by Ann Gimpel
Maybe it’s not as inferior as I thought.
A door clanged shut. Iron filings wafted down the hall. Despite his antipathy for iron, he hoped the demon was still manacled. Duncan’s eyes widened. Walking—no make that sashaying—next to Colleen, was an unbelievably beautiful woman. Blonde curls framed a perfect face. Soft blue eyes were bordered by thick, dark lashes. A gossamer gown billowed about her, giving him a clear view of high, taut breasts tipped by rosy nipples, and a lithe form. Blonde curls nestled in the vee between her legs. “Sidhe.” She reached for him. “One of the beautiful ones. Come to me, sweetling. It’s been long since I’ve had a man. I can fulfill your every desire.” Her mouth curved into a lascivious smile. “And perhaps a few you didn’t even know you had.”
Duncan’s libido was still raw from the Colleen’s nudity. His cock sprang to life. As hard as it ever got, it strained against the front of his trousers. His fingers itched to cup the blonde’s breasts and slip into the moistness he knew hid between those luscious thighs. Heart beating triple time, he stood rooted in place, his mind an absolute blank. Everything fled but the need to fuck the woman cooing to him.
“Duncan!” Colleen’s voice cut like a knife. Why couldn’t she sound more like the lissome blonde? “The traveling spell?”
His mind was fuzzy. He tried to ask Colleen what traveling spell, but his tongue felt thick and stupid. Despite the blonde still being twenty feet from him, she had some way to caress his cock. He felt her gripping him, stroking him. He’d never been so hot. All he could think about was release…
“Oh for Christ’s sake!” Colleen growled and flicked her fingers at him. His cock jerked in his pants; semen pulsed out in burning gouts. It happened so fast, he could scarcely believe it. He hadn’t lost control of his penis since he was a very young man. His head cleared immediately. Chagrin followed as soon as he could think straight.
Colleen rolled her eyes. “Men! You are so fucking weak. Tighten your ward. If you think the Irichna actually looks like a blonde bombshell, think again. It scented you from the other end of the hall, hid its own stench, and arranged its appearance accordingly. Hell, even I don’t know what these things really look like.”
Shame swamped him. He amped up his wards until he just barely had enough power to teleport them. Maybe his wet crotch would remind him to pull himself together. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, and readied a traveling spell.
“Hurry.” Bubba nipped at the blonde’s feet. “It’s about the change again.”
Duncan tossed a spell around them and herded the group through a rough portal. Once they were inside the small space, things disintegrated rapidly. The Irichna grew. Scales formed. Its beautiful face turned reptilian, along with the rest of its body. Duncan understood its bite was deadly poison without being told.
Colleen shifted right along with it. In moments, two dinosaur-like creatures hissed and spat at one another. Bubba puffed into some variant of a scaled creature Duncan had never seen. It had a snake’s body and four arms with pincers. Bubba curved himself around the Irichna and cut through its scaled hide with his pincers. The demon screamed as black blood jetted out, drenching all of them.
Duncan poured more power into his teleport spell. The sooner they got this thing delivered to Hell, the better. He thought about how easy it had been to divert him from their goal and felt ill. Colleen was right. Men could be slaves to their cocks. He shook off his malaise. No excuses. Despite everything she’d told him, he hadn’t been ready for the reality of evil incarnate. In fact, he still wasn’t.
The black edges of their traveling portal grayed out. He sent a prayer to Danu they’d come out at the right place, that the Irichna hadn’t somehow subverted his spell, along with his manhood. He’d only been to the entrance to Hell once, but he never forgot it. The river Styx ran black with blood after a battle where the Sidhe had mowed through wargs and trolls; the cries of the dead still haunted him.
He checked his coordinates as the gray lightened and breathed a small sigh. Not relief, not yet. That would come once they were shut of the demon. But at least the next things they should see were the huge wooden gateposts that marked the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead.
“Good job.” Colleen spoke into his head. He was fairly certain her reptilian mouth was incapable of speech. Her tail lashed from side to side and she gripped the Irichna with both forelegs. The demon buried its fangs in Colleen’s shoulder. Blood flowed, staining her scales red.
“Nooooo,” Duncan shrieked and sent a killing blow right at the demon. It bellowed in pain, but didn’t let go. Duncan struck again. All he could think about was stopping the demon from pumping more poison into Colleen. Bubba slithered up to where the demon’s mouth held Colleen’s shoulder and attacked it with his pincers. It let go with a grunt and tried to swipe Bubba off, but the changeling managed to stay out of the demon’s grasp with a string of creative maneuvers.
Colleen straightened. She clapped a taloned foreleg over her wound and it began to close before his eyes. Duncan started breathing again. She could heal herself in beast form, apparently even from poisoned bites. Thank the gods. He sent jolts of power zinging toward the Irichna to keep it occupied while Colleen got her bleeding under control.
She focused her odd, reptilian eyes on him. “Its bite would kill you. Stay away from it. I’m good. I can take over again.”
With everything that was going on, she was still trying to take care of him. Duncan wanted to hug her, scales and all. “Thanks.”
She was obviously still in his mind. “Wait until I’m human again.”
The gates of Hell opened inward, creaking and groaning. A robed and cowled figure, with a dead haze where eyes should have been, motioned them through. Colleen and Bubba tag-teamed the demon, herding him. The gatekeeper helped and Duncan funneled magic at the demon’s hindquarters. It seemed to do the trick. The abomination stumbled through with Duncan on its heels.
He remembered what Colleen said about things escalating between here and the bottom and gritted his teeth. He didn’t see how they could get much worse, but she’d been right about the demon being worse than his worst imaginings, so likely she was right about this too.
The gates screeched shut behind them. What would happen if the demon got loose in Hell? “I bloody, fucking well don’t want to find out,” he muttered and adapted his vision to the ever-present dimness of the underworld.
The demon morphed back to the blonde again. This time he was ready for it and shuttered himself against its honeyed tones. Colleen regained her human form, except for her eyes, which blazed with a fey light. Bubba stayed a snake. He moved like lightning, able to defeat the demon’s efforts to drag him from its body.
Their trip through the circles of Hell lasted forever, and was over in moments. Time shifted crazily. The demon shrieked and clawed and tore at whatever it could lay hands on. The dead cawed protests in return. Shades coated the demon, but it tore its way through all of them, as it shifted from bear to wolf to cougar to a sleek, black jaguar. Colleen shifted right along with it, doing her best to shield the dead from further harm.
The big cat was beautiful, as beautiful as the blonde had been in its own way. Duncan recognized how dangerous his thoughts were and what a slippery slope they led to. “It’s not a cat. Not beautiful.” He repeated the words through clenched teeth.
He was still saying them when the creak of another gate grated loud in his ears. Colleen, Bubba, and the gatekeeper, another robed and hooded figure, forced the demon to his doom.
“You can still save me, beautiful man.”
Duncan stared through the gloom at a goddess reincarnate. Titania, queen of the Faerie Court, beckoned to him through a shroud of silver hair. He fought a compulsion spell, stronger than any he’d ever known. Finally, just when he feared he was lost, he managed to tear his gaze away. The gate slammed into deep holes in the ground. Duncan half turned, gasping to move air past a thick place in his throat. His palms ache
d and he realized he’d clenched his hands into fists so hard, his nails had drawn blood.
“Come on.” Herself again, Colleen motioned to Bubba. The changeling glittered, shifted back into his gnome’s body, and ran to her. She gathered him into her arms and turned to Duncan. “Ready to leave?” Weariness underscored her words, but at least the madness had left her eyes.
“More than ready.” He reached for her hand. She grasped it and together they floated upward. He knew better than to try to deploy a teleportation spell from the bowels of Hell. It would boomerang right back at them.
Chapter Six
It didn’t take long for Hell to eject them. The underworld knew who belonged there—and who didn’t. Colleen caught her breath as the enormous wooden entrance gates swung shut behind them. “Let’s get away from here,” she murmured as she shucked her small backpack, pulled clothes from it, handed Bubba’s to him, and dressed. “We don’t have to go far, but…”
“I understand.” Duncan nodded. He drew a ragged spell about them “How about if I aim for the nearest point where Earth coincides with this borderworld?”
“Fine by me.” Because the borderworlds weren’t static, they could come out anywhere, but it didn’t matter so long as they put some distance between themselves and Hell.
One of her fears had always been that the gatekeeper to the Ninth Circle would tire of his role as jailer and come after her before she’d cleared the underworld, demon in tow, shrieking, “Take it with you.” She had no idea what would happen if she refused, and she didn’t want to find out.
Colleen picked Bubba up again and moved to Duncan’s side. The changeling’s body shuddered against hers. “You were a hero,” she told him.
“This one was hard,” Bubba said.
Colleen nodded. The changeling was right. This had been the most difficult trip she’d ever made to Hell with a demon. Were they getting stronger? If that was true, she didn’t like thinking what it might mean for her, Roz, and Jenna. Duncan’s magic rose around them. A sun swept vista, dramatic counterpoint to Hell’s dusky atmosphere, appeared almost immediately.
She gazed at sagebrush, rolling hills, and dried, packed earth. “Thank God. No people.”
“I’m not sure why,” Duncan sounded almost as wiped out as she felt, “but it worked that way last time I left Hell too. Maybe the gods want to make certain mortals don’t discover too much about the kingdom of the dead.”
“Maybe so.” She sank onto warm earth, glorying in how alive the dirt felt against her body. Insects buzzed and birds chirped in the near distance. Bubba wriggled and she let him go. The changeling staggered a few steps away, lay down, and curled onto his side. He’d sleep until they were ready to leave, which was fine. He’d earned it.
Duncan settled into a cross-legged sit across from her, face serious. “First off, I’m ashamed about my poor showing when you escorted the demon down that hallway at the witches’ headquarters building.” He shook his head and the corners of his mouth curved into a disgusted moue. “I don’t fully understand what happened, but I couldn’t think about anything except…” His cheeks splotched with color and his voice trailed off.
“Getting laid,” she filled in for him. “Yes, I know. I’ve been there. The Irichna are incorrigible. They’ll use any tool they think will turn us into instruments that dance to their bidding.” Should I tell him?
Colleen felt her face heat and figured she was almost as rosy as Duncan. “Er, it was me who made you come. Not the demon. I figured if you got it over with, there was at least a slender hope I’d still be able to bring you with us.”
Humiliation scored his features; lines formed around his eyes. “You would have left me behind.” At her nod, his jaw tightened. “I don’t blame you. You had a hell of a time with that thing. You didn’t need me mucking up the works.”
“Look.” She held his gaze. “I’ve been there. I’ve puked. I’ve nearly caved in to their manipulations. The first time I saw one, I was with a dozen other witches. I bolted. They had to haul me back and force me to face the thing. I was shaking so hard, it was all I could do to remain upright.”
Admiration kindled behind his eyes. “Even knowing that, you took a chance on me.” His lips curved into a soft smile. “Thank you.”
Colleen bit back a snort. “You came very close to making me sorry.”
“I’ll do better next time.”
Her eyes widened at his words because she understood there would, indeed, be a next time. “Does that mean you’re still volunteering to help? I thought surely after…well, after actually coming into contact with those bastards—”
“That I’d exit stage left with a bunch of convenient excuses?” he cut in. Duncan edged closer and took one of her hands in his. “I’m not that easy to get rid of.” An odd expression flitted across his face, but it was gone before she could interpret it. “And I’ve never fancied myself a coward. How could I live with myself if I fled back to my nice safe life, knowing I left you to face those…abominations by yourself?”
She bristled and tried to draw her hand away, but he held fast. “Bubba and I, along with Roz and Jenna, have been doing just fine. I don’t need crumbs from your table.”
He tipped her chin with his other hand so she had to look at him. “Well now, you don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s not crumbs from my table. You’re an amazing woman. I haven’t been able to think of anything but you since you emerged from that curtain at the rear of your shop.”
Her stomach did an odd little flip-flop. “What exactly are you saying?” Her lips trembled. She smushed them together, hoping he hadn’t noticed.
He brushed a knuckle over her mouth. “I’m starting to care about you, Colleen. A lot. I admire your courage, and your mind. You’re beautiful and strong and fearless. I can’t tell you how panicked I was when the Irichna bit you.”
“My animal forms have power. It took me years to discover just how much.”
“I noticed.” He tightened his hold on her hand. “You can heal yourself.”
She nodded. “Most of their poisons don’t bother me, either.”
“Like I said, beautiful, strong, and fearless.”
His words sent shivers racing down her spine, but she shook her head. “Scarcely fearless. It’s just I’ve figured out how to function when I’m so scared I can’t see straight.”
“Doesn’t matter.” He caressed her lips again and then moved closer. His mouth hovered over hers and she understood he was giving her a choice to push him away, to say no. His warm breath soothed and excited her at the same time. Despite a tiny voice telling her that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, she tilted her mouth upward.
He closed his lips over hers in a kiss so sweet and so electric, it set her soul ablaze with all the feelings she’d denied for most of her adult life. Colleen wound her arms around his neck and pulled him close. She opened her mouth to his questing tongue and sparred with it, enjoying the taste and feel of him. He had a musky, exotic scent that eddied about them. It stoked her lust and she inhaled hungrily, anxious for more of what felt like an aphrodisiac.
He wrapped her in an embrace and held on as if she were the only thing that mattered in the world. From time to time, he lifted his mouth from hers and murmured Gaelic endearments. At least she supposed that was what they were, since she didn’t speak the language, beyond what she needed to cast spells.
Heat rose in her nether regions; her nipples pebbled into peaks. Duncan drew her onto the sandy ground so she lay next to him, never breaking their kiss. He ran his hands down her back and cupped her ass, pulling her close. She felt the hard length of him press her thigh and positioned herself so she could rub against him. Desire pierced her, so hot and yet so sweet, she didn’t fully recognize what she was feeling. She understood sex, pure and simple, but this felt like the beginnings of ever so much more. Duncan wasn’t a man she could simply fuck and forget.
Alarm bells sounded deep in her mind. She wriggled away, gasping and pa
nting, as she tried to sort her jumbled thoughts. “Can’t,” she managed.
He reached for her, green eyes blazing with desire. “Why not? You’re scarcely a maid.”
Colleen rolled to her hands and knees and then tucked her legs under her and sat, trying to ignore the insistent throbbing between her legs. “That’s not it. I never cared about any of them.”
A soft, slow smile spread over his face, intensifying his beauty until she had to look away. “It’s more than just caring about you.” His breath hitched. “If I were honest, I’m falling in love.”
The alarm bells rang louder. She held up both hands, palms out. “No. Not a good idea. What I do is dangerous. I may not be alive next month. Hell, I may not be alive tomorrow.”
“Colleen.” He moved close enough to drag one of her hands out of the air and enclose it. “You don’t get it. I want to share your life. All of it. Today was a proving ground. I’ll face down the Irichna with you. And I’ll do my damnedest to get some of my people to help. Gene splicing is a two way street. We can take back the sequence we foisted off onto you.” His expression turned thoughtful. “It would be a hell of a lot quicker than the three of you who are left trying to make new witches, and then waiting for them to grow up.”
She twisted her mouth into a wry grin. “No shit. Not that any of us ever got anywhere close to having babies.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t appear your witch ancestors did, either. The ones who died didn’t leave progeny, or at least not many. Why?”
“At first they did, or there’d have been even fewer of us. At least potentially, we live a long time, nothing like the Sidhe, but still…” She shifted to a more comfortable sit, but kept holding his hand. “Think about it. How could any of us be out of the action for the nine months it would take to be pregnant? Let alone the years it would take to care for a babe?”