No Such Thing As Immortality

by Sarah Tranter

  Throwing caution to the wind, I launched from my crouching position at Frey’s approaching form. I landed on top of him and the momentum propelled us both in a rapid skid across the deck. I was aware of wreckage flying around us as we crashed through whatever was in our path. PLEASE let Rowan be clear of the fallout! To prevent shooting over the side of the boat, I brought us to a jolting full stop by reaching up and grasping one of the metal railings surrounding the deck’s perimeter with my left hand and grabbing Frey’s neck with my right. Simultaneously, I lowered my head to tear out his throat with my teeth.

  Instead, I whimpered, as a searing pain rushed through me, starting somewhere between my lower ribs.

  Momentarily overcome by agony and a rush of light-headedness, I found myself on my back. I reached down with my hand, to where I gauged the source of pain to be. I was wet, I thought. As I raised my hand to my face, I could see it was covered in a red, sticky substance and there was a definite scent of … Blood. My blood. I hissed. Not possible, Christ Almighty! Not possible. I could feel myself slowly mending, or at least that’s what I hoped the tingling sensation was, but whatever he had used had penetrated my impenetrable skin and it hurt like I had never physically hurt before.

  I blocked out the screams from the others and tried to focus on moving. Frey was now standing over me, holding an intricately carved dagger, its blade covered in my blood.

  ‘Silver,’ he mocked.

  ‘Silver does not … damage us,’ I spat out, through teeth gritted with pain.

  ‘Enchanted silver does. Do you have a preference for where I make my next cut, Gray? Or should I just surprise you? Perhaps I’ll go straight for the kill – but I rather think I’m in the mood to play!’

  There was no way I could let this happen. I couldn’t let this demented being have Rowan. She didn’t want me. But he was so far from the happy normal human existence I would have her living.

  I heard Elizabeth gasp, ‘Freddie’s through!’

  Frey looked away momentarily, moving his head to the right as if he were listening to something in the water. He raised his hands again and the falling hail stopped. My moment of relief was short-lived. The boat now started rocking unsteadily and the sound of the sea gradually increased. I became aware of waves crashing violently against the side of the boat, and then breaking ever more furiously over the deck. I was covered in a deluge of salt water. Rowan could be washed overboard!

  With Frey still focusing on whatever he was doing with his hands, I took my opportunity. Bracing myself against the pain, I bent my knees to my chest, and rapidly kicked both legs forward, cracking Frey’s sternum on impact. He was sent violently backwards. It was the safety railings surrounding the deck on the opposite side of the boat that stopped his momentum. I had to follow through but, now on my knees, the pain momentarily kept me there. Taking a moment, I focused on Frey – to see Frederick silently appear from behind, and wrap his arms about his neck. Thank you! Whilst mercilessly tightening the pressure around his throat, Frederick plunged something through Frey’s back, because I heard the squelch and then saw a fast-growing red stain seep through the front of his shirt. Frederick withdrew his weapon after a couple of violent twists, and pulled Frey backwards, letting him plunge into the sea below. I closed my eyes and relief coursed through me at the sound of the splash.

  Frederick was before me when I re-opened my eyes. ‘The cavalry’s arrived!’ he cried, flashing me a wide grin.

  ‘Quite an entrance,’ I muttered, greeting his outstretched hand with my own. We grasped each other’s hands tightly. ‘Thank you!’

  ‘Shit! You’re … Is that blood?’ He looked closer. ‘You are bleeding?’ he choked out. ‘Tell me that’s not your blood!’

  I attempted to drag myself to my feet. Frederick used our grasped hands to pull me into a standing position and I immediately started to stagger towards Rowan.

  ‘We will get her to a hospital … but you. Shit – you! It’s your blood! You can hardly go to a human hospital, but you need something!’

  ‘I am fine – and am mending.’ I hoped. As an immortal, I had never been hurt so couldn’t be sure. ‘I simply need a moment.’ I carefully lowered myself to the deck beside Rowan and gently lifted her head on to my lap. ‘No hospitals. We will take her to Castello del Elisabetta,’ I muttered.

  ‘That’s miles away.’

  ‘If we go straight across the water, we can be there in twenty minutes. The border with Italy is close by. We need a team of doctors there. I am not risking her safety in a public hospital. God knows how many more of those creatures are out there.’

  ‘Ummm … I hate to ask this … But he is dead, isn’t he?’ Madeleine asked, silently.

  ‘Why?’ Frederick responded.

  ‘It’s just the force field is still up.’

  No! No! No! I listened intently for a heartbeat but wasn’t sure I would hear one from under the ocean.

  ‘If he isn’t, he will be any moment,’ Frederick reassured. ‘If the strangulation didn’t get him, then the stab wound through the heart would. And if that didn’t do the trick, the water will …’ He broke off to ask, ‘Are you not talking to me, Izzy?’

  ‘Elizabeth is a bit emotional at the moment,’ Madeleine said. ‘I don’t think she’s capable of talking, silently or otherwise, quite yet.’

  A traumatised-sounding James spoke up. ‘I’m thinking we should put Nate under house arrest. Turn his tower into a jail of some kind. He isn’t safe, you know.’

  ‘I am ready now,’ I said silently, gently scooping Rowan into my arms. ‘And heading for home – if I get through the force field, that is. If not, we panic.’

  ‘Only then do we panic?’ James muttered.

  ‘Are you up to the flight?’ Frederick asked. I looked at him and the concern was etched on his face.

  I nodded. I had to be. I would have preferred to send Rowan with Frederick, in case I ran out of steam – she would be safer that way – but he could neither get through the force field nor take Rowan underwater with him. She would drown before they got through.

  ‘I’ll go under again,’ Frederick said. ‘We need to stick together, so as soon as we can, we should get into formation. I’ll break off later to track down some doctors.’

  ‘James, can you call Heather?’ I asked silently. I heard his curse but it was immediately followed by an affirmative. ‘Tell her what has happened. Find out what it is he has given her and what we need to do. If she thinks we need a hospital, we need extra protection.’

  ‘I’ll call ahead and get the property opened up and the caretaking staff out,’ Madeleine added quietly.

  I held Rowan close for a moment, treasuring the sensation of her in my arms. I knew as soon as she was conscious – and she would get better, she had to get better – I would never be able to hold her in my arms again. I tentatively took to the air. Christ it hurt – but I could do this.

  ‘I am fine everyone,’ I said, in response to their concerned exclamations. ‘I plan to pick up speed the other side of the force field, or whatever it is.’

  ‘I’ll carry her when you get through,’ James said.

  ‘You are never getting your grubby hands on her,’ I snarled back.

  ‘I thought we’d gone beyond that.’

  ‘You thought wrong.’

  ‘What am I going to have to do, to prove to you that—?’

  His voice cut off as Madeleine screamed out. I caught the ‘Nate …!’ before I was engulfed in water. I was in the air but surrounded by water and we were spinning faster and faster and faster. I clutched hold of Rowan desperately, refusing to let my grip loosen. We were being pulled down by the centrifugal force and it didn’t matter how hard I tried to fight the pull, I couldn’t break us out. This was Frey! It had to be.

  I couldn’t hear them audibly over the deafening roar of whatever we were in, but I could within my head. ‘Freddie, if you can hear me, HELP THEM!’ Madeleine was screaming. ‘There’s a giant water funnel pulling t
hem down into a whirlpool below. It’s like a giant plug hole. But PLEASE be careful – Frey can’t be history!’

  I fought all the harder trying to break out of the pull. Rowan needed air and if we went into the whirlpool, she would drown. I was desperate, but nothing I could do would break us through.

  ‘She is going to drown. She is going to drown,’ I was silently screaming.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ James cried out.

  ‘FRIEND OR FOE?’ I screamed in my head. ‘Heather said she was sending back-up!’

  We were in the whirlpool now; I could sense it because the pressure around us was building and the temperature was nose-diving. There was no let-up to the spinning and we were still being relentlessly sucked down.

  And then it stopped. As quickly as it had started – it stopped. I felt something grab my arm, and I spun around instinctively to attack, before realising it was Frederick. I was completely disorientated; no idea which way the surface was, but he was propelling us in one direction, which I could only hope was the right one.

  ‘The force field is down and the whirlpool is gone … so we assume … friend?’ James speculated. ‘At least I hope they are, because there are five of them and they are approaching us now. Do you need help down there?’

  ‘No! Stay with the girls,’ Frederick silently yelled.

  As soon as we broke the surface of the water and hit the air, I broke away and headed straight for the boat.

  ‘Nate – we need to go! The fucker’s still alive and we have no idea—’ Frederick stopped short on seeing the agonised expression my face was no doubt displaying.

  ‘She has stopped breathing …’

  ‘They say they are friend, and want to see you, Nate, so if you can … Shit! … NO! Rowan?’

  I heard Elizabeth’s anguished scream and then blocked them out.

  I was only vaguely aware of Frederick by my side as I lay Rowan on the deck. Her lips were blue. How the hell was I supposed to do this? I met her lips with mine, blowing gently into her mouth. Wake up, Rowan. Wake up, my love.

  ‘Her nose,’ I heard Frederick’s voice through a haze. ‘You need to hold her nose, too. Do you want me to do it?’

  I shook my head rapidly.

  I held her nose with a shaking hand and breathed into her mouth. Please. I will believe there is a god again if you can make her live.

  I did it again.

  Rowan, my love, wake up.

  And again.

  Wake up for me now, my love

  And again.

  I beg of you. Wake up!

  Elizabeth’s cries were now audible and not just in my head and I didn’t have the strength to block them. They joined the roar that was getting louder and louder inside me.

  ‘Rowan,’ I choked. ‘Rowan, my love, you cannot leave me in this world without you. You cannot.’

  Again, although my breath was trembling.

  ‘Nate?’ I felt what I assumed to be Frederick’s hand on my shoulder and it attempted to pull me back.

  I shook my head rapidly and shrugged him off to continue with my desperate actions.

  Again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And then she choked and spluttered.

  I wanted to collapse on to the deck in a blubbering heap, but instead gently rolled her on to her side to let her empty her lungs of water. My face was inches from hers and her eyes focused on mine with difficulty. I could feel her confusion.

  ‘Nate?’ Her voice was barely audible.

  I couldn’t speak. I was choked with relief, and love … and grief – because I had lost her anyway. I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, how I thought I had lost her, but I couldn’t. I terrified her. And I had already lost her. I moved my face away, so as not to scare her unnecessarily. I made myself speak. I said soothingly, I hoped, although my voice kept breaking, ‘Do not be scared of me. I am not going to hurt you. I am going to get you somewhere safe.’

  Her confusion increased, and I felt fear, before I lost her to unconsciousness again. But I could see her pulse. I could hear her heart.

  I knelt on the deck with my head lowered, trying to calm my traumatised being. When I slowly looked up, I realised it wasn’t only Frederick on board. James, Elizabeth and Madeleine were standing behind him … and five creatures were in the air above the deck.

  They were hovering in formation before me. They looked otherworldly. All had varying shades of shoulder-length blond hair, ranging from ash to golden, which appeared to glow through the dark night, providing lustre to their almost angelic faces. They were heavily armed, with various metal weapons on their backs, and all were wearing brown leather trousers and jerkins hanging loose over their bare torsos. Their skin was not pale like mine, but golden, sun-kissed … and almost appeared to shimmer. On the outer edge of their right biceps each appeared to brandish an identical henna-coloured tattoo. The intricate design seemed to comprise a pair of insect wings either side of what looked to be the alchemical symbol for air: an upward-pointing triangle, bisected by a horizontal line.

  The one hovering in the centre was taller than the rest, making him a couple of inches taller than me, with wavy, golden-blond hair. He moved towards me and I met his soft grey eyes. His voice was gentle, calming, yet assured. ‘We can handle this now.’ He looked at Rowan in my arms. ‘You must go.’

  Despite being physically shattered, and post-traumatic, I didn’t need to be told twice. None of us did. I cradled Rowan and took to the air. The others joined me, taking my flank, just in case.

  We arrived in fourteen minutes. The whole flight had been made in stunned silence. The others seemed to have been trying to make sense of what had just happened. Me? All I could think was: She will be fine, she has to be fine … And she is lost to me.

  I walked through the ancient oak doorway of Castello del Elisabetta, our Italian home just outside Turin, still cradling Rowan in my arms. She was so cold. As I strode into my bedroom, Elizabeth and Madeleine immediately lit the pre-laid fire in the room’s large sixteenth-century stone fireplace.

  They took control as I lay Rowan’s battered, unconscious body gently upon the bed. I noticed they were going at human speed as they started removing her wet, torn clothes … scared to use our powers around her fragile, mortal form?

  I let myself collapse to the floor, with my knees up and my head in my hands. I rocked myself backwards and forwards.

  ‘She’ll be okay.’ Elizabeth attempted to reassure me.

  ‘He poisoned her, he battered her, he choked her; he touched her, she drowned – she stopped breathing, she probably has hypothermia.’

  ‘She’s strong,’ Elizabeth stated. ‘But … how are you?’

  ‘How the bloody hell do you think I am?’ I roared, before stopping myself and choking out, ‘I am sorry … I am sorry … I didn’t mean that,’ in an anguished whisper.

  ‘She was in shock, Nate. How was she meant to react? Telling her was never going to be easy.’

  Madeleine interjected. ‘Nate – if you don’t intend to let anyone look at your … injuries?’ I shook my head. ‘Make yourself useful, then. She could do with warming up.’

  ‘How? I am dead and cold …’

  She sighed, ‘Like this!’ Madeline rubbed her hands quickly up and down Rowan’s arm. ‘Come on! It’s important she warms up, or she could be in trouble.’

  At that, I was at Rowan’s side instantly and worked desperately. Within minutes, she did seem to be warmer to the touch, and her lips were no longer blue. Was this to be the last time I would ever touch her?

  Madeleine and Elizabeth made themselves scarce as I lay by Rowan’s side on the bed. I moved her bedraggled hair from her face. The scar from the head wound from our car accident had faded in recent weeks and was now completely overshadowed by the huge, bloodied bruise beneath her eye. I gently wiped away the fresh pool of blood. I so gently touched the vicious bruises on her throat. So fragile, so broken, so human … and no longer mine.
<
br />   When Frederick arrived with the doctors I stood outside the door, listening to every word they said whilst they examined her. They were speaking in Italian, but I understood it clearly. Her heartbeat was sound again. She was warming up. The bruises would heal. The poison was an unknown.

  James arrived at my side. I was trying to read his thoughts, to see what Heather had said. He grinned. ‘No need. I’m here to tell you. She’s going to be okay, mate. And I survived my chat with Heather without one freaky thing happening. Relations have got to be improving! The poison will wear off. She was furious he’d used it on her. She thinks it was … wait for it … Water of Enlightenment!

  ‘It’s a hallucinogen to heighten your spiritual awareness. It’s meant to help you discover your true course, and some shit about finding your inner self and awakening your innate powers. She wants to speak to you as soon as you’re up to it, to find out what Rowan said when she was under it. She appeared anxious about that. Physically it will wear off, but she’s going to have the mother of all headaches. She said to say, “Well done.” She’s going to send something over to ensure your wound doesn’t scar – as well as Rowan’s pendant?’ I frowned. ‘Apparently her freaky spooks plucked it from the sea – and it was that, by the way, that let you pass through the force field.’ It must have washed off, I hadn’t noticed. I was useless at protecting her. ‘She’s very proud of you; you exceeded what she could have possibly hoped for … and the best – you’ll love this bit – she would welcome you as a son! Imagine having that in the family!’

  As if that would ever happen. But James did have a point.

  ‘She’s going to be okay, Nate. She really is. You heard what the doctors said.’

  ‘I know. And I cannot begin to find the words to …’ The relief was overwhelming – but so too was my grief. My voice broke and I could say no more.

  ‘That girl’s a bloody nightmare, but that bloody nightmare loves you. Loves you, as much as you love her – you idiot! Everyone can see it.’

  I was choking my words out. ‘I have lost her. She is terrified of me. She thinks I am a monster, dead, incapable of feeling … that I would hurt her and her family.’