My hand stings. I drop the glass, see blood in my palm where the bottle must have cut me when it split open. It isn’t a lot, at first, but I poke the wound and my blood wells up, pools together, begins to trickle down to my forearm in a thin and steady stream. My heart flutters faster and my stomach churns, because for whatever twisted reason the burn of my own sliced flesh makes me feel giddy.
Shaken, I sink to the ground, gazing at the dark line of blood trickling across my skin, suddenly dizzy with the motion of the creek beyond my hand. It takes a moment for me to register the silver form suspended just below the surface of the water, looking up at me from the edge of the creek. My hand drops, and I can’t help but stare.
She’s beautiful, whatever she is. Her face shines up from the water, catching the moonlight on her scales and reflecting it back to the sky. Long white lashes rim huge black eyes, round and endless in their depth. I can see the curve of her neck, the angle of her shoulders, the flow of her arms as she undulates the fin of her lower body to keep herself afloat.
She begins to rise.
Her head breaks the surface of the water, hairless and shimmering, and then her shoulders, her arms, her bare chest and the points of her ribs, rising, rising, until she is towering over me, impossibly—unnaturally—huge and real.
Her lips pull back in a cruel smile, revealing several rows of small, sharp teeth. When she blinks, I can see myself inside her eyes, frail and small and swallowed by their dark depths. But a light begins to radiate from within them, brighter and brighter, until I’m nothing but a pinprick reflection in the white-hot glare of her eyes.
And then, with a playful laugh, the demon grabs me with two massive, webbed hands, lifts every inch of me clear over her head, and throws me into the creek.
— 16 —
I’m weightless for several heart-stopping moments before I hit the water. It’s not like being thrown into a pool, where you splash in and sink to the bottom, then spring back up to the surface. Instead, the second I hit the water, it grabs hold with icy fists, rolls me over, and drags me down. My body is buffeted about by currents and cross currents, knocked into rocks and roots. I scrape my hands and sprain my fingers on the creek bed as I kick and grab at anything, everything. I don’t even have the luxury of a moment to worry about the thing that threw me in here.
I have no idea which direction is up unless I touch the bottom, at which point even full-force propulsion upwards is not going to be enough to break the surface, not unless the creek allows it. Still, I try, again and again, my body twisting and reaching, pleading with the will of the water to let me go.
Finally, it gives in, pushes me up and over a ridge, riding on the crest of a cascade. I suck in a breath and lose it again in an involuntary scream, but even I can barely hear it over the roar of the creek. The current sucks me down again and again, huge hands grabbing at my shoulders and shoving me down, down, down, but I manage to bounce up once, twice, gathering air to my lungs around forced mouthfuls of water.
Frantic and blind in the dark, churning water, all the strength in my body does nothing to tear my limbs from the current’s grip. It slams me into a series of rocks, rolling me through them. First my knees hit, and then my hip—pain lances through the cold to shock me as the water pushes me back—my head bounces off of something sharp and hard—everything flares bright for a moment—the current flips me over onto my back—a searing pain explodes at my ankle.
It’s stuck, caught between two unyielding rocks, attaching me to the them like a flag caught in the wind. The water pummels me, crashes over me, around me, filling my mouth and nose, snaking down my throat. I fight and fight as hard as I can to bend forward, upward, to keep my face above the surface, but each breath I take is accompanied by a watery hand over my face, forcing me under.
I’m going to die, I realize.
Water hits my lungs like a vise around my chest. I sink under, slick silver arms coming up around my neck, dragging me down. The creature has found me—or has it been with me all along, dragging me and pummeling me, disguised as the current itself? I pry at its scaly arms with fingers and nails, but my body constricts, betrays, fighting for the oxygen just inches from my face. My fight against my own body fails as my world spins and darkness encroaches on my mind. I can no longer stop myself from breathing reflexively, coughing and choking after each unstoppable gasp, lungs drinking in the creek.
The creature’s arms disappear. Her work is done.
I wait for my life to flash before my eyes, but even in the dizzy whirl of my suffocation I can still see the moon from beneath the surface of the water, and the brightness blinds me. A shadow passes over it in the shape of a man, or a moth, or an angel, wings spread wide like the arms of a cross. The shadow drops towards me, grows bigger and bigger, until I am immersed in darkness.
— 17 —
Anastasia please, don’t die, someone shouts from far away. You can’t die. I’ve only just found you...
Something presses hard against my chest, an external heartbeat, ordering my own heart to follow. Then there are lips against my lips, warm breath blown into my lungs. It sticks like a needle, and hurts—
I try to sit up fast, but my forehead slams into someone else’s. I don’t have time to see whose—I’m turning over and throwing up water, hacking and coughing until my already raw throat is completely shredded. My lungs feel like they’re clenched between fists, but I keep dragging in quick, shallow breaths, one after another, until I can do so without coughing uncontrollably at least fifty percent of the time. I wipe the spit and the snot from my face on the drenched sleeve of my shirt, and immediately cough up more water.
At some point, someone must have put their arms around my waist. They are the only thing actually holding me up while I gag and choke on my own breath, sagging, exhausted. My own hands are clutching at my chest, as if I might be able to tear the chains away from my lungs, grabbing fistfuls of shirt and squeezing so hard that my hands and arms are shake. My hand burns from the cut, fingers ache from their sprains. My head throbs. My ankle is raw.
All of me is shaking. Every muscle in my body is fatigued beyond comprehension, battered and bruised and clenching against the cold—and the cold is incredible, like a blade of ice across every inch of my body, cutting down to the bone. I’m certain I’m going to shake myself dead from it.
“Ana?”
The sound sends a probing tremor straight through me. It’s a man’s voice, an unmistakable one, even in the state I’m in. Trebor turns me around, holds me seated upright on the ground, still encircled by his arms. His face is other-worldly in the moonlight.
“You’re going to be okay,” he tells me, pushing the wet hair away from my face. He is so warm—his hands, his arms, his body. He doesn’t have a drop of water on him. How in the world did he pull me from the middle of the creek without getting wet?
“I don’t want to freak you out,” he says, looking me in the eyes. “but I need you to take off your shirt and your jeans. We need to stop you from going hypothermic—you can have my shirt, and my coat, okay? I’ll keep you warm, and covered up.”
I stare at him, not certain if I should be horrified or amused—my brain is a fog of adrenaline, pain, disbelief. There are, after all, worse things that can happen in this moment besides stripping down to my soaked underclothes in front of an almost-stranger. But the part of me that insists—for my mental health, maybe?—on pretending that I was not just drowned by a water-demon, and that I was not just resuscitated, also insists on feeling embarrassed by his request.
But I nod anyway, partially because I know he’s right, and partially because I’m shaking so badly I can’t verbalize my response. My wet clothes are holding the cold against my skin, and I do not want to survive what I’ve just been through only to die from metabolic shut-down. I start to peel off my shirt, glad that I wore a modest bra and plain black underwear tonight, but my arms and hands are so stiff and unreliable that Trebor has to pull my shirt over my head
for me, which is the part where my brain really gets worked up and tries to convince me this is improper.
But I’m not given time to feel embarrassed. Trebor immediately takes off his own tee-shirt and pulls it over my head. I wriggle out of my sopping wet bra before slipping my arms through the sleeves. The warm cotton, relative to the cold I’m escaping, feels hot as an oven as it surrounds my body.
Trebor has to help pull off my soaked jeans which are clinging to me with more force than I can overcome at this moment. My shoes are lost—socks vanished. I see my feet curling uncontrollably in on themselves, twisting to keep warm.
Trebor stands me up with my feet on top of his, leans me against him, and drapes his jacket around me. It’s that same hooded, black jacket I’ve seen him in before—on him, it goes down to his mid-thigh. On me, it’s not much longer, but it’s warmer than my damp clothes, now abandoned on the forest floor.
Trebor zips the coat up for me, pulls the hood up around my wet hair, and when he stands back to look at my face, to make sure I’m still all here, I notice, for the first time, that his upper arms and torso are covered in tattoos. Not pictures of anything, and not even tribal designs, but something far more abstract and beautiful. Intricate black lines cross over his chest, ribs, arms, and back. They lie across his skin in a way that reminds me of the elegant geometry of butterfly wings, but with the somber grace of a skeleton. I have no idea what it’s supposed to be, if anything at all, but it’s the most beautiful tattoo I’ve ever seen.
“You—must be—freezing,” I try to say, but I’m shivering so badly, and my voice is so hoarse, it comes out as a stuttering whisper.
Trebor raises his eyebrows and actually laughs. “I’ll be fine, Ana. We’ll keep each other warm.” And then he scoops me up into his arms and begins to carry me back to Kyla’s house, as if I’m seventy-five inches of nothing but cold air.
I haven’t been carried like this since I was a child, but I manage to get comfortable. I put my arms around his neck and rest my hooded head against his shoulder. I’m so tired. He’s so warm. His coat is warm. It smells like him—like evergreens and sunshine and sky. I could almost fall asleep in his arms as he carries me, if it weren’t for the adrenaline still coursing through me, and the millions of questions I have about my life at this moment.
I try asking one, just to keep myself awake. “How did you get to me, Trebor? You’re not even damp.”
“You were closer to the shore than you probably realized,” he says, and the rumble of his voice, through his chest, beneath my ear, sends a pleasant shiver through me to combat the less pleasant sensations in my body at the moment. “I was able to get out to the rocks from there, and pull you out. I thought—” He hesitates.
“What?” I can hear his heartbeat hit harder against the inside of his chest, and it makes my own heart hammer.
“You weren’t breathing when I pulled you out. I thought you were dead.”
I swallow. I knew how close I’d come to actually dying, but somehow it’s worse to hear him say it out loud.
“And, on that note,” Trebor adds. “I apologize for any bruising from the CPR. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to use it.”
I almost laugh, but it hurts. “I think that, given the circumstances, I can forgive you.” I feel my stomach dancing, confused by the mix of elation and terror settling into my nerves. “Thank you, by the way. For saving my life.”
Trebor looks down at me and gives me a crooked smile. “Thank you for not dying.”
We forge on through the woods, Trebor moving easily over roots and fallen trees, even with the lanky burden of my body in his arms. My shivering begins to subside as the dry jacket and Trebor’s body heat warm me. It’s nice, almost pleasant, the rhythm of his steps, his heart, nearly the same as my own. I feel safe, for the first time in ages.
But then it dawns on me, like reality piercing the elation of a dream: I shouldn’t feel safe at all, really.
“Wait,” I stop myself from dozing, eyes fluttering open even though I don’t remember closing them. “I saw you the other night. And last night. And your eyes—”
“Shhh, don’t worry right now.”
I want to obey that voice, but my mind is beginning to reel with frightening possibilities, with the fact of my vulnerability in this moment. I shiver again, nerves exciting the chill that has permeated to my core. “Who are you, really?”
He doesn’t answer right away, and when I look up, he seems to be deliberating. His eyes flash again, reflecting the scattered moonlight.
I’m not afraid, I tell myself, trying to unclench my body enough to breathe deeply.
“What are you?”
Trebor halts completely. He looks down at me with an unreadable expression, and when his eyes catch the light, they flash again, like some kind of wild animal. But his face is not wild, not savage at all. It’s human, and earnest, with wide eyes under dark brows, and a mouth that has parted, just slightly, as if waiting for words. His eyes change then—worry? Confusion?—but he blinks hard and washes the emotive shift away, and continues walking.
“How can you see me?” He asks after a few heartbeats, in a low voice that sends tremors up my spine, as if I wasn't already shaking enough.
“With my eyes,” I manage between clenched teeth, and rest my cheek against his shoulder, helpless against the lure of his body heat. His skin is so warm, it almost feels like it could burn me, but I would welcome blistering heat over this penetrating chill. Every shiver shakes me closer to a deep, deep slumber that I can’t quite fight away from.
“What are you?” Trebor asks. His face gives me nothing, but his voice—even lower than before, and more intense—tells me he's desperate for an answer. Maybe as desperate as I am.
“What? I'm—I'm just a girl.” I swallow, and a shiver blasts through me like a fit, making me spit out the word: “Human.” It leaves me exhausted.
I expect him to stop, or falter at least a little at the distinction I'm making, but instead his eyes narrow, and his mouth opens again, waiting for more words. Then he closes it, swallows, and shakes his head. “Of course you are.” It almost sounds like he regrets that fact.
“Tell me,” I insist. “What are you?” Something besides human, I'm certain—otherwise he wouldn’t be asking how I can see him.
That understanding alone should make me afraid, should make me fight to stand on my own feet, should make me want to run as far from him as possible. But instead, the warmth of his skin seeps into mine, and I can hear his heart beat hard and steady like the wings inside my own. I cannot imagine him a demon, so he must be an angel.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” he assures me, and I want so desperately to believe him.
I stare sleepily up at him and witness a slight smile curling at the edge of his mouth when he looks down at me. It reminds me of a stage curtain, parting, barely revealing what waits beyond. I want to peek behind it. I can sense him waiting there.
But when my senses stretch out I collide with his, the farthest edges of our perceptions tingling and merging as they penetrate the veil between us. My eyelids fall, and in the dark I listen to his breathing, feel the ebb and flow of my awareness and the hum of his presence, like delicate fingers on the fragile cage around my heart.
“Anastasia.” He says my name as I slip into darkness, and I feel as if a half-cast spell has been finished, after eons of waiting.
— 18 —
I hear voices in the distance, people shouting and laughing. Trebor hurries through a crowd. People ask questions, wonder “Who the hell is that?” about me or about him, I can’t tell.
And then there’s Kyla, cursing at Trebor, cursing at the world, cursing at me.
“Everyone get the fuck out, my neighbors called the cops!” she shouts, somewhere outside.
I’m vaguely aware of the stampede of teenagers heading for the door. I’m only a little bit more aware of being curled up under a blanket against Trebor, as if he’s still carrying me
through the woods. I feel his fingers brush damp hair away from my face, warming my cheeks with the palms of his hands.
“Ana?” He asks me on occasion as the noises in the house trickle down to almost nothing. “Anastasia, are you still with me?” His voice echoes through my mind, peeking behind doors, opening boxes, peering behind curtains. “Ana?”
“I’m okay,” I manage after a while. “I’m just tired...”
— 19 —
When I wake up—what feels like only a moment later—Trebor is gone. Kyla is forcing me to sit up, pressing a warm mug to my lips. Hot chai.
“Where is he?” I ask, the sound of my voice still close to gravel.
“I kicked him the fuck out,” Kyla replies, eyes wide.
“Ky, he saved me.”
“I know. I just needed a moment to kick your ass for needing saving to begin with.” She frowns, tears brimming in her eyes, and looks away for a moment before turning back and pressing her forehead to mine. “Don’t you ever almost die again.”
I laugh for a moment, but everything hurts, from my teeth to my toes.
She stares at me, warm brown eyes inches from mine, hurt and accusing and apologetic, all at once. “Do you need to go to the emergency room?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Good. Now tell me what the hell happened to you.”
I close my eyes for a long moment. I’m exhausted, and confused, and some part of me is still not sure I’m ready to tell Kyla that my ability to see Sura is reaching a whole new level of what-the-fuckery: They’re onto me. They’re talking to me. They’re trying to drown me.
The Hierophant (Book 1 in The Arcana Series) Page 7
