Reader Beware

Chapter 48

            Rika let the breath all out at once before breaking into a run. She dodged around two soldiers, all that stood between her and the empty zone that surrounded Ishbak. The demon was looking down at what had been the battlefield, smiling in a way that promised further violence. Rika ignored the expression and kept heading straight towards him.

            She heard shouts from her right, Damek and Elthia’s voices breaking the relative silence that surrounded them. “Stop it! Rika! Go back! What are you doing?”

            Knowing better than to look at them, Rika wasn’t sure her resolution would hold up in front of her friends’ worry, she just charged forward. Ishbak was turning to face her now, the cries having drawn his attention. He looked at her and laughed. He spread his arms mockingly, his gaze locked onto hers.

            Rika didn’t slow, even when he changed position. “Don’t think you’ll be able to even touch me, human child,” the demon said, still laughing as she closed the distance between them.

            The only sound Rika made was when his hand entered her chest just over her sternum. She screamed then, the pain ripping through her, making red lights dance in the blackness that covered her eyes. She fought back the pain just as hard as she fought to breathe. The pain was so bad she wanted to just give up, to die here and now, but that would have been a waste of the effort she’d put into this, so she continued to try and shove the pain away.

When her sight cleared enough that she could see the face above hers, she looked squarely into the black eyes that she knew held Ahisu somewhere. Gasping, each tiny movement sending bolts of agony through her, she managed to force out the words “Ahisu, I love you.”

Only then did she surrender to the darkness crowding at the edge of her eyes, letting it wash the pain, and her, away. She didn’t even feel it as her body sagged, blood still dripping from the hole in her chest.

Ishbak stared at the mortal slumping in front of him, trying to comprehend what reasoning lay behind her actions. He pulled his arm out of her, catching her before she collapsed completely, and tilted her chin back so he could see what expression was on her face. “Human child, what was the point of this?”

Noting the unmoving eyes and the cooling of her skin, he hissed. He would have an answer to his question. He looked around, finally spotting the right kind of mortal, one who was already crying. Heaving the child up onto one shoulder, he made his way towards the robed woman, ignoring the mortals who fled his presence. It was only right that they did so.

One man did not. The blue-haired fool tried to interpose himself between himself and the woman he sought, body set in an offensive pose. Ishbak used his free arm to backhand the man away, sending him flying into some of the mortals who hadn’t yet figured out they should run. They were of no consequence to him. The man was lucky he did not have the time to deal with him as was proper, but thought if he saw him again, he would give him the screaming death he deserved.

He dropped the child’s barely breathing body in front of the woman, watching as her legs gave out under the force of his aura. He held her eyes. “You will heal the human child,” he said, his voice a hiss that promised unending pain should she disobey.

She sobbed, a sound that annoyed him though under ordinary circumstances he might have enjoyed it. “I can’t. I don’t have the power.”

He smelled no lie, and truly, mortals were weak. He should not have expected much out of any of them. He had no choice, not if he wanted his answers. “Then I will grant you the power,” he said, reaching out and pressing his fingers to her neck. Through the contact of his host’s body with hers, he sent power streaming into her, enough that she could revive even the dead.

She screamed, her body aglow with energy. For a moment, he thought that she might collapse or burn out from the inside. That would be unfortunate, since he didn’t see another healer among the mortals surrounding him. But the woman surprised him, teeth going through her bottom lip, she poured raw healing power into the human child lying on the ground in front of her.

He watched with narrowed eyes, waiting to see if she revived the child or would die for her failure.