Blood

by Kay Williams

  This was it now, the press had fixed my future for me, I would always be known as the telekinetic who had wielded an axe in supposed self-defence while sustaining no injuries herself. It would have been better for me if I had been shot, or needed sectioning. Was it too late to suffer a complete mental breakdown?

  I was going to have to find a way to manage people's crass jokes. At what point did people think that just because I wasn’t guilty that I had murdered three people in my own defence then it had to follow that I wasn’t sorry?

  I wasn’t sorry I had killed them, I was sorry I had been forced to, I wished I was the better kind of person who could have thought of another way, but I had given them all a chance. They had attacked first, I didn’t want to die or see my friends die because of me, or be treated to a life of Bespelled captivity. The emotional and physical condition of those that Long had held for weeks was proof that I hadn’t exaggerated the danger I had

  been in.

  Nothing about the last few weeks had been remotely funny; I didn’t know how people could laugh at it now.

  My shield was up again, I could feel the triggers kicking in, but I didn’t bother snapping the band, as far as I was concerned the shield could stay up the rest of my life. It would be easier to have it scaring people away than having to pretend I thought my life was amusing.

  “They just don’t understand.”

  “The men’s bathroom is next door,” I said.

  Heronsgate suffered my resistance but didn’t let it stop him drawing me against his chest and wrapping his arms around me.

  “They only see the result,” he spoke gently. “They didn’t know your mind before; they don’t understand the kind of drastic mental reshuffling and the repositioning of your moral compass that it took for you to accept what you had to do.”

  I was a heartless murderer now so that’s what they thought I must have been before.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “I heard you.”

  Which meant that Heronsgate had his psychic abstract trained on me and was picking up on my thoughts.

  I thought of my shopping list.

  The elastic band snapped gently on my wrist.

  # # #

  “And this is a coffee table.”

  I couldn’t quite keep the frown off my face.

  I had been dubious about having Cornwall’s friends over to begin with and Heronsgate’s insistence on giving South a tour and pointing out my furniture was strange to watch and seemed to justify my initial refusal to play host to them.

  With few exceptions most had been born into vast amounts of money and probably had offices or trailers larger than my flat.

  Cornwall had promised me it would be alright and I wondered at myself for believing it. Cornwall had arrived with Heronsgate in tow and the latter arrived with a friendly hug and soft insistence that I use his name.

  Frederick Harper had arrived shortly after and instantly made it into my good graces by arriving with flowers.

  South was last and came with another woman by the name of Jessica Fallow. Fallow was a tiny, thin woman who was instantly received by Cornwall with a hug that should have snapped her in half, purring and a lot of his rubbing his cheeks against hers, behaviour which looked incredibly strange until South had told me they were Pack. I had no idea who Fallow was or what she had done to deserve an extension of Cornwall’s power but she had to be something special.

  “And this is a cupboard,” Heronsgate continued.

  South listened attentively as if this was all brand new information to her. I dearly wanted to correct Heronsgate, what he was gesturing to wasn’t a cupboard, it was my

  Queen Anne cabinet.

  “If you saw her place you would understand.”

  I blinked at Harper, the dancer moved like the wind and I hadn’t heard him come up behind me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Harriet’s house is minimalist, not because she designed it that way but because she does all her work in one place. Her office is the only room that looks lived in. The rest is just functional.”

  Heronsgate had South’s hand in his now and was helping her stroke my cabinet.

  “See, Harriet. Wood,” Heronsgate intoned.

  South was struggling to maintain her composure but every now and then a laugh would try to escape.

  “Henry is determined to get it decorated, Harriet just ignores him.”

  “Ignores Henry Heronsgate?”

  Harper chuckled softly.

  “I think that’s where the friendship comes from, he is so used to people being interested in him or his company or both. With Harriet he has to work to get her attention.”

  “Sounds artful?” I made it a question to stop myself insulting my guests.

  “Not at all. Harriet is an author, she spends a lot of time in her own head, listening to her characters, jotting down ideas, phrases and notes, everyone has to work to get her attention, but once you have it it’s the most single-minded dedicated friendship you could ever hope for. She doesn’t have any siblings so her friends become her family.”

  “And Fallow?”

  “I don’t know much,” Harper admitted, turning slightly to disguise the conversation, which was polite but pointless in my small flat.

  I led him back the few paces into the kitchen and took a soda from the stack left in the cooler at one end of the counter, Harper grabbed a juice and we sat on the high stools.

  “Do you know her through Simon?”

  “No. Henry. She is Heronsgate Industries' Chief Race Designer and a mathematical genius by all accounts, very cerebral, not much of a people person.”

  “You haven’t known Henry that long?”

  “No, my dad has, he has always enjoyed his classic cars. We were introduced a while ago but only really started spending time together more recently.”

  “Hannah?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where is your music?”

  “Which century?”

  “Century?” Fallow repeated the word curiously.

  “I worked for the Pre-Pause Society,” I replied. “I have music from Earthling Pre-Pause classical, instrumental, pop and rock charts, and Favlian music by Harper Smiths.”

  “Pre-Pause classical music,” Cornwall rolled his eyes. “I just want to put something non-intrusive on. Can’t I just have a simple answer?”

  I pointed at the wall mounted cabinets full of memory sticks behind the television.

  “The music station is built into the TV.”

  Everyone watched Cornwall go to them and open them.

  “Look at all your music!” The absolute delight in Fallow's voice brought the attention off the cabinets and to her, not that she seemed to notice.

  “The ones on the left are Earthling, Favlian compositions on the right,” I explained. “The coloured stickers denote which century you are in, the number on the sticker is the catalogue reference.”

  Cornwall unhooked a small A5 folder from the inside of the door and handed it to Fallow, I knew inside of which would have my music organised in date order along with the composer's name, and the song title. It had been easier to organise the mass of data in year order rather than by the band or group.

  “Where did you get so much music from before the Pause?” South asked.

  “The PPS often held open days where people could take their Pre-Pause antiques to have them valued with a mind to sell them to the PPS. The music players were treasure troves in themselves. The players themselves weren’t worth anything but we paid for the tracks on them.”

  “You copied all these songs from donated players?”

  “Every Pre-Pause tablet, computer, console, notebook, music player; all those kinds of small electronics were all run on internal batteries, it was cheaper to buy a new piece of equipment that ran on Fusion Drives than getting the old stuff converted.”

  “So they gave up the players without thinking what was on them?�
�� Heronsgate queried.

  “The Fusion Drive itself wasn’t invented until 2310,” I reminded the businessman. “The Pause was in 2263. That’s fifty years of political turmoil, civil unrest, poor communications. War was considered inevitable as the Favlians would not suffer anymore of Earths polluted environmental in-balance effecting the Nexus and magic users. By the time Fusion Drives came along no-one was really interested in what music people had been listening to before the upheaval. And because everyone had different tastes in music, each time a player was handed in the PPS got hundreds of new songs.”

  “And you catalogued them,” South smiled.

  Between them they chose a stick at random from the Earthling side of the cabinet and played the first track matching the sticker and number to the catalogue.

  “'Bohemian Rhapsody'” South spoke as the song began. “By Queen, 1975! Is that date right?”

  “Lead vocals was sung by a man named Freddie,” Cornwall laughed at Harper who grinned right back.

  The track proved popular and my guests argued over my catalogue as they tried to find the rest of the band's songs spanning Queen’s musical career.

  Throughout their investigation Harper stayed on the stool next to me, occasionally calling out his opinion but I wasn’t ignorant of the way that Harper watched Fallow all the time. She was a tiny woman who needed to stand on tiptoe to reach the top shelf of the cabinets but she clearly loved her music and I remembered being told once that talents in music and maths could often be connected.

  “My dad hopes we will be good friends,” Harper spoke as another song began playing. “He says you dance straight.”

  “A little and only the ballroom waltzes.”

  “I hope he didn’t give you the impression that I was single.”

  “Not at all,” I lied.

  “I mean I am.” Another swift, confused glance at Fallow. “But I...”

  “Don’t want to be?” I offered.

  “I don’t know how to approach her,” he whispered. “I can’t count, I know nothing about cars.”

  “Teach her to dance?”

  “And how do I talk her into that?”

  “Tell her it’s a mathematical challenge,” I offered after a moment to think. “Angle, balance, weight, velocity.”

  “Now I know why my dad likes you!” Harper's eyes lit up from within and he laughed so heartily he got everyone's attention.

  Heronsgate looked at us so quickly I forced myself to think only of the different colours of my socks and if they were all correctly paired up in their draw.

  The amused if slightly frustrated pinch to his eyes told me he had been trying to read me, likely in an effort to report to Harper senior. But I wanted to give the man next to me as much of a chance as I could and I felt he would do better with Fallow if Cornwall and Heronsgate knew nothing about his intentions.

  # # #

  It was the first time I had been back to Carson’s bungalow since the meeting with the other Council members.

  It had been almost a month now, people had stopped pointing at me on the street for the most part and I had settled into a life of late mornings. In a moment of boredom, I had signed up to an online advisor position for history students who were learning long distance and didn’t have access to university resources or dedicated teachers.

  I received several messages a day from people asking a variety of questions on a huge range of subjects while they worked with their course books and online material to complete their papers.

  I wasn’t much of a teacher but the open nature of the questions usually allowed me to offer two or three avenues of further investigation or examples for them to follow up on and choose the relevance of in relation to what they considered important in their papers and many had left excellent feedback which attracted more students.

  I didn’t get paid for the work but it did break up the day and give me something to do which didn’t involve wallowing in the loss of Aolir.

  I had thought about the dragon over the last few weeks since the fair had left and the Festival had ended more than I was comfortable with. It was a worrying little thought at the back of my head that wouldn't go away and that told me I had missed something very important to do with the dragon and our time together. At first I had thought it was something in his manner, or behaviour that meant I had misunderstood his leaving.

  Then, this morning, it had hit me.

  And now it was about to hit Carson.

  The Councillor opened the door and his look of surprise seemed stuck to his face an instant before he was happily welcoming me inside.

  I hoped that my revelation wasn’t about to damage his pleasure in seeing me again, but with Cornwall not answering his phone and my newest friends all back in the States with their relative companies, shows or signings, Carson had been the only person left I

  felt I could talk to in confidence.

  It was strange that considering the breach in confidence that had led to my misadventure had been committed by this man, and yet I still trusted him.

  I followed him into the living room and we sat down. I was a bit ashamed of myself for not coming to see him before.

  We had exchanged a few text messages which he had usually initiated by giving me the answers to the crossword from the paper I preferred, and we had left messages on each other’s voicemails. For my part I had always been grateful that he had been too busy to pick up and whenever I saw his number I muffled the ringtone with a cushion until he went away. But looking at him now, sitting on the edge of his chair with a smile that refused to leave his mouth and an almost vibrating with happiness, I realised he had missed me.

  “You look well,” Carson said.

  “How are you?” I replied.

  “Good.”

  I opened my mouth to explain and my courage failed me.

  “Valdine and the others?” I asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Any luck with your blood substitute yet?”

  “Some,” Carson seemed surprised by the question and then his eyes narrowed. “You came here to ask me that?”

  I gave a little shake of my head. I had asked because for an instant I had backed out of why I had come to see him, knowing how he had missed me and that I was only here now because I needed help made me feel like the worst kind of low-life.

  I had no right to ask any more of this man who had done his best throughout and had defended me against so much already.

  “Can I get a hug?” I managed.

  Worry now creased Carson’s brow and he moved to the sofa next to me and allowed me to cling to him while his return hold was gentle and tender.

  “You miss Aolir,” the Dependant guessed and I heard the disappointed jealously in his tone, but I wasn’t sure if it was for him or for me.

  “I forgot to do something very important.”

  “What?” Carson asked, the distance he put in his tone told me he assumed that I was about to declare my unending love for the dragon.

  “Use protection.”

  Carson froze, surprise stilled his breath, and he was so quiet and stiff I hurt.

  “Protection,” Carson managed finally, prising me off his chest with effort. “You mean that you’re...?”

  I nodded.

  “I kept thinking I was missing something, not Aolir directly, but indirectly, something because of him.”

  “Your cycle.”

  “I feel so stupid,” I confessed.

  “Don’t,” Carson answered firmly, allowing me to lock my arms around his waist again. “You were going through a lot; it was his responsibility to remember that too.”

  “I have no way of telling him.”

  “That’s why you came to see me? You think I have those kinds of contacts?” Carson was right to be judgemental, but it hadn’t been that I had been thinking about.

  “No.”

  “Then what?”

  “I was worried that I would need protection now.”

  “It's a bit late
now, Hannah.”

  “No! I mean that I went through a lot of psychiatric evaluations I never saw the results for, I wasn’t sectioned because of Council protection but I need to know if I passed them.”

  Carson blinked as my implications sank in.

  “You’re worried they would take the baby away if someone knew.”

  I nodded. “I never asked for this, and I have no intention of taking another life, but if it was taken away from me, if anyone felt that I was unfit.”

  “Shh,” Carson made the soothing noise while stroking my hair. “You passed them all with flying colours; it wasn’t just our support that kept you out of hospital or prison.”

  I went so instantly weak I thought I would melt into a puddle and ruin Carson’s couch, the relief brought tears that laughed as well cried and Carson sat through them with compliments, reassurances and promises I knew I could trust.

  At some point during the deluge Ross came to investigate the noise, I had forgotten Carson saying that the other Councillor was staying with him for some other undisclosed reason that still appeared to be unfinished. At my nod Carson explained my condition and Ross and automatically sat down on the edge of the coffee table in shock.

  “How?” Ross asked when I had calmed down. “A Dragon and a Human?”

  “The story goes that when the Gods ruined themselves and rained their power down as magic it was onto the Race of Man. The magic changed some of them, the Elves grew their ears, the Legionaries grew their horns and their hooves, some were more affected than others.”

  “The Kaverlarish and the Dragons,” Ross agreed. “I’ve heard this Truth before.”

  “That’s why Dragons, the Kin, the Kaverlarish, the Royal Fey, or any of those races have the ability to look Human,” Carson continued.

  “Because, they to, a very long time ago, were once of the Race of Man,” Ross finished. “Before magical evolution, as well as biological one.”

  “From what I understand, it is very rare now because genetic lines have been bred into firm Races, but it does happen, half breeds aren’t that uncommon,” Carson said “It’s just strange for one of the Races to step so far outside of their own people.”