We landed on the sidewalk outside Demonica and pulled apart with an almost audible sucking sound. I took three quick steps backward and rubbed my tingling palms down the legs of my slacks. I didn’t think it would be ladylike to rub the other tingling parts right out there on the sidewalk.
Dialle just stood there smiling at me. “Hold that thought, my lovely Tweener.”
Temper flared at the smug look on his face as well as my growing frustration at being interrupted again. The fact that I knew it was for the best didn’t make it one little iota easier to accept.
Pushing my chin toward the sky and gathering my tattered dignity around me, I quickly marched to the door and grabbed the handle, figuring action was required to minimize what had just happened between us. I gave the door a fierce yank.
It’s really hard to look dignified when you almost fall on your face.
The stupid door was locked and my momentum nearly did me in. I regained my balance and looked up, through the glass, into a pair of wide-set beady eyes in a purple leather face. The demon on the other side of the door was laughing.
I felt the need to kill. “Open the damnable door, turd from Hades!”
The demon’s laughing face was joined by another and then another until I felt myself reaching for the vial around my neck. No doubt about it, I was gonna need a dignity transplant after this. “I demand that you open this door and let Prince Dialle and me in. Alcott is expecting us and won’t be pleased if you deny us entrance.”
I didn’t have a clue if this was true but it sounded good.
The demons had stopped laughing but looked far from frightened by my declaration. I opened my mouth to scream at them just as I felt the heat of a strong, golden hand on my shoulder. I looked up into a pair of gorgeous black eyes rimmed in gold.
Any trace of remaining amusement died on the demons’ faces when Dialle leveled that royal gaze on them. The demon king might feel the need to break away from the royals and stand alone but centuries of subjugation had created a sense of awe and an innate aura of submission on the demon side that would be hard to overcome.
Dialle’s gaze seemed to mesmerize the demons and, although he didn’t say a word, they reached to open the door.
My yummy Prince moved the golden hand from my shoulder to the small of my back and he gave me a gentle nudge toward the door. I refused to look at him but couldn’t resist shuffling his mental drawers a bit.
I want to learn how to do that thing with the eyes you do. It could be very effective in my job.
His sexy laugh filled my head, causing parts south of the border to clench in happy anticipation
. It is not so much a thing, as you call it, as it is a healthy and intelligent fear of their betters.
I could almost hear the laughter in his voice that he was trying to hold back.
It would be perhaps difficult for you to project, given your propensity for comical behavior in the face of difficulty.
I turned to glare at him and, unfortunately caught the beady red eye of the demon that had laughed at me through the door. Putting the quotation marks around Dialle’s nasty but all too true comment, the oily purple face split in another grin as the damnable thing looked at me. Feeling my devil come out in a big way, I smiled back.
Something in my smile must have warned the demon because his smile died on the vine and he took a half step back as we passed. It didn’t save him though. As I walked past the evil thing I reached up and gave it a jolt of power in the tip of one long, pointed ear. I figured his yelp could probably be heard in the furthest reaches of Demonica.
I smiled.
Dialle grinned down at me and shook his head.
I shrugged.
Hey, what can I say? Tweener. Half devil.
His warm laughter coated my mind.
And I must say you do the race proud lovely Astra.
As we entered the cavernous main room of the club we were met by a huge demon with a black body and snow white hair. The demon’s wide, simian brow hung over a pair of small, red eyes to the point that you could barely see them. He placed his enormous frame into a defensive stance and clasped hands that could pop a basketball behind his back. He simply stood there, glowering at us and saying nothing.
We stopped in the middle of the dance floor and glared back at the thing.
Dialle finally spoke. “Take us to Alcott. We are expected.”
The black and white mountain just stared at us, unmoving.
I looked at Dialle and grinned.
You want me to zap him?
Dialle scowled but didn’t look away from the immovable demon. “If Alcott would like the ear of King Dialle the First, you will take us to him now.”
The demon simply stood there.
We made a move as if to go around him and he shifted to stay in front of us, his huge form seeming to grow to fill the available space.
A commotion at the front door of the club drew our attention away from the stubborn demon and we turned to see what was happening behind us.
I smiled as I saw who had joined us. Dialle did
not
smile.
What’s he doing here?
I invited him.
Why?
He’s my partner, I need his help.
You do not need that pretend royal. You have me.
Oh stop being such a baby. Emo has a way with demons. I thought he might come in handy.
Emo strolled up to us, a cocky smile decorating his beautiful golden face. “Hey boss.”
I smiled back. Something warm and tingly spread through my chest and headed south. “Hey yourself. Did you have any trouble getting through the door?”
He just laughed in response, causing the warm tinglies to kick up their heels and make babies. I gulped and turned away from my longtime friend and partner. I was
so
not used to having these feelings where he was concerned. Barely a week ago he was squat and red and got on my nerves on a regular basis.
Now he looked like something off the cover of a sex novel and his eyes devoured me every time we looked at each other. My greatest fear, however, was that my eyes were returning the favor.
He turned said devouring eyes on me now. “What’s the problem here?”
I gestured toward the immovable demon. “He won’t let us past. I think we’re going to have to take him down.” I tried to peer under the brow overhang on the demon’s face to see if my threat even registered in his eyes but the beady red things were entrenched in shadow and no body movement betrayed his feelings.
Emo looked at the demon for a beat or two and then stepped closer to it. When he was standing barely a foot away from the thing he reached up and placed a hand on the demon’s oily brow.
I couldn’t help grimacing. I knew firsthand what demon skin felt like and I was always repulsed at the idea of touching it.
After a moment Emo turned back to me, studiously ignoring Dialle. “He’s under orders to keep Prince Dialle out.”
Dialle scowled. “How do you know this?”
Emo motioned to the black and white mountain before us. “This is a demon from the city of Dis in the lower circle of Hell. His kind have been stopping entry into the city for millennia.” Emo turned to Dialle and grinned. “And now he’s stopping you.”
I frowned. Having read Dante in college I was familiar with the city of Dis. “You mean the city is real?”
Emo looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You’re joking right?”
I guess that was that. Mentally shaking off the whole subject of circles of Hell I turned to Dialle. “I guess you’ll have to wait here.”
Dialle scowled. “That is not acceptable. If they want to send a message to my father it will have to be through me.”
I looked at Emo. He shrugged and tried to look neutral but amusement sparkled in his midnight eyes. “If the king himself refuses to come speak to Alcott, the demons will only speak to a completely neutral party…or parties.” He grinned at Dialle.
I thought Dialle was going to explode so I took quick action.
Let it go, Dialle. Let me go talk to these piles of excrement from Hades and get it over with. We’re just wasting time here.
His scowl deepened and his gold-ringed gaze was locked on my partner with obvious evil intent. After a moment Emo jumped a bit and his eyes narrowed but the smug smile returned to his face. I figured they must be communicating in the centuries-old fashion of the royals. One part mental conversation and two parts metaphysical dick twisting.
Shaking my head I pushed past Dialle and grabbed Emo’s arm. “Let’s go child. You can wring each other’s nether regions on your own time.”
Dialle’s mouth opened as if to argue when Emo and I brushed past the demon mountain and proceeded toward the lower level but I threw up a hand to cut him off.
I need backup down there, Dialle.
I was sure Dialle would understand, as I did from horror-filled personal experience, that the place where the king of the demons held court was extremely dangerous and eminently unpredictable. I’d ventured down there once all by my little self and had been lucky to get out of there with my soul intact. As it was it had taken me some little time to regain my composure and get the stench of evil out of my nose. Suffice it to say I was
not
looking forward to descending those stone stairs.
A stark sense of déjà vu met me as I started down the rough-hewn steps through impenetrable inky blackness. As before when I’d been forced to descend these stairs, I closed my eyes and threw out my sensing power to find my way to the bottom. Unfortunately my senses slid over several things I wasn’t looking forward to encountering in that subterranean conclave.
I reached out a hand to touch Emo at the same time I nudged his mental drawers.
Gargoyles. Several.
He was standing so close behind me I could feel him nodding.
I hate gargoyles.
Immense understatement.
A gargoyle had almost taken Emo from me not all that long ago. The event had forced me to reach more deeply into my growing power core to heal him. An unintended consequence of which had been to strengthen the bond between Dialle and me. It had also changed the relationship between Emo and me for all time. And it had scared the shit out of both of us.
We moved off the bottom step cautiously, our senses on high alert and finally opened our eyes. The room was dimly lit and smelled of age and evil things. My heart was doing a rumba under my ribs, apparently voicing its opinion on the situation my mouth and brain had gotten it into. Emo was wearing his discomfort like an additional layer to his aura.
However, the would-be demon king lounged in the center of the cavernous space at complete ease. Sprawled really, in a large, gaudy-looking throne-chair that only a pretender to royalty would think was royal-like. He seemed completely unconcerned by our presence.
Either he wasn’t nearly as cautious of us as we were of him or he was pretty sure his disgusting, slathering minions—in the form of both demons and gargoyles—which were spread around the room, could take care of us before we put any holes or burn marks in his not-so-fair skin.
“Mx. Phelps. At last we meet. I’ve heard many things about you.”
Which of course begged the question,
what
things had he heard? I moved forward on reluctant legs with a carefully crafted badass look on my face. My attempt at bravado may or may not have had any effect on Alcott. Like his deceased brother his monochromatic features were naturally and unavoidably expressionless. His skin color of choice, however, was the shadow version of Abrine’s. He was solid black to his dead brother’s unchanging white.
The yin and yang of nightmares.
“My partner and I are here as representatives of King Dialle the First.”
The demon king sat up a bit straighter at that pronouncement and his featureless, black face tilted as if in question. I remembered the same gesture from his brother. When one didn’t have visible facial expressions apparently one had to use body language to show surprise.
I waited, knowing what would come next.
“You dare come to me as King Dialle’s representative.” His face may not have shown any emotion but his voice sure did. “I asked for a neutral party to carry my message. How did you get past the Guard of Dis?”
Knowing I couldn’t really get away with lying, I decided to see how some Tweener attitude might work. I merely shrugged my shoulders and tried to look bored. “I really don’t know, Alcott. Perhaps you should take it up with him—it. For now, we have business to discuss. I assure you I will carry your message to King Dialle the First just as you present it to me.”
I stopped talking and waited. My motto is, in this type of negotiation, he who talks first loses. I held my breath and watched. I had just stomped on the exposed baby toe of arguably the second most powerful being in the dark world. Not a smart thing to do if you are really only a lowly Tweener. Delusions of grandeur aside.
I knew I was running the risk of seriously pissing off the boogeyman. But I’d had no choice. The only thing demons respect and understand is strength, which in their world is thoroughly mixed up with pure obnoxiousness. Any attempts at discussion or the application of fairness to an issue are construed as weakness.
Alcott’s featureless countenance faced me for a long moment and I held my breath. I hoped my badass expression was still firmly in place. My mental drawers shifted and Emo was in but there was just heavy breathing. Apparently he was just in for support and had nothing to say. I couldn’t resist,
Demon got your tongue, partner?
Very funny Astra. We are a razor-sharp demon hair away from becoming gargoyle kibble. I’d appreciate it if you’d pay attention to your work.
I thought a rigid salute at him and said,
Yessir!
Alcott chose that second, when I wasn’t exactly paying attention of course, to signal the attack. Emo’s heavy breathing in my mind turned into a mumbled narrative as the first wave of gargoyles and their demon handlers turned toward us. Even as he reached for the set of long knives he kept strapped to his thighs Emo’s mind was on chastising me rather than the work ahead.