All Hellos Page 7

  Whoever was coming her way didn’t slow down, she could still hear whomever it was running toward her. Too bad. They might be the one eaten if that thing couldn’t get to her. She heard it snarl, the rushing sound of feet tearing through the leaves littering the ground. Whether it was coming for her or going after the other person she didn’t know, and she didn’t want to look, either.

  She reached the two steps up into the cabin. Not even bothering to take them, she grabbed the door, yanked it open and jumped in, shoving the thin panel closed. The impact against the wood cracked it, ramming the door open halfway to send Iris sprawling on the floor. She kicked the door, hitting the thing in the face, another crunching sound telling her the door was heading the way of the dodo.

  A bellow of rage told her she’d hit a sensitive spot; mouth, nose, something.

  Great. Now it’s not just hungry, you’ve pissed it off, too.

  Iris felt it hit the door again and this time the wood splintered, the hinges tearing from the wooden frame with a sharp cracking sound. A scream ripped its way out of her as the thing’s black snout protruded through the shattered wood, a red tongue slobbering across her foot as if tasting her.

  God, it probably is tasting me! Scrambling backward like a crippled crab, she stared in horror as it leaped inside.

  A scream got caught in her throat as it leaped for her and she tried to get out of its way. One of its paws raked across her, tearing away a good-sized piece of her dress along with a few strips of skin; shallow cuts that bled and burned as if filled with flame.

  She wanted a weapon, something, anything to use in her own defense. She wasn’t about to be the dumb blonde bimbo killed by the horror movie monster. The very thought made her giggle on the edge of hysteria as her hand closed around the feather boa.

  Snapping jaws drove in toward her and she threw the boa, scrambling across the floor, throwing pillows, a cosmetic bag, anything and everything that her hand fell on.

  Black feathers raining across the floor, it snatched the pillow and shook it in a fury, sending hunks of polyfill in all directions. The cosmetic bag struck it between the eyes and it snapped it out of the air, sending her makeup scattering in all directions.

  Iris was just getting ready to toss another decoy object when Adrian came barreling into the cabin.

  “Yo, ugly,” he said, taunting the thing as if he’d either seen it or something similar at some time in his life. A point of fact that Iris managed to get her mind around in a vague way. She was still having difficulty reconciling the thing into her own purview of reality. It was an enigma, a puzzle piece that didn’t fit neatly into place in her mind.

  But she really couldn’t afford to dwell on how out of synch it was in her neat version of the world. Not when it was intent on eating her.

  The thing whirled around, a ripsaw snarl coming from it.

  “Run, Adrian!” she shouted.

  But it was too late. Bellowing, the thing leapt for the defenseless man.

  Iris watched in horror as Adrian and the thing rolled across the cabin floor, the creature’s teeth savaging him, the man torn and bleeding from claw scratches and deep bite marks. She searched frantically for anything she could use to either hurt or at least draw the thing away from her would-be savior. They were between her and the door, but if she could get out she could at least look for help. Though what good that would do, she didn’t know. It would just draw more victims to the thing.

  She grabbed her suitcase and pulled out a can of hairspray. She might be able to blind it and give Adrian a chance to escape.

  Before she could get close enough to the snarling beast, it roared in triumph, tearing at Adrian, ripping at this throat. Blood sprayed across the floor.

  Adrian, oh God, Adrian! She saw the blood. Too much blood. He had to be dead; there just wasn’t any possibility of surviving a wound like that.

  Horrified by the sight, she stared, her whole body shaking.

  Growling, eyes burning slits of yellow hellfire, the creature rose to full height, walking on its rear legs. It was coming for her again.

  This couldn’t be happening. But it was. She wanted to scream as it stalked closer, wanted to run. She could do neither. There wasn’t anywhere to go.

  Deep down inside, a tiny spark of anger rose up inside her.

  This was wrong. It was all just so wrong.

  Adrian was dead because a horror-movie reject decided to come after her.

  She shook herself and aimed the spray at the thing’s eyes, hitting the button.

  A shriek loud as a train whistle ripped through the air, the teeth snapping at her, fangs grazing her forearm. She gasped at the pain and dropped the hairspray, but the thing was backing away, pawing at its eyes, shaking its head.

  The broken door of the cabin banged and her gaze darted beyond the thing menacing her to see Gabriel standing in the doorway.

  “Now you wouldn’t be thinking of doing anything else stupid, would you, Vivian?”

  Vivian? It’s got a name? More puzzling was the fact that Gabriel seemed to know what—or was that who?—the thing was.

  He walked over to where Adrian lay unmoving on the floor as if the horror posed not a care in the world to him. She couldn’t help but stare. He wasn’t afraid of it, not in the least, and here she was ready to pee herself.

  “I’m not happy you did this. Not at all, Vivian.”

  Crouching down, its tail lashing back and forth the same way a really pissed off cat would, the thing glared at Gabriel. “Fuck you,” the creature snarled, adding to Iris’ shock.

  It talks. It’s got a name, and it freaking talks?

  “I believe you’ve tried that before, too.” Gabriel knelt down beside Adrian’s body, gently caressed his face. “Wake up, love,” he murmured. A faint glow flowed from the blond’s hand, rippling across the dark-haired man, healing the horrific wounds.

  Iris looked from Gabriel to the thing, then back.

  Groaning, Adrian sat up, blearily looking around. He fingered the front of his bloody shirt, “Damn, I really liked this shirt, too.”

  “I’ll get you another,” Gabriel told him as he stood, regarding the hairy thing. “Go home, Vivian. No one wants to kill you, but we will if you force the issue.” He was speaking to the horror as someone would speak to an erring child.

  For an answer, the beast growled at him and sprang.

  Broad, ethereal wings unfolded around Gabriel, and the scent of cinnamon and sweet spices filled the room. Gold and amber mist streamed from him, coalescing into a leonine shape with the head of a hawk, and taloned forelegs. The misty form was so large that the top of its incorporeal head and the tufted ears were inside the ceiling.

  The thing he’d called Vivian was buffeted aside by one of the wings as if it had solid form. The creature slammed into the wall of the cabin, cracking the boards. It lay dazed, getting to its paws, shaking its head, staggering.

  “Last chance, Vivian,” Adrian said as he got to his feet. Neither he nor Gabriel had wanted Iris to see this sort of thing so soon, but Vivian hadn’t left them any options.

  The shifter shook herself again, took a step closer, wobbled again and nearly fell. Tough as she was, being buffeted by Gabriel wasn’t something many creatures could suffer and not have severe damage. He knew that himself from personal experience.

  Anything Gabriel did would take a long time for even something like Vivian to heal. Magically delivered damage, the kind dished out by an Immortal, wasn’t the same as something perpetrated by a human or even one of the transformed like Vivian herself. She could get hit by a truck or shot a myriad of times and be back on her feet in a matter of heartbeats, just like Adrian could. Injuries delivered by a creature of magic, however, wouldn’t just go away in an instant. He hadn’t been able to do much damage to her in his human form, but Adrian had only been delaying her until Gabriel could arrive to handle the situation.

  His lover motioned him to go to Iris and he did, putting his arms around her, draw
ing her close, trying to act as a shield so she couldn’t see anything else that was going on. Seeing Vivian would have been more than enough to shatter the mind of most people. He just hoped that Iris was mentally and emotionally strong enough to hold up under what she’d seen.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice showing she was on the edge, a sharp quaver giving him an even clearer clue regarding her state of mind.

  “It’s all right, you’re safe now.”

  Her hysterical laugh made the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Too much more and her mind would snap; he could hear that in her voice.

  He repositioned them both so he was in front of her, blocking her view of what was happening behind him.

  He didn’t think Vivian would be leaving alive this time. She’d endangered too many mortals by coming here.

  And she’d been trying to kill one of the trueborn. One not even awakened to the power in her soul.

  Both were crimes punishable by death among their kind, and Gabriel, in his capacity as Enforcer among the Immortals, was judge, jury and executioner for creatures that failed to obey the rules.

  Creatures like Vivian, who’d gone rogue and killed other magical beings for the power it gained them.

  She’d been warned the last time she’d murdered another of their kind.

  There would be no more warnings.

  Vivian knew that too. She roared out her rage and hate. He could hear the scuffle of the shifter and his lover as they struggled, heard the snarling yelp as Vivian encountered the aura of power surrounding Gabriel.

  The ringing cry of the Gryphon tore the night air, an actinic glare filling the cabin. It was an attack he knew came from the Immortal Beast, its claws wreathed in power only a scant few amid the Multiverse could match.

  Vivian, thief of power, half-mad murderess, stood no more chance against Gabriel than a snowball did in a blast furnace. An agonized shriek that faded to a whimper told Adrian it was over, as did the distinctive hot-metal-and-burnt-sugar smell of something being consumed by the Gryphon’s magic.

  He could feel the backwash of spent power as it etched pain across his back, and he stood resolutely where he was, protecting Iris from it with his own body. That was why Gabriel had kept him in the first place, to protect the innocents while Gabriel dealt with the dangerous creatures it was his job to hunt down and kill.

  He almost smiled at the memory. There were other reasons Gabriel had kept him too, but that had always been one of the most important of them.

  When it was over, he glanced at Gabriel. The Gryphon was standing over a pile of ash, the mortal remains of a quasi-immortal being that had failed to stand the test of time, who’d failed to follow one simple rule.

  Thou shalt not kill.

  Among their kind, it was the greatest rule. Killing trueborn before they had a change to discover their power was the worst sin among Immortals, both trueborn and transformed.

  He shuddered, remembering how close he’d come to that very fate, his arms tightening around Iris, giving and seeking comfort. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Gabriel kneel down, putting one hand on the ash as if bidding a last farewell to a friend. Adrian knew what he was doing.

  He was apologizing for failing Vivian, apologizing for the brutal necessity of killing someone who’d fallen into the dark.

  Someone he hadn’t saved from herself.

  You can’t save them all. he thought, trying to ease his lover’s pain.

  I know. We tried with her before, and it didn’t work.

  We need to think about the living now, Iris needs us.

  Gabriel nodded and got to his feet. A gesture of his right hand, a murmured word and the ash swirled out of the broken door, carried on a zephyr of wind that removed the lingering traces of hot metal and burnt sugar even as it swept away the ashes of a broken dream that had been Vivian. Dispersed by the wind, there was no possibility she could ever be brought back by any magic known to man or Immortal. Cool, fresh air filled the room, the faint odor of cloves and honey replacing the harsh scent of a magical death.

  Iris shuddered violently and nearly slid out of Adrian’s grasp as the adrenalin of mortal terror that had kept her going released its grip on her body and mind. He could feel the woman shivering uncontrollably in his arms, her body going into shock from the damage her psyche had taken. He caught her and eased her to the floor. She was dazed, rattled by things that were just not part of the reality she’d always known and understood, and I was going to take some careful handling to get her past this point.

  Though it had been a long time ago, Adrian remembered his own initiation into the world of inhuman beings and Immortals, of magic and horrors few humans in this time ever knew. Born in a time when magic was still believed in and taken as truth, it had still been a shock to become one of the quasi-immortal. Nor had it been a gentle introduction. At least they were there to help Iris, and she’d probably recover without any serious lingering emotional damage.

  He was not about to let her become another Vivian.

  Gabriel grabbed a blanket off the nearest bunk bed and put it around Iris’ shivering body. Adrian was holding her close and he could sense that his lover was an anchor to her, his warmth reassuring to the budding Immortal who’d just had her world turned upside-down.

  He studied her carefully, seeing a faint aura of the Immortal at the center of her soul, watery color that showed her true self was very close to the surface. It was a reassuring sign that could mean her power was awakened enough to protect her from the worst of the damage.

  “It’s all right. Really,” the dark-haired man soothed.

  She shook her head in an emphatic negative, tears starting to seep from her staring eyes.

  “We wanted to ease you into our world slowly. I’m very sorry that didn’t happen,” Gabriel told her, keeping his voice gentle. “I’d really thought Vivian had learned her lesson the last time she did something so foolish. I was mistaken, and I’m very sorry you were endangered because of my mistake. I’m also sorry you were pulled into our world so harshly.”

  “So am I,” she replied with a visible shudder.

  He sighed and looked at Adrian. I’m worried about her.

  Me too, his lover replied. She was doing so well until this mess with Vivian.

  It’s as much my fault as it was Vivian’s, he remarked, bitter failure coloring his mental tone.

  Bullshit, Gabe. Put it down and forget it. Vivian is to blame for her own choices, not you.

  Adrian, you know what the problem was. Her infatuation with me—

  Stop! his lover’s mental voice cracked with the power of a whip across the Immortal’s mind. She was a brick short of a load long before you entered the picture. First she killed Nowland, which was no loss, since you’d have killed him yourself anyway. But then she decided to make a snack of Lizabetta. She was mentally aberrant, and you had nothing to do with that.

  I know you’re right, but I just can’t help but wonder—

  Gabe, you are bemoaning water under the bridge again. Let’s focus on someone we can help, shall we?

  What would I do without you?

  Brood, was Adrian’s instant reply.

  Gabriel caressed his lover’s face, smiling fondly at the other immortal. Though he was older, Adrian was much better at certain things. Helping Gabriel put his own regrets aside was one of them, just as it was Gabriel’s job to help Adrian forget his less than savory past. What do you think we should do to bring her out of this?

  Let’s just give her a few minutes. She’s a strong woman. She was actually trying to fight Vivian off, rather than just cringing in terror.

  I’d noticed, he replied glancing around at the shreds of polyfill, the ravaged boa and the can of hairspray. The conflict might have brought a bit more of her inner self to the forefront. That might have cushioned the emotional impact to some degree.

  We can hope, Adrian commented as he started to caress a still-shivering Iris.

  I c
ould try a bit of healing magic. She’s in shock, and that bite wound might be affecting her. I’m not sure if Vivian’s form was infective or natural.

  Infective. I could feel it trying to taint me after she bit me the first time.

  Can nothing be easy? Gabriel mused as he reached out and lay his hand on Iris’ arm

  Wouldn’t life get boring if it was?

  Gabriel tuned a sour look on his lover. No. The wound was healing beneath his hand, the damage knitting back together until there was no evidence it had ever existed. That was the easy part. He reached deeper, feeling the real danger, the taint that had seeped into Iris’ blood along with the saliva.

  You say that now, but given even a month of nothing to do, you’ll be climbing the walls.

  You are probably right, more’s the pity, Gabriel agreed reluctantly as he felt the contamination of Vivian’s saliva fading abruptly. Partly it was due to his own efforts, but he could also feel Iris’ own power rising up to combat the ill effects of the invading magic.

  Tears were still trickling down her face, and he frowned. They’d have to find a way to snap her out of the state her mind was in. Perhaps if they could get her talking, it would help cleanse the horror from her mind. It was worth a try.

  Gabriel leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss on Iris’ cheek. “I’m very sorry about involving you in this. It was never our intention that you should be hurt.”

  “So am I,” Adrian added as he cuddled the frightened woman.

  “Me too,” she whispered, still staring at nothing. The way the wolf-weasel had killed Adrian haunted her thoughts. He’d been badly wounded, and she’d thought he was dead. He might technically have been dead for all she knew. Yet here he was, holding her as if it had never happened.

  It could just as easily have been her lying murdered, and she didn’t think there would have been anything Gabriel could have done to save her. Not the way he’d saved his lover.