Cursed

by Sue Tingey

  Pablo stopped pulling on my arm and took the lamp from Duffus’ twin, lifting it up to peer at me. “Her clothes are pretty fine,” he admitted. “Though she looks like she’s been dragged through a corn field backward.”

  “Maybe she was thrown from her steed?” Duffus said.

  His twin fingered his chin, contemplating me with a frown. “Makes sense. Why else would she be out here all alone at this time of night?”

  “Well, she’s here, she’s alone and we’re in need of a bit of company. So, let’s get back to camp,” Pablo said and began to pull on my arm again.

  Company! I struggled against him. “Let go of me,” I said.

  “You going to make me?” Pablo said with a grin.

  I punched him hard on the upper arm and stamped down with all my strength on his foot. He let go of me with a yelp and I was off and running as fast as my legs would take me, praying that none of them had wings.

  Feet pounded behind me. The widening road was ahead of me, and as I broke out of the trees I could see the night sky. I was nearly out of the woods, but not out of trouble. In the human world I had gone running most nights, now I was glad of it. Even so, they were gaining on me; I could hear them getting closer. One of them was so confident he was whooping.

  I reached the tree line and was out into the open countryside. Decision time: did I keep to the road or veer off? Then my head snapped back and I was yanked backward by my hair. A pair of arms was wrapped around me and I was turned to face the way I’d come. In a moment, Duffus had caught up, with Pablo lumbering on behind.

  “Got ya.”

  “Let me go,” I said, struggling like a wild creature, all tiredness forgotten in the panic.

  “After making us work up an appetite, you’ve got to be joking,” the cocky twin whispered in my ear.

  Pablo had slowed down to a stroll now he knew I was well and truly caught. “Well done, Dags.”

  “You lay a finger on me and you’ll be really sorry,” I spat at him.

  “Really?” Pablo asked, and lifted his claw and extended a talon, “Like this you mean?” He leaned toward me and tapped the end of my nose with the nail. “Or like this?” He grabbed hold of my chin and pulled my face to his, planting a wet kiss on my lips and pressing his body against mine so I was sandwiched between him and his mate. I gritted my teeth together and squeezed my lips shut as I tried to twist my head away. He clasped the back of my head, holding me still, his tongue trying to push its way into my mouth.

  Then he froze. His claw dropped from my head and he took a step away from me. Eyes wide and staring into mine. “Let her go,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I said, let her go.” The arms dropped away from around me. Pablo’s nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “What are you? Who are you?”

  “What?” Dags repeated.

  “She’s marked,” Pablo said.

  “I told you—I told you she was trouble,” Duffus said.

  “Shut the fuck up, you idiot.”

  “Who do you belong to, popsy?” Pablo asked and reached out to touch my face again. He laid his palm against my cheek and I let him, hoping that if they knew who I was marked by, it might save me. This time he jerked away. He ran his tongue across his upper lip. His hand went to his belt and he pulled out a dagger.

  “What are you doing?” Duffus asked.

  “She’s marked by someone powerful. She is someone powerful.”

  “Then leave her be,” Duffus said, glancing from Pablo to me and back again, “before any harm’s done.”

  “Too late. No higher demon will allow this discourtesy against him to go unpunished.”

  “You kill me and they will hunt you down.”

  The twins exchanged worried looks. “Come on Pablo, leave her be. We’ve committed no offense as of yet. Hurt her and she’s right, they will hunt us down.”

  “Not if we kill her and burn her body. Then there will be no trail to us.”

  “So you say,” Duffus said.

  “Just shut your flapping chops.”

  “If we let you go will you promise to leave us be?” Duffus asked.

  “I said shut it,” Pablo snapped at him. “When will you learn that you can never trust a woman—whatever they say?”

  “Sexist dick,” I muttered.

  “What?” Pablo glared at me.

  “If you let me go, those whose marks I bear won’t come after you. For one thing they’ve better things to do,” I said.

  “Those? You are marked by two demons?” Dags said.

  “I thought as much,” Pablo said.

  “That’s not possible,” Dags said.

  “Seems it is,” Pablo said as he lifted the knife to my throat. “Now you understand why we have to kill her?”

  “No,” Duffus took a step away from me, palms raised. “Then we’ll have two demons wanting our heads and the law says they can take them.”

  “We can’t just let her go.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Well,” Dags said ignoring me, “if we’re going to kill her and risk the wrath of two powerful demons we might as well have some fun first to my way of thinking.”

  “Have you got shit for brains?” Duffus said.

  “Better than piss for courage and balls so small you can’t see them.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my balls,” the demon muttered.

  “Then prove it,” Dags said with a nod in my direction. Duffus backed up further, shaking his head as he went. If I shouted “boo” I was sure he’d bolt.

  Pablo grabbed hold of my arm. “You’re coming back to camp with us. We’ll have a nice drink and an even nicer time while we decide what to do with you.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “You expect me to let you take me back to your camp so you can have your fun and kill me? I don’t think so.” Then I wrenched my arm up and bit into the soft bit between his thumb and foreclaw very, very hard.

  He shrieked, let go of my arm and I turned, kneed Dags in the groin and pushed him away from me, then ran like hell, expecting a knife between the shoulder blades at any moment. I could hear someone coming after me, though I doubted it was Dags, he had crumpled into a moaning heap. I guessed it was Pablo: the dangerous one with the dagger.

  A cloud passed across the moons and for a moment or two I could hardly see the road ahead. I tripped on something, staggered, thought I was going to regain my balance and then was thrown forward as someone barreled into me.

  Lying face down in the dirt I felt him drop down astride me. “Bitch,” Pablo said, grabbing a fistful of my hair, pulling my head back and pressing his dagger to my throat.

  I tried pushing down with the palms of my hands to lever myself up, but it was no good. I was well and truly trapped.

  “Give us a hand,” I heard Pablo say, and to my relief the knife left my throat. The feeling was short-lived. Pablo shifted his weight to roll me over and Dags dropped down, his knees either side of my head as he grabbed my wrists and held them against his chest.

  “We’ll forgo the comfort of the fire and a nice drink to get you in the mood,” Pablo said ripping open my jacket, pulling my shirt out of my trousers and wrenching it apart, sending buttons flying.

  I tried to struggle, but Dags’ grip was so tight I was in danger of losing the blood flow to my hands and Pablo had shifted down my body so he was sitting on my thighs.

  “Interesting,” he said, looping a claw under the front of my bra, giving it a tug and then letting it go with an elastic twang. It was obviously too much like hard work for him to deal with as his attention wandered down to the button on my trousers. He leered down at me as he undid it.

  “No!” I cried. “You do and you’ll be sorry.”

  “Yes,” he said, undoing another button and another.

  “They’ll kill you for this,” I spat.

  “They’ll have to find us first.”

  “They will.”

  “Maybe,” he said, “but who’s to say t
hat when they do, we won’t kill them first?”

  I struggled beneath him and managed to wrench my right wrist free. I clawed at his face. I’d have done anything for my demon self’s sharp pointed nails, but my own found their mark and I felt flesh give as I raked them down his cheek.

  “Bitch!” he half screamed, and grabbing my chin smashed my head back down against the earth hard enough that I saw stars. “Hold her for fuck’s sake,” he said to Dags.

  Another cloud skittered across the moons so that all I could see was his teeth as he grinned down at me and opened another button. His weight shifted again as he grabbed the waistband and started to pull.

  “No, don’t!” I said.

  “Gonna beg? I like it when they beg, don’t you Dags?”

  “Yeah, and I think we should make this one beg a lot after what she did to my janglers.”

  “Go on, beg,” Pablo said and I clamped my lips tight shut. I was not going to give him the satisfaction.

  Another cloud blotted out the moon and a breeze disturbed the air as he lifted himself up again and tugged at my trousers. I clenched my eyes tight shut. I didn’t want to see his face. Didn’t want to see his expression as he did this to me.

  And suddenly Pablo was gone.

  “What the …” Dags said letting go of my wrists. “Pablo? Pablo!” and then there was a grunt and so was he.

  I lay there on the road for a few moments, eyes still tight shut. It was a trick. It must be a trick. I thought I heard a soft moan from somewhere far off to the right of the road, though it could have been the wind. I opened one eye and then the other. I was alone. I slowly sat up and looked around. I was totally alone. Where had they gone? Did I care?

  I got to my feet and pulled my trousers back into place, buttoning them up tight and tucking in my ruined shirt. To stop my shirt gaping open and exposing my bra I did up my jacket all the way to my throat.

  Then I began to shake and I could feel tears welling up.

  “Get a grip, Lucky,” I told myself, “get a grip.” They hadn’t taken from me what I had promised to two others. They hadn’t managed to violate me or murder me, or even really hurt me … but they so very nearly had and it scared me and I felt sick and lightheaded and I didn’t know what to do. I squeezed my eyes shut. I had to keep going, I just had to.

  I started to trudge along the road, but my boot kicked something that slid across the ground with a metallic rasp. A dagger. I crouched down and picked it up: Pablo’s dagger. I didn’t know what had happened to Pablo, but a weapon was good, so I shoved it into my belt. I’d come a long way from the woman—no, girl—I had been when I’d refused the dagger given to me on my first day in the Underlands.

  I had to get back. I had to get back to my men. I had to get back to Jamie and Jinx … and then I did begin to cry. What if I’d made them wait too long? I could so easily have lost what I’d been saving for them and what if they were dead? What if I’d lost them? What if we never shared that special moment together?

  I stopped, screwed my eyes shut and hugged myself as my shoulders began to heave. I had lost Pyrites and it could be I’d lost them all. What other reason could there be for them not coming to save me?

  “Lucky,” I heard a voice say from behind me. I stiffened. “Lucky?” No, it can’t be. It must be my imagination. It sounded like Jamie. I opened my eyes and turned back.

  And then I was in his arms and he was holding me tight and kissing me. “I thought I’d lost you, I thought I’d lost you,” he said and his kisses were no longer the gentle comforting kisses of an angel, but those of a red-blooded man who wanted me as much as I wanted him. And then, as if by divine intervention, it began to rain; not a splattering of raindrops, but a stair-rod downpour that had the pair of us soaked to the skin within seconds. Even my leather jacket was soaked through.

  He looked down at me, his arms still around me, the rain dripping off his hair and nose and gave a ragged sigh. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

  “What happened, Jamie? How come neither you nor Jinx came to save me at the inn?”

  “We heard Pyrites yell and you scream, but before we could move we were surrounded by a crowd of armed Sicarii and however hard we fought and cut our way through, more appeared. I didn’t want to leave Jinx and the others, but it got to the stage that I had no choice if I was to find you. Jinx made me go, he made me leave them.”

  “Will they be all right?” I asked through chattering teeth.

  Jamie hugged me to him, trying to keep me warm, though his skin felt just as chilled as mine. “I hope so.”

  “Pyrites,” I said, and my eyes filled with tears. “Pyrites is dead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “They shot him Jamie; they shot him full of arrows,” and I went on to tell him what happened in the yard at the back of the inn.

  By the time I had finished the rain had stopped and I was shivering with the cold.

  I wanted to ask what had happened to Pablo and Dags, but I didn’t have the heart … and I wasn’t sure I cared.

  Jamie saw me shivering and hugged me closer. “I need to get you back to the palace and out of those wet clothes.”

  At any other time I would have made some smart-alec comment, but my heart was too heavy and I didn’t think I would ever be able to smile again. I wrapped my arms around Jamie and in a moment we were in the sky and heading back to the palace.

  We flew back to the fortress and landed outside the back entrance to the palace.

  “Will Jinx and the others be here?”

  “If they fought the Sicarii off I’d imagine they’d be either in your chambers or at the inn. Or searching for us,” he said as an afterthought.

  Then something occurred to me. “Why didn’t Jinx just do that freezy, freezy thing that he does?”

  “He told you before. When Jinx calls upon his skills to bring a layer of death to our world anyone nearby who is ill or injured could bear the brunt. We were right outside the inn and he didn’t dare risk Odin.”

  It was very quiet in the corridors of the palace, but then it would be: it was the middle of the night. We passed a couple of guards, who watched us with bored eyes, and a few servants walking the hallways, but they were the sum of it. When we reached the room it was empty and I could tell by Jamie’s expression that this wasn’t a good thing. He tried to get me to take a bath, but I was having none of it. I needed to find Jinx, Shenanigans and Kerfuffle. He didn’t put up much of a fight; he wanted to find them too.

  I rubbed myself down with a towel and changed as quickly as I could, catching one brief glimpse of myself in the dressing room mirror. I wished I hadn’t: I could have been a corpse, my skin was so pale and my red-ringed eyes were underlined with purple smudges. My arms were covered with bruises and there was a dark patch on my right temple where I must have thumped it at some point. I almost wished my demon self would appear; she could only look better than I did.

  The inn wasn’t in darkness, for which I was grateful, as we could hardly wake Barron and his wife in the middle of the night.

  Jamie knocked on the door and after a couple of seconds a deep voice I recognized as Barron’s asked who was calling so late.

  “It’s me: James,” Jamie said.

  There was the sound of bolts being drawn and a key being turned and the door opened a crack and Barron’s face appeared. His worried expression relaxed and he pulled the door open and beckoned for us to come inside. “This way,” he said, leading us out to the back room. He pushed the door open and gestured for me to go in first.

  “Mistress,” Shenanigans said and would have got up, but Leila pushed him back onto his chair.

  “You stay put,” she said and dabbed at his forehead with a piece of white cloth that was fast turning green.

  “Shenanigans!” I said, hurrying around the table to take a good look at him. “You’re hurt.”

  “Only a scratch,” he said.

  Leila gave a tut. “Only a scratch to his face. I’ve spen
t an hour or more patching up the rest of him.”

  “Are you all right?”

  He gave me a toothy smile. “Better than the other fellows.”

  “Where’s Kerfuffle?” I asked.

  “He’s downstairs in the kitchen getting more hot water,” Barron said. “He’s got a few lumps and bumps but not too much to worry about.”

  “And Jinx?” Jamie asked.

  “Combing the countryside on his black beast looking for you two,” Leila said. “I wanted him to let me take a look at his wounds, but he wouldn’t wait.”

  “Wounds?” I said, my voice coming out an octave too high.

  “Lucky, Jinx is the Deathbringer, a couple of wounds won’t kill him,” Jamie said.

  I sank down on the chair opposite Shenanigans. “This is such a mess. Now they have Kayla, Angela, Vaybian and Philip.”

  “We should never have left you on your own with Vaybian,” Jamie said.

  “I wasn’t. Pyrites was with us,” I said, and my eyes started to fill up.

  “He’ll be so pleased to see you,” Shenanigans said. “He blames himself for you being taken.”

  “He was full of arrows and he couldn’t …” Then I realized what he’d said. “What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at Shenanigans.

  “Pyrites; he’s blaming himself because he couldn’t defend you. We’ve tried telling him it wasn’t his fault but he won’t listen.”

  “But I thought …” I glanced up at Jamie who was beginning to smile, his first since finding me. “I thought he was dead.”

  “Of course not. It would take more than a few arrows to kill a Jeweled Drakon,” Shenanigans said.

  “But he’d collapsed and was barely breathing.”

  “Drakon’s Bane,” Shenanigans said. “They’d coated the tips of the arrows with Drakon’s Bane.”

  “It’s an herbal fusion that puts drakons to sleep. It’s the only way to catch one who doesn’t want to be caught,” Jamie explained and with that the door opened and Kerfuffle came trotting in carrying a steaming jug. Pyrites padded along beside him, head down and favoring his front right foot. His back right leg had a drag to it and puffs of gray mist followed in his wake.