Light My Fire (30 page)

She shook her head at me. “Aisling, Aisling, Aisling ...
I’ve told you—it’s your belief in the ward that creates the
magic, not mine. You must believe in your power to pro
tect yourself.”

Well, that I had no trouble with. I was a relatively
tough chick. I’d kissed a wyvern and lived to tell the tale.
I’d breathed fire. And I’d been skewered and still man
aged to carry on as usual. It was just all the other things
out of my control I worried about.

“OK. I can do this.” I drew the protection ward across
my chest, satisfied when it glowed silver in the air for a
few seconds before melting away.

“Are you sure you do not want us with you?” Rene
asked, squatting on his heels to peer into the culvert. Dirt and debris had been washed out of it, but it looked rela
tively clear. An occasional flicker of movement indicated rodents, but those didn’t cause me any grief. “I will watch your back. As you said, I am the sidekick extraordinaire.”

“I’d love for you to come along, but Nora says it would
never work. The imps are bound to be touchy about this
whole thing, and they won’t negotiate if anyone else is
there. So wish me luck, and if I’m not out in an hour, send
in a whole platoon of Drakes, please.”

Nora gave me a thumbs-up as I stepped into the cul
vert. Rene wished me
bonne chance.
Jim peed in three
different spots, tried to convince me it was going to throw
up a hairball, and finally, reluctantly, shambled after me
as I hunched over and crab walked my way into the belly
of the imp kingdom.

The last bit of daylight winked out as the big drainage
pipe turned a corner. Before I could switch on the flash
light Nora had thoughtfully provided, a small herd of
imps bearing tiny, little torches descended upon us.

“Stop!” I yelled in my most forceful voice, putting my
belief of my power behind it as Nora had warned. The
imps swarmed around me, some of their torches coming
dangerously close to my clothing. The ward glowed
brightly in the air for a moment, though, causing the tiny little beasties to pause in their attack. “I am Aisling Grey! I am here to negotiate with your monarch. I bring to him
the true slayer of”—I had to stop to take a quick glance at the name I’d written on my hand so I wouldn’t forget
it—”Mehigenous the Fourth. Behold, the imp-killing demon
Effrijim!”

“You’re loving every minute of this, aren’t you?” Jim muttered as the imps held their collective breaths for a
moment, then with a bunch of high-pitched squeaks, ran
over to surround Jim. It bared its teeth and snapped at a
couple who got too close.

“Do not touch the demon!” I bellowed in the same pushy voice. “I am here to negotiate the sacrifice of it
with your monarch. Take us to him!”

Jim rolled its eyes as the imps gathered together in a
clutch for a moment, their squeaky yip-yips making my teeth itch. “You couldn’t think up a more original version
of ‘take me to your leader’ ?”

“No. And hush. You’re supposed to be repentant,
remember?”

“Yeah, right, and imps could fly out my ass. Hey!
There’s an idea!”

“I’ll make it a command if you can’t keep your lips
zipped,” I whispered.

Evidently I had done the demanding bit right, because the imps turned en masse and escorted us deeper into the
culvert. It took another five minutes of crab walking,
sometimes almost crawling, to get through to their main
living area, but with the imps on one side pulling, and me
behind shoving, we managed to get Jim’s bulky body
through a very narrow opening and into a large, open
area.

“Welcome to imp central,” Jim said, licking a patch of
dirt off its shoulder.

I don’t know what I was expecting—some sort of cav
ern with grubs and rats—but the imps’ main headquarters
wasn’t anything like my expectations. The walls were
curved, like a tunnel, but tiled. The floor was cement and
relatively clean, although awash in imps. Forerunners
from our escort had warned the main assembly that we
were coming, for they had a path cleared for us to walk
up to a small pedestal with a stone garden bench, upon
which sat a blue imp slightly larger than the others.

It held up two of its four hands, and the yip-yips that had broken out at our appearance silenced.

Mindful of Nora’s advice, I made a show of bowing
before the monarch.
Do not show weakness,
she had said,
but be respectful.
I decided a little buttering up wouldn’t
hurt, either. “Greetings, oh mighty imp king. I am Aisling
Grey, Guardian, wyvern’s mate, and demon lord. I come
to you in the spirit of cooperation to make amends for the
death of Mehigenous the Fourth.”

The imp king’s eyes narrowed. It squeaked something
at me.

“Urn. I didn’t quite catch that.” Oh, great. Why had
none of us thought about the fact that I didn’t speak imp?

The imp king gestured, and from behind his stone
throne a small green being emerged. It was the size of a
small child, but horribly malformed. “His Majestic Majesty,
Mehigenous the Fifth, sovereign of all imps, bids you to
explain why you insult him by bringing the slayer Effri
jim into his presence.”

“I am here to negotiate the cessation of hostilities be
tween the imps and myself. I am no enemy to imps.”

The king stood up and shouted at me—at least I as
sume the aggressive noises it made were shouts. I know
it shook three fists at me in a menacing fashion. The imps
surrounding us leaped up and down and yipped their
opinions as well.

“You are demon lord to the slayer! You must be de
stroyed as well as it.”

“I am no enemy to imps,” I said firmly, looking the
king in the eyes. “I have much power. I could wage a war the likes of which you have not seen for many millennia.
Instead, I come in peace to bring the demon, and offer to sacrifice it myself to appease the heinous crime it has
committed.”

“You should be on a soap opera; you really should,”
Jim said almost inaudibly over the noise of a couple of
thousand yipping imps.

“Silence,” I roared, startling Jim as well as the imps. I
lifted my hand in a dramatic manner and pinned back the
imp king with a firm gaze. “See within my hand the silver dagger of death? I will destroy this demon once and
for all before your very eyes. With its death, there will be
peace between your kingdom and me. Is that agreed?”

The king thought for a moment, consulted with a cou
ple of what were probably advisers, then gestured for the
green being.

“What is that?” I asked Jim in a whisper.

“The translator? That’s a boggart. Sort of the poor
relation to the imp world. Nasty little things. Don’t turn
your back on it.”

I hadn’t planned on it. The boggart fixed its cold black eyes on me, gesturing toward the imp king. “His Benevolent Majesty, Mehigenous the Fifth, graciously accepts
your offer of peace. You may proceed with the sacrifice.”

I knelt before the king, dragging Jim down onto its
side at the foot of the throne.

“If this doesn’t work, you’d better find me a body just as good as this one, or I’m going to make your life a liv
ing Abaddon,” it warned me as it scrunched its eyes
closed, its face in a grimace of imagined pain.

“What makes you think you haven’t already?” I
pressed Jim’s paw quickly before lifting the dagger over
head with both hands, opening up the doorway in my
mind.

“By this act, I avenge the death of Mehigenous the Fourth. By my hand, I sacrifice this demon to its origins
in Abaddon. By my voice, I command thee to leave this
existence and return to that where I send you!”

I plunged the dagger into Jim’s inert body just as the
last words were spoken, throwing down at the same time
a little ball of dragon fire. The flames hit the stone floor
and burst upward, then back down in an impressive
shower of sparks that had the imps within a thirty-foot ra
dius screaming and slapping at themselves.

When the smoke cleared, I bowed again to the king,
held up the dagger to show the blood on it, and made my
way out of there as quickly as possible.

Rene was perched on a rock smoking a cigarette, star
ing up at a few clouds dotting the sky. Nora paced past the
opening, Paco trotting obediently at her heels. She spun around when she saw me. “How did it go?”

I tipped my head toward the culvert. I wasn’t certain
the imp patrol hadn’t followed me, but I didn’t want to
take any chances. “I destroyed Jim before them all. Come
on, I need a bandage. I forgot to get one before we left,
and this dagger is sharper than I thought. My hand is
stinging like a son of a gun.”

18

“Murderous imps down, murderous red dragons and
equally homicidal demon lords to go,” I announced as we
returned to the house.

Drake walked out of the library to where we stood in
the hall, looking from me to Rene, Nora, and Jim. One of
his delicious eyebrows rose in the way that never failed to
make my legs go all melty. “I am delighted to hear of
your success. How did you achieve it?”

“I sacrificed Jim. Is there any lunch left? I know it’s
late, but I’m starving, and I know Nora and Rene must be
just as hungry.”

Drake considered the very real form of Jim for a moment. “I’m sure we can appease your hunger in some
manner. If I could have a word with you for a moment,
first?”

“Of course,” I said, noting the fire visible in his eyes.
Either he was annoyed with me about something or
aroused. Either way, it was better to have no witnesses to
whatever it was he wanted. I entered the library and
leaned against the desk, watching as he moved toward
me. Drake didn’t so much walk as prowl, almost stalking like a big cat. It was a fabulous interplay of muscles and
sinew, and I had the worst desire to ask him to take off all his clothes so I could watch his body move as he walked,
but I knew full well that if he took his clothes off, I’d
pounce on him.

“Looks like Ash is going to get her hunger appeased, all right,” Jim said before the door closed behind Drake.

I tipped my head a little and did my best to bat my
lashes as the light of my life approached. “You wanted to
see me?”

“I have a challenge tonight.” He stopped in front of
me, not touching me, but close enough that I could feel
the heat of his body. I leaned toward him, intending on
kissing the breath right out of his mouth, but the meaning
of his words sank through the miasma of passion.

“The challenge from Dmitri? I thought you settled
that. Isn’t that why he was here yesterday?”

The irises in his eyes narrowed a bit, making him look
even dragonier. “He was here yesterday to settle the terms
of the challenge, not to dismiss it.”

“Hmm.” I perched on the edge of the desk and consid
ered the gorgeous hunk of dragon in front of me, a little
glow of happiness that he was mine warming my insides.
“You know, I like this whole I-ask-a-question-and-you-
actually-answer-it thing. I could get used to it.”

He grimaced. “I assume this counts as sharing my
thoughts. I expect extra credit for being so accommodat
ing.” As he spoke, his hands slid up my knees, parting my
legs so he stood between them.

“This isn’t a contest, you know. It’s not like you accrue
a certain number of intimacy points, and then you can
stop telling me things. It’s called sharing, and I’m going
to expect you to do it for the rest of your life. Now, about
this challenge . . .” My breath came shorter and shorter as
his hands returned to my knees, this time his long fingers
sliding under the silk material of my skirt, tracing an intricate and arousing pattern up my bare thighs.