Descent Into Darkness (Book 2) (4 page)

Looking over in between gulps, he noticed Azalea had slowed down a bit. She only took little sips as she watched Dotain eat. Her expression was peculiar, but Ean dismissed it as just another quirk. Probably some way she was trying to seduce their host. It was obvious that Dotain was already picturing the two of them together by the way he was openly looking at her now. Shaking his head, Ean focused on eating.

Whew! Whatever was in the stew was really starting to get to him. His tongue was almost completely numb now and he felt a little flushed. Tired too, probably the days of traveling finally taking its toll on his body. He had to pause from eating for a moment to wipe some sweat from his forehead, but only for a moment. He could handle being a little warm, the stew was that good. He continued to scoop more and more of it into his mouth...

...and then dropped his spoon.

His fingers suddenly felt very heavy, as if something was pushing down on them. Had the past couple of days worn him out that much? Reaching over to where the spoon had landed on the table, he tried to pick it up, but his hand had gotten too heavy, and he had trouble working his fingers. Frowning, he tried to lift it again but had no luck. It was becoming quite frustrating as he wanted to eat more! Maybe his other hand...no, that was hanging limply at his side. His thoughts were fuzzy, more so than if he was just tired, like he was trying to think while...uh...doing something that made it hard to think.

A dull pain washed across the side of his face. At first he thought he had been slapped, but realized that his head had dropped down onto the table. From his vantage point he could see both Dotain and Azalea looking at him. The man was wearing a grin that did not instill a good feeling in Ean's fuddled brain. Azalea on the other hand was looking at him with chagrin, shaking her head as she slowly pushed her own bowl away. She was always judging him. He was just tired...so tired...

THE FIRST THING EAN
noticed was that he was face down on a wooden floor covered with brownish-red splotches. Years of being a healer had made him familiar with stains like those--blood. His tongue felt stiff and dry like it was coated with dirt. He licked his lips trying to push away the nastiness with his own saliva. And that's when he noticed it. A pale face with lifeless eyes staring right at him--well, no, more like through him. As if the eyes were looking past this world and into the next.

Giving a yelp, he scrambled backwards on the floor until his back hit the wall. He struggled to make sense of what had happened. Dotain was dead. A chill went down his spine. What had happened? The man had been so hospitable...

"Don't look so upset," a woman's voice cut through the haze of his mind. His eyes found Azalea leaning back in her chair, her wings tight against her back and her pale blue feet up on the table. She was picking at her teeth with a long, blue fingernail. "The fool man tried to drug us."

"He...what?"

"Drugged us. Planned on killing us. Well, kill you then do some things to me most would find unpleasant. You should have seen the look on his face when he realized I was unaffected. Of course that paled in comparison to the look he had when I revealed my true form."

"So you killed him!?"

A look of surprise crossed her face for a moment and then was gone. "That surprises you? He tried to kill us. Well," pausing for a moment, she tapped her cheek with one long fingernail. "Drugged you, at least. Whatever he put into that stew didn't seem to have much effect on me."

"If it didn't affect you, you could have stopped him from doing anything to me. You're certainly strong enough to handle one man. You didn't have to kill him."

Azalea threw her hands into the air. "I don't get you, Ean. This creep wanted to have his way with me and then kill us both. He as much as said those exact words while I was feeding off of him. He said a lot of things, wouldn't shut up actually. What if I told you he had done this before? That this wasn't even his farm? He killed the family that owned it and has been using it mostly to do to random strangers what he was about to do to us. Does that make it okay that I killed him?"

"Now you're making things up to justify feeding off of him. There is no way you could have learned all of that from him."

"You're an idiot." Rising, Azalea's face couldn't have looked more disgusted. She moved towards the door, kicking the lifeless body of Dotain as she left. Once she was out of the room and into the hall, Ean heard her yell back, "I don't know what that stupid imp sees in you, but you two fools belong together."

Ean sat there, not knowing if he should go after her or not. She was probably right, but he couldn't justify killing the man. There had to be some kind of law in the area or at least in Lurthalan. And Azalea could have easily handled Dotain. On the other hand, if every despicable thing about him was true, maybe he did deserve death.

Ean spread his arms over the table and laid his spinning head on top of them. Sure, a healer's job involved decisions about life and death, but innocence and guilt was out of his domain. Dontain might have deserved it, but that wasn't for Azalea to decide on a whim.

The energy of the Abyss twinged in his chest, alerting him that someone tied to its power was approaching. He sighed in relief when he saw it was Zin, not Azalea. The little imp's brown skin was covered with small scratches.

"What did you do to anger the Yulari?"

"We had a slight disagreement about her feeding habits and she stormed out."

"Well, YOU upset her and she decided to take it out on ME. It's really a bad idea to push a Yulari too far you know. She might decide that getting sent back to the Abyss will be worth killing us both. They can be very emotional creatures."

"All I said was that she didn't have to kill the man, and I don't think I even said it that harshly."

"Oh." The imp glanced at the corpse spread out on the kitchen floor. "She saved your life and you lectured her for it. I have to say, I'm glad you are ok, but you really can be an idiot sometimes."

Climbing up onto the table, Zin sat down in front of Ean and shook his head.

"You have to keep in mind that life in the Abyss is much different than it is in your world. Down there it's kill or be killed, and there is always someone stronger than you trying to take what's yours. Azalea saw that killing that man, and more importantly keeping him from killing you, as a huge show of generosity. In the Abyss, no one and I mean no one, would offer aid to another unless they were getting something out of it in return."

"Is it really that bad?" Ean could feel his anger faltering.

"Worse than you can imagine. I have no idea how old she is, but since her wings look fully grown, I would put her at least over fifty. That's fifty years in the Abyss where I can guarantee that she has been bullied, used, or hurt hundreds of times in her life."

Now Ean felt bad. Not so much because of how angry he had been at Azalea. He still didn't want her going around killing people, especially once they got to a highly populated city like the capitol. But he could have thanked her for saving him, and he certainly could show her a bit more understanding. He knew almost nothing about her kind, and it would probably take her a while to get used to living in his realm and not the Abyss.

"I will go apologize then. Maybe if I explain why I got so angry, she will understand and hopefully not resort to killing someone as her first option."

"Nope, you shouldn't do that. That's a bad idea."

The way the imp said it, so matter-of-factly, just confused Ean even more. "And why not?"

"If Azalea is ever going to respect you--"

"She doesn't already?"

"If she ever is going to respect you, you can't go back on your decisions. If you get angry, yell, scold, or take any kind of stand, you absolutely cannot back down whenever she throws a little tantrum. If you start giving in to her moods, she'll simply try to get away with more and more. That's just how Yulari behave. Best to stay strong. She'll get over it eventually."

"Even if it means she takes out her anger on you?"

Shrugging, Zin climbed to his feet. "I can handle it. She may be strong, but I'm still much quicker. For the future, if you know you're going to get her angry, give me a little heads up first, hmm?"

Flashing him a toothy smile, Zin leapt off the table. Hitting the ground softly, he moved towards the door.

"Come on," Zin said, waving Ean after him. "I found a supply of jerky in the shed out back, so we can eat and get back out on the road. After your little village and Rensen, I'm looking forward to seeing what passes as a major city in this world nowadays. Plus, that body is starting to smell a little ripe, and not in a good way."

The imp was certainly right; the room was starting to smell a bit foul. Ean's stomach was growling as well. What little stew he had eaten before passing out had not been very filling. Climbing to his feet, he took a quick last look at the dead man and left the room. He really shouldn't feel bad about his death; the human had tried to poison and probably kill him after all.

Human.

That was strange, why did he call the man human? Of course the man was a human, but it was strange that he thought of him that way. Why not "the man" or Dotain? It probably had to do with all the time he was spending with the imp and the Yulari. No need to overthink it.

Making his way down the hall, Ean left the house. By the position of the sun, it was sometime between mid-morning and midday. No wonder he was hungry, he had been knocked out for almost a whole day. Crossing the front yard, Ean opened the barn door and had to duck quickly as something small, brown and with flailing arms and legs flew past his head.

"And I didn't ask you to talk to him for me!"

Azalea sounded even angrier than before. She stood on the other side of the barn, her hands on her hips and a look of fury on her face. Her wings were spread out behind her, the leathery appendages quivering slightly. Ean's immediate reaction was to turn right around, but he remembered what Zin had said about not backing down.

Zin, who unless he had recently grown wings of his own, had been thrown out of the barn by the angry Yulari. The same angry Yulari that was now glaring at him from the other side of the barn. Steeling his resolve, and filling himself with the energies of the Abyss as a precaution, Ean strode right toward Azalea.

"You can't go around taking out your anger on Zin."

Azalea started moving as well, lifting slightly into the air with a few beats of her wings and meeting Ean about half way into the barn. "Oh, here to issue more orders, are you? I think I might have been too hasty agreeing to follow you. If I have to spend all of my time keeping you out of trouble, while you whine at me, I might be better off in the Abyss."

"Did you not promise to follow my orders?" Ean tried to make his voice as hard as steel and let the energy of the Abyss flow into him. It helped to make his voice sound cold. Azalea's eyes dropped for a moment, but she quickly regained eye contact with him.

"Yes, I did say that I--"

"Good. Promises might be worth next to nothing down in the Abyss, but in my world they weigh more than gold. I will not have someone with me who breaks her promises whenever it becomes convenient for her. You will follow my orders or I will send you back to the Abyss. It is as simple as that. Do I make myself clear?"

For a moment Ean thought that he had gone too far. Azalea's dark red, pupil-less eyes seemed to come ablaze as they narrowed and met his gaze. Her wings fluttered about behind her as her hands clenched into fists. The image of the last time Ean had tried to send her back to the Abyss appeared in his mind and he almost faltered.

Almost. Ean kept her tied to this world by a summoning rune inscribed on a fragile piece of bark. If he needed to, it would be easy to snap the bark, breaking the rune and send her back to the Abyss. Ean hoped it wouldn't come to that.

After a few tense moments, Azalea relaxed. Weary resignation settled on her pretty face and she let her hands drop to her sides, her wings following suit and drooping dejectedly behind her. Her head dropped slightly as well, and she stared at the ground to Ean's right.

"Fine," she said. Ean didn't believe it could really be that easy, so he decided to keep pushing.

"You will no longer kill anyone without my permission, whether it's to feed or to protect any of us?"

"Yes."

"You will make sure that if you find or figure something out that might put any of us in danger, you will immediately tell me."

Azalea kicked at the ground. "Yes."

"You will treat Zin with respect and not like your little punching doll whenever you get upset or angry."

"Yes."

That last 'yes' came through clenched teeth, but she said it without hesitation. A movement behind Ean caught both his and Azalea's attention. Standing in the doorway was Zin, a few new cuts and bruises on his body. The imp was smiling though.

"That's right. You'll treat me with respect from here on in!" Zin shouted, waving a fist in her direction. "I'm not like one of those thousands of imps in the Abyss that you can boss around and take your frustrations out on!"

Ean expected the Yulari to lash out, but instead she looked more dejected. Feeling a little guilty about coming down so hard on her, he tried to offer her back some dignity.

"I do want to thank you, though, for saving my life. Without you there, I'm sure that man would have slit my throat from ear to ear while I was unconscious. Your strength and ability to read people will certainly be an asset while we travel."

Her mood didn't seem to lighten, so Ean decided to throw her one more bone.

"And I will listen to any advice you might have, as long as you accept that the final decision is mine. Parts of this world are just as new to me as they are to you. I'm sure however many years you've spent surviving in the Abyss has given you some insight on how to deal with some of the less savory characters we are sure to run into in the city."

Ean heard a slapping sound behind him and turned just in time to see Zin removing his palm from his forehead. The look he directed towards Ean was less than pleased. Turning his attention back towards Azalea, he barely caught her usual smirk leaving her face, quickly replaced by a look of innocence.