Holy Smokes Page 7

  “Nailed you?” He shook his head. “I did not see anyone, unfortunately.”

  “Damn.” I slumped back into the seat of the car as Rene drove, worrying like crazy despite the reassuring presence of Drake beside me.

  “You do not have the look of a bride,” Rene commented, watching me in the rearview mirror, narrowly missing plowing down a group of schoolgirls crossing the road. “You have the look of one carrying the load of many burdens upon her shoulders.”

  “Ack!” I yelled, pointing out the front window.

  He glanced at the large truck against which we had, by some miracle, escaped smashing ourselves to smithereens. “Pfft. I was nowhere near that lorry.”

  “Had to be a good two inches of space between us,” Jim commented, peering out the window at the truck as its driver screamed and clutched his chest while slamming on his brakes. “You’re losing your touch, Rene.”

  My friend, chauffeur, and fate extraordinaire just grinned and gave his particularly Gallic shrug. “I will do better the next time, hein?”

  “My money is on you, my man,” Jim replied.

  “What is it you are worrying about?” Rene asked me. “The wedding, or the red dragons?”

  “Neither. Or, them, too. I’ve got so much going on right now, I can’t keep half of it straight,” I answered, rubbing my forehead. “There’s Gabriel for one.”

  “Gabriel?” Drake asked. “What does he have to do with your concerns?”

  I bit my lip, considering how much I should tell him. “I ran into him today at the bridal shop. He tried to give me a song and dance about doing what he had to do, and that he was innocent, et cetera. Have you talked with him since he betrayed us?”

  “No.” Drake’s pupils elongated, warning me he was not pleased to be discussing the subject.

  I’d never let that stop me before and wasn’t about to now. “We haven’t talked much about what happened that day because of all the other crap going on, and then the wedding planning took up all my time. Maybe we should talk about it now.”

  “It can wait. What else did he say to you?”

  “Huh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re not going to play ‘I’ll ignore your questions but you must answer mine’ unless I get to be the ignorer.”

  I put my hand on his thigh to let him know I meant business, but before I could stop myself, I was stroking his leg, igniting the slumbering coals of desire that were never completely extinguished within me.

  Drake’s expression changed in a flash from obstinate to interested. My breath caught as I massaged the steely thigh beneath the material of his pants, a little thrill skittering down my back.

  “Kincsem,” he said, his eyes flashing a warning.

  “Yeah, not a good idea right now,” I said, pulling my hand back, well aware that I was dangerously close to jumping his bones right there in the car.

  “Did I miss something?” Jim asked, swiveling around to peer at us with suspicious eyes. “Was Drake copping a grope?”

  “No,” I told it with perfect truth. “We were talking about Gabriel.”

  Jim pursed its lips. “What about him?”

  “Well…like what’s he up to, hunting me down at the bridal shop just to spin me a yarn about him being innocent? Can he be trusted? Is he still working with Fiat?”

  Rene’s reflection in the mirror looked thoughtful. “Those are good questions. Me, I do not have the answers.”

  “Welcome to the club,” I said, sighing before turning to eye Drake. “I don’t suppose you have any insight you’d like to add?”

  “About Gabriel? No,” he said, rubbing his chin as if in thought. But there was something in his voice, a faint tone of something indefinable that worried me.

  “Did you get your business this morning taken care of all right?”

  “No. When is your ultrasound appointment?”

  I pushed his sleeve back and consulted his watch, gloating to myself for a moment about the wedding present that was wrapped up and waiting for me to give him—a twenty-four-carat gold watch. Knowing the dragon’s love of gold, I figured Drake would go gaga over it. “An hour and a half. We have time.”

  “Perhaps, but it may cut the time too fine. We will go home instead, Rene,” Drake said in his usual bossy voice.

  “Belay that order, Rene! I’m declaring a mutiny and taking over this ship. We’re going to the Guardians’ Guild.”

  The look Drake shot me spoke volumes, and none of them were pleasant reading. “Why is it so important we go there now?”

  “I can’t be married if my hands are possessed.”

  The look intensified until I was squirming in the seat.

  “Oh, all right, I don’t seriously believe my hands are possessed by the dark power, although I wouldn’t put it past it to try.”

  Like I don’t have something better to possess?

  “However,” I said, purposely ignoring the voice in my head, “it worries me greatly that a Guardian can just walk up to me and banish me. I have to find out what’s going on, and what I can do to stop it, otherwise…well, what’s to prevent a Guardian from just waltzing into the church and zapping me in front of everyone? The dragons would understand, but the rest of my family…urgh.” I shuddered.

  “Very well. I will admit that I am not comfortable with the thought of you being vulnerable to other Guardians. As for your family…” His lips tightened.

  “Yeah, like you have anything to complain about? At least my stepmother isn’t actively trying to have you killed.”

  “I told you I spoke with my mother about the contract she placed on you. She understands now that to cross you is to cross me. She will not try anything like that again,” Drake said with a complacency I was far from feeling. He might trust Catalina, but I sure didn’t. “Since we are not going home right away, you should call your stepmother. She was very distressed earlier when you failed to show up for our wedding.”

  “Don’t even think about trying to make me feel guilty about that, Mr. You Jilted Me First,” I said as I pulled out my cell phone. “Hi, Suzanne, it’s me. Is Paula there? Thanks.”

  “Are we stopping to get a bite to eat? I’m famished,” Jim said, looking wistfully at an Indian restaurant as we drove past it.

  “Later, after the—Ack! Rene! Stop doing that! You almost scared the shit out of me!”

  “Aisling, dear!” a shocked voice breathed into the phone. “A lady never says that word! Manure or droppings, but never the other!”

  “Sorry, but Rene insists on pulling race car driver moves on the streets of London.”

  Rene’s smile flashed in the rearview mirror.

  “Where were you? Why didn’t you go to the church? My dear, the wedding was a complete disaster without you!”

  I smiled at Drake. “Yeah, I know, a wedding kind of needs a bride. I was unavoidably—”

  I was cut off in the middle of my explanation by a lengthy lecture on the proper duties of a bride on her wedding day. It lasted through the better part of our drive across London, luckily petering out just as we arrived at the parking garage adjacent to the Guardians’ Guild.

  “…we can try again, but honestly, Aisling, if you aren’t going to go to your own wedding, I don’t know how you can keep expecting others to show up. As for your hair, dear…I know you wanted an upswept style, but if you were to leave your hair down, and if we were to find a flower garland and several spools of ribbon, it might do well to help hide some of that bondage outfit—”

  “It’s not bondage, Paula. It’s a velvet corset, and it’s perfectly suitable—”

  “You have to allow me to know best about these things,” she interrupted. “I’m not naïve, you know. I recognize bondage when I see it. Oh, David, why are you still wearing your tuxedo? You’ll get it all wrinkled, dear…” Paula’s voice drifted off as she hung up the phone.

  “I need to use a bush,” Jim announced as we all got out of the car, looking meaningfully out the side of the garage to the square
located across the street. “Like, right now.”

  “I’ll take it,” Rene offered, snapping the leash onto Jim’s collar. “We’ll meet you inside, yes?”

  “Thanks. Right,” I said, facing the building. “Time to grit our loins and gird our teeth.”

  Drake slid me a tolerant look. “There are times when I wonder why of all women, you turned out to be my mate.”

  “And then you got down on your knees and thanked god that I came around, right?” I answered, pinching his arm.

  “Hmm,” was his noncommittal reply.

  “Right?” I asked, pinching him harder.

  He just took my hand in his and escorted me inside. The second my foot hit the tiled floor, alarms went off all over the building. The front lobby, which was manned by a couple of women and two large, burly guys, turned into something out of a Marx Brothers movie as dozens of people suddenly poured into the small room from various back offices. In less time than you could say “prince of Abaddon,” the room was filled to capacity with Guardians, all of whom bore expressions that would have better suited the Nuremberg trials.

  I mustered up a smile and tried to share it amongst the approximately thirty people jammed into the room around me. “Er…hi. I forgot about the demon lord sensor thingie. I’m—”

  “We know who you are,” a man’s voice said from behind the wad of people. Instantly, the crowd parted to reveal a smallish, dapper black man wearing a Savile Row suit and bearing a mildly interested expression. He looked from Drake to me. “The question is, why are you here?”

  Jim came bursting through the door, skidding to a stop in front of me. “Did we miss anyth—fires of Abaddon! Did you bring out everyone in the building?”

  Rene slipped in through the door behind him, his eye brows raised as he took in the scene.

  “Do you wish for me to handle this situation?” Drake asked me in a low tone.

  “No, thank you, sweetie,” I said, giving him a smile to show how much I appreciated him allowing me to deal with the situation.

  “I want bonus points for this,” he murmured, his muscles tight with control as he kept himself quiet next to me.

  I turned back to the little man, figuring he had to be someone important if the others were deferring to him. “I’m here to talk to someone about a rogue Guardian who banished me to Abaddon.”

  The man pursed his lips. “A rogue Guardian?”

  “Yes. Well…technically I suppose she wasn’t rogue per se, but I am a Guardian as well, and I—”

  “You are not a Guardian,” the man interrupted.

  “I am,” I said firmly. “I know that most Guardians aren’t demon lords—”

  The crowd, as one man, turned to stone.

  “Sorry. I know that there are no other Guardians who are demon lords, but there was nothing in the rules that said one can’t be, so if you’ll check the records, I think you’ll find that I am, in fact, a member of the Guardians’ Guild, and thus, a Guardian.”

  “I am aware of the rules, and of your status,” the man answered politely. “But you seem to be missing the pertinent issue: a demon lord, as you said, was not excluded from membership when you applied and were accepted. However, proscripted individuals, no matter who or what they are, are not allowed. The moment you became proscribed, Aisling Grey, you ceased being a member of this Guild, and thus are not entitled to any protection or benefits therein.”

  I looked around at all the faces watching me. Every single one of them was hostile, warily waiting for me to do…what?

  “Kincsem,” Drake said softly, his fingers brushing the back of my neck. “Let me take it from here.”

  “No. This is my problem, Drake. I can handle it. But thank you for offering,” I answered, taking his hand for a moment.

  He frowned but nodded, his fingers tightening around mine in a little squeeze of support.

  I released his hand and stepped forward, looking again at the people around me, wondering what I’d done to screw up one of the most important things in my life.

  You did not use me when you had the chance…but all is not yet lost.

  My teeth ground at the voice in my head. It was the dark power’s fault. It seduced me. It had persuaded me to use it when I had no idea of what it was. It had used me for its own purpose and destroyed part of my life without any qualms whatsoever.

  Rage crashed through me, fury at the dark power for using me, which spilled over into anger at the crowd of people who circled me. “You’re so quick to judge, so quick to condemn,” I ground out, the hot, thick power seeping into me. “Is your world so black and white that you can’t see shades of gray any longer?”

  “Aisling,” Drake said at the same time that Jim, looking worried, whispered, “Ash, that’s not a good idea.”

  I allowed the dark power to fill me, ignoring the smugly satisfied sense of triumph that went with it. “No? What do I have to lose? I’m proscribed already, remember? It doesn’t matter to these people, these fellow Guardians sworn to protect people, that I was tricked into the proscription. They don’t care to even try to understand my position, let alone to find out the least little thing about me. Rather than work with me, help me, let Nora train me, they’ve done everything they can to keep me from fulfilling my destiny.”

  Power crackled off of me like black static electricity. Instantly, a good dozen wards were drawn, binding me with invisible chains.

  “Do not make matters worse by doing something that will make your path irreversible,” Drake warned, stepping close to me.

  I laughed as I opened the little door in my head that allowed me to use my Otherworld powers. “They’re afraid of me, Drake. Can you feel it? Fear is thick in the air around us.”

  “Seriously, Drake is right. You really don’t want to go there,” Jim said, touching its wet nose to the back of my hand.

  The dark power seeped into every pore, a blackish blue corona surrounding me, as if I was standing in the middle of a plasma ball. It wasn’t the burning power of Drake’s fire, but much, much more insidious…and stronger.

  “I could wipe you all out,” I mused out loud, watching with a wicked sort of amusement as the wary expressions turned to fear as the people gathered together in the room realized the truth in my statement. Over their heads, I could see people packing the hallway, all eyes on me. “I could wave one hand, and destroy you all, destroy everyone in this building.”

  “Aisling, you must not do this.”

  I ignored Drake, smiling as I allowed a little tendril of power to snap at the nearest person. He leaped backwards, his eyes black with fear.

  “Jeez, Ash, you can’t—”

  “Silence!” I roared, silencing Jim with the wave of a hand. Rene stepped forward, his eyes dark and unreadable.

  I shot him a look that knocked him backwards three steps. Drake stood silent next to me, his face an impassive mask, his eyes dragonish as they watched me carefully.

  The air flashed bright with the wards that were drawn on me, layer upon layer of binding holding me into place where I stood until I felt as if I was buried beneath tons of concrete. Several of the Guardians glanced at the small man in the business suit. He shook his head, his eyes curious as they watched me.

  I flung wide my arms, smashing the wards bound to me, startling the Guardians into cries of surprise.

  “No more would you trouble me with your petty policies and intolerance!” I yelled, my voice taking on a timbre I’d never heard. “You would be under my rule, my dominion! And the torment I could bring upon you would encompass a level of suffering unimaginable to your pitiful minds! You would worship me even as I destroyed the very fiber of your beings!”

  The building shook as I closed my eyes and imagined the possibilities. Darkness seeped out of me and filled the room, dimming the lights as if a haze of dense black smoke obscured the vision. The people in the room held their collective breaths as the walls seemed to tremble and lean inward, the building itself poised on the verge of imploding.


  “Yes,” the man in the suit finally said. “I believe that you could do that. But will you?”

  Triumph sang in my veins. With one sweep of my hands, I could take charge of my life again. I could eliminate those who opposed me, and right every wrong ever done. I could fulfill the destiny that lay before me like a glittering, tempting smorgasbord of power.

  Now you’re singing my song!

  A slow smile curled my lips as I let my arms drop, releasing the dark power. It ebbed from me slowly, leaving me weak and shaking. The thick blackness of the air dissipated as everyone breathed once again.

  Noooo! echoed in my head.

  “No,” I said, meeting the gaze of the man before me. “You’re quite right. I wouldn’t.”

  He nodded and turned, the people in the hallway parting behind him as he left the room. “I believe I will make time in my schedule to speak with you.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely, more than a little amused by the stunned expressions surrounding us. “Oh, sorry, Jim. You can talk.”

  “Fires of Abaddon, Aisling! You could have given me a heart attack!” Jim sputtered. “Why don’t you warn me when you’re about to pull something like that?”

  “It wouldn’t have been nearly as effective if I had,” I answered, fondling its ears before turning to Rene. “Are you OK? I didn’t mean to scare you, but—”

  “You had a point to make, yes,” he said, nodding his head as he came forward. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Like Jim, I wish you had warned me of what you were planning, but eh. It is done, yes? And you have driven home the point you wished to make most dramatically.”

  “You’re the daimon,” I said softly as we were escorted down the hallway after the man in the suit. “You should know better than anyone what fate has in store for me.”

  “I do not make the path you follow, only help you find it,” he reminded me, taking my hand and pressing a swift kiss to the back of it. “But you get ten out of ten for style.”

  Double doors at the end of the hallway were thrown open. I shot Drake a quick glance as we were swept through the door into a large, open room dominated by a curved, light oak desk.