The Phoenix Grail

by Helen Savore

  Deiniol tried to quiet her. “It’s okay now, dear. Never mind, we’re going to take care of you now.”

  “No,” Jamie said as he loped over, closing the distance in a moment. “Let her speak.”

  Her eyes shot wide open. “I was handing someone a cup. There must have been another customer.”

  Deiniol shook his head. “Never mind anyone else, Jamie. We need to get these folk back. Trefor and the other gentleman are in remarkable shape, but Gwen needs a closer look.”

  Jamie snapped his fingers. “Maybe she’s under something! It’s not like I saw the counter in one piece in there.” He bent and scurried back.

  “Under what?” Deiniol yelled. “She’s right here!”

  Jamie made the descent again. He crawled closer to where they’d found Gwen, wincing at the mixed odor. It wasn’t as cloying as the other one, but it wasn’t a body either. It was too soon for that.

  Jamie laughed in a strange relief. Teas, this was a tea shop. He found crushed canisters. There was nothing nefarious. No strange gases leaking from anywhere.

  He thought he was near the counter now, at least near where they found Gwen, but it was only piles, nothing obvious.

  Jamie shifted smaller planks and debris, but still found nothing. He stepped about, trying to get a new perspective, but it didn’t help. Jamie dropped to his hands and knees and searched along the floor. His hands were already raw with all the junk he’d handled, and shifting through the muck was worse, but he kept going until he hit an edge. He leaned in and continued to press, letting the debris scratch and chafe his arms. The floor was lower than he thought in this section. Wood, but not the floor. The counter?

  He shuffled, hunting for a leverage point. Not finding anything, he leaned against the planks. They wouldn't move—something was dragging them down. He forced it up a few centimeters until his arms twitched. Jamie peeked beneath and saw Drea’s face. He barely recognized it in its stillness. Her eyes were closed, her hair a matted mess along her cheek from forehead to neck. Who knew what injury it staunched? Guilt filled him, stupid though it was. Him refusing to come speak with her wouldn’t have prevented this. But he couldn’t shake the feeling he should have been by her side when this happened. Well, he could be here for her now.

  “Drea?”

  She didn’t move.

  “Drea, wake up.” Jamie heaved between words. “I can’t hold this and grab you.”

  She gave no reaction. There wasn’t enough light at this angle to tell if she was breathing.

  “Damn it, Drea!” He dropped the counter and punched it. It jerked across the floor. He tried lifting again, and the counter shot up.

  “Yes!” he cried, then the ground rumbled. “Shit.”

  He ducked and grabbed Drea, pulling her out. It didn’t take long; she slid more easily than the counter. The ground rumbled under his feet again. He couldn’t risk waiting for a stretcher.

  Jamie gathered her in his arms and sprang out of the store, ignoring the sinking floor.

  11

  Unwilling to let her out of his sight, Jamie didn’t wait for them to bring the gurney over, carrying Drea the rest of the way to his ambulance. She’d already survived the jostle out of the wreck, so he hoped he hadn’t hurt her more on the way out.

  She was prone now, strapped down beside Gwen, who had slipped out of consciousness while he’d gone back inside. With everyone solid and secure, Jamie looked at the disaster he’d just escaped. The block fell apart as the rest of the building collapsed in on itself. No matter what it was—beams, walls, windows—it became a jumble after the cracks, thuds, and crashes.

  The square now extended back with a tilted mess of rubble at the north end. It was worse than the ruined stone landmarks littering the countryside.

  “You gonna get the door now, Jamie?” Deiniol’s voice cut his reflections.

  Jamie shut it and took the seat behind Gwen’s gurney. “We’re set.”

  “She’ll be all right.”

  Gwen was in worse shape, but Jamie knew he meant Drea. He didn’t answer.

  “The way you’ve been talking with folk, I thought you didn’t have a girl.”

  “I’m—” Jamie stopped. He keyed the comm. “She’s just a friend.”

  Deiniol laughed. “Right. Well, I’ll just tell her how you dragged her out personally. That ought to help.”

  Jamie twisted his head, not that he could see Deiniol through the wall. “She’s like a sister to me.”

  “You never mentioned you had a sister.”

  Normally he liked Deiniol’s word-twisting humor, but now wasn’t the time. He massaged his own temple. “No, like a sister. Our mothers were best friends. I was supposed to—”

  Jamie stopped. Deiniol didn’t know he dropped out of medical school, and he didn’t need to know Doc Morgan sponsored his schooling. Given how small the village was, it was a bit of a surprise, but Jamie was still grateful for it and he didn’t want to change that.

  “Heard you the first time. But, ho, that’s even more interesting. You mark my words, nothing like a rescuing to set things a flutter. Your Alexandrea, she’s the bookstore girl? I bet she’s into deeds and rescuing, nobility and nose stuck in the air and all that stuff.”

  “Deiniol, knock it.”

  The moment Drea woke, she would know Jamie was not in school, if she recognized him. But she was alive and seemed relatively okay. It was more than a fair trade.

  But now Gwen needed his attention.

  She was bruised, though nothing was bleeding, broken, or punctured. Still, something was wrong. Her breaths came in unsteady bursts and her skin had whitened past pale. Jamie couldn’t find anything specific to treat. Luckily, they weren’t too far away from the hospital.

  Jamie turned to Drea, pushing the guilt away. He could do something for her, unlike Gwen. He hadn’t noticed it in the rubble, but she wasn’t unscathed. Jamie stood and chuckled. Balancing in the ambulance was easy compared to the slipping store. He shifted and knelt beside Alexandrea.

  Her necklace. He had never seen anything like it, and he had an eye for necklines. It was a collection of metal twists in different colors. One end had a bird decked out in small red, orange, and yellow gemstones. The other end looked frayed, but some of the strands had pierced her skin. Harmless compared to what could have happened in that wreck, but he still didn’t like metal so near her throat.

  Jamie nudged what remained of the necklace. His fingers explored for the intruding strands, and he tugged.

  She still didn’t react. No movement besides a steady breath.

  He flinched as the first two strands slid out without further cutting her skin. Blood welled, but he dabbed it with gauze and it staunched quickly. The last piece was curved, so he pulled it out slowly.

  The moment it left her skin, Alexandrea heaved and rocked against the restraints. Her eyes roamed. “Where am I?”

  “Shh.” Jamie dropped the metal necklace and put his hands on her shoulders. “It’s okay. You’re in an ambulance. You’ll be at the hospital soon.”

  Her eyes stopped on him and she grew still. “Jamie? Is that you?”

  He had been a fool, of course she recognized him. How could he have thought she wouldn’t? After fearing the worst, he was just happy to look into her eyes again, though he wasn’t sure he had ever looked at her like this.

  “Hi?” he said sheepishly.

  “Jamie, you’re supposed to be down at the university.” She closed her eyes, then winced.

  “Are you hurting?” Jamie hovered over her, checking her vitals again.

  “No, I mean, well… more than a bit of a headache.” Her head thrashed against the stretcher pillow, but she opened her eyes. “Rhys, he was talking about you. You play midfield? How long have you been back in town?”

  Jamie snorted. “You’ve got a good memory.” His earlier fears felt childish. Maybe this was a good thing… if not for the injuries and massive damage to her store. To be this clear this fast she must not be c
oncussed.

  “If you don’t mind”—he pointed back—“I should check on Gwen again. You seem better now that…” He looked for the small cuts from the necklace, but couldn’t find them. He reached out and touched the spot. Nothing.

  “Now that…” She tried lifting her head, but the restraints caught her. “Ow,” she complained. “This doesn’t feel better.”

  “Sorry, just a precaution. You’re doing fine. The counter must have shielded you from the worst of it.” He wasn’t sure what to make of the lack of cuts and put it out of his mind.

  “You’re a paramedic now?”

  “Yeah. It’s not too different. It means I can help people sooner…” He dropped his eyes. That was stupid, putting his foot in his mouth. Her parents died because they didn’t get medical attention fast enough. Would she harp on him again like at the funeral?

  It didn’t matter now. “Anyway…” he said, shuffling back to the seat behind Gwen to better check on her vitals. Nothing had changed. How much farther to the hospital? Perhaps this was the time. He glanced at her, but her eyes were on Gwen, not him. “I know it’s not what your father wanted—”

  “I think it’s great.”

  Her head lifted and their eyes met. Cold? No, but not happy either. She smiled, but though brows were furrowed. Was she saying something else?

  “Look, Jamie, he isn’t here anymore. If he was, I think he’d still be proud.”

  “Really?” Jamie’s mind flipped to the other day when Rhys accused him of being afraid of a dead guy. Maybe he was right, just a bit. He really shouldn’t have been so skittish about seeking Drea out.

  “He was happy to teach someone as much as he could.” She frowned. “Since his daughter certainly wasn’t taking over the practice.”

  “Drea.”

  “No one calls me that anymore.”

  Jamie groaned. “Five syllables is too many, Al-ex-an-dre-a.”

  She lifted a brow. “Why don’t you go by James? That’s one syllable.”

  “Jamie,” Deiniol bellowed. “How are our patients? We’re almost to the hospital.”

  Drea raised a brow. “Can he hear us?”

  He put a finger to his mouth and flipped the comm. “Will do, Deiniol.”

  Deiniol continued. “I can’t let you fail me now, boy. You’ve got the magic touch.”

  “Come again?”

  “I haven’t had one death since we’ve partnered. Everyone’s always come through, in some form or another.”

  Drea chuckled. “I think I would like to see this magic touch.”

  Great, an audience. This better not trigger any nerves, but then, he’d spied no phantoms yet. While everything might not be fine, at least he wasn’t guaranteed to lose.

  Drea interrupted his silent worry. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Jamie peered into Gwen’s face as if it held the answers. “I don’t know. Nothing is presenting itself. You all had strange injuries.”

  “Strange? How?”

  “Not what I’d expect from how bad the building was.” Jamie focused on Gwen’s head and shoulders. “She’s acting like she has blood loss, but there’s no bleeding, and no cuts. Some bruising, but they’re small. It doesn’t account for things her state; no obvious internal injuries. We’ll know better once we’re at the hospital.”

  “Well, if it’s presenting as something familiar, but with no visible evidence…”

  Jamie jerked and squinted at her. “Pardon?”

  Drea tilted her head. “Something isn’t adding up. Focus where you think the problem is.”

  “Drea, what are you talking about?”

  She flexed against her restraints.

  “No.” Jamie held a palm out. “Stay still.”

  Drea slackened her efforts. “You’ve got me tied in place, so I’m trying to help with words.”

  “By rushing my diagnosis?”

  “I’m not the dropout.”

  Jamie cracked a knuckle. “Thanks.”

  “I’m doing what I can.” She nodded at Gwen. “Ignore the strangeness, just solve the problem you see.”

  Jamie shrugged, his hands grazing the air above Gwen’s prone form. “Here,” he said, hovering above her neckline on the left side. “But more towards the back. It’s like something entered here and got stuck inside. However,” he said as he gently explored again, “no entrance wound.” His eyebrows shot up. “Wait, there’s no pressure anymore.”

  “What? Ow!” Drea yelped as she bobbed her head too far to the side.

  “Her color is improving, too.” Jamie’s hands danced above Gwen, poking and prodding, checking for bruises, tears, and pressures. He leaned in to note her heart beat. As he did her breath hit his check, increasing in repetition and growing deeper. “I think her pulse and breathing are stabilizing.”

  The ambulance stopped. “None too soon, Magic Hands.” Deiniol climbed into the back. “Your friend is in better shape. You mind if you follow Gwen instead?”

  Jamie spared a moment to tap Drea’s neck, where he thought the necklace had pierced it. It had healed so fast, if he hadn’t removed the metal twists himself he wouldn’t have believed there was any injury.

  “I’ll be fine,” Drea nodded at him. “Go, be there for her.”

  He nodded, because he was afraid his mouth would betray the truth. Years of separation, and now he didn’t want to leave her side.

  12

  Alexandrea glanced behind to make sure no one noticed her.

  She was healthy, so the hospital didn’t keep her too long. Unlike the burn from the other day, she didn’t begrudge the time she lost to be better now. She knew the wreck would be tough, but she hadn’t expected that beam to crack her head.

  She may be better, but before she could return home she needed to see how her store had fared.

  Rather than coming from the square, she approached from the back, through a tangle of side streets and the back ends of several establishments. Not that it was empty, but few people walked these narrow roads. A wind caught her hair as she picked her way to the heap that was once a building.

  Her building.

  It was totaled. Her shop, the tea shop; the entire building was now a puddle of wooden planks in a sea of stone.

  She pushed away the guard tape and stepped to where she thought the shelves had been. The footing was still too uneven. She twisted her hands to summon air to buffer her. She wasn’t an earth enchanter, who could scurry over rockfalls in a blink of an eye. Not that this wreckage was stone.

  “Nothing can hurt me here,” she whispered as she maneuvered through the rubble.

  No physical hurt.

  She couldn’t believe it was gone. It was unreal. Her store, her tie to people and the normal world. Everything else was wrapped up in magic, fae, and responsibilities. It was a link to her family, too. She still lived in her parents' home, but so much of that had a history that reached further back, back into their forgotten history of pacts and magic with Moralynn. She was last in a long line of descendants who had allied with Moralynn, Sir Bedivere’s descendants. If Boderien was really missing, most likely dead, she might be the last.

  The store was different; it was only decades old. Modern, mundane, real.

  Her normal life was done. Right when her magical one ended too. She’d been killed twice over this day.

  The sun mocked her, reflecting beams of light on the strewn glass amongst the mess. She kept her head down, looking at the debris, hunting for the most stable places to step.

  She knelt and idly sifted through the mess. Would touch make it more real? She ransacked the rumble, allowing her hand to experience the mess: splinters, glass, and rash.

  Alexandrea withdrew her hand after it was thoroughly bruised, then she held it aloft and let it bleed. She’d escaped, but to what purpose? It was more than the store, but she couldn’t process it.

  Raebyn was on to them. Raebyn, Puck, one of Oberon’s three sons. Maybe he had always been suspicious of Moralynn. He might not know
what they were actually doing, but he could be upset about her very existence, though he’d taken an awful long time to respond if it was that. Granted he was a cristiline, the cristiline. Who knew what or who he might have imitated or for how long?

  But he had never attacked before. No fae had attacked them directly. Maybe ruined plans or haunted them; always haunting, harvesting the living onto death, but that was less about Moralynn and more about what needed to be done to sustain their life. Never something like this.

  Maybe this wasn’t the end, and maybe it was just a bad situation made worse. Fae after them and likely no Boderien to work on the Grail. She was the Phoenix Sparked heir, but what did that amount to now?

  Moralynn as Phoenix Sparked couldn’t control massive life forces like the true Phoenix, instead requiring more human lives to sustain her compulsion to resurrect. They could not deny harvesting of life, or slow down the fae’s return. The peoples of the world would continue to serve the fae, unknowingly, with their deaths.

  No more magical life, and no more bookstore to mind.

  What was left to her?

  She could rebuild. Alexandrea knew it. It wasn’t her full library, either; she still had plenty of books at home. She could turn her historical studies into something more, too. No, she was still too bewildered to make contingencies. She shouldn’t have to. There must be a way through this, she just didn’t know how yet.

  “Ruins should be old.” She sighed and her hand returned to sifting. Despite the many expected layers, she found the remains of a book, semi-recognizable. A simple trade, now worthless.

  “Old,” she repeated. “With a more interesting provenance.”

  She stood again and moved back towards her wrecked office. She noticed a meter of support beam close to its old post and ran her clean hand across the wood.

  “So much for my sanctuary,” she muttered. She caressed the wooden beam, tracing the beads of perspiration that leaked out.

  She knelt again, this time rubbing the wood with both hands, allowing the small blood trails to smear on the wood, not caring that people might notice or what they might think.