It was Gabriel who said, carefully, “What do you mean, not exactly?”
Miri took a breath, swallowed hard and looked at them with wry resignation as Ash tightened his arms around her. His gaze met hers, faintly amused. She’d explained it to him on the drive back.
“Among Wiccans they have a saying, As Above, So Below. In some forms of magic that means that if you have a small portion of something, it stands as representation of something larger. For instance in a love potion you take something that represents love, such as the symbol of a heart or a rose candle. To get a stronger effect, you have to have something more substantial, something that ties directly to the individual, like a lock of hair. Some old magic workers wouldn’t even leave fingernail clippings around so they couldn’t be used against them in a curse, For larger spells, or to affect more people, you need a bigger sample.”
The room went more and more still with each word.
“When the priests created the Book of Demons, they knew this,” Miri said, and took another breath. “They needed to test the efficacy of their spells but if they wanted them to hold against the most powerful Daemonae, they needed something more to bind them.”
For a moment, she went still, gathering her courage.
“It didn’t take long after they summoned him – the first test of their spells – before he realized what it was they intended to do to and with him,” she said, softly, delicately.
It was a story as old as humanity and practiced far more recently than many would want to imagine. As barbaric as it was.
Her hands remembered the feel of the cover and binding of the Book, how soft and smooth it was. Zaebos. His name whispered in her mind.
Asmodeus closed his eyes and then he enclosed Gabriel in his arms as a glimmer of understanding dawned.
Looking into Gabriel’s eyes, Miri saw that she knew. She remembered then that Gabriel had touched the Book, too, had felt it in her hands.
It was in Asmodeus’s eyes, too, that knowledge.
“Zaebos. He was the first they summoned,” Asmodeus said. “Zefir got it away.”
His voice was rough.
Nodding, Miri said, “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Knowing, Zaebos prepared himself. His one consolation and his one grief was that he’d just met his true mate.”
Her eyes went to Zaebos’ son, whose mother had named him in honor of his father.
“Some part of him remains bound in the Book,” she continued, gently. “Not truly aware but there. That part helped Zefir escape with it and it’s stayed dormant all these years. Waiting.”
“Waiting?” Asmodeus said, frowning a little. “For what?”
“The Daemonae were retreating into exile, to another plane?” She looked at Asmodeus. He nodded.
“Your father spoke then of a return when it was safer,” she said, remembering what she’d Seen when she’d touched the Book. “When hopefully the world was a little wiser, the Church and its priests less powerful?”
Asmodeus nodded.
“Like now,” Gabriel said, “when there are laws and proofs are required before you can torture someone.”
Miri nodded. “It waited for a time when the Daemonae could return home, finally, at long last.”
She looked at Asmodeus and Gabriel.
“You were the first. When Templeton recovered it,” Miri said, “when he summoned Asmodeus with it, it awakened.”
Once more, she took a breath.
“Templeton is a wrong. He’s Dark, evil, and he brought a greater darkness with him when he created the circle. When Gabriel arrived, Asmodeus’s true mate, that growing awareness within the Book noted what happened between her and Asmodeus, and what they were able to accomplish. More, the consciousness within the Book recognized the danger that Templeton posed and knew it was time for the Daemonae to return to this world. It would need them.”
The room went still at the ominous tone of her voice.
“Why?” Gabriel asked, with a glance to her mate.
Taking a breath, looking around the room, Miri slid her hand into Ash’s and clung tightly.
Ash looked at her. Her gaze lifted to meet his.
Reassured, she let the breath out.
“I believe Templeton made a deal with the devil, of a sort,” she said, softly. “Or at least a version of the devil. Darkness at any rate.”
She looked at Asmodeus, at Ash, at all of them.
“He walked away too easily, too quickly,” Ash said quietly. “It’s not over.”
“No, it’s not over. Templeton needed to open a path to the other planes. He couldn’t do that alone. So he had to have help. The Stranger and the Stranger’s master. Templeton has a pact with that master.”
“But why didn’t he attack us then, why didn’t he finish us off?” Mal asked.
Ash glanced at Miri. She nodded.
“He’s not ready to face us yet, or at least to face an alerted and aware race with magic. If one of us got a warning to Asmodeus? He couldn’t take us all on and couldn’t risk being beaten.”
“Knowing what he was, I would’ve summoned all of you and we would’ve attacked,” Asmodeus agreed, “while there was still the chance to beat him before he could escape.”
“He needs time,” Ash said.
All eyes turned back to Miri.
She took a deep breath. “Time to consolidate, to merge with Templeton, for the Master to become one with him so they work in concert.”
Asmodeus took a deep breath, looked at her. “To do what?”
Helplessly, Miri looked at him. “I don’t know. The future is still in flux, the point of change hasn’t been reached yet.”
“What I don’t understand,” Mal asked, “is why the Stranger didn’t get the Book himself?”
Miri took a breath. “Whatever the Stranger was, he wasn’t human. Not any longer. So he had no connection to it anymore. Without that connection it was like looking for that needle in a haystack. Although they couldn’t know it, my connection with Ash loaded the deck in my favor even more, since Ash is Daemonae and so is the Book.”
“So, the Book is gone?” Gabriel asked, curiously.
Miri looked at them all, took a long breath. “Um…no, not exactly.”
“What do you mean, not exactly?” Asmodeus asked warily.
Shrugging a little, not meeting anyone’s eyes, Miri said, “Well, the universe is still out of balance with Templeton loose in it and the Book still felt a need to…atone…for all the years it was used wrongly.”
“Atone?” Zaebos said.
“Its time in the temporal planes had given it something else, a greater awareness of itself, a kind of sentience once again.”
Miri glanced up over her shoulder into Ash’s strong handsome face.
He brushed a kiss over her forehead.
“As I said, Templeton isn’t done. It knew that.” she said. “When it sensed his summoning of the Stranger, it knew something had been set loose on the world that shouldn’t be. A Darkness and more. And it wanted to…undo…some of what had been done in its name. It noted the coming together of Asmodeus and Gabriel, of Ash and I. It wanted to give the Daemonae what it, as Zaebos, had only had a brief time to experience, his true mate. It also wanted to be a force for good in the world. Daemonae with their magic and their mates are that. There is no force more powerful in the universe than love. It’s the antithesis to what Templeton summoned.”
She took a breath.
“To do that, it needed to be set free. When the Stranger, a thing of the ethereal planes, touched it, and something of the corporeal plane, ours, touched it also – me – it was like joining matter and antimatter, or like splitting an atom. An enormous jolt of power. It set off a reaction, a reaction so powerful that it effectively broke the Book free of the boundaries of time and space.”
“So,” Asmodeus asked, looking from one to the other, “what exactly does that mean?”
Helplessly, Miri shrugged and said, “The Book will appear where it’s needed, in the hands of someone who needs it and it will summon the appropriate Daemonae. The right match for both.”
For a moment, there was silence and then Gabriel asked, somewhat incredulously, “Are you telling us the Book has now become some kind of fairy Godfather, an otherworldly matchmaker?”
A little wryly, Miri shrugged, grinned and said, “In a way, yes, pretty much.”
“Oh, that’s funny,” Gabriel said, laughing.
They all looked at each other.
“Well, that will be interesting,” Asmodeus said.
Above them on the other side of the glass of the central atrium the first true early winter storm raged. The sky was full of dark gray clouds, cold and blustery. The wind rattled the panes as a spattering of sleet tapped at them. Inside it was warm, the gas and charcoal braziers at each corner of the garden keeping everything toasty. Music, soft flutes, played from hidden speakers in the background lightly, evocatively.
Ash had lowered a hammock from where he kept it bundled at the base of the atrium windows. Now it stretched below the glass so they could lie in it to watch the storm if they chose. He was only interested in the play of firelight on Miri’s fair skin as she trembled, as the muscles in her abdomen tightened while his fingers danced over her silken skin.
“I do love playing with you,” he said.
With a smile, his head propped on one elbow, he ran his fingers over her body, over her lush breasts. He teased lightly at first one nipple then the other as his tail fluttered at her clit, then at her pussy before wiggling a little at the tight little hole of her ass. Tied as she was, each wrist and ankle fastened with silken bonds to the four corners of the hammock, she was completely at his mercy.
In the light of the fire she was ethereally beautiful, her flaming hair disheveled, her fair gold-dusted face flushed and lips swollen, her body nearly glowing as pleasure built inside her.
“But Ash, it’s not fair,” Miri complained, as another layer of delight washed through her, built, grew and swelled. She strained against her restraints.
“Who said life was fair?” he asked, plucking lightly at one nipple with his fingers as he nibbled and licked at the other. “Besides, you’ll distract me.”
Curling a hand around her breast, Ash squeezed it so the creamy globe was full and round as he suckled at her nipple, drawing hard on it.
Working his mouth hard on her nipple, he released her breast, freed his hand to slide between her thighs to her clit, capturing the little nub between his fingers. Tormenting her, he drove her higher than he knew anyone ever had before. She nearly sobbed with need, with desire.
He teased that swollen bud lightly, tapped it so she bucked and she cried out. Her hips tried to lift, to shift, while her wrists and ankles strained against the silken bonds.
Nuzzling her throat, he heard a sob of desire catch in it even as she turned her head to give him access. His fangs descended. He scraped them across her hammering pulse as she quivered.
He fucked her with his tail as he flicked lightly at her clit.
It was sweet torture. Miri thought she’d lose her mind. Her body was on fire, every inch heated, needy, aching. Her nipples were tightly furled, her breasts swollen. She moaned, her slit dampening as his tail speared up inside her, thrust inside her to work her g-spot until she quivered helplessly, nearly at the edge.
“Please, Ash,” she begged.