Rage Against the Devil (Wild Beasts Series Book 2)

by T. Birmingham

  She cleaned off the table and then moved to the living room to clean up some of the research they’d been working on, the whole time pushing her feelings to the back of her mind.

  How had it gotten to this? How had she let it get this far?

  And worse yet, did she want it to go even further?

  The resounding yes in her mind had her sitting abruptly down on the cozy couch in the living room. She fell into the large piece of furniture and closed her eyes.

  She built up her ice again, little piece by little piece, until she felt the cold suffuse her being. Its icicles stung some spots, but the icicles were a pain she could live with.

  Love was not.

  Feeling was not.

  She could not live with the pain Nicky would drag her through.

  So, she built up that wall of ice once more, and then she got up and called Gimp.

  “What’s up?” His Irish brogue was a welcome change. A splash of solid water that reminded her of two weeks ago when she’d felt shit except for the occasional guilt at tearing apart her big-mouthed friend.

  “I need to hit something.”

  “Awww…shucks, Ice,” Gimp said into the phone. “Me and Ben were just getting all chummy.” There was complete silence in the background. She’d met Ben. He was basically a mute.

  “Yeah, sure,” Eire said, sarcastically. “Can you meet?”

  “I’m just a punching bag to you, aren’t I?” the Trow asked in mock dramatics.

  “You’re the only one who can take my punches and give as good as you get, Trow, so yes,” Eire added. “Today, we can just be each other’s punching bags…” She paused for a second, and then she dove in. “I’ve got to get ready to take on this goddamned devouring Fae, and this whole case has me beyond distracted.”

  Translation: she needed to build her walls back up. Push all that goddamned emotion those dreams were bringing up way the fuck down.

  “Distracted?” Gimp threw out the word as though it was the craziest notion in the world that Eire might be such a thing. Except, she damn well was.

  “Yeah, Gimp,” Eire said frostily. “I’m fucking distracted, and I need to get my head back in the game.” She paused, giving him only a minute. “You in or out?”

  There was silence, and then a roughly stated ‘in’. He’d meet her. She’d known he would. Gimp was chatty. Gimp was friendly. Gimp let in more emotion than Eire thought was natural. But Gimp was also a rough around the edges Trow, an Other, and he’d been with Eire long enough to know when they both needed to just blow off steam.

  “I’ll meet you at The Lodge,” Eire said. She’d fucking run there.

  “You mean Montville’s School for Special Peeps?” Gimp asked with a chuckle.

  “Shit, Gimp. They’re all fucking insane, aren’t they?”

  “Some more than others,” Gimp said absentmindedly, followed quickly by, “they’ve got a few training areas here.”

  She ignored the distracted tone, which she was sure was for a certain redheaded Skröm.

  “See you there in fifteen,” she said, instead of traveling down that emotional road and they both hung up. She wasn’t the talking sort. So, they’d fight it the fuck out of their minds.

  Gimp was the one person she could count on to let her just be herself. And he was always there for her. Always. Even despite her lack of emotion.

  She threw on her black jeans, her Sex Pistols t-shirt, and her green leather jacket. Her hair went up in a pony tail with the lime green scrunchie she normally wore; she washed her face and brushed her teeth; she ate a bit of the leftovers for her special diet that she’d stocked up on from the In Between in the mountains; and she put on her combat boots.

  Good to go.

  Nicky still wasn’t back, and for that she was grateful.

  She couldn’t do it.

  Couldn’t let him in. Couldn’t have him share his life when she definitely wouldn’t be letting him into hers. Couldn’t let go of her ice. Couldn’t feel.

  She’d experienced the entirety of what it meant to be Other, to be Fae, only once in her life, and she’d lost herself that day.

  She’d lost everything that day.

  Her mother.

  Her brothers.

  Her home.

  Herself.

  And she would never lose herself to anyone ever again.

  Eire sat on the far edge of the opening, away from where everyone else was chatting by the fire pit, sharing their shit, opening up. Laughing.

  Her sparring with Gimp that Friday afternoon hadn’t helped. Twilight had just hit, and she was still a ball of fury over the murders and she was as lost as could be with the group in front of her. No military buddies to catch up with like Gimp, who was being his normal chatty self with Nicky and Danny. No connections. No fucks to give.

  Or so she kept telling herself. She was steadily realizing that, in the past, her lack of emotion had been more an issue of proximity. If she wasn’t near anyone, she didn’t need to think about their feelings. She didn’t need to think about her own either. Fuck it all. She took out her MP3 player, not something she normally did in public. She hated having something in her ears blocking out the noise and creating an auditory blind spot.

  Stone Sour’s “Bother” came on and she mouthed the words and tapped her foot against the grassy knoll her bare feet rested in. She was once again comfortable in the cold. She’d eaten. She’d gotten some of her anger out sparring with Gimp. And other than the feeling of being separate from everyone around the fire, she’d never felt better. The meal Gimp had collected for her a week prior had tasted different, but what she’d been eating was still enough. Jesus, she was a freak.

  And this fact hadn’t bothered her until these past couple weeks.

  She tapped her foot through Eddie Vedder’s “Society” and of Verona’s “Dark in My Imagination” before finally getting up. She brushed the grass, soot, and dirt off her black jeans and walked away from the gathering. She didn’t look at anyone. She hadn’t before. And she wouldn’t now.

  She moved through the woods and found another open field about two miles away from Montville’s School for Special Peeps. Goddamn, but that place needed a new name.

  The sky was all stars with the new moon having just happened a couple days earlier as she walked, head held high into the open field. It was similar to the one from the murder the week before, but this one had stone walls on its borders. Two large standing stones stood at the East and the West and she wondered who had placed them there. The stones felt heavy and buried in emotion, but that was her curse to bear. She understood too much of Stone.

  Trees had been felled by storms of some kind at one point and were now knotted and regrown in an oddly shaped wildness that called to her soul more than she liked to admit. Cold, hard bitches didn’t do wild. They did precise.

  Her bare feet walked through the grassy areas covered in pine needles and stone, but she was Fae. The needles bent away from her feet. They knew she didn’t belong, and just like almost everything else in nature, they balked at her presence. She was separate even from those things.

  She moved over to a tree and climbed its trunk, letting her muscles take on the task, needing the challenge of moving up the tree and around until she found a niche that worked for her. Breaking Benjamin’s “Dance with the Devil” came on and she smiled. This was one of her repeat songs, and every time it had come on these past two weeks since she’d been in Montville, she’d thought of Nicky. Maybe because of his presence and the temptation he presented. He wasn’t subtle. The man was always crowding her space, standing at her back like she needed protecting, cooking her breakfast.

  Bastard.

  Now, she sat in the tree just thinking about her time in this small town, the mystery of the murders, the episode this morning in the kitchen, and she let herself examine her feelings. What was it about the wolf that drew her? It was dangerous territory to fall for a Clan member, but for some reason, Nicky seemed even more dangerous. And
Eire liked control. She was constantly in dangerous situations, yes, but the situations were hers to control. She knew she’d win each fight, each encounter.

  No one would win if she tried anything with the Vuković.

  She felt a presence close by and looked over into a tall oak a few trees away. A dark-skinned woman with long, insanely curly hair pulled herself up and sat with her back to Eire’s tree. Eire took out her earbuds and quietly climbed down from her own tree, sad to leave her peace, but curious about the intruder.

  Eire moved to the bottom of the tree and settled into climbing the thirty or so feet up the oak to the lowest branch. The woman looked down but didn’t say anything. She looked forward again and shut her eyes as though closing out the world.

  “I’m not talking,” she said as Eire sat on the branch right below her. There was silence for a minute. Eire wondered who she was because the woman felt important. So, Eire stayed still and silent.

  The green-eyed woman looked at Eire, and Eire held her gaze, showing the woman she wasn’t a threat. The Clan woman looked away reluctantly, and Eire saw it in her eyes. She didn’t want to be weak, but she didn’t know how else to be. Eire watched as the woman’s hair moved away from her face and realized then why the woman was so skittish.

  Scars from what appeared to be a fire lined the right side of her face, a crisscross of mottled flesh that would make most men flinch, but Eire had scars too. She didn’t shy away from them. She embraced them. They had made her stronger.

  “They’re so worried about me that they send an Other?” Her voice was defensive, but Eire didn’t take offense. ‘Defensive’ was this woman’s figurative wall of ice. Whereas Eire had the ability to create her own barrier because she was Fae, this woman felt exposed and vulnerable. Eire would have been fucking defensive herself if she had to feel that powerlessness day in and day out.

  “I was already here,” Eire said. “Hiding in the tree over there.” Now, why had she admitted that?

  Carrie gave her a considering look and then her mouth ticked up a bit at the corner like she wanted to smile, but refused to let it happen. “They’re quite a bunch, aren’t they? Always trying to save everyone…like they’re perfect,” she said and picked at the invisible lint on her yoga pants. “Dang it, I’m sorry. They’re not that bad. They’re just… They just…well, fudge buckets, they just care.” Carrie paused and looked out at the sky where a half moon and billions of stars hung in the sky.

  Fudge buckets?

  But Eire let her continue.

  Carrie breathed out and her next words were like a lullaby.

  “Do you ever wish you were like a star?

  They’re just there.

  Burned into existence, separate from other stars

  Separate, but not giving a fudge whether anyone cares.

  Not giving a fudge how anyone sees their burning.

  They’re oblivious to the emotions of others.

  They’re oblivious to fear, to happiness, to joy, to sadness.

  They. Just. Bloody well. Are.

  No emotion.

  No risk.

  Just a star.

  Just a burning flame.

  Just a cold being that will eventually die off.

  Everyone loves them. Looks to them for guidance.

  But in the end, they’re just a star.

  A star that doesn’t give two fudge sticks about all the people who wish upon them.”

  “Fuck, girl,” Eire breathed out. But she didn’t say anything else. She just looked up at the sky. Alone. A star unto itself like a ship unto itself. Yeah, she got this chick. “So, they’re always trying to save you, huh?” She didn’t look at Carrie. She continued looking at the sky filled with its billions of stars.

  “Always,” Carrie said.

  “Even Danny?” Eire asked. She’d seen. He was always there. No one could miss it.

  “Especially Danny.” Carried paused. “But he’s more subtle about it. Acts like he likes me just the way I am. But if he liked me just the way I am, he would leave me alone. He wouldn’t try—”

  Eire looked over to see if Carrie would continue, but the scarred, beautiful woman just frowned like she’d said too much.

  “I say too much all the time now too,” Eire said. “They do something to you. It’s like you can’t help but be changed by them.” She tried to catch Carrie’s eye, waiting patiently. Finally, the woman with the green eyes so similar to her own lifted her chin. A kindred spirit. A woman who hid to avoid the pain. Except Eire wanted this woman to take another path. She didn’t want Carrie to be like her. She wanted Carrie to be happy. Shit, did that mean Eire wasn’t happy? No, Eire thought, it meant that she herself didn’t deserve happiness. She was her father’s daughter. Swords. Cold Fire. Destruction.

  “You hide in your cabin,” Eire said. Carrie gave her a defiant look and then that lip quirk. Yeah, she was happy someone was talking to her like she was a person and not a broken china doll. “You hide there because you know, if you came out, you’d have to deal with all that emotion broiling inside of you, and that is the fucking scariest thing in the world. Having to be that star standing next to the moon. Stars are one in a million. They’re okay with their existence because they know there are so many others to pick up the slack. But if you’ve got to stand next to people who are like the moon…” Eire tilted her head to the side. “Well, that’s what they are. They’re like the moon. Bright. Unique. Ever changing. Always powerful even if hidden. The moon pulls power out of all creatures. The Vuković and some Others get stronger during the full moon, but there are even some Others who get stronger at the new moon or the half moon. No matter her phase, the moon can pull out the best in people. But the burden of the moon is that it needs to pull out the best,” Eire said. “If the moon doesn’t pull out the best, it’s pulling out the worst. That’s a hard thing for the moon to bear.”

  “And if I hate the moon because no matter how hard I try, I can’t escape it?”

  “Then you don’t understand the moon, and you’re really letting yourself wallow and be a star when you might be the brightest moon there could be.” Eire let her feet fall to either side of the large branch, placing her hands on the branch in front of her and lifting herself up over and over again. “And you’re not a star who doesn’t give a fuck no matter how much you tell yourself that.” Eire smiled at the scarred woman. “I know that much, and I’ve only been around these people for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, they fudge with your mind,” Carrie added and Eire laughed.

  “Fudge with our minds, huh?”

  “I don’t swear,” Carrie said defensively. “I don’t have much left, but I have that.”

  Like Eire taking on her Sword instead of her Stone. Most would have been surprised that she’d chosen her father’s gift to rule her. Because although it was the weaker of her gifts, Swords was also the one that made her the coldest, and that was why she needed it. It was her weakest Fae gift and yet her strongest asset against the emotions she avoided.

  Forged in fire, yes, but made stronger by the cold steel blades she had become. Always in between. Neither a vicious Fae nor a feeling human. So, yeah. Eire got control. She held onto that one thing that she could control, that belonged only to her. So little truly belonged to a person.

  Eire nodded and slowly looked away, bringing one of her legs up and bending it at the knee to let it rest beneath her chin.

  “You get it,” Carrie said, moving herself to a cross-legged position on the branch and folding forward to let her elbows rest on the branch.

  “Fuck, yeah,” Eire said, still looking out at the night sky.

  “Because you’re an Other or because of something else?” Eire should have been angry at the intrusion, but where Eire’s scars were mostly internal, this woman was a walking example of the pain this world could cause. Carrie was hardened, sad, angry, but underneath that, Eire saw her color. She’d once been a beautiful, giving, happy person who’d had a hard time hiding her emot
ions. Eire could relate to that on so many levels.

  “Because of who I am.”

  “Fae?” Carrie asked. Eire jerked her head and stared at the woman. She hadn’t been there when Eire had shared that and she’d seen neither hide nor hare of Carrie and very little of her stoic twin since the first night of the investigation. “I hear everything.” Carrie pointed to her mind. “Taryn.”

  Shit, Eire had known that. But if Carrie could hear everything…

  “I can’t hear your thoughts,” Carrie said, turning away. “Only if I try and not with Others. Although,” she said consideringly, “I can sense things about most people, and you’re Dark, yes, but there’s something about you…” She seemed to think about her statement and smiled. “You talk about Danny, but Eire, I can see why Nicky never leaves your side. You aren’t as evil as you think.”

  Eire jumped up on the branch, and she lifted her chin. “I am who I am,” she said defiantly. “Stay the fuck out of my head.”

  Carrie again regarded Eire with curiosity. “You’re closer to being a star than I am.”

  Eire felt that statement like a punch to the gut. Not the moon. She’d been hardened by nature and burned into existence. Well, she’d been bled into existence, but it was the same thing.

  “Is that why you get it? Get why I’m this way?” Carried asked. “You’ve spent a lot of time trying to be a star, haven’t you?”

  “The longest.” There was a weariness in her voice that even Eire couldn’t hide, and her butt hit the branch with a thump. “I may seem young to you all, but I was trapped for six years in the Veil and well time works differently there…and time also works differently in our mind. In my mind, and in the Veil, I’m over a thousand years old.” There was so much silence. Too much. She lay back, letting the branch support her weight. She was just so tired. So undone by everything her time on this case had wrought.

  “A thousand years?” Carrie whispered, her words filled with an awe and a shock that would have made Eire cringe had she not been just… done… so fucking done. She closed her eyes and took her time in answering.