Chapter 29 #2
My ears strained for signs of danger as I descended below ground.
The stairs were lit by directed track lighting, and one wall had a few old-fashioned weapons like a crossbow and a bunch of high-tech stuff.
I guess they were also weapons since they were on the same wall.
I wasn’t lingering to figure it out. The other walls had cabinets holding jars and bottles.
I was looking for something called nightshade or birchweed, but the labels weren’t words I could read.
Things like hjortetakksalt, birk Ukrudtsplante, and einebaer .
How the hell would I guess what nightshade or birchweed would be, in whatever language?
I screamed, and my voice was swallowed in the space, a dullness of sound. The place was soundproofed. I barely contained myself from sweeping a shelf of glass jars to the floor.
Instead, I raced up stairs and back to Wald and ran smack into a fairy.
Well, she wasn’t really a fairy. She’s what I think of as a fairy in my head.
Perfect tiny elven features with fine bones and long flowing hair the same spring green of Wald’s bathroom.
Her turquoise eyes studied me as I regained some composure.
“Did you find it?” the fairy asked. I didn’t have to ask who she was since the tinkling voice was the same one from the kitchen phone. I was looking at Soda .
“How did you get here so fast?”
She walked around me toward the bathroom.
I followed her down the stairs again. Without even scanning the labels, she pulled two jars off the shelf, S?tvie and Birk Ukrudtsplante, then sprinted past me up the stairs.
By the time I got back to Wald, she was already kneeling beside him, dwarfed by her clothing, a pile of ethereal cream muslin and gauze, like a ballerina settling in her tulle nest.
I dropped to the floor beside them. She was force-feeding Wald pale green liquid from one of the bottles.
Like a mint milkshake. Wald choked once and then sat up coughing up his guts, not literally.
Soda re-corked the bottle with a wide grin.
I wondered if all the perfection of her face was really genetic.
The huge eyes, pale skin, and high thin eyebrows were framed by lustrous hair which was like perfect monster fur in the movies.
It whispered around her like a cloud of furry feathers.
I fisted my hands to squelch the bubbling desire to pet her.
“ H elp me get him into bed,” Soda ordered, tucking her hands under Wald’s shoulders and heaving up twice as much weight as I figured she could.
I took his bottom half, and together we dragged him into the black bedroom.
With extra hefting, we got him on top of the black satin coverlet.
I pulled back the covers, the silkiness slippery in my hands.
He liked sensual experiences, did he? I’d be happy to give him a sensual experience on these sheets when he was not almost dead.
I ran fingers over his pale cheek to the bristles on his jaw, but he didn’t stir.
Whatever Soda had given him hadn’t worked yet.
Soda yanked his boots off. “Help me,” she said as I stared mesmerized by Wald’s bare toes. They were marvelous. Much longer and more like hands than normal feet, the nails were dark and curled over the nail bed.
“Never seen him naked, have you?” Soda laughed, and I froze. The sound would have been musical if music had shrill notes at the top points. A laugh I never wanted to hear again. The inference that I hadn’t seen him naked, but she had, lingered. We would not be friends.
She had one of Wald’s arms out of his jacket. I tugged the other arm, trying not to look at her. She wasn’t gentle.
“This is a write-off, anyway,” she said, ripping Wald’s shirt down the front, sending more shivers through me. I gasped. The ragged claw marks were an angry black and red and went far deeper into his waxy white chest and stomach than I’d expected. There should have been a lot more blood.
“Can you, I mean, we do something about those?” I asked, pointing to the gashes, unable to put a name to them as Soda stuffed pillows under Wald’s feet to raise them up.
“The nightshade should help with that, but he needs to sleep. Anything that doesn’t heal from the birchweed, Britannia can take care of when she gets here. She is coming, right?”
“Uh, right. But I thought you were a healer?”
“Of my kind, not his.”
“So, you aren’t a giant thing too?”
“Haha.”
Crap, I’d made her laugh again.
“Yes, I’m one of those things too.” Her smirk was the kind in the movies where she’d open her mouth and there would be thousands of needle-like teeth.
Wald stirred, and we both snapped our attention to him. I was taking movement as a good sign.
Soda pulled him up to the pillows. His eyelids flickered. She leaned over him and felt around his cheeks and jaw. She pressed an ear to his nose and mouth. Her candy-floss pink tongue darted out, and she licked him from lips to nose. Wald’s lips caught her tongue and sucked it into his mouth.
The ickiness and horror were a cocktail so bitter my throat closed, and I couldn’t swallow. I coughed and retched at the same time, turning away, and covering my mouth. I wasn’t going to watch, but I’d let Soda do whatever she needed to heal him. Wald was all that mattered.
But it still had looked like some sort of contorted mating kiss. A tirade of words in a similar sounding language the Grigores used was followed by a slap. I whirled back, ready to fight Soda if I had to.
Soda held a hand to her reddened cheek. Wald glared and then collapsed. The bastard had hit her.
“He’s going to be fine.” She grimaced, motioning me toward the door.
“He hit you? That isn’t fine.” I moved toward Wald. I actually don’t know what I meant to do, maybe yell at him? Shake him? Soda blocked me, and I stood there seething but also worried.
“He’s fine. I deserved the slap. I baited him with the kiss.
I think it worked, but it wasn’t nice. He didn’t know.
He doesn’t know what’s going on. Both the nightshade and the bark have strong hallucinogenic alkaloids, and he’ll be loopy for a while.
He lashed out, probably thinking I was one of the agents. We need to let him lie peacefully.”
My look of WTF must have been clear because Soda walked past me and then turned, wiggling her fingers in a sort of wave.
“You aren’t leaving?” I asked, the terror of being the one responsible for Wald’s life descending.
She flicked back her candy green hair. “Wald’s healing may take awhile, but I think it’s working. I have clients to see. Besides, he doesn’t want me here. He was quite clear I was never to set foot over his threshold again. He takes betrayal deeply.”
“Betrayal?” There was no way I was letting Soda leave until Wald was conscious, Britannia had arrived, or I had a better game plan. That was going to take food and alcohol. I was thinking pizza. “Can’t your client wait? Stay and have a drink. There’s a bar cart. Wald must have alcohol?”
“Oh, he does. The good stuff. Wald has excellent taste.” She had the narrowed eyes and the raised chin of a jilted lover, and the way she said Wald made me want to slap her.
I flexed my fingers but didn’t move. I didn’t have the position of either lover or girlfriend—yet.
But when Wald recovered, I intended to change that.
I still wasn’t letting her leave. I was betting Soda had stories .
“I guess I could stay for a bit,” she said, checking her phone. “I have an hour before my next client. We should leave him to the quiet though. Silence is healing.”
I glanced at the sleeping Wald, reluctant to leave him but Soda waved me to the door. “What exactly do you do?” I asked, feeling the tug of wanting to return to Wald as we walked back to the living room.
“I heal people.”
Duh. “You said that. Like an herbalist?”
“Sure. What’s your poison?” she asked, sidestepping the question and sliding open a wall compartment to reveal a selection of stylish glassware and more bottles.
“Bourbon, I think. Hang on, that might make me throw up.” I spotted a jar of cherries. My eyes started to tear. “Forget it, bourbon’s fine, I don’t care anymore. But drop three cherries in it. No, make that four.”
Soda raised an eyebrow but poured out an inch or so into a tumbler, added cherries and then filled a glass with a clear liquid for herself.
“Vodka?” I asked as she perched on the edge of the couch as if she were about to flit off at any moment.
“Aquavit, my favorite.” Her huge almond-shaped eyes were the most startling greenish-blue I’d ever seen on a non-anime character.
I let the moment of mutual understanding pass as I savored a perfect bourbon-laced cherry. It rolled in my mouth, and all I could think of was Wald’s tongue. Damn. “Maybe we should go and check on him?” I got up.
Soda waved a long bony hand through the air. “Stop. I told you, he needs time and quiet. Check on him in half an hour.”
“Fine.” The cherries and alcohol sloshed in my stomach. I needed food. “Any interest in pizza?”
“Doesn’t matter. No one delivers out here.”
“Gah. Hadn’t thought of that. Let me see if there’s anything in the kitchen.”
“There’s always chips and cookies. Left of the fridge, Britannia keeps a cache.”
“Britannia comes here?” I bristled.
“Sometimes. Though I think Wald might eat them too. He likes crunchy things.”
“He does?” I asked over my shoulder as I walked into the kitchen.
The fridge had condiments and nothing else, but the cupboard held a variety of crunchy salty snacks and a package of the death-by-cookies.
I took those and a bag of pretzels. The chips were all BBQ.
Great, looks like I was getting a sugar rush with my drunkenness.
I returned to the couch with my treasure haul and ripped open the bag of sandwich cremes.
“Cookie?” I asked, biting into one. It crumbled, falling to pieces in my lap. I ate those first, then picked off the crumbs which had tumbled down the front of my dress. “Want to tell me how you betrayed Wald?”
“Cutting straight to it, are you?” Soda hid a grin behind a delicate sip of her drink.
“Why not. I find talking about the past soothing. What Wald saw as betrayal, I considered a natural end to what wasn’t meant to be.
It’s not complicated. We were involved, but he was more serious about it than I was.
We built this house to be close to the elements.
It worked for him, but it didn’t for me. ”
I choked on a cookie and doubled over in a coughing fit.
Throwing back some of the bourbon to clear my throat, I squeaked out, “You built this house with him?” Why the hell was I so upset?
He had a past. Everyone had a past. If Soda was Wald’s type, I was as far from it as cookies and milk. I’d never built a house with anyone.
“Wald prefers to be with one lover at a time. He was clear about that. I was also clear. We tried a few things to make the rules bend on both sides. I got bored with that and decided to accelerate things. I invited a few people over, and he walked in and was displeased.”
“A few people?”
“Five other couples. It was a festival night, and I thought we could share beds. Wald thought otherwise. He ordered my guests to leave before he found me in bed with the last couple. He refused to join in and became belligerent. He ordered me out and cursed me never to return.”
I nibbled on a cookie almost afraid to ask. “Cursed?”
Soda waved her delicate hand through the air.
“A verbal curse. It didn’t have magic, but it still meant a lot to me.
He knew how deeply it cut. He considered it a breach of trust. I wasn’t angry.
I was disappointed. I loved him and this house we’d built.
But I had another future. So did he.” She eyed me over the rim of her glass. “How did you meet him?”
“Long story,” I said, hiding a maniacal smile behind the tumbler, sending more bourbon searing down my throat, followed by one more cherry for a dopamine hit.
T hree inches of bourbon and four more cherries in, I decided I really liked Soda and that her name was a good choice. She was effervescent. I’d gotten up the courage to ask about why she seemed so pet-able about the time Britannia walked in.
Britannia stopped in the hall and surveyed us. She held up her phone and took a photo. “How sweet, the old and new passing the torch. Did you friend each other yet? Exchange emails?” she asked, glancing up and down from her phone. She was probably posting the photo somewhere.
I jumped up and growled, “About time you got here. Wald’s in the bedroom.
Shut up and go help him.” Her outfit was another runway worthy black delight with a corset top, buckles across the stomach, a short, pleated kilt-style skirt in green, and knee high leather boots with a matching corset lacing up the front.
She sneered, considering me for a moment, then went over to Soda.
Soda stood up and hugged her. They lingered a little too long for me not to wonder, but when Britannia kissed Soda on the cheek, I had a flash of what-if.
Britannia’s smirk at me as she pranced cat-walk style into the bedroom nailed it home. Ew.