Boelik (19 page)

“
What is it?” Ryan asked as
they continued walking.

“
I’ll be gone the next
couple of days. A demon’s popped up a little too close to here for
comfort.” The three had stopped walking altogether.

“
You’re going to eliminate
it?”

“
Of course. Like I said,
I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

Ryan nodded, but Kian looked reluctant to let
Bo go. “But what if you don’t come back?”

Bo gave him a comforting half-smile.
Ryan must have told him stories.
“I
promise. I’m a good fighter; I’ll be back. You couldn’t stop me
from coming back here with a thousand demons.” When the boy still
looked unsure, Bo stepped up and put his right hand on Kian’s
shoulder and showed him his left. “See this?”

“
Yeah?”

“
This was promised to me by
my parents as soon as they decided to birth me. What came with it
was the will and the strength to protect the ones I love, to come
back to them at the end of the day. Even though, because of it, I
haven’t had many I loved, not many to protect. But I will protect
you. Understand?”

Kian nodded.

“
Good.” Bo hid his hand
back under his cloak and removed his other from Kian’s shoulder,
taking a moment to ruffle his hair. “I’ll be back in a few days,”
he repeated. “I’ll separate from you here,” he said to Ryan,
turning his back on them and heading back toward his
home.

After a few days, Bo was back. The demon
hadn’t been a large problem; Bo had eliminated it. It had even had
an overpowering stench that allowed him to track it easily. Bo lay
on his bed when he got home as the day was ending. He sniffed the
air and wistfully imagined Ryan’s scent was still there. When it
wasn’t, though, he sank into an exhausted sleep.

It was evening when he awakened again, and he
headed off to meet with the Quirkes. Since it was later than
normal, he leapt into the trees and hopped from branch to branch
toward the training area. Both bucks were there and tangling with
each other with their large racks. Bo sat in the trees and watched
as Ryan charged his son down.

Kian fumbled back to his feet and charged
back, catching Ryan in the chest. “There you are,” Bo whispered.
Ryan stumbled back and happened to glance up at Bo, Kian following
his gaze. Kian bleated happily upon spotting him, rearing onto his
hind legs for a moment. Ryan looked at his son and began to charge
him, and Bo called out, “Pay attention!”

Kian turned to his father just in time to
lower his head and tangle their antlers. The two bleated at each
other, and Ryan soon overpowered Kian. They untangled, and Kian
bleated something at Ryan, who shook his head with a stomp of his
hoof before gesturing an excused leave with a wave of his large
head.

Kian trotted back underneath Bo and changed
back to his human self. Bo self-consciously turned his eyes
upwards. “Bo!” Kian called below him, his voice light and happy.
“You’re back!”

“
You’re naked,” Bo
replied.

“
Huh? Oh, sorry!” Bo heard
shuffling below him before Kian called up, “Okay, I’m
decent!”

“
Good,” Bo replied, looking
down again. Kian beamed up at him. “And I hope you’ve learned not
to get distracted.”

Kian grinned wider.

“
What, did you miss me that
much?”

“
Yes,” Kian
replied.

Bo gave him an amused smile.
Well, I missed you too.

“
Well then, maybe you’d
like to train with me the rest of the night. Ryan?” Bo turned to
the buck for permission.

Ryan looked up at him before dipping his head
and moving over to his son. He snorted at him.

“
You’re leaving? All right,
one second,” Kian said, putting Ryan’s clothes in his antlers. Bo
watched as he left.

“
You can understand
him?”

Kian glanced up at him and nodded. “Yeah, I
can. So, how are we training?”

“
Human, hand-to-hand.
You’ve got enough deer training from your father—let’s see
something in your human skin,” Bo said, dropping down. Kian nodded.
“Now, let’s start.”

***

The days passed, and life became a habit. Bo
would go hunting or walking throughout the day, come back and train
with Kian and Ryan, then go home and finish the day. Once in a
while he would have a demon to deal with, as Dayo was right; they
were multiplying. Too much like rabbits, in Bo’s opinion. And much
less edible.

It was three years before Bo had another
‘assignment’. Half-demons, unlike normal demons, hadn’t been
multiplying much at all. In fact, it seemed that the more demons
there were, the fewer half-demons there were. Bo wasn’t sure if it
was because demons would just mate with other demons or if other
demons—or humans—would kill the offspring. In any case, it made
Bo’s life generally easier.

As Bo received the assignment, he alerted the
Quirkes of his upcoming leave. “How long will you be gone?” Kian
asked. He’d grown tall—he was already at Bo’s height.

“
Oh, I don’t know. It
depends. Sometimes it’s a year—sometimes five.”

“
Five years?” Kian asked,
his face sullen.

Bo nodded. “Don’t look so sad,” he said.
“It’s unfitting. I promise, I’ll be back. And I doubt it will take
five years.”

“
Well, be back soon,” Ryan
said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Kian’s learning a lot from
you, and I’m not very good at hand-to-hand combat myself. You’re
the only other teacher around.”

Bo looked at Ryan’s mismatched eyes. “Don’t
worry.” Then, with a small smirk, he added, “And if you’re so bad
at it, maybe you should have Kian teach you what he’s learned.”

“
Maybe I should,” Ryan
replied, grinning back at him as he pulled his hand
away.

“
In any case,” Bo said,
getting back on topic, “I’ll be leaving now.” He shook hands with
Ryan and Kian before beginning to walk away. But Kian couldn’t seem
to hold back any longer and came up behind Bo. And when Bo turned
around, Kian gave him a large hug.

“
Okay,” Bo said, embracing
him in return. “Come on, you pile of mush. I have to leave.” Kian
separated from him to watch him go with soft brown eyes that
threatened to overflow.

Bo was back at his cabin in a matter of a few
moments. He gathered his things, staring for a moment at Ryan’s hat
on the chair before heading to where Dayo waited in the field. Then
he left for his newest assignment.

***

“
Damn it!” Bo cried as a
demon dog bit into his arm, his voice drowned out by the drumming
of heavy rain. “Get off me, you stupid mutt!” Bo had just gotten
back to Ireland after two years, and he found a demon squatting in
his house. It leapt at him as soon as he opened the
door.

How
it had gotten in
there in the first place, Bo was sure he could answer—the cabin was
beginning to fall apart after two hundred years of occupation and
desertion, after all. Why it was there, he had no idea. No one came
around the cabin, and there weren’t many travelers to feast on in
general. Nonetheless, Bo and this demon dog were having it out on
the ground, rolling in the mud. The mutt with five toes and very
sharp claws on each paw had Bo pinned to the ground, its ugly,
stout muzzle gripping Bo’s left arm by the shoulder. Its huge
canine teeth sank into his flesh like it was nothing, eyes shining
like hungry coals.

“
I
said,
get
off
!” Bo yelled,
using his other hand to jab his thumb in the beast’s eye. It
howled, and Bo managed to jam his other thumb into the opposite
eye. The mutt scrabbled backwards, tripping over itself to escape.
“I don’t think so,” Bo snarled, raking his claws across its
belly.

The beast fell over with a scream as its
lifeblood poured onto the ground, and Bo finished it off. He got a
good look at it then, even in the dim light. It was like a mastiff
with much larger canines and a larger body, and it had those
strange toes. Its legs erupted in erratic scales. Bo reached out to
grab the beast when his shoulder started to burn. Wincing, he
covered the wound where he had been bitten, the bloody fur slick
under his hand.

“
I’m a fool,” he said
through gritted teeth, staring at the beast’s strange canines.
Every beat of his heart seemed to pulse fire through his veins. “I
am a fool,” he repeated, heading toward town. He left the
serpent-fanged mutt where it lay.

As Bo walked to the village, he cursed
himself for paying so little attention. He had been in such a glad
hurry to get back that he had been careless. “How the hell did I
live six hundred years like this?” With each step he took, his body
felt like it was going to erupt in flames, and he struggled to take
another. “You can’t even beat
this
without
help, fool. Better hope the Quirkes haven’t stopped their training
sessions or you’re a dead man.” Though he had to admit…the idea had
some appeal to him.

Of course, he remembered how sad Kian was to
see him go. And he remembered his first conversation with Dayo. His
memories were what kept him determined to get to the village, to
get help. Not to die.

But he didn’t make it there. Bo collapsed on
the road, just within sight of the forest’s edge. The rain stuck
his clothes to him and plastered his hair to his face as he tried
to crawl forward with his good arm. “Get up,” he hissed through
gritted teeth. “Get up, get up, get
up
!”

He managed to get to his feet for a moment,
but soon collapsed again. “You’re almost there,” he pleaded with
himself, gazing with desperate eyes at the edge of the forest,
blinking the rain from his eyes. He could hear the town, just out
of sight. “Almost…”

The venom was paralyzing him in pain. Alone,
it wasn’t enough to kill him; he had too much demon in himself for
that. However, he had no clue how long it would last or how sick it
would make him as he tried to fight it off. He might just starve to
death before he beat it. “Should have at least died in your own
house,” he chastised himself in a murmur, managing to curl himself
into a ball before lapsing into unconsciousness.

Bo wasn’t sure how long it had been when he
awakened. “Bo!” came a voice. Someone was shaking him.

“
Ryan?” Bo whispered. He
was parched and burning.

“
Kian!” the voice
replied.

“
Kian?” Bo said, his gaze
fuzzy as he peered up at the face with brown eyes. It was still
raining, but it was darker now.

“
Bo, are you all
right?”

“
I think…” Bo began before
trying to get up. His limbs wouldn’t take his weight. “I can’t get
up,” he admitted. “Demon.” His stomach rolled.

“
Let me help you,” Kian
said, putting Bo’s left arm over his head and putting his own
underneath Bo’s right. He lifted him with ease, and Bo realized
that Kian was taller than he was. If he hadn’t been in pain, he
might have laughed.

“
Bad idea,” Bo replied,
releasing that day’s meals. “Sorry,” he grunted.

“
It’s fine,” Kian replied,
turning around.

“
Take me back along the
path,” Bo said.

“
But the
doctor—”

“
Can do as much as you can,
and is probably a human. Take me back.”

Kian tried to do as he was told, but Bo
stumbled. So Kian picked him up in both arms just as Bo had once
done with him and followed his rasped directions. Soon, Bo was in
the cabin trying not to writhe as the venom worked.

Kian looked worried. “What do I do?”

“
You wait with me while my
body kills the venom,” Bo replied through clenched teeth, trying to
sound calm. “Meanwhile, help me wrap this arm.”

Kian rummaged around for bandages and,
finding them, gently did as he was told. “How long will you be
paralyzed?” he asked.

“
Well, the paralysis part
seems to be over already,” Bo hissed as another wave of pain hit
him. “Now it’s just in my system and moving through.”

“
Will you be all right?”
Kian asked.

“
Not a clue. I’ll probably
be ill a few days.” He stifled a groan as his stomach lurched. “At
least.”

“
I’ll stay with you,
then.”

“
Thank you, Kian. But you
should at least tell your father.”

Kian looked unsure for a moment before
replying. “Bo, my father’s dead.”

“
What?” Bo demanded,
sitting up. He immediately regretted that, retching up the remains
of what was in his stomach and wincing in pain at both actions. His
body fluxed between fire and ice as a fever was emerging to take
care of the demon’s little gift.

“
He died last month,” Kian
said, stepping over the pile on the floor and gently pushing Bo
back down.

“
I’m sorry,” Bo
said.

“
You didn’t
know.”

“
What happened?”

“
He got ill.”

Bo regretted his earlier choice of words. “At
least tell your mother.”

“
Not until you’re
resting.”

Bo sighed, wincing as pain pulsed through him
again. Deep breaths were a no-no. But for Kian, he let sleep
overtake him.

When he woke, Bo found Kian sitting at the
table, staring out the only window Bo had put in the cabin, after
Ryan had gone. It was about mid-afternoon. “How long?” he asked,
his voice rasping.