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LLELAND, GOD OF BRITAIN’S waterways, approached the slumbering dark fae. After Dewer dropped his mother inside his staff, Lleland fashioned a high bed for her, one befitting a queen. Since then, her features had relaxed and she slept as peacefully as an angel. A goddess in repose.
After observing her for what seemed like hours, he was no longer able to resist temptation and approached closer.
Queen Eolonde’s eyes snapped open. “Touch me,” she whispered in a tone that sent dread spiking through him, “and your hand will not be the only appendage you lose this day.”
He cautiously withdrew his fingers from where they had been hovering over her silky thigh. His trifling curiosity about this sleeping beauty transmuted into a clarion call, awaking his rarely slumbering virility. Lleland loved a challenge.
“You are within Kemp,” he said, in case she wondered about her whereabouts. This space was adequate. He had made it livable since her son agreed to their pact and then rudely stuffed him in here. Lleland could channel his power through a pole at the center whenever the lad requested assistance. Surprisingly, he had not asked as often as Lleland expected. The warlock possessed an extraordinarily independent streak. Must need it with this controlling magnificence for a mother.
“You are the reason we’re all in this mess,” Eolonde said in an accusatory tone.
Ah. She remembered his unfortunate association with her husband. Pity. A twinge of guilt stirred but he brushed off its clawing grip.
“Your husband chose to befriend me,” he said in a gentle voice, not wishing to alienate her. He still envisioned seducing this divine dark fae. “Perhaps he sensed that one day you and your son would be beholden to me.”
She swung her feet encased in delicate slippers to the marble floor and stood tall and regal in her tattered gown. Her glance strayed to the blood caking her skirt. With a shake of her arms, her clothing returned to its former glory, but not before Lleland caught a glimpse of her breathtaking bare form.
A tease!
Fae never did anything by accident. She was as taken with him as he with her. His interest skyrocketed from mild to mind-blowing. That Dewer might disapprove of him bedding his mother only increased the lady’s allure.
He boldly drew closer again and inhaled her intoxicating nectar. He had taken many lovers in his lifetime, often chosen from the human realm, but a few fae, too. Though the latter could be demanding. Always wanting to exchange favors. Lleland disliked trade. He was a god of persuasion, his powerful allure tugging his conquests within reach.
“How do we get out of here?” she asked.
“We don’t.” Trapped in here, he had finally understood how Llyr must have felt after Lleland imprisoned his son for centuries within the druid’s water-wall. He owed the boy an apology. For now, this devious dark fae was stuck with him. Surely, they had a few minutes to spare for pleasurable pursuits before her son faced the dark entity. “Dewer has a service to perform for me. Then he will release us.”
“What does he get in exchange?”
Lleland sighed at the predictable fae query. Why must everything be in terms of bargains with them? “I promised to help him conquer Earth’s resistance to his Wyhcan magic.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Do you intend to keep that promise?”
Fair question.
Lleland still owed her husband a penance for taunting Lucifer with his new protégé, a warlock willing to die to defend his friend’s waters. Which was why, when Dewer entered his underwater realm, Lleland had seized the opportunity to cancel that long overdue obligation, and help himself, too.
Still, Dewer had obviously suffered from a lack of fatherly guidance. Case in point, his waiting for their mothers’ approval before consummating his relationship with Grace was the epitome of foolishness.
A man needed no permission to claim a willing heart. He had told Dewer so. Not that the lad paid any attention. Showed the warlock was as stubborn as Llyr. Children! That thought gave him the perfect idea.
“Yes,” he said. “I will teach him all he needs to know, as if he were my own son.”
Her motherly gaze instantly softened.
Lleland smothered his glee. Almost mine!
* * *
DEWER KNEW ONE PERSON who might know why he could suddenly see as if he were in the upper world. He tightened his grip on his staff and mind spoke to the water god. “Are you responsible for this?”
No answer.
“Lleland? Can you hear me?”
“What?” He sounded distracted and breathless
“Are you responsible for helping me see past Lucifer’s veil?” Dewer asked. What was he doing inside the staff?
“Not I!” Lleland said, surprised. “I do not have such power in this fiery realm. Is it hotter than when we arrived?”
Was it? Is that why Dewer was so thirsty? Lucifer must have increased the heat just to make every creature here miserable. He excelled at subverting a person’s will power, and causing physical discomfort to weaken his enemy’s resistance would be the first pick from his arsenal. If Dewer were not so determined to succeed, he might have been tempted to go in search of a drink. He cocked his head. Was that a waterfall in the distance? He licked his dry lips and imagined cool water cascading over his hot perspiring skin.
“I do sense divine inspiration behind this little visual miracle,” Lleland said, interrupting Dewer’s wandering thoughts. “Ah, I see the source now. A blessing Farfur received by the Laneast well.”
“What blessing?” he asked, feeling lost again.
“The one that primed him to become your familiar. Since he is a creature of darkness, only the Creator’s blessing allows Farfur to be a vehicle for bringing the power of light into the underworld. You, too, are able to sip from that well because you finally finished your bonding ritual by opening your heart to him. Took you long enough.”
Dewer absorbed that wealth of information in astonishment, his thirst forgotten. Grace had said something similar before she left. About the Creator leading her to the dark entity. That they were being watched over, so he would be helped in this fight. If so, and this clarity of vision suggested she might be right, then he hoped she was also correct about him being shown the way back to her. Then another aspect of this mystery that had been puzzling him surfaced and he again reached for the water god.
“Lleland?”
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what? Is my mother all right?”
“She is awake and sends you her blessing. Now what is your question? It will be your last for the next half hour. I had forgotten how annoyingly interrupting boys could be.”
Dewer shrugged aside the insult of being labelled a boy. Knowing his mother was recovering set his mind at ease. Awake, she was also more than capable of handling Lleland. Now, if this was to be his last question for a while, he’d better make it count. “What did you do to annoy Lucifer, that he felt the need to personally destroy you?”
Once again, silence was his response. Nearby, nervous monsters broke into occasional bloody fights. Did Lleland plan to ignore him? Not that it was hard to imagine all the maddening things Lleland might have done. He was entirely difficult to get along with.
“We used to occasionally play chess,” the water god said in such a soft tone, Dewer almost missed it. “He mistakenly assumed that meant we were friends. One day, he made a request, I refused, and he took offense.”
“What request?” Dewer asked, intrigued.
Lleland gave a heavy sigh but then he answered. “Humans are notoriously easy to manipulate, despite having the gift of free will. Give them a few dark days, some spoilt crops, an occasional lightning strike, and they believe their God has deserted them. Lucifer wanted me to rain on England, non-stop, while he worked to entice a few souls his way.”
“It has been raining hard in England for the past few months,” Dewer said with concern. “Is that of your doing?”
“I said I refused. The thin-skinned serpent took offense and decided to ensure the matter himself. He swore he would make me pay for what he considered my disloyalty. Your father offered to find out what he planned. I had just received your father’s message about an effort underway to create the dark entity when he was murdered.”
Lleland had Dewer’s undivided attention.
“For almost a decade, all remained quiet, so I hoped Lucifer had grown tired of this particular game. Then, a few years ago, word came that he was stirring a series of mountains in Asia, causing volcanoes to erupt, which in turn began to have a startling effect on the weather. I attempted to protect England. Then the worst eruption happened last summer. Ash blew in our direction, peppering the clouds. I am unsure how he could have managed it, but by winter, even the sun grew cooler, temperatures dropped and it would not stop raining. I might have still been able to help, except Lucifer had finally succeeded in creating the dark entity that consumes life and released it into my water.”
“You took ill,” Dewer finished.
“The insidious creature infected every portion of my waters. The only way I could stop it was by restricting its movement and absorbing what particles escaped. That resulted in the very thing I hoped to avoid. With me no longer at full power, the rains poured. Now go and find this monstrosity, so we can obliterate it and be done with the constant downpour. I will take care of your mother.”
In a thoughtful mood, Dewer cautiously wove his way through the throng of demons that seemed to be thousands deep. A flare burst to his right, right beneath a three-legged creature. It screamed in agony before it, too, was consumed, leaving naught but charred earth.
How many more would die before Dewer succeeded in his mission? A thread of sympathy stirred. Grace must be rubbing off on him. He hardened his heart to consider the matter with dispassion. What these random strikes meant was that Lucifer was willing to kill his own to find Dewer.
The dark entity must be close, Farfur, he mind-spoke. These demons have probably been gathered to guard it.
Darkness-that-consumes is that way. Farfur pointed with his snout, his nostrils flaring.
“LEAVE,” a whisper spread through the demon throng. “NOT YOUR FIGHT.”
Dewer swung around, searching, but no winged dark angel stormed toward him. Not that it would have mattered. Having heard of his father’s role in this fight had cemented Dewer’s determination to see this job through. There was a small matter of restitution still outstanding for his father’s murder. Besides which, while he may not survive to make his father proud by enacting a proper Wyhcan marriage ceremony, he would derive a certain amount of perverse pleasure in ensuring the water god won this fight.
A flare scorched three demons at once. Their cries sank into the thick sulfur-laden air.
The trickle of water in the distance turned into a deluge as the waterway came into view. A river flowed like a twisting serpent, with its tail rattling at the far end in the form of a white waterfall. Cool mist peppered Dewer’s hot face making him want to race in and dive under.
“ARE YOU PARCHED?” that insidious whisper slithered through the throng of demons. “WHY NOT QUENCH YOUR THIRST.”
He swallowed painfully past a dry throat. The offer was more tempting than he wished to acknowledge. The surrounding panting monsters kept their distance from that river. Was this a trick then? Or real, but deadly?
Just in case, he tightened his grip on Farfur whose tongue was lolling as if he, too, were desperate for a drink. Farfur did not resist his hold. Wise hound.
“I AM YOUR GOD.” The order boomed, as if Lucifer had lost patience with subterfuge. “BOW BEFORE ME!”
The monsters instantly dropped to the ground in supplication.
Dewer was more encouraged than cowed by that show of temper. If Lucifer was threatening him directly, he must be close. The dark entity must be near here, too. His excitement rose and he reviewed the steps to a spell he planned to cast to force Lucifer to put an end his own dark creation or risk losing all of his monsters.
As for Lucifer’s latest demand, if Dewer were to bow before any deity, it would not be to a bully who could not handle a rebuff. He paused as that thought formed troubling connections. He, too, had acted the bully after Merryn rejected him. While witches had accepted the Creator’s ruling that subverting human free will was out of bounds, Dewer, along with every other warlock, had resented the constraint and been searching for ways to circumvent the decree. How were their responses any different from Lucifer’s petulance?
Except, Dewer was no longer that man, that warlock. He now accepted Merryn’s refusal as her right to make that decision. He had also sworn to himself that he would never again attempt to use Wyhcan mind magic on a human. Not even if the water god lived up to his promise to show him how. Sometimes, No, must be accepted as, No!
“Psst.” The sound came from ahead. Closer to the waterfall.
Dewer’s hold on Farfur slipped and he was back in the empty landscape. He quickly touched the hound’s neck fur, wondering if that call had come from Lleland. The water god had gone ominously quiet again.
The next “psst” was followed by a, “This way.”
About to ask where, he caught a glimpse of light flickering ahead before it died.
“Bother!” the voice muttered in abject frustration from that location.
“Who’s there?” Dewer asked moving toward that light.
“Mr. Dewer,” the cloaked newcomer said. “Tis I, Alfred.”
“Death?” This was the creature Grace had spoken to in the water god’s chamber in Wales.
The figure bowed, revealing part of its skeletal structure. “His envoy, sir.”
“If you are here for me, you are a little premature.”
“Is the water god with you?”
“Why do you ask?” Dewer asked.
“I came to see if I could safeguard him on his way home,” Alfred said, and then showed him a rectangular object. It looked like a plain thin sheet of stone. “I did not see his name on my listing of all whom I am to collect this day, but I could have missed it. My tablet has been acting erratically.”
Squinting, Dewer leaned forward to peer at the stone tablet. There was a lightning shaped crack that ran down the center of it, sending smaller cracks all along the main line. Lights flickered across the tablet, showing a list of names scrolling. Then the light died and the tablet returned to pretending to be naught but a piece of flat stone. Fascinating.
“Why do you care about the water god?” Dewer asked, straightening to gaze at the skeletal figure robed in black. Could the Creator have sent Alfred? Was all of this part of a grand plan? If so, Dewer would definitely consider the Creator worthy of devotion. Especially since he had also gifted him Farfur as his familiar. That generosity deserved a heartfelt, Thank you!
“His daughter would not like her father to be hurt,” Alfred said.
So what?
Dewer did not wish to be hurt either father or daughter. Then he understood. Alfred was not here at the Creator’s bequest. He was here, willing to go against his master’s orders, because Alfred was concerned about a lady’s feelings. The same reason Dewer had wanted to please Grace by saving Adramelech’s hornets, which he detested. There was only one reason a man would be willingly to perform foolish courageous acts. Alfred was romantically infatuated with the water god’s daughter, Llyn!
Dewer could not contain his glee at the vision of this insecure creature and the flirtatious tentacled goddess in a feverish clinch. Served Lleland right. Always posturing about what a great father he was.
Since Dewer was very much his mother’s child, his mind then went directly to how he could use this situation to his purpose. “You could help Lleland stay safe by assisting me. Will you?”
“I wish to please Mistress Llyn.”
Knew it! Dewer showed him his staff. “My mother and the water god are in here. She is recovering from a wound but he came along to ensure we defeat the dark entity.”
“That is a worthy plan,” Alfred said, “for if left unattended, that all-consuming monster is set to cause much harm in the upper world. How will you attack it from here?”
“Grace will soon be sending it scurrying back this way. My role is to keep it from ever returning to the upper world.”
“You have a plan, sir?” Alfred asked, sounding skeptical about Dewer’s likely success in this endeavor. He wasn’t alone on that front. There were a lot of ifs associated with his current plan that could easily derail it.
“One is developing.” He had been considering the ramification on the way here. “A trick Merryn once used against my mother’s pythos.”
Alfred nodded in understanding. “Making the snake men feed off each other.”
“Exactly the one.”
“Then what?” Alfred asked.
“Then Lucifer will have to deal with the decimation of his demons by the dark entity. He would be forced to destroy the very thing he created in order to save his other minions. Else, he risks having few creatures left to do his bidding. I only have one problem yet to resolve.”
“What is that, sir?”
“When it comes time to leave, Lucifer would have ensured I could not use any of my mother’s exits, and the one Adramelech built is now sealed shut. So, I will need an alternate escape route. Can you help with that?”
“When I became Death’s Envoy, I was instructed about our non-interference policy,” Alfred tapped his tablet thoughtfully. Then he tucked it into his robe.
“Is that a, Yes, I will help?” Dewer asked, hope rising.
“Do you think Mistress Llyn would approve if I did?”
Dewer carefully considered his response. His mother would have instantly said, Yes. Anything to get what she wanted. He took another tack, finding he was done with using his friends for his own gain.
“I do not know,” he said, the truth rolling awkwardly off his tongue like oversized marbles. “I am terrible at guessing how a woman might respond to any given situation.” Especially Grace.
“I, too, am ill-equipped at gauging a woman’s likely response.” Alfred nodded, seeming in complete sympathy. “Trouble is, I cannot carry a living being to the upper world.”
A disappointing answer but one he must accept. He held tight to Grace’s belief that he would somehow be shown the way back to her.
* * *
GRACE’S HEART WAS RIDDLED with fear as she made her way on Ifan to the meeting place. Her mother was waiting for her by the Thames, arms open for a hug. She dismounted and ran into her embrace.
“Grace, thank heavens you are safe,” the baroness said.
Just then Merryn and Braden flew into the clearing as a raven and a wren and landed. They hopped behind a bush before her cousin transformed herself and her husband back to human form and then dressed them both. Merryn finally approached and said in the same tone she had used on Grace at the Laneast well, “Are you completely mad, Grace?’
Refraining from teasing Merryn on her continued inability to transform with clothing intact, Grace whistled the whoop-whoop-whoop call and held out her arm.
In no time, Jonas landed there. She pulled a strawberry from the air and fed it to the bird. As soon as he had pecked it bare, the remaining slender red ring around his throat vanished. Ignoring her cousin’s chatter, she said to the bird, “Picture who you once were. Do you remember the image I showed you?”
The bird cleaned his beak on her bare arm and cocked his head. Then he flew up and began to shimmer. He grew taller and wider and in a whirl of colors, Jonas stood before them. Not the boy Grace had depicted from her memory, but a full-grown man wearing clothing remarkably similar to what Dewer had been wearing. Jonas must have copied that style when he transformed. Dewer would be pleased.
All resemblance to her beloved fae-warlock ended with Jonas’s clothing, however. Her cousin now was tall and blond, just like his sister, except for two red streaks in his hair. Joy swelled her heart as she glanced from Jonas to Merryn, brother to sister.
Merryn stared at the newcomer in silence, then slowly her tears pooled. She tentatively stepped closer. “Jonas?”
He looked a little lost and stared at her with that familiar head tilt. Then he broke out in a big smile and nodded, holding out his arms. Merryn rushed in, hugging him fiercely.
Her own eyes pricking with happy tears, Grace stepped back and found herself within her mother’s arms.
“This is why you accompanied Dewer into the underworld?” her mother whispered from behind her. “Grace, why did you not tell us?”
“I could not risk Merryn or you getting hurt trying to rescue him, Mama.”
“Yet, you risked yourself?” She turned Grace around to face her.
“I had a great deal of help. Dewer, the two hellhounds, Ifan and a water god.”
“I see a horse and a hound, where is the other hound, the warlock and the water god?”
“Dewer stayed behind to deal with the dark entity so it can never again invade our world. Before he can do that, we must chase it home. Mama, we do not have much time.”
“I know. While you were away, Braden did a blessing for the Thames from this bank but shockingly, that did not seem to work. We were unable to break your shield so that barrier might have inadvertently hindered the blessing. Covens all across Britain are also furiously working on a way to eradicate this darkness from our waters, but as yet we have not come up with anything effective. Even the Warlock Council agreed to study the problem. Do you have a plan?”
“I do.”
“Grace,” Jonas said tentatively from behind her, interrupting her train of thought.
She swung around, still coming to terms with seeing him as a grown man. “Oh, Jonas, I am so glad you are returned to us. This change must be overwhelming.”
“Like a dream come true,” he said. “I only remembered bits and pieces of who I was and only as a child. Once I was changed, all those memories came flooding back. Thank you for coming to find me.” He gave her a heartfelt hug. Over his shoulder, Grace spotted Merryn who mouthed her thanks in silence.
“Time to deal with the dark entity,” Grace said, pulling away. “Jonas, you’d better stay here with the hellhound. Hide Bartos if any humans approach or they’ll wonder at his appearance. Time for the rest of us to head underwater.”
Grace fashioned a breathing mask, as did the rest of her family. They descended into the murky water of the Thames where they met up with the water god’s children, Llyn and Llyr.
For her husband, Merryn went a different route. By the time they were under the surface, he had gills on his neck and fins on his feet. The consternation on Braden’s face was clear but that just made Merryn grin. Jonas stayed at the river bank with Bartos to guard their backs.
Her mother built witch globes to light their way. They arrived at the shield Grace had built to confine the dark entity. It was like looking into a shifting abyss at midnight. The creature had spread wide and was pushing her shield to its limit, pulsing with each attempt to advance. She trembled at the idea of breaking her shield and letting this mass bombard them, but that risk would be necessary so they could attack it. Simply strengthening her shield would not eliminate this problem. It might eventually break free.
She checked and her group all nodded to show they were ready. She sent a prayer that Dewer was equipped to deal with this monstrosity in the underworld once they chased it there and dropped her shield.
The dark entity surged toward them like a giant mass.
Braden wacked it with the side of his blessed blade. The sword flared and the dark entity let out a shriek of fear that vibrated Grace’s eardrums. The creature shrank back. All of them attacked it then, casting spells designed to blister and burn. The dark entity began to shrink but small particles broke away, flowing into the Thames’ muddy waters.
The longer this took, the more these little minions of Hell would disperse. Could they ever hope to capture and render every single particle inert?
This creature was so huge, Grace could not tell if they were having any measurable impact. She kept up her attacks on faith alone, the creature’s cry vibrating in her eardrums. Or was that now just an echo of the earlier shrill shriek?
After what seemed hours, she spotted a portion of the river wall beneath the Tower of London. Grace redoubled her flagging efforts, that elusive glimpse of perceived victory spurring her to a renewed sense of urgency to end this fight. Her family and friends took her lead and soon the bottom of the Thames looked like exploding stars in an inky sky.
She did not know when the fight ended, but suddenly they were all hovering in the water staring at a black hole in the river wall. Grace quickly wove a shield across that opening.
Had they won? Maybe this round. Those escaping particles still needed to be rounded up and destroyed. Exhausted but with her blood spinning in excitement, she checked on her mother and Merryn. Both seemed in a similar state: spent but exhilarated. Llyn’s tentacles were droopy but Llyr was spinning in joy.
Braden pulled out a cloth and swished it down his sword. Then he slowly sank until he knelt on the riverbed. Raising his sword, he struck it into the ground. The weapon slid through mud, stones and thick clay as if with no effort.
Grace had never witnessed one of this unique church guard’s sword blessings, but she had heard a great deal about them at coven gatherings. Braden was famous for performing this ritualistic prayer after difficult supernatural fights.
Merryn once explained that to her it seemed as if his prayers speared into the land through his sword and not only blessed the surrounding landscape, but healed all present in the vicinity.
As a healer, Grace had been waiting for a chance to witness such an event. When her mother said his earlier prayer failed, Grace’s hope it might work against this foe had wavered. Still, she, too, knelt to add her prayers to his. Her mother and cousin followed suit and so did Llyn and Llyr.
All of a sudden, a wave of energy swept through and past Grace. A warm watery breeze revived her until she was left tingling and shivering.
“They are gone,” Llyn’s voice shouted inside Grace’s mind. “Our water is clear.”
Grace snapped her eyes open, afraid to hope and yet her eyes proclaimed a miracle had indeed happened. All the dark entity particles that had escaped into the surrounding waters had apparently been erased with that one strike of the sword into the ground and Braden’s prayer. In fact, they no longer needed her mother’s light globes. All of the mud and filth of the Thames had been cleaned up, too.
All around, the water was crystal clear with light shining down from a sunny sky above in witness of this miracle. Every crag of the river wall was clearly delineated.
Her mother quietly extinguished her light globes.
Grace noticed the hole where the dark entity had vanished through was missing. She swam closer. Beneath her transparent shield, the river wall was whole again.
She released her shield and ran her hand over the clay bank in wonder. Nothing from the underworld would enter into her world again, not through here. Up to Dewer now in the underworld to finish the job they’d begun.
* * *
A SPLASHING BY THE river bank had Alfred and Dewer glancing in that direction. A large black mass surged out of the water. Nearby, monsters scrambled in retreat, crying out in terror, raising alarm all along their ranks. Their panicked cries were like a trumpet call from Heaven radiating through Dewer.
Farfur whined and gazed pleadingly at him, as if he, too, deeply felt that plea for help.
Perhaps it was his touch with Farfur that clearly showed these monsters’ terror, or Grace’s foolish wish to help everyone who asked for assistance finally resonating. Whatever the reason, Dewer could no longer stomach what he had planned to do - use these monsters as bait in his fight.
They back-peddled to keep away from the dark mass oozing toward them. “Here, Alfred, take my staff and head as far away and as fast as you can.”
“What about your spell? I thought you wanted help with your attempt to destroy that life-consuming monstrosity approaching us.”
“Change of plans. Use Kemp, my staff to act as a guiding light to impel these creatures to follow you to safety. I will take care of the dark entity another way.”
“How?”
“Doing what I planned and enticing it to consume life.”
“Not yours, sir.”
“Not mine, nor Farfur’s. A new idea is surfacing.” He put Kemp into Alfred’s shaky grip and gave his staff his instructions. “Be warned, once my staff reveals its presence, Lucifer will be hot on your trail. Keep it safe, Alfred, for my mother and the water god are inside it. Go!”
As Alfred fled with Kemp held high to light the way, Dewer turned to Farfur. He waved his hand over the hellhound, growing wings on his familiar’s back and then increased the hound’s size to that of a sixteen-hands horse. “Shall we go for a flight?”
“Wroof!” Farfur wagged his tail in excitement.
Dewer could as easily have flown, too, but he mounted Farfur instead, for he would have to stay in physical contact with the hound to retain his clarity of sight. With a flap of wings, they were airborne.
The dark entity splashed out of the river in a swift heave as if it were in a frenzy to escape the water.
The dark entity’s sudden appearance meant that Grace must have completely chased it out of her realm in the river Thames. Clever girl. He would have to give her an appropriate reward when they met up again.
The demons gathered below fled for their lives. Alfred, holding Kemp high up, urged everyone to follow the staff’s flare to safety and away from the certain death heaving toward them.
Their pursuer moved swiftly, sweeping overland and in no time had overtaken the very spot where Dewer and Farfur had stood.
“Time to do our part,” Dewer said to Farfur.
“Wroof!” his familiar agreed.
Dewer tuned out the screams of demons as the dark entity followed its new prey. From the sky, the scenery below looked like black lava consuming anything showing the fleeing, terrified creatures that bolted from it. As Grace surmised, it fed on life energy, the emotional flares that sparked, identifying a living creature as more than a rock or a tree. Meant his new plan just might just work.
Dewer drew on his Wyhcan and fae powers to weave his seduction spell. Where Merryn had tricked his mother’s pythos with flavors and scents of food into devouring each other, Dewer laid a sense of life, the darker, pain-filled, horror of living in the underworld, over the dark entity. His spell hardly registered on the creature’s intense focus on reaching the escaping life forces.
He sought his familial link with Farfur, remembering its intense power when he had used it once before in the upper world. Instantly, a flood of energy swept into him, toppling his equilibrium. More powerful than before. He quickly focused and fed the extra power into his spell of deception. The dark entity below quivered all along its surface. Finally, it had taken notice. There was life to be consumed all around it. In fact, the dark entity itself was the main meal.
Dewer watched in fascination as the creature surged upward in hundreds of arcs and then bore down onto itself, gobbling in frenzy. The dark entity had taken the bait with gusto. Then a streak of fire blew past Dewer’s shield and scorched Farfur’s left flank.
The hellhound howled in pain as his wing burned. He tumbled, falling toward the blackness and taking his rider with him. Farfur’s agony tore into Dewer as if his own side was seared.
The dark entity noticed the pain and reached up. The next streak of flames also came directly toward them. The dark angel had located them, too.
Dewer grew his own wings and with each labored beat, he pulled Farfur higher up into the air and out of reach of the dark entity. The striking flames grazed by, missing them by a finger’s length.
Lucifer must be honing in on the warlock-familiar magic that was so foreign to the underworld. Trouble was, until the dark entity was no more, Dewer had to keep his and Farfur’s joint effort to fuel his spell going.
He could, however, and did shunt both Farfur’s pain and his shared suffering into the darkest recesses of his mind. He could not spare the time to heal Farfur’s scorched side. All he could do was return Farfur to his original size so he would be easier to carry and keep safe.
Not broadcasting their pain blunted the dark entity’s focus on them and it turned back to feeding on itself.
With his arms occupied, Dewer could not adequately defend himself from Lucifer or his minions, other than to fly in random directions, up, down, sideways. All the while, he used their linked power to keep feeding his spell on the dark entity.
Flames came from every direction and then flying demons appeared, converging on them. Only his swift changes in direction prevented his enemy from pinpointing his precise location. The creatures sent to bring them down attacked blindly, sometimes striking each other, knowing where Dewer had been, not where he had gone. A perilous engagement that resulted in many falling into the darkness below and being instantly consumed.
Lucifer used these creatures indiscriminately. Dewer used to think that way, too, that animals were merely tools to achieve the desired end. Until Grace showed him a different way of looking at the world. Since she waltzed into his life, his views had subtly shifted, bit by bit, until now, Farfur’s welfare meant more than his own.
It would be so much safer to release the hound and defend himself, see to his welfare first. He couldn’t do it. This was why his mother had urged him to sever his link to his familiar. She believed the hound would become a hindrance in battle. She was right and, oh, so, wrong.
He felt a better man for his current strategy, worthier of laying claim to Grace’s love, and his intent to destroy the dark entity never wavered. In fact, he did not even need to pull power from Farfur, for they worked in conjunction, with his hound willingly feeding him. When they won, and they would win, his connection to Farfur would be responsible for saving all those whom he loved, including his mother. His father would have been proud.
The dark entity continued to surge up and swoop down, feasting on itself, its appetite stirred into a fervor by Dewer’s magical influence. Screaming cries accompanied his zig-zag flight and then suddenly all went silent. Below, a tiny black sparkling puddle continued to heave up and down until it winked out of existence.
Dewer had been waiting for that sign. He shut down his connection to Farfur so it could no longer act as a constant homing beacon to Lucifer. Dewer landed on the ground and with Farfur still in his arms, he raced after Alfred. The legion of flying demons swooped after him but a check back showed those on his trail soon scattered, no longer able to trace their prey. Lucifer had lost his scent. Dewer chuckled, envisioning the dark angel’s fury at his loss.
Time to enact the second part of this plan.
He cringed at what he would be asking of his innocent lover. In essence, to turn a shade darker. Up to you now, Grace. Can you deceive as effectively as my mother?