Mrs. P just looked confused.
“Well, you’re not getting her or the ring!” I declared, taking up a stand in front of her. I’d gathered up my arrows and wiped them off as best I could. Now I pulled my bow from my back, and nocked an arrow.
Bael smiled. If his smile as Barbie wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, the smile as his real self took at least five years off my life.
Behind me, Mrs. P gasped.
Rowan quickly moved in front of me, the dragons all taking their places around him, effectively providing a barrier between Bael and Mrs. P. May handed out the demons’ swords, which had been left behind when their bodies disappeared, to all the dragons, the women included. “My mate speaks the truth. You should leave now, Bael. You will not get what you came for. The ring will be broken and its essence locked away where you can’t get it.”
Bael’s upper lip curled. “You think to challenge me, dragon? I have more power than you can conceive of in your tiny mind.”
“Really?” Constantine drawled, facing him with an intractable expression. “Then why have you waited so long to reveal yourself? Why have you not taken the ring before this?”
“Because he didn’t know which of the priestesses held the ring,” Rowan said slowly, his voice gaining confidence as he spoke. Clearly, he’d figured out all the bits about which I was still fuzzy. “That’s why you killed the two who you saw speaking with us.”
“Oh,” I said, enlightenment dawning. “I thought it was the captain who killed them and tried to cover it up by making it look like it was someone else—”
Captain Kherty was close enough to hear our conversation. He turned a scowl on me that had me mouthing an apology at him.
“And if he couldn’t tell just by looking at the women which was the one he sought,” Rowan continued, warming to his exposition, “then I’d guess that meant that these great powers he holds aren’t quite so potent in the Underworld.”
“Powers based in another world never are as effective in other domains,” the First Dragon said, waving his hand toward the stairs.
“Hullo, what do we have here? Maat doing her thing already? I was told that you wouldn’t need me to run the others to the next world until tomorrow.” A man emerged from the stairs, a good-looking man of Egyptian heritage, his glossy black hair swept back from a high forehead. He was dressed casually in jeans and a blue silk shirt, and was accompanied by two men who clearly held the post of guards of some sort. They were dressed in what I thought of as ancient Egyptian outfits—the white linen kilted skirts, metal bracelets, and a wide gold necklet. Each had swords crossed on their respective backs, and they were bare-chested.
“Is that who I think that is?” I asked Rowan in a whisper.
“Osiris himself, I believe,” he answered.
“My beau!” Mrs. P squealed, and dashed toward Osiris.
He looked started for a moment, then his eyebrows rose. “By the gods, is it the chief priestess? Aset! I have not seen you in many centuries.”
I realized too late that she had run in front of me, and I lunged after her to stop her from getting near Bael, but I was too late. He moved more swiftly than I could follow, one moment standing next to Ken, the next across the deck with a knife held to Mrs. P’s neck. “I do not need magic to take what I want in this domain,” he snarled. “Stand back, or I will slay the woman. And unlike the others, she shall not rise again.”
“Can he do that?” I asked Rowan. “Kill her for good, I mean?”
He glanced toward Osiris. “I don’t know, but I’d guess he could.”
“Who is that man?” Osiris asked, squinting a little as he peered at Bael. He clucked his tongue and pulled a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket. “Eyesight isn’t what it used to be. The wife keeps telling me I should get myself that laser surgery… oh, he’s not a mortal, he’s a demon lord. Why is there a demon lord in my Underworld?”
“Hiya.” Gary rolled over to Osiris, beaming up at him. “I’m Gary. Well, Gareth really, but no one calls me that. I don’t know why there’s a demon lord here, but I did want to say that I really like your Underworld. It’s super interesting. I used to be with Asmodeus—did you know him? But then Bael over there killed him, and Connie and Bee took me in, and now we’re just one happy family. So, you’re Osiris himself! That has to be cool.”
Osiris considered Gary with pursed lips, and then said, “Ah. Just so. A head. Interesting choice of pets, dragon.”
Constantine looked martyred for a moment. “He has his moments.”
“I just wish I knew why demon lords and dragons and loose heads are running around and causing fights.” Osiris looked around as if someone would provide him the answer.
The First Dragon shook his head. “You really are out of touch, brother.”
“Brother?” I said, just as Bee said the exact same thing.