Ashes of Raging Water

by Michael J Allen

  Terrance glanced at the wrinkled hand clamped onto his shoulder. The landlady made every effort to pull him away. He let her and offered a smile. “You’re quite right.”

  He allowed the smug old lady to escort him from Aquaylae’s bed chamber.

  Dylan’s eyes met his return. “I hate seeing her like this.”

  Terrance surveyed the apartment. Pictures of Dylan and the former Aquaylae dotted the place, celebrating happy moments.

  She’s so young—like Caelum. She just hasn’t learned the cost—may she never fully realize it. All the pictures must go.

  He turned his attention back to Dylan’s earnest expression.

  Let his worry wane a bit, then have him dispose of them. No, better send him away and tend to it myself. Procrastination has already worsened this mess.

  “I hate seeing her laid low, too,” Terrance said. “Unfortunately, this is Quayla’s fault.”

  “Well, if she’d called the authorities like I’d said, things would’ve been better, but you can hardly blame her for the actions of some ruffian,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “Not that,” Terrance gestured to Aquaylae. “This.”

  Dylan scowled. His tone hardened. “How do you figure? You think she picked a fight with that bruiser?”

  “No, that half-ogre ambushed her, that part wasn’t her fault. I fear it did so as payback for her actions in the Goblin Market.” Terrance rubbed his knuckles, one fist, then the other.

  Perhaps I should speak to Yarque about this.

  “Then how is this Quayla’s fault?”

  Before Terrance could answer, Mrs. Cox interrupted. “Ogre? Goblin Market? I knew it!”

  Dylan and Terrance looked at her, the former in shock and the latter with resignation. The old lady had needed a rewrite before, so he hadn’t bothered to guard his tongue, but revealing the truth required Terrance to act with more haste.

  “I think little sister’s been remiss in tending her nest—possibly distracted by her relationship with you. If her nest had been full before yesterday’s death, she could’ve healed this more quickly.”

  “Are you saying Quayla isn’t human, dear? That she died yesterday? That she’s some kind of bird?”

  Terrance met Mrs. Cox’s eyes. “Quayla’s true name is Aquaylae, mine is Terra. We are both phoenixes.”

  “Well, that explains the hairdo.” Mrs. Cox’s eyes widened. “Wait, she’s out of ashes? I thought phoenix were reborn from the ashes of their death. I’m sure I read—”

  “Literary evidence is not truth. Aquaylae isn’t born of flame. The ashes that give her rebirth are the waters of her essence.”

  “A phoenix...of water?” Mrs. Cox’s astonishment twisted with disgust. “Surely you don’t mean water as in making water.”

  “Tears,” Dylan said. “She has to sit through marathons of sad movies atop her nest and cry to fill the damn thing up.”

  “That sound’s horrible,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “That damned thing keeps her alive, and tears are hardly the most efficient method for refilling a nest.” Terrance rubbed his knuckles, mumbling to himself. “She should’ve been taught better ways.”

  “Okay.” Dylan threw up his hands in surrender. “But, how do we help her now? Can I donate blood or something?”

  “She and I heal fastest of our Shield, but ultimately she must have time. We can speed things a bit if you are willing to take a trip to the store.”

  “Yes, anything she needs.”

  Terrance clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a good man. I need you to purchase raw liver, eggs, fresh spinach, onion, sunflower seeds—shelled, wheat germ and protein powder.” Terrance ran through the recipes in his head. “Oh, and canned puppy food.”

  Dylan looked up from the list he’d typed into his phone. “Puppy food?”

  Terrance nodded. “Some prefer cat food, more protein, but I feel the higher fat in puppy food is more beneficial.”

  “She’s going to eat all this?” Mrs. Cox asked.

  “Essentially,” Terrance said. “A healing slurry will build up her body, replacing essence faster. If Dylan can fetch what I need in quantity and with haste, we will be able to hurry her back to health.”

  “She needs to go to the hospital,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “Be quick, Dylan.” Terrance snatched up the empty pitcher and marched back into Aquaylae’s bedroom.

  Mrs. Cox charged in behind him, a finger extended for waggling and her sharp tongue poised. The unobstructed sight of Aquaylae’s nest stopped her.

  “Phoenixes don’t need hospitals, Mrs. Cox. They need special help.” Terrance knelt next to the nest once more. “Summuseraphi?”

  Mrs. Cox attempted to repeat her feat of pulling Terrance away. “Phoenix or not, a woman deserves her privacy, and I won’t have you digging around Quayla’s things.”

  “Summuseraphi.”

  “I don’t hold with strange foreign languages, neither.”

  Terrance pushed the pitcher hard enough into the basin to flatten one side. He gathered as much of the remaining essence as he could, speaking the last call, “Summuseraphi.”

  Mrs. Cox stomped a foot. “I said, I don’t—”

  The bedroom filled with brilliant light.

  Mrs. Cox bolted upright, backing away with her eyes as wide as they could grow. “Dear Heavens, an angel.”

  Summus smirked. “More or less. How can I assist you Shield Terrance?”

  “We will need a rewrite and some building repairs.”

  Summus scanned the room. “Just the old woman?”

  “Watch who you’re calling old, young man.” Mrs. Cox brandished her finger. “An angel should know better than to mention a lady’s age.”

  Summus turned his back on her, facing Terrance. “I scent another mortal.”

  Mrs. Cox watched their discussion through suspicious, disapproving eyes.

  “Aquaylae’s partner needn’t be rewritten at this time,” Terrance said. “If you will see to this, I will tend Aquaylae.”

  Summus folded his wings, covering himself in a scratchy wool suit—probably based on Mrs. Cox’s expectations. “Good evening, Hadley—”

  “Angel or not, you’ve got no right addressing me in the familiar,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “My apologies, Mrs. Cox. Tell me about your evening.”

  Terrance left them to it, studying the apartment. Pictures of Aquaylae’s last body and Dylan dotted the room. Each picture of her nearly glowed from the warmth and happiness she radiated in his presence.

  A melancholy crept into Terrance and squeezed his chest. He had gone without a companion for centuries. Another agony wrapped itself around his heart, far, far worse than the melancholy.

  I also haven’t had to hold the hand of a loved one as they wasted away after sharing a life with them for all too short decades.

  Terrance dug under the sink, brought out some garbage bags and doubled them. He set about collecting Dylan and Aquaylae’s shared memories and dumped them into the bag.

  Summus

  Summus led Hadley Cox back down to her apartment. A blissful contentment radiated from her glazed eyes. She let him into her apartment. Half-ogre blood soiled the quaint abode, the stench of its taint overshadowing sweetness of baked Edenberries.

  Edenberries, more commonly known in the mortal realm as elderberries, had never been meant for humanity. Early humans had been forbidden the favored fruit of Faery. Faerie kind convinced early mortals that such a prohibition was meant to horde the plant for only the angelic hosts. After the mortals capitulated to faerie encouragement and found themselves subject to Sidhe influence, the plant was stricken with a curse. The Edenberry plant and its fruit would sicken any mortal that consumed it raw. Cooking purified it from both the illness it delivered and its enthralling faerie influence.

  The fruit still contained the seeds of the enthrallment originally added by Faery, but the all-consuming addiction worked only on the Sidhe themselves.

  Summus turned to the mi
ssing bay window and shook his head.

  Open for all the world to see.

  He wasn’t skilled enough to rewrite the architecture and listen to Hadley’s account and rewrite her experiences. The longer her original memories remained, the more ingrained they became. The longer the scene remained open to public view, the more wafers he’d have to track down.

  I could call Vilicangelus for help, but that hardly speaks well of my worthiness.

  There was only one answer.

  I must summon the putti.

  Summus closed his eyes, focusing on his desire and slapped his hands together. An answering thrum signaled the approaching crew. He opened his eyes. Their arrival reached his ears—not a choir of cute little singing baby angels, but a raunchy joke and a lot of lewd laughter.

  Six two-foot high little angels in construction attire wove around each other on violent-orange wings. Heavy work boots thudded onto Hadley’s well-tended floor. The first shoved a cigar into his cheek and pushed back a yellow hardhat with a halo drawn around its crown. Around him, the others folded orange wings around themselves into construction vests, assessing the damage.

  Summus looked down at the little angel. “You’re not supposed to smoke, Rusty.”

  “Up there.” Rusty jabbed a thumb upward. “Bit different down here, birdie.”

  “Whatever, I need this building reconstructed as quickly as possible.”

  “Oh, look who’s all high and mighty now that he’s not all wet.” Rusty canted his head back and forth. “And why ain’t you doing it, all-powerful Divine One?”

  “Get to work, all right. I need to focus on—where’d she go?”

  Rusty pointed.

  Hadley bustled around a kitchen stacked with towering mounds of elderberry muffins. She stripped all but seven berries from a plant sprig, arranged them atop the batter filled muffin cups and put the load into the oven.

  “Mrs. Cox, what are you doing?” Summus asked. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

  “Just a minute, dear. The workers are going to be hungry, and Nana was quite clear the little folk were particularly persnickety about the customs of hospitality.”

  “They’re not faeries,” Summus said.

  “Well, I can’t have it being said that Hadley Sage Cox failed in her duties as hostess in this world or any other.”

  Work sounds stopped. Summus turned to find every tool held still and avaricious grins on every putti face.

  “They’re all glucose intolerant,” Summus said. “Plus, they’re too busy to eat.”

  Rusty’s crew grumbled but returned to work.

  Summus led Hadley out of her kitchen, but the only space large enough was dominated by faerie blood. He sat her in a rocker and focused on the mess. He rolled his shoulders, then swept his arms back and forth collecting divine energy from his core. When his arms burned with power, he swept them together with a slap. Fire blossomed between his palms. He loosened his hands, releasing white fire to cleanse all that was tainted from the room.

  A wave of exhaustion accompanied the released fire.

  Divine flame swirled around the room. Small fires streamed from the main, gathering tainted fluids from the surroundings like little, burning sheepdogs. Rug and wall, furnishings and doilies, all were left pristine and undamaged. The moment all the taint was corralled, the white fire flared into a blinding inferno.

  Fine golden ash settled onto the floor where the half-ogre’s blood had pooled. Hadley got up from her chair.

  “Hadley?” Summus said.

  “What did I tell you about calling me that, young man?”

  The putti snickered.

  “My apologies,” Summus said. “But, where are you going?”

  “To get a dust pan. The floor’s a mess.”

  Summus took her hand and moved her into the open area. He backed his command with his essence. “Now, tell me all that has happened this night.”

  She took him through her evening. The acuity of her memories surprised him. She held the evening’s event with such precise recall that he picked up the full sensory memory without even having to touch her.

  What an interesting little wafer you are.

  Summus split himself from reality. Her memories slid around him like a floating ribbon. A rewrite had to be composed like a symphony. He had to draw new threads in the tapestry of time, creating new little pieces of reality to fit and engage the person being rewritten so that they could act on their own as the new time flowed around them.

  Vilicangelus promised that Summus would grow more confident each time he rewrote something, but it still didn’t feel natural to cut and reweave time and memory. Normally, one person was far easier to rewrite than a group. Rewriting a group meant each result from each person’s reactions had to be carefully blended to ensure the new localized time didn’t suffer from snags or broken threads.

  Hadley Cox was the exception.

  Her razor-sharp recollection required considerable care. There were no blurry moments he could easily massage into another shape. There were no easy blanks he could bridge with new experience. Hadley Cox had to have her entire memory painstakingly sculpted anew. Any inconsistency in not only the memories but how they were experienced could cause the tapestry to unravel—the least harmful result being to drive her mad.

  He stepped to one side, snatching a muffin out of reality. He nibbled at first while he thought, but something about the baked goods drew him like gravity. He’d cleared an entire baking sheet before he’d realized it.

  Wow, damn good. Can I think ‘damn’ without getting in trouble?

  He resisted the desire to snatch another nearby platter and circled Hadley Cox, rubbing his chin.

  What will you believe? Aquaylae mugged? You came to her aid? Terrance and Dylan arrive to drive them off? Maybe. It explains everything...except the missing muffins.

  Summus absently reached into reality and plucked another. His grin shed crumbs. He snatched another.

  Good Samaritans? Yes, that would appeal to your inner belief structure. The neighborhood helped too. You thanked everyone by sending them off with muffins. Once Quayla was moved upstairs, you came down for the wash cloths but realized you couldn’t return immediately because you had muffins in the oven.

  Summus licked his lips, cracked his knuckles and grabbed one more muffin.

  All right. Here goes reality.

  Terrance

  Terrance marched the garbage bag down to Summus. Burgeoning day shone upon the door’s glass oval. Time-accelerated construction sounds told him the new Divine One had called in a putti crew.

  A wise choice.

  He pushed open the landlady’s door to find Summus slumped in a chair, being served muffins and milk by a beaming Mrs. Cox.

  She turned her radiant smile on Terrance. “Thank you again for taking care of those ruffians. Can I offer you another muffin?”

  Terrance took one off the offered tray. “Thank you.”

  He glanced at the putti crew. There were no muffins in view, but none of their shirts proved crumb free. They’d restored almost everything.

  Probably stalling for more mortal food.

  Terrance looked between them and Summus. He’d intended to ask Summus to rewrite the pictures, but the Divine One looked far too exhausted to even destroy them. Terrance stepped toward the work crew.

  “Careful, dear. One of their rocks broke a window and I haven’t had a moment to clean it up,” Mrs. Cox said.

  “I will be cautious.” Terrance strolled through the curtain separating the putti from Mrs. Cox. He withdrew a smooth stone of amber from his pocket. He rubbed a thumb over the feather embedded in the otherwise flawless piece and handed the bag to the foreman. “Please take these with you and destroy them.”

  “Why should we?” Rusty asked.

  “So I won’t have to summon Vilicangelus to see to the task.” Terrance smiled and spoke the Divine One’s name a second time. “I’m sure Vilicangelus will be just as lenient about yo
u consuming mortal foodstuffs stolen from Aquaylae’s landlady.”

  The feather caught in amber radiated light.

  Rusty snatched the bag from Terrance. “Fine. Fine. We’ll take care of it.”

  “I believe you gentle-angels are finished.”

  The foreman glanced between the piles of muffins and Terrance’s expression. “Right, union break’s over, boys, put the finishing touches on and let’s fly.”

  Terrance let them out as he exited Mrs. Cox’s apartment. He headed back upstairs only to be met by Dylan’s scowl. “What happened to our pictures?”

  The earth phoenix endeavored to be understanding. “I saw them destroyed.”

  “Why?”

  “The police are investigating the Humane Society incident. They have pictures of Aquaylae’s former body—no matter how low their quality. No evidence can be allowed to remain.”

  “Look, Terrance, I appreciate you taking care of Quayla, but I don’t appreciate you throwing away our things.”

  “You do not see the necessity?” Terrance said. “You who work in technology?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Tell me, Dylan, did Aquaylae not tell you we are enjoined to keep our existence secret?”

  “She did, but surely we’ve outgrown all the superstition and panic. This is the information age.”

  Terrance stroked Aquaylae’s soft, brown hair. “You did not tell him, did you, little sister?”

  “Tell me what?” Dylan asked. “About faerie wishes destroying the world? That’s pretty pessimistic. People aren’t inherently evil.

  “Didn’t Aquaylae tell you that you’d have never met if she had not been burned at the stake?”

  “She was what?!”

  “It was some time ago. The details matter not. A few people learned about her nature and tried to slay her.” Terrance looked up from stroking Aquaylae and fixed Dylan with all of his focus. “Even good intensions enjoined with that kind of power can have destructive consequences. Are you sure her warnings were only pessimistic exaggerations? How many among your lofty intellectuals would make any deal to gain power offered by the faerie? What would they do to their neighbors with such power?”

  Dylan dropped his eyes. “We talked about that. The more I considered it though, the more it seemed so far-fetched. Besides, you guys would be there to stop the worst of it.”