* * *
Jule sensed the intruder shortly after dozing off. He couldn’t tell the time in the windowless room, but he gauged it to be after midnight. His senses tingled, and he dwelled on how his defensive powers almost seemed to work when nothing else did. The only explanation was that the Others weren’t as ready to see him fail as they claimed to be.
The Watchers really wanted him to execute his mission.
He left the room and ascended to the main floor. The manor was silent, except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer. He couldn’t sense the Other and paused at the foot of the sweeping, grand staircase leading to the second floor. The manor stretched into three long wings. His instincts told him he needed to find the woman, and he closed his eyes.
When she’d touched him in the alley, she’d left a piece of herself within him. He’d never heard of anything like this happening, but he felt her within the house. He concentrated on the sense. Finally, it spoke to him. He opened his eyes and trotted silently up the stairs, rolling his shoulders back in preparation for a fight with the Other.
Jule chose the center wing and kept to the side of the hallway. Someone else moved silently down the hall ahead of him, and he slowed his stride. The shadowy figure disappeared into an alcove. Jule crept up to the place where the figure had taken refuge and heard the person shift. The hidden stranger lashed out at him. He ducked a fist and maneuvered around a kick, snatching the intruder’s body and shoving it into the wall. At once, he felt the brush of her soft curls against the underside of his chin and smelled her amber-vanilla.
“Why are you creeping around your house?” he whispered.
“How’d you get out?”
He sensed rather than heard movement on the first floor. The woman strained to break his grip, but he held her in place. Her breathing was the only sound in the still hallway. Whatever was in the house, it wasn’t human, or the hair on the back of his neck wouldn’t be standing on end. Their breathing synced, and she stilled.
Jule eased away from her and took her arm. She tried to yank free, and he pulled her body against his, moving them both into the alcove.
“Stop,” he ordered in a quiet voice. “Whatever is here isn’t something you or I can fight.”
She sucked in a breath. Her body fit perfectly against his, warming him in the drafty hall.
“We need to find a way out, and we can’t walk out the front door. Do you understand me?” he asked.
She nodded, straining against him again. He released her, and she hurried away from him into the center of the hall.
Don’t do it! he willed her as she paused.
“Papa!” she shouted and ran towards the stairwell.
Jule wasn’t lucky enough for the creature on the main floor not to hear. He bolted after her and tackled her. The woman fought him, and he hauled her to her feet. Wrapping his arms around her in a bear hug, he all but dragged her down the hall.
He sensed the creature ascend the stairs and chose a room at random, shoving it open with his hip. Jule pushed the woman away from the door and slammed it closed. He locked it and looked around.
The woman was halfway out the window on the opposite end of the firelit room. Jule focused first on the nearby wardrobe and braced himself against it. He grunted as he shoved it in front of the door moments before the door bucked under the force of some otherworldly being.
The room smelled familiar, and he realized he’d chosen her room. Any hope he’d had of finding something-- anything!-- to use as a weapon was dashed as he looked around the sparsely decorated room.
He crossed to the window. The Magician had heart. She’d jumped the two stories to the ground and was running towards a large garage. Jule launched himself out the window as the creature made the second blow against the door. He landed on the hard ground with a curse and darted to his feet, chasing her down again. The woman flung open the door to the garage and ran into it. Jule reached it and turned.
The Watcher had sent an immortal after the woman, all right. The tall figure loping after them was the equivalent of an immortal pit bull, one of the Watchers’ own elite personal guards.
Jule eased out of the garage and closed the door behind him. The woman was far enough ahead she should be able to escape while he distracted the creature.
“Step aside, mortal,” the guardsman ordered.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Jule replied. “You’ll have to kill me to get to her.”
“You won’t last beyond my first punch,” came the scoff. “I warn you again, step aside.”
Jule stretched his neck back and shook out his arms in the cold night. He lowered himself into a fighting stance. The guardsman drew a sword. They circled each other, and Jule waited to hear the sound of a car staring in the garage. The sound didn’t come.
The guardsman struck with nonchalance that told Jule just how much he was being underestimated. Jule moved away from the slicing sword and caught the guardsman’s wrist. He twisted it and unleashed a kick that knocked his opponent off his feet and sent the sword flying.
Jule retrieved it, satisfied to find it light and well balanced. When the guardsman rose, the arrogance was gone from his face, replaced by anger. Jule looked again towards the garage, growing concerned he hadn’t heard a car or garage door motor yet.
The guardsman attacked with a knife in each hand, his movements a flurry of motion. Jule’s instincts took over, and he allowed them to guide his sword and punches. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so … off. His sword defended him as if possessed, yet when he went to strike, he found his blows ill timed and clumsy.
“What are you?” the guardsman demanded, withdrawing.
“Damned if I know,” Jule replied.
The garage door behind him opened, and he whirled. The woman emerged carrying a crossbow. Jule threw himself down as she leveled it and fired. The arrow went over his head and was followed by two more.
“You need to get out of here, sweetheart!” he yelled and rolled to face the guardsman. “You’ll just piss him off.”
“I can take care of myself. My aim is perfect!” Despite her defiance, her voice shook.
The guardsman was on his back, but Jule knew he wouldn’t be down for long.
“Look, girl,” Jule said, rising. “You’ve got about two minutes before this creature tears through me and kills you.”
“No one could survive that,” she argued and leveled the crossbow at him.
“You won’t-- ”
Thunk. For the first time in thousands of years, he remembered what real pain felt like. Jule looked down at the arrow protruding from his shoulder, growing annoyed with her for the first time.
“I missed your heart on purpose,” she said. “Leave me alone, or …” She gasped.
Jule turned to see the guardsman sit and begin trying to pull the arrows from his chest. Jule snapped off the end of the arrow in his shoulder, not about to bleed to death before he’d killed the immortal.
“Now maybe you’ll pay attention,” he said and threw the shaft of the arrow. “I’m going to do my best to kill him before he kills you. If you want to help us both, you’ll get the fuck out of here.”
She lowered the crossbow, her gaze going from the guardsman to him.
“When my father gets here, he’ll kill you both!”
“Great. Now go.”
A torn look crossed her features before she whirled and disappeared into the dark garage. Jule sighed, hoping she left this time. Pain radiated through his body from where she’d shot him, and his normally pliant temper was near the snapping point.
The guardsman finished pulling the last arrow from his chest and climbed to his feet. Jule prepared himself, pleased to hear the sound of a car starting in the garage.
The guardsman was done playing with him. The immortal launched himself at Jule, his knives a blur of glinting steel. Jule grunted at the first few blows that fell harder than any mortal could strike. His shoulder didn’t move as it
should, and he switched the sword to his other hand, trusting his instincts to keep his head on his shoulders.
At long last, he heard the sound of a car leaving the garage, and he maneuvered the guardsman away from the garage to ensure the immortal didn’t take off after her. Thankfully, the immortal was more pissed at him than concerned about its prey. A fist caught Jule in the mouth and a kick sent him sprawling. He tasted blood and spit it out, rolling onto his back with a belly laugh. The Watchers would be enjoying this, and so would his brothers, whom he normally beat the shit out of when they sparred.
“Fuck me, I’m not lucky enough to die!” he said.
“I’ll be happy to change your luck,” the immortal snapped and launched at him again. Jule vaulted to his feet and spun before a knife could catch him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the brake lights of the woman’s car as she drove down the driveway. Satisfied, he focused on the immortal and keeping his weakening shoulder moving. He didn’t know if the Watchers would let him die or not, but he was about to find out.
Yully stopped at the end of the driveway and squeezed her eyes closed, tormented by her conscience. Her body was stiff from her father’s blows, her blood racing.
I’m going to do my best to kill him before he kills you.
Jule wasn’t what her father said he should be. He may have wanted to kill her at one point, but he’d just taken an arrow to the chest and calmly told her to run so he could defend her. In the morning, her father really would kill him, and she’d be lucky to escape with another beating.
She twisted in her seat to look back at the figures fighting in the bright motion sensor detection lights of the garage. Jule was knocked off his feet by a hard blow but got back up, beckoning to the other creature with a look of confidence out of place for his bloodied face. She felt he was weakening with the same strange sense that told her where he was. He was a fool if he thought he could fight a creature that didn’t die!
Her heart pounding, she turned the car around and drove back towards the dueling men. Yully kept her gaze on the man Jule battled until his back was to her. She floored the car’s accelerator, closed her eyes, and prayed she hit him.
There was a thump as the car smacked a body, and her eyes flew open. Jule’s opponent was standing in her headlights, staring at her, while Jule’s body rolled to a stop a few feet away.
“Oh, dear, god!” she breathed.
The swordsman lifted a sword off the ground and raised it, charging her. Yully spun out as she shoved her foot to the floor again, wincing when she hit him and drove him into the side of the garage. He flailed for a moment then went still, pinned between the car and the garage.
Yully opened the door and looked around wildly. Jule lay on the ground a short distance away.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” she said, running to him. She dropped beside him and rolled him onto his back. “I’m so sorry!”
To her surprise, he chuckled and then grimaced. His face was bloodied, and one arm was covered in blood from his shoulder wound. He didn’t seem to be bleeding from anywhere else, though she wasn’t sure she hadn’t damaged anything else by running him over.
“You hit me,” he managed at last. He struggled to sit up, and she helped him.
“I thought you were the other guy,” she said, distraught.
“Where is he?”
She pointed. He widened his eyes then narrowed them in an attempt to focus. His opponent was flailing again. Frantic, Yully pulled Jule to his feet and tried to balance him.
“I’m good,” he said. “I can still fight.”
“You’re a bloody mess!” she snapped. She strained under the weight of his body, and they staggered to her car.
“And whose fault is that?” he challenged.
“I could’ve left you!”
“Oh, and not run me over? I think I like that choice better.”
She all but fell with him into the car. The man with the sword was beating it against the hood,, as if trying to chop himself free. Yully shoved Jule fully into the passenger seat of her car and ran to the driver’s side, throwing herself into her seat. Backing the car up, she watched the man with the sword drop to his knees and slowly stand.
She sped away, and they took off up the driveway with the swordsman trailing. The small car fishtailed around a curve, but she kept up the pace until she no longer saw the man in her rearview mirror.
“What was that thing?” she asked, her whole body trembling.
“Immortal bad guy,” he said. “Never thought I’d say this, but I think I need a doctor.”
“He’ll follow us, won’t he?”
“Probably.”
“Why aren’t you more concerned?”
“Sweetheart, I’m sitting in your car bleeding to death. I think I’m doing pretty damn good, considering I would’ve been able to kill him if you hadn’t shot and run me over,” he replied in irritation.
Yully glanced at him. He looked bad. His eyes were glazed and the car seat bloody. She squeezed the steering wheel then reached into her coat pocket for her cell phone. The moment she unlocked the screen to call her father, Jule’s gaze sharpened. He snatched the phone and rolled down the window, tossing it.
“That’s all I need is your father finishing me off,” he muttered.
She almost objected then realized it was futile. Neither of them believed her father would let him live.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Take us somewhere safe, where your father won’t know where to find you.”
She chewed on her lip, thinking hard. Her father kept her on a tight leash; was there anywhere he wouldn’t find her?
“Hello?” Jule prompted. “Somewhere safe? A friend’s house? Preferably if the friend is a doctor?”
“I don’t have any friends,” she said.
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Stop mocking me. I’m so fed up with people making fun of me because I’m different,” she said, frowning.
“That’s what you thought I meant?” He chuckled and then coughed. “You’re beautiful and courageous. I’d have thought you had tons of friends.”
She shot him a look, suspecting he was messing with her. He was serious. Her anger turned to embarrassment.
“You’re getting weaker,” she said, as aware of his condition as she was his warm body. The bond between them was weakening with him.
“Yeah.”
“I think I know a place.”
“Don’t take me to your father.”
“I won’t. I kind of owe you. You saved me. Well, you tried anyway.”
He muttered in response.
“You’re the only one who’s ever tried,” she added.
“Glad I could almost help.”
His head dropped back against the headrest, and she sped up. The familiar path down the coastline passed the Cliffs of Moher and continued for a short distance. She meant what she said; she had no friends, but a long time ago, she’d had one whose family had a summer cottage near the coast. She went there for two summers, until she began turning everything she touched into something else, and her father was forced to pull her out of school at the age of twelve.
Jule began shivering, and she turned up the heat until it was too hot for her to stand. The rain picked up again. Yully reached the turnoff for the cottage and sped as fast as she could through a winding road. It dead-ended at the cottage, surrounded by a stone fence line. She eased into the carport but left the car running.
The cottage was vacant and the windows boarded up for the winter. Yully went to the back door, which she remembered always being open. Even it was locked. She wrapped her hand around the doorknob and turned it from steel into a rag and pushed the door open. She crept in and turned on a light, relieved when it worked.
A pot-bellied stove in the middle of the main room provided the main heat in the two-bedroom room cottage. Wood was stacked beside it, and she turned the book sitting on the cof
fee table into newspaper to burn. She struck fire with the third match and tossed it into the stove. Newspaper crinkled and crackled.
Yully returned to the car. Jule was sweating and shaking. He was huddled forward and didn’t look at her when she opened the car door. He stood, weaved on his feet, and started to fall. She caught him, and they careened into the side of the car before he caught his balance. Jule wrapped his arms around her. He smelled of sweat and blood. His body was burning up.
She maneuvered him into the house, almost dropping him in front of the fire.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said, kneeling beside him and starting to panic.
“You’re gonna have to fix me,” he said, as calm as she was not. “Start with gathering blankets, hot water, a first-aid kit, any sort of bandages they might have. And pliers.”
“For what?”
“So you can pull the arrow out of my shoulder.”
She clamped her mouth shut, unwilling to tell him the sight and scent of blood was already making her want to vomit. She did as he said and ransacked the cabinets until she found a small first-aid kit. It didn’t have the kind of bandages she suspected he’d need for his shoulder, so she turned several towels into thick bandages and added them to the pile.
“Any sort of antibiotic in there?” he asked through chattering teeth as she dumped the contents of her arms next to him.
“I think so,” she said and held up a small syringe. She concentrated on it. When it didn’t morph into something else, she knew it was what he wanted. “Yes, it is.”
“Shoot me up.”
“I have an issue with needles,” she said. “They make me pass out.”
“Stab me with it before you do.”
Yully swallowed hard and steadied herself. She used scissors to cut off his shirt. Blood covered the tattoos of his chest, and she wiped as much of it away as she could. Jule’s eyes were closed and his skin clammy. She finally gripped what was left of the arrow shaft with the pliers.
“This might hurt,” she said.
She pulled. Nothing happened. Yully stood, tightened her grip, and yanked. Jule hissed through his teeth and more blood bubbled up, but the lodged arrow refused to move. Feeling stupid, she touched the arrow and turned it into a string that she pulled free. Blood gushed from the wound. Lightheaded, Yully sat heavily.
“Pressure dressing. Push hard, and shoot me up,” he instructed, though his voice was ragged. “Then you get to sew me back together.”
“If you’d stayed in the basement, this wouldn’t have happened,” she told him.
“And you’d be dead.”
Her eyes watered. She didn’t want to think about it, not when her hands were covered in the blood of her attacker-turned-savior. She did as he said and pressed hard on the arrow wound until the bleeding slowed.
The needle was smaller than she remembered needles being, and she steadied her breathing before plunging it into his arm.
“Still with me?” he asked.
“Barely,” she said. “You still with me?”
“I’m not lucky enough to die,” he said with a faint smile.
“Good,” she said. She was embarrassed by her half-laugh, half-sob that escaped. “I don’t feel as alone when I’m with you. It would be a shame to lose you already.”
He opened his eyes. His gaze was fevered but steady. The sense that had told her where he was intensified within her, as if they were close enough for their souls to touch again. The sensation intrigued her after a lifetime of rejection and isolation.
“Not that I want you around,” she added, not expecting her own words. She looked away and fumbled with the needle and thread she’d found in a sewing kit. “This might hurt.”
Nervous, she stabbed him harder than she intended to, and Jule groaned, closing his eyes. By the time she’d made the second stitch, he was unconscious and she was sick to her stomach. She forced herself to sew the arrow wound the best she could then ran from the room, vomiting in the bathroom.