Mortal Souls
Page 16
Everyone stared at Yoo Min, stunned.
“What?” she asked. “I don't think very well when I'm hungry. I do much better on a full stomach.”
Dorian tried very hard not to remember the reason she now had a full stomach.
“They made me a detective too, remember?” said Yoo Min.
Chief Ben turned to Hazel.
“Well, we could use someone who can walk through walls,” he said. “If you've been bored beyond the veil, I think we could offer you a job here if you want one.”
***
Leah sat in front of her laptop, holding her tea. She was still not feeling well but was content, although she was impatient for Dorian to return. She started her research on the urisk and began to read.
Humans fear the urisk…these creatures do not interact with humanity at all, despite their natural kindness…
Leah looked around Gregoire’s cave, at the tartan blankets, the postcards of Scottie dogs and mountains and Shetland ponies, the tea cosy.
“How did he get all these things?” Leah mused to herself. “I don’t think Ikea delivers to waterfalls.”
Not like it was in the days of the runners…like Prohibition…
and...
wifi...
wifi?!
Leah slowly looked up from her laptop at Gregoire, who was busily washing dishes in the kitchen, singing a puirt á beul to himself.
...it was common, like cocaine in jars next to the sugar...
Leah looked at the counter where the loose-leaf tea was kept in jars. She looked down into the mug she was drinking from, and then watched as her blackened fingers bruised a touch more; not enough to tell, if she hadn’t been looking, but enough to convince her.
ohshitohshitohshitohshit
Leah’s inner monologue drummed quietly at her, as she realised she would have to make sure Gregoire hadn’t noticed a difference.
Gregoire had noticed her looking.
“Do you want some more tea, Leah?” he asked. “I'll just put the kettle on.”
Leah smiled and nodded nervously. She couldn’t quite believe it. He seemed so kind. Nurturing.
Gregoire handed her the tea. She stared at him, and then sipped the tea, her hands shaking.
“Are you not feeling well, Miss Bishop?” asked Gregoire, his formality reminding her strongly of her partner. She wished Dorian would hurry up and return to the Highlands; she couldn’t do much in her current state.
“Dorian never has his phone with him,” she thought to herself. “Who can I text?”
She saw in her mind’s eye, Yoo Min always on her phone. Always.
She went online and sent a message, briefly detailing the situation, saying
they were wrong about how the Black Death spreads, just like the humans were...come as soon as you can.
It’s in the tea. All of it. It’s not in the air or the water. It’s the tea.
She felt a wave of the illness taking over, and she fought against it, but it consumed her. She fell unconscious, and Gregoire caught the mug before it could fall to the floor.
***
Later that day, Dorian entered the cave with Nour-el-ain.
“We came as soon as we could,” said Dorian.
“Thank you for coming,” said Gregoire, “but I think it is too late.”
Nour-el-ain and Dorian both looked down at Leah’s still form. Gregoire held one of Leah’s blackened hands in one of his large, blue-grey ones.
“It's all right, Gregoire, we found the cure,” said Dorian. “The man that we were to trade the key said that healing fire was the only thing that would cure her. Are you ready, Nour-el-ain?”
“Yes,” she replied.
She put her hands to the kettle and blue fire leapt from her fingertips as she heated the water inside. They poured it out into a mug and brought it to Leah, who was barely conscious. Nour wrapped Leah’s fingers around the handle.
“Leah?” said Nour. “Drink this. Wake up, Dorian's here. He's very worried.”
“Dorian?” said Leah, in a sleepy voice. “Dorian can't be here, it's dangerous.”
Nour was instantly alert.
“Dangerous?” she asked. “Why?”
“Gregoire...” croaked Leah.
Nour looked sharply at the urisk just as he was about to attack her. Blue flame burst from her fingertips, covering both Leah and the phoenix. Dorian was horrified as Nour barely held Gregoire back with her healing fire.
“Gregoire?!” Dorian cried, betrayed. “It was you?!”
“Yes,” growled Gregoire.
“But...why?” asked Dorian.
“Why?!” Gregoire spat. “You don’t know?”
“The Smoke kills everyone, Fae and human alike!” said Dorian.
“That is exactly why, Dorian Grey!!” said Gregoire.
“I don't understand,” said Dorian.
“Have you ever?” Gregoire snarled. “All the death? The suffering? Humans, faeries, the blood and bone, it all blends together in the end. Everyone just...wants to cause so much suffering!”
“I was in the war, too!” said Dorian.
“Were you?” Gregoire demanded. “Did you spend centuries tending to the wounded in a war that seemed like it would stretch on, twisting around itself, forever in both the future and the past? See the creative torture that humans caused – and since they have had more time, the tortures the Fae thought up for each other?”
“That is no excuse to cause more of it!” said Nour-el-ain.
“They never died,” said Gregoire in anguish. “They never died and they had to go on and on, suffering! Like Desdemona told us, we live for them, they live for us, and the only way to end the suffering is to break the cycle.”
“I trusted you with Leah,” said Dorian bitterly. Gregoire ignored him.
“The war must end,” he said. “The war must end. I am so tired. I still hear the explosions. I still see the dead.
“One day, I saw a man who had been cut in half. The top of the wall had been razor sharp, and they had sat him upon it as though he would sit astride a horse...and they pulled. He was split in half and he was Fae, so he was not dead, he felt everything. Everything! It took me days to find the other half of his body, on the other side of the wall, and both halves were still screaming. I stitched him together, in the end, but he was never the same.
“The Smoke heals as it kills. The humans, the beloved humans, will be free.
“How can you not understand, Dorian? You have loved them, too.
“Centuries of rejection. I have collected every piece here lovingly only to be spurned. I have grown to hate our kind, to hate my face as they have.
“Mutual destruction is the only answer.”
“The war is over, Gregoire!” Dorian said.
“It's never over!” shouted Gregoire.
“The Nuckelavee died!” Nour interjected. “Glasgow was left vulnerable.”
“Does it matter?” asked Gregoire. “In the end, the humans will not need protecting. The lesser evil, for the greater good.”
“Humans are dying!” said Dorian. “By the thousands!”
“Then let them die!” snarled Gregoire.
“Why did you want it?” asked Dorian. “Why did you want the key to Tir Na n-Og?”
“Isn't it obvious, Dorian?” asked Gregoire. “The evil must be cut off at the head. The Smoke would kill them all, and destroy Tir Na n-Og forever. The humans would be free, and we would too.
“Leah Bishop will be the first sacrifice. I am sorry; I liked her. She was the first human who talked to me.”
“That is not going to happen,” said Dorian.
“And who will stop me? You?” demanded Gregoire.
“No,” replied Dorian. “She will.”
Yoo Min stepped forward out of the shadows.
“You would do this, for a human you just met?” asked Gregoire.
Yoo Min smiled.
“No. I will do this because I am the only monster left.”
“I'm the crazy one,” she added.
She nodded to the others.
“Let’s go home.”
***
Everyone at Caledonia Interpol was having takeaway. The scent of chicken tikka masala filled the office, as much as it could; a light snow was falling. In the office. The tikka masala was a mysteriously bright orange colour, but that was to be expected.
Leah pushed Dorian’s chair with her foot so he rolled away.
“Robert Burns, Dorian, what the hell,” she grinned at him, between bites.
“I really couldn't resist,” Dorian beamed. “I'm glad you're better.”
Leah grinned back.
“I'm glad I get to be here for your annual smile,” she said. “You should make it a national holiday.”
“You can thank whatever gods you follow that Leah Bishop studies folklore,” said Milo. “Otherwise we'd never have suspected Gregoire.”
The door opened, and Robert walked in. Dorian’s expression grew serious.
“Hi everyone,” he said. “Dorian, why did you want me to come all the way down to Glasgow?”
Dorian turned in his chair, his dark eyes sad.
“I have something I need to tell you. I should have told you a long time ago.”
Dorian took a deep breath.
“She’s alive, Robert.”
Robert stared at him, uncomprehending.
“She didn’t die on that battlefield, all those years ago,” Dorian continued. “We – I – made a mistake.”
Robert listened to Dorian’s confession with horror, and then a wash of memory took him over so that it seemed as if the selkie did not speak at all.
***
The old pub was still there, but now Robert was rich. Everyone paid attention, and the crowd was full of appreciative spectators, many of whom were women. No one shouted at him, or cursed. He was his country’s national poet, and his confidence shone in his upright bearing.
He stood in front of the crowd, confident and collected. Handsome, his face and body filled out with the food and drink he could now afford, he wore his new red tailcoat well.
His words flowed much like the river they described, and although the pub was full, they were for one person alone, who was not even in attendance.
“On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
Could I describe her shape and mien;
Our lasses a' she far excels,
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
She's sweeter than the morning dawn,
When rising Phoebus first is seen,
And dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
She's stately like yon youthful ash,
That grows the cowslip braes between,
And drinks the stream with vigour fresh;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.”
Desdemona was not present that evening, and would often be absent in his life, and his afterlife – and yet, to him, she was everything. He remembered her, talking with him, laughing, fighting alongside him, and he knew there would not be another like her, in this world or the next.
He touched his shirt cuffs briefly, an old habit, and smiled a secret smile, because no one would, or could, ever know.
“But it's not her air, her form, her face,
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen;
'Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace,
An' chiefly in her roguish een.”
***
The lights on Kelvinbridge were orange, the summer night warm and welcoming. Robert walked up the escalator of the subway station and turned to the left, knowing he was heading in the direction of her club, and not knowing what to feel. His mind and heart were a tumult of emotion.
And in front of him, he saw a woman with long, ginger hair, lighting a cigarette beneath a street lamp.
Desdemona.
He would know her anywhere, in any form.
She turned, her eyes green and bright, even in the darkness. She breathed smoke that coiled around her body like a lover, like the first night they met and she took his hand to lead him into a fantastic world of faeries and monsters.
He stood in front of her, lost for words.
And Desdemona waited.
END.