bedeviled & beyond 07 - beset & bewildered (2 page)

I thought you should know...

Not now!
Gritting my teeth, I sent another bolt of energy down my arms and turned the blade another few inches.

The demon stiffened, his wide, handsome face turning red and his sexy blue gaze glowing with rage. He wrapped his hands around my waist and tried to yank me free. I screamed, digging one hand into the flesh just above his shoulder blade. My power-infused fingers sank into his rock-hard flesh until I found bone. Then I wrapped my fingers around the bone and held on as I twisted Seraphim another inch.

The demon howled again, his eyes spitting actual fire in my direction. I barely got an energy shield up in time to keep from being roasted, and then, as he gave me another tug that made my bones creak, I threw everything I had into Seraphim and ripped it through what was left of his heart.

He shuddered once, his hands a crushing pressure around my waist, and then his eyes rolled back in his head and he slammed to the ground.

The force of his fall did what his grip hadn’t been able to accomplish. I was propelled over his prostrate form and flew through the air to smack against a broken chunk of wall, sliding toward the ground with a pain-filled grunt.

I lay there for a moment, taking stock of all my aches and breaks. Finding nothing life-threatening going on inside my battered body, I tried to shove to my feet, groaning loudly.

A large, lightly-calloused hand appeared in front of me, an offer of help.

I looked up into Slayer’s handsome face and laughing gold eyes. “That was an interesting vanquishing technique, Princess.”

In support of my recent attempts toward anger management, I forced myself to count to ten. I used the time to consider my irritating but delicious partner. His wide mouth was spread in a grin, showing the most enticing pair of dimples. His teeth were white, the canines slightly enlarged like a Royal’s. His skin was a deep golden color and his hair was midnight black, cut very short, military style. The short hair emphasized a strong jaw and densely muscled neck. Dragging myself out of my Slayer-induced daze, I slapped his hand away. “Shut up! If you got yourself free why didn’t you help?”

He shrugged, looking amused. “I tried to offer but you were too busy to listen.”

I carefully stretched myself to my full height of five feet nine inches and tugged a blood-coated strand of blonde hair off my cheek. Slayer and I stood looking at the dead demon for a few minutes, while I sucked air like a dying fish demon on a Venutian beach.

“You know he’s gonna revive as soon as you remove Seraphim, right?”

I shook my head. “I’m not leaving her in his black heart.”

Slayer grinned. “You have to, unless you want to kill him again.”

Depression blossomed through me, followed by extreme weariness. I’d been battling the damn thing for hours, trying to make even the smallest dent in it that would stick. “How the hell do you kill these things?”

“It’s all about the size of the pieces,” Slayer told me.

I grimaced. “Pieces? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

He shrugged. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that.”

“So, what? We need to blast it?”

“Yup. You need to tap into that delicious reserve of power you’re so stingy with.”

I barely kept from whining. “I don’t want to.”

“But you must.”

“Can’t
you
just do it?”

“I could, but you could do it so much easier. Come on, Darma, pull up your granny panties and do your job.”

I frowned, advancing on him with a stiff, bloody finger that I poked hard against his chest. Though he grinned down at me, he backed away from my determined attack. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I don’t wear granny panties.”

He grabbed my hand and pressed a kiss against the palm. “Oh yeah? Prove it.”

I jerked my hand away. “Pervert.”

“Angry goddess.”

A grin tugged at my lips as I stalked toward the demon. “Let’s get this over with. We’ll have to move fast because I’m tugging Seraphim free first. There’s no way I’m letting her get blown up with that great-horned insect.”

CHAPTER TWO

Three Eyes are Better than One

A true friend won’t ask you to die for him,

But he’ll have no problem letting you take demon guts in the face while he stands behind you.

I dropped my air booger down at the Phelps Castle and sat for a moment, eyes closed, trying to contain a rage that felt bigger than I was. If it was the last thing I ever did, I was gonna get my revenge on the contemptible Slayer for what he’d done.

I shifted against the seat, grimacing as a heavy wetness caused a giant sucking sound on the seat. A sour, butcher shop smell wafted upward and I clenched my fists, which I was holding away from my body because I didn’t want to touch the chunks of gore covering my fine, leather outfit. A bloody string of something I refused to identify trailed from my hair. My cheeks were stiff under a drying coat of blood.

“Open door.”

The booger’s elderly electronic brain hesitated for a beat, a confused whirring sound preceding a final click before the door lifted upward. I very carefully shifted my legs outside and straightened away from the car, shuddering when a heavy chunk of something slimy plopped onto the seat behind me.

“I’m going to kill him slowly, one hateful cell at a time.”

“Seal and sanitize,” I told the booger. The door jumped downward and stuck, rising again with a clank, and then finally eased shut. The interior glowed green as the booger struggled to incinerate the goop and gore I’d deposited inside. I didn’t even want to think about what the process would leave behind. If I was lucky it would just be a fine residue of gray ash. If I suffered my usual luck, or lack there-of, I’d be forced to remove a charred hunk of demon flesh from my seat in the morning. I shoved the horrid thought away and buried it under soothing thoughts of my revenge against Slayer.

Sloshing toward the large, arched doorway in the back wall of the castle, I scanned the heights of the dark stone edifice. By habit, I looked for signs that my father, James Phelps, Seraphim in the Angelic choir and God’s right hand man, was home. The façade was dark, the windows like black, unblinking eyes unfavorably judging me as I approached.

I realized as I reached the door that I’d have to touch the handle to open it. My hands were painted in green demon blood with strings of blackened flesh clinging to them. Touching stuff wasn’t an option. Rage flared again and it ignited my last nerve. I’d have to space shift into my room. I hated to do it, but the alternative was coating everything I touched with disgusting refuse and then having to clean it all up. Besides, my father would know what I’d been up to if I left the demon’s magic signature all over the place. I didn’t think I was up to receiving his knowing looks.

Space shift it was.

Picturing an open area of my bed chamber, I closed my eyes and envisioned my body disintegrating on the air, moving through space to that exact spot, and reintegrating there.

The total silence as I entered my shift was disconcerting. I kept my eyes closed because I still wasn’t used to the lack of movement, or the swirling silver sparkles as the magic altered physical properties and changed their location.

It was a great relief when my feet touched the soft rug of my room and the familiar, sweet scent of Lunar Roses dispelled some of my stink.

I opened my eyes and found that I’d landed exactly where I’d planned. Despite myself I smiled. I was a classic overachiever and nobody was as hard on me as I was when I didn’t live up to expectation.

Heading for the cleansing tube, I gave some thought to removing my clothes first and then decided against it. There was no way I was going to try to peel slimy, wet leather off my body while it was covered in chunks. I stepped into the tube and said, “Pulse on full, soap thirty percent, temp one hundred and four degrees.”

Hot, soapy water rained down on me, hard enough to loosen the chunks and scour off the dried demon blood. I stayed under there for long enough to deplete the hot water supply and then exchanged the water for hot air. By the time my below-the-shoulder length hair was close to dry, my televisual was dinging for my attention.

I thought about ignoring it but, being a bit anal about doing the right thing, a complimentary personality trait to go with the over-achiever in my nature, I headed toward the device with a sigh. “Answer call.”

My sister’s pretty face swam online and I mentally prepared for one of our “conversations”.

Astra’s long auburn hair curled wildly around her face, her green gaze widening as she took me in. “Tough day at the office?”

I frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“You have a large, blue eyeball stuck to the top of your head.”

I gave an embarrassing girly scream and reached up to knock the eyeball loose. Unfortunately, it didn’t budge. It seemed to be molded to the strands of my hair like it had been glued there. “Arghhhh! Ish!!”

Astra twisted her lips, obviously trying not to laugh. “You’ll probably need to cut that out of your hair. Demon parts are like chewing gum. They stick hard.”

I barely squelched the desire to growl. “I’m gonna kill Slayer.”

Both of Astra’s slender auburn eyebrows lifted. “What did he do now?”

“He talked me into blasting a Super Demon but he didn’t mention it would implode all over me.”

Astra gave in to the desire to smile. “Let me guess, he was somewhere far behind you when it happened, not a hair out of place?”

I let the growl loose. I figured my sister would understand.

She chuckled happily.

“I’m really glad you’re entertained.”

She flipped a hand upward. “Remind me to tell you about my visit to a dragon roost with the sexy Slayer sometime. Believe me when I tell you I completely understand.”

Though her words mollified me a tiny bit, I was careful not to let her know. “I doubt you know what it’s like to have an eyeball stuck to your hair.”

She cocked her head, narrowing her gaze. “You’re right. But that finger that’s sticking out of your collar, I’m pretty sure that’s happened to me before.”

I shrieked again, smacking at the cold flesh that was stuck to the collar of my leather jacket and dancing around like a Venutian elephant in a room full of mice. “Get it off!”

Giggling emerged from the televisual.

“I swear to god, Astra. You’re second in line for murdering after Slayer.”

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Darma. Just take the jacket off and dump it in the chute.”

“Throw away my Lara Croft original hunting jacket? I think not.”

Shortly after I’d started helping Astra at the Angel Network, I’d discovered the ancient human heroine, Lara Croft Tomb Raider and decided I wanted to be just like her. I promptly got myself some sexy and indestructible leather clothing and started modeling my hunting persona after the feisty female. I was pretty sure Lara wouldn’t throw away a perfectly good jacket just because it had part of a demon stuck to it.

Astra shrugged. “Well, you could always put a sparkly ring on the digit and paint the fingernail a happy pink color.”

I closed my eyes, intending to count to a hundred so I didn’t shriek foul words at the televisual. I think I made it to ten...

“Darma?”

“End call.”

Astra blinked away and I felt instantly better. “If God loved me he would have made me an only child.”

Despite my instant resistance to Astra’s suggestion, I quickly learned that nothing short of cutting off the collar was going to remove the nasty digit from my jacket. Still I couldn’t quite face the idea of throwing it out. So I threw it on the floor, intending to use the laser cutters to remove the collar later. A collarless hunting jacket was better than no jacket at all.

A few snips with the laser scissors severed the eyeball from my hair and I dropped it unceremoniously into the trash chute, hoping my father didn’t go dumpster diving in the basement and find it. On the heels of the thought I realized how pathetic I’d become. I was a thirty year old halfling...by all accounts a very powerful one...and my knees still knocked together at the idea of disappointing my father. But in my defense, he was arguably the second most powerful creature in the universe.

I finished stripping and replaced my battle wear with the soft, unstructured jumpsuit I wore around the castle. Dropping onto my bed, I hit a button on the table next to me and opened a hologram of my emails. I grimaced when I saw how many had arrived since Slayer and I left the office that morning.

It would take me an hour to get through them all.

Maybe father would be home by then and we could have dinner together. With that cheering thought, I set to work, sorting my emails into cyber pockets according to time sensitivity and action required.

The empty castle wrapped around me like a soothing blanket. When I’d first moved back there, after a demon attacked and nearly killed me in my home in downtown Angel City, it had felt weird to be back in my childhood home again. After all, being a thirty-year-old single woman living with her father bore an undeniable stigma. But I settled in fairly quickly, the old castle embracing me within its safe stone walls. And since being an important Seraphim in the Celestial Army was pretty much a twenty-four hour, seven day a week gig, my father wasn’t home all that much.

Which left me to ramble around in the massive home all by myself. I didn’t mind. Though I sometimes thought I’d like to get a dog to keep me company.

Feeling better?

Speaking of dogs. I grimaced at the sound of Slayer’s sexy voice.
If you’re smart, which I’m pretty sure you’re not, you’ll slice this communication right now. You ruined a perfectly good leather jacket today.

I’m pretty sure I had nothing to do with that.

Stop talking. What did you want?

Which do you want me to do? Stop talking? Or tell you why I engaged communication?

Silence pulsed through my mind as I seethed. Just to be obstinate, Slayer decided to do as I asked for once. He stopped talking. A full minute later I was forced to grind out a single word through gritted teeth.
Talk
.