Demon's Kiss by Devereaux, J. (best sci fi novels of all time .TXT) 📗

had consisted of. After all, ithad been the church that had given the world water-boarding, the boot, the ironmaiden and other delightful methods of “persuasion”, although they didn’t liketo be reminded of it these days.

Asmodeus paused to master himself and closed his eyes at theterrible memories.

“It was my brother Ashtoreth who suffered the most fromthose torments and he bears the scars of it still. But I saw the horrifictools, the dreadful machines they used to make those marks on Ash’s skin.”

He shuddered reflexively, remembering the horror of it,remembering what they had found that terrible day.

He’d had more than a taste of the torment. He took a deepbreath, the muscles of his back stretching against his own scars and theremembered pain.

Yet Ash had suffered far worse.

How did he bear it for so long? Asmodeus wondered, Howlong can I?

Gabriel laid a hand on his chest, sympathy in her eyes.

With a nod, Asmodeus welcomed the comfort she offered andplaced his hand over hers where it lay over his heart, squeezing it lightly ingratitude and continued.

“One of ours managed to escape, taking the Book of Demonswith him. He did not return to us.” Old grief moved through him. “Zaebos washis name. We thought the Book lost. Prayed it was. We were wrong. Usingthe Book, this mortal found a way to summon me from the other plane wherewe—my kind—had escaped those who persecuted us. He drew me back to this one.One moment I was in my chambers on the other plane, and the next, here.”

“For what purpose?” Gabriel asked, frowning slightly.

“For what purpose is it that most mortals seek to summon onesuch as me? Money, power, domination.”

“How?”

“Through magic. This mortal wanted me to undermine or defeathis enemies. And as long as he has the Book and I wear these, I have nochoice but to obey him.”

He rattled the iron bracelets on his wrists and the shacklearound his ankle. “Iron binds me and all my kind. We were content to stay outof this plane of existence once we were driven out, although it is an emptierlife.”

“So why am I here?” she asked.

His heart clenched.

“My magic was weak, too weak to do what he demanded. To dosuch requires power. On the other plane we have no need of that much power butwe use little magic there. Here? Under these demands?” He shruggeduncomfortably. “I needed sustenance.”

Sustenance.

It pained him to think of her as such.

Her hand rose to her throat, a shadow moving in her eyes.

Closing his eyes briefly as his jaw tightened, Asmodeusnodded, held her closer, took a breath and said, “That is only part of it, myangel. It was all sustenance until the moment I touched you but without you Iwould starve to death. And was. We can eat food but it does little but sustainus. Barely.”

“So they brought me to you.”

He looked into her eyes. “Any woman would have done, wouldhave given me strength enough but there are a rare few who are more. You areone of those. I would not have used you so by my choice, my angel, but theyused me until they starved me. They studied us and somehow divined my needs,though I did not tell them.”

Would not tell them. That there was more to the tale he didnot say. Now was not the time.

“Magic,” Gabriel said. That was a concept that would clearlytake some getting used to.

“As you see.” Asmodeus nodded and gestured to the firepots.“Remember that the stories of the past are frequently grounded in truth. Onceyour kind possessed magic even as we do. It took the place of the technologiesyou have now developed and depend on but then there were only a few who coulduse it in quantity, few who could wield it, and so those few were revered and frequentlyhonored. The magic of the Oracles at Delphi were real, as was the magic of theDruids and all the others whom your histories paint as having such.”

He sighed. “As with all things of power though, there arealways those who would control it, chain it. Some who did not have it so fearedthose who did. Thus the Greeks gave birth to the notion of controlling thosewith magic, binding the Oracles at Delphi and keeping them drugged with themists, imprisoned, separate, isolated. It was the Romans who, in their desirefor conquest, refined it by wiping out the Druids—people of magic often beingthose in positions of power.

“The church turned it into an art and the name of my peopleinto the description of how it would be done. They wanted to be certain theonly magic used was theirs and so it began. They took the name of the wiseones—Wiccans—and changed it to witches, and used it as an excuse to slaughterthousands of innocent women and men. They demonized us until we fled to anotherplane of existence or risked being eradicated. So it was with my people, theDaemonae,” he said, tasting bitterness. “But it was easier with us.”

Asmodeus gestured to his body.

“You are a little hard to miss,” she said.

He smiled a little and his hand tightened over hers.

“As you say. We can take human form,” he continued, “as partof our camouflage. Our nature, though, betrayed us. For our race to continue,we must have interaction with your kind.”

He looked at her. Hesitated as though considering his nextwords. She had a bad vibe about this.

“The Daemonae are universally male. We must seek among yourkind for procreation, to continue our race. Without humans for that and fornourishment on this plane, we would cease to exist. Just so, as a survivalmechanism, most humans are, um, attracted to us—strongly.”

Asmodeus took a breath and said, “There is that about mykind that…draws…those of yours.”

Looking up into the preternatural beauty of his face, intothe nearly hypnotic, whirling, molten gold of his eyes as his tail caressed herleg, Gabriel couldn’t deny the attraction. Already she wanted him to take heragain. She was far too aware of how white her skin looked in contrast to thedeep red of his, of the silken feel of his hair against her.

Running her hand over the