Then she turned away and left.
* * * * *
Emo and I left after extracting a promise from one of the med techs that he would call us when Ralph came out of surgery. We headed back toward the office, remaining below the mist. After my encounter with the dragon I couldn’t stop myself from staring out of the viewports for anything that looked violent, hostile, or just downright ugly.
We made it to our building and Emo put the air vehicle into hover in the parking area. I climbed out, running my hands over the vehicle’s sleek, black surface. “This is one of those Avenger models isn’t it?”
Emo nodded. “The Knight, 2060x.”
I checked out the grill and the back end. “Sweet. Top speed?”
He grinned. “Off the record?”
I snorted.
“I got it up to four hundred in clear air space.”
My eyes widened and my mouth watered. “No frunkin’ way!”
He slung a muscular arm over my shoulders. “Would I ever lie to you, boss?”
I snorted again, reluctantly letting him pull me toward the flash. “What colors?”
“Legal?”
“Of course not!”
With the new anti-color law that had been enacted because of pressure by ultra-green environmentalists, six out of ten air vehicles were a paintless aluminum. The painted ones could no longer be purchased above ground. Fortunately the world government didn’t actually enforce the anti-color law. Probably because they’d have to arrest many of the spoiled and corrupt members of the government if they did.
The Viper had a fire-red exterior. I’d purchased it just before the anti-color law passed and I was damned if I was gonna buckle to pressure and buy a paint free vehicle now that it was gone.
Emo gave me devilish grin. “Just tell me what color you want and I can get it for you.”
I grinned as the flash doors slid closed.
We stopped to tell Ralph’s partner, Bob, what had happened before we headed into our own office. He was noticeably upset and promised to call unplanned injury to provide whatever information they needed. The televisual was blinking when we walked through our office door. When Emo checked it, the memory was nearly full with calls.
Emo shook his head. “I guess I need to put a new message up that says we don’t vanquish angry humans.”
I snickered. “That should go over well with our human clients.” I headed toward my office with the hope that I could clean up some of the work waiting for me there. It was not to be.
“Hold on, Astra,” Emo called out. He stood up and headed for the door. “There’s a gargoyle running loose in the park.”
“Shit.” I glanced wishfully at my office. What I wouldn’t give for some peace and a few quiet hours to clean up reports. “Let me grab some weapons.”
I opened my weapons vault with the pad of my left pinkie and selected several platinum knives that were specially coated with angel’s blood. I also grabbed my vial of angel’s tears, dropping the chain that held it over my head. I reemerged from my office and threw Emo a couple of the knives. He caught them easily and slipped each one into a special knife holster he’d strapped on his forearms. He already had a couple of longer knives strapped to his thighs. Those didn’t have angel’s blood on them but they kicked ass when you wanted to chop off limbs and heads.
“Let’s go.”
He grabbed my arm and we were suddenly locked in time and space. We shimmered into the playground again.
“Déjà vu all over again,” I murmured.
He glanced at me and I shrugged. “This is where Darma vanquished the demon.”
He looked around and we quickly spotted the gargoyle. It had a man pinned to the ground and was gnawing on his arm. I prayed the man was dead, or at the very least unconscious.
Emo and I ran toward the ’goyle. We had to step over and around several mangled bodies as we went. I moved up behind the thing as silently as possible. As I neared it I realized there was really no need for stealth. It would have been hard to hear an air vehicle flying overhead with all the chomping and slurping noises. Emo and I shared a look of disgust and then I threw a knife tipped with blood at the nasty thing.
The knife went into the goyle’s neck and buried itself to the hilt. That’s the nice thing about angel’s blood on dark worlder flesh, it just kind of melts it, making it much easier to cause real damage with a minimum of effort.
The ’goyle jerked as the knife entered his neck and stood, shrieking with pure old-fashioned rage. It turned and fixed glowing red eyes on us and then, gathering itself like a large dog, lunged toward us.
I grabbed another knife and lifted my arm but the ’goyle was on me before I could pitch it. I went down hard onto my back with about two hundred pounds of nasty, smelly ’goyle on top of me.
Three inch long, gore covered teeth that smelled like a butcher shop snapped together in front of my face. My hands were on its chest and my arms trembled with the effort of keeping it away.
Emo was hacking and slashing away at the ’goyle from behind until the thing swung a massive leg at him. Then I watched Emo arcing away from me through the air, a decidedly surprised look on his face.
I needed to get another knife into the ’goyle but I couldn’t release my grip on its throat or it would be on me like stink on a sewer demon and I’d be dead.
I realized I’d have to do it the new-fashioned way. Forcing myself to concentrate on pulling the power forward I felt it beginning to build. But my arms started to give out before I could draw enough power forward and I lost my concentration. The ’goyle’s snapping, blood-coated teeth grazed my cheek and a string of drool dripped like acid down my cheek.
I knew Emo had returned when one of the goyle’s front legs was suddenly severed from its body and he sank more deeply onto me.
Emo’s face finally popped up over the ’goyle’s shoulder. “I’ve cut off three of the thing’s four legs, Astra and it still keeps coming.”
“Cut off the last one then, hurry.”
“If I do it’ll crush you.”
I felt one of its teeth slide into the soft flesh of my cheek. “Just do it!” I screamed.
Emo swung hard and the last leg collapsed away from the raging gargoyle.
I grunted as two hundred pounds settled completely onto my chest and another tooth entered my face.
Emo kicked a trunklike, severed leg out of the way and reached around the gargoyle to grab its neck. He used a power-induced wrenching motion to pull the thing off me and fling it away. I screamed as the gargoyle’s teeth ripped my face on the way out.
The legless gargoyle landed on its belly several feet away from us and immediately started trying to shimmy along the blood and gore covered ground to get to us.
Emo took one look at me and said, “Holy shit, Astra. Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Just finish that thing, would you?”
He shot the gargoyle in the chest with a jolt of all the power he could muster. It almost died. The huge jaws still snapped at us, the eyes glowing with hate and menace. Emo stalked over and, using his longest knife, sliced the head cleanly from the body. The thing finally stilled and the light left the red eyes.
Emo helped me stand and we collapsed together onto a nearby bench, panting.
“That was no ordinary gargoyle,” Emo finally said when he could catch his breath.
I nodded. “It was being impelled by something. It didn’t even really seem to feel pain.”
Emo touched my face, his warm, slightly rough hand lingering there. “You need to heal that.”
I nodded, placing my hand over his and gently removing it. “Just let me sit here a minute and breathe.”
My daemon hickey sparked and Dialle was suddenly there. He glared at my partner before kneeling before me and placing a large, impossibly warm hand on either cheek. Pulsing heat entered my skin and I sighed as a pleasurable tingling replaced the pain of ripped flesh.
Dialle leaned close and kissed me softly. I knew he was probably just making a show of it, proving to Emo that he had already staked a claim on me but I was too tired and it felt too damn good to complain.
“Perfect again, my princess.”
My eyes rolled open lazily and I stared into his black velvet gaze. “Don’t call me that.” The words didn’t have as much oomph as I’d hoped.
He grinned and stood up. Looking around he frowned. “Where are the rest of them?”
I tried to stand up and my legs screamed at me. It took two tries. “Very funny.”
Two elegant, black eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Are you serious? One gargoyle did this much damage?”
I nodded. “Unfortunately. I think the thing was impelled.”
His head swiveled to take in the numerous dead humans. “It certainly looks that way.”
Screams broke the silence. I sighed. “Well, maybe it did have friends after all.”
Dialle smiled at me. “Would you like some help?”
Emo jammed his long knife back into its sheath and turned away, a scowl on his handsome face. “We don’t need your help to do our jobs, Royal.”
Dialle’s jaw tightened as Emo stalked in the direction of the screaming. “As you wish, Tweener.”
Both men made the monikers sound like demon mucus.
I shook my head and started to follow my partner. “Children.”
Dialle grabbed my arm and pulled me close, capturing my lips with his and wrapping an arm possessively around my waist. Hot, sexually charged breath bathed my face as his soft lips devoured mine. I pulled his scent into my core and welcomed it with a purr of satisfaction. My toes curled and my happy place tingled in anticipation.
I placed a hand on each perfect butt cheek and pulled him more closely against the place where I needed him most. He groaned against my lips and captured my bottom lip with sharp, white teeth.
I gasped as a drop of blood escaped from under his gently nibbling teeth. He released the lip and sucked the place where he’d drawn blood.
I was skewered, cooked and arranged on a platter. Put an apple in my mouth.
My hand slid inside his shirt and skimmed down the smooth, unnatural heat of his belly.
I didn’t stop there.
Pushing my way past the taut waistline of his jeans, I grabbed the hardest, warmest part of him.
He gasped and captured my earlobe with his teeth. “What about the gargoyles?”
I shrugged, lost in a lust induced fog. “Emo can handle them for a couple of minutes. I’ll just be a minute here.”
He chuckled and slid a hand up under my sweater. His long, talented fingers finding the highest point and pinching gently, nearly bringing me to my knees from pleasure. He was working his way under my thigh-length skirt with the other hand when an unearthly scream pierced the air.
I jerked away from him. “That was Emo.” I wasn’t sure how I knew but I did, with a certainty that came from being part of a long line of magic wielders. My partner had just been mortally wounded.
I ran in the direction Emo had gone. I could hear Dialle just behind me.
I ran around a copse of trees, expecting to see a gargoyle. I certainly didn’t see what I’d expected.
Emo was on the ground. He wasn’t moving. Standing over him, silhouetted against a roiling, purple sky, with a long, blood-coated platinum knife in his hand, was a human male.
I called out and his head jerked up, distorted by an angry sneer. He raised the knife toward me and growled. Spittle dotted his chin and snot ran freely from his nose.
I could smell his hate and fear from twenty feet away.
“Drop the knife buddy, we’re friends.”
The sneer deepened, leaving him looking demented. “Magic users aren’t anybody’s friend.”
I felt Dialle tensing to gather power and jerked my arm out to stop him. I clasped his shirt, bunching it frantically in one hand.
He’s mad. I don’t want to kill him unless we have to.
I will not let him harm you.
He won’t hurt me. I’m more worried about Emo. I’m going to try to talk him into giving up the knife and stepping away. If he won’t listen I’ll take care of him.
Dialle’s husky voice in my mind remained silent for a beat. I knew he was fighting his instincts in order to let me do it my way.
I’ll let him live as long as he doesn’t try to harm you.
Agreed.
“You need to drop the knife and move away from my partner now, bud. He and I came to the park to kill the gargoyle. We did it. We stopped him from killing any more people.”
The man snorted and looked toward the spot where the dead ’goyle littered the park grounds. “That gargoyle was no better than you and your friends. All magic creatures are evil.”
I cocked my head at him. “What makes you think that, friend?”
His head jerked toward me and spittle shot from his mouth as he shouted, “Don’t call me that!”
I raised my hands. “You got it. We’re not friends you and I.” He started to fidget and squirm, looking for all the world like he thought bugs were crawling across his filthy skin. I took advantage of his distracted state and stepped closer. “We’re not friends…but I don’t think you want to be enemies with me either. I don’t want to hurt you but I will if you don’t step away from my partner right now so I can help him.”
The human stopped fidgeting suddenly, his gaze directed toward his feet, where Emo lay in a quickly building pool of his own blood. He reached the knife toward Emo and I tensed. But then he turned with an inhuman shriek and flung the knife toward me.
I gasped and flinched as the knife hit a power wall and fell harmlessly to the ground. The rabid human followed his knife, covering the distance in an adrenaline induced leap that was borne of madness. Dialle raised a hand and shot a power arrow at him when he was still airborne.
“No!” I screamed. But it was too late. The human crumpled to the ground with a smoking hole in his…shoulder? I turned to Dialle. “You didn’t kill him?”
He smiled at me and gave a slight bow. “Prince Dialle of the Royal Devil Court at your service, Princess Astra.”
On a reflex I opened my mouth to tell him not to call me that but I stopped myself and grinned at him instead. “Just this once…you can call me that.”
He laughed.