Murder Between the Worlds: A Between the Worlds Novel (10 page)

As the group watched two cloaked figures appeared on the sidewalk video and entered the store. At the counter Allie straightened but when the two strangers entered the shot all that could be seen was their backs. In the heavy cloaks, with the hoods up, it was impossible to tell if they were male or female never mind what species they were or any distinguishing features. Riordan swore, “Do they ever turn towards the camera?”

“Not really,” Walters said, tensely. “At the very end as they’re leaving you get a glimpse, but not much.”

Riordan swore again. The elves watched intently. The two walked forward, one moving towards the counter, one staying by the bookshelves. Allie came out from behind the counter and walked out of the shot to the left followed by one of the cloaked figures. Moments later she returned and the remaining figure blocked her way. They appeared to be talking as she tried to edge around to get behind the counter. The figure had turned towards the camera enough to tell that it was male, but the hood and camera angle completely blocked the face. He reached out towards her face; she moved away and then suddenly he swung. Even on the tiny screen the level of violence was clear as he threw her against the wall at the very edge of the camera’s field. Between the limits of the camera’s range and the obscuring effect of the cloak it was hard to tell exactly what happened then, until he pulled his arm back and punched her again. She fell to the floor, disappearing behind the bulk of the counter and he followed; the only thing visible was lower legs and feet thrashing. Suddenly the other figure ran across the screen leaning over the tangle of bodies. Seconds ticked by before the cloaked figure ran back across the screen towards the door; as Walters had said it was almost impossible to see any clear details. Moments later the other figure stood up more slowly and then jogged after his companion. Both disappeared out the door and across the sidewalk camera at a fast walk.

Riordan swore for a third time as Walters stopped the video feed. Syndra stood facing the wall, arms crossed, refusing to watch again. All the elves radiated anger.

“Detective Riordan,” Zarethyn said his voice flat, “Brynneth is a healer and medic. Let him try to convince the girl to accept our help.”

“Yeah,” Riordan said “Do whatever you can.”

     ******************************

Brynneth and Jessilaen came back into the room and found Allie sitting up again, hunched forward. Brynneth approached her slowly, Jess trailing behind, but it was Jess who spoke, “Allie, we have watched the video.”

“What video?” she said, her voice a croak.

“The security video from your store,” he said gently.

Her good eye opened slowly and she focused on the two elves. “From my store?”

“Yes.”

She closed her eye and her head fell forward again “I’m sure it’s–misleading.”

“Allie.”

“I was not raped,” her voice trembled when she said it.

“Alright,” he agreed. “Let Brynneth heal you.”

“I don’t…” she started and then stopped. “Listen, it wasn’t like that.”

“Aliaine,” Brynneth began.

“He kept asking about the book. He offered me money and when I said I didn’t know what book he wanted he said–he propositioned me–said maybe I wanted other compensation. Tried to use glamour. I said no and he was pissed. He said no one refuses him…”

“Allie,” Jess said, reaching out to take her hand, but she kept talking.

“So I told him to go find a willing girl somewhere else. And then he hit me and then we started fighting and then,” -now that she’d started talking about it she couldn’t make herself stop– “and then I was on the ground and he had me pinned down and he had his arm up at my throat and I couldn’t breathe. And it’s a little blurry after that but I wasn’t–it definitely didn’t get that far. The other one came over and pulled him off and said it was too dangerous in a public place and…”

She cut herself off suddenly. Both elves looked at her and then each other. “And?” Jess prompted gently.

Allie shook her head. “Nothing,” she mumbled.

“Allie, please,” he tried to get her to look him in the eyes but she avoided his gaze. “Please you must be honest with us. The Dark Court is infinitely dangerous. If they are seeking a foothold here we must know why and what it is they are seeking. Anything they said to you may be important.”

She hesitated for a long time, and then finally said, “He said that they would come back to find the book–and the other one said he would–finish with me later.”

Jessilaen’s eyes narrowed dangerously but his voice stayed calm. “I will not allow anyone to harm you.”

“Why do you care? You barely know me,” she mumbled feeling miserable.

He shook his head not sure how to explain. “Have you never known as soon as you met someone that person was special?”

“That only happens in books and sentimental movies,” she replied.

“No, that happens all the time. I do not understand why humans do not choose to trust their own hearts.”

“Probably because human hearts are fickle.”

“Elven hearts are not,” he said simply, making her wonder which kind of heart she had.

“Elves are constantly hooking up with random people and then moving on to the next,” she replied without thinking and then bit her lip.

“Life is full of physical joys to be experienced, but that is not the same thing as joys of the heart,” he told her softly. She looked away, afraid that she knew exactly what he meant and wishing that she didn’t.

“Aliaine,” Brynneth said into the silence that followed. “Please let me heal you.”

She was exhausted and thinking about Jess’s words made her head hurt even more. It was a bad idea to be in debt to anyone of Fairy, and she had no way to pay for any healing work. But everything hurt, and she knew the physical healing would also help with her mental healing. She looked at Brynneth and nodded as much as her painful head would allow, capitulating suddenly and totally. His relief was obvious. “I will need to place my hands on your chest, above the collarbone. You may fall asleep during the healing so you should lie back, if you can. This won’t be a major spell, just channeled energy. Have you been healed before?”

“Yes, I know how it works, and that it won’t make everything disappear; it just speeds up the process, I should get more sleep the next few days, drink lots of water, that sort of thing.”

Brynneth couldn’t stop himself from smiling at her slightly exasperated tone.

She shifted back against the hospital pillows until she was semi-reclining and tried to relax. He lowered the wooden side rail on the bed and sat down next to her, leaning over slightly to place his hands in the correct positions to channel the healing energy. He closed his eyes to focus on the healing and as the energy poured into her she did indeed fall asleep.

Jessilaen stood tensely on the other side of the bed watching as the minutes ticked by and the bruising and swelling across her face slowly faded from painfully new to something that looked days old. He felt helpless in the face of her stubborn self-sufficiency and worse knew that his heart was already lost to her, even though he had begun to fear that she did not feel the same way or even understand what it meant to feel it. Elves had few unmixed emotions; what they felt they felt strongly and unwaveringly, which was why emotional attachment was discouraged. Intense emotions could be dangerous when you lived nearly forever with the same group of people. Love could turn to hate, anger and jealousy could motivate violence, and loss could cause despair that would spiral a person down into suicidal depression. Physical relationships rarely involved deep emotional attachment and it was uncommon for anything more than friendship to form between individuals outside of family units. His companions, and especially Brynneth who was Jess’s true friend, were baffled by his decision to court Aliaine, to intentionally seek the emotions his kind normally avoided, and he did not know how to explain to them that he could not change how he felt about her. He felt as if he was being carried along at the mercy of emotions he could not control.

After longer than he had expected, Brynneth slowly opened his eyes and lifted his hands; Allie slept deeply. Jess was sure she would not wake but he spoke softly anyway, “How is she Bryn?”

“She will mend, but it was a near thing. A bit more pressure on her throat would have crushed her windpipe, even if the lack of oxygen didn’t kill her,” Brynneth shook his head slightly. “I do not understand the Dark Court and their love of such wanton violence.”

Jess struggled not to betray his own rage, knowing that such extreme anger for her sake was exactly why emotions were best avoided. He thought though that he understood the Dark Court perfectly well since right then he very much wanted to do terrible things to the one who had hurt Allie. “You need to tell Zarethyn the details she told us and he will want to hear what you found. I will stay with her.”

Brynneth looked at him sharply, “Jess I know you care for this girl but don’t set your heart on the impossible.”

Jessilaen frowned at his friend as Brynneth continued, more gently, “She does not seem to return your affection.”

Jess shook his head, knowing that the others all felt Allie’s choice to call her friend, and not him, after she was attacked was irrefutable proof of her rejection. “She accepted my court and has not denied me.”

Bryn looked skeptical but before he could argue the point Zarethyn eased into the room, quickly taking in Allie’s sleeping form and improved appearance. “We have little time before the human police will join us.”

Brynneth nodded and gave his report without further prompting, “I have healed as much as I can without using any major spells; she will be more comfortable and in no danger. As the human doctor said her nose was broken and she was concussed. She also had a great deal of bruising on her throat from an injury that was nearly fatal. She was not raped but it was a near thing–a few moments more perhaps. When we returned to the room and told her we had seen the video from the store, she elaborated on the attack; the Dark Court seeks a book, as she had said, but they told her they plan to return to continue looking for it.”

“And to finish what they started with her,” Jessilaen added. Their Captain looked at him and then back at Brynneth, who nodded.

“Yes,” Brynneth agreed, “she seems to be in great danger whether or not the book they seek is found.”

“This girl seems to be the key to many things,” Zarethyn said thoughtfully.

“Captain, “Jessilaen began, but the other elf held up one hand stopping him.

“In this situation it would seem our best strategy to achieve several goals is to protect the girl. We need to know what she knows about the murders, and we need to capture, if we can, these agents of the Dark Court and discover their ultimate purpose here.”

Consciousness returned slowly and at first she wasn’t sure where she was or what was going on. After a moment she realized she was in her own bed, with its familiar feel and scent, although that seemed wrong somehow. She was fully dressed and she wasn’t alone. Someone lay behind her, a warm presence at her back, an arm resting across her waist. The presence felt protective and there was something comforting about whoever it was being there. She started to move and the movement made her face ache dully, triggering memories of the day before. She swallowed hard, trembling, and the person behind her shifted; the hand that had been at her waist lifted as the person sat up.

“Shhhhh,” Jessilaen whispered, “Everything is all right. You are safe.”

Her heart leaped at the sound of his voice even as she wondered what he was doing in her bed with her. She struggled to sit up, feeling oddly disoriented, but realized that she could see out of her left eye again. Reaching up she tentatively felt her face and nose; still tender and slightly puffy but much better than yesterday. “What’s going on? How did we get here?”

“You fell asleep during the healing and after the clinic discharged you we brought you back to your home.”

“You brought me back here? I don’t remember that.” Allie felt disproportionately annoyed that she didn’t remember. There was something very unnerving about going to sleep in one bed and waking up in another–with someone.

“You were sleeping,” he said, resting his chin on her shoulder. And then added, “I carried you. Your friend, Officer Lyons, showed us your room, and Brynneth felt that someone should stay with you, lest you wake and have any dizziness or try to move too quickly and injure yourself.”

She wasn’t sure how to feel about any of that, or about his physical closeness. Too much had happened in too short a time and she didn’t know how to feel about any of it. Instead she blurted out, “I need to go to the bathroom,” and struggled to stand.

He moved quickly, trying to help her even as she stubbornly pushed him away. She stumbled, started to fall and found herself in his arms. A flood of tangled emotions welled up and she pushed him away again, walking unsteadily towards the door. He followed behind, ready to catch her if she fell again. Her jeans had started to slide off her hips and she stopped to pull them back up. She tried to refasten them only realize that they wouldn’t stay fastened because they were ripped. That brought up memories of the events of the day before.
This was a brand new pair of jeans
, she thought and then found herself blinking back tears. Irrationally she started pulling off her clothes from yesterday, suddenly appalled by the dried blood.

“Allie?” Jess’s voice was hesitant.

She started crying. “Everything’s bloody,” she sobbed. “My new jeans, my sweatshirt, my hair.”

She flung her sweatshirt across the room and tried to kick off her jeans but tripped and fell. He caught her, pulling her in against his body and holding her as she cried. She could feel his concern, warm and comforting, and it was frightening how much she liked it. She turned in his arms, pulling back to look him in the eyes, “I hate feeling this way.”

He stroked her hair, making soothing noises and she cried harder. “You were badly hurt. It’s perfectly understandable to be upset about it.”

Her body was shaking. She felt angry and helpless and she had no idea why he was being so good to her when she was a sobbing, nearly hysterical mess. She had been nothing to him but trouble.

“Why are you so kind to me? Why don’t you just leave me alone?” The words came out angrier than she intended.

He stiffened; hurt by what seemed to be blatant rejection, he struggled to stay calm. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I want to understand what you want from me,” she said taking a deep breath and trying to get her own emotions under control, becoming aware that some of what she was feeling was coming from him. She tried to strengthen her shields.

“I don’t want anything from you,” he said sadly, “I only want to be with you. I asked you if you would let me court you, but you keep pushing me away. If you have changed your mind…”

“Changed my mind about what?” she asked, wiping away tears. It was easier not to think about being hurt when she had something else to focus on.

“About being courted.”

“We haven’t had any time for that with everything else going on”

Now he was genuinely confused, “I don’t understand.”

“Don’t understand what?”

He hesitated. He was starting to realize that her apparent rejection of him might not be what it seemed, but he wasn’t sure how to clarify. Finally he said, “What do you think courting means?”

“Well, it’s like dating isn’t it?” she spoke slowly

He shook his head feeling foolish, “I do not know what dating is.”

They both fell silent for a moment. Allie turned to face him and spoke, “Jessilaen–Jess–I need you to understand something. It’s not something I talk about very much or tell most people.”

He tilted his head to the side, to indicate that she had his full attention, and she continued, choosing her words carefully. “My mother is Elven–and she is Dark Court.” She stopped and waited for his reaction but he gave none so she kept going “I was born in a Borderland but grew up with her in Fairy until–until I was…”

Crap,
she thought,
what was the Elven equivalent of pre-pubescent?
“Just before my first Rite of Challenge. And then her clan and another clan went to war. My mother’s clan won, but she was nearly killed. It made her realize that if anything happened to her–it would be bad for me. Because I had no one else there who would defend me but her, and I was–weak in their eyes. They have a word for it, cross-born, for a child who is in the Dark but isn’t of the Dark. They say you were
born to the Light
and believe me, it’s not considered a good thing. Everyone knew I was. She had kept in touch with my father and she took me to him and said I had to live with him…”

At that he interrupted, sounding shocked “Your mother handed you over to someone you didn’t know?”

“He was my father. And I was safe with him. He did love me and he was very good to me, but–a few years later he died, in a car accident. And I came here to live with my grandmother.”

Jess looked thoughtful, “That must have been a very difficult time for you.”

“It was, but that’s not the reason I’m telling you about it. I speak the language and I know the culture, but it’s from a child’s viewpoint. I know the manners and the nuances of many things, but other things, adult things–those I don’t know well, or at all.” She made a face and shrugged.

He nodded, “I think I understand.”

He took both her hands gently and said “When two people are attracted to each other it is understood they will express it physically. Elven culture sees the joys of the flesh as a celebration. But when two people are emotionally attracted to each other, which is much less common, they may choose to court each other to see if the emotion has real depth to it. When two people agree to court they are agreeing to explore the depths of whatever emotion may be there. They hold nothing back from each other. If there is real emotion there, it can create a very strong bond, something most elves strive to avoid.”

She felt her mind reeling, “I see. Sort of. That’s–not what I thought it was.”

He felt a raw surge of emotion that almost overwhelmed his self-control. After a moment to compose himself he said as carefully as he could, “I understand. I will not hold you to an agreement that you made in ignorance.”

“No, wait,” she felt him pulling back and her own hands tightened, holding his. “I don’t want to not–sorry that’s horrible grammar, damn Elvish!–I do want to continue, to keep courting or being courted or however it works on my end. You are the only good thing that’s happened to me this week, even if I don’t understand why I’m feeling what I’m feeling. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel bad and honestly, even knowing now more of what it is I’ll do my best but I don’t trust people easily. I don’t rely on others. And I don’t know how to flip a switch and be a different person.”

He pulled her close, resting his forehead against hers and trying to still the hurricane he was feeling. This was the true danger of the strength of Elven emotions, and he dared not lose control of them now. He breathed deeply. “I do not want you to be a different person. I only want you to be yourself.”

Of her own accord she let his hands go and wrapped her arms around him, leaning her head against his chest. He felt his heart leap and carefully moved his arms around her shoulders. “Well,” she said softly into his shirt “you are going to have to tell me when I’m being stupid. And that’s probably going to be often. And if I hurt your feelings or assume anything or basically act like an idiot.”

He smiled over her head, “I can do that. In turn you will have to tell me what you are feeling and when I am pushing you too far. You are right that I forget you do not know Elven ways and I am likely to continue assuming that you know more than you do.”

She pulled back laughing slightly “I guess we both need a lot of work then, and I hate to ruin this moment, but I really need to pee.”

He smiled in turn “You should probably get dressed first.”

He gave her an appraising look, gently touching the partially healed bruise on her right arm where the Dark Elf had grabbed her when he’d thrown her into the wall.

“Although even bruised you are beautiful.”

She blushed and looked away, not sure what to say, even though she knew she should complement him in return. Instead of responding she grabbed a pair of sweatpants and t-shirt from a pile of clean clothes waiting to be put away and struggled to dress. As she was walking slowly towards the hallway she stopped, causing him to nearly walk into her “Jess?”

“What is it? Are you dizzy?” he asked, genuinely worried.

“No. Well, not really. I just–does it bother you? About my mother?” she asked shyly.

“No,” he answered seriously. “You are not your mother, and I have no doubt that you are a good person. “

She turned slightly, looking at him over her shoulder “Thank you. That–means a lot to me”

At the bathroom door she turned and said, “Okay, this I do by myself.”

He started to argue “Brynneth said…”

“I don’t care,” she put her foot down. “I don’t care if we just had a deep emotional moment. I don’t care if he made you promise not to let me out of your sight. I go to the bathroom alone. If I need anything I’ll yell, I promise. And if you hear any suspicious thumps, you have my permission to break the door down.”

He agreed, reluctantly, but clearly intended to stand right outside the door as she went in.
Great,
she thought,
because using the toilet with someone listening in the hall isn’t creepy at all.

She took care of her hygiene needs as quickly and quietly as she could, making a face as the toilet flushed loudly. She brushed her teeth and her hair, trying not to look at her bruised face in the mirror; it was a painful reminder that although she felt much better she still looked like she’d gotten her butt kicked. Which she had, of course. As she was finishing with her hair she heard noises out in the hall and felt a rush of annoyance.
For an elf he’s not very patient if he can’t give me 5 minutes in here
, she thought.

Nonetheless she hurried up, washing the last of the dried blood out from under her fingernails before going out into the hallway. When she opened the door she was surprised to find Syndra standing there looking uncomfortable.

“Bathroom’s all yours,” she said reflexively. Syndra shifted slightly, her eyes cutting over to where Jess still hovered next to the door.

“Can we talk?”

“Sure,” Allie replied, tensing. She wasn’t in the mood for another lecture.

“Alone?” Syndra still hadn’t looked directly at her. Allie hesitated, glancing at Jess who was frowning. She bit her lip before deciding.

“Jess?” she said and when she was sure she had his attention, “I’m starving, could you–please–get me something to eat?”

He paused, obviously torn between refusing to leave her and being flattered that she’d asked him to get her food, something that would not-so-subtly declare to anyone familiar with Elven society that they were a couple. More than a bit premature, since they had slept together in only the most literal sense, but she doubted Jess would care in this case. As soon as she thought about the full implications of that and what it would naturally lead others to assume she realized that Bleidd would probably not take it well. She wanted to kick herself, but it was too late to take it back now. Instead she added, “Syn can help me back to my room and I’ll wait there for you.”

Syndra gave her a strange look, but that last statement seemed to make his mind up for him and he nodded slightly and headed down the hall without a word. As soon as she was sure he was heading down the stairs she started back to her room; after a moment Syn followed. Allie sat back on her bed and Syn stood awkwardly by the door.

“What’s up?” Allie asked, her voice sounding oddly flat even to her own ears.

“I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Syndra said, sounding subdued.