The misery of the captives, girls who had been kidnapped or sold, who were forced into acts of the vilest depravity, which often included torture, had provided the Abraxas demon, Obizoth, with a rich source of emotion for a long time. To a dark Abraxas, misery is a delicacy - tastier than joy, longer sustaining.
When Kay witnessed firsthand the suffering visited upon these females, his berserker would not be contained. He took one look at those women and saw in their place the sorrowful faces of his own mother, sisters, and wife-to-be. A berserker's rage, once loosed, was a force beyond the natural. Once the berserker part of the personality took charge, it stayed in control and did not recede until it believed there was no guilty party left to kill. Even when the killing was over, the berserker often continued to mete out rage in terms of property damage and destruction until the well of emotion was spent or satisfied. It was a mindless condition over which the saner side had no control and dangerous in one as strong as Kay because it could persist for an indeterminate amount of time.
The Abraxas demon, Obizoth, was present when B Team raided the New Persia facility. When he encountered Kay, he literally lost his head as the Black Swan knight in berserker form wrenched it from his body with both hands. It was a sight that Rammel, Lan and Storm would never forget.
Once Deliverance had gained access to the manifest of females who had been recovered from the raid, it was a simple task to track them down one by one and manipulate them into recounting the events of their rescue. The sixth girl on the list had been an eyewitness to Obizoth's murder, although she did not know him by that name. She was able to describe the angel of vengeance who had liberated her so that there was no doubt whatever.
Obizoth's revenge was to be visited upon a Black Swan knight named Chaos Caelian.
Deliverance traveled to the Jefferson Unit of Black Swan at Fort Dixon, New Jersey where Kay was stationed. The Unit, protected on all sides, even overhead, by a functioning military base, was impossible to access. Impossible for Terrans. For an incubus demon? Minor speed bump.
The demon first identified the popular, local, recreational destinations for personnel who were off duty, then made a point of frequenting those establishments until he made a connection with someone who could get him on base. He preferred to visit Fort Dixon at night because his long black hair was less a red flag among the buzz heads. Once on base he made his way to the nondescript, apparently windowless, fifties-style building that housed Jefferson Unit and waited for female employees to emerge at the end of their shifts.
Most of the people working at Jefferson Unit resided there, but a few lived off site. With little effort, Deliverance was able to learn that Kay was not in residence at the time. The informants were not able to divulge his present location with certainty because that information was well-protected, but did pass on that his permanent address was Houston.
Deliverance located a pass a short distance away; a pass is a naturally occurring vortex that, as the name suggests, allows passage between dimensions. These are the "doors" used by angels and demons, among others, to come and go between dimensions.
Del, which was what he called himself these days, entered the murkiness of the pass with an address on his tongue. He took two steps and came out the other side next to an ATM in a River Oaks upscale strip mall. A woman shrieked when he materialized in front of her.
"Oh! You scared me. I didn't see you there."
He needed a ride to Kay's townhouse, but such things were rarely so much as an inconvenience to a creature with his gifts. The woman he had surprised was a mid forties brunette returning to a Bentley carrying a small black shopping bag tied with gold satin ribbon.
"I need a ride." He walked along beside her.
She took one look at Del's laughing black eyes and couldn't think of anything to say except, "Get in."
He was wearing his hair tied at the nape over an ivory linen sports coat and jeans. It wasn't the sort of outfit that you'd see on a runway showing for Dolce and Gabbana. It was better because it said, "I'm so beautiful I can wear anything and look good in it. And I'm so rich I can do what I want without caring what you think."
Like most incubus demons, Del liked women. He didn't think of himself as using them, but chose to believe he offered a valuable and needed service in exchange for fuel. He left them feeling marvelous, at least at that moment. Of course he knew that he had doomed them to live out their lives being disappointed by sexual experiences that must inevitably be substandard, but he chose not to focus on the less agreeable aspects of his job description unless it suited him to do so.
He left women with their bodies humming. They left him gassed up. So far as he was concerned, it was a perfect symbiotic relationship. Win. Win.
Del said goodbye to the lady in the Bentley in front of Kay's townhouse. He didn't have to ring to know that no one was there. He could sense that the unit was not currently occupied by any animated life form. One of the perks of being a demon.
A neighbor three doors down had come out to pinch the dead heads off red geraniums, when she looked up and saw Del. Her first impulse was to go back inside, but his gaze held her in place as he closed the distance between them. Another perk of being a demon.
Liz Tinsley, from three doors down, said she didn't see much of Mr. Caelian because his work kept him away a lot. However, she did happen to be outside a few days before and hear one of his sisters say, "See you in Ireland," before jogging from his door to her car, giving the neighbor a bright smile and wave on the way by. Del thanked her and turned away to find a pass to the land of magic. He had nothing against being lover to older women. He was simply full at the moment.
No further research was needed to find Kay. He'd already learned about the exploits and obviously exaggerated heroics of the elite B Team. He knew their names, their habits and their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, he knew that, if Kay had gone to Ireland, there was a very good chance he was visiting Prince Rammel Hawking's ancestral home, the palace at Derry.
The prospect of Ireland brightened his interest. The island state was teeming with ripe sources of nourishment who welcomed beautiful demons with long, shiny blue-black hair, laughing black eyes and flawless skin kissed with a touch of bronze fire. Well, he laughed to himself, the same could really be said for any place.
Most importantly, he had learned that the target had a gaping weak spot just begging to be exploited; something he valued much more than his life. Kay was devoted to a girl he'd loved since childhood. When Deliverance learned about Katrina, the plan for his vendetta began to morph into an appropriately painful alternative. Deliverance wasn't big on killing and got no enjoyment from it for its own sake, but he was big on his own self-interest and what he needed more than anything was a semi-constant supply of fuel provided by sex. He would take Kay's girl and let him know that she was going to be thoroughly used in every conceivable way; that her incubus lover would enjoy it immensely, but, more importantly, she would, too. The knight would be driven insane by his own imaginings. A brilliant retribution, if he did say so himself. Win. Win. Win.
He would wait for the perfect opportunity to grab the Terran female then keep her on tap for a while, like a staple in a larder. When the retribution fervor passed and even the most distant cousin had forgotten all about it, which wouldn't be long, he would send her back. If Kay still wanted her, he could spend the rest of his life in frustration trying to find a way to satisfy her. The idea of that made Deliverance laugh out loud. As if.
***
CHAPTER 2
Edinburgh, Scotia
Litha turned out the lights and drew the drapes back so that the historic district of Edinburgh could cast a night-light over her small room. She took a minute to appreciate the view. It was captivating by day looking across the gardens to the castle sitting high on the crag, but was even more magical at night when the grand monuments were lit by spots. Having a room on the view side of the building was one of the things she liked most about being temporarily stationed at the headquarters of The Order.
She crawled between cold sheets and let her teeth clatter like one of those battery-operated skulls at Halloween. Somehow listening to the sound of that made waiting for the covers to warm go faster. It might be the first of April, but chill lingered late so far north and her blood wasn't thick like the Scotia fae. She drifted to sleep, the last thing on her mind a Pacific breeze blowing from the west to warm the Northern California bay where she grew up. She liked her work with Black Swan and felt privileged to have it, but sometimes she missed home so much she understood the sentiment of pining for something.
As soon as she was warm, she fell into a deep sleep and dreamed. She was standing on a green, grassy plateau rising from an ocean of black water that churned and raged against the rocks below. She felt like she could turn in a circle and see the whole world. The sky was overcast with charcoal colored clouds moving unnaturally fast, defying what was thought to be true about how physics operated in the world; swirling, blending gray with silver, white, and black like paints on a palette, gathering storms in every direction. Tornadoes twirled down from dark clouds like ribbons of tempests spinning, lingering for a few seconds, back lit by lightning strikes. As she stood there, she knew the appropriate response should be concern for survival, the appropriate action the seeking of shelter, but she was so entranced by the terrible beauty of such a display of unimaginable power that she couldn't find motivation to move.