Christopher Golden - The Nimble Man

"It works both ways," Graves said again, holstering his guns.

Clay gave him a quiet round of applause.

The two remaining Corca Duibhne stared back and forth between the ghost and the shapeshifter, and then ran for the stairs.

Clay and Dr. Graves raced after them.

Before Danny could argue, Eve had abandoned him. She rushed off to attack the Corca Duibhne and he was left alone on Conan Doyle's roof, four stories above Beacon Hill. The crimson mist blanketed the building, blotted out the night, and it seemed as though the brownstone was all that remained of the city of Boston.

Atop the chimney, the fire drake spread its blazing wings and rose up into the mist, into the blood-stained night. Danny had no idea what to do. The thing was like some bizarre combination of dragon and phoenix. He could not fly after it, could not defend himself from it. Eve was smart to get out of its way. She was a vampire. The thing would incinerate her in an instant.

Now it dipped one wing and started down toward him.

Danny wanted to run. He wanted to cry. He didn't have time to do either.

The fire drake opened its mouth and a stream of liquid fire erupted from its gullet, engulfing Danny Ferrick. The flames licked at him, roaring in his ears. It burned. God, how it burned. He threw his head back and screamed, thinking of his mother, thinking what it would do to her to know that he was dead.

The stink of burning skin and hair was in his nostrils.

Danny blinked. His skin was hot and it stung as though he had a terrible sunburn. But the flames were subsiding and he was still alive. The red fog caressed him, cool and moist. When he glanced down at himself he noticed his feet, first. His clothes were gone, nothing but black ash now, eddying in the breeze. His toes had black claws instead of nails. Unable to breathe, Danny looked at his legs, at his chest, looked at his outstretched arms, and saw skin tough as leather but soft as silk, the color of burgundy wine.

He reached up with both hands and felt his head. His hair had been falling out, his skin flaking. Now his scalp was smooth, save for the viciously sharp horns above his temples.

The fire drake let out a grunt and he looked up to see it circling, ready to attack him again. The flames that comprised its body fluttered in the mist and the dark. Danny smiled up at it.

"Bring it on."

The monster attacked again. This time, when the fire engulfed him Danny did not even close his eyes. As the fire drake flew by he crouched and leapt upward a dozen feet to snatch it by the throat with both hands. The demon boy dragged the fire drake from the sky, fell to the roof on top of it, and roared with pleasure as its flames licked at his legs and arms and torso.

He slid his hands into its gullet and broke its jaws, tearing its head in two. It felt incredible. It felt good.

In fact, Danny was terrified to discover exactly how good it felt to kill.

Ceridwen burns with fever. There is a cool breeze in the trees above, but it offers no comfort. The water diverted from the river into the stone bath is icy cold, flowing down from the mountain, and she can feel it sting her skin, yet her blue-tinted flesh is now flushed with a rich pink, so that her naked body seems painted with the colors of sunset.

That is not right. No, not at all. Her skin should not look like that. She is ill. So very ill.

Her eyelids flutter and she lolls back into the stone basin, the water flowing over her bare flesh. Her nakedness concerns her not at all. She is still young. It will be some time before she has blossomed enough for the men of the Fey to notice her. She is old enough that she has begun to notice the boys, but even so, there will be no intruders here. This is the citadel of her uncle, King Finvarra. Ceridwen's room is nearby. And her mother -

Mother, she thinks.

As if summoned, her mother leans into her view, her smile, her concerned eyes, blotting out the sky. The woman's features are severe, her hair cropped closely to her scalp, but there is a gentleness in her as she gazes down upon her daughter that most others will never see.

"Ceridwen. The fever has touched you. But do not fear. I will remain with you, here at your side, until it has passed."

A calm passes through her. The fever still burns. Her bones ache, her eyes are seared, her throat is swollen near to closing, her breath rattles in her chest. But her mother is with her. Ceridwen lets her eyes flutter closed as a soothing hand begins to brush her damp hair away from her face. Her mother's touch caresses her cheek and the agony of the fever recedes just slightly. For the first time, Ceridwen feels as though the icy water in the stone bath is cooling her, its chill sinking into her flesh, and the blazing fever abating.

Her chest rises and falls in steady rhythm and she searches for a peaceful place within… only to discover that she is already there. She can hear the breeze in the trees, the rush of the river, and the song of birds, and yet they are all distant compared to the beat of her heart, the sound of her breathing. She is deep within herself.

The stone bath is rough against her back. The water envelops her, flowing over her, and its sting disappears.

"Impressive."

Alarmed, Ceridwen opens her eyes and stares incredulously at the man standing over her. He has dark skin and hair as black as raven's feathers. His chin is covered by a short beard, and he peers down at her with eyes the blue of the deepest, most tumultuous river.

Confusion takes hold of her. Where is her mother? Who is this stranger, this intruder into the King's citadel? She glances down at herself, at her body, and sees that she had is in full blossom, her body ripened to an age where men might do more than appreciate her. In her shame she tries to cover herself, and the pain sears through her again. Her skin is blistering with the fever, her breathing ragged.

Ceridwen frowns. There is no fever. Somehow she knows this.

"I was not speaking of your charms, Lady, significant as they are," the dark man says, gesturing toward her bare breasts. "I refer to your endurance. I always admired you, Ceridwen. Now I see my interest was well placed."

"Who are you?" she manages to rasp.

The water in the stone bath is no longer cold. It seems, in fact, near to boiling.

"Don't you know?" His smile is thin, a surface thing, so fleeting, hurried away by the grimness of his nature.

And she does know. "Sanguedolce. Sweetblood."

He executes a courtly bow. "Indeed." The twinkle in his eye lasts only a moment. "The damage is done, now. The evil, the darkness… it will come no matter what you do. I should let you all die for your part in this foolishness. But there may come a time when I need you. So a word of advice, sorceress.

"You are a channel, a conduit. She's using you to tap my power. Your pain is that you are fighting it. Stop fighting. Take some for yourself."

Sanguedolce crouches at her side. He bends to kiss her. His lips are soft, but hers are dry and cracked and they burn.

Not with fever, but magick.

"Wake up," he whispers.

Ceridwen woke hissing air in through her teeth, filling her lungs hungrily, and a part of her knew that she had momentarily ceased to breathe. Her eyes opened wide and though the light inside Conan Doyle's defunct ballroom was brilliant, she did not turn from it. Her teeth gritted, the pain in her back and neck and down her legs excruciating. Blisters burst as she moved. Shards of the chrysalis beneath her cut her skin.

It was striped with cracks, fissures through which the mage's magick spilled. Morrigan's ritual had locked the two together, married Ceridwen's flesh to Sanguedolce's crystal sarcophagus. The agony had blinded her, shut down her mind. But now there was the pinpoint spark of knowledge in Ceridwen's head. She could feel more than pain. In the magick that seared her, that burst from her flesh and raced through her veins, she could feel power.