The Demon King (25 page)

That was when he knew he was the luckiest
king at the Table. Hell, he was the luckiest man alive. And riding
the coattails of that realization was a hard spike of
protectiveness that forced so much power into his blood, he felt
dizzy.

“
Let him come,” he said
suddenly. Power laced his words, causing them to echo in the night.
Bael stopped in his tracks, eyes wide. “If some demented distant
relative wants to have it out with me so badly, then so be it,” he
reiterated. He was absolutely certain that just then, he could
destroy everything and anything that threatened him. Especially if
it threatened Dahlia.

“
He won’t face you
himself,” Dahlia said, filling the silence that it seemed was the
only thing Bael had to offer. Her voice was softer than he expected
it to be. Its tone was one of confusion, and that tired surrender
one possessed when they no longer wished to fight said confusion.
“Not yet anyway,” she continued. “Your father’s nephew is a coward,
if his actions so far speak for him. I know his kind. He’ll attack
those your father holds dear first in the attempt to mentally
destroy him. And whenever he can, he’ll have others do his dirty
work for him.” She shrugged. “So he can save his
strength.”

Laz blinked. “How do you know so much about
this?”

Bael looked apologetic. “I had to take her
to the apartment she keeps here in the mortal realm so that she
could gather a few of her belongings. I filled her in on the
way.”

Now Laz was
really
confused. He put
a hand on his hip and pinched the bridge of his nose. Now he really
did have a headache. And there was that “wrong” sensation still
bothering him, something waiting out there at the edges of his
consciousness, something unnamable and un-placeable, like a voice
you couldn’t quite make out. “Why did you take her to her mortal
apartment?” he asked. He hadn’t even known she
had
one. But that would make sense.
Anyone as old as most of the fae were was sure to have a domicile
in several realms, like a wealthy human having a vacation home in
another state.

“
We can’t use our magic,”
explained Dahlia plainly. “Not if he’s tracking it.”

Oh
, thought Laz dumbly. And then he thought,
Shit
. That didn’t at all
sit well with the massive amounts of power flowing through his
system.

“
However as a messenger, my
signature is untraceable,” said Bael. Which made no sense to Laz
either, but he was assuming it was just another aspect to the demon
world he would have to learn later. “I can take you anywhere you
wish to go until the situation is in hand.”

Just then, there was a rumble behind Laz. He
spun around. Everyone took several steps back, and the dog began to
bark. The house Lenore had been living in for decades rocked on its
foundation. A flash of red light erupted from beyond the windows.
This was joined by blue-purple light, and the sound of something
crashing. The house shook further, and Laz found himself running
toward the steps leading to the front door. Bael yelled for him to
stop, but Laz barely heard the man, much less paid any attention to
him.

His progress was halted anyway when he
reached the first of the three steps leading to the door. He saw
the gleam of the bubble-like shield a split-second before he would
have slammed head-long into it. He skidded to a halt and put out
his hand. Lightning crackled painfully around his palm and fingers
where they contacted with the shield, and he rapidly pulled his arm
back.

The rumbling grew louder, and the flashes of
countering magic came to a halt. A foreboding blossomed in Laz’s
gut. Instinctively, he stepped back.

“
My lord, we must leave
now.”

Laz turned to regard Bael. He stood
protectively in front of the dog, and the dog stood protectively in
front of Dahlia. The dog was whining, looking very nervous. Dahlia
knelt down beside her and wrapped an arm around her middle
protectively. “Detective,” she said, her large green eyes glued to
the spectacle of the shaking house. “I think that thing is going to
blow.”

Chapter Thirty-One

The fact that she called him “Detective” was
like a splinter in his nervous system. It was an odd sensation,
since his position with the force was something he’d put an
inordinate amount of work into and something he was normally quite
proud of. However, coming from her lips, it sounded distant and
impersonal. And he vowed to rectify it.

But for the record, he was pretty sure she
was right about the house blowing up. Which was why he broke into
another run, and as he joined the three of them, he shouted his
order to the messenger. “Get us out of here!”

Bael nodded and closed his
eyes, speaking a few fast cryptic words in that language Laz almost
recognized. Laz reached down and grabbed Dahlia by the arms,
pulling her up beside him. He then slid his arm tightly around her
waist, and before she could pull away, the world was moving. Just
outside his area of perception, he not only heard but
felt
the house go. The
explosion rocked the edges of his being, forcing the portal’s
boundaries into static.

It will take out an entire
city block
, he thought.
Innocents will die
.

The cop in him – the decent
human being in him – was accosted by the weight of this revelation.
He felt the aftershock of the detonation deep in his heart. As the
world went black, they blinked out of one spot, twisted time and
space around them, and blinked
into
another location.

His grip on Dahlia was tight. It was the
grip of a man who now had something to lose and was terrified in
that terrible, empathetic way, that he might lose it.

When they came-to in their
second location, they were standing in front of Laz’s apartment
complex. Rather, it was the apartment complex of
Steven
Lazarus, head
detective for the Boston City Police department. It was the
building belonging to a man Laz already felt he no longer
knew.

“
You’re… squeezing me
really tight,” came a voice beside his ear.

Laz looked down at the woman who was still
trapped in his arms. Her lips were inches from his, and her eyes
beckoned like the warm green of a tropical sea. Her body, long,
lithe and lean, was hot against his, pliable and giving, but filled
with immense strength. He felt like he was holding a weapon of the
most ingenious and tempting design.

He gazed steadily into those welcoming
tropical eyes and realized he was drowning. He hadn’t taken a
breath in quite some time. Not that he cared. If he was going to
die, this was as good a place as any to do it.

A growling sound rose at his right knee. The
dog. The damned thing had managed to make it out with them after
all. A part of him was irritated. But mostly, he was admittedly
relieved. The animal seemed to care for Dahlia, and Dahlia
definitely cared for her.

The growling grew louder, and he could feel
the corded strength in his own muscles prepping for a fight in
response. Suddenly, he feared that he might be hurting Dahlia with
his grip. He let go just a little.

Dahlia relaxed a bit and her hand came to
his chest as if to put distance between them. “Okay, now I can
breathe,” she said as color returned to her cheeks. “But you can
seriously let go. We’re here.”

The dog’s growl became a warning bark, and
they both looked down.

“
I’m fine, Bowie,” said
Dahlia. “Relax, girl.”

“
My lord, I would recommend
gathering anything you can use to communicate, work, and exist as a
human in the mortal world for a period of time,” said Bael, drawing
Laz’s reluctant attention. Bael looked helpless as he splayed his
hands out and gestured to the apartments behind him. “Remember that
you won’t be able to use your magic. And we should move quickly, on
the off-chance that your cousin learns of a way to track a
messenger after all.”

“
Bael,” said Laz as he
released Dahlia and shot the dog a dirty look. He felt his whole
world move slightly away from him when Dahlia took a step back, but
he tried to ignore how much it pissed him off. “Is Lenore safe?” he
asked.

Bael smiled and nodded. “Yes, my prince. The
explosion was your father destroying evidence and any means his
nephew may have to further use her against any of you. She is with
him now. And if there is anything I know in this world to be true,
it is that Lord Astaroth will die in order to protect her.”

“
And the others,” said Laz,
though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to his next question.
“The humans in the homes around hers. Are they safe?”

“
The explosion was
contained. It may have seemed enormous, but I assure you, Lord
Astaroth would not unnecessarily harm a human. It is not a demon’s
way, and most definitely not
his
way.”

Even while Laz was relieved
beyond measure, he couldn’t help but remember his mother’s words
about what Astaroth had done to the man who’d followed her home
from the grocery store one night. The Demon King had caused quite a
bit of harm to that particular human. But perhaps a demon’s
definition of what was “necessary” was different from Laz’s. Or…
maybe Laz would find such a thing just as necessary if he’d been in
his father’s shoes. And maybe, one day in the not too distant
future, he
would
be.

Though he’d been reassured that everyone was
safe back in the neighborhood they’d left, Laz couldn’t shake the
black cloud hanging over him. He was feeling agitated. Could it
just be the build-up of magic he was storing now? The fact that
someone was trying to kill him and the woman destined to be his
queen? Was he just stressed out?

Or was it something more?

It’s something
more
, he thought decidedly. He moved away
from the others and headed up the metal staircase that led to the
second floor of the apartment complex. His boots sounded loudly on
the metal of the staircase as he took them two at a time. The
complex had been converted from a motel into two long row houses of
apartments, fifteen to each building, thirty in total. He smiled
ruefully as he remembered that his apartment was #13.

He stopped before the door and listened.
With all that was transpiring, he didn’t want to barge in and head
blindly into danger. Just about anything was possible at the
moment.

There was very little sound from beyond the
door, but enough to confirm that someone was there. Laz saw light
through the curtains, and it was bluish, indicating a television or
computer screen. He listened, making out a gasp, and then a swear
word, and then the sound of someone dropping something, followed by
more swearing.

Laz felt both relieved and irritated. He
knew all of those sounds and what they meant. They meant Ray
Baxter, his partner, was using Laz’s VIVE – and dropping the
controllers. Laz stifled a few choice words of his own and made a
show of grabbing and shaking the handle so Ray would know he was
home.

Then he opened the door and went in. Bax was
just pulling the VIVE headset off his head and looking guilty.
“Hey,” he said nonchalantly.

Laz gave him a look. “Stop
dropping the controllers, Bax,” he deadpanned. “You don’t
actually
throw
the fireball in Maniac Mages, you
pretend
to throw the fireball. The
VIVE does the rest.”

Ray Baxter chuckled and shrugged his broad
shoulders. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. It’s easy to forget in this
thing.” He stood a little straighter then, and cleared his throat.
“Who are your friends?”

Laz blinked and turned around. The other
three had followed him quietly up the stairs and now stood behind
him on the threshold of his apartment. None of them said anything,
but he could read their thoughts plainly written on their faces.
Bael was worried he would have to quickly transport the lot of them
away, so he wanted to maintain proximity. Dahlia had that same look
in her eyes that he felt in his gut – that something thus far
unrevealed was very wrong. She was also probably feeling
overwhelmed; all of this had been dumped on her in the course of a
single day. And the dog? It was just there because they were.

Laz gestured for them to enter his very
un-kingly two bedroom apartment. “Come in,” he said, stepping to
the side to allow them entry. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Once when she was little, Dahlia’s house
burned down. It was encompassed in Stale Fire, a kind of fire
immune to the magic of the Tuath. Wildfires of Stale Fire sometimes
blew in through the Twixt and made it through wayward portals or
old gates and into the Tuath kingdoms. When that happened, the
Tuath kings had to call on outside help to squelch them. Normally,
by the time the fire was out, much had been lost.

The day the Stale Fire blew into Dahlia’s
world, she and Violet had been transported out of the house in time
to watch the entire mansion swallowed in unearthly flames the color
of amethyst. There was little heat with Stale Fire, and a lot of
crackling. The roaring bonfire belched a purple-black cloud filled
with nightmares. Inhaling the smoke of a Stale Fire ensured little
sleep for centuries. It was a horrible thing to come up
against.

Dahlia had lost everything she’d ever owned
in that fire.

She was alive, Violet was alive, and they’d
been transported far enough away that they inhaled none of the
smoke. They were lucky. But they’d lost everything they’d ever made
or been given or found for three hundred years. The fields of food
surrounding their estate would be forever poisoned by the Stale
Fire’s smoke. The animals in the stables and menageries would all
have to be treated for Stale Fire sickness. And of all the outfits
she could have saved, the one she was wearing was her least
favorite.