Much Ado About Vampires

unbind me, and we can talk about this like civilized people.”

Silence answered my mental plea.

“Ah, but who ever told you I was civilized? ” Sally asked with one of her toothy smiles. She placed two fingers on my shoulder, and two on Ulfur’s, standing behind the three of us now locked together by Diamond’s firm grip. “Besides, I think you’ll want to stay for this. It should be very exciting.”

Hope, which had lifted up its head, curled up into a ball and withered away again. There was no hope. Without Alec, there could be nothing.

You’ve come a long way from wanting to stake me every chance that presented itself.

Alec, you are alive ! My heart, formerly shattered into a million pieces, miraculously re-formed itself, my skin tingling with electricity as Sally started chanting.

Barely. What happened?

Eleanor used Diamond against you. Oh my god, Alec, you’re alive! I thought you were dead. I was going to destroy Eleanor for killing you, then die, myself.

The tingling ramped up to that familiar sense of power flowing through me, but my heart and mind were concerned with one thing only—Alec.

As flattering as it is to know you’d kill yourself because I was dead, such a thing doesn’t please me at all. You could survive me, Beloved. I would want you to continue to live, to find happiness should I be destroyed.

Alec?

Yes?

Shut up and heal yourself. . . . Jesus wept! The power flowing through and around me suddenly turned back on itself, moving from an explosion of power to an inversion . . . straight through me to Sally.

Her chanting stopped abruptly as she said in a loud, clear voice, “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

What is it?

Sally!

I tried to stop the flow of power going straight to her, but it was no use and I knew it—I was merely a Tool, a channel through which the power moved.

What about her?

She’s gone rogue! “What the hell, Sally? You’re supposed to be destroying Eleanor, not summoning Bael!”

“I thought that was the plan?” Diamond asked, her voice breathy as she, too, obviously felt the effects of the power now pouring into Sally. “Aren’t we supposed to destroy Bael?”

That makes no sense, love. She’s here to help us.

You poor, deluded man. You just don’t understand—she’s not one of us, she’s a bad guy. Very bad!

“That’s what Corazon said she wanted,” Sally said, and began the summoning again. “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions—”

“Yes, but she won’t do it!” I told Diamond. “We can’t trust her to actually do away with him. She’ll just bring him here and wipe us all out! Don’t you see? They’re buddies!”

Diamond shot me an astonished look. Beyond her, Ulfur looked confused, and distressed. His horse bore a similar expression. “Sally is what?” Diamond asked.

“Bael’s friend, and I use that word with air quotes around it.”

“His friend?”

“Air-quotes friend,” I corrected. “More like she was rubbing herself all over him in the hotel room, and sold us out to him.”

“I did no such thing,” Sally interrupted a third repetition of her summons to protest. “I never sell out. I may opt to do things that perhaps are open to differing interpretations than that of which I’d prefer, but sell out? Pfft. There’s no material object I desire enough to do that.”

“I notice you didn’t dispute the rubbing-yourself-allover-him statement,” I snapped.

She smiled demurely. “Well, some of his mortal forms are really quite handsome, and you know, I’ve always had a passion for bad boys. You don’t get badder than Bael. There were times when it was just too delicious an opportunity to let pass by.”

“See?” I told Diamond. “She’s turned on by Satan. Only someone extremely evil would get the hots around Bael.”

“Cora, my dear, you’re wrong. You don’t understand about Sally—”

Sally giggled and cut her off with another summons. “Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

I heard Pia cry out Alec’s name, and glanced toward them to see Alec attempting—but failing—to pull himself up into a sitting position. You try to move before I get there to see how badly you’re hurt, and you’ll be one hurtin’ cowpoke. Er . . . more hurtin’ than you are.

“Bael, lord of Abaddon, ruler of seven hundred legions, by that which makes thee, I summon thee to my hand.”

I love you too, Corazon.

Happiness filled me at the gentle brush of his mind against mine. Even if Sally didn’t sell us down the river, I knew the future wasn’t going to be easy, but somehow, none of that mattered anymore. Stay still, Alec. I’ll be right there, and then we’ll find you a doctor.

A doctor wouldn’t know what to make of me. Kristoff will find a healer, I’m sure, but it’s you I really need.

“Cora!” Pia called, gesturing to me. “Alec’s alive! He’s alive!”

“I’ll be there in a second,” I yelled back, then turned to pin back Sally with a look that should have scared her witless.

She was watching me, which startled me right out of my antagonism. “Well?” she said.

“Well? ”

“Shall we do this, or not?”

“Do which—take out Bael, or grind Eleanor into lich dust?”

“I beg your pardon!” Eleanor said in an outraged tone.

We ignored her.

Sally’s eyebrows rose. “Which would you prefer?”

I glanced at Eleanor. She was my past self, a previous version of me. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been killed, or brought back after our soul was in use by me.

But she almost killed Alec. Willfully, deliberately, and with more malice than I could understand. “Will you do what I want?” I asked Sally, hesitating to commit myself.

She thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. I will agree to abide by your desires.”

“You’ve been summoning Bael. He doesn’t seem to be here,” I pointed out.

“Hey!” Eleanor said, waving her hands to get Sally’s attention. “She’s got a chip on her shoulder about me. She also has my soul and my man, although I don’t quite understand how he survived when he should have been blown to kingdom come. I think if there is any grinding into dust to be done, it should be her and not me who’s destroyed.”

“The summons hasn’t worked because you have not allowed it to do so,” Sally told me.

“I can do that?”

Sally nodded.

“How come I couldn’t stop the power when Brother Ailwin used me?” I asked, exasperated.

She gave a little shrug. “He does not have the ability to truly master the Tools. In the hands of amateurs, your control will lessen just as theirs will. But I am different.”

“Yes,” I said slowly, eyeing her before turning my attention to Alec. Kristoff was wrapping torn bits of his shirt around Alec’s neck while Pia was doing likewise to what remained of his shoulder. Once again I was overcome