C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

“I exorcise thee, unholy spirit.” Lara could barely hear her own whisper beneath the captured demon’s screams, but it flinched at the words. Confidence shot through her, strengthening her voice. She shoved herself forward, moving the devil’s weight, and shouted, “I exorcise thee, unholy spirit, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit!”

The thing caught in her hand went first, an explosion of sparks that left behind a keening that raised hairs over Lara’s body. From there light shot out, pure and white and hard, turning the trees to bleached daytime colors, it seared the nightmares, then faded again, leaving Lara blind in the wake of the banishing. Silence reasserted itself as her vision worked its way back to normal, before a new sound cut through the quiet, so rough and dry it took Lara a few seconds to recognize it as laughter.

Dafydd’s laughter.

“Dafydd, oh my God, are you all right?” Lara slid across wet grass to his side, holding her hands above him uselessly. Another dry chuckle escaped him.

“An exorcism. I’ve brought a Roman Catholic among us.” Dafydd laughed again, his forehead wrinkling with pain. “Someone’s had a nasty shock. How wonderful.” He took a careful breath, opening his eyes to study Lara in the moonlight. “How did you know what to counter the spell with?”

“I … I remembered the baptism ritual, the casting out of demons. They seemed like demons.”

“They weren’t,” he assured her on a breath. “But my people, Lara … we don’t bear the name of your creator easily. You couldn’t have chosen a better counter to the attack.” He hesitated, then said, delicately, “It would be easier on me if you didn’t invoke that particular trinity again. The nightwing attack was quite enough. Staggering under the weight of your white god’s name is more than any Seelie, prince or not, should have to face in a single night.”

“Nightwings?” Lara’s voice shot high with fear and confusion even as she recognized that she was focusing on one bewildering thing over another. She could hear the truth of what he said in Dafydd’s voice, but his half-wry plea to keep her from repeating the name of the Trinity went beyond bizarre. Easier to focus on the monsters, on the brief battle. “Is that what you call those? What were they? Why did they attack me? How could they know I was here?”

“They didn’t.” Dafydd’s reply was low with pain. “They couldn’t have, Lara. The spell was set to detect my presence, not yours.”

“But—” Confusion wrinkled Lara’s forehead so hard her head began to ache. “I thought you were a prince. Why would anyone attack you?”

“Why would anyone murder my brother?” He reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips and imparting comfort when, Lara realized sharply, it should be she who offered kindness. Dafydd was injured while protecting her, and her thanks was to hurl questions so frightened and bewildered they verged on accusations.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, but he shook his head, accepting her apology but waving it off.

“Time in the Barrow-lands doesn’t move the same way it does in your world. I told you I’ve been searching for you for a century. That’s true. In your world, it’s true. But in mine, I’ll have been gone—ten days, perhaps two weeks, no more. The wounds of my brother’s death are still fresh, and someone has a secret to protect.”

“But why attack you? Why set a-a spell to sense your arrival?” Lara stumbled over the concept even as she understood that it was a true one; she’d seen magic used repeatedly in the last few minutes, alien but real.

“Because whoever is behind this has to know I wouldn’t return without a truthseeker,” Dafydd said quietly. “Because my return sets into play events that someone wishes not to see explored. Now.” He took a cautious breath, tightening his hand around hers. “Now, if you’ll help me sit up, and forbear from repeating that phrase again, I think I can take the edge off these wounds.”

“That phra—you mean the Fa—”

Dafydd gave her such a sharp look that Lara clamped her mouth shut. “Sorry,” she said after a moment. “What does it … do to you?”

“You saw what it did to the nightwings.” Dafydd grunted as he sat up, strain making his hand tremble in Lara’s. “I have thought, substance, presence that they do not. It might take a full exorcism to obliterate me. I’d prefer not to find out.”

“But why?”

Dafydd lifted his gaze to hers, eyes weary in the moonlight. “Because I enjoy living, Lara.” Amusement creased the corners of his eyes at her obvious exasperation, and more carefully he said, “Our courts, our people, are effectively immortal. We can die through violence but not through age. The—” He drew a breath through his nostrils, sweat against his cheeks, and Lara realized that as he spoke to her he was carefully exploring the edges of the nightwing-made wound against his ribs. “The price we pay for that,” he said tightly, “is a lack of a soul, as your people see it. It makes the name of your creator painful to bear in the best of circumstances and deadly in the worst. Forgive me,” he added, and ceased explanations to whisper again in the liquid tongue he’d used before.

Firefly sparks of gold glimmered and gathered with his words, until they seemed to reach a critical weight and dove beneath his clothing. Lara held her breath, leaning in to catch a glimpse of torn and bloody skin weaving itself back together under the light’s guidance. Long moments passed, injury mending before Lara’s eyes. Then Dafydd took a deep breath, straightening. “Better, I think. I’m sorry, Lara. I—”

Lara leaned forward and stopped his apology with a kiss.

Surprise widened Dafydd’s eyes before they closed, before the light touch of his hand brushed Lara’s jaw. It was long moments before she broke away, retreating only a few scant inches to gaze at him. “Have I earned this,” he murmured, “or is it merely a human response to danger? It’s not—”

A mix of amusement and chagrin coursed through Lara, ending in a smile. “Dafydd.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“That,” he said, “I can do.”

Her shyness fled in hunger’s wake, and her tailor’s hands were sure of themselves as she pushed his jacket from his shoulders. It was easy to open his shirt with quick twists of the buttons, though Lara knew, if she let herself think, that she was behaving more like Kelly than herself. Kelly would revel in high emotion and the passion of a moment, and understand what the tightening around her heart meant when she saw Dafydd’s injuries. Kelly would know why watching Dafydd’s miraculous healing sent fire burning through her body and desire riding every pulse of blood. Kelly, not Lara, would act the impulse to kiss the Seelie prince.

Kelly, Lara thought as the cool taste of Dafydd’s mouth overwhelmed her, would be proud of her. And then she stopped thinking of Kelly at all as urgency swept her, fingertips exploring the newly healed gashes over his ribs. Heat emanated there, the warmth of accelerated healing, and he hissed a low sound at the comparative chill of her touch. She drew back and he caught her wrist, shaking his head. “It’s all right. Your hands are cold.”

“Your skin is hot,” she countered with a tiny smile, then pushed him onto his back, dew soaking through his suit jacket and shirt almost instantly, and lowered her mouth to kiss the still-reddened injuries on his torso.

He was beautiful. She lowered her mouth to kiss the welts that had moments earlier been slashes in his skin. From so close, she could study the lines of his body without seeming to stare, exploring with fingertips and lips. Long, strong muscles under her touch, sensually male without being overdone. His stomach jumped beneath her kisses, just as a human man’s might.