bedeviled & beyond 01 - bedeviled & beguiled (12 page)

With one, final sigh, I paid the last of the bills and touched my hand to the ID pad to close down the virtual accountant software I’d been using. With this action, Emo’s despair only deepened. His devilish features had sunk into a truly deplorable state, making him look more devil than the angel I knew him to be. I watched him squirm helplessly in his chair for a minute before I let him off the hook. What can I say, I
am
part devil.

“Looks like we’ll make it another month, though I’m not quite sure how we pulled it off.”

Emo sighed and let his red features relax into a neutral state. “I knew that. I just wanted to hear it from your lush, pink lips.” His smile turned devilish and I couldn’t help laughing.

“Yeah. Right. Did you confirm our appointment for this afternoon?”

“I put the information on your desk. It’s there somewhere, under all the paper.” Emo stood and walked out of my office as the bell on the outer office door jangled. I swiveled to stare out of my newly repaired window.

At that time of day, in the part of town where my office was located, not much traffic moved on the streets below or the sky above. During peak traffic times, air cabs and sky buses forged an almost constant traffic pattern across the airspace beyond my third floor windows. However, the ultra-green movement had been successful in nearly shutting down all travel between the hours of one p.m. and four p.m.. Drivers who found they needed to travel during these hours needed to have a special permit to do it, which, of course, reduced traffic during the afternoon hours mostly to Traffic Detectives and critical care vans. Along with a few, well connected rebels who refused to be told where they could go and when they would go there. It probably won’t surprise you to hear I’m one of those. Doesn’t surprise me.

The empty sky outside was darkening with some sort of weather. By craning my neck I could see the few, scattered trees on the mainly empty street. The trees had begun to sway from side to side in a quickly growing wind. Something skittered across my peripheral vision and a sense of foreboding filled me. I shivered under a sudden chill. Just as the little hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention, I heard a strangled cry from the outer office and flung myself out of my office chair.

Emo had put himself into a battle stance and was barely breathing as I came up behind him. He moved one hand just enough to tell me to stay back. Of course, being me, I ignored him and moved forward so I could see what his large, red body was blocking from my sight. As my eyes landed on our unwelcome visitor I just had time to wonder what it was in my nature that made me resent authority and spurn damn good advice before the thing, seeing me, sprang.

It was about the size of a very large dog or a small pony. That, however, is where the resemblance to things cute and fuzzy and man’s best friend-ish ended. As its tick-like, leathery body launched itself through the air, my protective instincts kicked into overdrive and I sprang sideways, reaching for one of the platinum daggers I had strapped to my left thigh as I rolled behind Emo’s large, sturdy desk and regained my feet.

I heard the impact as the gargoyle slammed into Emo. My partner’s devil came out in a big way as the thing bared greasy yellow teeth and went for his throat with a snarl. Initially, Emo’s devilish strength, fueled in no small way by the fact that he was monumentally pissed off, made him more than a match for the gargoyle. However, I could tell what it was costing him by the way his veins were popping and I quickly realized that he wouldn’t be able to hold the thing off for long.

Clamping an eight inch long knife between my teeth, I dropped to my belly and slithered under the desk, hoping that Emo could keep the thing occupied long enough to allow me to sneak up on it and break its spine, which is the best way I know of to kill a gargoyle.

With the instinctive understanding that comes from a long relationship Emo seemed to sense my intent and, with the last of his quickly waning strength, began trying to get the gargoyle turned so that its back was to me.

I was a mere two feet away when Emo began to lose the battle and went down with the gargoyle on top of him. From where I lay, stretched out on my belly with the knife still clenched in my teeth, I could see the long, deep holes in Emo’s arms and legs where the thing had held on and pierced him. Blood flowed out of him into a pool of shimmering red. Half angel blood. I quickly dipped the knife into Emo’s blood and jumped to my feet.

The gargoyle’s thick, ugly head turned to me and it’s snout opened in a roar as it saw me standing over it with the blood tipped knife. “To Hades with you, fool. For God hath tired of you.”

As it whipped around, too fast for anything human to move, I drove the dagger into its chest and twisted it sideways, feeling gristle, flesh and bone give way under my adrenaline-fueled charge. The blood that tipped my knife was like acid to the gargoyle’s flesh. As the sharp, deadly knife did its work, the blood helped it along by softening and melting away any flesh or gristle it touched. My nose wrinkled against the acrid smell of burning ’goyle and I couldn’t help thinking that If some inventive chef ever attempted to cook up a mess of gargoyle, I was pretty sure it wouldn’t taste like chicken.

The howl of pain the gargoyle let loose covered my screams as its claws ripped across both of my upper arms and raked my chest just below my chin. Combined with the platinum of my knife, the angel blood was just enough to weaken the gargoyle so that Emo could grasp its head and twist until we heard its spine snap. Then we sank, panting, to the floor on either side of the nasty thing. We leaned against the twisted carcass of our victim until we could recapture enough breath to speak.

I looked at Emo over the gargoyle and wrinkled my nose. “This thing stinks.”

Emo nodded, gulping against the pain in his arms and legs as he pulled himself upright and away from it. He was making a funny wheezing noise that bothered me but, under the circumstances, didn’t surprise me much.

I scooted backward until I could lean against Emo’s desk. Resting my hands on my knees, I tried not to look at the fresh wounds on my arms and chest. “Thank the Big Guy for your angel blood, partner.”

“I knew it would come in handy some day.”

The weak, whispery tone of his voice caused me to look up in alarm. His normally deep red face had turned kind of a pinkish gray color and I realized with a start that he was about to pass out. I jumped up and ran to him, managing to catch him before his head hit the hard cement floor. As his weight pulled against my torn arms I couldn’t help giving a little yelp of pain. Then I remembered there was nobody around to hear me and I let out a blue stream of curses as I carefully lowered him to the floor.

Emo’s pulse was very weak and his breathing was much too shallow for the wounds I’d witnessed. I did a quick inventory of his body and found the problem. Protruding from his chest, just about where his heart would be, was a large black claw about the width of two of my fingers together. I tried to pull it out but the gush of deep red blood that surged from the hole scared me too much and I stopped. Sitting back on my heels I realized with horror that I might lose him. Hot tears flowed down my cheeks and that pissed me off. I stood up and screamed at the top of my lungs, kicking the stinking carcass of the dead gargoyle with every ounce of strength I had left. I kicked it until my leg gave out and then I decided that I would need to do something a little more constructive if I were going to save Emo.

As I had the thought, the air nearby shimmered and Prince Dialle made an appearance beside my fallen comrade. My first instinct was to run and get between them, but as I looked into Dialle’s black eyes I saw something there that stopped me. Something inside of me wanted to believe that Dialle would not hurt Emo. Immediately I realized I couldn’t trust that notion and stepped forward to stand between Emo and my...other...devil.

“I see you’ve met Nerul’s pet.”

I tried not to let him see how this news affected me. “I kind of assumed he was one of yours.”

Dialle cocked his gorgeous head to one side and smiled. “Why would I want to hurt you or your partner?”

I shrugged, dragging my eyes from his in an attempt to stay clear headed and focused on the problem at hand. “Maybe you didn’t think your little display at Abrine’s the other night was enough to scare me into cooperating with you.”

Dialle’s eyes narrowed and he shook his head. “I had nothing to do with that. That was Nerul’s doing.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I can see why Nerul would kill a demon for me so that I would feel obligated to spy on him.”

Dialle shook his dark head, causing the silky black hair to swing across his face in a strangely masculine way. “You have much to learn about the twistings and turnings of the devil mind, little halfling.”

“On that at least we can agree, Dialle. Now. What the Hades are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to help you save your friend.”

My snort of laughter wasn’t very ladylike, it’s true, but it was heartfelt. “I don’t have time for any devil shit right now, Dialle. If I don’t do something pretty quickly, Emo’s going to die. I’d appreciate it if you’d just go away and let me think.”

He shimmered off so quickly that I gasped and fell forward, as if his presence had been holding me up. I cast my eyes around the room in disbelief for a moment before shaking my head and kneeling down beside my increasingly pale friend.

As my limited list of options scrolled through my head I started to really panic. I couldn’t take him to the hospital because human hospitals refused to treat devils. His angel blood wouldn’t help him because he looked like a devil and that was how he would be classified.

I thought briefly of Myra and quickly discarded the idea. She wasn’t Emo’s angel, she was mine and she didn’t like him enough to step outside of those boundaries.

I knew of only one devil physician and I was resisting that option because I’d have to literally sell my soul if I went to him. That’s usually not a good option.

Emo coughed and a dark stream of blood spurted out from between his lips. “Shit!” That was it. My soul was gone. I had to save him.

Just as I had the thought, another thought chased it.
Touch the wound.
My head jerked up. For a minute I’d thought the voice had come from somewhere in the room around me.
Touch the wound.

Despite my better judgment, my hand reached out and my fingers opened to slide around the claw. I placed my hand flat against Emo’s chest.
Remove the claw.

“I can’t.”

You must.

Even as my head shook in denial, my hand began pulling on the embedded claw. It didn’t move much at first and the gush of renewed bleeding stopped me again.

Concentrate. Close your eyes.

Tears came again. “I can’t do it, dammit. He’s losing too much blood, he’ll die.”

Concentrate.

I closed my eyes, gulping back tears. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, I forced my mind into that place where I knew it would be able to expand and focus on what needed to be done. I went to that place I’d learned to go as a small child, under the tutelage of my Aunt Diedre, on the devil side of my family tree. Aunt Diedre had taught me that I had magic and she had planned to teach me how to channel and focus it, but then my mother found out what she was doing and stopped her. Right at that moment I wished my mother had minded her own damn business.

Focus.

“I’m trying dammit. Quit yappin’ at me.”

As Aunt Diedre had taught me, I forced all of my thoughts into a pinprick of light at the very center of my consciousness and pushed them aside. Without conscious thought to serve as a barrier, the door opened, releasing the power that lay behind it. The power initiated as a tiny, red spark that quickly faded away. As this initial spark left me, several others took its place and quickly forged together into a thin, tentative flame. Realizing that the key to using the fledgling power was linked to the strength of this hesitant flame, I focused on strengthening it into a blaze that I hoped would grow too large to be contained.

My body began to shake and tingle as the power thrummed inside me. I fought to concentrate the growing power into a single stream that could be channeled into something I could use. As the power built, I sensed a change in the air around me and something warm wrapped itself tightly against my back and arms. Finally, Dialle’s voice spoke in my ear instead of in my head. “I feel the power building, it is within you, only waiting to be used. Use it, Astra. Use it.”

I jerked as his words entered my focused thoughts but their meaning wasn’t lost to me. I could feel the power too. I knew it awaited only a channel to become useful. My problem was that I wasn’t sure how to channel it.

My eyes still closed, I concentrated on bringing the power forward. I felt it move along my arm and drain into my hand, which was still wrapped around the disgusting thing in my partner’s chest. The claw began to vibrate under my hand and then, as I visualized releasing it from Emo’s torn flesh, it shot into my hand and disintegrated with a pop.

I jumped in surprise, feeling the power dim a little as I fought panic at what I’d done. Dialle placed his hand over mine and pushed it onto the wound. Hot blood rushed out, coating my hand. Dialle’s deep voice grew husky with some kind of emotion, speaking words in a tongue that I couldn’t understand.

Like a match flaring to life, the power erupted in me again and shot into Emo with incredible force. My eyes flew open and I watched my friend jerk and twist under the force of it. It scared the shit out of me but I felt helpless to stop it. And then I didn’t want to stop it because I could feel Emo healing. I could feel the wound closing beneath my hand. I could feel the power coursing through my veins like hot lead, hurting me in an almost pleasurable way, until I knew I had to turn it off but I wasn’t sure how.

“Ssstop...nnow...” I managed to gasp out.

Dialle pulled his hand from mine but didn’t pull his supporting arms from around me. “The power is yours to stop, Astra.”