Kristoff gave him a smile, but was immediately pushed out of the way by Pia, who bent over him, her face wet with tears, as she said, "Alec! Don't speak!"
"Hello, Pia," he said, summoning up a little smile for her.
"Hush! And stop trying to move. Kristoff has bound up your neck and shoulder, but you shouldn't try to move anything until after the healer comes to take care of you."
He was touched by the evidence of Pia's tears, but his thoughts, inevitably, turned to Cora. What had she thought when she first believed he was dead? Was she angry? Sad? Relieved?
Try devastated beyond human belief, and if you don't do what Pia says and relax so you can heal, you'll find out just how cranky feelings of devastation make me.
Alec relaxed, smiling once again to himself at the gentle caress of her mind, ignoring both the hunger that gnawed deep inside him and the pain that lingered even as his body struggled to make whole once again that which had been destroyed.
He drifted for a bit, jerking back to awareness only when some vague sense of danger finally permeated his dulled senses.
With tremendous strength, he shoved himself away from where he was slumped against the wall, staring with growing fury at the scene before him. "You would do this now? " he snarled in a rough, almost unrecognizable voice as he struggled to his feet, one arm still bound to his chest. "Kris, you should have stopped Sally."
"Oh, for the love of god," Pia muttered, hurrying over to him. "Don't distract Cora! Sally said it's very important that no one disrupt the process, or she'll lose control of Bael."
Beloved, what the hell do you think you're doing?
Cora shot him a startled glance before facing the monstrosity that snarled and screamed in front of her. I'm helping get rid of Bael. You're the one who said that's what needs to be done. Why are you up? How do you feel? Are you in pain? You are, aren't you? I can feel you hiding something from me. Lay back down, you silly man, and I'll feed you as soon as I'm done here.
"I am not a child that you must order me around," he answered, trying to wrap his dignity around him, but it was difficult to do so while listing heavily to one side.
Cora must have noticed the list. "Sit down before you hurt your owies."
"I am a Dark One!" he said, managing to stand upright at last, ignoring the pain and tearing feeling on his left side. "We do not have owies! We have grievous, nearly fatal injuries!"
The entity that was Bael in his true form writhed and twisted upon itself as it cursed in Latin.
"Seriously?" Sally said, tsking and shaking her head at the horrible sight. "I don't think you're in any position to make threats like that."
"Pia," Cora said, not taking her eyes from the nowconstantly morphing figure of Bael, his form changing from human to demonic and all variations in between. "Would you please get Alec a chair before he does more damage to, or topples over from, his grievous, nearly fatal injuries?"
Bael shifted his form from that of a horned, pustulated, slimy demonlike being to the form he wore previously. "You will suffer as no one has ever suffered," he told Sally, his eyes literally glowing red. "Do not think that my generosity with you in the past will affect my punishment of this insurrection."
"It's mutiny, I think. Isn't it?" Sally asked Diamond.
Alec lurched over to Cora's side, wrapping one arm around her protectively. Do not fear, Beloved. I am here to protect you.
My fear is for you, not me, silly, she answered, but with her words came a warm rush of love so great it almost brought him to his knees in profound gratitude. You idiot man, you.
"Death will seem like heaven by the time I'm done with you," Bael snarled at Sally, impotent to act, clearly bound by his own power that Sally was using against him. The three Tools stood in a semicircle before her, their hands touching, providing an arc through which the power was focused directly at Bael, bathing the demon lord in a blue-black light.
"Here, Alec, sit in this." Pia dragged the mangled remains of a chair over toward him. He didn't spare it so much as a glance.
"Your death, when it pleases me to end your torment, will be my most exquisite act yet," Bael promised her, his voice stretched thin as he fought the bonds of his own power. "I will make you wish that no woman had ever pushed you from her body!"
Diamond giggled.
"Oh, Bael, and I hoped we could do this without threats and name-calling," Sally said, sadly shaking her head.
"Hope has deserted you," Bael growled in a voice that made Alec want to push Cora behind him.
"You think?" Sally tipped her head to the side, and smiled. "You know, for one of the most powerful beings on the planet, you're awfully careless about what goes on in Abaddon, specifically . . . but no, you probably aren't interested."
"Careless? I am never careless. Every action, every detail, has been part of my master plan." Bael looked almost insulted at such an accusation. "Do not allow your ignorance to confuse lack of attention with indepth schemes the like of which you will never understand."
"Really? " Sally gave a one-shouldered shrug. "So then you knew all along who I am?"