'Tween Heaven and Hell

by Sam Cheever

  My lower extremities were numb and immobile, though I appeared to be flying around the room and my upper body hung at an odd angle and felt as if it were on fire. At first my mind couldn’t register what had happened, but then it hit me. I’d rematerialized half in and half out of old Wormhead. My lower body was embedded in her torso and my upper body hung off her right side. Hell’s version of Siamese twins.

  Son of a demon. If I survived this, I really needed to take some space shifting lessons. What if I had ended up inside a wall or something?

  My new hostess was not taking my visitation well. The room blurred across my eyes as she took me on a merry ride around the room. We pinged off walls, furniture and other demons as she tried to escape my embedded presence. As we charged past the rest of the evil crew assembled in that room, I almost laughed at the looks of true horror on their faces. It takes a lot to horrify a demon. Quite an accomplishment if you’re inclined to celebrate it. But right at the moment I was getting a pounding headache from the screaming that was going on in my ear and I knew that if old Wormhead got it together and stopped trying to outrun me, I’d be in trouble. To magnify my predicament, I felt the whisper touch of something heavy and slimy against my hair.

  Revulsion took hold of me when I realized that my face was just inches from the slimy passengers on her head. The sub-demons had begun to wriggle frantically, stretching and writhing as they tried to reach my eyes and nose. I knew what they were attempting to do. Sub-demons can enter a person’s external orifices and eat away at their organs. They could kill a human in mere minutes this way. It wasn’t a peaceful, painless death by anyone’s definition. Needless to say that was not something I wanted to experience. No, having my brain and heart eaten out by a slimy, wriggly sub-demon was not on my To Do list for the day.

  I watched the nasty things stretch and grow until, even though I was leaning as far away from them as I could, they were still able to touch my skin. I knew it was only a matter of time before they managed to climb into an ear or up a nostril. I needed to do something. Quickly.

  Closing my eyes, I pulled the power from its core and used it to probe Wormhead’s innards. I found her frantically pounding heart fairly easily and wrapped the power around it, squeezing gently at first to see what would happen. She stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t move or even breathe for long seconds as her horrified brain assembled the facts on hand and decided that I was going to pop her evil heart like an overextended balloon. Then her maggot-ridden head turned slowly to face me. Her cold, black eyes spat terror at me like sparks and I could see her running through her options as she stared at me.

  I knew her instincts for survival would force her to take me out before I could finish what I’d started. I also knew I had to finish killing her before she killed me. Unfortunately, Nille wasn’t going to allow me the time I needed. His usually melodic voice barked words in guttural Hades and the demon’s eyes widened as she realized what she needed to do.

  The arm on the side of her body that was away from me moved toward my neck. She grabbed my throat with her free hand and started squeezing. Almost immediately I felt myself passing out.

  I tightened my power around her black heart and prayed that she would die before I did. Lights danced before my eyes. My lungs screamed for air. And something in my throat creaked as it was slowly, painfully pinched off.

  I sensed the shadows moving over me. I felt the first sub-demon slide up my nostril and I think I shuddered but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Cold, like tentacles, wrapped around me and pulled me down into the pit.

  I think we both hit the floor at the same time. As my power seeped back to me, I remember thinking that she was probably dead. But then so was I. So what difference did it make?

  Something tugged at the corners of my mind and I remembered that there was a damn good reason why I shouldn’t die, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

  The last thing I was aware of as I succumbed to the shadows, was a shifting of my mental drawers and Dialle’s frantic voice, masked behind the static of my dying brain. He was calling my name. I think I might have answered him. I’m not sure. It’s hard to think clearly when you’re dying.

  The first thing I felt as I swam back to consciousness was a healing warmth spreading through me. The feeling of warmth was quickly followed by a tingling sensation that made me want to twitch my legs. There was only one problem…my legs were still buried in old Wormhead. Mingled with the warm, tingly sensation was a painful throbbing that centered around the mark on my neck. That was a good sign. Maybe Dialle was close by. That thought brought with it a stab of dread. The last thing I wanted was for Dialle to see the predicament I’d gotten myself into. Shit.

  I lay there, realizing that, although I hadn’t yet opened my eyes, I had moved slowly from a dream state into full consciousness. Something made me lie very still and play dead. I realized after a moment that Nille and his band of merry weirdoes were leaving me alone. In fact they’d moved away from me and were discussing Dialle’s impending visitation. Apparently they thought I, like my unfortunate hostess, was dead. I was happy to allow them this illusion as long as they kept ignoring me.

  I needed a plan. The first thing on the list had to be removing myself from the unfortunate demon on the floor with me. Second was vowing never to spaceshift again. Third was kicking Dialle’s ass for giving me this dangerous power and not telling me how to use it. Fourth was kicking Nille’s ass and defeating Abrine and the demons to save the world. I wasn’t expecting much of myself. It was all in a day’s work.

  Since I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish any of the things in my plan, I just lay there for a minute and listened to Nille.

  “Dialle will be here any minute. When he discovers what his lovely lady has done to herself he won’t be pleased. I need to be sure your people are set to act as soon as he’s spotted.”

  Abrine’s frosty tones floated my way, seeming, if possible, even frostier than usual. “I’ve told you, your Highness, my people are situated at every portal and will let us know as soon as Dialle and his followers arrive. They will notify us and then flood the entrance to all portals so that Dialle cannot escape. Their deaths are assured. You have nothing to fear.”

  Nothing to fear? Interesting. It seemed while we had been occupied with being afraid of Nille, he had been busy being afraid of us. Well…he was afraid of Dialle anyway. It’s hard to fear a Tweener who is moronic enough to spaceshift into a demon. My predicament had undoubtedly lost me just a tinch of respect from the dark worlders. I fought back a sigh. I hate to be laughed at and I really hate to be ineffectual. I had always been that way, ever since I was a tiny little testicle buster. It was probably small woman syndrome. But whatever. I’d just have to use their low opinion of me to my advantage.

  Focusing my thoughts and power within, I pulled a thread of power from its core and sent it out, probing, testing. I touched the demon’s brain and found nothing. She was gone. The warmth that had entered my body in my unconscious state had given me feeling back in my lower extremities again and I concentrated on moving my toes. All ten toes moved. I opened my eyes just enough to peer through my eyelashes and determine if anyone had noticed the demon’s body moving with my embedded toes. Nothing. They were too busy plotting mean and nasty things to pay much attention to the mess on the floor behind them.

  If I could wriggle my toes then I was still a separate, albeit very embedded, object. Which meant I should be able to spaceshift back out of old Wormhead. Which is exactly what I would do. But before I went spaceshifting willy-nilly around the room, I needed to think about it. I risked opening my eyes completely and scanned the room. Nille, Abrine and their assorted nasties all had their backs to me and were clustered together several yards away. In the wall directly opposite where I lay, I saw the door that, in the physical world, would have corresponded with the single door into the tower room of the Church of the Twined Hands. I saw no other doors. I didn’t know what stood on the oth
er side of that door but I didn’t see any other options. I wasn’t confident enough to try to shift to a spot behind some piece of furniture or something. Not only would that not give me a way out once they’d discovered me missing, but I’d probably shift directly into a divan or something. I was visualizing my head and arms sticking out of the divan as I made my final decision. I would go for the other side of that door.

  I gathered my power and thought about being on the other side of the door. The room blurred and whirred past and I was suddenly standing in the shadows looking at the other side of that heavy, wooden door. I gave a huge sigh of relief when I realized I’d made it and appeared to be standing in a space at the top of a shadowed staircase that looked very much like the murky stairway leading up to Deaver’s church tower.

  A huge, claw-laden hand clamped itself onto my shoulder and I would have screamed, except someone laid a well-shaped golden hand over my mouth. A lean, hard body pressed itself against the length of my back and a sexy, familiar voice whispered into my ear.

  “Where have you been, Astra? We’ve looked all over for you.”

  I quickly forgot that I wanted to kick his ass and turned to stare into those beautiful blue eyes. “Dialle. It’s about frunkin’ time you showed up. Where the hell did you go?”

  As I fought to regain my shaken composure, I found myself praying that he’d never hear about my unfortunate “spaceshifting into the demon” episode. My dignity could not withstand it. In the meantime, I was damn glad to see him and Gerch, who finally dropped his massive hand off my shoulder as I reached up to rub the spots where his claws had broken through the skin.

  Shit. I was really in trouble if those two were looking good to me!

  Chapter Thirty-One

  To Kill to Kill

  At last young Miss has found her friends, the future looks less bleak,

  But how to kill the slavering Beast, with arrows made of cheek?

  A burst of sound from inside the shadowland version of the tower room informed me that the room’s inhabitants had finally noticed my absence from old Wormhead. I turned to Dialle and he touched my hand.

  The world shifted into neutral and we emerged in another part of the shadowland church. Looking around, I quickly realized it was Deaver’s office, or at least its mirror image. I doubted that the baptismal font on the other side of the room held holy water. It probably held blood.

  The room was very crowded. In addition to Gerch and his army, I was extremely surprised to see several familiar but unexpected faces.

  “Hello angel.”

  Myra gave me one of her rare smiles and reached out to touch my cheek with one, pale hand. “I’m glad to see you whole again, Astra.”

  I threw Dialle a guilty look and then tossed a scowl at Myra. I tried to shoosh her with my eyes before she could share the entire, embarrassing predicament with Dialle and his assemblage. Myra’s grin told me she would make good use of my embarrassment in the future.

  Before I realized what she was doing, she moved the hand from my cheek and laid it gently over my nose, I felt intense heat and a slithering motion in my nostril and something dropped out of my nose, landing in Myra’s hand with a squishy splat. The sub-demon I’d inherited from old Wormhead lay squirming in a slimy pool in her hand. With a small pop the thing disintegrated, leaving behind a small, slimy puddle that Myra wiped carelessly on her beautiful robe.

  I widened my eyes meaningfully at my sneaky angel and she grinned at me. Damn her.

  I cast another quick look at Dialle but fortunately for me he and his band of merry men had bigger things on their minds. Thank the Big Guy. They were huddled together across the room, plotting or something. By the time he turned to Myra I had gathered together my small portion of remaining dignity.

  “Are the armies assembled?” Dialle spoke directly to Myra.

  She nodded. “We have troops in place at each portal. Abrine’s men have been…taken care of.”

  I felt my eyes widen. Never have I viewed the celestial army as being an army in the truest sense. Imagine my surprise to learn that God had real troops that “took care” of things.

  “Has word come back to Nille?”

  Myra shook her golden head. “Abrine’s men were dispatched quietly. We allowed a few to escape and report back. Of course they reported what we wanted them to report.”

  Dialle nodded. “Then let us join our friends in the tower room. We have much to ‘discuss’ with them.”

  Like fireflies on a hot, August night, the angels disappeared from view in a single blink. Dialle reached out a hand and I laid mine over it. For once I was glad to have him doing the driving. My driving sucked.

  When the world became noise, color and motion again we were standing just inside the door to the tower room. I felt, rather than heard, Dialle’s men joining us as the air shifted and gasped behind us.

  I could clearly see the surprise and anger in Nille’s pale, golden face and I wished I could be amused by it. But my blood turned to ice under his glowing, blue gaze. “I see Abrine has let me down again.”

  Beside him, the demon king stiffened and turned his featureless face toward Nille. But he said nothing. It’s a little hard to argue that you haven’t failed when abundant evidence of your failure was standing across the room from you.

  Still stinging from my last attempt at taking Nille on in that very room, I stood silently beside Dialle and let him take the lead. I know it was cowardly, but I doubted Nille and his men would have vibrated about the knees if I’d threatened them anyway. Not after the Wormhead incident.

  Dialle’s voice came to me simultaneously as he spoke to Nille. It was like having two holographic films running at the same time in the same room. I found it incredibly disconcerting and I also wondered that he was able to manage it. Remember, Astra, show no weakness.

  Too late.

  To Nille he said, “The minds of Abrine’s men are simple and easily controlled and their king is too ambitious for his own good. He assumes too much and attends too little and his loyalties are easily swayed.” As if to prove the point, Dialle turned his vibrant, blue gaze on the demon king and locked it there. After only a few seconds, Abrine’s head drooped forward and he fell to one knee. Spreading his arms wide, palms up, Abrine’s frosty countenance lifted again to gaze upon Dialle. “My Prince. I beg your forgiveness for my opportunistic behavior.”

  Nille’s beautiful features twisted and, for so brief a time that I almost thought I’d imagined it, his form shivered and faded as if he would shimmer away. But almost as quickly as he had faded, he became solid again. He moved one finger of the hand closest to Abrine and the demon king flew sideways, skittering across the stone floor with an outraged cry. The demon king’s body smacked against the stone wall with a sickening crunch. He crumpled to the floor in a boneless pile, looking for all the world like a puddle of melted vanilla ice cream.

  Dialle didn’t wait to see if Abrine had survived, he raised both hands toward Nille, palm outward and an opaque cylinder of power shot from the outstretched palms and slammed into Nille.

  Nille stumbled back slightly but quickly recovered and lifted his arms to retaliate, shooting his own power in a pulsing, red blast toward Dialle.

  At first the two devils appeared calm. But as the moments wore on I could see signs of their strength draining away from them. Sweat the color of human blood began to bead upon their smooth, golden brows and run into their identically glowing blue eyes. After another moment, Dialle’s body began to tremble just slightly and then more desperately and I knew with a sudden, horrible clarity that Dialle was going to lose the battle.

  As I watched, Dialle’s power began to retreat under the force of Nille’s pulsing, red energy and he seemed to almost shrink into himself. It was like watching a holograph of Dialle’s life which had been locked into hyper forward and then accelerated even more to the speed of light. Before my eyes, his skin was began to grow thin and fold in upon itself, while it gained a grayish tint that look
ed like death. Fear ate at me as I watched his body bend forward until he had the stooped posture of a very elderly man. It all happened in just seconds, much too quickly for me to react and way too fast for me to even weigh my options.

  Suddenly, the mark on my neck gave a single, painful throb and I knew what I had to do. I ran to him and ducked under his arms so that my back was pressed into his chest. I was immediately repulsed by the soft, decayed feel of his body against mine but I forced myself to ignore it and I placed my hands over his. The once beautiful hands were like bone-filled parchment paper. I felt as if they would soon crumble under my touch.

  Making myself ignore the terrible degeneration of Dialle’s flesh, I grabbed at my power and focused it toward Nille, sending it piggyback along with Dialle’s power. My added energy created a slight wave in the power connection between them but didn’t do much more than cause Nille to jump a bit.

  I could still feel Dialle drying up behind me. That was when I started to panic in earnest. What was I doing wrong? Why wasn’t our power merging? I wondered if, as I’d done in Nerul’s office against Rayanne, I had to refocus the power to make it more effective. I figured it was worth a try. I gathered it back and shot it into Dialle’s hands.

  Almost immediately I felt him stiffen and straighten behind me. I watched Nille’s face change from cool smug to “oh shit” and I almost laughed in relief. Slowly at first and then more aggressively, the combined power we shot at Nille started to drive him back.

  Nille’s face grew pale and his tall, strong body hunched with the effort of pushing our combined power back. I knew we had him on the ropes. That was good, but I could already feel myself drooping and I wondered if the power would hold.

  A moment later my worst fears were realized as Nille began to straighten and push back at us again. I couldn’t help wondering where the power was coming from. I took my eyes off Nille just long enough to throw a quick glance around the room. What I saw in that brief glimpse made my skin bubble with a grave-like cold.