Starlight

by Lauren Jade Case

  Screaming erupted over all other noise.

  Jasper turned towards the sound to find Archie pinned beneath a Scorpio, its tail inches from his neck, their mother trapped within a claw. Jasper went to help, but found himself face down and eating sand with something heavy on his back. A moment later the weight was gone.

  He managed to gather himself onto his knees just as something slashed over his shoulder. Gasping in surprise, he shuffled to face the thrower.

  Natalia? his mind cried. She’s here.

  She stood, one of her hands out, palm up, and her face mimicking Hell’s anger – whether from being left behind or from the scene around them, Jasper didn’t know. Her hair lashed out, curling into the wind, her eyes unblinking. She was covered in sand and had a rough look, as if she’d been running and fighting consecutively to make it here. She didn’t look good – she was sweaty and panting and a little bemused – but she looked powerful. Like a warrior.

  Like a Creature.

  Jasper’s heart skipped.

  Her blade returned to her once called and then flew again. Jasper heard a thump behind him and turned to see a Scorpio with a Fairy blade stuck into its claw. It might’ve been a mistaken aim, since its claw was as high as its face, but it did enough.

  The Monster appeared paralysed, enough so it allowed Jasper’s mum to free herself. With no remorse, she made quick work with dispatching her captor.

  In his peripheral vision, Jasper caught sight of a blur.

  He turned back to Natalia and wanted to shout, to scream, but the words caught. He could only draw short, shallow breaths. The dread rose even higher when he noticed that Natalia had somehow created a shield around herself and was now dropping it.

  Natalia stepped forwards, ready to receive her blade again, and a bolt of what felt like electricity shot through Jasper.

  Monsters piled around him suddenly, locking him in a cage of bodies, and Natalia was gone.

  ◆◆◆

  Natalia groaned and when she opened her eyes, everything was blurry to begin with. Gradually it all came to focus.

  She faced the sky, sunlight shining above her. There was a buzzing inside her head and she felt sluggish, even in thoughts, but slowly felt herself come back to normal. She tried feeling for her blade and found wet sand beneath her fingers. More worryingly, she realised, she was face up in water. The salty air told her it was the ocean, and it was soaking through her hair and caressing the edges of her face, just below the sides of her eyes. If she moved, she’d either be drinking or drowning.

  How did I get here?

  Something shuffled nearby. Natalia tried to raise her head, but searing pain split along her left wrist and forearm. She screamed and tears flooded her eyes. Pressure descended on top of her chest, and something pinned her wrist, like an anchor holding her until could no longer make noise.

  Through the silent tears she could squint at a shape, one she wished she hadn’t tried to see.

  “Are we going to meet like this again?” The familiar Monster asked. It was the same vanilla scented Monster that had attacked Natalia last time. It smiled. “Did you feel my pain?”

  A wave crashed over Natalia’s head, causing her to splutter. I’ve got to be more careful, she thought. She was vulnerable to the water in this position and to the Monster who’d obviously put her there.

  “Your pain?” Natalia asked, talking to keep it distracted while she thought.

  The Monster’s smile turned to a grimace. “The pain I’m giving,” it said. “The glass I can raise slices Human and Creature skin alike, as if there was nothing thinner in all the worlds.”

  “My wrist,” Natalia said aloud, realising what the Monster meant. She tried to raise her left arm and pain spread throughout. Torturous screams left her mouth before she could stop them.

  “I wouldn’t move. It’s buried beneath your skin.”

  “My…”

  “Until I remove it, it is your pain, and your reminder that I am in control of you.”

  “You’re sick. A real Monster.” Natalia’s head reeled, fireworks detonating inside her brain, but she couldn’t see their pretty colours, only hearing their explosions. Her grandmother had been right about one thing, some Monsters were no more than beasts.

  Jasper.

  He’d been the last thing she’d seen as she’d come from within her shield, one she couldn’t remember how she’d conjured it.

  What of the others? She’d seen her blade land miraculously in the arm of a Scorpio but she’d never seen the repercussions.

  Am I still near them? Are they near me?

  Her heart told her she was nowhere close and she could neither hear nor see any signs of fighting. Even the water was mostly still.

  Natalia needed to get back to the group. This time, they wouldn’t be saving her. And they shouldn’t have to. It wasn’t their job. Their job, their Purpose, was to protect all life, not just hers, just like they’d said back at the house.

  The Monster that sat on Natalia’s chest now had already survived one attack and Natalia knew why, unfortunately thanks to Kei. These Monsters, the Geminis’, couldn’t be hurt by blades or weapons, so Peri’s trident had done nothing except provide a diversion for its escape. But also thanks to Kei, Natalia knew she could hurt this Monster.

  “What do you want?” Natalia asked. She needed the Monster to talk. How long did she have before she drowned or had something worse done to her? Whatever she was going to do, she needed to think fast.

  The Monster waggled a finger in her face. “We have done this.”

  “Last time, you said—”

  “You burn bright.”

  “Bright?”

  “The brightest.”

  “Is that why you want me? Because I burn?”

  “I don’t want you.” The Monster’s grin was like staring into the jaws of a beast that life would be lost too. “And no one wants you because you burn.”

  “Then what?” she tried to move and rolled her left arm accidently. Pain intensified and she breathlessly gasped.

  “I told you not to move.” The Monster sounded bored, or that could’ve been due the difficulty in hearing it – everything was garbled. “And you are wanted because you can burn. You are special.”

  The Monster slithered like a snake from Natalia’s chest to her stomach and leant sideways towards Natalia’s arm. There was silence and stillness.

  However, that stillness was a lie, a false hope, because in the next heartbeat, her arm was ripped apart.

  Natalia screamed. Her legs thrashed against the ground in an attempt to throw this beast off. But the movements also caused the sea to ripple and sank her face further. In that moment she no longer cared. Maybe drowning would be better.

  When she could no longer scream, her energy, air, and adrenaline stolen, her head lolled to the side. Half of it fell below the waterline, her mouth gaping and tongue tasting salt. At this new angle, however, she could see better, if only with one eye.

  The Monster dragged a stone along Natalia’s left arm. Her skin peeled back with ease. The pain shuddered up and down Natalia’s body, vibrating her entire skeleton, but she could no longer react, a numbness taking over – all her nursing training told her she was going into shock.

  Blood leaked from the gash that ran from her left wrist up her forearm. The wound formed a complete “T” shape when connected with the already dug horizontal slice by her elbow – she guessed that was the section where the glass was imbedded. The Monster then added thinner lines off the shape, making the cut become a bolt of lightning, but the colour of crimson and with the stench of death.

  The longer she resigned, the more her urge to fight leaked into the sand. If she wanted a chance to save herself, she would have to take it. Now.

  Natalia found something buried inside herself and dug for it. The shock was the main blockade and she had to centre the pain into her arm to overcome it, even for a brief moment. When she felt the throbbing, she thrusted herself out of th
e water.

  Catching the Monster off guard, it hissed. Natalia didn’t wait and threw her right fist forwards, hitting the Monster’s jaw. Natalia touched her own cheeks. As the Monster lunged for revenge, Natalia blew her dust. It landed in the enraged Monster’s eyes, who summoned a sound between a Human scream of pain and the howl of a lonely wolf.

  Natalia pushed the Monster sideways and climbed away as it clawed at its eyes. The pain in her arm spread drastically to her heart. With a gasp, she fell back to the sand and her head landed in the sea again.

  Though the Monster was blind, it still somehow knew where Natalia was. It staggered on top of her, its hands coming to her throat. The pressure in Natalia’s head began to build as the spindly fingers squeezed.

  “Just because they want you alive, doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you first,” the Monster established, then squeezed harder.

  Natalia began to struggle. Her arms wiggled and her legs kicked, but nothing got air through her mouth or nose. The world and her life flashed around her. She could see the sun, sea, and sand. She could see home. She could smell her mother’s perfumed handkerchiefs and Katherine’s cakes. She could see her dad laughing and Noah smiling without braces. There was Peri calling her “amore”, Archie consoling her on the bathroom floor, and Jasper dancing with her as if they were all that the world contained.

  Suddenly air flooded Natalia’s lungs so fast she choked. She rolled over, face down, inhaling the air of the sea deeply, her lips inches from it. Her hands went to her throat, her fingers grazing over the skin. She kept her hands there as if to protect it and turned round.

  The Monster was struggling with a giant brown wolf on top of it.

  “Alex,” Natalia croaked. She barely spoke above a whisper.

  The wolf bit the Monster’s neck, causing what Natalia assumed was clear, ice-like blood to spray down it’s body. The Monster convulsed, gagging with its tongue hung out of its mouth.

  The wolf nodded in approval at its own actions and ran off along the beach.

  Despite feeling woozy, Natalia managed to stand, legs shaking, ignoring whatever was left of her attacker. She searched for Alex and saw how golden the sand was.

  Natalia flung open her right hand as pain coursed through her left; she gritted her teeth as her eyes filled with tears. Though she was wet, tired, and beginning to falter again, she staggered forwards.

  A weird Monster with fish stuck in its see-through stomach lunged at Natalia as if from nowhere. It caught her left arm and every nerve in her body that could still feel shrieked.

  The Monster keeled sideways, its stomach spilling onto the sand like a popped water balloon. Natalia stared, stepping towards it and found a piece of glass about the length of her little finger sitting inside the remains. In a blink, the Monster turned to black ash, the glass disappearing with it.

  What? What happened?

  Natalia whirled round and snagged her own arm in the process. While there was pain, enough to curse aloud with a very loud “shit”, it was nowhere near as excruciating or blinding as before.

  Tentatively, she pressed her forefinger to her wrist.

  A gush of thick blood leaked forth but there was no electric shattering of her body. She eyed the cut. It was flat, smooth. Had the glass somehow come out? Had it been her piece of glass that’d killed that Monster? How was that even possible? Maybe her dust had dislodged and flung it?

  That felt possible and there certainly wasn’t a lump under her skin anymore. Unless that other Monster had been lying, but she doubted it. So what had happened?

  Energy and adrenaline had carried her this far but it seemed it’d run out, for she sank to the floor for a second time.

  The pulse in her left arm became so intense it was all she was aware of. There were no sounds, smells, or sights. She couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. Would she soon be able to reach inside herself and pull out her heart, to hold its unbeating husk in her palm?

  She took what felt like the last breath her body could take and dropped down still.

  ◆◆◆

  Tony stroked Natalia’s long, tree coloured hair. Like this, he could see how young and precious she still was – the little girl not too far buried beneath the surface. The girl that had struggled to ride a bike at age five, the girl that always wanted dessert before her meal, and the girl who never forgot to dress as a Witch on Halloween.

  Natalia whimpered and Tony put the back of his hand to her head. Slowly, yet surely, her temperature was coming down. Though it still raged like an unchecked inferno.

  Two days. That was how long Natalia had been in and out of consciousness for.

  A knock at the bedroom door came and Tony shuffled round to look. Katherine popped her head in and then came to his side. He didn’t cry but slumped his head onto her shoulder, exhausted.

  “I brought food,” Katherine whispered, pushing a container of something warm towards him.

  “Thanks,” he said, touching none of it.

  “Tony, go and have a rest.”

  He raised his head again, dark circles visible under his eyes. “I can’t leave her.”

  “You’re no good to her tired and run-down. Go have a shower at least.” She put a comforting hand on his knee. “I’ve looked after her for years. This will be no different. I won’t move.”

  The argument went on for a few more minutes before Katherine finally dissolved the last of Tony’s will.

  Standing under the shower, he let the water pelt and scorch him. His skin burned more as he scrubbed at it. He stayed like that and to himself admitted he could’ve stayed forever. Guiltily, it did feel good to just take a moment.

  Climbing out, he barely dried himself before dressing and returning to the bedroom. “How is she?” he whispered from the doorway, voice laced with concern.

  “Better,” Katherine answered.

  “Better?” he repeated.

  “She woke up for some water while you were gone.” Her smile was soft and it nearly made him collapse. “I even got her to eat two chocolate biscuits before she passed out.”

  Tony sat beside Katherine again and she picked up his hand, holding it in her lap. “Good. That’s good, right?” he asked, unsure.

  She nodded. “How do you feel?”

  “Cleaner,” he answered, eyes still on Natalia.

  Katherine sighed. “She should be walking in days.”

  Tony’s attention snapped to her. “Says who?”

  “You had a long shower,” she said. Tony’s stomach sank, the guilt returning, but Katherine didn’t seem to be judging, only stating a fact. “I managed to get Sarah on the phone. She said that if Natalia keeps waking at intervals, it’s a good sign. The time she spends asleep will decrease until she can fully stay awake again. She’s already eating and drinking.”

  “What else did Sarah say?”

  “That it’ll take weeks for Natalia’s arm to heal.” Katherine sighed again. “It helps she’s a Fairy.”

  “Does it?” He tipped his head back, looking at the ceiling. He couldn’t see how there were any benefits to anything right now.

  Katherine kept it simple. “Like Werewolves, Fairies heal fast but use more energy.”

  Tony touched his daughter’s duvet, running the fabric between his fingers. “Is that why she’s sleeping?”

  “She’s using energy to heal her other injuries, yes. Which is why I insisted on her eating sugary things when she can. Just another thing that helps the recovery process.” She shrugged like she didn’t know why. She squeezed his hand. “She’ll get stronger, Tony.”

  Ever since the attack, Tony realised how little he knew about all this. Lavender had taught him bits and pieces, but their time together was mostly a whirlwind and he never paid much attention to what was happening outside of it. When Natalia had been born, the entire world was hidden from her. Now, she was laid in a bed, asleep to heal injuries she never should’ve gotten.

  Tony groaned and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palm
s, pressing them in until she could see stars. How had let this happen? His eyes began to sting. Had she suffered because of him, because he hadn’t prepared or protected her?

  “This isn’t your fault,” Katherine whispered, peeling away his hands.

  “She’s barely been a part of this world for two months, and she’s already suffered so much,” he said back, his voice cracking slightly at the end. He breathed in a deep breath to steady himself. “Even her mother wanted to protect her from this world, I just don’t know what from. I don’t even think she even knew. But there was something.”

  Could Lavender, all those years ago, have seen or known something that was to happen? Had she wanted to keep her baby safe, more than the motherly instinct would’ve pushed for, because there was something more?

  Tony didn’t need to be any type of Creature to know there was something in Natalia’s very essence that screamed she was different. Not just from any other Fairy, but from all Creatures.

  Katherine squeezed Tony’s hand as his heart raced. “She’ll be ok,” she promised. “In a few days, you’ll see. She just needs time.”

  His eyes locked onto Natalia’s rising and falling chest. “I know.”

  “She’ll be Natalia again soon.”

  Tony dropped against Katherine, the energy at staying upright escaping him, and she held him.

  ◆◆◆

  Natalia flinched several times as Sarah ran her fingers along her bruised skin coloured in varying shades of purple, yellow, and green.

  Once the extensive examination was over and Sarah was convinced there was no more need for concern, Natalia was free to do as she pleased.

  For the last few days, Natalia had been cooped inside her bedroom. Her dad and Katherine hadn’t left her side unless it was to eat, use the bathroom, or sleep. But they worked in shifts so Natalia always had eyes on her. It had felt a little unnecessary until they’d explained how many times she’d passed out or hadn’t woken up, or how feverish she’d been.