Where A Witch Goeth

Chapter Seventeen: Goetist

Evander was right. We beat them all there.

This shadow travel was harder than the last. I stumbled toward a tree and grasped on for balance. I felt... wrong. Nauseous, tingly in my own skin.I tried not to think about the fact that my body surely must have been blown apart at the atomic scale and reassembled some several miles from where I had been. Simply by the will of this vampire.

That kind of power was beyond witchcraft. That was a god's power.

Evander inspected me carefully. "You'll be fine, when all your wee bits and pieces settle back together. For the first few dozen times, it's disconcerting."

"I don't plan on getting used to that, okay? What if you...lose me in the shadows?"

"I will not promise not to poof you away from danger if it is necessary. There's no need to fear. When I unmake you, we become one thing. I couldn't lose you if I tried."

"Ah, so you enjoy becoming one with strangers?"

He shook his head, wrapped an arm around me to steady me, and drew me along to Orla's death site. "Actually, I can't carry strangers. My Sept and a few mundanes I have known well—I can find their vibration. I can match it and unlatch their mortal form. Then find their pitch to put them back together again. But I've tried it once or twice with complete strangers, in moments of great need, and it did not work so well.

"Once, I tried to save a man from being struck by a car. Once, I tried to remove a killer who was to about to kill again. Both times, I went, but I left a great mess behind. Of course, I suppose the car could have made hash out of that one, but the killer? No, he died a gruesome death in my attempt to travel him. No matter. I'd marked him for death as my dinner anyway."

Perhaps I should have been horrified at the vampire's casual admission of being a killer himself, but  I had a strong sense of self-preservation, and I had heard something else in explanation that bothered me. I pulled away from his walking embrace and stared up at him. "Are you saying you tried to kill me in my closet? Because we are little more than strangers, Evander."

He chuckled.  "I did not even intend to travel you from the closet that first time. But when you laid hands on me, you matched me. That's how I know, lass. We are nothing like strangers, you and I."

Okay, maybe he had a point. He didn't feel like a stranger to me either, and every minute I spent with him, my feeling of connection to him scared me more. Thankfully, he didn't press me for my thoughts on our preternatural connection.

"I can hear the cars coming. Christ, your hair's a mess and you've somehow managed to get my blood tears all over your own face. It will not do at all, for us to be walking up to Orla's death lookin' like I ravished you on the way."

He began to wind my damp hair back up, rearranging my hairpins to recapture my locks in the shape of the current bob-style. I shivered at the intimacy of his cool hands brushing my neck. This was not normal, not normal at all. 

And then, he took my head in his hands, and swiped a thumb over my chin and another spot on my cheek. "Here, and here. My tears, of the lad's blood."

He tenderly licked my face clean. My hands flew to his wrists, but my struggle was only internal.

Not normal, my soul screamed.

His mouth lingered near mine. His breath was nearly warm in the cool of the spring night.

But not quite.

Not normal. Not safe.

He pulled out a handkerchief from his seemingly endless supply. "Do me," he said casually, gesturing to his bloody, tear-stained face.