Girl on a Tombstone

by Mia Strange

  I smelled the rank odor of sulfur. The bite of gunpowder. The mixed scents of mildew and mold and dust assaulted my nostrils. When we passed by a jar of ammonia, I gagged and held my nose.

  “Sorry,” said Eli. “I wasn’t expecting guests. The second railcar will be better.” He looked down at me as I wrapped the blanket around my mouth and nose. “Promise,” he added.

  I nodded, but I didn’t believe him. I still held my nose under the blanket. Man. Why were guys such slobs?

  My breath caught as I saw two red eyes staring at me from a darkened corner.

  Poe.

  The raven stood silent and accusing, as if worried that I would want to steal his new treasure. His etched brass wings creaked open and he cocked his head in a show of possession.

  An eyeball lay fresh and bleeding on the wooden table between his claw—like feet.

  Well. It was official.

  After over four years of begging and pleading, of asking and bribing, I was finally in the heart of the den of our resident mad scientist. And though this was the den that belonged to Dr. Elijah Dark; that is Eli, the leader of our Academy for which I was a part. . .

  My goal?

  Was to never do anything that would land me here again.

  My nose just couldn’t take it.

  21

  Eli was right.

  The second railcar? Much better.

  I gave him an A for the smell. I gave him a D in the, “hanging up your clothes” department.

  Pulling a wadded lump out from under my pillow, I squinted in the dim light at the bundle in my hand.

  Socks.

  Three of them. A red one. A brown one. A black one. Wait. Who wears red? I had never seen Eli wear red. I had never seen Dr. Dark wear red. Mm. Darius? Yeah. Maybe. A demon could pull off red. Right? I mean that had to be a popular color to wear, well, you know in Hell.

  I shrugged. So what if Eli did the demon’s laundry? Not really important I guess. What was important?

  The socks were clean.

  The scent of our detergent, spring rain, was impossible to miss. Eli had made the soap for us. If we couldn’t have the real thing, at least we could smell like it. But still, socks stashed under a pillow? Come on. I might have to mark that D down to a D minus.

  The sweet aromas that floated through the room made up for the jumble of jeans and tees and boxers that were scattered everywhere. I tried not to look at the boxers.

  Instead, I thought of the pristine, perfectly groomed, stage persona of Dr. Dark. Where was Eli’s alter ego in all this?

  I was having a hard time not staring at a pair of glow—in—the—dark boxers thrown in the shadowed corner. The shorts had the image of Iron Man on them. I knew I had to be drugged when I thought the robot—guy, drawn on the fabric and glowing green, looked kinda hot.

  The scent of banana mixed with kiwi, of black cherry and peach, mingled together from newly lit candles. The smells delighted my nostrils. As an alchemist, Eli could conjure up just about any scent we could think of. He was partial to fruits, mainly because we got so few of them.

  The sweet smells lulled me into a state of complacency, a false state of well—being. I think Eli may have slipped something in my, keep—the—evil—spells—away—at—the—King—Street—Station—potion, too.

  Why else would I let him take my corset top off?

  My platform boots were heaped on the floor. My thin, fishnet stockings with the hole in the toe were coiled neatly on top of them. I could see the snags and rips and runs in the delicate fabric. I sighed. The hole in the toe? The least of the nylon’s problems.

  The waistline of my skirt was rolled down to my hips. I felt exposed and vulnerable and spacey. Yep. That’s right. Spacey. Like I could fly away on clouds made of fruit—flavored frosting.

  Time passed, but for me the measurement, had lost all meaning.

  A bowl of warm water tainted pink with my blood sat by the queen—sized bed I was in. Eli’s bed.

  White rags, once clean, were now shades of rose and red, and darker, scary crimson. Eli, sitting on a foot stool, had spent the last thirty minutes stooped over my belly. Or maybe it was an hour? I just didn’t know anymore. Bifocals balanced on the bridge of his nose, and a tiny magnifying lens was attached to one side of his eyeglasses.

  I watched droplets of sweat form on his brow as he squinted in deep concentration. As Eli dabbed once again at my knife wound, a strand of his long dark hair escaped from a leather tie. He’d pulled his thick hair back while he worked, and now there was no way to hide the signs of strain and worry etched on his face. His frown hadn’t lifted in forever, and the dimple that I loved was nowhere to be found.

  Eli had set up a small makeshift lab in his sleeping car. The tall narrow bench with creaky brass wheels had been rolled in; leaving a trail of fine powder that was everywhere in its wake.

  I glanced behind him at the bank of creepy, but efficient mechanical hands that held row after row of various test tubes and beakers. Mounted on wooden pegs, some of the hands moved in a swirling, circular motion, keeping the liquids from solidifying. Others were frozen, gripping the glass tubes in fists of iron.

  “Creepy,” I whispered.

  “What?” said Eli without looking up.

  “The hands.”

  He flashed a rare smile. “Helping hands. Think of them as helping hands.”

  I looked away from the steel and iron fists that I was sure could crush a human throat and watched Eli instead. I was trying hard to figure out just what it was he was attempting to do. Taking a swab from my wound and dropping the tiny bit of cotton into a tube of liquid that bubbled under a Bunsen burner, Eli watched for the chemical reaction to appear. I couldn’t read the results simmering in the test tubes behind him, but I could sure read Eli. And from the crease of his brow to his frown, his body language said it all.

  We were getting nowhere.

  Steam rose from the heated liquid, dispersing into a light mist that tickled my nose. Tiny bubbles floated across my line of vision.

  “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and caldron bubble.” I quoted the line as dramatically as I could.

  Eli paused and looked up and a shadow of a smile passed over his exhausted features. For an instant, I saw his dimple before it disappeared once again into a look of thoughts and secrets.

  “Shakespeare?” he said as he leaned over my wound again. “I’m impressed. You must have been paying attention in classic lit.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s only one line.”

  “Well. It’s a good one.”

  “Hey. Speaking of bubbles. How soon before I get my soak? I happen to know I have a tub of hot water waiting for me. The Bone Man knows how to do a girl a favor.”

  Eli didn’t answer. He just went on probing, examining, swabbing. He wasn’t being rude. In fairness, I had asked at least twenty times.

  Eli continued to frown through his work. And whereas the process of probe and swab, pinch and scrape, should have hurt, it didn’t. That’s how I knew he’d slipped something mighty powerful into my drink. That and the fact that I had only my black bra on and damn near little else, and I wasn’t passing out from embarrassment, was a clue. A big ass one.

  “Tell me the story of the magic,” I said as I watched another wisp of steam escape from a heated glass tube and coil into the air. I held my breath, hoping to find the glorious colors I’d seen before. No such luck. The steam magic was nowhere to be found. At least not in here.

  I’d tried to tell Eli about the magic throughout the night, but he didn’t want to hear it. At least not now. “Don’t talk,” he’d said. “Save your strength. You can tell me all about the pretty magic colors later.” I could tell he doubted my story. Probably chalked it up to the pain meds. I knew he had attributed my invisible wall at the George Town Morgue to my Chaos magic.

  In that? I knew he was wrong.

  But ya know? He was right. Now was not the time. Conversation? Exhausting. Hell
. Lifting my arm up to brush a strand of hair from my eyes was exhausting. And keeping my eyes open? Almost impossible. But I was determined to. If only for the fact that I loved looking at his beautiful features in the lantern light.

  “The magic?” he said without so much of a glance in my direction. “You know the stories as well as I.”

  “I want to hear them again. From you.”

  I thought if he retold the story it would not only take my mind off the soaking tub waiting for me, but also off the big picture that was being tuned into focus, right in front of me. I could now see that nothing he was doing seemed to be working. So maybe this time, if I listened to the stories differently, from a new perspective, I could connect the dots to the magic that I had found tonight.

  The magic hidden in the steam.

  Magic that seemed powerful enough to help me. To maybe help all of us.

  “Concentrating here. Not a good time.”

  “You tell or I will.”

  He looked up at me, exasperated. His scowl softened. I think he read the fear that I was trying so hard to keep hidden in my eyes. I couldn’t help but ask the question over and over in my mind.

  Why couldn’t he heal me?

  I had witnessed his healing powers so many times, with so many others. He was Dr. Elijah Dark. Our magic man. If he couldn’t do it, who could?

  But I knew that answer. Didn’t I?

  No one could. Not in this world.

  Eli dropped the last piece of cotton ball into a tall beaker of yellow liquid and watched it heat and steam. He sighed.

  “And now we wait,” I said, not holding out much hope. I had seen this play out too many times tonight to count. Soon the liquid would most likely morph into an inky black sludge. And that, I learned, was not good.

  “Okay. You win.” He wiped his hands on his pin—striped pants. “I need to take a break anyway.” Eli took off his glasses, folded first the tiny lens onto themselves, and then the pair itself. He set them on the workbench and turned to face me. He looked so exhausted. Guilt clawed at my heart.

  “Giving up?” I whispered.

  Eli rolled his stool over and rested his chin on his fist at the edge of the bed. He looked into my eyes. “Never,” he said.

  I managed a weak smile and watched as he pushed back, settling his booted clad feet on the bed. He stretched out in front of me.

  “Okay, but you know how this goes.” Eli reached over and took my hand and held it in his. As he stroked my palm with his thumb, I felt that familiar flow of warmth and tingles, like miniscule needles and pins, pass between us. It felt like tiny ghost—like feet tap dancing across my skin. It felt— good.

  “After the last and final Trade War—”

  “Once upon a time,” I interrupted.

  “What?”

  “Start with once upon a time.”

  He shook his head.

  “If you start with once upon a time, then the story could end in happily ever after.”

  He looked skeptical and rolled his eyes. Dropping my hand to rub his temples, Eli let out a deep breath.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  He took hold of my hand once more, and started again. “Okay. Here goes. And don’t interrupt.”

  I gave him that, ‘who me?’ look. The one I was good at.

  “Once upon a time, after the last and final Trade Wars—”

  “Were the wars fought over money or land or oil or—”

  “Who’s telling this story?”

  “Um, you?”

  “And who promised to keep quiet and save their strength?”

  “Me?”

  “Exactly. And, all of the above.”

  “What?”

  “The wars. They were caused by, all the above. And there is a word for it. Greed.”

  I nodded.

  “When the birds fell from the sky—”

  I mouthed the words with him.

  “When the fish floated belly up in the oceans, when the tsunamis rose and swallowed so much of humanity, when our landscapes changed, when the earth shook and split and the skies rained down fire and stone and poison—”

  I ticked off fire, stone, and poison on my fingers. Eli gave me, ‘THE LOOK.’ I tucked my hands underneath the blanket and tried once again to look innocent.

  “Our blue earth as we once knew it, was no more. Left behind was a cracked core that oozed and bubbled and—”

  “Steamed,” I said. “The earth steamed.”

  Eli stopped rubbing my palm and raised his dark eyebrows.”

  “Oops. Sorry,” I said. “Your turn.”

  “It’s always my turn, remember?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Yes. And steamed. Hurricanes, avalanches, earthquakes, disasters of every natural kind rained down on the people. And then?” He looked at me.

  “And then?” I whispered, knowing that the, ‘Dr. Dark’ in him had come out and this was my cue to participate. Conflicting signals, I know.

  “And then the unnatural followed. The amazing. The unreal. The—”

  “Magic,” I said.

  This time Eli nodded. “Yes. The magic.”

  He started to rub my palm again. The warmth spread throughout my body. And I swear, even my toes tingled.

  “At first,” he continued, “there was joy and dancing in the streets. Salvation was surely at hand. But as history will teach for those who care to learn, in the wrong hands, even magic can go astray. Can turn from white to gray to black to blood.”

  I shivered and felt tears form in my eyes. “Like mine,” I said.

  Eli squeezed my palm, dropped his feet to the floor, and leaned over to place a kiss on my knuckles. “Not like yours. Never like yours.”

  Reaching up to touch his dark hair, I trailed my fingers through the bound locks and pulled at the leather tie holding his hair back. Silky strands fell across his shoulders, an ocean of blue—black hues, shining in the low light. He looked up at me with eyes the color of an ice blue, winter storm. He looked both beautiful and dangerous.

  “You believe me, right?” His voice was vintage Eli. Soft. Quiet. Serious.

  I lied, and nodded a yes. But no. I didn’t believe him. But how I wanted to.

  His lips were so close to mine, I could feel the magic jump from him to me. Something pulled low in my belly, and it wasn’t pain from the wound. My breath caught in my chest as my heart thumped hard against my ribs.

  Was this it? The moment I had lived in my dreams. This kiss I had almost wept for as I lay on that cold slab of concrete in the Georgetown Morgue.

  I watched fascinated as the tip of his tongue touched his upper lip. I closed my eyes. I was drawn to him, like a lost soul, stumbling from the Ash lands, dying of thirst. I needed him. Wanted him. I always had. This was it. The kiss. I was sure of it.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  The voice came from an open door leading from the adjoining railcar. The scent of Dog Rose overwhelmed the candles, and the smell of ripe fruit faded away. A lantern flickered out. The metal hands stopped all movement.

  The tiny hairs on the nap of my neck rose. Eli and I were no longer alone. How long I wondered, had we been observed? I felt the blush of embarrassment stain my cheeks and I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. I didn’t want to see who had just joined us.

  I didn’t want to know, what I already knew.

  22

  Eli abruptly sat up on the stool.

  I heard the wheels roll across the floorboards. I opened my eyes and saw him push his hair back from his face in exasperation. I’m sorry,” he said under his breath. And then, “Not at all,” he called out a second later. “Just give us a moment.”

  I crossed my arms in front of my breasts and looked to Eli. As if reading my mind, he was already up and off the stool clutching a pristine white dress shirt in his fist. He gently helped me sit up and slid the shirt behind my shoulders, helping me fit into the sleeves that were too long by far. With his back to the intruder, he quickly fastened e
ach button.

  I lay back on the pillows exhausted. I could hardly move. And just then I knew the raw truth of my situation, I really was not getting any better. In fact, I was getting worse. I squeezed my eyes shut against the harsh reality.

  “Enter,” Eli called over his shoulder.

  I opened my eyes and watched Traveler Hale melt into the room from the shadows of the doorway. The brass tube beads tied in his hair softly clinked together as he moved around the bench looking at each test tube. The candlelight flickered across his sharp features as he studied Eli’s attempts.

  “Analyzing the magic that’s embedded in the wound”?

  “Exactly,” Eli said.

  Traveler continued to study the results with the exact same intensity Eli had. Suddenly, Traveler stopped. He looked over at me and met my eyes. “Shall I continue?”

  Before Eli could answer, Traveler slid back into the story.

  “Soon after, in a world with a crumbling infrastructure and dying moral compass, the dead began to walk.”

  Goose bumps rose on my skin and I shivered. What was it about the voice of Traveler Hale?

  “It was as if the magic was punishing us. Punishing us for the misuse, for the evil men did with such a gift. For the greed.”

  Eli began checking on the latest test, as though nothing had happened between us. Or almost happened. Damn it. He was such a, such a, guy.

  Eli bent low, squinting at the glass. “Continue,” he said to Traveler. “You’re better at storytelling than I am.”

  “Yes,” I said. “You are very good at telling stories.” Eli shot me a, ‘don’t start’ look.

  Traveler ignored the comment and continued with a little formal bow. “As you wish,” he said.

  “Blood magic, black magic,” his eerie voice continued. “Magic from the swamps of New Orleans, from the wilds of Haiti, magic it seemed, was everywhere now.”

  Eli watched Traveler’s reaction to the test tubes with intensity. For the moment, Eli was lost to me, buried deep in his thoughts.

  Traveler continued to circle around the glass tubes as he went on with the story. He stopped now and again to tap his long fingers against the different vials.