Sarah Brennan - The Demon's Lexicon

No, Nick thought, his whole body thrumming with that single word. He wanted to shout it. No.

Alan cleared his throat and said, “All right.”

Still looking at Nick, still grinning, Anzu reached out one of those hands that blurred into talons, and with a talon he stabbed Alan three times as deep as he could.

He drew the second mark, which meant death, onto the skin of Nick’s brother.

AS SOON AS THE BALEFIRE DIED AND THE DEMON WENT down in smoke, Nick broke out of the circle in one stride. He was beside Alan in another step, one fist clenched in Alan’s shirt and one closing around the speaking charm. He ripped the charm violently from Alan’s neck and took a savage satisfaction in seeing the thin red line spring up on Alan’s skin when the chain broke.

He stamped on the shell and felt as if he had bitten his tongue and blood was filling his mouth, slipping down his throat. Only instead of blood, it was his voice.

Now that he could speak, he found he had nothing to say. It was done.

Nick shoved Alan away, sending him stumbling back into the ash and the broken pattern of the demon’s circle. Alan was easy to throw off balance. If Nick had thrown him back with any more force, he would have fallen, and if he’d fallen, Nick might have kicked him when he was down.

A crowd of people had gathered to watch the dance, and now they were all gaping like the idiots they were. Even those idiots were not stupid enough to get in Nick’s way. He stormed forward, and they scattered in all directions before him. He plunged into the depths of the wood, away from the noise and lights of the Goblin Market into a raging darkness. Branches caught in the night wind whipped at him, twigs raking his face.

There was a sharp burn in the corner of one eye and a trail of heat down his cheek. Of course, it was blood.

Nick wiped at his eye and saw the lurid smear of blood on his knuckles, red even in the darkness. He wanted every trace of the fever fruit burned out of his system. The fruit made even this dark wood too bright. It made the wind and shadows into whispers and lurking thorns.

He turned at every sound, wanting to lash out at something, but nobody was stupid enough to follow him. He was surprised when he heard the unmistakable sound behind him, a sound not of wind or branches but of a step, and he realized that somebody had been stupid enough to follow him, after all.

He wheeled around and it was not Alan.

It was Mae, coming toward him with her eyes wide and her whole face luminous with emotion. At first Nick thought she was just happy. She had every reason to be happy, after all, since Nick’s stupid brother had removed her stupid brother from immediate danger by risking himself.

Then he remembered the fever fruit.

Mae’s eyes were a little too wide, her pupils dilated. Nick remembered how the world was after that first taste, how everything was magnified and glowing, every color breaking in on you like light, and every thought like a revelation.

“What do you want?” Nick snapped.

Mae’s lips were slightly parted and quivering. She licked them, and with that fevered sharpness Nick saw the place on her mouth where her tongue had rubbed away the lip gloss.

She came closer, put out her hand, and pushed Nick against a tree. Her lips quivered again, and she spoke.

“I want,” said Mae, offering up her mouth. “Oh, I want…”

She lifted her free hand to pull Nick’s head down, fingers knotted in his hair. Nick remembered, with a vividness born of the fever fruit, the curve of Mae’s hips dancing. He could want her.

Alan wanted her too. This would hurt Alan, and after Alan’s little stunt Nick liked the idea of hurting him.

Nick seldom said no to a girl, and he had never done so in circumstances like these, with the lights of the Goblin Market glimpsed like far-off lightning behind her and her trembling mouth an inch from his.

Nick touched her for the first time.

He took hold of her shoulders and pushed her away. Then he leaned forward and whispered into her ear.

“You’d want anyone right now.”

He let his lips touch her ear and when he drew back, she did not look angry, only dazed and uncomprehending.

He left her. He did not want to run, because that would have looked like fear or some other ridiculous thing, so he loped through the woods, going easily, knowing that when he walked fast no girl and no crippled idiot could catch him. He held his hands clenched in fists, but he did not hit out at any thorns.

When black night was touched with the cold, unfriendly blue of coming morning, Nick went back.

The Goblin Market was in the process of being packed away. The remnants of the stalls stood forlorn as their owners stored their wares in boxes, and the few customers left lingered uneasily around the debris of magic.

The others were standing in the center of the clearing, near a fortune-telling stall. Jamie was looking uneasily around and saw him at once. Mae was leaning against Alan, cheek pressed against his shoulder. As Nick came toward them, she made a determined effort to twine herself around Alan and turned her face up to his.

It seemed that, indeed, anyone would do.

Alan stooped and gave her a soft kiss, light, but enough to show her she was not being rejected.

“No, Mae, I really can’t. It would be taking advantage,” Alan was saying.

The fortune-teller picked this unfortunate moment to lean over her stall and pluck at Nick’s sleeve.

Her crystal ball, left out in forlorn hope, stared up at Nick as if the woman had a huge third eye cupped between her palms. In the crystal depths, luminous points of green spiked like a tiny forest; above the green, streams of iridescent blue were looped like ribbons.

“See the future, young sir?” the old woman croaked theatrically. Merris Cromwell would have coldly recommended a cough drop.

The tightly interwoven blues and greens darkened. The impression Nick received was that of a shadow falling over a lake, a silhouette that grew more distinct, moving from a shadow into the lines of a face.

It was just his own face, his darkly reflected eyes staring out of the crystal.

Nick picked up the crystal in one hand and hurled it with vicious force at the nearest tree. The crash made Mae and Alan jump and look around. Nick caught their movement from the corner of his eye, but mostly he was staring at the glittering shards.

“I think I’ve seen enough,” he said.

They dropped Mae and Jamie home, Alan giving strict instructions for Mae to be put to bed and kept there. Jamie made solemn promises and held Mae’s hand tight with the air of an anxious nanny.

“You don’t need to worry,” he said, leaning into Alan’s open window. “And, er, Alan?” he added. “Thanks.”

He gave Alan a quick kiss on the cheek, and then disappeared through the gate with a struggling Mae in tow. It was rather a fancy gate, loops and swirls wrought in iron creating a picture Nick couldn’t quite make out. Through the intricate pattern he glimpsed an ivy-covered house, large and white, looming in the still-dark sky like a big expensive iceberg. The windows in the upper floors cast yellow light on the big garden and the tennis court.

These two had everything. They could have left Nick’s brother alone.

Nick crossed his arms over his chest and said stonily, “Quite a night you’re having.”

Alan said, “I’m not talking to you while you still have the fever fruit in your system.”

Not talking was fine by Nick. He stared out the window as Alan drove.

Usually the journeys back from the Goblin Market were all right no matter how long they were. It was not like moving; it was just the two of them without Mum. Alan played classical or country music and talked for ages about whatever his latest craze was, from vintage comics to philosophy. It was all just insane ranting to Nick, but he didn’t mind hearing it, and he always bullied Alan into letting Nick drive most of the way home.