bedeviled & beyond 02 - bedeviled & bedazzled (13 page)

His chocolate-brown gaze flashed quick anger before settling into sadness, but he didn’t say anything, he just nodded. Raoul turned to the body on the altar and motioned for me to approach. “I’d really like your opinion on this, Astra.”

It was the body of a young male. Probably about twenty-five years old, with longish brown hair that was streaked with golden highlights on the tips. He’d been well built, even husky in life. His muscles were slack with death and there was evidence of massive abuse before he’d died.

The naked body was covered in pentacle tats. There was even one on the slack, grey penis that lay against one muscular thigh.

“That’s the obvious cause of death.” I said, pointing to an eight inch long silver cross that was embedded in his chest. It looked like it had gone right into his heart.

Raoul nodded in complete agreement but said nothing. I could feel his brown gaze on me as I examined the corpse.

“The tattoos would suggest Satanism. A cult maybe.”

He frowned at my observation but stayed mute.

One of the dead guy’s hands was clutched tightly around something. When I pried the fingers open, I found a ring, covered with a thin layer of gold. The ring held the crest of the court of Dialle the First, a pitchfork with flames shooting from its deadly looking tips.

I couldn’t help myself, I chuckled softly. The crest was so him.

The ring was obviously a cheap imitation, but it looked just real enough to serve its purpose if someone wasn’t looking too closely.

Shit!

I closed the dead man’s fingers back over the ring and said nothing. After a few more observations regarding injuries that would suggest some pretty nasty physical abuse, I stood up and walked away from the body. My stomach roiled with what I’d seen and I silently vowed that the demons would pay big time for what they’d done to the young man.

Raoul stood looking down at the floor between his feet, his hands folded behind his back.

I knew what he was thinking but thought it would be best if he said it himself rather than my bringing it up.

It didn’t take him long.

“I don’t know what to think about your loyalties, Astra, if you’re going to protect him and his kind when they do things like this.” His dark head jerked to indicate the body.

“The royals didn’t do this, Raoul.”

His eyes met mine and we locked gazes. He thought I was lying, either to him or to both of us but I had the strength of knowledge on my side. I knew the demons were behind the murder. Unfortunately he didn’t and he thought I was too intoxicated with Dialle to see the truth.

Touching my arm, Raoul led me a few feet away from the altar, where we wouldn’t be overheard.

“The demons have declared war on the royals, Raoul.”

He stared at me for a few beats more. “I’ve seen this type of thing in the past, Astra and it was always the royals.”

I nodded, “I understand that. It was made to look like them, no doubt about it. But this time it was the demons.”

Raoul shook his head and looked away as if he were afraid to see what was in my eyes. I held my ground, watching him carefully.

Finally he released his breath in a frustrated sigh. “Okay, Astra, let’s assume you’re right and this was the demons. Then why? Why kill this human and leave him for us to find? Why try to make it look like the royals did it?”

It was my turn to feel frustration. However, I put on my best attitude of patience and simply said, in a calm voice, “You and I had this discussion the other day, Raoul. The demons want their freedom. They want their own court. King Dialle won’t listen to them so they’re trying to force him to listen.”

Raoul’s gaze slid back to the corpse on the altar, which his men had begun the process of removing to the crematorium. “I know you told me that, Astra. Hell, I can even identify this victim as one of the people who has disappeared recently and was last known to be at Demonica. What I can’t do is trust anything King Dialle the First ever says or does. The royals are evil incarnate, Astra. You of all people should understand that.”

I nodded and stepped aside as the death detectives moved past us with the body, encased in a breathable, thick paper husk that would enhance its flammability when they put it into the flash cremator. My heart throbbed painfully at the thought that a life could be erased so quickly, so irrevocably. I didn’t know the unfortunate young man on that stretcher but he was of my generation and for that reason I felt like I knew him just a little.

I leaned toward Raoul and lowered my voice. “What about our discussion regarding your coven, Raoul? Don’t you think there might be more working below the surface here than you’re seeing?”

He turned angry, brown eyes on me and squared suddenly stiff shoulders. “I’m not having that discussion with you here, Astra.” He glanced quickly over his shoulder to where his men had gathered in a knot at the back of the church. Then he looked back at me with hard eyes. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He turned and started down the aisle, his long legs carrying him quickly and decisively away from me.

I sighed and dropped my butt onto the nearest pew. Then a thought occurred and I surged back to my feet, calling out to the quickly retreating death detective. “Raoul!”

For a beat it seemed as if he would ignore me. But finally he stopped and turned back, looking impatient.

“If I’m right, you know there will be others. Many others.”

He stared at me for a long moment. I thought I could see a whole range of emotions crossing his dark, angry face. But he simply lowered his head in the tiniest of nods and turned back around.

I sat in that pew for several minutes after the police left. Enjoying the quiet and relative peace and safety there. I knew that my life was changing in ways I’d never anticipated and that I wasn’t going to like a lot of the changes. I also knew my path had been set by much higher powers. It was that thought, more than the others, that brought me finally to my feet and carried me out of the church.

If I was going to have any semblance of a normal life again I had to find those hostages and the demons had to be knocked back into meek subservience. It wasn’t a perfect outcome of the current mess. But it was an outcome we’d all lived with for centuries and it was the only outcome I could see that would ensure relative safety for the humans. It was all I knew to do.

So that was what I’d do.

~SC~

Myra met me on the sidewalk outside and I suddenly realized I didn’t have the Viper. She didn’t say anything to me, simply looked at my grim face and held out her hand. I slipped my fingers through hers.

We shifted into my office and went directly to the drink valet, where I programmed in two cups of strong, black coffee.

My angel and I sat in companionable silence for a while, both lost in our own thoughts. Finally Myra looked up and I could tell by the frown on her angelic face that she hadn’t been thinking happy thoughts.

“The Angel Council isn’t pleased, Astra. We’ve been considering what to do next and not one of our options is good. Whichever way we go we risk starting a new war. The demons are an unstable factor right now. They’ll do anything to get what they want. Alcott has made that abundantly clear.”

Nodding, I stayed silent. I was in a quandary over the current situation too and her thoughts mirrored my own. But I was interested to hear what conclusion the Council had reached.

“Unfortunately, in this case at least, the royals are the more reasonable of the two factions. They are deeply invested in this world and understand what they have to lose if it is annihilated through demonic war. The demons can exist perfectly well in the shadows and don’t share the royals’ love of Earth. So...” She looked up at me and I didn’t like the reluctant way her eyes met mine, “we are leaning toward encouraging the royals to help us end the threat.”

I gave her a sharp glance, filled with surprise and a little bit of anger. The Angel Council, never known for eminent fairness when working toward something they wanted, nevertheless generally put right above wrong in a situation. However, they appeared to be perched on the edge of taking the expedient way out of the current situation and damn the consequences.

“You do realize that what you’re contemplating could mean the complete destruction of the demons? King Dialle the First is not going to just suck down your censure and allow the demons their freedom. He’ll simply destroy the demon court and be done with it.” I put my fingers in front of her face and snapped, causing her to blink. “Just like that...no more problem.”

Myra stared into the rich, black liquid in her cup for several beats before looking up at me. When she did her blue, angelic gaze was filled with sadness. “You know, Astra, it’s like putting down a pet you’ve never liked because it finally bit you. You will always wonder if you put it down because it bit you, or because you never really liked it in the first place. There is a definite moral dilemma here. A crisis of conscience if you will.”

I knew exactly what she meant. I faced that dilemma almost daily in my job. But aside from the obvious consequences to my professional existence, I was somehow reluctant to see the demon race extinguished. I definitely hated that particular pet. And it definitely was capable of biting me. Had, in fact, bitten me on numerous occasions. But it was still life and I’d been raised to believe life was important and worthy.

I sighed. A moral dilemma indeed. I didn’t think I could accept the conclusion the Council had reached. Which meant that I needed to come up with a better one. And fast!

After Myra shimmered away I called Emo again to see if he had anything to report on the hostage situation. Unfortunately, he hadn’t learned anything new. I told the televisual to disengage and sat there biting my lip, thinking. Finally I realized one thing I could try. It was definitely a long shot but I was incredibly short on options at that point.

I closed my eyes and threw out his name on a reluctant sigh. Dialle, I need you.

Almost before I finished the thought he was in my chair, with me. Or rather, under me and I was sitting across his lap, my legs flopping over the side.

“Hey!” I said but that was all I could get out before his yummy lips descended over mine and sucked any further protests, along with all the air in my lungs, away from me.

Dialle’s lips parted and his teeth clasped my lower lip, nibbling gently. I wriggled in his lap as a jolt of warm need infused my lower regions and lust, hot and musky, rolled over me. His teeth held my lower lip in a gentle grip as his tongue made a determined assault on my tongue, causing gooseflesh to sweep down my arms. I shivered and sighed with pleasure almost at once.

Dialle’s sharp, white teeth released my lower lip but his tongue continued its assault. He licked his way down to my chin and sucked there. It was the strangest and most erotic thing I had ever experienced. I shivered so violently from the extreme pleasure that I almost fell off his lap. He wrapped his arms around my waist more tightly to hold me there and I turned slightly so I could put my arms around his shoulders.

I moaned as his very talented tongue slid down my neck to the daemon hickey he’d put there to mark me as his. He sucked on my neck and the hickey throbbed in time with the beat between my thighs, creating waves of helpless lust that spread outward until my whole body was soft and warm and tingly with need.

My gaze went soft and the world blurred. A smell, like roses drifted across my airspace and something in my memory jigged, leaving me with a slightly uncomfortable feeling.

But then everything abruptly sharpened and my senses became unnaturally keen. My sight was enhanced, colors became brighter, the strands of Dialle’s hair were like strands of tiny black pearls, glossy, luminous, decadent. I could smell his need and mine as if it were a perfume in the room, applied liberally to spice the air. My skin was a million nerve endings, my mouth a smorgasbord of taste buds.

I felt as if someone had slipped me a pleasure drug. But I knew that wasn’t possible. My mind drifted aimlessly, floating on a sea of pleasurable sensations.

The part of me that hates losing control fought against the drifting but it felt as if I were swimming against a whirlpool and every inch I gained was lost twofold as soon as I won it.

I shook my head and refocused on Dialle. That was something tangible I could grab hold of. My wicked devil.

Was he responsible for what was happening?

Was I under some sort of spell?

It was then that I realized his hand was under my shirt and on my breast. His fingers gently pinched my nipple through the cloth of my silk cami and it pebbled and throbbed in time with the rhythm of need that was playing itself out along the entire length of my body. Dialle lifted the silky cloth barrier and, before I knew what he was doing his impossibly hot mouth was on my breast, sucking the happy peak. I was lost.

I leaned back in his arms, giving him free access with his mouth as well as the hand that had found its way to the juncture of my thighs. He had my short, tight skirt bunched at my waist and his hand was cupping me through the silky covering there, driving heat into my sexual center, which was wet and throbbing and getting more desperate for his touch by the moment.

Suddenly time and sound stopped as he shifted us out of that hard, inconvenient chair and, when sound returned I was lying on my soft bed, with a naked devil on top of me.

Looking down, I discovered I was naked too.

“Shit! How’d you do that?”

Dialle laughed and recaptured my breast with his scorching mouth, mumbling around the turgid peak, “What good is magic if I can’t use it for the important things, my princess?”

Why argue with the devil when he made that much sense?

Somehow the shimmering had broken through the haze I’d been in but only momentarily. It quickly started to overtake me again.

Going on pure physical sensation, I arched my body closer to his sucking mouth and gave a sigh.
What’s happening is very bad
, the pain in the ass, practical side of my mind insisted, until the raging slut-monkey side bashed it into reluctant silence and took over with a moan.