Ariton screamed back at me, words that cut into my flesh like honed blades, but I laughed at the pain. It didn’t matter; none of it mattered—my whole being, my whole purpose was to destroy the being in front of me. And destroy him I would!
“By my virtue, I banish thee!”
A noise like a tornado ripping apart a house crashed over me. Ariton was screaming in horror now, his body twisting and whipping around itself as the power flowed from me, wrapping around his form in tendrils of destruction. “No! This cannot be! This…cannot…”
“By my being, I do banish thee!” My voice rose high and piercing over Ariton’s screams, painful even for me to hear. With the final words, I gathered up everything I had, every ounce of rage, every morsel of terror, every atom of spirit that dwelt within me, and blasted Ariton with it. He exploded in a nova of blackness that slammed Jim and me against the wall.
As I slid to the floor, my body rigid with agony, a voice spoke with quiet contentment.
Well done, Aisling Grey, prince of Abaddon.
20
“No,” I told the voice, pulling myself to my knees. “Tell me you didn’t say what I think you just said.”
“I said you’re crying blood. Your eyes are different, too. You…er…you didn’t happen to channel any dark power, did you?” It was Jim’s voice that answered me, not the voice that had spoken so urgently into my head.
“What? Dark power?” Oh, god! That was the warm, dark, thick feeling that had filled me a few seconds ago. Loathing rose within me to swamp all the other emotions twisting around my gut. I had used dark power! The most dangerous, most forbidden of all powers! The meat and manna to dark beings. I would be damned forever now! “No! I didn’t mean to! I don’t know—”
I looked around the room as if someone had written out the answers in big, easily read letters, but there was nothing. The room looked a bit worse for wear after the struggle between Ariton and myself, and there was a nasty black stain with rays that spread out across the floor where he had been standing, but nothing more.
And there should have been something. Someone whom I had last seen next to the door.
“Obedama?”
“No, although I used its form for a bit,” the demon answered, but it wasn’t in Obedama’s voice. It was another voice, a familiar voice, once that made my stomach clench tight with dread. From the black shadows Ariton’s passing had left on the floor, a figure gathered in the air and formed into that of a man.
I was still shaken by the events with Ariton—not to mention sick with the thought of having tainted my powers—but I was not a coward. “Peter Burke. I should have known you’d be bound up in this somehow. Who exactly are you? And why were you pretending to be Obedama? Why did you have me kill your master?”
Peter laughed. He looked perfectly normal, dressed in a conservative polo shirt and pants, but his face and eyes were as expressionless as ever. The feeling of power that rolled off him was bad. Very bad.
“Ariton was not my master. He was not, in fact, an overly bright being. I used Obedama’s form to keep tabs on him for years, and he never noticed the difference. In truth, you did us all a favor by banishing him. I have every confidence that you will rule much wiser in his stead.”
“No, no, no,” I said, groaning as I got to my feet. I was more than a little bit surprised to discover that my towel was still covering me, smudged and dirty from the demon smoke and chalky with debris from the plaster walls, but still present. I tucked an end of it a little tighter, automatically brushing it off as if it was a dress. “I don’t know why you’ve been trying to manipulate me to be the Venediger, but you’re absolutely insane if you think I’m going to be a full-fledged demon lord. I’m grateful you showed me the way to destroy Ariton, but I am not now, nor will I ever be, a prince of Abaddon.”
Peter’s face was completely impassive. “I know it should be princess, but we’ve never had a reigning female demon lord. We tend to be very set in our traditions here.”
“We? You mean you’re not just a demon?”
“Do you really believe me to be so insignificant?” He laughed his peculiar humorless laugh.
“OK, let’s back up a couple of steps.” My head felt like it was going to explode. Maybe if I went through everything one point at a time, I could keep from actually going insane. “First of all, I’m not reigning anything—either the Otherworld, or a demon lord’s position in Abaddon. I have one little demon, and it’s not a particularly bad specimen. In addition, I have no intention of taking part in any of the politics you guys are so wrapped up in. And finally”—I took a deep breath, my faint control snapping—“what the hell did you do to me to make me use dark power?”
Peter just looked at me with cold, blank eyes. Jim’s cold nose touched my hand in warning. I looked down at my demon, puzzled why it didn’t speak. That’s when the penny dropped. “You’re a demon lord.”
He bowed. It lacked all the panache of the dragon’s courtly moves. “I have that honor, yes. I’m surprised you did not recognize me, since you’ve summoned me in the past.”
“I have?” I racked my brain to think of the time I’d summoned a demon lord. Yet another penny dropped. “You’re Bael, also known as Beelzebub.”
“I wondered if you would recognize me. I took great pains to disguise myself to you.”
“But…I should have known who you were. I’m a Guardian. I should have felt something different about you…”
“There are some benefits to being the premier prince of Abaddon,” he said with a faint scowl. The deathless look in his eyes made shivers go up my back, into my hair. “The ability to create glamours that can fool even other princes of Abaddon is one of them.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked, my question coming out a near wail. “Why would you try to get me to be Venediger if all you wanted was for me to banish Ariton?”
“My plans are many, and you have a significant role to play in them,” Peter answered. (I couldn’t stand to think of him as Bael, the head demon lord of Abaddon, the one who was going to be thrown down from power in a few days.)
I brushed away a few tears of horror. “This is about power, isn’t it? You’re due to be booted from the big kid’s chair, and you don’t want to go.”
“Would you?”
I shook my head. “This isn’t about me and what I want. You want power here”—my skin crawled at the realization of what was behind his manipulations to put me into the position of Venediger—“and in the Otherworld. You plan on using me to rule both worlds, don’t you?”
Peter strolled past me and examined a bookshelf behind Ariton’s desk. “And there are some who say you are not particularly bright.”
“Was it you who tried to kill me?”
“My dear, if I wanted you dead, you would have been so before the thought left my mind. That shot was just to bring you to Ariton’s house in case he bungled his plan to use you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “I won’t do it. I won’t help you here, and I won’t help you in the Otherworld. I am one of the good guys. I refuse to be a part of this.”
“Do you really think you have that choice?” Peter snarled at me, slamming down a book on the desk. “Despite what you believe, you are now a prince of Hell. You have toppled Ariton from power. That automatically gives you his place on the council. Far from one demon, you now lead twenty-two legions of demons and demon-kind.”
I stared at the demon lord before me, my mind crawling around, unable to shake off the horrible, paralyzing sense of shame, fear, and loathing that consumed me. “You tricked me into banishing Ariton.”
“Tricked? Perhaps. I prefer to think of it as enlightenment. I showed you a possibility. You acted upon it.” Bael made a dismissive movement with his hands that brought fresh tears to my eyes.
“How could I have done it? I’m just a Guardian. I have one demon. I don’t have the sort of power needed to banish a demon lord!”
“Not on
your own, no.” Peter walked around the desk and shuffled through some of Ariton’s papers. “But quite cleverly, you used Ariton’s power against him.”
“I didn’t know…” I clutched the nearest chair, sinking into it as my legs went boneless. I wanted to weep until my tears washed away everything in my existence. “Channeling a demon lord’s power is not anything I’ve done before. I didn’t know that was what I was doing. I was just trying to save my life.”
“And you succeeded extremely well. You show great potential, Aisling Grey. I will be happy to have you at my side as my lieutenant.”
“I will not be anyone’s lieutenant.” Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed hard to shove it down. “I don’t want to be a demon lord. I don’t want legions. I don’t want to be a prince of Abaddon. I hereby officially abdicate the position.”
Hatred pure and deep flared to life in his dark eyes, causing me to recoil against the back of the chair. The hairs on the backs of my arms stood on end. Jim pressed tight against me, clearly trying to lend support.
It did little good.
“There is no abdication. You are, or you are not.” He seemed to grow until he filled my vision, my body trembling in response to the threat he presented. It swamped me, drenched me in the absolute conviction that he could, and would, destroy my body and leave my soul in perpetual torment. “There is no gray area where Abaddon is concerned. Do not believe that you can put me off the way you did Ariton. You will either agree to support me as I continue to rule Abaddon, or I will destroy you. Right here. Right now. Decide!”
I believed him. This was my existence on the line. I looked at Jim. “What are my chances?”
“Truthfully?” Jim shook its head. “Nada.”
My heart fell. I was trapped, bound, wrapped in the chains of my own ignorance, with no possible way out. I curled up into a little ball on the chair, my soul sick with the knowledge of what I’d become. It came down to a matter of survival, pure and simple. Either I agreed to do what he wanted, or he’d kill me. Period. Shame filled me at the knowledge that I was too weak to die with honor.
“I agree.”
His body shrunk back to its normal size, the overpowering sense of threat lightening somewhat. “Excellent. Ah, it would seem Ariton has some outstanding debts. I’m sure you’ll want to take care of those quickly. It seems he’s borrowed money from the Furies, and we all know how unpleasant they can be when crossed.” Peter dropped the stack of papers he was going through. “Such a long face. I think you’ll find Ariton’s position won’t be too demanding upon you. He was the seventh prince, you know, not one of the Four. He held no important positions. To be honest, he was more concerned these last few hundred years with materialistic concerns than ones in Abaddon.”
“If he was so minor and unimportant, why did you use me to get rid of him?” I asked, lifting my head from where it had been resting on my knees.
Peter smiled again. “You’re much quicker than he was. This will work out very well, I think. It is true that Ariton held no special threat to me, but he was annoying in his persistent belief that he could hold the throne of Abaddon. I felt the time was ripe for him to be destroyed and another put in his place before I made it clear to the other demon lords that I would not be stepping down as they expected.”
I sighed, sick, filled with anguish and pain, and with no idea what I was going to do to get out of the situation. “Can I leave now?”
“There is no need to ask my permission. You are my lieutenant, not a servant. Ah. This, I think, will summon it.”
Peter pressed a bell set into the desk. In the distance of the house, a buzzing noise echoed dimly, almost immediately followed by the shuffling sound of feet approaching.
“You called for me, mas…eh…my lord Bael?”
The demon who opened the door appeared as a small and slight man, balding, with silver-rimmed lenses perched on a beaky nose. In its hands it held a PDA.
“Traci, isn’t it?” Bael asked the demon.
“Yes.” Traci looked from Peter to me, then to the spot on the floor. Its lips pursed in irritation. “I see. If I might be so bold to speak without permission, which of you has banished my lord…my former lord Ariton?”
“Aisling Grey is now your master,” Peter said with a wave in my direction. “Serve her well.”
He disappeared even before the last word was out of his mouth, leaving the demon named Traci alone with Jim and me. “You defeated Ariton.”
I stood up, adjusting my towel. I had brought this on myself, but by god, I was not helpless. “Yes, I did. Who are you?”
“I am Traci, lord.” The demon bowed. “I am…I was Ariton’s steward.”
“And what does a demonic steward do, exactly?”
Traci seemed to have a perpetually annoyed look on its face, but I could see it was struggling to keep its face as bland as possible. “I tended his lordship’s business affairs, ran the house, and oversaw the work of the legions.”
“Right. As of this moment, I am putting Effrijim in charge of everything. You can continue to run the business stuff and house. But everything else has to go through Jim or me.”
Traci blinked through its glasses at Jim for a moment before turning its gaze back to me. “But…but that is a class-six demon.”
“And?”
“A class-six demon cannot be in charge of the legions.”
I my hands on my hips. If I was going to be a friggin’ prince of Hell, I was going to be the worst prince of Hell there had ever been. “Who says so?”
Traci’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times before it finally managed to say, “It has always been that way!”
“Well, things are going to change. I want you to spread the word to the rest of Ariton’s minions that as of this moment, all demonic work is going to cease. There will be no damning anyone, no curses, no tormenting or torturing or rending the souls from innocent people.”
I have to give the demon credit. It just stood there for a moment, its mouth slack, then shook itself. “What about the next release?”
“The what?”
“My lord Ariton…my former lord Ariton, I should say, had his legions at work in the software company. We haven’t tormented or cursed or damned anyone for the last eleven years, ever since Ariton realized there was much more profit to be had from computer operating systems.”
“He wasn’t going by the name of Bill, was he?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.
Traci shook its head. “No, although I can see why you might think that. Ariton Enterprises produces operating software for corporate systems.”
“Oh.” I chewed on my lip for a minute. “Is there anything evil in the system?”
“Many things,” Traci said bluntly. “There is a built-in system whereby the software is obsolete almost immediately, thus forcing the client to update twice a year. Also, specific bugs were planted in it, which will cause minor problems with the system. The patches to fix the bugs have been a particularly lucrative source of income the last few years.”
I waved that away. “Is there anything dangerous to people? Anything really evil?”
Traci blinked a couple more times. “Ariton didn’t see a profit in that, so we discontinued the damnation module.”
“OK. Then you can keep everyone working on that. Just remember—no one is to do anything evil without permission from Jim or myself.”
“As you desire,” the demon said, making a note on its PDA.
“Great. Oh, crap, look at the time! I’ve got to get to the fencing club.” I eyed Traci for a moment. “I don’t suppose you have any women’s clothing here, do you?”
I could swear it looked startled. “No, I do not.”
“Damn. Um…how about conjuring up something for me? Parading around in this towel is getting a bit old.”
It frowned at me. “I am not a magician, lord. I cannot conjure anything.”
“Well, that’s just great. What am I going to use for clothes, then?”
&n
bsp; “I would assume that’s your responsibility,” Traci said with an irritated sniff.
“Yeah? Assume again. Demon Traci, I order thee to get me something to wear!”
Five minutes later I narrowed a look at Jim that would have gutted a lesser demon. “One word, one single word, about Scarlett O’Hara, and it’s off to the neuterer for you.”
Jim walked around me, eyeing the togalike covering that Traci had fashioned for me out of the heavy, wine-colored velvet drapes. “I’m not saying a word.”
“Good.” I took a deep breath and tied tighter the gold braid that served as a belt. It wasn’t haute couture—hell it wasn’t even a real dress—but it was better than a dirty towel.
“Did you ever see that Carol Burnett show where she did her parody of Gone with the Wind? Your outfit is a hundred times funnier than hers.”
“Shup,” I told Jim, turning back to Traci, who was looking rather proud of itself as it tweaked a fold in my toga. I slapped its hand. “Is there any special power demon lords have about getting through rush-hour traffic really quickly?”
“No,” it answered shaking its head. “You can alter time and space, though. Would that help?”
I looked at Jim. “Is that evil?”
“Naw. Kind of cool, really, although it hurts like a son of a bitch if you do it wrong.”
“Right.” I brushed out my toga and faced Traci. “Show me how to do that, please.”
A few seconds later, I screamed my way into being, falling through the shredded fabric of space onto the sidewalk below, cracking both my elbow and my poor, abused head. “Son of a—”
“Told you,” Jim said, grunting as it landed next to me. Man, you have got to take portaling lessons. I just lost another toe!”
I pushed myself to my feet, glancing at the back foot it shoved toward me. Around us, the busy evening traffic of London pulsed past, a few people stopping to stare. I lifted my chin, brushed off my curtain, and turned toward the marble-pillared doorway of the London Fencing Association. The doorman eyed me warily.