“Even if Raum does have the baby, you don’t think he’ll give her up without a fight, do you?”
“Naberios let us pass without a word.” He’d taken one look at me and stepped aside. Then again, it was always easier to get into Midian than it was to get out.
“Not really the same thing.”
“Look, are you here to help me or not?” I demanded, coming to a stop. “Because all this negativity is getting on my last nerve!”
“I’m sorry.” His hands came up in a defensive gesture. “I’m just worried. You remember the last time we were here, everything Raum threw at us to keep us from leaving? Without that handy dandy portal…”
“I’m well aware of the odds. But what do you want me to say? Okay, let’s let him have her and go home?”
“Of course not. That’s not what I meant at all.”
I started walking again. “Then what did you mean?”
“Like I said, I’m worried about you. Both of you. Regardless of what you believe I still care, you know.”
“Wouldn’t know it from our end,” I muttered, wishing we hadn’t gotten into it. Retreading through the same old arguments didn’t serve any purpose. He’d made his choice and I’d made mine. I’d moved on over the past several months. I was sorry if he hadn’t, but he had no one to blame but himself.
“How much time do you think has passed here since she’s been gone?” I asked, more to change the subject than anything else.
“It’s hard to say, why?”
“Because it means she might not be a newborn anymore.” Time worked differently between the two worlds. A few hours could mean days in Midian and she’d been gone for nearly a day. For all I knew I’d missed her first smile.
“We’ll get her back, Mercy. All they do is sleep the first few weeks anyway.”
“How would you know?”
“I’ve been around a long, long time. I think I know a little something about babies.”
I tried to picture what he’d be like as a father and came up blank. In the whole time I’d been pregnant, I realized I never really expected him to come back and raise our child with me. I couldn’t picture him with spit up all over his designer shirts, or getting up to change diapers in the middle of the night.
The silence stretched between us as Raum’s palace loomed up ahead. “Mercy, you know this isn’t how I wanted this to turn out. I wanted…”
“Adam,” I said softly, catching hold of his hand. “I really can’t do this right now, okay? I can’t go in there if I’m all tied up in knots inside. Whatever unfinished business there is between us, we need to put it away for the moment and focus on getting her back. Can you do that?”
“Yeah.” His blue eyes filled with resolve and Adam gave my hand a squeeze. “Yeah, I can do that. Let’s go get our girl.”
* * *
There are a lot of stairs to get to Raum’s court on the top floor, somewhere around thirty floors. I’d never climbed them all myself. The first time I visited as an honored “guest” I’d been borne on a litter, and after that I’d had Nelo to help pop me between shadows. That time we didn’t have that luxury.
Adam and I ignored the demons on the lower levels, moving like we had every right to be there until we reached the main stairs. And climbed. And climbed… until I realized we were being stupid when there was another way up at our disposal.
“This is lame, why don’t we fly up to Raum’s court? It’s open to the sky.” I stopped to catch my breath by a stone window large enough to step out of.
“I thought you wanted to lay low, conserve our energy?”
“How much good is that gonna do if I’m ready to collapse from all of these stupid stairs?” I pointed out. “Besides, there’s something to be said for making an entrance.” I jumped out the window without waiting for a reply, trusty wings unfurling before I fell more than a few feet.
Adam followed right behind me, and we climbed to the top of the gargantuan palace in a fraction of the time it would have taken via the stairs. Ready to make my grand entrance, I landed in the center of his open air court, wings spread wide and sword drawn. Unfortunately, it made very little impact on the deserted floor. Maybe it was still a little light out for the demon population, despite the murky purple clouds overhead.
“Raum! Where are you?” I demanded at full volume.
“Not the most subtle of entrances…” Adam landed light on his feet beside me.
“I have a plan,” I said more softly. “Raum! Show yourself, you coward!”
“Okay, maybe you should have shared your plan with me before we got here. There was that whole walk…”
“Now this is a nice surprise.” Raum appeared on his throne on the stone dais above us dressed in a burgundy smoking jacket and tailored pants like we’d caught him on his way to his study. “Two for the price of one. You should have told me you were coming, I would have planned a party.”
“Bring her to me right now.” I started up the steps, undaunted by his cool reception.
“I can’t imagine who you could mean.”
From the smile on his face, I could tell it was all a great big joke to him. He knew
exactly
who I meant. “Stop dicking around and bring her to me, right now. I’m not playing with you, Raum. You remember what happened the last time we met?”
Raum snapped his fingers and a column of guards appeared on the stones below. “I think the odds have shifted significantly since then. Your lover agrees with me, don’t you?”
“I like our chances just fine,” Adam returned. Calling forth his sword, he turned to keep himself between the guards and me.
I ascended the last few stairs, ignoring Raum’s confidence. I knew what fear looked like behind his eyes and I was eager to put it there again. “Give her to me and I won’t kill you.”
“Such a boast, m’lovely. I fail to see what interest you could possibly have in her welfare. She’s nothing to you.”
That made me stop short. “Have you gone completely mental? How could you say that to me? Did you really think I’d let you have her?”
“Why on Earth not? You stole my witch, it seems only fair,” Raum’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Mercy…” Adam called out from below. “I think maybe we’re talking about two different things here. Even Raum can’t be that obtuse.”
“I’m done talking. Well, maybe one more thing.” Grabbing Raum by the throat, I flipped him over the arm of his throne to smash him against the stone floor. Instead of skewering him this time, I went with the best weapon I had at my disposal. Operating completely on instinct, I laid my hand over his heart. “I judge thee, unclean thing. I abjure thee, and cast thee into the cleansing fires of Hell.” My hand started to glow and Raum made a gurgling, choking noise.
“Whoa…Mercy,” Adam abandoned his post at the foot of the stairs to join me. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” To be honest, I wasn’t sure what came next, but I could feel the power building under my hand.
“Better the devil you know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, what do you think will happen if you abjure Raum? Someone will step up to fill the vacuum of power and there’s no guarantee they’ll be any better. Raum at least will play by the rules.”
“Yes, yes I will, Mistress.” Raum’s eyes bugged out of his head, his face a mask of terror.
“Oh, for the love of…” I let the energy dissipate but kept my hand over his heart. “I’m not your Mistress, okay? Do you or do you not have my child?”
“The babe? No, I would never…” I heard real surprise there, to my utter dismay. I wanted nothing better than to kill Raum, take Bunny back and moonwalk out of there.
“You really don’t have her?” I gave him a shake. “Because if you’re hiding her from me, I will personally tear the flesh from your body with a melon baller and then abjure the carcass.”
Raum blanched, darting a look to Adam who gave a single nod. “She’ll do it too.”
“No, I offer you my solemn word. It would be suicide to take a child from a mother of your… stature, Mistress. I made a peace offering, did you not like my gifts?”
“Yeah, they’re swell.” I sat back on my heels as hot disappointment lanced through me. What were we supposed to do? Sure, I could tear Midian apart looking for her, but I believed Raum, he didn’t know where she was. We were no closer to finding Bunny and the clock still ticked away. I felt Adam’s hand on my shoulder, but I couldn’t look up at him. If I did I might lose it. The urge to curl up into a ball and weep swelled stronger, but I forced myself to put it away for later. It wouldn’t do to show any weakness in Midian.
“If you don’t have her, then who was it you thought we came to see?” Adam asked.
“My, ah… new companion.”
“Why would I give a rat’s ass about your love life?” Deciding I didn’t feel like being so close to Raum anymore, I backed off, letting him get to his feet. A quick glance to the court below showed it to be deserted again. Maybe he didn’t want an audience for having his ass handed to him like a common imp.
Raum straightened himself to his full height, tugging at his smoking jacket to set it to rights. “Because you seem to take an inordinate interest in those I borrow from the world. I hardly thought you’d know this one though. She’s not from your region at all.”
I dismissed the thought before he even finished talking. All I could think about was where to turn next. “If he doesn’t have her, where do we go now?” I asked Adam, but it was Raum who replied.
“Perhaps Azazael. Wasn’t he interested in your babe, m’lovely?”
“He was, but I still don’t see how he’d go about doing it. He’s trapped in the box and his hold over Ben is broken.”
“There are ever ways to get stupid humans to do your bidding,” Raum chuckled, sobering when I shot him a look. “Not that I would ever do such a thing…”
“We have to find him. He’s right, he’s the next logical step.”
“Easier said than done,” Adam mused aloud. “Hey, maybe we can get Parker’s pet witch to do a locator spell on him or something.”
“She’s not his pet anything,” I scowled, wondering where things stood between Parker and Luz in the current reality. In my own memory, I hadn’t seen much of her in the latter half of my pregnancy. “Do you think that would work though? Can witches really do that?” I still struggled with the notion of magic even in light of the crazy things I’d seen in my life.
“It’s worth a shot,” Adam shrugged, even as Raum stepped forward, a practiced smile on his lips.
“Perhaps I might offer the services of my witch?”
“It’s a good idea. Oriana might have a better chance of finding him,” I agreed. Her strange insights were often spot on.
“No, no… my new companion, Dahlia. Would you like to meet her?”
We didn’t have time to dilly dally, but if she really was a witch, it might be faster than tracking Oriana down in Vegas or wherever Matty had dragged her off to. “Alright, that would be helpful, Raum, thank you,” I replied, figuring it couldn’t hurt to be polite and let him save a little face in his own palace. Besides, I had to admit, I was curious to find out if he’d snatched her from the world. The least we could do was offer to break her out if he kept her prisoner.
All smiles, Raum led us to the warren of rooms he liked to keep his guests in, and I recognized the path to Oriana’s room. Instead of the overabundance of plants and living things in her old apartments, the room was gloomy and dark, almost dismal, and it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust enough to spot the woman sitting cross legged at the foot of the bed. Petite, with a dark pageboy haircut with severe bangs, she wore an oversized grey sweatshirt with the neck cut out, and black leggings. Her bare shoulder was covered in intricate ink that I couldn’t quite make out in the gloom. Her aura was a riot of colors, vivid reds, yellows and blues pocked with darker bits, swirling and moving… I’d never seen anything like it. She almost looked as if she were asleep, but her eyes snapped open the moment Raum shut the door behind him. I saw sharp intelligence in her dark eyes, and suspicion.
“We don’t have her,” she said flatly, and I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or if she’d been eavesdropping on us in the throne room the whole time.
“That’s already been established, pet.” Raum smiled in a kindly way, stroking the top of her head as one might a cat. “They would like you to find…”
“Azazael, I know.”
I decided I didn’t like her. Maybe she had the Sight and could help us, but I could tell from her aura that she’d already spent too much time in the company of darkness to want to leave. Dahlia stared at me for long seconds before her eyes flicked to Adam and a speculative smile pursed her lips. Yeah, I definitely didn’t like her.
“Great, then the sooner you find him for us, the sooner we’ll be on our way,” I smiled sweetly.
“What’s your hurry?” she purred, her eyes sweeping over his muscular form. I expected to see Adam’s cocky smirk in return, but he actually looked uncomfortable under her gaze.
“Make haste.” Raum’s voice grew stern, and I was glad to see a little fear slip into her expression. Does that make me a bad person?
“As you wish, my Lord,” Dahlia said meekly, but her eyes snapped with anger from under her downcast lashes. She rose to her feet and I caught the sight of more tattoos down the smooth expanse of her bare back as she stalked out to the terrace.
“That is one scary chick,” Adam muttered, but his face was carefully blank when I turned to look at him.
Dahlia paused before a metal brazier full of hot coals on the stone patio. Picking up a pitcher of water, she poured the entire thing over the embers, lips moving silently as the cloud of steam enveloped her. Her hair fell forward, all but obscuring her face as she leaned over the brazier. I still couldn’t make out the words she said, but the air felt alive and tingly, the way it had in my apartment when the witches bound Azazael to the box.
I had a worried thought that she might be trying to break that binding to summon Azazael himself and took a half step towards her to try and stop her, but Adam caught hold of my arm, his head shaking slowly from side to side. While we watched, the steam cleared and the floating ashes coalesced in the center of the brazier, becoming darker, almost oily as they sat on top of the water.