No Deadly Thing

by Tiger Gray

  The basement was a bare concrete room, and at first glance an outsider wouldn't have known that the place was as much a torture chamber as a workspace or office. Kir was nothing if not meticulous, though even her scrubbing could not get the blood out of the floor. Ashrinn suspected it was her way of maintaining control over the beast inside her, as alien and vicious as the dragon that had put him in the hospital.

  Those nightmare spirits that lived in the bedrock hissed and retreated in the face of the divine, and he breathed a little easier.

  The furniture was nondescript, and easily doubled as innocuous items no one would have glanced twice at. Kir's work table also found a home here, in the far corner. It was covered with papers in total disarray, mage symbols scrawled over every available surface. That wasn't like her, to be so out of control. Still, this was her inner sanctum and maybe she felt comfortable enough here.

  The magic around her worktable made his skull pound. It was unspeakably difficult to hold on to sanity as he approached, and the divine light he still held in his hand threatened to go out entirely. There was something so familiar about it, and the closer he got, the more it felt like something was trying to tug his guts out. He grabbed fistfuls of her papers before he knew he was doing it. He could see it.

  The blood spilled in this room, his blood, years of it, gone to empower her and her work. The corruption felt like a living thing, thrashing and roaring at his presence. Red-black threads clung to everything, pulsating with that same sanity-destroying power. The worst kind of blood magic, the kind he thought only happened in stories about sacrificial rites.

  Was that what he was? A sacrifice, only a sacrifice dying slowly, over years instead of minutes?

  No mage spells, these. Demon essence tried to dive within him, wrap him up like an anaconda might suffocate and crush a deer. He wanted to let go of the papers and found he couldn't. Pain flared up, making his scars burn and itch as though they had only just healed.

  Warlock magic.

  He prayed for the divine to aid him, and he pushed the darkness back enough that he could center. It wasn't enough for his soulblade or his familiar, though the familiar flooded his mind with those images from the dawn of humanity, filling him with the kind of fire that purified instead of destroyed.

  He was caught in such a struggle that he didn't hear Kir enter. In fact, he wasn't aware of her until she spoke, though the threads of corruption shivered when she appeared.

  "I never thought you would come here on your own," she said, and in that moment Ashrinn heard very little humanity in her voice. "Should I be impressed?"

  He turned to face her, alternately cold and hot inside, his emotions forming a vile stew he wouldn't have asked anyone to consume. Her eyes were black with rage.

  "Kiriana," he said, as though the name were unfamiliar on his tongue, "what are you doing?"

  He'd been aware of Kir's cruelty for a long time --- though he would have called it love, before now --- but this.

  "Why shouldn't I try every angle?" she asked, as she descended the last stair. She started towards him and he knew he didn't have any way out, backed up against the table as he was. It was that so familiar feeling, being trapped just by her gaze, and he felt what little strength he had ebb. "Don't you want your Order to succeed? Shouldn't we do whatever we can to have Coren back?"

  The idea that she had done this for his son made him pause, but he saw her expression then and knew it was a lie.

  "Not this, Kir!" He startled even himself with his anger. "This kind of magic is outlawed for good reason!"

  "Because of fear and short sightedness, you mean! Just because the weak-willed sheltered innocents that make up your ragged little military can't imagine mastering a malevolent spirit doesn't mean the rest of us are so deficient." She scowled, and the look of utter contempt on her face ripped away another of the veils he'd spent their marriage swathed in, the illusions of love and normalcy that he'd built his whole life on.

  "Tell me why you did this." He needed to know, craved some kind of understanding that would set everything to rights.

  "I told you, I --- "

  "Tell me why," he snarled, advancing on her, forgetting in that moment to be afraid. He'd never felt such a murderous fugue in his life, not in twenty-odd years in the military.

  "For you. For us."

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  She stood her ground. "All these distractions! That bitch Raietha wants to keep you from me; why else would she set such tight wards?" He knew how much Kir had hated Raietha when they had been at school together, hated Raietha for being the better mage. "I never should have let you move us here. Malkai and his mongrel children. They've taken your attention. They even made my Coren disobedient."

  "I swear to all that is holy, if you laid a hand on him while I was away..." He rode his fury for as long as it lasted. Now that his life was in shambles, he almost didn't care if she killed him and left him to rot forgotten down here, as long as he had his say first.

  "Why bother? Let him have that misborn abomination and her ridiculous Cult. I drove her away like she deserved."

  Weaving spells to sneak under Raietha's wards, with his blood.

  "You drove our only child off with her!"

  "It broke my heart to see him go."

  Ashrinn could only gape at her. A few seconds ago, Coren hadn't been worth anything to her. Now she was the suffering mother. He looked down at the pages in his hands, a kind of numb realization pouring over him like tainted water.

  "How long have you been working with them, Kir? What did they promise you? Power?"

  "Can't you see that this Order isn't good for you? All these things outside of our marriage? I'm doing you a favor. You don't need any of that, any of those people."

  Rosi's night terrors. Liu and Coren's disappearance. The attempt on Talasi's life. Maybe even the Cult's expanding power base. How much had she been responsible for? Was it a demon they were worshipping, one she had found for them? All so he would have no thought in his head other than ones relating to her?

  "Malkai just shouldn't have meddled." She was still talking, and the sound grated, "I wouldn't have hurt any of them if they'd just stayed in their places."

  "Did you send that thing after him? Did you have their necromancer do it?"

  She didn't respond, but she didn't have to. The affirmative was written on her expression. Ashrinn noticed, through his dumb animal shock, that Kir knew she'd crossed the line. He flung her papers at her and lunged.

  She fled up the stairs. For once, for one incredible moment, she had been afraid of him. He ran after her, letting the divine pour into and power his battered body.

  Everything, everything about what he had endured at her hands had been based on the lie that she loved him, that she would take care of him. Yes, she inflicted the worst pains on him he'd ever experienced, but it was also her that tended those injuries, that kissed him softly and cleaned his wounds. It was easy to live entirely within those moments.

  The water felt good, at first.

  He tried to deny it, these scattered pieces of memory reforming as he barreled after Kir.

  He threw himself against his bonds with a strength he'd thought he no longer had.

  He saw her, a flash of color near the living room. He worried for a distant moment about her ability to call forth fire magic, but before he could process that concern he found himself standing over her, his arm still vibrating from the slap that had sent her to the floor.

  That cool blue-white place between life and death.

  His dream of the white doe and his memory of the night he'd nearly died in his own house sprung up unbidden and whirled together into a knot of emotion and lurid imagery.

  When he'd dreamt of the doe he'd asked why. That night...

  What am I?

  He asked in a pulse of emotion instead of words; here he had no body, no mouth. He was only soul.

  An archetype.

  "Get out!" he shout
ed as she looked up at him with her best hurt face, her shaking fingertips coming to her bruised cheek as though she could not process what had just happened. He read it easily; her toy, turning on her? Impossible!

  She got up and ran for the front door, and he shot after her despite all of his body's protests. She bolted out the door, on to the lawn. He followed, shouting incoherently now, the glamour forever torn, nothing to keep his feelings in check. Damn the neighbors if they saw. Let Raietha and Mal gossip, dammit.

  Kir stopped on the lawn, turned to face him. Her face! It was as though she were genuinely hurt. It was, he reflected bitterly, the first real emotion he had ever seen from her, besides rage and pleasure.

  "You can't do this!" For a moment, the complete hurt disbelief in her voice threw him off. She looked vulnerable as well, clothing askew, hair mussed. "It's your fault. You ran Coren off, not me!"

  "He left of his own free will!"

  "I won't let you put me out of my own home," Kir told him, and he felt fear blossom anew. The divine felt very far away in that moment. She came towards him and he thought he might pass out, things going dark and narrowing down to almost nothing the same way it had when Raietha had screamed in his face so many months ago.

  The suffering one. That spirit voice, that far away memory. To put down the Suffering God.

  He fumbled for his sidearm, glad he never dressed himself without also strapping on his gun. Why couldn't he reach it? He couldn't feel his fingers. She ran from him and even so the gun felt like it weighed a million pounds and he couldn't draw it. Even when he had her running scared, his own fear was too heavy.

  You are not yet done.

  * * *

  "Are you seeing this?" Rai asked, pressed to the kitchen window like a town gossip.

  "Raietha, don't spy," Mal had to admit he was interested himself, but outright watching made him uncomfortable, "You're like an old biddy. You're not going to start playing bridge, are you?"

  "Shut up, Malkai," she snapped, though there was no real ire in it, "and come here!"

  He grumbled and rose from the kitchen table, joining her at the window. He gaped at what he saw. Ashrinn and Kir were shouting at each other on the front lawn, and Ashrinn wasn't shrinking away or trying to placate her.

  "Oh my god!" he said, before he could stop himself.

  "I know!" Rai practically crowed. "I hate her!"

  "Me too, darlin', me too," He slipped an arm around Raietha's waist without thinking about it. "About damned time."

  "I don't know what it is," Rai confided, still staring as Kir ran off, "She's never done anything to me, exactly, but --- what is the human phrase? --- she gives me the creeps."

  Mal was ready to go out there with his shotgun if he had to, that's how bad Kir gave him the creeps. He caught sight of Ashrinn going back in the house alone, though, and let it be. He didn't want to make it any worse.

  Rai turned to him. He could see that she was surprised to find that the move put her right in his arms, and for an awkward moment they embraced automatically.

  "Sometimes, I worry," Rai told him in a small voice. He heard the tremulous quality therein and held her for real.

  "About what?"

  "About being like her."

  He kissed her on the temple and chuckled. "Rai, you are nothing like that woman. You're tough, capable, sweet, and you want what's best for your children."

  Rai sighed and relaxed against him, head on his chest. He had to admit that at six four, it felt good to enfold his notably smaller wife in the relative safety of his arms. Sure, they had problems and --- and I don't love her --- but who didn't? He cared about and respected her. That ought to be enough.

  "Did I drive Liusidris away, Malkai? I was so hard on her. I thought it would help, give her a thicker skin. I was never coddled or told I was the best and brightest little girl in all the Faelands. I didn't know to tell her that."

  "If you're responsible, so am I."

  "Ah, two wrongs. Another human saying that is particularly applicable."

  "So, you might have been too hard on Liu, but let's be honest. Liucy was a damned difficult kid. I always wondered if she had, you know, problems."

  "I didn't want to admit it," Rai said, with the force of someone in confession, "I didn't want to think that maybe my blood made her crazy."

  "I think if she's crazy, she's plain old crazy. The boys didn't get any of that."

  "But Rosi..."

  "Rosi might be sick, but her mind is fine. Don't borrow trouble, sugar."

  "At least Kiriana is gone," Rai glanced out the window to confirm her words. "I never trusted her."

  "I don't think anyone did, to tell the truth. Spirit knows I didn't."

  He wasn't about to tell her about how he suspected Kir of being an abuser. He'd kept so much from Rai already, trying to protect her, that he figured it was best to keep this one a secret too. Especially since it wasn't his secret to tell.

  "Mal?"

  "Yeah?"

  Fae power shimmered around her, power he barely understood. It was that power that had allowed him to see the magical world, even before he'd become a paladin. That was the high point of their marriage, when he'd been able to perform in the bedroom well enough that he thought maybe he'd talked himself into normal after all, when at the height of their sweaty, animal fucking she'd shown him the vistas that lay beyond the mundane.

  "Do you love me?"

  Damn. "Of course I love you. Why are you even asking?"

  She seemed sad. He hadn't expected that. The magic swelled, then disappeared. Had his words had some kind of affect that he didn't understand?

  "I love you too," she told him, and the genuine quality made him feel like the world's biggest bastard. "We'll just have to do the best we can with the children we haven't yet lost."

  "Honey, I promise you, it won't happen again. We'll send Rosi off to be properly trained, and --- "

  "No! I won't have her go to the Faceless! We'll never see her again!"

  That was true. The Faceless had no identities, not that they shared with anyone else, anyway.

  "Where else can we send her?"

  "The Alienists, maybe? They're the ones that help train Ashrinn's shadowmancer. What is her name again?"

  "Sonth. Speaking of which, I'm going to have to talk to her. She's probably recovered enough that I can get some information out of her about the Cult."

  "Will Rosi be safe with the Alienists?"

  "The Alienists are small and experimental, but so far they haven't caused any trouble. It's Elara's brain child, and they don't require anyone to hand over their I.D. cards. They're regulated internally and watched over by the Order of the White Eagle. It should be safe enough."

  "What would that make her? Some kind of criminalist?"

  "That's what the Alienists do. Profiling, psychological investigations, mental interrogation."

  Rai nodded. He guessed she felt better, now that he'd given her a concrete solution to at least one of the many problems facing them. She checked the clock on the oven. "I'm going to put Rosi to bed. Come in and kiss her goodnight in a few minutes. Thirteen years old and the child still wants bedtime stories."

  "Wait till those hormone shots kick in," he joked, hoping Rai would take it like light teasing. He didn't want to remind her of her fights with Liu. Rai's ears swiveled opposite directions, and he knew she was amused, thank goodness.

  He went into the kitchen to prepare Rosi's cocktail of medications and a big glass of warm milk. He handed both to Raietha and smiled an encouraging smile. She kissed him on the cheek in thanks. He couldn't help but think that she seemed mournful. He watched her go, glad to have solved something no matter how small. Now to find out what had really happened between Ashrinn and Kir. To find out if his friend was really free.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mal wondered how long it would take for Ashrinn to show, but he only had to wait two days to get an answer. Ashrinn stood in the doorway of the stud
y, haggard and broken. A bottle of scotch dangled in his long fingers, and while he was dressed fancy as usual, his fine clothes were rumpled.

  Ashrinn wore his blue and black pinstripe shirt open at the neck, and Mal could see a section of the terrible burn scar that disfigured the rest of Ashrinn's torso. Ashrinn's leather jacket, normally form fitting, hung on him. He'd lost a lot of muscle, lying in a coma.

  Mal had a strong protective instinct and the sight brought it out of him. He didn't move, though. He hadn't gone after Ashrinn after the breakup, either, because he knew that would have just made Ashrinn feel worse, as private as his friend was. He let Ashrinn make the first move this time, too.

  "I assume I can come in?"

  Mal could hear Ashrinn's accent more than usual. Whenever Ashrinn was upset the Persian crept up out of him. Mal nodded, taking his headphones off from around his neck and setting them on top of the record player's case. He was glad he was already sitting; it made him feel less awkward.

  Ashrinn limped over to the coffee table and thunked the bottle on to it.

  "You're going to drink this with me." He demanded. "And I don't want to hear any complaining about how my liquor tastes like old books smell."

  Mal flipped through all the potential answers he had at his disposal. He chose humor. "Well, it does taste like old books. Or maybe like this damn couch."

  For a moment he couldn't tell how Ashrinn was going to take that, but then Ashrinn smiled a broad smile. He looked surprised by his own reaction, as though it were the first real moment of humor he'd experienced in days. Most likely, it was.

  "It's very expensive, you know."

  "So it tastes like expensive books?"

  Ashrinn huffed and Mal grinned.

  "All right, all right." Mal said as he stood and retrieved two tumblers and a bottle of bourbon from the sideboard. "I'll drink a glass of your ridiculous booze because you're my best friend, but after that I'm breaking out the good stuff."