Demon's Kiss (12 page)

Asmodeus
, she sent.

He would not answer her. Gabriel’s heart clenched tightly,
twisted.

Templeton gestured to his minion to go to the
Book
.
He didn’t open the gateway into the rings. Stunned, horrified, Gabriel could
only stand on the wrong side with nothing to pound on and watch helplessly.

The man behind the podium chanted as Templeton held out his
hand for the cat-o’-nine-tails with its little beads of iron.

“Oh dear god, no,” Gabriel whispered.

Asmodeus wouldn’t meet her gaze. His mouth tightened.

It took everything she had to fight the urge to weep.

She watched as the chanting drove him to his knees even
though he fought it. He braced himself on one arm. He would not bow before Templeton.

“No,” Gabriel breathed.

“I told you,” Templeton said, his eyes on Asmodeus and
Asmodeus alone. His voice was deceptively and coldly calm as he flicked the
cat-o’-nine-tails back, shaking it to loosen the tangled ends, “not to defy me.
I wanted that man dead.”

Templeton had his fury banked, channeled, so he could enjoy
this. She could see it in his eyes, in his face.

Asmodeus’ sorrow, his grief and fury at forcing her to
watch, to share this, battered her.

They had been so close to escaping.

Gabriel wanted to scream, rage, cry, but did none of that.

She tried to think of a way to help him.

She couldn’t call the other Daemonae, not while she was
inside, for as she had learned from her studies, she was the locus. It was here
they would come, to be trapped as Asmodeus had been—exactly as he feared. She
wouldn’t help Templeton achieve his goal.

“I will not kill,” Asmodeus said firmly, steadily, grinding
the words out in answer to Templeton’s demand. “Do as you will but I will not
kill in cold blood.”

“You will learn to do as I order, demon,” Templeton said,
running the lashes of the cat-o’-nine-tails through his fingers, toying with
the iron beads. “Or suffer the consequences.”

Channeling his rage visibly, Templeton narrowed his eyes,
raised the whip and brought it down with the full force of his fury on
Asmodeus’ back.

Asmodeus would not take a life, innocent or no, not at a
whim. To his shame he had no doubt he had done so by accident in those early
days before he had learned what it was that Templeton forced him to do. No
more. Name him demon as they might but the name they had made it into did not
make him so.

Templeton could beat him to death but Asmodeus would not
kill on his orders.

The first lash stroked across his back.

Agony burst through him as the tails bit, as the iron beads
tore through his skin, burning, ripping. Pain blinded him, encompassed him.

Asmodeus. Gabriel’s heart broke even as it swelled with
pride. He would fight Templeton in his own way. It was small, unseen battles
like these that mattered as much as the big ones. Each one of them was a
statement, I will go this far and no farther.

She couldn’t cry in the face of his courage.

The next stroke fell.

Blood ran.

To see what they did to him though, to watch Asmodeus
suffering, possibly dying, killed her. She pressed her knuckles to her lips.

Another stroke, another. It seemed to go on forever.

It was terrible to watch.

She fought tears, there had to be a way out, a way to help
him. Helpless, she ranged across the limits of the cage, pacing frantically,
furiously. There had to be a way to stop this.

The chanting drove him down another inch, the lash another
and still Asmodeus would not bow, he fought it as the tails rained over him.

“Obey me,” Templeton shouted. “You will obey me.”

Another. Blood ran freely down Asmodeus’ back, dripped to
the floor.

“Bow to me,” Templeton knelt beside him, his voice a harsh
whisper “and it ends. You will break, in time. I will break you. End it now.
Say that you’re my creature and it ends. Call your demons. Call the others.”

Gabriel knew he wouldn’t but the other Daemonae were so
close, all it would take was a thought from Asmodeus and they would come.
Gabriel’s heart nearly stopped in terror for fear that they would sense
Asmodeus’ distress.

“Stop it, Templeton, stop it. I swear, I’ll kill you myself
if you don’t. I’ll find a way. Stop it,” she shouted desperately, putting all
her heart and soul into the cry. Everything was a weapon. “You bastard. Stop
it! Asmodeus!”

Asmodeus’ eyes snapped to hers, dulled by pain. His gaze
suddenly sharpened as fear for her cleared the haze.

Fury etched in every line of his aristocratic face,
Templeton’s head whipped around to look at her, growing speculation in his
narrowing eyes.

She let Templeton see it, see everything—her fear for
Asmodeus, her desperation, but her gaze was on Asmodeus.

I love you, Asmodeus
, she called in her heart,
knowing he needed to hear it, to know it. And she needed to say it, tell him.

She saw Asmodeus’ proud head lift, his broad shoulders
straighten, his will strengthen.

It was there on his face, everything she needed to see. Her
own heart lifted.

And I you, my angel
, he sent in return, despite his
own desperate fear for her, despite the spell that held him.

Templeton caught the exchange of looks and smiled.

“Get her,” he said, snapped his fingers and pointed.

At his words, Asmodeus froze in horror, his eyes going to
hers.

Trust me, Asmodeus
, Gabriel said.

With relief, she watched Baker make the sigil, and the
gateway opened.

Baker’s men were clearly far more concerned with the
immediate threat that Asmodeus—tall, heavily muscled and powerful—posed than
with her. Not for the first time, she played on her lack of stature. All this
time, she had been playing up to their idea of her as weak, less dangerous. Now
she would find out how well it had worked.

Their focus lax, Baker’s men didn’t bother to cover either
Baker or her. Their mistake.

Alone, Baker marched through the gateway.

Gabriel faced him, waiting, apparently frozen in fear.
Timing…timing. Her gun was in her hand, where it had been all along, hidden in
the folds of her dress.

Satisfied he was being obeyed, Templeton turned away and
raised the lash once again.

Baker was halfway through the tunnel.

In an instant Gabriel’s gun was out and leveled on him. She
snapped off two quick shots, a double tap to hammer at his face shield and then
more shots as she quickly advanced into the tunnel, still firing.

Bullets hammered into Baker’s body armor and the
unexpectedness of it drove him backward a step. Another.

Baker started to raise his weapon even as he shifted just
that little bit too close to the boundary between this plane of existence and
the next.

Something boiled up out of the darkness and shadows of that
plane, a waiting nightmare of claws and tentacles. It snatched at him from out
of the ether. He screamed suddenly, sharply. Blood sprayed as it yanked him
abruptly into oblivion.

Gabriel shuddered but kept moving fast, instinctively
knowing that the moment when Baker—the man who had opened that doorway—died the
tunnel he had created would die with him. Something snatched at her ankle to
try to drag her back as she dove and rolled into the main chamber, frantically
kicking free of whatever clutched at her.

The sound of the gunfire alerted everyone. Heads turned
quickly, everyone becoming alert.

Swiftly, she turned her weapon on Templeton, whose men
instantly leaped to cover him as he backed away from Asmodeus and dove for
cover.

In shock at the sudden turn of events, the little man
chanting from the
Book
abruptly went silent as he stared around him,
horrified.

“Now,” Gabriel shouted, scrambled to her feet, and
called
Ashtoreth.

If they could get the enchanted iron off, Asmodeus would be
free.

Daemonae appeared as if from nowhere and zeroed in on
Asmodeus.

“Ashtoreth, Ba’al,” Gabriel shouted. “Get him out of here.”

Templeton shouted to his men to shoot and to his minion, who
suddenly realized that the demon was now loose. The man leaped to the
Book
,
stammered, tried to chant.

Guns swiveled toward her. Gabriel dove and rolled as they
opened fire. Bullets whistled past her.

Scrambling to her feet, her own weapon in hand, she snapped
off shots to force their heads down as she turned toward the podium.

As much as Gabriel wanted to be with Asmodeus, she had to be
here. There was still the
Book of Demons
. If she had anything to say
about it, never again would any Daemonae be subject to the damned and damnable
thing.

She felt, smelled, the Daemonae disappear in a blast of
smoke, fire and brimstone. Including Asmodeus.

They were gone.

He was safe. For the moment. But as long as Templeton had
the
Book of Demons
Asmodeus and the others never would be really safe.
Templeton could summon him back at any time.

That wasn’t going to happen. If Asmodeus or his brothers
were ever to be truly free, she had to get that damn
Book
away from
Templeton. And keep it away.

And she would.

Chapter Eight

One look at Gabriel sighting down the barrel of her gun and
Templeton’s man skittered away in terror, falling backward and scrambling on
his hands as she reached for the
Book
. Dodging the gunfire, Gabriel
raced toward him. He backed away in a hurry, holding his hands up defensively.
Gabriel ignored him, everything focused on the
Book
.

It was ancient, with thick, rough-edged pages. The title had
been embossed into the cover in a script so old and so embellished with traces
of gilt and paint that she couldn’t read it. Small flakes of gold were still
impressed into the letters. It was bound in some kind of darkly tanned leather
that was almost as smooth and dark as mahogany, yet strangely soft, with hints
of deep red and black and a shiny gloss to it almost as if it had been oiled.

With a horrified shudder Gabriel suddenly knew the source of
the skin with which the
Book
was bound. She almost cried out her
revulsion.

Dear god
, she thought, and wondered if He’d answer
the call of a tarnished angel seeking help for a demon, one who was prince of
them all.

He helped those though who first helped themselves, she
knew.

As she took it up, the
Book
burned in her hands like
fire, scorching, scalding. Pain seared up her wrists, screamed along her
nerves.

Created by those ancient priests, the
Book
tried
furiously to reject her. She, debauched by a demon, was anathema to it.

She clung to it despite the pain.

Templeton shouted, “Stop her. She must not take the
Book
.”

More gunfire exploded around her, cut off her escape.
Gabriel ducked behind the scant protection of the podium as chips of wood
showered around her and returned fire.

She had to get rid of it, but where?

She turned toward the doors.

Templeton’s men closed in on her. Clutching the
Book
to her chest with one hand despite the pain that shot through her body, she
snapped off a few shots to drive them off, but she knew her clip was getting
low.

In desperation she looked around.

She couldn’t let Templeton get the
Book
back.

Her eyes settled on Asmodeus’ prison.

Their prison.

The rings between the worlds.

She remembered the thing that had snatched Baker, remembered
her first impressions when Templeton’s men had shoved her through those rings,
defenseless against whatever lay in those other planes, those otherworldly
dimensions.

Standing, with bullets flying around her, she spun like a
discus thrower and launched the
Book
, spine first, through the air.

It struck the marble floor, slid into and between the rings,
slowing, slowing…

One of Templeton’s men sprang to intercept it.

Her heart leaped into her throat.

The man slipped on the polished floor to cut across the
first line, the protective silver one, and screamed, suddenly, horrifically, as
mist swirled from nowhere and he suddenly disappeared in an explosion of blood.

The mist turned crimson and dissipated.

The
Book
slid between the rings…and vanished.

Safe. Asmodeus and his Daemonae were safe. Templeton could
never use the
Book
against them again.

With a shriek of rage and fury Templeton shouted at his men,
then snatched a gun from one of them, turned toward her and sprayed gunfire
everywhere.

She ducked, rolled to escape it.

Magic flared, the feel of it whispered across her skin like
feathers.

In the air above her, the room seemed to explode with the
sound of wings, dozens of great leathery wings.

Gabriel looked up and there they were, the Daemonae.

Even in the midst of a firefight her breath caught in sheer
wonder.

They were magnificent.

Deadly and beautiful, the Daemonae appeared in the air
beneath the great vaulted ceiling, their membranous wings flaring around them
in great arcs.

Templeton looked up to see the upper part of the chamber
filled with furious Daemonae.

Balls of fire and lightning flashed through the air,
conjured by them, crackling, trailing smoke as they shot toward their targets.

Templeton’s men scattered, far more concerned with survival
than anything else.

A pulling gesture from one of the Daemonae, accompanied by a
sense of magic, and guns flew out of their opponents’ hands.

Coward that he was, Templeton fled, his guards in a cordon
around him, his dark eyes furious.