“I wonder if I can do that now,” I said.
Halcyon lifted a brow. “By all means. The next one is yours.”
The next one didn’t come until ten minutes later, a flying serpent that was strangely beautiful, like a large dragonfly, its iridescent red and brown scales gleaming under Hell’s hot midday moon. It zoomed straight for us, hissing, venomous fangs on full display.
I lifted my left hand, shot out a careful pulse of power, and whoops . . . missed!
“Um . . .” Halcyon issued tentatively.
“I got it,” I muttered. Taking quick aim again, I loosed a second pulse from my palm. This one connected with its target just in time, dropping the serpent less than ten feet away from us to writhe in a ropey mass on the ground, lightly stunned, looking more like a regular snake with its delicate wings folded onto its back.
“If I may,” Halcyon said, politely offering his services as the serpent hissed at us and spread its wings.
“By all means,” I replied easily, much more agreeable now after having proved my marksmanship on, if not the first, then at least, the second shot.
With a light mental flick, Halcyon sent the coiled serpent tumbling away from us.
“I should come down here more often to practice on moving targets,” I said.
“Your visits would be more than welcome,” Halcyon said with a smile, “and for more than just target practice.”
“By the way, it was nice of you to shield me in the portal, but not necessary.”
He looked at me quizzically. “I did not shield you.”
“You didn’t? But it didn’t hurt, at all.” Normally, transporting myself through the portal involved severe and biting pain, as if tiny blades were crudely hacking away bits of my flesh. “Why is that? What’s changed?”
Because something in me obviously had.
“If I were to guess, I’d say that your body has altered since reabsorbing Mona Louisa’s essence back into you, incorporating enough demon essence to make traveling the portal painless. And yet, curiously, you have been stable since then, with no other ill effects. Have you had any flaring of demon bloodlust?”
“No, none,” I said, considering what he had said. “So you’re saying the physical nature of my body has changed. Maybe the change occurred when you tore her out of me. Or when I was pulled down to NetherHell.”
“Or when her separated spirit, substantially weakened, reintegrated back with yours,” Halcyon said. Like a bandage slapped on just in the nick of time. Both of us had been trickling out vital energy like invisible blood, everything going out and nothing coming back in. “You said the touch of the gargoyle lord kept Mona Louisa from fading completely away,” Halcyon said thoughtfully.
“A gargoyle,” I said, continuing Halcyon’s line of thought, “who has the ability to turn anything it touches into stone, one of the most solid and stable substances.” And Gordane, the Gargoyle Lord, had been pumping heavy doses of his solidifying power into Mona Louisa there toward the end to keep her from fading completely away. “Do you think that’s why I’ve been free of demon symptoms?” Symptoms that had been growing progressively and distressingly worse until Halcyon had feared having to kill me if I lost control completely and began slaughtering people and drinking their blood. I had come perilously close to that edge before being yanked down to NetherHell, and all that had followed afterward.
“If that is the reason,” Halcyon said, “then NetherHell was a blessing in disguise, and everything, including your fear of me afterward, was well worth it.” That had upset Halcyon in a way I’d never seen before, my rejection of him, my fearful recoiling away from his touch after experiencing that tearing, excruciating pain he had caused ripping Mona Louisa’s dead spirit out of me. And yet, without that necessary action, I would still be trapped down in NetherHell, not only dead, but likely dead and truly gone by now. It was not easy surviving in the harsh realm of the damned dead.
As for why it no longer hurt traveling the portal down to Hell, the realm of the living dead, it could be that there was a part of me that was truly lifeless now—the part of me that was Mona Louisa, fully integrated into me. Or again, it could be the lingering aftermath of Gordane’s gargoyle touch, or from a subtle change after being down in NetherHell.
I didn’t know or really care. I was just grateful.
We reached Halcyon’s home unmolested, though not from lack of trying. I had two more opportunities for target practice, and Halcyon three.
“I would not suggest you come down to visit on your own,” Halcyon said after dispensing with a particularly nasty-looking creature I didn’t even have a name for.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “Not even tempted.” Cool, neat weapon that my mole-emitted beams were proving to be, without Halcyon’s powerful presence by my side, the attacks on us would have been likely triple what they had been, or even more. The most dangerous predators, the demon dead themselves, had not ventured anywhere near us. That, I was sure, wouldn’t have been the case had I been walking alone with my loudly beating heart calling out to all the blood-hungry denizens.
Halcyon’s house was a far more modest abode than his father’s dark, towering fortress, quietly elegant, solid and powerful like the man himself. Tuck and Keven, two elite demon guards patrolling the grounds, met us at the property line. We exchanged greetings and made our way to the house.
The door opened before we could turn the knob, and a querulous voice said sourly, “I’ll get it. Stand back, you lout.’Tis my job, not yours.”
I had to adjust my gaze significantly downward to meet the eyes of the small female demon that stood there: Jory, a dour old demoness who oversaw the smooth running of Halcyon’s household.
“Welcome, my prince, my lady,” she said blandly.
“Thank you, Jory,” I returned, and lifted my gaze to the demon lout she had been scolding.
He stood waiting a few steps away in brimming impatience.
I felt my heart kick hard at the sight of him and his name left my lips in soft utterance. “Gryphon.”
TWENTY-ONE
GRYPHON HAD HEARD her heartbeat a distance away, and his own dead heart thumped, not with sound or movement but with emotions. Joy and dread and torturous love.
She’s here! She’s here!
The two words beat loudly within his mind, his chest, filling him with a maddening surge of dizzy excitement that hazed his vision red and changed the color of his eyes. It took a moment of conscious control to bring himself back to the calm a demon needed. Another few precious moments to gulp down a cup of challo, blood wine, and chase that down with swallows of water to rinse away the smell of blood. Then a quick chew on a sprig of mint, running the comb through his hair, and a mad dash down to the front door that Jory beat him in opening.
Gryphon’s eyes were blind to all else but the lady who stood there. His ears deaf to everything but the sound of what fell from her lips. His name.
“Mona Lisa,” Gryphon said in a rasping sigh. He held still, letting her come to him, conscious, so conscious of that careful control he had to maintain. Then she was in his arms and he was breathing in her sweet, living scent, feeling the thump of her heart against his own silent chest.
“Dear heart,” Gryphon murmured, relaxing and gathering her up against him when he found that it was not as hard as he had feared, holding her like that, warm and precious. His demon hunger for her blood was tamed, held in abeyance for the moment, superseded by another appetite that suddenly roared forth, stiffening against her. “Oh, my lady,” he groaned, clutching her to him, “it is so good to see you again.”
“As I can see,” Mona Lisa murmured in an amused, soft undertone, “. . . and feel.”
“Forgive me,” Gryphon said, scooping up her legs.