'Tween Heaven and Hell (8 page)

His highcouncilness raised one, dark eyebrow and turned to
the rest of the council. “I wish to hear from the council elders regarding this
new development.”

Myra stood and looked the High Council directly in the eyes,
almost glowering at him. “Abrine is obviously lying, High Council. Those of us
who were charged with cleaning up the demons’ mess last night have seen the
turmoil his people are creating. There can be no other reason for the vigor of
their violence.”

A short, muscular angel stood and addressed
his-high-and-mightiness from the opposite end of the table. He too looked the
High one in the eyes and said, “High Council, I concur with Myra, if the demons
don’t know what’s going on specifically, they at least know something is up.
King Nerul has made it no secret of what he is planning.”

A murmuring commenced around the table. Several celestial
heads bobbed in agreement.

The High Council nodded. “I have to agree. Abrine would have
to be a fool to be unaware of Nerul’s plans and the demon king is no fool. So
we move forward with the understanding that the demons are involved in Nerul’s
plans but are unwilling to admit it for whatever reason.” His soft, brown eyes
traveled around the room. “Where do we go from here?”

I felt his eyes land on me and watched the furrow develop
between them. I shrank back into the potted palms hoping he would decide I
wasn’t important enough to pester. I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

He rose from the chair and hovered there as he glared at me.
One by one the entire council turned to face me until I felt the enormous
weight of their hostile gaze bearing down on poor little me of the potted
palms. I glanced at Myra and she was glaring at me too, as though she had no
idea how I’d gotten there. I made a mental note to wring her scrawny neck the
next chance I got and stood up to take my medicine. I tried a smile but it was
so false it probably just looked like a passing gas attack.

His-high-and-mightiness raised an arm to point accusingly at
me. “You do not belong here.”

I shrugged and wondered if it would do me any good to be
diplomatic.

Naahhh.

I looked around and shrugged, raising my hands as if I were
helpless to address the problem. “It appears I
am
here, though….sir.” I
thought the sir part was pretty diplomatic.

“What gives you the right to observe the council? You have
not been given permission.”

I shrugged again. “I didn’t exactly walk in here myself. I
was summoned by someone. Maybe you should yell at somebody else.” I made a very
determined effort not to look at Myra, though I was oh-so tempted.

His highcouncilness finally removed his piercing gaze from my
poor, pierced face and moved it around the room. “Who is responsible for
bringing this mortal here?”

A long silence filled the room. I crossed my arms and tried
to look like a victim. It probably didn’t go over. I don’t do victim very well.

Finally Myra stood up and floated, yes floated, around the
table to stand in front of him. She bowed slightly, though the stiffness in her
shoulders told me it pissed her off to do so. “I brought her here, High
Council.”

The stern countenance of his-high-and-mightiness turned upon
my angel and he skewered her with eyes that had darkened to the color of
pasture dirt under lowered black eyebrows. “By whose command?”

Myra raised her eyes and simply stared at him, elevating her
own eyebrows meaningfully.

His Highness’s features raised and expanded with the shock
of her unspoken statement. “Why would
He
want her here?”

Myra turned and looked at me, motioning me forward with her
usual disapproving glare. As I joined her in front of the council table she
placed a hand on my arm and looked the High Council directly in the eyes. “She
has been chosen as our interface with the royals.”

I turned to her and my mouth dropped open in shock. Myra
kept her gaze determinedly turned away from me as I stared at her with floppy
fish mouth. I knew my angel too well to think she was pulling my leg on this
one. If Myra said the Big Guy wanted me to work for them, it was true. And I
was in deep, deep, shit, shit, shit.

Chapter
Eight

Let Me Out of Here!

And so the damsel’s distress did grow to such uncommon
heights,

She wished to sprout soft wings of fire and in this
way take flight.

Myra turned away from my flapping, panicky profile and
addressed the High Council as if I were not even there. “She has been summoned
by Dialle and commissioned to serve as their interface with Nerul’s Court.
Since she is one of ours, it seems only logical that she would report her
findings to us.”

His cappuccinoness nodded with that same furrow between his
dark brows that had moved in when he’d spotted me in the potted palms. “Yes. It
does seem that Dialle’s court has given us a gift. Do you think it is possible
he does not know of her relationship to us?”

As Myra opened her heavenly lips to respond I finally lost
my temper in a big way. “Excuse me!” I turned to include the entire room in the
scolding I was about to deliver. “Do any of you see the little person with the
long red hair and a pissed off look on her face standing in this very spot?” I
paused to convey my frown around the entire room before I set it down on the
haughty angel at the center of the long table. “Did it ever occur to any of you
that I might have something to say about any of this, since it is
my life
we’re talking about here?”

His highjerkiness gave me a long, penetrating stare, which
left me with the impression that he was considering how best to dismember me
and dispose of the body. Then he turned back to Myra as if I hadn’t spoken.

“She will need to be trained for this mission.”

Myra nodded, apparently she hadn’t heard me either. “I have
already taken care of that. She will meet with several members of the council
over the next couple of days to learn all she needs to learn.”

I looked from one to the other and decided they had lost
their frunkin’ minds. “I’m out of here!” I said to no one in particular, which
was appropriate because I knew no one was listening anyway. As I turned, I came
up against my angel, who put her hand on my forehead before I could pull away.
Immediately I heard that whoosh of air that told me I was about to take
celestial flight. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” I wasn’t even going to be
allowed the satisfaction of huffing out of there under my own steam, with my
ruffled feathers and my disjointed nose. Apparently I was to be “escorted” out.

I landed in my office without Myra. My hand still hovered
above the door panel where it had been when I’d been shimmered away in the
first place. With a scream of frustration I opened the door and slammed it shut
about five times. Then, realizing that slamming the door was seriously juvenile
behavior, I slammed it about five more times and then forced myself to calm
down so I could use my brain. What I decided was that I wasn’t going to feel
better until I kicked some serious butt.

I stalked across my office and grabbed my purse and coat, checking
to make sure my demon laser was in my purse. I also strapped a very large
silver knife to my thigh. I wasn’t taking any chances that this little demon
jerk would get away from me.

Glancing at my watch, I left the office, descended to the
parking floor and stepped into the Viper. I mashed the buttons on my poor
Viper’s directional information unit mercilessly until I’d programmed in the
location of the spot where my new client had told me there was a nasty little
demon that needed to be taught some manners. The way I was feeling at that
moment, I was just the totally pissed off, small but mean, half angel half
devil critter to teach him those manners. And teach him I would do. Sitting
back with a sigh, I tried to calm down enough that I could breathe. It only
took a few minutes to get there. Then I turned to gaze out at the other traffic
roaring by me in the sky.

Since traffic had taken to the air, about ten years
previous, the skies had become increasingly congested. Where, at first, most
people didn’t have the guts or the desire to take to the sky in a flying car,
over the last couple of years more and more of Earth’s creatures had found out
what an exhilarating experience it was to ride with the winged things above the
stale, overused air of domestic habitation below.

When I had first taken to the sky, right after the world
government passed the Right to Fly law of 2079, the sky had been wide open and
free. Now it was so filled with flying vehicles and floating advertisement
blimps that I had to put my repelling shields up just to travel a couple of
miles to the corner store.

I flicked a passing Air Bus the winged salute as it roared
by so close that its shield thudded into the Viper’s shield and blew us
sideways to skim against a colorless, little air booger on the other side. The
driver of the sad little booger cringed away from the window and looked at me
with a pale, pinched face and huge, terrified eyes. She looked about sixteen.
Must be new to the air. By gross contrast, the driver of the bus grinned
manically at me, wagging his tongue suggestively while I gifted him with my
best repertoire of swear words, which he couldn’t hear but which made me feel
infinitely better for having delivered them.

Oh for the early days of flight, when it had pretty much
just been me and a few confused looking birds up there.

The Viper touched down in a part of Angel City that had lost
the war between modernization and decay when the wrong element had moved in
several years ago. Because of its innate goodness, with its scores of small,
tidy family homes, neatly mown and tended postage stamp yards and churches on
every corner, Ashland in the northern section of the city had been a perfect
target for demonic inhabitance. Nothing draws a demon in like goodness. There
is no sweeter thrill to a demon than destroying that which is good.

I realized with a start that the nightclub I was about to
enter was Demonica, the heart and soul of Demondom, a truly trendy nightclub, a
really dangerous place to visit and the demon king’s main source of
questionable income. I hadn’t recognized the address when my client had given
it to me.

King Abrine was even known to be around the place on most
nights. Rumor was he liked to scope out the clientele for future pleasure, or
pain, or both, depending on what the involved parties were into on any
particular night.

I scowled at the gnarly-faced demon at the door and flashed
him my business card when he asked me to cough up a truly evil cover charge. He
screwed up his purplish-black face and curled an overly wide mouth at me when
he saw the name of my company, a trickle of drool rolled down his leathery
chin. “You here to vanquish one of my people, Phelps?”

I smiled back with what I hoped was a much prettier smile
than he had offered me, with his chipped, gray teeth and scabby lips. I covered
the business card with my Strange Crimes badge, which was only sort of official
but which usually had the intended effect. “You know the law, drool boy, I’m
here on official business and you gotta let me in, minus that ridiculous cover
charge.”

“They ain’t nothin’ on that badge about waivin’ no cover
charge, bitch girl.”

I just shrugged and stood my ground, smiling benignly at
him.

The pretty young lady standing behind me in line frowned and
glared at me before tossing her heavy, brunette hair and turning to the demon
to give him a flirtatious smile. The creature that grinned back at her probably
looked like Prince Charming or his brother Fred Charming to her. Demons never
let humans see their true likeness. If they did they’d never get any of them to
come around, which would be ruinously bad for business.

I grinned at her and then turned back to the gnarly-faced
badass sitting on the tall stool beside the door. Before we could exchange any
more knife-edged repartee, the buzzer on the wall beside him sounded and he
turned away from me to punch something into the televisual on the wall.

The unit was screened on three sides and, although I leaned
forward and squinted really hard, I couldn’t see the face on the screen. Whoever
it was, though, drooly boy reluctantly let me pass. Though the look on his face
told me that he’d rather have ripped me into bite sized-pieces and had me with
tartar sauce.

“You can go in,” he said in his wobbly, razorlike demon
voice, “but you better behave or you’ll be dealin’ with me.”

I pretended to quiver in my tall, leather boots and turned
away from him. As I opened the door, however, I closed my eyes briefly and said
a silent prayer. It always unnerves me a little to walk into evil’s abode. And,
fiery though I may be, I have a deep dislike of being outnumbered.

And outnumbered I was. Entering the pitch black of the front
entranceway, I thought immediately of those haunted houses and spook walks I
used to love as a child. The feeling of complete blackness was meant to terrify
and titillate and for me, it definitely did more of the former than it did of
the latter. I prefer my demon well lighted and easily squashed.

As I adjusted to the complete darkness, my eyes began to
pick up the auras of what must have been minor demons if they couldn’t mask
themselves from me. Either that or they weren’t worried enough about big, bad,
ole’ me to hide. The auras lined the long hallway, about one every six feet or
so, on both sides and although they shimmered with some sort of latent energy,
they didn’t make a move toward me.

I watched them closely as I moved through them into what
passed for a lighted room in the place. Although the hallway was open to the
main room, the demons had somehow deadened the noise of the main floor in the
entranceway, leaving it silent as a tomb and certainly as dark as one.