“Nothing.” Gabriel pulled me up beside him.
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking from him to me. “What am I missing?”
Jim snorted.
“Before Magoth left with Sally in tow, she pulled me aside and pointed out that Chuan Ren was a dragon,” I told her.
“Chuan Ren? Well, yeah. But what does she have to do with Magoth?” Aisling asked, still puzzled.
“She doesn’t have anything to do with Magoth— it was Bael who found her after you banished her,” I said, exchanging a glance with Gabriel.
“Heh. They deserve each other,” Aisling said with satisfaction.
Gabriel gave my waist a little squeeze of confidence. I took a deep breath and continued. “We knew that Chuan Ren was a dragon, of course, but my experience with dragons has been limited until the last two months, and it just didn’t strike me that although everyone is treating Chuan Ren like Bael’s minion, she’s not. She can’t be; dragons can’t be servants of demon lords. It’s just impossible.”
Aisling nodded. “That’s why we can’t summon her, as we could a demon, not that I could think of a conceivable reason to even want to do that.”
“Exactly. But it also means that we don’t have to go through Bael to get her.”
“Why do you want to get to her? I’m sorry,” Aisling said, smiling. “The pregnancy is draining all my brain cells obviously, but I still don’t see your point.”
“If I say the obvious, will you banish me to the Akasha?” Jim asked, its eyes hopeful.
“Yes.”
“Damn.”
I leaned back against Gabriel, seeking strength. “The point is—and don’t beat yourself up for not seeing it; I certainly didn’t and I know Abaddon better than you—the point is that Bael is holding Chuan Ren against her will. She’s his prisoner, not a minion. Which means the only way she can leave him is either for him to give her up or for her banishment to be reversed.”
“A recall,” Aisling said, enlightenment finally striking her. “Well, yes, that would work. I did banish her, so I have the power to recall her. But for one thing, of course.”
My heart, which had begun to soar at the possibility of a solution to the problem of Chuan Ren, fell at her words. “What one thing?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I’d have to be insane to do it. I’m sorry, but I can’t recall Chuan Ren. I sent her to Abaddon for a reason. She’s just too dangerous to the green dragons. I really wish I could help you, May, but I can’t.”
Chapter Twenty-three
It took longer than I expected to recall Chuan Ren from Abaddon. The problem ended up being Drake rather than Aisling, the latter of whom, like any intelligent woman, immediately grasped the finer points of the argument Gabriel and I put forward.
“You know, that’s not a bad idea at all,” she said after Gabriel explained how we saw things. “It might work. If Chuan Ren wants out of Abaddon bad enough, she’ll have to agree to ending the war with us; otherwise, pfft. Right back she goes. And you said she’s not having fun there. Heh-heh-heh.”
I watched Aisling chuckling to herself, not doubting for an instant that Chuan Ren deserved her time with Bael, but amused nonetheless. “We wouldn’t ask you to reinstate Chuan Ren to this world without due cause, I assure you. But we felt this would solve all of our problems—allow me access to the red dragons’ shard, end the war between your two septs, and take care of Fiat.”
“I knew I liked you,” Aisling said, giving me a nod of encouragement. “So all that remains is for me to recall Chuan Ren, and we’ll see what she has to say. If she refuses to go along with it, we’ll just dump her back on Bael’s lap and figure out something else.”
I didn’t want to consider failure. There were no other options that I could see . . . other than allowing the shard to take me over completely.
“Right. Let’s get started,” Aisling said, trying unsuccessfully to hoist herself to her feet. “Drake, let me up.”
“You are not going to recall Chuan Ren,” her husband said, holding her back so she couldn’t rise.
She shot him an annoyed look. “You’re not going to pull any of that crap about it being too dangerous for me, are you? Because I can assure you that a simple thing like a recall is not going to go awry.”
“Kobolds,” Jim said, raising its brows. “Caribbean as a statue. ’Nuff said.”
“Shush, you. Drake, stop giving me that obstinate look. This won’t go wrong, I promise.”
“You are not summoning Chuan Ren into our house, where she can attack and possibly harm you,” he said calmly.
“But you’ll be here. And István and Pál, and Gabriel. Even May has a dagger! Chuan Ren isn’t going to have the chance to get near me.”
“It’s out of the question.” If I’d thought Drake had been stubborn before, I was to learn a new respect for the word. It took a solid hour of arguing before we finally came to a compromise.
“I don’t see that this is any less dangerous than me just simply summoning Chuan Ren,” Aisling said grumpily as she prepared to send Jim and me to Abaddon. “What if they’re caught?”
“May has access to the shadow world, and Jim can be resummoned if it loses its form,” Drake answered, his arm around her as he helped her to her feet after she’d drawn an emergency summoning circle on the floor.
“Oh, man! I just broke in this form, too! I’m gonna scream if I have to get another one!”
Drake ignored Jim’s complaint. “If either of them is seen in Bael’s domicile, they can take steps to protect themselves.”
“You might just want to remind Gabriel of that fact, because he doesn’t look any too happy about having May going to Abaddon without him,” Aisling said.
She was right. Gabriel had put up a bit of a fuss when Drake first suggested the plan, saying it was too dangerous for me.
“I know my way around demon lords,” I told him again, brushing my lips against his. His eyes were glittering, but it was the cold light of mercury rather than the usual white-hot heat. “And Jim’s been to Bael’s domain before, so it’ll help me get around without being seen. We’ll just pop in, get Chuan Ren to formally end the war and agree to the rest of our terms, and be back without Bael or anyone else in Abaddon being the wiser.”
I thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to respond to me, but that passed the instant the fire in me heard its answer in him. He hauled me upward as his mouth all but devoured mine, his fingers digging deep into my hips. Mindless of our surroundings, I wrapped my legs around him, twining my tongue around his as it did a fire dance in my mouth. Claws emerged from my fingers as the inferno within me spun out of control, sweeping us up until we were a firestorm of love, passion, and desire. The dragon within me roared to life, causing me to arch back from him as it transformed me.
“Holy Jehoshaphat!” Aisling said at the same time Jim demanded a video camera. “Is she turning into a dragon?”
Gabriel pulled me back from the brink just in time. He let me slide down his body, his hands cupping my face, his eyes burning through straight to my soul. “You are my life,” was all he said, but within those few words was a world of emotion. My heart sang as it heard the unspoken words, and slowly, bit by bit, I regained myself until once again I stood before him a woman.
One who loved him more than anything existence had to offer.
“I love you,” I whispered, my lips on his.
His eyes shone, but all he said was, “Come back to me safe, little bird.”
“That’s a promise,” I said, stepping backwards, my eyes on him as I reached out a hand.
Jim thrust its head under it. I grasped its collar, feeling a modicum of reassurance in not going to Abaddon alone.
“Seat backs and trays in an upright position, please,” Aisling said, warding both Jim and me before she made a sweeping gesture that ripped the fabric of time and space. “Have a nice time in Hell.”
“Famous last words,” Jim said as we stepped through.
Gabriel said nothing, but the memory of his face remained with me as we went into the maelstrom that resulted in us falling into darkness.
“You OK, May? Hey, you OK? You hit your head or something?”
Pain from the front of my head ebbed, as did the darkness. I rolled over and found myself looking up the large black nostrils of a Newfoundland. “Yes, I’m all right, and, ow, yes, I hit my head. Oh.” My memory returned as I sat up, blinking away the accompanying dizziness. “Where are we?”
“By the looks of it, some sort of linen closet. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re in the basement of Bael’s palace in Abaddon.”
Gingerly, I felt the knot at the front of my head. “What makes you say that?”
“That,” Jim said, nodding to a clipboard that hung on a nail next to the door of the large walk-in closet.
I got to my feet and examined it. “Palace” headed the top of the paper attached to the clipboard, followed by a summary of linens and textiles. “For some reason, I find it extremely odd that a demon lord would take the time to inventory sheets and towels,” I said, replacing the clipboard.
“He’s the premiere prince. You think they give that job to people who don’t know how to micromanage?” Jim shook its head. “You have a thing or two to learn, sister.”
“Don’t call me that. How long was I out?” I asked, straightening my clothing and opening the door just enough to peek out.
“About three minutes. I heard voices outside, but they left.”
We were speaking in whispers, the silence of Bael’s palace oppressive enough to cause even our whispers to sound reedy and insubstantial. “I don’t see anyone now. Are you sure you know your way around here?”
“Yeah. Been here a couple of times with my old boss, and Ash landed here once or twice, as well. We need to go up to Bael’s dungeon.”
“Up for a dungeon?” I asked as we slipped out of the room and, after listening intently for a few seconds to make sure no one was out there, made our silent way down the dimly lit hallway. “I thought they were normally kept in a basement.”
“If it was down here, then Bael wouldn’t be able to hear the screams of his captives as they’re tortured,” Jim pointed out.
I made a face at that thought, tempted to shadow since the light was dim enough that I might escape being seen should we run into someone, but Jim was highly identifiable. If it was found, Bael would know someone else was with the demon, and the hunt would be on. “Just get us to Chuan Ren.”
We had a few close calls with servants and minions running around as they carried out Bael’s commands, but luck, for a change, was with us, and we found Chuan Ren with only relatively little trouble.
“That’s the only door with a guard. My money is on that one being Chuan Ren’s cell. Ouch. Wrath demon,” Jim whispered as we huddled together peering around a corner at a door in front of which a human-looking guard sat—a huge human-looking guard, one that, were it actually human, would probably be a multimillion-dollar star linebacker.
Jim eyed me as I sank to the ground with an inaudible moan of dismay. “Agathos daimon. A wrath demon.”
“Yeah, nasty business. I don’t suppose you’ve ever dealt with one before?”
I shook my head.
“I hate to say it, but you’re on your own here,” Jim said with sickening cheerfulness. “I might be able to harm a lesser demon, but a wrath? Nuh-uh. Those guys are death on two legs.”
“I know,” I said, thinking frantically while keeping an ear cocked for anyone who might choose to stroll down the corridor in which we crouched.
Wrath demons, for those of you who aren’t bound to a demon lord, are the first lieutenants in a demon lord’s legion of minions. If you think of the worst qualities of various mass murderers, psychopaths, dictators, and sadists, and roll them all together into one beefy package of just about indestructible bulk, you’d get a pale approximation of a wrath demon.
And lucky me, there was one standing between Chuan Ren and my future.
“There’s only one way we’re getting past that door, and that’s to take out the wrath demon. Right. Jim, you’re going to be the distraction.”
“Me?” it yelped, its eyes huge. “It’ll destroy my gorgeous form in about two seconds flat!”
“No, it won’t. You belong to another demon lord, and you know the rules about demons destroying each other—it’s grounds for extermination. Just pretend that Aisling is here, and she sent you down on some errand or other.”
“That’s a first-class demon!” Jim protested. “I can’t talk to it! I’m only sixth class.”
“There’s nothing in the Doctrine that says you can’t. Just come up with some story that will buy me a couple of seconds.”
The demon made a face. “Even if I do come up with a story, it’s not going to believe me. Bael wouldn’t let me wander around without supervision.”
“It doesn’t have to believe you, it just needs to be focused on you for a few seconds while I slip past it.”
Jim looked skeptical. “Wrath demons can see shadow walkers, you know. They can even see into the shadow world.”
“But not very clearly. If you hold its attention, I can slip into the shadow world and get by it into Chuan Ren’s cell.”
“Get in, maybe,” Jim admitted grudgingly. “But how are you going to get out?”
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes. Can you find your way back to the linen closet once I’m in with Chuan Ren?”
“Yeah. Assuming Wrathy there doesn’t squash me into an incredibly handsome black pulp.”
“It won’t. It won’t know for sure that Bael doesn’t have a reason for accommodating Aisling.”
“You’ll leave me,” it wailed softly, giving me a pitiful look. “You’ll go off and leave me alone here.”
“Aisling can summon you at any time,” I pointed out.
“Not if I’m imprisoned, she can’t,” Jim said, glancing down the hall to the cell doors. “No demon gets out of those cells unless Bael wants them out.”
“Oh.” I wanted to point out that the likelihood of Jim ending up in a cell was slim, but the worried expression in the demon’s eyes stopped me. “Well, that doesn’t matter. I promise I won’t leave Abaddon until you’re with me again, or safe, OK?”
“All right, but if you forget, I’m never going to let you live it down.”
I patted the demon dog on the head. “I won’t forget. Give me about five seconds before you distract the wrath demon.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were taking lessons from Ash on how to come up with a wacky plan sure to go wrong,” Jim said as I shadowed and slipped across the hall to the far wall.
I crept down the hall until I figured I was just outside of the range at which the demon might see me, holding my breath as Jim sauntered around the corner, whistling a jaunty tune.
“Heya,” it called to the wrath demon, who stood up and glared with suspicion at Jim. “How’re they hangin’? Assuming you got yourself some, that is. I myself have a really nice package. Aisling, that’s my demon lord, says that it’s just lucky that I’m furry; otherwise, she’d have to put a pair of underpants on me, ya know what I mean? Heh-heh-heh.”
I gave a mental eye roll at Jim’s choice of distracting topic, and moved into the shadow world. I’d never been in the parts of the shadow world where it touched Abaddon, and was taken aback for a moment by just how radically different it was. Whereas the normal shadow world was a slightly off version of the real world, the Abaddon-tinged version was a dark place that seemed to be made up of the memory of nightmares, with objects twisted in a parody of the original.
The wrath demon, oddly enough, didn’t look any different in the shadow world, although there was a black corona that surrounded it. I was careful to avoid touching that as I squirmed past it, opening the cell door that was locked in the real world.
Chuan Ren sat immobile, her back to the wall of a bare cell that consisted
of a repulsive straw pallet, a bucket that was no doubt used as a latrine, and a battered tray of what looked to be raw entrails heaped in a repulsive blob.
I stepped out of the shadow world and was instantly slammed against the wall, Chuan Ren’s claws digging deep into my throat.
“You,” she spat, her dark eyes glowing with a red light.
The dragon shard inside me filled me with instant fury. Scarlet claws burst forth from my fingers, the silver scales following immediately as they rippled up and over my arms. I fought not just Chuan Ren, but the shard itself, which desperately wanted me to fully shift into a dragon.
“If you kill . . . me, you’ll never . . . get out,” I managed to gasp out as Chuan Ren attempted to throttle me.
I didn’t expect her to release me at that, but to my surprise, she did just that. Her hands dropped to her sides, allowing me to slide to the floor, my fingers back to being my own. I rubbed my neck, coughing and wheezing as I tried to get air into my abused windpipe.
“Gabriel said he would not free me,” she said, suspicion thick in the air.
I nodded, clearing my throat a couple of times to make sure I could talk. “He can’t buy your freedom. Bael guaranteed that. But we don’t need to get him to give you up when you are being held here against your will.”
She grabbed my collar with one hand and hauled me to my feet, giving me new respect for her physical strength. “How?”
“Aisling will recall you. Since she’s the one who banished you here, she can recall you without going through elaborate ceremonies, or getting Bael’s permission.”
“Aisling,” Chuan Ren said, her lips curling as she all but spat the name. “I will see her dead for what she’s done to me.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, shoving her hand off me. “In fact, you’re not only going to be polite to her; you’re going to call off the war against the green dragons. Unless you like spending your time as Bael’s guest, that is.”
An interesting parade of emotions passed over her face. Fury, disbelief, and more fury were followed by suspicion, and finally a cold, calculating look that indicated she was weighing her need to leave Abaddon against her desire to continue the war.