The Demon's Revenge (The Fay Morgan Chronicles Book 4) (4 page)

“You’ll try,” he sneered.

“I am Morgan le Fay of the Isle of Apples. I am an immortal witch who has killed dozens of demons, easily and happily. I will end you.”

The demon let out a low whistle. “Well then. Hello, hello, Morgan,” he said and laughed. “My Queen is going to be very pleased with you. Do you have any idea how hard immortals are to find?”

Immortals. I tucked that bit of information away and turned my attention to Lila. “The soul thing,” I said. “No one knows if Hell gets souls when people die, or only when they trick people into going there.” I drove into the heart of downtown. “I have long suspected the former, and that without new souls, the realm withers.” I glanced back at the demon in the back seat.

He sat tight-lipped and tense. There were grave consequences to any demon who spoke any word about their precious and secret Hell.

I continued talking. “What is known, is that the realm of Hell is large and full of different countries, none of them pleasant. Little else is known besides the fact that very few have gone there and ever returned. Anything you’d like to add, demon?”

“Turn left and park,” he said with an affected bored tone. “We’re here.”

5

Venom

“We’re here, like we’re almost to Hell?” Lila whispered.

As though I would take her to Hell. What kind of mentor did she imagine I was? “We are wherever the Queen of Hell is staying in Seattle so that she may oversee the mischief her minions are sowing,” I said.

“Oh,” Lila said. “Right. I knew that.”

“Minion? Do you have any idea how many souls I’ve turned? How many mortals quake at my name?”

“Take us to your boss, underling,” I said. “Stay by my side,” I ordered Lila. “Eat or drink nothing inside.”

“Oh please, all that Persephone superstition? I would think you would know better, Morgan le Fay. We don’t curse our food.”

“Never get used to taking anything from demons. That is one of the ways they groom their victims.”

“Oh, well, yes, that’s true,” the demon said and chuckled.

We got out of the car and we walked a couple of steps behind the demon as we approached a red brick building in the middle of Pioneer Square, one of Seattle’s oldest neighborhoods on the southern edge of downtown. On one side of the building was a brew pub promising pork sandwiches and locally sourced beer, and on the other, a dueling piano bar. The building we walked toward had no signs out front besides a small placard that read:
Brimstone Bikram
.

We opened the heavy doors carved with chimeric images of man-dogs and monkey-girls looking ecstatic, or perhaps tortured, as they twisted in various yoga poses. On the other side of the door, a wall of air hit us, thick with heat and sweat that smelled like leather and animals, blood and skin. Lila hummed under her breath and smiled as she scratched her arms. I wondered what she smelled: demons were excellent at petty illusions. My own defenses naturally cut through them.

“Hello. All are welcome here,” a warm voice called out with a soft Spanish accent. We entered a large open yoga studio, full of light and windows. A short curvy woman stood at the center of the room, wearing form-fitting leggings and a tank top. She bowed to us. “Namaste.” Her voice curled around the word of peace, turning it foul.

Raw and malevolent power shivered around her like a hurricane swallowing clouds and air. She stood within the eye of it, a slight woman with long chestnut colored hair and ruby red lips. She met my gaze and nodded toward me. There was no doubting her true identity.

“Queen,” I said and nodded back, putting as much venom into the word as it deserved. “Why have you come to my city?”

She smiled. “I wasn’t aware you owned Seattle, Morgan le Fay.”

“So you know of me,” I said.

“I know the story of a grand and terrible witch who disappeared for centuries, only to turn up on the internet in a video where you saved a roomful of women. I know the story of a Morgan le Fay who protects the unders of Seattle, yet when I got here I found there was little protection from any such kind of hero.” She put as much venom into the word
hero
as it deserved.

“Stories,” I said. “I wonder what stories I could learn about you if I went searching?”

Her powers spiked around her, wary and deadly. “Careful, witch.” She smiled and it turned her face both ugly and pretty. Nothing pleasant touched her eyes.

The air throughout the whole room flashed red as fresh blood, so fast that if I didn't know where I was, I would have assumed I had imagined it.

“Many of
your
unders have told me about you. They say such nice things. How you used to care about them. How you used to watch out for them. I’ve wondered if you would ever show up in their defense. And now here you finally are, Morgan. Tell me, what kept you?”

“Morgan's had some stuff going on, but she's back now,” Lila said. She moved her arms and neck from side to side, unconsciously mimicking the movements of the Queen of Hell who stretched as well.

“Why Seattle?” I asked. “Did you succeed in remaking Hell in your own image, and then found it exceedingly wretched?”

“Charming. Your unders told me you were charming. You ask why Seattle? It’s a lovely time of year. Temperate. There’s a food festival this weekend,” she lifted one foot up into tree pose.

Lila did the same.

I hissed, “You will leave while you still can and you will take none of my unders with you.”

The Queen threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, I quite like you. And tell me, Morgan. How precious are your unders to you, truly? We could make a deal. Their souls for yours.” She sank down into warrior pose and raised a palm toward me.

I tensed, wondering if she would make the first attack. I slipped my hand into a pocket and grabbed a ball bearing. But the Queen merely continued doing yoga.

I took a dozen steps closer to her, until I could see the fine beads of sweat across her brow. The crossroads demon kept pace beside me, training an uneasy eye on the both of us. I rubbed the ball bearing between my fingers. A small thing, but something that could blow this entire building up.

The Queen glanced at my hand which hid the tiny bomb and laughed. “Oh witch, do you imagine that you could do anything to me here? You have no idea how well protected I am at all times. The number of demons who would love my head, to say nothing of the angelics and the demon hunters. Oh, that scowl, Morgan. Very becoming. Very well then, I will tell you my secret and evil plan, for perhaps you can help me in some way or another. I am here for the same reason we are always here in your disgusting realm. I’m seeking souls. The more unusual the better.” She closed her eyes and inhaled. “You have a nice one. Aged and bitter. Full of death.” She quirked one eyebrow. “Are you ill?”

I said nothing.

She shook her head. “No, not ill. But suicidal! No will to live. Lovely. What I wouldn’t give for your soul. For any old soul….” She leveled her gaze at me and waited for me to respond.

I remembered that Azurez had said she wanted immortals.

“So you are using the unders as leverage to lure an old soul to you? Someone in Seattle?” I said slowly.

She didn’t nod. She didn’t need to.

“Someone who is ancient and who cares about the well-being of these creatures you have enthralled to be evil. Someone who you will take to Hell in exchange for letting the rest of the unders go.” As soon as I said it, as soon as I thought it, I knew this might be how it could end. How I might end. I’d been planning on using my death to help Lila, but she might not need me. And if not? Perhaps I would sacrifice myself and go to Hell. A part of me liked the idea of raising hell in Hell, even if it was not the true annihilation I’d so long sought. “Why? Why an old soul? Perhaps because you are looking for lieutenants to strengthen your throne,” I murmured. “You are searching the realm of the living for powerful allies.”

The crossroads demon shifted from foot to foot and looked nervous.

The Queen merely reached upward into a sun salutation, showing off her strong arms and torso. “I could have you flayed for daring to question any of my motives,” she said mildly.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lila smiling and reaching upward into the same sun yoga pose. It wouldn’t do to stay here much longer.

“But perhaps you have guessed correctly, Morgan le Fay. I do love immortals,” she said. “Tell me, will you offer yourself to me now, witch, or will you make me wait?” Her forked tongue flicked out and she tasted the hot and humid air around us. “Seventy years, give or take?”

I had no idea what she meant by that. And I had no intention of letting her words entangle and trap me. I sensed tricks and traps cleverly laid across this room. She was devious. She had to be to claim and hold her seat.

The room pulsed red again. Like flames. Like rage.

I turned and walked toward Lila, feeling the heat of the Queen’s attention along the length of my spine.

I grabbed Lila’s outstretched hand. I pulled her toward the door we’d come through.

“Thank you for visiting,” the Queen called out serenely. “And I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk, bright one,” she called out to Lila. “We will meet again soon, I hope.”

“That sounds good. I’m free almost all the time,” Lila mumbled.

I ground my teeth and pulled her faster toward the door. I growled, “Over my
—
”

“Exactly,” the Queen purred as we left.

6

Part Demon

Outside Lila and I gulped in breaths of air as though we were oxygen-deprived. She rubbed her hands over her eyes, hard.

“How do you feel?” I asked sharply.

“That was weird.” Lila swallowed a couple of times. “When I was in there, I felt like
…
like all I wanted was to be her friend and hang out. To make her happy, I guess. Even though another part of me wanted to scream and run away.” She leaned against the nearest brick wall.

I checked Lila from top to toe. Nothing had followed her out of there. No malingering dark energies or spells. Her aura looked a bit brighter, but that was all.

“Most anyone would feel that around her,” I explained. “The powers of persuasion of any demon are vast. But the leader of Hell can draw on the strengths of all of her subjects. I wish she would just go away.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen,” Lila said.

I nodded. The entire reason I had taken Seattle as my home in the first place was that it sat on the far corner of the new world, and though it had grown and changed over time, there was still something essentially provincial about this town. Something quaint, no matter the size of the population. There were few reasons a Hell Queen would come here. Except, of course, if she was seeking me.

“Do you think she was telling the truth about wanting an ancient soul?” Lila asked, clearly thinking along the same lines as me.

“Perhaps.” I didn’t want to say too much. I did not want Lila to get ideas in her head that she had to save me.

Lila shifted from foot to foot and stared at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just thinking… maybe she knows about your fighting with Merlin. Maybe she told you because she knows he took the um, cup away from you and thinks you'll help her get his soul. I mean, she’s crafty, right? That would be crafty.”

I nodded, glad that this was her first line of thought. Then I wondered if she might be right. There was an old story about Merlin. Hell, there were way too many old stories about that fabled man and I knew for a fact that most of them were untrue. But some of them? I wasn’t so sure. I knew him better than I knew anyone, but that did not mean I knew all of his secrets.

“There is a story about him,” I said slowly. “From once upon a time, a long time ago,”

“In a galaxy far, far away,” she added.

“This galaxy, love. Wales, to be exact. Ancient Wales. A simpler time, and as complex as any time, that’s also true. A child was born, of a woman. Fatherless, in a time where in some tribes that could mean death or a life of servitude. The mother named the child Merlin Ambrosius. Merlin of Ambrosia. The nectar of the gods. Of some of them, back in those days.” There was so much history, so much knowing that would take days to convey the truth of those times, but time and life was finite. I must be brief. “She said that a man had come to her. A
…
winged man. There are many kinds of winged people across the world, and she chose to believe that this one was an angel
—
a warrior of God who fought demons. Winged demons, who looked the same as the angels, as they were the fallen from heaven. The mirrored twins. This woman said the angel had come to her and gathered her in his great wings and whispered to her of a great son to be born, though she was a common woman full of common blood.” I paused and shook my head. Lila would never know, she could not come close to understanding the way blood had named and damned everything back in those days, and how to be a commoner was to be bound to the dirt by law. Some things, on some parts of this green earth, were better these days, and I had a strange longing to stay and see it through, this long story of humans, never changing. Yet, there was that long arc of history toward… possibly something better. Certainly something less brutal than it had been.