Child Of Darkness. Jennifer Armintrout

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      Two

      The music thrummed through her veins like a secondary heartbeat, an all-consuming imperative to move among the seething mass of bodies around her. They were all different shades and varying species, not like the uniformly lithe and perfect forms of the Faery races.

      Cerridwen had lost track of the time, and she did not care. She had lost track of Fenrick, too; that was more worrying. But the part of her that cared was enslaved by the part of her that wanted to remain where she was and dance. Fenrick would turn up. She did not want to stay at his side like a mewling kitten.

      Unless someone else was at his side.

      She stood on tiptoe to see above the heads that bobbed in time to the music around her. It was dark; she would not be able to spot him, another degree of darkness in all of the moving shadows.

      The tunnel where they gathered was another of those crisscrossing tunnels that comprised the Underground, holes once made by the Humans above for their great trains to rush through. This one was not decorated with tiled patterns, or arranged like the Great Hall in the Palace. Here, they danced wherever they could find the space, and the music came from loud, Human machines, not tin-sounding whistles and bells. This music was alive.

      Though she was loath to the leave the dancing behind, Cerridwen could not shake the thought that Fenrick might be one of those shadows, in one of those corners, with another. And what will you do if he is? she chided herself. Demand that he turn his attentions to you?

      She shoved the voice of self-doubt away and pushed through the crowd. It was much harder to move in the room if one was not dancing, like pushing one’s hand against a current of water. She reached an edge, the platform where the big trains would have stopped to let Humans on. She came upon it faster than she’d thought she would, and for a dizzying moment realized she could have easily stepped over. She felt her way to the ladder and followed something vaguely mortal—she hoped it was not a Vampire—down to the next level. Beyond the reach of the lights, a bit of a Human train remained, though the tracks had been scavenged by Gypsies and Bio-mechs long ago. There was a door, and crudely constructed steps leading to it, and someone inside.

      She knew, without actually knowing, that she would find Fenrick there. Once up the wobbly set of steps, though, she faltered. Did she knock, or simply barge in, trusting that her bravery and brazenness would impress him as it had in the past?

      If he is with someone else in there, he might not appreciate the intrusion, the doubt crept in again. Before she had time to force it aside, the door popped open, nearly toppling her from the steps. She backed down as Fenrick emerged, his expression angry for the barest of seconds, then pleased and surprised.

      “I’d thought I’d lost you,” he said, the flash of his silver teeth the only indication of his smile in the darkness.

      Cerridwen smiled back, to show she had not taken his disappearance too seriously. “I thought you were trying to lose me.” Movement in the dirty windows of the train caught her eye. He had not been in there alone, nor in a romantic engagement. The movement was accompanied by a muffled shout of voices in unison. “What were you doing?”

      Fenrick came down the steps, his body language easy, but he did not look behind him. “Just chatting with a few old friends.”

      A cry went up from the dance floor above their heads. Not the enthusiastic shout that sometimes came from a group having a good time. The screams of a crowd interrupted by something unexpected, unpleasant.

      “Watch out,” Fenrick said, strangely calm as he pulled her out of the way of a large, furred beast jumping down from the level above. He backed them into the safety of a narrow space between the train car and tunnel wall, even as those inside the train rushed out.

      As they watched, more creatures jumped from the upper level, some landing on their feet and running off down the tunnel, others falling roughly, only to be crushed by the next creature who jumped down. The less-brave partiers swarmed another ladder, and slipped down it in a hurry to get away from whatever pursued.

      “What is it?” Cerridwen whispered, aware, but only fleetingly, that their bodies were startlingly close together in this space, and that he had not let go of her.

      “It could be anything,” he whispered back, his breath stirring her hair. “Wraiths, maybe. Or Demons. But Demons are running from whatever it is…they would fight another Demon.”

      She shivered, from the fear and from the proximity of him.

      And then, the pleasant shivers faded. Shouts, in the Fae language, angry male shouts, drifted to her ears, and soldiers, wearing her mother’s seal, followed the crowd over the edge.

      If not for the confusion of the scene, they might have spotted her, but they pursued the Darklings down the tunnel, away from her hiding place.

      “Lightworlders!” Fenrick rasped vehemently in her ear. “What are those scum doing here?”

      She knew what they were doing. She could not let them find her.

      “Let’s get out of here,” she insisted, trying to move past him, down the tunnel blocked by the train. “Come on!”

      She’d expected him to mock her. “Are you afraid?” she’d thought he’d say. But he did not. He gripped her arm and pulled her, inching their way past the train car, to the open tunnel where they could run. And he pulled his knife, a wicked, curved thing, from under his shirt.

      They ran until they were out of breath, until her legs ached and her wings strained at their binding, as if arguing with her that flying would serve her better. She forced herself onward, until she could no longer stand it, and collapsed to her knees, her breath coming from her in loud, frightened sobs.

      Fenrick knelt at her side, and tossing his knife away, put his arms around her. “It’s all right. We’re safe,” he assured her between panting breaths. “It’s all right.”

      He kissed her hair, held her head to his chest, kept her close to him. All she had to do was catch her breath, and tilt her face up….

      When she did, he kissed her, hard and furious, as if he could expel all her fear and exertion of their flight by channeling it into himself. And she melted under his mouth, his tongue. Melted into him.

      She pushed her hands under his shirt, found the blue-black skin beneath warm under her fingers.

      “You’re shaking,” he said against her mouth, and he reached for the ties of her shirt.

      She caught his hands, her heart thumping hard. “Did you hear that?”

      “I didn’t hear anything.” He leaned to kiss her again, trying to shrug aside her hands, but she resisted him and climbed to her feet warily.

      Down the tunnel, where a shaft of light from another, intersecting route pierced the darkness, something moved. Cerridwen thought of Wraiths and the destruction they could wreak.

      “What are you afraid of?” Fenrick asked, an edge of impatience in his voice.

      It was not a Wraith. It bobbed as it moved, as though it were walking. The Wraiths glided above the ground…. At least, that was what she had heard.

      “I am not afraid of anything,” she СКАЧАТЬ