Chapter 3

She could feel wind whipping at her hair and cheeks.  Well at least the creature had been right about one thing, it hadn’t hurt, not one bit.  In fact, she wasn’t even sure how it had killed her, but if this was what death was like, it wasn’t so bad. 

She squeezed her eyes more tightly closed.  Could you even feel wind when you were dead?  Well, she certainly could.  It had flung a strand across her face, which was now irritating her by tickling her cheek.  She would have moved it, but that would have meant removing her hand from whatever warm thing it was that she was grasping.  Come to think of it, it felt like a shoulder.  Did that mean angels were real?  Was an angel taking her to Heaven?  She certainly hadn’t done anything bad enough to go to Hell, so that must be the case.

She gripped the angel’s shoulder harder and buried her face against its chest to stop the wind’s assault upon her.

“Nanako, you can look now,” it was a voice she knew well, she was sure.  But how could she possibly know an angel?

She felt a jolt and then she was being lowered until her feet touched something hard and firm.  Grudgingly she let go of her purchase and slowly opened her eyes.  She wasn’t sure what she would see but she wasn’t prepared for this.  She looked around in bewilderment and blinked a few times to make sure she was seeing straight.  Then, out of the corner of her eye she saw him.  No wonder everything looked so familiar, nothing had changed.  She wasn’t in Heaven, she wasn’t dead, he had saved her and now she was in his debt.

“Did it bite you?” he asked, his blue-lilac eyes showing concern for a fleeting moment until she shook her head, “good, because there’s nothing I could have done about it anyway.  Why did you go running out on your own like that?  Have I not stressed enough how dangerous it is for you now?  Well, maybe from now on you may listen to what I say.”

“Nezaki, I…” she couldn’t think of anything to say to him, “what was that thing?” she changed the subject to safer ground, “it wasn’t a normal snake.”

“Normal snake my butt!” he seemed annoyed again now, “are you that naive, little girl?  Did your mother not tell you anything?”

“My mother knew about this?” Nanako couldn’t believe what he had just said.

“Knew?  Oh yes, she knew all right,” he said it as if this was common knowledge, and perhaps to everyone else it was.

“But how…?” she was going to run out of subjects to change to in a minute, then something hit her, “how did you do that?”

“Do what?” he glanced around suspiciously, as if looking to see if she was talking to someone else, “I didn’t do anything.”

“That thing was just about to bite me, how could you possibly have got to me in that time?” she glanced around the roof that they were on, “how did we get way up here?  I felt like I was flying.”

“Not quite honey,” he smiled slightly and bowed his head, “all I did was jump up here, and as for getting you away from the Lowba, I’m just very fast.”

“You don’t say!” she couldn’t believe he could be that fast, but what other possibility was there?  “And you really jumped all the way up here?”

“Yeah, why do you have a problem with that?” he looked abashed and rather confused as if that kind of behaviour was a normal every day occurrence.

“I’m just having a problem believing that someone could be that quick and jump that high.”

“I suppose, if you didn’t know about it,” he frowned suddenly, “are you sure your mother didn’t tell you a thing about any of this?” she shook her head, “I can’t believe she left you in the dark about all of this and still expects you to get on just fine, and it’s not as if she was completely innocent herself, the stupid little-”

“Hey, don’t you talk about my mum like that!  I’m sure she had a good reason for not telling me, she would never purposefully put me in danger,” she clenched her fists and spun to face away from him, fearing she would punch him if she didn’t.  How dare he talk about her mother like that!  He didn’t know a thing about them, and she didn’t believe him anyway.

He began to laugh uproariously, “She put you in danger just by having you honey, she knew just what she was doing; saving her own hide, that’s what!”

“My mother wouldn’t do that!” she didn’t know whether she wanted to scream, cry or both, “she wouldn’t have me just to protect herself!”

He sighed and looked towards the sky, he could tell her the whole story now, but it would be too much for her to handle.  She still had too much faith in her mother and too little in him.  He watched as the clouds overhead floated past in the pale blue of the sky.  Once she trusted him he would tell her, if that ever happened, and perhaps, if she did ever trust him, he could get her through this and then he would be free too.

He sighed and scuffed the toe of his boot into the dust and leaves on the rooftop.  His job was to protect her, not to educate her on the failures of her mother.  It was time he faced the facts, she would not be an easy charge to protect but what choice did he have?  And with that in mind he had better give her a freer reign; otherwise she wasn’t going to listen for very much longer.

“I won’t talk about it anymore,” he took a step towards her, “but you do have to listen to me, those things, the Lowba, if they bite a normal person that person will get infected and have to do their biding, if they bite a person of magical power, you or me, then that person will die in the struggle over dominance of the body.  Now do you see why you must listen?”

“I have magical power?” he nodded at her, “you are in danger too?” he smiled and nodded again. 

“You don’t look after someone without a certain amount of danger to yourself, if that were the case I’m sure many more people would have volunteered.”

“You volunteered?  But why?”

“Why not?  And besides nobody else would have done it, too much wagers on your survival and nobody else wanted to take the risk of failure.”

Perhaps she had underestimated him; if Nezaki was in danger too and had volunteered for this because nobody else would perhaps he wasn’t as self-centred as she had first thought.