The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1) (6 page)

Fynn finally closed her eyes. She let the tenderness of Komo’s voice carry her away from the bounds of reason. Her heart broke to pieces all over again, but that was always the sacrifice that she bore to hear him play.

And it was worth it. It was so worth it.

The music took Fynn back to when she loved Komo. It took her back to when Komo was her own private emperor god, ruler of her happiness and her heart.

At first, he had been her protector. Two years after the demon infection, Fynn huddled alone under the eaves of an abandoned mini mall in the rain. A black SUV veered into the crumbling parking lot. Water seeped into her worn boots as she tried to run. The Keep disciples caught her before she made it to the street.

In the van, they plied her with hot cocoa and soft blankets around her shoulders. Rain dripped from the ends of her hair onto the leather seat. Hunger cramps seized her stomach at the smell of the milk chocolate, but she begged the disciples to let her go. Let her go. Tell her mother to pretend she was dead, have another daughter, and remake the Three that way. She would never stop running.

From the back seat, a low, rumbling voice began a familiar song of praise to the goddess. Goddess of the Three, come to me. Fynn bent her head, shaking. Komo encircled his arms around her from behind. He murmured into her ear. It was going to be okay. Mother Brigid was letting them go away to school together. They had each other now.

Komo held her on the long drive to the Athenian School in the north. He clasped her hand as they entered the school’s grand doorway, and he stayed by her side in the commons as they waited for their rooms. Students surrounded them in the communal space, staring and whispering among themselves.

They are so beautiful, the other students said. Some of them were incarnations of the Divine, as well, but none as famous as the children of Dionysus and Brigid. They were celebrities in the school from that first night, until Fynn’s sullen rebuffs turned everyone away. She did her schoolwork. She even excelled in her studies, but she only wanted to hang out with Komo. She didn’t care if anyone understood or not.

Komo and Fynn met after classes in the surrounding redwood forest, where he played on his acoustic guitar the new music he was working on for an album. They kissed under the trees and made plans for where they would go after graduation. Mother Brigid wanted Komo to ignore the Hollywood music producers calling to offer him studio recordings and world tours. She said the business would corrupt his gift.

“Your mother told me that I have to be careful because of what happened to my father,” Komo said while he played, his notes rising to the tops of the trees. “She says addictions run in my family.”

But Komo and Fynn decided together that they would ignore Mother Brigid’s warnings. They were going to move to L.A., live by the sea in Venice. He would make his albums, but he wouldn’t let them take his soul, as Mother Brigid warned him. He would have Fynn there to help him stay strong. Fynn would take care of him. He would respect Mother’s wishes and he would stay innocent, they both would. They would live together and make music and art and love. Everyone would love them and they would forget about the story fires and the demon hordes forever.

On the last day of school, Fynn tramped along the trail under the redwood canopy. Komo said to meet him at the amphitheater and she was breathless. She’d found a patch of windflowers on the way, purple daisies that looked like anemones growing in the meadow. They were a symbol of her family and she’d made a necklace of them for Komo to wear. Stringing the blooms together made her late and she ran the last stretch of the path straight into the amphitheater - only to find Komo on the stage straddled by a girl from their art history class, his pants around his thighs, the girl moaning.

The windflowers fell from Fynn’s hand. Her boot heels crushed the wilted petals as she disappeared into the forest like an ugly demon-tainted thing that, of course, Komo didn’t love. It didn’t matter what they shared or the things they knew that no one else understood. He was the child of a god. He could have anyone he wanted.

Of course he didn’t love her.

The girl’s laughter and cries of ecstasy echoed through the cathedral of trees as Fynn turned and ran.

Komo’s voice swept the memory Fynn had of being a plain girl with strange blood, running away alone, with no one caring enough to chase her anymore. Under Komo’s spell, she could only remember long nights of surfing under the moonlight and then stretching her body beneath his hands in the meadow, his calloused fingers playing music across her skin.

***

Fynn stood breathless at the lip of the empty stage. He had to come out again. There had to be an encore because it was impossible that the show was over. He couldn’t be gone. The lights had been up for ten minutes, but the audience milled around like sleepwalkers refusing to wake up from a beautiful dream.

A woman who looked like an Amazon Tinker Bell in a pinstripe suit appeared beside Fynn, tugging her arm. “Komo wants you,” she said. “Will you come with me?” She wasn’t really asking. She pinched Fynn’s elbow, pushing through the sloshing drinks and confusion of the crowd. Fynn thought Cara followed, until they slipped through a side door into a dark hall.

“I’ll go back for your friend,” the woman said. She shoved on a heavy door that opened into an alley. A black limousine idled with its door open, puffing exhaust into the night air.

The cries of fans echoed down the long passage. Komo’s name bounced off the walls.

“Hurry, Fynn.” It was Komo in the back. “Get in before they see you.” His voice was jagged. She wondered just how aggressive his fan base could get. They sounded out of their minds. She climbed in the car.

“Go,” Komo ordered. As soon as the woman slammed the door, the car lurched forward. Fynn fell onto Komo, clutching the soft worn cotton of his t-shirt. His strong hands braced her shoulders.

“Careful,” he said.

The driver veered right to avoid a cluster of fans spilling off the sidewalk. Fynn fell across Komo’s lap. He started to sing. The music rumbled in his chest.

“You are my goddess little fire girl . . .”

Fynn slammed herself back into the seat across from him. He wouldn’t get by so easy with her. She wasn’t one of the adoring masses. They had too much of a past for that. “Where have you been? I thought you were dead.”

“It’s nice to see you, too,” he said. His dark honey-colored eyes crinkled at the edges. He handed over an open bottle of wine. She took a long drink before setting it down. Komo always had the best. The heat of the wine eased her stomach. She rested her head against the seat to savor the taste.

He looked the same as always, sprawled in the back of the outsized limo. The space too narrow for his arms and legs. He smiled like she was the one doing him a favor just by letting him watch her drink.

“You cause a serious scene,” she said, clearing her throat. “People were going crazy.” She wondered about Cara. She should not have left her back at the club alone.

“Your friend is going to the same place we are,” Komo said. “That lady in the suit is my manager, Cate. She’s taking care of everything. You don’t have to worry.”

“I hate it when you do that,” Fynn said. The years fell away like nothing. “Seriously. I hate it.”

“I was just answering your question.”

“One I didn’t ask out loud.”

Komo laughed. Fynn kicked his leg. He grabbed her wrist just so that she couldn’t move it without hurting. The dome lights lining the inside of the limo lit up his face. “Ah, Fynn. You haven’t changed. Still refusing to trust magic.”

She pulled out of his hold. “It’s not a matter of trust, Komo. I don’t want magic.”

His eyes turned to amber. “How can you say that?” he asked.

“Because I’m a grown-up,” she said.

“But you are so powerful,” he said. “I thought that by this time, you would understand.”

The sweater’s metal threads scraped her back. She put down her wine glass and pulled it off. “Those were games we played when we were kids, but I’m a research scientist now,” she said. She crossed her arms in front of the low-cut dress she was wearing. “My team just made a huge breakthrough in curing disease. There are people all over the world whose lives will be saved because of what we’ve done.” She hated that she sounded like a commercial for herself. Or worse, an infomercial for Cain Pharmaceuticals, but she kept a straight face. Komo couldn’t turn her into a nervous schoolgirl any more.

“But what about Brigid’s Keep?” He examined the sweater under the lights.

“I hardly ever see my mother and sister,” Fynn said. “And when I do, I’m always sorry.” She looked out the window at the moon scattering itself on the ocean waves below the winding cliff road. She wondered where they were headed, but was too annoyed to ask. He knew better than to think she’d take up with her mother’s religion again. He was there the day she became infected. He knew why she ran away from the Keep. He knew everything.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I love your family.”

“Really? Because if it were up to Mother Brigid, you wouldn’t be a rock star. You and I would both be at the Keep picking weeds in the potato patch and earning black belts in demon karate.”

“Is this yours?” he asked, pulling the black fuzzy web of the sweater apart in his hands.

“My friend gave it to me,” she said. “You’re messing it up.”

“Your friend is juicy,” he said.

“Right. Glad you noticed.” Fynn shook her head. After all this time, Komo’s lust for other women was still a punch in the stomach.

“This sweater has silver in it,” he said. He twisted one of the curly filaments between his thumb and forefinger. “So you didn’t see them, did you?”

“See what?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”

“The silver also explains why they didn’t see you.” He peeked through the holes in the black angora studded with starry threads. “Silver protects you to an extent, but it also blinds you.”

“You sound like my mother,” Fynn said. She remembered the weak charm of silver on the Unhuman. It was one of many bits of useless information her father the Story Keeper told around the bonfires. “I don’t worry about that stuff anymore.”

“Oh no? I’ll bet you felt the demons in the club, even if you couldn’t see them. Didn’t you feel cold? Didn’t you feel sick?”

Fynn wouldn’t deny it. Lying would do no good, but logical justifications might. “It was a cold room, Komo. And I’m not feeling great because I’m tired from working late nights at the lab.”

“Demons are better than air conditioning for the chill they make,” he said. “There were enough in that audience to poison a goddess, that’s for sure.”

“I’m not a goddess anymore,” Fynn said. Her mind flashed on the butterfly she’d touched in the morning sunlight.

“Tell that to the butterfly,” Komo said.

“Damn. Get out of my head.” Fynn balled her hands into fists. “I don’t do that to you. I could, but I don’t.” She wouldn’t, either. She didn’t want to. She was sure that if she’d read his mind for more than three seconds, then she would see something having to do with sex. Only not with her. Never with her. Fynn sighed, suddenly very tired.

“Why am I here?” she asked. “What do you want from me?”

Komo crossed over to her side. “I need you,” he said. This close, she could smell the cloves and ginger of his skin and the red wine on his breath. He lifted her fists from her lap and pried her fingers loose until they opened. He kissed each palm, his lips pressing against the tender skin. Electricity unwound through her body until it was difficult to breathe, except in shallow gasps. He did this to her. He did this to her every time.

“I need you,” he said into her open hands. Her heart leapt with hope and pure desire. Stones of resistance fell away, as he cupped her jaw in his hand. Komo loved her. It had taken him five years to realize it, but he needed her. After five years of patient waiting, she would marry him and take care of him forever. Her future as Komo’s wife unfurled in her mind in satin sheets and guitar music and songs written just for her.

He knelt with his forehead against her knee. “I need you,” he said again. She undid the leather tie holding his hair. He gathered her dress in his fists, his breath hot against her thigh.

“You played my song,” she said, her body aching.

“I told them to play it. I knew you were there. I could feel you.”

Fynn inhaled the spicy smokiness from the back of Komo’s neck. Heat flowed from her hands as she pressed them down his spine. His muscles rippled beneath his thin shirt. A thick fog of steam shrouded the windows.

“I need you,” he said.

“I need you, too.” She ran her fingers through his hair.

“I need you to be my bodyguard and fight the demons that are trying to kill me.”

Fynn shoved him away so hard, he hit his head on the window.

“Demons?” Her throat constricted. Her desire hardened into rage.

The bulbs of the inside dome lights exploded. Komo shielded his face from the flying bits of plastic and glass. Tiny fragments dusted his hair like glitter.

“Fynn, calm down,” Komo said. He brushed the pieces of broken light off his pants. “You always break stuff when you’re mad.”

“You have no idea what I always do. I didn’t touch those lights.”

“You didn’t have to,” Komo said. “Stop playing dumb.”

“Stop playing the fool,” she said.

He shook his great big head. He wasn’t fooling around. He was dead serious. Her face heated with shame. He didn’t really want her. He never had and he never would.

“This is why I came to St. Cocha,” he said. “I need your help. I was hoping to hire you.” He tried to recapture her hand, but she snatched it away. “I need you to be my personal anti-demon bodyguard.”

“You have plenty of bodyguards.”

“Not any who know about the Unhuman.”

“If you knew how much I hate that kind of talk, you wouldn’t even play me, Komo.”

“They’re everywhere. Why do you think I dropped out for so long? I was just getting started. I lost everything.”

“You dropped out because you thought demons were after you? I thought that was a publicity stunt.”