by P. R. Frost
I left hanging my primary, and frequently vocalized, objection to Donovan: the fact that he lied, often, glibly, and with convincing acting.
“Well, um, I guess I have to tell you the truth, don’t I?”
“If we want to build on that kiss we shared, yes, you do. My life is an open book to you. About time you shared a bit of yours.”
By this time, he’d filled a pot with rainwater and set it on the stove to boil. Packets of instant coffee came out of the pack next, along with sugar. Lots and lots of sugar.
“No, cream. Sorry. But then you shouldn’t have real cream anymore.”
“You’re stalling.” I dug into the pack myself this time. Meals Ready to Eat. A silvery space blanket. A sleeping bag. First aid kit. And more. The thing must have weighed fifty pounds, and he hauled it around like I did my purse.
“I ran away from home and became a mercenary for two years.”
Something? Anything is better than this nothingness. Sort of like having five full-sized imps jump me and land on my chest. Then one gets off to beat me in the face. Still a pressure choking the life from me but not quite so heavy.
A ray of hope. Who said that as long as there is hope, there is life?
Now that the deep oppression has eased, my panic lessens as well.
Now I can think beyond gibbering.
Now I must face the darkness within me as well as without.
I need a cigar.
“A mercenary? I just don’t see it,” I said, sitting cross-legged in front of Gollum’s stove. Its tiny warmth wasn’t enough (I was almost surprised I felt no trace of the muscle pull). Chills made my entire body shake and tremble.
“Get out of those wet clothes and wrap the space blanket around you,” Gollum ordered. He began peeling off his own sweatshirt and polo shirt.
We both looked at his clothes as they came away in pieces.
“Wait.” I cast aside my drenched sweater. Too bad it was acrylic and not wool. Wool would have insulated me wet or dry. “Where did that cut come from?” I tentatively ran my hands across a long bloody slash that started in his left bicep—a very nicely formed and firm bicep at that—and continued down his chest to disappear beneath the belt of his jeans.
“Oh.” He stared at the blood oozing out of the cut. It looked raw and angry, ripe for infection. His face paled and his glasses slipped off.
I caught them before they hit the ground and smashed.
“Scrap, get your ass back here. We’ve got a demon wound.”
Nothing.
“Imp spit won’t help this,” Gollum muttered, just barely remaining upright. “It’s a sword cut, not a demon bite.”
“Good thing you brought a first aid kit and started water to heat. I’ll need to clean the wound. Lie down on the blanket while I patch you up.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you aren’t. If you were fine, you’d still be sitting and not falling over.” A gentle shove to his good shoulder got him flat on his back.
During my years as a schoolteacher I’d learned basic first aid. I’d helped Sister Serena in the clinic back at the Citadel. I wished she was here to help. She’d know if the wound was deep enough to need stitches.
After basic cleaning with soapy water—he’d brought along one of those miniature bars you get in hotel bathrooms—and a liberal dose of basic antiseptic, I used every adhesive strip and gauze pad I could ferret out of the kit. I was about to start ripping up his T-shirt (the same dark maroon as the polo) when he stayed my hand.
“I’ll be fine. I wasn’t even aware that the demon managed to slash me. It was just the shock of seeing my own blood. Heaven knows I’ve seen enough of other people’s and demon blood to numb my sensibilities.” He placed his glasses firmly back on his nose and struggled to sit.
I got a shoulder under him and heaved.
“Speaking of which, I still don’t see you as a mercenary in Africa.” I draped the space blanket around his shoulders and set about reading the directions on the MREs. He needed food and liquid to heal the wound and fight infection.
“You have to understand, I suffered a great deal of rage at the time.”
“You?”
“I’d just turned twenty-one. I’d graduated from Yale at nineteen, completed the course work at Columbia for my first masters and was halfway through the research for my thesis. Yet I was still reduced to working for the company that handles my mother’s family finances. Entire financial empires built on lies, deceit, manipulation, and beating down the competition at any cost. I lived in New York and hated every minute of it.”
Okay. I knew he was smart and that his family had money. This sounded like three or four steps above what I’d imagined.
I sat back and listened, hoping that once he got started, he wouldn’t stop until I’d learned everything I could about him.
“Then my dad died and a bunch of other crap happened. Gramps was the only one I could talk to, and then he had a heart attack. Mother ordered me not to upset him with my trivial problems. I left New York and didn’t stop for a long time. Somewhere in my head I had the idea I’d become a Warrior of the Celestial Blade, if I could only find a Citadel and an imp. Africa seemed as good a place as any. The army wouldn’t take me because of my vision. Mercenary companies aren’t quite so picky.”
He swallowed the barely warm coffee I handed him. His eyes remained focused on the inside of the empty cup.
“I made it through basic still angry. Then my sergeant handed me a uniform, a gun, and a backpack.” He fell into a deep contemplative silence.
“Surely your rage ran out before two years,” I whispered.
“It did. But I’d signed a contract. The day it was up, I went home. I didn’t know what I was going to do, only I wasn’t going back to the financial firm. My first night back in New York, some kid tried to mug me for thirty-five bucks in my wallet.”
Another long silence.
I knew I couldn’t break it. He had to speak on his own. The hurt on his face told me more than words.
“I killed him with my bare hands. Then I looked at him, really looked at him. He was a runaway, literally starving to death. I’d seen enough starving kids in Africa to know what it looks like. He needed my few bucks to buy food.”
I pulled his head down into my lap, caressing his fine silver-gilt hair and let him sob out his guilt and grief.
“At that moment, I took a vow of nonviolence. I intend to keep it, Tess,” he finally said into the darkness. “I will defend myself, and you, to a point. But I will never kill again.”
Chapter 38
Little evidence exists to indicate any group of people have lived permanently in the Valley of Fire.
“CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME for killing an innocent?” Gollum asked quietly in the darkness. The cave shrouded us and muffled the sound of the rain outside. We might be the only two people in the world.
“I’m probably the one person in the world who understands,” I said quietly.
“Those kids who mugged you last month.” A glimmer of hope came through his voice.
“They weren’t starving, but they were so young. They had their whole lives ahead of them. Except I broke the boy’s trachea. And I enjoyed the release of all my pent-up frustrations and anger and aggression.”
This time I fell into a silence only I could break. The vivid image of the feel of the boy’s throat beneath my fingers. The satisfying crunch as I slammed my hand into him.
Then the horrifying knowledge that I’d killed him. With my bare hands.
“If Allie and her partner hadn’t showed up when they did, if Joe hadn’t known how to perform a tracheotomy in the field, I’d have murdered a fifteen-year-old child.”
He squeezed my hand and sat up. “We’d better get some hot food into us, and cold clothes off of us.”
We set about getting ourselves fed and warm. Gollum proved quite skilled at survival camping. In moments I had the sleeping bag wrapped around my nearly naked body and my h
ands wrapped around a steaming cup of sweet coffee. He wore the space blanket like a toga, his long limbs sticking out awkwardly. Only he wasn’t awkward or nerdy now. He was magnificently alpha male taking care of me.
Somehow I always knew he’d be a plaid boxer shorts kind of guy. Nothing pretentious about him. Unlike Donovan who wore black and tight and trendy.
Finally, I had time to worry about insurance for the rental car, worry about my mom, worry about the book I needed to write, worry about how to save the faery dancers, worry about Scrap.
I lifted the cup to my mouth, avoiding the hard thinking with the anticipation of the hot liquid trickling down my throat into my tummy and spreading out from there.
Something glistened in the dim firelight. I stopped and stared.
“Gollum, where did this come from?” I couldn’t look away from the diamond-and-gold filigree that adorned my right hand. It had no weight, fit me as if made for my hand, and acted as if it had been with me for a lifetime.
“Gregbaum has fat hands. Even his pinky finger is bigger than my thumb. Lady Lucia is taller than me, she has bigger hands. How come this fits so well when it was made for her?”
“We already know it’s no ordinary ring.” Gollum took my hand and twisted it to better catch the light. “It belongs to you now, it fits you. It suits you.” He kissed my fingers. “I wish I could offer you something quite so fine.”
“I think you’ll manage, once we get back to civilization.” His kiss warmed me more than coffee and food ever could.
“The rain is letting up. We really should do something about getting out of here.” He didn’t look anxious to return to reality. Our little cave seemed quite snug and comfortable.
“I think I lost my cell phone in the fight.” As good an excuse as any. I’d look to make sure. Later. Much, much later.
“And mine got drowned in the rain. It needs to dry out. Maybe get a new battery before it will work again.”
As if we needed excuses.
“Scrap’s been gone a long time. He must have given me the ring before he took off again. I’ve never known him to run from a fight before.”
“Maybe he knew you didn’t need a lot of help this time. Imp business has always been a mystery.” He looked like he might say more, but didn’t.
I remembered the time I asked Gollum if he ever turned off the professorial lectures. He replied, “When I make love to a beautiful woman.”
He wasn’t talking now. He turned my hand over and kissed the palm. Then the wrist. When his lips met my elbow, I thought I’d jump through the cave ceiling from the intensity.
“Scrap knows enough to give me privacy when I need it,” I reassured us both. “But are you sure you’re not too injured for this?”
His mouth reaching the hollow at the top of my shoulder was answer enough. Every muscle in my body turned to liquid. The sleeping bag fell away.
“Still wearing red underwear, I see,” he murmured on a chuckle.
I couldn’t comment on the habit developed during my year at the Citadel. Red reminded us of the blood demons spilled and we needed to avenge.
My thoughts skittered far, far away from that time.
We both came to our knees, hands and mouths exploring skin textures and tastes. I tangled my fingers in the light hair of his chest that spread out at the waist band of his shorts. I followed the enticing arrow down and down, relishing every inch of him, smooth and rough. Salty and sweet.
Then, finally, we could contain ourselves no longer. His mouth latched onto mine, open with a tentatively questing tongue.
I responded, like to like. We molded and blended together.
The last remnants of our clothing fell away. We needed no blankets. We made our own heat.
Slowly, tenderly, we touched again. Fire followed his fingertips as they traced my nipples. I nipped at his. His tongue circled my belly button.
I arched my back, willing him lower.
“Not yet, my love,” he whispered. “Time. Tonight we’ve got time.”
We took our time, learning each other’s bodies, drinking in each new sensation. Dimly I noted as I covered him with a condom (smart men always have one, or a couple, in their wallet) that he’d been circumcised. Neither Donovan nor my husband had. It made no difference in the end.
At last, skin tingling, heat filling us, every nerve ending on fire, we came together in an explosion of passion. I’d never known such completeness; such a feeling of rightness.
I saw stars and knew we must have burst into a million pieces that unified the Universe. I didn’t know where I left off and he began.
We affirmed life.
All too soon, the chill night and our growling stomachs brought us back to the mundane realities. I wanted nothing more than to nestle alongside my love; my one true love.
Why are you still alive?The booming voice echoed and rattled around my empty skull.
“Why indeed?”
You should not have survived
“Tell me about it. Snatching me right out of my Warrior’s hand at the moment of transformation hurt.”
You dared trespass.
“So?”
Silence. Just when I thought something might show me a way out, it disappears again.
“Why am I here?” I shout into the nothingness.
You know.
“No, I don’t! I was trying to do my job. A job I do very well by the way, helping my Warrior of the Celestial Blade send some nasty demons back where they belong. We restore the balance.”
Small atonement for the balance you destroyed.
Oops.
I cover for my deep guilt by imagining the euphoria of tobacco smoke, hot and raw in my throat, then the rush of pleasure in my brain. Almost as good as sex.
Now how am I going to explain to Ginkgo why I didn’t make our next rendezvous?
You should think instead on why you will not return to your Warrior. as long as you live her, she will live. But she will not fight demons again with the Celestial Blade.
“Now wait just one minute. . .”
We have waited many millennia We can wait longer. But can you?
Gulp.
I really need that cigar.
We ask again, why are you alive?
“I’m alive because my Warrior needs me.”
You have lied to your Warrior.
“No, I haven’t. I’m always truthful with Tess.”
You commit the lie of omission. Your silence puts her in danger.
“She doesn’t need to know everything about me!”
You neglected to inform her when you learned the truth of the Fallen One lung before she discovered it on her own.
Ouch. That experience was so humiliating I blocked it from my memory. I actually lost a wart in a mud puddle when the gargoyles of York Minster cast me out.
More silence, a deepening of the oppressive blackness. That fifth imp is back on top of my chest.
“I’m alive because I was more cunning than my siblings.”
Imp law requited your death.
“Imp law is unfair! So what if I’m a runt? So what if I’m half the size I should be? I’m cunning and I’m smart. I’m the best imp for Tess. We fit together well. We work together well. Together we have taken out a tribe of rogue Sasquatch. We have battled vengeful Windago who broke the rules of King Scazzy. We’ve subdued those mutant faeries on steroids. Show me any other full-sized imp who has done that much and lived to tell about it.”
Another silence. I get the feeling whoever or whatever judges me is thinking about that.
You survived those who were sent to murder you—to carry out imp justice. But you did not stop there.
Now I’m in real trouble.
I watched the dawn burst above the horizon. No lingering glimmer while the birds woke up. I’d grown used to a gradual lighting further north. But here, in the desert with a long, long horizon, one moment a bare hint of sun, then the fiery orb appeared and filled the valley outside our cave wi
th morning freshness.
The floods had passed. A few droplets sparkled on plant leaves, then evaporated in the desert air.
I sat fully dressed and cross-legged on the lip of the cave, rocking back and forth. Only a tiny pull on my inner thigh remained of my previous injury.
“Where are you, Scrap?” I whispered, not wanting to wake Gollum.
“Hasn’t he returned?” Gollum asked. He propped himself up on one elbow and blinked at me.
I handed him his glasses. They’d gotten buried in the jumble of his discarded clothing. Wonderful memories of last night wanted to settle peacefully all through me. Worry pushed them aside.
“He’s never been gone this long. I think he’s in trouble.” I returned to my vigil at the cave mouth.
“He’s clever . . .”
“Something has gone terribly wrong. I can feel it.” My eyes kept returning to the Goblin Rock fifty yards away. Long shadows made it look black, robbing it of dimension and texture. Only its distinct silhouette stood out.
“Park rangers will be coming around soon. We should be out by the car when they arrive,” Gollum said. He set about folding up our camp and returning it to his backpack. “You should eat.”
“I can’t.”
He sat beside me. I had to scooch over to make room for him in the narrow opening.
“Something is terribly wrong if you can’t eat. Let me at least make you coffee.”
“Whatever. I’m going to hunt for my cell phone and get a better look at that rock.”
Without waiting for him, I slid down the five-feet-high cliff face. Finding Scrap was something I had to do on my own. That goblin cave looked like the best place to start.
Over and over I heard Scrap whisper in my ear. If you die, I die. If I die, you die.
Back at the Citadel we’d sat death watch over a Sister. Her imp, Tulip, had taken a demon tag to protect her. Sister Jenny suffered no injury, yet she died by inches because her imp suffered. Neither one would let the other go. Finally, Tulip had succumbed and Sister Jenny died with a sigh of relief.
I suspected Scrap had delivered a coup de grâce for them. Who would do that for us?