bedeviled & beyond 02 - bedeviled & bedazzled (26 page)

It was extremely rare for a witch to have enough power to vanquish demons so thoroughly. They could, of course, kill dark world types with black magic but it would take a very powerful witch to turn a demon into a puddle. I’d only heard of it happening once, a long time ago and that had been considered a giant fluke. A witch of some power had been temporarily inhabited by a very pissed off demon spirit, which had vowed revenge on his unfaithful demon girlfriend. He and his host had found the errant girlfriend in the arms of her new beau and the Paranormal Police had found them both...or what was left of them...a couple of days later when the landlord called in to report a strange green haze in the seemingly abandoned apartment.

When condensed, both demons had fitted into a small glass jar.

I called Raoul on the televisual when I got back to the office. He didn’t know about any coven activity the previous night and had no information that they’d targeted any demons. I hung up feeling like there was something I should know about the whole situation but was unable to put my finger on it.

As I struggled to catch the elusive thought that was banging around in the unreachable depths of my brain, the air around me changed and I looked up into a pair of beautiful blue eyes, over scored by lustrous, black lashes.

My Dialle looked at me from the other side of my desk. Appearing every inch the great unifier, except for the angry light in his vacillating eyes.

Two thousand years ago a prophecy had been spawned, proclaiming that one day, a great unifier would come to the dark world. The highly anticipated individual was destined to join forces with the side of good to bring the dark and light worlds together. That unifier, the prophecy said, “Would gaze upon the world with eyes that vacillate as the heavens, blue as the day and black as the night.”

It went on to say, “This unifier of dark and light will touch upon the good to save humankind, while preserving his heritage to ensure the continued existence of his own.”

According to the prophecy the great unifier would show himself through a selfless act that would endanger his own people while saving humankind. All signs pointed to Prince Dialle being the unifier. Even the celestial army thought he was probably the prophesied one. He’d recently worked with us to protect the human world from a deadly plot by King Nerul, of a rival devil court, to gain unprecedented power that would have made humankind expendable.

But the prophecy also spoke of a false unifier. And the selfless deed still hadn’t been performed.

I did a mental shrug and asked the first thing that came into my mind, “Hey. Did you get the hostages wiped and de-swiped?”

He reached for my hand, “The human cattle are of no consequence. You must come with me.”

I opened my mouth to speak but found myself locked in time and space with my mouth hanging open.

Shit! Why was dignity such an elusive thing in my life?

We landed in King Dialle the First’s chambers. As soon as I could move I closed my mouth and prepared for battle, looking for the king in his usual spot in front of the wall of windows. He wasn’t there. My Dialle paced away from me, moving quickly to his father’s desk.

I watched him with narrowed eyes. He seemed extremely agitated.

He turned back to me when he reached the huge, onyx desk. His eyes were black as night and filled with anger. “He’s gone.”

I frowned and rubbed my arms, which had risen in bumps as I stood there. “What do you mean he’s gone?”

Dialle swept an arm around the room. “Do you see the king? He is gone. He has disappeared.”

I swept my gaze around the room and shrugged. “Are you sure he just didn’t go out for a jumbo cup of espresso, extra dark like his soul?”

His response was to glare at me. “Don’t you feel it?”

As soon as he said the words it hit me. What I’d been feeling since I’d been shifted into the room. My skin had prickled with the oily evil residue in the air and I’d been too busy watching Dialle to notice.

“Black magic.”

He nodded.

“But not simple black magic, this is like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It seems to be laced with something...more...”

“Something not of this realm perhaps?” Dialle said with an impatient look in his eye.

I got the distinct impression he was waiting for me to complete a mental journey that he’d already completed.

And I was obviously not getting there fast enough.

“It feels like.” I stopped because I didn’t want to say what it felt like. “It can’t be.”

His face turned deep red with anger. “Can it not, halfling?”

My heart beat faster and I took a step back. The temperature in the room had risen several degrees with Dialle’s anger. I didn’t think he’d hurt me. But I wasn’t really sure. And I’d have been stupid to ignore the warning gong in my head. “How is it possible?”

“You tell me.”

I shook my head, wondering if I could manage the shift out of there and get to the Viper before he could follow me. Then he took an angry step forward and I stopped wondering.

My magic surged forward and took thought right out of the picture.

I left the plane of awareness and prayed I’d land where I wanted to land.

I entered the physical plane again somewhere above the Viper, landing hard on the shiny red surface of my air vehicle, splayed like road kill across its glossy hood. Embarrassment heated my face but I had no time to indulge it. I slid quickly off the Viper, screaming an urgent command, “Open.” I threw myself into the cool, black leather interior and shouted, “Secure and climb, optimum speed.”

We shot out of the vehicle docking garage at breakneck speed, narrowly missing a sleek, silver air sedan as it slid sedately into the underground space, its unsuspecting owner glancing around for a suitable space to dock the expensive vehicle. The poor woman shrieked inaudibly when the Viper swung onto its side with its bottom facing the spotless sedan and squeezed through a too narrow space on a roar of repulsed air that blew the sedan sideways into the other vehicles hovering there. As the Viper cleared the garage I punched in the directional setting for my father’s house and coded the car for masking so my angry devil prince couldn’t find us.

Then I sat back and let my thoughts roil in my head. It was impossible. It just couldn’t be true.

But deep inside I knew it was. Magic left a signature behind that could be tied to its user. Some signatures were vague or common, hard to assign to a user. But some were more easily recognized.

His
signature was too unique, too special. And
hers
was unmatched in power and complexity among her kind. I knew it was true. What I couldn’t possibly imagine was why.

They could barely stand to be in the same room together. And they had never joined forces on anything that I knew of. They certainly wouldn’t do it to kidnap King Dialle.

My father’s house loomed ahead of the Viper like an ancient, hillside fortress. It was built to resemble the home my father had been born into in the thirteen hundreds. High above the Angel City River, the walls rose straight and unadorned to the sky, broken occasionally by windows of leaded glass.

Just under the roofline, on the river side, a wide catwalk cut the expanse of the stark wall along the entire width of the home. The catwalk widened out on one end, standing out from the roofline in a wide arc that overlooked the raging waters below. It was there that I settled the Viper down.

As I exited I saw him.

He stood several feet away from me, in full Seraphim regalia. His gold and silver robes rustled gently in the ever present wind above the river and tangled softly around his legs, which were wrapped to the knees in delicate golden cord.

His red-blond hair curled at his neck and flecks of gold sparked from it as the sun caressed the beautiful strands, making it look, as it always had, like his halo rode above his golden head.

He stood completely still, his arms hanging straight down his sides. He watched me walk to him with an impassive look. I’d seen the expression often growing up and I called it his omnipotent angel face. It was both awe inspiring and extremely unnerving. Especially in the face of a guilty conscience, which I fortunately didn’t have at the moment.

I didn’t think.

Stopping in front of him, I looked up into his angelic face. “Father, what hast thou done?”

He stared back at me, the only emotion he allowed me to see was in his eyes. They were filled with the usual pain and touched with something that looked like worry. “Bless thou, Astra.”

I shook my head. “Nay. Do not bless me, Father. Thou hast forsaken me on this.”

He stared at me for a long moment, unwilling and unable to lie to me. “You do not understand, child.”

“Then explain it to me.”

He looked briefly skyward, something like fear touching his face, and then turned toward the house and offered me his hand. “Come.”

We entered the cool, dim interior of the fortress-like home in a stiff, uncomfortable silence.

I felt the magic in the air as soon as I stepped inside.

Looking around I noted the same clean lines and sparse furnishings I remembered from my earliest childhood. It was a décor not created for comfort as much as for basic need. The hard stone floors held few rugs, located in strategic areas such as before doors and under clusters of sleek, clean lined furniture. One wall was dominated almost entirely by an enormous, open-mouthed stone fireplace, which had always burned, night and day, for as long as I could remember.

Memories flooded me. Recollections of sitting on a soft rug in front of that huge fireplace, practicing small magics with my father and talking for hours at a time. In that moment, my heart softened toward him. We’d always been so close—he’d always been my hero.

But my love for him had never been the issue.

I walked over to the fireplace, welcoming the warmth as the chill in my heart spread through my body. My father’s robes rustled softly as he moved closer.

“Astra, what I’ve done is against all that I believe in.”

I fought the urge to cry. My father had always been the best of everything that was in me. If he fell into decadence I’d have nothing left to cling to in my daily battle with my dark side.

He must have read my thoughts in my eyes. Reaching a gentle hand to my face, he touched my cheek, infusing me with a warm, peaceful energy. I leaned into that hand and willed myself not to cry.

He turned away from me, staring into the fire. “Many on the celestial side will see what I’ve done as treason. They’ll condemn and curse me. I can live with that.” His voice broke on the last word. But he turned to me and a strange light shone in his beautiful blue eyes. “However, I couldn’t live if
you
lost faith in me, daughter.”

“Tell me, Father. What hast thou done...and why?”

He shook his head. “I cannot, Astra.”

I lost my temper...in a galactic way. “Frunk me to Hades and back again! Why won’t you tell me what you’ve gotten yourself into so I can help? This affects me too you know!”

He just shook his head and stood there. A single tear ran down his cheek.

Angel’s tears, shed for only the most catastrophic of events.

Shit!

“Where is mother?”

He glanced my way. “She has returned to her coven.”

I felt my eyes widening. “Her...her coven?”

He nodded. “Yes. She is being carefully watched. We...we decided it was best if she returned to her normal activities.”

“What coven? What are you telling me, Father?”

His pretty blue eyes widened slightly. “You do not know?”

I could feel the blood rushing to my face as anger and frustration built to the breaking point. It was all I could do to keep from stomping my foot. “Know what?”

“Your mother is the Supreme High Witch of the Angel City coven. She has been thus for decades.”

All the blood that had gathered in my face plunked to my feet along with my stomach. Suddenly everything made sense.
That
was the special ingredient in fairy pudding. It was what everyone had been keeping from me. Why everyone thought I should sit the current mess out.

“Holy shit!” I said on an expelled breath. I turned to walk out of my father’s house. On some level I could hear him calling my name but my mind was in another place.

I climbed into the Viper and coded the coven headquarters into the directional system. I was so distraught I almost forgot to refresh masking. It wouldn’t do to have Prince Dialle find me until after I’d had the next ugly conversation.

It was possible I’d never be able to face him again. Without worrying that he would kill me.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Heavenly Intervention

The angel o’ God did flap his wings and make our lady quake,

But if he thought he’d cowed our girl, he’d made a big mistake.

The viper entered the long, tree lined tunnel leading to coven headquarters. I took a deep breath and wiped sweaty palms on my knees. It was one thing to deal with James Phelps, ex-Seraphim and truly nice guy, but quite another dealing with Danika Phelps, ex-royal devil, arch Wiccan high priestess and main contributor of my, shall we say, less socially acceptable genes.

I shook my head in self-derision. I’d kicked the asses of some of the most disgusting and terrifying critters the dark world could ever think to puke at me, but my mother terrified me much more than any of those critters ever could.

As I traveled more deeply into the dense wood, the light was steadily sucked from the day, leaving me in a softening dusk as I took the last curve in my approach to the coven’s headquarters.

I was readying myself and the Viper for landing when we suddenly jerked to a stop and, with a groan of the Viper’s internal guts, jerked nose up and took off at about three hundred miles per hour toward the tree line above us. Just before we hit the first huge overarching branch, the Viper plummeted into a stomach dropping back flip and continued at the same terrifying speed, upside down, back the way we’d come.

I struggled to hold onto my seat, praying the chest strap would hold and clasping the bottom of the seat with my ankles as best I could. I clung there for a few minutes, my hair hanging in my face and praying, until suddenly the Viper stopped and flipped upright, then continued onward at a much more sedate pace.