Demon Girl (13 page)

“This cannot wait. Breandan would show you
himself, but he thought it was better in the long run if I am the
one to show you. I must help you adjust to your true form and help
you with your first conjuring, or it could end badly.”

I frowned at him. Then I frowned over my
shoulder where the silver streak had disappeared. “That
was
Breandan then.”

He nodded. “You came close to being lost to
us.” Pausing, his eyes flicked to me then swiveled around the
compound as the corners of his mouth pulled down. “You must be
careful who you’re alone with.”

He walked off prompting me to follow.

“Uh, where are we going?”

The fairy strolled along unconcerned but I
glanced around, worried. There had been many strange occurrences
connected to me, and I was becoming more noticeable. For someone
used to living under the radar it was unsettling. I didn’t want to
draw any more attention to myself, but I couldn’t just let him
wander around the Temple.

“I really do have something important to do,”
I added after a beat since he didn’t answer. “Breandan said he was
going to come back, so I don’t think it’d be too big of a deal just
waiting until later.”

“He’s dealing with Devlin,” Conall said. “I’m
to protect and guide you to the white witch and he’ll meet us as
soon as he can.”

A pickle of fear seized me all over. “Witch?”
I said sharply. “Witches are bad, and we are going to go visit
one?”

“She is someone who will help you to
understand what is happening.”

“Huh. Why didn’t Breandan send someone else
after Devlin?” In my head I appended the sentence with,
like
you.

He heard the unspoken and slid a sly look my
way. “They both want something only you can give, and you can only
give it to one of them. Devlin is as cunning as Breandan is frank.
He needed to deal with it personally.”

“I’m not on the market, nor is anything I
own.” I pressed a hand over my chest were my pendant lay. Now
Conall had given me the heads up I would not be letting it out of
my sight. Not that it had ever left my neck in the last eighteen
years.

“Being difficult won’t help you in the long
run. Stop trying to reason as a human would. You are not one and
you’re not built like one. Your body and mind can handle much more.
Soon, you will learn this. You will learn there are rules that must
be observed and respected.”

I ground my teeth together. “You’re making
assumptions. I have respect, and I just know, no matter what
anybody says I am not giving this necklace up.”

I had decided the moment I met him I’d be
safe with him, but I was anxious of what was coming next. Feeling
foolish, I tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He looked a question
at me and I waved him closer. He leaned down from his lofty height
to peer into my face quizzically. “I’ve figured out you guys can
jump really high, but… I can’t. I can’t jump over the Temple wall.”
Stepping away I shrugged to show nonchalance, but reddened. At a
moment like this Tomas would have come in handy. He had jumped it
in a single bound. “We can’t go out the gate either. I don’t even
want to think how I would explain you.”

He gave me a warm smile and I immediately
felt at ease, grinning back. “Don’t fret,” he said. “It’ll take
time for you to learn what you can and cannot do.”

Without breaking stride he took my upper arm
and jumped. We passed high over the wall then fell. Conall’s feet
hit the ground and I was left dangling from the floor at an awkward
angle. He carefully set me down and continued walking. To my credit
I didn’t freak. I’d done the stunt before, and I was practically a
veteran.

The sun had begun to set and the sky was
sapphire, contrasting beautifully with the green of the treetops.
We reached the Wall and Conall stopped, to stare hard at the
buzzing wires, red hot with electric current.

“You’re doing what Breandan did last time? To
the Wall, I mean.” Babbling beside him I straightened my clothes.
“You somehow stop the current without tripping the klaxon. I think
I’ve done it before, by accident.”

“Could you be quiet for a moment?”

Another blush crept up my neck. “Okay,
shutting up now.”

“It’s done. In answer to your question, yes.”
Conall pointed to a small man sized hole now in the Wall, moved
through it and disappeared into the trees.

Biting my lip, I climbed through and stumbled
after him. As we moved I entwined my hands in the coarse grass
swaying about my waist. Tugging a few clumps free of the earth, I
ran my fingertips over the petals of a wild flower that tickled my
palm. The thrumming of crickets and rustle of life in the
undergrowth made me smile. The air, heavy with the scent of soil,
felt alive as we basked.

Conall breathed in deeply. A satisfied smile
danced on the edge of his mouth.

“Do you know how drop your glamour?”

“No.” I slid up my hood.

Standing legs apart, his hands came to rest
on his narrow hips. “You understand the physical of your
nature?”

I let the clumps of grass fall and wiped my
hands on my jeans. “I’m fast. I heal.”

“Have you measured your strength?”

Disconcerted, I rubbed my nose. I hadn’t
thought of what being a fairy really entailed. I knew that they
were fierce and hard. They healed fast and were the most powerful
of the demons. They had strong characters and were beautiful. They
had buckets of pride and protected what they thought was theirs.
They had magic. I was one of them. But what did it mean to be a
fairy? Was there a pecking order like there was within the Sect and
who protected, and guided them? Did they really live as nomads and
in small families by choice? Or was it a result of the Rupture,
like the Wall was.

“I haven’t thought about it. I haven’t
thought about much to be honest. Stuff keeps happening a tad
fast.”

“If I was human,” he snorted, “and discovered
I was much stronger, faster I would not be able to stop myself.” He
shrugged. “My nature is proud.”

I thought on it for a while. “It’s hard to
believe all of this. You all seem so real.” Conall gave me an odd
look. “Understand, in my world demons are odd not humans.”

“A complicated way of saying you’re
adjusting.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and placing my
legs a foot apart, bent my knees like I was to do some damage.
Balling my hands into fists, I pushed thought to the back of my
head to clear up some thinking space.

“I’m ready. Let’s do this.” The sooner I got
this done, the sooner I could get back to Tomas.

“You know you’re fast?” I bobbed my head. He
grinned, a slash of white against the dark tan of his skin. “When
the spell broke how did you feel?”

There was that buzz word again. Spell.
Breandan had mentioned a spell breaking and something being
painful. My heart picked up. Was this going to be painful? Is that
the real reason why Breandan wanted this fairy to show me instead
of him? I realized Conall was waiting for my answer.

“Uh…” I thought back to running away from the
Clerics, their dogs chasing me down; believing I was about to be
ripped to pieces by teeth. “Scared.”

His brows pulled together. “Scared? Not a
strong emotion, and certainly not strong enough to break a
spell.”

“I was completely
bricking
myself.”

I watched as he translated that into
something he could understand. “Better,” he concluded and looked at
me hard. “Before the speed what was your state of mind?”

I hopped from one foot to the other. “Did you
not hear me? I was terrified. I wanted nothing more than to be far,
far away from an ugly painful death.”

“Precisely. Your state of mind is crucial
when conjuring. Glamour is no different.”

“Ah, no incantations over a cauldron bubbling
with chicken feet and grave dirt?”

I had a flash of myself doing a tribal dance
in front of an open flame with mud on my face, an animal fur slung
about my naughty bits. and bones plaited into my hair. I muffled a
snigger.

“If you are a witch laying a spell to hide
than yes, but not fairy glamour. It is done with little
concentration. Eventually you’ll conjure and drop your glamour with
ease. When we glamour ourselves we suppress our nature. This cloaks
our ears and makes us less otherworldly by fixing our features to
one state. A safeguard is created around our being. Once sight
passes through it makes us look more human. We dislike when people
are in our,” he pursed his lips, “the humans call it personal space
unless they have a close connection to us.”

I struggled to understand. “So, the ears and
the glowing still exist but we just can see it?”

“The glamour disrupts what the mind perceives
to be true. If you cannot see, smell, touch or hear a thing why
would you believe it is there?”

I remembered the shield over Breandan, the
pulsing around Devlin. “As fairies we can sense glamour.” I said
and nodded.

I had definitely gotten it wrong. Devlin
wasn’t human at all. He was a fairy, a fairy hiding in plain sight
at Temple. How he had managed such a thing was beyond me. To enroll
you have to meet the Priests and take a vow to uphold Sect
Doctrine.

“I think I’m there, but what do you mean
about fixing ourselves in one state?”

“You notice how in fairy form we are severe
one moment then jovial in another.” I tilted my head to signal yes,
and remembered Breandan’s crazy mood swings. “This is because of
the depth of our temperament. Suppressing the fairy nature helps us
blend. The drawback is you are slower, weaker. Your senses are
dampened as is control over magic. Our power comes from the Source
of course, and it is vast and limitless. It is energy. Energy lives
in all things, constantly evolving and blending into something new.
Fairies have the strongest natural awareness of the forces
surrounding us and can draw from the Source, manipulate its power
for our needs. The majority of us think of it in broad strokes. It
makes for easy focus and quick action.”

“Source?” I grinned like a loon. “You mean
you’re going to show me magic.”

He nodded manically, feeding off my
enthusiasm. “The most simplistic way to conjure is to seek the
power surrounding you, reach out to it and summon whilst channeling
the energy. Watch me.”

A pinball of light appeared overhead,
bloating to become a small ball of fire. It was the coolest thing
I’d ever seen, cooler than seeing purple in the dark or bouncing
over walls. Suddenly it was there, like it always had been my whole
life. Like falling out a window as a child and not having a scratch
on you. Like dropping a full cup of water and it landing
right-side-up without spilling a drop. Like making a hole in the
Wall without tripping the klaxon. My whole life the strange things
that happened around me had been attributed to freaky good luck
since I couldn’t be a witch. None of it was under my voluntary
control, and never did I really gain anything. But now it all lined
up in perfect order. The power was in my reach and mine for the
taking.

Something pulsed close by, a mini sun of
colour and heat that seemed to be nowhere and everywhere.
Instinctively I drew from its warmth. It was like turning the
faucet of an unexpectedly high-pressured tap. The flow of energy
flooded into me, and spilled over the lip of who I was. To save
myself drowning or burning up I changed the feeling into a thing.
Fire. A ball of flame exploded into existence, hurtling toward us.
I watched the self made instrument of my rapidly advancing death in
awe.

An urgent sound muttered from Conall cut over
the oncoming hiss, and just before impact, the fireball imploded.
It left nothing but a ringing in my ears, white spots across my
vision and enough heat to singe a few strands of my hair.

Conall’s ball of fire hovered mockingly
above.

“That was not as good as I thought it’d be,”
I said faintly.

Conall’s pupils were huge with shock and his
pointed ears twitched. His face was stark white. He released the
white-knuckled hold on my upper arms and eased himself away. He’d
thrown himself at me and lurched into an odd crouch when the
fireball was coming our way, ready to drag me out the way if
needed.

“Why do you perceive a giant ball of death
coming toward you as a good thing?”

I ignored him. “You call the energy to you
then you make it into what you want in your head?”

“In a basic way, yes.” His voice returned to
normal and the repressed panic in his eyes ebbed away. “You must
give yourself time to focus on what you want to achieve.” The
looked leveled my way was laced with warning. “The greater the
focus the more effective the spell. It comes packing a punch.”

“More of a punch than the fire ball?”

“Yes,” he said wary. “We will leave further
conjuring to another time. Agreed?”

I gave a thumb up. “Anything else I should
know?”

“Our bodies are conductors. We can control as
much energy as our body can withstand to channel, never more.”

“I can’t get better?”

“You can become proficient so spells are more
effective and you can access as much energy as possible but in
terms of measurable power, no.”

“How do you know when you’re at the
limit?”

“Trial and error.” His voice had gone flat
and the warning his eyes told me in no uncertain terms should he
catch me being silly I’d be in major trouble.

“I’ll be careful,” I promised.

The breeze, lightly scented with lavender and
periwinkle, caressed my heated skin. I was distracted by a random
thought. I plucked at my sleeve behind my back, and decided to just
throw it out there.

“Conall, you’re a boy.” I burrowed the toe of
my boot into the undergrowth. “Am I nice looking? For a fairy, I
mean.”

“You are beautiful.”

“You have to say that because Breandan will
hurt you if you upset me.”