bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered (12 page)

Tears ran down my cheeks as I watched my father fight. When he slumped in weariness another angel pulled him aside and took his place.

Two hours later they finally proclaimed her out of danger and I took what felt like the first full breath I’d taken for hours. I helped the angels wash her up and get her into a clean nightgown and then left her in their capable hands to go in search of my father.

He sat on the divan in front of a roaring fire in the living area. His head was in his hands. When he looked up, he looked indescribably weary.

I sat down next to him and laid my head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head but said nothing.

We sat in silence for several moments, too wrapped up in our emotions to speak. Finally I stood. “I don’t know about you but I could use some coffee.”

“Very hot, very black.”

“You got it.”

We moved into the kitchen and I programmed two mugs of coffee into the drink valet. I handed him his and we sat down at the long, wooden table.

“Did she tell you what happened?”

I shook my head and waited. I knew he would have pulled the memories from her mind when he was healing her.

He sighed. “She surprised a demon in her home. She tried not to use her power and he nearly killed her.” His voice cracked under the emotion of almost losing one of his girls.

I leaned into him, offering silent comfort.

He dragged a hand over his cheeks and wiped it on his robes. “Fortunately she vanquished him before he finished her off.” He turned to me with a smile. “She blew him into pieces.”

I grinned. “That’s our girl.”

He nodded, laughing through tears. “Yeah. She has more of her mother in her than she knows.”

I frowned into my coffee. Darma would
so
not like to hear that. “I saw a prophet tonight.”

He nodded. “I know.” He turned to me. “What did she tell you?”

I hesitated. He looked so tired and emotionally drained. I really didn’t want to dump what I knew on him right at that moment. But he was looking at me and I knew he expected me to tell him.

“The magic veil is growing. It’s going to be invoked fully if the Serpent can call all of his conduits together.”

My father simply nodded. “Then it’s true.”

I frowned. “You already knew?”

He shrugged. “We’ve seen it before.”

I always forgot that he was hundreds of years old. I braced myself to tell him the worst part of it. But the air changed and suddenly Myra was standing there.

I stood up to get her coffee.

She reached for my father and wrapped him in a hug. “Is she all right?”

He nodded. “It was very close. She tried not to use her powers and it nearly killed her.”

Myra took the mug from me and gave me a slight smile. She cast her blue eyes over me. “You’re a mess.”

I looked down. I was covered in Darma’s blood and my clothes were tattered and wrinkled from swimming with the demon. All visible skin was scratched and bruised and my hair was one big tangle at the back of my neck. I still smelled like a sewer from my swim. “It’s been a rough day.”

“I guess.” She gave me a genuine smile tinged with regret. Maybe she missed the excitement of hanging around me and my life. I doubted it.

I leaned down and kissed my father’s cheek. “If you’re sure she’s okay I’ll go home and get cleaned up.”

He nodded, looking up at me. “Get some rest. You look exhausted.”

I pecked Myra on the cheek and she grabbed my hand, looking into my eyes with a sternness that I knew masked her fear. “Take care, child.”

I nodded. “Come by sometime and see me. Flick doesn’t yell or abuse me. I kind of miss that.”

She gave me a look I remembered all too well and I chuckled, glancing at my father. “Do you think you could give me a lift? I’m too tired to try spaceshifting tonight.

He smiled. “Of course.” Then he touched my shoulder and we were off.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Visit to an Old Friend

A friend who lets himself be drawn, into the darkest place,

Might sometimes rue his efforts there and try to save his face.

Emo and I were sitting in my office going over current cases and divvying up the workload. It was taking a while because we were fighting over every case—I refused to let him do anything too strenuous. My televisual bleeped and a face swam online that I hadn’t seen in quite some time.

“Hello Astra.”

“Holy shit!”

Raoul smiled. “Do I look that bad?”

Well yes...he did but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I shook my head. “I’m just surprised to see you. I haven’t spoken to you for a while.”

He nodded, “I’ve been trying to regain my equilibrium...so to speak. It’s been...difficult.”

The last time I’d seen Raoul he’d looked like he was near death. He’d flirted with black magic at least one time too many—never mind that he’d done it to help me—and, as a white witch, it had nearly killed him. “I was worried about you but my father told me to let you be.” I grinned. “He said you’d come back when you could. That you couldn’t live without me.”

Raoul laughed. “I’m sure that’s it. There’s been this giant hole in my life...” He let his voice trail off with a chuckle. “But seriously, Astra...”

I made a face.

“I need to meet with you. We need to talk.”

I glanced at Emo. “Where? When?”

“How about now, at the preserve.”

I blinked. The old preserve was on the edge of the Angel City limits. It consisted of one hundred acres of untouched forest and meadow land where the Angel City coven had somehow wrangled a building and some land and had kept their headquarters for decades. All that ended a couple of months earlier, when they’d joined forces with the dark side in a power grab that had created a mini great war in the preserve. My father and I, along with a cast of friends, acquaintances and the celestial army, had faced down my mother and an angel named Enoch. We’d also fought the coven and a bevy of dark celebrants. It had been an ugly battle that had taken its toll on the coven and the preserve and I hadn’t been back there since. I
had
heard, however, that the coven had disbanded what was left of its membership shortly after the battle.

“The preserve?”

He nodded. “I’ll be in the headquarters building. The door will be open.”

He faded away and I glanced at Emo. He arched an elegant black eyebrow and stood. “Let’s go.”

I opened my mouth to tell him that he had to stay at the office but then I remembered he had the hot, fast air vehicle and I had the slow, ugly air booger. I bent my lips into a devious smile instead. “I’ll let you come if I can fly.”

His golden toned face paled to a weak yellow. Shaking his head, he lifted his hands as if to deflect an attack. “No way, boss.”

I continued smiling.

He scowled. “I mean it, Astra, I’m holding my ground on this one. Nobody drives the Knight but me.”

~SC~

“I really like the way it handles,” I said to Emo, who was glowering at me from the passenger seat, “but the leather’s a little stiff.”

His glare deepened. “I didn’t order the buttery leather option. That costs extra.”

I glanced at him, not sure if he was giving me a hard time or telling the truth. “I like the color.”

He sat up straighter. “You are not getting the same color, Astra.”

I shrugged. “I’ll probably stick with blood red. It suits me better.”

He snorted in agreement.

The Knight’s auto directional system pinged and a sexy female voice told me that we were about to arrive at our destination. I slid a look at Emo and he shrugged, grinning. “You can program a male voice if you want.”

The Knight dropped into a long, approach lane, with overarching trees on both sides. The lane had been cut right through the dense forestry that encompassed about ninety percent of the preserve and it felt like a tunnel through the trees.

The light level dropped from mist-induced murky to near dark. The Knight’s system immediately took note of the change and beams of light emerged from its glossy undercarriage to scour the ground below and the air space around us.

I programmed in landing stats and sat back, forcing myself to think about the meeting ahead of me. I’d been avoiding consideration of the encounter since Raoul had called, realizing I was laboring under an intimidating fog of guilt for my role in Raoul’s breakdown. I knew that, ultimately, he’d made his own choice to dabble in the black arts and damage his soul but I couldn’t escape my part in that choice.

I took a deep breath as the Knight slid silently toward the ground in front of the building that had once housed the Angel City coven. It was a large, low-slung ranch house, built of brick in warm shades of cream and brown. The grounds around the building were overgrown, with a general air of neglect. Weeds climbed the sides of the stairs leading to the front door and grew up in between cracks in the wooden deck that ran the length of the building.

One shutter hung askew and black, sooty splotches marred the surface of the building. Most likely the remains of errant power jolts.

I opened the front door and entered the dark, cool interior of the building, my gaze casting around in a wide arc to take in every corner and niche in the entryway and adjoining rooms. Emo stayed close at my back, one hand on the knife handle sticking up from his thigh sheath. I could feel the tension in his body from a foot away.

“Raoul?” Someone had cleaned the place out, removing furniture and wall decorations as far as the eye could see. My voice bounced off the bare walls and came back to me sounding uncertain.

I glanced at Emo. He shrugged. “I don’t feel anyone.”

Frowning, I pulled a knife from the sheath I’d strapped to my own thigh. We worked our way through the building, finding pretty much the same thing throughout. All the rooms had been stripped of furnishings as well as the people who had inhabited them. Eventually we ended up in the room where Dialle and I had once expected to meet with the Supreme High Witch. Instead we’d encountered Astis, the beautiful and truly evil Supreme High Commander of the coven.

That memory was the first time I’d thought of Astis since the unfortunate meeting. I suddenly wondered what had become of her.

The room Emo and I entered still held furniture. And a person.

“Hello Raoul.”

He turned away from the garden window which ran the length of one wall. The flowers in the window looked well cared for and healthy. By contrast, the grounds beyond the window were brown and unkempt like the front, with huge holes marking spots where the previous month’s air battle had found its way to the ground.

The room was cluttered and untidy. It looked as if someone had pulled a large part of the furnishings from the house into a single room. A messy pile of blankets and pillows covered the divan in front of a fireplace that burned steadily, thickening the air of the room with a slight wash of smoke.

It appeared that Raoul had been living there.

His eyes were filled with remembered pain. Circles deepened the soft brown of his skin to purple underneath his sad, brown gaze. His dark hair, previously glossy, with soft curls that spoke of his Latin heritage, looked coarse and dry and was liberally sprinkled with gray. “Hello, Astra. How are you?”

Even his voice sounded damaged.

Following my instincts, I walked across the room and pulled him into a hug. He stiffened as my arms went around him but quickly softened into it, returning the embrace as his arms went around my back. “I’ve been worried.”

He sighed and his head rested against mine. I thought I felt his lips softly touch the top of my head but I wasn’t sure.

We stood that way for a minute and then he pulled away. “I’m actually a lot better now. But it was a bit hairy there for a while.” His smile was tired but sincere.

I nodded, glancing around. “You’ve been staying here?”

“It seemed like a good idea. Nobody comes here anymore and I needed a place to stay where I could be alone.”

Emo walked forward with his hand extended. “Raoul.”

Raoul took the offered hand. “Emo. I’m glad you’re here.”

Emo’s elegant, black eyebrows rose in question but he said nothing.

Raoul walked to the divan and dragged the bedding off, dropping it behind the piece of furniture on the floor. He indicated with a sweeping hand that he wanted Emo and me to sit down.

We complied and he moved to stand in front of the fire. He stood for a few moments, watching the fire. We waited.

Finally he said. “I’ve seen my death in the mist.”

I glanced at Emo. He shook his head sadly.
Oh god, Astra
.

Let’s just hear him out.

Raoul turned away from the fire and approached me. He said nothing, simply holding out his arm. I swung my questioning gaze from his face and looked at the proffered arm.

I gasped. “Holy shit!” All of the blood fled my face.

He had a mark just like mine on his wrist.

I looked at him. “Has he visited your dreams?”

Raoul nodded. “I’ve been fighting him...”

I stood up. “You need to keep fighting him, Raoul. He can’t do it without us.”

Emo shot to his feet, “Us?” He grabbed my arm and turned it over, running a finger across my devil’s mark. “Astra! Why didn’t you tell me?”

I sighed and yanked my arm away, ignoring Emo and keeping a fierce gaze on the witch in front of me. “We can’t let him do this, Raoul.”

He sighed and dropped into the chair nearest the fire. His gaze slid back to the flames. “I won’t let him win, Astra. I’ll kill myself first.”

And that told me more clearly than words what his intentions in calling me there had been. I shook my head and dropped to my knees in front of him. “No! No, Raoul, listen to me.” I grabbed his face between my hands and turned it so he couldn’t avoid my gaze. “Killing yourself won’t stop him. Don’t you understand, he’ll just find another conduit. He’s chosen us for a reason. We need to figure out what that reason is so we can use it to stop him.”

Raoul turned a haunted gaze to me and smiled sadly. “I don’t have the strength to do that Astra. I-I’m afraid.” He dropped his head into his hands. His voice came to me muffled. “I’m afraid I won’t have the strength to resist him.”