The Iron Bells

by Jeanette Battista

  Chapter Thirty-One

  When the four of us arrive at the back door of the Highwayman, I am sagging with relief. I constantly watched out backtrail, afraid that we were being followed, which sort of compromised our school kids out on a day off and enjoying the weather cover. Finally Dham threw his arm around me and drew me into the conversation. How he was able to act like he didn’t have a care in the world was beyond me, but I was grateful for it. All the way back to the Winchester, I’d been plagued by the scenes playing out in my head courtesy of my overactive imagination: the Inquisition had raided the place, or set fire to it, or a meteor had crashed into or dinosaurs had been genetically reproduced and eaten them while they enjoyed a ploughman's. My brain is not always a comfortable place to be. I’m glad Dham is around to pull me out of it.

  My relief doesn't last long once I enter the Highwayman. Ryland is there, but he’s not alone. Kevin and Peter are sitting at a table with him. Kevin looks as he usually does: a bit more weather-beaten perhaps, but calm and solid as always. But when I look at Peter, I see someone who is skittish and worried. He’s got a bandage wrapped around one arm and a shiner decorating his left eye. He's watching Dham carefully, but I can't tell if it is out of fear or concern. And while I'm relieved that Kevin made it out alive, I remember Ryland's words about the traitor.

  "Peter!" Dham’s glad cry nearly makes me wince. I watch as Dham makes his way over to the man and gives him a hug.

  I drop into a seat. My eyes find Trick's and he raises a brow at me. Then he shoots his eyes in Peter's direction and raises both brows. I need to find a moment to talk to Trick alone.

  “How did you get out?” Dham asks the older man.

  Peter rubs at his face, looking tired. “Kevin found me. I’d been knocked out during one of our skirmishes on the way in--they must have left me for dead.”

  Kevin speaks up. “Found him out cold. Hoisted him up and out before the whole place went sky high.”

  So it must not have been Peter I saw right before I left the room beneath Christ Church. I cut my eyes over to Ryland who’s watching the reunion with a narrow gaze. I remember his words not to trust anyone. Perhaps I did see Peter after all. I would need to speak to Ryland about him later.

  Ryland waves a man over and speaks to him in low tones. He indicates the four of us. I wonder what he’s doing. A few minutes later it becomes apparent when the man reappears with plates of food: eggs, toast, roasted tomatoes, sausages, beans. A regular fry up. He plunks the heavy plate down in front of me and hands me a rolled up napkin and silver. I dig in without waiting for the others.

  "Yes." I rub at eyes gone tired and gritty. I don't want to say too much to any of them. Oddly enough, it's only Trick that I trust right now—he's the only one who's whereabouts were completely known and who had no way of contacting the Inquisition. If I weren't so bloody exhausted, I'd find it funny.

  “What do we do now?” Cat asks around a mouthful of food.

  “I thought you were heading home?” Dham raises a brow at her and sits down next to Trick.

  “It’s better than a suicide mission to Rome,” she spits out before I can stop her.

  I smack my head with my palm. So much for secrecy. Perhaps I should have muzzled her.

  “Rome?” Peter asks, his head swiveling in Dham’s direction.

  Dham nods, cutting his eyes over at me. “Yes. Amaranth and I have decided to try for Rome.”

  I look at Ryland, who also looks concerned. I know he didn’t want the reason for our mission leaking out. I open my mouth to interrupt Dham before he gives away our entire plan.

  "Cat makes a good point," Peter cuts in before I can say anything. "The Resistance has been discovered. Your headquarters are rubble. It isn't safe for any of us here anymore. And Rome, well, that’s just crazy." Cat looks smug now that someone has taken her part.

  "What do you suggest?" Dham is looking back and forth from Cat to Peter.

  Peter leans forward, arms braced on the table. His voice is low and urgent. "We leave. All of us. Go our separate ways and forget all of this Rome nonsense."

  "And where exactly do you think you'll go?" Kevin asks before I can erupt.

  I dig into my food again, watching the argument that eddies around me. Trick is silent, an amused look on his face. Cat nods, clearly in agreement with Peter. Kevin looks resigned. Ryland is impossible to read.

  Dham is quiet, listening carefully. Peter continues. "Anywhere. Back to New York. All I know is we can't stay here. They'll find us all eventually."

  "By that logic, they'll find us eventually anywhere we go." Dham's voice is almost too low to hear.

  Ryland finally speaks. "And I wouldn't set your sights on New York, boys. You were lucky—more than that even—the first time. I wouldn't count on getting a transatlantic ride this time."

  "I wouldn't go back to New York anyway." Again Dham speaks quietly. His face is subdued, no emotions readable in his expression. Peter looks perplexed for a moment, then angry. I swallow my toast and take a sip of tea. I remember the few things Dham has said about his family.

  "So exile here is preferable to trying to get home?" Peter's voice is clipped, almost like he's holding in what he wants to say.

  Dham says nothing, but he holds Peter's gaze. Eventually the older man looks away. Finally Dham speaks. "No one is saying you have to share it with me, Peter." I can see Peter's jaw clench.

  Cat's gaze skips between the two men. Her brows are drawn down in confusion. She shakes her head and says, "So then what are you going to do?"

  Dham looks at me for the first time. "I am going to Rome, just as was planned. I expect Amaranth feels the same way."

  I nod firmly. I glance at Trick who gives me a massive eyeroll. He mouths something that looks like Just kiss already. I ignore him.

  “Stay or go as you choose. It makes no difference to me what you do,” I say.

  I take my plate and get up, happy to let them debate this without me. Trick follows, which surprises me. I would have thought he'd have enjoyed seeing people pick each other apart with words. I take my food to a small table in the corner, shielded from the front windows by a half wall. He puts his plate down and sits across from me.

  "You can be quite hard when you wish to be."

  I shovel another forkful of tomatoes into my mouth and swallow before asking, "Come again?"

  "It's the ogre's choice you're offering them, you know." He twinkles at me. "Die fast or die slow."

  I put my fork down on the plate and glare at him. "How do you figure that one?"

  He leans forward conspiratorially. "Dham was right in what he said in there. They will find you, sooner or later. What does it matter when they find you?"

  I look at him cautiously. He's not asking to be mean or annoying; he's asking because he truly does not understand and seems to want to know. I wait a beat before answering him and try to keep sarcasm from my voice. "You haven't met a lot of humans, have you?"

  His lip curls. "Met? No. Served? Yes."

  "Okay." I narrow my eyes as I try to put my thoughts into words. "But when you were serving those people, did you really watch them? And not just for weakness or a way to get out of the summoning—did you actually watch them to understand them?"

  Trick steeples his fingers in front of his lips. I can just barely see the hint of a smile. "Why would I want to do that? It was odious enough having to do their bidding."

  I shake my head, but decide to press on. "It does matter. To answer your question, everything we do matters. It's just us down here—there's no one else to try. So it matters."

  He cocks his head, taken aback by my earnestness, I suppose. "But pain and death are all that are left."

  I'm struck by one of my mother's favorite films, which contained one of her favorite all time quotes. I remember her saying that it summed up the human condition. "But it's my pain. My death. When that's all that's left to me, they matter." I shrug. "What I do does matter, whether I'm the only one who kn
ows about it or not."

  He drums his fingers on the scarred tabletop. "You are very strange." But he doesn't say it in a bad way. "I don't understand you, really." He sighs. "Do you have orders for me?"

  "Orders?"

  "I am your servant, even more so than my other masters. I am more…intimately…bound to you." His voice takes on a knife edge of bitterness. "What is it you wish of me?"

  I blink at him. I keep forgetting who and what he is. He's wearing Patrick's body, he's a demon who's hijacked my friend. But it's almost like talking to Patrick, so much so that it confuses me. He's a being possibly eons old that has served mankind for centuries. And he'd happily sell me out as soon as look at me if he could find a way to get around the binding.

  And yet, I don't want to order him around like a slave. Maybe it's because when I look at him I see Patrick and that informs my reactions to him, however subconscious. Or maybe I'm going crazy. But I can't talk to him like he's a person and then treat him like a thing. "I don't want to order you around." I lean forward. "I'd prefer to ask you to do something rather than demand."

  Trick smiles wryly. "You are so young." He kicks back in the chair, balancing on the back two legs. "It doesn't matter what you call it, mistress. Servitude is still servitude. Slavery is still slavery. It doesn't matter if you request or command; the compulsion is still there. The result will be the same. One is just a salve to your conscience."

  "I wouldn't be talking about consciences if I were you, Mr. Squatting in Someone Else's Body."

  "Thankfully, I don't come equipped with one." He grins wickedly. "It relieves me of those tiresome moral dilemmas you humans seem to enjoy so much."

  "If you don't have a conscience, then how do you even know that slavery is wrong?"

  He sets his chair back down on four legs. "First-hand experience is an excellent instructor. Being compelled against one's will is something even the smallest beast that crawls would rail against. Freedom is all the more important when you're deprived of it."

  I understand that. While people have been going on about their daily lives since the first demon possessed a human in what turned out to be the beginning of an invasion, it is a half-life at best. There is no freedom of religion—there's no religion at all. People are persecuted, they disappear in the middle of the night from their homes. We all live in fear and dread and mistrust. Most people keep their heads down and try to live out a life as best they can without attracting the kind of attention that gets them killed. Then there's the rest of us.

  And if what Trick when he was imprisoned beneath the pentacle was true, the demons are still living in fear: fear of reprisals if they ever release their hold on humanity. Was that just another way of binding? It is uncomfortable to think about.

  "We agree on something." I don’t keep the tinge of sarcastic amazement from my voice.

  Trick stills, eyes narrow. "I think our situations are vastly different."

  I lean forward. "Let's ask Patrick about that, shall we?" My eyes bore into his.

  Neither of us say anything for several minutes. Finally he inclines his head to me. "Touché."

  I nod and take another bite of my breakfast. I look to the other table, and see Dham walking over to us, his breakfast forgotten. He looks grey with exhaustion. Trick and I watch him as he walks over to our table.

  "How are you?" I ask, moving a chair out for him. I look to Ryland; he nods at me, but keeps his focus on the debate at the other table.

  Dham sits, slumping down in the chair. "Ugh." He manages to raise one side of his mouth in a pale imitation of a smile. "I needed some quiet."

  "Peter still wants to try for New York?" I put my fork down. I glance at Trick, but the demon has leaned back in his chair, acting uninterested in the conversation.

  Dham shrugs, a tired rise of shoulders. "Or anywhere that's not here."

  I take a breath, unsure if I should ask the question that I've wanted to from the first. I slant my eyes at Dham and decide to risk it. "So why did he come with you that first time?"

  Dham folds his hands together on top of the table. He stares at them, but his gaze is faraway. I am wondering what he sees in his mind's eye, when he speaks.

  "My father has always been…difficult.” His words come slowly. "Peter was, well, he was someone I could go to when I couldn't talk to my father."

  He finally looks at me. "Remember when I said this trip was my punishment?"

  I nod, stunned at the brief flash of pain I glimpse in Dham's eyes.

  "Peter volunteered to come with me. My father didn't want to allow it, but Peter insisted." He looks down at his feet. "He said he didn't want me going alone." His eyes close and in a voice barely audible, he adds, “He said my mother wouldn’t have wanted me traveling into danger without someone to guard my back.”

  "She was right,” I say, gently touching his wrist. “No mother would. But why is he arguing with you now?" My heart aches for Dham.

  "He thinks it's too risky with the Inquisition so close." He shakes his head. "He's just looking out for me. He doesn’t want me to throw my life away.”

  I bite my lower lip. I don't think that's it; it doesn’t feel right. But Dham trusts him. Maybe I'm just being paranoid. Peter could be looking out for Dham, kind of like Ryland does for me.

  "Okay, Dham." I put my hand over his. "I understand."