Better Off Dead (20 page)

He simply nodded and did as I asked, handing it back to me with the glimmer of amusement in his eyes. I noticed he also put a small depression on the edge of the notch for my spindle. Concerning which, I still needed to find one.

I searched through the kindling I’d collected and spotted a thin stick that was maybe two feet long. The top of it was a bit gnarled, but I could use the bottom half. My tinder close by, I pinched off a bit of it and dropped it in the groove Tallis carved for me. Placing my spindle on top of the tinder, I started spinning the stick rapidly between my palms.

Making fire from cold sticks would be no easy feat. In “Middle Ages,” it had taken me the better part of two days and countless blisters before I even got the knack of it. And during my fire-making test, it had taken me twenty minutes before I saw the telltale wisps of smoke.

My hands were getting raw and were beyond tired, but I continued rolling the stick between my palms. My new body included hands that were a callous-free study of beautiful skin. Well, that beautiful skin was about to get a crude lesson in survival.

After ten or fifteen minutes, I felt like my arms were about to detach from my shoulders, they were so tired. And my palms were a lost cause. But I didn’t stop; I didn’t even pause. I just kept the momentum up, thinking about what a fire might mean for my safety. It would, undoubtedly, ward away whatever creatures lurked in this horrible place. At least, I hoped it would.

At last, the welcome beginnings of an orangey-red glow and white smoke began to spiral up from my spindle. I knew better than to stop rolling the spindle, though, and continued until there was an actual spark, which ignited the tinder at the base of my spindle. Once that happened, I grabbed the fistful of moss I’d put to the side and added that to the flames. Gently blowing on them, I urged them to consume the lichen. The flames inhaled the tinder greedily, and pretty soon, I had a fairly large blaze going. Lightly blowing on the flames, I couldn’t stifle my elation as the tinder caught fire and the kindling began to crackle. Reaching for some smaller branches, I loaded them on top of the fire and watched in silent anticipation as the flames grew larger.

Turning to face Tallis with a broad grin on my face, I asked, “How d’you like them apples?” I slapped my hands against my thighs victoriously before wincing at the pain.

Tallis chuckled and moved away from the tree, approaching me. “Ah moost confess, Ah am impressed,” he answered with a hearty laugh. When he reached for my hands, I felt my heart climb up into my throat as soon as he touched me. I didn’t know what it was about him but my body definitely seemed to answer to his. ’Course, maybe that was just because he was a handsome man and I had little to no experience with handsome men or men at all, really.

Tallis rolled my hands so my palms faced him and studied them for a moment or two. I couldn’t help looking at his forearms and noticed the gashes were completely healed. I didn’t say anything though. I knew better. Instead, I stared
at my sore palms. “It’s just a few blisters. They’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

Tallis shook his head. “Ye willnae be able tae hauld yer sword.” Taking a deep breath and releasing one of my hands, he reached into his sporran, and retrieved a blade. Thinking he meant to use it on me, I started to pull my hands away, but he held me steady. “Doonae be afraid. Ah willnae hurt ye,” he said softly, as I realized this was probably the third time he’d repeated the same words to me.

“Then what …?” I started, but lost my voice when he sliced the blade across his palm. Blood gushed from the cut immediately. He clamped his palm down on mine, smearing his blood over my blisters. He did the same to my other hand and then closed his eyes as he muttered something in Gaelic. When he reopened them, he didn’t say anything but reached for his backpack. He pulled out a steel canister of what I assumed was water. Unscrewing the cap, he poured the water across my palms, washing away his blood along with my blisters. “They’re … they’re gone!” I exclaimed in astonishment.

“Aye,” he answered casually.

“Your blood … can heal?”

He simply nodded as
I reached for his hand, knowing full well that he wouldn’t like me touching him. In general, he seemed okay with contact as long as he was the initiator. I had a feeling he was a control freak and couldn’t tolerate that control being shaken. Gripping his wrist, I turned his hand around so his palm was facing me. The gash was healed. I shook my head in amazement as I dropped his hand. “What are you?” I asked in awe.

“As ah tauld ye, Ah am ah Druid.”

“All cowardice must needs be here extinct.”

—
   
Dante’s
Inferno

ELEVEN

“Hoo did ye ken hoo tae make ah fire?” Tallis asked quickly, apparently wanting to change the course of our previous conversation, when I
’d asked him what, exactly, he was. Yes, yes, yes, he’d insisted more than once that he was simply a Celtic Druid, but I wasn’t convinced. ’Course, for all I knew, maybe the Celtic Druids possessed incredible powers and he wasn’t covering up the truth … but maybe he was.

I shrugged as my thoughts drifted back to his question about how I learned to make fire by rubbing two sticks together. “I was part of a medieval reenactment group, and in order to be accepted into the peasant league, I had to learn how to make fire.”

Tallis studied me for a moment or two, his bushy eyebrows centered in the middle of his forehead as he frowned, obviously not comprehending me. Then he stood up and reached for the carcass he’d dumped beside the blackened stump of a tree and brought it closer. He sat down, leaning against the tree, and retrieved a blade from his sporran, wasting no time removing the dark, blood-soaked pelt of whatever was unfortunate enough to cross his path. Whatever “it” was, appeared to be the size of a basset hound, now looking like a fleshy, bloody mess.

“Ah whoot?” he asked, eyeing me with interest, his hands covered in blood.

“A medieval reenactment group. We called ourselves ‘Middle Ages.’” I directed my attention first on my fingernails, then on the sleeping Bill, and finally, the charred woods. Anything to avoid watching Tallis skin the animal. After feeling famished a half an hour ago, my hunger had long since tucked its tail between its legs and hit the road.

Tallis cleared his throat and I brought my attention back to his face as he studied me pointedly. In his expression, I could see he still didn’t get my gist and worse, seemed to suspect I was trying to pull his leg. “Ah doona oonderstand,” he admitted finally.

I sighed. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk about my time in Middle Ages, especially since I was practically living the real thing now. “There were a group of us, maybe sixty or so, and we acted out periods of history.”

His frown deepened. “Ye pit oan ah play, ye mean?”

I shook my head. “No. We actually pretended like we were living history.” Before he could interrupt me with another confused expression, I continued. “All of our costumes were hand-stitched and created from fabrics that would only have been available during the high middle ages. And each costume was tailored to whatever class we happened to be members of. Since I played the part of a merchant’s wife, I wore fabrics of higher quality wools and linens. When I played the role of a peasant, I only wore the cheapest wool available, which was scratchy, hard to clean, and usually the color of mud.”

“Why elect tae enter th
’ class ah th’ peasants oar th’ merchants?” he asked with knitted brows. “Why nae th’ kings?”

“Well, obviously everyone wanted to enter the class of the royalty, but it wasn’t that simple. You had to work your way up, and everyone started as a lowly peasant. Then, as you mastered each rank, you would eventually enter the class of kings and queens. However, that took quite a while, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“Ah oonderstand,” he nodded, briefly glancing at the bloody thing in his hands before offering me his full attention again. “Prithee, coontinue.”

I shrugged, not really sure what more I could say about it. “So, basically, we just acted out the average daily life in our village, each of us interacting with one another as befitted our station, trading and the like.”

“An’ did ye liff in thess toon?”

“No. Our group met a couple of weeknights and weekends.” Then I shrugged. “I mean, we
did
have day jobs.”

Tallis nodded like he finally understood but then started worrying his lower lip as if he wasn’t completely satisfied with my answers to all his questions. Overall, a definite expression of interest and slight bafflement remained on his face. He glanced over at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “An’ waur ye paid ah guid wage tae dae thess?”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes, now getting frustrated. And, no, it didn’t surprise me in the least that his line of thinking tended toward the “What’s in it for me?” Tallis Black definitely struck me as an opportunist. But returning to the subject, this conversation really was a total waste of my time. Since Tallis had basically lived through the middle ages, he probably couldn’t fathom why anyone would want to relive them. “No, I received no wage. I did it because I thought it was … well, fun.”

“Foon, lass?” he barked at me while shaking his head, all of which was followed by a mocking laugh. “Ah didnae consider those days foon, noot wif th
’ coonstant woory ah invasion, th’ black deaf an’ starvation.”

“So if you are an immortal Druid, like you claim to be,” I started, intending to change the subject while spotting an opportunity to drill him for information.

“Ah am.”

“Then why are you the only one? Or are there other immortal Druids out there like yourself?”

He shook his head and dropped his gaze to the now skinless creature in his hands. Its fur lay folded on the ground beside him, looking like bloodied linens. After rotating it a few times, he began cutting it in half. That done, he cut each half into halves. Then, eyeing my pile of sticks, he motioned for me to hand him a branch. I sorted through them until I found a fairly straight and sturdy one. Handing the stick to him, I watched him run it through a hunk of the meat. He motioned for a few more sticks, which I gave him. Then he skewered the last three pieces of meat, all of which were about the width and length of my foot. He handed two of the skewers to me, which I held over the fire. The other two he rested on a tattered piece of muslin. Then he stood up and retrieved his canister of water, washing off the blood on his hands.

“Ah am th
’ oonly oone, th’ oonly Druid left ah mah kin.”

“Why?” I demanded, carefully keeping both pieces of meat away from the flames so as not to scorch them.

Tallis cleared his throat and looked decidedly uncomfortable. He didn’t sit back down, but stood over me, which was incredibly intimidating, owing to his immense stature. “It is mah cross tae bear,” he answered forlornly.

“What did you do in the past?” I threw the words at him, afraid they wouldn’t come out otherwise. When he didn’t respond, the weight of the silence descended on me, and I nervously continued. “Obviously, you’re doing … penance for something and anyone can see you’re haunted by it.”

“Ah doona care tae discoos it.”

But I wasn’t listening to him. Instead, I was still too absorbed in solving the riddle of what had turned him into the broken person he now was. “I’m sure something happened in your past which is why you flog yourself?” Even as I uttered the words, my brashness in asking surprised me.

As I imagined he would, Tallis shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest while regarding me with a glower. “Nae, that has naethin’ ta dae wif mah pest.”

“Then why do you lash yourself?” I continued, my tone of voice curiously conversational. With nothing to lose, I figured I might as well push as far as he would let me.

“That is mah business.”

I took a deep breath, wondering how Tallis would take the self-help advice of Steve Maraboli that I was about to offer him. “Unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” Once the words left my mouth, neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Something twitched in Tallis’s jaw, a jaw which seemed incredibly tight. I was suddenly worried I might have said too much, and gone too far. “I was just trying to help.”

“Keep yer help tae yerself,” he answered tersely.

I shook my head, feeling annoyed. “When you asked me about my life, I willingly told you
.”

“A
ye boot thess isnae aboot tit fur tat. Ye made th’ choice tae teel meh aboot yerself jist as Ah make th’ choice nae tae teel ye.”

“Fine, I’ll remember that.” Hunching over, I paid full attention to the fire, suddenly realizing I’d held the meat on the same side for too long, and now both pieces were charred. I rotated them while exhaling a deep breath, averting my eyes from my unfriendly companion. But my anger ended up getting the best of me, and I glared at him. “Don’t for one second think that I’m some stupid idiot.” Tallis’s eyebrows reached for the sky as if thinking I was an idiot was the last thought that would occur to him. I further narrowed my eyes. “I’m onto you. I know there’s a reason why you decided to escort Bill and me on this mission to hell, and it wasn’t out of empathy.”

His eyes were just as hard as mine. “Empaffy?” he scoffed, his lips curling up into a mockery of a smile. Seconds later, the smile vanished and his lips became painfully straight. “Nae, empaffy plays nae role en mah plans.”

“Then what does?”

“Ye dae recall Ah named mah price tae escort ye?”

I nodded, but that didn’t mean I bought his explanation. “Yes, I remember. But there’s more to it than the money for you; and if you think I’m going to buy that lousy explanation, you don’t give me enough credit.”

“Och aye! Ah gie ye plenty ay credit. It’s yer bludy intelligence that makes ye dangeroos.”

I continued to study him, taking his words as a compliment even though I knew they weren’t intended to be. I felt my jaw tighten as I further considered him. “Why do you want credit for the soul we’re going to retrieve?” He was completely silent, but I didn’t miss the rigidity of his posture. His chest rose and fell quickly, with his increased respiration. The question made him uncomfortable at the very least, although “nervous” was probably more fitting. “Do you want to know what I think?” I continued, seeing that he wasn’t going for my bait.

“E’en if Ah didnae, ye woods teel me anyway, Besom.” I ignored the jibe, raising one brow to let him know I wasn’t impressed. He just shook his head like I was infuriating. Well, if that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black! Tallis Black was the most infuriating man I’d ever had the misfortune of encountering!

“I think you’re really a Retriever, just like me; but for some reason, you won’t admit it.” He just stood there with his arms crossed and his expression just as safeguarded, as I continued. “What? Are you too ashamed to admit that
AfterLife Enterprises is your employer?”

He finally shook his head and his acidic laugh cut through the air. “Ah am nae Retriever an’ Ah am nae employed by anyain save mahself.”

I glared up at him. “Then why are you here with me now? And why do you insist on taking credit for this mission? What do you need the credit for if you aren’t a Retriever?”

Scowling at me for another few seconds, his eyes became so consumed by ire, they almost appeared closed. He finally exhaled a long breath, staring at the ground in front of my feet. Releasing a disgruntled “harrumph,” he sat down, resting against the stump he’d occupied earlier. “Ye are stubboorn as ah bludy mule!”

“Hee-haw!” I brayed at him with a smile, recognizing that he’d just caved.

He shook his head, but couldn’t keep the amused smile off his lips. “Afore Scootlund was as ye an’ Ah noow ken it, ’twas called Alba, a
h land ah noomeroos tribes,” he started in a faraway voice that sounded both deeply resonant and soft. “Ah was ah th’ Votadini clan oan th’ Lothians coastline.”

“What are the Lothians?”

“Ah region, lass. It lies atween th’ Firth ah Forth an’ th’ Lammermuir Hills. Ye live in th’ Lothians as ye reside in Auld Reekie.”

“Auld Reekie?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Edinburgh,” he finished with a slight chuckle, as if entertained that I wasn’t in the know. But just as quickly as his laugh appeared, he extinguished it and the familiar, brooding glower which characterized him returned. “In th’ Votadini, Ah was ah th’ chief’s kin, th’ elite. Given mah physique an’ mah size, ’twas natural that Ah shoods be leader ah th’ chieftain’s warband.”

“Yes, that only makes sense.”

He glanced at me as though he’d forgotten I was even there. He seemed so captured by his own thoughts that he’d been taken somewhere far away, somewhere that only lived in the deep cavity of his memories. Judging by the expression on his face, the land of his memories was a dark and foreboding destination.