by Izzy Shows
"If you need any help, let me know."
"Keep your ears open for anything, please. I need to get this contained as quickly as possible."
Both of us nodded at one another, I got up and walked out.
If it's not Geoff, who could it be?
16
The sky had turned a dark and unfriendly colour by the time I left Serenity. The night air smelled strange, like a storm was brewing though there were no clouds to speak of.
Then I felt it, the tension at the back of my neck that said something was watching me, and realised that it wasn't the smell of a storm but the smell of trouble brewing in the distance. Something was going to come for me that night. I could feel it.
I got into my car and drove away from Serenity, the tension never leaving the back of my neck.
What is coming? The thought wouldn't leave me alone. I stepped on it, driving faster than the speed limit but not really caring. Most things wouldn't attack when mundanes were around, so it wouldn't matter all that much if I was pulled over. It might actually help me.
Of course, a speeding ticket would royally suck.
After a few minutes the feeling of being watched abated and the tension that had built in the back of my neck eased. Had I somehow outrun whatever had been following me? If it had been on foot, that would make sense. Part of me wished that I had stayed to find out what it is and face off with it, but I knew that was the part that had been tainted by the mark, by the demonic power that coursed through my veins. It was always hungry for a fight, it never wanted to stand down, never saw the merit in keeping the peace.
We were no closer to figuring out what to do about that than we had been before, and now Mal and I were busy with Lilith instead of training to control it. And Raven? I hadn't heard a peep from them in the past week or two, not since the fight with the succubus. I wondered if they knew about Lilith, that we had spared her and were trying to reclaim her sanity. Did they disapprove of what we were doing, or had something more serious come up that had taken them away from me?
I had thought about calling them down a time or two, but it didn't work the same way that it did with Mal. Calling a demon was a guaranteed thing, albeit dangerous for the one doing the calling. Calling Raven was much more like calling your friend up on the phone and leaving a voicemail—they would hear it, and they would make the decision whether or not to respond. I thought that Raven wanted me to get a handle on these powers, but in all the months that we'd been training, they hadn't disappeared like this. Maybe they gave up on me. I wouldn't blame them.
Still, I kept up the lessons that they had given me, working on the meditation in the middle of the night when I got a spare second. I wasn't as good as I wanted to be, and I knew I wasn't as good as Raven would want me to be, but it was better than just letting all of that work fall by the wayside. I would have to talk to Mal soon about what was going on, what with the mark starting to speak to me now, but every time I thought about it there just wasn't a good way to bring it up. Or I was already vulnerable, like earlier today, and not willing to put myself in that position again.
I turned onto my street, narrowing my eyes when I saw how dark it was. It was a long road, and sure it was usually empty, but all of the street lights were out and that wasn't normal. Occasionally I blew one or two of them, when I was working on magical stuff, but I hadn't done anything at home today.
Rolling my window down, I inhaled the scent of the air and found that same scent of danger in the air. The tension wasn't in the back of my neck, though. I wasn't being watched, but my instincts had been right. Something was coming for me. I slowed the car, though part of me was screaming that I should be speeding up to get home as quickly as was possible. But I didn't want to rush head long into an ambush, I'd done that once before and it hadn't gone well for me.
And then the pain came. I slammed on the brakes, wrenching the car to the side so that I drove off the road and barely had the mental clarity to yank on the handbrake. I didn't need a totalled car on top of everything else, but I also didn't need a totalled brain.
Waves of pain were rushing through me, wrenching my insides, and scooping out my skull like an ice cream sundae. I choked down a sob, clenching the steering wheel with my hands so tight my knuckles turned white. Another wave came and this time my head went with it, smashing against the window I'd cracked just a minute before, more pain rushing through my body but it was nowhere near comparable to what was wreaking havoc on me.
I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, all I could do was curl up in a ball on the car seat, wanting to sob but no sound came out of my mouth. I tasted blood, but didn't have the energy to even wonder where it came from.
There was only the pain, so much pain, and it was never-ending. Where was I? What was I?
"Shut down! Shut your senses down before you kill us!" The mark screamed inside my head, so loud that it cut through the pain, and I realised that it was trying to save me. Without me, it would die, and that couldn't be acceptable.
For once, I took its advice. I didn't know how to shut down, but I recognized it was the only way to make it out of this alive, I was not going to survive this onslaught on my own. With tears streaking down my cheeks, I did the only thing I could think of.
I slammed my head into the steering wheel, searing pain shot through my forehead, and then there was nothing.
No pain, no thoughts, just silence.
17
When I woke up, strong arms were lifting me out of the car, cradling me like a baby. I was dizzy, unable to concentrate. I was vaguely aware that I should be worried about who was holding me, but I couldn't bring myself to care. If I was going to die, then so be it, because I had nothing left in me. I felt like I'd been run over by a thousand trucks at once, like someone had taken a cat-o’-nine-tails to my very soul.
I clung to the person carrying me, because they were the only lifeline I had at the moment. Their gait was unstable, as if they were limping along. Dragging one foot behind them.
"It's going to be OK, Blair. I'm going to get you home." The voice had a musical lilt to it, and it took me a few moments before I recognized it. Kailan. He had left the house and come to find me, somehow. I didn't know why he had done it, but just then I was very grateful.
I tried to mumble a thank you, but it came out a garbled mess of incoherent words.
He chuckled. I felt the vibrations of his chest against my cheek.
"I hope that wasn't you yelling at me," he said.
"No..." I managed the one word reply, though it felt like knives scraping against the inside of my throat.
Bloody hell. I could only place one time that I'd felt this bad, and that had been when I'd been in the hands of that freak colossal skeleton creature, all of its mouths biting into me, nails scraping me to pieces. I'd wanted to die then, and I was contemplating it now.
It didn't help that I had a splitting headache. Oh, yeah, that was my fault.
Kailan carried me in silence the rest of the way back to the house. I started to raise a weak hand for the wards, but he pushed my hand aside and opened the door himself. What the hell?
"Fred took down your wards, they're still down. He'll put them back up once we're inside, you need to rest."
"I don't need rest." I was grumbling, my senses coming back to me piece by piece. The words still hurt as they came out of my mouth, but I was never one to be deterred by pain. Pain was my ally, not my enemy, it helped me concentrate. Well, it did when it wasn't overloading me to the point of bashing my head in against a steering wheel just to get it all to stop.
That may not have been my brightest moment.
Kailan placed me on the couch, his movements gentle so as not to bump me too much. I allowed myself to stretch out, sinking in to the comfort of an object that had been around me for quite some time now. It was familiar, it was safe.
Fred was at my side in an instant, his little hands on my arm and plucking at my jacket sleeve. "Miss Blair, what is happenings?" He s
ounded so worried, my knee jerk reaction was to sit up and comfort him, but a spike of pain lanced through my gut as soon as I started to move. I collapsed back against the solid comfort of the couch and instead rolled my head to the side to look at my little friend.
"I'm OK, Fred. I promise."
"You is not looking OK!"
Well, he had me there. I’m sure I looked like death warmed up, that was certainly how I felt just then.
"Fine, everything's going to be OK, though."
Kailan brought me a glass of water, assisting me with sitting up so that I could drink it without spilling everywhere. I drank it slowly, though I wanted to gobble it down, I didn't have the energy to do so. As soon as the glass was taken away and placed on the coffee table, I fixed a good and proper glare on Kailan.
"I told you not to leave the house."
He quirked an eyebrow. "That doesn't sound quite like 'thank you'."
He was right, and I should be thanking him, and I had tried to do so earlier, but with my energy returning to me, so did my ire. I had told him to stay in the house, there was no telling where the Utakar was or when it would try to make a grab for him, he had endangered himself by leaving. And it was my job to keep him safe, my job to find out more about the Utakar and take it down. I couldn't very well do that if he was running around playing the hero.
"You could have been snatched."
"You could have died. Besides, your little friend was losing his mind, like a cat on crack. I thought he was going to tear down the door and go after you himself, and I didn't think that was the best idea. What if someone saw him? He would scare people, as cute as he is."
I snorted, glancing at Fred. "What had you so worked up?"
"You was in danger. You was dying. I could feels it."
I frowned. Was he right, had I really been close to dying? "I handled it, just like I always do. I would have woken up on my own and dragged my sorry arse home, you didn't need to come and find me, Kailan."
He shrugged. "I did, and what are you going to do about it now? What's done is done."
"Don't do it again," I said. I meant it, too. I didn't want him getting snatched by the Utakar, I didn't want to fail again. Gods, and I had the werewolf attacks to figure out, the city to keep safe. It felt like every time I turned around something new was wreaking havoc on my city. Why the hell was that? Was it my fault? I had to be some sort of danger magnet, that just kept attracting these kinds of things. I was the reason the Utakar was here, after all. Kailan had come to me, and brought the Utakar with him. If I hadn't been here, the Utakar wouldn't be a threat to the city. Although at the moment it wasn't doing anything to the city, I had that to be grateful for at least.
"Fine, next time I'll leave you to die on the side of the road." Kailan rolled his eyes, moving to sit in one of the chairs.
"There won't be a next time," I said, forcing myself into a sitting position. It hurt like hell and I wasn't able to avoid wincing as obviously as I did, but I managed the movement. "I'm going to gut whoever did this to me, and that'll be the end of it."
"I'm glad to hear it," he said. "Since it was the Utakar."
Narrowing my eyes, I frowned. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I've seen its style of attack, and you just got your first one. Looking at you, it doesn't seem that you fared too well."
"I got jumped," I said, practically growling at him.
"And you think it will be a fair fight the next time?"
He had a point, though I didn't want to give it to him. The Utakar wasn't going to play nice with me, and I needed to work on that for the next time. I glanced at Fred. His attack had come close in strength to the one the Utakar had delivered. If we worked on it together, I could build up an immunity to it...I shuddered at the idea of going through that again. Fred was powerful on a level I couldn't comprehend, but I didn't want to be on the receiving end of one of his attacks. Not if I could help it.
I'd have to exhaust other avenues first.
"What are we going to do?" He reclined in the chair, his actions not matching the anxiety in his voice. "I'm not sure you're up for this."
"I'm up for it," I said, my lips set in a firm line. "Rest assured, I'm going to take care of this. I got jumped, I got my first taste, and I'm going to be prepared the next time."
"How? You won't know it's coming."
"That's where you're wrong," I said, glad to have the upper hand at last. "I knew an attack was coming, I could taste it in the air, feel it in the back of my neck. I just didn't know what kind of attack, didn't know how strong it would be. Now, I know. And I'll be ready."
He nodded, gazing down at the floor for several moments before he spoke again. "What's the plan?"
What, indeed? "You can't give me five seconds to pull myself together before we start thinking about a plan?"
"For all we know, the Utakar is outside your door waiting for an opportunity to attack again. I think we need a plan."
A growl rumbled through my chest, but I knew that he was right. There was no telling what the Utakar would do, where it would strike next, how many people it would hurt.
"I apologise, I realise this isn't very helpful. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised it attacked you as soon as it did."
"Yeah, well, that makes two of us," I said. Then, after his words sunk in further, I looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "Why did you think it wouldn't attack so soon?"
He shrugged. "Because it's after me, not you. Normally it doesn't shift its target so rapidly, and I've not seen one go after more than one person at a time."
I let that marinate in my head for several minutes, trying to figure it out. I had limited knowledge on what the Utakar did or how it behaved, but it sounded like Kailan knew more than he'd initially let on.
"How many Utakar have you seen?"
He shifted in his seat, not quite making eye contact with me.
"Kailan, how many?" I said again, leaning forward though the pain cost me dearly.
"Just the one, this one."
"You're speaking like you've seen dozens of them, like you have some sort of case study to know their behaviors, their patterns. You can't tell an entire species based on one specimen, Kailan."
"I know that, but I can tell what this one will do based on what it's done previously."
"Not necessarily! And obviously not in this case, as it's already changing." I readjusted myself on the couch, trying to get more comfortable, though it felt futile. "Kailan, what did you do to draw its ire in the first place?"
He drew in a deep, slow breath, holding it within himself for a minute or so before he exhaled just as slowly. "I saw it, that's all. I was scouting, and I came upon it. I didn't know what it was, what it could be, I had never seen anything like it before. Utakar. Unknown. It looked at me, its eyes so alien, so obviously not a part of our world, and I knew that it was dangerous. I tried to fight it, but I failed. I managed to escape, but it kept hunting me. It cared not for the other members of my scouting unit, it just kept coming for me. That was when I decided to come to you, and that is why I did not believe that it would turn on you."
"Well, it did. Nothing we can do about that, I'm just going to have to be more careful when I go out."
His lips twisted into a grimace. "You are allowed to gallivant about, draw danger to yourself, but I am stuck in this cage?"
"Hey, it's not a cage, it's a very comfy house."
"A cage is a cage, no matter its finery."
"Well, I'm sorry, but yes, that is the way it is. I get to draw danger because that's my job. You came to me, not the other way around. We play by my rules."
He didn't seem to like that answer, but I knew that he was going to accept it, he didn't really have a choice.
I was just about to try to get up, determined not to let this weakness get the better of me, when there was a knock at the door. Kailan and I looked at one another, indecision marring our features.
"Give me a minute," I said, raising my voice to
be heard through the door.
"You can't," he said, his voice low and coming out more of a hiss than anything. "You don't know what's on the other side."
"Time to find out," I said, shrugging as if it didn't bother me. That door wasn't going to keep the Utakar out, its attack had taught me that. I dragged myself to my feet and walked to the door, each step felt like I was walking on knives.
Drawing in a deep breath, I dropped the wards.
18
Shawn stood on the other side of my door, medic bag in hand, a confused look on his face.
"Shawn?" I tilted my head to the side, aware that his name sounded odd coming from my ravaged throat. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to check on my patient...are you OK?" He stepped closer, lifting his free hand to brush against my cheek. I closed my eyes and leaned into the gentle caress, almost losing my balance, and then stumbling back a few steps.
I had completely forgotten that Shawn had wanted to check on Kailan after twenty-four hours, to make sure that everything was healing appropriately.
"I'm fine, come on in." I swung to the right to try and play my stumble off as me making way for him, but I could tell from his narrowed eyes and the grim set of his lips that he didn't buy it for a second. Eek. He did come in, his eyes not moving away from me for a second, his body staying close to mine.
I inhaled the scent that was Shawn, a wholly natural scent of soap with a slight hint of the outdoors. Safe.
When had Shawn become safe? Probably around the same time as when I told him what I was. I wouldn't have done that if I didn't have faith that he would keep it to himself, and he'd proved me right so far.
Shutting the door once he was fully inside the house, I put the wards back up and half-limped half-stumbled back to the couch, more or less throwing myself down instead of sitting. When I looked back up at Shawn I could see that worry had creased the lines of his face. I bit the inside of my cheek, trying not to worry at it but needing something to comfort me.
"Kailan?" I turned to him, hoping for some help in alleviating some of Shawn's concern. "How's your leg doing? You carried me earlier, so it must be pretty good."