Holy Smokes by Katie MacAlister
Rene wrinkled his brow as he maneuvered the car off a roundabout and onto a less-traveled road. “Brother against brother…that is most tragic. But me, I do not believe Kostya will do this thing. If it was not for Drake and you, he would still be captive. He must owe to you a certain respect, hein?”
“You’d think so, but you know dragons. They do things their own way,” I answered as we turned onto the drive of the house that was Bael’s domain in England, my fingers tightening around the handle of the titanium case bearing the Tools of Bael.
“Drake knows what he’s doing,” Uncle Damian said from the backseat, where he’d been reading the paper. Jim had its head hanging out the window, thankfully silent for the moment.
“I hope so. Rene, are you sure you want to come with me? Bael said all I have to do is hand over the Tools and do the disavowal, and then he’d give me the expulsion. I’m sure with Uncle Damian and Jim I’ll be perfectly safe, if you’d rather pass on another visit to Abaddon.”
Rene’s chest puffed out as he narrowly missed mowing down a demon clipping a tall yew hedge. “I am not afraid of Bael. I am a member of the Court of Divine Blood. There is nothing he can do to me.”
“You’re a member of this Court place?” I asked, curious. “I never knew that.”
“I am a daimon,” he said with his usual expressive shrug. “Daimons are part of the Court. Bael cannot harm me with out bringing down the Court upon his head, and that, not even Bael would be stupid enough to do.”
Jim had pulled in its head long enough to hear Rene’s comment. “Oh yeah, the demon lords don’t mess with Court members. Very bad juju.”
“What do you know about it?” I asked, turning around in my seat to mop up the long tendrils of drool the wind had pulled from its slobbery flews.
“Boy, you really do have splinters in the windmills of your mind, don’t you?” Jim asked, shaking its head.
“No more Carol Burnett DVDs for you, buster. Just answer my question.”
“Hello! I was a sprite, remember? That’s a member of the Court.”
Uncle Damian looked up at Jim in surprise. “Your demon was a what?”
“It’s a sort of a lesser angel, I think,” I told him as we got out of the car. Two demons emerged from the house to meet us. “Jim got kicked out and sent to Abaddon.”
“Why am I not surprised?” my uncle said as he took up a position at my side.
“Like uncle, like niece…”
“You have come to pay wer?” the first demon asked, blocking our way into the house.
“Well, I guess I’ll pay wherever Bael wants, although I’d like to get this over with quickly.”
Jim, the two demons, and Rene all looked at me as if I was suddenly speaking in Serbo-Croatian.
“What have I said now?” I asked them.
“Wer is the name of the payment that Bael has asked. It is not a location, you understand?” Rene explained.
“Oh. Sorry. Um, yes, I’ve come to pay the wer.”
The demons nodded and turned on their heels, clearly expecting us to follow.
“Don’t say it,” I warned Jim as it opened its mouth. “I’d just like to remind all of you that no one bothered to give me the Big Demon Lord’s Book of Archaic Lingo, so I’m a little clueless when it comes to unnecessary terms that people use just to impress others.”
I could have sworn I heard Jim say, “A little clueless?” as we entered the hall, but I had more important things to worry about than a few snipes from my demon.
Bael was waiting for us when we were shown into his room, his eyes lighting on the case I held firmly with both hands. “I see you have brought the Tools. Excellent. And the sacrifice?”
I cleared my throat. I was dreading this moment, hoping against hope that some brilliantly cunning plan would occur to me that would allow me to escape from Bael’s hold without the loss of my Guardian abilities. Unfortunately, nothing struck me. Drake was just as much at a loss as I was, and al though I badly wanted to call Nora for advice, pride kept me from blubbering all over her about what my own folly had wrought.
You don’t have to do this, you know.
“The sacrifice…I’m ready,” I said, lifting my chin and meeting Bael’s eyes even though my soul wept.
Such drama over something for which you have a simple solution.
“Very well. You may proceed,” Bael said, leaning back in his chair, his fingertips tapping together.
Uncle Damian gave me an abrupt nod and squeezed my shoulder for a moment. Rene watched me with sad eyes. Jim leaned on my leg and rubbed its head on my knee.
Let’s talk this over before you commit yourself to an action you’ll later regret.
I set the case down on the table next to Bael, opening the lid and removing the protective layer of foam. “As part of the terms of our agreement, I give to you the three items known collectively as the Tools of Bael: the Anima di Lucifer, the Occio di Lucifer, and the Voce di Lucifer.”
You know, if you kept them for yourself, you could defeat Bael and truly reign supreme in Abaddon. Think what changes you could make!
“The blood, eye, and voice of Lucifer,” Bael said, satisfaction dripping from his voice as he reached out a long finger and touched the golden aquamanile that was shaped like a dragon. “How nice it is to have them back.”
You are foolish, Aisling Grey. So foolish.
I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I was a strong, confident woman even if I was about to relinquish one of the most important things in my life.
Don’t make a hasty decision. There are so many other options—
“In accordance with the second term of our agreement, I hereby renounce my Guardian powers, doing so of my free will. From this moment on, I will no longer be a Guardian.”
Fame, fortune, happiness—working with me, you can have it all.
My voice cracked midway through my disavowal, but I made it without breaking down and crying. I clung to that fact, and to the knowledge that soon I’d be rid of the dark power forever.
You will never be rid of me. I am part of you. Nothing you can do will change that.
“There now, that didn’t hurt so much, did it?” Bael asked, his voice light with mockery.
“There’s no need to gloat,” Uncle Damian said, his voice a bit rusty. “Aisling’s done what you asked. Now you keep your part of the bargain.”
Bael didn’t even glance at him, but he casually pulled a piece of parchment toward himself, signing below five other signatures.
This is not the last you will hear of me! I will not be—
The voice inside my head suddenly stopped as Bael lifted his pen.
“It is done,” he said, pushing the parchment toward me. It bore six signatures on it, Bael’s the largest, at the bottom, and no surprise—signed in blood. “It saddens me, but henceforth you will no longer be known as a prince of Abaddon. You are expulsed, Aisling Grey. Now if you don’t mind, I have the important job of finding your replacement.”
I stood a bit stunned for a moment, watching him for some sign of trickery. It wasn’t until my uncle took my arm and forcibly steered me out of the room and down the great hall that I realized I had done it—it had cost me a sum without measure, but I had done it. I was no longer a prince of Abaddon! The dark power could never tempt me again.
I waited a moment for it to say something snarky, but all was silent in my head.
“Are you all right?” Uncle Damian asked as he hustled me out the front door, back to Rene’s car.
“I think she’s inner monologuing,” Jim said, jumping into the backseat. “Dark power’s gone, huh?”
“Yes,” I said, a strange, light euphoria filling me even as I felt tremendously saddened. “But…does anyone else find this whole thing really anticlimactic? Almost as if…as if it was planned to end this way?”
“Kinda makes you think, huh?” Jim asked as I took my seat in the car.
“Yes. And I don’t like what I’m thinking.
“What is that?” Rene asked, pulling away from the house.
“That Bael was taking me for a ride all along. He had to know I had given the Tools to Drake…who’s to say he didn’t arrange for me to become a prince of Abaddon just so one day, I’d barter the Tools for my freedom?”
Rene looked thoughtful. Uncle Damian grunted something about not worrying over spilt milk, but worry was one of the things I did best.
I looked down at the parchment I held in my hand. “So now what? We take this to the Court?”
“Oui. Although your uncle and Jim, they will not be allowed in. Mortals are seldom let in, and as for the demons, eh. You can imagine that they are not welcome.”
“Hypocrites,” Jim muttered, stepping on the window opener so it could stick its head out.
“Gotcha. You OK with that, Uncle Damian?”
“Drake said I would not be let in, but that you would be safe there. I will read the paper while you’re taking care of your business.”
“Thanks. So, where are the Pearly Gates?” I asked Rene.
“There are many entrances to the Court,” he answered with a particularly vicious yank on the steering wheel to avoid a group of joggers. “But the nearest one is back in London. In the men’s restroom in Hyde Park.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, giving him a close look to see if he was pulling my leg.
“Not at all. It is not a very nice restroom, but it serves its purpose.”
So it was that two hours later I found myself ducking into a run-down, beat-up wooden building in a little-used section of Hyde Park, half-hidden by trees. “How come they have their entrance here?” I asked, my nose wrinkling as I followed Rene to the last stall. The walls of the bathroom were slightly green tinted, as if mildewed, and the smell was a nasty mixture of cheap toilet cleaner and rotted leaves. “Don’t people run into it all the time?”
“See for yourself,” he said, opening the stall door with a grand gesture. Although the stall itself was tiny, in the center of it a ward glowed briefly.
“It’s warded! Well, that would explain it. So I just go in?”
“Yes. I will follow you.”
Pushing through the perdu ward was not difficult, al though for a moment everything seemed to spin around, but then I was standing on the cobblestoned street of what appeared to be a small medieval village.
If small medieval villages had latte stands…and shops with brightly colored clothing, and people zipping around the cobblestones on Vespas.
“This is Heaven?” I asked, taking in the tall spires, tiled roofs, and half-timbered buildings.
“It is the Court of Divine Blood. The two are not the same thing.” Rene pointed toward a grand-looking marble building that sat off to one side. “The library. It is in there that we will find the almoner.”
“OK. Is that a McDonald’s?” I asked as the door to one of the buildings we were passing opened, and a woman came out with two brown paper bags. “Fast food in Heaven? Isn’t that wrong?”
“Shh. One does not look too closely at the little sins of the Court. The office we want is on the ground floor, just there, you see?”
Evidently the almoner was a popular guy, because we had to give our names at a reception desk before taking our places on hard wooden benches with about ten other people.
“What is the almoner going to do, do you know?” I asked Rene in a whisper. “How many hoops am I going to have to jump through to have them lift the proscription? They aren’t going to demand another sacrifice, are they? Because really, I don’t think I have much left to sacrifice except Drake, and that’s so not happening.”
“Pfft. You spend too much time in the worrying. The almoner will tell you what he wants of you to grant the removal of the proscription.”
That didn’t do much to ease my mind. “Given my past history, it’ll be my kidney. Or my soul,” I muttered darkly.
Rene ignored me to read up on the latest Hollywood gossip, as provided by a glossy magazine. He tutted over a story about a popular actress. “She always did have such a strong will. Just like you—I never could do anything but try to catch up to her.”
I gawked at the magazine. “You know J-Lo? You mean you…you…fated her?”
“Perhaps,” he said, inscrutable as ever. “I have enjoyed my time with you much more, though. I prefer dragons and demons to the strange beings who inhabit Hollywood.”
That thought distracted me for a few minutes. Unfortunately, by the time we were called into the almoner’s office, I had worked myself into a swivet and was convinced that I would never have the proscription removed.
It was with much trepidation and no little sense of depression that I entered a small but pleasant office. The almoner sat at a desk, a nondescript man of medium height and build, with brown hair and friendly brown eyes.
“Good afternoon. I am Terrin. And you are?”
“Aisling Grey. This is my friend, Rene.”
“Ah, the daimon, yes, I believe we met a few centuries ago. Welcome to the Court, Aisling,” Terrin said with a pleasant smile. “Please sit. You are here for…let me see…” He punched a few keys on the laptop sitting in front of him on the desk. “I’m sorry, I’m not normally the almoner; he’s out with a family emergency so I’m filling in for him. If you can just bear with me for a moment or two while I locate your file…”
It struck me as a bit odd that someone bearing the name almoner was using a laptop, but I forbore from pointing out the anachronism.
“Ah, yes, there you are. Aisling Grey. My, you are a busy lady. Guardian, wyvern’s mate, demon lord, and…prince of Abaddon?” Terrin looked up in surprise.
“Former prince of Abaddon,” I said, passing him the expulsion.
“So I see.” He took the form and typed in a few things before looking over the screen at me. “And your status as a demon lord? That is also nil?”
“Um…no. I have only one demon, though.” I bit my lower lip. “That’s…that’s not going to screw things up, is it? Because my demon isn’t a real demon. That is, it was one of you guys, and it got booted out and made a demon, but it’s a demon sixth class and is actually not evil at all.”
“Ah,” he said, enlightenment dawning in his eyes. “Effrijim! Yes, I remember him. He had quite the sense of humor.”
“That pretty much sums it up, yes. So, is that going to be a problem?”
Terrin made a little face. “I do not believe we’ve ever granted a sanction to a demon lord. You would not be willing to give up Effrijim?”
“No,” I said, lifting my chin and giving him a firm look. “I wouldn’t.”
“Brava,” Rene said quietly, patting my knee.
“I see.” Terrin looked back at his laptop, hit a couple of keys, and asked, “And the other information is current? You are still a Guardian and a wyvern’s mate?”
A little shaft of pain threatened to unwind within me, but I stomped down hard on it. “I am still a wyvern’s mate. I am…” My throat closed for a moment. I cleared it and tried again. “I am no longer a Guardian.”
“Really?”
“Bael demanded that I disavow my Guardian status in order to receive the expulsion,” I explained, wondering if the day would come when I wouldn’t want to burst into tears at the thought of what I’d given up.
“Did he, now? That was very cruel of him, but then, cruel is more or less his middle name, isn’t it? Let’s see…I believe that is everything.” He typed in a few more things and gave me a polite smile. “Judy at the front desk will have your statement of sanction. You can pick it up on your way out.”
I have a horrible feeling I gawked at him at that point. “Pick it up? You mean…that’s it? I’m no longer proscribed?” I glanced at Rene, who looked just as surprised as I felt. Could it be that easy? I shook my head at myself. Nothing, not since that first day I stepped into the Orly Airport with the aquamanile in my hands, nothing had been easy.
“Yes. Oh, no, I tell a lie,” he said,
I knew it! I braced myself, waiting for the bad news. What was it they wanted…to give up Jim? Drake? Living?
“I hit shift instead of enter. Silly me.” He punched a button, then smiled again. “Now you’re set!”
“But…you don’t want something from me?”
“Er…what would I want from you?” he asked, puzzlement wrinkling his brow.
“I don’t know! My soul, or for me to hack off a limb with a butter knife, or…or…I don’t know! I just figured this sanction was going to cost me something.”
“It sounds to me like it has already cost you much pain.”
I continued to gawk at him until he gave a little sigh, got up and took me by the hands, gently pulling me to my feet, and with a hand on my back, escorted me down the short hallway to the reception area. “My dear, this is the Court of Divine Blood. I won’t say that there are not times when petitioners are asked payment for services rendered, but we do not, on the whole, operate as you are used to with those folks in Abaddon. We like to think of ourselves as the good guys. We like to take care of our people.”
A bloom of hope unfurled within me. Could it be this easy after all? “But I’m not a member of the Court.”
“No, alas, demon lords are not allowed membership. But we do like to keep tabs on those people we feel are fighting the good fight, and you definitely qualify for that.”
I did, until I lost the ability to fight. I pushed away that nagging thought and focused on the miracle that had just been handed me. “Then…I’m done? The proscription is over?”
He nodded.
“I don’t feel any different. Shouldn’t I feel different? Shouldn’t there have been—oh, I don’t know—some sign like a bolt from above cleansing my soul?”