bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered Read Online Free

wood.
    The walls of the room shook from the force of impact.
    Dropping to my knees from exhaustion, I gasped, “To Hades with thee fool, for God hath tired of you.”
    I leapt to my feet and ran toward the door. Yanking it open, I peered through a fog of smoke, looking for the small priest. He was lying on his back several feet from the door. I prayed fervently as I ran to him. If I’d inadvertently killed him with an errant power arrow I’d never forgive myself.
    Kneeling beside him, I felt for a heartbeat. Fortunately, it was beating strong, really strong, as if he was running on an adrenaline cocktail. His eyes shot open as I checked his body for holes or gouges. Finding none, I reached under his scrawny shoulders to help him stand.
    He groaned a bit as I helped him to his feet but he seemed unharmed. I turned him away from the door. “Don’t look at any of the debris until I’ve had a chance to examine it. I need to find and extinguish the eyes.”
    He nodded, not asking the obvious question, which told me he’d known all along what was behind that door.
    The air shifted behind me and I turned to find Flick in his robes. “I got them all out.”
    I nodded, “Thanks.”
    He shrugged, “Least I could do.”
    The little priest was staring wide eyed and open mouthed at Flick. Finally he reached out a small, gnarled hand and Flick took it. “I am truly blessed in your presence,” said the little man.
    Flick blushed. He wasn’t used to being worshipped. He really wasn’t all that powerful.
    I grinned and jerked my head toward the mess in the hallway. “I’m just gonna pick through this gore and find the demon’s eyes. Why don’t you two go have a cup of tea or something.”
    Flick’s eyes widened in horror and I couldn’t help laughing.
    He tried to pull his hand away but the little priest held on tightly.
    “I’ve always known you existed but I never dreamed I’d get to see you. Thank you for protecting me all these years.”
    Flick blanched and his brown eyes flew to me. I shrugged. It was against the Big House rules to reveal another guardian to a human, so Flick could hardly explain that he wasn’t the one the little priest should be thanking. But his innate goodness made him feel guilty for taking credit for someone else’s hard work. Finally he just smiled and laid his other hand over the priest’s. “You’re welcome. Go in His name.”
    The little man, thinking himself both blessed and dismissed, let go of Flick and shuffled down the hall, looking a bit shell-shocked but happy.
    “Good thinking.” I told Flick with a grin.
    He shrugged. “Let’s get this mess cleaned up before anybody sees it.”

CHAPTER TWO
    You Can Never Go Home Again
    The monster grabbed her from the sky and flung her toward the ground,
    But our young miss spat in his eye and turned the tables round.
    I dropped the Viper into hover on the pad next to the Phelps fortress, still perplexed as to why my sister had moved back home to live with our father. She’d always had a fiercely independent streak, which had pushed her out of the nest as soon as she was old enough to support herself and had kept her away over the years since.
    Once she’d left, she’d seemed almost reluctant to return to the huge, castle-like home on the cliffs overlooking the Angel City River, as if the act of visiting would somehow take something away from her independence.
    Then, a few weeks earlier, out of nowhere, she’d announced she was moving back. It was something I’d been dying to ask her about but my life being what it was, I hadn’t had much time for chatting.
    I added that subject to my mental list of discussion topics for the afternoon and climbed out of the Viper, striding toward the door to the house. The raging river below brought back childhood memories that made me smile. While many things in my life seemed determined to keep changing in a breathtakingly kaleidoscopic fashion, a few things would forever stay the same.
    I