Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Everything was going so well. I moved Bob to his new stable yard, and I said a sad goodbye to the Shetland pony, Munchkin, who even gave me a farewell love-bite. I still have the bruise on my thigh. I will miss the little tyke.
Yes, everything was going well until Bob-cob developed a sore hoof. An abscess from running around his new field. A stray stone must have knocked his foot, causing an infection within the hoof horn. He was dreadfully lame.
Like a normal horse owner, when I got the phone call I freaked out.
The world was ending because my precious Bob was in pain.
The livery yard has its own emergency potions, but I am not the type of owner to allow someone to slap any old potion onto my horse without vet intervention.
I waited, biting my nails, until the vet, Cathy—a talented witch— arrived to treat him.
I grin with relief as I lean against the stable door and watch a contented Bob happily munching on his hay net.
Bob stands pain-free on all four hooves.
My bank account will be lighter when I get the bill, but I don’t care.
Healing magic is incredible, Cathy is incredible.
She has just left. It’s late, dark, and it started spitting an hour ago. Now the rain is coming down in sheets.
In my panic to get to Bob, I didn’t bring a coat.
Now that I’m almost finished with my jobs and completely wet through, I wouldn’t be able to put one on anyway without changing.
I shrug and then wince as the movement causes the rain to trickle down the back of my neck—oh, that wasn’t pleasant. Not at all. I do a full-body shiver.
With a final brush of the floor outside Bob’s stable, I’m ready to go home.
I empty the wheelbarrow and put the sweeping brush away and lock everything up for the night.
As I am closing the feed-room door, there’s a loud bang.
I jump and clutch at my chest. “Shit, what was that?” My pulse pounds and my senses sharpen with the adrenaline that floods through me. I turn towards the sound.
Everyone else left hours ago. Perhaps it’s Stuart doing a late-night check on the horses?
I squint into the night. The rain and the powerful overhead floodlights blind me.
“Hellooo?” I shout. I blink the rain out of my eyes and wait, straining my ears for a response, and weirdly I hold my breath.
As if stopping breathing will make me hear better.
I shrug when I get no reply. I rub my face and I huff out a nervous laugh. No one is here, Emma. What a scaredy-cat. I berate myself for being so easily frightened.
I roll my tense shoulders, and my wet top sticks to me uncomfortably. I peel it away with a shiver. I need to get home and have a hot bath. I blink back out into the night. It must have been a horse. Bob isn’t the only horse stabled tonight.
I look at Bob with a smile.
I freeze.
Bob isn’t chomping on his net. Instead, his head is over his stable door.
With wide, panic-filled eyes and flaring nostrils, his attention is firmly fixed on where the bang came from.
My eyes drift to the other horses around us.
The stables are in a horseshoe shape and they overlook a central courtyard.
The other horses too are looking in the same direction, with an equal measure of fear and trepidation.
All the horses are looking. One stamps, a few snort, and one horse lets out a frightened, shrill whinny.
A trickle of fear creeps down my spine and my heart speeds back up.
My body trembles as I back away from the feed room and towards Bob’s stable.
It would be so easy to use the feed-room door to leave.
But I won’t. I can’t leave Bob and the other horses in danger.
I pat my phone to double-check that it’s still in my pocket.
Should I ring for help? What if I’m mistaken and it’s nothing?
That’s when the creatures come out.
Fae creatures…the beithíoch. They look like deformed cats, hairless and big.
Their skin is black and blends into the night.
I estimate that they are around hip height and about five feet in length.
The floodlights reflect off their huge white teeth, teeth so big they look like prehistoric lions’.
As they get closer, their eyes glow with a freaky blue light.
My back hits the stable wall as they prowl towards me on silent feet.
Six, seven—no, eight. Eight huge beithíoch.
Oh bloody hell.
The bang must have been the ward failing.
I keep my eyes pinned on the beithíoch and slowly lift my hand.
My fingers scrabble around as I scrape them against the wall, blindly feeling around behind the back of Bob’s stable door.
I blow out a relieved breath as my searching fingers meet metal.
With a deft flick of my wrist, I unhook the top door and ever so gently swing it closed.
With shaking hands, I bolt it, locking Bob inside.
It’s my only option to protect him. There is no way those beithíoch will clamber over the door now.
I sidestep slowly to the left, to the horse stabled next door, and do the same.
The cat-like creatures watch me, not yet moving to attack.
I attempt to do another stable door, but a low hiss freezes me.
I swallow down a moan of fear. The creatures want me to stay where I am.
The surrounding horses are silent—the poor things are terrified.
Trapped, vulnerable in their stables, unable to run.
Oh God, this is all my fault. I’ve never heard of fae creatures attacking a livery yard. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that they’ve come for me.
I breathe out quick, panting breaths that fog the air, it’s gone so cold.
The cold is especially apparent to me given the wet, frozen state of my frightened body.
I stand wide-eyed and shaking. My heart thuds in my ears until all I can hear is my heartbeat and the drip and gurgle of the guttering, the patter of the rain as it taps against the window of the feed room.
Footsteps.
My stomach twists. At least three different treads are approaching.
Men dressed in black wind their way around the scary beithíoch. Their long hair and distinctive plaits identify them as fae warriors. My breath shudders.
Is this how I’m going to die?
“P…Please d…don’t hurt any of the horses,” I stammer out through my frozen lips. I shuffle forward and open my hands. I hold my trembling arms out to the side to show I haven’t got a weapon.
One of the fae steps forward. He tilts his blond head to the side and regards my shaking form with disgust. In a soft, lilting Irish accent, he replies, “We don’t hurt innocent creatures.” I briefly close my eyes and sag in relief. “That doesn’t mean we won’t hurt you, baby demon.”
Demon. I’m not surprised that my assumption was correct.
Why is every Tom, Dick and Harry out to get me?
I’ve done nothing wrong…what the heck does everyone know about demons that I don’t?
I shoot him a small, wobbly smile. “Oh, I know. That’s okay, as long as you promise not to hurt the horses.
” Urm, Emma, my inner voice shouts at me.
“It’s okay?” Are you nuts? This is not bloody okay.
They’re going to kill you…I shut down my unhelpful, screaming thoughts and—
A knife is at my throat. A heavy arm around my waist pulls me into a male body.
A fourth fae warrior has me in his powerful grip.
I have no idea where he has come from. I jerk away from the sharp blade and my head smacks into his chest, and the warrior’s blade follows my movement.
I lift my hands and with a panicked squeak dig my nails into his arm in an attempt to pull it away, but the knife moves closer and with a sting, it bites into my vulnerable flesh.
Ouch. I can feel my blood as it trickles hotly down my throat. It cools as it mixes with the rain.
Wide-eyed, I stare at the creatures surrounding me. Yeah, with my one self-defence lesson and my brand-new skill of turning my eyes black, I will have no problem fighting my way through four fae warriors and eight giant monster beithíoch. Right?
Oh my God, I’m going to die.
With these overwhelming odds, I feel so helpless. I should have run when I had the chance. Coward, fight. Do something, anything, my inner voice screams at me.
Oh God, if I don’t fight, I’m dead.
I struggle in the fae’s arms and kick his shin. He doesn’t even grunt at my pathetic blow. In desperation, I drop my head to bite his arm, but with a tilt of his wrist he angles the blade so it pokes underneath my chin.
I freeze.
“You are a danger to us all,” he says in a gruff voice.
“A danger? Me? Yeah, I was planning to take over the world on Tuesday, as Monday—” He strikes the side of my head with the butt of the blade and my vision goes hazy. I hiss out a pain-filled breath and my ears ring.
What the hell do I do with a knife at my throat? Defeated, I shake with useless adrenaline and my body sags in his tight grip. I could continue to struggle and fight, I could scream and I could beg. But I’ve begged before, and I know it doesn’t work. I am reluctant to go down that path again.
I know…I bloody know that I need to get mad, get angry, somehow pull the sleeping demon out from hiding, but…but I don’t want to hurt anyone, kill anyone.
I see the vampires’ faces in my dreams—they haunt me. They are why I have my silly set of rules. It is kind of karmic that I’m going to die with my throat cut. Isn’t that what led to the other vampire’s death? Me slicing his throat? Eleanor only finished what I had started.
I will forever wonder about the lives I took, the man I stabbed.
Did he have a family? A wife, children who relied on him, loved him?
Realistically I know turned vampires can’t have children.
He most likely didn’t even have a human family.
Yet I can’t help seeing his entire family in my imagination, in my dreams. They cry for him.
I feel as if it’s marked my soul. I can feel it, the tainted blackness sitting there festering.
“Kneel, demon.”
“My name’s Emma,” I whimper through my numb lips. “If you’re going to kill me”—my voice cracks—“I’d rather stand than die on my knees.” The wind whips up, snatching at my words, but the surrounding fae hear me.
I guess I can die with dignity.
The blond warrior in front nods his head and the arm behind me tenses. No villain speeches for me, then—these guys are professionals.
I lift my chin.
I slam my eyes closed.
I might be brave enough to stand. But I’m not brave enough to keep my eyes open.
Maybe…maybe I will heal? Numbness spreads through me.
I let go of the fae’s arm so I don’t hinder his movement.
I remember reading that nobles used to pay the executioner extra to guarantee a clean blow.
If I have to die today…Oh God, please, I am not ready…
if I have to die today I’d rather it be quick.
In my head, I’m riding Bob. The sunlight is on my face and the birds are singing in the trees. The sound of his hooves as they clop rhythmically against the ground…it fills me with a sense of peace. “I love you, Bob-cob.”