The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1)

by Maureen O'Leary

  Demons weren’t supposed to feel anything but hatred. Once in a while they were afraid, but not usually, and only in the presence of a whole, upright, ass-kicking goddess. She was none of that at the moment.

  His eyes were human. His jaw line was a knife-edge in a face that looked carved from teak. He was beautiful. He had rougher features than Komo, but his face was infinitely more kind.

  He shuffled closer on his still demonized feet. When he had changed in the woods behind the lab in St. Cocha, it took a matter of seconds. Right now he looked like an image in a child’s flip-book. He had reptile feet, a giant’s broad body, a tragically human face. With a loud crack his spine straightened and the demon stood. His change was clumsy, but he was definitely on his way to human.

  He looked miserable. He kneeled to touch her forehead with a bent finger. She flinched. He brought his hand back. His eyes were downcast and Fynn’s mind flashed on the vision of a little boy. He held a fresh flower, torn to pieces. Then it was his own heart, shredded and dripping through his fingers.

  This time it was she who reached out to touch him. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hand and sighed in a voice that was pure human.

  “My Lady,” he said.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Eli,” he said, his lips moving against her palm. He kissed her wrists. She put both hands on either side of his face and lifted his head so that he had to look her in the eyes. His head was heavy but he did not resist. She pulled a twig out of his sun-bleached hair.

  “I’m dying, Eli,” she said. “Can you get me out of here?”

  He shook his head. Suddenly there was a long howl somewhere deep in the forest. Eli tensed and sat back on his haunches. He cocked his head, listening. The wind blew the tops of trees. His lips pulled back over his teeth and she mourned the loss of his gentle human face.

  Eli’s nose flattened and his teeth grew against his lips. His head darted around. Fynn dragged herself against the far wall of the cave. Eli leapt off, the trees and bushes crashing and rustling in his wake.

  Fynn cowered in the shadows, too frightened to move near the fire despite the cold. Whatever he was or whoever he was, Eli was her only hope against the horror of the night outside the cave. Someone approached. Fynn pulled her knees to her chest.

  Leaves crunched under the feet of what was coming. In the gloom beyond the firelight a figure broke branches to get through. Its head bent under the low rocky overhand.

  “Fynn?”

  It was Lia. Fynn cried out in relief. She wore one of their mother’s old cloaks with a hood. She carried a narrow leather quiver of arrows on her back along with a long-handled bow.

  She pushed off the mantle setting free her wild hair. She lifted Fynn’s eyelids with her thumbs and peered into her face. She placed her hand over Fynn’s heart.

  “What the hell?” Lia said after taking a pulse. Fynn’s relief was beginning to fade. She remembered her sister the storm maker back at the Keep’s chapel. Lia’s eyes were dark emerald green and powerfully angry.

  “I did an addiction healing before getting stabbed with Daemonium,” Fynn said. “Again. Sorry.”

  “You have to stop leaving the Keep alone,” she said. “You put everyone in danger when you break the Three.”

  “How’s Mom?” Fynn coughed, her lungs feeling like brittle paper.

  “Stop talking,” Lia said. She shook out her hands, then slid them under Fynn’s t-shirt. She pressed her palms against the cut in Fynn’s side. Her hands burned.

  Lia’s healing was an earthquake of powerful magnitude but short duration. Fynn gasped as warm, loving heat pushed the daemonium ice out of her body. Lia murmured a prayer in Gaelic and hugged her close.

  Lia lifted Fynn to her feet. Fynn felt light-headed. She felt high, actually, and ecstatic and powerful. Lia brushed off her hands. She pulled Eli’s shirt closed over Fynn’s t-shirt and buttoned it up. “We’ve got to get going,” she said. “I’m not parked far from the access road. You okay to walk?”

  “Yeah,” Fynn said, amazed. “Are you?”

  “Of course,” Lia said. She flipped an elastic band off of her wrist and tied up her hair before going back into the wind. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Mom and I get kind of tired after healing somebody,” Fynn said. “I mean, I had addiction weakness and daemonium poisoning. Usually that sets a girl back.”

  “I guess I’m different.” She hustled Fynn to the opening with an arm tight around her shoulders. The cold night smelled of the sea.

  “You seem different,” Fynn said. She couldn’t stop staring at her sister. Lia’s eyes flashed in annoyance.

  “There are demons out there,” she said. “Do you want to sit around for a while and discuss it? Talk about our feelings and cry?”

  “No,” Fynn said, embarrassed. “I’m just impressed, that’s all. My sister is a bad ass.”

  “And my sister is bad,” Lia said. “Or maybe just an ass.”

  She tugged Fynn from the circle of firelight and into the forest. They ran hand in hand down the path. On the way, Fynn thought she heard a keening wail but it could have been the rising storm through the trees. She didn’t know if she would tell Lia about Eli. She didn’t know how to explain it anyhow, even to herself.

  They got into the Keep vehicle Lia had parked at the bottom of the hill. While her sister barreled toward Brigid’s Keep, Fynn looked out the window in silence at the storm clouds gathering over the ocean. In the cave she had seen a relentless, twisted demon turn into a beautiful young man with a soul deeper than any human’s she’d ever met. She had never heard of a guardian demon before. The Story Keeper never mentioned the possibility.

  Fynn held her palm against the glass. Eli was out there somewhere, alone. She lifted the fabric of his shirt to her face and breathed in the smell of sulphur. It felt strange to say a goddess prayer on behalf of a demon.

  30. The Demon Brother

  Amon threw his head back and roared at the skinny moon peeking through the thickening clouds. His veins and sinews and skin had woven together in a mass of thick and bulbous scar tissue where they had been torn by his brother. What remained of Cara’s body was scattered in the grass. A finger here. A bit of her skull there. Someone would come along and find the bones someday. Maybe a family looking for a nature hike would find a macabre kind of Easter egg hunt in the grass. A knuckle. Half of a jaw. Her flesh had made him stronger.

  He licked blood off Cara’s cross necklace and willed himself to human. He shook on standing, hopped around. He checked for the keys and found them hanging in the ignition.

  Eligos would pay for what he had done. Plotting his brother’s final and irretrievable death was the only thought keeping him from complete madness. Amon saw it plainly before he blacked out from loss of blood. Eligos attacked him because somehow he was human again. Amon didn’t know how it happened or how it was even possible. The three sons of the Witch Mother had spent three years in the depths of Hell. No one survived even three minutes with an intact human soul. It was impossible.

  Amon’s one hand crossed his body to shove the key into the ignition. He would hide outside the Keep and kill the youngest of the Three himself before he found Eligos and ripped his head off. It did not have to be more complicated than that.

  Amon traced his finger over the bubbling tissue on his neck. He would find Eli after killing the Goddess bitch. Blood caked his fingernails. He liked them that way. He was glad to not have his soul anymore. It was never any help to him growing up with Hecate for a mother. This next change would be his last and he would never return to `human form. He would kill the remaining Goddesses himself, then he would tear apart his own family. He would remain a demon forever, killing everything in his path, leaving bones in the grass everywhere he went.

  In the mirror his face was human except for his dead eyes. He twitched with a feeling of something not being right. Mother never told them about the constant feeling of dread that they would li
ve under their skins after returning back from Hell. He was constantly alert, never not on watch. He froze, his head cocked to the side. The demon paranoia. He wouldn’t let it get the best of him now that he was finally free of his brothers. He cranked the volume of the screeching death metal to full blast. He forced his brain to set aside bloodlust long enough to remember how to drive. Brake off. Accelerator down. He hated riding in cars, preferred running along the ground in his bare three-toed feet. His was an ancient kind.

  He rolled down the window and the cold blast felt good. Nothing could go wrong, at least not for him. The witch was so sweet he couldn’t wait to get a taste of goddess.

  He screamed along to the music as he sped down the road toward Brigid’s Keep.

  31. The Square of Golden Rushes

  William the Story Keeper longed for his daughters, but they were in the world beyond safety. He started a fire and stoked it until the flames licked the sky. This was a bonfire for a crowd. He threw in sticks and logs for fuel until its heat dried his tears.

  He sang his wife’s name. Brigid Kildare. Their longtime friend Dr. Colm Sullivan intercepted him on the way to visiting her bedside, his own eyes brimming.

  The elixir had not worked.

  She died and they could not revive her.

  William felt her passing like an amputation of his heart. He did not want to live without her. Not in this human form.

  Sparks flew into his face but he did not flinch. He threw the stick he was using for stoking into the blaze. He stilled himself and waited. He imagined roots growing from the bottoms of his feet to the earth until he turned into a man-shaped tree and was spared the dry loneliness of life without his Brigid.

  There were four witches. Two men, two women, led by the grand witch Hecate. Four scorpions scurried from the walls, hidden ‘till now, doing their evil work in secret.

  Four enemies disguised as friends. What was left of his heart fell apart like a log in coals. The fire never lied. He took his phone from the pocket of his shirt and called his daughter Liadan.

  He uprooted himself and walked to the gate.

  ***

  At a small campfire outside the walls, William waited. He poked the small fire he’d built with a fresh manzanita stick until the embers tumbled. He held the end to the coals until it lit like a torch. This was not a story fire. He had the information he needed. It came too late to save his wife, but the fact that nothing in life was fair wasn’t exactly news to him.

  The guards were safe inside the Keep. He had dismissed them and they obeyed though it took some coaxing. News about Brigid’s death had everyone confused. It would not be long until his authority crumbled. He was already becoming obsolete. He shrugged his shoulders in his wool jacket. His chest hurt and every step felt like he was walking in irons. But all was as it should be.

  There was a car coming. He waved the stick in circles, making arcs of firelight against the backdrop of the night. It was beautiful. No wonder children loved to play with fire.

  A Keep SUV skidded to a stop on the shoulder several yards down from the gate. A door opened and slammed shut. There was a thump of something heavy falling to the forest floor, and the sound of dragging that something heavy through the fallen branches, pinecones and duff.

  One of the Mayhem demons walked into the firelight dragging the other one by the foot. He bent his head and charged past. If he thought William was going to try and stop him, he was wrong. He was a ragged sort of demon. His face was malformed but yet almost noble in its suffering. His forehead bulged but his eyes were windows to one hell of a tortured human soul. Mother Brigid’s grace could feel like punishment sometimes. This poor kid was tangled up in a knot so crazy that even in his own grief, William had to pity him.

  The demon boy stopped at the entrance to the Keep. William had left the gate wide open. Brigid would be angry about that, William thought. Then he caught himself in what he was thinking. A cold breeze blew a promise of a harsh winter storm from the sea. William wondered if he would ever feel warm again.

  The demon swung his brother by the ankles and flung him into the Keep where he burst into white magnesium flames. William and the demon ducked and shielded their faces. The burning body illuminated the trees and high stone wall in a flashing light brighter than the sun before dying in a pile of embers.

  There was nothing but ash in a circle of blackened meadow grass. The last of the demon brothers sat on his haunches, his blue eyes gleaming in the darkness. He stared at the ashes like a kid trying to muster the courage to jump into cold water. He stepped to the threshold of the Keep.

  Twigs cracked under William’s hard-heeled boots. He rested a hand on the ugly young man’s shoulder to stop him. The boy’s ears were already beginning to burn, smoke flying off their tips in white ribbons. He was beautiful once, this lurching creature.

  “The number four is important, isn’t it?” William asked. He knew it was. This was a conversation opener more than anything. A talking down from the ledge.

  “Yes,” the demon said, his voice mangled. “Cheap symbols are my mother’s specialty. She hides in plain view.”

  William tightened his grip on the young one’s shoulder, and pulled him away until his ears stopped cooking. The smell of burning demon flesh was more than he could stand and he needed to think for a minute.

  William shook his head. He should have known. Hecate had used an old numerology game. Dark arts witches loved to mock the gods with stupid tricks. If only it never worked.

  He was too old for games. The trick should have been obvious to him but it hadn’t been. He shuffled in front of the suffering kid inside the monster’s body and put his hands on his shoulders. He yanked his own Brigid’s cross necklace over his head and pulled it over the boy’s. It was a golden charm on a leather tong.

  “You are one of hers now, all evidence to the contrary,” William said. “You might as well wear it.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped as he fingered the square of golden rushes, the four arms of the cross jutting out to the four directions.

  “They all have the initials C.S., don’t they?” William said. He kept up the talk, knowing it wouldn’t be easy to stop the boy from making the leap if he really meant to. He had the build of a warrior and the demon strength.

  “Do the math.” Every word sounded like choking.

  “C is the third letter of the alphabet, S the nineteenth. 3 plus 19 is 22. 2 plus 2 is four. A coven.”

  The monster smiled a little but there was no joy in it. He broke free and trotted to the gate. Smoke started pouring from the top of his head as he stepped over the threshold.

  William lunged for him. He grabbed the demon in a bear hug and threw him to the ground. They rolled away from the gate. William’s old bones creaked and popped until they landed at the bottom of a ditch. The boy lay beside him smelling like burning flesh and farts. William groaned and struggled to his feet. Old Brigid had a certain sense of humor sometimes. Recruiting a Mayhem demon into the fold had a grand enough flair for a final act.

  He reached out a hand to the boy, who lay on the ground looking at the sky with a stunned look on his ruined face. “You aren’t crossing back today,” William said. “There are other plans for you.”

  Headlights swept the trees down the road. William trudged up the embankment. He waved down Lia’s car.

  Lia threw open the door. “Dad! What are you doing out here? I’ve got Fynn with me.”

  Fynn poked her head around her sister and gave a sheepish wave. The demon pushed past him to get to Fynn. Lia’s eyes widened. She stepped on the gas, door swinging and car swerving. Then she stopped, her head turned to listen to Fynn’s frantic explanation.

  William waited with the demon on the side of the road as Lia reversed and met them.

  “Get in,” she said, her voice hard as granite. He turned to the demon and gave him instructions. The cabin would be safe for him to hide for the night.

  “Dad,” Lia said. “Hurry up. I want to see
Mom.”

  William patted the demon boy on the back and pointed him towards the right path. He wasn’t in a big hurry to get in the car with his oldest daughter. She kind of scared him, even when he didn’t have the worst possible news to deliver. And he would have to be the one to deliver it. If they thought they were going to see their mother it meant that neither of them knew she was dead. They were blissfully ignorant of what had happened to their mother. It was curious. It could only mean one thing.

  He slid into the back seat. A quiver full of arrows and a bow rattled on the floor.

  Fynn looked over her shoulder at the demon as they drove into the Keep. “Is he okay?” she asked. William turned too. He looked human from that distance as he lumbered into the darkness, his hands stuck in his pockets.

  “He’ll be all right,” William said. “He’s a little mixed up is all.”

  “Can someone tell me just what the hell is going on right now?” Liadan asked. She drove too fast. Her hair floated around her head as though electrified with static. William steeled his courage.

  “You can stop speeding, Lia. Mother is already gone.”

  Fynn’s head whipped around. “No!” she yelled.

  William didn’t know if Fynn was yelling at him for what he had said, or yelling at him to stop giving bad news while Lia was driving. It was too late anyway. The car doors blew off the sides and his daughter drove even faster towards the main building where Brigid lay.

  “Don’t kill the storyteller for telling the story,” William said. They spun to a stop. The girls ran toward the building, leaving him alone in the backseat.

  He stepped out of the car, and raised his eyes to the night sky.

  “Ah, Brigid,” he said aloud. “You left me to two crazy baby goddesses.”

  The stars twinkled as cold and remote as ever. He shoved his hands in his pockets and followed his daughters inside. He envied the boy the cozy cabin away from the scene inside the Keep. It might not be so bad to have a fellow around, even if he was just a sad human Mayhem demon.