Part 22 (1/2)

Ylith sat down beside the woman and the valet. ”What is this demon offering?” she asked.

Kornglow said, ”My master told me he has to do a magical pa.s.sage in order to be rewarded with his dearest wish. When I went to his room, he was gone. Vanished.”

”Maybe he's just outside, walking around,” Ylith suggested.

”We'd have seen him come downstairs,” Kornglow said, ”and he's unlikely to have dived from the window into the bramble below. He's off doing the demon's work, I tell you, and frankly, it sounds like work that would suit me.”

”You wouldn't!” the female servitor said with an admiring glance.

”I'm thinking about it,” Kornglow said. ”I can be in the demon's play as well as any man, as long as it doesn't matter that I don't have a Sir before my name.”

Ylith stared at him. ”A play?”

Kornglow nodded. ”That's what Sir Oliver told me. The demon is putting on some sort of play. We just have to do whatever it is we usually do, and we'll be rewarded greatly for it. That's the sort of life I want to lead.”

Ylith got to her feet. ”You must excuse me. I need to see someone.”

She hurried off, went to the front door, and pa.s.sed through it into the darkness.

”Where do you think she's gone to?” the female servitor asked.

Kornglow shrugged and sucked his teeth. ”If she has an appointment it must be with an angel or a devil. There's nothing else out there but wolves.”

Ylith said to herself, ”So, he's going to do it! Stage an immorality play! Wait until Michael hears about this!”

Chapter 4.

Mounting an immorality play?” Michael said. ”So it would seem, sir.”

”The effrontery!”

”Yes, sir.”

”Go back there and keep an eye on his progress. If you should find a way ever so subtly to impede his plan, it wouldn't be amiss to do it. Nothing blatant, you understand.”

”I understand,” Ylith said.

”Then off with you,” Michael said. ”I may send Babriel down, also, to lend a hand.”

”That would be nice,” Ylith said, a little wistfully. Although she and Babriel were not currently keeping company, she still had good memories of their a.s.sociation. Ylith remembered very well what sinning was like, and at times her whole body ached for the good old days.

Memories of her affair with Azzie also came to mind. It had been what she had once considered great fun.

She shook her head, willing herself not to think so much. It could get her into trouble.

Chapter 5.

After dismissing Kornglow, Sir Oliver sat for a long time on the edge of the bed, thinking of the bold thing he had done. He was frightened, of course; what man would not be frightened after having such a conversation with a demon? And yet Sir Antonio's offer was just too good to pa.s.s up. Despite the churchmen's complaints that the Dark Forces were always out trying to seduce mankind, it actually happened quite rarely. Never to anyone of Sir Oliver's acquaintances.h.i.+p, and certainly not to him.