Part 24 (1/2)
But the man. Him. He- Did he not recognize her?
”Gossamyr,” Ulrich called. ”Methinks he is soon gone!”
”No!” Her quarry struggled.
She did not relent, keeping her staff tucked under his chin.
”It is time!”he moaned. ”Release me!”
”Did you injure that man with those pins? Tell me!” She pressed closer, staring deep into his pale eyes. Violet. And yet, each blink glossed them over with a receding sheen of red. Curving around his left eye were fine pinp.r.i.c.ks of red, forming an arabesque design.
Was it truly? It could not be! Yet, her heart knew. Banished.
”Ave-” She choked on the name. Three days of tears. Never again had she wept. She had not thought to ever see him again. ”Do you not recognize me?”
A globule of spit hit Gossamyr's neck. She twisted her staff, wrenching a yelp from the man. Pins scattered and dropped to the ground in a sinister clatter.
It could not be coincidence, this-this fee who smelled of summer flowers and blood and who wielded sharp pins had been lurking so close to the dying fee. Was he connected to the Red Lady? The succubus's signature gleamed in the man's crimson violet eyes. Mayhap he had received her killing kiss? What manner of weapon be those long pins of steel? This man had been...
So close.
A stolen tryst.
More than a tryst. True love?
Faeries cannot love.
Why then did her heart ache so?
With a bend of her elbow, Gossamyr lowered the staff and jammed it into the man's gut. He doubled and sank to the ground. Long groping fingers curled about the carvings wrapping the end of the staff.
”Look at me!” she commanded.
The pin man jerked his face up at Gossamyr's command. Eyes narrowed, he stared at her, looking so deep and yet, skimming but her surface. Did he see her? Know her? How could he not?
”Remove your threat, wench!”
”It is me-” she crouched before him ”-Gossamyr.”
”He is gone!” Ulrich shouted.
Gone? Dead. A long suffering death, so unlike the immediate twinclian that signified a normal fee death. And the reward for such suffering? The revenant would soon claw from the body.
Blight, but she hadn't time for reunions. But oh, how her heart pulsed to watch this tatter of a man look upon her. Such confusion on his face. He did not recognize her! He could not have forgotten.
Reaching to shove back his hood, she stopped when he snarled. Brilliant crimson hair sifted across his shoulder. Red as blood. It had never been that color. Black, black as crow wings 'twas what it should be. Could she be wrong about his ident.i.ty?
”Quickly!”
Gossamyr turned to Ulrich. The soul shepherd, one hand clamped to his wounded leg, gestured madly that she join him. Vacillating between his urgent pleas and her troubled heart, Gossamyr surrendered to the mission. She pushed up and stalked back to the street. With one last look to the pin man-how had he come to such a state?-she bent over the body. Red streamed from the dead fee's eyes and bubbled up in his pores.
”His essence,” she said. ”Ulrich, can you...see it?”
”Unless the fee are different-and they well could be-the essence should not be visible.”
”But...can you feel it?”
”Get away from him! I must witness!”preceded an attack to Gossamyr's back. The wily pin man jumped her shoulders and gripped her loose hair like reins on a horse.
”Cease!” she shouted, but to no avail. Hands at her temples yanked. Strands of hair let loose in pinching pulls. She swung her shoulder to the right, but the man wrapped his leg about her waist. Impossible to put a bruising blow to him.
To Ulrich's favor he did deliver a punch to the man's jaw, only to dodge a steel pin slashed through the air. Her angry pa.s.senger sprawled across the cobbles, Gossamyr spun an arret, but stopped, arms falling to her sides at sight of Ulrich's frozen state.
The bespelled soul shepherd whispered, ”What in all of Hades?”
Gossamyr turned to the dead man and witnessed a most remarkable sight. Emerald light quivered and jelled and began to rise above his head.
”I guess you can see their souls,” Ulrich said, awestruck.
”Make it go back in the body,” Gossamyr hissed.
”No!” the man with the pins cried.
She snapped out her staff, catching him across the gut. The blow sent him reeling into a spin against a wall. Red hair spilled about his face. His hand, pin held gleaming, stretched to follow the floating green light. ”Lost!” he cried.
'Twas the fee's essence. It s.h.i.+mmered with glamour, gorgeous in its undulating movement, slowing rising from the body until it hovered eye level with her and Ulrich.
”I can feel tendrils of the former life,” Ulrich said, his left hand thrust before him. He moved his fingers delicately, as if stroking the essence, but not touching. ”Very much like our souls. But this one, it knows where it is to journey.”
Of course it did. 'Twas the final twinclian.
A searing red pain erupted in Gossamyr's cheek. Slapping a hand to her face, she spied the retreat of the steel pin and the fleeing heels of her attacker.
Blood streamed in the lines of her palm. He had cut her!
”How could he?”
That he did not remark her, or even remember?
The tremendous ache that had been planted in her heart not so long ago pulsed, reminding of the bruise that would never heal. He is a Rougethorn. Never will I allow that sort to court my daughter.
”It's so beautiful.” His vision fixed to the green light, Ulrich backed up and walked right into Gossamyr.
She shoved him away and staggered. The fact she had taken a cut so easily astonished her. That it had been by a man she'd long thought lost to her, a man she had loved- ”You're hurt? Let me take a look.”
”No, I must follow him.” She vacillated between the s.h.i.+mmering essence and the retreating pin man.
The light suddenly dispersed, stretching and thinning until it was but a s.h.i.+mmer of fee dust sifting to the cobbles. No revenant. This death, though prolonged, was true.
”The final twinclian,” Gossamyr whispered. ”I think that one is safe,” she decided. ”The pin man did not get the essence so the revenant was not released. I hope.”