Page 63 of Burying Venus
Maldred lay pale and statuesque, frailer than a man who’d lived one hundred years. He quivered in Dermot’s arms as he turned skeletal, skin almost transparent.
Bile spilled into Dermot’s mouth as he observed Maldred’s lips part and reveal fangs fit to devour a child. Upon the realisation that he’d allowed a monster to tempt him into bed, he near vomited.
‘You called me an angel once,’ Maldred said.
His sword struck true, and with all the strength his shaking hands could muster, he pushed Maldred forward, driving the blade deeper until the iron’s tip broke through his back. To a cacophony of horror from the faeries, Dermot thrust him onto the earth and moved to get on top. All that could be seen of the sword was the hilt secure in Maldred’s chest.
Maldred stared imploringly up at Dermot, still breathing. He did not have the strength to move or speak but he would not die.
The position resembling their trysts all too well, Dermot stood. Maldred had been bested twice now. Grimacing as he observed the blood on his clothes, he turned to Aubrey. The boy was surrounded by ash.
‘The others…’ Dermot began as Maldred sobbed.
‘They vanished,’ Aubrey said. He shivered as Dermot walked towards him, arms curled protectively around his knees.
Extending a hand, Dermot said, ‘Let’s go. What’s done is done.’
Aubrey’s palm fitted neatly into his own. The agreement with Fand was concluded.
He glimpsed Maldred caught in a perpetual loop, his soft skin healing only for the wound to burst back open. Then, he recalled the village. Fire stoked with the bodies of his kinsmen, people put to the flame with his name on their lips, and his own mother in danger.
Tightening his grip on Aubrey, Dermot raced towards the portal. It was his hope that word reached Fand, that she still held power that would stretch to the village. Mud squelched beneath them, screeches that might’ve been Maldred’s in the wind.
‘Dermot!’ Aubrey said. ‘What’s this? A trick?’
‘No,’ Dermot said, watching the scene. ‘Maldred’s last gift to us.’
He couldn’t bear to look. People being thrown onto fire replayed in his mind, Robert’s sterling force laughing all the while. He could not imagine what had befallen his mother, knowing her to be brazen enough to challenge any man. Tristan’s blood ran hotter than his kin; he was a simple sadist, one thoroughly revealed by Maldred’s potion.
‘Tristan!’ Aubrey gasped. ‘He’s at your village, the place is on fire! I recognise the same men who stood outside my room. Dermot, Dermot.’ The boy was in tears.
‘I caused this,’ Dermot admitted. ‘They’re the people I grew up with. My mother is there. As soon as we step through that gate, I must set things right, and you need to run. Hide in the forest nearby, let no one see. Else Tristan will take you back to Robert, and I don’t know what will happen then.’
‘But what about you?’ Aubrey cried. ‘They’re wearing armour, they have swords! Tristan’s had tutors! You’ll die!’
Dermot brought Aubrey into his arms as they stood against the portal, so close that the warmth of fire tickled his skin. Shaking his head, he said, ‘I can’t leave them.’
Then, taking him by the shoulders, Dermot said, ‘Run towards the forest as soon as we get there.’
Aubrey stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, saying nothing.
‘You’ll promise, won’t you?’ Dermot said. They still stood in Maldred’s realm, grass rotting beneath their feet.
Shifting his shoulders forward in a shrug, Aubrey murmured, ‘I suppose. But…’
They hadn’t time for pleasantries. As soon as Aubrey’s lips formed the words, Dermot threw them both into the portal.
Chapter Fourteen
At first, he knew nothing but smoke. It hit when they arrived, boots blackened by the ethereal.
‘Go!’ Dermot hissed, shoving Aubrey harder than he intended. The boy flinched, and Dermot cursed himself. He must’ve looked more frightening than anything they’d faced. Aubrey sped away so quickly, Dermot feared he’d make for Tristan rather than the trees.
Hot flecks of ash struck him as he stepped into the fray. The village burnt because of him. His childhood nightmare, the shadow hanging over his life, finally quelled.
At last, he saw the massacre. Doors had been forced open, rooftops already ablaze, and his neighbours were in the midst of being slaughtered. He turned sharply to the side, the heel of his shoe hitting something hard. Heedlessly, he glanced down and found a corpse at his feet, half charred by flame.
Startled into action, Dermot ran. The dead man whose shoulder caught his foot had tormented him in childhood. He recalled their remarks, the terror he’d endured daily at their hands, the tears that came morning and night. Despite that, his childhood was dark and irretrievable, and he’d marvelled when Will recounted tales of his own. Dermot remembered naught but fear. But the boys who’d tormented him were dead, lying at his feet while he lived, new horrors come to kill the old.