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Heaven, it seemed, didn&039;t wantman stalked past me toward the man ho desperately to wrench open the front door

"You dare steal from ht it feel as if it were being ripped fro so heinous, Lord Bael," the otherto his knees in a penitent position when he realized the door wouldn&039;t open "It was my master He covets your tools, not I"

"Your master is a dead man," the one named Bael said, his words wrapped in such horrible tones, I didn&039;t for one minute doubt the veracity of the prophecy "What is your name?"

"Ulfur, my lord"

I watched the scene with terrified amazement Was the powerful man named Bael some sort of a peer? He had a British accent, so nitary I wracked ot tangled up in probate Maybe the Bael person was the owner? If that was so, why hadn&039;t he contacted the agency to let us knoas going to be present for the initial inspection?

"Who is your master?"

"Alphonse de Marco"

"I do not know this name Where are my tools?"

"I do not have the his hands wide He had a bit of an accent, too, sothe er of the two He had short brown hair and a worried-looking face that wasthan handsome, and wore a pair of jeans and a dark brown leather jacket Fro shiny, soood He&039;d no doubt taken solanced down to old-chased stone was clutched with the coins, and a valuable from the basement It behooved me to tell the ohat Ulfur had done, but I couldn&039;t bringHis presence felt bad, like he shouldn&039;t be there Almost like he foreshadowed disaster

"Where are they?"

The volume of his voice dropped, but I felt physical pain at Bael&039;s words, just as if they were etched with acid

"I do not know, ain, his head bowed now "I know only that my master sent me to find them before the lichmaster Ailwin did so"

"Ailwin," Bael snarled, and I heard the rain of glass, as if his very words had smashed the s nearest us "That name I do know Jecha!"

My eyeballs just about popped out of e, muscular woman suddenly appeared before the peer "My lord Bael?" she said, bowing low "What is your pleasure?"

"Ailwin," Bael said, the word flaying me like a whip I backed up down the hall, tohat I kneas the kitchen I didn&039;t knoas going on, but it brought up all sorts of unpleasant memories from a trip to visit ot caught up in so thataround to see Diaestures toward me "I did both floors upstairs Are you done here?"

"Am Ino!"

"No?" She frowned "Oh, for pity&039;s sakedon&039;t tell me you saw a mouse!"

"No I saw them"

"Them who?"

"The people out front The two men who came up fro me? I told you that this house was empty"

"Yeah, well, tell that to the base open the baseo down and see for myself"

"They&039;re up here now," I called after her disappearing figure, but she evidently decided to ignore me

I tiptoed down the hallway until I could see the front doors Bael was grinding out so the person na detail about what he&039;d like done

"Go," Bael said, waving his hand toward the woone "As for you"

Ulfur had half turned towardhimself so his back was to the wall, no doubt to keep anyone fro that he had an object stuffed into the back of his jacket

I bit o I didn&039;t condone stealing at all, buted me to turn around and walk out of the house, to leave the two men alone, but e stone I held lishman, and that meant I had to return it

I started toward hi just that when Bael threide his arms and, with a voice filled with fury, screamed, "Abi in malam crucem, confer te in exsiliuo into banishment of Bael is at hand," I whispered in translation, and just like that, I was slammed by a wall of power as the floor fell out from beneath my feet

A scream was literally ripped from my throat as I plummeted into blackness, but it was a short-lived scream, one that turned to, "O, ow! Jesus wept!" For the second time in a few minutes, I shook stars fro when s, came into contact with sharp, pointy rocks "What the hell?"

"Not Abaddon, no," a weary voice cae, craggy boulder that squatted next to round "Worse We&039;re in the Akasha"

"Howwhathuh?" I looked around as I got painfully to my feet We seemed to be on some sort of horrible ept, rockyseen one in person But this placeit brought a new level of angst to the word "desolate" The wind seemed to carry with it the voices of a thousand toretation all the same shade of dusty brown It was very rocky - not soft, smooth rocks, but sharp, pointed ones that jabbed up out of the earth as if they were straining to escape "What&039;s an Akasha ? "

Ulfur groaned as he rolled over, brushing himself off as he sat up "The Akashic Plain, more frequently known as the Akasha, is what mortals think of as limbo It&039;s a place of punishment, of permanent banishment, and before you ask, yes, it is possible to leave it, but you have to be suet here? We were in the house Ow What the devil" I tossed old froer "Oh, holy Chihuahua, that hurts Ugh I broke the rock you stole"

"The what?" Ulfur touched his forehead, his fingers pulling away red

"The rock you dropped when you crashed into old parts are twisted up, and the gray stone is in about a dozen little pieces"

He jerked upright at that, one hand scrabbling behind him to find whatever it was he had stuffed beneath his coat What he pulled out was a flattened goldfish disk, discolored and stained "The Anima! Oh, no"

"You know, there&039;s a lis I&039;iven hour, and I think this hour has far surpassed that limit What the heck is an Aniuy, why did he feel so wrong, how did we get here, where exactly is this Akasha place, and et back to the house? "

"Those are a lot of questions," Ulfur said, his shoulders sluold "I&039;ain" He looked up at me, and I noticed that he had absolutely black eyes, no difference between iris and pupil "The Occio is destroyed, as well?"

"Who knows? I certainly don&039;t," I said, giving up and sitting down on the least pointy part of the boulder between us "I just want to find a first aid kit so I don&039;t get tetanus or soet out of here Oh, and chocolate wouldn&039;t hurt, either I&039;d take so over to where I sat I held out my hand "No, not your hand, the Occio"

"The rock?" I held out old and broken bits of gray stone

He frowned at it, touching one of the pieces with the tip of a finger "I don&039;t understand it This is a Tool of Bael Why would it be destroyed?"

"It&039;s not a tool It&039;s like aI don&039;t know, pendant or so what sort of weird being the Englishically teleport me somewhere "Who&039;s Bael when he&039;s at hoaze met mine - he was about to answer my question when he suddenly squinted atyour pardon?"

"You&039;re glowing There&039;s a sort of shadowed glow about you"

I held up a hand "You knohat I think? I think we&039;re both nuts, ain, and you because you are seeing things"

"I&039;lowing"

"Look, Ulfur - " I stopped in the reen earth that I was glowing, when I noticed so at hi"

He looked down at himself "This doesn&039;tdestroyed Why would we both glow just because ere banished to the Akasha? "

"Yeah, about that," I said, getting up off my rock to circle him I&039;d be dalow around him, almost like a corona "When you say &039;banished,&039; what exactly do you mean?"

"Bael, the premier prince of Abaddon, banished us here Or rather, he banishedthe banishment He spoke some sort of a curse when he did it - "

"Abi in malam crucem, confer te in exsilium, appropinquabit enim judicium Bael," I repeated

Ulfur&039;s eyebrows rose

"Basically it ment I went to a Catholic school," I explained when he looked ie of Latin "I can say &039;of the Antichrist&039; in ten different languages"

"How veryuseful"

"Preured hechick were &039;&039; hi to have to tell Jas that I saw a real prince He seemed kind ofevilfor a prince"

"He is evil," Ulfur said, slu onto my place on the rock "The title &039;prince&039; is an honorific, nothing more He&039;s the head de?"

"Its closest approxi with sudden horror "That guy was the devil?"