Much Ado About Vampires

threaten you?”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Sally said with a wide smile as the others gathered around them. “Misunderstandings, misconceptions, a little binding spell or two . . . these things get blown out of proportion, and then poof! Someone threatens someone else with drawing and quartering, and it all goes downhill from there.”

He rubbed his forehead. Either he was going insane, or the world was. “Cora threatened you with drawing and quartering?”

“Well . . . no, perhaps that was me, but she definitely said unkind things to me when I called the Dark Ones to take her and the lich away. Uncalled-for unkind things.”

Alec’s blood froze solid in his veins. “The messenger has her?” As he was about to demand to know more, her words filtered through the fury and fear for Cora that held him in such a tight grip. “You called them?”

Sally tried to step back, but he was too fast. His roar of rage made her wince as he lifted her off the floor to shake her. “Where the hell is my Beloved?”

“Abaddon,” she corrected him, her eyes wide with surprise as he snarled a few threats of his own into her face. “Oh, my! I see where Corazon gets her ideas! That was . . . really? With Popsicle sticks? I never thought about that, but I suppose if you sharpen them first . . .”

“Alec, stop,” Kristoff said as Alec wrapped his hands around the woman’s neck. “You won’t achieve anything attempting to throttle her to death, so it’s not worth wasting your time. Where is Cora now, Sally?”

“I told you,” Sally answered as Alec released her. “Abaddon. Well, the part of the house that’s in Abaddon. Technically only the north side is in the mortal world, although I was thinking about reclaiming the west garden —”

Alec was off before she finished the sentence, Kristoff on his heels.

“Stay here!” Kristoff bellowed to Pia, who answered with a terse, “In your dreams!”

“I’m going to stay here,” Diamond told them. “My great-grandma would have kittens if she knew I went to Abaddon.”

The house was filled with antiques, a showcase that should by rights be on a historical register, but Alec appreciated none of that as he tore through the large entrance hall, heading for the opposite side. The hall itself was divided down the middle by what looked like a curtain of dark light, delineating the part of the house that projected into the mortal world from that which resided in Abaddon. He passed through the ebony field, stumbling over the twisted tiles of the floor as he entered the hellish side.

The antiques here were grotesque parodies of furniture, all the angles skewed, odd little legs and arms projecting, twisted, into space, snaring the unwary passerby. The light was different, as well, feeble streams of light from the other side of the hall dying a quick death in the murkiness inherent in Abaddon. “Corazon!” Alec bellowed, jerking his jacket from the grasp of what was once an armchair. Where are you?

Alec? What the . . . run, Alec, run! The vampires are here!

I know, he answered grimly, starting off down a side hallway just as Kristoff and Pia entered the Abaddon side of the building.

“Good god,” Pia gasped, clutching Kristoff. “This is horrible! Look at that couch. It looks like it’s been tortured. Who in their right mind would torture furniture ?”

“A demon lord,” Kristoff answered.

“I had to practice my persuasion techniques on something,” Sally said, her voice reaching Alec as he ripped open door after door searching for Cora.

“Sally, really, I must insist you unhand me. What’s my great-grandma going to say?” Diamond objected.

“Don’t be such a sissy,” Sally answered. “Where’s your sense of adventure? Where’s your gumption? Where’s your desire to see the seamy underbelly of life?”

Are you harmed, Beloved?

No, but, Alec, you have to leave. Sally is evil! She’s working with Bael, and she called up the vamps to tell them that you were going to be here, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, she did something to Ulfur’s horse that made him not a ghost anymore, so now he can’t go invisible.

“It’s back on the non-Abaddon side of the house,” Diamond grumbled.

Alec jerked open one of a set of double doors that led into a grand ballroom, once obviously the pride of a bourgeois heart, and now a horrible battleground made up of black and mildew-stained parquet tile that erupted upward in sharp spikes, as if the ground itself couldn’t bear its unholy existence. The walls were likewise stained, tatters of once beautiful flocked wallpaper hanging in despondent strips, a broken and twisted chandelier drooping almost to the ground. But it was the group of people at the far end that caught and held Alec’s attention. Two men crouched behind an upturned broken sofa, its wooden claw feet clutching at nothing as an enraged horse snorted and pawed the ground, clearly protecting the two people behind it.

“Alec!” Cora screeched, then clapped her hands over her mouth. Oh, my god, I’m sorry. Now they know you’re here.

The two men, the messenger Julian and a Dark One Alec didn’t recognize, both turned to look at him.

“It’s all right, Beloved,” Alec said with dark intent as he stalked forward toward the two men, who hastily— but with one eye on the horse Ragnor—got to their feet. “We have nothing to fear from them. They, however, should be extremely worried.”

“You threaten us, Alec Darwin? ” the messenger asked.

“You took my Beloved,” he answered, the thought of anyone touching her fueling a rage unlike anything he’d known.

Alec, I’m all right. They didn’t hurt me. In fact, they haven’t been near us since Sally zapped Ragnor.

They took you. They will die for that.

“You cannot be serious,” Cora said, moving around the horse and heading straight for him. “It’s not really their fault, anyway. Well, part of it is, because we wouldn’t be here if Sally hadn’t told them that you were going to show up, but really, it’s all Sally’s fault.”

“Did I hear my name being taken in vain?” Sally entered the room with a still-protesting Diamond. “I do hope so, because really, how can one call oneself an effective demon lord unless one’s name is taken in vain all over the place? Oh, good, you found the Dark Ones.”

“Smite her!” Cora commanded, pointing at Sally, a furious look on her face. “She’s pure evil!”

Smite her?

“Oh, not pure, surely,” Sally said with a little giggle. “And, you know, I did say I was naughty, not truly evil.”

You can’t smite?

“That’s right, she is,” Diamond said, giving Sally a gimlet look. “Although I am willing to bet that Great- grandma Disin is going to have a thing or two to say about you dragging me here. You know how she gets.”

Not that I’m aware.

Sally shuddered, her smile dissolving as she muttered, “She wouldn’t know anything if you didn’t tell her.”

Well, hell. It sounded so dramatic, too.

Alec moved quickly, pushing Cora behind him as he faced the messenger. “You will say what you have to say to me, Julian. Then I will destroy you.”

“Alec—” Kristoff said, sighing as he stepped forward between the two men. “You can’t do that.”

“No, he can’t,” Cora agreed, shoving Alec on the back before moving around to his side.

He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close, needing her warmth, needing her light to banish the darkness that threatened to claim him again. “It is a crime for one Dark One to threaten the life of another’s B eloved—”

“We made no threats against her, nor did we harm her,” Julian protested. “Give us a little credit, Alec. We simply wished to talk to her . . . and you.”

“Oh, sure you do!” Cora flung herself in front of him, her arms held wide as if to protect him.

He would have found the idea laughable, but he felt in her a determination to save him.

You already have, love.