Chapter 22

When the Wind blows from the East, expect the new and set the feast

– The Wiccan Rede

How many times in a space of twenty-four hours, could a person die? Twice, it seemed, for I was sure that I was dying, or about to, as he finished himself within me, and then rose to his feet. I could do nothing but watch through my eyelashes as he zipped his disgusting cock back into his jeans and nudged me with his booted foot.

"Fucking hell," he grumbled under his breath and grabbed me by my ankle. I thought that he meant to force my legs open and rape me again and managed to summon enough fight to groan a protest and struggle to press my knees together. I felt as if he had torn my cunt apart in raping me and could not tell if it were cum or blood that was wet on my skin.

He used his hold on my ankle to pull me back through the living room and into the hallway. The burn of carpet gave way to the cold slick of tiles, and he dumped me beside a bathtub with the shower curtain pulled around it. "The fucking wasn't worth the effort of burying you," he told me. "But you had to be a stupid cunt."

He stomped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him. For a long time, I lay staring up at the water-marked ceiling, drifting in and out of consciousness, but gradually the pain receded, and my mind clarified. I wasn't going to die, after all, it seemed. I sat up, moaning. There was blood between my thighs, but there was blood everywhere. My new outfit, bought just that afternoon, was torn and stained beyond saving. My body was torn and bruised and beaten.

I did not recognize myself in the tarnished bathroom mirror as I fought my way to my feet. I wore a mask of blood, my features swollen and bruised. I sobbed a little at the shock of seeing myself and turned on the tap. I wet the hand towel in the sink and used it to remove some of the gore, trying to see the extent of the damage.

I needed to get out of there before he returned and finished what he'd started.

I staggered a little, reaching out to catch myself, accidentally pulling on the shower curtain around the bath when I pressed my hand to the tiles. The curtain parted in the center, and I drew in a shaky breath as I saw what lay within the bath.

Mother and daughter lay together, both dead, their eyes open wide and faces frozen in terror. I had seen this in the candles, the unbinding that had failed. I would join them if I didn't do something fast.

My stomach rumbled. As I pressed my hand to it, I felt anger and exhilaration surge within me. You are immortal only so long as you feed, Ender had said. I wasn't going to die. I was going to feast.

I opened the bathroom door and listened. The house was still and empty. Out in the yard, I could hear the bark of the dog echoing into the night, and then Warren's sharp command for silence. The dog ignored him.

I used the walls, trailing my fingers along the peeling wallpaper and dripping blood onto the threadbare carpet. This had been Julie and Sophie's home, and yet there was no sign that a woman or child had lived within it – no pictures of them on the walls, no little feminine touches, no childish artwork. I found Sophie's room and paused to look within. It was a sad space, but I could see that Julie had tried. The little bed was made up with a faded pink cover which had been patched over with flower-shaped fabric. A toy box at the end of the bed was caught on the ear of a soft toy. The little wardrobe had been repainted with a cheerful scene of green grass, flowers, and blue sky.

My heart ached for the little girl and her mother whose lives had ended so violently at the hands of someone who should have been a protector.

"I'll make sure he pays," I told them quietly.

The kitchen was a mess. Warren was not a good housekeeper. The Formica bench tops were piled high with dirty dishes, and the floor was sticky, sucking at the sole of my bare foot. I stopped to remove the one high heel that remained, leaving it on the bench between the piles of dishes.

The back door was not fully closed, and the hinges groaned as I pushed it open with the palm of my hand and looked out into the night-dark garden. It was open to the scrub, and I could see between the trees a flash of torchlight. Warren was in the scrub. Considering the bodies in the bathtub and what he had said about burying me, it was not a huge mental leap to realize what he was doing in the scrub in the dark of night with a torch.

The dog barked as I crossed the yard wincing at the prick of burrs within the dried-out grass. I should have kept the other shoe on, I thought, and spared at least one foot. The small pain of my feet was nothing compared to the ache of my face and the throbbing pain of my body.

"It's okay boy," I told the dog. What a miserable life it had, I thought sadly. It looked like it hadn't been fed since Julie and Sophie had left. "Good boy."

The scrub was harsh underfoot and the dark caused me to trip and fall, smothering my cry of pain as I landed heavily on one knee. A broken tree branch punctured the skin, and I plucked the wooden spike out with a whimper before rising and continuing, following the bob of the torch light. As I drew closer, I could hear Warren's grunts of effort and the slice of a shovel into the earth.

He was digging a grave.

His attention was on his task, and the sounds of it hid the crunch of the undergrowth beneath my feet as I came up behind him. He had already created a sizeable pit, standing to mid-thigh in it. I watched him toil, my hunger building within me combining with my rage into a vicious blood lust.

He paused, sensing me, feeling my hunger for him, sensing a predator, and started to turn. I leaped, the impact of my body against his knocking the shovel from his grip. I held onto his back like a monkey, wrapping my arms and legs around him and sinking my teeth into the meat of his shoulder through the fabric of his shirt, too greedy to aim for his throat. I tore the flesh and cloth and spat it as he shrieked in agony and bucked, trying to shake me free.

His efforts to turn his head to see what wild creature was attacking him exposed his neck, tendons cording in his panic, and the veins popping against the skin. I had him then, my teeth finding the blood my stomach sought, my sucks wet and desperate, blood flowing past my lips, over my chin in my clumsy haste.

He collapsed onto his knees in the grave, and my bare feet touched the shovel-soft wet dirt. I held him by his hair, pulling his head back on his neck, whilst I drank him down. I drank until my belly swelled, the skin feeling as if it was stretched tight, and my guts sloshing with his blood, and then I let him go.

He was alive, barely, and stared up at me in disbelief. "You're dead," he rasped, his throat swollen from my attack upon it.

"Not yet," I leaned my hips against the side of the pit. "You have tried twice now to kill me and have failed both times. Did you not realize that it was me that you hit with your car?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. What car?" He was slipping away, his blood still leaking from the wound in his neck and the one in his shoulder, his faltering heart slowly pumping his life away into the grave he had been digging for his wife.

"Your car, idiot," I told him angrily. "On the hill into town. You were parked at the lookout spot, and when you saw me on my bike, you chased me down and hit me. You drove over my bike."

"Not me," he grated out. "Not me."

"You're lying," I stared at him in dawning horror. Was it possible? Had I been mistaken? If not Warren, then who?

"Didn't run nobody over," his eyes fluttered shut and he went still.

"Nyx," Ender was in his Grim Reaper form, his familiar face behind a mask of skull and curve of horn half hidden by the shadows of his hood, and his eyes aglow. He lifted me tenderly from the grave. "You are hurt," his bone-like fingers cupped my face, their smooth cool surface soothing on my bruised and swollen skin. "I do not have the power to heal."

"Did he tell the truth?" I asked him in a whisper. "Was he not the one that killed me?"

"That is also not a gift of mine," he said sorrowfully.

There was a flash of flame, the heat scorching, lifting my hair and stirring Ender's robes. I felt Malachar's hands as he lifted me out from under Ender's caress and scooped me up into his arms. "She is not yours," he snapped at Ender.

"If she were mine, she would not be bleeding," Ender replied with disapproval heavy in his voice.

"And whose fault is that?" Mal was furious. "You had me summoned away from her."

"What is this?" The shade of Warren had risen and looked at us in confusion. "What is wrong with me?"

"You're dead," I told him with relish. "And going straight to Hell. Isn't he?" I asked Malachar.

"Yes," it was Ender who answered. "That is this one's intended destination."

"Get on with you then," Mal said through his teeth. "Piss off. I'm here now," he held me tighter. "I will look after what is mine. Do your job, Death. She made her choice. Me, not you."

Ender's glowing eyes met mine. Within the visage of a grim reaper, they were the gentle eyes that I knew and loved. "There is always time for her to change her mind," he said softly. "She is only immortal for as long as she feeds."

"Looks like she's well and truly fed," Mal sneered smugly. "Don't you agree?"

"For now." Ender turned his attention to Warren. "Come with me," it was not said kindly or gently as it had been to the little girl but was a command, and his fingers clawed into the shade. Warren shrieked as he was dragged towards the grim reaper.

"It is your time," Ender growled and disappeared into the darkness.

"But not yours," Mal said to me and pressed his face into my hair. "Fuck me, Nyx, you're a mess. Don't worry, we can fix you right up." He turned and strode back towards the house. "What were you thinking, coming here alone?" He scolded. "I would have come with you, and we could have had some fun with the guy before killing him."

"I'm sorry," I closed my eyes and leaned my sore face against his chest. "I wasn't thinking straight."

"Obviously."

The dog barked, and I opened my eyes, stretching out my hand towards it. "The dog, Mal."

He didn't pause, taking me past the dog and down the side of the house, to the road where his car was parked. "What about the dog, Nyx?" He asked as he set me gently into the back seat. "You just lie here while I clean this place up. Can't leave evidence of a hungry succubus just lying around in the scrub, can we?"

"The dog, Mal," I repeated, pushing myself up onto my elbows with a moan of pain. "Save the dog."

"Shit," he grumbled as he turned away.

I collapsed back onto the leather seat, exhausted, and stared up at the star-filled sky until my eyelids grew too heavy to hold up. I did not know how long I slept but I was jerked out of sleep when Mal put the dog in the back with me and it happily licked my face.

"Try not to eat her," he said as he started the car.

"You saved him," I sat up slowly, painfully.

"You asked me to," he reminded me as he pulled away from the curb. The house behind us flickered with flame and I heard a low boom, followed by shattering glass. He had set the house on fire to hide that I had killed Warren. "Let's hope that no one sees us leave," he added as he roared off down the street. "That could be interesting to explain away."

"Thank you, Mal," I smiled through swollen lips, my hands smoothing the coarse fur of the dog. He was nothing but skin and bones, but his treatment hadn't affected his sweet nature, and he was so joyful to be in a car, his tail wagging uncontrollably. "For saving him."

"Your wish is my command," he replied lightly. "Now, let's get you home and cleaned up."

I drifted off with the dog doing his best effort at removing the blood that coated me, and only woke when Mal picked me up out of the back of the Porsche and carried me up to the porch. The door opened at his approach, and I heard Fennel exclaim and call over her shoulder for Callista.

"What have you done!" Callista exclaimed as she came hurrying into the hall. I let my head rest on Mal's shoulder and kept my eyes shut, too exhausted to defend Mal – not that he needed defending from my aunts. He was, after all, a demon.

"Saved her. You're welcome," Mal replied snidely. "She got herself into a spot of bother, nothing that a bath and a little magic won't cure."

"I'll go run the bath," Fennel said.

"What is that!" Callista exclaimed and I opened my eyes a slither to see the dog bouncing around the hall, excitement wriggling his entire body from nose to tail.

"Nyx's dog," Mal followed Fennel towards the stairs. "She insisted on having it."

"It's starving the poor thing!"

"Nothing a good feed won't fix," Mal replied cheerfully. "Isn't that right, Nyx?"

I opened my eyes. "I'm tired, Mal."

"A nice bath will fix you right up," he set me down on my feet in the bathroom. Aunt Fennel leaned over the bathtub and looked up from adding herbs to the water as he began to peel my filthy, bloody clothing from me. "If this is what you do to new clothes, you're going to be expensive to keep, Nyx," he remarked.

"Oh Nyx," Fennel pressed her fingers to her mouth as the extent of my injuries were revealed. "What happened, sweet child?"

"It's a long story," I clung to my skirt, fighting off Mal's efforts to remove it. "A bit of privacy, please," I pleaded. I did not want Fennel to see that I was bare beneath, nor if there was blood on my thighs. "Please."

"Out," Fennel ordered Mal. "Out, out, young man!"

"You too, please," I avoided looking at either of them. My body ached and I did not think I had the strength to stand for much longer. "Let me have the bathroom."

"I need to heal you," Mal protested.

"After. Please."

"Alright," he withdrew with Fennel. "But don't take too long."

Once the door closed behind them, I broke, releasing the tears that had been threatening, and turned off the bath water. I turned on the shower instead, and slid my skirt off, before standing under the water, letting the stream wash off Warren's touch. When the water ran clear instead of brown or pink, I turned off the tap and only then got into the bath, lying back with a sigh.

"Your aunts are furious with me," Mal appeared, sitting on the edge of the bath and dabbled his fingers into the water. "And are probably even more furious that I have disappeared on them mid-lecture, but I'm hardly going to hang around to be scolded by a pair of hags. Besides," his smile was bright. "I needed to heal you. It will sting a little," he reached out and placed his hand over mine. "These things never come without a price."

Sting was an understatement. It was as if the blood within my veins boiled, and I cried out through gritted teeth, my hands clenching on the lip of the bath. It was a flash of a moment, however, and then over, and Mal smoothed my hair back from my face before taking my chin between finger and thumb, turning it one way and then the other, inspecting his handy work.

"Much better," he said, and whilst the tone of his voice was light, there was something in the set of his face and the fire in his eyes that gave lie to that lightness. "Let's tuck you into bed, shall we?" He reached for the towels.

There was no sign of injury in the mirror when I looked. The evidence of having been beaten and raped had vanished from my skin, but not from my mind, and my hands shook as I touched my cheek, not quite able to believe that my face was back to normal. My fingers confirmed what my eyes saw. There were no wounds.

"Thank you, Mal," I whispered. "The pain is gone."

"Good." He carried me into the bedroom wrapped in the towels and fussed about putting me into a nightgown and then fluffing the pillows. Once I was tucked under the covers, he put his hand on my knee. "I will be right back," he told me. "I have something I need to see too before it's too late. Sleep, Nyx. I'll be here when you wake."

"Okay, Mal. Thank you," I closed my eyes and felt when the room was empty again. In the distance, I could hear fire engines. Warren's house was burning, I remembered. I pushed back the covers and pulled on my dressing gown as I went to my window, looking out into the garden.

I knew Ender was there even before he appeared as a reflection in the window glass. "Did you know?" I asked him quietly. "In the car, you said what you said about immortality and feeding. Did you know where I was headed and that I would almost be killed?"

"No," he replied, his voice gentle. "Your future is no longer visible to me, Nyx. You are immortal. There is no death for you until you choose it."

"He said it wasn't him," I whispered reaching out to touch his face on the glass. "The car was new and expensive, and his house was poor, shabby. I believe him. But if not him, then who was it? And why?"

"I do not know the answer to those questions," he stepped closer, and I watched him lift a hand stroking down my hair, but I did not feel his touch which meant that he made the motion but did not connect it, perhaps sensing that I did not wish a man's hands on me in that moment, not even his. "I did not see who drove the car. I saw only you. And now," he was sad. "I do not see you at all."

"I see you," I mouthed the words at him.

His eyes met mine in the reflection. "Mal will be returning soon."

"Did you do something to make them summon him away again?" I wondered.

"In a way, I did," his smile was faint. "He went to get the soul of that man. He wanted to torture him for what he did to you."

"Oh," I was not surprised. I had seen the change in Mal when he had healed me. He had known in that moment that Warren had not just beaten me but also raped me. "Well, I guess that's good. Warren deserves to suffer."

"Hmm. That he does. Malachar will not find him," Ender's expression hardened. "For I have already claimed him as my own. Whilst Malachar is inventive in his tortures," his lips quirked in a truly terrifying smile. "I have advantages that he does not."

"The Lord of Death," I turned to face him. "Mal said it, several times, and I did not realize what it meant. You're not just some grim reaper, are you Ender?"

He reached out and cupped the locket that I wore around my neck, the memento mori. He opened it. Inside, I saw that the lock of dark blonde hair was gone and, in its place, rested a weaving of raven black. He closed the locket again. "He cannot sense my magic within your aunts'. He may have won this round, Elenyx, but I will not relinquish my claim. I am yours. I am patient, and I will wait until you are ready to be mine."

And then he was gone.

Within moments, in a flash of fire and light, Mal was back. He was furious, but the fury vanished when he saw the empty bed, and that I stood by the window. He came to stand behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. "You should be asleep."

"I could not sleep. He didn't do it, Mal. He wasn't the one that ran me over," I turned to face him. "That means whoever did it is still out there. I don't know why, and I don't know who they are."

"Okay," he said softly, cupping my face in the warm palm of his hand. "We will find him, Nyx, and we will have our revenge. But for now. Sleep. You need your rest. Only two more days before the official start of the school term, after all."

He was right, I realized. On Monday I would officially start at Pinegrove Academy.

I let Mal guide me to the bed and did not protest when he slid in with me, wrapping himself around me. His presence was comforting. We lay in silence until I was on the edge of sleep. "I am going find the man," I whispered. "And then I am going to kill him."

Mal pressed his lips to the back of my head. "And I am going to help you do so, my little, wicked succubus."