'Tween Heaven and Hell (7 page)

Just before our lips touched, I turned my face away and
raised feeble arms between us. I tried with all my might to push him away. The
wimpy result was embarrassing at best. It reminded me of that dream state where
you keep trying to get somewhere but never do, like when you find yourself
unable to reach the top of that staircase you’ve been climbing for about eight
hours in your sleep…or like when you show up at an interstellar mud wrestling
convention wearing nothing but a large, green snake and can’t seem to get your
foot untangled from the frothing purple demon’s slimy hair ’cause the mud’s too
slippery and the snake won’t stay still…well…I think you get my drift. Suffice
it to say that my mind was willing but my body was frunkin’ worthless. Failing
in my attempt to evade my dream devil, I gave up trying to kick his well-formed
ass and gathered all of my hate and contempt into my eyes, which I then blasted
at him like a laser weapon set on kill. Instead of dying from the blast of hate
in my eyes, the damnable creature simply laughed at me.

“You mustn’t fight your destiny, pretty one. It will do you
no good and it will only increase my pleasure.”

That was too much for me. Even in my sleep I can’t resist a
challenge. I squeezed my eyes closed and threw out my power, I felt it surge
away from me and flow around him. I wrapped him in a tight, form-fitting
blanket of my power and opened my eyes to give him a smug smile. He laughed,
that deep, throaty laugh that made me warm in places where I didn’t want to be
warm.

I laughed too, because he actually thought I’d given him all
I had. His eyes narrowed and he pulled me closer, his lips just touching mine
as I tightened the power around him and ripped him off my bed and out of my
unfortunately reluctant arms. I watched his eyes grow round with surprise as he
hung suspended above my bed, his long legs crossed casually as though it had
been his idea to dangle there. Then his beautiful mouth curved in a knowing
smile and he disappeared in a silvery shimmer. Leaving behind only a whisper in
my mind. “Sleep well, pretty one. We have only just begun this battle.”

“Bite me.” I murmured in my sleep and then I drifted soundly
and thankfully into the sandman’s less-than-sexy but eminently restful arms.

I woke up several hours later with a start. The dream still
clung to me like a bad smell. As I went about my morning rituals I couldn’t
seem to shake it. It had felt so real. Could it have been real?

Naaahh. It couldn’t have been. I don’t have the kind of
power I’d displayed in the dream. I smiled as I had the thought. But it would
be really crashin’ if I did.

After I’d showered and dressed, I fixed myself a breakfast
hydrate and sat down in front of my information unit. I sent a quick note off
to Emo, telling him I’d be in later to meet with a new client who was coming
into the office and told him he would either have to make himself scarce or put
some clothes on. I smiled as I sent the note off because I knew there would be
some blue devil curses flying around at that piece of instruction. Then I put
my mind to the job at hand, which was getting some additional information on
the royal devil clan.

An hour and a half later I’d learned that devil royalty were
nearly indestructible, which I already knew and that their beauty was directly
proportionate to their power, which I already knew and that they could indeed
invade your dreams, which I didn’t really want to know.
Shit
.

I was gonna move forward with the assumption that my
beautiful devil had been in my head as I slept the night before. I wasn’t happy
about it, but it was a distinct possibility. I would keep it to myself,
however, just in case I hadn’t been invaded by anything but an overactive
libido the night before. A girl doesn’t want that kind of thing to get around
about her.

I sighed and decided I needed to have a conference with
Myra. Putting my cross to my forehead I said her name in my mind and waited. It
took her a full ten minutes to shimmer my way. When she finally appeared I
glared at her. “I’m damned glad I wasn’t about to get eaten or something. What
took you so long?”

She shrugged and yawned expansively. “I had a long night.
Something’s stirring up the demons and minor devils. I had three maulings and a
couple of people killed by demons last night.” Her smooth pink and white
forehead creased in thought as she plopped herself heavily into a nearby chair,
with her bare, pink feet dangling over the side. “I’ve never seen the spirit
world so riled up. The council thinks something really big is brewing.”

I stood up and moved into my little food service area, to my
drink valet, to make myself some more coffee. Pulling a clean cup out of the
cupboard with one hand, I punched directions into the valet for a very hot,
very strong cup of café mocha with the other. I raised a questioning eyebrow at
Myra and she nodded.

Coffee is Myra’s weakness. Angels aren’t supposed to
overindulge in human stimulants but, being angels, they pretty much work under
the honor system. I knew from firsthand experience that, where coffee was
concerned, Myra’s honor was a tad bit tarnished.

I filled the two cups and handed her one. Sitting down
across from her I considered how much I should tell her about what I’d found
out the night before. I decided I would start with Deaver.

She listened with uncharacteristic patience and sipped her
coffee thoughtfully. When I’d finished she nodded and set her cup down on the
low, glass table between us. “Now tell me the rest of it.”

I gave her my best, innocent look but she wasn’t buying it.
She’d known me since I was a little girl. Finally I shrugged and told her about
my unplanned visit to the royal chambers.

Halfway through my tale she stood up and started pacing. Her
movements became more and more agitated as I spoke. I wasn’t used to seeing my
angel this way and it was starting to make me a little jumpy.

“What do you think this all means?” she asked me when I’d
finished.

I shrugged. “My sense is that the two royal families are
working up to a big confrontation. I’ve never sensed such agitation in the dark
worlders. And if my hunch is correct, a gargoyle murdered a human last night.
Add to that this thing that attacked me last night, which is like nothing I’ve
ever battled before and it’s a little disconcerting. I don’t mind telling you
I’m worried about how this is all gonna turn out.”

Myra nodded with that same furrowing of her brow. “I don’t
like it either. The council has called a special meeting for tonight to discuss
it. I’ll tell them what you just told me. Maybe they can come up with something
to head it off.”

“I’d like to be there.”

She turned her pale blue eyes to me and they sparkled with
laughter. “In your dreams, Astra.”

The reference to my dreams caused me to wince and she
noticed. She cocked a golden eyebrow at me but, fortunately, she was too
preoccupied to pry.

“I’m serious, Myra. I think I may be in way over my head
here and I haven’t been able to find out much about the royals to help me out.
For some reason they’ve chosen me to be their little messenger girl and I have
a very strong suspicion that I won’t survive the task. The more I can learn
about them the better.”

The sparkle dropped from Myra’s beautiful eyes and she narrowed
them thoughtfully. After a moment of intense scrutiny, she pulled her gaze from
my face and nodded, giving me a very uncharacteristic pat on my arm. “I’ll see
what I can do. It’s highly unlikely, but….well…we’ll see.” And then she was
gone.

* * * * *

The summons came as I was escorting my new client from my
office. As I closed the door behind him I suddenly felt as if my limbs were
lined with lead. I watched my hand slide away from the door panel in slow
motion, my eyes tricking me into thinking I could see movement lines as it
shifted. I heard a whoosh of air and my vision darkened to the point of
blindness. After a few seconds, I realized that there was actually a pinpoint
of yellow light at the center of my visual universe. I squinted at the light
far off in the distance and tried to look down at my hands and feet, which I
couldn’t feel. My head wouldn’t move but the light was moving steadily nearer,
or I was moving nearer to it, I couldn’t really tell. Overall, it was a
crashin’ strange feeling, but somehow I wasn’t afraid.

After what felt like several long minutes, I met the light
and the feeling in my arms and legs returned. I realized I was standing in the
back of a large room filled with warm, golden light. Before my startled gaze
could fully comprehend my surroundings, I felt Myra’s presence beside me and
turned to grin at her. She frowned crankily at me and motioned for me to follow
her to a chair that was placed ridiculously close to a couple of tall, potted
palms. I sank into the chair and realized I could barely see or be seen through
the foliage. It occurred to me that Myra might not want anyone to know I was
there. I craned my neck to view the room as it filled quickly with “people” for
lack of a better word, who didn’t exactly glow, but whose skin was almost
iridescent in the golden light.

I watched Myra take her seat at a long table in the front of
the room. Unbidden, my mind made the connection to that
other
room I had
recently found myself viewing against my will. That room had also been filled
with creatures from the spiritual world, but those critters had been like photo
negatives of this crowd. From the creatures themselves to the room’s décor, the
two courts couldn’t have been more different. And what really bothered me was
that I wasn’t at all sure I preferred the Angel Court to the Devil Court. A
part of me had been more at home amongst the slavering disgustables in Dialle’s
cement and velvet world.

I shook off these uncomfortable thoughts and turned my
attention back to my angel at the front of the room. Myra glared back at me as
if to warn me not to move or speak. I grinned at her and waved
enthusiastically. She was
not
amused.

The last seat, located pretty much at the center of the
table, was about to be filled by a tall, hard-faced angel with cappuccino
colored skin and a lean, muscular body. He was dressed, or rather wrapped,
entirely in swatches of cloth that appeared to be woven from gold thread. The
gold cloth was gathered together at his narrow waist with a belt of intricate,
mesh silver and fell to the floor, where it pooled around the spot where his
feet would be, if he had any. I couldn’t see any feet and he seemed to be
hovering above the floor. The stern-looking cappuccino angel with no feet
gaveled the room to silence as he floated into the chair. His chiseled features
panned the room while those who were assembled there settled silently into
attention. Apparently he was in charge. The cappuccino commander. Capcom for
short. Being just a little over five feet tall myself, I’m
really
into
short. So it follows that, since he was tall, he had one strike against him as
soon as I laid eyes on him. Juvenile I know, but there it is.

Once he’d ascertained that the room was sufficiently quiet
and attentive, the Capcom turned to scan the faces of the other angels sitting
at the council table. When he addressed them, his voice was surprisingly deep
and invasive, insinuating itself under my skin and probing there. I shivered
under the effect.

“We have called this council because we are in crisis. The
spirit world is in an uproar of violent activity and we have been charged with
the task of discovering why this is happening and figuring out how to stop it.
Who will be first to report?”

Several hands along the table went up. The Capcom nodded
toward a chubby, red-haired angel to the left of him at the long table. She
stood and floated around the table to address the entire council. I watched in
amazement as her widely made, clumsy looking body floated across the floor with
apparent ease and grace. She stopped in front of the Capcom and bowed slightly,
hovering above the floor as if she didn’t have any legs or feet. I made a
mental note to find an opportunity to peek under somebody’s robes before they
shimmered me out of there. I was starting to think none of them had legs.

The red-haired angel lowered her eyes as she spoke to him,
peering through some of the longest, thickest lashes I had ever seen. The room
was hushed as she opened her full, peach-colored lips to speak. Her voice came
out in a breathless Southern twang. “High Council, I have communicated with our
spies on the court of Nerul. They have confirmed our suspicion that he is
planning a retaliation for the death of his son. He has Queen Kaline of
Dialle’s court in his chambers and is threatening to torture her slowly to
death so that her soul cannot seek refuge with her people after she is dead. He
is also assembling his forces to attack Dialle’s court within the fortnight.”

The Cap…okay…High Council…nodded without apparent surprise
and raised a large, square hand in dismissal. The red-haired angel floated back
to her seat. The next angel was a long, stringy-limbed man with thick dark
brown hair that fell sharply across his eyes as he floated around to address
the council. As I watched him bow meekly to the High Council, I let my mind
wander away from the scene in front of me long enough to think about what I’d
just heard.

If what the red-haired angel’s spies had told her was true,
my handsome devil had lied to me about Nerul’s son. He’d said they had the
Prince in their chambers, but he hadn’t claimed to have killed him. I frowned
as I realized I’d taken him at his word, despite the fact that he was about as
devilish as they come. I would have to be very careful about that. I wondered
briefly if that was one of their powers, to make you trust them despite what
you knew about them.

The long angel, like the angel before him, spoke with
lowered eyes. “High Council, I have spoken with Abrine, the king of the demons
and he has denied knowledge of any forthcoming battle between the royal devils.
He was very adamant on the point and seemed angry at the suggestion that he
would be unaware of such an occurrence.”