Chapter 17: Platinum

After a long day in the market, they retired to a cabin adjacent to the market.  An older Devil was there, turning a whole chicken on a spit.  It was the first time she'd seen meat in Egregia, and her mouth watered.  

“Good to have you home son,” the Devil nodded at Alister.  “I am Luke,” he held out his hand to Tatiana.

“Tatiana,” she shook awkwardly with her left hand.

“Nice to meet you, Holiness,” Luke basted the chicken as he spoke, “We have prepared a guest house for you across from here.”  Luke raked the coals under the chicken, “Carl, why don't you show her the place and stoke the fire?”

Tatiana followed Carl out of the cabin.  The cabin he led her into seemed eerily familiar.  Resting her hand on a supporting post, a splinter poked her hand.  There were wear marks up and down the post as if something hard had rubbed against it repeatedly.  Tatiana turned to Carl, “You really expect me to sleep in the same room that I was held against my will?”

“The Devils only have one guest cabin,” Carl added a log to the fire.  

“I’m not sleeping here,” she scuffed her boot on the ground, kicking a broken link of chain.  It spun across the dirt floor, landing near Carl's foot.

“Would you be more comfortable with Mike and Smithy?” Carl’s eyes softened, “You wouldn’t have much space, but they would be glad to host you.”

Feeling guilty, Tatiana sucked in her bottom lip, “Can’t I just sleep with you?”  

Carl’s eyes widened.

“-all,” she hastened to add, “Sleep with you all.”

“Dad’s a little old fashioned,” Carl picked up the broken chain and stuck it in his pocket, “He doesn’t believe in the mixing of breeds.  Stay here for a moment.”  Carl ducked out the door, leaving Tatiana in front of the raging fire.

“What about the chicken?” she said to herself, “Can different breeds eat from the same chicken?”

The fire popped and Tatiana sat down in one of the chairs.  It was a cane-backed chair with a surprisingly soft cushion.  She mused over what it could be stuffed with; tree moss, chicken feathers, the fur of the Devils’ enemies.  Drifting into a light sleep, she imagined them shaving Tate’s corpse before returning it to Amber, their red eyes flashing with vengeance.

“Tati,” the voice was directly overhead.  

“No,” she swung her good arm striking someone or something, “Don’t shave me.”

“Don’t what?”

Tatiana opened her eyes.  Carl and Alister hovered over her, Carl’s brows pinched in worry.  “Sorry,” she straightened up in the chair, “Bad dream.”

“Alister will keep you company tonight,” Carl still looked concerned, “He won’t let anyone harm you.”

“Ummm . . .” Tatiana pulled her fingers through her hair, “Are we allowed to have . . . some chicken . . ?”

“Of course.  I’ll bring you some soon,” Carl exited the cabin, pausing just outside.  He called to her through the crack in the door, “Don’t forget to secure the latch.”

Alister sat in the chair next to her, pulling Tate’s fiddle out of his bag and placing it in her hand.  Before she could even close her fingers around it, Tatiana was inside her old room in her parents’ house.  The window was open, the light pink curtains blowing in the Spring breeze.  Tate, young and slim, squeezed into her window, his manner aloof.

“Tate?” Tatiana blinked at him, “Why are you climbing in my window?”

“I thought it was mine,” he off-handedly ran his hand through his pale hair.  He sat on her bed, eyeing her resentfully, “Why am I dead when you get to be alive?”

“I-” she shook her head hard, “You did that to yourself!  You drug me into that and . . . and . . I don’t appreciate it!”

“Riiiiiight,” he crossed his forearms, long and bony across his narrow chest, “Couldn’t be the fault of little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes.”

She sat down next to him, smoothing out the unicorn-print comforter, “I did what you asked.  I got your fiddle and I found Amber.”

“I don’t know who that is,” his frown deepened, “but getting my fiddle back, that’s good, Bee.”  He gave her a sidelong glance, resting his hand on the bedspread, fingers splayed.

Tatiana put her hand over his, the words rising to her lips without thought.  “In the beginning,” she said softly, “there was song.”

  The jolt that surged through her was so strong, that she could feel her hair raise up all over her body.  The hum in her ears crescendoed to a loud buzz that rattled through her molars.  Everything was blank and everything was numb with pain.  

Tatiana gasped and threw the fiddle across the room.  It bounced end over end, landing somehow unharmed next to the foot of the bed.  She shivered violently, her right arm suddenly a mass of pain.  The quivering sensation seemed to come from her core, accompanied by a dizziness so severe that the room seemed to spin around her.  Making a move for the bed, she staggered.  The floor seemed alive under her feet, rippling where it should be flat, jogging where it should be still.  Alister grabbed her by the shoulders and guided her to the bed.  He lay next to her, pulling her tightly against him.  Unable to get her bearings, Tatiana clung to him.  The weight and warmth of his body was grounding and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.  

In her dream there was music and faceless beings composed of light.  One of them spoke to her in an pixelated voice, “You would give up your life to become energy?”

“Yes,” Tatiana nodded.

“You would merge with your patron,” the being dissolved into a shower of light.  

Tatiana was falling, air whipping past her, her stomach howling with fear.  She jerked awake before she could hit the ground, sitting up with a gasp.

“Shhh,” Alister rubbed her back gently.

The door to the cabin opened, and Carl entered, balancing two plates of chicken and rice.  “I brought some-” he broke off his sentence, his eyes wide.

In spite of realizing how it must look with the two of them in bed together, Tatiana was simply too overwhelmed to say anything.  Carl set the plates on a small table and left the room, the fire in his eyes dampened by disappointment and betrayal.

Still feeling off-balance, Tatiana ignored the plate and reached for her notepad.   With a shaking hand she wrote a note to Alister, “I tried to bless my patron.  Is something bad happening to me?”

“No,” he wrote back, “You would have to do it all the way.  You got scared and stopped, which is good.  Supposedly it's ascension, but I think it’s just self-destruction.”

“What does it mean to ‘merge’ with your patron?” she self-consciously placed quotes around the word “merge.”

“Who have you been talking to?” Alister looped his question mark with a flourish.  “It means you cease to exist.  Your being integrates with his and you become like an angel.”

Cease to exist.  Tatiana set the notepad aside and wrapped her arms around Alister.  “I want to always be me,” she mumbled into his shoulder.  

Alister rocked her in his arms.  He smelled vaguely like mint, and Tatiana relaxed against him.  Her stomach still ached and she started to wonder if she was simply hungry.

She sniffed, wiping her nose and eyes with the corner of her robe.  Cautiously she scooted to the edge of the bed.  When the room stayed where she expected it to be, she placed her feet on the floor and shuffled over to the food.

“Priests aren't supposed to eat meat,” Alister undid the top of his robe, sliding his arms out of the sleeves.  

Tatiana’s stomach growled in protest, “Are you kidding me?  No sex and no meat?  What else can't we do?  Drink?  Go on carnival rides?  Smile?”  Tatiana took a bite of rice.  It had been cooked in the juices from the chicken, but she planned to feign ignorance.  

Alister rose from the bed and knelt next to a bucket of water.  While Tatiana scarfed down the rice, he carefully washed his face, arms, and legs.  He yawned cavernously, and it occurred to Tatiana how tired he must be.  As she eyed him thoughtfully, he removed a small pouch from his robes and took out a comb.  Tatiana snorted.  “What's a bald guy like you doing with a nice comb like that?” she joked.  Alister sat still, his legs curled under him, the comb resting on his palm.  “You gotta be kidding me,” she said under her breath, “His Holy Relic is a comb?”  She giggled for a moment, then yawned.  Alister wasn't the only one who was tired.  She climbed into bed, ignoring the fiddle on the ground nearby.  She was too freaked out to touch it and too tired to care if it got stepped on.  Rolling onto her right side, she fell asleep without even trying.

Chapter 16:Spawn of Satan

The sunlight filtered through the cracks in the roof.  Tatiana had spent a restless night, Carl jammed in next to her so close that every time he moved it woke her.  She rubbed her eyes and sat up.  Alister was in a deep sleep, his bare chest rising and falling.  She watched him sleep for a moment, her own breath feeling trapped in her lungs.  

Carl sighed, then squirmed out from between them, crossing the room to the hearth.  He picked up a log, holding it until it ignited.  “Strange way to build a fire,” she thought, watching his muscles move until his red skin.  She rose from the bed and pulled on her boots.  

Eva’s head bobbed up as she exited the cabin.  The look of disappointment in the horse’s face was oddly human.  “Sorry, I know I’m not the person you want to see,” Tatiana circled the cabin, “and I know how that goes.”  Finding a good spot, she crouched to relieve herself.  “Why is it,” she mumbled to herself, “that whenever I’m trying to get the attention of a guy I like, I always get the attentions of someone else?”  It wasn't rational, and there was no real cause, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Carl liked her.  It was something about the way he looked at her; the flames in his eyes softening, his mouth peccant with longing.  “Ugggh,” she fumbled with her robes, “Thank the Holy Circle he’s shy.”

Tatiana wandered back in the cabin, taking the bucket to fill at the creek.  Alister was still asleep when she returned.  Wetting her hand in the pail, she flicked water at him.  He rubbed his face and groaned.  The sound he made was similar to those he made when signing, so Tatiana waited a few moments to see if he was awake.  When he failed to move, she flicked water at him again.  

“You’re going to make him mad,” Carl scraped the leftover burnt rice out of the pot and into the fire, “We Marshalls have a bit of a temper.”

“I thought you were Devils,” Tatiana poured the contents of the pail into the pot.  

“Did you really think that was our surname?” Carl waved away the steam rising off the pot, then placed it back over the hearth.

“Uh, I guess I didn't really think about it,” Tatiana sucked in her bottom lip, “Should we be worried about Kadeem?”

“We’ll look for him at the market today,” Carl took three potatoes out of the bag, carefully dropping them in the pot.  

Tatiana sat in her chair, waiting for the potatoes to boil.  “I’ve been wanting to learn some signs,” she rocked herself absentmindedly.

“You want me to teach you some?” Carl sat on the ground next to the hearth.  He held up his hand, thumb and pointer touching with the rest of his fingers splayed, “You know the OK gesture?  Turn it upside down and put it against your chest.”  Carl made the sign, “This is one you can use on Kadeem.”

Tatiana imitated him, “What does that mean?”

“Asshole.”

Tatiana gasped with laughter, “Show me another one.”

“So this is a ‘b,’ and if you do that like this,” Carl touched it to his forehead, “that means-”

“What are you teaching her?” Alister interrupted.

“Oh, you’re awake,” feeling embarrassed, Tatiana covered her mouth.

Alister sighed and signed to Carl.

“You shouldn't cover your mouth when you talk to him,” Carl stood up.  “I’m to go check the horse.”

Alister picked up her notepad and flipped to an empty page, writing to her in his characteristically fluid scrawl, “I can't believe I’m saying this to someone, but you need to start acting like a priest.”  He passed the notepad to her.

“Do you like me?” she wrote facetiously, drawing a set of three checkboxes.  She filled in the options, “Yes, No, You Need To Start Acting Like a Priest.”

Alister ticked off the first and last boxes.  “That means no swearing,” he wrote, “no dirty talk.  Stop flirting with my brother and focus on your mission.”

Tatiana snatched the pen from him.  “I’m not,” she wrote indignantly, “I don't like him like that.”

Alister reclaimed the pen, “You’ve been talking to him a lot.  When I woke up you two were laughing together.”  Alister pulled away as she tried to grab the pen, “I wouldn't mind except that you can't get involved with him.  If you’re really that desperate, go commune with your patron.”

Tatiana grabbed the page ripping it in half, “You don't know the first thing about me and my patron!”  She tossed the paper on the ground.  Dissatisfied by its gentle swoops, she stomped to the door, throwing it open with as much force as she could muster.  

“Tatiana!” Carl called as she stormed past.

She ignored him and continued up the road.  Those two idiot brothers could sit there forever for all she cared.  She, on the other hand, had things to do.  She wasn't some silly woman who needed a lover to have a purpose in life.  She had a vocation, a calling to fulfill.  Yeah, romance would be nice, but so would some food right about now.  

Once her anger died down, she felt shaky and lightheaded.  Blinking away the blurriness from her eyes, she focused on following the rightmost rut.  Grass and clover spread across the median, desperate for the open sky the road provided.  Desperate enough to be trod on.  Desperate.  She hated that word.  Did Alister really think that about her?  That just anyone would do for her?  That she was something to be looked down upon, to be stepped on?

By the time she reached the market, she was nauseated, the blisters on her right foot stinging.  She limped over to Amber’s stand.  “You don't have any food, do you?” she attempted a grin.

“You look awful, Bianca,” Amber guided her behind her display and sat her on a stool, “Just sit here for a minute.”  Amber hurried past the early morning shoppers.  Tatiana took a few minutes to catch her breath, then took off her right boot. One of the blisters had popped, soaking her sock with blood.  Wincing, she pulled it off her foot.

Amber returned with two burritos.  Tatiana bit into hers.  There was scrambled eggs and cheese inside and her nausea melted into hunger.  “Thanks,” she polished it off, licking her fingers.

“Well, I was going to eat the other one, but I think you might need it,” Amber passed her the second burrito, then made a face, “What happened to your foot?”

“Just blisters,” Tatiana took a bite.

“I can make you a salve that will fix you right up,” Amber picked up an aloe leaf, then hunted around through some of her dried herbs.

“I owe you.”

“No, I owe you,” Amber pulled down a bunch of herbs, “50,000 blessings.”

The mention of blessings made Tatiana think.  If she blessed Amber’s teas or mixtures, the person using them would be blessed.  That would be much faster than blessing 3,000 people individually.  “Have you ever thought of selling blessed items?”

“That’s a great idea,” Amber crushed the herbs in a ceramic mortar and pestle, “I could charge more for herbs blessed by a priest.”

“Then you don't mind if I bless like 3,000 things.”

Amber sliced open the aloe leaf, squeezing the juice into a bowl, “Honey, you can do whatever you want.”

Tatiana picked up a poultice on the counter next to her.  What was it priests did when they blessed something?  “You need to start acting like a priest,” she grumbled to herself.  The priest at her local holy place used to say, “The eternity of the Ellipse surrounds me.”  She said it sheepishly, then picked up another poultice.

She had almost finished the entire table when she heard it.  The music was faint, with certain pitches sounding clearer while others were altogether inaudible.  It was a fiddle and like always, Tatiana found herself entranced.  She rose from the stool, limping half-shod through the clusters of people.  As she followed the sound, the notes knit together into a ribbon of music, a song that was both familiar and heart-wrenching to hear.  “What If,” she said under her breath.   

The group of people in front of her shifted, and suddenly she could clearly see Mike, his fiddle tucked under his chin, his case open on the ground with a scattering of blessings across the velveteen lining.  He stopped playing when he spotted her, “Tatiana!  Carl and Alister are looking for you.”

She walked closer to Mike, “I was visiting a friend.”

“I heard Alister pissed off you and his translator and you both walked,” Mike grinned.  “I have no idea how to lure a translator, but I know how to catch you,” Mike finished his sentence by bowing his fiddle.  As he played Tatiana’s thoughts drifted until there was only music.

“Tatiana,” a hand waved in front of her face, “Are you in a trance?”

Alister stood in front of her, his eyebrows pinched together.

“Sorry,” she blinked.  Carl was there as well, his arms crossed over his broad chest.

“We should start blessing people,” Alister tapped his lips in thought.  “Try, ‘In the beginning there was song.’”

“Wait, what?  The priest back home used to say, ‘The eternity of the Ellipse surrounds me.’”

Alister shot her and odd look, then signed back and forth with Carl.

Carl looked at her, his fiery eyes disconcertingly settling on her chest, “Apparently different priests get different blessings.  A musical blessing would be appropriate for you since your relic is a fiddle.”

“So none of the blessings I just did count?”

Carl signed her words to Alister, then shook his head, “Sorry Tati.  Have you even eaten today?”

Before she could answer, Amber appeared with a boot in one hand, chin high, her eyes glittering like sunlight on the crests of waves.  “Bianca,” Amber stiffly handed her the boot.

“Don't call her that,” Alister’s expression was closed, dismissive.

“I’ll call her what I like,” Amber glared at Alister, “You can go back to the Devils.”  Amber smiled, her expression wolf-like, “Don't you know Bill, that she gored out the eyes of one of your kind?”

Alister turned red from the top of his head down to his collar.  He pushed past them, his movements jerky.

Amber’s expression shifted from triumph to panic, “Oh, no.”  She scampered after him.

Tatiana turned in time to see Alister flip over Amber's table; herbs and mixtures scattering in the dirt.  She limped towards the stall, Carl outpacing her.  Amber's cries of dismay and anger pierced the sounds of the crowd.  

Carl grabbed Alister around the waist, pulling him back from the wares.  Amber bent to pick up a glass jar, then hurled it at Alister.  “That was supposed to be for Bianca’s foot, you arrogant spawn of Satan!”  The jar bounced off Carl’s arm, splattering the salve across Alister’s face.

“Ugly old witch,” Alister strained against Carl’s grasp, his face a taunt ball of fury.

“Act like a priest!” Tatiana couldn’t help herself.  Instead of having their desired effect, her words seemed to calm Alister.  “You better help us clean up,” Tatiana dusted off her foot, then slid it back into the boot, “I’m not blessing one damn thing until this whole booth is back to rights.  I almost died for this place and I don’t appreciate it being treated like that.”

Alister wiped his face off with his robe, then bent to pick up the tea bags spilled from their canisters.  The four of them worked silently, salvaging what they could.  Amber swept the remaining detritus into a pile, “That’s a good 50 blessings worth of merchandise right there.”

Carl dug in his pocket, “Here’s 20.  Come over to our house and I’ll give you the rest.”

“Like I’m ever going to willingly go to a Devil’s house again,” Amber tapped her broom on the ground.

“You had a debt that was over eight years old,” Carl dusted the table with his hand, “Layla had every right to take you as her property.”

“You call her so familiar,” Amber poked Alister with the end of her broomstick, “Just wait until she catches sight of Bill.  She’ll tie him up too.”

“Who are Bill and Layla?” interjected Tatiana.

“Alister’s birth name is Bill,” Carl leaned against the table, “Layla is the president of the Devils.  She likes her men more human.”

“Oooooh,” Tatiana sucked in her lower lip, “I guess that makes sense.”  It really didn’t but she also didn’t care.  Alister’s behavior had been awful since they had arrived in town, and it was starting to worry her.  If he picked a fight with every person he ran into, it would make it much harder for her to reach her goal.  “All the better to get my rainbow belt and dump him,” she thought.  Aloud she said, “Let’s start blessing people.  Carl can bring Amber the rest of the blessings later on.  Or I will.  I like Amber.”

Alister didn’t respond.  He was hunched over her notepad writing.  Tatiana limped over to an open space.  Catching the eye of of a passerby, she offered, “Would you like a blessing?’

After several rejections, a bird woman agreed to be blessed.  Tatiana placed her hands on the woman’s head.  “In the beginning there was song,” she whispered.  An odd sensation traveled through her body, and out her hands.  It was a little like electricity; not painful, but unpleasant in a deadening way.  Startled, she looked at the bird woman.  The woman bowed her head in thanks and went on her way.

“It worked,” Alister commented, handing her the notepad.

“That felt wrong,” Tatiana rubbed her bad arm.  As she went to flip the pad shut, her name caught her eye.

“Tatiana,” Alister had written, “I’m very sorry.  I didn’t realize how straining it would be to return here.  Everyone knows about my past and everyone blames me.  Why redeem me?  Why not Carl or any number of other Devil children, innocent to the curses inflicted on them by their parents?  I wish I could take you and run far from this place, but that is selfish of me.  As much as everyone here despises me, they need me.  You and I are their only hope.  Not because we are any better than them, but by virtue of our power won by another’s sacrifice.

I have no right to be angry, but I am.  Kadeem took advantage of my deafness to ensure himself a place of honor.  Amber loves money too much and shows contempt to the Order by using our old names.  Then you.  Dear one, you must get your love of men under control.  I don’t mean to upset you, but lust is far more dangerous than greed or love of power.  It is something I don’t understand, nor do I wish to.  My friendship you will always have.  I will be like a sword in your sheath and the plating on your armor.  Be one with me and we shall tear down this institution from the inside out.

Yours, always,

A”

Tatiana tried not to laugh, but the more she thought about it, the more she giggled.  The letter was the closest thing to a love letter that had ever been inscribed with her name, and it written by a bad-tempered asexual priest.  Helpless in her mirth, Tatiana sat in the dirt and held her stomach, tears dripping down her face.

Alister watched her out of the corner of his eyes, his expression stern.  A man stopped in front of them, “Holiness, will you bless me?”  Alister signed his blessing, then laid his hands on the man’s head.  Tatiana watched Alister carefully.  When he was done, she wiped her eyes and stood facing him.

“Does it feel like being electrocuted to you?” she tried to articulate and mind her pace.

Alister nodded.  

“And that's okay?”

Alister smiled and shrugged.  

Tatiana took a breath and held it.  He wasn't speaking to her again.  She pushed aside her annoyance, grumbling under her breath, “Start acting like a priest.”  She had 2,999 more blessings to give before she could merit an yellow sash.