“You’re the least scary looking one. You should be the one to tell her,” he told her.
Cherry and Sunday seemed to take umbrage with that, but Brute simply nodded in agreement.
“What do I tell her?” Dolly murmured, her hands at her mouth nearly muffling the soft words.
“Whatever makes her come with us.”
He knew it was cruel to dismiss her uncertainty and he could feel Cherry’s eyes bore figurative holes in him once more.
“Ask if you can speak to her privately. If she balks, you’ll have to show her your Key,” Sunday offered, resting a hand on Dolly’s shoulder.
“We’ll be watching you, so don’t be worried,” Brute added with awkward tenderness.
“She’s not going to want to leave her kids. Maybe she can’t…” Dolly voiced what all of them had thought of.
“She has to. The King’s Guard won’t hesitate to kill her and her brats alike.”
Didn’t earn points with that one. So be it. Heavy-handed or not, there was no time to be delicate. They could swirl their spooky eyes at him all they wanted but that was the truth of it.
Dolly squared her small shoulders and trudged off towards the woman unlatching one of her kids from her skirts. The other women’s eyes shifted towards her and he took the opportunity to back away, slipping towards yet another alley and leaping onto the nearby roof. It was an act that was becoming second-nature, another action that sloughed away at any sense of humanity. As he watched from above, it became increasingly clear that ‘humanity’ was the last thing he could use right now anyway.
The scene below wasn’t promising. The woman was shaking her head and backing away, Dolly’s look had become desperate. As the woman fled into her home, Dolly had slumped her shoulders at her failure.
The beacon around her wavered, but he knew her face. She could shut herself in, but it would do her little good. He would find her again.
A black curtain seemed to drop around him, stealing not just light, but the open air, a suffocating heat with it. The crackling of flames reached his ears and a dull orange glow preceded the blanket of flames to follow.
“Couldn’t wait for me to fall asleep, could you?” he grumbled as Fajja materialized in front of him.
The Flame God observed him with infuriating patience once more, in no hurry to justify his response.
“The Maidens aren’t your friends, mercenary. They will go with you because death is their only other option,” Fajja told him coolly.
“No shit. You’re not telling me anything I didn’t already think of myself. If that’s all you came to tell me, you’re wasting your breath,” he grumbled, feeling the thrall instigate his insubordination.
Fajja smiled, grabbing him by the throat, the other hand tracing a bead of sweat that fell with one curved black talon.
“That was but an added courtesy, brat. You squander your gifts. If you don’t leave with the woman tonight, I will kill her kids myself,” Fajja told him, that silky tone laced with venom.
“I don’t even like kids,” he shot back with as much defiance as he could muster with the Flame God’s steely grip clamped at his throat.
“You’ll like them a lot less splattered all over you,” Fajja warned, releasing him.
Just like that, he was on the roof once more, gulping the chill of fresh air into his lungs. He fell to his knees, barely smelling the sulfur added to his stink as he welcomed the thrall.
He knew the Maidens were still down there, torn between looking for him or approaching the woman once more. He leapt over them as he descended from the roof, slamming through the glass of one of the windows of the woman’s house.
There was only one child in the room and they shrieked at the violent entry. He grabbed the girl by the throat as Fajja had done to him, pulling her back against him and drawing a flaming dagger in his hand.
The Rain Maiden/mother sailed in, her Key already drawn but retaining her human form. There was fear and sadness behind her rage.
“Draw me into your Gate and the child dies,” he told her, scraping a line at the kid’s throat.
“Why won’t you just leave us alone?” the woman begged as the little girl whimpered, soiling herself.
“I am only here for you. Whether your kids live or not is up to you. Even if you killed me, there are a lot more next in line.”
Yeah, it made him look like the bad guy, but there was no way around it. Acting like the victim or pretending he was saving her by forcing her to leave would do neither of them any favors. It was better she just thought he was capable of making her worst nightmares a reality.
“Mommy,” the little girl cried and he could see the woman’s eyes waver as her heart wrenched.
“I can’t just leave them here…” she pleaded with him.
“You can and you will,” he commanded, drawing a trickle of blood as he pressed the knife closer. Even if they’re alone here, they’re safer without you. He thought it but bit it back to maintain his position as a monster.
The woman cried out, throwing her hand up to signal him to stop.
“I’ll go! I’ll go… Please, just let me get them ready and I’ll leave them with my mother.”
He nodded and shoved the child forward into her mother’s arms. The woman glared at him with hatred, but stroked the girl’s hair and murmured platitudes.
“It’s all right now. We’re going to go to Granny’s now, okay? The bad man won’t hurt you,” she said.
With nothing left to do there, he stood, walking down the stairs, children scattering to get away from him. He stumbled along mutely and exited through the door to see the Rain Maidens there, glaring at him.
“She’ll be along shortly,” he told them, devoid of emotion.
Cherry slapped him and might have attacked him more, but Brute had caught her arms and held her back.
“You asshole! What the hell is wrong with you?” she screamed at him, but his expression didn’t change as he watched her struggle to attack him.
“We don’t have time for this,” he told her, heading down the road to be alone.
He could have said he didn’t have a choice. There was always a choice, but never very good ones.
He found his way to yet another tavern, another place to get sotted and bury himself in another loose woman. Only he had been so drunk that the second part of his grand plan had failed.
The sun hung low in the sky but he headed back to the somber group of women waiting for him though they looked as if they’d just as soon kill him.
“Lessgo,” he slurred, not trusting himself to say more. There was a pond somewhere north of Uther. At least there was some time either a decade or twenty-two years ago, depending on where he really existed.
Being a Rain Maiden had once been the only job she had begrudgingly known until the job of ‘mother’ had given her new meaning.
It had been imperative that she moved to a place where death wasn’t so prevalent, never quite trusting the part of her that went on autopilot to be so quick to watch over her new triplets with the same attention she gave when she was fully present.
She was still responsible to her duties, waiting until bedtime stories were read and the gentle snores of her girls signified their sleep to slip into her Gates and let the souls pass through. It was much harder and time-consuming to round up restless wraiths than to spare time and energy to perform her duties in her precious downtime.
Books on parenting had told her that most children didn’t begin to retain memories until they were three years of age, but she had always been careful not to let them see what she was. Their father had been a quick affair and had never known either.
That had always filled her with dread as well. The day came when her bright little girls started to speak and learn what daddies were from the other kids blessed to still have theirs. If ‘blessed’ were the right word for it. Some daddies were not men a woman would want around her children at all. That was something she told herself to assuage the gui
lt of her impulses and comfort herself in their lack.
Her father had been quick to kick her out when she couldn’t hide the fact that she was knocked up, an act that drove a wedge in between him and his wife so large that she had eventually left him to be a part of her daughter’s life, to be a part of her grandchildren’s life. It hadn’t been easy for her mother, but her mother was a charming woman who had not needed to look far to find a man who would care for her.
He was a loving man, but not one that cared to also share a home with a single mother-to-be. Nevertheless, he had helped his wife’s daughter get on her feet, get her own humble place and find respectable work and child care. Most days, the children did go with their grandmother and he had not objected since he had grown to love the girls as well. Still, he made it clear that that was as far as he would allow their presence. She was fine with it as well, liking her privacy and independence.
It had never allowed for her to find them a suitable father figure and with how busy she was it was furthest from her mind. Even her duties as Rain Maiden had become easier, the Gates opening without ceremony since she had conceived. Her life could have been much worse, so she had always counted her blessings.
Her job as a schoolteacher had seemed ideal in so many ways. While her babies neared school age, she had been excited at the convenience it would present to not need childcare once they would be at the same school with her all day.
Her mother had seemed sad to lose those daytime visits, but she assured her mother that she could spend time with them after school as much as she wanted and it had cheered her immensely. It seemed like it would work out best for everyone.
At first, it had gone so well. She would ready the girls, tying a different colored ribbon in each of their braids so that people could learn to tell them apart. She had been proud to parade her children in and hear about their day once it was time to depart.
The first day one of the children didn’t show up to class, she hadn’t thought much of it. Kids shared germs and were wont to get each other sick. A few more kids not showing up didn’t faze her either.
Her daughters came home with scraped knees, another thing that didn’t alarm her. Little ones played rough after all. Her usually chatty daughters started to talk less about school and brush off her concerns but she could tell something was wrong.
After a week, she realized that the kids weren’t coming back and she had been down to half a class. It was a tight knit community so she had gone to the kid’s home, only to be rudely turned away and told under no uncertain terms that they would never be returning to her class.
It had been no surprise that she had been called to the administrator’s office at the start of the new week, but even then she hadn’t thought much about what the problem was. She knew it wasn’t good by the way the dean cleared his throat.
“A few parents have addressed their concern with your status as a single mother,” the dean began.
The absurdity of that statement made her want to laugh, but she had squirmed in her chair and folded her hands around her crossed knees to bite back the urge.
“I fail to see what the problem is. They are always supervised and well-cared for.”
The dean’s eyes seemed overly focused on the sparsely populated documents in front of him, flicking up to meet her eyes with reluctance.
“Are you aware that your daughters are being bullied because there is no father in the picture?”
Her heart sunk and she pursed her lips. Of course she hadn’t. If they had said anything, her mother bear instinct would have had her charging in to handle it.
“If that is the case, I trust that their teacher is disciplining the bullies appropriately.”
The dean sighed, steepling his fingers, as if exhausted by the notion of handling anything so trivial.
“It is being discouraged, of course, but I’m afraid I haven’t been able to convince the parents that you are a suitable example for their children.”
Of course the good fortune wouldn’t last. She wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to be a good example to anyone’s children without decent employment, but that wouldn’t concern them. She was sure some of them were even smug about the prospect of turning a respectable schoolteacher into a desperate whore to look down on. She was even more sure that some of their husbands would be first in line for her if she did.
“You’re letting me go,” she said, rising from her chair.
The dean nodded, pretending a sympathy she didn’t want. Rage and humiliation demanded a protest she had no intention of giving quarter to.
“I’ll gather my things then,” she said, sniffing to salvage her damaged pride.
“Your children are welcome to stay. We will be sure to handle the problem. I would… suggest that you find someone to help you shoulder your burdens,” he suggested, awkward with the implications.
I bet you would. Even if it were simple to find a man worthy of being a husband and father, I’ll be damned if I teach my daughters that women need a man to make it all better.
She didn’t trust her words, so she turned on her heels and walked with as much dignity as she could muster, ignoring all of the curious questions and myriad of looks from sympathy to admonition.
She would have loved to have made a life with the man she made her beautiful daughters with. If he hadn’t been slain by the Shadow Army, things could have been different. Maybe. She had to admit she had been reckless and he could very well have made his excuses to a woman he barely knew, leaving her jilted. She preferred not to think that way, vilifying a man who had never had a chance to do the right thing. She didn’t owe the facts of her past to anyone and she knew well when people already made up their mind about her. Even if she had desperately pleaded her case, it would only arm them with more solid ammunition against her.
Let those bastards wonder.
She had gone straight to her mother with her box of shame, not daring to even ask her mother’s husband if he had some other way to help her find work. It would be no different than relying on a husband of her own to bail her out.
She had a way, tasteless or not, and when he had offered, she had politely declined. She assured her mother that it didn’t involve her body, but hadn’t said more.
She charged the dead a toll.
Most had still been carrying coin on their bodies and had no need for it anymore. If that had been enough, she would have left it at that. Some she had turned away to become wraiths until they could pay the fee. She didn’t want to think of how many of the newly dead could possibly be at her Gates because those wraiths had put them there. Try as she could to tell them not to, she also couldn’t stop them from resorting to it.
It carried its own burdens, but she had little choice. It wasn’t that she didn’t spend every moment she could looking for work, but she couldn’t afford to accept just anything. As long as she could make excuses and appear respectable, her daughters were happy.
Reasonably so anyway. No amount of guilting from society ever brought her to lower herself to rope in a man under such heinous motives. It was a bitter thought; that the idea of relying on a man was so against her pride, but the possible murder of innocents was somehow acceptable. She didn’t miss the skewed morality. Given the situation, no man deserved to be resented, even hated, just for trying to love her either. The heart wants what it wants and her heart wanted only her own children.
She never ever took more than she needed from the dead. She was not looking to fatten her purse and her own humble excuse for a job as a tour guide wasn’t exactly a lie, even if the more exact details involved leading the dead to their final destination.
Her children flourished and her relationship with her mother and her mother’s husband had only gotten better. She left her guilt at the Gate and did what had to be done. She didn’t get less sleep over it; raising three girls had already acclimated her to life without sleep.
Perhaps there were better ways. Certainly there were worse ways. Altoge
ther, she was glad that her existence was rather uneventful and she had precious moments to spend with her children.
A shadow crept on the corner of her vision one afternoon. She had gasped, noticing only that it did not move like any shadow she had ever known. When she stopped to face it straight on, there was only a woman there. She had relaxed and smiled back, more from relief than cordiality.
The woman stepped forward, bowing slightly in a warm greeting.
“I don’t mean to seem creepy, but I’ve seen you before. My children went to the same school as your girls do,” the woman said, an odd lulling quality to her voice that melted away the edges of wariness.
Went. So why was she still hanging around?
“I work as a secretary at the main office, but I’ve seen you drop your girls off there before,” she supplied as if she had plucked the question from her mind.
“Ah, yes, of course. Ms. Martell, if you please,” she said introducing herself.
She hadn’t noticed she had been gripping her Key, the Ember of Marteia, until her fingers released their grip.
“M-Marteia?” she squeaked.
The woman laughed.
“No, dear, Martell. My husband is a contractor from Rathbern,” she said with a smile.
Of course. A respectable woman with one of those coveted husbands keeping you squeaky clean.
She bowed back to the woman.
“I see. Please excuse me. It was nice to meet you but I’m in a hurry,” she said, glad to leave the unnerving woman behind.
It had only taken a few hours to put Uther behind them, but between being piss drunk and hated, it felt like days. He had been happy to throw his pack on the ground some distance from the pond that still existed. Would have been happier to join it, but Cherry had grabbed his arm.
Her face wavered in his double vision. The alcohol had lost its potency along the way, but exhaustion was taking its toll.
Whether she was using some Rain Maiden power of strength or not, she yanked him forward to walk. He wasn’t quite sure if he was suicidal or curious, but he went without a struggle.
“If you’re going to kill me, I’m sure they’d be willing to help,” he told her, deciding he was definitely suicidal if he thought that joke would come off well.
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