Much Ado About Vampires

by the sight of so much blood, and the destruction that Eleanor had wrought. Are you going to be all right? I asked.

He smiled into my brain. Yes. The damage is too extensive for me to fully repair by myself, but I am not dead. That is something.

It’s not something; it’s everything to me. We’ll get you a healer to fix you up.

Kristoff has already called for one. Finish with Sally, Beloved. Only then will you truly be safe.

He was talking about Bael, I knew, but the same thing could be said of Eleanor. I eyed her. Will you rest now? You sound tired.

I will rest, he agreed, and just the fact that he did so told me how much it was costing him to remain in contact with me.

“What if I want both?” I asked Sally. “What if I want both Bael and Eleanor pounded into pulp? Would you do that?”

“Of course,” she said promptly, taking me by surprise for some reason. I guess it was because I was expecting her to hinder me every step of the way. Heaven knew she’d done a good job of doing that ever since she popped onto the scene.

“I protest this wanton abuse of power,” Eleanor shouted. “She has an agenda concerning me.”

“Oh, please.” I may have snorted a little as I curled a lip at her. The two vampires from the vamp council headed toward me with a look in their eyes that did not bode well.

“I don’t think I like you,” Diamond told Eleanor, who just looked shocked in response.

“How about them?” I asked, pointing at the two approaching men. “Can I wipe out them, too?”

“I just love someone who thinks like I do!” Sally said, clapping her hands with pleasure. “Is there anyone else you’d like destroyed?”

The two vamps froze, their eyes big as they looked from me to Sally.

Beloved . . .

I know, I know. It’s no answer to our problems. But awfully darned tempting, you have to admit. Go back to sleep, or whatever it is you’re doing to fix the fact that half of your neck is missing.

“I suppose I shouldn’t,” I said with a sigh, giving the two vampires a meaningful look.

Sally shook her head. “You just have no followthrough. You’d never make a demon lord if you can’t follow through with such interesting ideas.”

“I don’t want to be a demon lord,” I protested as the vampires started toward me again, and added in a rush, “But I don’t want them here, either. Can you zap them away? ”

“Of course,” Sally said, and with a blinding smile at them called for Sable again.

“Now, wait—” one of the vamps started to say as Sable appeared and bowed to Sally, obviously waiting for her orders. “We have no quarrel with you, Beloved. Our business is with the Dark One.”

“Cora?” Sally asked, nodding toward the vampires. “Death or just a little relocation, and please don’t say the latter because that always makes Sable pout.”

I hesitated for just a second. “Just get them out of here.”

“You do not know who we are—” the first one said, strangling to a stop when the demon grabbed him by the throat. The second vampire squawked as Sable hauled them both through the opening torn into the fabric of space, presumably out of Abaddon itself.

“Nicely done, although it’s not you who will have to put up with a petulant wrath demon,” Sally said. “I’ve always said that having the least amount of witnesses possible when you are conducting heinous acts is the best policy. Now, as to your former self . . .” She inclined her head in question toward Eleanor. “Kill, dismiss, or banish? ”

“That’s it!” Eleanor snapped, struggling to free herself from the binding ward. “I’m done being nice! Release me this instant so that I can go back to the caves and Jane!”

“Can she get back to the Underworld? ” I asked Sally.

“Of course. Mind you, it would mean having a Summoner, and we don’t have one, so the only other way will be to kill her, and I, naturally, couldn’t do such a thing. I’m a very hands-on sort of person, and it would completely ruin my manicure were I to do so, but you could.”

“What?” Eleanor screamed. “Don’t encourage her!”

Alec?

No, mi corazon. You do not wish to stain your soul with her death.

I sighed again. “Then I guess it’s back to the cave with her. Jane can deal with her.”

“I protest this high-handed . . . wait, you’re sending me back to Jane?”

“Do you agree to be bound to her union? ” Sally asked.

“Yes!” Eleanor said quickly, blinking a couple of times as Sally snapped out a command, Sable appearing out of nothing for the third time. “You’re not going to punish me for killing Alec?”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten what you did, or the intention behind it,” I told her, and hoped she accurately read the depth of my fury visible in my eyes. “But we’ll settle our differences later, once we’ve taken care of more pressing issues.”

Eleanor started to smile, but was yanked through the tear before she could do more than say, “I can’t believe you’re so—”

“I just hope the word that follows that is ‘generous’ and not ‘gullible,’ but I get a feeling it isn’t,” I said softly.

“Possibly not,” Diamond agreed, then looked over her shoulder at Sally. “Are we going to continue? I really should get back to my husband, and my great-grandma is sure to be demanding I see her to explain everything that’s been going on.”

“That’s up to Cora,” Sally said, nodding toward me, one eyebrow cocked in question.

I glanced over to where Kristoff and Pia worked at binding Alec’s wounds. You hanging in there?

I am mending myself as quickly as possible, but am somewhat hindered by loss of blood.

Help is forthcoming—just let me take care of this and I’ll open up the diner. “Let’s do this,” I said, taking a deep breath.

“At last,” Sally said with a slow, satisfied smile. “Now we begin.”

Chapter Eighteen

Alec had heard the phrase about senses “swimming” in the past, but he never truly understood just what it meant until he woke from insensibility to find not just the room spinning around him but apparently the entire world.

He knew he was gravely wounded by the fact that he didn’t have the strength to reach out mentally to make sure Cora was not harmed in any way. The fact that he felt as drained of life as when he had given up in the Akasha told him the rest of what he needed to know—that damned Eleanor had killed him.

Well, almost killed him. The bitch. And to think he’d spent centuries mourning her death.

After a few minutes of thinking indignantly about that fact, and dwelling, with much pleasure, on the thought of how Cora would fuss over him once he was recovered enough to tell her that he had almost died, the distant nagging of a familiar heat warned him that his body was making a tremendous effort to repair itself.

He stopped struggling to reach Cora, and relaxed, letting what remained of his energy focus on healing the damage. It wasn’t until a sense of her despair reached him that he tried again to reach her mind, reassured by the joy evident in her thoughts that she really did love him as she claimed.

He smiled to himself as Cora ranted to him about Eleanor, aware now of the faint sounds of Pia and Kristoff speaking over him as they bound his wounds. With that awareness came pain, intense pain, an agony that seared