'Tween Heaven and Hell (36 page)

Revulsion took hold of me when I realized that my face was
just inches from the slimy passengers on her head. The sub-demons had begun to
wriggle frantically, stretching and writhing as they tried to reach my eyes and
nose. I knew what they were attempting to do. Sub-demons can enter a person’s
external orifices and eat away at their organs. They could kill a human in mere
minutes this way. It wasn’t a peaceful, painless death by anyone’s definition. Needless
to say that was not something I wanted to experience. No, having my brain and
heart eaten out by a slimy, wriggly sub-demon was not on my To Do list for the
day.

I watched the nasty things stretch and grow until, even
though I was leaning as far away from them as I could, they were still able to
touch my skin. I knew it was only a matter of time before they managed to climb
into an ear or up a nostril. I needed to do something. Quickly.

Closing my eyes, I pulled the power from its core and used
it to probe Wormhead’s innards. I found her frantically pounding heart fairly
easily and wrapped the power around it, squeezing gently at first to see what
would happen. She stopped dead in her tracks. She didn’t move or even breathe
for long seconds as her horrified brain assembled the facts on hand and decided
that I was going to pop her evil heart like an overextended balloon. Then her
maggot-ridden head turned slowly to face me. Her cold, black eyes spat terror
at me like sparks and I could see her running through her options as she stared
at me.

I knew her instincts for survival would force her to take me
out before I could finish what I’d started. I also knew I had to finish killing
her before she killed me. Unfortunately, Nille wasn’t going to allow me the
time I needed. His usually melodic voice barked words in guttural Hades and the
demon’s eyes widened as she realized what she needed to do.

The arm on the side of her body that was away from me moved
toward my neck. She grabbed my throat with her free hand and started squeezing.
Almost immediately I felt myself passing out.

I tightened my power around her black heart and prayed that
she would die before I did. Lights danced before my eyes. My lungs screamed for
air. And something in my throat creaked as it was slowly, painfully pinched
off.

I sensed the shadows moving over me. I felt the first
sub-demon slide up my nostril and I think I shuddered but I couldn’t do
anything to stop it. Cold, like tentacles, wrapped around me and pulled me down
into the pit.

I think we both hit the floor at the same time. As my power
seeped back to me, I remember thinking that she was probably dead. But then so
was I. So what difference did it make?

Something tugged at the corners of my mind and I remembered
that there was a damn good reason why I shouldn’t die, but I couldn’t remember
what it was.

The last thing I was aware of as I succumbed to the shadows,
was a shifting of my mental drawers and Dialle’s frantic voice, masked behind
the static of my dying brain. He was calling my name. I think I might have
answered him. I’m not sure. It’s hard to think clearly when you’re dying.

The first thing I felt as I swam back to consciousness was a
healing warmth spreading through me. The feeling of warmth was quickly followed
by a tingling sensation that made me want to twitch my legs. There was only one
problem…my legs were still buried in old Wormhead. Mingled with the warm,
tingly sensation was a painful throbbing that centered around the mark on my
neck. That was a good sign. Maybe Dialle was close by. That thought brought
with it a stab of dread. The last thing I wanted was for Dialle to see the
predicament I’d gotten myself into.
Shit
.

I lay there, realizing that, although I hadn’t yet opened my
eyes, I had moved slowly from a dream state into full consciousness. Something
made me lie very still and play dead. I realized after a moment that Nille and
his band of merry weirdoes were leaving me alone. In fact they’d moved away
from me and were discussing Dialle’s impending visitation. Apparently they
thought I, like my unfortunate hostess, was dead. I was happy to allow them
this illusion as long as they kept ignoring me.

I needed a plan. The first thing on the list had to be
removing myself from the unfortunate demon on the floor with me. Second was
vowing never to spaceshift again. Third was kicking Dialle’s ass for giving me
this dangerous power and not telling me how to use it. Fourth was kicking Nille’s
ass and defeating Abrine and the demons to save the world. I wasn’t expecting
much of myself. It was all in a day’s work.

Since I wasn’t sure how I was going to accomplish any of the
things in my plan, I just lay there for a minute and listened to Nille.

“Dialle will be here any minute. When he discovers what his
lovely lady has done to herself he won’t be pleased. I need to be sure your
people are set to act as soon as he’s spotted.”

Abrine’s frosty tones floated my way, seeming, if possible,
even frostier than usual. “I’ve told you, your Highness, my people are situated
at every portal and will let us know as soon as Dialle and his followers arrive.
They will notify us and then flood the entrance to all portals so that Dialle
cannot escape. Their deaths are assured. You have nothing to fear.”

Nothing to fear? Interesting. It seemed while we had been
occupied with being afraid of Nille, he had been busy being afraid of us. Well…he
was afraid of Dialle anyway. It’s hard to fear a Tweener who is moronic enough
to spaceshift into a demon. My predicament had undoubtedly lost me just a tinch
of respect from the dark worlders. I fought back a sigh. I hate to be laughed
at and I really hate to be ineffectual. I had always been that way, ever since
I was a tiny little testicle buster. It was probably small woman syndrome. But
whatever. I’d just have to use their low opinion of me to my advantage.

Focusing my thoughts and power within, I pulled a thread of
power from its core and sent it out, probing, testing. I touched the demon’s
brain and found nothing. She was gone. The warmth that had entered my body in
my unconscious state had given me feeling back in my lower extremities again
and I concentrated on moving my toes. All ten toes moved. I opened my eyes just
enough to peer through my eyelashes and determine if anyone had noticed the
demon’s body moving with my embedded toes. Nothing. They were too busy plotting
mean and nasty things to pay much attention to the mess on the floor behind
them.

If I could wriggle my toes then I was still a separate,
albeit very embedded, object. Which meant I should be able to spaceshift back
out of old Wormhead. Which is exactly what I would do. But before I went
spaceshifting willy-nilly around the room, I needed to think about it. I risked
opening my eyes completely and scanned the room. Nille, Abrine and their
assorted nasties all had their backs to me and were clustered together several
yards away. In the wall directly opposite where I lay, I saw the door that, in
the physical world, would have corresponded with the single door into the tower
room of the Church of the Twined Hands. I saw no other doors. I didn’t know what
stood on the other side of that door but I didn’t see any other options. I wasn’t
confident enough to try to shift to a spot behind some piece of furniture or
something. Not only would that not give me a way out once they’d discovered me
missing, but I’d probably shift directly into a divan or something. I was
visualizing my head and arms sticking out of the divan as I made my final
decision. I would go for the other side of that door.

I gathered my power and thought about being on the other
side of the door. The room blurred and whirred past and I was suddenly standing
in the shadows looking at the other side of that heavy, wooden door. I gave a
huge sigh of relief when I realized I’d made it and appeared to be standing in
a space at the top of a shadowed staircase that looked very much like the murky
stairway leading up to Deaver’s church tower.

A huge, claw-laden hand clamped itself onto my shoulder and
I would have screamed, except someone laid a well-shaped golden hand over my
mouth. A lean, hard body pressed itself against the length of my back and a
sexy, familiar voice whispered into my ear.

“Where have you been, Astra? We’ve looked all over for you.”

I quickly forgot that I wanted to kick his ass and turned to
stare into those beautiful blue eyes. “Dialle. It’s about frunkin’ time you
showed up. Where the hell did you go?”

As I fought to regain my shaken composure, I found myself
praying that he’d never hear about my unfortunate “spaceshifting into the demon”
episode. My dignity could
not
withstand it. In the meantime, I was damn
glad to see him and Gerch, who finally dropped his massive hand off my shoulder
as I reached up to rub the spots where his claws had broken through the skin.

Shit. I was really in trouble if those two were looking
good to me!

Chapter Thirty-
One

To Kill to Kill

At last young Miss has found her friends, the future
looks less bleak,

But how to kill the slavering Beast, with arrows made
of cheek?

A burst of sound from inside the shadowland version of the
tower room informed me that the room’s inhabitants had finally noticed my
absence from old Wormhead. I turned to Dialle and he touched my hand.

The world shifted into neutral and we emerged in another
part of the shadowland church. Looking around, I quickly realized it was Deaver’s
office, or at least its mirror image. I doubted that the baptismal font on the
other side of the room held holy water. It probably held blood.

The room was very crowded. In addition to Gerch and his
army, I was extremely surprised to see several familiar but unexpected faces.

“Hello angel.”

Myra gave me one of her rare smiles and reached out to touch
my cheek with one, pale hand. “I’m glad to see you whole again, Astra.”

I threw Dialle a guilty look and then tossed a scowl at
Myra. I tried to shoosh her with my eyes before she could share the entire,
embarrassing predicament with Dialle and his assemblage. Myra’s grin told me
she would make good use of my embarrassment in the future.

Before I realized what she was doing, she moved the hand
from my cheek and laid it gently over my nose, I felt intense heat and a
slithering motion in my nostril and something dropped out of my nose, landing
in Myra’s hand with a squishy splat. The sub-demon I’d inherited from old
Wormhead lay squirming in a slimy pool in her hand. With a small pop the thing
disintegrated, leaving behind a small, slimy puddle that Myra wiped carelessly
on her beautiful robe.

I widened my eyes meaningfully at my sneaky angel and she
grinned at me. Damn her.

I cast another quick look at Dialle but fortunately for me
he and his band of merry men had bigger things on their minds. Thank the Big
Guy. They were huddled together across the room, plotting or something. By the
time he turned to Myra I had gathered together my small portion of remaining dignity.

“Are the armies assembled?” Dialle spoke directly to Myra.

She nodded. “We have troops in place at each portal. Abrine’s
men have been…taken care of.”

I felt my eyes widen. Never have I viewed the celestial army
as being an army in the truest sense. Imagine my surprise to learn that God had
real troops that “took care” of things.

“Has word come back to Nille?”

Myra shook her golden head. “Abrine’s men were dispatched
quietly. We allowed a few to escape and report back. Of course they reported
what we wanted them to report.”

Dialle nodded. “Then let us join our friends in the tower
room. We have much to ‘discuss’ with them.”

Like fireflies on a hot, August night, the angels
disappeared from view in a single blink. Dialle reached out a hand and I laid mine
over it. For once I was glad to have him doing the driving. My driving sucked.

When the world became noise, color and motion again we were
standing just inside the door to the tower room. I felt, rather than heard,
Dialle’s men joining us as the air shifted and gasped behind us.

I could clearly see the surprise and anger in Nille’s pale,
golden face and I wished I could be amused by it. But my blood turned to ice
under his glowing, blue gaze. “I see Abrine has let me down again.”

Beside him, the demon king stiffened and turned his
featureless face toward Nille. But he said nothing. It’s a little hard to argue
that you haven’t failed when abundant evidence of your failure was standing
across the room from you.

Still stinging from my last attempt at taking Nille on in
that very room, I stood silently beside Dialle and let him take the lead. I
know it was cowardly, but I doubted Nille and his men would have vibrated about
the knees if I’d threatened them anyway. Not after the Wormhead incident.

Dialle’s voice came to me simultaneously as he spoke to
Nille. It was like having two holographic films running at the same time in the
same room. I found it incredibly disconcerting and I also wondered that he was
able to manage it.
Remember, Astra, show no weakness.

Too late.

To Nille he said, “The minds of Abrine’s men are simple and
easily controlled and their king is too ambitious for his own good. He assumes
too much and attends too little and his loyalties are easily swayed.” As if to
prove the point, Dialle turned his vibrant, blue gaze on the demon king and
locked it there. After only a few seconds, Abrine’s head drooped forward and he
fell to one knee. Spreading his arms wide, palms up, Abrine’s frosty
countenance lifted again to gaze upon Dialle. “My Prince. I beg your
forgiveness for my opportunistic behavior.”

Nille’s beautiful features twisted and, for so brief a time
that I almost thought I’d imagined it, his form shivered and faded as if he
would shimmer away. But almost as quickly as he had faded, he became solid
again. He moved one finger of the hand closest to Abrine and the demon king
flew sideways, skittering across the stone floor with an outraged cry. The
demon king’s body smacked against the stone wall with a sickening crunch. He
crumpled to the floor in a boneless pile, looking for all the world like a
puddle of melted vanilla ice cream.