'Tween Heaven and Hell (17 page)

I reshuffled my limbs on the soft divan and sighed, bringing
the mug to my lips again before I responded. “Like what…exactly?”

He’d been staring into his coffee, but after a short
silence, during which I thought he wasn’t going to elaborate, he raised his
eyes and stared at me. My eyes began to sting and water and I squeezed them
shut again. When I opened them I almost dropped my steaming coffee in my own
lap. I let out a bark of fear and pulled myself further back into the divan.

For just a second, not much more, I’d been looking at a
stranger on my divan where my friend had been sitting. For just a flash I’d
seen a handsome golden face where there had been a sweet, red one. For just a
fraction of time I’d seen long, lean limbs and silky black hair that rested on
broad, muscular shoulders. For just a mere sliver of time I’d seen a royal
devil sitting on my divan where Emo had been.

But then Emo reappeared and the lightning bolt came. My
mental drawers were invaded again.
Things are not always as they appear,
Astra
. The words came to me in Emo’s voice, but his lips never moved.

“Well frunk me from here to Hades,” was all I could say.

Chapter
Fifteen

True Confessions with a Devilish Flavor

Choices given choices made, will ever show us true,

Friendships given, friendships made, should never run
us through.

Emo got up and took the mug from my shaking hands. He
carried it into the food service area, more to have something to do I suspected
than because he thought I needed more coffee. I just sat there wondering if I
was ready for what he was about to tell me. While I waited, I thought I’d try
just a little test.

I closed my eyes and my mouth and said his name with only my
mind.
Emo
?

When I opened my eyes again a moment later, he was standing
before me, holding the mug out with steady, red, familiar hands. He looked down
at me and his eyes were dark, black pools with tears shimmering in them. It
hurt me to look into those eyes, but it hurt me even more when he said,
Yeah
?
and his lips didn’t move.

I pushed the breath I’d been holding out of my lungs on a
sigh and took the outstretched mug. I couldn’t look up at him. “You’re royal.”
It wasn’t a question. He knew that. He just turned away and sat down across
from me again.

After a moment of silence he started talking. His story just
about broke my heart all the way through.

“My mother was an angel. She gave herself up to spy on Nerul
and his renegade court.” He looked at me to gauge my reaction. I wasn’t
surprised, I’d known his mother was an angel, I just hadn’t known how special
and incredibly brave she’d been. I nodded as I took refuge behind my steaming
mug, refusing to meet his dark gaze.

He got up and started to pace, putting the divan he’d been
sitting on between us. “She was very successful in her task. For many years
Nerul and others took their pleasure with her and whispered their horrible
secrets in her tender ears. They did it because they knew she was powerless to
stop them and that, as an angel, her powerlessness would eventually kill her
with pain and frustration.”

I set my mug down and rubbed my eyes hard, smothering a
strong desire to cover my ears. I was suddenly so tired. The feelings I’d had
when talking to Prevara about her captured friend came rushing back again. I
was filled with awe at what the angels had given up and a ripping fear that I
wouldn’t be able to do the same if it was asked of me.

Emo had stopped talking and was staring out at the gathering
dawn, his wide, square back to me and his arms arcing away from his powerful
body. I could sense rather than see that he was holding himself rigid against
the pain of his memories. He’d loved his gentle mother very much. I’d known
that almost from the first day we’d met. What I hadn’t known was that her life
had brought her almost as much pain as it had joy. Maybe more.

I suddenly wanted to hold him and give him comfort. It
wasn’t customary for us to touch each other unnecessarily. Almost from the
first we’d instinctively kept our physical distance from each other. Emo and I
are two sides of the same coin. I think we both fear what would happen if we
ever came together.

But I pushed those fears away and went to him. I put my arms
around him from behind and rested my head against his broad, warm back. He
jumped a little and then gave a shuddering sigh, covering my hands with his
own. He shuddered again and continued his story.

“My father was on the Royal Court. He was considered weak
because he had no taste for unnecessary cruelty. I don’t think he was weak,
only practical. He was a carnal creature and his only interest was in carnal
pleasures. His gentle nature in such things bought him a certain loyalty from
my poor mother and she allowed her heart to be captured by him.”

I felt a tear land on my arm and Emo sighed. He stood silent
for a long moment. He appeared to be gathering up his strength.

“When my mother discovered she was going to have me, she
knew that she would keep me. She was risking much by that decision. Up there,”
he said, his head jerking skyward, “they had expectations that any angel spy
who found herself in that position would take her own life rather than bring a
halfling bastard into the world. My mother loved me even before I pulled my
first breath into lungs that were half angel and half devil. Half good and half
evil…”

He jerked away from me and started to pace again. I sat on
the back of the divan and waited.

“Anyway, shortly after I was born Nerul threatened to have
me killed. My father managed to talk him out of it somehow. I’m not sure how or
why, but we were allowed to leave the court. For years we were left alone. We
lived as outcasts but we somehow never found ourselves in need of anything. I
think my mother’s influence was good for my father. He was gentle with me and
kind to her.”

He turned to me with haunted, angry eyes. Once again, his
head jerked upward angrily. “
They
rejected her. It was the only thing
that caused her pain during that time away from the court.”

His gaze was so intense it took my breath away. I didn’t
know what to say to him. I just nodded and Emo resumed his angry pacing.

“When I was ten years old, Nerul came to us and demanded
that we return to the court. My father resisted but Nerul said something about
paying a debt that was owed and we eventually returned. Nothing was ever the
same again for us after that.”

Emo suddenly sagged with exhaustion. Moving around the
divan, he sat down across from me again and, resting his elbows on his knees,
covered his face with his hands.

“My mother was taken away from us and given to Nerul’s
favorite courtier, who was easily the cruelest member of the court at that
time. He wasted no opportunity to torture and abuse her. My father became a
recluse. He left his chambers only when Nerul demanded it of him and that was
generally to make certain my father had to watch my mother being tortured and
degraded.

“I learned to hate Nerul at a very tender age. But as he’d
brought me out of my father’s chambers and into his own, I was tied to him in a
way that made it impossible for me to escape his attentions. As with my mother,
he wasted no opportunity to abuse me.

“But then one day Nerul came to me and announced that I was
to begin my training to join the court. I couldn’t believe it. Up until that
time he’d only ranted to me about my unsuitability for anything having to do
with the court. Despite that, within days I was being schooled in my powers and
was learning court history…Nerul’s version of course.”

Emo looked at me and I smiled. His return smile was sad and
bitter.

“Nerul knew how to reach the heart of a young devil buck. He
introduced me to the carnal delights of the court and, like my father, I
relished them. I was golden and long limbed and could choose nearly any woman I
wanted, on the court or off. It was heady stuff.

“Over time I began to lose my distaste for Nerul and even
started defending him to my father. I never talked of him to my mother though.
I was never that far gone. It would have killed her to know how he’d corrupted
me. Looking back now, I think that was what he wanted from the first. I believe
it is why he allowed us to live quietly and happily for those early years. He
knew we would grow close and feel safe. And then he could drag us back and
prove to everyone that he was powerful enough to corrupt even a halfling. The
fact that my corruption would destroy my mother was an added bonus I think.”
Emo sighed and shook his head.

“Then one day, without realizing what a mistake it would
turn out to be, Nerul demanded something of me that would remove me permanently
from his sphere of influence. It was probably the only thing that he could have
done to push me completely away by then, I was so sunk into his terrible
universe.”

Emo looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were
contemplating something he’d never thought of before. “I don’t think he ever
imagined that I would choose another over him at that point.”

I was almost afraid to ask. “What did he do?”

“He demanded that I kill my mother to prove my loyalty to
him.”

I gasped and his black gaze sought my face. “He killed them
Astra, because I wouldn’t destroy the one person who had shown me love and
taught me why I should be good. He slaughtered them both before my childish
eyes and laughed as I cried. I’ve hated him with my soul’s passion since that
day.”

I watched him but said nothing. I knew he wasn’t finished.

He looked up at me and gave a bitter laugh. “King Nerul made
me what you see today, Astra. He made me a monster because I refused to become
monstrous like him and give up my soul.”

I gulped audibly. “You were cursed?”

Emo raised his hands, palms up and stood before me. “This
handsome package, my sweet Astra, is a gift from my loving king.” As he said it
his lips curled with hate. “It is only the memory of my gentle mother that has
kept me from tearing him into little pieces for what he did. And her tender
cells within this stinking leather carcass.”

I just sat there for a long time after Emo left. I couldn’t
believe the story he’d told me, mostly because I hadn’t known that Emo would
keep that kind of information about his life secret from me. Obviously he
wasn’t proud of his past, but not much of it was actually his fault. I suddenly
realized that he’d been right when he’d said that he and I had a lot in common,
we’d both grown up with different expectations than those we had now. Our lives
had been changed for us. We really hadn’t had much control.

Before I could bury myself too much more deeply in “woe is me”
shtick, something shimmered into view on the edge of my vision. I closed my
eyes and took a deep breath. Good or evil? Heaven or Hell? The way my luck had
been running, I was pretty sure I’d turn around and find a whole gaggle of
gargoyles standing there drooling on my rug. Imagine my relief when the scent
of spring flowers engulfed me. I opened my eyes and tried on a weary smile.
“Hey, Myra.”

She just sat down on the other end of the divan and stared
at me with those impossibly blue eyes. Under the onslaught of her angelic, if a
bit angry, gaze I fell apart. I cried like I hadn’t cried since I’d been a tiny
little testicle buster. Like I hadn’t done since I’d grown into a slightly
larger ball-breaking demon-hunting superwoman.

Myra produced a beautiful, lace-edged silver square of cloth
from a hidden niche in her wispy robes and handed it to me. I took it gladly
and promptly drenched it. “Thanks.”

“Emo’s story hurt you.” She said it simply, without the
usual window dressing of an understanding expression and a comforting shoulder.
She knew that was how I wanted it. It wasn’t often that tough little me broke
down and I was trying really hard to pull it together. Any gentle comfort from
her would have destroyed my hard-won composure again.

When it appeared that I had it under control she asked,
“What scares you the most, Astra?”

I shrugged, refusing to look at her. “He’s my friend, I
can’t believe what he’s been through that’s all.”

Myra continued to drill me with those eyes. “Uhm hmm.”

I risked an angry glance in her direction. “It’s true.”

“I guess the fact that you are having dreams about Prince
Dialle and discovering that, somehow, you’ve got royal powers has nothing to do
with your current state?”

While I silently wondered how much she knew and how she knew
it, I chose to view the question as rhetorical and didn’t respond.

After a moment she rose to her feet and looked down at me.
“At least now you understand what kind of evil you’re up against. Nerul must be
stopped.”

I looked up in surprise as her words sank in. “Are you
telling me the Angel Council is on Dialle’s side in this war?”

Myra flung a hand in the air in a dismissive manner. “We
don’t take sides in that quarter, Astra, you know that.”

“Yes, but in this you are. Why?”

Myra narrowed those beautiful blues at me and started to
shimmer. Her voice floated toward me as her body dissolved from view. “I think
you know why, Astra.”

And then she was…just…gone. Leaving me feeling more confused
and lost than I’d been before she’d come. And I realized, not for the first
time, that my life was becoming a really bad one-act play, filled with really
bad actors. And I was standing up on the stage, the Lone Ranger, wearing my
goofy white hat and some really funny-looking leather things on my legs. And
the bad guys had eaten my horse Tonto. And the Indians had long fangs and big
claws and they would have eaten me too, except that they thought I was one of
them. But I wasn’t. I was supposed to conquer them and save the good guy. But I
didn’t know where the good guy was. Or even
who
he was. Where the hell
was I s’posed to go with that plot? I mean, I’m good, damn good. But nobody’s
that good are they? Don’t answer that. Shit.