The Demon King

by Heather Killough-Walden

  “I promise I’ll release you as soon as we’re a safe distance from the warehouse,” the king told her.

  She laughed derisively. “You’ll release me, huh?” she said, more than a hint of sarcasm lacing her words. I highly doubt that.

  He was quiet. As if he’d been thinking the same thing.

  So she went for broke. “Which one are you?”

  More silence met her question, but it didn’t last long. “Which one what?”

  “Which king, genius. Which of the thirteen goddamn kings are you?”

  A familiar animal sound drew Dahlia’s attention from her “conversation” to the area by her right leg. She looked down to find herself staring into the eyes of the dog she seemed to have inadvertently adopted. She blinked. “Bowie?” That’s what she’d decided on as a name, she guessed. But how the heck did the dog get into the portal?

  “How the hell did the dog get in here?” muttered the king, repeating her thoughts.

  Dahlia frowned. Other than the craziness of her entire situation, two things were bothering her at that moment. One, the portal seemed to go on forever. Portals weren’t supposed to last that long unless they were going to a realm that was cut off somehow from the other realms, and usually for good reason. And two, the dog looked weird to her. There was a stark purple ring around the irises of her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  “Please let me go. I promise I won’t run,” she said, meaning every word. She was immediately concerned for the animal.

  The king behind her hesitated. And then, miraculously he let go of her wrists, though his grip slowly lessened as if he were having a very hard time doing so. She turned with deliberate casualness so as not to “make any sudden moves,” and bent down in front of Bowie. “You okay, girl?” she asked softly, placing her hand under the dog’s chin to rub affectionately.

  The dog’s tail began to wag. She panted happily. She seemed okay. It was just those eyes….

  “Something happened to her when she hit your shield,” said the king.

  Dahlia looked up at him in surprise. Again, she was struck with the beauty of the man. Drop-dead sex appeal was more like it, from the devil-may-care hair to that five-o’-clock shadow on his strong chin to those piercing Caribbean blue eyes.

  Wait. She’d seen eyes like that before….

  She thought for a moment, picturing the warlock – no, he wasn’t a warlock – the man in the warehouse who had withstood her spell. But then she shook herself from the reverie and returned her attention to Bowie. Everything else could wait. For some reason, she really needed to know the dog would be okay. “Like what?” she asked. “What could my magic do to her? It was meant to protect her.”

  The king knelt down beside her, again surprising her. His movement was inherently strong and graceful, and a scented wave of aftershave, leather and raw power washed over Dahlia. She tried to steady her breathing, but it was shaking now. She didn’t dare speak for fear of giving herself away.

  “Well,” he said thoughtfully, looking from her to the dog, “maybe it is protecting her.”

  Dahlia rubbed Bowie’s head, and when the dog sat down, she rubbed the animal’s chest. “How?”

  The king shrugged his broad shoulders. “Maybe… it’s inside her now. She seems well enough.” He regarded the dog with his blue, blue eyes. “And she did make it into the portal.” He looked at Dahlia now. “No one should have been able to do that.”

  Dahlia thought about that. But mention of the portal brought her to the first thing that was foremost bothering her at that moment. “Speaking of portals,” she said, “this one has lasted a little longer than usual.”

  The king seemed to freeze. He stared at her a second, then stood. She watched him rise – he was very tall. “Get up,” he said.

  Dahlia might have bristled at the command if her instincts hadn’t suddenly pricked to attention. Something was wrong. What had been bothering her had been doing so for a reason.

  She stood up. “What’s going on?”

  “Someone has locked us in the portal,” he told her.

  Dahlia’s eyes widened. She’d heard of a spell that could do such a thing. It was one of those spells that was forbidden, like so much warlock or “wrong” magic, because once a portal was closed off on both ends, it was possible for it to do one of several bad things. It could implode. It could also slip into a dimensional pocket and disappear for thousands of years. At the very least, it was difficult enough to open the portal back up again that people trapped inside often went insane from the swirling colors and confinement, even before they died of dehydration.

  And that was when it only took a few days to get them out.

  Dahlia didn’t hesitate. At once, she was calling up what power she had left and focusing it on the portal. She opened her mouth and took a breath, preparing to speak the words of a transport spell – but the king’s hand slid firmly over her mouth.

  “No,” he warned. “That’s one of the worst things you can do.”

  Dahlia froze, her eyes feeling huge in her face. The king hesitated, then released her, removing his hand and stepping back. She was almost sorry for the return of her personal space.

  “Using transport magic from inside an already existing portal is a very bad idea. It’s like…” he shook his head. “Ripping a hole in the fabric of time and space.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Or something like that. William could probably explain it better than I could. But take my word for it, it would be bad.” He turned and paced away, giving her the slightly dizzying impression of movement within movement.

  She closed her eyes against the confusion. A new sensation was joining the anger and worry that were already riding Dahlia’s system. She recognized it for what it was because this wasn’t her first rodeo. It was panic. But at least now she knew the king in the portal with her wasn’t William Balthazar, the Time King. That’s who she assumed he was talking about, anyway.

  One king down, four to go. “To trap someone in a portal, you have to use magic as strong as the magic of the one you trap,” she told him, repeating what she recalled reading. She didn’t think it was necessary to point out that the two of them were quite magical, indeed. “Who would have that kind of power?”

  The king stopped pacing and turned toward her, eyeing her closely. “Pissed anyone off recently?”

  She blinked. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. He walked toward her again. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  Without thinking, she replied, “Dahlia.”

  The king’s head cocked a little to the side. His gaze narrowed in something like recognition. “Dahlia Kellen?”

  She considered denying it for half a second. And then she nodded. “Yeah, so?”

  She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but a smile and laughter wasn’t it. He grinned, flashing beautiful white teeth, then shook his head, chuckling. “Small world.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, and he could feel her irritation like tiny electric zaps in the air of the portal.

  He raised his hands defensively. “Nothing,” he said reassuringly. “It’s not important.” What it meant was that he was the luckiest bastard sitting at the Table of the Thirteen. Dahlia Kellen was a Tuath fae whose beauty was legendary. The woman before him definitely fit the bill. But there was so much more to Dahlia Kellen than looks.

  She was a warlock, which made her ultra rare alone. Add to that the fact that she’d betrayed her nation, and you had a woman making the fae history books. Her people all but banished her. Not that it mattered, because the Entity took her then.

  She suffered in his possession, but survived long enough to glean information that would help her people fight the Entity. Finally, she’d been repaid for her efforts with the curse of vampirism. She’d made what many would consider the ultimate sacrifice for a people who had all but forsaken her, and yet she continued to live her life, to move from day to day – or night to
night, as it were. It took immense strength just to keep going, sometimes. Dahlia Kellen was basically built out of the stuff. A Tuath warlock vampire hero with the face of a goddess.

  And now she was here, with him, and like he’d never known anything before in his life, he knew he was talking to the woman destined to be his queen.

  “You’re right, it isn’t,” she said, waving her hand as if whatever he’d been thinking was inconsequential. “We need to concentrate on getting out of here.” She turned away from him, and now she was the one pacing.

  He was instantly sorry for having done it himself; watching her step a few feet away was dizzying in the extreme. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. It would really help if he had any idea who would bother to trap them there in that portal. If it wasn’t someone out to get Dahlia, then it had to be someone out to get him.

  Right?

  “So, who did you piss off?” Dahlia asked as if she’d been reading his mind. He opened his eyes to find she had stopped in the portal a few feet away and was now facing him again with her hands on her hips. The dog had followed her and sat loyally at her feet.

  “I’m a king. So… the Entity? A number of people working for him? Hell, it could be anyone, including the traitor.”

  “The traitor….” Dahlia muttered as if she were remembering now. “The king who is supposedly working for the Entity and feeding him your secrets.”

  “That would be the one.”

  There was a pause of pregnant silence before Dahlia sighed and asked, “So, you gonna answer my question?”

  “About who I pissed off? I did.”

  “No, the first question,” she reiterated. “Which king are you?”

  He felt a hint of sardonic cruelty edging his words when he replied, “The Demon King.” Technically, it was true. The Akyri were often referred to as demons. But according to Bael, it was his father who was the true demon king.

  His father! Bael!

  “Shit,” he suddenly said, before Dahlia had a chance to react to his previous statement. “I can’t believe I forgot about him.”

  “Who?” she asked.

  “The messenger,” he told her. “He said if I needed anything to call his name.”

  “What messenger?” Dahlia asked, clearly very confused at this point. The dog gave a soft whine and tilted its head, which to Laz had always been one of the top ten cutest things on Earth – the head tilt of a dog.

  Laz had never felt more conspicuous, but desperate times…. He cleared his throat and spoke loudly, letting his magic lace his voice. “Bael, I call you.”

  Dahlia stepped forward. “Who the hell is Bae-”

  Just then, a ripple appeared in the side of the portal, and a hole opened up. Through that hole poked a man’s head, as if he were a ghost poking his head through a mansion wall.

  “What the –” Dahlia back-pedaled, and the dog barked.

  “It’s okay,” assured Laz. “He’s on our side. I think.”

  “My lord, are you in need of my assistance?” asked the man. Or rather, the head. He looked from Laz to Dahlia and seemed to recognize how strange he must appear. “Oh, my apologies.” He backed out, disappearing for a moment. Then the ripple was back, but this time an entire person stepped through and into the portal.

  Laz was at once concerned. Wouldn’t that just trap him too?

  “Not to worry, my lord. Our kind have innate transporting abilities that far surpass those of the every day magic user. This spell is rudimentary at best. If you wish, I can have you out of here immediately.” He waited, glanced at Dahlia, and then bowed. “My lady. It is most definitely a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Bael of the Blood Moon Valley, messenger of the Grand Tenebrous Court. I am forever at your service.”

  Laz’s eyebrows hit his hairline. He glanced at Dahlia to see her reaction, and was rewarded with the most adorably lost expression. He smiled. “Bael, get us out of here.”

  “At once,” Bael responded, nodding. “Though I’m surprised you didn’t do so yourself, my lord. You do possess the ability.” He then said something Laz almost recognized, and the swirling colors around them began to fade. Darkness moved in, as if Laz were losing his sight.

  Everything went black, and Laz experienced a brief moment of panic. Was he alone? Where was Dahlia? Would he be trapped here in this darkness forever? Was Bael working for the traitor?

  These are the kinds of thoughts that infiltrate a person’s mind in those moments of panic. But it lasted less than a second before light again flooded his vision, and he found himself standing in a grand receiving room of what was very obviously a palace. The others were there as well. Including the dog.

  “My lord, welcome to Castle Tenebrom, the stronghold of the Demon World.”

  Tapestries hung on walls that seemed to be built of ruby bricks and gold mortar. An enormous fire crackled in a massive hearth on one end of the giant room. Dim light filtered in from gigantic floor to ceiling stained glass windows depicting scenes of magical battles and epic landscapes. Laz turned when he saw Dahlia raise her arm to shield her eyes.

  “Is that sunlight?” she asked quietly. Her voice was much softer than it had been earlier.

  “Yes, my lady. It is the first of the two suns and three moons of our realm,” said Bael.

  “She can’t be in the sun,” Laz told him quickly as he moved to Dahlia, shielding her body from the light. She lowered her arm and looked up at him with a new expression, one he hadn’t seen on her beautiful face until now. Innocent, gut-real gratitude. “She’s a vampire,” he explained, looking over his shoulder at the messenger. “We need to get her some place dark.”

  “I’m so tired….”

  Her voice was suddenly soft as a whisper, as if most of the life had been drained from her in the last few short seconds. He turned back to face her – and just as she began to fall, he bent and lifted her easily into his arms.

  She was out like a light. He’d heard about this; the type of vampire she’d been turned into was exceedingly susceptible to sunlight, even more so than Roman’s kind of vampires. However…. “I thought she had some kind of spell on her that protected her from the sun,” he voiced aloud.

  “It is perhaps that we have two suns rather than one, my lord. Perhaps she would need two spells protecting her. It may simply not be enough.”

  Laz turned to face the messenger, who bowed his head solemnly. “I am so very sorry, my prince.” He raised his head and moved quickly across the room, motioning for Laz to follow him.

  “Time moves differently in each dimension, which brought an early end to her night. I did not know her situation, or I would have chosen another location,” said Bael even as he rushed to lead Laz through a set of massive double doors. They entered a long corridor that thankfully had no windows. From there, Bael directed him to a door that led to a winding staircase leading down.

  Laz began to descend, feeling the precious weight of his future queen in his arms. He was thinking so many things in that moment. Someone had tried to kill him. Or her. Or both of them. The messenger Bael really had come to his rescue when Laz had called him. And that probably meant that Laz really was the son of the Demon King. Bael had called him “prince,” after all.

  He had a boat load of questions and his mind was spinning.

  As they reached the landing and turned right to find themselves in what honestly appeared to be a dungeon, Laz came to a complete and sudden stop. There were four alcoves along the walls, barricaded by thick metal bars. In the center of the room was a fire pit. “No way in hell am I leaving her down here.”

  “Of course not, my lord. Not as it is in this state. But it is definitely safer from the rays of our suns. Please, allow me and my colleagues to properly tidy up the quarters for you.”

  Laz turned around at the sound of further footfalls on the stairwell. A few seconds later, half a dozen others reached the landing, all strangers, a mix of women and men. They stopped before Lazarus and bent low in r
espectful bows. Then they turned to Bael. Bael nodded at them, and they raised their arms in unison. Magic caused their palms to glow, and Laz stepped back, hugging Dahlia’s unconscious form closer to his chest and turning slightly as if to shield her from whatever might transpire.

  The lights from their hands grew brighter, spread into balls of expanding illumination, and then streamed out into the dungeon. All around him, the room began to change….

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When he’d first opened the portal out of the warehouse, he’d been planning on taking her to the Akyri castle. It was a place the Akyri never talked about it, practically no one knew existed, and one that Laz therefore felt was a little safer and more private than, well, anywhere else. It wouldn’t have been appropriate to take someone as powerful as Dahlia Kellen anywhere else. Especially not a place like his cop-salary apartment. If she’d decided to attack him there, her magic would have ripped holes in its infrastructure and destroyed its foundations like tissue paper, and consequently put innocent bystanders in danger.

  But that had been the plan. Now he knew who she was, knew what she was all about, and everything in his world was changing at light speed. His plans had sprouted wings and flown right out the window. Fortunately, as far as a destination was concerned, he’d ended up in a location he instinctively felt was even safer than the Akyri castle.

  The Demon Realm palace.

  Granted, the dungeon was not his first choice of where he would have taken the woman in his arms. But Bael was right; it was safe from sunlight. And he was beginning to fully appreciate just how powerful demon magic was as he stood there and watched Bael’s friends perform some of the most miraculous conversion magic on the lowest, most desolate and formerly ugliest part of the castle.

  Inch by inch, foot by foot, the space transformed. Laz was reminded of a scene at the end of the Disney animated film, “Beauty and the Beast,” in which the curse is broken, and the decrepit state of the Beast’s formerly doomed castle is magically lifted to reveal the palace as it had been before the enchantress’s spell lay it to ruins. Laz felt like he was watching that scene again, but this time played out in live action and even more impressive, given the transformation was taking place in a dungeon – a hollowed out hole in the ground where people went to be imprisoned, possibly tortured, and ultimately killed.