“That is some fucked up shit,” The Shelia whispered, walking around the frozen statue. “Can you release her? She might be able to help us.”
“The Kev and Lizard, are you both quite sure you’re impervious to the charms of a Siren?” I asked.
Both The Shelia and Gemma had made good points. If I took a quick nap and we had a Siren with us, the entire mission might go faster and with less collateral damage.
“I am impervious,” The Kev said. “Their charms will not affect me.”
“Me too,” Lizard added. “When you’re boinking the best, there’s no need to poke the rest. Martha and Jane are my destiny—my life—my loves.”
“Is he freakin’ talking about the same Martha and Jane that I know?” Gemma asked in shock.
“Indeed, he is,” I answered with a wince and a small dry heave. “Stand back. This could be messy.”
With a deep breath and a wave of my hands I focused on the ice and chipping it away without incinerating the Siren within. The spell was woven so tightly I was having difficulties. If I could just blow the goddamned thing up it wouldn’t be a problem. Although, it would definitely be an issue for the Siren as she wouldn’t live through it.
“I can’t do it without killing her,” I said flatly and wildly displeased. I was the Devil. I could break spells like a champion—but not this one.
“The Kev, can you bust through it with brute strength?” The Shelia asked, running her hands over the ice and searching for any imperfections that we might take advantage of.
“I can try,” he said.
And he did.
And it didn’t work.
“All together?” Gemma suggested. “Maybe if we all tried at once it could work.”
“Fine,” I replied in a clipped tone. I was highly doubtful. As powerful as the Fairies were, I was stronger than all of them put together times infinity. And that wasn’t even my ego talking. It was the plain truth.
We tried. We failed.
I’d been correct. However, this time I wasn’t pleased to be right.
Our combined powers didn’t even put a dent in the ice. Fate had created the perfect spell. I could only think of one person who might be able to counteract it, and he and I weren’t on the best of terms.
“Not going to work,” I stated the obvious. “I shall take a quick nap while you four keep watch. Wake me immediately if something seems off.”
“You should take off your makeup before you go to sleep unless you want to wake up looking like a raccoon,” Lizard suggested, backing away when my hands began to spark black fire.
“And you know this, how?” I snapped.
“Commercial. I saw it on a television commercial,” he choked out in fear. “But you would still look devilishly handsome even with raccoon eyes.”
“Is this true?” I demanded of the women present.
“That you would look handsome as a raccoon?” The Shelia asked with a devious little snicker.
“No,” I hissed. “Do I need to remove the makeup?” It was bad enough I was clad as a woman. I didn’t need a horrifying makeup job to add insult to injury.
“Yes,” Gemma said with a giggle as she snapped her fingers and produced some kind of lightly scented wet towelette.
“And what do I do with this?”
“Here,” Gemma said, gently wiping my face. “Close your eyes. I don’t want it to sting you.”
I really couldn’t believe this was happening. I was going to have to blackmail these Fairies into a cone of fucking silence after we left this frozen wasteland. However, if it did get out, no one would believe it. I was the most beautifully masculine specimen in the Universe—maybe not at the moment, but generally speaking.
“All better,” she told me with a quick hug.
With another snap of her fingers she conjured a bed for me to nap in. Unfortunately, it was covered in glittering silver sheets. I preferred black, but the Fairy had been so accommodating I stayed silent. My newfound pleasantness was slightly horrifying to me, but it felt right.
“Don’t let me sleep more than an hour,” I instructed, waving my hand a black silk sleep mask appeared. “We still have a tremendous amount of shit to get done.”
“Understatement much?” Gemma asked with a laugh.
With a dramatic roll of my eyes, I laid on the bed and willed sleep to come. I’d never forced a Dream Walk. I hoped I could do it today.
We really fucking needed something good to happen.
Chapter Seventeen
It was the longest white hallway I’d ever wandered down. For a brief moment, I wondered if I’d accidentally somehow ended up in Heaven. That would be all kinds of fucked. Rubbing shoulders with my brother always ended in violence.
“You’re here,” she whispered.
I could hear her, but I couldn’t see her. Elle’s voice bounced off the walls of the stark hallway and echoed ominously.
“Where are you?” I demanded. “I’ve come for you.”
“I think it’s too late,” she said sadly. “I want you to leave. I still have enough in me to create a portal for you to go home.”
“You are my home, goddamn it. I will not be leaving this place until you’re at my side. You will tell me where you are this moment or I will make your life a living Hell.”
“Oh Lucifer,” she said with a giggle “You’re such an asshole. I love you. And my life without you shall indeed be a living hell.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” I insisted running down the hallway and searching for a door—a crack in the wall—anything to get to her. “You will tell me where you are and I will come to you. It will be all right. I promise.”
“You’re making promises you can’t keep,” my Siren said, sounding weaker with each word.
“I’m a liar,” I said, wanting to keep her talking. She was so close yet so far. “However, I’m not lying right now. I’m fucking furious. Tell me where you are. At least tell me if you’re in the Palace.”
“I’m am, but I’m almost frozen. By the time you find me, I’ll be encased in ice.”
“No,” I shouted, throwing fireballs and black magic at the pristine walls. “No.”
“Wake up and go home. The portal will be a sparkling purple orb. Walk into it. Do that for me. If you truly love me, save yourself. Please.”
“Fine,” I roared. “I’ll fucking leave.”
“You’re lying.”
“Your point?”
The walls were impenetrable just like the ice. If she was completely frozen, there would be very little I could do to save her. This was complete and utter bullshit. I was one of the most powerful entities in the Universe, and for the first time since I fell from the Heavens, I felt completely helpless.
“I have a friend of yours with me,” I said in an attempt to keep her talking. “The Shelia has come to help me find you and your mother.”
“I like The Shelia. She had lovely jewelry. Tell her I’m sorry for stealing it.”
“You’ll have to tell her yourself when I find you and then spank your evil ass for being so difficult.”
“And that’s a punishment?” she inquired with a soft laugh. “I thought that was foreplay.”
“It can be whatever you want it to be. Just tell me where you are… please. I can’t live without you.”
“You can and you will,” she said firmly. “You are a True Immortal. You are the Devil. You are my hero and my love. You will go on. There is no other choice.”
“I won’t,” I snapped. “There is a way for me to die and I might just do it.”
“Are you threatening me?” she asked.
“Did it work?” I shot back.
“No, my love. It didn’t. You’re about to wake up. Go to the portal and know that I will always love you.”
“Unacceptable,” I shouted as I felt myself being pulled back to consciousness.
My Siren thought she’d had the last word.
She didn’t.
I was going to have the last
word even if it destroyed me.
Chapter Eighteen
“Elle’s in the Palace,” I snapped, sitting up abruptly and startling my company. “She’s almost completely frozen. We have to move fast.”
“And her mother?” The Shelia asked, producing weapons out of thin air and arming herself.
“Don’t know,” I admitted. “And I don’t know if Fate is in there. I’d assume she’d have to be to perform the spell.”
Ripping the tangled sheets from my body, I stood and then stopped. “What happened to the statue?” I asked.
The Siren was still frozen, but some of the ice had been chipped away.
“Ask Lizard,” Gemma said with a grin and a shake of her head. “That boy is nuts.”
Turning, I eyed my freakish Demon and waited. If he could somehow remove the ice maybe all wasn’t lost.
“My bat,” Lazard announced with pride. “I was afraid to go too deep because I didn’t want to knock her head off. She looks like a nice lady.”
“Umm… okay,” I said not quite understanding how he got nice from something that looked like the painting The Scream by Edvard Munch. My Demon was a bizarre one, but at least he was industrious. Maybe with his bat and my magic we wouldn’t be too late even if my Siren was frozen.
“Alrighty then, what the Hell is that?” The Sheila asked, pointing at a shimmering purple orb that suddenly appeared next to the statue. It was the size of a sedan and crackled with hissing magic.
“It’s a portal to leave Kismet. Elle created it. She wants us to leave,” I told them all and then paused. Closing my eyes and balling my hands to fists, I tried to stop myself from speaking the words that wanted to force their way from my mouth, but for some ridiculously ethical reason I couldn’t. “If you want to go home, go now. I can promise you what’s about to happen will not be pretty. I don’t want your possible deaths on my hands. I shall leave the choice up to you. There will be no repercussions if you choose to depart.”
All four Fairies stared at me as if I’d grown another head. Reaching up to my shoulder, I checked to see if I had. Nothing would surprise me now.
“You’re actually kinda good, Mr. Bad Dude,” Gemma said as a wide smile pulled at her lovely mouth. “I think I might like you.”
“Let’s not let this get out of hand,” I replied with an eye roll.
“I’m staying, my Liege. I will never forsake you,” Lizard announced, dropping to his knee and bowing his head.
“I will stay,” The Shelia said. “I want to see this through till the end and I have no intention of dying today. I didn’t get laid in Hell and that is not working for me. I say we get this shit done and then I go pick up a gigolo—or three.”
“As will I—not the gigolo part—the staying part,” The Kev added with a deep chuckle. “You will owe me many favors to keep my mouth shut, Lucifer.”
“I had a feeling,” I muttered, not really caring what the Fairy wanted. I would gladly give it. Of course, I’d bitch like a girl the entire time but that was to be expected. I did have a reputation to uphold.
“There was never a question,” Gemma said, crossing to me and taking my hand in hers. “And just so you know… your aura is changing color.”
“Yes well, let’s not let that hideous news get out,” I grumbled.
“My lips are sealed,” she promised.
I wasn’t as sure about The Kev’s lips, but I had no time to even think about the possibility. Time was a luxury that we didn’t have at the moment.
“I’m quite sure there will be Trolls, so be ready,” I instructed.
And those were some fucking prophetic words…
The stuff that true nightmares and debilitating fear is made of is far more than just monsters…
Picking up speed as only those who lived for eternity could do, we raced the rest of the way toward the Ice Palace. Our pace rendered us invisible to the human eye and hopefully Fate’s. The wind had picked up and a hailstorm showered us making it difficult to see.
Even through the pounding ice the Palace towered like a deadly diamond above us. As we drew closer, I realized I could feel my Siren. I wasn’t sure if it was that I possessed her soul in my body or that she was simply mine that I sensed her, but I didn’t care. The sensation gave me hope that I was close.
“Do you think Fate knows we’re here?” The Shelia yelled over the wind. “Or is this another farked up defense mechanism?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” I shouted back. “Just muscle through it. Get under my wings. Let me take the brunt of it. It can’t kill me.”
The physical pain I felt was nothing I couldn’t endure. The glacial door of the castle was only a hundred yards away, but with the tempest raging around us, it seemed like a thousand.
“Stop!” Lizard bellowed. “Look.”
I shielded my eyes from the stinging ice pellets and tried to make out what my Demon was seeing. My heart went to my throat and my hands began to spit fire.
“No,” I shouted as I pushed my way toward the scene of horror in front of me.
Fate had just signed her death warrant.
My movement was sluggish as if I was underwater. As much as I pushed my body to go faster, it betrayed me and went even slower. What I saw was burned into my brain. Of all the horrors I’d witnessed over my long life this won.
It was personal. It was vile and someone was going to pay.
Most of Elle’s body lay splayed on the frozen ice—naked and beaten almost beyond recognition. But not her all of her… her neck was positioned in a guillotine that was about to drop and behead her. Her blonde hair was matted with blood and it blew in the wind, whipping across her beaten face. There were others alongside her, but I could only see my Siren. She wasn’t frozen at all, but she was about to die in front of my eyes.
Unacceptable. Why in the Hell weren’t my feet moving? My world was about to be demolished to meaninglessness and I was a useless fucking mess.
Powerful hands grabbed my wings and pulled my sluggish body to a complete halt. I wasn’t sure who it was, but I didn’t give a damn. I blasted the offending hands with black fire and continued toward the one I loved more than myself. The searing shot of magic that was launched from behind me sliced through my body like a hot knife through butter. Fuck it, I would heal. I had to stop the guillotine.
“It’s not real,” The Kev grunted and tackled me to the ground planting his fist in my face to distract me before I could burn him to ash. “It’s not fucking real. Look at the others. NOW.”
I could taste the salty blood dripping from my lips. My eyes narrowed at the Fairy in pure hatred. What the fuck was he talking about? Elle was about to die. She was mine. I had no time for games or lies.
“Look at the others,” The Kev hissed, furious. “That is not Elle. Look, damn you. Look.”
Turning my head in my flattened position, I scanned the group and sucked in a furious breath. The Fairy was correct—maybe. About forty away, next to Elle was a facsimile of a bloody and torn apart Gemma. Next to the illusion of Gemma was a brutally beaten version of The Kev. On the other side of my Siren were the partially decapitated Martha and Jane and at the end of the line was the inordinately powerful Fairy, The Dave. He looked the worst of them all. His legs were missing and he was bleeding profusely from the mouth.
“It’s an illusion,” The Kev said, still breathing hard. “Whatever we love the most is dying in front of us. And now we have to kill it.”
“This is fucked up,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I can kill it.”
“You can. You have to,” The Shelia said, wiping the tears of horror and distress from her blue eyes. “You think I want to kill the man I’ve waited thousands of years for? Do you?” she shouted.
“We’re all gonna need some fucking therapy after this,” Gemma said, gazing at the mirages our dying loved ones.
“Are we completely sure?” Lizard asked with crazed eyes as his body shook with so much fury I thought he might implode.
“Yes,” The Kev said.
“No. We’re not sure,” I growled, pushing The Kev off of me and getting to my feet. “We know that those things aren’t you and Gemma. You’re standing right here. We don’t know if the others are real or not.”
“He has a point,” The Shelia said with her eyes glued to the quickly fading The Dave.
“They have auras,” Gemma said. “And they’re all very bleak and dark. Just like the Trolls from earlier.”
“My mate is a fucking Siren. She lies like a rug, steals, and used to suck the lives from her victims before she figured out a way to feed without killing,” I roared. “Her aura is going to reflect that. That argument doesn’t fly.”
“You just said she’d changed her ways,” Gemma yelled back, getting up in my face with the most insane bravery anyone had ever challenged me with. “Are you lying?”
“No.”
“If she has remorse for her prior actions, her aura would not be as tainted as what I see,” Gemma hissed. “I was there when she saved us all from the wraiths. Adrielle Rinoa does not have a dark aura. I will bet my life on it.”
I stared at her and the crazy woman just stared right back. There was not one damned duplicitous thing about her. Gemma was telling the truth—or at least she believed she was. “And the rest?” I asked, not knowing what to think at this point.
“Martha and Jane might be profane, partially bald, hideously dressed pains in the ass, but they are good deep down. I don’t want to hang with them or anything like that, but they don’t have auras as filthy as what I’m seeing on those imposters.”
“And The Dave?” The Shelia asked on a sob, unable to hold back her tears. “What do you see?”
“His aura is the worst of them all,” Gemma said staring at The Dave with fear in her eyes. “From what I’ve heard of The Dave that is a complete impossibility.”
“My Queen is telling the truth,” Lizard said.
Fashionably Forever After: Book Ten, The Hot Damned Series Page 13