by S A Tedman
“How did you take care of two Sniffers at the same time?” she asked in admiration, refusing to leave Elisabeth's lap.
“I was trained by the best fighters this world has ever known, and I'm also old. Very old, in fact. Someone who should be feared, not attacked.”
“Are you older than Lord Daemon?”
“I don't know his age. Why do you ask?”
“I've always wondered why his hair was white.”
“Nearly all the elders of the Black Rose have white hair.”
“I've noticed, except for Lord Marcus.”
Elisabeth twitched at the name.
“Sorry.”
Lord Marcus had been part of the committee that signed the Death Order, or as they called it: “a Purge to cleanse the Savage Branch”.
“It’s fine. Now off you go, it's time you became a grandmother.”
“What about Antoine?”
“I'll wait for him here, and we will then go and secure the Nightingale.”
“Did you ask them why Rayneheart was at the hospital?”
“Oh yes. I didn't have your magic serum though, so I had to use the good old fashioned methods.”
Victoria shivered at the thought, glad Elisabeth was on her side.
“And?”
“He was there because the Black Rose's radars went off around the hospital. “Unusual Physical Activity” mixed in with strange climate changes and magical appearances.”
“The child?”
“Yes. But we’re the only ones who know about him so don't worry.”
“Wow. How many broken bones did it take to get that information?”
“None. I lied. I got it by reading his diary. He and his three Sniffer friends were sent to investigate. It's all there in black and white. The broken bones were just for fun.”
Victoria tried to smile but was still worried.
“Oh Beth, if three Sniffers go missing from the Black Rose, we're going to have to move Marie. More will come, and we’re outnumbered.”
“Yes, and I have to deal with the Nightingale. Look, go and get the girl, break protocol and bring her back to the safe house while I'm at the concert. She can give birth with us, at least she’ll be safe that way. I came back with Jonas’ car, take it, and get out of here. I'll meet you back there, okay?'
“Yes.”
Victoria kissed her deeply, ignoring the fact it was highly unprofessional. She’d thought she’d lost her, and without Elisabeth, there would have been no point in fighting anymore. Once she’d been amply reassured, she took the car and left for the hospital.
“I'm sorry to bother you doctor, I'm looking for Marie. We came in earlier, and she was in room 108. Do you have any idea where she is?”
Victoria was standing in front of the hospital desk. It was deserted except for the on-guard doctor who seemed just as tired as he was bored.
“Yes, she’s in her room. Why?”
She clenched her teeth, choosing not to smack the idiot.
“Well, she’s not there anymore, and her clothes are missing.”
The doctor paled and darted off towards Marie's room.
“Really?” Victoria scowled, “I’ve just told him she's gone and he runs off to check? Bloody French and their drama!”
She waited patiently, clicking her tongue until the doctor returned out of breath.
He grabbed for the phone, but Victoria was faster and twisted his wrist back so she could look him in the eyes.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked him sternly.
“We need to phone the police! Get off; you're hurting me!”
“I don't think she’ll harm herself again.”
“That’s not the problem! She went into labour hours ago, the baby will be here soon, and it’s too dangerous for her to be without medical assistance!”
“Why was nobody with her? Were you not monitoring the child?”
“We couldn’t get the machines working, there was some strange interference, and we are greatly understaffed today!”
Victoria raised her eyebrows and sighed.
“Well, it’s not like women haven’t been giving birth without doctors since the dawn of time.”
The doctor’s face darkened.
“She might hurt the baby.”
Victoria let go of the doctor and looked around. The maternity ward was empty at this time, and the safe house near the lake was remotely controlling the cameras of the hospital. Good. She was going to need their help. Before the doctor could dial the emergency number, she punched him so hard in the head he swivelled on himself before crumpling to the floor, out cold. She hauled him into an empty room and onto a bed, covering him up like a patient.
This should give her enough time to find the girl. She grabbed the desk phone herself and called the safe house.
“Ma belle, are you alright?” came the voice of one of the men who had welcomed her there the night before.
“Yes Louis, I’m fine. But I had to knock out the doctor, and I don't want his patients to be left unattended. Can you cover for me until this one wakes up? And drug him with a memory pill while you’re at it, please.”
“Bien sur, ma belle. I saw the doc fall on the camera. You pack quite a punch for a Mortal. I’ll send one of our regular doctors down there as soon as possible. Don’t want to expose a Physical what with Sniffers around. I’ll go with him, I’ve got to erase some files from their system anyway.”
“Can you also take care of the cameras?”
“Yes. Camera. It's a tiny hospital; there’s only the one.”
“Did you see where the girl went?”
“No, I'm afraid not, and the town has hardly any CCTV coverage. This is like the worst possible place for a technician like me. I couldn't even follow her with the bank cameras. It's the backdrop of France, ma belle: the town is twenty years backwards. In everything.”
“It’s okay. I think I know where she’s going.”
The roads were busy, and Victoria knew she was driving recklessly, but time was not on her side, and she was worried sick. What if Marie gave birth and died alone? Maybe if she got to her in time, she would be able to save her. She kept checking the side of the road, in case she spotted her along the way, but she was nowhere to be seen. Had she hitched a ride?
No. Mary wouldn’t want to risk being taken back to the hospital. She must be going there on foot and keeping to the shadows, but if that were the case - where the hell was she?
Victoria made her way to the quieter part of Carcassonne, far from the centre. On the outskirts of town, not too far from the lake, there was a giant greenhouse. Antoine had told them she went there every day, and she knew Marie would want to be with her luscious green friends when it ended.
As she arrived at her destination fifteen minutes later, she turned off the headlights and got out of the car, leaving the door open. Her heart dropped in dismay as the first thing she saw under the single street lamp was a trail of bright red blood drops leading through the main entrance. This didn’t make any sense. How could she have managed to get there so fast, nine months pregnant and in labour, to boot?
During their exchange at the hospital, Marie had finally seemed at peace with the fact that she was about to give birth. She had told her she wished for her boy to be loved. That’s all she had wanted. For him to be healthy and loved. She had had this eerie way of speaking, as if she knew she wouldn’t survive the birth and Victoria had found her very beautiful, even in her thin and weakened state. She begged God to prove Elisabeth wrong and followed the drops that lead her through the entrance. She switched on the torch she carried in her bag and went through a pair of glass doors that had been smashed.
The trail of blood thickened and she realised she wasn’t going to have time to bring the young woman back with her to the safe house.
There had been no time to check the area, and none of the Delacourt agents knew where she was heading. She could easily be killed and who knows what the Black Rose woul
d do to the baby if they got their hands on him.
Victoria felt sick as she remembered what they had done to the baby Ursidaes born in Russia after the death order.
Suddenly, the tortured cries she could hear in her mind became unexpectedly real and she bolted towards the centre of the greenhouse, throwing caution to the wind, desperately following the signposts to the inner sanctum.
The door had been smashed open, just like the others, and as she entered, she stopped abruptly, the powerful sight before her stealing her breath.
A giant oak tree in the centre of the room grew straight through the glass roof as if the greenhouse had been built around it, and lying underneath it was the figure of a woman, softly glowing under the light of a thousand glow worms levitating above her.
There was blood everywhere. It was too late.
Marie was pale and lifeless, her eyes closed. Before dying, she had managed to wrap the baby in a bloody cloth and had held him to her chest. Somehow this made Victoria feel better.
Was this something specific to Physical Immortals? Being drawn to trees? She frowned. Marie wasn’t a Physical of course - Physicals can’t have children - but still. The flowers in the greenhouse had turned towards her; and… had the roots of the tree actually lifted and broken through the tiles to cradle her like a child? The scene reminded her of Michelangelo’s Pietà.
Maybe it wasn’t so surprising then, that she had fled to seek refuge here.
The baby stopped crying, and moved his head weakly, his tiny lips desperate for something warm and milky, but his mother was dead - nothing more than an empty shell.
Victoria grabbed her pocket knife and approached the body with as much care as she could muster. Pools of blood soaked her sandals, seeping in and flooding her feet.
What an idiot. She had nothing to clamp the cord.
Oh well. They could always clamp it back at the hospital.
She put away her knife and picked up the child - and placenta - carefully.
As she did, a deafening sound soared up from beneath her feet and she stepped back hurriedly, watching in horror as the roots under the mother’s body grew further, engulfing her, pulling her inside the earth as if she were nothing more than a blanket. The sound of bones being crushed was drowned out by the creaking bark, and when it ceased, the flowers in the greenhouse all turned to face the baby.
“Oh. Now that’s something you don't see every day. I thought they had turned to your mother, but it looks like they were turning to you,” Victoria said to him quietly.
The baby started crying again, probably out of hunger, and Victoria sat down on the blood-splattered tiles to cover him with her jersey, using the cloth he had been wrapped in to envelop the placenta.
Her shoes had become too slippery to walk in, so she removed them and left them by the tree.
She smiled down at the small bundle in her arms.
“Hello Hon. My name is Victoria, and from now on, I'll be your Gran.”
She kissed his tiny forehead and gave him a finger to suckle on.
As she walked back to the car, every flower along the way, even those that were closed for the night, opened and turned towards them.
She looked down at him in wonder.
How could a being this small hold such power over nature?
“Adrian. Your name is Adrian.”
Elisabeth was waiting for them in the car park, leaning against Jonas’s car. She checked her watch and smiled.
“Eighteenth of August, eleven forty-eight. What a day to remember.”
“Hi to you too!” Victoria said, relieved to see that her friend was safe.
With a quick peck on the cheek, she held out the baby.
The Headmistress shook her head.
“No thank you. I'm terrible with children, and I'm also covered in blood.”
“So are we,” said Victoria, looking down at her stained clothes.
“I suppose I need to send my team down here for the body…”
“That won’t be necessary. It's been taken care of. But send someone to clean the blood anyway.”
Elisabeth seemed surprised but didn't question her words. Victoria sighed wearily. She was desperate for a cup of tea.
“Is it done? Is the Nightingale safe?”
“Yes. She’s in the car. We came as soon as we could. Antoine dropped us off ”
“What about Charles and Marianne?”
“They will be waiting for us in a little village an hours drive from here called Tourne. It isn't safe here anymore, not for any of us. We have to leave.”
“Jonas is going to kill us both for the car,” she mused trying to lighten up the mood.
“It’s alright; I’ll give him compensation.”
It was dark save for the street lamp, and the cool wind came as a blissful reminder that Summer was soon over.
“Are you sure you don’t want to hold him? You should, he's a lovely boy. You can see in the dark, can’t you? Look over there.”
Elisabeth turned to look at the field of sunflowers next to them that she was pointing to.
They were the only flowers in the world that would wake at dawn and follow the sun with their bright yellow heads. Those who were part of the Fold knew them to be a symbol of hope, meaning “rebirth”, “new beginning” and for those who were old enough, like Elisabeth: “birth of a better world”.
“Interesting. They seem to be turned towards us.”
“No, not towards us. Towards him,” Victoria told her quietly, looking down at the child in her arms.
Her friend didn't answer and opened the boot of the car.
“I have everything you need: baby seat, bottle, milk… Nappies and wipes, too. You can clean him up in the boot if you like and clamp the cord.”
Victoria got to work, and as she finished putting on his nappy, a thought suddenly occurred to her.
“Beth, does he smell special to you?”
Her friend instinctively sniffed the air.
“My god… It’s slightly minty, just like his,” she whispered.
“Like whose? Beth… Are you ok?”
The Headmistress was leaning against the car for support and Victoria couldn't help but feel concerned.
“I’m fine. He does indeed smell special to me,” she replied weakly, forcing a smile and getting into the car.
Her friend shrugged and turned back to her work, feeling satisfied. She hadn’t managed to wipe the blood off completely, but it was start.
“Okay! Ready to go: nappy on, and baby can feed in the car.”
She strapped the child into the baby seat that had been set up at the back and got in next to him, his tiny hand holding onto her thumb.
“Good evening.”
The woman next to Elisabeth greeted them softly without looking around, and Victoria checked the rear-view mirror, to see if she could get a glimpse of the Nightingale's face. She couldn’t.
“Good evening,” she replied, feeling slightly let down.
Her voice was pleasant, but nothing like how her friend had described it.
“Okay. Off we go then!” the Headmistress said, starting the engine.
After a couple of minutes, Adrian started to cry, and before Victoria could figure out how to make him stop, the most beautiful sound she had ever heard filled the car.
The Nightingale was humming.
Elisabeth was right. It was impossible to describe with words, nor even with the feeling it conveyed. It could only be described… as a thought. In an instant, Victoria remembered every sound that had ever made her happy. A choir boy singing. Her lover moaning her name. The wind in the trees… The ping of a kettle and the laughter of a friend : all these sounds and many more wrapped up in a single tune.
Victoria saw Elisabeth relax in the driver’s seat, letting out a deep purr that sent shivers down her spine. The courtesy lights lit up, and the blood she hadn’t managed to wash off from Adrian’s body lifted from his skin, disintegrating, as his crying stopped and he fel
l asleep.
She continued to hum until they reached the motorway.
“What’s your name?” Victoria asked her, as she came out of her stupor.
“Beatrice. I know I was a fool to come into the open, and at a concert nonetheless, but I couldn't help it.” She turned towards the baby. “Now I know why.”
“Yeah. He’s incredible… Beatrice. Beatrice… I like that name,” Victoria said, more to herself than to the two woman in the front.
“Are you thinking of changing yours?” asked the Nightingale.
“Maybe.”
The Headmistress had shaken off the effect of the humming and joined in the conversation.
“You'll still be beautiful when you’re old you know, and it's only until he turns into an adult. Then you can turn back into this,” Elisabeth said, drawing Victoria's hourglass figure in the air with one hand as she drove.
“I know, I know; but will you still love me, when I'm all wrinkly and white-haired?” her friend laughed, as quietly as possible. She didn’t want to wake Adrian now that he was so peaceful. Beatrice nestled back into her seat politely.
“You shouldn't be, it's in twenty years, you'll only look about what, sixty? Sixty is young isn’t it?”
“Oh, you Immortals are all the same! You can’t tell our age and don’t understand what it’s like to grow old.”
“I guess not, but what you find terrible, I find fascinating, it being something I can never have. To age, to grow old… The changes in your body… Fascinating.”
“Well, the second I stop using the Immortality Tear, I'll start ageing, and fast. I should be around a hundred by now, and this figure right here is of a twenty-three year old, thank you very much.”
She pretended to be angry and glared at the rear-view mirror.
“A little girl then, by my book,” the Headmistress chuckled.
“It’s true, I’ve never asked how old you were. I know it’s something we don’t ask in the Fold, but you always seem to know everything. As if you had some inside knowledge on the world nobody else has. Has it got to do with your age?”
