Tempt the Stars

Chapter Thirty-one

Five minutes later, I was on a couch in the lobby, slightly steaming. If I was a cartoon, I’d have had a blackened face, hair standing straight on end, and wisps of steam floating out of my ears. And I wasn’t the only one.

“Well, that could have gone better.”

That was Caleb, mopping his face with an oversized handkerchief he’d pulled out of all that leather. His hair wasn’t standing on end because he didn’t have any, but his usually rich skin tone had an ashen cast, and his eyes were a little more open than technically necessary. If it had been anyone else, I’d have said he was flirting with a panic attack, only war mages didn’t.

Of course, they didn’t usually stand in front of a full session of the demon high council, either.

Not that we were anymore. I’d lost the connection, whatever it was, to Mom shortly after the room erupted in chaos. And not the good kind. The weird-vibrationsthat-made-my-skin-feel-like-it-was-about-to-come-offthe-bone kind, like we were in a giant drum and somebody had suddenly decided to beat the hell out of it. And then there had been the noise, which probably hadn’t been metallic shrieks and high-pitched squeals and elephant-like trumpets, but my brain had given up trying to make sense of this crap and had just started tossing random junk in there.

So yeah.

Could have gone better.

On the other hand, the vibrate-y, noisy stuff had caused me to retch and flop over. And collapsing into nothing, not even a floor because I still couldn’t feel it properly, just nothing, was something I could live without ever experiencing again. But the good news was, it had gotten us kicked out on our collective asses.

The bad news was, Pritkin hadn’t come with us.

I stared at the big double doors leading back into hell’s inner sanctum and, despite everything, had a sudden urge to run back in there. And I guess more than an urge, because the next thing I knew, I was halfway to my feet and Caleb’s arm was holding me back. “Not a chance,” he grumbled.

“I just want to listen—”

“To what?” he demanded. “The shrieking?”

“They won’t let you in anyway,” Casanova reminded me. “They said no humans in the deliberations.”

“Pritkin’s in there—”

“He’s the accused. That’s different.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

“Here.” Casanova handed over his precious bottle of hell juice.

I blinked at him.

“You’re white as a sheet,” he said gruffly.

I took the bottle, a little gingerly. And okay, if I’d needed confirmation that things were bad, I’d just gotten it. Casanova was being nice to me.

We were so fucked.

I drank. People, or things, or things pretending to be people came and went, paying no attention to the three bums sprawled in the corner. Caleb kept glancing around, but not like he was tensing to fight. More like the bland familiarity of the lobby was reassuring to him.

It wasn’t doing a lot for me.

Long minutes passed.

“Maybe it was intended as a negotiation tactic,” Caleb suddenly blurted out.

I glanced over at him. He looked a little less freaked-out, but no happier. I knew the feeling.

Having time to think was a bitch.

“What?”

“You know,” he told me. “All of that stuff about the gods . . ”

I passed over the bottle. “You think Mom was lying?”

Caleb took a swig, and made a face. “I’m not saying that. We’ve already had one god show up, and the punk-ass kids of another. But she could have been exaggerating. She was bargaining with them, and in a negotiation, you always ask for more than you hope to get. We want Pritkin, so your mother asks for—”

“An army?” Casanova said incredulously. “A demon army?”

Caleb scowled. “I thought you were the one who thought that was a good idea. You spent half the damned walk into Rosier’s capital bitching about—”

“The fact that we could use some help with the war we already have going,” Casanova said, snatching his bottle back. “Not being informed that there’s an army of ravenous gods preparing to lay waste to the hells, and planning to use earth as a staging ground!”

He belted back a couple shots’ worth, all at one go.

“Well, forgive me for hoping it’s not true,” Caleb retorted. “As someone who’ll have to fight it!”

Casanova leaned over me to stare at him. “And the rest of us won’t? You think the gods are going to wipe out the war mages and just leave everyone else—”

“The Corps is the obvious target, yes. We’re the only ones with enough magic to oppose them—”

“Oh, please!” Casanova said fiercely. “If those things—did you see those things?—in there are shaking in their boots, what chance do you think you have?”

“Better than you think, or they’re expecting. The Corps isn’t the ragtag little group they remember—”

“Yes, which is why the goddess who started your order just said we’re screwed without the demons! Face it—if the gods get past that damned spell, we’re dead, we’re all—”

“Stop it,” I said, but no one was listening.

“Thus speaks the great military mind of a casino manager!” Caleb snapped.

“Who has lived long enough to have seen a few wars in his time,” Casanova snapped back. “And it’s never just the combatants who suffer—”

“I didn’t say it was—”

“And we both know it’s easier to run a staging ground if you don’t have to worry about sabotage!”

“Stop it!” I told him. But he didn’t.

“If I were them, I wouldn’t want anyone anywhere near my only doorway to this universe, not after what happened last time. Easier to kill us, kill the fey, hell, kill the humans, too. It’s not like they need them anymore if they’re invading the hells anyway—”

“They’d need them to feed their precious herd,” Caleb growled. “There’s no way they would—”

“If they want to feed their cows, they can do it with creatures like we saw on Rosier’s world. If even the incubi can control them, the gods’ll never have to worry about rebellion. They’ll never have to worry about any—” He broke off as I got up. Because it was either that or start screaming.

“Where are you going?” Casanova demanded.

“Somewhere else!”

“Cassie—”

“No,” I told him as he grabbed for my wrist. And missed, because he was drunker than he’d been in the bar. “I can’t, all right? I just—I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” Caleb told me. And then grimaced, because it wasn’t and we both knew it. “Just . . . sit back down.”

“I don’t want to sit down!”

“It’s not like you have a choice,” Casanova pointed out. “Where else are you going to go?”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I just knew I couldn’t sit there and listen to them argue when there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about any of it. I was staggering with exhaustion, but I couldn’t sleep, either, not with Pritkin in there pleading for his life. And it didn’t look like there was enough left in that bottle to get me drunk.

I didn’t know what I wanted.

“I know how you feel,” Caleb said, and took my hand.

He didn’t grab it or yank on it or even trap it, which, in the state I was in, might have sent me over the edge. The fingers were slightly open, the hold loose. I could have pulled away at any time.

And so, perversely, I didn’t want to.

“I feel the same way,” he told me. “I’ve known John over fifteen years. He’s saved my ass half a dozen times, and I’ve returned the favor maybe half that many—”

“I think you might have evened the score today,” I said, a little unevenly.

“Maybe.” If this works out remained unsaid. “But there’s nothing I can do for him now. Except wait. They’ll have a decision when they have a decision, and John’s going to need us then. And we need to be here for him. All right?”

I nodded, because I suddenly couldn’t say anything. And let Caleb pull me back down on the sofa, or whatever it really was. I didn’t know, but it was comfortable, and then he pulled me onto his shoulder, which wasn’t. But I didn’t mind right then.

“Sorry,” Casanova said, which might not have meant anything. But then he handed me the bottle again.

“It’s okay,” I told him, looking at it blearily. “I think I’ve had enough.”

“No such thing,” he muttered, glancing around. And upended it.

I woke up on something hard. I tried punching it, because this pillow had seen better days. But it didn’t seem to help.

So I punched it again.

“Ow,” someone said mildly.

My eyes opened, and I found myself looking at something that might have been a knee. I blinked, and it came more into focus. Yes, it was a knee. A very dirty, denim-covered knee that also appeared to have been drooled on.

I raised myself up slightly. And realized why my pillow had been so damned hard. My head had been resting on someone’s thigh, and whoever it was hadn’t skipped leg day.

I turned my head the other way and saw a stomach. I frowned at it, which wasn’t fair, because it was a nice stomach. Flat and hard, and with the beginnings of the deep V of muscles sometimes called an Adonis belt above the loose top of the jeans.

But there was something wrong with it anyway. And that included the sculpted, lightly furred chest above. And the rocklike shoulders above that. And the face—

My body came upright abruptly. Maybe a little too abruptly, since the room did a lazy spin around me. But I didn’t care, because I’d finally realized the problem: the body was right, but the skin was wrong. Instead of Caleb’s rich mocha, it was pale and sun kissed and—

I grabbed one of those oversized shoulders and shook it as hard as I could, which meant I maybe jiggled it a little. “They released you?”

An eyebrow rose. And damn it! Everybody could do that but me.

“No,” Pritkin told me. “They’re in deliberations. They didn’t seem to feel they needed me for that.”

“Oh.” I sat back, waking the rest of the way up. And checking him over.

He looked okay. Well, actually that was a lie. “Okay” was a relative term considering where we were, and encompassed a lot of things. But he didn’t look any more beat up.

Unfortunately, that was about the only plus.

He hadn’t found any extra clothes to go with the dirty jeans, which were now also cut in several places, and scorched down one side, probably the result of the near miss on the rooftop. His hair, always terrible, was now extra Pritkin-y, meaning it would have put any self-respecting stylist on suicide watch. Although it matched his face, which was a stubbly mess, and his left eye, which was black and swollen, and his right arm, which was in a sling, and his ribs—

“You wouldn’t even get in the door at Rosier’s looking like that,” I told him, after a minute.

His lips pursed. “Should I worry that you sound pleased?”

“I do not!” That was ridiculous. “And I meant you look terrible.”

“Would you like a mirror?” he asked sweetly.

“No.”

I glanced around. We were still on the sofa, only someone had added a rattan privacy screen on one side, shielding us from the view of the rest of the lobby. That seemed to happen to me a lot.

I guess even hell has some standards.

Although Caleb, at least, was doing earth proud. He was standing by a pillar, arms crossed, eyes watchful, face back to its usual fuck-with-me-and-die expression, maybe kicked up an extra notch or two because of where we were. His knee-length leather duster was likewise looking sharp. Of course, it was war mage issue, meaning that it was less a coat than self-healing armor, knitting up any little boo-boos almost as soon as they happened. I suspected it might be self-cleaning, too, because he was suspiciously lacking in dirt.

Casanova, on the other, other hand, was bringing our average back down again, although less because of looks than attitude. He was still sprawled on the couch on my other side, and he must have finished off the bottle he was still clutching. Because his handsome face was pasty and crumpled, like his once-nice suit. And his eyes kept darting around the lobby blearily, as if trying to see through the bland beige glamourie.

Altogether, we were a sorry lot, and then my stomach growled plaintively. “Have I been out long?” I asked, tucking a limp strand of hair behind my ear. And wincing, because even that hurt.

“A few hours,” Pritkin told me. “You weren’t unconscious, just exhausted. We thought it best to let you sleep. It’ll likely be hours yet before we hear anything.”

I digested that. And, unfortunately, nothing else. My stomach spoke up again, more forcefully.

“Does this place have a coffee shop?”

“No,” he said, getting up, and grimacing. I guess I wasn’t the only stiff one. “But there’s a food cart next door. If I remember right, it’s one of the safe ones.”

“Safe?” Caleb frowned, like that word didn’t compute around here. “Am I misremembering the bunch of guys who just tried to kill us?”

“That was before we reached the council,” Pritkin said, and stretched, cracking his back. I tried that, too, because it sounded like it would feel awesome, but I was too bendy. I just flopped over. So I pretended to be touching my toes since I was already down there.

And, God, my toes. And the rest of my poor feet. Filthy, pedicure gone, cut and bruised and traces of hell gunk between the toes.

And after everything, the running and the fighting and the almost dying . . . that was what did it.

That was what finally had me tearing up.

Until a pair of honest-to-God flip-flops were dangled in front of my face.

I looked up. “How—”

“Shop around the corner,” Pritkin told me, about the time that I noticed his nice, clean, flip-flop-clad feet.

“You got a bath!” I accused, staring at them.

“Sponge.” He nodded at a discreet sign on a nearby wall. Which had an arrow pointing down a hall and a curly script that read Bathrooms.

And I realized that I had something else to take care of. “Be right back,” I told him, grabbing the shoes.

“Wait.” That was Caleb, staring at the sign suspiciously. “How do we know what’s in there?”

“What?”

“There’s a toilet in there,” Pritkin told him, looking vaguely amused. “Many of the demon races have bodies, you know.”

“And what if one of those bodies attacks her?” Caleb demanded. “Or some spirit does?” He glanced around unhappily. “This place is crawling with threats.”

“Not for us. Once the trial started, we came under the council’s protection. And I believe you remember their security staff?”

Caleb scowled, but he didn’t seem satisfied. “I’m going with her,” he announced forcefully.

“You are not,” I told him, equally forcefully.

His eyes narrowed. “Then John goes. I don’t care which of us it is, but you go nowhere by yourself. Not here.”

“I just told you we’re under protection,” Pritkin said, looking at his friend impatiently.

“Yeah, the council’s protection. Why doesn’t that make me feel better?”

“It should. Nobody is going to test them, particularly not in their own building. Cassie will be perfectly safe.”

Caleb hiked up one of the straps holding some of the eighty pounds or so of weapons he was carrying. “I know she will. Because she’ll be with me.”

“This is ridiculous,” I told him.

“I’ll stay outside the stall—”

“You’ll stay here!”

“This is not up for discussion.”

“I agree.”

Caleb crossed his arms and glared at me. I glared back. Something squelched between my toes, which grossed me out and pissed me off in about equal measures, because I should be washing it away by now.

“This place isn’t as dangerous as you seem to think,” Pritkin told Caleb, trying again.

Caleb transferred the glare to him. “Did you get hit over the head?”

“Yes, several times—”

“Thought so.”

“—but that doesn’t change the facts. The Shadowland exists for trade. The proprietors have a vested interest in keeping some kind of order—”

“Yeah. I’ve felt really secure so far!”

“Most people are not being chased by an irate demon lord when they come here,” Pritkin said dryly. “The council finds it a useful meeting place because of its being neutral ground. But they’re a very small part of local life. I am not saying the place is without its dangers, but they can be navigated, even by humans. Mages come here fairly often to buy potion supplies, for example—”

“No sane ones!”

“Jonas gets most of his here—”

“You’re not helping your case,” Caleb muttered.

“—and Cassie is easily more powerful than him. If Jonas can navigate these streets on a semiregular basis, bargain for supplies, and get back out again safely, I think she can manage to go to the bathroom by herself!”

For some reason, Caleb was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. His voice sounded like it, too. “Cassie is more powerful than Jonas,” he repeated.

Pritkin frowned. “Of course. She’s Pythia.”

“She’s—” Caleb seemed momentarily at a loss for words, so I seized the opportunity.

“I couldn’t shift before, because Mother was rerouting most of my power for . . . well, whatever she did in there. But I feel better now—”

“Yeah, you look it!”

“I didn’t say I’m a hundred percent,” I told him impatiently. “But I can defend myself—”

“Good. But it’s my job to see that you don’t have to.”

“If Agnes had told you to stay here, you’d stay here,” I said angrily.

“Lady Phemonoe wouldn’t be here! She’d be at court, surrounded by a crack security team! Meeting with dignitaries and mediating disputes and—and doing anything but running around almost getting herself blown up!”

“Did you ever meet Agnes?” I asked, but Caleb wasn’t listening.

“Did you see her today?” he asked John. “Those witches were right; she doesn’t even have shields, and I couldn’t reach her and all she had for protection was a damned vampire—”

“Hey, fuc’ you, too, buddy,” Casanova slurred, from behind us.

“—and she almost got killed! I almost let her get—” Caleb broke off, fuming.

“You didn’t let me do anything,” I told him. “We got in trouble, but it wasn’t your fault—”

“I can see me explaining that to the old man,” Caleb snapped. “See, sir, she ended up incinerated, but it wasn’t my fault!”

“It wasn’t! I wanted to come here—”

“Yeah, and I should have had the sense to say no. Just like I should have the other day!”

“You should have said no?” I repeated. “I thought war mages did what the Pythia wanted.”

“Pythias don’t want this!” Caleb said, suddenly furious. “Pythias don’t do this! They don’t invade hell and fight demons and battle gods—”

“They also didn’t live in these times,” Pritkin said, cutting in. “They didn’t have to face anything remotely like this. Do you think Lady Phemonoe could have done what Cassie did today? What she did yesterday? Do you think she would have dared?”

“I think she’d have found another way!” Caleb said, like a man who had been standing by that pillar for the last two hours, thinking. And coming to the conclusion that maybe Casanova’s drunken ramblings hadn’t been so far off the mark. And panicking, after all, because he’d had all this dumped in his lap at one time, literally overnight. And he didn’t know what to do with it.

And I didn’t think he’d felt like that too often in his life.

“I had no idea—” He looked at me accusingly. “You made it sound like we were just going to sneak into some palace. Just grab John and hightail it out—”

“Which is what we did.”

“That is not what we did! We—” Caleb stopped and stared around again, but the bland, beige lobby didn’t seem to give him anything back. “This place, the hells, the size—” He broke off, staring from me to Pritkin, half in anger, half in wonder. “There’s whole worlds down here.”

Pritkin gazed at his friend, and his face changed. From exasperation working on pissed, to . . . understanding. Because maybe he’d felt like that once, too. Overwhelmed and inadequate, faced with a suddenly huge universe that he didn’t understand at all.

“Yes,” he said simply.

Caleb stared at him for a minute longer and then turned away abruptly, leather coat swinging.

And I finally got it.

I’d been dealing with stuff like this for more than three months now. And it had been hard. And scary. To the point that, most days, I’d felt like hiding under the bed, or just running and never stopping. And the truth was, if there’d been anybody else to stick with this job, I probably would have.

Like Caleb would probably love to run out of here. But he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t, because he was a decent guy. And because a lifetime of duty and discipline stood in the way. And because there was nowhere for him to go, either.

But right now he needed something to ground him. Something familiar. Something he knew how to do. Even if it was just something stupid.

Even if it was just escorting me to the bathroom.

“Come on,” I told him, sliding a hand on his shoulder. “If there’s nobody else in there, I’ll leave the door open.”