big deal. It's one-third of the Tools of Dale."
"Bael," Noelle the Guardian corrected.
"Bael, sorry." De Marco's eyes narrowed on me suspiciously. I cleared my throat and said with what I hoped was convincing insouciance, "I call him Dale. It's a little thing we do."
Ulfur rubbed his hand over his eyes, but said nothing.
"But that's neither here nor there, and what is here is . . . well, actually, he's there, not here. If you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean?"
"No," de Marco growled.
"Oh. Well, it's Alec."
"Alec? Who is Alec?" De Marco was clearly getting angrier with each passing second.
Ulfur's eyes widened as he glanced between his boss and me. I had the feeling he was trying to tell me something, but I didn't know what it was.
"He's a friend," I said carefully, trying to suss what had Ulfur so agitated.
"I don't care about your friends. I just want the Occio, and I want it now. Hand over the payment for your removal from the Akasha, or I will have you returned there immediately."
"Hang on there, buster," I said, deciding that the best way to deal with people like him was to bluff my way through his demands. "I will make a deal with you - you spring my two friends from the Akasha, and I'll give you the Occio."
Ulfur's eyes just about bugged out of his head.
"You dare - " De Marco sucked in a huge amount of air just like he was inflatable or something. "You dare to defy me? Do you know who I am, mortal?"
"Yeah, you're Ulfur's boss, the guy who told him to steal the Tools from the frickin' king of hell!"
"Prince, not king," Noelle said, then looked away quickly, pretending interest in a picture on the wall.
"Dale likes me to call him king in our private moments," I lied, trying to look like someone who dated Satan. "So here's the thing, de Marco: You want Dale's Occio, you can have it . . . just as soon as you get Alec and Diamond out of the Akasha."
"I am not an Akashic removal service!" de Marco snarled, his black eyebrows pulled down to form a unibrow. I was tempted to tell him it wasn't a good look for him, but felt he wouldn't be receptive to such criticism. "You owe me, mortal, not the other way around. You will hand over the Occio now."
"Or what?" I said, buffing a fingernail on my jeans.
"Or I'll make you sorry you ever drew breath," he snarled.
"Hello? Who has the eyeball of Dale? That's right, I do, and that means you can't hurt me." I fervently prayed that was true.
Ulfur weaved a little, like he might pass out. Noelle looked startled.
Maybe it wasn't true.
De Marco seemed to swell again, then let out a scream of sheer frustration. "One."
"Huh?" I stopped edging toward Noelle, who was in turn sliding covertly away from de Marco.
"One." His nostrils flared. "I will have the Guardian summon one more person, but that is it."
"But . . . I have two friends there."
"Then you will choose between them. Now!"
I swallowed back a little zing of fear at the look in his eyes. He didn't strike me as being too mentally stable. "Um . . ." I thought frantically. Diamond, I should tell him to get Diamond out. She was my friend . . . of a sort . . . and she didn't do anything to deserve being banished to the Akasha. I would get Diamond out.
Leaving Alec behind.
Alone.
With no one to feed him.
And worse, he would know I hadn't cared enough about him to rescue him, too.
But he was a murdering vampire and, by his own admission, had betrayed his friend. He had accepted the punishment meted out to him. He was resigned to being in the Akasha.
"All right," I said, sending a little prayer that Alec would understand why I had no choice but to pick Diamond. "I've decided."
"Give the name to the Guardian, and let us be through with this!" de Marco snapped.
"Noelle, would you please summon . . . ?" I looked at her. She looked at me, waiting. I thought of Diamond. My inner devil wept and called me all sorts of names.
No one had ever tended Alec's wounds.
"Summon Alec Darwin, please," I heard someone say, and to my astonishment - and inner devil's joy - it was my mouth that spoke the words.
Chapter Seven
Alec stared at the spot where, seconds before, Corazon had stood. He narrowed