“Hold on tight,” I said, turning around with her hand in mine. “I’ve never been through here with a human before. I can’t imagine the ride won’t be at least a little bumpy for you.”
“Bumpy is fine,” she answered, her voice still firm and her volume still louder than it needed to be. “I can do bumpy.”
“Let’s hope so,” I muttered.
Peering through the rudimentary veil of magic meant to obscure the entrance to the War Room from all but supernatural eyes, I caught sight of the door. It seemed to glow extra bright tonight, which probably mean the place was popping. It was the weekend, after all. It only made sense.
With any luck, the person I was looking for would be here. If I found her quickly, I might even be able to get out of here without getting in too much trouble.
A slight, reluctant smile graced my face.
When was the last time I got out of anywhere without getting in trouble?
Pulling Merry forward, I thrust us both through the entrance of the War Room. I felt the standard rush of energy more acutely now, as though I was feeling it for both myself and Merry.
Still, as we went through it, landing flatly in the War Room, she seemed to be okay.
The War Room was particularly crowded tonight, something I’d hoped to avoid since I had Merry in tow. Still, it was the weekend, and that meant that the things that go bump in the night probably wanted to add ‘grind’ to their repertoire/ Not that I was judging, mind you. I had spent several nights myself skulking around this very spot looking for the right voodoo priestess or wood nymph to take home with me.
That wasn’t the reason I was here tonight though. Tonight, I was here for a very specific purpose, and I needed a little bit of help to achieve it.
Merry looked over this place like a kid on the first Christmas morning they could remember. She was familiar with the concept, but taken aback with the scope of things now that they were laid out in front of her.
The War Room looked as the War Room always looked, like a dive bar you’d be able to find in literally any town across America, complete with a pool table, wobbly stools, and the sort of soft, warm lighting that made everyone fuzzy enough to seem non-threatening.
Of course, none of those other bars had a tipsy werewolf challenging a clan of vampires to a dart game or a leggy cyclops chick making eyes (well, eye) at me from across the room.
“It’s a lot to take in,” I said, looking at Merry and noticing the way she was holding onto the bar to steady herself. “Are you alright? I told you the trip could be hard on you. Do you need to sit down or something?”
She looked up at me, her face almost green in tone. “No,” she said, obviously lying. She narrowed her eyes and slowed her breaths in an obvious attempt to calm whatever rolling sensation had cropped up her stomach as a result of the ride.
“Well I do,” I said, lying myself, as I rounded her slowly and plopped down on a stool at the bar.
Ralphie was behind the thing, taking drink orders and arguing with some demon guy about his tab. I’d have stepped in. After all, the only thing better than venting my frustrations out on a douchebag demon who didn’t want to pay his bill would be to do it in front of Merry. I’m not going to say she’d be impressed, but I had always been a pretty striking figure when I was knee deep in the weeds, so to speak.
Still, this was Ralphie’s place and, given the fact that—as fairy—not only was he the second oldest thing in this bar, he was also the second most fearsome.
He’d have this demon on his ass in two seconds flat if it came to it. Besides, he couldn’t have me fighting his battles for him. What would something like that say about his own prowess?
Luckily for the demon, he knew better than to get too far on Ralphie’s bad side. So, after a minute or two of bitching, he paid what he owed and took Ralphie’s advice on finding another place to drink.
“Good luck with that,” I muttered as the guy walked past. He had three eyes and scales. There wasn’t a place in town (maybe a place in the entire state) that would serve him other than the War Room. The only place he was going tonight was under a bridge.
Ralphie caught sight of me and headed over, cracking open my regular beer and looking right through me as he slid it down the bar.
“You brought us a human?” he asked, glaring at Merry with more curiosity than concern. It was warranted. I’d known Ralphie for a long time. He knew if I brought someone to the War Room, even a human, they were legit. “A cute one too,” he said, eyeing the wobbly way Merry moved as she took her place on the stool next to me. “Though she looks like she’s seen better days. The trip hard on you, sweetheart?” he asked with a knowing smile.
“Bourbon,” she said in response.
Ralphie’s eyebrows darted up. “On the rocks?”
“Don’t be a pansy,” Merry said, cutting her eyes over at him.
“Oh, I like this one, C,” Ralphie said, shaking his head as he poured a bourbon neat and walked it over to Merry, setting it down in front of her. “No charge.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, downing the entire contents in one scorching gulp. “He’ll pay for it,” she said, motioning to me and slamming the glass against the counter. Pushing it forward, she added, “He’ll pay for the next one too.”
Ralphie chuckled hard. “Yep,” he said as he poured Merry another round. “I like her a lot.”
“Me too,” I muttered, looking over at her. “But I didn’t come here so you could make googly eyes at my friend.” I took a deep breath. “I’m looking for the sisters.”
Ralphie’s body went tense. Setting the bourbon down, he turned to me, his lips twisting downward into a frown. “Jesus Christ, C. You got a death wish or something?”
I grinned.
“Well, maybe not a death wish in your case, but what the hell are you looking for them for? You know they’re nothing but trouble.”
“Look who you’re talking to,” Merry answered, shaking her head and finishing the second glass.
“Right. Yeah,” Ralphie answered in a near huff. “I get where you’re coming from, lady, and you’re cute, so I’ll say this nicely. C here might have a hard luck streak running down his back-”
“It’s across my face actually, in case you’ve forgotten,” I quipped and took a swig of beer. It felt cool going down and then warm as it hit my stomach.
“Very funny,” Ralphie answered. “The point is, C isn’t like the sisters. He has boundaries. He has things he won’t do. They don’t.” He turned back to me. “We put them in that place for a reason, C. Do you remember? Do you remember what they did when they were loose?”
I shuffled uncomfortably in my chair, wondering what Merry was thinking. To her credit, if she was freaking out, she wasn’t letting it show, sitting just as stalwart and unaffected as I was.
“Of course I remember, Ralphie. You don’t forget something like that.”
“You don’t forget it?” he scoffed, shaking his head. “How do you think I feel? And now you want to bring them back? Now you want me to-”
“It’s only for a minute,” I said, keeping my voice low, calm, and steady. I needed him to remember who he was talking to. I had been around since almost before time itself. If I said I needed to do something, there was a damn good reason for it. “I get that this will be hard for you. I understand that, but I’m me, Ralphie. I wouldn’t do this if there was any other choice.”
“What’s it about?” he asked, steel in his tone. “It’s been seventy years, C. What the hell could you possibly need from them now?”
“I can’t tell you that,” I said, swallowing hard and looking at the bar.
“Of course you can’t,” he said, balking. “Then I can’t help you.”
I grabbed his hand, forcing it down onto the bar. “You can help me, Ralphie. In fact, you’re the only person who can, and we both know why.” I nodded. “I’ll tell you something else, not only can you help me, but you will help me.”
Ralphie�
��s eyes got wide. “Is that a threat?”
“No,” I shook my head. “Because I don’t need to threaten you, Ralphie. We know each other too well for that, and you owe me more than you care to admit to right now.” I removed my hand from his. “Unless you’ve forgotten about Bangladesh.”
Ralphie stared at me, the color draining from his face. I didn’t like to bring up the past, especially things in the past that would hurt someone I called a friend, but I needed to get to the bottom of this. If Amber was at stake here, if someone was using her to get to me or even the other way around, I needed to know about it. No one could tell me that quicker or with more accuracy than the sisters.
“Just for a minute,” Ralphie conceded, letting out a heavy sigh. “But you suck for doing that.”
“I suck for a lot of reasons,” I answered. “And I appreciate this.”
“Whatever,” he sighed and reached under the table, pulling up a knife. “Come one. We need to go to the back room.”
“The back room?” Merry asked, standing and walking as I followed Ralphie. He moved from behind the bar and started toward the door in the back. “Is that the place? Is that where you put the sisters?”
“You are such a human, aren’t you?” Ralphie said, shaking his head. “No, sweetie. It’s a little more complicated than that.” He looked over at me. “If you’re going to talk to them, then we need someone to do it.”
“She’s a nurse,” I said, motioning to Merry.
“Well bully for her,” Ralphie said, as we settled in front of the back door. “Here,” he said, handing Merry the knife handle first.
“What’s this for?” Merry asked, looking from Ralphie to me and back again.
“To get to the sisters,” Ralphie said. “The place we put them is right here.” He pointed to his chest and grimaced. “I’m going to need you to cut my heart out.”
7
Though she was trying hard not to show it, with a steady hand and a calm face, I could sense the tension in Merry as she followed Ralphie and me into the back room. I couldn’t blame her, of course. Hearing you were going to have to cut some guy’s heart out in the back room of a magical bar wasn’t the most settling news a person could hear. Still, she was being a trooper about it.
“Are you sure?” I asked, looking back at her as Ralphie pulled a large metal chair from a closet in the corner. The back room was sort of a storage den, a dark, damp looking place which obviously hadn’t seen much in the way of foot traffic in years if not longer. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling though, judging from how clearly I could see everything, I was left to imagine most of the illumination came from a more mystical source.
“I’m sure,” she answered, nodding firmly. “Like you said, I’m a nurse.”
“A nurse isn’t a surgeon,” I said, staring at her with what I hoped were compassionate eyes. “And it sure as hell isn’t a cardiologist. If you don’t want to do this-”
“Stop it, Callum,” she said with a quieter tone than I’d been expecting. “I came this far. I’m not fine China. You want me to cut this son of bitch’s heart out so we can feed it to his sisters or whatever, I’ll do it. If it helps get to the bottom of who’s screwing with my daughter, then I’ll cut out extra just to be sure.”
There was no fire in her voice, no urgency or emotional push to steel her nerves. No, what I heard in her now was something even more familiar. Merry had resigned herself to this. She had detached a little, which made sense given what she was asked to do. Still, I hated to see it.
Resigning myself was one thing. My life was endless. My days were literally not numbered, but Merry’s were few. She didn’t have enough time on this spinning rock to go through her life numb. She was though, and she probably had been (at least in part) for some time. That was on me. It was in the crazy world she’d found herself in because she had the hard luck and misfortune to be born at the exact moment the Lunar Coven and my mother set a plan into motion to steal my curse from me.
It hadn’t worked. In fact, it had ended with the entire coven (my mother included) dead. Merry’s life had changed forever though. Even without knowing the truth about her daughter, she had lost a bit of innocence. There was no going back for her, no more pretending her life could be anything close to normal.
“You’re daughter?” Ralphie asked, narrowing his eyes as he drug the metal chair into the center of the room. “Somebody’s screwing with your kid?”
My heart sped up. I knew I should have warned Merry off of being too specific about our reasons for doing this. Mentioning her daughter would only serve to pique Ralphie’s curiosity. While the fae small business owner was a problem, in particular, I couldn’t have him mentioning things to someone who might decide to dig a little deeper into Amber or what she might have going on.
“She’s not important,” I snapped back, shooting Merry a withering gaze I hoped would shut her up and turning back to Ralphie. “Just a kid, another person who’s been trapped in the crosshairs of knowing me.”
“You do tend to bring out people’s dangerous sides,” he answered, shrugging. “Anyway, I hope your kid’s okay.”
Merry smiled politely in response, but kept her mouth shut. Hopefully, she’d gotten my message.
“It’s not my sisters though. I don’t have sisters. Fairies are only capable of reproducing once in their lives. It’s part of the reason why our numbers are so low and half the reason why yours truly hasn’t settled down yet.”
“Only half?” I asked, walking toward him. “What’s the other half?”
“Bitches be crazy,” he answered, and sat in the chair.
Looking the damn thing over, I saw it came complete with thick leather straps which tied at the arms and legs.
“These aren’t going to be enough once she pierces your chest cavity,” I said, lifting one of the straps in my hand and judging its heft. “It’s going to hurt like a mother.”
Ralphie scoffed, looking up at me. “You mean to tell me open heart surgery performed by a novice in the back of a bar isn’t going to be a walk in the park? I know that, C. The straps are enchanted. A centaur couldn’t get out of them.”
“Centaurs are a thing?” Merry asked, her eyes widening.
“Not now,” I shook my head.
“Besides,” Ralphie went on. “That’s part of the reason I have you here. You’re all big and bad and whatnot, right? The Great Wanderer. Isn’t that what the Native Americans called you?”
“When they weren’t calling me something much less civil,” I said, throwing the enchanted strap over Ralphie’s arm and pulling it tight. “What’s your point?”
“I just figured someone like yourself, with an actual eternity’s worth of pain at their back, might have enough experience to help me out.”
“Help you out?” I asked, moving on to the next moving on to the next arm strap and then fastening one leg at a time. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
Ralphie grinned. “If what you're thinking of starts with the word ‘mind’, ends with the word ‘meld’ and is ‘mind meld’, then yeah. I’m suggesting just that.”
I sighed as I stood up. The mind meld was an ancient ritual, lost to most who either weren’t alive before—or had died out since—the fall of the Roman Empire, which basically left me, Ralphie, and a couple other fae or miscellaneous creatures I’d rather not run into in an alley at night. It was sort of like the spell Gabriel taught me, the one that allowed me to migrate Amber’s sickness over to myself. Except, it worked on more of a mental level. With the mind meld, Ralphie and I could share thoughts, share sensations. In this case, he expected me to take part in his agonizing pain, so he didn’t have to carry it all on his own.
“Fine,” I muttered. Though the idea of going through what amounted to intense mental trauma wasn’t my idea of a good way to spend a night, I was asking Ralphie to go through just that. I couldn’t necessarily ask it of him and not be willing to go through it myself.
He sm
iled in response, sitting back and taking a deep breath.
“Wait!” Merry said, her tone finally taking on something close to a tint of panic. Maybe it was seeing the time was growing near, that she was going to have to actually go through with this, that got her blood pumping. Whatever the reason, her hand was no longer steady. Her face was no longer calm. “I still don’t understand. They’re not your sisters. How is me cutting your heart out going to do anyone any good?”
I looked back at her, swallowing hard as I tried to explain. “Fae hearts are different than most any creature in the world. Don’t worry. From what I can tell, they look the same and are in the same basic positioning of a human heart, but they don’t serve quite the same purpose.”
“Don’t pussyfoot around with it, C,” Ralphie said, still laid back against the chair. “Your heart pumps blood through your body, keeping you alive. Mine pumps magic. Though, because magic only animates me and doesn’t actually keep my body functioning, I’ll remain alive when you pull the damn thing out; albeit, in a sort of comatose state, but alive nonetheless.”
“The magic constantly flowing through it makes a fae heart the perfect place to hold problem criminals who are too powerful for traditional prisons.”
“Wait,” Merry said, blinking hard. “So the sisters are actually in your heart? Like, inside of there?”
“That’s about the shape of it, sweetheart, Ralphie answered.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” she asked, looking at Ralphie, her mouth agape.
“No more than chili cheese fries at midnight. I’ve kind of gotten used to the idea of the old bats being in there. How long has it been now?” He asked, looking up at me.
“Longer than I’d care to admit,” I answered. “The point is, I have to be in physical contact with the prison in order to communicate with someone inside of it.”
“Which is why I need to cut it out,” Merry said, piecing it together. “Whatever. I guess it makes as much sense as anything else these days.”
Curse of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 2) Page 4
