bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered (26 page)

The air beside my father hissed and Myra popped into view. She was grinning and looked much better than the last time I’d seen her.

My father’s face clearly showed his surprise, “Sister!” He wrapped her in a hug, “How is it possible?”

She shrugged, “Perhaps the virus is weakening.”

Something danced at the edge of comprehension but I couldn’t quite grasp what it was. All I really knew was that I was happy to see Myra healthy and strong again.

Father held her at arm’s length and gave her a thorough looking over. “Are you sure you’re up for this?’

She nodded, throwing off his hands. “I’ve never been more ready. I’ve been lying on my back for days. I need to...as Astra so eloquently puts it...”

“Kick some ass?”

She turned to me and grinned, “Exactly.”

“All right then,” father said, “Let’s do this thing.” He turned toward the door, which I assumed was all that separated us from lots of trouble.

He reached for the handle of the metal door. We all stilled expectantly.

Father shoved the door open.

Torre moved in front of Darma. She shoved his arm and stepped up next to him. I pulled knives from my boots. A sword appeared in Dialle’s hand and power spit at Emo’s fingertips. Father and auntie Myra lifted their wings, growing in size as energy sizzled around them.

Nothing happened. The room beyond was still. It appeared empty.

We entered the room and moved into the center in a nervous wad, glancing around with wary eyes. It appeared to be a large, empty room with bays to the outside. Probably for emergency medi-vans. It smelled slightly of vehicle fuel and other mechanical things.

Father turned to me and smiled, “It appears...”

Something large, brown and leathery landed on his back with a spit-filled roar. He went down as several more gargoyles dropped from the rafters above our heads, landing with varying amounts of accuracy either on us or around us.

I had a huge maw filled with razor sharp teeth attached to my shoulder before I could use my knives against the one currently chewing on my father. Dropping my knife, I lifted a hand and smacked the one on my shoulder between the eyes with a power-induced blow. The goyle’s head snapped back, taking a fair amount of my skin with it as the ’goyle slid to the ground. I finished it off with a power arrow between the eyes.

Glancing around, I saw that the demon handlers had joined the fray. I reached for the one nearest me, who was hiding behind a gargoyle corpse in an effort to avoid Darma’s misaimed power jolts, and touched his black, leathery ear with my power. The thing screamed like a girl and leapt to its feet, right into the path of Darma’s power.

As he burst into atmospheric gas something whipped past my head, tightening around my throat and cutting off my breath. I reached toward the thick chain just as the demon on the other end gave it a yank, jerking me off my feet and into his waiting arms.

Hitting his rigid, scaly chest hard enough to knock all the air out of my lungs, I struggled to breathe as he twisted the chain to tighten it. Then he lifted me off my feet with the chain and turned me so that my face was mere inches from his.

I was close enough to see the oil droplets emerging from the overlarge pores on his wide, leather face. He grinned meanly, showing several rows of sharp, crooked teeth and choking me under a wave of swamp breath. “Hello, Mx. Phelps.”

I’d managed to get one hand partially under the chain, enough to give myself a smidgeon of air, and had propped my feet on the demon’s thick, treelike legs to take some of the pressure off my throat. But my eyes still felt like they were bulging from their sockets and I thought all the blood in my head was going to explode out of my ears from the pressure.

The demon gave the chain a little shake and laughed. I hung there like a fish on a string, jerking wildly as I tried to loosen the chain around my neck. Power arrows zinged past us at an alarming rate and the demon held me up in front of its body so I would catch any that were on target.

I needed to do something. Fast.

Dropping my free hand from my neck, I slid it between the demon and me. I stretched as far as I could but still couldn’t quite reach the spot I was looking for. Bending my knees, I coughed as the chain tightened on my throat but, if I strained my short little arm to its maximum, I could just about reach...

My fingers found their target.

I sent my power into the soft, squishy spot between the demon’s thick legs and quickly found myself flying through the air again.

I skidded across the floor, dodging feet and flying energy. Dragging the heavy chain from my neck, I launched myself to my feet and swung the chain, catching the demon I’d just zapped in the family crest around the throat. No easy task since he was still hopping around holding his jewels and screaming like a girl.

The screaming stopped as the chain tightened around his throat and he turned to me with horror in his beady little eyes. I smiled.
That
was the type of balance I strove to achieve in my life. The demon was on the correct end of the leash.

“Bye bye, demon,” I said and then I gave the chain a power-induced jerk and heard the resounding crack as the demon’s spine broke under the lash of the thick chain.

“To Hades with you, fool. For God hath tired of you.”

As my demon hit the floor I looked around. Everyone else was standing there looking at me. They’d all vanquished their demons already and were peering at me like I was some kind of screw up.

“What?”

Darma’s pretty face had just one drop of green, demon blood on it. Just above her left eye. “Stop screwing around, Astra. We need to get to the hostages.”

I looked at Dialle and he grinned.

Chuckling, Emo shook his head.

I stood there with my mouth flapping indignantly and then gave a huff and stalked after my father, who was heading toward the next door and the next chapter of the hell that was my life.

I pushed my father gently to the side as he reached for the door handle. He looked a question at me and I shook my head. “I’m not taking any chances this time.”

I reached out and blasted the door to smithereens, sending it skittering into the next room with a loud screeching sound. Dense smoke and silence followed as the door skidded to a stop. I held my arm out to keep everyone from entering the smoke filled room beyond.

Just when I started thinking I was being overly dramatic, something larger than a bug with wings shot through the door and headed right for my face.

I got the impression of feral orange eyes in an angry face before it hit me, landing on my cheek as I instinctively jerked my head sideways to avoid it. I shrieked at what felt like hundreds of tiny little knives piercing the skin of my cheek and ripping.

Warm moisture slid down my torn cheek.

I was vaguely aware of the whirring sound of hundreds of tiny wings whizzing past me as I swung my head in a frantic attempt to keep the dark fairy from my eyes. I tried to reach up to grab it. But my arms wouldn’t move. Bending my knees, I flung myself into the air, flipping feet over head before I realized that I couldn’t catch myself with the arms that, somehow, had gotten tied around my body with glittery but seemingly unbreakable fairy twine.

I tucked hard before my head slammed into the ground and took the brunt of the impact between my shoulder blades. As I hit the ground the dark fairy flew off my face and travelled several feet before she was able to get her wings behind her again and stop the momentum.

I had about two seconds to break the fairy twine before she was on me again. I sent power into it and it crumbled, only to be replaced immediately by a new batch just below my shoulders. There was a slight tug and the fairy was on my face again. She’d drawn herself in using the pretty but deadly twine.

A heartbeat later, the fairy was off my face and dangling by her wings in front of me, her evil face a study in surprise. I broke the twine again, watching it crumble to my feet.

Emo shot a killing jolt into the tiny terror. She crumbled away just like her twine.

“Thanks, partner.”

He didn’t move, didn’t reach for me but I had a sudden sensation of soft, warm lips on mine. My knees buckled at the sheer unexpected pleasure and my eyes widened as a spectral finger caressed down my torn cheek, sending healing warmth into the bleeding flesh and making it whole again.

“There,” he said with a faint smile, “that’s better.”

Tingling warmth had pooled at the juncture of my thighs and I squeezed my knees together on a sudden wave of lust. I opened my mouth to confront him about the spectral beguilement but he was gone.

I found him on the other side of the room, holding another fairy away from Darma by the wings. His dark gaze met mine across the space and he smiled...a little smugly I thought.

Shaking my head, I located my father and headed for him. With the exception of a couple which Torre and Darma still struggled with, the dark fairies were pretty much all fairy dust on the floor.

Flick stood watching my sister and her prince in case they needed backup.

Father was standing off to the side, talking quietly to Dialle, whose head was lowered as he listened quietly. I stalked up to them, still feeling angry at Emo for taking me by surprise. The last thing I needed was to be distracted by Emo’s apparent abilities as a phantom lover.

So of course I glared at my father and Dialle. They were handy. “What are you two doing?”

Father turned to me in surprise. “Astra. What’s wrong?”

Damn him for being so perceptive.

“Nothing’s wrong. Why do you ask?” I responded angrily.

He stared at me for a long moment and then shook his head.

I felt Dialle’s eyes on me and turned. Hurt and anger were clearly visible in his features and guilt surged through me. That made me even angrier because I hadn’t done anything to feel guilty about.

Not really.

Well, I had enjoyed Emo’s phantom kiss but I hadn’t asked for it.

I was a victim.

Everybody knew that. Didn’t they?

Dialle’s black eyes pulsed with angry red colors.

Shit! Apparently not everybody.

I glared at him, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He said nothing. His eyes met mine glare for glare and he reached toward my face. I flinched as his finger touched my lips and he pulled it back so I could see the tip of it. Sparkling gold dust coated the end of his finger.

My eyes widened and I reached up to touch my lips. When I pulled it away my finger sparkled. I frowned.

Apparently thinking we needed to deal with whatever we were dealing with by ourselves, my father went to join Darma and Torre, who had finally vanquished the remaining fairies and were standing over the dust on the floor staring at it as if perplexed.

Dialle lowered his voice so that his words could be heard only by the two of us. “His father was well known at Nerul’s Court for his ability to make phantom love to the ladies without their bonded mates even knowing that he’d breeched their bonds. It became such a problem at court that King Nerul was forced to place a curse on him. The curse provides physical proof of his spectral infidelities...in the form of a fine, gold dust.” Dialle’s midnight gaze pierced me with unspoken accusation. “Only the bonded pair can see this proof.” He stood for a moment longer, glaring at me while my mouth flapped mutely. I didn’t know what to say to him. I hadn’t done anything wrong. But he would never believe that. I knew it from the look on his dark, angry face.

Then he popped out of the room and I stood there, alone in a room filled with other people, wondering how I’d gotten myself in so much trouble, without, for once, even doing anything stupid to warrant it.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dragon Breath

The creature met our lady’s power, with a fire of its own,

And lifted her away from there, to places she’d not known.

A thunderous roar knocked my introspective into self-pity right out of my head. Something really big hit the door nearest me, bending it inward on its hinges. The door arched inward again, fire spewing through the cracks. Putting distance between me and the wall of flames on the other side of the door, I scanned the room for a place to take cover.

“Get behind something that won’t immediately combust!” I screamed into the room.

I threw myself behind a large chunk of air vehicle which leaned against the far wall and peered out at my sister and the rest. Darma was just standing there, a perplexed look on her face as she stared at the door. I panicked, pulled my power forward and suddenly she disappeared with a pop.

She reappeared beside me looking decidedly unhappy.

Darma flopped backward as she landed, her hands slamming against the wall to catch herself. She turned to me with a glare. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Astra? You could have killed me!”

I decided honesty would be best. “I don’t know, sometimes I panic and do stuff I don’t know how to do. Sorry.”

She stared hard at me for a few beats and then let go of her tension on a long sigh. “Just don’t do it again.”

Another roar saturated the air and another assault on the door cut off any response I might have made. The door started to bend inward again. The hinges and the lock seemed to be holding but the middle bent vertically as the metal softened from the incredible amount of heat being thrown at it. Reaching up, I pulled Darma under the protective metal with me.

With a horrendous screeching sound, the door shot free of its hinges and sailed across the room, heading directly toward us.

I cursed and started to form a protective bubble but suddenly the air around Darma and me glistened and thickened into a bubble so large it included most of the room.

The door pinged harmlessly off the bubble, still several feet away.

It was quickly followed by a thick stream of fire that filled the entire door and pulsed against my sister’s very impressive bubble.

“Frunk me,” I murmured.

Darma shrugged. “I guess I can do things when I panic too.” A sheepish smile danced onto her face and I couldn’t help laughing.