The Witch's Dream - A Love Letter to Paranormal Romance (Black Swan 2) (3 page)

The Abraxas demon, Obizoth, was present when B Team raided the New Persia facility. When he encountered Kay, he literally lost his head as the Black Swan knight in berserker form wrenched it from his body with both hands. It was a sight that Rammel, Lan and Storm would never forget.

Once Deliverance had gained access to the manifest of females who had been recovered from the raid, it was a simple task to track them down one by one and manipulate them into recounting the events of their rescue. The sixth girl on the list had been an eyewitness to Obizoth's murder, although she did not know him by that name. She was able to describe the angel of vengeance who had liberated her so that there was no doubt whatever.

Obizoth's revenge was to be visited upon a Black Swan knight named Chaos Caelian.

Deliverance traveled to the Jefferson Unit of Black Swan at Fort Dixon, New Jersey where Kay was stationed. The Unit, protected on all sides, even overhead, by a functioning military base, was impossible to access. Impossible for Terrans. For an incubus demon? Minor speed bump.

The demon first identified the popular, local, recreational destinations for personnel who were off duty, then made a point of frequenting those establishments until he made a connection with someone who could get him on base. He preferred to visit Fort Dixon at night because his long black hair was less a red flag among the buzz heads. Once on base he made his way to the nondescript, apparently windowless, fifties-style building that housed Jefferson Unit and waited for female employees to emerge at the end of their shifts.

Most of the people working at Jefferson Unit resided there, but a few lived off site. With little effort, Deliverance was able to learn that Kay was not in residence at the time. The informants were not able to divulge his present location with certainty because that information was well-protected, but did pass on that his permanent address was Houston.

Deliverance located a pass a short distance away; a pass is a naturally occurring vortex that, as the name suggests, allows passage between dimensions. These are the "doors" used by angels and demons, among others, to come and go between dimensions.

Del, which was what he called himself these days, entered the murkiness of the pass with an address on his tongue. He took two steps and came out the other side next to an ATM in a River Oaks upscale strip mall. A woman shrieked when he materialized in front of her.

"Oh! You scared me. I didn't see you there."

He needed a ride to Kay's townhouse, but such things were rarely so much as an inconvenience to a creature with his gifts. The woman he had surprised was a mid forties brunette returning to a Bentley carrying a small black shopping bag tied with gold satin ribbon.

"I need a ride." He walked along beside her.

She took one look at Del's laughing black eyes and couldn't think of anything to say except, "Get in."

He was wearing his hair tied at the nape over an ivory linen sports coat and jeans. It wasn't the sort of outfit that you'd see on a runway showing for Dolce and Gabbana. It was better because it said, "I'm so beautiful I can wear anything and look good in it. And I'm so rich I can do what I want without caring what you think."

Like most incubus demons, Del liked women. He didn't think of himself as using them, but chose to believe he offered a valuable and needed service in exchange for fuel. He left them feeling marvelous, at least at that moment. Of course he knew that he had doomed them to live out their lives being disappointed by sexual experiences that must inevitably be substandard, but he chose not to focus on the less agreeable aspects of his job description unless it suited him to do so.

He left women with their bodies humming. They left him gassed up. So far as he was concerned, it was a perfect symbiotic relationship. Win. Win.

Del said goodbye to the lady in the Bentley in front of Kay's townhouse. He didn't have to ring to know that no one was there. He could sense that the unit was not currently occupied by any animated life form. One of the perks of being a demon.

A neighbor three doors down had come out to pinch the dead heads off red geraniums, when she looked up and saw Del. Her first impulse was to go back inside, but his gaze held her in place as he closed the distance between them. Another perk of being a demon.

Liz Tinsley, from three doors down, said she didn't see much of Mr. Caelian because his work kept him away a lot. However, she did happen to be outside a few days before and hear one of his sisters say, "See you in Ireland," before jogging from his door to her car, giving the neighbor a bright smile and wave on the way by. Del thanked her and turned away to find a pass to the land of magic. He had nothing against being lover to older women. He was simply full at the moment.

No further research was needed to find Kay. He'd already learned about the exploits and obviously exaggerated heroics of the elite B Team. He knew their names, their habits and their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, he knew that, if Kay had gone to Ireland, there was a very good chance he was visiting Prince Rammel Hawking's ancestral home, the palace at Derry.

The prospect of Ireland brightened his interest. The island state was teeming with ripe sources of nourishment who welcomed beautiful demons with long, shiny blue-black hair, laughing black eyes and flawless skin kissed with a touch of bronze fire. Well, he laughed to himself, the same could really be said for any place.

Most importantly, he had learned that the target had a gaping weak spot just begging to be exploited; something he valued much more than his life. Kay was devoted to a girl he'd loved since childhood. When Deliverance learned about Katrina, the plan for his vendetta began to morph into an appropriately painful alternative. Deliverance wasn't big on killing and got no enjoyment from it for its own sake, but he was big on his own self-interest and what he needed more than anything was a semi-constant supply of fuel provided by sex. He would take Kay's girl and let him know that she was going to be thoroughly used in every conceivable way; that her incubus lover would enjoy it immensely, but, more importantly, she would, too. The knight would be driven insane by his own imaginings. A brilliant retribution, if he did say so himself. Win. Win. Win.

He would wait for the perfect opportunity to grab the Terran female then keep her on tap for a while, like a staple in a larder. When the retribution fervor passed and even the most distant cousin had forgotten all about it, which wouldn't be long, he would send her back. If Kay still wanted her, he could spend the rest of his life in frustration trying to find a way to satisfy her. The idea of that made Deliverance laugh out loud. As if.

***

CHAPTER
2

Edinburgh, Scotia

Litha turned out the lights and drew the drapes back so that the historic district of Edinburgh could cast a night-light over her small room. She took a minute to appreciate the view. It was captivating by day looking across the gardens to the castle sitting high on the crag, but was even more magical at night when the grand monuments were lit by spots. Having a room on the view side of the building was one of the things she liked most about being temporarily stationed at the headquarters of The Order.

She crawled between cold sheets and let her teeth clatter like one of those battery-operated skulls at Halloween. Somehow listening to the sound of that made waiting for the covers to warm go faster. It might be the first of April, but chill lingered late so far north and her blood wasn't thick like the Scotia fae. She drifted to sleep, the last thing on her mind a Pacific breeze blowing from the west to warm the Northern California bay where she grew up. She liked her work with Black Swan and felt privileged to have it, but sometimes she missed home so much she understood the sentiment of pining for something.

As soon as she was warm, she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed. She was standing on a green, grassy plateau rising from an ocean of black water that churned and raged against the rocks below. She felt like she could turn in a circle and see the whole world. The sky was overcast with charcoal colored clouds moving unnaturally fast, defying what was thought to be true about how physics operated in the world; swirling, blending gray with silver, white, and black like paints on a palette, gathering storms in every direction. Tornadoes twirled down from dark clouds like ribbons of tempests spinning, lingering for a few seconds, back lit by lightning strikes. As she stood there, she knew the appropriate response should be concern for survival, the appropriate action the seeking of shelter, but she was so entranced by the terrible beauty of such a display of unimaginable power that she couldn't find motivation to move.

She faced toward the breeze blowing from the west, strong and warm, her hair loose and free behind her. She wore a simple silk gown the rich saffron color of the togas worn by Hari Krishna monks. As the gale pressed against the front of her body, the garment conformed to her curves like a second skin. The back of the skirt was a train formed by yards and yards of the marvelous fabric that was, at one time, as precious as gold. Against the backdrop of the storm, it looked like liquid sunrise when the breeze caught the silk, making it dance in the wind like a watercolor come to life, billowing like a sampan at full sail.

To her right stood a tall, beautiful, dark-haired man, shirtless, with enormous black wings - at rest, the tips of the wings skimmed the ground. As he was talking to her, he swept one hand across the horizon as if to illustrate a point he was making about the panoramic event unfolding before them. In her dream, she absorbed a whisper of the words 'storm angel'.

Suddenly and without explanation, as often happens in dreams, there appeared in her hands a bow and arrow. As the angel stood by watching, she aimed toward the clouds, seventy degrees above the horizon. She tried to pull the bowstring taut, but did not have the strength to do it. She turned to tell the angel that she was not up to the task, but when she looked into the piercing intensity of his black eyes, watching her quietly and calmly, she decided to try again. This time she added fast resolve and the metaphysical force of spiritual commitment to her physical strength and the string drew back easily, responding to her command like a virtuoso playing a violin.

When released, the arrow, aimed at the darkest gathering of clouds above the horizon, flew along its foreordained trajectory cutting a path of visible electricity in its wake across the sky. When it reached its mark, there was a deafening clash of thunder followed by a series of rolling rumbles that could be felt vibrating the earth beneath her feet. Clouds parted at the point of arrow strike revealing a patch of blue sky and impossibly fluffy white clouds whirled into peaks like meringue. The dark and angry ocean below the precipice was overtaken and forced out to deeper sea by waves coursing a friendlier hue of Pacific blue, calming the churning to quiet tidewater lapping at a coastline garden thick with floral blooms.

The bow disappeared from her hand as her attention was redirected to a miraculous display of grape vines sprouting upward from the earth all around them. They were rapidly maturing into healthy, thriving plants as flowering, low growing, yellow mustard blooms blanketed the earth beneath them. She laughed and looked at her companion whose wings were gone. The figure standing next to her was a man whose intense, black-eyed gaze was focused on her so completely she felt as if nothing else existed apart from the two of them. His presence gave her a sense of peace, contentment, and belonging. Even in her dream, her heart cried out for that. Longed for that. She reached out to touch his face with her fingertips and woke to a crash of thunder, her arm outstretched in the air.

With drapes left open, there was enough light in her third story room to see the myriad images covering her walls; art renderings of a pink Italianate villa with a slate roof and red bougainvilleas blooming profusely, trailing from big iron pots set on the steps of terraces as the vineyard stretched down toward the sea. She knew the place well and had been recreating it from memory for years in every medium imaginable: oil, watercolor, paint marker, charcoal, pencil, even crayon. She supposed the casual observer would think her obsessed and, objectively speaking, she would probably have to agree.

Her thoughts wandered back to the dream she'd been having just before she woke. There was something about it that she wanted to remember. She had tried to hold onto the images and the feelings, but they swirled and pitched and, within seconds, both had evaporated like smoke.

.

***

CHAPTER
3

The Palace at Derry, Ireland

Happy mating had quieted Ram’s emotions. It had been so long since he’d felt the rise of his notorious hot temper that it seemed foreign, like it was no longer a good fit with his body. Especially when aimed at Elora. Being angry with her felt wrong and feeling guilty made him glower at her even more.

“You said you could
never
be mad at me!” Elora didn’t have to play the lady anymore. She could yell and scream and pound on walls if she wanted to, though that would be extremely ill advised since her strength might weaken, if not bring down, even palace walls.