Page 63 of Bloody Bargain
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The last rays of sunlight sliced across the frigid ocean and bathed the razor’s edge of the cliffs in bright orange, illuminating rows of uncanny faces now waiting for true night to fall. Fiends were good mimics, but without anyone to fool, their masks slipped. Like imposters wearing meat suits, their skin was stretched too tight in some places and drooped loose in others. Eyes were lopsided, and some had too many square, yellow teeth. They squawked, barked, laughed, or screamed at random into the wind, as if the connective magic between their stolen bodies and possessive spirits was misfiring in petit mal seizures of the soul.
The last sliver of red light split their faces like Fate’s golden thread. The sun’s weak warmth brushed the back of my neck like a soothing breath of encouragement as I held D’abel’s cool hand.
“S’ba will be enough,” he assured me quietly. He didn’t break his eyes away from the cliffs as he squeezed my fingers.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. But let’s hope they’re more pissed at you than me.”
That halo around his face shimmered in my peripheral vision with that golden, fluttery mirage. He slung his tail around my waist, and the tip slapped his own thighs like a whip before it curled around my knee. His eyes, his fingers, his tail, his fangs… Everything was too long, and details of his elemental form were seeping through the cracks. His tail clanged with dozens of short spines, and his fingers were blackened where his claws turned to shadows. His eyes glowed white like Gamil’s… He was waiting in suspense, spirit quivering with the need to expand.
“They would want to recapture me, yes.”
I huffed out a fearful breath and glowered, looking down at S’ba held in the warm cushion of my palm. I was more nervous for D’abel than for myself.
If I take one with me when I go, I’ll die happy.
That had been my mantra for as long as I’d brandished a kitchen knife. If they caught me, I was dead. If they caught D’abel, he would be thrown into another iron maiden. I squeezed S’ba, my grip true. If they overcame us and hope was lost, I would kill him because humanity couldn’t afford for him to hold up another anchor.
And because maybe I loved him. Just a little bit.
Thank you for the gift, Gamil.I know how much it cost you.I bit the inside of my cheek, squinting into the wind. It felt strange to form words in my mind. To say them with deliberation and to fully feel a sense of gratitude. In a strange way, it was comforting. Not because I thought Gamil might hear me, but because it brought me back to that moment with D’abel’s tail around my waist and my blood running hot with anticipation.And goodbye. Just in case.
“Can you really take all of them on?” I asked D’abel, looking up at him. He met my stare, silky tresses slipping over his shoulder to mingle with the wind. He smiled, fangs glinting in the final sparks of daylight.
“You worry too much, beloved.”
I squeezed S’ba, not buying his deflection. “I’m a realist. I want to know.”
“No.”
Hearing him say it out loud hurt worse than I thought it would. The pain hit my chest like I’d been shot. D’abel slipped his hand around my jaw, over my earlobe, to cradle the back of my neck. I swallowed hard, my grip on S’ba faltered, and D’abel pressed his mouth to mine. Instantly, the nerves unraveled. I breathed in his scent and steadied myself.
“Theaufon the cliff are mindless with hunger and rage,” he explained softly. “Do you remember the unsettling gravity of standing near the anchor’s scar? Without my spirit to hold it aloft, their plane is calling them back and tearing them apart.”
“And the only cure is putting you back in that shed,” I rasped. He bumped my forehead with his cheek in agreement.
“They’re desperate beyond imagination. So no, mine Tessa… As much as I’d like to preen and strut for you, I cannot lie. They are too much for us.” He kissed me once more, splitting his tongue along the seam of my lips with a grin.
“Why are you smiling?” I asked suspiciously.
“Your goal is to kill theauf,but we need not kill them all tonight, surely? We destroy as many as we can, then retreat into the safety of the sea.”
I lifted my chin in realization, the knot of apprehension loosening in my chest. “And if they follow, you’ll drown them.”
He nodded, giving my waist a squeeze with his tail. “Simply survive with me tonight. Do not risk yourself. It is not worth it.”
The last slice of sunset slipped away, and theauffinally moved, their shadows slipping along the cliff edge like spilled ink.
“They come.”
The sight stole my courage. They stampeded like a swarm of termites down the peninsula, ready to carve us up like their mouths were wood chippers. There were no shrieks, barks, guffaws, or war cries. Just the ominous rumble of hundreds of feet.
I stared at them with my heart in my throat, and suddenly my hands were numb. My knees felt weak at the crush of bodies rushing towards us. D’abel kept his eyes on me, his smile gone. He brushed his fingers over my hair and squeezed my earlobe before his hand fell away.
“When the odds are too great, trust the waves to catch you, my wife,” he murmured.
Then he walked forward and his tail slowly unraveled from around my waist. My hands shook so badly that I thought I might fall, but I breathed instead. Long, deep lungfuls of ocean air steadied me, and I stood on my own like I always had. I wouldn’t drop my knife. I was a wall, I told myself. I would hold back the flood.
