Penelope Fletcher - The Demon Girl

My frustration was replaced with confusion and curiosity. "My glamour?" I waited for him to elaborate. He said nothing. I did the only thing I could do and applied logic to try and understand. I felt sick.

"Vampires can do what you describe. Glamour a human when they need to trick and feed."

Was that it? I was I some freaky vampire-fairy hybrid that was going to go mad and massacre a load of people?

"No." His hand cut the air in a strong motion. "What you refer to is purely mind control. The dead ones dress up compulsion to make it seem harmless. Fairy glamour is a small enchantment allowing us to look completely human." He placed a hand to his heart, to his lips and reached as if to touch me. "Magic to our being is air to breathe and water to drink."

The barrier over him rippled again.

"The glamour is that shield over you." My hand swiped feebly but the curiosity in my tone was evident. "The barrier I can't see through or feel." His mouth tugged into a secret smile. Then he looked back over his shoulder, tapped his foot impatiently. I frowned. "You still need to go after the vampire you sensed back there?"

His face smoothed into relief. "Yes, yes I do."

"Then show me. Prove what you are." I stopped and crossed my arms over my chest. "The quicker you do the quicker you can go."

Breandan took a long look at me then glowed with an inner light. His face was fiercely beautiful, the perfect features sharpened. His ears had elongated, pointed at the tips and curved into a slender elliptical shape. He looked different. Other.

The desire to hold him had increased in pressure, and was a force attacking all angles.

"Why do I feel like this?" I asked quietly. "I don't think I even like you. How can I feel like this? Like I've known you my whole life. When you touch me I feel complete. When you speak, I accept everything because you said it."

"The feeling of dislike is mutual, but I'm beginning to think I was born for you." He sighed. "This will not be easy. Of course I would be the one to see you first."

He pointed to somewhere behind me and turned his head slowly from left to right, like he was considering something. I looked over my shoulder. We had reached the Wall and the sudden crackling energy in the air allowed me to sense he was doing something big. The red wires stopped humming and cooled to pewter metal instead blazing red with electricity. The wires pinged and unraveled leaving a hole big enough for me to pass through at a stoop.

He jerked his head toward it. "Go now. Be safe and we will come for you."

Then he was gone. Apparently fairies didn't do long goodbyes. He was there then he wasn't.

I was alone again in the forest but at least I wasn't lost anymore. The sun was nearly done creeping up too. I slipped through the hole in the Wall, and the moment I did it knitted back together, but not before a dark streak dived through.

Every hair on my body stood on end. This was no fairy or Cleric. The movement was too liquid and quick to belong to anything, but a dead one. All I could think was run. I turned, tripped over a tree root and fell flat on my face. A mouth full of dirt, I crawled forward then decided I wanted to see it coming rather than be jumped from behind, and flipped round to scuttle back.

The vampire loomed over me, silent and deadly. He was dressed all in black and the space around him pulsed with darkness. Gesturing to me, his fingers were palm up and they curled around the air.

"Quiet, now," he said. "It is not what you think. I would have revealed myself in a less dramatic manner, but the tear the fairy made was closing, and I did not have another way." His somber expression lightened and his eyes twinkled. "I have already eaten, a skinny girl, bitter."

I shrieked and scrambled back some more. My hands were scraped and gouged by stones and bracken, but the flares of heat a second after told me I was healing. The vampire followed me, human slow so my eyes could track his movement. I'd heard they liked to torment their meals. Make them beg and scream for death before putting them out of their misery.

"You are being rude," he said shortly. "Will you not talk to me?"

I blinked, astonished, and stopped moving. "Huh," I grunted, incredulous. "I'm about to die and you think I'm being rude by not talking to you?"

If I was in my right mind I would never back-chat the living dead, but I was shaking with fear and pretty sure I was about to pee myself.

Back-chat didn't seem bad anymore.

His face remained passive. "I am death to those who cross my path." My heartbeat picked up as if to emphasize the point. His mouth pulled into a grim line. "I do not deny what I am. I embrace it, but I have not come here to hurt you. I told you. I have already eaten."

I started backing up again. It was stupid me crawling back and he walking after me, but now I was over the initial shock, I couldn't get my body to stop. "Forgive me for not wanting to trust you, but your kind and my kind haven't exactly seen eye to eye." As I spoke I wasn't sure if I meant humankind or fairykind, but I was sure the relationship with the vampires was about on par.

His lips quirked then fell straight. "No. I suppose not. Would it help if I gave you my word?"

He stopped and held out a hand to help me up.

I thought about it and managed to stop crawling. My arms were tired, my ass was damp from being dragged across the forest floor, and I was pretty sure I had a spider crawling up my back. I sighed and tossed my head to get the hair out of my eyes.

"No, it would not help, but I'm tired of being on the ground, and if you're going to eat me I'd rather be upright with my head held high."

I clasped his hand and curled my fingers around his. They were rock solid, cold. He pulled me up and my legs wobbled, so his other hand snagged my waist to steady me. For a moment I stood, but was weightless. The sensation was unusual. I scowled and stared into the face of my vampire. He was older than me, not by much and he was ugly. Swept back from his forehead and longer than fashionable, his hair was coal black, and cut close at the neck. His eyes were red ringed, like he was sickly, and had a peculiar stillness about them. He hadn't blinked, not once since he'd first revealed himself to me. His eyebrows were thick and dark, as was the smattering of hair on his chin, which had a deep cleft. His brow jutted out from his face and his cheeks were gaunt, giving him a look of the starved. It was a strong face but one that did not appeal to me.

Straightening, I pulled myself from his grip and knocked his hands away. A faint, dry scent hit the back of my throat and my hackles rose. Swallowing hard, my eyes left his as I controlled the sudden urge to launch myself at him. To rip, bite and tear. A manic giggle bubbled in my chest. The thought of launching yourself at a vampire was ridiculous and suicidal, but my body was seriously contemplating it. He brushed the hair out of my eyes and I recoiled. He hadn't made a move for a vein yet, but he was a blood drinker, and I was full of blood. He flashed me a smile, and his chalky lips framed pearly fangs flanked by two smaller canines. They had run right out as he'd touched me. For a moment I was overcome. I stared at them, the spiky tips resting on his lower lip, a startling shade of ruby red. Everyone knew vampire fangs ran out when they were mad or bloodlusty. Which was he? Probably the latter, if he was mad my limbs would be scattered across the forest floor by now.

"You're going to kill me now," I said steadily.

I'd been through too much to deny that I was living on borrowed time. To be honest I was waiting for the hammer to fall. I would die there, food for the vampire-boy the fairy-boy was hunting. Breandan would return eventually, like he promised and find my rotted corpse. Would he be sad? Would he and the 'we' he'd referred to, lament over my body. Would they give me a proper burial? After all he had said I was like him, fairykind too. In my last moments of life pondering on how I felt about being named a demon, I did not feel disgust or fear, but sort of a resigned relief. I was no longer a freaky human girl, but a demon. My strangeness made perfect sense now.