Much Ado About Vampires

hot still, I think.”

“Tea of any temperature would be most welcome, thank you. I have had a long journey to get here.” Terrin held up a hand, giving Kristoff a watered-down smile. “I see you’re about to object to such civilities. Would it relieve your mind if I told you that I am a member of the Court of Divine Blood?”

The who of what, now? I asked Alec, moving over to the couch to sit with Pia opposite Terrin.

“It might,” Kristoff allowed.

It is what the mortals think of as heaven. Or rather, the mortals based their notion of heaven upon the Court.

So he’s a good guy?

Presumably so.

“Heaven?” Pia said aloud, looking startled. I had a feeling she’d been asking the very same thing of Kristoff. “You’re from heaven? Are you an angel or something?”

“The Court is not heaven, although we are frequently confused for it, and there are no angels there, simply employees. Thank you, I’ll take it black if you don’t mind.” Terrin gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Pia, who gestured at me with the teapot, setting it down when I shook my head. “In answer to both questions, I am here because I have been sent by the mares to seek the help of Corazon. You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?” he asked me.

“No, I don’t. You don’t work for Bael, by any chance?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. Why would someone want me to help them if not to use my Toolness? “And how do you know about Diamond?”

“Who are the mares?” Pia asked at the same time. “More importantly, just how did you know where to find Cora?”

“So many questions,” he said, sipping his tea. “And so little time to answer them. I will explain as quickly as I can. I am unarmed,” he added to Kristoff, who lurked next to him, watching him with a suspicious expression. “And I intend no one here any harm.”

“You just admitted you wish to use Cora,” Alec said, in a mild voice that didn’t at all disguise his hostility.

“Not in the sense you mean,” Terrin said, suddenly looking exhausted. “It has been a very long day. Let me start at the beginning, and see if we can’t get through this quickly, so that my visit will not have been in vain. I am a seneschal at the Court, which basically makes me a middle-level bureaucrat. One of the three mares—they are second-in-command to the Sovereign, who rules the Court—has sent me to seek the aid of Corazon Ferreira, mortal, who was imbued two days previously with the Occio di Lucifer.”

“Former mortal. She is now my Beloved,” Alec corrected him.

I really am immortal now?

Yes.

Wow. I thought about that for a few minutes. That’s kind of mind- blowing. At least now Jas can stop fretting that she’s going to live forever, and I’ll be an old lady who looks like her grandma rather than her sister.

“So I see. You have my felicitations.”

Alec bowed his head in acknowledgment.

Are you guys always so formal and old-fashioned?

It is the way of the bureaucrats, yes. I prefer to live in the here and now, but many beings in the Otherworld honor the old ways.

Gotcha. “What sort of aid?”

“I believe our goals are the same,” Terrin said, setting down his teacup. “The mare in question—Mare Disin —desires to free her great-granddaughter from the Akasha, namely, one Diamond Reed.”

I gawked at him despite the fact that I was gawking far too much ever since I’d met Alec. “Diamond has a grandma who is in heaven?” I shook my head. “That came out wrong. She’s got a grandma who is a big-time angel? Boy, that still doesn’t sound right.”

“Diamond has a great-grandmother who is one of the three individuals who wields great power in the Court of Divine Blood, yes,” Terrin said, glancing at his watch. “And we are running out of time to effect a rescue.”

“I have heard of the mares,” Alec said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “If they wield as much power as is reputed, why does not this mare simply remove her descendant from the Akasha?”

“The mares’ powers are confined to the Court; they have none outside of it, much less so in the Akasha.”

“But they do control the Hashmallim,” Kristoff interrupted.

“I was just going to point that out,” Alec agreed, turning to me to add, since he knew I was going to ask, “The Hashmallim are the beings who act as the police force of the Court of Divine Blood. They also serve to guard the Akasha. It is because of them that we could not simply leave it.”

“I remember the greeter saying something about them,” I murmured, wondering what Diamond was doing at that moment. Was she worried? Afraid? Guilt swamped me at being so caught up with Alec that I had been ready to let her happily putter on her own in the Akasha. Despite her reassurance that she was looking forward to seeing all the Akasha had to offer, it was still a place of punishment, and she had done nothing to deserve being trapped there.

“They do indeed direct the Hashmallim,” Terrin acknowledged, smiling his thanks when Pia poured him more tea. Already the bruise marks on his throat had almost faded to nothing. “And if Her Grace Disin had asked the Hashmallim to take her great-granddaughter to the Akasha, she would most certainly be able to demand a release. But Diamond was banished by Bael himself, and combined with the fact that she is a vessel, it makes for difficulties in gaining her release without extraordinary measures.”

“I understood, like, one word in five in that,” I told Pia. “How about you?”

“One in four,” she said, patting my knee. “But I’ve been around these guys longer than you. What’s a vessel?”

“A member of the Court of Divine Blood. In the hierarchy of the Court, they are the lowest member, and justly serve mortals. They answer to—”

“Whoa, wait just a second, here,” I interrupted, shaking my head. “You’re saying that Diamond is an angel, too? Diamond who stole my husband away from me?”

Alec made an abortive gesture.

“Not that I wanted him anymore, and I’m much happier without him,” I said quickly, flashing a quick smile at Alec. “But still, she stole him from me! Angels don’t do that!”

“She is a vessel,” Terrin said, his warm brown eyes doing a little twinkle thing at me. “She serves mortals.”

I thought about that for a moment. “You’re saying she took Dermott from me because . . .” My gaze shifted to Alec, enlightenment dawning in the dusty hallways of my mind. “Because I was going to meet Alec?”

“Because you are a Beloved, and you have a moral code that would not allow you to fulfill that role if you were bound to another man,” Terrin said, hiding his smile in the cup of tea.

“I can’t help but be a little annoyed with the fact that she thought she’d just come along and manipulate my life like that,” I said, feeling disgruntled and somewhat betrayed. “I thought she really loved him. I thought he was better off with her. I thought I was doing the right thing by giving them my blessing.”

Terrin shrugged. “She most likely does love him. Her job would not have required her to marry him, so I assume she felt they had a future together. And just for the record, no member of the Court takes it upon themselves to manipulate mortals. We may guide now and again, but in the end, the choice of what path your life takes is entirely yours.”

My gaze went again to Alec, whose mouth was tilted up on either end in the very faintest of smiles.

You look smug.

I do not feel smug. I feel grateful.

Grateful that I let my inner devil have her way and hook up with you?

Grateful that Diamond had the foresight to separate you from your ex-husband. Did you love him?

When we were first married, yes. But it wasn’t the sort of love that had much depth to it, and