‘‘In Abaddon terms, it means a demon who’s gone rogue.’’ Jim’s eyes were grave. ‘‘Dybbuks are usually destroyed by their masters for insubordination, although I have heard of one or two who survived in order to be perpetually tormented. Fires of Abaddon, May-lots of demons talk about it, but I never heard of one who was actually thinking about doing it.’’
‘‘I’m not a demon,’’ I pointed out, biting my lower lip nonetheless.
‘‘No, you’re not,’’ Aisling said in an abstracted voice. ‘‘Defying an order… hmm. That’s tricky. Maybe it would help if you gave me the specific circumstances.’’
I hesitated for a moment or two, unsure whether I wanted to entrust something so potentially dangerous to her. In the end, I decided that I had little recourse, and she was my best resource of information about demon lords. ‘‘Magoth ordered me to retrieve the dragons’ phylactery for himself. He plans on using it to bring the dragons to rein.’’
Aisling’s eyes opened wide. Jim gave a low, long whistle.
‘‘A direct order?’’ she asked.
I nodded, misery making my gut grumble. ‘‘I can’t do it. I just can’t do it. Even if I wasn’t mated to Gabriel, even if I didn’t give a damn about the dragons, I still wouldn’t do it. It has the potential for just too much power.’’
‘‘But… he must have had you steal powerful items before,’’ she said. ‘‘How did you get around those? Or did you?’’
I shook my head. ‘‘He’s never asked me to steal anything quite so important before. Magoth is…’’ I made a vague gesture. ‘‘He’s a bit of a flibbertigibbet, if you want to know the truth. He always has a hundred different projects going, and flits from one to another without following one through to the end, which, I have to say, I encourage.’’
‘‘It keeps him from becoming dangerous to the mortal world?’’ she asked.
‘‘Yes. All the other things that Magoth has made me steal for him over the past eighty years weren’t nearly as important as this phylactery. Although I don’t like being forced into the role of thief, it eased my worry somewhat to know that the things I was taking weren’t really going to matter, if you know what I mean. He was just too unfocused, too easily distracted.’’
‘‘Not the brightest bean in the Crock-Pot,’’ Jim said, nodding in agreement.
‘‘Exactly. To be honest, I think he has a form of demonic attention deficit disorder. But this… this is different. He seems much more focused on the phylactery, and that worries me greatly. I can’t let him have it. But I can’t see a way out of obeying a direct order.’’
‘‘Sometimes when Ash gives me an order, there’s wiggle room,’’ Jim said. ‘‘What did Magoth say exactly?’’
‘‘He told me to bring him the phylactery. There’s no wiggle room there that I can see.’’
Aisling looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘‘What that means is that if you physically have the phylactery in your possession, you must give it to him.’’
‘‘Ye-es,’’ I said slowly, not seeing where she was going.
‘‘So that means we simply don’t let you touch it. If you don’t have it in your possession, you can’t turn it over to him, right? Easy as pie-you may be a renowned thief, but the green dragons are no slouches when it comes to stealing things. And Drake is especiallygood at it.’’
‘‘I thought of that,’’ I said, despair digging into me with sharp little jabs. ‘‘The L’au-delà vault is sure to be heavily protected. It will surely be beyond the means of even the craftiest of dragons to enter it… but I can get in places where no one else can. It will be up to me to locate the phylactery. And if I’m that close to it without anyone else around who might conceivably oppose me, it would constitute a dybbuk if I did not take it into my possession. I just don’t see a way around it-that’s why I thought you might have an idea about defying an order.’’
‘‘I’m afraid I am just as helpless,’’ she said with genuine regret. ‘‘Jim?’’
The demon shook its shaggy head. ‘‘Nada. Dybbuk is the only thing I can think of, and I wouldn’t advise it. Magoth may be a few dinner rolls short of a smorgasbord, but he’s no idiot. He’ll be bound to make an example out of you for the rest of his minions.’’
I swallowed back the hard lump of fear and guilt that made my throat ache.
‘‘I take it you haven’t mentioned this to Gabriel?’’ Aisling asked, casting a quick glance toward the door.
‘‘No. It’s hard enough to keep him from going after Magoth directly-I really don’t want to inflame his desire to free me of my bondage.’’
‘‘I’ll talk to Nora about that, too,’’ she said, looking determined. ‘‘She’s my mentor, and she knows all sorts of things about what Guardians can do. I know it’s difficult, but stop worrying, May. Between us all, we may be able to find a way for you to end your bond to Magoth.’’
‘‘Trust Ash on this-she knows Abaddon. She managed to get herself kicked out, after all,’’ Jim said.
Aisling tried to look humble. ‘‘It’s my job-’’
‘‘-she’s a professional,’’ the demon finished.
‘‘Sorry!’’ I said less than an hour later, breathing hard as I raced up the narrow stairs of a small jet. ‘‘I assumed we’d be taking a portal rather than a plane.’’
‘‘Drake won’t let me,’’ Aisling said with a smile at the dragon in question as she adjusted her seat belt over her expansive stomach. ‘‘He says they aren’t safe for pregnant women. Of course, he says the same thing about airplanes, but I really feel there have to be some perks that go along with being immortal, and one of those is being able to fly while preggers.’’
‘‘Ah. Well, I do apologize for us holding everyone up. It’s my fault, not Gabriel’s-I wanted to call a doppelganger who lives in Paris to see if she could help us with the L’au-delà vault, since it’s bound to be extremely well protected. It took me forever to track down her number, but she doesn’t seem to be at home.’’
‘‘Ophelia?’’ Aisling asked, causing me to gawk slightly.
‘‘Yes, that’s her name. Do you know her?’’
A little smile graced her lips. ‘‘Yes. Amelie, a friend of mine in Paris, said she’s left the country. Her… er… twin was banished to the Akasha, you know. Ophelia suffered from depression after that, but last I heard, she was in Africa devoting herself to charitable works.’’
The pilot flashed on the seat-belt warning while Aisling was talking. I dug around in the comfortable leather chair for the seat belts, wondering what the doppelganger’s twin had done to leave her banished to the Akasha.
My phone rang before I could ponder much. ‘‘Oh, sorry,’’ I said as the pilot, a dragon who had been in conversation with Drake, frowned over at me. ‘‘I’ll turn it off. I just… Oh, thank the gods.’’ I was about to turn off my phone, but the caller ID number blinking at me was a familiar one. ‘‘Cy? Where are you?’’
‘‘Oh, Mayling, good, you haven’t left yet…’’ A loud roar from what sounded like a truck drowned out the rest of her sentence. ‘‘… kidnapped me, which was just about the most… me of all people!’’
‘‘What? Cy, I can’t hear you. Where are you? And what’s that about a kidnapping?’’
I held the phone a few inches away from my head as a loud truck horn threatened to deafen me. The pilot and Drake both glared at me.
‘‘I’m sorry, May, but you will have to turn off your mobile phone,’’ the latter said.
‘‘What’s wrong?’’ Gabriel asked at the same time, cleverly picking up on the fact that all was not well.
‘‘I don’t quite know. It’s Cy, and she’s evidently standing in the middle of some horrible traffic trying to tell me something… What’s that?’’