Pandora's Ring

by Kaitlin R. Branch

  When he returned, she was still sleeping, so he sat next to her, checked her breathing. She was running a fever, so he dabbed her with a washcloth, wondering if it even helped. She leaned into the touch, though, so he kept on.

  He expected her to sleep until two in the afternoon. It was eight thirty when she awoke with a gasp. “No,” she whimpered, and curled into his lap, her breathing shaky.

  Eli felt her forehead. Her fever hadn’t abated. If anything, was worse. “Samantha?”

  “They’re back,” she whispered, and grabbed his shirt, her nails scraping his stomach, pinching his skin as she gripped at him. “Oh God. No, no, please. I’m so tired, let me sleep.”

  “Samantha, hold on,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “Here, I brought breakfast.”

  She shook her head, hair falling into her eyes but not blinking. “Can’t eat,” she whispered. “Can’t eat. They’re too loud, too loud.”

  “Who’s too loud?” he tried holding out the fruit again to no avail. “do you want me to open the curtains? The sun’s up.”

  “No,” she shrieked, slapped a hand over her mouth and went stock still, as if she’d been pinned to the bed like a butterfly in a box. Then she shuddered and let out the breath. “He saw me,” she whispered.

  “He who?”

  “I don– No. Stop it. Oh God! ” she cried out, buried her face in his chest and gripped her stomach. “Eli, Eli, help...”

  “I can’t,” he whispered. “Tell me what’s happening in there? What do you hear?”

  “Voices. So many voices.” She shivered, kicking her legs into his lap and clinging to him. Tears slid down her cheeks. “A thousand–no, more–screaming and begging and–”

  Eli felt sick. It couldn’t be. If it was then she was as good as dead. “Samantha…what do they say?”

  She shivered. “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do,” he murmured. “You can hear them, Samantha. What do they say? What do they feel?”

  Her mouth opened, closed, and finally she wept into his shoulder, mumbling, “Regret…anger…pain…betrayal…horror…”

  “Samantha,” he whispered, encircling her with both arms and hugging her tight. How was she even this sane, if she’d inherited a greater number of lives? When he’d first begun as a Damned, he’d lost his mind. “Souls. You’re hearing soul echoes.”

  “What does it mean, Eli?” she asked. “What happened?”

  His eyes closed, thinking. Should he tell her how much danger she was in? Maybe not yet. “You broke a stone on the ring. It let you destroy Cyrene’s bonds. So I just did the rest of the job.”

  “You destroyed the ring?” She held up a hand and, on seeing only the slightly white band of a ring tan, stared. “It was the ring. That’s why I could see you…her.”

  “Yes,” he stroked her hair. “You mentioned people fighting in the car. Who?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “I just know they’re angry.”

  “Have they said anything?”

  “No.” She flinched, and then held a hand to her mouth. “Bathroom,” she croaked.

  Eli helped her to the bathroom in short order, where she vomited nothing. He encouraged her to drink water, and sat with her on the bathroom floor as she cried softly.

  “I’ve never felt so terrible,” she whispered. “What’s happening?”

  Eli gulped as she looked up at him, eyes wide and puffy. He wracked his brain. Finally he sighed. “I only have a guess.”

  “Good enough,” she said, moaning as she clutched her stomach. “Just talk. Please, Eli.”

  “If you’ve gotten an influx of souls, which explains the voices you’ve been hearing. They’re inside you–”

  “Like you?”

  “Probably. My soul is different than yours. The Damned have souls like ropes–for lashing, trapping, tying down. Mortal’s souls are more…” He frowned. “Like bubbles. Golden bubbles.”

  She looked as if she might have been amused if not for the cramp that made her bend over the toilet rim again. “Champagne,” she whispered. “God, I wish I was hungover.”

  “It might actually be similar,” he said, gently tying her hair back with one of his own shoelaces and smoothed her cheek. “Your body is trying to deal with the influx of power and complexity of being a soul receptacle.” He paused, wondering if it were wise to say what was on his mind. “If you’ve really got a thousand souls in there, I’m…in awe you’re alive. Mortals…they just don’t have the ability to deal with the power.”

  “What happens?” she asked.

  He’d been in the business about fifty years. He’d only heard, way off hand, about a mortal who had taken in just one other soul. “It’s not their spirit or their soul that has trouble…but the body…it’s just too weak.”

  She collapsed slowly against the tub lip, panting with the effort of staying upright. “I think I’m done,” she murmured. “Can’t keep the water down.”

  He nodded, stood and helped her to the bed again. She was silent there, lying down, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes staring at the ceiling. Always restless–twitching, wincing and gasping at times. Near noon, she whispered, “My father is a rich guy. Took me to Africa once. Cyrene said you’d been there.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where were you?”

  “Sudan. Congo. Ethiopia. Uganda. The ugly spots, at least in terms of war.”

  “What about landscape? People?”

  Eli sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Desperate. The wars there are because of famine, water shortages, mostly. Disease is rampant because everyone’s too busy fighting, or undernourished, or too sick in the first place. But they smile sometimes. It means a lot more there.”

  “Have you been anywhere else?”

  “Plenty of places. India, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Tibet, China, North Korea…”

  “North Korea? Can’t imagine you fit in well there.”

  “Didn’t need to. They barely flinched when I walked undisguised through the prison camps. Some of them begged me to take them.” He bowed his head, recalling the women who welcomed him with open arms, who still found their disembodied lives preferable to the cold hunger they had endured. “It was winter, and they were very desperate.”

  Samantha was silent. He realized too late what he’d said, and glanced down at her in worry. But she was only staring at the ceiling, brow furrowed in thought, cheek jumping in pain occasionally. “Are they still there? Do they remember their lives? Do they regret it?” she finally asked.

  “Yes. I have them. Some of them remember, some of them don’t. It’s about a fifty-fifty split, but I let them forget if they want.” He was quiet for a moment. “I try my best to cherry pick the ones who won’t regret it. Most people call me–”

  “Scavenger of the Damned,” she finished. Her lip quirked into what might have been a smile. “Cyrene told me. She made it sound like a bad thing.”

  “Among my colleagues, it is.”

  “S’at why th’ gave you this ’signment?”

  The question took him by surprise. The assignment. Damn, he’d forgotten. Oddly, she was smiling, her eyes droopy not in weariness, but as if her face had simply forgotten to prop up her eyebrows. Suddenly he heard her words again, the slurred, drunken pattern. He panicked. “Samantha, do you feel all right?”

  “M’ok,” she said dreamily. “Arm’s asleep though.”

  He grabbed her hand. “Samantha,” he whispered hurriedly. “Samantha, look at me. Can you see me? What do I look like to you right now?”

  She laughed, as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever said. “Same as you have since last night! Big ol’ white as a sheet with black hair and red nails. An’ horns! I dunno how you got past the desk-guy…”

  Ah, fuck. He had to hand it to himself. He was sure no one had fucked up an assignment quite this spectacularly in pretty much ever. But she was in the middle of a stroke, and if he didn’t do something fast he was going to lose her.

  Trying not
to think of the implications of cementing the depth of his emotions, Eli bent and kissed her. Samantha didn’t move, didn’t seem to realize what he was doing, because she promptly began to try to speak. He deepened the kiss, willing her to figure it out and respond–he couldn’t do anything if she didn’t respond, and if she didn’t do it soon the stroke would addle her so badly he would lose her completely. That couldn’t happen. She’d survived two attempts by Cyrene, she’d managed to live for longer than any precedent. He’d lose…a friend.

  She squeaked. Her lips moved, and she hummed a question, but her tongue moved against his, and he felt the connection. The barest hint allowing him to manipulate her body just enough to knock loose the clot nestled in her brain tissue and push oxygen to the cut off area. He pulled back as the clot dissolved and the area awoke with no repercussions. Samantha sighed.

  “I…what happened?” she stared at him as he lowered her to the pillow.

  “You had a stroke,” he said softly.

  “And you just decided to up and kiss me in the middle of it?”

  He was too relieved by the improvement in her speech to be offended by her tart tone. “It formed a temporary bond,” he said. “Enough so I could undo the stroke.”

  “U-undo?” she stammered.

  “Undo. I broke up the clot and then oxygenated your brain again.” He looked away. “Usually that kind of bond is used to seal a seduction deal…I just modified it.”

  She was struck silent and lay quiet for an additional hour. “I’m tired,” she mumbled.

  “You can sleep.”

  “No…it’s just…it’s too noisy. Are you sure that’s why Damned don’t sleep?”

  He laughed. “Maybe, secretly,” he said, stroking her hair again, watching her with new admiration. “It can get a little noisy, but because everyone’s along a rope, I have a little more control of the situation.”

  She nodded, and licked her lips before continuing. “I meant to ask, what did you really look like as a mortal? I mean, were you always the handsome black guy?”

  Eli chuckled. “No. I was white as Wonderbread. Complete with freckles.”

  “But you walk around like some kind of black Adonis in your free time?”

  “Most of us ditch our mortal form once we become Damned. I’ve been lots of races. Latino, White, Irish, Middle-Eastern…but yeah, I kind of like the black guy look.”

  “Me too,” Samantha said with a smile. It fell quickly. “Why haven’t you harvested me yet?” she asked abruptly as he stroked her cheek.

  Eli frowned. “What do you mean?” Maybe she’d forget.

  “The assignment. I’m totally vulnerable right now. You could take my soul before I died.”

  Maybe he could divert her. Facing the question to her meant he’d have to answer it to himself. He was becoming more and more worried about the answer. “You’re not going to die.”

  “God-damn, Eli. Do you think I’m stupid? I just had a stroke. It’s not getting any better. I can feel it.”

  “I’m here,” he said stubbornly. “I can keep you afloat. Somehow.”

  “You’re supposed to be harvesting me!”

  “You’re the only mortal in history to beat down a greater Damned,” Eli muttered, hoping it was enough of an excuse. “Like I’d just harvest something so precious.”

  She frowned at him, then turned her gaze to the ceiling again. “Right, Okay.”

  They spent several more hours with Samantha swinging from silent and half-asleep to wide awake and writhing. Eli put a silencer on the room so no one would report them and held her fast as she thrashed amidst the covers, screaming and sobbing in agony. Her breath came fast, her body became slick with sweat.

  “No, no, no more!” she screeched as he tried to hold her close again, her hands twisting in the sheets. “Stop it, Eli, please, stop the voices!”

  “Samantha,” he whispered, shaking his head as he splayed a hand across her chest. He could feel himself trembling as her health rapidly declined. Another three, four hours, there would be nothing he could do. The souls within her wouldn’t let up for a few weeks, and they were on day one still. Her back arched and she shuddered in pain.

  “I’m dying,” she whispered. “I’m dying, please, just kill me, Eli–you can have my soul if you want it.”

  “No, Samantha,” he whispered. “I’m not going to do that to you.”

  “Please,” she moaned, and buried her hands in her hair, pulled at it desolately, so hard a clump came free. “Please, God, Eli! Kill me. You said I could trust you. Please!”

  “No, Samantha,” he said again, mouth going dry. Her heart was fluttering, beating too fast, too shallowly.

  “Why?” she moaned plaintively, “why?” She pulled at her hair again, tugging until he took her by the wrist and pressed on the tendon, forcing her to let go. “Please, Eli, talk to me. Why? What death is like? When I can die? Tell me when the voices will stop?” She went limp suddenly, sobbing into her hands.

  Eli held her, guiding her face to his shoulder and rocking her gently. “Death isn’t so bad. Being a harvested soul isn’t so bad until you’re turned in to the office. I don’t know when you’ll die, but it’s not going to be today. The voices will calm down in a few weeks.”

  “I’m going to die,” she whispered again.

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re too precious to let die.”

  She shuddered. “Even if you’re right, how?”

  He pressed his lips together, gently pushed back on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “Can you hear me?” he asked, cupping her cheek. “You can understand me right now?”

  She nodded, bleary eyed but clearly cognizant.

  He took a breath. If he did this, he’d be screwing up not only the assignment, but the whole damn system. Oh well. “I can help you shoulder the burden. You remember how I kissed you and the bond allowed me to manipulate your physical body long enough to stop the stroke?”

  She nodded. Eli took a breath. He didn’t want her to say no. “If you let me in deeper–”

  She flinched and gasped, trembling. He could practically see the wave of voices breaking over her mind again, threatening to smother her. “Deeper? I can’t…Eli…what do you mean deeper?”

  “Making love, Samantha,” he said, fighting a grimace as she twisted, one hand working at her hair. He took the hand back to keep her from tearing out more hair. “Like this. I can help you, but you have to let me in.”

  “You’re Damned,” she whimpered, and shook her head. “You told me yourself, you want my soul!”

  “Your soul isn’t on the table right now,” he whispered, aching. “Your sanity is. You can feel yourself crumbling, you told me yourself.”

  “I…I can’t think right now,” she whispered, gasping as she gripped a pillow, closing her eyes. “I can’t. Eli, can I even trust you?”

  A lump formed in his throat. If she didn’t trust him he would lose her. “Yes. Please, trust me. I can help you.”

  “No,” she whispered, but the quiet pleading wasn’t directed at him, and she pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, sobbing. “I can’t, Eli….”

  “I can’t just let you die, Samantha. Trust me!” He snatched her wrists again, pulled her close to look him in the eye. “Please.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Because I want to save you,” he stroked her hair.

  “But making love… Eli, we can have sex but you can’t fake making love!”

  He swallowed. There it was, the only possible answer to all his procrastinating and reluctance, plain as day. This was such a bad idea, but it was too late now. “No. You can’t. It’s a good thing I love you, then.”

  4

  The voices in her head completely stopped as a different kind of static filled her mind. Shocked, Samantha pulled away and studied his white face and raven hair with an entirely new perspective. The vo
ices started again, a low murmur, but for a moment she could ignore them. So completely floored by his words was she that all else faded away.

  “What?”

  Eli looked surprised for some reason, but nodded and pulled her back close to him, meeting her wide-eyed stare. “I love you.” He nodded again. “So it’s a little sudden, but so is you suddenly getting powerful enough to kick Cyrene’s ass.”

  She blinked. That couldn’t be all. She’d gotten the feeling he didn’t like Cyrene, but really? “Is that it?” she asked.

  “No. Of course not.” He threaded their fingers together. “You have to understand, Samantha. I have seven thousand souls within me. I can handle it, but as a mortal, they would have shredded my mind and disintegrated my soul before I had time to breathe. You’ve survived more than twelve hours, now.”

  “You’ve got weird standards,” she said, but the way he kept her gaze, kissed her fingers and leaned in to her made her tone light. She was getting light-headed again, with the throbbing cries of the throng pounding on her skull. How wasn’t she bleeding from the ears? How much more could she take?

  Eli shook his head. “No, I’ve got high standards. And to be honest, you’ll be getting a lot more than just me.” He smiled, stroking her hair. “If you survive this, your life isn’t going to be quiet–you’re an anomaly after all. But damn, you’ll have your pick among heaven, hell and the in-betweeners.”

  “They’d all want me for the power, though,” she closed her eyes against a sharp pain in her eye. She drew a breath, and it shuddered through her, incomplete. She drew another, gasping for air as a pain grew slowly in her chest, like a balloon being inflated. She groaned softly, pressing her hand to the spot.

  Eli surged forward and kissed her without waiting for permission. The pressure eased, but he lingered. Without meaning to, she kept him close. He was cool, a welcome relief against her feverish skin. His body was strange, smooth like bleached ivory, velvety to the touch, hairless but for the perfect mane of raven locks coursing down his back. As she touched it, she was shocked to discover it wasn’t oily, merely shiny and smooth.