Much Ado About Vampires

“Yeah. I didn’t do it, though, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He lifted up my hand that he still held. “You’re glowing.”

“Well, I can’t see it on myself, but I did see Ulfur with a glow. How come you don’t glow? I mean, shouldn’t you, since you were sent here, too?”

He looked confused for a second before shaking his head. “Cora, you’re not glowing because you were sent to the Akasha. You’re glowing because somehow you’ve become infused with the power of the Occio di Lucifer. For all intents and purposes, you are the Tool now.”

“Hey! I am not a tool!” I said before what he had said filtered through the dim recesses of my mind. I gasped and grabbed his arm. “Oh my god, you don’t mean that! Tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean! You do, don’t you? You mean it! I’m Satan’s eyeball! I’m evil!”

“Calm down, you’re not evil. You’re simply . . . well, I don’t know what you are. The personification of the Occio, assumedly, although I don’t have a lot of experience in that sort of thing. Still, I would guess—”

I never did find out what he guessed, because at that moment he grabbed me around the waist and literally threw me aside. I smashed into a particularly pointy boulder the size of a small pony, cracking my head against it painfully.

“I am really not having a good day,” I groaned as I rolled off the boulder to glare at Alec. Or started to glare, but when I realized that he hadn’t just gone mad and thrown me aside because I was now the personification of evil, and had, instead, protected me, I snatched up a couple of rocks and got painfully to my feet.

The woman who had appeared before the English demon lord was now stalking toward Alec, a wickedlooking sword in her hand, pointed directly at his heart. “I have no quarrel with you, Dark One. Cease interfering and you will not be harmed.”

Alec, who stood with his back to me, balanced to spring forward, gave a dry little laugh. “I’ve lived in perpetual torment for the last six hundred years. I have no soul, my Beloved was killed almost before my eyes, I tried to destroy my best friend, was banished to the Akasha by my own people, and the woman sent to drive me insane makes me hard just looking at her. There is nothing you can do that will make my existence any more miserable than it already is, demon.”

I make you hard when you look at me?

Now is not the time for this discussion.

The woman smiled a particularly creepy smile. I moved closer to Alec.

Stay back, querida.

You’re unarmed. And she has a herkin’ big sword.

It’s not me she wishes to harm. Stay behind me.

“Move, Dark One,” the woman commanded.

I bent to pick up a couple more rocks. OK, you get a little inner squeal for the “hard” comment, and more importantly bonus points for wanting to protect me, but I’m not some delicate little flower who can’t protect herself.

“Give it up, demon. You won’t get her.” You’re not up to battling a wrath demon. This woman is second-in-command to Bael. She wields more power than you know.

And you think you’re going to fight her unarmed?

I have no choice.

“Do you know who I am?” she snarled.

“I don’t particularly care,” Alec said, shifting his weight as if he were bored with the conversation. “You’re wasting your time. Go back to Bael and tell him he will not have this woman.”

Alec truly felt he had no choice but to fight the demon; that I knew. He carefully nursed anger inside him, using its strength to focus his attention on the woman, his intentions quite clear even to me—he would die trying to protect me.

I didn’t ask myself why a man who a few minutes ago walked away from me, not to mention so callously killed others in the past, would risk his own life to protect me, a stranger; I just accepted that he felt that way, and started frantically looking around for something he could use as a weapon.

Thank you for not arguing with me.

Hey, I may not be comfortable with taking down Satan’s BFF, but I’m not stupid. You have a whole lot more experience fighting people like that woman than I do.

“She is your Beloved? ” the demon asked, speculation rife in her eyes as she tried to look around him to see me.

Alec hesitated for two heartbeats before answering, “Yes. Bael will not have her.”

I held my breath for a moment, gently feeling around the edges of his mind, relaxing when I realized that he believed he was lying.

“That she is bound to you will make your destruction that much sweeter, but it means little else to Lord Bael. If you wish to amuse me for a few minutes before I take her, then I will indulge you.”

Her blade flashed, causing Alec to leap back. I felt the sting of pain in his mind, and knew the demon’s sword had slashed him. How bad did she hurt you?

Not badly. Stay back.

Alec, you can’t fight her. You don’t have a weapon. She’ll just carve you up like a rotisserie chicken.

I would thank you for your faith in my abilities to protect you, but I’m a little busy at the moment.

I searched desperately for something that he could use for fighting her. I’m sorry. All I can find are rocks.

The demon laughed as her sword danced around Alec. He moved steadily backward as he dodged the worst of the sword cuts, shielding me with his body. I could feel the pain each time the sword struck true, driving my own level of frustration sky-high.

I don’t need rocks. Just stay behind me, out of her reach.

Without warning, the woman suddenly lunged forward, the sword she wielded piercing clean through his body, popping out his back.

“No!” I screamed, flinging my handful of rocks at her head as I jumped forward.

“Stay back!” Alec yelled, twisting to catch me as I tried to fling myself on the woman.

She snarled words that hurt my insides, tearing away something within me. My inner devil screamed in agony, and as Alec’s hands closed around my waist, reality seemed to shift and refocus itself, a buzzing sound like that of a thousand hissing voices filling my ears, and I froze, locked in position, as the buzzing grew louder and louder until it burst out of me.

A high, horrible scream tore through the air, followed by the metallic clang of an object hitting the ground. The buzzing in my head faded to nothing, leaving me reeling against Alec, staring in stupefaction at the sword lying on the rocky ground before us.

The woman was gone, a faint black whiff of smoke slowly curling around itself the only indicator of her presence.

“What . . . what happened? ” I asked, instinctively clinging to Alec as he bent to pick up the sword. He looked at it curiously for a moment, then turned his head to consider me.

“I believe we just received confirmation of our suspicions. You destroyed Bael’s wrath demon.”

“I did? How? I was just standing here—”

“I think . . . I think I used you.” He looked back at the sword in his hand. “Just as if you were a Tool of Bael, I used the power you harness to destroy the demon’s form and send it back to Abaddon.”

“Are you saying I’ve got some sort of demonic powers ? Because I may be a lapsed Catholic, but that’s going to definitely send me screaming to the nearest priest.”

“No, you don’t have the power itself,” he said, now examining his stomach.

“Aieee!” I screamed at the blood that soaked the lower half of his shirt. “Oh my god! Lie down! No, don’t move! I’ll get a . . . a . . .” I spun around, searching for something I could use to stanch the flow of blood. “Good lord, what sort of place is this that they don’t have a first aid kit?”

“I’m all right. The bleeding has stopped.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said, coming to a swift decision. I took him by the arm and gently but firmly guided