I saw movement above the altar and looked up to find nearly transparent forms of silver floating above our heads. The Angels’ gentle heads were bowed as if they were in pain and their hands clutched, clawlike, at the shimmery gowns of angelic fashion, which danced softly in a frantic wind created by the dark purpose.
I recognized many of the angelic faces, thought of calling out to them in greeting but the trail of silver liquid down their nearly transparent faces stopped me.
Angel’s tears.
Shed only for the most catastrophic of events.
I covered my mouth in horror and my gaze flew back to that altar, where my prophetic lover and I cried out in unison and arched into the violent culmination of our mating.
I watched as tears ran from my eyes to splash against the hard, cold stone of the altar beneath our still writhing bodies.
Almost immediately my partner on the altar started to thrash violently. He folded into a fetal ball and screamed in apparent agony.
Around us the celebrants increased the tempo and tenor of their chanting, pressing closer as my lover’s skin withered and dried away and his cries died to nothing.
Until he was a silent skeleton across my naked legs.
I screamed. Both from the altar and in my prophetic dream and reached out for him. But one voice, stronger than the rest and more powerful, called out to me.
“Do not touch him, Astra!”
The command in the voice was unmistakable. I looked up to where the leader of the black celebration stood high above the rest.
Her robes covered her from head to toe and a single lock of auburn hair fell from the front of the hood and rested across her breast in a soft curl. Her arms had been upraised in supplication to the dark purpose but she lowered them now and reached to push back her hood.
My Aunt Deirdre’s face emerged from the dark, rough cloth.
I gasped and tried to run to her, meaning to send her to Hell for her murderous actions.
But her voice rang out in that silent clearing and I stopped. Something made me look around and I discovered that I was alone in the clearing. Except, of course, for the woman who now stood in royal robes at the center, with one gentle moonbeam illuminating her form but not her face.
“You killed him!” My voice was filled with tears and it made me angry. Tears were a weakness I could not afford.
My aunt shook her head and raised her hands toward me. I saw again the teardrop mark on her wrist. “I have not killed him, Astra, you have.”
I gasped and murder filled my heart. “You lie!”
She shook her head, sending the reddish black strands swinging gently around her narrow shoulders. “No, I do not lie. You have killed him with your lust but you are not to blame.”
I tried to get to her, intending to vanquish her for good. But every time I moved she moved somehow too, though not appearing to.
“Damn you to Hell, then who is to blame! Tell me whom I must vanquish!”
My aunt’s form stood silent and motionless for long enough that I began to wonder if she had turned to stone. Finally though the moonbeam fell across her features and revealed them to me.
She wore my mother’s face.
I leaped upright in my bed, panting and wet with fevered sweat. I threw back the covers and jumped up to pace frantically around the room. What the Hades had the vision meant? It must have been symbolic. Surely I couldn’t accept it at face value. “Damned prophecy!” I exclaimed. “Why does it have to be so enigmatic?”
Still shaking from the nightmarish dream, I pulled the nightgown I’d discarded the night before over my head and slipped my chilled feet into slippers.
I knew I should get ready for work but I was strangely agitated and couldn’t even think about performing normal daily functions. I needed to do something about what I was sure had been a foretelling of some kind about Prince Dialle and me.
I desperately needed to know what it had meant.
I decided to try to reach Myra and see if she could decipher the dream vision for me. I reached for the large cross I wore on a platinum chain around my neck and pressed it to my forehead.
Before I could call her though, the televisual beeped and Emo’s face swam into view. He took one look at my face and his beautiful golden features creased in concern. “Astra are you all right? You look like you’ve seen an Agar.”
I flipped a hand dismissively and pushed sweat-dampened hair off my face. “I’m fine. I just had a nightmare. Did you find out anything new on the hostages?”
“Actually I did. One of my informants at Demonica said they’ve been moving them every day. Apparently they’ve spent some time in the Shadows.”
“That’s impossible!”
He shook his head, spilling shiny black curls around his square golden chin. “Not impossible, Astra, you know that. But certainly difficult.”
I blew out a breath in frustration. “Difficult is a distant fourth cousin to what this would be. It would take an incredible amount of black magic to pull that many humans into the Shadows.”
Against my will, a memory of Raoul’s black mass in the wildlife preserve played itself across my memory and I grimaced, realizing at last what he might have been doing with all that power he’d summoned.
Emo nodded, in complete agreement. “So what do you want me to do?”
I fixed him with a stern glare. “All that really matters for our purposes here is where the hostages are right now. Did you get that?”
Emo looked reluctant to respond to that question. I decided to save him the trouble. “You don’t know do you?”
He gave me a slightly embarrassed smile. “Well no. But I’m riding my contacts pretty hard. I’ve called in nearly all my favors on this one, Astra.”
“Then call in the rest of them. And throw some threats of bodily harm in for good measure. I need you to get me that location. I assume I do
not
need to tell you that I don’t want to face off with Raoul over another mutilated body.”
Emo’s golden face turned dark with temper. “Believe me, Astra, since the demons are targeting the royals I am not uninterested in this.”
I sighed. It seemed to be my week to piss off my friends. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m just a little cranky today.”
Emo harrumphed and disengaged the call.
I sat with my head in my hands for a few minutes, pouting and then remembered what I’d been about to do. I placed my cross on my forehead again and thought Myra’s name. But before I could get the whole name out of my weary brain the air changed and Prince Dialle shimmered into view.
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing there and he reached for me.
Movement and sound stopped as he shifted me away. While we moved without seeming to move toward wherever in Hades Dialle was taking me, all I could think about was landing wherever it was in my girly jammies. By the time the world shimmered back to normal, I’d worked myself up into a complete, frothing tizzy.
We landed in the middle of Demonica.
And me in my pink nightie.
The first thing I said to Dialle was, “I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”
He looked at me and grinned. “What?”
I looked down at myself meaningfully.
He followed my gaze and grinned. “I like the fuzzy slippers.”
My response was a glare.
While I glared at him my mind was churning. I really needed to rethink my sleepwear. Maybe I should invest in some slinky black silk somethings. That way, if this happened again, I’d still be a little embarrassed to be seen in my jammies but at least I’d look hot instead of just stupid.
“What am I doing at Demonica in the middle of the day in my pink nightie and fuzzy slippers?”
“Alcott has agreed to talk to us again.”
I continued to glare at him.
He gave a sigh and narrowed his eyes at me. The result wasn’t much better than my nightie.
I looked down and gasped. “I look like a street tart!”
“You look like every man’s fantasy.”
“Get me out of this getup right now!”
Two black eyebrows arched upward in a leer and I nearly stamped a foot in frustration. “Oh no you don’t! I’d rather have my pink nightie on than nothing.”
He waggled the eyebrows at me and I glared at him.
Finally, he laughed and turned away. “Come, Astra, we have work to do.”
I muttered foul deprecations under my breath and started after him, trying to tug the red leather micro miniskirt lower on my thighs as I walked. It didn’t do much good. Every time I took a step the rough underside of the leather got caught on the black fishnet stockings underneath and rode up my legs, threatening to expose the red and black lace thong I was apparently wearing underneath the worthless scrap of a skirt. To further my indignity, every third step I had to stop and yank the red leather bustier higher on my chest so my boobs didn’t pop out.
I hit the stone steps down to Alcott’s office just behind Dialle, still muttering and tugging. The fire engine red shoes with the four-inch spiked heels caused me to totter dangerously on each step as I followed him down.
If I fall and break my neck because of these damn shoes you might feel bad.
I thought at him furiously.
I would never allow you to fall and break anything, my princess.
Well then you’d better prepare yourself to catch me now, Dialle, because I’m goin’ down these stairs either head or butt first if I don’t get rid of these stupid torture devices on my feet.
Just like that the shoes were gone and I was wearing soft, leather boots that reached to just below my knees. I smiled in the dark.
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
Dialle’s low chuckle gave me a jolt in the general vicinity of the tacky lace thong. I scowled as we emerged from the dense black of the stairs into the dim horror of Alcott’s haven.
At least my fashion woes had kept my mind off of what I was about to face. Small consolation.
Prince Dialle stopped about five feet from the bottom of the roughly chiseled stone steps and I stopped just behind him.
Tugging my bustier up and my skirt down, I tried to look like a badass. Not easy given the fact that I was dressed like a bad wet dream.
Alcott was not lounging in his ugly throne and the underground room was not filled to burstin’ with ugly bad guys. Things were much improved from the last time Dialle and I had visited the demon king.
I could see two Guards of Dis standing a few feet away from Alcott and sense two others in the shadows behind us. Not bad odds at all for Dialle and me should we need to fight our way out of the room.
The demon king stood several feet away from us with his hands hanging straight down his sides. His black, featureless face was immobile, his long form relaxed and swathed in black silk robes. Nothing about him gave away his feelings. He was a walking poker face.
I waited, deciding that, since this meeting had been called between the royals and the demons, I was just there to witness the event. And witness it I would.
Unfortunately, Alcott wasn’t going to allow me to fade into the background just yet. “Exploring alternative lifestyles, Mx. Phelps?”
The demon king’s head lowered as if he were sliding his gaze down my body, assessing my fashion statement.
I forced myself to smile as if his inference that I’d taken up street mating as a new career hadn’t bothered me a whit. Inside I was steaming.
“My mother always told me to dress according to the company I would keep, Alcott.” I followed this with an innocent shrug.
Alcott chuckled and gave me a slight nod in reverence to my wit. At least I thought that was what the nod was about. Who ever knew with that crowd?
I will definitely get even with you for this, Dialle.
My royal devil chose to ignore me. Instead he kept his midnight gaze and full attention turned on our demon host.
“Alcott, leader of the demon race, I, Dialle the Second, Prince of the Royal Devil Court and son of King Dialle the First, leader of all the dark world, am here to offer you an audience with the true king of all creatures below Heaven.”
I turned to him, my poker face forgotten and my surprise at his words completely obvious to anyone who cared to look.
Dialle had spoken in formal Court dialect. Which meant that King Dialle’s “offer” was actually a royal command.
It was a double-edged sword.
On the one hand King Dialle was ostensibly offering Alcott exactly what he’d demanded. An audience with King Dialle. On the other hand, he was putting the demon king smack back into his proper place at the table by basically decreeing his acquiescence.
Quite a conundrum for the monochromatic critter who would be king.
Alcott stood completely motionless for several beats in time. Finally his head tilted to the side in question. “The king has agreed to come to Demonica?”
Dialle threw his head back and laughed. “Do not insult the king’s intelligence, Alcott. You will go to him. Alone.”
If Alcott had been capable of sputtering I was pretty sure he’d have done it at that moment. Everyone in that room knew a trip alone into King Dialle’s Court was a death sentence for the demon leader.
But if he refused it was like a direct declaration of war against the Royal Court. Delusional as Alcott obviously was and power hungry to boot, I doubted he was stupid enough to want to insult King Dialle the First directly.
I waited silently to hear how he would dig himself out of the predicament he was in.
Alcott thought about it for a moment and then nodded slowly. “I will of course be allowed to bring guards.”
Dialle waved his hand dismissively. “You may bring six guards with you. No more. We will inform you through Torre when the king can see you. You will kill no more humans while you await your audience with the king.”
Alcott stood silently while Dialle and I turned to leave. My mind searched frantically for a face to go with the name.
Torre. I knew I’d heard that name before.
As Dialle and I emerged back into the dim light of the nightclub above, I asked, “Who’s Torre?”
Dialle turned and grabbed me, pulling me up hard against his body. He lowered his face and grazed my lips with his. Then he trailed a hot, nimble tongue down my chin, where he nibbled a bit before answering the question his activities had already made me forget.