Stillbringer

by Zile Elliven

  Aeyli watched Fourteen, so she would know exactly when he would begin torturing her feet.

  He pulled a few more things off the shelf and sat at the foot of the bed. “You don’t have to be afraid.” Fourteen showed her an aerosol can. “This will numb most of the pain.”

  Nodding, she tried to put on a brave face, but she knew her wide-stretched, fear-filled eyes must have given her away.

  “This might be easier on you if you look away,” he advised. When she continued to lock her gaze on the can in his hands, he shrugged as if to say, suit yourself.

  The mist from the can coated her feet with blissful numbness, and her nervousness ratcheted down to a more tolerable level. Before she could do more than sigh in relief, he pulled out the tweezers, causing the nervousness from before to blossom into full-blown panic. Desperate for a distraction, she asked, “What was your name before it was Fourteen?”

  “I can’t tell you that.” He had yet to touch her feet in any way. In fact, he appeared to hesitate for some reason.

  “Why not? Would you have to kill me if I knew?” She couldn’t imagine he was squeamish about blood, so it had to be another reason he didn’t want to touch her.

  A brief smile. “No.” Fourteen closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, then placed his hand on the top of her left foot slowly, reverently.

  His callused hand was so warm it radiated up her leg, right to the center of her body. She started in surprise, but Fourteen didn’t notice. He tightened his grip a little, his eyes gone distant. The warmth intensified as it reached her chest, doubling, then tripling. Her heart sped up.

  After the span of several heartbeats, his eyes cleared, and he pulled her foot into his lap, inspecting it carefully. “I was recruited when I was fourteen.” His attention was focused entirely on what he was doing to her foot, but his voice was soft.

  The Girl wondered at the shift—he sounded almost normal.

  They don’t usually take people that young, but I was a special case. My age stood out among the others during training, so I got the nickname Fourteen. It stuck.”

  When he started using the dreaded tweezers on her heel she only felt pressure, no pain. “Why don’t you tell people your real name?” She knew she should stop badgering him, but there was something inside her urging her on, telling her it was important that she ask.

  He dug out three more pieces of road trash from her foot before answering. “Because they can’t have that.” His voice was so harsh it made her throat hurt in sympathy. When she caught sight of his eyes, they burned into her own with an intensity that should have sent her scrambling off the bed, but she held firm. Aeyli needed to hear what he had to say as badly as he needed to say it. “I hid it away because it’s the only thing I have left of her.”

  “Who?” It was barely a whisper. Her chest was so warm she was surprised it wasn’t glowing.

  “My mother.” If she hadn’t been listening for it, she would have missed it. “My mother named me, and it’s all I have left of her.” His pupils had dilated to the point that his eyes appeared black, and his breathing had become ragged.

  Breaking his gaze had ceased to be an option as they sat there, eyes locked on one another. The Girl felt as though she had been sitting there staring into his eyes for days, learning secrets about him even he didn’t know.

  She had forgotten about her feet entirely. The cool and collected man who had shuffled her from crisis to crisis all night had cracked open and shown her that, on the inside, he was burning alive. Her hand found its way to his leg in a silent gesture of comfort. Whatever had been driving her words had wandered off, leaving her with no idea of what to say next.

  “I hid it too well, because even I don’t know it now.” Faint lines creased the corners of his eyes, and the purple shadows underneath drew her attention to how tired he looked. How old was he? A job like his would age a person quickly, so he could be younger than the thirty-something man she’d originally taken him to be.

  Fourteen closed his eyes, breaking contact. She noticed his aura no longer had the pleasant buzz from when they first met—it made her feel restless and confused. Her hand reached out and stroked the air next to him, and it was like touching a tangible thing. She smoothed it down on reflex, like she was petting an anxious cat, and was pleased to note his aura smoothed out as well.

  Fourteen’s lids popped open, and he continued working on her in silence as though nothing of import had happened, his hands gentle but efficient as he finished cleaning and wrapping her feet. He left both hands on her feet for a moment once he was done, as if as hesitant to let go as he had been to start. Finally, he took his hands away and began tucking the supplies into a backpack he pulled out from the bottom shelf.

  Without his touch, the feeling in her chest dissipated. What had just happened? Such an emotional experience should have left them both feeling raw, but she felt calm, surrounded in a warm, pink glow. She watched Fourteen move around the room, continuing to load the backpack with a random assortment of items, seemingly unaffected by the strange incident that had just occurred. Maybe, as a norm, he hadn’t noticed? Magic didn’t always affect them the same way it did the magical community.

  “Thank you.” She wiggled her toes experimentally. “They feel much better now.” Whatever her magic was up to now, she didn’t have time to investigate further. “I guess I’ll be on my way.”

  Fourteen zipped up the backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then he walked over to the door and picked up his equipment bag as well. “Where to next?” It was obvious he was planning on going with her.

  Maybe this would be harder than she thought. “I need to go alone. You’ll only get caught up in something you aren’t prepared to deal with.” She bit her lip and readied herself for an argument.

  He studied her for a moment, his expression placid. “In case you weren’t paying attention, I adapt quickly to new situations. Until tonight, I didn’t know people routinely hang out inside floating holes trying to kill little girls. I think I managed well enough.”

  “Maybe, but next time they will send more than my cousin Astin after me.”

  “All the more reason to take me with you.”

  “Why . . . why do you want to come? What’s in this for you? I don’t have any money. Well,” she amended as she thought of the fifty in her stash box, “almost no money, but I’m going to need that to get out of here.”

  For the first time she saw a flash of real anger on his face, but it vanished as quickly as it came. “I don’t need your money.”

  “What do you want, then?”

  “How about information? Let come with you for now. I need to understand what’s happening here, and the questions I have are going to take more than a few minutes to answer.”

  She bit her lip in indecision. Maybe he’d noticed what had happened after all.

  “If you don’t let me come, I’ll just follow you again. I do this for a living, remember? You won’t shake me.” He presented it like a fact proven too many times to count.

  His cold confidence was hard to dispute. It couldn’t hurt to fill him in on what had been going on. He might be a norm, but in his line of work, there was a chance he could run into the magical community again. Telling him what little she knew about her world would be a good way to repay him for the help he had given her. When he realized she didn’t know very much, most likely he would be happy to send her on her way. Hopefully, she could stay under the family’s radar until they parted ways.

  Her chin rose defiantly. “Okay, but I’m in charge.”

  Chapter Four

  Fourteen

  Following the kid—Aeyli, he corrected himself—down the stairs leading from his apartment, he kept a close eye on her gait, noting she no longer looked as vulnerable as a week-old kitten. She didn’t appear to be limping, but then again he wouldn’t have appeared so if he’d been hurt. Showing off weakness to a stranger was likely to get him killed, so he powered through most injuries until they hea
led. Aeyli might not operate that way, but he wouldn’t discount it. If they had to run, he would be ready to carry her again if necessary, but it would be his last resort.

  The first time he touched her had overloaded his senses. Carrying her to his car had been disorienting and difficult—he’d had to stop and put her down several times to regain his equilibrium. Otherwise, he couldn’t have guaranteed no one had followed them.

  While working on the mess she had made of her feet, he had drifted in and out of lucidity. He remembered talking with the girl, but he couldn’t have told anyone what it had been about. It should have bothered him more than it did. Was he so used to what the Company had done to him that missing time was just a normal thing?

  Unexpected emotion roused itself but not toward the girl. It started in his chest, hot, bright, and hard. It raced through his body, making the tips of his fingers tingle and his face burn. After being trapped so long in the cold of his mind, the heat of the sensation was a shock to his system. It was all-consuming and powerful—but so was the cold. In seconds, his conditioning kicked in and swallowed the feeling, assimilating it into nothingness.

  What the—? The hole in his mind throbbed, fighting for his attention. Did the feeling have something to do with the Company and their tinkering?

  Again, the feeling flared in his chest, and again, his conditioning swallowed it down. It seemed like it took longer the second time, giving him a chance to give it a name. Rage. Something about being with this girl or, more specifically, touching her called out to something important he had lost. Fourteen wasn’t sure he wanted his conditioning to win.

  “Who are you?” He’d kept his tone quiet, but it still caused Aeyli to flinch.

  “Starting with the hard stuff first, huh?” She paused as she got to the bottom of the stairs and looked at him.

  “It wastes less time,” he said pointedly.

  “Fine.” Fishing around in her pockets, she pulled out a hair tie and gathered her hair into a messy knot without pausing in her descent. Several shorter strands escaped imprisonment to frame her pale face. “I’m a less than popular member of the Blaike family—a fusty, but prominent family of witches in the magical community, or as we call it, the Other.” She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to face him, clearly waiting for something.

  “And?”

  “I was waiting for you to tell me I’m crazy.” She pulled her hood up to cover her hair. He nodded at the precaution in approval, her hair was an unusual shade likely to draw attention.

  “And I’m waiting for you to answer my question. When you finish telling your story, I’ll draw my own conclusions.”

  She shook her head in bemusement. “I will, but, um, where are we?” Her hand gestured to the cavernous warehouse they were in.

  “South Boston. I own this warehouse. Technically it’s supposed to be used for storage, but I use it when I have a job in the area. Rather, I did. Now that you’ve seen it, I’ll have to sell it.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “Don’t apologize, you weren’t awake at the time. It did its job, now it’s done.” He walked toward the enormous, black SUV parked inside the nearly empty warehouse, leaving her to follow in his wake.

  “Subtle.” She snorted indelicately, making him think she was older than he had thought. He hadn’t been trying to—groping unconscious people not being his thing—but he was pretty sure he had felt some curves on her small frame when he had carried her earlier.

  “It also does its job.” He unlocked it and got in the driver side. He liked his car. She could walk if she had a problem with it.

  She opened the passenger side door and got inside. “It’s better than walking. You did a good job on my feet, but the Granary Burying Ground is miles from here and without shoes . . .” She winced.

  “We can stop and get you shoes.” What did she need from a cemetery?

  “There’s no need. We’re going to get my stash bag, which, hopefully, has a pair of shoes in it, among other things. I had a few hidden around town when I first got here. This is the only one left.”

  Impressed at her foresight, he didn’t imagine many civilians would have made it as far as she had. If a normal person had thought of having even one place to leave supplies in case of an emergency, it would have been unusual. Having several showed serious forethought and good survival instincts.

  “Jeez, it seems even bigger inside.” Aeyli looked small and out of place sitting in his passenger seat. She had to tuck the shoulder strap under her arm to keep it from going over her throat, giving him the impression she was only a child. Another uncomfortable emotion clamored inside of his chest, and he allowed the cold to swallow it. As uncommon as it was, this feeling was no mystery to him.

  “How old are you?” It was relevant information that was pertinent to the situation.

  “Back to story time, I suppose. Okay, you drive and I’ll talk. Do you know how to get there?” When he nodded an affirmative, she began. “Last Friday was my eighteenth birthday.”

  He tried not to feel relieved. Tried not to feel anything—something that was getting harder than he wanted to admit. Fourteen focused on starting the SUV and piloting it out of the warehouse as Aeyli talked.

  “A month or so before my birthday, my cousin Astin came to me for the first time in over a year. He told me that my mother Elanor was dying. Being head of the family, this was causing quite a stir among the rest of the family. You see, powerful witches don’t die easily, and Elanor is a very powerful witch—most of the women in my family are. It came as a surprise to everyone when she started fading.” She was quiet for a minute and looked out at the boats in the harbor as they drove out of the marine park.

  “Witches are beings with a direct line to the Source—i.e., the pool of magic where all life comes from. If a witch doesn’t die from a failed experiment or foul play, he or she will keep on going until the soul can no longer connect to the Source. Once this happens, the witch will fade away and vanish into nothingness.

  “Witches with little power live as long as norms—or humans—do. A powerful witch like Elanor should have lasted a long time. My guess is she is older than most of us were led to believe, though she seemed to have been taken by surprise by this as well, so I could be wrong.

  “According to Astin, once they found out Elanor was fading, the family held a ceremony to divine who was to succeed her power, so he or she could make preparations for ascendance to the head of the family. Being born from magic means we are ruled more tightly by it than other creatures. The universe decides who holds the mantle of power in each family, and it chose . . . me.” Her voice cracked on the last word. It was a hopeless little sound that shot through his defenses like they were made of air.

  “So they decided to kill you?” He wrestled with his control, but the harshness of his voice betrayed his anger.

  Aeyli looked at him, startled.

  “Why?” He brought his voice back under his command, and it sounded composed once again, but his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. His conditioning was definitely taking longer to kick in.

  “Astin claimed they wanted me to abdicate. It isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either.” She gazed intently at her hands, as though she was expecting them to burst into flame at any minute. “It doesn’t always work. Like I said, the universe is the one who ultimately decides in these matters. I would have gone along with their plans, I know I am in no fit state to rule the family.”

  “Why not?” His instincts told him this was the part he’d been waiting for.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She huffed impatiently, though he could tell she was blustering, putting off telling him her secret for as long as she could.

  He gave her an impassive stare.

  “I’m a monster.” Aeyli looked up from her hands to gauge his reaction, but he rotated a hand in the universal gesture of keep going. “Look, you’ve been incredibly tolerant of me and my condition, but you can’t say yo
u haven’t noticed anything.”

  “Assume I haven’t noticed anything monstrous, and fill me in.” Miraculous, perhaps.

  She frowned, looking mutinous, but complied. “Fine. Here’s the whole sordid scandal in a nutshell. The morning of my seventh birthday I came into my magic—it doesn’t usually happen like that, so no one was particularly expecting it. I hadn’t noticed anything unusual, other than the normal excitement that birthdays bring. My family was waiting for me in the breakfast room. It was covered in fairy lights and streamers, and all my favorite foods were weighing down the table, ready for me to enjoy them. I walked in ready and willing to receive all the happy attention a spoiled, rich child tends to get on her birthday, but instead my mother nearly killed me.

  “The only reason she didn’t succeed was because she tripped over my aunt who was attempting to attack her. In fact, the entire room broke out into a horrible brawl the moment I walked into the room. Instead of a celebration, my family nearly destroyed itself right in front of me.

  “I ran away as soon as the fighting broke out, expecting someone to come after me and explain it was all a big joke or something, but no one came to find me until the end of the day.

  “It shouldn’t have been hard to do, even the servants can do a simple tracking spell. Eventually my mother’s servant, Emily, came to my hiding place in an old apple tree and ordered me to come down but to keep my distance. She brought me to Elanor—my mother—who was waiting for me in the garden.” Aeyli went quiet and looked at the oversized cruise ship entering the harbor, squinting in the early morning light as they drove past it. Maybe she wanted to be on it.

  Fourteen had worked on a cruise ship once. He’d had to pose as a cabin steward in order to get close to a target who had chosen to live out the rest of his life on a boat. Once Fourteen had granted his wish by drowning the mark in a bowl of lobster bisque, he’d had to jump overboard and swim nearly twenty miles back to shore in the dark.