by E A Comiskey
The man backed away a few steps, frowning, and then came forward again, grabbing Alma's arm. "Come with me, girl. You got no business with demons. Or are you so anxious to give yourself over to your dark appetites?" His frown turned to a leering grin.
Go sit down! Leave us alone!
My will held no power over him.
"Mayhap these girls are telling you how fun it is to spread your legs?"
Risa's eyes met mine. I shook my head. I could do nothing.
Hala was on his feet in front of the man. "Demon I may be, which means you have no strength against me, but I am not evil enough to lay my hands on a child."
The men in the room sprang to their feet.
I stood, pressing my back to the wall. From here, I could no longer see Hala's words.
They came closer to us. The women watched from the background. Not one of them raised a hand to our aid. Why would they, when such an act would only focus attention on them? Better to blend into the background.
A six-fingered hand on a crooked arm reached for me, groped at my breast. I slapped it away, and a flurry of motion broke out around me. The men moved as one, a flock of terrible birds, Risa and Alma and I their prey.
Wolf appeared, as if out of nowhere, teeth bared to the man who had touched me, hackles standing tall on his back.
Hala struck out, knocking two of them back, and then the gun was in his hand, pressed to the temple of the man with the small eye.
Perfect stillness replaced the frenzy of activity. Every eye was on Hala.
"Get the packs," he said.
Risa and I lifted our belongings. She hefted Hala's bag up, carrying it before her.
I looked at Hala again in time to see him say, "… that child." The man remained locked in Hala's grasp. His one good eye bulged wildly. "Ya'll are gonna let him shoot me? Somebody do somethin'! This demon's gonna take my sister." His hand was still clamped around Alma's wrist.
My stomach rolled. I'd rather die in the storm than be in this place one second longer.
Hala stilled for a moment, and then the handle of the gun came down hard on top of the man's head. His grip on his sister released and he slumped to the floor, a little line of blood trickling down his face. Hala held the gun in front of him, moving it slowly across the crowd. "Move away," he said.
They backed toward the table where the women sat. Walking behind Hala, we made our way to the door. We were almost there when the old woman who had first welcomed us stood.
"You speak of love and justice and lofty ideals, but in the end, you betray one another with your every action. You judge us, condemn us to extinction by taking our best young woman, but you are no better. Each of your children will spend their lives seeking the destruction of the others. Run from us, Demon, but you cannot run from your destiny."
Alma pulled the door open, and the rain lashed us. I followed Hala into the storm, never knowing if he replied to the old woman's prophecy.
Wind, like I'd never imagined before, slammed into me, knocking me back against the wall of the building. Hunched like an old woman against the onslaught of water and small debris, Alma motioned us toward the row of little houses with boards over the windows. Two of them had no roofs. They'd been torn off by the relentless wind. The one closest to the shelter lay crushed under the tree that had fallen earlier.
We hurried inside one of the standing cabins and slammed the door behind us. Water streamed from our bodies as we stood there, blinking at one another, panting in an effort to calm our beating hearts.
Alma was the first to speak. "We can stay here until the worst of the storm passes. They won't leave the shelter."
The building shook and swayed under our feet.
"This place feels like it could be ripped apart like those others any second," Hala said.
She nodded. "It could be. That's why we don't stay in these during the storms. It will probably be OK, though."
"It's better than being out there," Risa said, jerking her head toward the door.
Wolf shook, spraying us all with water. He padded over to the bed in the corner, hopped up onto the mattress, and made himself at home. I followed suit, sitting on the floor with my back against the bed. I kept my pack between my knees. I would be ready to run if I needed to.
The room was sparsely furnished. The bed took up one corner, and a small wood stove stood in another. There was a sturdy wooden table with benches and a few shelves that held pots and pans and dishes.
Squirrel tails hung in a row, just under the ceiling. I looked away in disgust. We couldn't leave this place soon enough. The more we traveled, the more I understood Risa's point of view. Why had we ever left the comfort and beauty of our city behind?
"Is this your home?" Risa asked Alma.
Alma boldly walked to the one little closet and began taking clothing and blankets out. "No. Mine was one that lost its roof." She made herself a pack by rolling the clothes inside the blankets and tying the bundle with some bits of rope. Her eyes challenged us to say something about her thieving, but none of us did.
I curled forward, head on my knees, feeling suddenly exhausted, but Hala's hand fell on my shoulder. I turned toward him.
"You tried to use your Gift in there?"
"It didn't work."
"Why is that, do you think?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Something is wrong with them. They resisted."
"You said you couldn't make people do something it wasn't in their heart to do," Risa said.
"That's right. But all I said was for them to back away and leave us alone."
She held my eyes. Her meaning sank in.
"We need to leave here as soon as we can," I said.
Hala nodded.
"Why do you have a gun?" Risa asked him.
He looked down at it as though he were surprised to find himself still holding it. "I have several. I bought them in Orleans. I don't even know how to fire the stupid thing."
"You no longer believe in That Which Is to protect us while you try to fulfill the destiny given you?" Her spine straightened. Her chin lifted.
I sighed wearily. Must she challenge him now, of all times?
Alma's eyes moved between them, questioning.
"I believe that when we pray and we trust, we are given the tools we need to accomplish the ends we envision."
Risa started to say more, but something hit the house at that moment, diverting her attention. The house held and, thankfully, she let the argument drop.
Darkness fell, and I must have drifted to sleep. The next thing I knew, Risa was shaking my shoulder. "Time to go, Jax."
I shouldered my pack and followed Hala into the storm. Not a violent rage of wind now, but an ordinary cold, heavy, miserable rain. The eastern sky held the slightest promise of light. We turned our backs on it and trudged into the darkness.
Of all the days we journeyed, I knew not a single one worse than that. When we pitched our tents that night and I crawled under the canvas, damp and exhausted, chilled to the bone and still half-afraid someone was following us, I didn't imagine there was any chance I would sleep.
Alma lay next to me. None of us had spoken more than necessary all day. We barely knew who this child was. She tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned toward her.
"I can tell that you are all frustrated. This weather… having to run like this… but…" She paused, chewing on her lip. "It is the happiest day of my life," she said. Her chin began to quiver. "I am free."
Donovan embraced my father, drinking in his life force, crushing his bones in his powerful arms. I watched from a dark corner, and my heart rejoiced.
The savage cold pulled me toward death and I knew no fear, for I was free.
"My father…" I began, but weariness pulled at me and I couldn't find the strength to tell the whole story. Instead, I reached out and squeezed her hand in my own before releasing it to tell her, "I once had a day like this. I understand."
I slipped away into sleep, grateful to my core to b
e at the end of that day.
Eighteen
We came across a single home, possibly the most beautiful house I'd ever seen. It overlooked the sea, a round structure with a steeply pitched roof and walls that appeared to be made of more glass than wood. A deck, gleaming white in the bright sun, surrounded the entire building.
Approaching, we had to cross a quick-moving stream that spilled into the nearby ocean. The waves rolled lazily onto the shore, giving no hint of the tumultuous storm that had ended less than two days before. A generator with a little wheel, meant to spin in the current, lay blackened and destroyed on the sand.
A man sat in a blue rocking chair with a book. On the table next to him was a steaming cup of tea and a gun, which he picked up and pointed straight at Risa, never rushing or in any way disturbing the serenity of the scene around us.
"I expect you're here for a reason. You should tell me quickly before I put an iron bullet through your heart."
Hala held me back. Risa spoke, but I could not see her face.
The man nodded. "An exile, then?"
She said something further.
He put the gun back on the table. "I'm glad to hear it. I've no desire to kill anyone, but if it comes to kill or be killed, what else can a man be expected to do?" Rising from the chair, he walked forward with slow, hitching steps that favored his left leg. At the bottom of the steps he extended a hand in greeting. "Name's James."
Risa introduced all of us, and he motioned toward the door. "Provisions are all stocked up and rotting away, now that the generator's gone, but I'm a terrible cook. I'll make you a deal. What's mine is yours if one of you can make a decent meal of it."
"Alma and I will take care of it," I said, and she nodded enthusiastically.
James rested his hands on his hips. "Those are some impressive gloves."
I nodded. "They were a special gift."
"Pretty fancy technology."
Risa lifted her chin in the defiant way she had. "I told you. I am not with the Fae of New Faerie. We have no issue with technology. We come from Tower City."
"I don't know much of the world away from this place, except what I've read in my books or been told by the riders. I know the Fae who killed my parents took the time to destroy our generators. Said we were paying the price for despoiling the earth." James motioned at the land around us, truly one of those most beautiful locations I'd ever seen. "How have we spoiled anything, I ask?" With one hand, he waved the words away. "Never mind. People live. People die. So it goes. Come on inside, then." The words were harsh, but his puffy red eyes told the truth of his mourning.
We followed him into the beautiful house. Hala and I exchanged a glance but said nothing. I wondered if he was as painfully aware of the gun in his waistband as I was. He knew how to use it now. Against my better judgment, I'd shown him while we walked. I'd made it easier for him to kill. What did that make me, if he ever did it?
James' house was as beautiful inside as it was out. Furniture with thick, luxurious cushions filled large, open spaces. From every angle there was a view of the gentle blue ocean or the thick green forest. A kitchen of wood and steel gleamed under bright sun that shone through sky lights cut into the ceiling.
I took Alma and went to the kitchen where, as promised, we found a massive cooler full of every good thing, just on the edge of going over. We pulled out venison and fish, fruit, vegetables, flour, butter, cheese, and more and set to making a feast for dinner. It would be, by far, the best meal we'd had since leaving Orleans.
My hands chopped and stirred automatically while my mind replayed a hundred scenes that could have happened.
James could have shot us on sight.
James could have shot at us, and Hala could have shot him.
Hala could have been startled and shot James for no reason at all.
One of them could have shot and missed. The ricochet could have slammed into Risa.
The smell of frying onions wafted up to me. My stomach rolled.
Alma's small hand lay on my arm. "Are you ill?"
I forced a smile for her. "Just tired."
So very tired.
We carried the food into the dining room. James was just saying, "… dead at the hand of the Fae, so there's nothing left for me here. This house is a tomb. I've no desire to live out my days among the dead. I will join you, if you will have me."
Hala agreed, and our little band grew to four.
It took two days to figure out how we would move forward. With the addition of James came two horses, two cows, and a dozen chickens, including a gorgeous black rooster that flew at anyone who got within ten feet of his hens. James caught him by the feet and stuffed him into a wooden crate. The whole lot, along with a massive amount of supplies, was loaded into a wooden wagon with old-fashioned rubber tires.
While James sorted what would go in the wagon, Hala showed Risa how to use the Tesla.
We set out at sunrise on the third day, James and Alma sitting on the wagon bench, Risa and I trudging vaguely westward behind Hala.
"It's out there, Jax. It has to be," he said. I don't know if he was trying to convince me or himself.
I said nothing, but walked along with the people I loved most in the world, worrying about guns, and war, and unpleasant welcomes the whole time.
Nineteen
We fell into a new pattern, now, with our numbers increased. When we stopped, James and Alma would see to the animals. Risa found food and fresh water and started dinner each evening. I gathered wood for her while Hala pitched the tents.
Around the fire, Risa and I sat on either side of Hala. Often he had an arm around each of us. He came to me every night after our time at James' house. I shared my tiny tent with him. Risa and Alma shared the larger tent. James slept in the wagon and never said a word about our arrangement.
Nights with Hala were the only time I didn't worry. I surrendered to his kisses, his powerful, slow-moving hands, the feel of his body against mine. I slept with my cheek pressed against his chest, feeling the gentle thumping of his immortal heart.
"I see it more clearly every day, Jax," he would tell me when we were alone. "There are trees everywhere, but in the heart of them is an open meadow. We won't even have to clear lumber to begin building. A river runs through. Not some little stream that will dry up on a bad year. A real river, not much smaller than the one Jean-Francios took us on."
My cheeks burned at the memory of the boat ride. I found myself suddenly wanting Hala to stop talking and make love to me again.
"To the south, there's a hill. It's not so steep it can't be climbed, but too steep to build on with ease."
I pushed him onto his back and sat on his thighs, using my hands to create a fire in him that matched the one in me.
With a sly smile, he continued. "I'll build a monument on top of that hill; something that will stand forever, proclaiming the goodness and forgiveness and mercy of That Which Is. It will tell the world That Which Is keeps the promises that are made."
I shifted, taking him inside of me, losing myself in the pleasure.
"Along the bottom of the hill a tiny stream runs toward the river, and I can see my son there." His hand squeezed my hip, guiding me forward and back. "A beautiful little dark-eyed boy." He rolled so he was over me and began to move faster, more roughly. "It's real, Jax. I swear to you. It's out there."
I closed my eyes, not wanting to think any more about words, and babies, and what the future might hold. In this moment I had everything I wanted. I gave myself over to sensation, leaving reason to be dealt with in the daylight hours.
~*~
The strange, warmish, icy winter gave way to spring. We'd been walking for a year. A lifetime. All of eternity.
At the top of a steep hill, Risa and I caught up with Hala. James and Alma rode behind in the wagon. The animals slowed them down considerably in this rolling terrain.
Hala stood gazing out over the landscape below us. A wide river cut through a lush valley. Sta
nds of oak and maple cast green shadows across open meadows boasting gaudy displays of fresh spring flowers.
I looked up at him. Tears spilled from his wide eyes, rolling down his cheeks freely. He sank to his knees on the dusty earth, then raised his hands and face to the sky. "That Which Is has given us a home."
Risa's hands flew to her mouth. She knelt next to him, and he pulled her into his arms, his tears wetting her beautiful dark hair. With one hand, he reached up to me. I slipped my fingers into his and he pulled me to him so that, when James and Alma found us on the hilltop, we were a weeping tangle of limbs.
Curled against Hala's chest, I could feel the vibration of his voice as he explained to James that we had found our home.
In the eastern sky, blue and cloudless, a crescent moon was rising. A crescent moon could mean only one thing. I pressed one hand against my flat stomach, certain that secret life was growing there.
The grove of trees directly beneath the early moon shivered, and a massive beast lifted itself into the sky on wings as large as buildings. It rose into the air, loosing a burst of flame.
Wolf cowered behind us.
Hala's body shook with laughter.
I sat back, staring at him, incredulous.
"It's a dragon!" he said.
Risa's eyes bulged, wide and wild. "We can't live near that monster!"
Hala shook his head. "It's not a monster. It's a creature of the Realms--a protector of those she chooses, a bringer of good luck. She's a sign from That Which Is."
He stood, helped each of us up, and led us down the hill. Like an over-excited child, he ran ahead, fingers reaching out toward every tree and flower and shrub as though laying claim through touch.
Wolf chased him, excited about this fun new game.
Risa reached for my hand, her smile wider and more beautiful than it had been in a very long time. "No more walking," she said.
At last. We were home.
Twenty
Risa seemed very reluctant to leave Hala's side, so Alma and I went in search of fresh food while they set up the tents. We strode through the forest on light feet, every flower and rock a wondrous gift, given just for us. Light, shining through the trees, showed us there was another clearing, and we raced toward it.
