"I'm exhausted, having to think of everything and set wheels in motion... I now better understand Lu's lament about always being busy. He's not just a workaholic; there is vast incompetence that must be coped with. So, you were saying - so that I do not rip out your heart."
Sebastian folded his arms over his narrow, sallow chest and lifted his pockmarked face, indignant. "Am I not the greatest warlock you've known? Sleight of hand, my darling."
"Sleight of hand? I must understand this trick."
"Hunches, playing the best of hunches," he said, watch ing intrigue glitter in her dark eyes with great satisfaction. "Hunch number one: have witches the world over in the various covens hone in on where seven or eight wedding ceremonies took place in a hurried condition - same day. Not like Las Vegas that does hundreds, or a municipality. But the exact number all in the same facility. That was clue number one."
"Brilliant," Lilith murmured, easing down to lie on her side. "Tell me more." He lay down beside her, tracing her arm. "Then track the silver. We wouldn't be able to see it, but it would appear like a blinding supernova to our dark coven forces blocking them - and in that blindness is where we should go." He sighed, his expression smug.
"And once they found that, they should look for couples who have an extra Light around them....and listen to their conversation. If the witch or warlock was deaf to what they said, then it was one of them."
Lilith cradled his cheek. "You never disappoint me with your treacherous mind."
"And if a beautiful woman was arguing with a handsome man who fit the description that we all know ... the familiar has only one thing to say: 'Yes, it was his fault.' To reinforce his guilt and hysteria and to rock his faith that even his prayer barriers with his wife can now be breached... And to make him think your husband can track him from the throne." Sebastian laughed when Lilith's eyes got wider. "But he can't, of course... however, our male Neteru doesn't need to know that." He kissed her as her mouth gaped. "You wanted dampened libido, worry, fear, self-recrimination. I delivered, Lilith - and I'll have your potion ready soon. So... what is my reward?"
"Two more days and nights of hard negotiation with me... how's that for starters?"
* * *
she'd never seen her husband do a power foldaway with no clear destination in mind, and drop the team hard, off-course, in the middle of a public beach, then have to mind-stun civilians for a second until he could get himself together. He was breathing erratically, wild in the eyes as she stopped time with everything in her for a few seconds to give every one a chance to adjust.
His heart was slamming into his chest, sweat drenched his clothes, and he hated the fear scent folded into it. The whole team stunk to high heaven like that for the first time because he lost his cool, the way he saw it. Lucifer's familiar was strong enough to break a prayer seal. His mind stretched and almost snapped from the concept. He grabbed Damali's hand.
"Me and you, open a channel to the Covenant. I need a location. A new compound location - seers on your mark. I want Father Pat in this mix. I need barriers up when we whirl again." His gaze raked Damali and Marlene, then the slither ing memory that Father Pat had really broken from the church, had lost faith in the formal organization of it, and was operating as a rogue cell within it, made Carlos begin to hyperventilate. "Bring Imam Asula in as backup, with Monk Lin and Rabbi. Oh shit, we need a squad with no shaky vibes, right through here."
Marlene clasped Damali's other hand as the team drew in closer. "I'm going higher than that - I'm calling Aset."
* * *
all screaming had ceased by now. Time meant nothing, there was no way to sense it, nor had he the inclination to do so. Once the Dark Lord had reached up his rectum to his skull, dug in claws, yanked, turning his entire being inside out, the pain that accompanied that vile act was beyond fu tile.
He'd learned that the gurgling noises his twitching body made only delighted the Harpies. The Master of all Dark ness had left him to the feral little beasts that took great plea sure in ripping away bits of his soft, exposed flesh, turning him into their version of shredded beef. Master's Hellhounds were no better. They'd savaged his remains, growling and fighting over bones that they ripped away from tissue an chors as vermin and beetles, every pest from the Amanthra realms, took up lodging in exposed organs that now writhed from their invasion.
But in their depraved glee, the Harpies had made sure he missed none of it by slipping into the coveted abyss of uncon sciousness. No ... they took turns sitting at his head, sticking their long, flicking tongues into his exposed gray matter, gouging it and keeping it awake as they regurgitated black blood into it.
There was no peace. No respite. He tried to focus on the pain to keep from imagining the next horror the master would visit upon him when he returned - for surely the Dark Lord would oblige whatever fear scenario the Harpies siphoned from him. The sound of cloven hooves against marble made his almost boneless body begin to convulse with the foolish but instinctive need to escape. Squeals of terror escaped his fractured larynx as both the sound and vibration neared him. Incessant, excited bickering and squabbling from noisome Harpies made him try to worm his fetid carcass away in a slow, slimy ooze across the floor.
The jolt that assaulted his rectum voided his bowels and made his prone form go stone rigid as the blast slowly dragged his body right side out one inch at a time. The moment the last crackle receded with a juicy pop and his lungs and Adam's apple lodged into place, the wail he released was so intense that the Harpies laughed and clapped for the master.
"You are fortunate," a low, rumbling voice said as the hooves began to sound farther and farther away. "I have much work to do to ready my armies and do not have time to devote to your torture. Thank you for keeping my wife's pets amused during my absence, Fallon." Nuit's nails dug into the cavern floor as he pressed his face against it, quietly sobbing. His body was now only a disorga nized sack of meat and flesh. Hell dogs had snapped away vertebrae and ribs, and bones in his arms and legs, leaving jagged pieces that now pierced his abraded skin. Only the small bones in his hands and feet remained with his skull that the Harpies had guarded to save his brain, bones obviously too small for the dogs to bother themselves with to squabble over.
"If you can stop being such a pu**y," the deep voice be yond Nuit said with a languid sigh, "I have a job for you ... now that you understand a small measure of my wrath."
"Anything!" Fallen bleated. "Anything, my Darkness, just, I beg you ..."
"Yes, yes, I am well aware of your state of agony. Do not waste my time with entreaties -
do my bidding."
Fallen nodded with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, too terrified to look up into the eternal darkness that surrounded him for fear that he might see the Dark Lord's eyes and draw his displeasure. "Yes," he gasped. "Your bidding is my every breath."
"Good. We have come to an understanding, then. An ac cord." The vast darkness breathed out slowly and methodi cally. "My wife ..." it said in a thunderous echo, chuckling and then seeming to choose words with care. "She is the most treacherous bitch in all creation. She would turn on me in a heartbeat, if she could ... this is what I so love about her. She keeps things interesting. However, I need a pair of eyes in council, eyes now so terrified of my wrath that they dare not make a mockery of this second chance to leave my torture facility."
"Beyond terror," Nuit said, pressing himself closer against the ground. "Stricken." Deep thunderous laughter filled the cavern. "Good ... very good, because she was never at this place of complete acquiescence. Despite her torture, Lilith had games embedded in her psyche so deep that even Harpies would never be able to siphon them all. Each one, however, was like a jewel just waiting for the moment to surprise me with one. Last month I found out just how much that is her core. Games, duplicity, thy name is Lilith. But trust me, Fallen, I will be so much less lenient on you than my beloved spouse. Are we clear?"
"Crystal, my lord," Fallon whispered.
"She holds up under torture so much better - I lashed out at her, personally, for a month. You could not endure twelve days with her pets during my absence ... while I spent pre