by Keri Salyers
“We were feeding him once a day but after losing a guard, we decided that twice a week would be good enough. It’s not like he was eating the food anyways.” The guard had the decency at least to look somewhat abashed at their poor treatment of a prisoner. He wouldn’t meet my eye. The second guard however spat on the ground near the bars. Ianarius rounded out the group and was quiet at my back.
Stepping to the bars, I lowered my mental barrier enough to send out tendril to him; just enough to let him know who I was. The faded eyes widened and slowly as if he hadn’t moved for quite some time, the Harbinger pushed his tired body to one knee, his head bowed. Heavy chains weighed down his limbs and rustled with movement. “And you called me a monster,” I remarked to those behind me. “Not even a Sarkkrai would have left someone to slowly rot to death in a prison cell.”
“No, they would have degraded, tortured and then killed their prisoner,” Ianarius remarked. The mage did not fail to notice the Harbinger’s head lift as if he was scenting the air. Whilst my assassins couldn’t precisely sniff out magic, they were remarkably astute in addition to resistant.
“Perhaps so but you Pelthocians always claimed to be the better race, taking the high road, the honorable road. Yet here in this pitiable cell sits evidence of the same violence you accuse the Sarkkrai of.” I looked back at the Harbinger, wobbling slightly on his knee. That such a beautiful graceful creature could be reduced to this… “Your name, Harbinger?”
His eyes snaked past me then back and his mouth opened, moving like he couldn’t quite remember how to form the words. He croaked out his name in the Sarkkrai language, unwilling to not respond to my question but not willing to let them know it. I translated the word as best I could in my head and frowned over the result. Was I wrong? It had been a while. “I want them to hear it, to know they kept a living thinking being in this cage for all these years, so speak. Translate it to their language.”
“Deviant.”
No. I was not out of practice in the Sarkkrai tongue. “I’m not calling you that.” Gonna nip that right in the bud. “Devi. That’s much less… ugh.”
“Mistress, forgive…” came the whispery dry voice. “Twenty three moons ago… I began to… doubt… you would return.”
My heart constricted in my chest. Twenty three moons out of perhaps five or six years and only then was he beginning to doubt? Oh my faithful creature… “The war has ended, Devi. It’s been over for many, many moons. Have your people still been fighting all this time?”
He gave a nod. “We were not told otherwise. We continued our war.”
“The Harbingers that remained in our towns and villages were routed. Once we knew what they were, we went town to town. This one was brought down but before we could burn the body, its heart had restarted. We tossed it in irons so that we could learn from it.”
“And what did you learn?”
“That these things are damn hard to keep dead and nothing will make them talk if they don’t want to. This is the first time I’ve actually even heard it.”
“I didn’t deserve such loyalty,” I said softly, my hands on the cold bars that separated us. “And your people were left forgotten at their posts, just like you were left forgotten in here. I am sorry for what I did.” The Harbinger wavered on his knee, placing a hand on the ground to stay up. The chains jingled around him. The look on his face was so lost, I could almost cry. That I had used this entire race so badly that this one lone being could quite possibly be the last of his kind was a sin I would never rid myself of. “Your time in purgatory ends today.”
“I am not going to let this monster out of here, just to go back to preying on the countryside,” Ianarius declared.
“He will do as I tell him,” I hissed over my shoulder. “Devi, the war is over. You will return to your lands beyond Rakmorath and take as many of your people with you as you can locate.”
“…Mistress…” The Harbinger breathed out, putting his other knee under him until he was kneeling completely. “I beg you. Don’t... make me leave you.”
“The war is over! The Harbingers are free. You don’t have to do this anymore.”
“You are here,” he replied in simplicity.
I thunked my forehead into the bars, feeling the cold permeate my skin. How could I turn my back to that? What was I to do? Well, first things first. “Open the cell.” The Pelthocians exchanged glances. “I assure you, he will not attack.”
The guardsmen exchanged glances but at a nod from Ianarius, one relented and the door screeched open. Agonizingly slow, the Harbinger got his legs up under him. The people at my back tensed as if this half-dead creature could possibly do them harm. Hm, well, then again maybe they were right to be afraid; a Harbinger was a force unto themselves, spending their lives hiding their nature like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. “Alright, let’s undo the damage wrought by all those deaths.”
Reaching out a hand, I saw the Harbinger’s instinctual reactions even as he tried to mask them. Dry lips pulled back from teeth that ended in serrated edges—little doubt this was how they found they could tell the difference between them and the Pelthocians. A pale pink tongue peeked out to run along the edges then moisten his lips. A tentative hand came to meet mine, shaking as if afflicted with palsy. No, he was physically shaking, not just his hand, and I felt a spike of sudden fear as I began to reassess what it was I was doing. In a small cell with a half-starved killer and I was trusting he wouldn’t savage my arm?
He breathed in a hitching breath as his other hand curled at his side. Harbingers could taste chemical changes; no doubt he was catching my fear and it was ratcheting up his predatory senses. Devi looked to want to lower his eyes from the pulse of my wrist but couldn’t. As I watched, with every blink his unremarkable blue eyes bled more and more into pure black. He was quickly losing control.
I mentally kicked myself. I was no human, no Pelthocian. A Harbinger could only hurt me if I let it and this Harbinger needed me. I did not much relish the idea of becoming sustenance but none of the men behind me were going to offer and I suppose it was my fault he’d spent the last several years in solitary confinement, starving… dying….
I steeled my spine and the hand that met my own was no longer shaking as badly. Devi gently pulled me closer to him, raising my upturned hand to his mouth. I could feel his breath along my skin, sending a shiver racing through me. His teeth were exquisitely sharp, the elongated edges slicing into my skin with razor precision. There was no pain at first then it hit me when the Harbinger latched his mouth to the wound. He was still trying to be gentle, holding my arm almost reverently. I felt the occasional pass of a tooth, keeping the wound open. Just when the pain was starting to become too much, Devi pulled back with a small moan. His tongue laved over the cuts. It wasn’t meant to be sexual but the sensuality of sharing blood, of being that close, made my throat dry and my heart flip. Having another’s tongue on my body might also have something to do with it. The Harbinger sighed softly as he drew that soft wet tongue languidly over my wrist but before I could remind myself how seriously inappropriate this all was becoming, Devi released my arm as if shocked. His legs gave out under him and he curled over with a gasp. He coughed and gasped over sounds reminiscent of bending celery until it breaks in two.
“Devi?” I clutched my wrist, sending a healing tendril to knit the skin. The Harbinger’s back twitched and trembled. Behind clenched jaws came groans of pain and gulping breaths. Then it all stopped and he became still as death. “Devi?”
He drew in a deep breath and got to his feet in an eerily-fluid motion. It was if he was replaced by an entirely different person. Gone was the frailness, the ill-health. The Harbinger was tall but not abnormally so; his body was firm with muscle but not overly so—faultless, enticing and unintimidating. His face beneath the dirt was handsome enough, just the other side of average—a nice face but forgettable, as all his kind were. Devi’s jaw was angular, his lips full and pleasant. There was a moment while he slowly op
ened his eyes that I saw the being beneath the façade—his real face was like a sculpture waiting for features to be chiseled in, plain, wrong and alien. The black-as-voids eyes flickered and suddenly they were an even gray, expressive with laugh lines under slightly arched brows. He was suddenly your acquaintance down the street, the guy you shared a laugh with while waiting in line, the coworker you know but can never recall his name…
The guards behind me were not going to be fooled; they nervously gripped the weapons at the sides. It was only Ianarius’ presence that kept them from slamming the cell door and locking it. I couldn’t feel anything from the mage.
Devi smiled without revealing the lower half of his teeth. “Mistress…” He may not be drop-dead gorgeous, layered in grime as he was, but his purring voice was silky smooth, sending a shiver down my back. The multiple deaths at the hands of the Pelthocians, starvation and dehydration left no mark upon him but his clothes were holding together by dirt. Walking out of here was going to leave me with one dirty naked Harbinger and I don’t think I would have minded that much. Basking in the feelings I was unwittingly broadcasting, he spryly took up my hand and laid a gentle kiss on my palm.
Then his eyes slid past me and I got a glimpse into the creature that lurked beneath that pleasant disguise. I could not blame the inhuman growl that rose up from his throat, the cat-like scrunch of his shoulders as if readying to pounce—these people had held him prisoner for far too long. “Devi,” I said softly; the call of his name snapping him out of the lapse of judgment. “Remember what I said to you—you can come with me as long as you do not attack anyone. Just stay at my side.”
“I will do as you say, Mistress.” The Harbinger lowered his head in acquiescence but only a fool would miss the simmering beast laying below, waiting…
I studied him for a moment, hoping I wasn’t making a Very Big Mistake. This wasn’t an abused puppy I was taking in from the local shelter. I turned to face the Pelthocians, ready to leave.
“S-sir, you can’t really be allowing this!” One of the guards sputtered. “That thing is an enemy of our county! Who knows how many have died at his hands!”
“Stand aside,” the mage replied without looking away from me. He had that same reflective look on his face as he did earlier. The guard wanted to argue but knew he held no clout; with a disgruntled sigh, he stomped out of the way. His fellow followed suit. I strode out of the cell with Devi flanking me. I was unable to keep a self-satisfied smile from my lips. The guard who had spoken out suddenly paled and stepped back; over my shoulder I could see Devi smiling his most devastating smile, all teeth accounted for.
~*~*~*~
CHAPTER 6
Ah, the rain. It greeted my return with a lovely cadence upon the roof and windows. I let out a sigh. Lehiras was my home but Earth had adopted me, had generously claimed me as its own. And now I was in a pickle in order to defend it. But the rain was calming, the clean scent of my condo was a balm. I could do this.
There was a stutter behind me—one I didn’t see so much as feel—that told me Ianarius had survived the trip. The rush of this new civilization was overwhelming him, threatening to drown him. His mental shields were wrapping tight. I could feel the layer upon layer he was molding like intakes of breath. When I turned to eye him, the mage was gasping, wide-eyed. I tossed my hair over my shoulder smugly as if I hadn’t had the exact same reaction ten years ago.
Devi, whose kind were not magical in nature, was already exploring but I noted that even preoccupied, his ear was always turned toward the mage. His fingers lightly touched things here and there. When he located the window, his attention was yanked fully from Ianarius as I knew it would.
“Welcome to Earth,” I said, with a flourish of my hands. The mage caught his breath, strange eyes committing the contents of my room to memory before coming back to me.
“This place is… heady,” He breathed.
“It gets better but I don’t have the time to get you situated—I have to track down that fire-bastard before it’s too late.”
“And how will you start?” Ianarius lowered his hand from his chest, drawing attention to the fact that robes were definitely out of Oregonian fashion.
“Invyrchal had said he would start with Rutherford, the metropolis outside of Kingston. I guess I will start there…” I ran a hand through my hair. This was so out of my forte. What would I even be looking for? A giant sign that said ‘bad guys enter here’?
“With no other lead, it will have to do. Let’s go.” The mage went to walk past me but I stopped him with an outstretched hand, fingertips close to his chest without touching.
“Uh… you can’t walk outside looking like that.”
“Looking like what?” He replied apprehensively. Through our connection I felt a trickle of defensiveness behind his words.
“People here don’t wear robes,” I told him, dropping my hand. “And you can’t really… you know…”
“What?” He scowled. Yep, defensive.
“Be you. Be a mage. That means no open spellwork. Nothing noticeable.”
He bristled for a moment but bit down on what he wanted to say. Admirable. “Fine. No open spellwork, except when absolutely necessary.”
“Also, in addition to your clothes, there’s… well… your eyes.” I floundered.
“There is nothing I can do about my eyes. You think if I could change them that I wouldn’t have tried?” He looked away suddenly as if having admitted something he hadn’t meant to. He took a breath. “I can change my clothing if you would provide an image. Perhaps a cowl… could hide my eyes.”
“A hat,” I corrected, feeling a little bad that I had put him on the spot over his creepy eyes. A thought hit me. “Or, sunglasses!” I leapt into action, tracking down the latest opulent fashion magazine within reach and after flipping a few pages, located something fabulous that I wouldn’t mind being modeled for me. I mean, something appropriate for walking around Rutherford. I tapped the picture.
Ianarius frowned down at the magazine and a moment later, the grumpy sleep-deprived mage was replaced by a grumpy sleep-deprived fashion model in expensive ass-accentuating slacks, an earthy-tan shirt and black Chinese-influenced blazer with high collar and shiny gold buttons. Sunglasses that I would have adored to own sat upon his face with aplomb. I couldn’t help my jaw dropping any more than I could help my eyes traveling down with abandon. When I got to his feet—were those Tanino Crisci shoes?! Daaamn with a capital D.
“I…uh,” I began stupidly, forcing my tongue back into my mouth. “Th-that’s good.”
It was the mage’s turn to smile smugly.
“Devi, you will stay here—”
“No.” The Harbinger pulled himself away from the window. “I will not let you place yourself in harm’s way without me to stand in front of you.”
“Devi…” I sighed.
“I will not entrust your life to someone else’s care.” His gray eyes encompassed Ianarius, who met the stare with equal attitude. Neither was backing down. Great. A sudden inhuman stillness came over Devi and a sense of alertness lent his features a sharpness that they usually did not possess. Silently and smoothly, the Harbinger pivoted and walked to the open kitchen. From the marble island, he pulled a knife from its block.
“Don’t do this,” Ianarius hissed, drawing in energy and readying himself to splatter my Harbinger with a spell.
Devi barely spared the mage a glance, instead he moved to the door. From behind the green palm leaves of a potted tree, he twirled the knife and became like a shadow. I was about to question him, but then my ears picked up what his did. Someone was at the door, jingling keys. Someone was at my door! Burglars? Did burglars bother with getting a skeleton key? Well, that someone was in for one helluva surprise…
I moved to place my hands on the back of the couch, giving myself some stability. Ianarius moved back, putting the still-swirling portal at his side. The temperature of the room began to drop as he pulled in the warm energies and
heated them in his hand till his fist glowed in red fire. Slowly, the door came open and we all tensed. In bobbed a blond head partially concealed by a brown paper bag. The person turned from shutting the door.
“Devi no!” I shouted, holding out my hand as if I could reach the Harbinger. “That’s not a thief, that’s Eleanor! She’s my… house-sitter. Eleanor Stoffs.” I trailed off. Oh crap, I forgot to tell her…
“Z, oh my God! Wh-what’s going on? Are you ok? Who are…” Eleanor’s eyes were huge behind tiny silver-rimmed glasses as she blinked between the multiple suspicious characters currently in the room with a boldness she didn’t usually exhibit. Her short blonde ringlets quivered. She squeaked and hugged her bag tighter when Devi straightened from his crouch and, with a final twirl, made the knife disappear.
Ianarius shook out his hand, dispelling the fire. Behind his sunglasses, he was watching me. Damn it, did I just involve another person in this? I bit a thumbnail. Couldn’t just vaporize her, could I? Did heroes do such things? No, I don’t think they do. Double damn.
Eleanor Stoffs was the college-hopeful I paid to run odd jobs and take care of my condo when I was out of town. She came by once a week to straighten things up. Eleanor was a shy sort, not really one to speak up for herself and I guess I felt a little sorry for her; hence why I paid her to clean when I really didn’t need it. Cute in the harmless way kittens are cute, she had the couple extra pounds that rounded out her features and gave her a soft, sweet appearance. We were on friendly-terms and, to be honest, Eleanor was the closest thing I actually had to a friend.
She also had no idea at all what I was or where I was truly from. I had doubts that that would endear me to anyone. I had doubts that any sane person would believe it either. My options were either sit her down and explain things or just toss her through the portal and let nature take its course. So far, having an assassin in bits of moth-eaten cloth nearly attacking her and witnessing a man in gorgeous shoes literally engulf his hand in flame had distracted her away from the yawning maw on the far wall. That wouldn’t last long. I had to fix this or finish it.
