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  “Don’t use that name!” the monster that had been Aislinge roared. “Jogah died, murdered by your masters, tossed away like trash. I am not he, I am more. So much more. Am I not, little pet?”

  The creature’s smooth eyeless egg of a head turned and dipped. The girl felt it looking at her through the silver orb of light that hung between them. She wanted to scream and jibber, to tear herself free of her flesh with her own hands, like a bird bursting free of its egg, and escape, but she could do nothing; she was utterly frozen.

  “Come.”

  She was on her feet and moving, though she didn’t know how she’d risen, and she certainly hadn’t meant to move . . . The silvery light slid forward, interposing itself between them again. “Please,” the girl squealed through clenched teeth that she couldn’t control. “Help me.”

  “She is mine!” the monster snarled, lunging. “They’re all mine.” The azure barrier shattered, and the nightmare creature clashed with the silver light and rebounded with a shrill, hideous scream. It landed in a heap of smoking, tangled limbs.

  The force holding the girl collapsed and she sagged to the ground, limp and gasping in relief. Aislinge, or the thing that had been Aislinge, she felt it inside her, working her like a puppet. She’d sensed it oozing around in her mind. The girl shuddered and tried to drag herself backward. She struck something solid and barely held in the wail that bubbled to her lips.

  “Easy child.” The voice from the light was gentler when it spoke to her, and definitely female, but there was nothing of softness in it. It sounded . . . resolute, full of the confidence that came from experience battering the world into the shape you required. “Be still.”

  The blazing brightness of light dimmed, and the girl gasped to see the figure at its core. It was . . . a girl? No, a small woman. No child was so confident in their bearing, or so perfectly, maturely formed. She stood no taller than the girl she protected, but her manner added feet to her height. An aura of grim determination poured off of her and proclaimed her a woman of strength, age, and experience. The girl felt a sort of stunned awe. What was this creature? Could she be an angel? The priests never described angels in worn workman-like leather or dull, roughly-used armor. In the stories, the arms of angels were always gleaming, blazing or fiery. The longsword in this angel’s hand looked nothing like that, it looked like the woman herself, bluff, sharp, dangerous, and utterly utilitarian. If this was an angel, it was one made to batter down the gates of Hell itself.

  “Give it to me and I’ll make it quick.” She moved toward the fallen monster as though it were nothing of consequence, the way a regular woman would walk across her own kitchen.

  The girl wanted to shriek at her to be careful, that she had no idea how dangerous the creature she’d known as Aislinge could be, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak or move.

  “Be still,” the angel had said, and it felt important she do exactly that.

  Aislinge, or Jogah, or whatever the wounded, huddled thing in the dirt was, skittered back awkwardly on its stilt-like limbs, trying to scramble away from the angel woman’s advance.

  “Give it to me, Jogah,” the angel demanded. The sword in her hand flashed out like the tongue of a viper, stabbing into the maggot-white flesh of a leg.

  The monster howled a high shrieking wail of agony that made the girl flinch back behind her rescuer.

  “I’ll take you one piece at a time. Give it to me. Now. Let us make an end of it.” As she spoke, the angel worked her wrist in a slow roll that twisted her blade, tearing the wound into a wide gash.

  The monster’s scream became a wild, undulating wail of anguish. It wrenched and twisted, tearing at the spiked limb with its long talon fingers, an animal desperately trying to free itself from a trap.

  The warrior angel pulled back the blade, drove it into an arm at the elbow joint, and twisted again. “If I have to ask you again, I’m going to start taking pieces.” She didn’t raise her voice, yet the angel’s words cut through her victim’s ragged screams.

  With a convulsive shudder, the Jogah creature pulled something from around its reed-thin neck and hurled it into the dirt at the warrior woman’s feet. The girl couldn’t see what it was from where she stood, she only saw her protector’s head lower a fraction to follow it, and a minute lessening of the tension in the woman’s frame.

  The monster saw it too. Its strong limbs heaved, and it shot backward, wrenching the blade from its tormentor’s hand. Jogah’s unwounded leg swept out like a swinging boom, and metal crunched where it took the warrior in the hip. The leg buckled but the angel tucked herself into a ball as she fell and somehow landed in a ready crouch, holding a long sturdy-looking knife she’d produced from somewhere unseen.

  Jogah threw itself at her with a snarl. The speed and fury of the blows were terrifying. The girl couldn’t follow it. Twin blurs danced and countered; corpse-white limbs as long and thin as two-year-old saplings struck and jabbed, while a lightning fast glint of armor met and deflected them at every turn.

  The warrior angel dodged and spun like a dancer, deftly twirling away from and ducking under flurries of strikes. The girl couldn’t see the woman’s knife, but the spattering of black blood hissing and smoking where it landed on the ground around the two gave evidence to the effectiveness of her bladework. The pasty-white blur slowed so that here and there the girl could make out the deliberate, fluid grace of an individual attack. The monster was wounded, leaking from what looked like a score of vicious cuts, but it was still intent and obviously deadly. The metallic scree and crunch of tearing and crumpling metal sang of its terrible effectiveness.

  The girl saw the glint of armor spin into the air as the angel vaulted up and over her opponent. Metal flashed, and the demon wailed its piercing, alien scream and went down hard, crumpled in the bloody, leaf-strewn dirt. The warrior woman landed lightly, braced on the balls of her feet, ready to spring again. Her sword, returned to her somehow and stained with black blood, hung rock steady in a two-hand grip above her head, ready to sweep down in a killing blow.

  On the ground between the two combatants lay one of Jogah’s long thin arms, twitching and flopping like a fish on the shore. The monster lay panting, fountaining its noxious black blood into the dirt.

  The armored woman staggered sideways a step, and her sword swung down, the tip grounding in the earth to brace her. She let out a single long shuddering breath and forced her body straight again as she stepped over the detached and flopping limb. “Time to die, Jogah,” she grated. Her voice was tight with pain, but her step was sure, and the tip of her sword never wavered as she set it to the fallen monster’s throat. “No creature ever deserved it more. I only wish there was a more fitting punishment for your . . .”

  The girl cried out in horror as she struck the armored woman low on the right side and drove them both to the ground. They crashed together in a tangle of flesh, bone and metal plate.

  ‘What . . . What is happening?’

  She didn’t even remember picking up the rock. It was too big, should have been far too heavy, but somehow, she held it easily in one hand. She felt as though she were watching someone else as her own hand and arm raised it above her head.

  ‘No, stop!’

  She desperately tried to control her rebellious limb, but she couldn’t. Against her will her arm drove its makeshift weapon down toward the face of her rescuer with a terrible strength that wasn’t her own.

  The angel bucked beneath her, drove a hard left fist at the girl’s face, and twisted her body sharply. The girl’s head snapped back hard, blood filled her mouth and colours spun before her eyes. She kept her seat atop the stronger woman, but the descending stone missed its mark, and rather than crushing the angel’s skull it glanced harmlessly off of an armoured shoulder. A hard, open-handed strike to the girl’s chest knocked her off balance enough for the warrior to force her way free. She scooped up her fallen sword deftly and spun, but not toward the girl. She took the distance between herself
and Jogah’s separated arm in a single leaping stride and drove the tip of her blade down into it. She started to wrench and twist at the detached appendage as if she held a prybar rather than a weapon of war.

  Trapped inside a body that wouldn’t respond to her will, the maddened, terrified ten-year-old watched as her hands took up their stone again. She wailed a warning she knew no one would hear as her body launched the stone at the woman’s bent back and exhaled in wondering relief as the warrior glided to the side just a blink before the projectile would have smashed into the back of her skull. The girl couldn’t see what the woman was working so furiously at. Her vision was blurred with frustrated tears as her traitorous body leapt at its target again.

  The warrior woman let out a final grunt of effort and let the shredded remnant of the arm fall forgotten to the forest floor. The body of the girl sagged limply mid-dive, landing with a strangled squawk at the angel’s feet. The hard little woman flipped the battered child onto her back with the toe of her boot, set a knee on her chest, and pressed something cold and hard against her forehead. Intense green, almond-shaped eyes blazed inches from the girl’s face as though seeking something far beyond the flesh and bone. After a long moment the angel stood, spun, and moved away, her heavy boots crunching through the autumn leaves.

  The girl’s whole body shuddered with pain and exhaustion; she both thought she might be sick and feared she might already have done so. Everything hurt, but it was far away. She felt a strange haze settling over her.

  “It will pass in a few moments, an hour at worst. Possession is a shock to the system,” the voice of the angel called as though reading her mind.

  The girl wrenched herself into a seated position. Her head spun sickeningly so that she nearly toppled sideways. The warrior was down on one knee a few strides away, gathering up whatever the monster had cast aside in order to save its life.

  “What happened to it . . . to Aislinge?” the girl asked, her voice quavering and sounding impossibly young and stupid in her ears.

  “That wasn’t your friend,” the angel said, coming back toward the girl. “Aislinge?” she asked. The girl nodded, feeling tears press at her burning eyes again. The hard-bitten woman’s face softened just a touch. “Aislinge died. That thing, Jogah, the Bwgan, it killed her so that it could take her place. So that it could get to you.”

  “But . . . whyyyy?!” The question came out in long, wailed sob as all the pain and fear and horror landed on the girl like an avalanche. She sniffed a loud mucus-filled sniff and turned begging swollen red eyes on the woman who’d saved her. “Why?”

  “Fear, it lives on fear, and it uses the faces of ones you love and trust to make it easier to control you.”

  “It was in my head, it controlled my body . . .” It wasn’t really a question, but the warrior woman nodded and opened her hand to show the girl. Lying in her small, hard, callused palm was a coiled leather thong strung with dozens of small yellowed teeth, and beside it lay a single speck of white by itself, still spotted with bits of the girl’s own blood and flesh. Her tooth, the offering Aislinge demanded of her.

  “Old magic,” the angel said. “Baby teeth are strong totems. With some blood and enough fear to fuel it, the Bwgan can use it to read your thoughts, ride your flesh, even consume your soul. I stop it when I can, but he’s hard to track. I’ve been hunting him for . . . for a very long time.”

  The girl reflexively made a sign to ward off evil and silently wondered just how long this sturdy, no nonsense creature had been at her task.

  The warrior looked down at the trove in her hand and stood with some effort. “It’ll be weakened without these, but its injuries will already be fading. It’s strong and too clever by half. I have to go.” She slid her sword into the scabbard over her shoulder with practiced ease and made to turn but stopped. Her hand fished in a pouch at her belt and brought out something. “I’m going to take your tooth with me. I’ll see that it’s safe. Here, take this. Keep it close, it will help keep you safe. The memories will fade quickly, I’ve seen to that. Sometimes the dreams linger. It can’t be helped. I’m sorry. Now get back inside.”

  The little woman closed the girl’s quaking fingers around something hard, gave her another long penetrating look, and then the blazing silver aura sprang up around her again and the angel began to shrink away until nothing remained but the hovering, darting speck of movement that streaked away into the trees. The girl stood stock still until the brilliant white light was lost to the night, and then made her way back to the cottage. She pulled the errant door closed and barred it securely behind her, checking it more than once before she was satisfied.

  Back on her cot, the girl finally opened her closed fist to inspect what the angel had given her. Lying on her sweat-slicked palm was a heavy, rough-hewn coin of glittering silver marked with a beautifully worked crescent moon on both sides. She stroked the coin with the pad of a finger and felt soothed somehow. The coin felt significant in a way other objects didn’t. It felt ancient and powerful, even to the girl, who knew nothing of it.

  ‘It will keep you safe.’

  She tucked the artifact carefully under her pillow, sank beneath her covers, and wondered if sleep would ever come easily to her again.

  II

  JOGAH

  Chapter 1

  Jogah zigged around the hedge, dropped onto his belly, and wriggled his lithe frame into the thick foliage until he was lost inside it. Branches scratched at his skin and snagged in his hair as he forced himself into the tangled growth.

  They’re coming.

  His chest heaved, his legs burned. He spat out a leaf that invaded his panting mouth as he tried to slow his breathing and make himself as still as possible. Beads of sweat trickled down over his face from his sodden brow, and he fought the urge to wipe at them. The movement might give him away. He couldn’t take the risk; the hunters were too good. He felt like he’d been running for hours. How many bolt holes and nooks had he tried seeking sanctuary in? A dozen? A score? He wasn’t sure anymore.

  The first lightening wisps of dawn light were just leaking through the dark when he was rousted from sleep by the baying of hounds and chased from the tower. So far, he’d managed to stay ahead of his pursuers only by luck and cunning. He couldn’t really hope to outrace them; his legs were too short, on open ground the hounds would just run him down and then he’d be done for. Of course, he couldn’t really hide for long either. He knew these lands well, but so did those hunting him, and with the noses of the hounds to guide them . . .

  Something crashed carelessly through the bush to his left and Jogah froze. They were moving fast, not trying to hide their presence at all. Did that mean they’d found him and were closing in for the kill? Should he make a break for it? Or were they searching blind? Would bolting only give him away? He wasn’t sure.

  A chorus of snapping twigs, crunching leaves, and quick scurrying steps played out all around him. Jogah inched deeper into the dense hedge, dug anxious fingers into the soft loamy soil, and held his breath. He could feel them, the way one feels the presence of another in a dark room. They were close now, maybe closer than they’d been since the pursuit began. The hedge was always a risk. It was good cover but too thick to extricate himself from quickly with any kind of stealth.

  A pair of white-socked paws stopped inches from Jogah’s face, and a loud staccato of sniffing almost pulled a despairing sigh from his burning lips. They’d found him.

  The hound’s bark was almost obscured by the racket of snapping, crunching greenery as Jogah exploded from the shrubbery at a dead run. Almost. The answering bark of the second hunting hound rang more speed out of their quarry’s tired, shaky legs.

  It was close. On his right.

  Jogah zipped and dodged around the boles of the small grove of cedar trees that grew on the very edge of the tower grounds. If he could keep the trees between himself and the dogs, maybe make it to the stream on the other side? Would they follow him across the water? He co
uld climb a tree or . . .

  Like all of his kind, Jogah was possessed of an unusual agility and grace. He usually had excellent control of his body, but he was moving too fast and was too focused on the progress of the dogs at his heels. The realization that he was being herded came too late for him to stop or even veer away, when someone lunged out from behind a thick trunk, reaching for him. He tried to backpedal but couldn’t, the ground was too soft, too strewn with leaves that slid under his feet. He hit the thicker, heavier form of his assailant hard, and strong arms came around him, grasping him as the two were bowled over. A fury of mad barking announced the arrival of his pursuer’s hunting hounds a moment before they fell on the pair of entangled adversaries.

  “Enough! Enough you brutes! I surrender!” Jogah cried, laughing as he swatted at the nipping, licking muzzles of the pair of enthusiastic beagle puppies.

  “Got you again, Jogah.” Meical laughed, beaming triumphantly from underneath his friend’s prone form. “I really thought we had you near the stable. How’d you slip away?”

  Jogah finally managed to push the madly yapping, slurping puppies away enough that he could roll free of Meical and pop to his feet. “Pigeons, dear boy,” he said with the shadow of a smug grin pulling at his lip. “Your two great slobbering monsters there can’t resist a bird to chase. You remember that pair of pigeons that burst into flight in the yard?”

  Meical nodded, and Jogah allowed the grin to bloom fully as a flat smooth river stone seemingly appeared from thin air and danced across his knuckles before vanishing again. “A well-placed stone in the hands of a surpassingly clever fellow can make quite an elegant distraction.”

  In answer to his friend’s smug satisfaction, Meical trilled a short sharp whistle, and the twin beagle pups turned as one, pouncing at Jogah.

  The Light sprang up at Jogah’s command, enveloping him a split second before the weight of the pair of baby beagles had a chance to descend on him. The rambunctious animals skittered and scrapped around each other, both trying to get at him, neither realizing that he wasn’t there any longer. Jogah buzzed around his best friend’s head, enjoying the lightness that always came from shedding his heavy ‘boy’ form, and the low buzz of the thin gossamer wings that beat too quickly to be seen as he hovered over Meical’s shoulder.