The Demon Girl

by Penelope Fletcher

  “Go on,” I huffed, bad naturedly.

  “We used to be human, but changed and became vampire. We are not infectious. I cannot turn you; I am what I am because of genetics. Just like shifters are born human then discover the ability to change form, we too are born human and change at some significant point in our lives.”

  “You mean, you’re not dead?”

  He did one of those fast and annoyed movements with his hand. “Yes. My human body died.”

  That explained a lot. “Oh, well, um sorry about that.” It was an awkward moment for me, though Tomas seemed at ease. I talked over it, “But that does not explain why you’re dying.”

  “What do we eat?”

  “Blood.”

  “Yes. Where do we get blood?”

  I tapped my foot and rolled my eyes. He was leading me somewhere and was opting for the prolonged and dramatic route instead of spitting it out. “You drink from humans.”

  “Where do the survivors of the humankind live?”

  I stared at him like he was dumb. “Uh, behind the Wall–”

  It hit me between the eyes like a flying brick. Vampirekind had lost their food source. During the Rupture the demons, vampires in particular, had all but made humans extinct. Now they were paying the price for the humans had locked themselves away from the rest of the world.

  “You see,” he said. “We are starving. Some humans are gifted in magics and become witches. There were some vampires who could touch the Source before they turned, and we have such a one in the nest I was born into, gifted with the Sight. She saw you in my future, though she never said anything about the blood we have shared. You are the key to my survival.” He touched a cold hand to my lips. “Rae, you will save me.”

  Oh gods. I opened my mouth then closed it again. I forgot what he was and prodded him in the chest. “You didn’t think to tell me this earlier?”

  “I told you it was important.”

  “No,” I hissed.

  “You said yourself. I took a great risk diving through the Wall so I could meet you. I’d been trying for a month. I have fairies hunting me. I slept in a wardrobe. Of course what I have to tell you is important.”

  “Well yeah, but I figured you were going to spew some vampire crap about some bad vampire hurting lots of good vampires, and that maybe you wanted me to get the fairies to help. I didn’t realize it would be something as huge as saving your life. The gods damn it, Tomas.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “Figure out how to call a fairy to come fix Breandan.”

  “Good idea. He does not have much time left.” He sounded positively happy at the idea. I glowered at him at he smiled. It was not a beautiful smile, but one of charm and my lip twitched. “Will you call to someone in particular?”

  I thought about it. “I’ve only met one other fairy and he knew loads. Breandan trusts him. He’ll have to do.”

  I closed my eyes. Time passed and nothing happened. I rubbed my temples and resisted the urge to hum.

  Tomas sniffed the air. “No magic?”

  I shifted on the spot then sat down. Folding my legs beneath me I closed my eyes again. “I haven’t touched the Source yet. I was…centering myself.”

  Lie, lie, lie. I was trying to figure out what the hell to do next, because I had no clue what I was doing. After a few minutes I still had done nothing. I didn’t want to call on the Source because I didn’t know what to do with it, and I didn’t want to make anything bad happen. There was no conscious fairy nearby to fix my mistakes. Urgh.

  Tomas sat behind me and pulled me onto his lap. I stiffened and my eyes opened. He reclined against a tree, pulling me with him.

  “You need to calm down,” he said. I looked over at Breandan, who rested so still a few paces away. I could barely hear him breathe, and I was expected to be calm? Tomas placed both hands either side of my face. They were cold, and felt wonderful against my warm cheeks. He sighed. “Relax, and do what you need to do.”

  With no more time to lose, I closed my eyes and gasped as pure, blistering energy filled me the instant I reached to the Source. I was learning intense anger or fear helped to focus my mind. I drifted from my body, and sought out the memory I instinctively knew would help me find Conall. Suddenly he was there, aware of me and I locked onto the tenor of his mind like a homing beacon. I reached my hand to touch.

  “Conall,” I said and he whirled round. “Conall,” I called louder. The energy felt like a thrashing rope, crackling and fighting my control. “I need you, can you feel where I am? Find me.”

  Exhausted, I sobbed and snapped back into my own mind. I slouched backward and the forest canopy swung into view. Tomas caught me and rested me on the leaf-strewn floor next to him.

  “Did it work?” he asked close to my ear. “Keep your eyes open, Rae. Did it work?”

  Sighing, I didn’t have the energy to shrug. “I’m tired,” I said.

  “Rest then. I will watch over you.”

  I stared up at him. His face was already so dear to me. How could that be? He was not my kind; he wasn’t’ even human. Vampires were cold and deadly, and Tomas would have probably killed me if he had crossed my path in any other circumstance. What would I do when Breandan woke? Did I tell him about the kiss that set my heart on fire? Did I tell him the darkness that enveloped Tomas was now my darkness too? I sighed.

  Maybe it would be best if I closed my eyes and never opened them again. Life was too complicated. I felt strongly for Breandan. When I was with him here was no one else. But it was the same with Tomas. Oh gods what was I going to do?

  Then pain sliced through everything. Breandan was getting worse, much worse. Gulping air, I focused on the shiny space in front of me rather than how difficult it was to breathe. My heart pumped hard and tried to punch through my chest. I clutched at it and squeezed, hoping the pressure would help. It sped up. There was a distant keening in my ears. It tasted like someone had just shoved a fist full of metal into my mouth. Faint, but growing louder was sound of my heartbeat. My vision blinkered, and my heart slowed enough to feel comfortable. A cloying numbness seeped through my limbs, and the darkness hovering at the edge of my vision looked inviting, sweet. I turned to embrace it and float within its cool nothingness.

  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 t
hey 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 tr
ied 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.