Pia is a Zorya, and wields the power to destroy Kristoff—and every other Dark One, for that matter—but it doesn’t stop him from indulging himself every opportunity he gets. Why would you being a Tool of Bael mean I should do likewise?
I shivered again at the things he was thinking. “What’s a Zorya?”
“Huh?” Pia, who had been gazing into Kristoff’s eyes, blinked at me a few times. “Oh, Alec told you about me? I’m a reaper.”
“You’re a former reaper,” Kristoff said.
“Zoryas are a group of women who have the power to call down the light of the moon. They’re next in line to the Zenith. I’m also a Zenith.”
“A former Zenith.” Kristoff was back to looking cranky as he allowed Pia to lead him over to the love seat.
“It’s all part of a wacky religion called the Brotherhood of the Blessed Light,” she said, cuddling up to him. “Better known as the reapers. They booted me from the group a month ago, which I have to admit was a bit of a bummer, because I seriously enjoyed light binding people. But all in all, it’s better that I not be the Dark Ones’ most hated enemy.”
“Merciful Mary,” I said, wondering how on earth she had ended up that way.
It’s a long story. I shall tell it to you sometime when you have exhausted me with your lustful demands.
I’ll hold you to that. Both the story and fulfilling all my lustful demands, that is.
He smiled, a long, slow, sultry smile full of much promise.
“Oh, for the love of the saints . . . if you four are going to sit there making googly eyes at each other, I’m going to go see what passes for the Home and Garden channel in Italy,” Eleanor said, stalking off to another room. “Call me when I can go back home.”
“So if Brother Ailwin is in jail—and stop looking at me like I’m insane, Kristoff, because I wasn’t going to suggest that we have him summon Ulfur after the events of this afternoon—but since he’s out of it, how are we going to get Ulfur?” Pia asked.
“We’ll find another lichmaster,” Kristoff told her, looking toward where I sat.
“I’m almost done. I found a Web site for something called the Guardians’ Guild that lists a contact number.” I scribbled down a phone number and relinquished the laptop. “Evidently you can hire Guardians through them. I wish I knew Noelle’s last name.”
“It wouldn’t do you any good if you did,” a tired voice came from the doorway.
Kristoff was across the room before I could blink, Alec right there with him. Kristoff pinned a slight, balding man with dark hair and dark eyes to the wall, Alec leaning in with a wicked intent.
“Who are you?” Kristoff snarled.
“My apologies,” the man said in a choked voice. Literally choked, since Kristoff held him up by the neck just as Alec had done with Brother Ailwin. “I should have known better than to startle Dark Ones with Beloveds in the same room.”
“Yes, you should have,” Alec said. “Answer the question.”
“I’m not sure he can,” Pia said, tapping Kristoff on the arm. “His face is turning red, Boo. You should probably let him down before he passes out.”
Boo?
It’s Pia’s love name for Kristoff. She said he scared the hell out of her when she first met us.
That’s fitting. You scared the crap out of me, too.
Your first sight of me was when I killed the woman who decapitated you. That hardly counts.
“Who are you?” Kristoff repeated, releasing the man. He was a good foot shorter than Alec and Kristoff, balding, dressed in a brown suit, but with a pleasant face despite the fact that he’d just been throttled. “And how did you get in here?”
“What did you mean about it being of no use to call the Guardian?” Alec added.
I moved over to where he stood, telling my inner devil to stop attempting a new career as a matchmaker. Unattached Beloveds were not my problem. “Just out of curiosity, do you know Noelle?” the devil forced me to ask nonetheless.
“My name is Terrin,” he said, answering Kristoff first. “I walked in. Mortal doors have never been a problem for me. It’s of no use to contact the Guardian—who I do not personally know, by the way—because she couldn’t get Diamond out of the Akasha.”
Mortal doors? So this guy is one of you?
He’s not a Dark One, no. But he is immortal. Alec considered him with interest. The name seems familiar to me, but I can’t place it, or him.
“Why couldn’t Noelle spring Diamond?” I asked at the same time that Kristoff, in a growl, asked Terrin what he was doing there.
“I would be happy to explain both if you would allow me a glass of water?” Terrin rubbed his throat, grimacing when he hit a tender spot.
Pia gestured toward the couch. “Of course. Please come in and sit down. Do you drink tea? The water’s fairly hot still, I think.”
“Tea of any temperature would be most welcome, thank you. I have had a long journey to get here.” Terrin held up a hand, giving Kristoff a watered-down smile. “I see you’re about to object to such civilities. Would it relieve your mind if I told you that I am a member of the Court of Divine Blood?”
The who of what, now? I asked Alec, moving over to the couch to sit with Pia opposite Terrin.
“It might,” Kristoff allowed.
It is what the mortals think of as heaven. Or rather, the mortals based their notion of heaven upon the Court.
So he’s a good guy?
Presumably so.
“Heaven?” Pia said aloud, looking startled. I had a feeling she’d been asking the very same thing of Kristoff. “You’re from heaven? Are you an angel or something?”
“The Court is not heaven, although we are frequently confused for it, and there are no angels there, simply employees. Thank you, I’ll take it black if you don’t mind.” Terrin gratefully accepted a cup of tea from Pia, who gestured at me with the teapot, setting it down when I shook my head. “In answer to both questions, I am here because I have been sent by the mares to seek the help of Corazon. You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?” he asked me.
“No, I don’t. You don’t work for Bael, by any chance?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. Why would someone want me to help them if not to use my Toolness? “And how do you know about Diamond?”
“Who are the mares?” Pia asked at the same time. “More importantly, just how did you know where to find Cora?”
“So many questions,” he said, sipping his tea. “And so little time to answer them. I will explain as quickly as I can. I am unarmed,” he added to Kristoff, who lurked next to him, watching him with a suspicious expression. “And I intend no one here any harm.”
“You just admitted you wish to use Cora,” Alec said, in a mild voice that didn’t at all disguise his hostility.
“Not in the sense you mean,” Terrin said, suddenly looking exhausted. “It has been a very long day. Let me start at the beginning, and see if we can’t get through this quickly, so that my visit will not have been in vain. I am a seneschal at the Court, which basically makes me a middle-level bureaucrat. One of the three mares—they are second-in-command to the Sovereign, who rules the Court—has sent me to seek the aid of Corazon Ferreira, mortal, who was imbued two days previously with the Occio di Lucifer.”
“Former mortal. She is now my Beloved,” Alec corrected him.
I really am immortal now?