WickedBeast (2 page)
Authors: Gail Faulkner
“Minuet small,” she informed him, holding out a hand to show
him, her look telling him she was concerned that he’d missed this critical
point.
He took her extended hand and folded it in his. The
connection with pure power snapped with the force of an electric current. He
was as depleted as a polio victim, not just weak, but one whose muscles had
actually wasted away.
“Do you feel what happens when you hold my hand, Minuet?” He
searched her eyes, desperately hoping shock and revulsion would not suddenly
bloom there, unable to quite figure out why it didn’t.
“Dagon better?”
“Much better. Minuet is medicine. Will you come with me to
help Mommy?”
Big eyes glanced at the door to the basement and back at
his. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration and she stepped closer to him. “Me
skeered bassent,” she repeated directly into his face with a slow cadence as if
he didn’t hear her the first time.
“I know, sweetheart, but Mommy needs both of us. You don’t
have to walk down. Just climb on my back, close your eyes and hold on. I’ll
bring you both up the stairs and then you can open your eyes. Can you do that
for Mommy?”
Nodding, she placed the bear carefully on the floor and held
up her arms. Cord helped her climb onto his back, her little arms clamped
around his neck. The two pink-covered feet couldn’t reach very far around his
chest, but she had the clinging ability of the very young in any species.
“Close your eyes. You must be calm to help,” he cautioned.
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
The little body on his back, acting like a power pack, Cord
loped down the stairs. He lifted the huge cylinder and set it aside, being
careful to place it so it appeared he’d been able to tip it off. Scooping up
the woman, he tried to ignore the burst of need exploding up his body.
Carefully he carried his burdens up the stairs.
Carrying both of them created an enthralling mix of power
and pleasure pouring into his starved frame. What they were to him was
magnified by the years he’d endured without even a taste of what he craved much
less this new, indefinable mix of whatever it was they supplied.
Placing the woman carefully on the floor, his hand went to
her leg without hesitation. She was in shorts, the damage painfully evident.
Passing over it, he felt crushed bones, mangled arteries and dying muscle. Even
with the little one on his back he didn’t have the strength to fix it all, so
he swiftly did what he could with the arteries and veins she needed to ensure a
healthy leg. The rest modern medicine could set, but the tiny blood vessels
would have been beyond them.
He grabbed a kitchen towel off the back of a chair and
draped it over her leg to hide the ugly reality from the little miracle on his
back. No child should see that. He shifted so Minuet would be facing away from
the pale form of her mother when she opened her eyes.
“Okay. You can open your eyes and get off, honey.”
Her little body slid off and she dashed around him, grabbing
the purple bear as she went to her mother’s side.
“Mommy, wakes up!” Grasping a limp hand, she franticly shook
it. Power was building in the room as Minuet struggled to wake her mother.
Cord gathered deceptively frail pink shoulders under his
arm. “Mommy is sleeping and that’s good. Her leg would hurt her very much if
she were awake,” he tried to explain and calm the tearful child. Her vibrations
at this level of distress could echo too far. She was so young. There was no
way to explain the cost of that much white power flowing across the
countryside. His own actions were compounding those dangers, but he couldn’t do
otherwise.
From the first rose petal scent to penetrate his
booze-induced fog he’d be helpless to overcome the instincts that brought them
to this moment. Rose petals and pink pajamas. Who knew these were the tools
that compelled him to forsake sacred vows and his last hope of redemption from
a God who didn’t know him.
The directive he’d rejected was a perfect theory, long and
involved yet elegantly simple. His commitment to the mission had dragged him
through endless decades of remaining sentient for one last service required by
his beloved creator. To save the humans, all he had to do was kill the woman
and her child.
Chapter Two
This isn’t right
, pounded through his brain. Nothing
was as it should be. The plan had been perfect, freaking brilliant, but no one
had said anything about a tiny white power miracle, pink pajamas or rose
petals. And how was his animal nature actually offended at the thought of
killing them? Animals don’t get offended.
Minuet wasn’t exactly a white witch. She was something else.
The little girl clutching her mother’s hand was so much more than anyone had
been before. He’d like to use that as an excuse for his inability to follow the
plan. She was a new development, a twist of fate and genetics who might save
them all. It could happen. Apparently anything could happen in this new
reality.
His eyes went to the alabaster face of her unconscious
mother and he knew the truth. Minuet might indeed save them, but every drop of
innocent blood shed from this moment forward would be on his head. He wasn’t strong
enough to kill this woman.
Merciless animal instincts came with a price it seemed.
Logic was not an unstoppable response, logic was always a choice. What his
creators seemed to have miscalculated on was the amount of instinct remaining
in his system.
Cord’s hand tightened on Minuet’s shoulder. “Where is the
phone, honey?”
Minuet never took her eyes off her mother’s pale face.
“Phone man sick. Him come tomorrow.”
So they were moving in, not out. That explained his not
being aware of them. “Does Mommy have a cell phone?”
Minuet nodded. “In a floor.”
“Where? I need it to call help for Mommy. Try to remember
exactly where the cell phone is.”
A fresh tear raced down her cheek. “I dop it inna floor.
Mommy put me bed and go find phone. No more Mommy.” Her silvery voice shook as
she finished her story.
“Mommy is going to be fine. She’s just sleeping real deep.”
Cord glanced at the ornate grate cover on the floor heating vents. The swirling
brass was decorative but certainly left enough room for a cell phone to fall
through. “It went down one of those?” he asked while pointing at the kitchen
vent.
“I sorry,” Minuet whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Shhhh,” he comforted as her guilt added to the mix of
emotions she was projecting. “No one is mad, honey. We need to call the doctor
to help Mommy. Have you met the people in the house next door?”
Cord had several problems now. He didn’t have a cell phone.
He didn’t have anything to tie him to this century except the necessity of a
vehicle. He looked like a scary homeless person and he had to get these two
into the hands of medical professionals. Normal people would take one look at
him and assume he’d broken in and attacked them.
“Aunt Molly. She coming,” Minuet responded as if he should
have heard the footsteps hurrying across the lawn.
She was right, he should have. Damn! An aunt person would
really dislike finding him bending over these two. He had to be acceptable to
this family unit. It was imperative. Fuck!
“Minuet, would you help me one more time?” he asked softly.
There was no time to do things the right way. No time to explain what he was
about to ask her.
The little tear-streaked face turned up to his with a tiny
smile. “I does it. Aunt Molly afeared of messy dagon. Now you pretty.” The last
was said as someone hurried up the porch steps.
Cord glanced down at himself in mild panic. Minuet’s idea of
making pretty gave him an instant image of a pink puppy. Thankfully he only had
two legs and jeans were still on them, but the cloth was clean instead of dirt
streaked. Above them his T-shirt had lost both stains and wrinkles. His hand
went to his chin and found a close-cut beard.
“Be good dagon. No magic. It a rule,” Minuet informed him in
a whisper.
“Good rule,” Cord agreed, and turned his head as a woman
opened the front door calling for Minuet and Kelly.
So that was her name, Kelly. It fit. “Minuet, my name is
Cord. Let me do the explaining when she comes in. Okay?” he whispered quickly.
Little Miss Miracle nodded just as the woman entered the
kitchen and gasped.
Cord straightened slowly so he wouldn’t startle the short,
dark-haired woman. She didn’t look a bit like Minuet or Kelly. In her
housecoat, it wasn’t hard to see that her body size held none of the long, lean
lines Kelly possessed, though she wasn’t fat.
“Oh my God! What happened?” she exclaimed, pausing in shock
at the scene.
Cord nodded seriously. “There was an accident in the
basement. Minuet flagged me down. Do you have a cell phone, ma’am? I’m afraid I
left mine at home this morning and I can’t locate a phone to call paramedics.”
Cord attempted to appear sincere and concerned as the woman
at the kitchen door added a punch of earthy power to the emotions swirling
around the room. He was forced to breathe shallowly to avoid an overload, but
it didn’t matter. There were three in the room with him, three powerful
elements of nature.
Deep beneath, the muscles of his back moved to the
inevitable response to the power surrounding him. Two of them were upset,
seeking assistance. The third was in jeopardy. He’d known this would happen. He
hadn’t known they were three. Apparently they didn’t know they were three
either.
If Minuet was forbidden from letting Molly see her magic,
Kelly had no idea Molly was gifted. They certainly weren’t blood sisters.
Molly rushed toward Kelly, her eyes on the kitchen towel
covering Kelly’s leg from the knee down. “How bad is it? Oh Minuet, Aunt
Molly’s here. Everything will be all right. I promise, baby. Who are you? I saw
the lights. I knew something was wrong…”
Her words rushed together as the woman sank down beside
Minuet. Cord stepped back as he felt her gathering her gift. Molly was very
busy trying to distract everyone with the deluge of words. Her hand fluttered
to Kelly’s ankle and Cord grabbed the back of a kitchen chair to keep from
falling on his ass.
Molly drew on the earth as she demanded it heal the serious
wounds in Kelly. Ruthlessly she took from the surroundings. Power rushed
through Molly into Kelly’s leg, and Molly’s eyes flashed up to Cord in
wide-eyed surprise.
Apparently she had no idea what he was. None of them seemed
to know anything about what they were. He almost laughed at the absurdity of
it. Cord was a creature of the earth. His kind were created, not born, they
were the earth as much as they were flesh. Animal was as close as human words
could come to identify them, but they certainly weren’t any type of beast this
world knew. They had blood DNA but it was the mix of elements that made them
the soulless creatures that they were.
To heal Kelly, Molly had gathered life force
indiscriminately, thinking she was calling on the organic world to lend its
assistance. And she was. Earth Witch simply had no idea organic could walk on
two legs. Her call had required a response from his body and she’d pretty much
drained him with it.
Pulling out the kitchen chair, he sat down heavily. The fact
that he could bleed, that his body usually resembled a mammal didn’t make him a
true one. Trees bled. Even rocks could in their own fashion. The stark reminder
of what he was didn’t change what he wanted. What he was no longer willing to
live without.
“What…what are you?” Molly stuttered as she stared at him
from the floor beside Kelly.
Kelly coughed as her body jerked slightly. Minuet clutched
her mother’s hand to her wet cheek.
“Mommy? Mommy, wake up?” she asked hesitantly.
“Soon, baby,” Cord responded to Minuet first. Kelly wasn’t
waking up if he couldn’t help her, and Molly had done a damn good job of
stripping him of most abilities. He lurched to his feet and concentrated on
moving normally as he stepped around Kelly’s head and went down to one knee
beside Minuet.
He regarded Molly. “You done?”
“I don’t know. Depends,” Molly answered cautiously. “What
are you?”
“Not a threat to you. You know that now. I helped her sleep
so she wouldn’t feel the pain. I have to help her wake up. Do you understand?”
He was asking her to understand what she’d just felt. She
knew enough to use her gift and feel the power she’d bled out of him. Mostly he
wanted her to come to the conclusion she could control him if she wanted to. It
would make her feel safe and accept him more readily. There was truth in that
conclusion. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
As Molly stared at him, Cord’s hand drifted over Minuet’s
hair in a light caress and came to rest on her shoulder. It appeared he was
gently giving the child physical comfort. Again that was true, mostly. Molly’s
slight dip of chin was grudging consent but enough to work with.
He slowly laid his other hand on Kelly’s brow, his eyes on
Molly to strengthen the impression that she could stop him at any time. Kelly
moaned softly.
That was all the attention he could give Molly. Looking down
at the beautiful woman slowly opening violet-blue eyes was an action he had no
hope of resisting. In that moment, her consciousness came to life and he was
truly lost. She awoke and he would never be forgiven. So be it. Cord smiled
into the eyes of the future.
“Hey. How are you feeling?” he asked softly.
“Mommy!”
Minuet launched herself on top of her mother, trying to wrap
arms around her neck. Kelly struggled to sit up and hold her baby. Cord slid an
arm under Kelly’s back to lift both so Kelly was sitting with Minuet in her
lap. The move was natural. His hand remained lightly supporting them.
For a moment, Kelly’s head dipped to rest on Minuet’s head,
both of them sheltered under his body. Cord dragged in a deep breath, soaking
up the perfection of that moment.
