A demoness awakens XXXVIII
Disclaim: The charas are not mine, they belong to Kim Harrison and her Hollow series.
Side-fiction: Taming ones lust

WARNING: Spoilers from "Black magic santion"
Pairing: Rachel / Al
Charas: Dali / Al / Rachel / Ivy / Jenk / Cormel
Summary: While Rachel and her party ran into their enemies, what were the demons doing? Well, the answer to that one, at least from Dali's point of view will be found in this chapter ^^.

Please enjoy

A demoness awakens XXXVIII: Failed plans

- Dali -
My wings were a blur of motion as I flew through the ventilation duct. It had been Al's idea to play Jenks' sons. Why he even wanted to support his mate's preposterous idea was totally beyond me.
Probably telling him about the background of his attraction to the ignorant little witch had been a mistake.

I knew Al wasn't always the brightest, but this was ridiculous even for his high standards.
Only topped by Rachel's own stupidity… the universe had a perverse sense of irony, pairing those two up.
'A matching pair, so to speak… and I'm trapped right in the middle of it.'

I took a turn to the left, accelerating to the maximum speed pixy-wings could manage. It was pretty fast for anything that wasn't a male demon. Lucky me, I was exactly that.
Al and I had the mission to loop the cameras so the little girl and her party could enter the lair of Rynn Matthew Cormel unseen.

Imagine that. The leader of the courts, respected and feared by every demon in the ever-after besides Newt, playing pixy backup.
If any… and I mean ANY, other demon ever got even a hint of this, my reputation was fucked three eternities deep to nowhere.

The tunnel made a turn to the right and I took the curve with ease only to have blackness clasp around me.
The next thing I knew was extraordinary pain in my head and something that could only be a cramp in my left leg.
'Grrreat!' even thinking hurted.
Angry, I tried to get free of whatever held me motionless.
"Sticky silk? You have to be kidding me!" A low grumble of dissatisfaction colored my voice darker than usual. That alone was a reason to let Cormel suffer.

The bad headache was stealing my last nerve and with a groan I summoned enough ever-after in my thoughts to shift into something smaller.
My new form was the smallest one a demon could take, without storage curses only a royal could stir up. Who'd have thought I would ever use that one again?
It was a leftover curse from the great wars against the elves; perfect for spying on the enemy. Which was exactly what I intended to do. It had been ages since I had changed into a mayfly.

Last time I had used that form to escape a really disastrous event which would have meant my end. Even with a great distance between me and the incident, it would have cost me life and soul, if it hadn't been for Kila. She had saved me.

The airway led down, probably to the basement. I checked my inner clock for the time and buzzed my four wings in disgruntlement.
My little pixy-stunt had nearly blown out my lights for ten minutes. In situations like this, it was a time-span that could be of lethal importance, especially when demons were playing witches and pixies.
Had I hit my head only the slightest bit harder, I might have killed myself. Just the way Al had done yesterday.
That would have been really, really fucking embarrassing. Plus, Al and Ian would have laughed their asses off seeing Big Bad Dali of the Seers bite the dust like that.
Not a future I was very found of.

My way led me first to the right, then to the left, and finally the airway ended. I passed the mesh that separated the tunnel from the room below. With relief, I misted back to my usual height.

It was totally dark here, not that it mattered to my sight. Demons had a way with the darkness. I perked my ears up and listened to my environment, not hearing anything, which was a bit strange given the fact that it was a master vampire's lair.
Had Cormel given little-Miss-Fangs the wrong information?

Well, with that sticky silk all over the place they had clearly known what was coming for them. A heavy sigh left my lips as I summoned my blue seer's mirror.
If Rachel and Al had fun playing lesser beings, so be it. I, on the other hand, was already sick of it. I had hit my head bad enough for a killer migraine once today, and I really wasn't hot for a repeat.

Legs crossing as I sat, I enclosed myself into a thick bubble of ever-after. There were various ways to die even for a demon, and color me paranoid but I was better safe than sorry.
My fingers found the right positions almost on instinct, while my mind entered the off-colored stage only a seer could navigate in.

The present showed up as a colored sea of blues and whites, which was neither good nor bad. If we were still in the neutral zone, it was a good sign. But I trusted the remarkable ability of my family members to get into the worst of trouble in no time.

My mind picked the timeline of my daughter-in-law. Rachel was currently engaged in a fight with a vampire, one who was stupid enough to aim for her blood. And holy crap that undead was triggering the part of her psyche that was completely demonic.

Not a good choice, neither for her nor for Rachel. The young demoness feared her instincts even more than any other thing in the room.
My fingers moved over the smooth, slowly warming glass of the mirror and the flow of time accelerated at my biddings.

This future was colored dark, almost black, with a bit of purple mixed in. Broken glass swam across my vision as I saw Rachel bent over a dead person. Blood all over her clothes, parts of entrails decorated the corridor and stairs. Her face was distorted with disgust and shock.
Ivy, her vampire girl-friend, cowered at the wall opposite Rachel.
If it were possible, she looked even more shaken to the core than the young demoness.
"Rachel?" Finally, her voice reached the former witch, but the reaction was a mix of anger and emptiness.

I didn't need to see the rest of that future; beside, I wasn't up to watch the vampire die at the hands her best friend. I was a sadist, not a sociopath. Instead of lingering further, I went on to pick another future.
But I checked the present first. The fight was over, and against all hopes she had been able to control that demonic part of herself.

The next thread of possible future unraveled before me. This time it was grey, mixed in with a dirty shade of red. Someone was going to die. The pixy went to the left and loud shrieks flowed through the air. Fairies, three of them, attacked the little bug. Even with his sword and almost twenty years of fighting in his mind, without help he was a goner.
If this weren't bad enough, two vampires were waiting behind a corner while Rachel was busy with a panic-attack. She whispered her demons name. Oh, great- that meant my useless son was in trouble as well.

Angry with myself, I switched to his string of possible futures.

Sharp askew surfaces replaced the normal environment, and everything was colored the deep bloody red of impotent rage. I sensed the pull I haven't felt for the last two thousand years tugging at him. Great! He was being summoned, and Rachel was feeling it. She was probably thinking the summons was aimed at her. And if she decided to give in to the call before Al did, she could take over his summoning. Pretty stupid, I know, but those were called mates' privileges. They belonged to each other, shared everything, even their souls- which was exactly the reason why you never knew what you would get when you decided to summon a mated demon. Worst case, you could get two demons for the price of one. Only number two might not bother to appear INSIDE your circle.

A few quick movements later and I had picked the future in which Al was faster in answering his summons than Rachel.
Who was summoning him was of no concern; Al could take care of himself.

The next intersection was if Rachel would follow Al, and I chose the one were she stayed with her friends. She struck me as that sort of person. I couldn't imagine her leaving her friends unprotected just because her demon, one who had been able to protect himself for the last five-thousand years without her help, was being summoned.

This time everything was the color of blood, and more mist than real shape. That was so not good- it usually meant the death of the one whose timeline I was visiting.
Rachel was finally coming back to herself, but she wasn't alone anymore. Jenks was fighting the fairies and losing quickly. Ivy was ensnarled in a fight with another vampire, most probably an undead. And there it was… a glittering in the dark. The shape of a sword and pain was exploding in my head.

It cost me a lot of will-power not to scream. Rachel was about to die. Could that girl do anything WITHOUT bothering the whole ever-after with protecting her? By Chibirias of the Earth, she was worse than Newt.

I rose and banished my mirror back to its place, exchanging it for the two blades of obsidian, a payment from Ian for a favor he had owed me once.
If Rachel managed to get herself killed, Al would follow her, since he couldn't survive the loss of a mate a second time. Beside, if I let the female who was going to be the vessel of Kila's rebirth die, I would never be able to forgive myself.

There was only one choice left for me to take. It was highly against my principles, but I would interfere. With the desire for Kila's touch, I jumped into the darkness of the stairs right the moment the vampire with the sword made his first attack.

Good thing I had made the decision without dwelling in the possible futures any longer, or I would have been too late. I had no time left to prepare a dramatic entrance so I just bounded over the female who was currently evading his first strike. She drew heavily on the line, but the undead had his own agenda in mind and wouldn't just be standing by, playing target.

He was pretty ready for everything, probably a curse or a circle. But he wasn't ready for the real thing. What hit him next was … me!
It was bad for the experienced warrior that his opponent was a demon who had learned all his fighting skills on the battlefield.

My first attack split him in half from head to crotch, and the second one decapitated him. The three following slashes were just my inner darkness getting the best of me. It was a nice little display of what happened if someone was stupid enough to seriously mess with the children of the Gods. Hopefully Rynn Matthew Cormel would remember it.

My eyes examined the corridor. Jenks wasn't looking good anymore, and even if it was tempting to let him die for his weakness, the little guy was just a bit too interesting to witness his ending. Ivy screamed in pain and. She, too, had something about her what was intriguing, enough to keep her around for a while longer. Maybe I was just too bored with soulless dolls; maybe I was hungry for a challenge.
Whatever it was, both of Rachel's teammates had to be saved, even if it was only to keep her sane long enough to bear the child she had promised me.
Latin spilled from me and energy slashed out at any aura in the area. I left out Rachel and Ivy, who where both wearing a mark of mine, and Jenks who sadly had none- which made the whole not killing him business a bit more tricky.

Slowly Rachel got back on her feet, as did Ivy. Both centered their eyes on my impressive frame with my two now blood-dripping obsidian katanas in hand. I uttered the obvious fact just to rile them up.
"They summoned Al, and used his missing support to ambush you."

My mind entered the seer's-state again, because having the three run around the house without a destination was an invitation for trouble. Bitol of the Heavens knew what the undead had ready for them in the basement. He obviously wasn't down there.

I tried to find his timeline without a seer's-mirror. The best thing I could get was an emotion and perhaps a location.

'Why the hell is this taking so long?' A strange voice whispered in my mind. It must have been Cormel, since the purple aura of the undead made itself known in the vision of slightest gray mixed with green. Not a good sign, but it was a hell of a lot better than dark red, black, or broken glass.
Given the fact that he was riling up two powerful demons—three, if you count me in as well- gray with green was a surprisingly good color for his timeline.

It took my mind about two seconds to parse the information of is location from the seer's state into his real-world location.
I turned to the girl who was now my daughter in law and blurted the information to her.
"Your target is upstairs, fifth door to the left."
She looked at me, dumbfounded, and I vanished in a cloud of ever-after.

If you asked yourself what the demon Dali did the whole time, you shouldn't miss this chapter.