Demon Girl (5 page)

The world didn’t end. No one gasped or cried
out, and there was nothing to suggest anything was wrong anywhere
else in the world in that moment. My entire perception and
understanding of everything was shifting into a new alignment, but
that did not affect anything or anyone but me. My eyes were drawn
to Breandan’s face. We stared at each other. Over the worst of my
freak out, I had decided to make everything his fault, and I
wondered what part of him to hit first.

His expression turned from wary to amused.
“See, you’re not surprised. You knew you were different.”

I ducked my head to let my hair fall forward
and cover my face. “I wish I’d reacted with hysteria now, like
stabbed you with a stick and run screaming.”

Lips curving he shook his head once. “You’re
taking this well,” he explained.

“Better than we’d hoped for.” I opened my
mouth to ask who this “we” was he kept referring to, but he kept on
talking. “The world has changed with demons out in the open and the
fact you are training to be–” His expression hardened briefly.
“Your reaction is not what I expected, good, but unexpected.”

“What did you think I would do?”

He shrugged. “Violence.”

The word described how I would have expected
to react, but I didn’t feel aggressive. I was exhausted, confused
and a little giddy. Maybe I was having a vivid dream, or an outer
body experience. “Give me longer, I’m working up to it.”

“Do you want to talk about it? That helps
females.”

His eyes fell from mine as the violence he
was waiting for seeped through my calm and poisoned my voice. “No.”
I threw the word at him with the force of an accusation.

“I’m sorry.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You need to work on the
whole speaking plainly thing.”

“The awakening was painful for you.” His
mouth twisted around the word. “Your nature should not have been
released so crudely without you knowing what you truly are. It may
seem like I’m being cruel with my words, but we don’t have a lot of
time and now you have broken the spell you will find it harder to
conceal what you are.”

It was like he was speaking dead languages to
me. One minute, I understood and followed his train of thought, the
next I was being dunked head first into the sea when I’d thought I
was standing in a field.

“You’re not making any sense. You talk like I
already know what you’re referring to. And I don’t.”

“Your true form was concealed, a powerful
casting. It suppressed and hid your fairy nature to keep you
safe.”

I bit my lip. “I really am a fairy too?”

“What else would you be?”

I stopped, and my fingers curled under into
fists. “You called me a demon girl. I could be a shifter, or have
goblin blood or be a witch.” I sniffled. Unattractive, but needed
since my nose was running. I was still trying not to cry, and the
stinging pressure had to be released somehow.

My voice was muffled and my nose felt thick.
“They all look human too.”

“Oh, Rae. You look like a human because of
your glamour.”

My frustration was replaced with confusion
and curiosity. “My glamour?” I waited for him to elaborate. He said
nothing. I did the only thing I could do and applied logic to try
and understand. I felt sick.

“Vampires can do what you describe. Glamour a
human when they need to trick and feed.”

Was that it? I was I some freaky
vampire-fairy hybrid that was going to go mad and massacre a load
of people?

“No.” His hand cut the air in a strong
motion. “What you refer to is purely mind control. The dead ones
dress up compulsion to make it seem harmless. Fairy glamour is a
small enchantment allowing us to look completely human.” He placed
a hand to his heart, to his lips and reached as if to touch me.
“Magic to our being is air to breathe and water to drink.”

The barrier over him rippled again.

“The glamour is that shield over you.” My
hand swiped feebly but the curiosity in my tone was evident. “The
barrier I can’t see through or feel.” His mouth tugged into a
secret smile. Then he looked back over his shoulder, tapped his
foot impatiently. I frowned. “You still need to go after the
vampire you sensed back there?”

His face smoothed into relief. “Yes, yes I
do.”

“Then show me. Prove what you are.” I stopped
and crossed my arms over my chest. “The quicker you do the quicker
you can go.”

Breandan took a long look at me then glowed
with an inner light. His face was fiercely beautiful, the perfect
features sharpened. His ears had elongated, pointed at the tips and
curved into a slender elliptical shape. He looked different.
Other.

The desire to hold him had increased in
pressure, and was a force attacking all angles.

“Why do I feel like this?” I asked quietly.
“I don’t think I even
like
you. How can I feel like this?
Like I’ve known you my whole life. When you touch me I feel
complete. When you speak, I accept everything because you said
it.”

“The feeling of dislike is mutual, but I’m
beginning to think I was born for you.” He sighed. “This will not
be easy. Of course I would be the one to see you first.”

He pointed to somewhere behind me and turned
his head slowly from left to right, like he was considering
something. I looked over my shoulder. We had reached the Wall and
the sudden crackling energy in the air allowed me to sense he was
doing something big. The red wires stopped humming and cooled to
pewter metal instead blazing red with electricity. The wires pinged
and unraveled leaving a hole big enough for me to pass through at a
stoop.

He jerked his head toward it. “Go now. Be
safe and we will come for you.”

Then he was gone. Apparently fairies didn’t
do long goodbyes. He was there then he wasn’t.

I was alone again in the forest but at least
I wasn’t lost anymore. The sun was nearly done creeping up too. I
slipped through the hole in the Wall, and the moment I did it
knitted back together, but not before a dark streak dived
through.

Every hair on my body stood on end. This was
no fairy or Cleric. The movement was too liquid and quick to belong
to anything, but a dead one. All I could think was
run
. I
turned, tripped over a tree root and fell flat on my face. A mouth
full of dirt, I crawled forward then decided I wanted to see it
coming rather than be jumped from behind, and flipped round to
scuttle back.

The vampire loomed over me, silent and
deadly. He was dressed all in black and the space around him pulsed
with darkness. Gesturing to me, his fingers were palm up and they
curled around the air.

“Quiet, now,” he said. “It is not what you
think. I would have revealed myself in a less dramatic manner, but
the tear the fairy made was closing, and I did not have another
way.” His somber expression lightened and his eyes twinkled. “I
have already eaten, a skinny girl, bitter.”

I shrieked and scrambled back some more. My
hands were scraped and gouged by stones and bracken, but the flares
of heat a second after told me I was healing. The vampire followed
me, human slow so my eyes could track his movement. I’d heard they
liked to torment their meals. Make them beg and scream for death
before putting them out of their misery.

“You are being rude,” he said shortly. “Will
you not talk to me?”

I blinked, astonished, and stopped moving.
“Huh,” I grunted, incredulous. “I’m about to die and you think I’m
being
rude
by not talking to you?”

If I was in my right mind I would never
back-chat the living dead, but I was shaking with fear and pretty
sure I was about to pee myself.

Back-chat didn’t seem bad anymore.

His face remained passive. “I am death to
those who cross my path.” My heartbeat picked up as if to emphasize
the point. His mouth pulled into a grim line. “I do not deny what I
am. I embrace it, but I have not come here to hurt you. I told you.
I have already eaten.”

I started backing up again. It was stupid me
crawling back and he walking after me, but now I was over the
initial shock, I couldn’t get my body to stop. “Forgive me for not
wanting to trust you, but your kind and my kind haven’t exactly
seen eye to eye.” As I spoke I wasn’t sure if I meant humankind or
fairykind, but I was sure the relationship with the vampires was
about on par.

His lips quirked then fell straight. “No. I
suppose not. Would it help if I gave you my word?”

He stopped and held out a hand to help me
up.

I thought about it and managed to stop
crawling. My arms were tired, my ass was damp from being dragged
across the forest floor, and I was pretty sure I had a spider
crawling up my back. I sighed and tossed my head to get the hair
out of my eyes.

“No, it would not help, but I’m tired of
being on the ground, and if you’re going to eat me I’d rather be
upright with my head held high.”

I clasped his hand and curled my fingers
around his. They were rock solid, cold. He pulled me up and my legs
wobbled, so his other hand snagged my waist to steady me. For a
moment I stood, but was weightless. The sensation was unusual. I
scowled and stared into the face of my vampire. He was older than
me, not by much and he was ugly. Swept back from his forehead and
longer than fashionable, his hair was coal black, and cut close at
the neck. His eyes were red ringed, like he was sickly, and had a
peculiar stillness about them. He hadn’t blinked, not once since
he’d first revealed himself to me. His eyebrows were thick and
dark, as was the smattering of hair on his chin, which had a deep
cleft. His brow jutted out from his face and his cheeks were gaunt,
giving him a look of the starved. It was a strong face but one that
did not appeal to me.

Straightening, I pulled myself from his grip
and knocked his hands away. A faint, dry scent hit the back of my
throat and my hackles rose. Swallowing hard, my eyes left his as I
controlled the sudden urge to launch myself at him. To rip, bite
and tear. A manic giggle bubbled in my chest. The thought of
launching yourself at a vampire was ridiculous and suicidal, but my
body was seriously contemplating it. He brushed the hair out of my
eyes and I recoiled. He hadn’t made a move for a vein yet, but he
was a blood drinker, and I was full of blood. He flashed me a
smile, and his chalky lips framed pearly fangs flanked by two
smaller canines. They had run right out as he’d touched me. For a
moment I was overcome. I stared at them, the spiky tips resting on
his lower lip, a startling shade of ruby red. Everyone knew vampire
fangs ran out when they were mad or bloodlusty. Which was he?
Probably the latter, if he was mad my limbs would be scattered
across the forest floor by now.

“You’re going to kill me now,” I said
steadily.

I’d been through too much to deny that I was
living on borrowed time. To be honest I was waiting for the hammer
to fall. I would die there, food for the vampire-boy the fairy-boy
was hunting. Breandan would return eventually, like he promised and
find my rotted corpse. Would he be sad? Would he and the ‘we’ he’d
referred to, lament over my body. Would they give me a proper
burial? After all he had said I was like him, fairykind too. In my
last moments of life pondering on how I felt about being named a
demon, I did not feel disgust or fear, but sort of a resigned
relief. I was no longer a freaky human girl, but a demon. My
strangeness made perfect sense now.

“I am not going to kill you.”

The vampire had spoken. It took me a while to
realize he had, because my last words had been a statement not a
question. And even if he’d interpreted it as a question, it was
clearly rhetorical. I was living my last moments and the flashbacks
of my life were about to commence, so the interruption was not
appreciated. But since he’d spoken again I felt obliged to say
something back, and I was getting used to conversations with
strangers.

“Why?” I asked genuinely puzzled. “You didn’t
dive through that hole for fun. If the wires had caught you, you’d
have set off the klaxon and had Clerics with stakes and silver on
your ass until you were ash. Vampires don’t seem the
self-sacrificing kind to me. Plus, the sun is rising.” I pointed
east. “You don’t have much time, and to be out this early, or late,
you must be super hungry to risk the true death. Or suicidal. Which
brings me back to the fact you guys are big on the self
preservation.”

He made a low rumbling noise and his
shoulders shook. It was laughter, and it was gruesome and wretched.
“I have been looking for you.”

I thought about this. For a vampire to be
looking for you and not hunting you, was unheard of. It was
intriguing and I knew then curiosity was about to get me into more
trouble.

“You’re not the first to try that line today.
You demons know how to flatter a girl.”

He growled a little. “Fairies.” He said the
word like a curse.

I sighed again, exaggerating the rise and
fall of my shoulders. Fine, my tribulations for the morning were
not over. I could deal with that, but I needed the safety of Temple
walls. The forest was no longer comforting, but alien and
hostile.

“If you’re not going to eat me would you mind
if we walked and talked? I’m tired but have to keep going, or I’ll
be late for class.”

He remained still and peered past me into the
trees. I found it hard to read his face. His expression was not
worried, but I thought it brooding, or rather, preoccupied with
being anxious about something.

“I need to find a dark place. A safe
place.”

The dead and the sunlight didn’t mix well.
They burned, badly, and burst into extravagant blue and red flames.
Then their blackened corpses flaked into ash. I could see why he
might be anxious to find a ‘dark place’ as he put it.