Clicking her fingers in front of my face, Alex flicked my nose and I recoiled. She smirked, happy to have broken into my down time. "You wanna end up like the people who lost their lives for nothing?"
"Wouldn't call marching up to the closest demon and trying to kill it, nothing," I said. Chewing my bottom lip, I cautioned myself to be careful. "I ran that's all. I just ran."
"Thinking on it, I don't believe you," Ro said.
I shrugged. I couldn't tell them, it was too big.
Alex placed her palms on the table. My eyes darted from hers to the small runes that decorated the back of her hands. "The Wall keeps us safe. It keeps those demons out and us humans in. That's the way it be, Rae. If a vampire or goblin were to lay hands on you-" She shuddered, her eyes becoming hollow with visions of death and gore from years past. "Your life here means something. Don't throw it away."
"The Rupture happened lifetime's ago. Who knows what it's like out there?" I leaned forward and lowered my voice to match hers. "They may have changed, evolved." I thought of Breandan and Tomas. "Y'know, I don't think he Sect have been honest about what they're like."
"Evolved? Demons be animals, dangerous animals driven by need, nothing more." She took a deep breath. "The Doctrine of the Sect is law. Clerics keep the law, and Doctrine says going beyond the Wall is forbidden. The rules keep us safe." She visibly relaxed as she said the words.
Familiar frustration bubbled inside me at her lack of curiosity. "What if that's not how it's supposed to- Forget it," I said and ducked my head. I felt her eyes on my face and I carefully kept it blank, my gaze cast down to the floor.
I couldn't force her to change her mind in a minute, nor did I want to. She was the one making sense and thinking clearly. I was the one making waves, and allowing dangerous beings to run riot unchecked and unopposed.
A voice said close to my ear, "Am I to keep the vampire in your wardrobe a secret?"
I jerked up and Devlin leaned back, grinning impishly. I swear, if I had not spent a lifetime controlling my face and emotions, I probably would have launched myself at him shrieking. Ro had wandered off across the room, and I hadn't seen Devlin sidle up, too lost in my thoughts. How the hell did he find out? He must have seen Tomas carrying me across the Temple, but Tomas was sure we would be moving to fast to be seen. Panicked, I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I didn't know what to say. Oh Gods. Devlin gazed at me, green eyes clear and sharp. I decided the best plan was to deny it. To call him deluded or whatever I had to get him off my back. It was his word against mine, and though I was considered freaky, the mere suggestion I had a vampire in a wardrobe was just crazy. But then hadn't my behavior had been somewhat suspect? I glanced around. Devlin coming over to talk to me captured the attention of the entire class, but no one seemed overly alarmed.
"What?" I said in a perfection imitation of cluelessness, but I knew my face was white as snow and my voice brittle.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anybody. What fun would that be?"
He was still leaning close over me, speaking right into my ear so no one else could here. To the casual observer it may have looked like he whispered sweet nothings in my ear. My heart sunk. What did he have in mind? Blackmail?
"Why are you doing this?" I asked in a low voice. "Just go away."
I sank further into my seat and turned my head away slightly, clearly giving the message I didn't want to talk anymore. Childish tactics, but confrontation didn't seem to work, maybe ignoring him would. He had that amused smirk that made his face look smug and I found myself detesting his presence. There was something decidedly off about him, and the perfection of his face was making me sick.
He turned to Alex, narrowed his eyes and moved his lips without sound. Maybe if I acted bored of this theatrics he would get the message and leave. I watched him with cool detachment.
He spoke to me whilst keeping his gaze on her, "This is a female of strength. You choose your friends well." His fingers, seemingly infused with light, brushed her check.
I didn't like that and I smacked his had away. Alex started, as if coming to from a trance and sent me a baffled look.
"Who's the boy outside?" Ro said from across the class.
I shot up. Devlin backed away a pace, as if I was suddenly too close for comfort. I excused myself and walked speedily to Ro's side, all the while telling myself the fairy-boy I'd met that morning would never dare. He would know he could not show up here at Temple, and parade around half naked, and glowing. I reached the window and made a strangled noise. Breandan. At least he'd had the good sense to glamour himself human. His eyes flicked from me to behind me, and then he beckoned to me.
"Rae, you know him?" Ro asked and eyed me head to toe. A slow smile spread across his face, and the green beads he'd tied into the end of his cornrow plaits clicked together as he laughed. "You be keeping secrets, eh?"
"Yes," I said, took a step backwards. "I mean I don't know" In truth I was not surprised Breandan was there. I just wondered how long he intended to follow me and if his ultimate goal was to have me strung up Outside by the Clerics.
Breandan waved at me, impatient this time.
"He seems to know you." Ro ran his tongue over his top teeth. "If you don't want him, I'll take him."
Breandan stood on the grass with his hands loose by his sides and somehow, through the rain, I saw the storm in his eyes threatening to drown me. He didn't beckon to me again, but I knew he wanted me to go to him. Afraid of the hot, fluttery feeling spreading through my limbs, I shook my head hoping he got the message. This was not okay. He could not come here and expect me to run off with him into the forest like a lunatic.
His head drooped then snapped up, his gaze directed over my shoulder.
"Rae, you right?" Alex asked from beside me. "What's going on?" Then she spotted Breandan scowling at me. "That's him? The boy from this morning?"
A few other Disciples got up out their desks and came over to look out the window at whatever it was we were looking at. I took a few steps back until I bumped into someone standing behind me. Devlin stood in my way and looked furious. What was his problem? He was the one on my back, not the other way round. Then his shoulders started to shake and I realized he was laughing. He looked straight at me and smiled. No. Not a smile, but a snigger filled with wicked delight. The intensity of his stare boldly probed mine, and the chill that slithered down my spine had me wound to near breaking.
When I looked back round Breandan's entire body tensed, and just like that, with one last glance at me he turned and darted away. A sense of relief was replaced by a fiercer surge of regret. The moment he winked out of sight the longing to see and feel him, pressed upon my consciousness. The emotion was like a splinter burrowed beneath the skin, determined to settle in for the long haul.
I thought then about telling a Cleric, Breandan, a demon from beyond the Wall, could get onto the Temple grounds. Why was I was covering for some boy I barely knew? Yes, he'd told me I was a demon, but what if that had been a lie. I looked pretty damn human to my eyes. Yes, I'd done some demon stuff, but I could be a witch. The thought made me very nervous. All witches were bad, forces of evil. Did I really want to wish to be one? My mind wandered back to Breandan, the boy who made me warm and tingly when I thought about him. And that is why I resolved to keep my mouth firmly shut. That and the fact I was hiding one of the scariest of demonkind in my wardrobe.