Chapter 15

"Are you alright?" Blade asked as gently as when they'd been in love, setting her down on the floor again. She was too shaky to stand and had to lean against him, still staring up to the landing where Kierlan had been one second and gone the next.

"What are you doing here?" she asked finally, quivering in shock. "Why did you come back?"

"I was only in town," Blade said curtly. "I didn't go far away. I don't desert my job just because I let it get…too personal."

Too personal, Sarah thought, her eyes brimming with tears. "Where are the guards? Angelo? Damoran?"

"I don't know," Blade murmured, his eyes not meeting hers.

"Tell me what happened," she whispered. "Something else bad has happened, tell me!"

His shoulders slumped. "Damoran was staked," Blade admitted grimly, eyes sad as he remembered finding the nearly-mummified corpse, the bamboo stake protruding from his heart and the angry, frozen and hunted gaze of Damoran. "Found him in the forest, dropped where they'd staked him. Nothing I could do about it. Angelo called to warn me that trouble was in the air. I came as fast as I could. They got Harman?"

She could barely speak, too terrified, in shock. She felt bruised, shaky.

A door creaked open and Rita limped out into the hallway, her cheeks streaked with tears. "I tried to fight off her power," she said hoarsely. "I tried."

"So did I," Susie whispered, pale as she came out from her room and went to support her mother who suddenly seemed so frail. "We couldn't fight her, Blade. She was so strong…"

"I'll call Thierry," Blade said grimly, taking out his mobile phone.

"Already done it," Angelo said, limping into the kitchen, holding his left arm at an awkward angle. Rita slowly made her way to him as Susie stiffly took the first aid kit from the medical cupboard. "They got Kierlan," Angelo said. It wasn't a question.

"Or we'd all be dead by now," Blade said bitterly, helping Sarah to a chair. "Are you okay?"

She gazed at him, unable to speak.

"He'll be okay," Susie whispered, but her voice was dull with uncertainty and pain.

"Poor Damoran," Sarah said shakily though her mind was mostly on Kierlan.

"He was a few centuries old," Blade said comfortingly, his hand on Sarah's shoulders.

"You didn't get hurt?" Susie asked finally, an anxious light in her tired eyes as she took an energy drink from one of the cupboards, swigging it thirstily. "Goddess, mother," she said worriedly. "Who was that witch? She held us both back! Like…like toddlers from cookies!"

"I didn't recognise her," Rita said slowly, her eyes hard. "But I'll find out."

"What about Kierlan?" Sarah demanded and Blade looked sad. "It's out of our hands, Sarah. I'm sorry…you'll just have to trust Thierry and whoever he picks to rescue Kierlan."

Sarah made a small whimpering sound and looked down at the table. "So I just have to wait?" she said despairingly.

"It's not fair!" Susie burst out, stunning Sarah. "Poor Kierlan!"

"Don't even think of chasing after him," Rita told her daughter and Sarah quietly, absolutely no humour in her eyes. "If you even try, I shall bind you both and put you in the cellar."

With that, she got up and left the room. Sarah and Susie exchanged an identical look of miserable dismay.