Summer Storm (Codex Blair Book 8) Read online

I hadn’t been allowed to bring Weylyn with me to the final trial, so he’d already been safe and sound inside my house when I returned. When I’d kissed Emily. We hadn’t talked for long after that. She’d had to be off, she’d said; she’d just wanted to ensure that I’d got home safely. We still had so much we needed to talk about.

  Sighing, I pushed the thought out of my mind. Best not to think about that now. I could get lost in those thoughts.

  It isn’t just her kiss that haunts you.

  I stiffened at the thought that intruded in my mind, and my cheeks flamed. That was a secret, something buried deep within myself that I didn’t want to acknowledge.

  I shouldn’t think about Mal’s kiss. I shouldn’t wish to relive that experience. I shouldn’t dream about him. The thoughts weren’t just impure, they were wrong. He was Fallen, and he’d proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt. He’d hurt me in ways that I’d never expected, that I should have prepared myself for.

  It wasn’t that I only thought about his kiss. I thought about Emily’s plenty, and with just as much fervour--but hers I allowed myself to dwell on, so it was his that intruded on me without any warning.

  I should talk to her about that, when we sat down and discussed what everything meant. I didn’t want to keep secrets from her, and it wouldn’t be fair to try to start a relationship while I was keeping a secret of that nature. She deserved to know that I’d kissed a demon. Gods, she was a warrior of the Lord. What was she going to think of me when she found out?

  Surely, that would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Surely, she would turn on me.

  You always think that, and she always proves you wrong.

  There was that logical side again, trying to chase away the negative thoughts that always came after me. I bit my lip and slowed my gait. I pressed a hand to my forehead, shook my head and tried to rid myself of these conflicting thoughts.

  Weylyn’s weight pressed against my leg again, and he whined.

  “Are you all right? What is it?”

  “Nothing I can’t handle,” I said aloud.

  “Tell me. You can tell me anything.”

  “I don’t want you to think less of me,” I thought to him. It was a hard truth, but I knew that anyone who heard my confessions would think I was such a fool, and they’d be right.

  “It is impossible for me to think less of you, Blair. I know your heart.”

  I looked down at him and saw the pure love and trust that shone in his eyes, and my heart ached just looking at it. I couldn’t hold his gaze, so I looked away from him.

  “I kissed a demon. Or rather, he kissed me. But I liked it.”

  “Is that all?” He huffed. “I thought you were struggling with the concept of sacrilegious murder or something.”

  “Well, no, that’s not all. I also kissed a paladin, and I really like her, and I’ve liked her for two years now. It looks like we could actually make a go of it now, but...I’m afraid if she finds out about the demon, she’s going to hate me. After all, paladins and demons don’t mix.”

  “If she cannot accept you as you are, then she is not worthy of you.”

  He sounded matter of fact, but I didn’t understand how he could think in such simple terms. It wasn’t Emily who was unworthy, it was me, and I didn’t know how to get him to understand that. His faith in me was so strong, I wasn’t sure it was possible.

  I let out a frustrated sigh and hurried forward. We were going to miss the tube if we dallied for too long.

  “You don’t believe in yourself.”

  “Of course I don’t.” I glared down at him. “That can’t be such a foreign concept for you if you know me as well as you say you do.”

  “I know you do not understand your soul in the way that I do, but I would expect someone who has done as much as you have to have a little more faith in herself.”

  “I don’t doubt my ability to win fist fights. I doubt whether or not I’m worthy of the admiration of a woman who’s seen the light of a God. She’s so pure, and I’m just not. It wasn’t too long ago that I had a demon mark burned into my skin and actually enjoyed using its power.”

  “It’s only natural that you would enjoy a demon’s power. They are the offspring of Fallen and human. It is connected to you. That does not make you unworthy of the paladin.”

  “Oh. Erm...well, it wasn’t a demon, per se. It was one of the Fallen’s marks.”

  Weylyn stopped short, and I almost tripped over him. He turned his head slowly to look at me, shock and awe in his eyes.

  “You mean to tell me that the demon you spoke of kissing was one of the Fallen?”

  I shifted my weight awkwardly from side to side. “Well, yeah. Why?”

  “They hurt humans, Blair. It’s a very bad idea for you to continue an association with them. Demons aren’t so bad. They’re part human. But the Fallen have no concept of humanity. They are an alien species altogether.”

  My cheeks flushed with heat, and I looked down at the ground, feeling uncomfortable. “Yeah, well, nothing to worry about there. We’ve already ended any association there was. And things never went really far, so...forget I mentioned it.”

  He took a step towards me and licked my hand. “I am sorry, Blair. Do not think that it lowers my opinion of you. I am only concerned for your safety.”

  I smiled down at him but couldn’t bring myself to answer. Everyone was concerned with my safety when it came to Mal, and they’d all been proven right. Associating with him had proven to be a truly painful lesson, but it was apparently one that I’d needed to learn. I should have known better from the outset, and I could only be happy that it hadn’t gone terribly far.

  We kept walking towards the Underground station, in silence now, though it was a companionable sort. I didn’t feel the need to talk constantly with Weylyn. It was the sort of relationship that would normally take decades to form on its own, but it had been there between us right from the start. I wondered if that was magic, or if it was natural, if there was a part of me that had been connected to him since birth, and I just hadn’t been able to grasp it until I’d opened up my mind.

  Just as I was pondering that, a body slammed into me. I dropped Weylyn’s leash immediately, and my skull smacked against the brick wall of a building beside me.

  I was disoriented for a moment. Only one thought entered my mind. “Don’t engage, Weylyn! They’ll take you away!”

  If he bit someone, they’d call animal control and take him away from me.

  I forced my eyes to open and take in who or what had tackled me against the building. A burly man had me pinned down. A cap hid his hair from me, but he had a great bushy beard of curly black hair. His eyes were glazed over--a drug-induced haze, most likely. It didn’t matter; I had to get him off of me.

  And safely.

  I brought my knee up into his groin, slammed my head against his own, and followed it up with an elbow to the chin. I danced to the side as he gasped and stumbled back from me, shaking his head as if to clear it of the pain I had visited upon him.

  I afforded him that luxury, though I didn’t extend it to myself--my own head was ringing with the pain of connecting with his skull, but I had to keep myself focused.

  With my knees bent, I leaned forward, and balled my hands into fists.

  He growled and launched himself at me, all brute force and no finesse. I dodge to the right but left my leg extended and tripped him. He went flying into a pair of trash cans.

  I didn’t waste time. I grabbed Weylyn’s leash, and the two of us took off down the street. Normally, I wouldn’t run from a fight, but this wasn’t some magical being that had threatened my territory. This was an average, ordinary thug who thought I was an easy mark.

  And if I wasn’t careful, I could kill him. It was better for everyone involved that I get out of there as quickly as I could.

  We darted down into the Underground station, and I pressed my back against a wall, breathing in deeply to quiet the pounding of my heart against m
y ribs.

  I had forgotten how dangerous the streets could be for a girl on her own.

  Four

  I was sitting on my couch, Weylyn curled up beside me. The trip on the tube had been largely uneventful after the attack by the thug outside, and I’d been appreciative of that. I’d walked the rest of the way from the station closest to my house, and I was thankful to be back inside solid walls, with a spelled reinforced steel door keeping anything and everything out.

  Oh, yeah: I’d upgraded that door as soon as shit had calmed down with the Order. That had been at the top of my task list, to get a door that could take anything being hurled at it. That thing could stand up to gunfire, and I was damned thankful for that. Hopefully, mixed with the more complex wards that Diego had helped me to create, it would keep the next fire elemental from doing anything to me.

  I didn’t need to have my door beaten in a second time.

  Fred was sitting to my right, in one of my armchairs, with a science fiction book in his lap. The little red imp had a fascination with science fiction, which would never cease to amuse me. You would think something so fantastical would enjoy reading fantasy books, but apparently that was too boring for him. He’d been there, done that, and he wanted books that would take him to the farthest reaches of the galaxy and show him new things.

  He wanted an escape, and isn’t that what everyone wants from a book?

  I hated to tear him away from the book, but I had questions I needed answers to. Diego hadn’t given them to me, which meant they had to be put to Fred instead.

  “Fred,” I said, trying to be gentle.

  “Hm?” He didn’t look up from his book at first. I waited until he tapped one long finger against the page, then creased the corner of it and shut the book. “What is I helpings with now?” He looked up at me, tilting his large head back to fix me with the force of his giant eyes.

  There had been a time when I’d been too intimidated--too weirded out--to meet his gaze, but I was used to it now. Two years of being in his company had normalized his appearance for me.

  “What do you know about the vampires in the States?”

  He scrunched his nose, wrinkles appearing in his forehead. “I is not knowing too much about that, Miss Blair. Why is you needings to know about American vampires?”

  “Because Diego is fighting a war in the States, and he won’t tell me anything about it, and I’m curious. I want to know about the houses there, and I want to know if they’re any different from the ones we have here.”

  “Most vampires is the same across the globe, Miss Blair, although I is suspecting there is some little differences here and there. Not too much. I is sorry, but I is not having much for you here. I is knowing plenty about the vampire houses in Europe.” He glared at me as if he was offended that this wasn’t enough for me. “The Americas is too young for me to be knowings much about them. I has not been involved in things for a good long time.”

  I was astonished. There was something Fred didn’t know about? This was a whole new experience for me. He’d always known every little thing, had never been able to say he didn’t know something. He was a know-it-all; that was practically his purpose in this house. I didn’t know if Aidan had originally acquired him, or if it had been his mentor, but Fred had told me that he was kept around for his information.

  I thought of him as a friend, but I couldn’t lie to myself. I used him for his information, just like Aidan had. I just hid it a little better by getting him the food he liked, and buying science fiction books for him, and trying to break him of the habit of addressing me as ‘Miss Blair.’ It made me uncomfortable to think about things like that. I preferred to pretend that we were just friends.

  “I can’t believe there’s something you don’t know,” I said, dumbfounded.

  He looked uncomfortable. “Is not a common thing. Don’t you be gettings any ideas about it. Fred is still as useful as always!”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, laughing. “You’re safe and sound here.”

  He relaxed visibly.

  “Still, that’s really surprising. What else don’t you know?”

  His eyes widened until I thought they might explode out of his head. “How is I knowings what I is not knowings?” he squeaked.

  “Ah, that’s a good point. I don’t really know what I don’t know, either. But, still, this is new! So, things that are too new, too modern, are going to be beyond you. So, if someone were to create an entirely new species, you wouldn’t be able to find out any information about it?”

  “And how would I does that?” He looked irritated. He clearly didn’t appreciate his lack of information being rubbed in.

  “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to press a nerve. OK, that’s fine,” I said, pouting a little bit. I’d really been hoping that he’d be able to tell me about the American vampires. I’d been hoping to find out something about what Diego was doing over in the States, how the war was going, why the war had started in the first place. And then a thought flitted into my head. “Fred?”

  “Yes, Miss?”

  “What was it like, when you were in the game?”

  His eyes darkened for a moment. “What is you meanings?”

  “Well, when you were involved in things. Before whoever took you to be an informational tool. What was it like...when you were free?”

  “I has never been free in the way you are sayings, Miss Blair. With you is when I has been most free. No one else has ever worrieds themselves with how I is feeling or what I is wantings. You has cared more than anyone else.”

  Tears burned at my eyes. Surely, Aidan hadn’t been such a bad master? But I couldn’t bring myself to ask, because I didn’t want to hear Fred say that Aidan hadn’t been kind to him. He’d all but said that already, and I just couldn’t ask him.

  I brushed my fingers against my eyes to chase away any stray tears and inhaled sharply through my nose, then leaned back on the couch. Weylyn snuggled closer to me. “Were you ever involved in anything? Were you always just...someone that people asked things of?”

  Fred was silent for a long time. I didn’t dare to interrupt, because the look on his face was positively dangerous. I was almost scared for a moment, there.

  “There was a time, Miss. When I did bad things. Bad, bad things. I is always something of a reflection of the person I am spendings my time with, but...I has had bad masters before. They was making me do things I should not be doings.” A shiver wracked his small form. I wanted to get up and hold him, but the look in his eyes kept me rooted to the spot. I didn’t dare say a word. “Maybe is good for you to know. Maybe you should has a fear of me, so you is knowings not to push me too far. You has only ever asked for one thing I is not wantings to give to you, and you was good with it. You didn’t do anythings bad with the information. So, I is thinkings you are a trustworthy person.” He chewed on his lip for a moment before he fixed his terrifying stare on me. “Is you wanting to see?”

  I gulped, scared and intrigued all at once. I felt myself nod, but it was as if it had happened entirely on its own. I knew this was something I probably shouldn’t see, probably shouldn’t know. I had asked for something Fred didn’t want to give, but here he was, offering it up to me.

  How could I say no?

  He got off the chair and crawled up onto the couch, sat beside me yet facing me, and lifted his hand with one finger extended. He touched my forehead.

  And just as it had with Raven, just a few years ago, the world swam around me.

  Disorientation took me on a spin through time and space. I was falling, and I didn’t know how or where it was going to end. All I knew was that I had to hold on for the ride and wait for it to stop.

  With a jolt, I found myself standing at the edge of a small medieval village.

  All looked well. There were people milling about and going on with their day. The sun was just beginning to set, and it looked like the mothers were beginning to herd their children inside.

  Well, this didn�
�t look so bad. I wondered what it was that Fred was going to show me, but I’d learned from the experience with Raven that it was a matter of waiting to see what the truth would be.

  He’d said that he’d done bad things, and that was something I couldn’t entirely equate with him. Fred was a good person. He cared about people, and he wanted the best for them. He’d cried when Aidan died, and he panicked every time I went into battle, scared that something was going to happen to me.

  No, I couldn’t possibly understand the concept that Fred had done anything bad in his life.

  Then, just like dogs scenting danger, everyone in the village froze. No one dared to move until one child--unaware of the danger--babbled at his mother.

  “Wha’s going on, Mum?” His shrill little voice echoed through the village, and his mother hissed at him to be quiet.

  The child squirmed as his mother grabbed hold of him, trying to calm him down, and her efforts did no good.

  Then I saw Fred.

  He looked the same--small, red, with a giant head and that odd tail of his--yet I knew that something was different about him.

  In his hands were balls of flame, and as he approached the village, he hurled the balls at random houses. He opened his mouth, and flame spewed forth, bathing the village in it.

  The villagers sprang to action then, screaming and running.

  Fred’s little arms stretched out, and he flexed his fingers. Villagers fell to their knees, clawing at their throats, their mouths open as if to scream, but no sound came out.

  I fell to my own knees, tears sliding down my cheeks as I watched the carnage.

  Fred was rampaging through the village, killing every single person he came across. No one was spared. Not man, woman, or child.

  It was senseless violence. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and it was impossible for me to accept that this was Fred. How could he do something like this?

  “Stop,” I begged, but no one heard me. Or at least, no one reacted to me. Fred certainly didn’t.

  The violence raged on for what felt like hours, until every single member of the village was dead.