A million flying monsters fluttered out of the forest. They flapped their leathery wings all around her. She screamed and let go of the rock with one hand to slap them away, but they covered her all over.
They pecked and nipped her body. They tore at her face and hair and skin. She fought hard to drive them off, but she couldn’t combat so many all at once. She never even got a decent look at them before they tangled their claws in her hair and clothes and towed her off the wall.
The moment she broke clear, they let her fall. She crashed to the forest floor and landed hard on her stomach. In an instant, they were all over her. They bit out chunks of her flesh and ripped out handfuls of her hair. One pecked out her eye, and another bit off her finger.
She fought her way to her feet. She stumbled a few paces and hit a boulder. She slumped down against it and covered her head with her arms.
She had to find a way to get away from these things before they ripped her to pieces. She couldn’t do anything while she was fighting them, though. She had no idea how to put herself back together once she did get rid of them.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the things blasted off her in clouds. Some force stronger than nature itself blew them away. The swarm of wings peeled back from her, and she looked up at a lone figure walking tall and straight and strong through the flapping horde. It was Christie McLean.
He paid no attention whatever to the things. He walked up to her and smiled down at her huddled form. She cowered on the ground, a bleeding mass of wounds. Her empty eye socket hung open, ragged and bleeding. Blood dripped off every part of her. She hugged her torn hand against her chest. Her guts ached, and she wanted to die.
Christie squatted down in front of her. He wouldn’t stop smiling at her. He bent forward and picked up a fingerful of clay from the earth at his feet. He manipulated it in his fingers for a moment. Alexis watched his fingers roll it over and over.
Christie fashioned the clay into the shape of a finger. He picked up her hand, fitted the clay where her missing finger should have been, and held it up. He and Alexis watched it meld to her hand and come to life as pulsing, living tissue. Alexis moved her hand, and the finger flexed. It really was alive. It was part of her hand.
He collected another lump of clay and pressed it into a ball. He pushed it into her empty eye socket, and she could see through it, the same as the other one.
“Christie!” she gasped. “What did you do?”
He only smiled. He worked a piece of clay into her cheek where the flesh lay torn away. The wound healed over and vanished. He remade her whole and healthy once again.
She stared up at his smiling face. His hands felt right working over her body. He molded and manipulated her and put everything back where it belonged. Then he stood up, gave her one last satisfied smile, and walked away.
She opened her mouth to call after him, but he didn’t respond. She couldn’t just lie here and watch him walk away. She climbed to her feet and walked after him. He led her to a small alcove tucked into a rock overhang. He sat down by a fire and added a few sticks to it. He wrapped his plaid around his shoulders and reclined against the rock to relax.
Alexis studied him. When he bothered to acknowledge her presence, he smiled. He didn’t speak, though. She walked around the fire and sat down next to him. She looked down at her hands in her lap. Her finger worked perfectly. No evidence remained that it ever got injured by those monsters.
She couldn’t contain her curiosity any longer. “Christie,” she began, “what is going on here?”
He only smiled. He put out his hand, and she saw a key grasped in his fingers. He stuck the key into her chest and turned it. It opened a little door, and they both peered down into the village.
They both watched through the door. Down inside her chest, the village flew apart in pieces. Roofs lifted off their walls. Chunks of hardened mud cracked off the walls and hurtled every which way. They struck and killed people and animals.
The villagers screamed and ran for cover, but they couldn’t get away from the destruction. A massive fissure opened in the earth and swallowed a dozen people at once.
Alexis’s heart wrenched at the sight. She looked up at Christie’s face. He watched the scene with a scowl. Down inside her chest, the houses crumbled and collapsed. The thatch roofs burst into flame. Children got trapped in the infernos. Their screams for help echoed out through the door to Alexis’s ear.
She looked up again, and her eyes met Christie’s direct gaze. He put out his hand to her. “Shall we go?”
She took his hand. His touched folded her up into an arrow, and together they shot through the door.
Alexis started awake out of a sound slumber to see Christie sitting there by the fire. Dark of night enshrouded the forest beyond the fire’s glow. Christie sat wrapped in his plaid, but he didn’t smile down on her with that benign smile. He studied her with a mixture of concern and reserve.
Alexis tried to sit up. “What’s going on around here?”
He laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’d best lie still, lass. You’re worn-out.”
“How do you know so much about my condition?” she fired back.
“I have been watching over ye for three days,” he replied. “I think I ken a bit more about your condition than ye do yourself.”
“Three days!” she exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”
“Is it?” he asked. “From what I have seen these last few months, there’s no’ a heap in this world that’s impossible.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He turned his head to fix his eyes on her. He gave her shoulder a shove to push her down. “It means, lassie, that you’re my patient and I’m your doctor, and I say you’re to lie still and rest if ye ken what’s good for ye—which ye dinnae. You’ll go on taxing yourself until ye break, and then there’ll be no bringing ye back from any of it.”
Something in his voice made her obey him. She lay back on the sandy floor of the alcove. “Bringing me back from any of what?”
“Ye can best tell me that,” he returned. “Why dinnae ye tell me what’s going on, instead of asking me, as I dinnae ken naught about it. Ye, on the other hand, ye ken all about it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she countered. “If I knew anything about whatever it is you’re not talking about, I wouldn’t have to waste my breath asking you what’s going on, now would I?”
“Why do ye no’ start by telling me how long this here’s been going on?” he asked. “When did it start?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He hugged his plaid around his shoulder and turned away with a snort. He shook his head and gazed into the fire.
“What?” she fired back. “Why don’t you believe me?”
“I dinnae care a whit about ye,” he told her. “If ye, in your infinite wisdom and sagacity, want to wander about this forest for the remainder of your short and unnatural life, I dinnae give the hind end of a rat’s arse. It’s the rest of the world I care on.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my Clan, lassie,” he replied. “I’m talking about the Urlus and the Faery and the rest of the world, including the human world. Do ye think for a moment this thing stops with ye? Of course ye dinnae think it, ’cuz ye ken as well as I do it doesnae stop with ye. Do ye think I’ll be the only one that’ll be dead if ye dinnae do something to stop it?”
Alexis stared up at the ceiling. Why did she fight against these words penetrating her brain when she already knew they were true?
“It’s no’ just me. It’s ye yourself,” he went on. “If ye cannae do it for the sake of the rest of the world, ye can do it for yourself, to save your own life—or are ye too callous and hardened even for that? Would ye sacrifice your own life out of spite for the rest of the world, that the whole world must go down with ye?”
He shook his head again and looked away. She couldn’t argue with an
ything he said. Everything he said was true, and she knew it for a long time. She propped herself up on her elbow. “Don’t you think I would stop it if I could? Do you think I really enjoy standing around watching everything go to Hell and knowing it’s all my fault? I would do anything to stop it, but I don’t know how.”
“Well, why the devil did ye no’ ask for help in the first place?” he fired back. “Why have ye run from everyone and everything that’s tried to help ye, including me? Not that I’m arguing, ye understand. I was never so happy to see the back of ye, but I ken others tried to help ye—the Faery King, for example.”
“I know that,” she cried. “I know… I know I’ve been stubborn, but after I realized how bad things were getting, I did ask for help. I asked for help from Hazel Green in Urlu, but the whole place exploded before I got a chance.”
He cocked his head. “Ye did?”
“Yes.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe about a week ago.”
He frowned, but she didn’t notice.
“I went back to Faery to ask James about it,” she went on, “but I was too late. The whole place was destroyed and the Faery all gone.”
His head whipped around, and his eyes flew open. All of a sudden, he jumped up. “That’s it! We must do something right away! We cannae let Faery go down. We must stop it.”
Alexis’s hand shot out. “It’s too late. I’m telling you, I already went there, and it’s all gone. That’s what I’m telling you. That’s why I’ve been running scared all this time. All these people are dying, and it’s all my fault. I didn’t want to face it, and now it’s too late to bring any of them back.”
He sank down in his place and huddled under his plaid. Alexis lay back on the ground. This whole thing stank to high Heaven. She would rather be dead than look this thing in the face.
“Just tell me one thing,” she told him. “What did you do to heal me?”
His chin sank onto his chest. “I dinnae ken. What did ye do to heal me?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “It just sort of happened. I only knew I had to be with you, so that’s what I did.”
He lifted his head, and they stared at each other for a long time. Even now, Alexis sensed the same power drawing her to him. Whatever answer she sought to this devastating mystery, it lay in him.
Chapter 15
Christie kept the fire going while he watched Alexis sleep. She never had any difficulty going to sleep. She must not have slept since she came to this country. Now she was exhausted. She constantly started awake from nightmares, and he heard her crying in her sleep.
He took advantage of her long slumbers to hunt for their food and bring back water. She gave him a stiff thanks, but she made it clear his efforts embarrassed her. Everything about him made her uncomfortable, but she couldn’t leave with this insanity all around her.
At least as long as she stayed in the forest, it concerned only her. They both agreed to stay here until they figured out how to stop it affecting anybody else. Neither of them wanted to go out into the world and find out just how bad it really had gotten.
Faery was gone. Most likely Urlu was gone. Christie couldn’t figure out if Mull was gone or if his vision of that far distant future actually happened or not. He dared not tell Alexis the gory details. She’d already suffered enough guilt over the details she knew.
By day, she suffered regular attacks of insanity. She ran off into the forest in dread from some invisible attacker. When he touched her, he saw her flying apart in brick shaped pieces.
He still didn’t understand what he did to put her back together. The first few times he saw the pieces flying out, he didn’t know what to do. The empathic sensation of his body falling apart out of his control overwhelmed his reason.
After the second day, though, he kept contact with her skin long enough to sustain the vision. He saw himself standing in the vision with her. He picked up the broken-off pieces and stuck them back into their places. One after another, they slotted into her flesh and became whole skin and bone again.
He got good at putting her back together, but he hadn’t gotten any closer to stopping the attacks in the first place. He couldn’t keep putting her back together forever. He had to find a permanent solution to this.
While he sat there thinking about it, he heard a strange sound out in the forest. He’d spent enough time in Scottish forests in his life, and he’d never heard that sound before. He cocked his ears to listen.
The sound came again. It was like the high-pitched screech of a bird call, but it couldn’t be a bird. All the birds were sound asleep at this time of night.
The sound kept coming in rapid succession. He didn’t like this at all. Alexis moaned in her sleep and tossed under his plaid. He couldn’t hear the sound well enough with his human ears, so he got up. He paced to the end of the alcove and shifted into his wolfen form. He strained his ears to listen for it again.
When he heard it this time, the reaction sent a lightning bolt through his being. His hair stood up along his back, and he flattened his ears to his skull. He snarled out into the night. Something was out there, something beyond his sight, and he didn’t like it at all.
He cast a quick glance back at Alexis. She still tossed in her sleep. She would worry if she woke up and found him gone, but he couldn’t stay in the alcove any longer. He had to see what made that noise.
He trotted a few steps into the darkness when something hit him going a mile a minute. It thumped him in the chest and sent him hurtling back into the alcove. He smashed into the back wall and let out a yelp of surprise and pain. The noise woke up Alexis, and all hell broke loose.
Christie bounced off the floor and launched himself into the dark. He met a massive cloud of flapping, fluttering, bobbing monsters racing in at lightning speed. They attacked him in swarms, and they surrounded Alexis. They covered her with their misshapen bodies until Christie couldn’t see her anymore.
He didn’t have to see her. He was too busy fighting those things off. He lashed every which way with his teeth, but they pummeled him all over. Their snapping jaws lifted him off the ground. He twisted and thrashed in mid-air, but they wouldn’t let him fall.
Alexis’s screams reached his ears from across the alcove. She waved her arms all around her head. She slapped the creatures off her body, but they only came in thicker than ever. Christie couldn’t reach her.
He sensed the battle slipping away from him. The things slashed his skin open with their fangs. They crunched their teeth into his limbs to the bone. They yanked out his fur and pecked at his eyes.
Panic turned to rage. He gave a violent jerk and broke their grip long enough to sink to the ground. His feet touched the sandy alcove floor. He reacted in a heartbeat. He spun around, snatched one of the creatures out of the air, and gave it a hard shake. Its neck snapped, and he tossed it away.
He rounded on the other monsters. He snarled and bellowed his rage and pain at them, but they never missed a beat. They all pounded him at once. Wave upon wave of the demons flew out of the alcove, circled in the sky, and zoomed back in to collide with him.
They flew too fast for him to see them clearly. Before he knew what hit him, dozens of those flying things raced into the alcove. They crashed into him one after another and drove him back.
He stumbled and lost his balance. A never-ending rain of bodies peppered his chest and face. He lost all awareness of where he was and what was happening. All at once, he hit something behind him. Alexis cried out, and her arms closed around his chest.
The instant she touched him, a catastrophic explosion rocked the alcove. The stone walls reflected the concussion. The energy exploded out of the chamber into the forest and blasted all those flying monsters away. In a fraction of a second, silence descended and nothing remained of the fight but one dead monster on the floor.
Alexis unwound her arms from Christie’s chest. He gave a wriggle and squirmed off her
onto the floor. He shifted and stood up on his legs. He turned around to face her. “What did ye do to them?”
“I didn’t do anything,” she exclaimed. “I thought I was done for. Then you bumped into me and knocked me over. I grabbed onto you to steady myself, but I couldn’t hold myself up. We both fell down and then…”
She didn’t finish. They stared at each other. Then they looked around the alcove. The empty night hovered outside the fire’s flickering glow.
Christie nudged the dead thing with his foot. “What is that thing?”
Alexis bent down and picked it up by the wings. She held it suspended while she took a good look at it. It resembled a disgusting troll from a storybook. Tiny arms and legs stuck out of its rotund body. A grotesque face with boggle eyes and a bulbous nose topped the hideous form.
“These are the things that have been attacking me all this time,” she replied. “These are the things that keep tearing the place apart. They’re the things that are tearing me apart, but for some reason, I couldn’t see them in this world. I can only see them in…”
She stopped. Christie waited for her to finish, but she only bowed her head and dropped the thing on the ground.
“For God’s sake, lassie, just tell me the truth for once,” he exclaimed. “We cannae fight these things to win if we dinnae understand what they are and where they come from. Tell me all, and dinnae hold anything back.”
Her head shot up, and a fierce determination darkened her features. He’d never seen that look on her face before. “I only saw them in my visions, okay? I never saw them in real life. I thought I imagined the whole thing. I thought I was out of my mind. That’s why I didn’t want to say anything.”
Christie rubbed his chin. “I…well, I admit I had my suspicions ye might be around the bend, myself. Now I see ye arenae. You’re just as sane as me.”
“Then how do you explain this?” she asked.
Curse Breaker (Phoenix Throne Book 7): A Scottish Highlander Time Travel Romance Page 10
