Demon Day (3 page)

Maeve, who I had all but forgotten she
was so quiet, snorted then coughed daintily behind her hand. She
batted her reddish-purple eyelashes at her brother’s scowl. “Can I
go with them?” she asked in her high trill.

“
No,” Lochlann
replied.

Her face crumpled. “But
I–”

“
No!” Breandan and Lochlann
barked.

Maeve and I shared a long-suffering
look.

Plainly irritated, Lochlann held out
his hand again, and didn’t bother to disguise his dislike of me.
Not that I cared. I thought he was repressed and boorish, but
whatever. I gingerly placed my palm on his, cringing when his big
hand engulfed mine, and locked my fingers in an overly tight grip.
A shudder wracked its way up his frame and mine.

Conall frowned at us. “You both look
uncomfortable.”

Lochlann forced his shoulders down
from his ears, but I couldn’t help leaning away from him until he
practically held me upright.

Sighing, Breandan brushed his fingers
across my cheek. The comfort was instant and my body unlocked
allowing Lochlann to pull me upright. Breandan let his hand trail
down my neck and across my shoulder blade before giving me a gentle
shove forward.

Lochlann started at a brisk walk and I
stumbled to keep up with him. He was pretty huge, and two of his
strides equaled three of my steps. Soon the three gigantic tree
trunks came into view, and the auras began to press on me
again.

Lochlann slowed and pulled me closer
to his side. “Smile,” he ordered through his teeth.

Coming to a stop he raised our joined
fists high, nearly yanking my arm out of my socket, forcing me to
stand on my tip-toes he was so tall. The move was met with a cry of
jubilation from the crowds above. Happy voices singing praise and
lower baritones bellowing greetings. I pulled the corners of my
mouth up even as I clenched my throat muscles, moments away from
emptying my stomach onto the ground in panic.

I did not like this habit of mine, the
need to vomit when I got stressed, anxious, or scared. Emotions I
experienced with worrying frequency since these demons came
trampling into my life … or did I stumble back into
theirs?

Breandan was close by my side, silent,
his eyes locked on his brother’s hand engulfing mine. A wild
desperation simmered beneath the surface of his calm that even I
could see, and Conall kept half his attention on him, and the other
half on me. He looked pleased, and joined the salute with much
enthusiasm, pride oozing from every pore of his being.

Lochlann let our hands drop. Before I
could scurry away from all the eyes he yanked me closer to his
side, and leaned to murmur intensely in my ear. “You lead my
brother into danger and I do not like it.”

Instinctively, my head hung before I
jerked it straight. I narrowed my eyes at him, annoyed he continued
to use the power of his voice to try and intimidate me. “You need
the grimoire and you need me. Don’t forget it,” I whispered in
reply. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m thinking all things
considered I’m doing well. I’m pretending I enjoy your touch aren’t
I?”

“
You have no idea what we
must face in the days to come as a people. I beg the gods you do
not only shatter my brothers spirit with whatever perversion you
have with that vampire, but the spirit of my people as you shirk
your responsibilities.” He scoffed in derision. “To think when I
learned you had been found I was excited to meet my future mate.
But now I see you are exactly like your mother,
selfish.”

I swallowed hard and forced down tears
I refused to let him see. I was not weak. He would not see me cry.
Was I selfish? Well, yes. I had been raised to look for my own
safety first. To take care of myself so that I could then in turn
take care of those who depended on me. I couldn’t change who I was
in the space of a few days and become an altruistic leader, no
matter how many times I was told it was my true nature. I knew who
I was to these people, and what they expected of me. I was too
aware of it. “You think you know me,” I said in a voice just as
cold as his. “You don’t.”

“
I can only judge on what I
see. And what I see in you, Rae is fear. Mistrust. Confusion. Do I
see evil? No, but I do not see the purity I expect of the
Priestess.”

“
It’s not like I asked for
this. You all came looking for me, remember?”

My tongue thickened with the words.
That was not exactly true. It had been me who had ventured beyond
the Wall. I was the one who had been drawn to the forest and
disobeyed the Sect Doctrine, the rules set down by the Priests that
kept us safe.

The fairies had looked for me, but
deep down inside I had been looking for them too.

Lochlann’s gaze darted over my
shoulder. “And look what happened when the most vulnerable of us
found you.” His gaze turned hard as steel, condemning me with the
power at his command. “You will be the end of him, and it breaks my
heart.”

His will crushed upon my own, and I
grunted. Pushing my own influence up as a barrier was the only
thing that stopped my knees giving out from beneath me, so sudden
and intense was the attack. I pulled my hand from his grasp and
spun on my heel, letting my tail flick behind me and punch him in
the gut. Cursing, Lochlann stumbled at my unexpected jab, and I
sniffed at him over my shoulder before stomping off, ignoring
Conall’s plea to stay and Breandan’s curious stare, to say my final
goodbyes.

When I knew I was no longer in view by
the people, I breathed out. Shaking, I rubbed my sweaty palms on my
hips. This friction between Lochlann and I wasn’t good. Nor was the
deception by omission to the people. Did they truly believe I would
mate with Lochlann now that Devlin was gone? How would they react
when they learnt I had a bond to Breandan and a blood tie to a
vampire?

Reaching the sacred ground Devlin used
to sacrifice Alex, I let the energy of the place soak my pores. The
vibration of magic was strongest here and I shivered. It was just a
place, nothing to be afraid of, right?

My eyes landed on the altar and the
body wrapped in green vines and flowers that lay a top it. Standing
before it guilt and loss flooded my heart. Gathering my courage, I
placed my palms on her chest. The dim hum of energy from the body
was unexpected, and my hands lifted off her in shock. Brows
furrowed, I cocked my head. Focusing, I pushed my influence out and
sent it down into the cold flesh not sure what I was doing or
expecting to find.

“
Rae.” The sharp call
snapped me back into my own mind, and the connection, the sense of
consciousness lost.

I swallowed and looked down at my
hands then the body. “I think … it felt like she–”

“
You should not play with
the dead.” Breandan took my hand and pulled me away from Lex’s
body.

Letting myself be pulled away, I shook
my head in confusion. “But I felt her.”

“
We are all connected to
the Source on some level or another. As fairy we can tap into this
energy and seek out minds that are not our own. That is how
Lochlann keeps track Maeve’s state and mine. That is why you can
feel Alex when you touch her body. It takes time for the energy to
fade after the life has ended, more so when the death is sudden.”
He sighed. “Rae, what in the heavens did you think you were doing
before using your magics to craft such perversion?”

Damn. All of a sudden my toes were the
most interesting thing to stare at. “I– I don’t know what–t you …
m–mean….” My tongue tied into a knot, and my stomach cramped
uncomfortably. I avoided his eyes as yet again I tried to
lie.

“
You tried to make a
zombie.”

My mouth fell open. It was out there,
the word I had not even said to myself. “That’s not possible. It’s
a legend told by Vodoun to scare witches and other
demons.”

“
Yet that is what you tried
to do to as she lay awash in blood at the altar. I felt it in the
air. You called on the Loa, Rae, and they were answering you. You
defied natural order and that is not your purpose.”

I bit my lip, hard. “It was you? You
stopped me?”

“
If you had truly wanted to
tie her to such a repugnant fate I would have let you finish.” He
held up his palm to stop me from speaking. “But I think I stopped
you in time.”

I grabbed his hand. “You think? I saw
her twitch, but I thought it was her body being zapped with magic.”
I looked back to the body and thought of the energy I could feel
within her. Was it possible? Was there a way to bring her back to
me?

A shadow of a nameless emotion passed
his face, like clouds over the sun, but it was gone in an instant,
smothered by that expressionless mask he hid behind. “To complete
the resurrection you needed to lock her soul in her body. She did
not awaken, she was set free.”

My excitement died and I
loosened my grip on his hand. Tears welled in my eyes to run down
my face. “I miss her,” I confessed and scrubbed at my cheeks.
“She’s only been gone a few hours and I– I’m struggling to accept
it. She doesn’t feel gone to me.” I tried to make him understand
that her loss was not something I could rationalize. “She should
never have been dragged into this. She suffered. They humiliated
her and abused her body. I want …
wanted
to give her something
back.”

“
You tried to give her life
but it was not for her wellbeing.”

I jerked like he had backhanded me and
stared at him. “How could you say that to me?”

“
You tried to reanimate her
for yourself. No one would want to live such a wretched existence,
least of all someone as vibrant as I sensed your friend to be. She
would have become a killer, Rae, and consumed with thoughts of
flesh and pain. A slave to the urges and whims of the dark magic
she was reborn from. Her flesh would be cold and dead. She would
never change or grow. You would have given her life, but lost the
friend you knew.”

“
You don’t know her. She
would have been fine. I would have helped her, zapped her with good
energy or something.”

I looked inward, seeking answers to my
own questions and complicated thoughts. In truth, I’d not thought
of the repercussions when I had tried to reanimate Lex. How would
she have felt becoming a zombie? Created and kept alive by dark
magic pumping through her body. The knowledge of how to create
zombies had supposedly died out alongside the Vodoun; Bokors and
Mambos who practiced voodoo a decade before. Lex’s own mother was
the last known voodoo sorceress known to humankind – hunted down by
the Clerics and executed. Her mother’s power was the reason why I
thought calling on the voodoo deity would save her from death. But
would Lex have forgiven me? Could she have ever been
happy?

“
It was selfish,” I
admitted and my shoulders slumped. “But it doesn’t matter. It
didn’t work. I swear to never try it again.”

As I said the words magic crackled,
and a heavy constraint wrapped around my neck and settled. Then the
collar of air disappeared. I blinked, placing my hands around my
neck.

“
Uh, what
happened?”

Breandan stared at me like I was mad.
“You made an oath.”

I rubbed my neck. “By saying I
swear?”

“
Our words are bound by
magic. If you swear to do something, you must keep the promise.” He
pulled my rubbing hands down from my throat and placed them at my
sides.

I shifted, fidgety. I plucked at my
bottom lip instead, knowing yanking on my hair, or rubbing my nose
would be too big a giveaway to how uncomfortable I was feeling.
“This goes hand in hand with the whole speaking the truth thing,
right?” He nodded. “So if I break an oath–”

“
You die.”

I gaped at him then
spluttered; “You didn’t think to tell me this
before
?”

His shoulders lifted and fell. “You
would not break an oath lightly.” His eyes darted to the shadowed
mound to the side of us then back to me. “You’re
finished?”

I grunted my disagreement, and stepped
away from him wanting to get this next part over with
quickly.

The thing I turned to was a living
crypt of trees and leaves. The great oak trunks had twisted down
and their roots had reached up to entwine together tightly. It was
stunning and I could not believe I had connected my power to that
of the fairy Wyld and created this.

Breandan said it was because on this
sacred ground my power was absolute. I rubbed my chest to soothe
the ache the thought brought to my heart. Had I known that mere
hours ago, so much might have happened differently.

I had left my vampire-boy, Tomas,
slumbering in this earthen tomb I had made to keep him safe. He was
dead, and would not rise until sunset. I was pleased, because it
meant I could focus on the grimoire and Devlin. From the moment I
had met him, Tomas had been a complicated being I could not
understand. Always he was there on the fringes of my attention, but
never the focus. When he had made me stop – by searing me with a
kiss to leave me shaken and dazed – he had snapped into focus. It
had been enough to sway my loyalty when faced with the choice of
losing him or risking Breandan’s affection.