The Lily Harper 8 Book Boxed Set

by HP Mallory

  “Who with the body mortal make the soul…”

  - Dante’s Inferno

  FOUR

  “Yo, Conan, how much longer tilz we reach your place?” Bill asked as he huffed and puffed. We’d been walking for no more than twenty minutes. Well, they were walking. I was riding on the makeshift platform Tallis constructed for me.

  After very nearly meeting my maker a few days ago, I was still too weak to walk. So, Tallis built a platform for me to lie on. He constructed it from branches that he tied together with the intestines of some poor, unfortunate creature. Although it wasn’t the most comfortable bed to lie on, it was efficient, all the same. Tallis draped the animal pelt that he usually wore around his shoulders over it to prevent me from getting any splinters. He also looped my scabbard over one of the branches so my sword was always within easy reach.

  “We have … mayhap anither day’s journey, stookie angel,” Tallis responded. His tone of voice rose at the end, and I imagined he was probably smiling at his pet name for Bill. I couldn’t be sure, though, since Tallis was pulling me behind him and I couldn’t see his face.

  “Stookie angel,” Bill grumbled, shaking his head, as he kicked a rock while muttering something beneath his breath. “What the hell does that mean, anyway?” he asked, turning to face me.

  “It’s probably better if you don’t ask,” I offered with a smile of consolation. My mind, however, was not on the conversation. Instead, I was debating the idea of whether or not to turn on the cell phone Alaire gave me. I wanted to find out the purpose of each object in the canvas bag; and, of course, Alaire was the only one who could tell me. Yes, I was leery of the phone, in general, and guessed it probably had some sort of bug attached to it. Alaire would no doubt be able to read all my text messages and overhear my phone calls and locate me through GPS. But I wasn’t really that worried because I wouldn’t be using it long term.

  “So, guess what, bubble butt,” Bill interrupted my internal debate and glanced over at me again. “When we gets back to our pad, first things first, we’re gonna have us-selves a manbecue.”

  “A what-be-cue?”

  “You know … the ultimate form of a manly barbeque,” Bill replied, his expression completely serious. “No vegetables allowed—just beer, meat an’ some cheese, maybe … oh an’ a bag o’ Fritos.”

  “Sounds good,” I said with a hopeful smile. I wasn’t just trying to appease him, either. A good, old-fashioned American barbeque really did sound mouthwatering, Fritos included.

  “I can’t frickin’ wait,” Bill gushed, rubbing his palms together and licking his lips. “Just one more day an’ it’s gonna be a feastiality!”

  “I’m looking forward to it too,” I agreed.

  Bill nodded, but then started shaking his head. “I’m so freakin’ sick of all the nasty shit Tido makes us eat!”

  “Well, he’s not really making us eat anything,” I replied, shrugging. “And without him, we’d have starved.” Actually, it was more truthful to say that without Tallis, we’d be dead. Well, I would have been anyway, seeing how Bill couldn’t die.

  “Whatever,” Bill said while frowning down at me. “The point is I’m gettin’ sick an’ tired o’ healthy gas. I been eatin’ way too many grains an’ veggies an’ whatever other sproutin’ shit your caveman over there whips up for us. If it goes on much longer, my stomach’ll think I’ve joined PETA.”

  “God forbid you might actually eat something healthy,” I said with a playful smile.

  “Nah, there’s no point,” Bill responded as he shook his head. “It’s not like all this exercise an’ health food did anythin’ for my assgut anyways.”

  “Um, what?”

  Bill immediately stopped walking and turned around so his back was facing me. Then he lifted up his shirt. “I’m so fat, I’ve even gotta second belly hangin’ over the back o’ my pants. See it?”

  “Yep, I do,” I said, not really sure if I was supposed to congratulate him or commiserate with him…

  “That’s what I call my assgut,” he announced with a final nod. He dropped his shirt back into place and hopped a few steps in order to catch up with me again.

  I said nothing, but simply smiled up at him to let him know I had no words.

  “Speakin’ of, you think I could fit on there with you?” Bill asked while eyeing my platform accommodations with sudden interest.

  “No,” I answered resolutely, severing any ideas he might have had. I half wondered how much longer the contraption would hold up as it was. “I think it’s nearly ready to collapse.”

  “Fine, raft hog,” Bill retorted glumly.

  “Ouch!” I yelled a half second later when the platform suddenly rammed into a rock, or something equally obstructive, and came to an immediate stop, slamming one of the branches right into my lower back.

  “Whappened?” Bill called out, his eyes wide.

  Tallis immediately stopped walking and turned around before dropping both of the leather straps he was using to drag me behind him.

  “Ye all right, lass?” he asked in a worried tone, and I just nodded, ignoring my back that was burning like an SOB. Tallis leaned down and gripped me beneath my knees with one arm while putting the other around my back. He lifted me up only to set me down, feet first, on the ground beside him. He rotated me slightly, so my back was facing him before inspecting the damage. I was glad I was dressed in yoga pants and a sports bra. It made accessing the wound easier without any clothing to get in the way.

  “Yer skin is poonctured,” he announced before I heard the sounds of him fumbling with his sporran again.

  “Shit! She’s a bleeder!” Bill exclaimed with awe.

  “Is it really bad?” I asked as I turned to face my guardian angel.

  “Yeah, looks like it’ll need stitches,” he answered. He was studying my wound pointedly, as if he were a doctor offering a diagnosis.

  “Ye will be fine, lass,” Tallis announced before giving Bill a discouraging glance as he continued to fish through his sporran. “Dinnae listen tae him.”

  Seconds later, Tallis started rubbing something gritty and cold on me. “Ow!” I yelled as soon as the wound began to sting.

  “Shh, lass,” Tallis crooned in my ear as he patted me on the back of the shoulder … somewhat awkwardly.

  “What is that stuff?” I demanded, deciding not to pay any attention to the fact that Tallis and I didn’t seem to know how to interact with each other when everything we’d said earlier was still hanging in the air.

  “’Tis ah balm that will stop any infection froom takin’ root an’ spreadin’,” Tallis explained. “Withoot it, the branch would infect ye, an’ ye would sooccumb tae ah nasty fever an mayhap, even death,” he added from where he stood behind me.

  “Well, whatever it is, it really hurts!” I ground out, as tears filled my eyes when the stinging became almost unbearable. After a while, I figured I had to suck it up and just deal with the pain. The alternative wasn’t exactly something I welcomed.

  “Aye, ’tis the salve fightin’ the seeds o’ infection,” Tallis clarified.

  I felt him gripping me by my waist before he dropped down to a squat and started blowing on my burning skin. His breath immediately soothed the stinging sensation, causing it to die down even though something else was beginning to stir inside my belly. Those feelings, however, were not soothing at all, but full of excitement and anxiety. I wasn’t sure what prompted me, but I immediately covered his hands with mine, urging him to tighten his hold on my waist. I noticed he no longer was blowing on my ruptured skin, but he didn’t get up right away. Instead, he just kneeled behind me, saying and doing nothing. I could feel the strain and tension in his hands, though; they weren’t relaxed. Seconds later, he pulled away from me and stood up.

  Lumbering over to the platform and tossing the pelt aside, he inspected the damage. “’Tis done for,” he announced, without bothering to look back at me.

  “It’s broken?” I asked, scolding myself for
cornering him into an uncomfortable situation. It was becoming glaringly clear that whatever affection Tallis harbored for me couldn’t have amounted to much since he refused to act on it. And as far as I could tell, he wasn’t open to me acting on my feelings either. That meant our strange relationship would continue being just that—strange, awkward and uncomfortable, sometimes to the point of being almost intolerable.

  “Aye, ’tis broken,” he answered as he finally turned to face me. His eyes locked onto mine immediately and we both just stared at one another for the course of a few seconds, neither of us saying anything.

  “I hate to have to pause the starin’ contest,” Bill interrupted snidely as he threw his hands on his hips and glared at us both in turn. “But how the hell do we travel with nips if the freakin’ raft is all busted?”

  “Ah will carry ’er,” Tallis replied, his gaze still locked onto mine. I didn’t reply, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from his.

  “Dude! Nerdlet blinked, an’ that makes you the winner, okay?” Bill grumbled as he threw his hands into the air and muttered something unintelligible.

  After a few seconds, Tallis realized Bill was glaring at us. He immediately dropped his gaze to the ground and cleared his throat as if he were suddenly uncomfortable. Then he took a few steps forward and checked his right side, and then his left, like he was doing reconnaissance. He took another few steps before vanishing down a small hill.

  “Tallis?” I asked, instantly growing anxious at the prospect of being left standing here alone.

  Thankfully Tallis reappeared only seconds later. He climbed up the embankment again, wiping what looked like mud onto his kilt. And mud meant water …

  “We hae reached the river,” he said from where he stood about ten feet in front of us. “We will stop haur tae drink.”

  “Um, hate ta break it to ya, Ginormo, but that water is like toxic to Pippi Long Legs. If she drinks it, she’ll get eboli or some other fatal shit,” Bill declared.

  Clearly, he was confusing ebola with e-coli, but I didn’t have the energy to correct him. But as to my drinking the river water, he was right about that. It wasn’t a good idea. Something that Tallis should have already known …

  The brooding Scotsman didn’t say anything before he disappeared over the crest of, what I assumed was, the bank of the river. Bill followed him so I figured I better too. I reached over and grabbed my sword from its scabbard where it rested on the platform and used it as a crutch. Granted, it took me much longer to make my way over the crest of the embankment since I was still so exhausted, but I managed all the same.

  I rested on top of the sandy soil of the mound, and noticed Tallis squatting down beside the river. He opened his sporran and produced what looked like a hide. It was twice the size of his hand. Standing up, he took a few steps into the river, until the water reached his mid-calf. Then he leaned over and folded the sides of the hide up, making it into a cup of sorts. He dipped the makeshift cup into the water and stood up again. Taking a few long steps, he approached me.

  “Dude, didn’t you just hear a word I said?” Bill inquired, but Tallis ignored him, his eyes fastened on me.

  “Yer sword, lass,” he said, once he was a foot or so away. Then he turned to face Bill. “Ah will purify the contaminants from the water with the steel o’ her blade,” he explained.

  “Ah,” Bill nodded. “Good thinkin’, yo.”

  I reached for my sword, which was right beside me and resting against the embankment. I rotated it so that I was holding the blade end before I handed it to Tallis. Once he touched the grip, what felt like a bolt of lightning hit the sword and traveled straight up my arm. I heard myself gasping as I tried to release the blade, but couldn’t. It was as if my hands were superglued to the blade.

  I looked up at Tallis and saw him clenching his jaw and wincing. I tried to ask what was happening, but couldn’t open my mouth to form words. It was like my body was suddenly on strike. I vaguely recalled Bill freaking out beside me, but his voice sounded distant, like I was underwater.

  I wasn’t sure what prompted me, but I tightened my hold around the blade of my sword until I felt it cutting into my palms. Thinking I was in a dream, I glanced down at my hands, and my movements seemed overly slow and delayed. One thing I did not fail to recognize, though, was that I was bleeding. A wide line of bright blood trickled steadily from my fisted hand down my arms. Still, I couldn’t release my sword.

  A bright light suddenly blinded me and I didn’t know where I was. But I felt sure it wasn’t the Dark Wood. Nope, there was nothing dark about this place at all. Instead, the sky was a bright, cerulean blue, dotted with white, puffy clouds. A cool breeze that carried the scent of wildflowers and rich, moist earth refreshed my face. I found myself standing in front of an enormous lake that reflected the sky and made it look like the clouds were floating on the surface. The lake was surrounded by trees in every shade of green, and purple flowers accentuated the grassy areas beneath them. Off in the distance towered enormous verdant mountains.

  “Ta tu an talamh, an t-uisce agus an speir.”

  Hearing a deep voice, I turned to find Tallis standing beside me. Only he wasn’t the same Tallis that was with me in the Dark Wood. This Tallis seemed younger, and not quite so jaded or cynical. This Tallis also didn’t have the scar that ran from his eyebrow to his jaw.

  He repeated the words again, and I suddenly understood what they meant.

  You are the earth, the water and the air.

  He smiled at me and reached down to grip both of my much smaller hands in his. I glanced at our entwined hands and noticed neither one of us was wearing any clothing. But I didn’t feel any shame or embarrassment. On the contrary, I felt beautiful, so natural and right.

  “Ta tu an ceann. Ta tu tar eis teacht duinn,” Tallis said and inside my head, I understood the words.

  You are the one. You have come for us.

  Although his words were meant to encourage me, I was suddenly overcome with a wave of apprehension and anxiety.

  “How can you be certain?” I asked, not even sure what I was asking or why.

  “Is doigh liom e. Ta a fhios agam,” Tallis answered.

  I feel it. I know.

  Some of the anxiety began to evaporate as I took comfort in his words.

  “Is mar a bhi se I gceist I gconai a bheith,” he finished.

  It is as it was always meant to be.

  I blinked and the vision was suddenly gone, leaving me shrouded in pitch blackness. I blinked again, trying to make sense of the darkness that seemed to swallow me.

  “Lils!” Bill screamed as he suddenly appeared in my line of sight. “Snap out of it!” he yelled before grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.

  “I’m … I’m okay!” I yelled back, bringing my arms up and extricating myself from his iron grasp. My breathing was no more than short gasps as I tried to understand what just happened.

  Tallis.

  His name suddenly made me wheel around and I found him standing right before me. He was panting too, and staring at me.

  “What happened?” I asked, my voice coming out raspy. “What was that?”

  “Whit did ye see?” he replied as he eyed me narrowly.

  I shook my head and looked at my hands when I realized that somewhere along the way, I’d released my sword. Blood covered my palms, but when I searched for a laceration, I couldn’t find one. My skin was completely whole, as if it had mended itself in mere seconds.

  “That was some next level bullshit that I, for one, was not ready for!” Bill announced, shaking his head as he started to pace back and forth. “You were like speakin’ in tongues, Lil!”

  “I was?” I asked, inhaling deeply and trying to calm my frantic heartbeat.

  “Yeah!” Bill shouted back at me. “You were goin’ on an’ on! Like you done got freakin’ possessed by the flippin’ Rosetta Stone!” He shook his head and looked like he was about to cry. “Why the hell’s can’t we just get back to Edinburgs? I j
ust wanna eat a real meal, an’ service my selfie stick, an’ sleep in a real freakin’ bed. Why does this shit gotta happen now?” He was quiet for a second or so before he started shaking his head so quickly, I was afraid he would give himself whiplash. “I can’t take no more of this shit, Lils. I really can’t!”

  “Whit did ye see, lass?” Tallis repeated, completely ignoring Bill’s protest.

  I faced him and took another deep breath. “The same thing you did,” I answered with newfound assurance.

  “Nips, you looked just like Linda frickin’ Blair! You were actin’ and soundin’ possessed by the devil,” Bill continued, the pitch of his voice rising to glass-breaking status. “Does this mean you got some demon livin’ inside you now an’ you’re just gonna like start randomly pukin’ everywhere?”

  “No, Bill, it doesn’t,” I replied with a quick glance at him, even though I didn’t know what it meant either.

  “’Cause I ain’t prepared for any o’ this shit. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout exorcisms an’ poltergeists, or how the hell to get Satan the hell outta you!”

  “Bill,” I started, but seeing he was already off on one of his rants, I figured he’d be busy for a while.

  “I never signed up for this shit!” he railed at me. “Fuck, Lils, you scared me so bad when you were talkin’ all that crazy shit. What the hell language was that anyways?”

  “Gaelic,” I responded, since there was no doubt in my mind.

  “Whit did ye see?” Tallis inquired, and his expression looked very determined.

  “You,” I answered. “I saw you and me. We were naked. And we were surrounded by mountains and a lake.”

  Tallis’s jaw tightened and his eyes narrowed even more. “Go oan.”

  “You were telling me that I was the earth, the water and the air, and I was the one, and that I had come for you, or for us, or for something that didn’t make any sense,” I finished.

  Tallis nodded as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes while shaking his head.

  “What did all of that mean?” I asked, suddenly afraid to hear his answer.