Blood Roses

by J A Cummings

  “Julia. She’s been yanking on my chains like crazy. I won’t go to her, but she’s making me miserable for staying put.”

  He grumbled in his chest. “That’s unforgivable. I’m sorry, Chester. Hopefully this won’t go on much longer. I went to see the administrator of the island and reminded him that slavery is outlawed here, and told him that your mistress is traveling with unwilling companions. I hope he’ll do something about it that will free you.”

  “Nothing can free us,” Chester said, down-hearted.

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Only her will. Only the will of someone even stronger that transfers the chains from her to themselves.”

  “Slave theft?” he asked, confounded.

  “Exactly.”

  “Who on the island is stronger than Julia?”

  “Nobody,” Chester said morosely. “Nobody at all.”

  Someone began pounding on the door, beating on the wood so hard that Heinrich could hear the planks begin to splinter. His hand went to his waist, but he wasn’t wearing his cavalry saber, since resort rules forbid the carrying of any weapons of any kind. Chester hid behind his headless friend.

  “It’s Mario,” he said. “She sent him for me.”

  “I’ll protect you.”

  “Chester!” Mario shouted. “Open the door!”

  The chupacabra shouted back from behind Heinrich’s broad back. “No! Go away!”

  “She’s demanding to see you,” Mario informed him, “and we have to leave in the morning. Come on.”

  Heinrich responded, “Go away, demon. My friend has no intention of going anywhere with you.”

  The pounding stopped, and the horseman could practically hear the puzzlement on the outside.

  “Dude, come on,” Mario pleaded. “Come back.”

  Chester’s hands jerked away from his body, and Heinrich supposed that Julia was pulling on his chains again. He tried to grab the chains to keep them from continuing to yank at the little creature, but he couldn’t touch them. It was frustrating and astounding to him that as a ghost he couldn’t touch ghostly shackles.

  “She’s going to kill me,” Chester whined.

  “Probably so,” Mario agreed. “But better to die quickly than to die slow.”

  “Better not to die at all,” Heinrich said. “Believe me, I would know.”

  The lock broken, and the incubus strode into the room. “You’re in deep shit, little dude.”

  Chester cringed. “I know.”

  Heinrich stepped up to meet the incubus halfway across the floor. “You are not taking him anywhere. Why do you serve her?”

  “She has my marker,” he shrugged.

  “And if we could find a way to take that marker away from her?” Heinrich challenged. “What then?”

  “Well, I’m not going back to the Pit, that’s for sure.” Mario looked at Chester. “The longer you fight, the madder she’s going to get.”

  The little chupacabra lifted his chin. “I just have to make it to dawn.”

  “If she’s destroyed, all of the markers will be destroyed with her,” Heinrich told Mario. “You’re in an excellent position to make that happen.”

  The incubus stared at him. “You’re crazy.”

  “Not at all.”

  He shook his handsome head. “Okay, first of all, no. Second, hell no. And third, absolutely no way.”

  “You could be free.”

  “I’m as free as I want to be.”

  Heinrich stood tall. “But the others can’t say the same. They want to be liberated.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says common sense.”

  Mario rolled his eyes. “Chester, do you want to be free? Do you want to have to fight for food and a safe place to sleep? Or do you want to stay with her, eat regular meals and sleep in a place where no human would dare to try to shoot you?”

  The chupacabra hesitated. “I…”

  Heinrich was horrified. “Chester, don’t!”

  “I can keep her from killing you,” Mario said, “but not if you keep pissing her off.”

  Chester took a deep breath and looked up at Heinrich. “Thanks for trying.”

  “You can’t seriously be…”

  “I am.”

  Chester walked to where Mario was standing. The incubus put his hand on the chupacabra’s shoulder and teleported away.

  Mario stood by and watched impassively while Julia drained Chester into a dead husk. She dropped the chupacabra’s nearly lifeless body onto the floor and snarled at the assembled thralls, “Who’s next?”

  “I don’t know who is next, but I know who should be,” the incubus said.

  Julia wiped her mouth on the back of her trembling hand. “Who?”

  “Duval.”

  The aged vampire laughed harshly. “I think that’s a brilliant idea, and if we were anywhere but on his island, I would agree.”

  “What does it matter? You’ve already committed one murder here, which is grounds to be barred from the resort for life,” Mario informed her. “What’s one more?”

  She looked down at Chester, then grabbed him up into her arms again. She slit her wrist and pressed the bleeding wound to his lips. His long tongue snaked out weakly and lapped at the offered liquid, and she let him take his fill. Mario wasn’t even certain that a chupacabra could be turned into a vampire, but he supposed they’d soon find out.

  “Who made you the voice of reason?” she hissed at Mario as she released Chester once again. The chupacabra sat on the floor, his head in his hands.

  The incubus smiled. “Someone has to be.” He went to her and offered her his handkerchief, which she used to wipe the excess blood away from her wrist. “Look, they want you to say you freed us. So say you did. How are they going to know? Then we can stay here until our reservations are up, and you’ll be able to keep tabs on Lucius and pull him back when he comes out of whatever little hidey-hole he’s gotten himself into.”

  “Just lie?” she asked. “Is it really that easy?”

  “I don’t see why not.” He brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Look, just release fade our chains a little, just enough to make them weak enough that their prying OtherSight can’t find them but not enough to really let them go. Then I’ll go to the administrator in the morning, tell him that you’ve released us, and then we’ll all be on his good side again. People like him are style over substance. He won’t care if you really released us as long as it looks like you did.”

  He knew how to work her. After all the years he’d spent at her side, he understood Julia.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Really.” Mario smiled and kissed her. “I promise you. It’ll work.”

  Julia retreated toward her bed chamber. “I’ll do that. Give me half an hour, then come in.”

  The thralls watched her close herself into her privacy. Chester looked up at Mario accusingly. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Mario smiled. “My own.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The sun was in its full golden glory and Rowena was trying to sleep. Nocturnal hours were hard for her, and she found it difficult to keep her eyes closed when the sun was in the sky. She had barely had any rest at all the night before, and she was tired, but it seemed that slumber was going to elude her.

  Grendel had abandoned the bungalow halfway through the night, and she wondered where he had gotten to. She supposed she should apologize for chasing him out, but he was the one who had reminded them of their connection. He couldn’t have been surprised by their response.

  She lay with her head on Lucius’s chest. It was strange to have her ear directly over his heart and to hear nothing. He truly was dead in the daylight, and if she allowed it, she could feel unnerved by the experience of lying in bed with a corpse. The more she thought about it, the more she got the creeps, and she abandoned the bed completely before mid-morning.

  Rowena showered and dressed, then packed blankets over and around her vampire love
r to protect him from the sunlight. She called for a transport, and a ghoul in a golf cart took her to the hotel in the desert.

  Imptah was happy to see her when she arrived, even though this time she hadn’t called ahead from the lobby.

  “Ah! Rowena. Such a pleasure. Do come in.”

  She stepped into his hotel room. There were clay jars scattered all over the floor, each one of them containing a scroll written either in hieratic or in proper ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Imptah grinned at her.

  “Good news. I found the reference I was looking for.”

  Rowena clasped her hands excitedly, scarcely daring to hope. “Something that will break the vampire’s hold on him?”

  “Something like that.” He produced a papyrus scroll. “What you need is this potion, whose ingredients include lotus and senef wenab.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Blood roses.”

  Her heart fell. “I don’t have blood roses. In fact, I was told that they’re not even available.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “That’s what Honey said.”

  He frowned. “Honey?”

  “One of the druids who built this place.”

  Imptah laughed. “Ah. I understand. Well, I think there’s something you should know about druids. They value rare plants and animals far above any silly external constructs like honesty or truth. Blood roses grow here on the island, right on the border where the wetlands and the taiga meet. She’s probably protecting them, because this is the only place on earth where these plants can still be found.”

  Rowena was a bit annoyed, but she also understood. “Fine. So what can we give her that would convince her to part with one blood rose?”

  Imptah smiled. “Leave that to me.”

  They went to the druid grove and found Oisin and Honey sitting beneath their oak tree, grinding mustard seeds. Honey looked up with a smile.

  “Rowena! Imptah! What a happy surprise. What brings you here today?”

  The witch smiled back and said, “Perhaps we should have this discussion inside your store.”

  The druids looked at one another, bewildered, but acquiesced. Imptah, who had a bag over his shoulder, was the last to enter the store, and he closed and locked the door once everyone had gone inside.

  “What’s going on?” Honey asked, mystified.

  Rowena answered. “We need a blood rose, and we know you know where to find one.”

  The druids exchanged another glance. Oisin said, “The blood rose isn’t in season, and even so, nobody’s seen it in so long, it might not even exist anymore.”

  “No druid would allow as special and singular an herb as blood rose go extinct on their watch, unless they were the worst druids in the history of druidry,” Imptah said frankly. “No, there are still blood roses on this island, and you’re going to let us have one of them.”

  “A whole plant?” Honey exclaimed, scandalized.

  “One flower,” Rowena told her. “Just one blossom, its stem and its leaves. That’s all.”

  Oisin set his jaw. “Out of the question.”

  Imptah sighed. “Well, I guess you won’t want to trade, then.”

  “Trade what?” Honey flashed a nervous smile. “Let’s not be hasty.”

  The mummy held up the bag. “Oh, just a little herbalism scroll from the Old Kingdom. Lists a whole range of spells and potions that nobody outside of my old stomping grounds has ever heard of… oh, and some plant seeds as well to go with it…”

  Honey’s eyes nearly glowed with excitement. “All that for one flower?”

  “One blood rose,” Rowena corrected. “Yes.”

  “Well, then,” Oisin said, holding out his hand for the bag. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  With the blood rose in hand, Rowena and Imptah returned to the witch’s rental home. The Headless Horseman was sitting by the door when they stepped out of the golf cart, his shoulders hunched.

  “Heinrich,” Rowena said softly. “What’s wrong?”

  He spoke in a muffled voice. “I failed.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked. She put her hand on his shoulder. “What happened?”

  “They came and took Chester away, and I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t even really try.” She sat down beside him and took his hand, holding it encouragingly. He kept talking. “The incubus came and collected him. I tried to tell him no, but Chester went with him, and he hasn’t been back. I fear something terrible has happened to him.”

  Rowena wasn’t certain how to reassure him. “I’m certain you did everything you could.”

  “I tried to stop him, but he chose to go with the incubus.” he said morosely. “I failed.”

  “You just said it yourself. He chose.” She hugged his arm. “It’s okay. You did the best you could, and if he went with them voluntarily, there was nothing you could do to stop him.”

  “I still…” He sighed. “I understand. But I feel…”

  “To be a failure, you have to have the power to make a difference,” Imptah advised. “And you can’t change someone else’s choices. You can, however, help to brew a potion that will change a certain vampire’s stars. Are you in?”

  Heinrich straightened. “If I can be of any help, I will be.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  They went into the bungalow, and Grendel greeted her by saying, “The chains have faded.”

  She looked at Lucius, who was still asleep. In her OtherSight, she could see that the shackles had in fact halved in power, something that surprised her.

  “We’d better hurry and get this potion made,” she told her familiar. “Faded chains are easier to break, and I want to take advantage of this if we can.”

  Imptah produced his papyrus, and they unrolled it carefully, respecting its great age. He read off the ingredients to her, and she made a list in a language she could speak.

  “Lotus I don’t have. We have the blood rose now. These others… garlic, that’s here. Acacia and catnip I can find.”

  Grednel’s ears pricked up. “Catnip?”

  “I’ll get extra. Ankh-amu and senepe… I have no idea what those even are.”

  Imptah said, “I know where they grow on the island. There is a desert wight who has his grave in the desert, not far from where the resort is building my pyramid.”

  Lucius mumbled from the bed, “They’re building you a pyramid?”

  The mummy shrugged, embarrassed. “It’s just a modest little thing, a glorified mastaba, if you will, but it will be mine. I’m paying not to worry.”

  The vampire, still in the grips of day, was unable to rise, but he shifted his head on the pillow so he could look at them. “What are you doing?”

  “Breaking your chains,” Rowena told him. She went to him and kissed his forehead, then helped arrange him so he could watch them from a more comfortable position.

  “Not breaking them, exactly,” Imptah corrected, “but the process of freeing you has begun.”

  Lucius blinked owlishly. “They feel.. Different.”

  “They’re faded,” she told him. “I don’t know what’s happening, but I’m going to take advantage of this weakness, so we’re working fast.”

  He closed his eyes. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  The gladiator breathed, “It could be a trap.”

  She watched him fall asleep again, wondering how he had the power to move and speak in the light of day at all. She went back to the table while Grendel dragged the covers back over Lucius’s face.

  “He’ll be different when the chains are broken,” Imptah warned. “He’ll come into his power fully for the first time since he was Made. It might make him crazy.”

  “I’ll take that chance.” She sighed and looked back at her list. “What else?”

  “Shavings from a dead man’s hand.”

  “Eww!”

  He took a knife and scraped it against his palm, where the dried skin and calluses of a thousand years had been exposed b
y his wrappings. Dust fell onto the papyrus.

  “There. Easy enough.”

  She gathered it up into a shot glass. “Lady bless,” she muttered, “that’s disturbing.”

  “Let me know if you need more.”

  “I have no idea. I can’t read the original.”

  He chuckled and added more to the shot glass, working from different places on his hand so he didn’t damage himself too badly. When he was satisfied, he handed her the knife so she could clean it.

  “That’s disgusting,” Grendel commented.

  “Organic and locally-sourced,” Imptah teased.

  Rowena chuckled and embraced him. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Of course. Slavery was common in my era, and I never approved. It’s my honor to do whatever I can to end it now.”

  “Did you own slaves when you were alive?” she asked.

  Imptah hesitated. “Moving on… ah! Frankincense. Easily found. Crocodile dung…”

  “Where are there crocodiles?”

  “In the wetlands, of course.” He gestured at his wrappings. “I can’t go with you to gather any of these things, unless I just ride along in a golf cart or something.”

  “I’d appreciate the company,” Rowena told him. “Grendel can drive.”

  Imptah raised his eyebrows, but the grimalkin nodded. “Very well.”

  “Is that everything?”

  “Not quite,” the mummy admitted, embarrassed. “It’s a good thing your intended liberee is a male.”

  “Why?”

  “The last ingredient is semen.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “Anybody’s, or specifically his?”

  “Specifically his, or that belonging to the one who holds him enslaved. I assume his master is not available.”

  “His mistress is not a good source,” she said. Rowena looked over at Lucius. “I’ll get that last bit when he wakes up.”

  “Excellent.”

  “That’s… an interesting choice.”

  “Many ancient spells revolving around life and the improving of it include semen as an ingredient, especially those from Egypt.” He shrugged. “It’s pretty much everywhere, if you know where to look and who to ask.”

  “We just need him to have a wet dream,” Grendel commented.