Poison Kiss

by Ana Mardoll

  "Clarent," I repeat quietly. "I'm Rose and that's Lavender there in the car. Can you sit right here, Clarent?" I'm almost gritting my teeth with the strain of being reassuring and cheerful when all I want to do is to shove him into the car, slam the door shut, and throw myself into the backseat so that Lavender can step on the gas.

  "Rose," he murmurs, warmth infusing his thick honey voice. Before I can react he leans down, closing the inches between our faces in an instant, and brushes his lips against mine. There is the strange sensation of cold silver against my skin, but then the metal melts and flexes into a warmer softness that presses against me in a gentle kiss. I freeze, partly taken by surprise and partly from long practice in the May Queen's service; I'm not supposed to pull away when they kiss me.

  "Nice to meet you, Rose," he whispers quietly into my skin, and his lips flutter softly against mine when he speaks. The sensation of his metallic kiss is not unpleasant in the least, though oddly surreal; I can feel his softened skin molding to the curve of my own.

  This detail alone brings me back to the danger of the moment. I gasp and pull away from him, expecting him to collapse at any moment. But he merely stares at me with the same unsteady expression on his gentle face, his confusion deepening slowly into a more focused chagrin at my reaction. "Am I not here to rescue you?" he asks.

  "Car. Now," I blurt out, shoving all my fears aside. He ought to be dead from my poison right now, or at least convulsing; instead, he seems content to remain half-dead from exhaustion and dehydration. Either way, we need to get him out of here and to Celia; she'll know what to do. My grip on his waist tightens, and he finally allows me to push him into his seat; Lavender's small wiry hands reach over to help yank him inside. I slam the door closed behind him, no longer bothering to be quiet, and fling myself into the backseat.

  "Celia's," I gasp at Lavender, who starts up the engine with a deafening roar. As she peels out of my parking space I stare anxiously through the windows at the fog, still seeking pursuit. None materializes, and the fog is now quickly clearing. Trees fade slowly away and the white walls scatter under a sudden breeze, and once again the morning is exactly as it should be. I check my watch and note with a twist of my stomach that we were only in the fog for five minutes. I could have sworn much more time had elapsed.

  "Rose." Lavender's quiet voice breaks through my thoughts. "Is he gonna be okay?"

  "I don't know." I'm panting for breath, trying as hard as I can not to dwell on all the ways I've seen men die, trying not to think about the fact that the silver man has slumped over in his seat and isn't talking or moving. "Match the speed limit, Lavender," I caution, distracting myself with more practical realities. "We don't want to have to explain a naked man in the car."

  "A naked man made of silver," she elaborates, frowning at me in the rear-view mirror. The tone of her voice, and the lemon scent that accompanies it, causes me to look sharply at our passenger. Blinking and focusing my eyes, I slowly realize she's right: he hasn't got a disguise covering his metal body. My eyes widen as I wonder how we're going to prevent normal humans from seeing him. I've never heard of an altered coming earthside without a disguise. Did my kiss do this to him?

  Digging out my cellphone, I frantically pull up Celia's number. I have to warn her that we're coming so that she can get a healer out to her house. He's not dead yet, but his breathing is slow and shallow. Whether he's poisoned or ill or just exhausted I can't be sure, but Celia will know someone who can.

  Chapter 7

  Celia lives in a small three-bedroom house in a suburb outside the metroplex, and shares the cramped space with whichever new foundlings she's picked up recently. We were her last guests, Lavender and I, and I'd found it peaceful to watch for mice and rabbits in the undeveloped field behind her house, their movements causing the knee-high grass to sway in telltale patterns. I'd wondered then if Celia hunts them, but except for the night she rescued us I've never seen her use her bow anywhere other than the range.

  Lavender pulls us into the driveway and her hand hesitates over the wheel, unsure whether to honk the horn to announce our presence. To my immense relief our unexpected passenger is still breathing, but he hasn't regained consciousness despite my attempts to wake him. He needs the attention of a healer immediately, but we mustn't draw the notice of Celia's neighbors. The morning is still early enough that many of them won't yet have left for the day, and some might work from home as Celia does.

  We're saved from decision as the front storm door slaps open and Celia calmly strides out to us; she must have been listening for our engine. She carries a thin blanket draped over her arm and walks directly to the passenger side to peer in the window at Clarent. Her step doesn't falter when she sees him, but the dazzling silver coating his entire body does elicit a sharp raise of her eyebrow. "Well, you weren't exaggerating," she says, her authoritative voice carrying clearly through the car windows. "Covering him won't be enough; pull around back."

  She gestures at the yard gate, which has been propped open with a heavy potted plant. Lavender nods nervously at the command, the spicy scent of clover filling the car; neither of us has taken our car off-road before. But the path is wide with plenty of clearance, and the Texas earth is packed almost as hard as the concrete we usually drive on. She shifts the car into gear and slowly pulls through the yard, managing to look like she's done this a million times before—and perhaps, in her previous life, she has. I twist my head to watch Celia through the rear window, where she follows us on foot after moving the potted plant and latching the gate.

  When we're parked as near as possible to Celia's porch, Lavender hops out of the car and I pile out the back. She tosses me the car keys before leaping forward to hold open the back door to Celia's house. I'm already circling around to the passenger door, wondering how on earth we'll get Clarent inside. Even if he weren't covered in slippery silver, he'd still be too bulky for me to carry. Behind me, I can hear the crunch of Celia's boots on the dry grass, her quick stride purposeful and unhesitating.

  "Hold this and cover him once I've got him," Celia orders, pressing the blanket into my hands. Before I can react she calmly grabs his arm, bends her knees, and slings Clarent easily over her shoulders before straightening to her full height. I stammer out an inarticulate sound of surprise before registering Celia's impatient look; shaking out the blanket, I toss it over Clarent to prevent the rays of morning sunlight from glinting off his naked body. "C'mon, then," Celia says brusquely, leading us into the house.

  All the shades in the house have been drawn closed, and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the cool darkness when we first walk in. Celia carries the unconscious silver man to the couch in her living room, though in the dim light I have to rely on memory and imagination to picture her shrugging him onto the sofa. I almost overlook the bony hands stretching out from the darkness to probe Clarent, and when I catch sight of them my heart catches in my throat in an instinctive shudder. I should feel relief that Celia was able to get a healer here so quickly, but those emaciated hands look better suited to stirring a cauldron—probably one containing small children or adorable talking animals.

  "You kissed him?" The voice that emerges from the living room shadows is as insubstantial and papery as the withered hands, the whisper of something that lurks under beds and scuttles through tiny cracks.

  "Yes," I answer tightly, not liking the curiosity in the voice or the way I suddenly feel like someone's science project. "I'm poisonous, and he got a mouthful. Or," I stammer, increasingly unsettled, "I was poisonous, over there."

  "And he kissed her," Lavender corrects tartly, the tang of green apples filling the air. "It isn't Rose's fault if he hurt himself." She gives me a scolding look for accepting guilt so readily, stepping closer to me in a protective stance.

  Celia's expression is as dispassionate as always, apparently uninterested in assigning blame. "He's not breathing too shallow," she points out, studying Clarent with a detached expression. "And the fact
that he's still alive is a good thing. Think you can patch him up, Joel?"

  Shuffling movement allows me to define the edges of the healer. He is thin and gaunt, his skin stretched over a painfully tall frame. He's at least a head taller than Celia, but his back is doubled over in a stooping posture that puts him effectively on her level. Wherever his skin doesn't stretch it wrinkles into deep pools under his unsettlingly blue eyes and in thick patches at his neckline where his scruffy white beard stops against a knit blue shirt.

  "Alive isn't everything, Celia," he whispers. He steps awkwardly into a stray crack of light filtering in from the corner of the closed blinds and I see that the shirt is actually a hooded jacket, a strangely youthful choice in stark contrast to his advanced age. Though it is almost as warm inside the house as it was outside, he has the hood pulled up high over his head and the long sleeves pulled down to his wrists. The skin on his face and hands is mottled and patchy; whiter than Lavender's in some spots, darker than my own in others.

  "It's a damn sight better than instant death," Celia counters in a mild tone. "Rose said that's how it was over there, when she had to kiss them. I'd say this is a marked improvement."

  "You know the portals sometimes change us when we come over, Celia." He bends to examine Clarent, his lips puckered into a sour expression. "She could have a slow-acting poison now, or one that builds up in the system." His sibilant voice dwindles away as his bony fingers brush exploratory trails over Clarent's metallic chest, moving over his collarbone and broad shoulders, up his neck and over a single silvery-smooth cheek.

  "Hey! Hey, what are you doing?" I'm blinking rapidly as I watch him, unsure if my eyes are playing tricks. But I hear Lavender's gasp at my side and I know it's not my eyes and it's not the light; everywhere the man touches with his gnarled hands leaves a trail of drained color. Clarent's lovely silver face is now streaked with patches of darkness, looking as though he's been oxidized by the old man's touch.

  "It's okay, Rose," Celia says, but I step forward regardless, reaching out to shove the old man away from Clarent. I don't want to challenge Celia in her own living room after all she's done for us, but I know poison when I see it and I won't stand by and watch another man die.

  "Rose, no, look!" I smell Lavender before I feel her touch on my arm, peppery confusion as she holds me back. I narrow my eyes in the dim light, slowly registering that whatever has been done to Clarent is already rapidly healing: the black spots are fading, his skin returning to the flawless polished silver it had been prior to the healer's examination.

  The old man doesn't even acknowledge my outburst. "Well," he whispers, his voice like the crackling of autumn leaves, "as far as I can manage, the boy is fine. Exhausted, dehydrated, poorly-fed; the usual. Fluids and food for treatment. Some internal bleeding that wasn't doing too well, and which would account for his unconsciousness. I fixed him up, along with a dislocated shoulder which will want some ice when he wakes up. That was very recent, Celia; I think you may have exacerbated an old injury when you carried him."

  She shrugs at this, unconcerned. "It happens," she says simply. "I'll switch sides the next time I need to lift him. Cause of the bleeding?"

  His fingers flutter against his stomach before disappearing into the front pocket of his hoodie. "Anticoagulants. Thins the blood and prevents clotting. Even a small stumble or fall presented a danger to him. I removed what I could; time will take care of the rest."

  Celia raises an eyebrow, looking thoughtful. "No poison?"

  "None that I can find," he admits reluctantly, turning to consider me. His blue eyes sweep over me, lingering on the rose tattoo branded into my shoulder. "It's possible that poison can't affect his metal body. Or maybe just not your poison."

  "It affected everyone else," I say, and I'm surprised by the defensiveness I hear in my voice. His gaze is disturbingly intense, putting me on edge; he looks at me as if I were a puzzle he'd like to take apart and solve.

  "I believe you," he whispers. "But I suspect any poison produced by a green-veined girl named 'Rose' to be organic in nature, probably plant-based. Just a guess, mind you." His blue eyes glitter in the darkness. "The boy is made of metal, and as such may be immune to biological venoms. Give him mercury or polonium or another toxic metal, and it might be another story."

  His crackling voice trails away, the final word so hoarse I'm not sure he hasn't simply lost the power of speech. Then he looks at me with renewed intensity and I flinch, grateful for Lavender's hand on my arm. "On the other hand," he murmurs in a soft hiss, "you may have lost all your poison in your portal coming over. I won't really know until I get my samples."

  "Wait, what?" I'm not sure I've heard him correctly. I blink at his sharp gaze, feeling a strong urge to back out of the house and drive away, not lessened by the lingering lemon-pepper tickle at my nose.

  "Samples of what?" Lavender demands, clutching my arm tighter and holding me fast. She smells like apprehension and anger and curiosity all at once, the mixture of emotions muddying my own.

  He doesn't answer us. Celia's dark eyes narrow as she sweeps her gaze from casually surveying the patient to staring intently at the old man. I shiver, even though the sudden sharp focus is not directed towards me. She was like this the night she shot the spider to rescue us, and I've seen her the same at the archery range—and once during the group meeting where she introduced us, when she had to break up a fight between two of the men. I'm struck each time by the sudden change in her demeanor, as she morphs in an instant from a relaxed host to an intense fighter.

  The old man manages to meet her gaze without flinching, though his hand flutters with anxious energy at his side. I almost sympathize with his nervous tic; between Celia's withering gaze and the rush of wary sunflower sweetness that floods the room from Lavender, my throat tightens with the need to flee. He stares her down for the space of a dozen heartbeats before his eyes drop away to study his feet. "You know I'm right, Celia," he mutters, sounding sullen under his crackling whisper.

  She gives him a long look, one eyebrow raised. An uncomfortable moment stretches out in the darkness, then the edges of her mouth quirk up into the hint of an exasperated smile. "We need to work on how you ask for these things, Joel. If you want a sample, you don't just get to take. You need to explain it to her, and I'm not doing your work for you." She folds her arms over her chest and leans back to watch.

  His gnarled hand reaches up to stroke the wiry strands of his beard while his bright blue eyes seem to pierce right through me. "I need a sample from your lips," he explains. His rough whisper is tinged with excitement he can't suppress, an enthusiast having found a pretty new butterfly for his collection.

  "I can't." I'm not trying to be terse; I want to sound reasonable. But my mind races with objections that I don't know how to voice: this man is a stranger and I don't know what he wants to do with my venom.

  "It's only a little bit," he argues, looking perplexed. "You can always make more. I won't need more than a single vial from you, much less than the blood I'll need from him." Suddenly distracted, he rounds on Celia. "I'm going to need a bag of his blood. The 500-milliliter ones they use at the clinic where Worth works. You'll have to tell him to be patient while I work out how to store it; if it's metal, it might solidify once drawn."

  "I can't," I repeat, struggling to keep my voice level and calm. "I can't let anyone else have my poison." I feel my stomach twist inside me; above all, I don't want to be responsible for any more deaths.

  Joel purses his lips, the mottled white-brown skin around his mouth set in a stubborn line. Before he can respond, Lavender breaks in. "Rose, if he promises not to use it for anything bad—", her eyes search out Celia, waiting for her nod, "—maybe he can help you? Maybe you're really not poisonous any more, and wouldn't it be good to know that?" She stares up at me for a long moment, her gaze eventually dropping away when I can't find my voice.

  "She's right, hon," Celia says gently, despite her avowed determination not to get i
nvolved. "Since you're going to be living in this community, it's best if we can figure out a way to keep everyone safe. Even if you have got some poison left, there's a good chance Joel can whip up some antidotes, maybe even cure you. And Joel," she adds, her voice settling back into her usual stern calm, "you do need to promise her you're not gonna do any harm with anything you get off her."

  "Of course," he says, his voice almost rising above a whisper, thick with enthusiasm. "I'll do no harm. And I'll share whatever I learn with you."

  I haven't agreed but he steps towards me anyway, pulling a silver penknife and a small glass vial from a battered leather pouch he wears on his belt. I dance back a half-step, but Celia frowns at me and I hold my position. "It really is okay, Rose," she says softly.

  I look to Lavender, breathing in her warm autumn cider and a shade of frustration I can't define at the moment. She simply shrugs her shoulders, looking up at me with shared uncertainty.

  I don't like this at all, and still don't trust this strange man. Yet I trust Celia, and I really do want to help Clarent. He's still alive but I don't know if he's safe. Even though I didn't kiss him on purpose, I don't want his death to be my fault. So I take a deep breath, squeeze Lavender's hand and plant my feet, pretending to be a tree. I don't shy away when Joel's fingers brush my face, not even when the numbness sets in and I realize why his touch darkened Clarent's silver to that bruised blackness.

  The healer's touch is poison. His fingers leave a numbing iciness wherever they make contact with my skin, the sensation burrowing and spreading until I can't feel my face. Joel traces a long circuit around my mouth, and I notice how careful he is not to make contact with my actual lips; he isn't sure if he is immune to me. "Hold still," he whispers, his papery voice gentler than before. I couldn't do otherwise; his intense blue eyes hold me paralyzed in place like a cobra with its prey. His knife touches the corner of my lips and I feel hard pressure, though no pain penetrates the numbness. There's a trickle of liquid, and cool glass is pressed against my cheek to catch what my lips have to give.