'Tween Heaven and Hell (14 page)

“Hey, Astra. I’ve been calling you for the last two hours. I
thought you said you’d be home.”

I ran my fingers through my tangled locks and yawned. “I’ve
been here. I lay down for a minute and dropped like an electron bomb. What’s
up?”

“We’ve been invited to go to court.” Emo’s red face looked
excited.

I frowned. “To court?”

“Yeah. Your new client, Deaver called. He said he needed you
to visit the Royal Court and give a message to a guy named Nerul.”

I felt my pulse pick up. With everything that had happened
over the last couple of days, I’d forgotten to tell Emo about Deaver. So he
would have had no way of knowing that Deaver was already dead. “What did this
caller sound like?”

Emo shrugged. “Deep voice, very businesslike. He told me
that you were expecting his call.”

It appeared that Dialle wasn’t willing to wait for me to set
a meeting up between Nerul and myself. Shit, I really hate pushy devils. “What
is this message I’m supposed to deliver?”

Emo grinned at her. “I’ll tell you when I get there, I’m
coming with you. See you in a few.”

His image shimmered away, leaving me with a sinking heart
and some very blue language on the tip of my tongue. There was no way I was
going to endanger Emo by allowing him to come with me into the devil’s lair, so
to speak. Not after I’d almost lost him earlier.

I went into the personal hygiene room and took a quick
shower, hoping to scour away the last of my dopiness. I emerged feeling
slightly better and dressed quickly in ankle-length black pants that hugged my
legs all the way down to my ankles so that they wouldn’t get in my way if I
needed to get agile really quickly. I pulled on a black, high-neck sweater,
which dropped to just below my hips, giving my knife sheath a place to hide. I
put two platinum knives and a five-inch-long silver one in the sheath and
dropped a vial of holy water into the side pocket of my pants. I fastened my
belt of crosses over the sweater and pulled on a black jacket. I briefly
thought about taking my gun too, but decided that wouldn’t be received well in
Nerul’s court.

Finally, I fastened my favorite necklace, a small silver
vial filled with angel dust on a long silver chain, around my neck. The vial
was carved with tiny dancing angels and rested reassuringly in the valley
between my breasts. Angel dust was my weapon of last resort and I rarely
carried it. But somehow I figured that walking into a gathering of the dark
world’s most powerful and evil creatures justified the extra precaution.

I took a final look in the mirror as the gentle tinkle of
the visitor warning system announced Emo’s arrival. I opened the door, prepared
to do battle.

Emo’s smile was wider than I’d ever seen it. His little
brush with death and my magical intervention certainly didn’t seem to have hurt
him much. Seeing my face, he held up one square, red hand before I could speak.
“I know what you’re going to say. Don’t bother, I’m going with you.”

“No you’re not.”

“I won’t let you go to the Royal Court alone, it’s too
dangerous. And besides, I owe you my life.” He said the last with a slight
frown and his already red face deepened in color as he flushed with emotion. “I
finally remembered.” He looked up at me and a single tear coursed down his
cheek. “I don’t know what you did or how you did it, but my soul is yours.”

I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. If anybody
should understand what Emo was talking about it was me. I’d seen family members
pledge their souls to those who had done them mortal favors. The fact that I
was standing in front of Emo on that day was the result of one of those
pledges. But that was another, very long story. Suffice it to say that my soul
wasn’t my own either.

“Okay,” I said scowling. “But if you get yourself killed I’m
gonna beat the shit out of you.”

He grinned. “That should be interesting.”

* * * * *

Using sensors to see, the Viper sliced through the fog at
the edge of the Mississippi River. As we neared the spot, just outside the
industrial section of the city, where the entrance to Nerul’s kingdom lay, I
turned to Emo and fixed him with an expectant eye.

He cocked his head at me. “What?”

“Are you going to tell me why we’re trying to get ourselves
killed?”

He grinned, “Oh…that.”

“Yeah that.”

“Deaver wants us to tell Nerul that Prince Nille is alive
and well, so far…” If he’d had an eyebrow—lesser devils don’t you know—Emo
would have raised it meaningfully at this, “and that Dialle and Rayanne are
willing to exchange him for their queen…and in the same condition she’s in.”

“Is that all?”

“No. He also said that we were to be allowed to view the
queen and report her condition back to Dialle.”

My eyes locked on Emo’s thoughtfully. I guess he knows me
pretty well because, although I thought I was just looking thoughtful he asked,
“What’s wrong, Astra?”

My eyes never leaving his I replied, “Deaver’s been dead
for, oh, about a week now.”

Emo’s eyes stayed right with mine. “Oh. Well, that is
interesting isn’t it? I don’t suppose you believe in ghosts?”

When I frowned he said, “I guess not.” He sat for a minute,
staring out at the thickening fog beyond the Viper’s windows. Then he turned to
me and said, “We’re in deep shit up to our armpits aren’t we, Astra?”

“Yep. We sure are, my friend.”

Arriving at the spot where I knew Nerul’s court to be, Emo
and I squinted to peer through the thick, white paste below us and were
surprised to see that no guards appeared to be stationed at the entrance.
“Circle slowly and return to hover,” I told the Viper.

As we approached the area just above and slightly behind the
entrance of the cave, Emo nudged me and pointed. With a disappointed sigh, my
eyes focused on the two gargoyles that sat on a rough outcropping of rock about
ten feet above the cave’s entrance. As we circled, they raised stubby, wet
snouts to the sky and sniffed warily. Their large, rounded ears rotated with
the movement of the Viper and, apparently not liking what they smelled, their
razor-filled maws opened in a united roar of warning that caused those tiny
hairs on the back of my neck to stand at attention.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. I’m getting a sense of déjà vu here.”

The Viper went full circle and returned to hover position in
front of the entrance. I turned to Emo. “Well. What do you think?”

“I say we look for a back way in.”

“Har.”

Emo’s red face split in a devilish grin. “Nahhh. There’re
two of them and two of us. Pretty good odds I’d say.”

I grinned back. “Wrong. There’re three of us. Check this
out.”

I switched the Viper to manual and swung out over the river.
Making a sharp turn so that we were facing back the way we’d come, I pointed
the Viper’s nose in the direction of the cave and put it into hover. I smiled
at Emo and then jammed the joystick forward full. The Viper bucked, coughed and
then shot forward at about five hundred miles per hour.

Emo braced himself as the Viper screamed toward the cave’s
opening.

The first gargoyle just had time to open its mouth to voice
its displeasure before the gleaming, red machine plucked its ticklike body off
the ledge and carried it, screaming in terror, high into the clouds. The thing
was torn between its desire to escape the nose of the Viper and its instinctive
knowledge that the alternative wasn’t a good one. Fortunately for the gargoyle,
I was fully capable of making that decision for it.

Emo and I waved gaily at the screaming monster before I put
the Viper into a nearly vertical dive and dropped its unpleasant nose cargo
into thin air.

As I pulled the Viper’s nose back up, Emo grinned at me.
“Now that’s the way you should always hunt ’goyle.”

I couldn’t help agreeing.

By the time we returned to the cave, the second gargoyle,
though gargoyles are very dense creatures by nature, couldn’t help figuring out
that something was amiss in wonderland. It had dropped from the ledge and was
ambling clumsily around in circles in front of the cave, screaming its fool
head off. As the Viper buzzed it, the thing sprang almost fifteen feet off the
ground and swung a tree-like arm at us. I heard its claws glance off the Viper
and frowned. “Watch the paint job, bud!”

“This one won’t be quite so easy, Astra.”

I smiled at him. “Wanna bet?” Swinging out over the river
again, I turned the nose of the Viper to face the cave’s entrance once more and
dropped to hover about 5 feet off the ground. Then I eased it forward until the
pacing gargoyle was within sight. It didn’t take long for the thing to see us
and make a move.

With a roar, it took three great hopping steps, springing
fifteen feet off the ground with each touch of its powerful feet and legs and
landed on top of the Viper. As the thing scrambled around above our heads, I
thanked the Big Guy that I’d spent the extra money to get the indestructible
metal frame as well as the essential rust proofing and eased the Viper straight
up into the air. I kept it flat so I wouldn’t lose my cargo before I was ready.

Emo chuckled. “You know he’s gonna tear Hades out of your
paint job when you try to slide him off.”

I just smiled.

When I couldn’t see the ground anymore, I pushed the stall
button and, as the Viper performed the expected drop, I hit restart and drove
the stick forward. The gargoyle, which had been left behind when the Viper
dropped, grappled for the machine’s sleek surface as it shot away from him, but
came away with nothing but two pawfuls of air. We listened to its screams as it
rushed to meet the broken spine that was waiting for it on the hard ground
below.

I turned to my partner and said, “What was that you were
saying about a back door?”

I dropped the Viper into hover about a quarter of a mile
from the cave and we stepped out. We approached the cave opening at an angle
from the back, just in case there were any more surprises waiting for us.

The vegetation around the cave was dense almost to the point
that it was impassable. I could see, here and there, evidence that something
had passed through but it was obvious that pains had been taken to keep the
vegetation in place.

We moved through the tangled growth as silently as possible,
our progress slowed by the need to keep our approach inconspicuous. As we
reached the place where the vegetation broke to provide a narrow clearing
before the cave’s entrance, I motioned for Emo to stay in place while I left
the safety of the overgrown weeds and moved into the open area.

Removing my belt of crosses, I wrapped it around both hands,
leaving about a foot of chain between my hands to use as garrote if necessary.
I kept my back pressed against the rough-hewn stone that formed the face of the
cave and slid sideways to the edge of the opening. Once inside, I stopped and
listened carefully for a moment before going any further. An indecipherable
sound thrummed at the very edges of my hearing, nearly vibrating my bones with
its intensity. It seemed to be coming from the depths of the cave and didn’t
appear to be coming any closer as I listened.

As I squinted into the darkness, I sensed Emo coming into
the cave behind me. I glanced at him and raised my eyebrows in a silent
question, but Emo just shrugged. I motioned for him to follow me into the cave.

As we moved into the cool dimness of the cave, I
concentrated on using my sensing power to discover the auras of any creatures
that might be lurking along the darkened walls or tucked into the heavily
shadowed niches. I didn’t sense anything, which surprised and concerned me a
bit. I had trouble believing that Nerul was this careless. The alternative was
that he was aware of our presence and was allowing us to sneak up on him. Not a
pleasant thought either.

The further we went into the cave, the louder the humming
became, until I finally recognized it as a ritual chant. A light now flickered
off the walls of the passageway ahead of us, calling us like a beacon toward
the thrumming chant. Where the light touched the wall, it gave off an unnatural
reddish glow that furnished the illumination with a demonic feel.

As we neared the flickering light, my pulse seemed to pick
up until it beat against the inside of my skin in rhythm with the haunting
tones of the chants. I felt myself growing increasingly stressed until I found
it difficult to move forward. Until finally, when we came to a Y in the
passageway, I stopped.

To my left was the flickering light and chanting. To my
right, darkness and silence. I looked back and forth for a minute and then,
feeling indecision weighing on me like a giant iron ball, I closed my eyes and
leaned back against the hard, uneven surface of the wall. On some level I was
aware that the wall was sticky to the touch and coated with something that had
a foul smell, but I was unwilling to give up the support.

Emo stopped behind me but didn’t speak. Silently he reached
out a hand and wrapped it gently around my upper arm. I covered his hand with
one of my own and took several deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down and
wondering what was giving me such a feeling of impending doom.

Take the passageway to the right
. My eyes flew open
and I looked at Emo. He looked back at me with a question in his eyes.

I realized with a start that Dialle was back in my head. I
decided to try an experiment.
What the Hades are you doing in my head again?
I thought right back at him.

For long seconds he didn’t respond and I thought I’d failed
to reach him with my silent question. Then, incredibly he answered me.
I
live to get into your head…among other things.

I shivered.
Har, har. Go away. You’re distracting me.

Take the right passageway, it comes out behind and above
the conclave. Nerul knows you’re coming, but he’s expecting you to come from
the passage to the left. He has guards stationed there.