Immortals After Dark 07 - Kiss of a Demon King

years. Or right now . . ..
    •

    "With me, nothing is as it seems. It's usually much, much worse. And then - What do you mean I only get one epigraph? I get as many as 1 please. Only pre-eviscerated
    people have ever said things like that tome."
    -Sabine of the Sorceri,
    Queen of Illusions,
    anointed princess of Rothkalina
    "That sorceress might he an evil bitch, hut she's my evil bitch. And I'll have no other."
    -Rydstrom Woede, fallen demon king of Rothkalina

Prologue
    Gray Waters Lunatic Asylum, London Fall1872
    Whenever you have a sorcerer betwixt your thighs, your powers tend to disappear," Sabine told her sister as she scanned the faces of the frenzied, caged humans. "It's merely a fact of life."
    "Maybe in the past," Lanthe said as she dropped the unconscious guard she'd been toting by his belt. "Things are going to be different with this one." She busily tied the man's hands behind his back-instead of breaking his arms, which had the same result and didn't waste rope. "You still haven't seen her?"
    Her -the sorceress they came to release from this place- if she agreed to convey her powers to Lanthe in exchange for her freedom.
    Sabine slinked down the darkened corridor. "I can't tell when they huddle like this." She plucked a cell door off its hinges and tossed it away, her heels clicking as she entered the cage.
    Up close, she could tell the inhabitants all looked very ... mortal.
    Naturally, they cowered from her. Sabine knew the exotic picture she presented with her garments and face paint.
    As though she'd donned a mask, her eyes were kohled black in a swath from the sides of her nose to her temples.
    Her clothes were constructed more of strips of leather and chain metal than of cloth and thread.
    She wore a metal bustier and mesh gloves that ran the length of her arms, ending in forged fingertip claws. Situated among her hair's riotous braids was her elaborate headdress.
    Typical garb of the Sorceri females. In fact, if one's apparel didn't weigh more than the wearer, then one was underdressed.
    By the time Sabine was exiting the next cell down, Lanthe had finished with the knots "Any luck?"
    Sabine tore free yet another cage door, peered at pale faces, then shook her head.
    "Do I have time to check the smaller cells in the basement?" Lanthe asked.
    "If we're back at the portal in twenty minutes we should be all right." Their portal back to their home of Rothkalina was a good ten minutes away through dank London streets.
    Lanthe blew a jet-black plait from her forehead. "Watch the guard and keep the freed inmates inside this hall quiet."
    Sabine's gaze flitted over the unconscious male sprawled on the squalid floor, and her lip curled in disgust. She could read the minds of humans, even when they were blacked out, and the contents of this one's were giving even Sabine pause.
    "Very well. But hurry with the transfer," Sabine said. "Else we'll attract our foe."
    Lanthe's blue eyes gazed upward out of habit. "They could be here at any second." She hastened to the stairwell once more.
    Their lives had become a droning cycle: Steal a new power, flee enemies, have power stolen by a smooth-talking Sorceri male, steal a new power. . . . Sabine allowed it to continue.
    Because she'd ruined Lanthe's innate ability.
    When her sister was gone, Sabine muttered, "Look after the guard. Very well..."
    Lifting the man by his collar and belt, she tossed him in front of the exit doors. Some of the denizens grew wild at the violence, howling, pulling their hair. The ones who'd been eyeing the main exit scuttled back.
    Shush the humans, easy enough. She sauntered to the guard and stepped up onto his back, opening her arms wide. "Gather round, mad human persons. Gather! And I, a sorceress of dark and terrible powers, will reward you with a story."
    Some quieted out of seeming curiosity, some in shock. "Hush now, mortals, and perhaps if you are good, quiet pets, I'll even show you a tale." The cries and yells she'd ignited were ebbing. "So sit, sit. Yes, come sit before me. Closer. But not you-you smell like urine and porridge. You, there, sit."
    Once they'd all gathered before her, she crouched on the guard's back. She gave them a slow smile as she readied for her story, tugging up her skirt to fiddle with her garters, then adjusting her customary choker.
    "Now, for this evening, you have two choices. You can hear the story of a mighty demon king with horns and eyes as black as obsidian. In ages past he was so honest and