"What are you guys saying?" Pia said, flicking a finger at the back of Kristoff's head. "You know how I hate it when you talk in languages I don't understand, which really is all of them because I'm horrible with languages. So stop it and tell me what you're saying."
Alec ignored the chatter of the women as they discussed what the council could or could not do to his Beloved, and focused his attention on getting them to Sally's residence as quickly as possible without killing any mortals in his way. Kristoff, knowing what emotions he was feeling, was blissfully silent with the exception of pointing out turns, a map of the area spread across his lap.
Periodically Alec tried to get Cora to respond to him, but all was silence. Worse, and far more worrisome, he had no feeling of her presence. The messenger might have silenced her by means of threat or drugs, but he would still be able to feel her being, bound as it was with his. But now . . . he felt empty, as if she had left, and taken his soul with her.
"If they've harmed her," he said in German to Kristoff.
"Don't torture yourself with that," Kris answered him, pointing to a wrought iron gate. "Christian Dante may be many things, but he wouldn't condone a Beloved being harmed. His own would never let him hear the end of it."
Alec growled to himself, not waiting for the door of the gate to open - he simply jammed his foot on the accelerator, and crashed through the double gates in best action-movie-hero style, crumpling the front of the car in the process.
Kristoff sighed. "There goes the damage deposit."
"Whoa!" Pia gasped, clutching the back of Kristoff's seat. "You almost gave me a heart attack! Next time warn us when you're going to - holy moly, will you look at that place? It looks like a palace."
"It is," Diamond said without looking up from where she was texting on her cell phone. "One of the Louis, I believe, gave it to a mistress. Louis the thirteenth? Fourteenth? I lose track of them. Sally said she got it cheap from a mage who was unloading some property to buy a quintessence."
Alec was out of the car almost before it had come to a complete halt, his hands fisted as he glared for a moment at the car that the members of the council had driven. He swore vengeance again as he marched toward the door. One hair, if they so much as touched one single hair on her delightful head . . .
"Would it do any good if I asked you to stay here?" he heard Kristoff ask.
"None whatsoever," Pia answered.
Alec tried the front door, found it locked, and stepped back a few paces to assess the building. It was rather blocky, but built in a warm cream-colored stone, with tall windows pided into numerous small panes, encased in a darker marble. Formal gardens made wings on either side of the main building, with wellkept gravel paths winding through the greenery. Alec didn't wait to see if anyone would respond to the bell that Kristoff rang - he ran to the left, skirting a small koi pond, and leaping over a low stone balustrade to stride up to large French doors flanking a gigantic stone urn. "Corazon!" he bellowed as he jerked open one of the doors, luckily unlocked. "You will answer me now!"
"I'm afraid she can't," a woman's voice answered him. "Oh, you're all here? Goodness. I'll have to have one of my minions rustle up more orange cinnamon rolls. I wasn't expecting everyone. Why, Diamond, I haven't seen you in . . . oh, it must be a century or two. You look so mortal now."
Alec spun around to find Sally beaming at them from a doorway that clearly led into the main hall.
"I try to fit in," Diamond said, breathing a little fast from the run around the house. "You look as fabulous as ever. Is that a Chanel suit?"
"You like?" Sally did a little spin to show off the cherry red suit with short skirt. "I prefer simple lines, myself, not all those fussy bits that so many designers seem to want to put into clothes these days."
"Where's my Beloved?" Alec demanded, his patience at an end.
"Cora?" Sally clucked her tongue and moved forward until she could put a hand on Alec's arm. "I am the last person to criticize, as anyone will tell you, but really, Cora needs to take in an anger management class or two. You would not believe the things she said to me! She threatened me with the most heinous, the most cruel . . . well, let us draw a veil over exactly what she said, and instead acknowledge that should she ever wish to become a demon lord, she'd fit right in."
Alec stared at the woman in utter disbelief. "Cora threatened you? Why would she 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!"