by Chloe Garner
“Flames attended your birth. Flames will consume you in death,” she said in hellspeak. He grinned.
“Aren’t you the clever one,” he said. “I’d heard. I stopped street fighting millennia ago. You can’t jerk me around that easily.”
He kicked the spot where she had been on the floor, but she arched off the floor and sprung to her feet, rolling across her knees and standing with Lahn at guard. Angeltongue curses rolled, now, unstopping. He pulled frames off the walls, throwing furniture at her. When things got too close to Sam, she could push them away, but a broken sheet of glass struck Jason and he yelled again. She wasn’t able to understand, as her world revolved around Brandt, but it was distracting. She couldn’t help him, and she couldn’t protect him. If she didn’t finish Brandt quickly, it was possible Jason would bleed out during a fight that posed no risk to her at all. She yelled louder, mixing human blessings against curses in ever more potent patterns, blocking fists, feet, pieces of furniture, now building materials.
There was a stream of blood down the wall under Jason’s feet. Combinations of words she didn’t even know flew out of her mouth and Brandt put his arm up in front of his face as she slashed and stabbed with Lahn.
The tide turned.
He retreated, falling, against a wall, and things began to fall out of the air. Samantha put her foot in the middle of his chest, finishing the last curse. She said a sequence of words over Lahn and stabbed him in the chest. He braced, then frowned. He didn’t ash.
“What did you do?”
“I need another moment,” she said darkly, pulling the wand out of her back pocket.
“This does rather hurt,” Brandt said. “Can we get on with it?”
Behind her, she heard Sam run to Jason. She took the wand, which at the vaguest level resembled a bubble wand, and blew through it, then pushed it, flat, hard above his adam’s apple, where his throat met his chin.
“Where are they?”
“Who?” he asked.
“Elizabeth and Heather,” she said. He opened his mouth and choked. He frowned, then choked again. And again.
“They’re tied up in the workshop,” he said. “What is that?”
“Very powerful,” she said. “You have your warning. Find a new hobby.”
She spoke the words to tie a bell to him, seeing the grim understanding in his face, then pulled Lahn out of his chest and he ashed. She turned to look at Sam and Jason.
“How is he?”
“I’m fine,” Jason said as Sam righted the couch and helped him sit.
“Let me look,” Samantha said. She flipped Lahn from underhand to overhand and pulled her shirt away from her back, re-sheathing her, then pulled the stiletto out of her boot and slit his shirt, pulling it away from his side with a sticky sound.
“I go through more shirts, with you,” Jason said, leaning back and turning his head away. She lifted his arm and put it on the back of the couch, trying to get a sense of the scope of the wound. It didn’t look like the glass had punctured his lung; he should have been coughing up blood, if it had. Best guess from the bloody mess she had to look at, it had slit across three ribs to the bone.
“My backpack is in the kitchen,” she said. “I need it.” Sam stood. “And a wet cloth.”
“Are they really in the workshop?” Jason asked. Samantha nodded, looking for any other wounds that needed attention.
“How’s your chest?”
“I’m fine.”
“You left a bloodstain down Heather’s wall. You aren’t fine,” Samantha told him.
“Go get them,” Jason said.
“You’re going to pass out in the next ten minutes if I don’t get this cleaned up,” Samantha said.
“Really?” Jason asked, looking. “Huh.”
“Yeah.”
Sam returned with the backpack and the cloth, and Jason hissed through his teeth as she cleaned the skin around the wound to try to find the edges. It was longer than she had guessed, but no worse. She pulled various things out of her bag, washing her hands into a bowl and threading a needle. The side of Jason’s ribcage was sheeted in blood again, and Samantha found the hemostatic powder in her medical kit and took a cotton ball to cover the inside of the cut.
“Youch,” Jason yelled.
“Oh, now you’re a big baby,” she said, washing the wound clean and threading a needle. “Sit still.”
“Sam, will you go get Heather and Elizabeth? Please?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, not excited to leave. Samantha felt him stand and pause.
“I’m not going to die,” Jason said.
“Have you seen the wall?” Sam asked. Jason turned his head.
“I said sit still,” Samantha said.
“Wow. That does look bad.”
Samantha sighed. He kept stretching the wound funny, and it was starting to bleed again.
“You’re going to get a scar. Lay on your side and stop moving.”
“So what?” Jason asked, leaning over and putting a pillow under his head. Sam left.
“So, I can stitch this right if you’ll sit still,” she told him. She hopped the boundary and found a reference notebook she had made on stitches, just to look at the pictures once more, then dropped back across.
“Chicks dig scars,” Jason said.
“Good a reason as any,” Samantha said, putting his elbow down, then back up, trying to figure out which spot put the least torque across the wound. “There.”
“You seriously want me to hold my arm like this?” he asked.
“I should have let you bleed out,” she said, stress gradually slipping away as he fought her. She knew he was in pain, and was grateful he was putting on the normal act for her. She tied an anchor to the end of the strand of her hair - she had harvested it in the window that she hadn’t been dying it, and prepped it for use on injuries months before - and started stitching the sides of the cut together.
“You’re doing it wrong,” he said, watching.
“No, you’ve just always done it wrong,” Samantha said.
“You’re supposed to go across the skin,” he said. “Like a football.”
“Is that what you did on your arm? No wonder.”
“Sam did it. I’m right-handed,” Jason said. She looked.
“I’d have bought it if you said you did that with your left.”
“I’m telling Sam you said that.”
She grinned. The cut was deep enough that she could pull the sides together without using holes in the surface of his skin - the hair snaked back and forth between the sides of exposed flesh, loosely, now, pulling the anchor at the end to the far corner. She got to the other end and started to ease the two sides together, pinching to get the anchor set against the surface of the skin, then sliding the sides closed like a zipper. Jason looked away.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You’re fine,” he said.
“Don’t move,” she said, pulling the far edge closed and tying an anchor in that corner, then, after another wash with an alcohol-based mixture, painted the entire area with something she mentally referred to as rubber cement.
“That’s it,” she said. “Gentle.”
“Are those fishing weights?” he asked.
“Not once I use them as suture anchors,” she said. He pulled at the rubber cement gently and dropped his arm slowly.
“Not bad,” he said. “If I don’t get a scar out of this, I’m going to be mad.”
“Prepare yourself,” she said. He grinned and sat up.
“Whoa.”
“Blood loss. You need to drink.”
“I’ll second that.”
“Not even close,” she said, pulling a bottle of water out of her backpack and handing it to him.
“Down that, and I’ll get you another glass out of the kitchen.”
Most of the fight seemed to have gone out of him, and he nodded. Samantha glanced around, not having yet processed the pile of ash in the corner, and went to the kitchen.
“Jason?” Elizabeth called from the doorway.
“You guys okay?” he answered as she ran across the room. Samantha stiffened at the sound of Elizabeth’s footsteps, as she stood in front of the sink. “Easy, babe,” Jason cautioned. Samantha realized what she was wearing and quickly changed back into her normal clothes.
“Oh my god, what happened?” Elizabeth asked.
“I’m fine,” Jason said. “Are you guys okay? Where’s Heather?”
“I’m here,” Heather said. Samantha grabbed a glass out of a cabinet and filled it, walking back into the living room. Brandt hadn’t been gentle on Heather, but she had swallowed enough pride to let Sam help her into a chair. She looked angrier than she was hurt. “Is that abomination ash?”
“Just another part of the mess we’ve made of your living room,” Samantha said, indicating. Heather nodded. Sam cleaned out another chair and sat.
“I know I didn’t actually do anything, but I’m exhausted,” Sam said. Samantha nodded, handing Jason the glass. Elizabeth was sitting on the floor at his feet with her arms across his knees.
“What happened?” she asked him. The couch next to Jason was pooled in blood, and there weren’t any more chairs, so Samantha picked a clean wall to lean against.
“Sam kicked his ass,” Jason said. Elizabeth looked at Sam. Sam pointed at Samantha. Elizabeth’s eyes widened.
“Her?”
Samantha frowned, then remembered that Elizabeth hadn’t been there when she had resuscitated herself by possessing Sam. She looked at Heather, who gazed back steadily. She supposed it made sense the woman hadn’t told her daughter what had happened.
“Her,” Jason said. He grunted as he shifted, jerking his head at Samantha.
“Can I look at that knife, this time?”
She leaned off the wall and, after a pause, put her hand behind her back and pulled Lahn out. The clean slick as she pulled clear from the fitted-leather sheath was a catharsis Samantha had long missed. She glanced at Elizabeth, tempted to forgo the ceremony in front of the girl, but refused to slight Lahn. She knelt, holding the tip of the blade across three fingers and the hilt in an open palm, and offered her to him. He paused.
“This is an epic blade, one that bears a name,” she said, head still tilted down. “She can only be given at will, and only returned the same way. She is old, and she is powerful. She is mine.”
Cautiously, Jason took the blade and looked at the relief engravings on the blade, the intricate handle, the worn cloth grip.
“It’s… She’s beautiful,” he said. “She?”
“Epic swords are like boats. They are always she.”
He nodded.
“What makes her epic?”
“She was forged by a grey angel almost a thousand years ago. She has numerous traits and powers that are unique to her. Most epic blades are demon-forged.”
Now that Lahn was out in the light, Samantha’s hands itched to hold her. She had kept the blade in the lining in the back of her backpack for more than two years, taking solace that at least she rode where she always had, in the square of Samantha’s back between her shoulder blades, but it was little comfort. The compulsion to be within an arm’s length of her backpack dulled, now. It was a tool, and she loved many things in it, but Lahn. Lahn was it. She was soulbound to her.
Jason looked down at Elizabeth, but the girl didn’t move. He offered Lahn back to Samantha as gracefully as he could, and she knelt one knee most of the way to the ground to take her back. The weight of the blade was so familiar, so comforting. She smiled.
“May I?” Sam asked, standing. Samantha turned and nodded, whispering to Lahn.
“Know him.”
When they had first met her, Sam and Jason had thought she was crazy because she would routinely talk to Abby, at first, and then O’na Anu’dd, with no explanation. She hadn’t minded, because she knew she wasn’t crazy. Talking to Lahn, though, made her self-conscious. She did it occasionally, when she was with Carter, addressing the blade the way she would have a car, but with a history of talking to nothing at all, she almost didn’t want them to find out that she would talk to Lahn.
She knelt and offered Lahn to Sam, who took her with equal care, running his fingertips over the edges of the blade and the engravings. The awe was undoubtedly a reaction to Samantha more than Lahn, but the respect was real, and Samantha loved him for it.
“She goes through demons like butter,” Samantha said. “That’s what most epic blades are designed for, but Lahn is head-of-class.”
“Why don’t you use her?” Sam asked.
“Because demons know that blade. They know who carries her. Well, apparently Brandt didn’t, but a lot of them do. Carrying her openly means I’m back in the game. Officially. Building power and making targets out of the highest ones of them. It makes me a threat. But she’s back. I’ve identified myself again, and she isn’t going away.”
Samantha smiled despite herself, and Sam, feeling embarrassed, dipped one knee and offered Lahn back to her. Samantha took the blade and, for the sheer joy of it, cut the air with a flourish before securing her back in her sheath.
Heather stood.
“Being a friend of yours is dangerous,” she observed. Samantha nodded.
“We should probably go.”
Heather shook her head, holding an arm out to Sam. He stood to support her, and she walked over to the corner where Samantha had ashed Brandt. She spat.
“This is part of our job,” she said. “You are welcome here.”
Samantha smiled and dropped her head.
“We protect our friends, but you aren’t our friend. You’re just my friend. And I can’t keep all of you safe.”
“When they make you feel separated from your friends and your family, they have won. It is only a matter of time before they will beat you,” Heather said. “We bear the risk gladly, knowing the risks you bear.”
“Eyes wide open,” Jason said, easing Elizabeth’s arms off of his knees and standing. He grunted, finding the aches that hadn’t been there when he sat. He rolled his neck, stretching the muscles, then walked over to Samantha. “You’re the expert, here, and we’ll go if you say so, but they know what they’ve signed up for.”
“You shouldn’t be up,” Samantha said. He grinned.
“I need a new shirt.” He pointed to his bag on the floor behind her. She turned and knelt, unzipping the bag.
“You actually wear purple tee shirts?” she asked.
“Burgundy,” he said. She snorted
“You have anything that buttons, in here? Be easier if you didn’t have to get your arm over your head.”
“Just give me the purple one,” he said. “You can help.”
“I’m going to call in a lockdown,” Sam said.
“Don’t do that,” Samantha said, putting the clean shirt over her shoulder as she helped peel Jason out of the old one. Elizabeth was staring.
Don’t you have a boyfriend? Samantha thought.
“Why not?” Sam asked.
“You want to explain Brandt?” she asked. “And what are the Rangers going to do if he or someone else goes after the waypoints? They’re just going to get themselves killed. Who else did you stay with, with Carly?”
“No one,” Jason said, rubbing his wrist as a transferred response to the sharp pain in his side. Samantha dropped the blood-soaked shirt onto his bag and rolled the tee shirt so he could get both arms through the sleeves without raising them above his waist. She pushed the shirt up to his shoulders, then pulled the back over his head.
“Brace yourself,” she said softly, pulling the shirt away from his side as she pulled the hem down. She saw the muscles in his jaw contract as the shirt brushed over the wound.
“There. Go sit. You want something for pain?”
“I’m okay.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Yeah.”
“Anything else hurt that I should know about?”
�
��Feels like a wall fell on me,” he said. She nodded.
“Yeah. Anything sharp, you tell me, right?”
He nodded.
“So we’re just going to leave Doris in the dark?” Sam asked. Samantha looked at him.
“No. You can call her. You can tell her as much as you want. Everything, if you want. But I don’t think a general panic is a good idea. This has nothing to do with the Rangers.”
“The boys are Rangers,” Heather said. “Of course it has to do with us.”
“All due respect,” Samantha said, “they aren’t any more.”
“What?” Sam asked. Samantha pulled the rack of vials out of the bottom of her back pack and took Jason’s glass, mixing half a dozen things into it, then took a swallow, measuring her mix by taste and impression.
“Drink this,” she said to Jason. “It’s going to make you sleepy.” She went and sat at Sam’s feet.
“You aren’t Rangers any more,” she said softly. “We can keep doing what you do. I enjoy it, and it will help you get stronger, but you and Jason… you’re something else.”
“What’s that?”
“Something in the middle. You aren’t one of us. Most people never will be. Abby isn’t. But you’re tied to us, now. Kind of the worst of all worlds.”
“Gee,” Jason said.
“We should go,” Samantha said. “We should go to ground, let Jason heal, figure out what happened to you after yesterday… Get caught up again. I’m so tired.”
“What about them?” Sam asked. He was worried. Samantha didn’t blame him.
She frowned.
Looked at the wall, with its wide streak of blood.
Looked at Jason.
Something sparkled in her mind. Ideas she didn’t understand. She ran to her bag and pulled out her bloodletting knife, one she had once used to drain darkrot blood off of Jason, and the blood tap and a stone bowl, then went and stood in front of the wall, staring hard at it.
The spell unfolded in her mind, shiny, perfect.
She pulled up her shirt and made quick work of stabbing through her abdominal wall, then filling the bowl with blood. She simply dropped the knife and then the tap as she finished with them, letting the tissue below her stomach reattach with only cursory care to make sure the edges lined up correctly, then she dipped her fingers in the bowl.
