Chapter Sixteen

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I kept waiting for the final blow to land, and for an instant, I thought maybe Birdie had been just as hesitant to kill me as I’d been to take her life. But my optimism was given a quiet reminder that I was not dealing with beacons of morality when I saw it in her eyes. The blood loss was becoming too much for her to endure, and she must have figured she couldn’t kill me and survive Ann before passing out, because Birdie turned away and began a somewhat drunken-looking jog away from me, scooping up her birdcage as she did. For my part, I tried to reach up and untie myself, but now that the rush of the battle was starting to fade, I realized how useless my arm currently was. Moving it caused blood to pour from those razor-like cuts, and I couldn’t close my hand without feeling those splinters dig deeper into my flesh.

I didn’t need to wait more than a couple of seconds anyway for Ann to pull up and practically fall out of her car to reach me. Her hands fumbled wildly as she tried to get the rope untied. “Jesus! Are you okay? Can you hear me? Where’s Birdie?”

The rope came loose enough that I could pull myself free and I shrugged off Ann’s attempt to console me as I stumbled towards her car. “We have to go. Now. Drive.” My words were approaching something like a slur. The blood loss may have been getting to me as well.

Ann dutifully followed me, getting in the car and shutting the door with an extra bit of enthusiasm that was no doubt brought on by her anxiety from all of this. “Okay, but where?” she asked. “Are we going after the vans or Birdie or—”

I shut my eyes for a second, shaking my head. “No, home. And we need to get out of Venice right away unless you want to explain two horribly mutilated bodies to the police.”

Something flashed across Ann’s face; my guess was that the possibility of police involvement slipped her mind during the last few minutes of excitement. She started the car, and before she decided that what we needed was to crash through barricades and launch the car over rivers, I added, “Back the way you came. Drive normally but stick to the side streets. We don’t know if they’re looking for your car or not just yet, but we don’t need to give them a reason to pull us over.”

The car reversed and made a three-point turn before Ann got us off that street and twisting down alleyways and side streets. I could hear a siren in the distance now, but just the one, which was a small comfort. That meant there wouldn’t be anyone looking for us immediately. It also meant that they had no idea what they were about to discover. The thought of all of that blood made me realize we were probably about to ruin someone’s day, but then I caught a look at my arm, now coated with a sleeve of dried blood, and any pity I had just went out the window.

“There’s a sweater in the back if you want to, uh, do something.” Ann’s eyes kept darting from my arm to the road and back again.

I obliged her, instantly ruining the garment as blood seeped into its fibers. It stung, but I pressed the sweater into the wound and tied it off as tightly as I could manage. “This is important,” I started to tell Ann. “You need to keep me awake. Keep me talking.”

Her eyes widened in response. “Oh wow, is this a concussion thing or something?”

I briefly considered the possibility; that woman’s burst of magic had rattled me, but I shook my head. “It’s not that. It’s just that I can’t be alone in my head at the moment.”

“Well, anything you’re itching to talk about?” Ann asked, but something in her voice told me she had her own list of topics.

“You came back for me,” I said it plainly, getting the simple truth of it out in front.

“Well, it wasn’t too hard, the map showed me exactly where to go. I just figured you’d be—”

“Not what I meant,” I said, cutting her off. “You saved my life.”

I slumped into my seat slightly and watched Ann’s expression. Several uncomfortable moments went by before she asked, “Is this the kind of thing I need to respond to so that you don’t fall asleep?”

“I’m merely acknowledging that it happened,” I said carefully. “Whether we speak of it or not is up to you. Just know that I appreciate what you did.”

Ann seemed to tense up at that. “I wasn’t about to just let you rush into danger alone like that, of course I came for you. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy about any of this.”

“I know, I know. I messed up,” I protested with all the energy of a mewling kitten.

“Dude, you messed every dang direction,” Ann retorted. “But so did I. And look, I’m not apologizing exactly, and I’m not asking you to either. Because if we just keep going down that road of apologizing and fighting and apologizing some more, I think we’re both going to wind up dead.”

“Fair enough,” I conceded sourly. “Game faces it is then.”

“Don’t be like that,” Ann chided. “It doesn’t mean we aren’t friends, it just means that the two of us table any hollow apologies until I’m not dead.”

I was silent then until Ann made it to the freeway. We hadn’t been pulled over by now, which was just about as free and clear as we could expect for the moment. But my silence had nothing to do with being vigilant for the long arm of the law. I just wasn’t excited about what I had to say next.

“I’ve been in a lot of pain,” I said with a hard swallow, finally.

Ann quipped to try and hide her apparent discomfort. “Yeah, no shit! If I were you, I’d be crying my eyes out, no question.”

“I don’t mean physically,” I continued. “I mean to say, that is, I never finished my story from earlier about how I got here. It’s why I can’t fall asleep and why I’ve been snapping at you and why I didn’t recognize Birdie as a harpy and just... all of it. I need to tell you some things. And some of those things are painful. I haven’t said them to anyone else in my life. I need you to understand me, but only if you’re up for it.”

Ann did her best to look at me and the road at the same time. I’m not sure if it’s me or everyone, but she is utterly incapable of hiding her emotions. And for as tough as she would like to be, I could see her heart break at the mere idea of my pain. And so when she told me that I didn’t have to ask, that part of being her friend was that she would always listen, it made the idea of telling her that much worse.

I took a deep breath before I went on. “Ann, when Alistair came for me, he’d had designs on me from the start. All of his confessions of love, the promises to see the world; they were all lies designed to lure me away from my home. To take me from my mother. I told you what it meant for me to leave, but he’d done his job so well, I didn’t stop to think about what I’d been giving up. And I hadn’t known that Alistair had been working for Abarta.”

“The magic Irish god that Elana was working with?” Ann exclaimed.

I made a half-hearted and ultimately failed attempt to snap my fingers in response. “The same. A trickster god. He’d made use of Alistair’s talents to recruit someone like me. Alistair was only in it for the reward. And some reward it must have been, because Alistair is disgusted by elves. Anything non-human, come to think of it. But at the time he’d made certain I knew how he felt about my kind.”

“That racist dick,” Ann fumed. “You’re beautiful, by the way.”

“Well, the way the deal had been worded, I was given freedom to be with Alistair for as long as we’d have each other,” I continued, unsure of how to respond to compliments at the moment. “He was a wizard, and I am an elf, I was certain we’d be together forever. But when I found him, met up with him...”

“I’m so sorry,” Ann breathed, not needing me to finish the sentence.

“My half of the deal complete, I was bound to Abarta in his service after that. I was taught to lie, taught to steal, and yes eventually I was taught to do more than that. Many things that I am not proud of, things I don’t want to think on too long.” I shuddered in spite of myself. “I told you before that I’ve killed, but you need to believe me when I tell you that I am not prepared to speak about that. Not now, perhaps not ever.”

“Of course.”

“I was his tool for most of my lifetime. It didn’t matter if he’d needed someone charmed or filled with arrows, I was to do as he asked without question. He could force me sometimes, because of our Fae nature. His name for example. While I was under his employ, I was forbidden to speak it unless he allowed it. I physically couldn’t speak it! You have no way to know what that’s like, you know. I’ll let you in on a secret. That’s the gift of humanity. You always have a choice. You can be threatened, coerced, but unless someone breaks your mind—and that sort of magic is forbidden in most respectable circles—then you always have a choice. The Fae can be bound by their souls easier than you’d think. I don’t care if it’s being bound by your soul to wash the dishes, it’s agony.”

“So when I asked you for a promise earlier?” Ann pressed.

There was a part of that answer I wasn’t ready to tell her yet, for her safety as much as mine. Still, I answered in a way that she wouldn’t question. “You’ll often hear that the Fae don’t do favors, they make deals. That is because if we aren’t careful, we could be giving up much more than we bargained for. A pact with a Fae creature isn’t inherently meant to take advantage, it is meant as insurance. But after a while, asking something in return, bargaining, it becomes second nature. Most can’t help themselves. My issue with Abarta was that I’d never needed to ask for anything in my life. He knew that and took advantage.”

“Chalsarda, those things you had to do,” Ann started carefully. “It doesn’t sound like you had a choice. It’s not your fault.”

“Oh, you’re wrong about the choice, my friend,” I huffed. “And that’s what saved me. I could have chosen to revel in my duty. To accept my life for what it was, but I didn’t. Jaded as I was at times, I was never truly desensitized. And the thought that I could be bothered or sickened is what kept me going. I was bound to him by my soul, but he was never able to own it.”

I paused for a second, feeling myself getting worked up now in a way that I didn’t know for sure I could contain. “Do you know what the worst of it was? That every so often he’d make me feel respected. He believed in what he was doing, was so proud of his good intentions. He never saw himself as a villain. Even my service was a means to an end, the cost of my freedom was unfortunate in his eyes, but acceptable as collateral damage. As long as I was respectful, he never went out of his way to harm or humiliate me. But knowing that he could, that was bad enough. But knowing that I could allow myself to forget and that I did on occasion? That was shameful.”

“Chalsarda, I—”

“No, please let me finish this now or else I may lose my nerve. It’s something that I need to say to you, but out loud so that I can hear it as well. So that it becomes real.” Ann looked embarrassed at her interruption but said nothing, so I continued. “When I was forced to do things, I did not agree with or when I was at my lowest points, I always survived on the knowledge that I was a tool. In a way, I was not completely responsible for my actions, for disobeying was something close to impossible. If I were to harm someone, so be it. I was not proud of it, I did not endorse it, even as it was carried out by my hand. So I would put it out of my mind, focus on what I could control, and in this way, I kept my sanity. But I’d never dealt with it, you see? The weight of it all. My actions, how my life was stolen from me, I’ve yet to confront it. Each and every day I was adding to my pain, and for so long I convinced myself I wasn’t in pain. You and Elana and the others are the first people I’ve allowed myself to call friends in over a hundred years! And now that I am free of Abarta’s grasp, I am cursed with the knowledge that for once, I have a choice. Choosing to let you perish would be no choice at all, but I could. And that’s the scary bit. Everything I do from today forward, is something that I alone am responsible for. I share your gift and your burden. And I’ve barely had you for a couple of months, and it has already been exploited. And between the weight of what I’ve done, the damage I’ve caused, and what I’ve yet to do, it’s just taking a toll. I’m short tempered. No, I’m angry. But I’m afraid and unsure. I feel something that the day I was freed I told myself I would never feel again. I feel helpless.”

“But you’re not alone,” Ann reassured me. “And I can’t tell you that everything will be okay, but at least you’re admitting that you’re not okay. However, I can help, I will. Elana, Olivia, I’m sure even Wilma; all of us. There are people who will help you through this, the way you’ve helped Elana and myself.”

“No, not the same,” I corrected. “My value has been in my capacity for violence. What you’re proposing, even just knowing that you will listen, that is something much different, and of far more value.”

Ann didn’t say anything more on the topic; she didn’t have to. The two of us focused on the road for a little while longer.

* * *

We’d made it back without further incident. The whole damned thing was a mess. In the span of a day, I’d managed to make enemies of a godling, a harpy, and a magic user who was hiding considerable talent, though to what end I’m unsure. I’d also nearly gotten myself killed on more than one occasion and wounded as I was, I was still no closer to curing Ann. On the plus side, I did manage to disrupt a cult and send a fair number of their members scattering the way one scatters ants by removing the rock they live under. So I guess it wasn’t all bad.

I headed straight to the bathroom when we arrived, leaving Ann to her own devices. She’d have to fend for herself for the moment. As I undressed to shower, it became evident to me that the clothes I’d been wearing were beyond salvage. I rinsed in cold water, gently washing away the dried blood and sweat. I gingerly cleaned the area where I’d been gashed open by Birdie. To my delight, I’d found that though the cuts had been long, they had been only skin deep. I’d need to keep the wound properly bandaged, but the muscle was intact.

Having addressed my arm, I gathered what I’d need for the hand. The tincture I’d made wasn’t magic, but it sure acted like it was. I dissolved the crushed roots and Epsom salts in ethanol and regarded it briefly. Were I to ingest even a small portion of this, the combination would assuredly mean I’d be extraordinary intoxicated and likely bloated. But that was not to be; I was to soak my hand in it. The pain that flared through my hand and the rest of my body lasted but a moment before I got a handle on it, and it wasn’t long before I could see what Birdie’s cord was laced with. The slivers steadily extracted themselves from my hand and into the bottom of the bowl. Birdie had certainly spared no expense here. Diamond dust, with the occasional significant sized shard sank to the bottom with a chorus of clinks. Painful as it was, I was fortunate she hasn’t thought to use a specific type of metal shaving. If it had been iron, I’d be in a much worse way.

Eventually, the trickles of blood stopped swirling with the concoction and just turned the whole thing a sickly shade of rose, but by then the work had been done. Testing my hand by making a fist was mildly annoying, but it was doable. Numerous as the wounds were, they were the size of pinpricks and would heal up relatively quickly. I was bandaging it for good measure when a small rap on the door caused me to look up.

“Still alive in here?” Ann asked, poking her head into the room.

The answer to that question never came as I saw Ann now with a fresh mind and realized the detail I’d overlooked earlier. The amulet Ann wore to stave off the poison, with its appearance of a sunflower and its six petals acting as a countdown.

The amulet was down to two petals.

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