Hey Folks.
Like a lot of this series, I've rooted my take on things in casual mythology of several cultures. You don't need to know anything about Irish, Nordic, or any other mythology in order to follow along - anything necessary for the story will be explained. But if you're the sort to background read, don't hesitate to google the background information. Most of it will certainly add another dimension to what I'm trying to add.
However, the reason I remark on this particularly is because there is a caveat. Under no circumstances should you investigate what a Full Nelson is without safe search enabled. Learn from my mistakes.
Believe it.
Also, don't be shy. Review, even if it's not entirely positive. I'd like to know how my target audience is receiving this nonsense.
Matthew
Another day, another strange bed. I blinked blearily at the ceiling for a few moments, slowly recollecting the events of the previous night. Ironically, I hadn't dreamt of the lake or Jessica at all that night – the first time in a while. It was day out, but the heavy curtains Sam had installed in the bedroom of the condo were thick enough that I couldn't see how far past dawn it was – there was merely a dim halo of light around the underside of the thick shroud. I released a low sighing yawn and raised my hands to my eyes to rub the heels of my palms into my sockets. In the act of stretching, my toe knocked against something and I heard a heavy metallic clatter as whatever it was fell from the end of the bed and struck the floor.
I grunted and leaned out of bed, reaching for my discarded jeans to haul them up onto the bed beside me by the waistband. I fumbled for a moment, still mostly asleep, before finding a pocket and scooping out my phone. I checked the face, which read 12:30 pm. I had slept for eleven hours. Woah. I pinched the bridge of my nose to try to force away the lingering headache that came with freshly waking. I swung my bare legs out over the edge of the bed and sat up, forcing them into the confines of my jeans before hopping to my feet – forcing myself to be spritely. I buttoned my fly and made to navigate to the foot of the bed to examine what it was that had fallen.
It was the distinct form of the aluminum baseball bat I had appropriated from the blonde last night. I had forgotten to give it back when we had all scattered. I guess I was so distracted with what had gone on at the roadside that I didn't even notice I had been holding it when Jason drove me out. I'd probably have to go give that back to her at some point.
I felt my lips curl downwards into a slim frown as I caught the bat by the grip and hefted it up, laying the head across the upturned palm of my other hand. Now that I was thinking about the girl, my mind started turning over the events of last night. I had been so preoccupied by my own reaction to the appearance of the entity that I hadn't thought of the significance of the girl. That thing had called her a fair child. I didn't know what the fuck that was, but it had also called her a foeman. For whatever reason, she was lumped in with me.
And what the hell is with that anyway?
Why was I a foeman to begin with? I hadn't ever done anything to these things. I hadn't even known they existed until they were already trying to kill me. And since then, I'd done nothing but try to get away from them. I don't know what purpose it served to off me, but for whatever reason, they thought it was important to just snuff me out. And the girl too – she had better watch out, now, too.
Ah, damn it.
I only just recalled that the thing had spoken in Irish, not in English. It was easy to forget transitions when you're fluent in two languages. I seriously doubted 'Sookie' (I assumed it was a nickname) was fluent in the Goidelic language. She probably didn't realize she had endangered herself in the long run as well as in the short term by coming out to help me. I reached for my phone where I had left it on the bed.
Before we had all parted ways at the door of Merlotte's, Sam had given me his number and told me to call him if I needed to know anything about the apartment. I selected his name from my list of contacts and held the phone to my ear as I waited for the call to go through.
"Merlotte's." A female voice answered. One of the waitresses. Sounded like the tanned girl who had manned the podium the night before, but I honestly couldn't remember her voice.
"Is Sam there?"
"No, sorry. He's taking the day off today." He must have been preoccupied with what he saw as well. "Can I help you?"
"Uh, maybe. I was at the bar last night."
"I recognize your accent. Did you forget something?"
I thought for a moment. Explaining how Sookie's bat got into my possession would be difficult. "No, uh, it's just my waitress dropped her phone when she went past me as I was having a smoke outside the bar and I didn't catch her before she drove off" I lied.
"Oh, Sookie? I'll just give her a call." Not the brightest girl.
"I… well; she won't have her phone…"
"Oh, right."
"Is she working tonight? I can swing by and give it back to her."
"No, she's off too. I don't know if I'm supposed to do this, but I can give you directions to her place. Anyone could really."
"Great."
I sort of regretted using her phone as my lie, because it meant I'd be dropping in uninvited. The walk to Sookie's house was long. She lived about as far out from town as Merlotte's was, albeit on the other side of Bon Temps. It meant I had another hour long trek in the muggy, sweltering heat of the Deep South to endure, and as I slumped down the road swinging the bat idly against my thigh, I was well aware I looked like a total hooligan. Hopefully the Bon Temps police department wouldn't come across me. I didn't need some xenophobic Southern Sheriff asking me why I was hauling a bat down the road – especially when I didn't have a good excuse other than that I was attacked by a supernatural entity last night.
Luckily for me, I got through the heart of town without any incident, and by the time I was near enough to her house, I hadn't seen another car pass me by for a long while. I found the turn off that lead down a gravel pathway towards the modest two story house. I saw a car in the driveway, so I was relieved that she'd be home at least and I wouldn't have to sit alone on her porch with nothing but a bat to protect myself. The walk out had been uneventful, but that didn't mean things were going to stay that way. I checked my phone as I walked up the porch steps to the verandah. One thirty in the afternoon. I knocked on the door.
"Coming!" Her voice echoed from somewhere on the second floor. I could hear footsteps descending a flight of stairs before she appeared in the hallway beyond the screen door. She was wearing smile, but that faded rather quickly as he brow furrowed in confusion as she caught sight of me through the door.
"…Hi…" she greeted as she opened the door. Apparently a man appearing on her doorstep with a bat wasn't enough to frighten her. Again – small town. I could tell by her tone that she didn't know my name. That's fine. I didn't know hers either.
"I… brought this back. Accidentally stole it off you." I held out the bat for her, and she looked as if it had totally slipped her mind.
"Oh, right!" She took the bat off of me, and I used my freshly vacated hand to wipe the sweat from my brow with the backs of my knuckles. She saw this and chastised herself. "Now where are my manners? Do you want to come in?"
I nodded and she stepped back to let me through, waving me on to the sitting room while she went to the kitchen. I heard her opening the refrigerator as I passed through and sat on the couch. It was a comfortable set up, with a low table set before the couch, and a loveseat directly across. I was still trying to figure out how to break into the conversation when she walked into the room, set a glass down on a coaster before me, and sat herself down in the loveseat.
"You have something you want to talk to me about." She stated it as a fact. She was pretty perceptive. Or maybe it was something else. I pursed my lips into a skeptical expression before I spoke.
"You know that in the same way you knew I needed help last night?" She was silent, folding her hands in her lap in the face of my question before I spoke again. "Does that have anything to do with being a 'fair child'?"
"A… what?" That got a response.
"Last night, when that… uh, when we were standing on the road. Did you hear that thing speak?"
"Sure. It sounded like nothing I ever heard before. Completely weird."
I smirked sardonically. "It was Gaeilge. Irish."
"Oh…" She looked embarrassed, but I just shook my head. I was well aware how strange Irish sounded to a non-native.
"He called you a 'fair child'. For whatever reason, it sounded like you were on the same list I've been on." The Kill List.
"…What are you trying to say?" She sounded nervous now, like she was catching on. "That that thing was there for me?"
"No… I'm pretty sure it was there for me. It was surprised to see you. But it approached the situation like it was killing two birds with one stone. So I don't think you're going to go unmolested." She frowned in response to that before I spread my hands. "What's a 'fair child'? What's this got to do with me?"
"I don't know", she replied honestly, standing from the couch, "but I can call someone who will."
She spoke into the phone for a few minutes before returning to her seat. She sat forward slightly, her hands nervously sat upon her knees. "He's on his way. Should be here in about fifteen minutes."
"Who is he?" I felt an eyebrow lift.
"My cousin. He knows more about what we are than I do."
"So you are different."
She nodded her head in confirmation, but she was eyeing me suspiciously again before she replied verbally. "Not really. But you're different too."
I blinked in surprise, before I looked down myself. "What makes you say that?" As far as I could see, I was perfectly normal to a degree that I was remarkable in my sheer averageness.
" We'll see what Claude says when he gets here, but I'm pretty sure you're different."
"Different like you are?"
I could tell she was thinking about that, her lips pursed in thought before she finally shook her head to the negative. "No…", she said slowly, "you're not like me. Not like Sam either. You're not like… anything I know about."
I shrugged helplessly. I didn't really think I was different. She seemed pretty sure, but I was going to maintain my skepticism. Other than her opinion, there was nothing in my whole life that suggested I was even the slightest bit out of the ordinary. Except for the undead monstrosities chasing me of course. Some superpower. As I mulled this over, I noticed there was a pad of paper and a pencil sitting on the little table at the girl's elbow.
"Sookie…", I started, before I realized I never clarified her name. "Is it alright if I call you that? I don't know your real name."
She laughed. "That is my real name."
"Oh… wow." I didn't have any other response.
"You're…?" She was looking at me expectantly as I puzzled over her unusual name.
"Oh. Jonathan. Nice and normal." I waved my hand indicatively towards the pad at her side. "Anyway. Do you mind if I see that? The pencil too…"
After she gave both over to me, she leant over the table to watch as I began to doodle on the pad, frowning in concentration and erasing often as I went. I was a fairly good artist – a skill I never took the time to properly cultivate – and after a minute or two, Sookie came around the table to sit next to me on the couch to watch me work. I tried to think back to the dark roadway and recall details, but the thing had been enveloped in darkness and the stress had hazed my memory. Still, I think I made a decent go of it, and Sookie seemed to think so too.
"Hey, that's pretty good!" She seemed pretty impressed as I finished off the outline of the creature and began shading in the disturbing mottled black of its skin. Once I had finished it, I held it up for her to examine more closely.
"You see anything I missed? So your cousin knows what we're talking about."
"Well, it was dark out. I didn't really see much at all. You seem to remember a lot more about it than I do…" I guess her eyes weren't as keen as her intuition. I looked over my rough drawing of the thin, towering figure, and made a little stick man next to it in order to give it scale. Satisfied, I dropped the pad back onto the table just as we both heard a car pulling up outside. Boots on the porch sounded moments before a heavy knock shook the door.
Sookie got up to answer the door while I remained behind on the couch. I heard voices at the door before she returned with a tall, dark haired man. He looked like he had awkwardly stumbled off of the cover of a romance novel – bronze toned with hair that tumbled down his neck and across his shoulders, its edges bleached slightly from the sun. He was wearing jeans and a ragged t-shirt – and a skeptical expression. That changed as he stepped into the room and caught sight of me – he blinked in surprise – an emotion that did not sit well on his carved features.
"Who's he?" His question was directed to Sookie.
"That's Jonathan. He's new in town..", she started to explain, trailing a few feet behind him, but he waved a hand in a dismissive – almost regal manner to cut her off.
"No", he interjected, "I mean – what – is he?"
"We were hoping you would tell us." My tone was dry. I didn't much care for being spoken of as if I wasn't present.
"I've never seen anything like… that." I looked down at myself after his comment. From the toes of my worn running shoes to the tips of my chewed fingernails, I couldn't see a single thing out of the ordinary about me.
"Like… what? I don't see anything."
"I don't know how to explain it. Extraordinary creatures tend to be able to identify each other on sight, but how we appear to each other depends on the nature of both the viewer and the one being viewed."
I felt one of my eyebrows creeping up higher as I glanced him over. He looked normal to me – or rather, he was the epitome of classical masculine looks, but nothing about him screamed that he was super human. "I don't see anything out of the ordinary about you. If I'm a 'Supe', shouldn't I?"
His surprised redoubled at that. "You can't?" He followed his rhetorical question by glancing aside to Sookie, who was standing listlessly near the doorway that led from the sitting room to the kitchen – debating playing hostess, apparently. He looked back at me and continued. "You have… a corona. It's the best way I can describe it. Though Sookie, who is slightly different than I am, probably knew you were different when she couldn't read you properly."
"Read me?" I blinked. Sookie gave the new arrival a withering, dour look of disapproval before she announced she was going to get the sweet tea, and moved into the kitchen and out of sight. For his part, the strange man – Claude – seemed slightly amused by the annoyance he had wrought.
"Oops." He shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the loveseat across from me.
"You're fair folk then?" I sank back into the cushions, folding my arms across my chest.
"Sookie told you that much?"
"Not exactly. She said you'd explain."
His brow furrowed as he puzzled over my response, but shrugged his shoulders. "You're Irish, going by the accent. I doubt I have to explain who and what the Fair Folk are to you."
"You're trying to convince me that you're Tuatha de Dannan. Fairies." I laughed hollowly at the concept.
"You live in a world where it is known and largely accepted that both vampires and werewolves live amongst you." Claude smirked slightly. Okay, fair enough. I waved a hand in a dismissive gesture designed to mirror his own.
"Fine. You're both fairies. What does that entail, exactly?"
"Not quite. I'm a fairy. And it entails much of what you expect from your people's stories. The Irish found us back when both of our people were young – or should I say, naïve. We didn't hide much initially. Over time we grew more and more reserved, but kept involved in human affairs. Which is how Sookie came to be. She's a quarter Fair. We share a Grandfather, but that's all."
"But that means Fairies and Humans are still the same species." The ability – or lack thereof – to interbreed was the final factor in speciation. Claude seemed to know where my logic was taking me.
"And Vampires and Werewolves are also the same species as humans then. The world's changed. You have to play by different rules now. Regardless as to the… empirical classification of what Sookie and I are, we're undeniably different. And so are you."
Sookie returned with a tray, with some pastries, a few glasses, and a pitcher of iced tea set upon it. She poured the glasses and set them neatly down on the coasters on the low table before resuming her place next to me on the couch.
"Alright. So that means I look like a lens flare to you." I resisted rolling my eyes and turned them instead to Sookie. "What did he mean?" I didn't have to explain myself. She lifted a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug.
"It's like Claude said. I can't read you properly."
"And what does that mean?"
She reached up and touched the side of her head, a fingertip tapping against a blonde temple. "I can see into people's heads. Normal people."
I thought for a moment. "Sounds horrible."
The corner of her lips twisted upwards. "Like you wouldn't believe."
"But with me…?"
"Like Claude said, the way I perceive all extraordinary creatures is different. Shifters I can mostly read – vampires I can't read at all. With you…" She paused and thought it over before she nodded towards Claude. "He's got it mostly right. It's like a halo of light. I don't see it around your body like he does. I see it around your mind. It's bright enough to blind me."
"So you can't read me?"
"I can get your feelings, but not much else."
I pursed my lips in thought. "That's how you knew how to come outside and help me last night?"
She bobbled her head side to side indecisively. "I could tell you were mortally afraid of something. The rest of it was female intuition. I didn't know exactly what you were dealing with, but I could tell it was bad." I wondered if she had known how bad it really was going to be.
Claude was getting interested in the conversation again, which was a relief to me. During my back and forth with Sookie, he had fixed me with a scrying stare that was making me rather uncomfortable. I relaxed a fraction as he spoke to the girl instead. "What happened to you last night?"
"Take a look." She reached for the pad – still on the table – and turned it around so Claude could look it over. She explained what he was looking at as he did so. "Jonathan was being followed by that thing when he came into town. I went outside when I caught on he was in hot water, and it babbled something at us before Jason scared it off with a shotgun."
"It wasn't babbling," I reminded her, feeling the hint of amusement I was entertaining bleed into my comment, "it was speaking Gaeilge. Not much better, but still."
I turned my attention back to the other man. "It called Sookie a Fair Child, and identified her as his enemy. That's how I knew she was different."
Claude was frowning at the piece of paper, but he shook his head and spoke again. "I've never seen one of those either." I felt my expectations deflate. I was eager to know what exactly these things were, and why they were after me. "But", he added, "I think I know what it is, based on what you just said, Jonathan."
Sookie and I both sat quietly as he finished examining my sketch and sat back in his armchair. "When the Celtic migrants first arrived on Eire, they were the first humans we had ever encountered. But they weren't the first foreign civilization to land on Ireland. For centuries before the Irish human populations were present, we were at war with a third culture. It was only with the cooperation of the Irish settlers that we barely managed to defeat them – which is in part why we so trusted the Irish above all other people. They helped us dispatch the Fomhoire'."
"You're trying to tell me we ran into Balor One-Eye last night?" I could feel my skepticism bleeding into my voice again. Sookie, for her part, was looking rather lost.
"Absolutely not." Claude shook his head almost disdainfully. "Fortunately for you. Had it been Balor, neither of you would be having this conversation with me. Luckily, he was killed at the Battle of Magh Tuiredh, as the myths state – thought I was not nearly yet born to witness it. Not even Niall – our grandfather – was born at that time, though his grandfather before him was one of Lugh's Aides-du-camp. But if it was not Balor, it was certainly one of his ilk."
"But you said they were dispatched."
"Dispatched, not destroyed. The bulk of them retreated into the Pale – their realm – where we dared not follow. They haven't been seen in force in this world since. For centuries after their defeat, my people continued to hunt down those that had not faded from this plane. They continued to crop up all over the world, and buried themselves in the legends of almost every single human culture. The Draugr for the Norse – possibly their trolls and Frost Giants as well. The Oni and Kappa of Japan. Djinni and Daeva of Persia."
"Dragons?" I asked sarcastically. Why the hell not? I figured that if I was going to believe in vampires, werewolves and fairies, Fomhoire were just hopping on the bandwagon at this point.
"It's possible" Claude replied, rolling his shoulders into a shrug.
"You have to be joking. "
"Not really. According to the histories we keep, the Fomhoire are mostly humanoid – but a sizeable number of them were simply monstrosities. The only thing that defined them as a people was their love of subjugating and destroying anything that was not their own. Over time, however, we eliminated all of the Fomhoire that remained on Earth. Niall supposedly killed the very last of them personally."
"Until this one showed up."
Claude looked disturbed at my comment, and Sookie finally broke her silence to speak.
"Do you think Niall missed one, Claude?" Her hands were folded primly in her lap as she spoke.
"It wouldn't be like Grandfather to make a sloppy mistake. I doubt he missed any. They scoured the Earth over for decades after the last was killed." His dark eyes were troubled as he looked down at the sketch pad again. "No. This one came from the Pale."
We were quiet for a while, before Sookie spoke again.
"Seems like a long way to drive just to get one guy."
She was right. But according to them, I wasn't just one guy.
What was I?
Claude left shortly after we finished speaking. I was surprised by how much time had gone by when we had finally called it quits. The sun was already behind the wooded bluff to the west end of Sookie's property that marked the end of Bon Temps and the beginning of the ungroomed forest between her house and the larger town of Shreveport. Sookie and I were on the porch as Claude pulled away in his convertible – a BMW Z5. Apparently he had some money to go with those looks. Sookie was about to head back inside when she glanced around the yard and frowned.
"Where's your car, Jonathan?"
"Huh?" I was puzzled for a moment before I realized she had gone back inside the bar by the time Jason had driven me out to Sam's apartment. "Oh, it's not here. It's down at Terry Bellefleur's for repairs. That's why I'm in town."
"Oh yah…" she remarked, a frown making itself known on her oval features. "Sam mentioned that. How are you going to get back?"
"I'll walk. I have time before dark if I hurry." With the information overload I was experiencing from Claude's explanations, I hadn't even been thinking of the Fomhoire in a real, threat-based context. But with her obvious concern, the knowledge that it was still out there and waiting for me caused my mouth to dry slightly at the prospect of the long walk back.
"No, you're most certainly not", she protested, a hint of that same stubborn pride she (and her brother) had shown the night before. "You need to stop trying to kill yourself. What's wrong with you?"
I coughed uneasily. I didn't like being scolded – I wasn't exactly lacking in pride myself – but the truth was I was frightened to walk home. And she had a point as well. There's wasn't much reason other than pride to walk out towards town.
"I have a guest room. It's already made up. Inside." She shooed me into the house with a flick of her hands, as if swatting a fly, and I proceeded into the house, and she closed and locked the door behind us, sealing me in.
And the night out.
Third day, third bed. I was on a roll.
Except this time it wasn't morning. I didn't know what woke me up at first, but I lay in the darkness staring at the ceiling for a while, trying to remember where I was and how I got there. It came slowly. The evening had been quiet and pleasant – a lot of TV, which I hadn't had the opportunity to watch in a while. Sookie had told me that someone might come over to the house late in the night but that would be normal and not to worry. Maybe the door opening and closing had woken me up, but I didn't hear any voices. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and rolled over to check the time. Two thirty. I'd been asleep for a little over an hour and a half.
I might have just been too hot to sleep. The guest room was on the second floor of the house and was therefore warmer, but I was sleeping in just my jeans and on top of the covers, so I was cool enough. My mouth was dry. I probably needed a drink. I swung my legs out over the side of the bed and stood, stretching my arms towards the ceiling before heading for the door and out into the hallway. The wooden boards were cool under my feet as I descended the stairs and felt my way towards the kitchen in the gloom.
I found the sink and a glass in the drying rack, and turned the tap to fill my cup. When I took a sip, I almost retched. The water was irony – metallic and viscous. I spat it violently into the sink, but the rotten taste was in my mouth now, and I spent the next minute or so gagging over the sink.
"Are you alright?" Sookie was at the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She was wearing a set of sky blue woolen pajamas, and was evidently freshly woken by my coughing fit. I managed to stagger to the fridge and find the pitcher of iced tea, and a fresh glass, which I used to rinse out my mouth.
"I'm fine", I said. Sookie had turned on the lights while I had lumbered haphazardly around her kitchen. "Your pipes, however, are not", I finished.
She adopted a curious expression and moved to the sink while I took another swig of tea, attempting to purify my palate of the memory of the tainted water. She turned the tap and I watched as a clear stream of water escaped.
"Looks fine…" Sookie murmured, and I was beginning to doubt myself when I noticed my previously discarded glass, where it rested innocuously on the counter at her elbow. The liquid contained within was a deep crimson – nearly black in this light – and I indicated it to her. She collected it, cradling the crystal container in both of her hands as she lifted it to her face to smell. She nearly retched herself at the mere scent of it.
"Ugh! What is that?"
"I don't know, but it tasted almost like…"
"Blood", Sookie finished affirmatively. "But old blood that's gone rotten and irony." I raised my brow at her but she merely shrugged one eggshell-blue shoulder at me. "I know about blood. And this is bad blood. It smells… familiar."
I worked my tongue around my mouth for a moment before I had to agree. Yes. It was the same.
"It smells like that thing did last night." Sookie's voice confirmed. "But… why was its blood in my tap water?"
I didn't have an answer for her. Not that it mattered. There was a deafening crack of wood from just beyond the kitchen window, and we both flinched. It sounded like something had snapped the railing of her verandah in two. The wind whispered in its wake, but I couldn't hear anything in the following minute besides the creaking of the old house.
"You don't happen to have a gun?" It was too much to hope for.
"Jason left one of his Mossbergs over here when he traded up for the Benneli." Her nerves had her rocking on her heels.
"Go fetch it?" As I spoke, I reached out for the wooden block on the counter before me, the grooves of which sheathed Sookie's cooking knifes. I withdrew the carving knife – forgoing the heavier cleaver for a more pointed, slender profile. Sookie opened the broom closet near the doorway to the living room and withdrew the pump action Mossberg, checking the chamber before quietly working the action to feed a round into readiness. She knew how to use it, at least.
"Are we going out there?" Her voice was quavering slightly again.
"We can either go out there or wait for him to come in here. We have a gun and he presumably doesn't, so finding space is in our interest." Now that Claude had explained what exactly we were dealing with, it was a lot easier to be brazen. I began testing the light switches on the wall until I found the one that ignited the bulb for the verandah, which was washed in pale light. I looked over at the girl. She wasn't ready.
Neither was I.
I redoubled my grip on my 'dagger' and pushed open the kitchen's door to the back of the house.
It was on me immediately this time. The games were over.
The closed fist that rocketed towards my head was poorly aimed. Perhaps the sudden onslaught of the light had disoriented it, but regardless of the reason, I was only clipped by the first punch. Even so, the ferocious, inhumane strength that fueled it was enough to propel me against the railing and into the yard. Had it caught me square, there was little doubt it would have caved my skull in like an aluminum can. As it was, I was sprawled, stunned, in the damp grass in front of Sookie's house.
I heard her shriek in surprise, followed immediately by the overwhelming shout of the Mossberg discharging – followed immediately by an equally deafening roar of anger and pain. The knife was still in my hand, and I pushed myself to my feet and tried to steady myself to help in any way I could.
This was a fucking stupid idea.
There was another thud from up on the porch, and a snarled hiss, but before I could focus my bleary eyes, I was slammed back onto the ground, the wind rushing from my lungs again, and this time I was pinned. My ribcage was immediately compressed under the weight of the thing – the Fomhoire – on top of me, its dinner-plate sized hand pressed hard into my ribs – preventing my diaphragm from depressing and refilling my lungs. Once more, I was suffocating.
I could see it clearly now – or at least its silhouette as it crouched over me, framed in the light from the porch. Its thin body seemed only more enormous now as it slowly pulled back its fist again, the taloned claws that were its fingers curling into a fatal fist intended to flatten my skull against the turf.
And then it was physically ripped off of me, torn sideways and up as something wrenched it from my prone form. My thorax expanded and my lungs inflated, supplying my desperate body with oxygen that made me sputter and writhe on the grass. I was out of action for a minute at least, during which the Fomhoire continued to bellow and thrash about the yard, nearly trampling me on several occasions.
"Get up and help me, damn your eyes!" The male voice was unfamiliar, but it was enough to galvanize me up onto my feet and back into the fray. My fingernails were still digging into the wooden handle of the knife, and I turned to try to find a target.
The Fomhoire was violently spinning and flailing about the yard, bucking like a wild stallion. The source of its ire was the owner of the strange voice – a tall, blonde man who was clinging precariously to the beast's back. He was close to seven feet in height, but even he was dwarfed by the gangly, towering mass of the Fomhoire. He had it in a Full Nelson – his arms wrapped underneath its armpits and behind its head to render its arms inert, but their height difference means that his feet were dangling and he was suspending – incapable of gaining the leverage necessary to place pressure on the Fomhoire's neck.
I hesitated for a moment, uncertain of my accuracy with the violent manner in which the thing was rampaging about, but the decision was swiftly taken out of my hands as it turned suddenly in its desperate struggle, and barreled right into me, and my upraised knife. I was knocked to the ground yet again, but this time the Fomhoire sank to its knees with me. The weight of its own charge had impaled it, breast first, upon the point of the knife, my surprise-stiffened arm supplying enough resistance that the sharpened edge pierced the decayed, mottle-grey skin and split the sternum with a soft pop. I felt the blade sink into the soft viscera within and the Fomhoire spat a dark gout of bloody phlegm into my face as all three of us sank to the ground – the blond man borne upon the back of the creature.
Though the wind was knocked from me again as I was hurled onto my back, I managed to keep my wits enough to hold my grip on the handle of the knife. As the Fomhoire sank down onto its haunches, I violently twisted the blade – provoking a gurgling howl from my erstwhile tormenter. As he collapsed, the man upon his back finally was lowered enough that his feet could find the ground, and I had an excellent view of the latter's defined biceps rippling as his own enormous strength was finally brought to bear on the neck of his victim.
The Fomhoire's chin was immediately forced down against his chest, and a fraction of a second later, a stomach churning crack echoed across the yard as the vertebrae connecting the base of his neck to his skull snapped apart under the pressure. He went immediately and morbidly limp, and his body toppled sideways to lay sprawled upon the grass at my side.
The blond who had intervened on my behalf had to detangle himself from our vanquished foe, during which time I shakily pushed myself to standing. My head was still spinning as I spoke.
"Who are you?" I asked dully.
"Where's Sookie?" His inquiry was sharp and voiced simultaneously to mine, so an awkward moment elapsed as both of us waited for the other to answer.
"I'm fine." Sookie was rising from her collapsed position on the verandah. She looked anything but. There was a bleeding laceration across her forehead, and she lifted a hand to wipe her eyes clear before she spoke again.
"And that's Eric. I think I mentioned he'd be dropping by."