by Erin Evans
Chapter Twenty
My eyes still held shut, I heard several loud thuds and felt the table tremble beneath me. The pressure holding my arms up behind my back was suddenly gone. I counted off several seconds in my head.
Ok. I was either not dead, or heaven was a lot weirder than I thought it would be. I cracked an eye open and looked around. Definitely not dead. I was still at the homeless shelter. Still surrounded by candles and witches. Only difference now was that they were all passed out on the floor (The witches, not the candles).
I groped frantically at my throat and felt the blood already clotting along the shallow slice. The Priestess lay at my feet, nerveless fingers still clutching the knife. She must have cut me as she fell. My vision went black around the edges and I grabbed the table to keep from falling when I realized how close I had come to dying.
I kicked the knife as far away as possible. Then I kicked the Priestess. That felt so good I kicked the Nerd and the Wookie in the groin a couple of times for good measure.
“Have fun waking up to that, you Satan worshipping jerks!” I yelled.
“Actually they are duo-theistic and worship the Triple Goddess and the Horned God,” came a voice from behind me.
I was kind of expecting them to show up so I didn’t even jump a little. Cecily, Jonathan, and Kethudrim stood in the doorway. Cecily was smiling; Jonathan and Kethudrim had identical pained expressions on their faces. It could have had something to do with the fact that they had just witnessed me pummeling another guy’s sensitive area. Too bad. The witches were lucky that I didn’t want to touch the bloody knife. Damage could be a lot more permanent.
I gulped down the tears that were beginning to run down my cheeks again and gently closed the sightless eyes of the man on the table.
“They killed him,” I whispered sadly.
Cecily squeezed my shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done,” she said gently.
“I just wish … I should have been able to stop them,” I said forlornly.
“At least you’re okay,” Cecily offered. “Looks like you didn’t need us after all. Jonathan was getting worried about you.”
He literally snarled at her. “That she is alive at all is a miracle and no thanks to you, blood sucker!”
“Whoa guys!” I held up my hands, trying to replace my sorrow with a snippy tone. “First off, thank you for your concern. I have just spent a most exciting afternoon having my mind toyed with, being handcuffed in a closet, and almost getting sacrificed to your stupid statue.” I waved a hand at it as I spoke.
Kethudrim approached it like it could bite. He drew a white handkerchief out of his pocket and gingerly dabbed at the blood. Then he solemnly turned to the corpse and touched a single finger to homeless man’s forehead, murmuring something in a foreign tongue.
I coughed to cover my emotion and asked the obvious question, “Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?” I made a sweeping motion that took in the entire room full of unconscious witches.
Cecily shook her head and joined Kethudrim at the table. “With the shield down, Kethudrim was able to cast a sleeping spell. They should be out for awhile.”
Jonathan had disappeared for a moment and now reappeared. “There is nothing else of value here. The statue seems to have been their primary source to channel the power.”
Kethudrim gently pulled the tablecloth up to cover the dead man’s face and then wrapped the statue in another cloth. He bowed his head over the bundle and clasped it to his chest. When he raised his eyes they were wet with tears. “We thank you, Piper Cavanaugh. The People are in your debt. We can never repay what you have done for us today.”
I coughed again, must have been something in the air, “You could start by voting not to declare open season on all of mankind.”
Jonathan slapped me on the back.
“Deal!” he was grinning. “You have done well today, human.”
I looked around the room. It still looked really creepy to me and I would never forget how helpless I had felt witnessing a murder. I tried to comfort myself with the knowledge that there was nothing I could have done, but I just wanted to get out of here.
Cecily was staring at a fallen witch with a hungry look in her eye that was really weirding me out. Time to go. I tugged at her arm to get her attention. It was harder than it should have been.
“Can we go now?” I asked plaintively.
“Hmmm?” she asked, still staring at the witch on the ground, “what?”
“Cecily!” I punched her arm, “Snap out of it. I’ve seen enough gore for one day and I am not hanging around here to watch you eat dinner!”
She smiled at me, canines prominent, “You don’t have to watch,” but she laughed to show that she was joking. Kind of.
Kethudrim was still holding the wrapped statue like a baby and gazing at it in wonder. Jonathan finally took charge.
“Piper is right. There could be an alarm. We need to get out of here now.”
I looked again at the homeless man, feeling the tears start to flow again. “Can’t we do something for him?” I asked helplessly.
Cecily shook her head. “There’s been too much blood spilt,” she explained gently. “The police will be looking for a body.”
I tried to think positively. “He warned me that something was wrong here,” I said. “Maybe he would be happy to know that his death is going to help fix things.”
We stood there for a moment of respectful silence before I retrieved my purse from the closet and within minutes we were in the car and on our way back to Melbourne. The surreal part was that it was only four-thirty in the afternoon. With the quick travel time I would be home before dinner.
“So,” I finally broke the silence, “what are you going to do with it?” I nodded at the statue.
Kethudrim stroked it which struck me as kind of gross. At least it was still safely wrapped and I didn’t have to look at it.
“First the Elders will have to examine it to make sure that its power has not been warped by the witches.”
“Or damaged by the disrupter,” Jonathan interjected. “By the way, what took you so long to set it off? Could you not find the statue?”
I glared at the back of his head. “I tried to set it off. Ten minutes my back side! It took way longer than that to go off!”
“Did you push the two spots I showed you, then twist the top and press bottom and top together?” he wanted to know.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and I put my left leg in and out and then did the hokey pokey as well. I don’t know. I think I did it right. I was feeling a little stressed at the time.” My emotions were still super raw and I was hiding behind a façade of crankiness.
Cecily yawned and reclined her chair a tad. “It doesn’t matter. What is important is that it worked. Piper is still alive. The statue has been retrieved and all is well that ends well.”
“Except for the guy who lost his life,” I said sarcastically. “Oh, and I forgot, it’s not over for me. The fate of humanity still hangs in the balance.” I used my best radio announcer’s voice. “Tune in next week to the Perils of Piper to see if she can save the world from utter destruction!”
“I loved that show,” Cecily sighed.
“What show?”
“The Perils of Pauline. They just don’t make TV like they used to.”
I had no response to that. I had no idea when the Perils of Pauline had been on TV, but I had a good idea that it was way before my time.
“The Exploits of Elaine was not half as good,” Cecily reminisced.
I’d never even heard of that one. It made me feel young. Of course, I was talking to a person who looked about the same age as me. Which just made me feel weird. But that was the kind of day I was having. Weird.
“You don’t think it will really happen, do you,” Jonathan stated.
I was totally lost, “What will really happen?”
“The destruction of humankind.”
I grimaced, “Hey, it’s a lot to take in. I just can’t believe that there are that many of, umm, your kind around. I look around and see all these humans, everywhere, and I can’t imagine that all changing. Even if the vampires and the witches and all of you started killing people, don’t you think that the police would crack down on that?”
Cecily looked back at me sadly, “You have no idea how protected your race is right now. It’s like deer in the forest. Sure they’re hunted and killed, but only enough to keep the population stable and if a hunter kills more than his allotment then he is in big trouble with the law. But what if there was no law? What if every person with a gun, or bow and arrow, could go out in the woods and kill as many deer as he wanted?”
“But if they killed all the deer,” I was going with her analogy even though it made me nervous to be compared to a dumb herbivore, “there wouldn’t be any deer left to hunt and the hunters would go hungry, or at least have to pick up a new sport.”
“Exactly,” Cecily nodded, “but remember the buffalo? They used to cover the western plains as far as eye could see. Where are they now? They’re not extinct but there sure aren’t a lot of them left. This is why it is so important to keep humans protected. If every power hungry witch and Fae and vampire was to go out hunting, problems are going to arise. If you know that the competition is not going to practice selective hunting then it’s every species for themselves. Gather as much power as quickly as possible. For a while things will be great, the balance between the species will hold. Of course, humans will be disappearing off the planet, but they are virtually powerless, so who cares? But when the power source becomes scarce, then we will have to turn to other alternatives: Human farming, stealing from other races, and in the end, worldwide war, each species against the others.”
I admit I couldn’t work up a ton of sympathy for a hypothetical war that occurred after my species was wiped off the planet. I also had a very negative mental image of human farming. It didn’t look so fun in The Matrix and I imagined the reality would be far less pleasant.
“Surely everybody can see that though!” I exclaimed. “I mean, really, any thinking person could see that by indiscriminately attacking humans they are dooming themselves to war.”
Cecily snorted, “Power corrupts. Give anyone a chance at power and they will take it and future consequences be damned.”
“But ya’ll aren’t like that!” I protested. “Here you are trying to protect humans. Why would you do that if you have a chance to get ahead today, even if it hurts you tomorrow?”
“Because,” Kethudrim joined the conversation, “you retrieved the statue for us. We’re not helping you for free. No one helps anyone for free. There is always a price. It might not be agreed upon beforehand or even discussed, but there is always a price.” He looked deep into my eyes to impress me with the seriousness of what he was saying, “Don’t forget it, Piper. Nothing is free. When something looks free that is when you should be the most wary.”
I shifted uncomfortably on my seat, “Well, I certainly don’t think your votes are free. Today was horrendous. Ya’ll had better pay up.” I nervously tugged at a strand of hair.
Cecily was pretty quiet. I started to wonder exactly what she was getting out of all this. Vampires couldn’t have kids. What did she care about a statue?
Before I could ask her, she spoke dreamily, “When you live forever you learn the value of patience. Only creatures who are bound by time make decisions for the now.”
It was Jonathan’s turn to snort, “Like you blood-suckers have never made a rash action. You pretend to be so far above us, but I wonder what it is you think you will be getting out of Piper. Or humans in general for that matter.”
“Blood obviously,” she smiled sharply. “The fate of vampires is linked to that of humans. We are not immortal, without blood we would die as easily as you, for we are not alive in the same sense as you. The Oracle has seen a future in which mankind no longer exists. It was not a pleasant vision. We work to prevent it from coming to pass.” She blinked and I felt her mood lighten, “Besides, I like Piper. Sometimes people do things for free for people they like.”
I noticed that she didn’t specifically say that there was no price tag attached to her help but I didn’t feel up to pursuing the subject.
“You have been to see the Oracle?” Jonathan had a touch of awe in his voice.
Cecily made a sharp movement with her head, “We had no choice, but the price was high and we are not permitted to speak of it.”
“What’s the Oracle?” I asked.
“No one knows for sure,” Kethudrim answered, “but sometimes, if you are willing to pay her price, she will tell you the future.”
“A possible future,” Jonathan scoffed but he didn’t sound too convincing. “No one can know for sure what will happen in the future. A single action can change everything.”
I sank back on my seat. My head hurt too much to think about any of this. Was I even doing the right thing? Wouldn’t it be better for all of this to come out in the open and for everyone to know the truth? It seemed to me like I was dooming mankind to be food one way or the other. Granted, we were food right now and didn’t know it, and I was beginning to feel that maybe ostriches have the right idea.
I shook my head to clear it and tried to focus on what was important. “What happens now?”
“Now we wait,” Cecily sighed. “Your work today has purchased two votes on the Synod for keeping humans a protected species.”
“Two,” I complained, “All that for just two votes.”
“Two is good,” Cecily argued.
“Okay. So unless math is done differently in vampire land, three to two is not good if you are the two!” I admit it, I sounded a little snippy. “Who are the last three votes?”
“Vampire, UnSeelie, and Naga.” She ticked them off on her fingers.
“Why don’t I have the vampire vote?”
“You may have it. But it is not assured. The Seelie Court and the werewolves will now put pressure on the vampires and Nagas to vote alongside them.”
“And the UnSeelie?”
Cecily turned to Kethudrim.
He shrugged. “The Unseelie Court would see all of Elfhame burnt and sown with iron before they would willingly lift a finger to help a single human.”
“I’m not sure exactly what that means but I’m going to take that as a ‘No’ vote.”
Cecily smirked, “You could say that. Don’t worry, Piper. The vampires are not unified on the human question, but I believe that common sense and logic will win the day.”
I felt a sinking in my stomach. In my experience, common sense and logic rarely had anything to do with people’s decisions, especially people in government.
My cell chose that moment to ring. It was a strange number so no name came up on my screen. I answered it anyway. Usually I don’t pick up if I don’t know the person, but I needed something to occupy my mind for a bit.
“Hello? This is Piper.”
“Piper? Piper Cavanaugh?” It was an older woman’s voice.
“Yes, this is she. Who is this?”
“This is Emily Starr, a friend of your mother’s. I know she’s out of town so I thought I would give you a call. I don’t usually do this sort of thing and I am so sorry, but you know how it is, sometimes you just have to do something, or say something, after all, I hope someone would do the same for me, although you must admit, it puts me in a most awkward situation, but your parents are good folks and they really deserve to know what is going on. Don’t you agree?” She paused for a breath.
“Umm. I’m sorry. Agree with what?” Feeling lost and out of it was becoming too common an emotion for me.
“That your parents should know,” she said as if that made everything clear. “I tried your mom’s cell but it went straight to voicemail and you know how she lets the battery die and I thought, well, if she didn’t remember to take her charger with her then she might not get the message unti
l she got home, and I do believe that one should deal with problems as soon as they occur.”
I was oozing confusion, “What?”
My mom did have trouble remembering to charge her cell phone, much less always carry it with her, but, for someone who was born before cell phones were even invented, I thought she was doing pretty well.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Starr, but I have no clue what you are calling about. Could you start over, at the beginning?”
She took a deep breath and spoke slowly, “It’s about your sister, Sarah.”
Lights clicked on all over my brain. “Oh,” I said flatly.
I could tell she felt like she had finally broken through. “Yes, you see what I mean. Since your mom is out of town, I just had to call you.”
“What has Sarah done now?” Please, please, God, don’t let it be anything serious! I begged.
“Well, last night I was driving home from choir practice and I saw her and that trashy friend of hers. They were pulling out of a liquor store! A liquor store I tell you! And they were drinking in the car! They pealed out of the parking lot and almost hit my car! And then they slammed on the brakes in front of me and leaned out the window and made rude hand gestures at me and sped off. And I’m not sure, but I think that someone was mooning me in the back seat!”
I choked. It wasn’t funny. It was worse than I thought, but the mental image of this lady being mooned from a car window struck me as hilarious. I shut my eyes tight and tried to think. What to say? What to do? How to not burst into hysterical laughter? After the day I had been through I was ready to laugh about anything and never stop.
“Mrs. Starr,” I said finally, “I am appalled at my sister’s behavior and I promise you that she will be dealt with and my parents will be informed.”
It took another ten minutes of hearing the story repeated four more times while continually assuring her that I would handle the situation before I could hang up. There was silence in the car. Cecily, Jonathan, and Kethudrim were all sitting bolt upright in their seats and staring straight forward.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said loudly into the silence.
