by Sam Cheever
“The Supreme High Witch. I heard them discussing these plans together.”
Dialle turned to me. It appears our suspicions are correct, lovely Astra.
I nodded, frowning. Raoul would not be pleased with the information.
I moved toward the demon, intending to ask him a question. He jerked against his bonds so hard the chair left the floor and flew backward, dumping him on his back, feet and legs dangling in the air. “Please, Mx. Phelps, I’ve told you all I know.”
I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t going to hurt him but I didn’t quite get the words out.
Flopping around on the floor until he could see me, Depla focused earnest red eyes on my face and said, “She has a human partner I think. Another witch. That’s all I heard, I swear upon my allegiance to the demon breed.”
My eyes flew to Dialle’s. His locked onto mine. Almost simultaneously we both shuffled our mental drawers and said, Shit!
CHAPTER FOUR
Trashed by the Past
Alas our lady’s family tree, is filled with spoiled fruit,
Its branches sport some deadly thorns and much bad news to boot.
I was in the cavern again, below the dubious Diablo’s tomb. The air was murky and thick, filled with a wet, grey fog that swelled into my mouth and nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. My footsteps in the dank, murky space were muffled and slow. My chest heaved with the effort to breathe.
A sense of danger kept me moving forward, although I didn’t know where I was going. My skin prickled under a feeling that something lurked unseen in the opaque air of that cavern. I imagined I heard a harsh, guttural breath here, a warning cough there. Once I thought I saw the outline of some shadowy creature hovering nearby, quivering with dark intent. My skin prickled with unease and I tried to walk faster.
I was several steps into the dark, nighttime forest before I even realized I’d finally broken free of the cavern.
A fat moon hung high over the trees. Bats skittered and dived above my head. The trees swayed softly in a building breeze. A bank of stringy grey clouds moved toward the moon, threatening to plunge the softly lit woods into heavy dark.
I took a deep breath, reveling in the clean soft air, and started forward again, moving through the dense forest with the moon as my guide. I still didn’t know where I was going but I was much more comfortable going there.
The trees suddenly disappeared and I was standing in a small clearing. A beam of light from the moon shot directly into that clearing and illuminated a figure standing there.
The woman was tall and handsome. She stood still and straight, long arms hanging straight down at her sides. She wore shimmering silver robes, which were tied at the waist with a string of black pearls, a pentagram dangled at the end of the pearl belt.
Her hair was long and straight, of a red so deep and dark it looked black in the soft, nocturnal light. As I strained to see her face the clouds finally caught up with the moon and danced across it, leaving behind a patchwork of delicately fluttering light.
Her features were obscured but her voice I recognized all too well. Despite the fact that I hadn’t heard it in almost twenty years.
“Blessed be, Astra.”
In my dream state I didn’t jolt in surprise as I recognized her. My dream self acted as if it had been just last week, or even that morning since we’d last spoken. “Aunt Deirdre. How are you?”
The woman tilted her shadowed face and raised her hands, palms up, toward me. In the palm of each was a pentagram tattoo. The robe slipped away from delicate wrists, the flesh white and unblemished, except for a teardrop marking on her left wrist that reminded me suspiciously of the daemon hickey on my neck. As she began to speak she lowered her arms to her sides again.
“I am sorry to disturb your sleep niece. My coming will be difficult for you as it has been for me. Unfortunately I am drawn by events that occur outside your sphere and felt compelled to warn you.”
The clouds finally moved on, allowing the fat, yellow moon to beam down into the clearing again. It touched the figure before me and flowed around her but somehow didn’t show me her face.
“What events, Aunt?”
“I have no time to tell all, niece. Know only this, your mother stands at the dark center of an evil vortex. Her intentions are not clear as yet but her actions have thrown suspicion against her. I am here to warn you away from her. She is working against your best interests and you must spurn her.”
I frowned and started to move toward my aunt. She didn’t appear to move but the distance between us never changed. “I haven’t spoken to my mother in three years. I don’t know what she’s doing or how it could possibly affect me.”
My aunt lowered her head in acquiescence, her long auburn hair falling across her shadowed face. “I know you believe that your world and your mother’s have run on parallel but disparate tracks all these years, niece but she reaches for you now. And you will suffer for her contact.”
I took another step just for fun and the distance between us stayed the same but her presence in that moon-touched clearing waned. “I don’t understand. How can my mother affect me? She hasn’t tried to reach me in all these years. I believed she was shamed by me.”
Aunt Deirdre lowered her head and I swore I heard a soft sigh escape the perfectly formed royal lips. “Your mother has held you close in mind if not in the physical plane, Astra. She knows you will one day become a queen in the royal court and that your powers continue to grow. She is ambitious and she knows that if she watches and waits you will one day come into her sphere and she will work to gain influence over you.”
Since I figured I was dreaming and didn’t have to believe the parts I didn’t like I ignored the becoming queen part and the growing power part but the idea that my mother would try to influence me after all the years she’d basically ignored me was just too much. “Then I won’t come into her sphere. I can avoid her if necessary.”
Deirdre smiled. “It is never that simple is it niece?”
I frowned again, at a loss for words. Unfortunately, my aunt didn’t suffer from the same problem. “You are also at the center of that vortex I mentioned, niece. Those who you are enmeshed with are at cross purposes with you. Trust no one except the Prophesied One.”
My eyes widened. “Prince Dialle?”
The form in front of me wavered and faded. Aunt Deirdre said nothing for a moment but I could almost feel her uncertainty. Finally she shook her head. “I did not say that name, niece. There are some who believe the great unifier has not come forward yet.”
I frowned, my heart speeding up as I realized my Dialle had been speaking truth when he’d expressed doubt about the unifier’s true identity. Despite recent evidence to the contrary, even my sexy royal scoundrel didn’t know if he was the Prophesied One. I felt my very short fuse hitting the nub end and it was all I could do to stop myself from stomping a foot in temper. “How is it possible, aunt, that no one knows who the Prophesied One is? Including the Prophesied One?”
The shadow form that looked like my Aunt Deirdre shrugged narrow shoulders. “Every century we have a contender and every century we have been denied. The great one has yet to emerge. Though I will grant that recent events have certainly given weight to Prince Dialle’s claim.”
Against all reason I felt my temper rising at this. “Dialle has made no claim, aunt. Events have transpired to place the light on him. He seems to have the angels’ support and he has shown himself a knight for good as well as evil. His resumé speaks for itself.”
The clouds above our heads shifted and a bright beam of yellow light finally illuminated my aunt’s face. She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered her, with almond shaped black eyes in a perfectly formed golden face. Wisps of glossy dark auburn hair curled softly around Aunt Deirdre’s delicate features, framing a small, heart-shaped face. Her mouth, formed of softly pouting lips of a dewy rose color, opened slightly to frame brilliant white teeth, the canines just the tiniest bit too long and
sharp to be human. She said, “Not precisely, though I’ll admit he comes closer than most.”
I scowled, my hands forming into fists at my sides. I wasn’t sure how my blood had reached the boiling point, or why. There was no doubt I felt protective of Dialle, though I’d never have thought it possible. “What do you mean by that.”
My aunt’s face softened and, amazingly, she smiled. “Your devil rises, niece, bringing pleasure to my soul.” But she could see that her words didn’t lessen my anger so she went on quickly. “Calm yourself, young Astra. You will know when you are meant to know.” She hesitated before going on in a soft, clear voice, “We will all know when the deed is done.”
“The deed?”
Aunt Deirdre nodded. “The Prophesied One will be known through his actions, when he moves outside himself to perform a selfless act that damns his own, angers his enemies and creates a united front for good between all the forces of the world—good, bad and between.”
I stared at her for several long seconds. As I stood there, clouds moved across the fat moon in gentle wisps, bringing intermittent shadow across the clearing and then moving on quickly, creating the feeling that time and space were being spun and sped through a camera lens.
Finally I asked the question for which I dreaded the answer. “Aunt, why do you say he doesn’t quite fit the prophecy? What does he lack?”
This time she didn’t hesitate. “His angel, my sweet niece. He has no angel in his make-up. The prophecy says that the great unifier will shape the perfect ties between angel and devil blood to cause the world to stop on its axis and turn on itself, reversing the evil that had been done in his name and bringing the good forward to cleanse the earth’s soul. Your Dialle has shown a certain willingness to strengthen the forces of light when it has suited his purposes. But he has yet to do the same when his own are threatened by his very actions. That is the true test.”
My mouth fell open as I realized what she’d just said. “Hades, aunt. Are you telling me the Prophesied One is a halfling?”
The smile fell away from my aunt’s face, leaving it cold and expressionless. “The prophecy is unclear. It twists and turns and takes divergent paths built upon the expectations of its reader. I fear we will not know until we know, Astra.”
Dizziness swamped me and I closed my eyes to stop the world from spinning. When I opened them again I was in my bed, my covers twisted and bunched around my legs and my nightgown damp with a clammy sweat. I was disoriented and weak, a certain tenderness invading my heart. If what my aunt said was true, everything I’d thought I’d learned about my current predicament and recent events was probably wrong. And everyone I thought I knew and could trust was probably not what I expected them to be.
What I did know was that the “dream” hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been a visitation from my long dead aunt. I sat bolt upright in my bed as the ramifications of all that she’d said hit me hard right between the metaphysical eyes. Shoving at damp, mangled covers until my legs were free, I yanked my equally damp nightgown off over my head, suddenly feeling as if I would combust if I didn’t get every bit of damp cloth away from my overheated body. Spooked and breathing unnaturally fast, I really wished I could write the whole thing off to a bad dream.
As usual I didn’t know what side I was on, who my friends were, or what I was fighting for. Frunk me to Hades on the Grim Reaper’s boat. My life was firmly entrenched on the lowest circle of Hell. I was suspended in a piss ocean on a float made of dung. I was a frankfurter on the bonfire of life. A glowbug splatter on the wrong side of a one-way mirror. A... Well you get where I’m going. I was in my usual place. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit out of luck!
Flopping back down on the moist sheets, I flung my arms and legs out to maximize the cooling surface of my body. I lay there like that until goose bumps replaced the waves of heat from my skin and my eyes and heart finally slowed, my pulse calming. Then I drifted back to sleep.
At first I was alone on the bed.
Then thoughts of my Dialle invaded my sleep and I couldn’t help remembering how soft his lips had been on mine...or how they’d subjected my rigid nipple to delicious heat. I smiled with pleasure as my sexual core clenched and tingled in anticipation. Then, on some level, I realized that I couldn’t have been remembering that because Dialle’s yummy, hot lips had never actually sucked at my breast. For a moment the feeling wavered and faded away.
But then Dialle was hovering over me on the bed, staring into my eyes with the most beautiful blue gaze. The black silk of his long hair teased against my skin, making it twitch. I looked down past the flowing midnight locks and was very happy to see nothing but smooth, golden skin, some of which was pointing right at me with a happy face.
As my gaze returned reluctantly to his beautiful face, his hard body began lowering onto mine. I gasped as the long, rigid length of his erection pressed my thigh and couldn’t stop myself from arching against him, opening my legs so that he slipped between them.
Dialle lowered his head again to nibble softly at my neck.
My daemon hickey throbbed in rhythm with the pulsing between my legs.
I moaned and he moved his lips to mine, pressing himself against me as he ravaged my mouth, plundering it with a driving tongue that tasted of sexual musk and sweet promises. Lethal white teeth clasped my bottom lip and nibbled, just to the point of pain, before being replaced with his amazing lips.
I stopped breathing on my own and felt my heart slowing to mirror his.
Dialle moved off me suddenly, resting against my side so that he had one arm free to play. He reached down and touched me with a finger that felt as if it had been heated under the sun for hours and I gasped, pushing shamelessly against the toasty digit like a bitch gargoyle in heat.
The finger was soon joined by a friend and the two of them slid gently into my wet core and started a smooth, sensuous samba that caused me to arch my hips and join the dance. Their buddy the thumb took up residence on that happy place just above where the finger friends currently danced and made firm, rubbing motions that threatened to take me right over the edge into heaven.
All the while, Dialle’s heated mouth was not idle. His lips and tongue worked their way down my neck, across my collarbone and to the other breast, which was just as happy to see them as my first breast had been. Careful ministrations there brought that nipple out to play and Dialle moved on to make sure all the playmates came out to join in the fun.
As his lips neared the happiest of places, where his thumb had been providing a sexy massage that was making me see entire constellations, a change in the air around the bed intruded on the party, sending a cooling wash across my skin.
Harsh reality, in the form of my cranky angel Myra was about to pee all over my good time.
My dream Dialle lifted his head and, with a final smile filled with soft regret, popped out of my dream and, presumably, back into his own.
A firm smack on my forehead brought me reluctantly awake and I glared at Myra. “This had better be good, angel. I had some dream going on here.”
Myra pursed soft, pink lips and furrowed her flawless white brow. “From the look on your face and your current state of...undress, I’m sure I don’t want to know what the dream was about.”
I pulled the rumpled covers over my naked body and pushed myself upright in the bed, trying valiantly to ignore the frantic throbbing of my dream-ravaged nether regions. It wasn’t easy to ignore something as insistent and painful as that throbbing and my damnable guardian angel was definitely going to pay the price for breaking into what had been the most pleasurable and realistic dream I’d ever experienced.
I continued to sit there glaring at her and she continued to stand beside my bed, glaring right back at me. Finally I realized that I could never beat my angel in a cranky contest and that one of us had better resort to common sense or it was conceivable that we would both still be standing—or sitting as the case may be—there glaring for all of eternity. In fact, if
eternity was the finish line, Myra would win anyway because she’d still be there when we hit eternity while I, being slightly less than immortal, would not be.
Sighing, I pushed back the covers and climbed out of bed, heading for the cleansing tube. I didn’t turn around to see if she followed me into the personal hygiene room but I could feel her presence in the room as I climbed into the cleansing tube. “Water on, one hundred degrees, full soap.” As hot soapy water left the spigot on the wall I sighed and turned to face Myra. “Well, what’s up?”
Myra’s perfect pink and white face didn’t change an ion as she lowered her angelic butt onto the chair beside the door and continued to stare at me. “You could at least have made me some coffee.”
I stopped in mid-scrub and stared at her, my mouth dropping open in disbelief. She simply stared back. Once again I sighed and decided on the better part of valor. “I’ll make you some as soon as I get out of here.”
She shrugged, finally looking away, “I can’t stay.” Her clear blue gaze scanned the room as if looking for flaws in its décor she could point out to me.
I waited, knowing that nothing would spur my angel into speaking until she was damned good and ready.
Finally she said, “The demons have made good on their threat to take hostages, Astra.”
I turned off the water and stepped into the drying tube. “What have they done?”
Myra’s waist length blonde locks swung softly around her shoulders as she turned to face me. “They’ve kidnapped the humans who visited Demonica last night.”
I pushed at my long, auburn hair in an effort to get the thick layers dry. “How many?”
Myra shrugged. “We’re not entirely certain but we believe it’s in the range of twenty to thirty humans.”
I stepped out of the tube and whistled. “Hades. That will certainly get somebody’s attention.”
Myra’s scowl returned. “Precisely.”
I grabbed my warm, bulky robe off the heated rack by the cleansing tube and pulled it on. Shivering in delight as its warmth started soaking into my chilled flesh. “What exactly do you want me to do about it?”