Demon Girl (23 page)

Someone dragged me backward, away from the
painless dark to the murky surface of consciousness. I felt
irritation. Who was taking me away from the peace of the dark? A
low buzzing grew louder and louder, until I could distinguish
words. My eyes flickered open. Tomas had my head clasped in his
hands, and his eyes were focused on mine. His hands, clothes and
skin were soaked in blood. Of course, only he would drag me back
from bliss to painful reality.

“You are bleeding,” he said. “But there is no
wound. It seeps through your skin.”

I was startled to see my top pushed up to
expose my midriff. Blood gushed to the ground in a dark puddle
beneath me. My blood, the source of the gushing blood was
me.
I went to speak, but the metallic taste of blood
silenced me. Should there be so much in my mouth? Looking down the
body I once saw as strong, I could barely move. In the low glow of
the moonlight from above, my skin was pale. My tail limply
flickered on the ground, and my wings were spread and crumpled,
they fluttered uselessly at my sides. I doubted it was a good look
for me.

“You’re still hungry,” I said
practically.

Tomas’s dark eyes bored into mine. “I am
fine.”

“You said you were hungry, and it’s just
going to waste. You need to be strong and quick in case Conall
doesn’t listen. Just don’t bite me, okay.”

After a few moments, I giggled. I was dying
and there was a vampire licking blood of my stomach. Tomas stopped,
and his blood smeared face peered at me with interest. The world
blurred at the edges. My lungs forced me to suck in air in shallow
pants, but they couldn’t fill.

A faint buzzing drew my attention. “…that is
enough for me,” Tomas said and leaned forward, slowly, to brush his
mouth against mine. His tongue licked over my lips and they parted.
He tasted salty, like blood.

I tried to smile, to show that I liked him
kissing me, but it was lopsided and brief. “I’ll b-bet you never
had this in mind when you came t-to find me. So far, all I’ve done
is g-get you into t-t-trouble.” I shivered and felt goose bumps pop
up all over me. Tomas frowned then shifted away, and started to rub
my arms and legs. His hands moved so fast they blurred.

After a while, when I stopped shaking, he
stopped and pulled me closer. He touched my ears and grinned, all
toothy. “I find I want you to live, Rae. I want–”

A fierce roar brought my head swinging round
to see a giant rushing forward, sword unsheathed and glinting in
the moonlight. He weaved through the trees like a ghostly phantom,
and was heading straight for us. Another phantom was close behind
him, Conall. His own weapon was drawn and he leaped forward with a
guttural cry when his eyes locked on Tomas. The world slowed to a
torturous pace.

My throat was on fire but I breathed a faint,
“No.” Just in time before the pressure of my emotions heightening
caused more pain, and my voice cut off.

Slamming to a stop, Conall’s demeanor
switched from death incarnate to wary so quickly, I wondered if I’d
started hallucinating. My vampire-boy crouched in front of me and
snarled so fiercely I was afraid to place my hand on him as I
staggered up, and draped myself over him.

“Not him,” I mumbled. “He helped me.”

Tomas’s hands were scrunched into claws, and
his body was statue still with either fear or rage. He shuffled
back and kept me with him. To get to Tomas, the fairy-man would
have to either hurt me, or haul me out the way. His sword swung
high. It looked like he was opting for decapitation.

Conall cried out, “Not her.”

The giant halted to complete stillness, and
his sword arm dropped. He breathed in deeply, and his face smoothed
from a snarl into a composed mask of cool indifference. “Peace,” he
said, voice booming and clutched his sword at the ready.

The pointed ears and radiant features named
the giant as a fairy-man. A magnificent mane of blonde of his hair
rippled down to his bare shoulders and his face was hard and
strong. Most arresting was that he had one blue eye and one green
eye. He made a short, commanding noise at Conall, who bowed his
head meekly. Then he headed straight for Breandan, and knelt down
to touch his chest. His brow furrowed and he murmured something too
quietly for me to hear. He stopped halfway and turned his head to
fix his blue eye on me.

I shrank away from the steely glare, for some
reason ashamed.

Tomas was tightly wound. Fangs fully
extended, eyes glazed over black and nostrils flared. So large and
dark were his eyes they made his skin paler, absorbing the
moonlight to radiate outwards. It was peculiar to see an immortal
react with such fear. If you didn’t have a stake around the only
other thing that could kill a vampire was fire. Or decapitation,
but that worked on pretty much every being.

Swallowing the bitter taste at the back of my
throat, I ignored nausea in the pit off my stomach. My eyes scanned
Conall’s face, looking for the kindly fairy I knew within this
monstrous warrior. Incomprehension was followed by anger at his
expression. His eyes flicked across Tomas with distaste, and in
them I saw death. His searching eyes met mine and his face filled
with pain.

“Conall,” I said softly. My knees trembled.
“You came. You heard me.”

He sheathed his sword in one fluid motion and
rushed to my side.

Tomas disentangled himself and stepped away
from me. The darkness that surrounded him, and me, wobbled then
retreated. Suddenly he was no longer so accessible to me. The
familiarity was gone, but there was something still tying me to
him, a poignant memory of the dark.

Conall narrowed his eyes to slits and looked
at the space surrounding me. Could he see the darkness? Mouth
pulled into a grim line he eased me onto the floor and tried to
make me comfortable, gently moving my wings. I gritted my teeth at
the sharp forks of pain that shot down my right pinion. My body was
battered and I was not healing.

“What has happened here?” he asked and eyed
Tomas with distaste.

“I wish I knew. I did something with magic
and I can’t say it was one of my brighter ideas. It hurts like
hell.”

He stared at me hard. Then he snorted. “You
have shared your life with Breandan, but you are not strong enough
to sustain it.”

I had? I nodded weakly and my attention
shifted to what the fairy-man was doing with my fairy-boy. He
winced at the pole and gingerly avoided touching it.

“It is iron,” he rumbled.

“Who are you?” I asked. When he did not
answer, the corners of my mouth pulled down but with no time to go
into the specifics of good manners, I turned to Conall, “We don’t
like iron?”

“It drains our strength and is poison to us.
It burns.” He paused and made a small waving gesture with his hand,
as if brushing off an errant thought. “There are stories of
iron-working fairies, but such a one is rare. I have never met one
in my lifetime.”

I remembered how weak I had felt when I
touched it, how all my energy had drained away. Then I remembered
the sizzling of flesh when Cleric Tu had cut Maeve’s face. Iron
drained our strength, and burned us when it touched an open wound.
How quickly would we die if it was to be stabbed into us, and was
there any other material that affected us so? I shuddered for the
thought was hideous.

“I want you to be honest with me, I’m not too
late? I mean, you can save Breandan?”

He nodded, hesitantly. “I will try, but I do
not think you will like me for being able to soon.” He smiled. “I
did not teach you to call to another, you taught yourself?”

I grinned back at him, proud. “All I need was
to be calm and focused.”

My eyes darted to Tomas. I could not have
done it without him.

The world blacked out, a scary thing to
happen with your eyes wide open, blood pooling around you and your
failing heartbeat thumping in your ears. A sweep of cold brought me
to. Tomas’s hand was leaving my forehead.

Conall smacked his hand away. Hissed. “Watch
yourself,” he said.

Tomas tried to touch me again with the same
result. “Touch me again and you’ll lose that hand, fairy,” he
growled and rolled onto his haunches.

I couldn’t bear it if they started fighting.
The importance of the moment held fast I opened my mouth. “Please
stop.”

All eyes snapped to my face.

The fairy-man stood, and lifted his chin at
Conall, before glaring at me again. I took in the hard angles of
his face, and the blue eye that held the warmth of a glacier, not
that the green was anymore soothing. The proud set of his mouth,
the shape of his jaw was so familiar I could reach out, close my
eyes and map the dimensions.

“You should not be here,” Conall said to
Tomas and firmly pressed down on my chest wound. I barely felt the
pressure of his hand.

The numbness was back, a light, seeping
sensation that flowed steadily over me.

“I would rather face the sun then watch what
is about to happen, but I cannot leave.”

My mouth dried up. Sweat beaded my brow and
ran down my temples. “What shouldn’t he see?” I asked Conall in a
small voice.

“Are you sure you wish for me to do this?” he
asked the fairy-man, ignoring me.

He sniffed and crossed his arms across his
bared chest. The muscles in his arms rippled. “You are better at
healing than I. I want him whole so I can tear him apart
myself.”

Conall fell silent, the corner of his mouth
curving up. Kneeling between Breandan and I, holding a hand over
each our brows and chanted something rhythmic and urgent. The life
in the forest was suspended. I sensed it was going to happen, that
big pain that made you sick just to think of it. I was feeling
everything Breandan felt. I’d bound my body to him and now I was
dying alongside him. They were going to pull the iron pole out of
Breandan and it was going to hurt. A lot. He was unconscious. I was
not.

“Don’t let them,” I whispered.

Tomas could hear me, of course, but he was
focused hard on the middle distance. I tried to yank on his arm but
my fingers merely brushed his skin.

He looked down at me. His eyes burned against
his stark white skin. “It’ll only hurt for a little while,” he
said.

I stared at him. He was not going to help
me.

“Take your hands off me. Let me go right
now.” I wiggled with renewed vigor fed by fear, and all I could do
is kick the air. “Please don’t hurt me anymore.”

Tomas’s heavy hands held my shoulders
down.

The fairy-man gripped the iron pole. My
stomach dropped and my heart leaped into my throat. I felt the
blood drain from my head.

I screamed, “Don’t!”

He cried out something harshly as he yanked
the iron from Breandan’s chest. My torso jerked violently. My eyes
bulged and tried to escape their sockets. Stomach squeezing into
nothing every muscle in my body clenched. My insides wrenched, and
my heart just – stopped. Tomas held my thrashing body by the
shoulders, pushing me down onto the damp, mossy floor. Conall spun
round, took Breandan’s head in both hands and roared. The sound was
deep, vex and violent. Breandan’s back contorted, arced off the
floor. Writhing in agony a silent screech of pain deformed his
expression. He convulsed then became languid.

Conall slumped, pressing his head on the
ground.

The pain released me, and the absence of hurt
was stark. I curled into a ball. Peering into Tomas’s face,
remarkably, my thoughts were clear and focused. I had survived the
ordeal and it had felt like the end. What would have happened to
Breandan?

“The next words coming out of your mouth need
to be telling me he’s okay,” I said.

He glanced over her shoulder. There was a
beat where he stilled and everything around me disintegrated but
then, he breathed out and nodded. “He lives,” he said and slid
back.

I craned my neck to see around him, and for a
moment all I could see was the broad back of the fairy-man, huddled
over and blocking Breandan from my sight. Hissing in anger, I
surged onto all fours. And then he shifted to the side, holding
Breandan by the arm. He said something close to Breandan’s ear, and
my fairy-boy started, looked around wildly before our gazes
locked.

I crawled forward, the effort sweetly
painful. The closer I got the brighter his skin glowed. I sprung
up, stumbled, and slid on a branch. Legs wobbling my tail twitched
madly. The glow of Breandan’s skin increased. He sat on his knees
swaying; opening out his arms his face brimmed with emotion as I
fell into them. The moment he clutched me I pressed my eyes closed
at the brilliant light that blasted from our joined bodies, and the
power that flowed through me was hot and eager. It flared, rubbing
at my nature until I found myself digging my fingers into
Breandan’s back for fear it would sweep me away.

A startled yell echoed into the trees, and a
flock of nesting birds took off into the sky. The energy drained,
the light cut off and it was dark. I opened my eyes, and as my
vision corrected itself I blinked to help it along.

My gaze travelled down to see someone
sprawled on the floor. Tomas, whorls of sweet smelling smoke
emanated rising from his body, was face up and motionless. I jerked
from Breandan’s grip and crawled toward him. Opening his eyes he
groaned. I stopped, wary. Lightening patches on his ivory skin
healed as he jumped up and wobbled unsteadily. He scowled, plainly
troubled at his own lack of dexterity. He saw me, half reaching out
to him and half holding back.

“I’ll need to feed again,” he said
quietly.

My heart back flipped in my chest. I had a
flash of memory, his fangs sinking into my flesh and shivered.

“Then do not let us keep you,” said the
fairy-man before I could answer.

Tomas’s gaze twitched from mine, and he bowed
his head in a show of respect. “The girl and I have personal
business to attend to,” he said with more than a hint of ownership
in his voice. “I cannot leave.”