Infernal Father of Mine (5 page)

Bella gripped his arm. "No, Harry. We can't let
noms see us using magic."

"She's right," Elyssa said. "Just give Ivy a
minute."

"They'll see the portal open," Shelton said.
"What's the difference?"

"The dumpster will screen them from seeing the
portal," she replied.

"Down on the ground, or we'll open fire," said
one of the men on the SWAT team. They aimed their assault rifles
across the twenty yards separating them from Elyssa and the
others.

"Hey, everyone!" said Ivy in a bright voice.
She stepped from behind the dumpster, blonde hair bouncing and blue
eyes alight with excitement. "What's all the excitement
about?"

"Back through the portal," Elyssa said.
"Hurry!"

"I said halt!" someone shouted and a gun
exploded.

Ivy threw up a hand. A bullet flattened against
a rippling shield inches from Shelton's chest. He staggered back,
eyes wide with surprise. Ivy's lips peeled back into a snarl. "You
tried to hurt my friends!" She threw her hands forward and a
shimmering force threw the assault team back down the alley, guns
clattering along the ground after them.

The police behind the cars at the end of the
bank alley fired, but their bullets failed to penetrate the shield.
Ivy squeezed her hand, and the police cars crumpled like tin foil.
Someone shouted orders and the police went into a full retreat,
voices filled with panic.

Bella looked horrified. Shelton barked a laugh.
Ivy brushed her hands and smiled at Elyssa. "Are you guys ready to
go?"

Elyssa nodded. "Yes."

They stepped back through the portal and into
the cellar of the mansion. Elyssa deactivated the portal and gave
Ivy a stern look. "You can't just go blasting noms with your
powers. Didn't Jeremiah teach you any better?"

Ivy looked down and toed the floor. "Well,
yeah. Bigdaddy—um, Jeremiah—he said I needed to be top secret with
my abilities." She looked up. "But Daelissa told me I shouldn't
worry so much, because taking over the world means you have to
strike fear into the hearts of mere mortals."

Shelton and Bella exchanged looks of
horror.

Elyssa decided it was time to have a
much-needed talk with Justin's little sister. She looked at the
other two. "Will you excuse us for a moment?"

"Take all the time you need," Shelton said. He
took Bella's hand and fled up the stairs.

It had been a huge surprise when Ivy had shown
up at the mansion the day after Justin's Christmas party. She'd
apparently sneaked away from Jeremiah Conroy, as she'd done on
several previous occasions, and come to live with Justin and
Alysea, her mother. Justin had been overjoyed and immediately put
plans in motion to meet with his father, arranging a meeting
through his Aunt Vallaena. He'd hoped to surprise his mother with a
family reunion when she returned from Colombia.

Despite the Ivy's tremendous abilities, she
hadn't gotten out much. The Conroys had kept her close and mostly
isolated. She'd attended Arcane University, but according to
Justin, most other students shunned her. As if the Conroys weren't
bad enough, the poor girl had grown up with Daelissa pretending to
be her aunt. Kids were supposed to learn about world domination
from television cartoons, not insane Seraphim posing as
relatives.

This is not going to be
easy.

Elyssa smiled. "Do you like
Daelissa?"

Ivy wrinkled her forehead. "I used to love her
a lot. Lately, she's gotten really creepy, and Justin says she's
just plain crazy."

"Justin is right." Elyssa kept her tone sweet,
trying to avoid an adversarial approach. "As Jeremiah has probably
told you, normal people—noms—don't react well to magic. In fact,
it's against Overworld law to use magic where noms can see
it."

"Why should we care? I mean, I could just
incinerate the ones who don't like it."

Elyssa held back a grimace. "How many of you
are there, Ivy?"

Ivy giggled. "Just one."

"That's right." Elyssa smiled. "There are
billions of noms. If they all tried to kill you, do you think you
could incinerate them all?"

Ivy pursed her lips and looked up, as if really
calculating the odds. "I suppose I could blast a couple hundred
before I got tired."

"In other words, they'd probably kill you long
before you killed all of them."

The girl nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right.
They might be inferior, but there's so many of them that it's not a
good idea to rile them up." She shrugged. "I mean, killing isn't
that much fun anyway. When Bigdaddy—"

"He's not your grandfather, Ivy." Elyssa and
Justin had to constantly remind the girl Jeremiah and Eliza had
taken her when she was a baby, but they weren't related.

"Okay, fine. When Jeremiah wanted me to kill
every vampire in Maximus's compound, I figured it was okay, because
he told me they were all evil bloodsuckers." A frown crossed her
pretty face. "But after meeting a few vampires, I realized that
some of them are pretty nice. Felicia is really sweet."

Felicia Nosti hadn't started out as the
sweetest vampire in the world, but Justin had somehow won her over
to his side. Elyssa had to admit the former druggie had come a long
way since the first time they'd met. "See? Just because someone is
a vampire or a nom doesn't mean they're evil or
inferior."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." She shrugged. "I
mean, noms can become Templars, so even they have some
potential."

"So, no more blasting noms?" Elyssa
said.

Ivy nodded. "I promise not to, unless they're
really evil." She tilted her head. "Why were you in that alley
anyway?"

Elyssa wasn't sure she wanted to inform Ivy
about the current crisis, but knew it would be a mistake to conceal
it. "Justin was kidnapped."

The girl gasped. "Oh no. Who got
him?"

"We're trying to figure that out right now."
She motioned up the stairs. "Let's go meet the others and go over
the clues."

"Elyssa?" Ivy said.

She looked at Justin's sister.
"Yes?"

"Can I blast his kidnappers?"

Elyssa managed an uneasy smile. "Let's talk
about that after we figure out who did it, okay?"

"Okay!" Ivy said in a bright voice.

They went upstairs to the planning room.
Shelton and Bella were already inside talking with Cinder. The
golem looked at Elyssa with a stiff smile.

"I believe I have narrowed down the
possibilities for this symbol." He projected an image above the
table of several similar symbols. "Templars used these symbols
centuries ago to imprison various entities. In particular, they
used them to combat those possessed by demons."

"You're saying the Synod Templars took Justin?"
Shelton said.

Elyssa shook her head. "Those weren't Templars
I saw in the video."

"A video?" Ivy asked. "Can I see
it?"

Shelton looked back and forth from Elyssa to
the young girl. "Uh, how'd the talk go?"

"I promised not to incinerate people unless
they're evil," Ivy said with large innocent eyes.

Bella put a hand to her chest. "Madre de
dios."

"A worthy goal," Cinder said in his calm voice.
"I have found it is often better to think things through before
resorting to deadly force."

"Well, that's what the adults seem to think."
The girl shrugged.

"Anyway," Shelton said, displaying the video
for all to see, "these are the perps who took Justin and his
dad."

In the video, the hooded figures walked down
the sidewalk with what looked like the unconscious forms of Justin
and David on flying carpets.

"The Exorcists have him," Ivy said in a hushed
tone.

All eyes turned to her.

"The Exorcists?" Elyssa said. "They don't exist
anymore." She vaguely remembered a mention of them in her Templar
history classes, but that was about it.

"I know all about the Exorcists," Ivy said in a
matter-of-fact tone. "Daelissa bragged all the time about how she
made the Templar and Exorcist organizations." She sighed. "I got
really tired of hearing about it."

"What do you know?" Shelton asked.

"Daelissa told me she made the Exorcists into
their own organization a long time ago." Ivy tapped a finger on her
chin. "Sometimes when she came to visit Jeremiah, she brought along
this fat guy named Montjoy. I think he's their leader. Daelissa
talked about how she wanted to kill him because he was such a
nincompoop."

Shelton's forehead wrinkled. "She called him a
nincompoop?"

Ivy laughed. "No, but Bigmomma—Eliza—wouldn't
let me say the words Daelissa said."

"Hold on a second," Shelton said. "You're
saying there's an entire organization of people who exorcise demons
from the possessed? Justin and his father are demon spawn. That
ain't the same thing."

"I think Montjoy was looking for a way to get
rid of demon spawn," Ivy said. "Before I got to know Justin it
sounded like a really good idea."

"Because Jeremiah told you all demon spawn were
evil," Bella said.

The girl shook her head. "No, Daelissa told me
all that. Jeremiah told me vampires were evil."

Shelton grunted. "That doesn't make any sense.
Vampires are on Daelissa's side, aren't they?"

"I believe I know why Daelissa wishes to purge
all demon spawn," Cinder said. "The history I've uncovered from
Ezzek Moore's personal journals indicates the Daemos fought against
the Seraphim. Perhaps she sees them as a threat to her
future."

"Yeah, and vampires are her allies." Shelton
aimed a look at Ivy. "Did Conroy tell you why he wanted to kill the
vamps?"

Ivy shook her head. "No, but he convinced me
they needed to be killed."

"I hope to hell he doesn't know where you are."
Shelton shuddered. "That old man scares me."

Elyssa paced back and forth, listening to the
group talk as she tried to remember her history lessons about the
Exorcists. Unfortunately, not much came back to her. "We need to
find where these people are."

"There's one place Daelissa talked about a
lot," Ivy said. "I can take you there."

A ray of hope warmed Elyssa. "Grab your gear,
everyone." She headed out of the room. "We're going to pay the
Exorcists a visit."

"You have him," Daelissa said, not even
glancing at the kneeling Exorcists all around her. She gave Montjoy
a haughty look. "I am pleased with you."

The pompous ass bowed as much as his paunch
allowed. "As promised, Milady."

"A promise kept is a promise kept, though it
took the passage of centuries to see it through." The Seraphim made
an exaggerated yawn. "Nevertheless, servant, you have done
well."

Montjoy ground his teeth at the backhanded
compliment. "The ritual failed to purge him."

Daelissa raised a blonde eyebrow. "Indeed?" She
made a dismissive motion with her hand. "Leave me."

The other Exorcists evacuated, some of them
carrying the unmoving forms of their fallen comrades. I wondered if
David's blue mist attack had killed any of them, or if the
demon-possessed people held sole responsibility.

Montjoy sputtered. "But—"

The Seraphim's eyes narrowed and lips curled
down as she turned her baleful gaze onto the rotund Exorcist. "I
said leave," she hissed. A pulsar of white light blazed to life in
her hand, spitting sparks of darkness.

"What the—" I said. David bumped me,
interrupting my thought, his eyes also regarding the strange
spectacle. Daelissa was a Brightling, the upper crust of the angel
social class. Her sister, Nightliss, was a Darkling. Despite the
explanations I'd received, I still didn't understand why those of
her particular persuasion were regarded as evil and second class,
but I knew they used dark energy when channeling magic, whereas the
Brightlings used, well, bright energy.

Montjoy continued to argue, despite the hazard
to his health pulsing malevolently in her dainty hand. "I only
wanted to—"

Daelissa raised her hand until the deadly
energy almost tickled Montjoy's chin.

He waddled away faster than a duck on roller
skates.

The bright sphere winked out, leaving a cloud
of sparkling dust. The angel turned to David, a smile playing on
her lips. "It has been too long," she said. "Have you missed
me?"

"How could one not miss such beauty?" he said,
all sign of irreverence gone. "You are as fair as the day I met
you, Daelissa."

"And you are ever so handsome and charming,"
she said with a girlish sigh.

"You two know each other?" I said.

Daelissa's eyes flared, as if seeing me for the
first time. "Who is this boy?" Her voice rose to fever pitch. "Who
is this child? I did not order any boy servants attend
me."