by Sam Cheever
I was so engrossed in the sound of his voice that it took a minute for me to realize that he was telling a story. A very important story.
“... that, although the battle left hundreds of soldiers and members of both courts dead...including our Queen...” The room erupted in hostile murmurings. Dialle waited it out and then silenced them by raising one hand. The room fell silent immediately. “Nille and Nerul have survived and have left to rebuild. They’ve taken several of the court guard, a few dozen females and their children. I expect they will situate what’s left of the court somewhere safe and will be back to deal with us. I intend to be ready.”
As the room rumbled with murmurs and many heads bobbed in approval and agreement, I thought about what Dialle had said and the fact that he hadn’t even mentioned the angels. I was pretty sure the crowd before us wouldn’t support angelic intervention in their fight and I was equally sure that the angels’ part in the fight wasn’t something Dialle was willing to mention. As Dialle continued, my gaze moved around the room, taking in the rapt expressions of one and all. I was beginning to realize that members of the Devil Court were much like every Royal Court from the beginning of time. They looked for entertainment in all its forms. Everybody loved a good tale, tall or not. Dialle’s tale was a good one—I just wasn’t sure how much of it was true.
“Princess Astra killed Rayanne.” My ears and heart picked up this little bombshell just about the same time and I jumped in my chair. I felt Dialle’s fingers dig painfully into my arm as the room erupted in anger. He let them rumble for a few minutes before raising one hand to silence them.
The room full of creatures dropped into silence but hundreds of pairs of cold, dark eyes rested on me, causing me to tighten my grip on the knife in my thigh sheath. I checked out the members of the court who sat at the table with us and some of their previously bored faces held a trace of something that looked like surprised awe. A few of them gave me the slightest of nods and smiled as my eyes met theirs. I suddenly felt as if I’d passed the initiation to join a club that I didn’t want to be a member of.
I also felt like I needed a shower. A really long one. In very hot, very holy water.
Dialle kept his gaze on the hostile crowd but I could feel his power, like waves of heat off a summer highway, rippling away from him and coating the room. It made the air so thick that I could hardly breathe through it. But it had the desired effect. After a few tense moments the members of the court removed their skewering gazes from poor little ol’ me and fixed their attention on Dialle. He continued his story.
“Rayanne had become our enemy. She betrayed me and joined forces with Nerul to plot my death. By killing her, this halfling has earned more than our gratitude, she has earned the title Princess of the Court of Dialle the First. With this rank comes my guarantee of her safety. Let it be known throughout this court, that, from this day forward, Princess Astra is under my protection and shall be awarded every consideration that comes with her rank and position. Any who attempt to harm her will face my wrath. I would see her honored with the good wishes of this court, nothing less.”
He allowed that to sink in for a moment before turning to scan the length of the table, measuring the gaze of each of those seated there before he raised a hand toward the gathered court dwellers. “Leave us now.” The crowd bowed low and started filing out of the room until only those who still had places at the table remained.
Dialle turned to a well-decorated guard standing just to the right of the long table, “Gerch, you will join the Princess and me in my quarters. We have much to discuss.” Then he stood, grabbed my hand and pulled me up with him, turning away from the table.
The tall, exceedingly lean royal who had been seated next to me at the table stopped Dialle by placing a golden hand on his arm. Dialle simply turned the midnight black of his gaze to the taller man with barely concealed hostility. “Dialle, you cannot confer in private over matters that concern us all.”
“You will be informed in due course, Fallen.”
The taller devil held Dialle’s gaze for a moment longer and then nodded slightly, stepping away. Anger rolled off him in palpable waves, but apparently he didn’t feel secure enough to confront Dialle in front of the gathered court. I skimmed a glance over the beautiful golden faces gathered around us, seeing varying degrees of anger there and not much else. With that quick assessment I realized Dialle was holding the court together through sheer force of will. He wouldn’t be able to take any of their loyalty for granted.
I wondered why.
Dialle turned away and pulled me with him through the door in the wall behind the table. I hurried to keep up with his longer, energized strides and tried to gape around me as we flew down a brightly lit hallway that reminded me a little bit of a well-appointed hotel. I wondered what lay behind each of the dozens of doors that segmented the long walls. Dialle slowed, finally, as he approached the single door at the very end of the hallway. The door flew open before him and we entered without losing even a tiny fraction of a stride. As Gerch and two of his men followed us into the room, the door swung shut behind them and a lock snicked into place. Apparently we weren’t expecting visitors. Or maybe we were...
Dialle moved to stand in front of the wall of windows, located directly opposite the door. He paced back and forth before the windows for several minutes without speaking.
I sank into a hard, white upholstered chair close to the door just in case I needed to make an escape. For the moment my curiosity was keeping me there, together with some things I wasn’t going to explore too closely.
Taking my cue from the guards, I waited patiently for Dialle to speak. He finally stopped pacing and dropped onto a long, white divan that appeared to be covered in mohair. He glanced sharply at me before turning to his captain of the guards. “Where are the angels?”
Gerch cast a quick glance at me as if to question whether I should be privy to the conversation which was about to occur. Dialle simply continued to stare expectantly at the lesser devil. Finally Gerch gave a slight bow of his thick, red body and spoke.
“They have been taken to a safe place where they can be picked up. Even now their armies gather. The Council of Light has spread its spies across the earth in a hunting expedition. Nille and Nerul will have gone into the shadows. It is unlikely the light ones will find them there.”
Dialle nodded thoughtfully. “I agree. That is why Princess Astra and I must find them. The shadows are no place for the angels.”
I frowned. I didn’t like the direction the discussion was going.
Gerch looked concerned. “My Lord, you cannot face them alone.”
Dialle grinned but it was decidedly lacking in mirth. “I will not be alone, I will have Princess Astra with me. Together we shall,” he turned to me and the grin gained a little as his dark eyes sparked, “kick ass, as the lady is fond of saying.”
I couldn’t help it, I grinned back.
“But my Lord, just two of you against Nille, Nerul and his court?”
“It is the way it must be. Our powers have merged and we are a considerable force now, we have no choice. Nille must not fulfill his destiny.”
“Yes, but let us help. My men have served the Court of Dialle the First for thousands of years. We cannot leave you to face this enemy alone. Please don’t ask us to.”
Dialle stood and moved to stand facing his Captain. Placing a hand on each of the guard’s shoulders he gave him a sad smile. “And can you guarantee the loyalty of all of your guards, Gerch?”
For the merest sliver of time the truth flitted across the guard’s heavy-featured, red face. He quickly masked his concern and nodded briskly. “My men would follow you to Heaven, Prince Dialle. They will do what needs to be done.”
Dialle stared into the guard’s eyes for a moment longer and then shook his head, dropping his hands. “Nay. Your wishes do not make truth. Your forces are as divided now as my court. We are safer without them.”
Gerch’s head drooped
as he shook it. But when he raised it to look upon Dialle again there was fire in his black eyes. “At least let me pull together a small force of men whom I know are loyal, my Prince. Let at least some of us fight at your side in this.”
Dialle turned to look at me and I shrugged. “I think he’s right, Dialle. I know you and I are pretty scary as a team, but we’d be stupid to refuse a little help. You yourself said that Nille was too powerful.”
Dialle nodded and turned back to Gerch. “Choose very carefully, my friend. Millions of lives depend upon our success in this.”
Gerch bowed over Dialle’s hand and kissed it. “It shall be done, my Prince.”
Dialle’s face darkened as he watched Gerch and his men leave. The look on his face made me distinctly uncomfortable. It wasn’t fear exactly, but something related. I had just grown used to the idea that devil royalty were damned near invincible. In that moment, when the fate of the world depended on at least one of them being invincible, I had to get used to the idea that they weren’t. Sometimes life just sucked.
I stood moved across the room. His arms opened as I neared and I slid into them without thinking. As we touched, my body responded immediately, flaring to life and leaving me liquid with need. Our lips seared together and his sharp, white teeth worried gently on my lower lip. I drew in the hot, smoky taste of his breath and ground my body against his. I couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t touch him enough, couldn’t taste him enough.
Just as I began to get pulled into the mindless heat of his flesh against mine, I remembered something more important than my sex life and pulled sharply away. “Where’s Emo? Is he alive?”
Dialle sighed and moved away from me. “He lives. Though his soul drains away from him.”
“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with him?”
Dialle dropped back onto the divan. Draping one golden, muscular arm across the back of the elegant piece of furniture, he splayed his long legs and frowned at me. “Rayanne poisoned his soul before she mutilated his physical form. It is...was...one of her specialties.”
To avoid the panic welling in my chest I hid behind sarcasm. “I can see why you lusted after her. She was such a nurturing creature.” I scowled down at him and he grinned.
“I generally don’t search for such charms as those to grace my bed, lovely Astra. If I did I wouldn’t lust after you as I do.”
My traitorous pulse picked up and I silently cursed myself. Emo might be dying and I was standing there thinking with my...well...whatever. “I want to see him.”
Dialle shrugged. “I’ll take you to him.” He stood and extended his hand, palm down. I hesitated only a fraction of a second before I placed my own hand over his. The universe shimmered into neutral and, for the second time that day, I trusted my gorgeous devil to guide me to my friend. I just hoped my friend would still be among the living when I got there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Fading Away
So pale, so pale, so near death’s door, the lady’s friend awaits,
A devil’s poison fouls his blood and disengages fate.
He was lying in a shadowed room without windows. The air in the room was cold and smelled filtered, with just the slightest taste of mildew around the edges. As I neared the bed where he lay, I couldn’t detect any movement at all. No breath, no flutter in the grayed-purple eyelids, no twitching in the grayish-red hands which lay palms up, as in death, alongside his oh so still form. My heart clenched looking at him and, as happened way too many times over the last week, I felt tears filling my eyes and escaping down my cheeks.
I sat down next to Emo on the bed and pulled one of the lifeless hands into my lap, clasping it tightly with both of my own. Still nothing. It was as if he’d already left me. I looked up as Dialle moved to stand beside the bed and my eyes asked him the question I couldn’t voice. He returned my gaze for a moment and then shook his head briefly, glancing toward the dying devil on the bed.
I raised Emo’s hand to my lips and kissed it. As my lips touched the cool leather skin of his hand, it shimmered and changed. My eyes flew to his face and I gasped. Lying there, eyelids still stained with the grayish purple of pain and weariness, was the devil who’d sat across from me in my living room, showing me for just the briefest of seconds what he’d been before Nerul had played with his destiny. With that thought my muscles tightened with anger. I would avenge Emo’s life and his death, even if it meant my own.
“Nerul’s curse has left him. I wonder...”
Dialle’s voice startled me out of my angry thoughts. I pulled my gaze away from the friend I no longer recognized. “Why?”
Dialle turned to me, pity lay like a veil across his gaze. “Sometimes when we die, we return to our natural state, outside forces cease to affect us.”
My eyes filled again and I nodded, swiping angrily at the weakness that poured from my eyes.
“Or else...”
My head shot up, hope soaring through me, “What?”
“Or something might have happened to Nerul.”
Hope slid away. “But he’s with Nille. Together they’re more powerful than almost anything else.”
Dialle continued to stare at Emo, his thoughts seething behind the calm façade of his beautiful, golden face. “Yes. Together they are.”
I didn’t have time to explore the unspoken question in his voice. The door to the room flew inward, crashing against the concrete wall behind it. Apparently dark world types had never mastered the art of the gentle, understated entry. Gerch strode into the room, flanked on both sides by the two guards that had accompanied him in Dialle’s chambers.
Dialle moved across the room, meeting the Captain of the Guards halfway and a murmured conversation followed. I paid only a fraction of my attention to the interaction between the Prince and his guard, my eyes remained locked on the beautiful features of my dying partner and friend. But when Dialle’s voice rose on the name, Nerul, it pulled me away from my despair. I twisted my gaze reluctantly away from Emo to look at him.
Dialle glanced my way. “We must go.”
I stood. “I can’t. I have to stay with Emo.”
Dialle was suddenly standing in front of me, mere inches away. “No. Emo will die or not, you cannot affect that now. Nille and Nerul have been found. We must attack immediately while they are unprepared.”
I stared into the ocean blue of his gaze and, although I noted the change, I wasn’t even surprised. Impatience colored the forced calm of his expression and I couldn’t help wondering why he bothered. He and I both knew he could just grab me and shift me away. But I guessed he wanted my cooperation more than he wanted my mere presence. He was right. Together we had a chance to win the battle. A slight chance, but a chance. If we didn’t present a united front we were toast. I don’t particularly like toast. Especially if it’s me.
Finally I sighed and laid my hand over his. As the world faded to neutral again it occurred to me that we would not truly be partners if I couldn’t learn to mobilize on my own. I tucked that thought away as a lesson for another day. If there was another day.
Amazingly we shimmered into the blood and gore splattered loft of the Church of the Twined Hands. As soon as we took physical form, Dialle and the three guards that had been in the room with us when we left joined us. Still holding my hand, Dialle headed straight for the center of the room, where the remains of the cross prison lay in a broken heap. Suddenly a lot of things made sense to me. The church had apparently been built on the channel between the light and the dark worlds. A perfect conduit for evil as well as good to enter the physical world. Poor Deaver probably had no idea what he’d signed up for when he’d established his church in that building. His initial message to me about having stepped on some devil toes when he’d moved into the church probably hadn’t been too far off the mark.
Reaching the barricade of collapsed crosses, Dialle simply swung one hand and pieces of cross flew away to crash into splinters against the stone walls. I gasped. Th
e wood of the crosses was incredibly hard and heavy. It would take a staggering amount of power to move it, let alone fling it with apparently no effort. What had I attached myself to? Shit.
As Dialle cleared away the cross debris, I became aware that we were being joined, a few at a time, by several more guards. They shimmered into the room and stood in formation behind Gerch and his two handpicked guards. Apparently Gerch had managed to find some who were still loyal to their Prince.
While Dialle did his dark world version of spring-cleaning, I watched the lesser devils and demons that would stand at our backs in the coming battle. Although I wasn’t at all comfortable with the idea of turning my back on the motley and dangerous looking crew gathered together in that room, their demeanor was not suspect under the circumstances. And, I had to face it, if any of them had any thoughts about betraying Dialle once the battle began, their ambitions were undoubtedly quenched as they watched him treat the thousand-year-old, petrified into iron and at least as heavy, crosses like matchsticks. I personally wasn’t planning on pissing him off again any time soon.
Once Dialle had cleared a space large enough for all of us to squeeze into, he stepped over the power barrier that had held the cross prison together and pulled me with him. As my feet touched the floor within the barrier I experienced a sudden and intense dizziness and found that I had to lean on Dialle to keep from passing out. I hate feeling helpless and weak, it really pisses me off. I turned an angry gaze to Dialle.
“It will pass. You are not used to the power of the Shadows. It runs counter to yours.”
Although the confusion was not in any way cleared up by that cryptic reassurance, the dizziness did indeed start to subside almost immediately. As soon as I could trust my legs to hold me up I let go of Dialle. It wouldn’t do to appear weak around his crew.