“She holds the will of all the goddesses,” he insisted. “They left her here to finish their war. She will lead the Slayer against the demons. Godseekers can raise an army to help her.”
Mamna was truly alarmed now. If the Demon Lord heard this talk of a goddess or her army and withdrew his protection, and the people of Freetown could no longer depend on Mamna for their safety, she would have nothing.
“If the goddesses had left one of their own behind, I would have known,” she said.
Suspicion backlit the zealousness in the old man’s eyes. “We thought you, of all people, would welcome this news.”
Welcome it? She had betrayed the goddesses to the Demon Lord. She had told him how he could drive them from the mountain, and given him the means to do so. She had carried the fire for him. She had fanned the flames. He was the reason she owned Freetown. She did not, under any circumstances, wish for the goddesses to return.
Neither did she wish for the Demon Lord to discover how she had gathered the soil from the earth where he and his goddess lover had lain together, and given it to the goddess’s sisters. When they fled the world she had kept the flaming rainbow amulet they had crafted, but it had been intended for use by a goddess, not a mortal. Now it was damaged, and only an immortal could repair and invoke it again.
But with the help of the amulet, a spawn might be encouraged to try.
Mamna had thought she would enjoy seeing the Demon Lord condemn his own daughter to death. She wanted the last reminders of the goddess he had once loved wiped from existence. But now she thought the spawn might prove more valuable to her alive. At least for a while.
Her unsteadiness eased.
She considered having the Godseeker killed so he could not spread this story of a goddess and her need for an army. One lift of her finger would make it so. But she discarded the idea. Another Godseeker would take his place, and that one might not identify himself to her before irreparable damage was done in Freetown. She might be better off finding out what she could from him.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Fly.”
Interesting. Many names, particularly in the north, were not given at birth but acquired over time, and based on the perception of the individual by others.
“Well, Fly. Have you eaten yet today?” she asked.
At the shake of his head, she gathered the stiff skirt of her gown in one crooked hand and shuffled in the direction of her home, carefully keeping the round heels of her shoes from catching between the planks of the sidewalk.
“Come with me,” she said over her shoulder, “and I will see to your food and lodgings.”
Chapter Four
“Airie!”
The single-worded command rang from the rocky edge of the lake, whip-sharp and reproachful.
Just like that, the flames died and Airie’s vision cleared. She had never heard Desire sound so angry before, and it brought her back to herself faster than anything else could ever do. Water, warm now, swirled around her as she slogged, shamefaced, to shore, her wet skirt dragging heavily behind her.
The stranger had already climbed the rocks to stand near Desire. Water ran from his clothes and over the tops of his boots. His wet denim trousers outlined his muscled thighs and buttocks when he moved. He said something to Desire that Airie could not quite believe, although she hadn’t misheard. Neither had she mistaken the revulsion in his words.
The spawn. Is she yours?
She expected a denial from Desire, some sort of reproof for the insult, but the words did not seem to register with her mother at all. Instead, the elderly priestess could not take her eyes from the lightning bolt amulet around the stranger’s neck.
Desire stretched out shaking fingers to touch it. “Where did you get this?” she demanded of him.
He lifted one dark-blond eyebrow, as if puzzled by her reaction. “I found it a long time ago, floating in a container in a spring.”
He had gentled his voice, much as he had when he’d asked Airie where her ankle hurt. Airie was not fooled by the false gentleness. The man had no scruples whatsoever and she did not like him standing so close to her mother, who was too frail to defend herself.
And he had called her spawn. Airie would never forgive him for the slur, more so even than that he had tried to drown her. She pulled herself up the rocks to shore, hampered by the wet weight of her skirt.
“How far did it travel,” Desire was whispering, “and for what purpose?” Airie was uncertain if she spoke to the stranger or herself.
“He’s a trespasser on the goddesses’ mountain,” Airie interrupted. “He has to leave.”
Desire tore her gaze away from the amulet to look at Airie. “A small token is all that is required,” she replied with mild reproof. “It’s not necessary to take all of his belongings from him.”
Airie’s face flamed, and not from temper. Her mother had seen more than the dunking she had received. She felt a twinge of shame. She had not wanted for her to find out how she collected their alms. She blamed the stranger for that as well.
She turned on him. “Leave whatever you feel you can spare, and then be on your way.”
The stranger, water dripping down the sides of his lean face, met her eyes with a look that mirrored contempt and a faint surprise, as if he could not quite believe who—or what—he was seeing, but found her distasteful regardless. “Then I’ll leave you my name. It’s Hunter, but I’m known as the Demon Slayer.”
Desire’s face went gray, and she grabbed at her chest just as a tremor rocked the ground beneath their feet. She stumbled and would have fallen if the stranger, who was closest, hadn’t caught her in his arms and held her steady.
Airie righted herself. The tremor passed, and with a cry of alarm she reached for Desire. “Mother!”
“This priestess is your mother?”
Again, faint surprise, and this time a touch of horror, filled his voice. Airie ignored him, too intent on the woman in his arms to care about him or his reactions to her, although she filed them away to contemplate later. Right now, she feared the worst.
She stroked her mother’s cheek, and beneath her fingers the ashen skin warmed, but still, Desire did not stir. Always, in the past, Airie’s touch had brought her some degree of physical comfort, but not this time. She knew she had to do something—anything—no matter how insignificant, to try and bring her peace at the very least. Her mother was dying.
Take her home.
Airie heard the command with great clarity, and fear for her mother brushed her heart. She could not permit this woman who had raised her, and loved her, to die here on the mountainside. She needed to get her home, to the temple, where Desire could rest and feel the presence of the goddesses. They would summon her to them when she passed on from this life.
The stranger knelt and laid Desire’s frail little frame on the cold ground. At the same time, Airie rose and began to peel off her own wet clothing.
“I’ll get a blanket from my pack and—” His head swung around as he noticed Airie’s actions. “What are you doing?”
Airie’s fingers halted on the hooks at the waistband of her skirt. “I can’t carry her against my wet clothing. She’ll freeze.”
The stranger’s neck reddened and he busied himself at his pack. “Here. Put these on.” He tossed a heavy shirt and pair of coarse trousers over his shoulder in her general direction. Airie caught them. “I have a blanket for the priestess.”
She changed clothes quickly, not caring if her nudity bothered him, more concerned for her mother’s well-being than his sensibilities. He had stared at her long enough when he thought she was a normal woman. He was uncomfortable now only because he thought she was something less.
She slipped her arms beneath Desire’s shoulders and knees and lifted her easily. Again, the stranger started, but he said nothing about her strength.
“Here,” he said curtly instead, reaching to take Desire from her. “If you aren’t afraid of Sally, you c
an ride and hold the priestess. I’ll walk.”
There was a veiled antagonism in his attitude that kindled Airie’s temper. She did not want him near the temple. She did not want him to be there if her mother did not survive because grief was an unfamiliar emotion to Airie. The prospect of it frightened her, and she was afraid of how she might react to that fear.
“You’ve done enough. I can carry her myself,” she said, her tone sharp.
The stranger dropped his hands to his sides, but he did not budge. “You are using my clothes and my blanket. I want them back.”
“Consider them your offering and leave.”
“I already gave you an offering,” he said. “I gave you my name.”
Hunter. The Demon Slayer.
He had no shame, and they wasted precious time by arguing. He would only follow her if she walked away, and her mother could travel in greater comfort on the back of this creature he called Sally.
Without another word, she passed her mother to him and reached out a hand to take the creature by its lead to steady it.
“Careful!”
Hunter’s warning came too late. The animal’s tongue flickered out to encircle her wrist. It was rough and sharp, and under normal conditions might have torn flesh. Airie, however, was not so fragile. She rapped the beast’s ugly snout with her other fist, and it quickly released her. She then scrambled onto its back with less grace than she would have liked, still holding its lead.
Hunter’s frown darkened. He lifted Desire up in front of Airie, and as he did so, another tremor shook the earth, harder than the first.
“That does it,” Hunter said when it passed, sounding grim. He took the lead from Airie’s hand. “We’re getting off this mountain.”
“No!” Panic seized her. “If we take my mother away from the temple, the goddesses might not be able to claim her!”
“The goddesses are gone.” He jerked the beast’s head around, toward the foot of the mountain.
Despite the awkwardness of her mother’s limp form in her arms, Airie made a move to slide to the ground. “If the goddesses are gone, why do I feel their presence in me? Why do they speak to me?”
“That’s not the goddesses you feel or hear. Sit still,” he commanded.
Airie clutched her mother tighter to her chest. Already, the first claws of grief tore at her heart.
“Have you no respect for the traditions of the priestesses whatsoever?” she asked him, hating that she had to beg but willing to do so for her mother’s sake. She swallowed past a painful lump in her throat and blinked back tears of desperation. “Please,” she whispered. “Does it not bother you that you’re making a dying woman abandon her faith at a time when she needs it the most? Have you no decency?”
He stared at her, speechless. His eyes, the deep blue of a mountain lake’s clear, crystal depths, swirled with such hostility that it took her aback.
“You’re a—” His eyes narrowed. “You dare speak to me of decency?”
He swore under his breath, but he yanked the beast’s head around, and they started up the steep path toward the temple.
…
Hunter continued to swear to himself as they climbed.
It was the underlying touch of disbelief he felt that fed his anger, he knew, because he had not bested a spawn. If not for the intervention of the priestess, she could have torn him to shreds or drowned him in the lake. His amulet had been useless against her.
The priestess’s knowledge of the amulet had caught him off guard as well, almost as much as the fact that it hadn’t reacted to the spawn’s presence until her true nature emerged. His ribs creaked with every breath he drew, and he winced. It should have given him her demon strength. Why had it not?
Anger was the emotion he chose to cling to. It burned to think she dared challenge his decency. His. He should walk away now, while he still could, and leave this…this creature to whatever fate the mountain dealt her.
He shut his mind’s eye against the nightmare vision of his sister’s mutilated body, and the grotesque parody of human life that had scrabbled in the dirt beside her remains.
Was it possible for a spawn to be female? Were the stories so completely wrong, then? Were there more spawn like this one out there in the world, masquerading as mortal women?
The thought chilled him. Demons were one thing. They had their own world to return to if and when they could be persuaded to leave this one. But a spawn born to the mortal world, and mortal in appearance…
His initial attraction to her made him feel somehow unclean. Spawn were an abomination, tolerated in no world. He wondered what the Demon Lord would do to her before he killed her, because kill her he would. He did not permit spawn to live, any more than a mortal who stumbled upon one would.
If only she did not look like a woman, or behave as though she loved the priestess.
The path to the temple was easy enough for Hunter to follow, even without direction. They crested a rise and there it was—the gleaming white stones of its entrance marred by the scars of demon fire, despite time’s obvious efforts to scrub them.
The entrance was open.
He moved to take the priestess from the spawn’s arms, but the spawn slid easily from the sand swift’s back and leaped lightly to the ground. She brushed past him and carried the old woman into the temple.
Hunter had never seen the inside of a temple before. The few he knew of were closed to outsiders, particularly men, so it surprised him that no complaint was made when he crossed the threshold behind her.
Then again, he could be no more of an intrusion than a spawn.
Light gleamed from the ceiling of the temple’s main room, brightening in response to the spawn’s command. A fire that had no discernible source of fuel burned in a grating. A low settee faced the fire. The spawn lowered the priestess to its cushions.
The priestess was awake.
“Airie, fetch me my pendant,” the old woman murmured, her voice scratchy and filled with pain, and the spawn rose to obey.
Hunter, standing close, caught the fresh scent of flowers in the spawn’s damp hair. The scent disturbed him even more than her presence. Flowers, to him, were a symbol of all that remained pure in the world, and were out of place on a demon.
His head ached as he watched the spawn leave the room, unable to help it. She was beautiful, breathtakingly so, and he resented his natural male awareness of her. This was why so many mortal women fell victim to demons. Physically they were irresistible. Now he, too, had been touched by that allure. It was false, nothing more than bewitchment, and he’d do well to remember it.
“How do you control her?” he asked abruptly, forcing his attention back to the priestess. “You wear no special amulet for protection against her. Is it something about the temple, or the mountain itself? Have the goddesses left that much power here that they can protect you from her?”
And, if the goddesses’ protection was for the priestess alone, what would happen if the priestess was dying, and the spawn was then able to roam free in the world?
“She’s not a monster,” the priestess replied quietly, but with gentle reproof. “She’s a young woman who’s been sheltered all her life, and she’s afraid of what will happen to her once I’m gone.”
As well she should be. Even if Hunter turned and left now, once the priestess passed on from this life it would only be a matter of time before the demons came after the spawn. When they did, Hunter did not believe it possible that the goddesses’ magic would continue to protect her.
The goddesses were gone.
“That fear alone should have been reason enough for you to destroy her when she was born,” Hunter said. “There is no place in the world for her kind. What were you thinking?”
The priestess reached for the sleeve of his jacket, her grip as fragile as the rest of her, although her words were intense. “I was thinking that she was the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen and that I felt nothing but goodness in her. She was born of lo
ve, and indeed, I love her with all my heart.”
The priestess had been lucky to survive a spawn’s birthing. Countless other women had not been so fortunate. Countless more would not be either—not while demons wandered the earth.
He wondered if his sister had thought her spawn was born of love too, before it ripped her apart.
“You understand that the demons will kill her, don’t you?” Hunter asked. “That by letting her live, you have made her death far worse?”
Pain that had nothing to do with illness crossed the priestess’s face. “I’d hoped that by raising her to follow the path of the goddesses, she would be accepted for what she is. A young woman, with all the failings and graces of any other. She’s kind and loving, and knows right from wrong, although she’s not perfect and makes mistakes. I could not have asked for a better daughter.”
“But a demon lurks inside her.” He did not know why he persisted in trying to reason with her. The woman was dying, and he was not easing her journey. He should be ashamed. He was.
“Airie lurks inside her. She controls who she is. She sometimes loses that control, as she did today, but she’s had little experience with the world beyond the mountain. As her experience grows, so will her control.”
It was too late to make the priestess understand why Airie could never be allowed to leave the mountain alive, or that what he had to do, he did for both the world’s benefit and also for Airie’s own. If she were truly good, as the priestess believed, then he would be doing her a mercy because she could not stay isolated here on the mountain forever. He knew all about loneliness, and loneliness would eventually make her seek out other living beings. When she did, the Demon Lord would find her. Who knew what harm she might do to mortals before then?
“Take her with you.”
“What?” At first, Hunter thought he had heard the priestess incorrectly.
“I’ve been praying for a sign from the goddesses.” The old woman paused, caught her breath, and continued. “You can teach her control. You wear protection. I never needed it, but until Airie gains full control of herself in the outside world, there may be times like today when you will.”
Demon's Daughter (Demon Outlaws) Page 6
