***
“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.
“Just one night. Do you need anything?” Kian asked, looking at him.
“First, water. Second, the demon—you saw it?”
“The big dead mutt?”
“Yes. I need you to burn the carcass.”
Kian stared at Bo for a minute before taking a lighter from his pocket and heading out to do as Bo had asked.
The next few days were slow. Kian took care of Bo as fever struck, cleaning the cabin of his messes and changing the bandages on his wounds. Half of the time Bo was asleep. Still, he was proud of Kian, who never complained even once.
At last, one morning when Bo awakened, he found his fever broken. He sat up in bed, looking over at Kian, who’d fallen asleep at the table. Bo shook his head, but smiled. He got up and draped his cloak over the boy’s shoulders. Then he made breakfast.
Eventually Kian awakened—just in time to eat. Bo put a plate of meat and berries in front of him, but Kian only stared at him. “Are you sure you should be moving?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Bo replied, sitting in Ryan’s chair. “I heal quickly. Eat your breakfast.”
Kian glanced down at the plate made of polished wood, then up and around the cabin. It was practically falling apart, with cracks in the walls and holes in the roof that led to leaks that pooled on the floor. “Why are you living here?” Kian asked.
Bo noticed now how deep the boy’s voice had become. “Bec
ause there’s no place else for me to be,” Bo replied, biting into his bit of venison.
“You could live with me and Ma, I’m sure,” Kian said, his brown eyes fixed on Bo.
“Kian, that would be a disaster waiting to happen,” Bo sighed, leaning back in his chair and bringing out his left hand. “Remember?” Kian looked down at his plate. He popped a blackberry into his mouth, furrowing his brow in thought.
“What about if we at least repaired this place?” he suggested, swallowing.
“I don’t know that I’d bother. I only have about twenty years left in this place at the maximum,” Bo said.
“What? Why?” Kian asked, his eyes wide. “You aren’t leaving, are you?”
“Probably then.”
“What about me?”
“Well,” Bo said, “we’ll see.”
Kian kept his gaze on Bo a moment longer before looking back around the cabin. “Twenty years is a long time, though.”
“Shorter than you might think.”
At that, Kian returned his gaze to Bo. “Bo,” he started, his voice wary, “how old are you?”
Bo sighed. “Oh, about six hundred and fifty-four. Roughly. Honestly, I’m not sure that I should even bother keeping track but I do.”
Kian simply blinked at him for a moment, stunned.
“I’m old, I know.”
“Ancient would be a better word for it,” Kian replied. He quickly put another berry in his mouth as Bo glared at him flatly.