by Voss Foster
Could I? "Let's find out." Oh boy, that wasn't my voice. It was rough and phlegmy sounding, but we all knew it was blood causing that shit. I cleared my throat to try and make myself a little bit more understandable. "What do you need?" Not any better, really, and I had to spit out another mouthful of blue.
"Okay, do you have pain?"
"Just a tickle. With a knife."
"Okay, you're tough and hot. Let's try being honest, yeah?"
"My chest hurts. I'm dizzy. I'm too hot. Temperature-wise this time."
Casey's hand pressed against his forehead. "You don't feel warm. Probably the magic. I don't know what it is, exactly."
"Vellius. Is she—"
"She's a big girl, and not my patient." Casey's hands left me and I watched him walk over to Gutt. I couldn't hear what either of them said, but Gutt came back with him, so apparently Casey needed backup. "All right. Gutt, just support me. I'm still just a baby little quarter hag, and whatever this is, it scared a Class-B."
I couldn't stay quiet, didn't want to be alone in my head that long. "Well, then my chances must be great. I'm just a human."
"You're not just a human. According to Kimmy, you're a Wonderhunk." Casey rubbed his hands together, and Gutt placed massive hands on his shoulders. There was no more blood coming out of Gutt's lips that I could see. He'd taken so little of whatever Gelgaath's War Blessing was. It was us morons right next to the orcs that took the brunt of it.
"You trust Kimmy's expert opinion on me?"
"Of course. She's a smart cookie." Casey dipped his fingertips into the blood and began to draw with the sticky, cooling liquid on my chest, no longer looking at me, but fully focused on his actions. "I've adopted her classification. Seems fitting."
"I guarantee you could get a better guy than me." Another bout of coughing as the symbols on my chest began to burn. I no longer felt hot, but that was just because the magic was burning so intensely, like heated steel being driven into my skin. "Is this supposed to suck?"
"I have no idea. I'm improvising." He went back for more of the blood and rubbed it between his palms. "But let's get back to my dating life, yeah?"
He was changing the subject to something light, away from the actual issues. I was at least clear-headed enough to recognize it. "What about your dating life?" I struggled to keep my voice in check, the pain threatening to turn my words into screams. "I may not be gay, but you must be pretty primo on the market, right?"
"Oh god, you used primo unironically? You really are straight." He slapped his bloodied hands against my shoulders and finally looked back into my eyes, direct and intense. "You remember how you asked if this was supposed to suck?"
"I take it the answer's about to be yes?"
"I'd give you something to bite down on, but don't want to risk you drowning on all this orc blood."
Oh, that was a pleasant thought. "Let's go."
He nodded, then closed his eyes. Gutt's fingers tightened around him as his fingers tightened around my shoulders. And then came the burst of heat. First the fire on my chest expanded, covering every inch of my skin and driving deep, through my ribs and down toward my spine. It also spread out intensely from Casey's hands, rapidly overtaking my throat, my face. I gritted my teeth and sputtered out blood that hit Casey in the face. "Sorry." The end of my word got cut off by a strangled groan.
As I laid there, waiting for this bullshit to end one way or another, the flecks of blood on Casey's cheek began to shimmer, then fade from blue into bright red. Heat continued pulsing through my chest, down my spine, and I felt some of the roughness ease, the pain in my chest being overtaken with nothing but fire. It wasn't pleasant, but I'd take any change I could get.
"I have to stop." Gutt removed his grip from Casey. "I'm sorry."
"It's fine." Casey's voice was suddenly strained. Sweat dripped down his forehead, along the bridge of his nose. And he looked down at me. "You doing okay?"
"Casey, stop." My voice was hoarse, but I could talk without spewing blood. Other than the heat, I felt a hell of a lot better. Operating at fifteen percent instead of two. "Casey."
"It's not done yet." He was blanching pale. "There's still some orc blood in your system."
"Casey." Gutt, panting hard, clapped a hand onto Casey's shoulder. "I don't want to have to drag you off."
Finally, after a few more seconds, Casey released me from his grasp. I expected the heat to remain, but instead, I flashed cold. I was shivering. My teeth chattered against each other and I scrambled to cover my chest back up. I wasn't sure if this was better or worse than the giant branding iron being pushed into my bones, to be honest.
Gutt led Casey off me, then he pressed a hand to my forehead. "Sleep."
And thanks to him, I did. Hard and immediately.
I awoke groggy and uncertain and not cold. Not cold was nice. I slowly rose, shaky, but honestly, a hell of a lot better. And I sucked in a couple breaths, waiting for coughing. My chest still ached, and my chest hair pulled uncomfortably. I looked down to see the sigils drawn out in blood. Red blood. Not orc blood, even though I knew that's what Casey had used.
I buttoned my shirt back up and headed out, moving toward the gentle murmur of voices in the distance. As I moved through the hallways, I took immediate notice of the décor. Not because my brush with that blood bullshit had awakened some interior design aspirations I'd been suppressing. It was just difficult not to notice this many fucking rabbits. Shelves lined the walls, each holding many resin and plaster rabbits. Some were cute and cartoonish. Some were exceptionally realistic. But more than anything was the sheer amount. Just from the bedroom there to the juncture of the hallway, there had to be at least fifty.
I rounded the corner toward the voices. More little bunnies fucking everywhere. Not literally fucking, but just so many of them. The rest of the house was not particularly remarkable compared to this strange decorating choice. Hardwood floors that hadn't been properly treated in a long time. Beige walls. Popcorn ceilings. Things were tight. If I was going to guess, this wasn't a 21st century construction. But everything was very clean, even in spite of the million bunnies that would need dusting every single day.
The hallway let out into a small living room, festooned with just…just so many rabbits. Gutt sat on the couch with Rashem, a dusky-skinned elf man who wore a loose-fitting T-shirt and still had his pistol in hand. Casey, Lenva, and Ixel were nowhere in sight.
I took a seat in the empty armchair, careful not to jostle the bunnies chomping carrots on the end table. "Interesting décor."
"Useful décor." Rashem, his voice soft and high. He reached over and grabbed a shiny porcelain rabbit with long, floppy ears. He brushed his thumb across the nose, and blue light blasted out of the tchotchke. The temperature in the room dropped immediately, and as it hung there in the air, ice crystals began to bloom on every solid surface too close to the enchantment.
"Okay, useful. Still interesting."
Rashem smiled gently, then dragged his thumb back across the figurine, withdrawing the floating cold, but leaving the thin layer of frost to melt and evaporate. "Had I used that to its fullest potential, you'd have needed more healing intervention."
"Where is Casey, anyway?" Last I'd seen, he was attempting to pass out on top of me. "He okay?"
"Okay? Questionable." Gutt sighed. "But he's devoted to doing his job. He mixed up some sort of alchemical tincture in the kitchen to keep himself on his feet, then checked out the rest of us here. He left to go meet with Swift at the other safehouse after that. Haven't heard since."
Didn't love that. "So we have word from Swift yet? Or any news about Vellius?"
Gutt shook his head. "We're in a holding pattern. But if we're going to be safe anywhere, Rashem's house is on that quite short list."
"You flatter me, N'Gutta." Rashem crossed one leg over the other and leaned back into the sofa. "I have my talents, I admit, but the house is only designed as a temporary solution. If we're talking about the sort of magic you
're describing, I can't say how long you'll actually be safe to stay here."
That wasn't exactly comforting, but I pushed past it. "Lenva and Ixel?"
"Upstairs, resting," said Gutt. "Ixel was knocked out the same as you, and Casey worked a few supportive sigils around her, since she was already so weak. Lenva seems fine, just quiet and shaken up."
"And what about you? I wasn't the only one puking up orc blood."
Gutt smiled slightly. "I thought I'd done such a good job of hiding that. It was really quite minor. Out of everyone here, you took the brunt of that…whatever that was."
"Gelgaath's War Blessing." I definitely remembered the name, called out in passing as the spell tried to kill me.
Gutt nodded. "Bancroft will be looking into it. I'd never heard of it until Vellius shouted it at us, so I have no idea what it might be."
"Some bullshit is what it might be. In my expert opinion." I sighed. Holding pattern. Waiting. Everyone seemed fine, except for maybe Casey and Vellius, and I knew I couldn't do either of them any good in this situation. I still hated the sensation, the crawling, clinging cold that I knew damn well wasn't coming from Casey's treatment anymore. I needed to do something. "Do you have a shower I can nab? Still covered in blood."
Rashem nodded. "Down the hall, past the guest room. Mind Fluffles, the little one chewing on the strawberry bushel."
"What, is he surveilling me?"
"No. If you break him, the door to the bathroom will disappear, and I don't need you trapped in my drywall."
Okay. That was a better reason. "Is there a different rabbit surveilling me?"
"A lot. It's a safehouse. I have eyes and ears everywhere. Doesn't mean I'm going to look at some random, skinny white human. TV is full of them."
"Well good. I don't need anyone seeing my secret tattoos."
Rashem's mouth tilted into a hint of a smile. "Mum's the word. Since I doubt you have anything worth blackmailing you for."
"Good." I wasn't quite "there" enough to engage in any kind of battle of wits at the moment, so I just got up and headed back the way I'd come. I knew I'd arrived when I saw Fluffles up close and personal. Saccharine sweet, with giant, black eyes, and munching away on a basket full of strawberries as big as its little plaster body. It was also lacking the vicious red that, in real life, would make its snout look bloody, which helped the cute factor. "So you promise me you won't fall over while I'm in the shower?"
Talking to fake rabbits, and we were only a few hours into the safehouse hangout. Great news for me.
The blood took a lot longer than I thought it would to come off completely, and there were still some reddish-brown stains on my clothes. But no blue. I still had no idea what Gelgaath's War Blessing was, or what Casey had improvised to fix it, but magic, man. Magic was still wild a year into this job.
Rashem had been kind enough to run my clothes through the wash, and we were close enough to the same size that I wasn't forced to sit around naked. Although I promptly refused his offer to use his underwear. Maybe it was a cultural, Kingdoms versus Mundane thing, but I'd be keeping my own boxers, thank you very much. It's not like there was any blood down there, thank God.
The tension hung heavy in the room. Rashem was…well, a little weird, frankly. He dipped his toe just over the line of reasonable conversation over and over, and he definitely didn't appear to be a fan of humans in general. Not so much that he was overtly rude like Ambassador Cyrex, but yeah, he would have preferred Gutt show up without the human agent in tow. Still, he provided coffee and tea for us, water for himself.
When my phone finally rang, I was on it in less than a second. Any action that might change things up. And bless whatever the fuck there was to bless, it was Swift. "What's the word?" I lowered the phone to the table and put it on speaker.
"I was calling to ask you the same thing."
"We got here intact," said Gutt. "Everyone appears all right."
"I heard a little different from Casey. Need to know how everyone's actually holding up, here."
He was referring to me. "I got my ass handed to me by whatever went down, but I feel fine now. Just tired. Ixel's worse off than I am."
"Yeah, Casey filled me in. She wasn't recovered from the shit that went down last time." A staticky sigh passed over the line. "How about Rashem? He still using the rabbits?"
"I'm not one to abandon a decorating choice so easily," said Rashem. "Nice to hear from you again, Swift. You never visit."
"No offense, Rashem, but I'm very happy I never have to pay you a visit. If we have to come see you, it's not a good sign. Glad to hear you didn't freak out about the Class-A, either."
"What would panicking do? She'll kill us whether we're calm or not, right?"
Swift chuckled. "True, but there's still the threat of the Hand to deal with. Shit. King wants a word. Let me know if anything changes. Rashem, Casey's going to be moving back and forth between here and there. Don't kill him."
And with that, he hung up. Rashem was pale, but before I could mention it, Gutt cleared his throat. "The Hand is unconfirmed."
He nodded weakly, and spoke even more weakly. "But a possibility? The Seven-Fingered Hand might be back?"
Okay. That was one way to pass the time. I leaned over and patted the back of his hand. "You ready for something stronger than water?"
It took most of the rest of the evening to get Rashem caught up, mostly because he kept getting up and pacing, muttering to himself before he would sit down for another dose of reality. Lenva and Ixel both made a reappearance during the process. Ixel seemed okay, other than just being broken. I could tell from her eyes, she was hurt. But physically, she seemed okay, able to handle the stairs, dart around the bevy of lagomorphs watching over every square inch of the living room. They didn't stay downstairs for long, but got water, and Rashem provided them some sandwiches. Or, well, provided Ixel with a couple sandwiches. Then they were back upstairs. And I had to ask. "What's stopping Ixel from running?"
"Well, there's no door unless I say so." Rashem took another drink from his wine glass. "And like I said, eyes and ears everywhere. It's not meant to be easy to get in and out of here at will, especially now that we're actually using it as a safehouse, not just on standby." He clapped his hands onto his knees. "All right, I'm behind on my other work and need time to process. Don't do anything ridiculous, because I'll know."
And then, like that, it was just me and Gutt in the living room. It was strange, sitting in the warmly furnished living room with my partner, not doing anything particularly dangerous, but still so full of adrenaline I wasn't sure it would ever fully burn off.
I wasn't ready to tackle any of the heavy-duty questions yet, though. "So what's Rashem's deal, anyway?"
"He's one of our safehouse operators. When you do the work we do, it's wise to have a place you can go that's less public than the FBI headquarters or the field offices."
"I figured that much out." I gestured to the rabbits. "Is he all there and stable upstairs?"
"He's a touch…reactionary at times, I admit. But he's a perfectly sound agent, and incredibly skilled at constructing barriers, and at enchanting. Just not at much else. He wouldn't be a very effective field agent, but the magic I used to reinforce Lenva's cell that drained me so much? That would have been nothing for him. As for the rabbits…who would ever suspect powerful magical defenses would be held by an old woman's trinkets?"
Well that was definitely true. "So do you think we're actually safe here?"
"As safe as we are anywhere. The people we're dealing with can make a golem able to not only perform powerful magic, but contain powerful spells within that same golem. It's not something I've ever so much as heard of."
I nodded. Maybe I could get in one heavy question. "Facts aside, hedging aside, do you think this is actually the Hand?"
Gutt sighed and stayed quiet for a while before speaking low, grave. "I certainly don't believe it's the same Hand. They'll all be dead by now. But could someone be r
eforming the Seven-Fingered Hand? Unfortunately, I can't pretend it's not a possibility."
"You're still equivocating. Gun to your head, are we dealing with these magical terrorists making a resurgence and trying to break every magical criminal out of holding?"
Gutt sighed. "I have a suspicion in the pit of my stomach that, at the very least, someone is attempting to revive the Hand. Using that symbol is no different than someone here using a swastika or the black sun. They don't have to be an actual German National Socialist to still be Nazis."
Solid point, and probably as clear cut an answer as I was bound to get from Gutt on this subject.
"If you care, I think the whole thing is probably happening." Rashem stuck his head back around the corner. "There are stirrings about the Hand here and there constantly. I thought there was a chance Jörmungandr could have been their doing. Turns out not. But between the use of the symbol, another freed Class-A, and the sheer power at play…well, the Hand was never known for recruiting the weakest of the weak." He nodded curtly. "I also agree with N'Gutta's assessment of myself. I know my skills and so does everyone else in the OPA." He tapped a nearby rabbit, this one made of wood. "Eyes and ears everywhere."
Gutt badly concealed his smile as Rashem walked away. "He may also not have the control over his mouth to be out in the field."
"Also true." Rashem's voice bounced down the hallway. "But at least I'm more pleasant to be around than Agent King."
Anti-human sentiments aside, I could maybe see Rashem growing on me if I spent long enough with him. I just really, sincerely hoped that we wouldn't be spending that long with him. Every hour we spent in the safehouse made it that much less safe for all of us. We could only play defense so long against an unceasing offensive assault. And we could functionally count these fuckers as unceasing. They'd released a Class-A from captivity without anyone even noticing, and then monitored her recovery team with a flawless golem.