Angel's Curse (9 page)

David’s parents had killed their own grandchild and he couldn’t do a thing about it. He couldn’t
tell them
what they’d done. He stopped dancing with me after that and we never had sex again. I think he felt guilty that because of him I’d never have children of my own …

I opened my eyes, in the here and now, and the room spun, as it had once done when I was fourteen and a half. I thought I was going to vomit, but my stomach remained a rock, unyielding. I closed my eyes again and felt something warm brush the hair away from my eyes.

“Helena, can you hear me?”

It wasn’t the emergency room doctor and it wasn’t Maddy. If the fog lifted I might recognise the voice, but it enveloped me again.

There was darkness, nothing but darkness. Was this what it was like when you died? No sights, sounds or smells? Empty, devoid of everything? Lonely?

“Helena, can you hear me?” the voice called out again.

How long have I been swimming in the darkness?
I thought to myself.

The darkness covered me like a shroud and I felt safe. Nothing can touch you when you can’t feel.

“Helena,” the voice persisted.

“Go away.”
Did I say that in my head or out loud?

I was back in the darkness, floating peacefully.

Blinding light, joy and bliss flooded my body. I drew in a sharp breath. After the nothing of the darkness the sensation overload was a shock. My body convulsed, like I was having a seizure, and I couldn’t control it. I screamed out. This time I knew the noise was not in my head. It came from my throat, raw and primal.

My body flopped down onto the bed, like a rag doll tossed aside, then I was pulled closer again, in a strong grip. I felt arms envelope me, hands rubbing my back and warm breath in my ear, coming in waves, with comforting and reassuring words.

“Helena, you’re okay now. Everything will be okay. I’m here and I won’t leave. I’ll never leave. You can open your eyes now.”

I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want the room to spin.

“Danny?” I whispered, unsure if it was my voice I was hearing. It sounded different, hoarse, liked I’d been doing a lot of screaming.

“I’m here, Helena,” he whispered in my ear.

“Where am I?”

“You’re at the cottage.”

“I’m not dead then?”

He chuckled and lay me down again, kissing my eyes to encourage me to open them. I let a little light in, then opened them a bit wider. The light was still bright, but the room was not spinning.

“No, you’re very much alive. You were in the grip of a raging fever.”

Danny brushed my cheek tenderly with his fingers. They felt warm once again.

“When you didn’t heal yourself and my blood didn’t work, I resorted to prayer. It was the only thing I
could
do. I thought I was going to lose you.”

“What happened to me?” I couldn’t remember a thing.

“You’ve been reckless. Time and again you’ve been reckless. You’ll never listen.”

Danny wasn’t scolding me, he was stating a simple fact. He was so overjoyed that I’d pulled through he didn’t want to lecture me or tell me off, but he couldn’t resist one little dig.

“I wish you’d lose that pig-headed streak of yours!”

“That’s why you love me,” I laughed weakly.

“That’s
one
of the reasons I love you,” he chuckled. “Do you remember the dark shapes in the temple?”

“No.”

“For now it doesn’t matter,” Danny said, taking my hand in his and kissing the palm. “It’ll come back to you.”

I closed my eyes again and Danny gently squeezed my hand.

“Did I ever tell you how I got the scar near my hip?” he asked.

“No, though the memory of it might be floating around in my head somewhere.”

“Not that one,” Danny said.

Was Danny deliberately keeping
some
memories from me, apart from the cited information overload? I was curious as to why he’d want to talk about this one now, and struggled to sit up. I felt so weak. He leaned me forward and slid a couple more pillows behind my back before resting me on them.

“Your colour looks so much better today,” he said.

“How long was I out for?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes,” I asked impatiently. Why would I ask if I didn’t want to know?

“Six weeks, three days, four hours and twenty-eight minutes.”

Wow! That was a long time. No wonder I felt so weak.

“You forgot the seconds,” I laughed weakly, another failed attempt at humour.

“Seven,” he replied.

“I’d probably have been dead by now if I were mortal.”

“You almost
did
die. More than once I thought I’d lost you. Your heart would stop beating, only for a second or so, then it would start again and the screaming begin.”

“I did a lot of screaming, did I?” That explained the hoarseness of my voice.

“More than I would have thought was humanly possible,” Danny conceded. It must have been a lot then.

I wriggled my hand free of his and tapped his stomach. It was the closest I could get to his hip.

“You were going to tell me about your scar.”

He grabbed my hand and kissed the palm again before clasping it to his cheek.

“The wound was from a fight with a demon. It wasn’t even a fight really. I was caught off guard and the knife was coated in demon’s blood.”

“Was it Amy?” I asked.

He nodded. “We were sitting on the grass, talking, but it got us nowhere. She lashed out as I stood up to leave. I don’t think she was expecting me to stand up. If I’d been seated the blade would have pierced my lungs, if not my heart. Had she held me down and left the blade there I wouldn’t have been able to heal myself. I would’ve died.” He shrugged his shoulders. “As it was she nicked the area below my hip and before I could stop myself she was engulfed in angel fire.”

“I’m sorry, Danny.”

“You, Helena,” he said cheerfully — a little too cheerfully, “have nothing to be sorry about, apart from nearly getting yourself killed.”

I shook my head gently. “I don’t understand.”

“Demon’s blood can be fatal. When it was taking so long for you to recover I thought you’d succumb.”

Demon’s blood — was that what happened to me? I remembered pain in my back, and the throwing stars. Yes, it was beginning to come back to me now. Was that why the throwing stars had hurt so much, because they were coated in demon’s blood?

“But you survived,” I replied.

“Yes, and I too was lucky. It wasn’t a deep wound, not near any vital organs. The only thing I couldn’t heal was the scar. It’s a permanent part of me now. Even so, I was delirious for near on a week.”

“So I’ll be scarred?” I asked.

“Yes, though the wounds were very neat and narrow. They should be pretty, as far as scars go.”

“Can I see?”

“If you can walk I’ll help you to the bathroom and you can see the damage for yourself, before bathing.” He wrinkled his nose and gave me a half smile. “You smell a little
unusual.
”

“Didn’t you give me sponge baths while I was unconscious?”

“What’s a sponge bath?” Danny asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. I think I can walk.”

Danny pulled back the covers for me and I swung my legs over the side of the bed. They were obviously still asleep, as the familiar sensation of pins and needles travelled up and down my legs in waves. When my feet touched the ground, the sensation was doubled. I sat on the edge of the bed for a few minutes, flexing my toes and rubbing my calves.

“What’s wrong?” Danny asked.

“Pins and needles. I must’ve been in the one position for too long.”

Danny looked at my legs and gently felt the entire length of one with his hands.

“I don’t feel anything,” he said, perplexed.

“Don’t angels ever get numbness in their limbs, or a strange tingling if they’ve been in the one spot too long?”

“No.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Well mortals do. I guess that’s another part of my mortality I retained.”

I tapped my feet on the ground. When the sensation had almost passed I pushed down on the bed with my hands, for support when I stood up.
So far so good,
I thought. I moved one foot then the other. It felt like I was moving someone else’s legs. They were slow and sluggish, not like my legs at all.

Danny pulled my arm around his shoulder and I leaned into him for support. Together we shuffled to the bathroom at an excruciatingly slow pace.

The bath was full of hot, soapy water that was steaming up the room. I pulled the nightgown over my head. Danny drew in a sharp breath. His fingers reached out to touch my back gently.

“Hey, that tickles,” I complained, looking back over my shoulder, the nightgown still on my arms. “It’s not fair of you to take advantage of a girl in her weakened state.”

“No, it’s not that,” Danny said, wonder in his voice. “It’s your back. The scars are gone.”

He turned me around until I faced the mirror over the hand basin and held a small mirror behind me, so that I could see my back reflected in the mirror. He touched the area between my shoulder blades where the throwing stars had lodged.

“There is absolutely no trace of an injury at all. When I removed the bandage last week, it was healed enough that I didn’t need to re-dress you, yet they were still red and raw, like new scars always are.” He leaned forward and kissed my back. “Most remarkable indeed!”

“Cut it out Danny,” I laughed softly. “I don’t have the strength for that.”

He chuckled. “I don’t
always
have sex on the brain. Mind you, it has been over six weeks …”

“Cheeky,” I replied. “I’m going to need to eat something soon, to regain my strength.”

“Not today,” Danny said firmly. “Today you rest. Tomorrow we’ll go on a hunt.
You
need someone to watch your back.”

“But it’s not safe for you,” I protested.

“I can still fight,” Danny said. “That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. Besides, they know we’re still alive now.”

“They know I’m alive,” I corrected him. “They still think you’re dead.”

“What have you been up to, Helena?” he asked suspiciously, narrowing his eyes and giving me a
you’ve-been-up-to-no-good
look.

I smiled at him, a wicked glint in my eyes. “It seems I’m not limited to having to tell the truth at all times. A few white lies, a few tears, and those dumb vampires will believe anything! Apparently you’re dead, in case you didn’t know.”

“In the bath,
now
. I want to scrub that smell off you. We’ll talk about hunting tomorrow morning.”

There was no point in arguing. Danny could be just as pig-headed as me when he wanted to, when he thought it was absolutely necessary. Most of the time I won, but there were the occasional things he would not relent on, and this seemed to be one of them.

I didn’t tell Danny about my dreams while I’d been out of it. He would have already known when he brought me around, by placing a hand on my forehead and a hand over my heart. My memories would have flooded into him when he called me back from the darkness.

The hot bath warmed me through and I didn’t feel as weak as I had only an hour before. Danny handed me the soap and I washed myself while he leaned forward against the bath, his arms on the side and his head on his hands. He told me about the different stages of fever and delirium I’d gone through, the things I’d called out, how long I’d screamed, how long I’d cried and how he had tried time and again to bring me back.

Danny helped me out of the bath — I was worried I might slip — and after I’d dried and dressed I walked to the living area unassisted. I could feel Danny’s eyes piercing my back as I walked over to the couch and sat down. He sat next to me and looked into my face as if he was trying to find something hidden there.

“Something’s bothering you,” I said.

“You’re clean, but you still smell
unusual,
” he said.

“I do? I can’t tell.” I shrugged my shoulders. “My nose still thinks I’m mortal.”

“Is it possible you’ve subconsciously altered your scent?”

“I guess so.”

I looked inwards and my eyes widened as I found not the five genetic sequences I had come to expect, but six!

“What do you see?” Danny asked, knowing from the look on my face I’d found something.

“Just hang on a sec, I need to make some changes.”

The new code had slightly changed my combined code, the code that gave me the scent Danny had come to recognise as me. I altered the code sets until the scent for the new and unfamiliar one was dominant. Danny was up in a flash, standing on the other side of the room.