"Oh, please," she said, making a gesture that had me frozen to the floor, Ulfur lying half on top of me.
She stepped across our bodies, pressing a button and humming softly along with the elevator music as we began to descend.
"I knew it! I knew a demon lord couldn't be good!" Alec!
Beloved, are you all right? Where are you?
In an elevator, lying on the floor. Alec, the wrath demons . . . Sally is evil! I knew she was evil! She took us all in!
Why are you - sins of the saints!
What's wrong?
Other than the fact that Kristoff and I are trying to keep from being beheaded by two wrath demons, you mean?
Oh. Am I distracting you?
Are you harmed?
No.
Then you are distracting me. I will come to you as soon as we destroy these demons' forms.
"Good, bad . . . that's so black-and-white when there are so many shades of gray that are far more interesting," Sally said complacently.
"Oh, you think you're so smart," I growled. "Just you wait until Alec takes care of your demon minions! Then we'll show you what's what. Right, Ulfur?"
"Urgh," he groaned.
"Exactly. You'll be one sorry chickie, and I just can't wait to tell your boyfriend about you."
Sally continued humming for a few seconds as a horrible thought occurred to me.
"Merciful Mary! He's in it with you, isn't he? Oh! And to think I believed him when he said the Sovereign recommended you. What bull! Well, I can tell you, we will be having a little chat with this Sovereign dude, and telling him . . . it . . . all about you and Terrin!"
Sally was about to reply when the elevator opened to reveal a couple with a small child in hand. "I'm sorry, but would you mind waiting? My friends here are about to threaten me with untold torments, and I'm very curious to see what exactly those will be. I hope they include thumbscrews. I love thumbscrews. They look so innocuous, and yet can give you such marvelous results, don't you think?"
The couple fled toward the stairs, the small child in the man's arms.
"That's just one more thing I'm going to mention to the Sovereign," I told Sally's ankle.
"Tattletales never end up good," was all she said as we descended again.
"What are you going to do with us?" I tried very hard not to let even so much as a hint of a quaver taint my voice.
"A friend has badly wanted to see you, and I am obliging him."
"Friend? You have a friend? I thought people like you just used others."
"Such ingratitude," Sally said, buffing a nail with absolute lack of concern about anything I said. "And to think I've gone to so much trouble about you. Ah, here we are."
We hadn't descended to the basement, or some dank lower floor that only hotel employees used; no, the doors slid open to reveal another cream-and-gold-colored hallway, and three pairs of legs. Men's legs, two pairs in black pants, one in jeans. I couldn't move my head to look up and see who they were, but I knew without a single shred of doubt that Sally was about to hand Ulfur and me over to Bael.
"I'll get you, too," I told the pair of feet nearest me. His shoes were expensive-looking, the kind you see on billionaire businessmen as they step out of their limos. "And if I don't, I know a vamp who will!"
"Why is it mortals insist on believing they have the least amount of power against me?" a plummy English voice asked as the expensive shoes stepped to the side. "What did you do to them, Sally?"
I wondered if I should let Alec know that Sally had grabbed Ulfur and me, but decided that distracting him with that information now could have deadly consequences. I'd wait until he gave me the all clear; then I'd tattle on Sally like she'd never been tattled on before.