Guardian Demon

I couldn't remember anything.

No, that's not quite right. My muscles tingled with memory, actions thoroughly performed ingrained in them, while thought processes continued, instinctual.

I filled my lungs, letting the cool air invigorate me before opening my eyes. The sky was cloudy, a mixture of light and dark grey, dark enough to be mid-afternoon in Winter.

“You're- you're awake,” said a timid voice.

I sat up, slowly. “Don't suppose you know what happened?” I asked, a little more gruffly than I perhaps should have.

After all, I looked at the kid and she couldn't have been older than ten, if I was generous. With red eyes and the odd sniffle, she appeared closer to five. Instincts were pushing me to console her, but I held them in check, for now.

To give her credit, she met my eyes and didn't look away. What disturbed me though was the smile she had plastered on her face. It took her a bit, but I wasn't in a rush to go anywhere.

“My father, he-he sold me to a fae.”

“Ah,” I said. “Then what?”

She gave another big sniff before answering, “It took me, all the way to here, then you stopped it. You told it to let me go, but it wouldn't and threatened to- to kill me.” Her hand rose to her throat, my eyes following, to the thin red streak. “You said you'd trade.”

I nodded, frowning as I let that sink in. “So I gave it my memories after it asked for my power, my blood, all that typical stuff.” Thinking, I asked, “My name?”

Her head shook.

“How about getting you home then?”

Glossy eyes looked back.

I closed my own, bringing up a hand to rub my forehead. “Not your father then, but how about your mother?”

“She's dead,” she whispered back.

“Of course,” I mumbled to myself, letting the annoyance suppress the pity. “Aunts, uncles, grandmas or grandpas?”

Her little frame shook, tears rolling down her cheeks. “No.”

I hesitated, but moved anyway. It was a tough choice: go for a hug or a reassuring pat on the shoulder. I went for the pat, though she decided she'd rather have the hug, leaving me awkwardly holding her as she wept.

“There, there,” I muttered, rubbing her back, wishing I could be somewhere else while wishing I knew how to help.

After a few minutes, she gradually stilled to the point where I thought sleep had taken her. “I'm Rosie... Thank you.”

“Not a problem little Rosie,” I replied, adding a couple of hard pats on the back to the end. “Now, how about we do something, eh? I don't fancy a camp out in the middle of Winter.”

“Me neither,” she replied and, though I couldn't see her face, I could hear the smile.

Helping her up, I wondered what drove her father. A single parent wasn't that odd; abandonment, on the other hand, was. Then again, that was usually because there were other family members or close family friends to help pick up the slack. With her mother dead, it wasn't like he had sold his daughter to save his wife, but all the fae could grant was power: knowledge and strength.

Looking at Rosie, doing an extraordinary job of keeping herself together despite it all, I couldn't think of what he could have wanted that was worth her.

“Could I call you Michael?” she asked, her eyes on her feet and hands twiddling. “It's just, that, well, when I was little, my mama told me she had asked Michael to be my guardian angel and now you've saved me and you don't have a name and I thought, well...”

I let my smile grow, watching her shy diatribe silently until she turned to look at me. “Sure.”

Her face lit up and, for the first time I could remember, as short as that was, it seemed like everything was right in the world, if just for a moment.

“Come, now, let's go find a village or something,” I said, pushing myself up. “Any ideas?”

She turned around, pale red dress catching the wind and face scrunched up. “That way, I think,” she mumbled, pointing towards a distant hill.

“Great.”

I held out my hand and she pounced on it, leaving me chuckling as she started dragging me forwards.

We walked across the plains, thick grass coming up to her knees and my shins, for a good half an hour before my senses, instincts, began to tingle.

For a while, I ignored them, trying to settle myself with the occasional glance behind and trying to hear everything beneath the rustle of the countryside. Still the pressure mounted, a buzzing telling me we were being followed, hunted.

“Rosie,” I whispered, stopping and holding her back. “Stay behind me, okay?”

“What's going on?” she asked, quiet, eyebrows furrowed and lips pouting.

My eyes darted around, failing. “Danger, I think.”

Nothing stirred and nothing sounded, yet I knew it was there.

“Come out,” I said, loudly and forcefully.

Nothing stirred, but something sounded, a deep, beastly growl. “The prey thinks itself predator, how endearing.”

Despite listening, I couldn't tell where, letting my gut guide me to my left, arm pushing Rosie behind. “The predator thinks well of itself, how sweet,” I replied, sarcasm dripping off every word.

A bush rustled to my left, but I stayed facing where I was.

“I'll give you one chance only. We're not your prey,” I calmly said, muscles twitching.

“Oh but I think you are,” it replied, as though to my right.

My free hand flexed, a remembrance flowing through it, while I let go of Rosie with the other.

“Fine.”

Forgotten power, warming and soothing like a lover's embrace, poured through me, coming in from every pore and winding down my arms. A fluid, it flowed out of my right palm, extending slightly below my palm and a couple of foot above, forming into a metallic pole before flattening out into a blade.

Familiar, a friend's grip, I held it in front of me single-handed. My left hand, coated in a glowing ether, felt cold, detached, as though I had sculpted it from ice.

“One wonders what a wielder of magic is doing this far out.”

“One wonders why the foolish creature which thought me prey is still skulking like a craven rat,” I spat back.

A silent second passed before it replied, “Very well. We shall fight, shall we not?”

The grass never wavered while, some six or so metres in front of me, a beast like a leopard with the head of a gorilla stood, its front legs thickening and paw reshaping, the toes lengthening. Meanwhile, its hind legs shortened a touch while expanding outwards, changing from twig-like to trunk-like.

When the transformation completed, it had switched to a gorilla with a leopard's midriff and tail, a grotesquely small torso for the massive limbs. Though bulky, it only had a head on me, but a guess would give it nearly double my weight.

I breathed in, letting go of emotions, then back in, taking up the magic pounding through my veins.

“Flesh be frozen,” I incanted, letting my will carry the energy as fast as an arrow at the beast, curving as it tried to dodge and touching its upper arm.

Its cry hurt my eyes and I heard Rosie gasp.

A coating of frost adorned its biceps. “Ice be shattered.”

The sphere chased it longer this time, the monster gravely afraid of the magic. Still, as fast as it was, all the magic needed was a touch and that's what it got, the frozen flesh shattering, eerie mossy blood oozing from its shoulder while the useless limb dropped to the floor.

“I warned you,” I said, advancing, voice lit with cold fury.

It turned in time to watch my sword sever off a leg, the otherworldly metal thin and strong.

“Fae be bound,” I whispered, golden tendrils leaving my mouth and wrapping around it, stilling it.

A foot on his chest, I held the sword with both hands in a reversed grip, the tip held a little above his neck.

Gravity took over and I aided it, when Rosie shouted, “No!”

I looked over my shoulder, finding her staring at me.

“You don't have to,” she pleaded.

I thought of all the things I could reply to that, but in the end, I nodded, letting go of the magic. The sword shimmered in the ground before disappearing, a trickle of ichor from where it nicked the beast's neck dripping into the hole.

Slowly, I turned back around, finding the fearful eyes. “Know that she saved your life and so you are indebted to her, to which I bind your existence. Know that I have spared your life and in repayment you shan't harm another mortal lest you wish me to return and correct that. Am I understood?”

“Yes,” it growled, more like a puppy this time, and from its mouth came a silver whisper of magic, seeking and coiling around Rosie for a moment before disappearing. “I am Glornack, for when she requires my debt.”

I nodded, stepping off him. “Flesh be cauterised,” I cast, the ball of flame leaping off my hands, one cauterising his stump of a leg and the other where his arm was. “A little parting gift, for being so understanding,” I said, taking up Rosie's hand again.

We walked around him, heading back towards the hills and, after a minute or so, I let go of the binding, wondering if I'd made a mistake. Sparing a look at her, I didn't think I had.