Epilogue: The High Lord of Hell

"Althea," Saetan said quietly, bowing. "Thank you for coming. I have a favor to ask."

"Anything for the High Lord," the Harpy Queen said, returning the gesture. "Does this have anything to do with your granddaughter?"

"Yes," he said and the air chilled in the room. "It has everything to do with my granddaughter."

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"Let them loose," Althea ordered the harpies. The hell hounds bound out of their dens and gathered around her, sniffing the sheet she held in her hands, learning the male scent imbedded in it. With a blood chilling howl, they bounded through the Gateway one of the harpy Priestesses had opened into Kaeleer, their mistresses hard at their heels.

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They were gaining on him.

They were after him, dogs as black as midnight with red eyes, lean and fit, with teeth that sliced through flesh like a hot knife through butter. He cradled his left arm against his chest as he ran. It was still bleeding, though he had wrapped it in a shield of his Green Jewels. He shuddered as a blast of Green power hit his shields. Damn. Calling on all his energy, he put on a burst of speed. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

They were gaining on him.

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The Queen surveyed the work of her hounds. The male was up a tree, as high as he could get without resorting to his Jewels to help the branches hold his weight. She examined him, her eyes narrowed.

He looked about middling height with bright green eyes. His hair was a deep red-brown, a pleasing shade with his eyes. The Green ring on his hand looked drained but the Jewel around his neck still shone with power. She smiled and fingered her Jewels. This would be fun.

"Nif," she ordered as she dropped her sight shield, leaving her psychic shield so he wouldn't know her strength. Immediately, the hounds sat on their hunches and looked up at her with adoring eyes. She smiled. It hadn't taken much to get the hounds to love her and now they obeyed her every command. She patted the head on the leader of the pack and planted her feet before the tree, looking up into the branches.

"Come down," she commanded. The male laughed.

"You are crazy if you think I will come down with those beasts around."

"You have committed a crime that deserves death," she said coolly.

"I have done nothing."

"The hounds never mistake a scent. The High Lord gave me your scent and I gave it to the hounds. They are never wrong."

"Why would the High Lord want me?" he demanded, slipping down to a lower branch. One of the hounds, a bitch who had never been on a hunt before, jumped up and growled. Althea snapped her fingers. The bitch whined and lay down, chastised.

"You raped and shattered the granddaughter of the High Lord," she said evenly. The man laughed again.

"That bitch? She was barely worth my time. I was bored and it was so easy to get her to sleep with me." He gave her a wicked smile. "What happens, happens. It was an accident, but its done now. Let me go on my way, there is no law against what I did."

Althea gave him a cold smile and dropped her shield, releasing a bolt of Green fire at him. He screamed as it hit him and he tumbled from the tree. The hounds growled and whined, eager to finish the hunt but Althea ignored them. She doused the fire and called in her hunting knife.

"I am the Queen of the Harpies," she told him as she prepared the knife for carving. "I have the power of the High Lord of Hell behind me for this. He is the one who ordered your execution. He is a Black Jeweled Warlord Prince. He can do whatever the hell he wants."

Slowly, carefully, making sure the man was awake for every minute of it, she carved him into small pieces. When he finally lost consciousness, she slit her wrist and dribbled a few drops of blood in to his mouth, to help him make the transformation from living to demon dead. She called to the other harpies to take the hounds away, all but the leader. He, she kept by her, waiting for the man to reawake.

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Life was slowly coming back to him and he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the bitch queen and one of her demon dogs. She gave him a cold smile and lifted his head. He looked down and screamed.

His body was carved into tiny pieces. He tried to turn his head but failed. The bitch smiled again and gathered the pieces into a chest and vanished it. She tucked his head under her arm and, wrapping a shield around her dog, caught the Green wind.

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Saetan looked up when his study door banged open. He took off his half-moon glasses and studied the bloody harpy with a head under her arm and a giant hell hound at her side.

"Althea, how can I help you?" he said evenly, not sure how to react to her abrupt entrance. She gave him a cold smile and dropped the head on his desk. Saetan examined the snarling head and raised an eyebrow.

"He is demon-dead?" he asked casually. She nodded.

"One death didn't seem enough."

"No, it isn't." He turned his attention to the head.

"Why?"

"I don't have to tell you anything," he snarled. Saetan sighed.

"This can be very difficult for you, if you resist. I will just take the information out of your mind."

"Go ahead, I have nothing to say to you," he said defiantly. Saetan shrugged and gathered his power. With a flick of the Black, the man's inner barriers sprang open. Ignoring the man's screams of pain, Saetan dug ruthlessly, searching for the answers to his questions. Finally, when he found it, he withdrew from the man's mind and unleashed his Black power, letting his mind burn with witchfire before finishing the kill and sending him back to be a whisper in the Darkness. Saetan looked up at Althea, who was stroking her hell hound.

"I must go to my daughter," he said evenly and glided from the room.