Chapter 11 Voren
Voren
The spirits of this house are a chatty bunch.
After centuries of silence, they can’t seem to shut up.
They whisper of the slayer’s approach long before I see her trudging up the hill, getting muddier and wetter by the second.
She is cursing like a sailor of old as I follow her trajectory through the rusty gate and up my garden path.
She looks up, squinting as the rain falls into her eyes. She raises a hand to shield the worst of it and scouts the place like a pro, looking for the big bad.
Her gaze lands on me, staring at her out of the top-floor window, and she grimaces.
“Looks like you found it,” I murmur, not moving as she gestures to the front door. At least she has manners.
She gives me a filthy glare and moves forward, kicking the door in with enough force that she probably knocked it off its rusted hinges.
“Now, now, there was no need for that.”
I drift from the window, my feet making no sound on the ancient floorboards.
The spirits of the house part for me as I descend the grand staircase, their spectral forms swirling like disturbed smoke.
She’s standing in the centre of the hall, dripping rainwater onto a century’s worth of dust, her blade held ready.
“You’ve made quite an entrance,” I say, my voice carrying easily in the cavernous space. “And a mess. The door was a historical artefact, you know.”
Her head snaps up, amber eyes narrowing as they find me on the stairs. She’s drenched and furious, a storm in human form. “Voren, I presume? The one with the questionable coat.”
Dastian.
“And you are the famous Nyssa Vale. Slayer of goddesses, disturber of ancient sea beasts, and now, apparently, a vandal. You’ve had a busy twenty-four hours.”
Her grip tightens on her knife. “I’m hoping talking to you will be less annoying than the other two. Prove me right. Why are you here?”
I descend the final few steps, my boots silent on the stone.
“Dastian wouldn’t know good taste if it bit him on his chaotic arse.
As for why I’m here…” I gesture to the cavernous, shadow-filled hall.
The spirits around us stir, their whispers rising from a hum to a sibilant chorus of her name.
“This place is full of stories. The dead are excellent conversationalists once you get past the initial moaning. They see everything. They remember everything.”
Her gaze darts around, but she can’t see what I see. If she did, she would probably freak out. The man hanged for murdering a young woman is leering at her, trying to lick her face. She doesn’t flinch.
“They told me you were coming,” I continue, stopping a few feet from her, close enough to see the rainwater clinging to her eyelashes.
“They have a great deal to say about your lineage, slayer. Most of it ends in tragedy.” I let the silence hang between us, thick with the dust of ages and the sorrow of the forgotten.
“You seem determined to continue the family tradition. Tell me, is it arrogance or ignorance that drives you?”
I reach out and flick the lecherous murderer in the forehead, and he backs off.
Nyssa’s gaze snaps to my hand, and she steps back.
“The dead told me. Ciara, Seamus, all of them. Bright sparks, every one. And every one extinguished. Tell me, does it ever occur to you to just… stop?”
She looks at me as if I’ve just suggested she start breathing water. “Stop? Stop what? Protecting people from things like you?”
“Things like me are inevitable,” I murmur, my voice dropping. “But your death doesn’t have to be.”
“Aww, are you trying to protect me?”
Her sarcasm is a beautiful thing.
“More like move you out of the way.”
“Of what? You?”
I laugh, a low, dry sound that echoes in the dead air of the hall. The spirits around us shiver. “Me? Sweetheart, I’m not the storm. I’m the silence that comes after. I’m the one who collects the pieces when the game is over.”
She rolls her eyes at my masterful monologue.
Maybe not so masterful.
“You’re fighting a tide, slayer. A cosmic shift. It’s admirable. It’s also incredibly stupid. I said, no,” I add to the murderer and shove his face away from her.
She frowns and again looks at my hand, which appears to be touching nothing in her view. Her jaw tightens, a muscle twitching in her cheek. “I’ve heard the ‘end of the world’ speech already today. You gods need new material.”
“This isn’t about the end of the world. This is about the end of everything. There are things waking up that make Aethel look like a petulant child. Things that don’t want to rule. They want to unmake, devour, and you’re standing in their way.”
“What is it?” she asks. “What is coming?”
I shrug. “It has no name, only a reputation for demolishing realms.”
“And somehow this was awoken when the veil was torn open?”
“It has always been awake, Nyssa. But now it is coming.”
“Why not before? Was it locked away on its own?”
“You are full of questions,” I say with a smile, which turns malevolent when the murderer goes for her again. “No!” I roar and hold my hand out to eat him face first. “You don’t fucking touch her!”
“What?” Nyssa stammers and steps back as the air turns to ice around us.
The murderer’s spectral form is sucked into my palm, and I feel the chill of his hungry soul settle.
I let the cold recede, the frost on the stone floor melting back into damp.
The other spirits have vanished, terrified of my outburst.
Nyssa is staring at the empty space where my hand was, her knuckles white on her blade.
I fix her with a casual gaze. “Just a minor pest. This house has an infestation problem. You learn to deal with them.”
“Why don’t you want them touching me?” she asks, her chin raised.
“You are not theirs to touch.”
“I’m not yours either, Voren,” she snaps. “I don’t need your protection.”
“You have it whether you want it or not, Nyssa. That creature was trying to lick your face, much like he licked the face of the woman he gutted like a fish before he ate her insides for dinner.”
Her nose wrinkles, a flicker of revulsion crossing her face before she tucks it away behind that hard, slayer mask. “Lovely. So, you’re my self-appointed, soul-eating bodyguard.”
Smirking, I let my gaze rake over her body.
It’s tight, lean and muscled with a perky arse and a fantastic rack, I can see, even under her hoodie and open coat.
She shifts uncomfortably, but she doesn’t back down.
“Bodyguard,” I murmur. “Would you like that, Nyssa? Would you like me to guard your body from disgusting predators?”
Her eyes narrow, the amber within them turning to hard, unforgiving chips of stone. “I’d rather take my chances with the face-licker. At least his intentions are obvious.”
“Are mine not?” I take a slow step closer, the air around me cooling, a subconscious display of power she can’t see but can definitely feel. The rainwater on her coat becomes a thin sheen of frost. “I want you alive, slayer. You’re far more useful that way.”
“Useful for what?” she spits, not backing down an inch despite the supernatural chill.
“You’re the only one of your kind who can kill what’s coming. But even the sharpest blade can be broken if it’s wielded recklessly.”
She stares at me for a long, silent moment, the conflict warring on her face. Frustration wins out. “You’re all the same,” she finally snarls. “Cryptic warnings and arrogant smirks. I’m done here.”
With that, she spins on her heel and stalks out of the hall, her shoes crunching on the debris from the door she destroyed. I don’t try to stop her. I let her go, watching as she disappears back into the grey, miserable day before I fix what she broke with a snap of my fingers.
“She is fun,” I say to Dastian, who has appeared next to me, looking slightly bewildered.
“Okay, that was fucking weird.”
“What was?”
“One minute I was in Nyssa’s house and the next I’m here.”
I turn to face him and frown. “Not of your own accord?”
“Obviously not, or it wouldn’t be a problem, would it?”
“Fair point,” I murmur. “You are drawn to her.”
“If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have left her in the first place.”
I tilt my head. “No, you were needed here…”
He doesn’t wait for me to finish. He launches himself after Nyssa, yanking the door open and heading out into the driving rain.
With a sigh and a shrug, I follow.
Why not? Why the fuck not?