Chapter 24
THE FIXER
There wasn’t much to say about what we saw the night before, but the gravity of it settled hard the next day. Things were different now, a shift in the air. My heartbeat was uncomfortable, all too aware of my own blood pumping through my wrists, my temple, even the twitch of my good eye.
My hand shook as I pulled the stitch through the patient’s skin with forceps. I tied a few knots as I closed up the wound on the patient’s forearm. “You are set to go. Keep it clean until it scabs. The stitches should fall out on their own,” I instructed as I stood, glancing over at Edith.
She was occupied with a stiff patient, a sickly woman in a hospital gown and a blue scarf holding the hair away from her clammy face.
Edith was fidgeting with something, focused. Her body hunched over a little, hiding.
I approached and peered over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”
“We are low on venom. I was going to use my own.” She turned around to show me the glassware with gauze stretched over the entrance. “Or would you care to donate some of your own?”
“It wouldn’t be much use if I did.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have low venom potency.”
“How do you feed, then? Does it not hurt your Hosts?”
“Through the spine. It is just strong enough to numb someone if you inject it there. Besides, spinal fluid isn’t half bad.”
Edith kept me in the corner of her eye as she turned back to her patient, her nose scrunching as she processed my answer.
“Relax, Mrs. Foster. Just one pinch,” Edith assured the older woman, sticking a syringe of amber substance into her arm.
The sickly woman immediately relaxed, settling into the sterile white sheets. She could not have been older than forty, with fine lines blessing her face. When her pain was taken away, she looked about ten years younger.
“You shouldn’t rely on venom.” I followed.
“A little more won’t hurt.” She placed the syringe in the sink.
“Nothing good comes from saying a thing like that.” I leaned against the counter.
“She is low risk,” she muttered as she washed her hands. “It is unfair to let someone suffer due to chronic ailments. It is the least I can do.”
“You shouldn’t distribute it so liberally,” I said. “Make it last so that you can help more people.”
She shrugged and refused to hear me.
I pushed away from the counter, heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?” She frowned at me. “We still have work to do.”
“I’m stepping out to smoke. Would you like to grace me with your ever-sought-after company?” I teased.
She considered saying no; I could see it in her face, but she eventually decided against her better judgment and followed me.
We found a comfortable stone banister along the stairs to sit, right outside the side entrance. I plucked a cigarette from my inner breast pocket.
A few wisps of snow fell in flurries across the yard, like ghosts dancing about the ground before disappearing.
I caught Edith staring. Her eyes darted away quickly, just not quickly enough. It did not take a detective to know she wanted to say something. I could practically feel the tension emanating as she shifted, sitting on the opposite banister facing me.
“What is it now? Spit it out.”
“I have told you everything about my life.”
“What are you on about?”
“I don’t know anything about you.”
I stared at her before bringing the cigarette to my lips, letting it hang loosely as I found my lighter. “You never asked.”
The wind whistled through the buildings in our silence. I breathed heavily, letting the smoke singe my throat before letting it go through my nose.
“Then let’s make a deal.”
I glanced over at her cautiously.
“If one of us starts talking about our past, the other has to listen. Both ways. That goes for questions; you have to answer honestly. That’s what friends do, right?”
I lifted my gaze to the sky, as if to contemplate. It wasn’t my favorite game, but it would pass the time. I nodded in reply.
“Did you have a profession before you were a fixer? Where are you from? What about your family?” She gulped, scratching nervously at the head covering.
“I was a muse.” I glanced down at the cherried end of the cigarette. Somehow, focusing on the details of the ash was soothing as the embers crept up the paper.
“A muse? Like those of the master painters?” She smiled.
“Exactly.” I tapped the ash off the end of the paper. “It was the easiest way to make money.”
“Are you in many paintings, then?”
“No,” I laughed. “There wasn’t really much painting going on.”
She nodded in acceptance of the answer, but more like she was trying to encourage. “Where are you from?”
“A small, forgettable place in the Siberian wilderness.”
“Where is your family now?”
“Orphaned.”
“How did you turn?”
“What if I were true-born?”
“You weren’t. If you were, you would have made that known obnoxiously early.”
Another pause at my discretion. I drew a long sigh, the icy air soothing my lungs in between drags.
“What were you before?”
“Just a boy.”
“You were turned as a child?”
“Barely an adult.”
“What happened?”
“Greed.”
“Tell me.”
“He was enlightened, and for a time, I got to be part of such a bright strike of glory,” I started, though I was undecided on how much detail to spare.
“I served as a muse and a Host for him. It got me through one of the harshest winters I had ever seen. Not many of my foster siblings could say the same by the time the springtails spawned.” I tossed the roach of my cigarette on the ground, stamping it out.
“He was brilliant. He taught me all that I know.”
“What happened after?”
“He was drunk, fed for too long.” I laughed. “It is troubling how one slight mistake can result in cursing another with something worse than death.”
“Luka.” I didn’t notice she had closed the distance until her arms wrapped around me. “I am sorry you had to go through that alone.”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“You should write down all your stories. It sounds like you’ve lived a long and interesting life.”
“I would, but I don’t have a pen.”
“You’re an artist, and you don’t own a pen?”
“Not all stories deserve the decency of being written,” I laughed.
“Why not?”
“Because then we must acknowledge that they were real.”
“Excuses, excuses,” she muttered.
Instinctively, I tensed at the feeling of her squeezing me.
“No need to get all soft,” I grumbled, but I rested my arm around her shoulder. She didn’t let go, even when we stood for a while. A soft brush of ease washed over me, filling me with an unfamiliar peace; just one spark of bliss.