The Holiday From Hell (16 page)

Mel let her body relax into sleep and carefully disengaged from her exhausted flesh. Her soul felt fresher than ever, but she lingered to look. Luce lay beside her, cradling her in his arms as if she was the most precious thing he had on this Earth. The love in his expression as he looked at her sleeping form…such tenderness. She couldn't fathom how anyone could believe he was still a demon, incapable of redemption or love.

She hovered just above his face and allowed the slightest illumination to show her soul's form. It had been a long time since she'd done such a thing, and she'd forgotten the tingle her soul experienced from it. Like sitting in a bath of freshly poured champagne. She laughed.

"Are you just going to stare at my sleeping body all night, or are you coming out to play?" she asked.

Luce's arms tightened around her back as he touched his lips to her hair. Mel felt the overpowering urge to return to her body to feel his caresses. No, her corporeal form needed rest. Let her soul fly until morning.

"It's tempting. I could watch you sleep forever. I don't want to take my eyes off you for fear you'll disappear like a dream I know I don't deserve." Luce lifted his eyes to her faintly glowing soul.

"Then dream with me, my love." She reached for him.

"Where are you going? I'll only be a burden if you're working. Unless you plan another trip around the sun."

Her light brightened in its expression of the smile she couldn't show. "The sun has seen enough of me this century. We're not supposed to take too much of its power, or we'll shorten a star's lifespan. The power can be addictive, too, to those not accustomed to showing restraint." Like you, my love, she thought but didn't say. He seemed to understand this without her assistance. "Tonight, I plan on staying close to my body. I wish to watch the stars from this side of the planet's atmosphere and perhaps see some of the nocturnal creatures who call this place home. I understand if you wish to do something other than share owls and stars with me, my love."

"After an evening like you gave me tonight, I'll do anything for you. No matter how strange it sounds. Yours, forever and always, Melody." He kissed her hair one more time and closed his eyes. Almost instantly, his soul rose from his sleeping body. "There. That was easier than I thought. Now it's my turn to lift you to Heaven." His soul enveloped hers and she laughed at the warmth of him as he buoyed her up, through the roof and into darkness.

"So I didn't do too badly, then?" Mel asked shyly. "I've never been someone's fantasy before, Luce. This was definitely a first for me. I hope I didn't miss doing anything important. You never did tell me what you wanted." She'd deliberately waited until he was out of his body and unable to conceal anything from her before she asked. She knew she'd surprised him, but she still felt uneasy about the whole experience.

Luce's laughter was a deep vibration. "Melody, you incinerated all my fantasies the moment you appeared in that white corset, you looked so hot. I was afraid to ask for anything else – anything I thought of just paled in comparison. So I surrendered to your angelic charms and my soul is still singing for joy. Listen." Faintly, she heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony drifting on the night breeze and it was her turn to laugh.

"You've been through my music collection," she admonished.

"You should have been there for its first performance in Vienna. I've heard better renditions since, with better acoustics and far more practice before the performance, but…"

Mel stared at him. "My love, I was. I never saw you in the Kärntnertortheater. But I was very much taken with the music and I wasn't working. I'm sure you wouldn't have noticed me in the crowd, even if you did see me."

"I only wish I had," Luce said, echoing her own thought. He broke the mood with a surge of hot lust. "And if I'd known you were capable of half of what you did tonight, I'd have fallen to my knees and begged the moment I met you."

"My sexy devil," Mel murmured. "Can we sit still and watch the stars for a few hours without you thinking of sex?"

"Hell no," he responded. "Not when I know you're not wearing anything. And after what you did earlier with your…"

"Shh, Luce."

Luce squinted into the windows, shading his eyes with his hand against the bright morning sun. "I can't see any furniture and it doesn't look like anyone's here. Who have we come to see again?"

Mel laughed and pulled Luce away from the old wattle and daub house. "That's because they never lived in the house. This belonged to some early European settlers. My friends lived in a cave to the south and I'll show you." She lowered her gaze and her voice. "This is…a very personal place for me. I've never brought anyone here before and it's been a very long time since I've seen it. Even the local people never came here. They told stories of a devil bird who lived in this place, which frightened away all but the most curious."

"How anyone could mistake you for a devil, I don't know," Luce said with a grin.

Mel didn't return it. "To the dark-skinned people who lived here, devils were pale. And this one was the size of a human with huge, white wings. Please, Luce, you showed me your personal place in Hell – Hell's bathroom, the beautiful cave you shared with me. I'd like to show you what the locals here once called the bathing place of the moon, Meekadarrabee."

Something in her tone caught him and his soul reached for hers. There was sadness and loss in this place for Mel, yet she longed to share it with him. Luce took her hand and her thoughts sharpened as her bubble of worry burst with relief. She feared this place held too much pain for her to visit alone and she wanted to ask for his support. But if he treated it like a joke, her pain was too raw to allow him any closer to the place and she would keep her secrets to herself. "I'd be honoured," he found himself saying.

Mel's smile was shy as she led him up the hill and into the bush.

The sweet smell of peppermint was stronger here – like that rock candy shop near the office, Luce mused. The bushes to either side of the track were dotted with butterfly-shaped flowers in purple and orange and pink. And the occasional orange butterfly, he realised as what he'd thought was an unusual patterned flower took flight.

He caught glimpses of the swift-flowing creek between the trees – the same Ellen Brook that flowed beside the house on its way to the sea.

"The path never used to be this clear," Mel murmured as her grip tightened around his fingers. "The easiest approach was to find the mouth of the stream and fly up the watercourse to the spring at its source. Of course, I could only do this at night, which earned me the name of Nyoorlam among the local people who saw me. Nyoorlam means devil bird or night hawk."

"One night, I'd love to fly beside you," Luce replied.

Mel just smiled and drew him on. She didn't stop until they reached a clearing that ended in a wall of rock with a small pool at its base. Luce could hear water trickling and he leaned over to see that the wall wasn't as solid as it seemed – it was the entrance to a cave, and the exit for the stream that fed the pool.

Mel swallowed a few times before she said, "One night, I went for a swim in the pool and I didn't realise there were curious eyes watching me. When I emerged from the water, shaking the droplets off my skin, a girl's voice told me that I didn't look as scary as a demon. More like the moon, shimmering on the surface after her bath." Her smile reappeared, but it looked watery. "I remember I laughed and told her that I wouldn't harm her, so in that, I was more like the moon than a demon. That was the extent of her courage that night. She returned to her people, who were camped nearby at a place called Mokidup.

"The following night, she returned. She was stealthy, but I was expecting her. She sat on the bank of the stream and announced that she'd told her grandmother about me. Her grandmother was an elder, and her response was to tell the girl she was cursed for daring to find the bathing place of the moon. I said I didn't know of any curse and she was welcome to join me if she wished, but she didn't.

"Instead, she just sat on the bank of the stream, swinging her legs as I listened to the stories that spilled from her lips. She told me of caves and forests and secret places she'd found as she explored. And then…she rose and ran off."

A gust of wind caught the branches above, sending down a cascade of tiny white flower petals and a whiff of peppermint. Mel laughed, lifting her face to the sky.

Luce's mouth went dry. His precious angel, haloed in sunlight as the petals drifted down like snow. Heaven. He was in Heaven just watching her.

Mel's fingers slid between his. "Come on. I want to show you the waterfall before I tell you the rest of the story." Dazed, he followed her, as he knew he always would.

They stopped abruptly at an official sign that informed them that the track was closed due to severe erosion. Luce couldn't help laughing – the danger sign and caution tape were wrapped around the framework of a bridge across a muddy creek. The severe erosion had carried away the whole damn bridge and the new one was nowhere near finished yet.

He shrugged. "I've learned my lesson. Last time I ignored one of these signs I ended up on my arse in a cold creek. Guess we'd better head back." He turned to lead the way.

Mel's fingers tightened around his. "No. I've never needed a bridge to reach the falls and there is a bridge – look." She pointed at some mud-encrusted planks laid across the shallow creek. "We'll be fine." When Luce didn't move, she tugged on his arm. "Trust me, Luce. I'll even go first."

Of course he trusted her. But where she'd cross the creek as clean as if she'd taken the non-existent bridge, he'd probably slip and end up starting a legend of a mud monster here.

Mel winked. "I'll break out my wings and carry you across if you're scared, Luce."

His eyes on the mud, Luce felt a grin spreading across his face. "I trust you, but if I do end up in the creek, I want your promise that this afternoon we'll be mud wrestling." Just the thought of their bodies twined together, slipping and sliding in the slick mud, was worth whatever trouble he got into beforehand.

Mel laughed, a musical sound that was picked up by hidden birds overhead. "Sure, my love. But I get to be on top." She trotted gracefully down the bank and across the first plank, then the second. Her fingers curled around a sapling before Mel sprang up the opposite bank, resting her hand on one of the bridge supports. Balancing carefully on the other end of the bridge frame, she called, "C'mon, Luce. The falls aren't much further."

His eyes firmly fixed on his angel, Luce stumbled and slid down the slope. The first plank sent up small splatters of mud with every heavy footfall, but it didn't throw him into the water. The second plank was laid across only slightly damp soil, so Luce figured he was in the clear when he realised there was a third plank. This was barely visible above the mud and sank deeper with each step, but he made it across that one, too, with only slightly muddied shoes. Hidden by vegetation, the steep slope on the other side had seemed deceptively easy for Mel's ascent, but Luce found it the most challenging bit. Mel's sapling threatened to bend right over beneath his grip and he barely managed to grasp the next one before he slid back down into the creek.

Strong fingers caught his flailing hand and his feet finally found purchase on the slope. He reached the level patch of mud beside the bridge frame where Mel was precariously balanced on a beam before he dared to breathe again. With his first exhalation, he thanked her.

"You know I'll lift you when you fall, my love. Every time." She hopped from beam to beam until she landed on the path again, as agile as the bird the native people had named her.

Luce placed his bigger feet carefully on the beams, making sure each would take his weight before he moved to the next one. He felt unusually proud of himself when he reached Mel's side on the overgrown track.

She grabbed his hand, the energy of her eagerness fizzing through the contact, and it was all he could do to keep up with her as she led the way through the pile of lumber that presumably waited to complete the bridge and the mess of clinging branches that tried to squeeze the track out of existence. Pushing aside one more armload of whippy branches, they stepped into the final clearing where the falls cascaded down the mossy stones.

Mel led Luce to a bench beside the falls and sat, waiting for him to squeeze in beside her before she said, "And now the part I've never told a soul."