Fire Angels

Chapter 7 Part 1 Confrontation with Shad

I apologize for my week of no posting.  I did 11 straight days of BBQing and it was long and tiring and I lost track of the rest of my life.  The things we do for money. 

Back on deck now!  Thanks very much for reading me and please vote.  It helps me find more readers.  

Chapter 7

Parrus spent most of the night sitting outside Shad's door. In the end it might just as well have been me after all, for though I was exhausted, I did not take the sleeping draught Silva offered me in case Parrus should need me in the night. As a result every time I drifted off the darkness behind my eyes was filled with those hungry stone faces and my ears rang with screaming and I would start awake again, my heart fluttering like a bird. In between such dreams, I lay there in the darkness, wondering if I was being a fool for suspecting Shad and tempted to call Parrus back into the room and tell him to forget about it. He was right. It wasn't logical that Shad would have been the one to harm Tasha. It was much more likely that he was afraid of Witch Hunters for the same reasons as us.

This Shad with his kind smiling eyes did not seem cold enough to be a necromancer. And demons... The only demon in human guise I had ever seen had been Andre/Bedazzer who was so vivid, so super alive that in hindsight it was amazing no one had suspected him. He'd also been incredibly handsome, powerful, charismatic, charming and amoral, all of it a kind of lure to draw humans in so that he could feed on their emotions and life forces. Shad was good-looking, but otherwise he seemed determined to fade into the background.

If nothing else though, my experiences with Andre/Bedazzer hand taught me to doubt my own perceptions and Tansa only knew, there were whole worlds of things I didn't know about demons. I lay there staring at the ceiling trying to work out ways in which I could question Shad about my sister's illness without firstly, giving myself away as a mage and secondly, get to the cast iron indisputable truth. I almost hoped he would run away during the night.

Finally in the early hours of the morning when I saw how it was going to be, I got up and woke Parrus who had fallen asleep with his head on his knees and helped him to bed. It was easy to see Shad's door from ours so I left our door ajar and lay down next to Parrus with my head at his feet so that I could see the door. Listening a little enviously to Parrus peaceful breathing, I waited for the long night to pass. Yet just before dawn I must have fallen asleep, for I had a strange dream that was half dream, half memory.

I dreamt I was awake and lying in the same bed and the grey pre-dawn light was coming in the same window. Except the bed was enormous or I was much much smaller.

A woman stood before the window plaiting her long fair hair. She picked up a string from the window sill and tied the plait up with it. Then she turned and caught my eye and her own twinkled fondly. I squirmed down under the covers till only my eyes showed. I was only very little.

She laughed.

"Oh no! Where has Dion gone?" she cried with mock distress. She began to look for me peering under the chair and in the cupboard calling "Dion, Dion! Where are you?" I huddled under the bedclothes giggling.

"Aha what's this lump here?"

A finger poked me in the ribs and I squealed happily.

"I can see you, little slug abed." She pulled back the covers. "Hey little snail. What are you doing lazing around hey! Little snail!"

She tickled me gently as she said it and I squirmed with delight under her hands, rolling away from the tickling fingers, but at the same time reaching up for the hug which I knew was coming next.