by Sam Cheever
The air was choking, thick with power, and some of it was hers. Things were very quickly spiraling out of control.
Hooboy...devil usurpation happening. If I didn’t pull it together fast, Slayer’s ex and I would level Bob and Ralph’s pretty new office. I needed to get control of my dark side before I went down a path from which there was no return. Taking a deep breath, I forced my fingers to unclench from the power ball, and let it slide away. I fixed a wary gaze on my unwelcome visitor and tried a smile.
She jerked, pulling the shimmering cocoon of her bubble more tightly around her.
Apparently my attempt at a smile wasn’t entirely successful.
I took a couple more deep breaths and tried a more neutral subject. “What about the advocate?
Blinking quickly, Crisanne gave me an I’m-confused look that didn’t fool me one bit.
I clarified. “The tall, evil guy you slept with and tried to talk into helping you kill Dialle and me.”
She stared at me a moment as if trying to decide if I could be distracted from my current line of questioning. Finally, she nodded, apparently deciding I couldn’t. “You have it wrong. Milc came to me and asked me to help him. I’ll admit he pled a strong case.” She smiled. “But in the end I rejected him too.”
“Aren’t you just the most popular thing?”
She shrugged, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. “He didn’t take it well.”
“I noticed. Where’s the Puka King?”
If she was surprised by my quick change of subject she didn’t show it. “At Nille’s Court. I called his lover to come get him but they clomped around like a couple of Venusian soldiers and Nille caught them before they got out. When I last saw them they were still alive. Barely.” She settled her disturbing brown gaze on me and waited.
For what, I didn’t know. I assumed for the next question. So I obliged. “And why are you here? In my office?”
Both finely sculpted, black eyebrows peaked in surprise. “Isn’t that obvious?”
Apparently not. Not to me at least.
She blew out a frustrated breath. “I told you, I need your help, Phelps.”
“For what?”
“To kill Prince Nille of course.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Better to Eat You With my Dear!
‘Tween good and bad the creature lives, her loyalties in doubt,
But when an outing goes awry, our heroine’s life’s a rout.
All the way to Nille’s underground Court I fought with my own good sense about what I was doing. “Tell me again why you didn’t want to bring Slayer?”
Crisanne turned to me, her pretty face settled into an unreadable mask. “I can’t work with him, Astra. He and I didn’t exactly part on good terms.”
“So what? Man up, halfling! Do you have any idea the power we’ll be facing in those caverns?”
She shrugged and I wanted to smack her.
“Well, I do. I’ve fought this guy before, Crisanne. He’s extremely powerful. He killed hundreds of devils last time, without breaking a sweat.”
“I don’t think you understand how powerful I am.” When she looked at me again her eyes roiled with color.
I gulped. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“Besides,” she licked her lips and turned away, looking out the Red Knight’s side view port. “I understand you have quite a bit of power yourself. We’ll be fine. I just want to get the Puka King out of there and kill Nille.”
I snorted. Just like that. Save the king and kill the monster. I half expected her to check her manicure to see if it was chipped. “Whatever.”
I knew I could always call Slayer and Dialle if I needed to. And Darma.
Bleurgh.
The Knight’s engines softened as we began the descent toward the remote acreage that held Nille’s cave-based court. It had been his father’s Royal Court until Prince Nille killed his ass in a power takeover and sent him to Hell.
As far as I knew he was still there, torturing the locals.
Two gargoyles paced the ledges above the opening. Beneath a sense of déjà vu I felt relief. If they hadn’t been there I’d have known for sure that it was a trap. As it was, I was just pretty sure I was walking into an ambush. It appeared we might actually have the element of surprise on our side.
For once.
I dropped the Knight to the ground a hundred yards from the entrance, setting the protective wards so nobody could get into it. I’d decided to leave it on the ground so it would be hidden from view by the lush vegetation.
Crisanne and I pushed our way through the thick wall of green, heading toward the cave’s entrance.
A dozen yards from the cave, the gargoyles’ snouts lifted into the air and they grunted wetly, their long, purple tongues coming out to swipe across massive yellow canines.
As we pushed through the edge of the green barrier and stepped into the rocky clearing around the front of the cave, the two gargoyles roared, bunched massive shoulders, and leapt to the ground between us and the entrance.
They stood on tree-like legs. Their long, narrow feet ending in evil looking yellow claws that curved under so that the three toes on each foot were unable to lie flat against the ground. Their heads were wide at the top and became narrower as they flowed into short, dense muzzles that were held ajar by impossibly large teeth. Two long fangs curved toward each other from the corners of each wide mouth, nearly meeting in the middle about an inch below their chins.
The ’goyles’ mutated dog faces stared in our direction, their dark, malevolent gazes fixed on us with the focus of a predator that has a very small brain.
“I’ll take the one on the right you take the one on the left.” As I said the words, my heart did a painful jerk in my chest. It was what I always said to my friend and partner Emo when we faced the monsters together. I could still hear his voice in my head. Have I told you how much I hate gargoyles, Astra?
I sighed, automatically answering him in my mind. Yes, you have my friend.
I missed him. And I hoped he’d be back from his angelic indoctrination soon.
Crisanne glanced at me and curled her lip with disgust. “I will handle this.” She reached out with one hand, fingers bent as if grasping something round, and slowly turned her arm, obviously straining, though I saw no visible evidence of her power.
The gargoyles’ beady eyes widened and they roared in pain. They lifted off the ground and hung there for a moment, nasty claws beating the air, and screamed in fear and pain. A sudden cracking sound abruptly ended their screams and their thick heads jerked backwards on their bodies.
They hit the ground at our feet with a thud, sending up clouds of dust.
“Frunkin’ awesome!” I murmured, completely impressed. “How’d you do that?”
She gave me the side eye. “I have many skills. Perhaps I’ll share them all with you. Later.”
I stood there and sneezed as the ice queen stepped through the dust, around the corpses, and headed toward the entrance to Nille’s evil dominion. “Come on. They’ll know we’re here now.”
I stood there with my mouth hanging open, in complete awe. Slayer had told me she was scary. But this...I hadn’t even seen her power working.
As she disappeared into the darkness of the cave I shook it off and ran after her, determined to find out how she’d broken the necks of not one but two ’goyles from ten feet away, without even breaking a sweat.
We found Nille in his office, sitting behind his big, pretty desk, evidently doing something that didn’t require paper or writing materials, or a televisual...or anything that I could see.
Apparently he ran his court through telepathic messages and sign language.
Maybe smoke signals from the fiery pits.
He looked up as we walked in, his pretty face a study in surprise.
I couldn’t help feeling he looked a little too surprised, given that Crisanne had just dispatched his guard ’goyles without any concern for the scre
eching that had ensued.
He sat tall and elegant in his chair, dressed in perfectly pleated slacks and a button-up, white shirt. He looked like a business man. His thick mane of hair was cut short, the color lighter than I remembered it.
“Did you frost your hair?”
Nille’s light blue gaze swept over me like I wasn’t important enough to address and landed on Crisanne. “Lovely, Crisanne. What is the meaning of this?”
She stepped forward. “We’ve come to get the Puka King and his consort.”
Nille stared at her for a beat and then laughed. “You overstep yourself, halfling. I don’t care how sweet your flesh, I won’t allow insubordination from anyone.”
From the sexy Slayer to a would-be devil king. Mx. Crisanne had certainly stepped down in the world.
“This isn’t subordination, Nille. I’m seizing your court for my own.”
My eyes widened in surprise. Bent frunkin’ gargoyle toes. What was the bitch up to now?
Nille’s pretty blues narrowed in anger and he lifted a hand toward Crisanne, power throbbing in his fingertips. Before he could send that power into her, Crisanne’s hand shot out and her fingers squeezed into a fist.
Nille started to choke and his power slipped away. He stood up and stumbled away from his desk, obviously hoping to get to his guards.
I just stood there, thinking she didn’t need me to kill the Prince. Which made me wonder why I was even there.
Nille fell to the ground, clutching his throat and twitching.
I watched in shock as he died. It wasn’t possible was it? Prince Nille was the most powerful being I’d ever gone up against. And Crisanne had killed him with the simple clutching of a fist.
What the Hades was going on?
Crisanne walked over and stood above him as he died, her fist tightening until her knuckles were white.
Something wasn’t right.
I walked over and looked down. The creature on the floor was bug eyed and tinged with blue, his long fingers scraping helplessly at his throat, leaving behind raw flesh from the hopeless effort.
As I stared at him something flickered and, for a moment I saw a wide, craggy red face. Then the thing that looked like Nille gasped its last breath and fell silent. I pulled my power forward as the victim began to change form, becoming a lower-level devil with red, scaly skin and horns.
Crisanne reached out and clamped a hand on my wrist. My power fizzled out like flames under a fire extinguisher. I jerked out of her grasp and was immediately surrounded by royal guards. Their massive, red-scaled hands grasped my arms and dragged me up against wide chests covered in armor.
Crisanne smiled and my bowels turned to liquid. “Welcome to my web, Astra Q. Phelps. At last I can put the legend of Phelps the powerful halfling behind me and begin creating my own legendary tales.”
I fought to move my arms so I could get to my daemon marks and call Dialle and Slayer.
Crisanne simply laughed. “Are you looking for these?” She touched the daemon hickey on my throat with a finger and power speared through me, sending agony knifing through my body. Her power ripped at my organs and bubbled my skin.
My brain expanded to the point where I thought it would explode. Anguish pounded against my head, like a series of concussion rounds. My body writhed violently, held upright only by the massive red paws of the guards, and blood ran in streams from my ears, eyes and nose. My eardrums shattered under the immense power. My joints ripped.
I screamed so loud and so long that my voice gave out, finally emitting only strangled shrieks. After what felt like an eternity, the guards released my arms and I slammed to the floor. I lay there more dead than alive, bleeding from nearly every orifice in my battered body.
Worse than the pain was the emptiness. My magic had been ripped away from me. Torn from the hidey hole where I kept it. Plucked from the mark Dialle had given me as proof of our mating.
I tried to move. Tried to get my hands beneath me so I could sit upright. I was determined not to lie on the floor at her feet. Prostrate before her. But my muscles were spongy and weak. I couldn’t even open my eyes to glare.
Her laughter should have given me the strength to fight back. But all it did was make me want to cry with frustration.
Unfortunately for me, I soon had something much worse to cry about.
She reached down and grabbed my hand. “Just one more mark to rid you of, greedy, greedy, Astra. You probably won’t survive this one. Most have only one binding mark to dispatch. Unfortunately for you there are two men who care about you enough to want to protect you.”
When she touched the mark Slayer had given me, I was beyond screaming, though I was pretty sure she put even more into destroying that mark than she had the first. If I’d have been able to think through the all-encompassing agony, I’d have realized she had some ego wrapped up in that one.
Slayer had rejected her. But he’d marked me for protection.
My skin was splitting apart, my blood pouring freely onto the garish, red carpet from the horrible wounds. And numbness claimed my body from the waist down. Probably due to the cracking and wrenching of my spine as her power ripped through it.
Near the end, despite the battering she’d given me, my bloodied, broken fingers reached for her across that carpet, tearing the blood coated fibers in an effort to get to her.
My body was broken and mashed like a bidgie bug under a giant’s foot. But my traitorous mind wouldn’t shut down...wouldn’t give me relief.
And as my sanity slipped away under the searing pain, my devil reared up in impotent rage, spurring a blind and focused need to kill. To take revenge.
Unfortunately, my body wasn’t up to the task.
Crisanne eventually grew bored trying to kill me and stepped back, barking out orders for the guards to take me away.
Agony seared as they wrenched me, none too gently, from the floor and my mouth came open, my throat working in a silent scream. But as they dragged me toward my next Hell, my vision finally started to darken to charcoal gray around the edges. The light shrunk to a pinprick at the center of my vision. And the world finally disappeared behind a wall of blessed oblivion.
~SC~
I woke up in a locked room that was situated deep in the bowels of the earth. I’d been in the room once before, when I’d been destined for a power sapping ceremony that was meant to give Prince Nille all the power his tiny, black heart could desire. The room was warded against magic, which would have been a problem if I still had any. As it was, the ward was a bit redundant. I could feel the total lack of power in my body like a huge, black pit under my skin. Every cell of my essence had been emptied of it. My head felt muzzy and my muscles quivered, useless and weak without the sustenance of my power.
The silence pounded against my bleeding ears.
I tried to sit up but couldn’t. Nothing worked. My muscles, my bones, my coordination were all broken. The internal beating Crisanne had given me had done me completely in. I was like a rag doll without fabric stiffener.
After two attempts I gave up, allowing myself to lie on the torn and stained silk covering the bed and just embrace the pain that pounded against me like laser-rock music set on reverb.
There was nothing left to do but take stock of my surroundings. The room had only one door and no windows. The walls were rock, covered in faded burgundy damask draperies. The huge, four-poster bed was the only piece of furniture in the room. It dominated the center of the space and was covered in once-beautiful silk that was coated in dust and other, more disgusting things. The cushions that had once been strewn around on the floor were gone, apparently moved to other rooms over the months since I’d last been there. The carpet had been a rich, golden color when I last saw it. It was currently matted and clogged with mud and old blood.
The white silk that had been draped over the bed’s canopy when I’d been there before hung in tatters around the iron frame. The room had been an elegant, sexual playground before. Its curren
t state of decay perfectly represented the fall of Nille’s evil hopes and ambitions.
I lay there for what felt like hours, trying to summon enough magic to at least call for help. But it was hopeless. I was empty. I tried not to think about what the loss of my magic would mean for the future. It didn’t matter anyway. I could feel my body dying a little more with each passing moment. Without magic to heal myself, I was just another badly damaged husk of cells that was too far gone to heal.
With a jolt of understanding that, in my arrogance as a creature with mad powers I had never thought I’d experience, I realized I was well and truly helpless. I was no longer special in any way. I had only a weakened collection of bones and muscles with which to save myself.
I’d been reduced to nothing. A mere human.
Everything I’d built my life on was gone. My job, my love life, my family and friends, all counted on my magic. I’d taken pride in my ability to keep people safe. I’d made a living from that ability. I’d been chosen by Dialle, the devil I wanted more than life itself, because of my powers.
That was all gone.
Not to mention the fact that Dialle’s Royal Court would suffer for my loss...until he replaced me with someone at least as powerful.
Realization hit me between the eyes.
Crisanne!
She’d never been after Nille. Nille had probably never even been involved.
It was Dialle. She wanted Dialle. Why would she work so hard at maneuvering Nille into a position of power, when she could grab Dialle with a single swipe, just by getting rid of me?
And I had nothing left with which to fight her.
With that thought I lost the tiny bit of hope I’d been savoring at the very bottom of my weakened, lonely heart.
Dialle would take her. Because he’d have to.
And I would be alone. Unloved. And unemployed. If I even lived to experience those horrible outcomes.
I was well and truly frunked.
With that thought I closed my eyes and willed myself to die. With little hope, and nothing to look forward to, it didn’t take long for my weakened body to succumb to lethargy and fall into restless sleep.