Devour (31 page)

I wanted to scream but for some reason, my vocal cords were frozen, in fear I guessed. It felt like I was dragged forever before it finally stopped abruptly. I lay in the grass, the sky above me. The stars and moon were shining through the canopy of the trees and in any other setting it would have been beautiful. And then a pair of beady eyes were above me too. I gasped and tried to scramble back, but it stopped me with a hand on my arm. It was surprisingly strong.

“Be still, feeler,” it hissed in a high pitched and scratchy voice. “Those thieves will kill you if they find you. Be still and wait for the traitor if you know what’s good for you.”

I looked at it, or um, him. He was about as tall as my thigh with a white bohemian looking shirt on with his white pants and bare dirty feet. His eyes were beady and black. His hair was red and scraggily on the sides with none on the top at all and his skin had a greenish hue to the pale look of him. I had no idea what he was, so I asked him.

“What are you?” I whispered.

“Be quiet you stupid girl!” he hissed loudly through a mouth that was covered in blue goo. Devourer blood, I realized. His sharp little teeth were covered in blue too. “What will it matter if you find out what I am if you are dead!”

“Sorry,” I grumbled and that earned me a glare. At least I think it was a glare. His eyes were impossibly small.

So I lay silently and listened with a gangly miniature monster holding me down with his arm. I stiffened hearing the noises off in the distance, grunting and huffing. Then my heart stopped beating when I heard a voice I knew - Eli. And he was yelling.

I pushed the creature away and took off running. I heard him behind me, hissing and calling me names, but I kept running. I had told Eli that I wasn’t into playing hero but apparently, for him, I was.

I arrived on the scene to see no one there but Mara and Eli. He has his arm wrapped around her neck from behind and there were several patches of grass around them that were depressed and indented so I knew there was a body there. I swallowed and focused on Eli, who had just now seen me. He first looked ecstatic at seeing me, then turned angry; the veins in his neck blue and raised.

“I told you to keep her away from this, Bengal!” he growled at me. I was confused but looked beside me to see he was growling at the little person.

“She’s stubborn and stupid,” he said. “What did you expect me to do?”

“I expected you to do what we agreed upon.”

“Never do deals with a Goblin. Didn’t your mother every teach you that?” the little person sneered at Eli.

“Did your mother tell you to never cross a Devourer?” Eli rebutted.

“No, my mother said to bite first and ask questions later.”

Eli sighed and gripped Mara tighter as she tried to twist away. I started to ask what was going on but she elbowed him in the stomach and bent under his arm. She grabbed his head, bringing his face down to her knee. I started to scream but the Goblin…Gnome…thing grabbed my hand jerking me to the ground and putting his scaly dry hand over my mouth.

“Stupid girl. Don’t alert the humans with your high pitched screams.”

I looked at him in disbelief and then back to Eli as he slammed her to the ground by a hand around her throat. But she didn’t stay down long. She jumped up with a quick move back to her feet and then jabbed a blow to his neck with the back of her fist. I cringed, covering my face and turned away. I turned back just in time to see him as he grabbed her head from behind. He met my eyes from across the expanse and grimaced.

“Look away, Clara.”

I obeyed with the quickness and through my squeezed shut eyes I still heard the crack of her neck and then the rustle of grass. I opened them to see him watching me but he didn’t move towards me. I wanted to run to him but I felt vulnerable and strange. The way he was looking at me…I realized he was waiting to see my reaction to what he’d done; my reaction to the monster he thought he was.

So I ran to him. His face released all the tension, the blue veins on his neck and arms settled back into his skin and he opened the circle of his arms up to me. I collided with him and felt him lift my feet from the ground as he plunged his face into my neck and hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“You came back,” I said breathlessly.

He pulled back to look at me and said, “I never really left. I just went far enough that the Horde would think I was gone and Angelina and Enoch would follow me.”

“Really?”

“Of course, CB. I couldn’t leave you.”

“But you knew the Horde was still here?” I asked as he set me back to my feet.

“I figured. “

“But…” I was confused. “You left and knew they were still here…I don’t understand…”

“You ‘re wondering why I would leave you in danger?” he asked with a little smile.

“A little,” I said quietly.

“Well, that‘s where Bengal comes in.” He turned me to the small man in front of us. “Bengal, this is Clara. Clara, this is Bengal. He’s a Goblin who owed me a favor and has been shadowing you for two days.”

“Um…” I turned to Eli so the Goblin guy wouldn’t hear me. “No offense, Eli, but that guy’s as tall as my knee. Why would you think he could protect me from-“
“Goblins have excellent hearing, human,” Bengal said and crossed his thick arms in insult. “And how do you think I saved your bony backside the first time, hmm?”

Twenty one

“
U
m…” I scrambled for something to say but Eli helped me out.

“Goblins are toxic to Devourers. Well, their bite is.”

That explained the blue mouth and teeth. Eew. But it all fell into place.

“You bit Hatch,” I said as realization hit me. “That’s why he fell. You killed him?”

“I wish, but alas we are toxic but not deadly to their kind. He’s paralyzed. And he’ll stay that way for all of eternity so he may as well be dead.”

“Ok, that’s enough for now,” Eli insisted and pulled me to his side, his arm wrapped around my waist. “Bengal, once again, it’s been a pleasure,” he told him but it sounded grated and forced.

“Bah, I hate you, traitor, as much as you hate me. We don’t have to pretend.”

“It’s a strange partnership,” Eli agreed but reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. He flicked it to the Goblin and he snapped his hand out to grab it. He grinned, his blue small sharp teeth blazing as he bit the coin, testing to make sure it was real, I assumed. Then he licked it and nodded, slipping it into his pocket.

“Business has commenced, traitor. The bodies will be taken to Resting Place by morning. My services are always open to you, for a price.”

“Like I could forget that part,” Eli answered. “Thank you for keeping her safe.”

“Don’t get soft on me!” Bengal spat and inched away backwards. “Business is business.”

He continued to walk and watch us until he got to the edge of the clearing. Then he turned and ran. I looked up at Eli with a million questions in my mind.

“I know,” he insisted and lifted his hands. “I know, there’s so many things I need to tell you.”

“The first one being, why did you concoct this whole plan and not tell me!” I said and pushed his chest a little to drive home my point. “Why couldn’t I be in on it?”

“Because I wanted you to think you were completely safe. And you were,” he said quickly, “I want you to understand that you were safe. I would never have left had I thought for a second that you would be in harm’s way. But you gave me the idea. When you said I should leave and pretend to follow along with that for a while so Angelina and Enoch would back off, it was clear to me that the Horde hadn’t left. See, the Horde took Angelina from the park that night remember? They don’t take prisoners. Once you told me that she was still here, and free, I knew the Horde was onto us. I didn’t want you to worry. I wanted you to feel safe. So I let you think that your plan was
the
plan. When in actuality, I called in reinforcements.”

“Bengal,” I answered as he pulled me through the grass towards the carnival. I noticed how he kept his arm around me the entire time as he steered me through the ones on the ground that I didn’t want to think about. “How do you know him?”

“He’s the one who found me chained to the tree. He’s the one who saved me, for a price. I had to fulfill him a deed of his choosing. We’ve been…uneasy allies ever since. Goblins and Devourers have always been enemies.”

“What did you mean their bite is toxic?” I asked and stopped him when he would have emerged from the woods. I had more questions still. “He said the bite paralyzes them?”

“Yes. They are paralyzed, aware and alive but unable to move, and there’s never been a cure. The Goblins have a place they take the bodies. They call it Resting Place. It should really be called Bragging Rights. That’s all it is. There are hundreds of them all laid into the bowl of a valley. They go there and boast about how many they’ve taken down over the years. See, Devourers are Immoral, can’t be killed at all. But, a Goblin’s bite has been the only thing to ever take us down.”

“And you brought him here, knowing he would follow me and bite whoever messed with me and that they would be paralyzed, unable to harm me,” I worked out and he nodded.

“I knew they’d ambush you. So I made sure to come back and be here when they did.”

“When did you come back?”

“This afternoon.”

“Why didn’t you come see me?”

“Because you needed to think I was gone for the plan to work. I needed them all together so that Bengal and I could take down the whole pack of them at once.”

I sighed and put my hand on his chest. His heart beat against my palm and he was so close I could feel his breath on my face as I stared at his shirt front. It was black and plain to blend in with the dark. He’d planned this whole thing.

He lifted my face and ducked his at the same time to look at me. He smoothed the bunched skin between my eyes with his thumb.

“What are you thinking so hard about?” he whispered.

“I was so scared for you. One second I was so glad to see you and then the next I was horrified thinking that you’d get hurt or…worse. And then that Goblin dragged me off,” I scoffed. “And insulted me.”

He laughed and pulled to him as he said, “I’m glad you’re still the same funny Clara that I left here two days ago.”

“What have you been doing all afternoon?”

“Watching you.” I peeked up at him to see what his smug tone was about. “I saw you take Dee down a few notches. I almost blew my cover to go and tell you how proud I was of you.”

“You saw that?”

“Oh, yeah, I saw that.”

“And you were proud of me?” I whispered.

“Very,” he whispered back. “I know you think that you are this weak, human, spoiled girl who has let people trample on her, but you are anything but that. That’s the product of the life you’ve led, that’s not who you are. Not anymore. You’re capable of many things, standing up for yourself being one of them. I’m so glad I got to see you realize that for yourself.”

“Thank you,” was all I could say in response. “I missed you.”

“Mm, I missed you,” he groaned and pulled me up on my toes to kiss him. He kissed me fiercely but gently and when I felt his tongue ring against my tongue my restraint dropped from the picture. I pulled him tighter, causing him to groan which just fed my fire as he tasted my want for him. I don’t even remember how long we stayed like that in the edge of the woods and kissed but he suddenly jerked back and licked his lip. It seemed to be just out of habit because his face was serious.

“My sister,” he said quickly.

“What?” I was confused why his sister came up in the middle of our necking session.

“My sister,” he said harder. “Bengal didn’t bite my sister.”

He put his arms around me and shot us swiftly across the woods back to the spot we’d been before. He bent down and I didn’t even have to look to know what had happened. She had awakened sometime while we were talking and sprinted away. He pounded his fist on the ground then looked back up to me and shook his head.