opened my eyes as I felt the first tentative touch of the leader’s fang-filled snout against my power bubble. He stared back at me with real fear in his eyes and I had to wonder why. I guess not too many of his meals knew how to protect themselves with magic.
My unwavering gaze brought him to his stomach in a grovel before me. At his movement, the rest of the gargoyles began whimpering and backing away, some prostrating themselves before me as their leader had done.
While this certainly was a welcome surprise, I knew it didn’t necessarily solve my problems. I still had Rayanne to worry about and I was sure I wouldn’t be able to hold the protective screen for long. At best, it had given me some time to figure out my next move.
I thought briefly of turning th
e full strength of my power on the gargoyles and vaporizing them as I’d done the demons in Nerul’s court, but I knew that to accomplish that, I’d have to take my attention off of their dangerous mistress for far too long.
Even as I thought of her, her voice came into my head. Halfling, Astra? I fought the urge to look at her as her words came to me, probing and shaped like a question mark. I got the sense that she wasn’t sure I could hear her. It was obviously a test. One I was determined to fail.
Studiously ignoring her, I kept her in my peripheral vision as I locked my unwavering gaze on the gargoyle leader. I’d decided that, if I could control him, I could control the whole disgusting, slobbering crew. He’d remained flat on the floor, but had begun to scoot backward, keeping his worried leather eyes on me.
“Gunther!” His angry mistress’s bark stopped him cold. His head swung around and he whimpered pitifully. I almost felt sorry for the disgusting bastard. Almost. She spoke to him in the language of Hades.
Not being a student of the language I couldn’t tell you what she said. I was pretty sure she wasn’t telling him to braid my hair for me. He pulled himself off the floor and stood, sniffing the air in my direction nervously before beginning to move tentatively in my direction. His solders, not being all that bright and essentially driven by their need to kill and eat, eagerly moved around him and converged on me.
I braced for the onslaught. As the first gargoyle hit my protective wall the power shuddered but held. The ’goyle bounced off with a snarl and scurried away to think about the zing he’d received when he’d touched my power. Gargoyles are nothing if not persistent, however. When the first one pinged away, his pack members stopped and watched him carefully to see if he was permanently damaged. As he regained his feet and shook it off, the rest of them decided I still looked like a pretty tasty morsel and turned their watery gazes back to me.