Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  "It gets better," Del whispered. "Don't fight it, float with it."

  I nodded into her chest and got my breathing under control.

  I'm not sure how long we sat there. Del with her arm around me, me gripping her hand as if letting go would be the death of me. Dr. Graham and her assistant fussed around the man with a broken arm. His groans sounded at the periphery of my senses. I kept my focus on mending my ribs so the pain of moving wouldn't slow me down.

  I slept for a few minutes. When I woke, and took a breath, the pain had muted. A dull pressure replaced angry stabs.

  Owen stumbled into the surgery, his hand clasped against a wound on his head. Blood seeped through his fingers, his labored breathing lifting his chest. He collapsed against the wall before the assistant grabbed him. Another man ran to his aid and between them they maneuvered Owen onto one of the empty beds. He slumped against the mattress, his eyes flickering as if he fought sleep.

  Dr. Graham ran to his side, her face ashen.

  Owen was a living dead. How did they heal one another and themselves? There was so much I didn't know, didn't understand about the dead. Stiffness spread across my jaw, my eyes narrowed. I should be the expert, instead I felt like a bystander at an appalling accident.

  Dr. Graham glanced at me, a questioning gaze on her face, but she bit her lip and turned back to Owen. She needed my help, but didn't know how to ask for it. I pushed myself to my feet, gripped the healing wand in my hand, and lumbered across the hospital to Owen.

  I wanted answers. How dare he not tell me he was the mage who saved Glynn's life. I'd been honest with him, yet he kept this one piece of critical information from me.

  He would not be dying today.

  17

  Dr. Graham and her assistant huddled next to Owen's bed.

  The assistant clipped long strands of black hair from either side of a trench gouged across Owen’s skull. The bloody line trailed from just above his right eye, to the crown of his scalp. Owen lay still, his chest barely moving, beads of sweat running down his white face.

  Owen had admitted to healing skills, and now I knew he'd worked as a military healing mage. An uneasy weight settled in my abdomen. I should have asked him if he could heal himself.

  He would not be dying today.

  "You shouldn't be moving." Dr. Graham addressed me.

  "I'll lie down once I've helped. What do you have to repair this wound?" My gaze moved from Dr. Graham to her assistant.

  The assistant answered. "Not a lot. Basic dressings, antibiotics and anti-inflammatories."

  "Taken from Army supplies?"

  He nodded without looking up from clipping Owen's hair.

  "You can't have many. The medical bags you've grabbed from attack parties can't amount to much."

  He glanced at me. "We've taken others—"

  "That's enough, Daniel." Dr. Graham cut him off mid-sentence.

  Too late, I'd heard enough. Owen and his people raided the Army base and helped themselves to medical supplies, maybe weapons as well. That would explain why they had so many. Owen grunted and licked his lips.

  "Can you perform surgery?" It looked bad to my untrained eye. The bullet had smashed bone for several inches. Tiny bits of pink matter crumbled along either side of the trench, bits of his brain no longer attached. I slumped next to Owen on the bed as tremors shook through his body.

  "He needs a blanket." I tapped Daniel’s shoulder. "He’s going into shock."

  "A blanket won't help him." Dr. Graham said. "I wish it were that simple."

  "Can you stitch him back together?"

  "I'm not a brain surgeon. I've learnt a lot since living here, but I'm just a GP."

  Heat flushed through my body. Owen should have told me his relationship to Glynn. I blew out a long breath. Anger wouldn't help me to heal him, and I wouldn't get any answers if he died properly dead.

  "Tell me how his body works. I can't help him if I don't understand."

  "You of all people." Dr. Graham shook her head. "You must know how all of them survive."

  It was my turn to shake my head. "I wish I did."

  Owen fixed his stare on my face. The lines around his eyes tightened and he gripped my arm. "Help me, heal me."

  His eyes closed, and body fell limp.

  "Did he ask me to heal him, or to help him heal himself?"

  Dr. Graham shrugged.

  It was down to me.

  Owen understood what asking for my help meant. If he let me in, I’d be able to read him like a book. The healing wand around my neck buzzed against my skin. It was ready to do its work. I rested my hand on Owen’s shoulder, closed my eyes and focused all my senses on him.

  He was a complicated man.

  His memory of the battle with twitchers when Glynn almost died bubbled to the surface. He'd wanted to heal them both. The loss of Glynn’s friend had torn a hole in his heart just like it had in Glynn's. I felt his compassion and his strength as he fought to live. Undead had gathered here from everywhere the ley line touched. He cared about them all and all had benefited from his leadership. They needed him as much as he needed them.

  He worked at repairing his brain. He didn't need my help, but it took all his strength. He needed me to repair his skull. Bones I could manage. They hated being broken and fought hard to knit themselves together. The wand heated and started vibrating.

  The movement against my skin became uncomfortable, too close to my own wound. I couldn't bear the pain. I pulled back, grimacing.

  "It can't be done. Daniel grab her." Dr. Graham swore under her breath. Daniel wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

  I swooned against his chest, every breath a struggle.

  "Take her back—"

  "No. You need him."

  "I don't know how your healing works, but I can see you need to rest and recover yourself."

  A sigh shuddered from my mouth. "I don't know how it works myself. It's a gift from my mother's side. I never met her. Never had the chance of learning from her."

  "Please, rest. The last thing we need is a necromancer reborn."

  A necromancer reborn. I'd seen what that looked like. No intention of going there.

  I shook my head, pushed Daniel away with a nod of thanks.

  The only self-strengthening spell I knew needed the moon. I couldn't see it, but a full moon shone tonight. If I could get the spell to work, it would keep me going for several hours.

  Haebeth only knows how a self-strengthening spell might react with my self-healing. When it wore off, the crash would be ugly. I took deep breaths to calm my racing heart. I had to take the risk.

  Visualizing physical and mental strength, I silently mouthed the words. Strength of day, strength of night. Give me strength beyond my sight. I filled my lungs with a deep breath, my ribs twanged but I lifted my head and sang the short spell several times.

  Dr. Graham stared at me, her head tilted to one side.

  Thank Haebeth, the spell worked.

  The tightness in my chest eased. With strength seeping into every pore, I leaned back over Owen, cupped his face in my hands, and turned all my senses to his injury. Tiny fragments of bone had embedded themselves in his brain. I carefully lifted them away and slotted them back into his skull. I stretched the bone pieces as far as I could and wove them back together across his forehead, then across his scalp. He'd have a scar, an ugly canyon. He'd have to grow his hair long again to cover it. If he cared about covering it.

  In my mind, I was blathering. I'd lost all sense of time. As the last pieces of bone bound together at the crown of his scalp, the pain in my chest soared to a crescendo of molten heat. I collapsed against Owen's still and silent body. His heart beat a steady staccato of small, fast movements like the heart of a caged canary, but healthy blood pumped through his veins. Whatever killed him, and whatever happened to him after his death, somehow his undead body functioned as well as a living body.

  Dr. Graham pressed her hand onto my shoulder. "Back to bed."
>
  Despite my anger at him, I wanted Owen to be okay. I wanted them all to be okay. How would that happen with the military so opposed to their presence here? Opposed to them being anywhere in anyway perhaps.

  Where did Glynn fit in? Not as one of the men who wanted Owen and his people killed. I couldn't bear it.

  "Back to bed." This time Dr. Graham sounded as fierce as any hospital matron.

  Del shuffled across the hospital, grabbed my arm and pulled me back to my bed. She settled me against the pillows and sat on the stool next to my bed. "I spoke with Aidan. Did you see Ed?"

  "I'm sorry." I scrubbed my hand across my face. "I should have told you earlier—"

  "You've had your hands full."

  "He is fine. He was shot accidentally by one of his own men he said, but he is recovering now.

  "Aidan kept telling me his dad is okay." Del shook her head slowly. "But what does that mean? Why can’t I see him?"

  "They don’t know who they can trust. I’ll talk to Liliwen."

  Del’s face contorted into a grimace. She nodded a quick response. "What about Glynn?"

  "I saw Glynn. But we hardly had time to talk before Colonel Asher showed up."

  "Where? What's going on?"

  I quickly told her about the diversion party Owen sent to meet Glynn's squad. "Colonel Asher said he questioned Glynn's loyalty. You should have heard his tone. If he’d eaten a block of dry ice, it couldn’t have been colder or more menacing."

  "Asher likes Glynn, likes the way he's so focused, and the way his men follow him." Del poked my forearm. "He can’t stand you. He might make life difficult for Glynn for a short while, but I doubt he'll do anything else."

  My heart thumped painfully in my chest. "Asher wanted both Owen and myself taken back to base alive. Owen was captured once before, tortured, and was lucky to escape with his life."

  Del pulled back. "Tortured? I don't believe it. Asher does everything by the book. He takes malicious pride in it."

  "In his book, assaulting the dead gets a tick. Perhaps he has the same in store for me. Maybe that's why Glynn didn't want me going anywhere near the base. Did you know about this? Is it common knowledge among the military? Capturing and torturing the dead?"

  "I did not." Del's face stiffened. "But I'll tell you this, not many people think the same way you do. These things you call the living dead, they're not people. They are bloody well dead. They are walking corpses."

  I lay in my hospital bed, wide awake. The strengthening spell kept me too alert for sleep, but it wasn't just that. I'd raced here to help Glynn fight a rabble of undead, even though he was perfectly capable of leading his men against such a mob. But instead of an angry crowd, I found these sentient beings. Not living in the sense that everyone else used, but still thinking and feeling people. They weren't interested in fighting. They wanted freedom to live their lives. They couldn't do that here, not with Asher determined to annihilate them rather than negotiate peace.

  Glynn would negotiate. He'd want peace for everyone's sake. I blew out a sigh. Now I knew what Owen meant when he said he'd wager that Glynn wouldn't want to negotiate with him. He knew Glynn hated him for saving his life. If Glynn could get over that obstacle, he'd probably like Owen, respect him.

  If.

  If he could forgive Owen for saving his life.

  Owen and his people couldn't stay here. It wasn't safe for them. I had to help them find a new haven. A place they could live out their new lives in peace. My face tightened, I chewed the inside of my lip. I had to make things right with Glynn.

  Raised voices drifted into the hospital room. Owen slept fitfully, flat on his back with his head wrapped in bandages, his legs twitching every now and then. We were the only ones still in the hospital ward. I sat up slowly, swung my feet to the floor and steadied myself. Either the healing or the self-strengthening, or the combination of both, worked. Even the aches and pains from jumping out of the train were a memory. With a blanket draped over my shoulders, I tiptoed past Owen, into the main assembly area.

  At the entrance to the main cavern, I jolted back. At least one hundred people gathered here. Living, dead, and living dead, as well as a multitude of spirits.

  Aidan stood between his mother and Liliwen at a large metal table covered in maps.

  A woman, her face deeply rutted with lines, pushed her way forward. "We'll have to kill them. We can't leave witnesses who will reveal this location to the authorities."

  Several people nodded in agreement. No one thumped their chest, or shouted out hatred. A pervading sadness seeped through the crowd.

  Liliwen lifted her hands to silence the murmuring. "No one will kill anyone. That's not what we do, it's not who we are."

  Most of them nodded. Questions rose and were repeated around the room. What would I do if Owen disagreed with Liliwen and agreed that Aidan's father and the rest of the men had to be killed? A spike of adrenalin tensed my muscles. How would I stop them without hurting them? Could I stop all of them?

  A young man rapped his knuckles against the metal tabletop and got everyone's attention. "I agree. We will not turn ourselves into the monsters we're hiding from, which means, we can't stay here."

  Del bristled at the word monster, but she kept quiet. I scanned the faces in the room. Most heads nodded and turned to listen to the young man.

  The young man continued. "Even if we don't release the captives. The searching squads will find us soon. Every attempt gets closer. I know a place we can go. The train line will take us there. It's a small town, about ten miles away and it's still on the ley line."

  "It's too close." Aidan spoke, his voice loud, confident and deep.

  Someone snorted. "Here five minutes, and he thinks he knows everything."

  Aidan blushed crimson. He swayed but continued speaking confidently. "I've read about a town, burnt to the ground after everyone in it died from the illness. It's thirty miles away and on the ley line. Only things left standing are the cathedral and the pub – both with large underground cellars. People don't visit, not even the army, as it's known to be haunted."

  "Haunted by who?" Someone called out.

  "What is this place called, salt something?" Liliwen's forehead wrinkled as if she'd read something similar and was trying to pull the memory to the front of her brain.

  "Saltpetre Way. It's on a river too, so there will be fresh water."

  "Show me where this place is." Liliwen pushed the largest map in front of Aidan.

  "I already checked." Aidan reddened. "It's not on the map. It's obvious we can't stay here, that's why I tried to find somewhere else we could go." He dropped his gaze to the ground.

  Del looked up sharply. She grabbed Aidan's hand. "We? You're not going anywhere but home with me, young man."

  He snatched his hand away. "I want to see the place for myself."

  "You can visit later."

  Aidan stepped closer towards Liliwen. "I'm not scared. Mum, I belong here. And they need me. I can help, I can be myself here."

  Liliwen gently brushed her hand across Aidan's back. His shoulders lifted a fraction and he leaned closer towards her.

  "If it's not on the map, how do you know it existed?" Liliwen’s tone was gentle, a bond between the two obvious.

  It was a fair question. Aidan acknowledged it with a nod. "I've read about it. All the maps we have were printed more recently. I can't find one that was printed before the illness decimated the town. The oldest map I found, shows a cathedral at a place called Saltpetre Downs. But that's all, just the ruins of a cathedral."

  The young man who spoke earlier, nodded rapidly. "It's not the only place that’s disappeared from maps. If the cathedral is still marked, it was a notable building."

  A hum of questions rose from the group of spirits and undead surrounding us.

  Del's shoulders fell; she seemed stunned into silence.

  I pushed my way closer to the utility bench until I was close enough to rest against it.

  Aidan
saw me. "Dad has to tell the truth when he gets back. Tell him. He has to tell the truth."

  Del hugged her son. "You can tell him yourself, when we get home."

  "Mom. You don't listen to me. I'm not a kid anymore." Aidan spoke through gritted teeth. "I've never been a normal kid, have I? People here can teach me. Professor Warburton, Dr. Graham, they've taught me more in a few days than high school has in a few years."

  "You need your medicine—"

  "I need it for your world. I don't need it here. " Aidan stared back at his mother. "Here, I belong as I am."

  The hum of conversation quieted. People moved away. No one wanted to be a part of this painful exchange between mother and son. No one including me, but I couldn't see anyway to escape. Aidan held his chin high, his feet planted wide apart. I hardly knew this boy, but my chest expanded with pride at his courage. His face wore a don’t-mess-with-me determination.

  Del's pained stare rested on me. She pointed towards Aidan. "Tell him he needs to come home. He's only fourteen, for God's sake."

  Aidan glared at his mother, his hands scrunched into tight fists at his sides. Del rocked slightly, clutching her arms to her chest. She wanted me to support her, but I couldn’t. I'd only been here a matter of hours and I felt it too. The belonging. Not having to pretend. These felt like my people too, much more than those that lived up above and called themselves the only ones alive. I cleared my throat. Whatever I said wouldn’t matter.

  No way was this going to end well.

  18

  I lifted my shoulders. "You could talk about it some more, talk with Ed. Aidan has thought this through, and he’s intelligent—"

  Del raised her palm to silence me. She gave a short, disgusted snort. "What would you know? You're not a mother. You’re not even…" She swallowed several times. I guess she was about to add ‘you’re not even normal’. I couldn’t argue with that. "You can't possibly imagine the responsibility, the love..."

  Silence hung between us. Her barb, unnecessarily cruel. She would never accept or understand my responsibility for the dead. She couldn't know how many people I'd loved and lost. She’d no right to assume her grief at the thought of Aidan moving away hurt more than every loss I’d ever known.