Page 10 of Bloody Bargain
“Is that what they’re called?” I asked. His gaze traveled down my front in an appraising way. He saw how slight I’d become. Malnourished, some would say. Wiry was how I liked to think of it. He licked at my blood on his cheek again.
“Humans are blind to theauf.Fiends.Hou wost thu?How you… How do you know?”
I clenched my jaw. I didn’t want to talk about the thing that weighed heaviest on my conscience. The inevitable screw up towards which I was walking. Blood that would stain the floor instead of turn to soil.
“I will free you in exchange for safety and information.”
I said the words with force, as if someone else was driving the air from my throat. Teetering was driving me mad. Kill him. Don’t kill him. Ingratiate myself. Torture him with an antiseptic. My thoughts were torn asunder, discombobulated and worrisome.
The closer I stood to that crossbeam, the worse it felt. I glared at it, walking around the snake man–the b’adruokh–to his other side to get more distance. The cacophony eased, but the world still spun.
He followed me with his multi-pupil stare, a disbelieving expression chiseled into the lines, thescales,of his cheeks. The world groaned again and I stumbled, catching myself on one of the shed’s vibrating corner beams with a shocked breath.
“Free?Fredom?”
“Yes. I’ll take away the iron. All of it,” I snapped. Why was the world swaying? Did Wales have earthquakes? Goosebumps erupted across my arms. I couldn’t tell if it was me or the world, terrified that I’d finally eaten something that would change me. “You can feel that, right?”
“All…” A hungry look overcame the creature’s gaze, and he fought to raise his head. “Please!” he panted. “Iwile–will–not harm you. Mylyfis yours iffreo?en.If you givefrijaz.Free.”
“Stop,” I snapped, squeezing my eyes shut against the nausea. “Please tell me you canfeelthat.”
“Yes. It is the, ah,ánk?ra.It schal synken.It will… end. Soon.”
My eyes popped open and found him gazing at the crossbeam. I held the rotten wood in a hard, trembling grip and breathed slowly out through my nose.
“Okay,” I murmured, imagining the panic melting off me like hot water in the shower. I redirected my attention back to the bargain I was willing to make, forcing myself to focus. I wanted to get away from theánk?ra–whatever that word meant–as quickly as possible. “You swear you won’t harm any humans. Including me.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll give me information?”
His throat bobbed as a fire lit in his eyes. “Free and I will be yourwepen,”he said slowly, making sure every word was one I would understand. “Your will is mydeterminacioun. Yourblodis myblod.All of me. Yours. As long as you live, my lady. Longer.” His brow creased.“Ay mare.”
My heart thumped so forcefully in my chest that my eyesight wavered. I licked my lips, rooting my feet to the ground. His oath of loyalty rang so true that my cheeks bristled with heat. My fingers trembled, no longer numb but hot and pounding to the march of my own pulse.
“You’llhelpme?”
“Sweren.Yourblod, myblod.”He grimaced, unable to hold his head up any longer. His temple fell back into the mud.“Ay mare. Yeve myn gast.”
He faded with a ghostly rattle in his lungs.
I cursed under my breath.
?
I’d waited for him to wake up for several minutes, but he slept deeply, so I took the opportunity to examine him in the light instead. There I was, huddled against the chill while sitting on my heels, staring at his wrists, the claws on the tips of his fingers. He had the same number of fingers, but his palms were leathery pads, marred with scars.
Sweren…That sounded like I swear. And right before he went unconscious…Ay mare,my lady, maybe.Gast…Guest? Ghost?
I was grasping at straws trying to translate his last sentence, but it hardly mattered. The rest of it was crystal clear. He was desperate to be free and willing to work for it. My entire lifetime, he’d said. As long as I live. It was hardly a drop in the bucket for him, barely an inconvenience.
But a single grain of sand in the hourglass of his life was worth everything to me.
Sitting there in the mid-afternoon sun, numb acceptance blanketed my soul. I already knew that I was sold on the temptation of his power. Even if he was lying out of desperation,mydesperation was greater.
Is this what a deal with the devil felt like?
If I could rid the world of even a hundred fiendish vermin, I would feel justified in selling my soul. I was a husk anyway, whittled away by pain and loss. The single task of killing this evil blight was all that had kept my dead spirit moving after my world fell apart. Pleasures and pains felt far away from me now, and so would the gnashing teeth of the devil’s hellhounds if he came to collect my soul after this deal was done.
