14.4

As soon as she arrived on the astral plane, Zyrdicia set the trap carefully. She would summon Baal in a way that would assure he had to answer. That was the easy part. The harder part was casting the bind-rune in the magic circle that would wall them both in and prevent him from dragging her off to Hell.

Astral winds whipped around her as she traced the Tenaebran runes. They hung in the air, emitting a purple glow. For her plan to work, it was imperative that Baal not escape this world alive. His death would force him back to Tenaebra and banish him there, ridding her mind of his influence.

She believed that Azriok would never permit him to cause her death. There were few facts about Azriok's motives that she could rely on these days - but her former beloved's inability to permit harm to befall her was certainly still one of them. She suspected that Baal would not be permitted even to fight back. She was sure of it, in fact...well, almost sure of it.

She sniffed the air. Wandering demons and astral beasts were a problem she did not need right now. If she stayed here too long, something would eventually catch her flesh's scent and come to investigate. Once Baal arrived, though, visitors would avoid the area. His energy would terrify and repel them.

She was as ready as she would ever be. Time to slay a god, she thought grimly. She took a deep breath and uttered the summons.

Baal appeared a moment later, smiling mysteriously. He was as tall as Azriok in the angelic form he took, standing ten feet. His black wings arched up much higher. His voice boomed powerfully through the void as spoke to her in Tenaebran, "You took longer to call for me than I expected. I had begin to wonder if you were going to permit our relationship to persist for eternity, Deesh."

"Don't call me that!" she snapped angrily. The Tenaebran syllable in her name that meant "possession" was a term of endearment that only Azriok used.

"Ever loyal to your master. Who do think arranged this, Deesh? For whom do you think I am an agent?"

"I don't care anymore."

Baal shook his head, a secretive smile gracing his angelic lips. "Your recent obsession with mortal flesh causes him tremendous grief. He knows that you only do it to allay your ache for him."

"Lately, it's more of an ache to hurt him. You'll do for now, in his place." Zyrdicia hurled a tremendous, fiery explosion of her father's magical energy at the angel. It would have incinerated any creature alive in the material world several times over. Baal simply opened his mouth and sucked it into himself, unperturbed.

He smiled down at her, "As much as Azriok taught you, there was a great deal that he withheld. If you will not consent to drop the wall that binds me, I will force you to do it."

"Oh, get over yourself. Azriok will not permit you to harm me!" she sneered.

"But you are so very wrong," Baal smiled innocently. With a flick of his finger, Zyrdicia found herself surrounded by blue flames. It burned viciously. Baal coaxed tenderly, "Drop the wall, Deesh."

She focussed her mind. The flames were an illusion. She knew that instinctively. He would not dare risk killing her with real hellfire. She mastered the pain and used it for calm. Her magic was useless. That was quite certain.

The flames became a seething mass of biting snakes, then stinging scorpions. The scorpions finally vanished when a bolt of azure lightning arched through the sky of the astral darkness before finally grounding itself through her body. A deafening explosion of sound punctuated the assault. That was no illusion, she thought grimly as the charge passed through her. So much for not fighting back. She gasped as a second and third electric charge followed, searing her skin.

She collapsed on her knees, trying to catch her breath before another onslaught began. Each blast of lightning had been accompanied by a bone-jarring thunderclap. The force of the repeated attacks left her disoriented and stunned. She inhaled acrid, sulfur-scented air deeply into her lungs as her pulse pounded in her head.

"Drop the wall!" Baal commanded, his voice echoing the sound of the thunder in her head. "Azriok does not want to see you suffer so, Deesh. You cannot win this. Do not force me to harm you any more than I have already."

"If you do it again, you will probably kill me. We both know that you aren't allowed to do that," she responded weakly, her head bowed.

"You understand so little. I don't have to kill you, precious," Baal smiled, his icy fingers touching the back of her head.

Zyrdicia's mind froze, and a shudder ran through her body. The angel's voice and cadence had become Azriok's. She refused to look up at him, keeping her gaze fixed upon the ground. She did not want to know. The thought that Azriok was free terrified her.

The cold hand moved gently down her neck to the back of her shoulders, its long nails clicking against the metal of the mail coat above her spine. The touch was too familiar. She shivered again. Azriok's voice prompted, "Release the bind-rune, precious! Avoid needless suffering here!"

Zyrdicia's thoughts reeled. Azriok was here. He had escaped through Baal. It was impossible. As much as she hated him, she was emotionally unprepared to confront him now. She expected Baal.

"Deesh!"

"No!"

"So be it." The voice was again Baal's. She looked up at him in confusion. The angel's relentless, beautiful smile was undiminished. His eyes fixed firmly upon hers, trapping her gaze in their cobalt depths. She felt his diabolic, timeless mind impress itself firmly around her consciousness. That banal psychic act frightened her. She knew all too well what he was doing. He intended to savor her suffering in whatever he was about to inflict. She had played the same psychic game with her own victims thousands of times. She had not been on the other side of its voyeuristic embrace in a century, the savored rather than the savoror.

She tried to shrink away from his hand on her back, but it was too late. The black nails of his fingers pressed through the enchanted metal of the mail coat as though it were paper. The razor-sharp tips of his thumb and forefinger pressed effortlessly through skin and muscle, exposing a length of backbone between her shoulder blades. He reached around the vertebrae and grabbed hold of her spinal column, lifting her easily up in the air. The entire movement took place in the blink of an eye. Within her mind, he delighted in her tortured agony, her mortal fear of paralysis.

He raised her off the ground by the gory grip of bone, holding her up to be at eye-level with him. He regarded her curiously, as though he were merely holding a strange kitten by the scruff of its neck. He watched her twitch and writhe for what seemed like an eternity. Hot blood streamed down her back, falling to the ground in large drops. It collected at Baal's feet in a steaming, scarlet pool.

He whispered fondly, "It is more pleasing to watch you suffer than to put you out of your misery and end your flesh's existence. I do not mind at all that I am not permitted to kill you."