As expected, she stood in a plain white shirt and a black skirt, with little variation in her body width from floor to ceiling, and gestured arrogantly at me to hand over the deposit without any greeting whatsoever. We were off to the races. She peered inside the envelope, which I had checked for errors Risa may have accidentally included, sniffing as she riffled through the checks and slip.
“Mister Hardigan, did your partner ready this deposit?” Her derisive question was laden with levels of disgust at our non-traditional household. Annalise was capable of insulting me, my family, my business, my handwriting, and for good measure, my sexual practices all with one simple phrase. She was an artist.
I drew a bead on my target and engaged. “Yes, Miss Wimple, one of my partners, as you call them, prepared this deposit. And may I once again compliment you on the sensibility of your clothing. So practical.” I delivered this salvo with a chilly smile, all teeth and no warmth. Her face never twitched. She emptied the envelope and spread the checks carefully like she was organizing the sections of an antique Japanese fan for restoration. We were in for the long haul, it seemed, but a timid teller from the drive-through asked for approval on a large check, so she tidied the deposit and handed me my receipt with little more admonition.
“Always a pleasure, Mister Hardigan. I’ll be certain to pass your standing request that we repair the night deposit drawer at our soonest possible date. Until next time, enjoy your day.” She turned away with the scratching of her nylon hose and I was dismissed without fanfare. Free, for another month, or until I could bribe someone else to do our bidding at the hands of Miss Wimple, although it didn’t look likely. Hardigan 1, Wimple 0. I had a spring in my step as I pushed through the doors, thinking about lunch. And a beer. Or three.
3
Westray Island, Scotland, 336 B.C.
He is nearly done, and he is the last one sober enough to rape me, I think. She focused on the stars above her, jerking back and forth with each piggish thrust from the stinking sea raider between her legs. Her head was ground into the sod by his forearm even though she was too battered and weak to struggle. That spirit had been beaten out of her by the first six who had taken their turn, and the three who had spilled in her mouth, while nearly snapping her neck with their rough hands. A groan, and he slid from her, vomiting onto the turf and falling dead asleep, drunk and nearly incoherent after taking his pleasure. His matted hair, clothes, all of him stunk of fish and salt, so different from her husband’s earthy, clean sweat she had known so well, until his death only hours ago, when he had been run through with a pike and left to die holding his own soft coils of intestine and crying for her from the beach. After some time, his voice had faded and then stopped, or maybe she was overwhelmed by all of the other carnage filling her ears, the killing and the screams, the children being sacked like ducks and carried down to the waiting boats. Her father, the seer, had been burned alive after being asked repeatedly for hidden treasures, although anyone could see that their small settlement near the hilltop was mean and rich only if one valued views of the rolling sea two miles distant. Stone and logs set into the earth formed their community, the circular brochs now glowing ruins that smoldered in ash from the raiders’ fire. Not all the houses had been empty when set to the torch, and even as she was raped, she sobbed for those wailing from the burning houses, and moment by moment she became numb to the smell of her people, her kin, roasting in embers of all she had ever called home.
She lay very still. There were snores and drunken mumblings, but little activity. Looking up, she found the swan, flying through the heavens as always, mutely watching her whole life, and this, what might be the last of it, with wings spread and a black mask made of the night pierced by two eyes. If only she could summon the swan to fly her far from here, away from this death and loss. Her thighs were slick with blood, and her tongue was bitten to coppery ruin by a smiling monster holding a stone knife to her neck. She spat a tooth on the ground and tried to rise, but slumped back, the sky and the swan spinning, whirling away in a twisting blur, and gradually, she lost consciousness, wondering if she would ever wake again. At thirty-six summers, she was a grandmother twice over and one of the oldest women in her village. Now, she was almost certainly the oldest person still alive, a testament to her resiliency and general toughness. It had not helped that even after six children, three of whom lived, she remained a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and dark blue eyes that reflected the sea and the stones around her. Even her body had retained some youthful qualities, although the attentions of the raiders smudged her features into a mass of bruises and left a shallow bite mark on her cheek. The grass was cool on her face as she waxed from consciousness to horrid dreams throughout the night, only rising to vomit and void her bladder as the sun rose on a holocaust of scorched timber and stone that had been her life. Gods, let me die. Please. She turned on her side and began crying anew, but the gods did not hear her, and she lived on.
4
Florida
“Ring? Honey? Are you here?” Wally stood over me, phone in hand with the receiver covered, as I lazed on the couch. “Sounds important. He asked for you, wouldn’t speak to me or Risa.”
I nodded once and reached out, taking the phone and holding it to my ear. “This is Ring.” I was neutral. We don’t get many phone calls on the land line, and if we do, it’s almost always family or friends. That meant this was an unusual call, and if we’ve learned anything from the past year, we hate unusual.
“Mister Hardigan, what a pleasure to find you available.”
There was only one voice in the world that connoted such oily malignance in a black suit. Joseph. My least favorite servant among the Undying, he had vanished along with Delphine just prior to our brawl with Elizabeth, which resulted in our low profile as we healed and reconsidered our chosen profession. I hated him. I sat bolt upright and waved Wally over, miming that she should pick up the other receiver.
“What do you want?” I snapped. I could hear each breath whistling through his nose as he considered his words.
“I’ll be direct. Miss Delphine would like to meet, for dinner.” I saw Wally and Risa nodding vigorously near the other phone. They wanted a piece of her yesterday. Their collective grudge was impressive, even for women who nursed them in tandem for years. I know.
“All three of us, or not at all. We choose the place and the time. And you pay.” The last condition I added merely to irritate his slavish dedication to manners. Tough shit, sport. You left us swinging.
I heard a murmur that could only be Delphine, and he spoke simply, “Agreed. What is convenient for you and your partners?” To his credit, he seemed to use the term without inflection, which was an improvement.
“I think we’re in the mood for something French, Joseph. A table for four, at Cerise. Tomorrow at eight o’clock. We’ll meet you there.” Before he could speak again, I clicked off. Risa and Wally both shrugged and went to see if I had a clean jacket. They trust me to kill immortals, but not to dress. All the important decisions, well, I leave those alone. My mother didn’t raise a fool.
Night found me pacing the dock with our Great Dane, Gyro, lolling on the lawn nearby. He was attuned to my mood, and his ears swiveled like radar following me during my aimless pacing. A nearly full moon pulled a hard tide that rushed into our canal with abandon. I could hear individual wavelets slap the pilings in an erratic rhythm as they struck the concrete and broke into angular splashes. Wide and buttery, the moonwash followed me no matter where I went, like a bright shadow broken only by the motion of the dark water. The breeze was fat with humidity, and I finally sat, legs dangling over the canal, while Gyro walked to me and slumped into a groaning pile of canine, presenting his massive chest for a rub. I obliged. Risa sat next to me without making a sound, her eyes taking in the moon, the sky, all of it. Even in our crowded town, there was still something to be said for the water acting as a bulwark against the press of people all around us. The canal drank in the noise o
f the city and whisked it under the surface, an obedient partner in our evening quest for solitude.
“I love this. All of it, the sanctity of our home, you, Wally, even this big goof.” She punctuated her statement with a solid thump of Gyro’s rib. He rose to nuzzle her appreciatively and then resettled.
“I sense a however coming.”
She laughed at my astuteness. Sometimes I know her too well, since nothing she could say would augment my sense of peace in that moment. We were safe. We were well rested, and getting more so, but we were hiding, and I knew it. She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed, letting it slide with a hesitation that was both familiar and sad.
“I saw you walking back and forth. The moon never lets you leave its gaze, does it? Just like our responsibility. To each other, our family, and that pile of money we sit on, all of the things that we do. It’s always there, waiting. We can’t outrun it, and we can’t ignore it, so we must engage it on our own terms, no matter how much we want this moment to remain unchanged. And that makes me sad because Wally and I don’t have to do the killing, but you do, and someday I’m afraid that you aren’t coming home with us.” Her eyes were bright. Hell, mine were too. I had that same thought, often, and it made me feel like I was over a black chasm with no bottom and no sides. “Delphine called us because something is in motion, and we all know it. So, we go to dinner, but we do so with the intent of being the aggressor, okay?” She held my hand tightly, a grip that whitened her fingers and left no doubt as to what would happen to anyone who got in our way. I savored the moon once more, and then stood, pulling Risa to her feet.
“You’re right. Wally is, too, although she’ll be a bit more vocal about how we’re going to proceed with this. But yes, something is coming. War, maybe, or maybe it never went away and we’ve just been pretending.” We walked back inside. Suddenly, it didn’t seem warm and humid. Or safe, for that matter.
5
Florida
“So how exactly does this work?”
Delphine gestured at the three of us, her delicate wave loaded with meaning and curiosity. I sat very still, knowing that neither Risa nor Wally would take the question as an inquiry, but more of an affront to their authority, womanhood, and our home in general. It was an uncomfortable moment. Three women of great beauty and will sat around me in a restaurant that oozed with understated elegance and exclusivity. You would think I’d be happy, even gloating, but I knew that this meeting could go very well, or very badly, and fast, judging by the frosty expression on Risa and Wally’s faces.
The sommelier came and went in an instant after Delphine directed him to find an arcane bottle of a wine that she favored. Sensing that there was a less-than-convivial atmosphere, the waiter followed suit with our hasty orders and we were left, for the moment, to our own presence in the midst of a well-dressed crowd utterly ignorant of the fact that a perfectly gowned and coiffed killer older than Christ sat mere feet from them. I stilled myself, thinking that the less said, the better, or at least keeping my own counsel was best until the tension between the women dissipated, as all were capable of violence while wearing heels.
Risa drew a breath, intending, no doubt, to inform Delphine that our relationship, while unusual, worked very well, thank you very much, and other than meeting and brawling with the upjumped devil herself, we had a life that could be envied. I think her terms may have been a bit more direct, and involved a vivid anatomical lesson, too, but before she could speak, Wally interrupted.
“Why are we here? What is different about you now that Ring should not blade you where you sit?” Her words and her posture verged on violence. Wally’s question was a serious one. She did not waste words with immortals, and there was none of the playfulness that made her such a brilliant lover and friend. This was the other side of Wally, an earnest inquiry that demanded nothing short of full disclosure from an immortal woman she considered a serious threat. Delphine folded her small hands in front of her and considered us for a moment. I could see the second that she decided to be truthful; it was a moment of genuine conflict on her otherwise placid beauty. In a quiet voice, Delphine began to reveal herself and her origin, and it all began with a foggy, gritty shore twenty-four centuries earlier, and a woman who walked from the sea to save her.
6
336 B.C. Westray Island, Scotland
It was frigid, the air opaque with the fog that Scots would later call haar drifting in fingers and sheets that made even the most basic movements painful. Sodden, bruised, and barely conscious, she lay near a smoky fire that gave off more light than heat, her body threatening to come apart from shaking with a fever that had set deep within her in the three days since the raiders had come ashore. They were still sleeping off their nightly drunk, a collection of beastly men reeking of hate and sour sweat. She tried to loosen her muscles in preparation for her daily onslaught, knowing that they would set upon her like rooting hogs when their first lust began to rise with the sun.
The haar quieted more than just the earth, but the sea, too, as the normally frantic waves lapped politely at the rocks, a hint of peace in a scene of grotesque violation. With coughs and groans, the raiders began to arise, and a vicious chill bit even deeper into her shattered body. The rape would begin any minute. She began, soundlessly, to ask the gods for death, or at the very least, the mercy of blacking out from one of the inevitable heavy blows aimed at breaking any vestiges of her spirit. Lost in her beseeching of deities who had turned away long ago, she did not hear the shouts and metallic noises of men arming themselves. It was only when the first thin scream of a raider’s dying howl carried through the mist that she sat upright, a different kind of cold speeding her heart like an animal chased near to death. A battle cry, cut short, and a wet sucking noise, the thump of a body in sand, then another, and then the panic of men breaking and running, too late, as a hiss of triumph reached her ears, then a woman’s laughter, rich and free. And then, nothing, only the waves, and from the fog a single shadow, resolved into a woman who walked like a queen. A black cloth shift slicked wet to her body with seawater and blood, and her luminous skin was pale as the moon. Smiling, the dark-haired savior who walked from the waveless ocean held her hand out, flecks of tissue streaking the long fingers. Without thinking, the woman who had been raped to within an inch of her life reached out and took the bloody hand, knowing that, good or bad, this woman was now both demon and mother at once. Leaning into the harbor of her arms, she smelled the blood and the salt, and it mattered not at all. She was safe, for the first time, really, truly safe.
7
Florida
The girls sat, unmoved by Delphine’s tale, their stony glares only softened the slightest. Risa gathered herself first and spoke quietly, with great intensity. Risa started, “I am not uncaring or dismissive of your suffering. I can understand—”
Delphine’s bark of laughter interrupted her. “Understand?” Her voice was a sibilant hiss. “Understand what exactly? The gang rapes? The torture? Vomiting filthy water and the seed of my assailants onto the crushed shells that slashed my back as those creatures took their pleasure? Or perhaps you, Waleska,” and she seared Wally with a molten stare, “perhaps your unique worldview leads you to understand being eviscerated with grief as I watched my children, wholly innocent, who I had nurtured and fought to save for all their lives from a world that frankly didn’t give a shit”— Delphine gulped wine and lunged back at us with her accusation— “perhaps seeing those very children be sacked like chattel, stolen forever, for who knows what purpose. Rape? Servitude? The whims of a beast that reeked of salt? I’ll never know because they are gone, have been gone for millennia, with the chirp of crickets filling their bones since before Jesus walked.
“I have been many things, child,” and she affixed Risa, and then me with her icy judgment, “and believe me, your petulant silence will not dent me one whit. I know what I am. I know who I am, but before your families ever plowed their first field centuries ago, I was a mother a
nd a wife, and no matter how entrenched your little domestic arrangement becomes, you’ll never be both. I was. I know the aches that you will never feel, so if you want to have a discussion like adults, sit and have wine with me. If you want to continue your imagined grudge because I had the temerity to fuck the man in your life, who was quite an enthusiast, by the way, then get up and leave. And then, do not ever speak of me again, or it will be a grievous error that even a team like yours will regret. Do I make myself clear?”
Suitably reproved, I interjected before anything could send our dinner further into the depths. “Allow me to rephrase our original question, Delphine. Why are we here? You must admit, this is an unusual meal, and I might be a bit dense for this level of interaction.” Risa snorted and Wally smiled. Point taken. “We’re semi-retired. We’re still healing, sort of, and we’ve got a taste for taking it easy. As far as we were concerned, you vanished, had gone dark, moved, no forwarding address, call it what you will, but the one time that we reached out to an immortal without the express intent to kill, you weren’t there for us. Perhaps you can understand our collective reluctance to even speak with you. So to be blunt, what do you want?”
Box Set: The Fearless 1-3 Page 25