by D. Levesque
My Earth element gives me a feeling that it has what it needs. I nod and tell Tallen, “Done. It has it. Now let’s see if this works without killing him,” I say to everyone around me with a deep breath.
Through the connection, I can feel the Earth element touch William. Suddenly William tries to move, but somehow vines quickly come out of the ground and lash around him, keeping him in place. I look at William’s face, and there is no pain, only discomfort. Thank God.
Slowly over time, I can see the pain start to ease from William’s face, until finally, he lets out a deep sigh and his body goes slack.
I get a message from the element that it’s done. It asks if I want the silver and I tell it no, that it can keep it or bury it. I get the impression of joy, and it asks if I need anything else. I tell it no and thank it. I get a perplexed feeling from it, but then it simply disappears.
“I think it worked.” I go to stand up, but suddenly I get dizzy and almost fall over.
Tallen is there to catch me, and so is Carmen. I see Marrisa start to jerk forward as well, but she stops herself and glares at me instead.
“You should stay sitting,” Tallen says worriedly. “You most likely used a lot of Magic on that massive feat. I never saw anyone use an element that way.”
“Is that why I am dizzy?” I ask. “But I thought I was not using that much Magic but that my element was?”
Nodding, he says, “I would say in this because you were giving it a task such as this, Magic uses your power, but there is a strain at the same time. You were in contact with that element?”
“Yeah. I was telling it what I needed done. I did thank it, and it gave me an odd feeling of being perplexed.”
Tallen looks at me and suddenly bursts out laughing. “Leave it to a human to do that. We have never really talked to our elements except for telling them what they needed to do. But what you ask yours is something we never thought of. We tend to ask for basic stuff. I am sure you will bring change, Kevin. I am, in a way, looking forward to hearing about your exploits so that I can steal some of that knowledge from you.”
“Now what?” I say, looking around the pit.
“Now we get out and get back to my home to let Sir William Tonlia heal naturally,” Tallen says. “You are welcome to come and stay as my guest. Actually, I insist. I am sure that Tonlia will want to thank you personally when he wakes up in the morning or early afternoon. You are all welcome to stay, in fact,” he says, looking at Carmen and Marrisa.
I will come to your home, but after that I need to leave and take care of some items in my own court,” Milta says. Tallen nods to her.
“I’m in,” Carmen says with a grin.
Tallen looks at Marrisa and she is glaring at all of us. “Fine. I will stay. I want to make sure that he is well as well.”
Tallen looks up to the top of the pit and then he turns to me. “Care to jump up, and I will pass Tonlia to you?”
I look up at the edge of the hole in disbelief, and then back at him. He laughs at me and says, “Trust your new strength and speed. Just try it.” “Or I can throw you up if you want?”
I look up at the lip of the hole again and think, why not? I seem to be doing things that aren’t normal for me, so why not try this as well? Nodding and not saying anything else, I walk closer to the wall of the pit and bend down to flex my knees, and then I jump up to grab the edge of the hole and pull myself up.
At least that is what I meant to do, but instead, I end up jumping so damn high that my hand passes the lip, and I land on the edge of the pit on my two feet, just catching myself before I fall. I look down at my feet in disbelief, and hear laughter down in the hole coming from Carmen and Tallen. I turn around and look down, just in time to see the look of shock on Marrisa’s face, which disappears when she sees me looking.
Tallen picks up William like he is as light as a feather and lifts him over his head. I get on my knees and grab William’s disheveled shirt and some of his pants and bring him up, and realize he is as light as a feather to me as well. Suddenly Carmen jumps out of the hole, followed by Marrisa, and I help both of them keep their balance as they come out. Lastly Tallen comes out just as I had done, landing on his two feet.
He brushes both his hands and says, “Now, shall we go back to my place?” With He takes out his Portal stone, and suddenly there is a Portal in front of us. He puts the stone back into his pocket and grabs William out of my arms.
We are about to walk into the Portal when Marrisa growls, “What about Gordo? You are sure he is dead?”
“Don’t worry, Gordo is gone,” Carmen says before I can answer. “Your husband made quite sure of that.” Carmen points to the dead body of Gordo.
Marrisa walks over to him with a look of apprehension and looks down at his body. Her face changes when she sees it, and then she looks over quickly at Carmen in surprise.
“Oh, don’t look at me,” Carmen tells her. “That was all him.” And she points to me.
“Shall we now?” Tallen asks the group.
Marrisa nods, but before she leaves, her foot kicks out and connects with the head of the dead Gordo, and I hear a crack. Hey, if it’s what she needs to heal, I am all for her breaking the neck of an already dead guy. Once that is done, she comes back to our group and the Portal and nods to Tallen. He smiles and nods back to her and walks towards the Portal he called up, and one by one, we all follow him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
We are all sitting around the table eating, but the only ones talking are Tallen and Carmen. Milta as soon as we came through suddenly waved and said her goodbyes and disappeared. And I’m answering some questions occasionally. I look over at Marrisa and she is morosely eating her food. Every now and then, she sends me a confused look and then looks down at her plate again.
Tallen had given William to Parker, who had gently taken him somewhere else. I watched them leave, and Tallen informed me that he would be being taken to a room to rest and get washed up.
Finally full, I sit back with a sigh and call it quits. The amount of food on the table is enough for a buffet at one of the best restaurants. There is everything from steaks to chicken., sausages to pancakes. There were even French fries. Even a vegetarian would enjoy the feast.
“That was amazing,” I tell Tallen.
He smiles at the compliment. “I shall let my staff know you enjoyed it. Now I have rooms ready for everyone. Carmen, I will have someone show you to your room and then Kevin, I will show you yours, and then I can show Marrisa hers.”
“I’m staying with Kevin,” Marrisa blurts out suddenly.
I look over and she isn’t looking at me or anyone, really. She is staring at her plate of food, which has barely been touched.
“Very well. It makes sense, as you are married,” Tallen says, as if not seeing the awkwardness of the situation.
“As you’ve stayed with us before Carmen, I have given you a guest room in the east wing,” Tallen tells her.
“Oooo! Did you give me the red room?” Carmen asks with a chuckle.
“I did, though it is empty of other guests tonight,” he tells her in mock sadness.
“That’s fine,” she says with a laugh. “I am pretty tired. I will retire until breakfast. Same feast tomorrow?”
Tallen smiles at her and says, “As always. I will make sure they have your favorites.”
“Yes!” Carmen says, pumping her fist in victory. “Well kids, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” she says, grinning at Marrisa and me.
With that, Carmen grabs one more piece of bread from a basket and heads out of the room, but not before kissing Tallen on the cheek. Then she smiles at me and heads out the dining-room door.
Once she is gone, Tallen looks at Marrisa and me. “If you two will follow me, I shall bring you to your room in the north wing.”
“Sure. Thanks, Tallen,” I tell him, and that’s when I realize how tired I am, and I stifle a yawn as I get out of my chair.
Marrisa gets up slowl
y without looking at me, but she looks at Tallen and nods. He wipes his mouth delicately with a napkin and gets up, and then heads towards the door that Carmen had just exited through. As we leave, I hear staff coming in the other door. I guess they are going to clear the room of all that food. God, I hope it doesn’t go to waste. I ate as much as I could, which seemed to be about twice the amount I normally eat, but there was still so much I had not tried and wanted to! I’m just too full.
Marrisa falls in place behind Tallen, leaving me last, which gives me a chance to look at her from behind. She isn’t in her Changeling form, but her human-looking one, and her shoulders are tense. I sigh quietly so she doesn’t hear me. This is going to be a grand night, isn’t it? I doubt I will get any sleep. Hopefully they have a sofa or something in the room, so that I can sleep on that.
Tallen takes us down a bunch of hallways, and I realize that this place is bigger than I thought. From the outside, it looks like a large house, but inside it’s huge! And so freaking opulent. It’s what I would expect a modern Vampire’s home to look like. There are some old paintings hanging on the walls, but most of the artwork is what I always thought of as contemporary art.
We head up a flight of stairs until we are on the second floor, and Tallen takes us to one of the double doors in front of us. There are three of them in total. He stops, opens the doors, and waves us in.
“Good night, you two. And Kevin, thank you again for the help with Tonlia, and for taking out Gordo,” he says. I notice that he is looking at Marrisa when he says that. Her head snaps up and she looks at him, but there is no emotion on her face. She nods and heads into the room.
I look at Tallen and he grimaces. Then he puts a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it, before whispering, “Good luck, my friend,” and heading back the way he had come.
I watch as Marrisa heads deeper into the room, which seems to be as large as an apartment. Shit. Even he sees it.
Sighing, I head into the room and close the two doors, leaning my back against them. Yes, I am trying to gather my courage. Taking a deep breath, I head into the room but I stop in my tracks as soon as I take a few steps. Not at the size of the bed, or the furnishing in the room, which looks expensive. But because Marrisa is facing me and she is angry, her hands balled up into fists.
“What. The. Hell. Were. You. Thinking!”
“Hmm. I just figured you needed-” I start, but Marrisa interrupts me.
“What? That I needed saving?” she growls at me, looking at me with piercing eyes.
“Well. You kind of did,” I tell her, awkwardly rubbing the back of my neck and feeling like it’s about to be in a noose.
She slowly walks towards me until she is staring up at me. Oh shit. I am about to get an ass-whooping. I tense up for the punch, but that’s not what I get.
Marrisa wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes me hard. “Don’t you ever do that again, Kevin Johnston.” And then, without warning, she starts crying. I put my arms around her awkwardly and hold her while she cries.
“Marrisa?” I’m totally confused by what is happening right now.
She pulls back from me and wipes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just thought I was strong enough to take Gordo on, since it had been years and I have more experience than I did the last time I confronted him. Of course,” she says bitterly, “I was wrong. He must have had people waiting until they heard someone asking about him. I thought I was buying good intel, but instead I ended up buying myself a ticket to get caught.”
“Marrisa, why did you not let me help you? Because I was new and inexperienced?”
Instead of answering, she leans into me again and puts her hand on my chest. Then she mumbles, “No. I didn’t want to lose you as well.”
“Lose me? But you don’t even like me,” I ask, confused.
She shakes her head against me and says, “No. That’s not true. As much as I want to hate you because you’re human, I can’t. You are a kind person. And you seemed to touch something within me that I miss. That scares me. So I tried to push you away, hoping that those feelings would stop. But they didn’t. And you coming to save me was the nail in the coffin. Hell, even my dad likes you. My sister thinks you’re a decent guy. Even Preeka likes you. Hell, you made friends with Mavin, and honestly no one likes him because he is always so chipper, even for a Fairy,” she says with a chuckle.
“So you like me?” I ask her, looking down at her hair.
Marrisa looks up at me and her smile is shy but warm. “I do. Is that all right?”
“Hmm. Yes? To be upfront, I find you quite attractive. Though, I will be honest,” I tell her awkwardly. “I owe you an apology. Because of the way you have been treating me, I thought you were a bitch.”
She looks at me with wide eyes before bursting into laughter. “I can’t blame you. I have been treating you like one,” she says with a smile.
She grabs my hand and brings me to the end of the bed and sits down, patting the bed next to her to get me to sit as well.
“I went after Gordo thinking I was strong and powerful and that would be enough, but I found out that he is a brilliant man, or was a brilliant man. I can see why no one ever caught him. Even my partner from five years ago went after him with the same attitude I had the other day. All cocky and thinking no one could beat me. But he beat everyone. Yet from the discussion I heard at the table tonight, it sounds like you took him on like he was nothing?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Gordo kind of crushed my ankle. That hurt like a bitch. I am just happy he didn’t break it, though something tells me he did and I healed quickly” I tell her with a shrug. She gives me a questioning look at that and I say, “I will explain later about that. I just got lucky that my daggers pierced his lungs. If I had hit him anywhere else, he would not have bled as he did.”
“And the shatter spell?” she says, looking at me critically.
“And that,” I tell her with a grin.
“Kevin,” she says slowly, and I notice that she has not let go of my hand at all. “You are doing things even I would never have thought of. I get the premise of the shatter spell, but it’s never been used that way. Shatter was meant to be used to break rocks or trees. You,” she starts and shakes her head. “You are doing things that we would call outside the norm. And I wonder if that is your human upbringing?”
“It might also have been the extra training,” I tell her. At her confused look, I explain to her what my two weeks of training involved. She listens with an incredulous look on her face, her mouth wide open by the end.
“Fucking hell!” she says in a whisper, looking at me with sympathy. “I am glad that you now know my true feelings, and I don’t need to hide them. But why are you with her?” she says. There is an undertone of anger in her voice.
“Carmen? She offered to help,” I tell her. “I went back to M.A.G.I. HQ and was talking to Bower, and she overheard. I desperately wanted to go after you and she offered to come with me and help you. What is up between you two anyway?”
“Let’s just say we have history,” she growls, not answering my question.
“Marrisa? I’m your partner and your husband. Think you can trust me?”
She doesn’t answer me but instead looks into my face; to see what I am not sure. Finally, she sighs and nods. “Carmen and I used to be lovers—” she begins.
“What!” I utter in surprise.
Nodding, she continues. “We used to be lovers. This was just after I got assigned Prita as my first partner over five years ago. I started dating her about a year afterward. Well, it seemed that she and Prita were lovers… I started dating her about a year afterward. Well, it seemed that she and my first partner were lovers as well at one time in the past, but both of them hid it from me.”
“Wait,” I tell her, holding up my hand. “You hate her because she and your partner used to be lovers and they both kept it from you? Had you ever asked them?”
She opens her mouth to answer and then close
s it again. Slowly, she says, “Well. Not exactly asked. I found out through someone else. But why didn’t they tell me?”
“Marrisa. Do I need to tell you about every single partner I have ever had?” I ask her softly.
“What?” she says, sounding confused.
“Do I need to make a list of every partner I have ever had?”
“What? Of course not,” she blurts out.
“So why does it matter who Carmen dated? Even if it was each other, since it was ancient history. I assume they did not date each other while you dated Carmen?”
“No,” she says sullenly. “This was before I was even in M.A.G.I.”
“And so you are angry at Carmen because she dated someone you knew. Did you hate your partner?”
Instead of answering, Marrisa puts her head down and looks at the bedcover.
Squeezing her hand, I tell her, “Don’t you think that the anger you have is misplaced? Are you maybe angry at her because she loved your partner once? Have you ever dated your partner?”
Suddenly her head snaps up and there is irritation on her face. “Of course not! She was my partner.”
“And if she had not been your partner?”
That stops her. She doesn’t respond, but simply stares at me. Then her eyes widen in shock. “You think that maybe I had feelings for Prita, but because she was my partner, I didn’t act on them? And that my anger towards Carmen is because she had the chance to love Prita and I didn’t?”
“I would say yes. My guess is you have anger towards Carmen, not because she and Prita kept it hidden that they dated. Based on your reaction and how you went after Gordo as soon as you had a lead, I would say that it isn’t just because he killed your partner, but because he killed someone you loved,” I tell her softly.
Suddenly there are tears in her eyes, and she is nodding. I reach out and bring her into my arms and just hold her as she cries. I don’t say anything, I just simply hold her. Finally, she pulls away and wipes her eyes again.
“I am sorry,” she says.
“For what? Being, well, I was going to say human, but you aren’t. For being a person with emotions? I guess Changelings and humans have that in common,” I tell her with a smile.