Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(67)

His old tutor was now fanatically devoted to Damien. Sasha would have tried to stop any spell, not cast it himself.

Damien gained the upper hall, where Petri slept on. As he reached to shake his valet awake, he sensed another presence that he hadn’t before, a menace that tugged at his attention.

Slowly, he turned his gaze along the length of the hall, and then upward. The logosh crouched above him on the wall, in a shadowed corner, watching his every move.

The creature was utterly still, its presence a darker blotch on the dark wall covering. Damien gripped his knife and moved toward it, his footfalls soundless.

The logosh never moved. It must see him coming—perhaps it was readying itself to spring? Well, it would spring onto Damien’s knife in that case. His heart raced, his body heating and ready for a fight.

But the logosh remained unnaturally still. It could not be dead, because it would have lost its grip on the wall and fallen. But what did Damien know about logosh? The fact that one was alive at all astonished him.

Damien halted directly beneath the beast. He noticed then that its eyes were closed, and its ribs moved in a deep, even rhythm. The thing was asleep.

Damien smiled to himself. Whoever had cast an enchantment over the house had caught the logosh in it too. Perhaps the spell caster was here as well, sound asleep.

These obstacles to fulfilling the prophecy were beginning to annoy him. Time to clear them out.

“Starting with you, my friend,” Damien said to the logosh. He took another step and thrust his knife up toward the sleeping logosh’s ribs.

At the last moment, the logosh opened its wide, luminous eyes, shrieked, and sprang out of the way. The knife bit into its flesh but not deep enough to kill it.

The logosh charged for the window. Damien climbed onto the sill, knife ready. Damned if he was letting it get away again, to heal itself and attack another time.

The logosh turned around and leapt back inside and at Damien, its wound making it clumsy. Damien dragged the knife along its side, drawing black blood. The logosh jumped away down the hall and Damien ran after it. He struck again, but missed this time, the agile logosh managing to twist free.

There was a rush of air, and Damien found himself slammed back into the wall. The logosh landed full on his chest, its thin hands closing around Damien’s throat. Damien’s head cracked against the plaster and his breath deserted him.

He brought his knife up and around to the logosh’s body.

A door crashed open. “Damien!” Penelope’s horrified cry rang out.

The logosh glanced her way and froze. Damien used the distraction to jam his knife straight into the logosh’s side.

The creature screamed. It half fell, half leapt from Damien, turned in a dizzy circle, and rammed into the wall. Penelope, wrapped in the coverlet, scurried forward on bare feet, her eyes wide.

Damien held up his hand, arresting her movement. The logosh turned its gaze to Penelope and Damien swore that its expression was pleading.

“Damn it, sir.” Petri, awake, sprang off the bench. He took in the wounded logosh, Damien holding a blood-streaked knife, and Penelope wrapped in the coverlet. “I never meant—”

“Never mind, Petri. Help me finish him off.”

Damien stepped toward the logosh. Suddenly the air around it shimmered, and then the logosh was gone—to be replaced by a very dirty little boy who bled from knife cuts.

He heard Penelope gasp. The child could have been no more than ten, perhaps eleven, and looked for all the world like any other Nvengarian lad Damien had ever seen. The boy pulled his arms and legs in on himself, hiding his nakedness, and began to cry, with the small, terrified sobs of a child.

“Damien, don’t,” Penelope said softly.

Damien lowered his knife. It was one thing to carve up a demon, another to kill a child, even though that child had done its best to strangle him a moment ago.

“Holy shit, sir,” Petri breathed in Nvengarian.

“I know.”

“He’s frightened,” Penelope said. She sank to the floor facing the logosh, the blanket trailing.

“He’s playing on your sympathy, love,” Damien said quickly. “Once you near it, it can turn back to a deadly demon.”

“I know, but …” Penelope held out her hand. “Lad,” she said in halting Nvengarian. “Do you understand me?”

The child-demon raised its head and stared at her. After a long pause, it nodded.

“Do you have a name?” she asked.

Damien waited, poised to strike if the boy turned back into a demon and tried to attack her. He felt Petri tense on his other side.

The boy-logosh took a gulp of air and said, “Wulf.”

Damien wondered if that was a name or simply a guttural sound in its throat. Penelope took it for a name. “Wulf,” she said encouragingly.

The boy gave another nod. “Princess.”

The word, in Nvengarian, was clear this time. Penelope pressed her hand to her chest, surprised. “Yes. Princess.”

The boy held out his hand, fingers shaking. “Princess.”

“He wants me to go to him,” she said in wonder.

Damien gripped his knife. “And you will not.”

“Princess,” the boy repeated, his voice weakening, tears running down his cheeks to blend with the liquid from his nose.

“The poor thing,” Penelope said softly. “He’s badly hurt.”