Chapter Twelve
The words came
through to me as if through a dense fog.
“—think we should get
a doctor. She’s been out for two hours now. Maybe she’s seriously
hurt.”
“I’m not hurt,” I
said, amazed that my mouth was working even before my brain was. I
opened up my eyes, even more amazed that I was still alive. My last
cognizant thought before my brain had shut down had been that
Bael’s power must surely have burned me up and left me nothing but
a crispy shell of my former self.
Former self . . . for
some reason those words wiggled around in my mind until I sat up,
clawing at the blankets that covered me, gasping,
“Alec!”
“Is out with Kristoff
dumping Brother Ailwin in the river. At least that’s what they said
they were going to do. I don’t think they really would, but there
are times when I just don’t want to know, and this is one of them,”
Pia said, smiling at me. “How do you feel?”
“Groggy.” I put my
hand to my head, surprised to find it intact. Alec?
You’re awake? Good. Are you sitting
down?
Yes, I’m awake, and why on earth would you want to know if
I’m sitting?
Because I intend on lecturing you for a very long time,
and it would be better for my peace of mind if I knew you were
comfortable during it. For the love of the saints, Beloved, do not
ever do that to me again ! If I had been mortal, you would have
stripped at least twenty-five years from my life
span!
I giggled. Pia raised
an eyebrow. “Is he giving you hell? ”
“Yes, I think he’s
about to.” I laughed again.
“It’s probably best
if you let him work it out of his system. I’ve found that the
vampires may look all urbane and in control and stuff like that,
but they get grumpy if you don’t let them have their drama queen
moments. I’ll be downstairs when he’s through. I should probably
check that Eleanor hasn’t gone on a rampage while I’ve been waiting
for you to wake up.”
All right, I told Alec, sitting on the edge of the
bed. What happened? How come you escaped being
fried to a crisp, or blasted into kingdom come, or whatever would
have happened to you if Bael’s power had hit
you?
You told me to hide. As soon as I realized we had been
Joined, I threw myself out of the window.
But I saw someone get nailed.
It was the other lich the dark power struck. He is no
more.
Poor guy. Should have been his boss. Hey, you went into
the sunlight? Oh Alec! How badly are you
burned?
I’m not now. I wasn’t much burned then, either, because
the Joining was complete. How are you feeling?
I took stock of
myself. Arms and legs seem to be moving OK.
I’ve got a bit of a headache, though. What happened to Brother
Ailwin, and are you really dumping his body into the
river?
He’s not dead, although that thought is very tempting.
When you collapsed and he realized that he couldn’t use you again
until you were conscious, he tried to carry you out to his car. I
stopped him.
There was a distinct
tone of satisfaction in his voice that I knew I should protest
against, but honestly, I felt Brother Ailwin had it coming to him.
You beat the tar out of
him?
That’s one way of putting it, yes. Kris helped a little
because he threatened Pia. But he let me have most of the
fun.
So now you . . . I stopped, feeling awkward and
suddenly a bit shy. After all that protesting I had made about Alec
being a vampire, it was a bit too much like eating crow to admit
that I was willing to bind myself to him for the rest of our
lives.
Yes, now I have my soul back. Thank you, Corazon. I know
you did not want to do this. I know you did not want to share my
life.
You know, if you were anyone else, I’d say you were
fishing for a compliment, I said somewhat testily.
And if you were any sort of a gentleman, you
wouldn’t make me eat my hat.
He
laughed.
Fine, have it your way, you obnoxious man, you. I did it
because I wanted to, not because I felt I had to. And I know you’re
not really a murderous bloodsucker. Happy now?
With regards to you? Beyond your
imagining.
His words, and the
emotions behind them, warmed me for the next hour as Pia and I
waited for the two men to return.
“Well, if this
doesn’t just take the rat’s ass and make it into a hat!” Eleanor
snarled, stomping into the room with Pia’s cell phone in hand. “I
just called the lord in charge of the hour where I live, and he
says I can’t come back. He says liches are not allowed into the
Underworld.”
“Uh . . .” Pia
blinked a couple of times at Eleanor.
“So now what am I
supposed to do?” Eleanor demanded. “Alec would rather shack up with
her than me, and I can’t go back home, where at least I had a life
and a friend with benefits, and roses who loved me, not to mention
the class I was thinking about starting on how to spin yarn using a
drop spindle and dog hair, and now I can’t!”
“Er . . .” I said, at
a loss. “What’s an hour? And there really is an
Underworld?”
Eleanor sighed and
slumped into a chair. “The Underworld is divided into twelve hours,
each ruled by a lord. I live in the seventh hour. It is very
pleasant. The lord there is English, so the hour looks like a
quaint little English village with thatched cottages and digital
cable TV and high-speed Wi-Fi Internet access. I won’t tell you how
many of my favorite shows I’m missing on the Home and Garden TV
channel, but you can rest assured that I am not happy about
it!”
“Since Kristoff and I
were responsible for bringing you here, we’ll be responsible for
getting you back,” Pia said after a moment’s thought. “I’m not sure
how we’ll do it, but there must be a way.”
“No, Alec and I will
do it,” I said, turning back to Pia’s laptop, where I had been
trying to find a phone number for the Guardian Noelle. “Ultimately,
she’s our responsibility.”
“I really dislike
being spoken of as if I’m not here,” Eleanor said with a surly look
to both of us. “And I really don’t care who fixes things, I just
want them fixed.”
“Want what fixed?”
Alec asked as he and Kristoff entered the room.
I quickly explained
the situation with Eleanor before she could unload yet another
tirade.
“Ah. Yes, we’ll find
some way to get you home if that is what you desire,” Alec
reassured her.
She gave him an
injured sniff, and kicked her heel idly against the
chair.
“I won’t ask you how
it went because I can tell by the looks on your faces that you got
rid of Brothers Ailwin and Godwin. You didn’t do anything really
bad to them, did you? ” Pia asked, immediately moving over to her
vampire, her hands all over him as if to check he was
OK.
Kristoff looked
cranky. “Alec only let me have a couple of shots at Ailwin, so no,
I didn’t.”
“I owed him more than
you,” Alec replied, cracking his knuckles and looking very pleased
with himself as he came over to see what I was doing, his fingers
trailing across the back of my neck in a caress that had me
shivering with arousal. “All we did was rough them up and hand them
over to the watch with a complaint of assault, Pia. I don’t expect
them to be held for long, however, so we will have to be on our way
soon.”
“You’d have to leave
anyway with Julian hanging around,” Pia said.
I slanted a look up
at Alec, warmed to my toenails by the passion in his eyes.
You can’t possibly want to—I almost killed
you, Alec! How can you want to make love to me when I could be used
to destroy you?
Pia is a Zorya, and wields the power to destroy
Kristoff—and every other Dark One, for that matter—but it doesn’t
stop him from indulging himself every opportunity he gets. Why
would you being a Tool of Bael mean I should do
likewise?
I shivered again at
the things he was thinking. “What’s a Zorya?”
“Huh?” Pia, who had
been gazing into Kristoff’s eyes, blinked at me a few times. “Oh,
Alec told you about me? I’m a reaper.”
“You’re a
former reaper,” Kristoff
said.
“Zoryas are a group
of women who have the power to call down the light of the moon.
They’re next in line to the Zenith. I’m also a
Zenith.”
“A former Zenith.” Kristoff was back to looking cranky
as he allowed Pia to lead him over to the love seat.
“It’s all part of a
wacky religion called the Brotherhood of the Blessed Light,” she
said, cuddling up to him. “Better known as the reapers. They booted
me from the group a month ago, which I have to admit was a bit of a
bummer, because I seriously enjoyed light binding people. But all
in all, it’s better that I not be the Dark Ones’ most hated
enemy.”
“Merciful Mary,” I
said, wondering how on earth she had ended up that
way.
It’s a long story. I shall tell it to you sometime when
you have exhausted me with your lustful
demands.
I’ll hold you to that. Both the story and fulfilling all
my lustful demands, that is.
He smiled, a long,
slow, sultry smile full of much promise.
“Oh, for the love of
the saints . . . if you four are going to sit there making googly
eyes at each other, I’m going to go see what passes for the Home
and Garden channel in Italy,” Eleanor said, stalking off to another
room. “Call me when I can go back home.”
“So if Brother Ailwin
is in jail—and stop looking at me like I’m insane, Kristoff,
because I wasn’t going to suggest that we have him summon Ulfur
after the events of this afternoon—but since he’s out of it, how
are we going to get Ulfur?” Pia asked.
“We’ll find another
lichmaster,” Kristoff told her, looking toward where I
sat.
“I’m almost done. I
found a Web site for something called the Guardians’ Guild that
lists a contact number.” I scribbled down a phone number and
relinquished the laptop. “Evidently you can hire Guardians through
them. I wish I knew Noelle’s last name.”
“It wouldn’t do you
any good if you did,” a tired voice came from the
doorway.
Kristoff was across
the room before I could blink, Alec right there with him. Kristoff
pinned a slight, balding man with dark hair and dark eyes to the
wall, Alec leaning in with a wicked intent.
“Who are you?”
Kristoff snarled.
“My apologies,” the
man said in a choked voice. Literally choked, since Kristoff held
him up by the neck just as Alec had done with Brother Ailwin. “I
should have known better than to startle Dark Ones with Beloveds in
the same room.”
“Yes, you should
have,” Alec said. “Answer the question.”
“I’m not sure he
can,” Pia said, tapping Kristoff on the arm. “His face is turning
red, Boo. You should probably let him down before he passes
out.”
Boo?
It’s Pia’s love name for Kristoff. She said he scared the
hell out of her when she first met us.
That’s fitting. You scared the crap out of me,
too.
Your first sight of me was when I killed the woman who
decapitated you. That hardly counts.
“Who are you?”
Kristoff repeated, releasing the man. He was a good foot shorter
than Alec and Kristoff, balding, dressed in a brown suit, but with
a pleasant face despite the fact that he’d just been throttled.
“And how did you get in here?”
“What did you mean
about it being of no use to call the Guardian?” Alec
added.
I moved over to where
he stood, telling my inner devil to stop attempting a new career as
a matchmaker. Unattached Beloveds were not my problem. “Just out of
curiosity, do you know Noelle?” the devil forced me to ask
nonetheless.
“My name is Terrin,”
he said, answering Kristoff first. “I walked in. Mortal doors have
never been a problem for me. It’s of no use to contact the
Guardian—who I do not personally know, by the way—because she
couldn’t get Diamond out of the Akasha.”
Mortal doors? So this guy is one of
you?
He’s not a Dark One, no. But he is immortal. Alec
considered him with interest. The name seems
familiar to me, but I can’t place it, or him.
“Why couldn’t Noelle
spring Diamond?” I asked at the same time that Kristoff, in a
growl, asked Terrin what he was doing there.
“I would be happy to
explain both if you would allow me a glass of water?” Terrin rubbed
his throat, grimacing when he hit a tender spot.
Pia gestured toward
the couch. “Of course. Please come in and sit down. Do you drink
tea? The water’s fairly hot still, I think.”
“Tea of any
temperature would be most welcome, thank you. I have had a long
journey to get here.” Terrin held up a hand, giving Kristoff a
watered-down smile. “I see you’re about to object to such
civilities. Would it relieve your mind if I told you that I am a
member of the Court of Divine Blood?”
The who of what, now? I asked Alec, moving over to
the couch to sit with Pia opposite Terrin.
“It might,” Kristoff
allowed.
It is what the mortals think of as heaven. Or rather, the
mortals based their notion of heaven upon the
Court.
So he’s a good guy?
Presumably so.
“Heaven?” Pia said
aloud, looking startled. I had a feeling she’d been asking the very
same thing of Kristoff. “You’re from heaven? Are you an angel or
something?”
“The Court is not
heaven, although we are frequently confused for it, and there are
no angels there, simply employees. Thank you, I’ll take it black if
you don’t mind.” Terrin gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Pia,
who gestured at me with the teapot, setting it down when I shook my
head. “In answer to both questions, I am here because I have been
sent by the mares to seek the help of Corazon. You don’t mind me
calling you that, do you?” he asked me.
“No, I don’t. You
don’t work for Bael, by any chance?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
Why would someone want me to help them if not to use my Toolness?
“And how do you know about Diamond?”
“Who are the mares?”
Pia asked at the same time. “More importantly, just how did you
know where to find Cora?”
“So many questions,”
he said, sipping his tea. “And so little time to answer them. I
will explain as quickly as I can. I am unarmed,” he added to
Kristoff, who lurked next to him, watching him with a suspicious
expression. “And I intend no one here any harm.”
“You just admitted
you wish to use Cora,” Alec said, in a mild voice that didn’t at
all disguise his hostility.
“Not in the sense you
mean,” Terrin said, suddenly looking exhausted. “It has been a very
long day. Let me start at the beginning, and see if we can’t get
through this quickly, so that my visit will not have been in vain.
I am a seneschal at the Court, which basically makes me a
middle-level bureaucrat. One of the three mares—they are
second-in-command to the Sovereign, who rules the Court—has sent me
to seek the aid of Corazon Ferreira, mortal, who was imbued two
days previously with the Occio di Lucifer.”
“Former mortal. She
is now my Beloved,” Alec corrected him.
I really am immortal now?
Yes.
Wow. I thought about that for a few minutes.
That’s kind of mind-blowing. At least now Jas
can stop fretting that she’s going to live forever, and I’ll be an
old lady who looks like her grandma rather than her
sister.
“So I see. You have
my felicitations.”
Alec bowed his head
in acknowledgment.
Are you guys always so formal and
old-fashioned?
It is the way of the bureaucrats, yes. I prefer to live in
the here and now, but many beings in the Otherworld honor the old
ways.
Gotcha. “What sort of aid?”
“I believe our goals
are the same,” Terrin said, setting down his teacup. “The mare in
question—Mare Disin—desires to free her great-granddaughter from
the Akasha, namely, one Diamond Reed.”
I gawked at him
despite the fact that I was gawking far too much ever since I’d met
Alec. “Diamond has a grandma who is in heaven?” I shook my head.
“That came out wrong. She’s got a grandma who is a big-time angel?
Boy, that still doesn’t sound right.”
“Diamond has a
great-grandmother who is one of the three individuals who wields
great power in the Court of Divine Blood, yes,” Terrin said,
glancing at his watch. “And we are running out of time to effect a
rescue.”
“I have heard of the
mares,” Alec said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “If they wield as
much power as is reputed, why does not this mare simply remove her
descendant from the Akasha?”
“The mares’ powers
are confined to the Court; they have none outside of it, much less
so in the Akasha.”
“But they do control
the Hashmallim,” Kristoff interrupted.
“I was just going to
point that out,” Alec agreed, turning to me to add, since he knew I
was going to ask, “The Hashmallim are the beings who act as the
police force of the Court of Divine Blood. They also serve to guard
the Akasha. It is because of them that we could not simply leave
it.”
“I remember the
greeter saying something about them,” I murmured, wondering what
Diamond was doing at that moment. Was she worried? Afraid? Guilt
swamped me at being so caught up with Alec that I had been ready to
let her happily putter on her own in the Akasha. Despite her
reassurance that she was looking forward to seeing all the Akasha
had to offer, it was still a place of punishment, and she had done
nothing to deserve being trapped there.
“They do indeed
direct the Hashmallim,” Terrin acknowledged, smiling his thanks
when Pia poured him more tea. Already the bruise marks on his
throat had almost faded to nothing. “And if Her Grace Disin had
asked the Hashmallim to take her great-granddaughter to the Akasha,
she would most certainly be able to demand a release. But Diamond
was banished by Bael himself, and combined with the fact that she
is a vessel, it makes for difficulties in gaining her release
without extraordinary measures.”
“I understood, like,
one word in five in that,” I told Pia. “How about
you?”
“One in four,” she
said, patting my knee. “But I’ve been around these guys longer than
you. What’s a vessel?”
“A member of the
Court of Divine Blood. In the hierarchy of the Court, they are the
lowest member, and justly serve mortals. They answer
to—”
“Whoa, wait just a
second, here,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “You’re saying that
Diamond is an angel, too? Diamond who stole my husband away from
me?”
Alec made an abortive
gesture.
“Not that I wanted
him anymore, and I’m much happier without him,” I said quickly,
flashing a quick smile at Alec. “But still, she stole him from me!
Angels don’t do that!”
“She is a vessel,”
Terrin said, his warm brown eyes doing a little twinkle thing at
me. “She serves mortals.”
I thought about that
for a moment. “You’re saying she took Dermott from me because . .
.” My gaze shifted to Alec, enlightenment dawning in the dusty
hallways of my mind. “Because I was going to meet
Alec?”
“Because you are a
Beloved, and you have a moral code that would not allow you to
fulfill that role if you were bound to another man,” Terrin said,
hiding his smile in the cup of tea.
“I can’t help but be
a little annoyed with the fact that she thought she’d just come
along and manipulate my life like that,” I said, feeling
disgruntled and somewhat betrayed. “I thought she really loved him.
I thought he was better off with her. I thought I was doing the
right thing by giving them my blessing.”
Terrin shrugged. “She
most likely does love him. Her job would not have required her to
marry him, so I assume she felt they had a future together. And
just for the record, no member of the Court takes it upon
themselves to manipulate mortals. We may guide now and again, but
in the end, the choice of what path your life takes is entirely
yours.”
My gaze went again to
Alec, whose mouth was tilted up on either end in the very faintest
of smiles.
You look smug.
I do not feel smug. I feel grateful.
Grateful that I let my inner devil have her way and hook
up with you?
Grateful that Diamond had the foresight to separate you
from your ex-husband. Did you love him?
When we were first married, yes. But it wasn’t the sort of
love that had much depth to it, and before six months were up, I
knew I’d made a mistake.
“That’s all and well,
not that I mean to make light of your relationship with your
ex-husband, Cora, but what, exactly, do you expect Cora to do to
get her friend out of the Akasha?” Pia asked Terrin. “Are you going
to . . . for lack of a better word . . . use her?”
“Would that I could,”
Terrin said, looking even more tired. “But although one Tool by
itself is powerful enough to pull most people from the Akasha, a
member of the Court is beyond its power. Two Tools, however, should
do the trick.”
“Are you saying that
the Tools can work together?” I asked. “That they can . . . what,
chain power or something?”
“That is a very apt
way of phrasing it.”
“So if two of the
Tools together are enough to yank Diamond from the Akasha, what
would all three be like?” Pia asked.
Terrin shuddered and
closed his eyes. “The three Tools wielded by one person would rock
the mortal world. They could cause irreparable damage to any being,
mortal or immortal. It would, in short, have a devastating effect
the likes of which have not been seen by this world since the
creation of Abaddon.”
Pia looked at me as
if I were a walking time bomb. I knew just how she felt. I looked
down at my hands, panic and fear swamping me.
I will let no harm befall you, mi
querida. No one will use you in such a
way—that, I swear.
But they could, Alec. I could be part of something
seriously, unimaginably bad.
I would not allow it, he reassured me, but there
was a shadow in his mind that made me feel sick to my
stomach.
“So you need us to
summon Ulfur in order to get Diamond out, yes?” Pia asked as I was
trying to come to grips with my emotions. She glanced at Kristoff.
“We’ll have to find another lichmaster.”
“There is one in
France. We will contact her,” he answered.
“Won’t it be
dangerous for Ulfur and me to be together?” I said slowly, leaning
into Alec when he sat on the arm of the couch next to
me.
“Normally I would
agree that it would not be in any way ideal for you to be within
close proximity of another Tool, but this is an extraordinary
situation.” Terrin glanced at his watch again. “The time of
acclimation is almost upon her, and that would be most
tragic.”
What’s an acclimation?
I have no idea.
I hate to always be the one asking questions. Your
turn.
“What is the time of
acclimation?” Alec asked just as Kristoff did the same
thing.
“The Akasha was
created by the Sovereign as a place of punishment for members of
the Court who deserved such treatment. Later, others were allowed
to be banished to its confines, but since it was created to hold
former members of the Court, it deals with them particularly
harshly. There is a period of time during which the individual sent
there may be resummoned to the Sovereign’s presence if it should so
desire, but after that period is over, the individual loses his or
her powers and becomes mortal.”
Did he just call God an it?
The Sovereign is not God, and it is commonly referred to
by a gender-neutral pronoun, yes.
“What’s wrong with
being mortal?” I asked, letting that point go for the
moment.
“Nothing,” Terrin
said, getting slowly to his feet. “For one used to such a thing.
But for a member of the Court to be stripped of his or her powers
in the Akasha is a life sentence. Not even the Sovereign itself
could change that.”
“A life sentence? But
nothing can die in the Akasha,” I argued.
“Exactly,” he said,
his eyes suddenly serious.
“But why couldn’t she
simply be summoned later, even if she was mortal?”
He shook his head. “I
wish she could, but Diamond is immortal. If she loses that quality,
she ceases to exist in any plane mortals touch. She would exist in
the Akasha, but”—he spread his hands—“nowhere else.”
“Oh, my god.” I
looked at Alec as I realized what he was saying. “She’ll be trapped
in the Akasha forever.”
“How long do we
have?” Alec asked as Kristoff pulled out a cell phone.
Terrin gave us all a
long look. “Two hours and thirty-three minutes.”
Alec swore as Pia
leaped to her feet, exclaiming loudly, “There’s no way we can have
Ulfur summoned in that time!”
Alec? What are we going to do?
Be patient, love. Let Kris determine if the lichmaster
will help us before you think about panicking.
Kristoff turned his
back on us, speaking rapidly in French into his cell
phone.
“I’m afraid there is
no other choice,” Terrin apologized.
“But the lichmaster
is in France! There’s no way we could fly there in time,” Pia
wailed, moving over to her vampire.
Could a private jet—
No. Do not worry, mi corazón.
If Kristoff can locate a lichmaster, we will be there in
time, he said, obviously listening to Kristoff.
How?
We will take a portal.
To where?
To wherever we need. Ah. This sounds hopeful. Alec
moved over to Kristoff, asking a question in French that Kristoff
repeated.
I looked at Terrin,
whom I was unnerved to find watching me. “You couldn’t have told us
this earlier?” blurted out of my mouth, making me blush at the
rudeness. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way,
but really, a little more time would have been nice. Not that I’ve
been proactive about getting Diamond out, so I’m just as guilty as
you, but still. You, at least, knew the truth about
her.”
“I began tracing your
whereabouts as soon as Mare Disin realized what happened to her
descendant,” he said gently. “You appeared to have traveled quite a
bit in what is a very short amount of your time.”
“Yeah, but you’re
some sort of an angelic bureaucrat, aren’t you? Couldn’t you just
tune in your magic TV screen or whatever you guys have up in
heaven, and see where I was?”
He gave a soft, but
genuine, laugh. “I would give much to have a magic TV screen. Alas,
the Court does not work that way. I traced you by means of bribery
and several acts that I would prefer not bandied
about.”
“Thank god,” Pia
said, smiling at Kristoff. “We got the lichmaster, Cora. Very nice
work, Boo.”
He rolled his eyes as
Alec held out his hand for me. I expected him to look a bit
happier, but he looked worried.
Is there something wrong with the lichmaster that Kristoff
found? I asked as Pia and Kristoff dashed upstairs to toss a
few things into a bag, and alert Eleanor to our change in
plans.
No.
Then why do you look so worried? If the lichmaster will
summon Ulfur, we can get Diamond out. Oh, do you think he will do
the same thing that Brother Ailwin will do, and try to use
us?
No.
I moved around to his
front, examining his expression. His eyes were a pale, seawater
green, his brows pulled together. Then
what? I asked as I put my hand over his heart.
It’s what comes after, he said after a few minutes’
silence.
After?
Yes. His gaze slid over to where Terrin was
examining the pictures on one wall. But I
believe I see a way through it.