Rose: Briar's Thorn (4 page)

She looked at it intently and touched the thorns with her other hand and looked at the scratches in her armor.  “They are hard as steel.”  She smiled.  She wasn't repulsed, she seemed pleased.

The she let go and cocked her head.  “More are coming, just over the ridge.  We have six, maybe seven minutes.”  She gave a crooked grin. “Tell me about Rose.  You have heard my story, I want to know yours.”

I found myself moving from her slowly, suspended in the air by my black vines.  I was thinking I should run.  Instead, I retracted my vines and sat back down next to her.  I hissed and started to pull back when I felt her grasp my hand.  Again, she did not fall.  I relaxed and nodded and then told her the tale of a girl I remember.  A happy girl with a family and a fiance. Of a carefree life before the curse was thrust upon me.

She just listened, this Nicole of Arad.  And we stood in battle again.  Over and over through the years.  She became more to me than I could ever say.  I remembered the feelings she induced in me finally, love.  I was in love with this woman who stayed with me, apart from human contact.

She called me her Rose, and would always touch me with her armored hands, to let me know I was not alone, or outside human contact.  She whispered dreams to me, of how we would find a way to reverse my curse, for she wanted so badly to kiss me.  Nicole, my second love.  She taught me how to be human again.

Together we learned I could pull my toxins inside me so that at least my thorns and brambles were not deadly to the touch. I could put animals to sleep instead of killing them if they touched my briar patch.  By testing with ants and other insects, we also learned that my mother's black cloak was not poisonous, just my skin and brambles.

I was starting to notice that the woman of my heart was aging while I still was not.  It hit me hard on her thirtieth birthday.  For ten years, we had been together.  She has matured from a young lady with a hard beauty to a stunningly elegant woman.  It was then I realized I was going to outlive another love.  It wouldn't be my venom that killed. Instead it would be the passage of time which I stood outside of.

Then it happened.  The day that confirmed to me that no matter what Nicole had shown me, I was still the monster I had become.  She had been called to London, there were inordinately huge packs of ferals at the gates the past few full moons.  It was like they were coordinating  I could feel an Alpha there.  All available Wolf Hinters were needed to cull the numbers or the city would fall.

Nicole paid the captain of a small craft in gold to transport only her and cargo.  He and his three ship hands were not allowed to see her cargo.  I was happily snacking on my favorite cheese in a crate in the hold for the ride over.

For two moons we battled, there were literally thousands of ferals.  They seemed too intent on entering the city.  They were being driven by something more than instinct.  Was it the compulsion control that the Alpha wolves were rumored to possess?

I saw it happening and there was nothing I could do about it.  A huge wolf which had been standing on a rooftop watching the battle at the gates took note of my Nicole.  She was the most formidable of the Wolf Hunters on the field of battle.  I had been striking from the shadows with my vines so that the humans did not see me.

The big wolf leaped down and howled, and dozens of wolves followed him in a wave toward my girl standing on the great London Bridge.  I hissed and erupted from the shadows and left a trail of dead wolves in my wake as I rushed to intercept.

I was too late.  The wave of wolves sent her tumbling over the edge toward the river.  The fall wasn't bad, but her armor would weigh her down and she would drown.  I hissed out an inhuman, serpentine screech, as my vines and brambles exploded from me.  They rushed forward as they sawed out of me.  I pulled as much toxin into myself as I could as my vines caught her just before she hit the water below.

Holding my venom in was excruciating, as I lifted her.  The wolves were attacking me as the Alpha just stared at me with human eyes which were squinted in hate, the eyes of Alister Marcus!  The wolves were not falling to me.  The residual poisons on my thorns were not slowing them, but they could not get through my writing and whirling wall of black.

I saw Nicole's limp form as I lifted her, scratches from my thorns all over her beautiful face.  My head snapped around toward Alister, and more vines exploded from me toward him.  He howled and hundreds of wolves got in the way as he bounded off.

I cocooned my love and skittered off on long legs of vines and branches, and found a rooftop of a huge stone cathedral to lay my girl down.  There were so many scratches and punctures. There were too many, she wouldn't just sleep, I had killed her for sure.  I was bawling, hissing, and screeching my pain to the heavens.

I could hear her ragged breathing stutter, and her heart.  There had to be something I could do.  I reached inside me to touch that cold writhing mass of dark magics.  The magics I was always tempted to use and shape for my own purposes and I did the most evil thing I have done in my life.  I sent the black magics into my Nicole to fight the poison.

After she convulsed for a minute, she lay still.  Her breathing steadied and her heartbeat was strong, yet she slumbered.  I looked around and saw the huge cemetery connected to the cathedral grounds.  There were a couple wolves down there, but I saw a large stone crypt where we could take refuge.  It had huge iron doors.

I spidered us down on long viney legs and tore the doors open as the wolves charged.  I got us inside and tied the doors shut with my vines, snapping them off of my mass, and laid her on a stone table in the center of the crypt.  Then I collapsed against a wall, pulling the branches back inside of me as I allowed my poison to flow again.

The intense sick feeling abated as I stared at my love, so pale, but breathing on the stone dais, and I sobbed.  I sat with her there for two years, I needed no sustenance, I only ate for the pleasure of taste.  But she never woke, nor did she waste away.  I finally let the last of my sanity slip away as I realized what I had done to her.  With my poison and my magic, I had cursed her to an endless sleep that would last an eternity.

I had screamed an inhuman scream as my vines burst forth to smash the iron doors open.  I stepped out into the sunlight and hissed at a man laying flowers on a nearby grave, he fled in abject terror and I raised my arms and thrust them forward at the crypt.

They shot into the ground, burrowing.  I encased the entire tomb in a black, venomous briar patch so dense, it would be impenetrable for all of time.  I snapped off the mass with a piece of my heart with which to regenerate the patch, should the prying eyes of man try to get to my sleeping love.  The humans gave it a name, The Black Crypt.  In the intervening centuries, none could breach the briar patch protecting it, even with modern tools.  Many have died in the attempt.

It was over a hundred years after I had cursed my love, that my mind had cleared enough for me to think.  I had secluded myself on a mountaintop after paddling over to Ireland using my vines.

I traveled back to England and checked on my Nicole.  She hadn't moved, nor changed one bit since I had left, her chest heaving gently with each breath.  She looked a fragile porcelain doll.

I cursed at myself and went back to hunting evil wherever I could find it.

I learned of the other Avatars, as I could feel them, most were evil constructs like me, but they were turning it against evil, not embracing it.  I savored the feel of every battle as they snuffed out sources of black light which was plaguing humankind.  I tried to find them, that they might end my existence, but I could never quite meet up with one.  I found out later just why that was... but that is another story.

I blinked back the memories, composed myself, and looked at the women who were touching me as the sun rose over the Cascades, filling the world with warm light.  I glanced back as the flood of werewolves behind me transformed back to human, with that acrid smell of the transformation.

I pulled my vines back inside me, took a deep breath and stood as the cursed started wandering off, collapsed in tears or looked around in confusion.  I stood and looked around at the men and women inside the gates, all armed.  The enforcers, the Police of Seattle, and I stepped back a step.  A few hesitantly partially raised their weapons toward me but that woman who seemed to be in charge made a lowering hand motion and they obeyed.

The woman looked at Pike laying unconscious at her feet then at me.  “You are going to have to come with us.”

I tilted my head almost upside down as I processed the silly statement then gently hissed out, “No, I will not.  Pike and the others I lulled to sleep all fired upon me unprovoked.  In the old land as well as your new world, self-defense is sanctioned is it not?”  I tried hard to not elongate my s-es like Nicole had taught me long ago.  She said it made me sound less serpent-like and more human.

A strong female's voice rang out behind the gathered officers.  “She is correct.”  I glanced over as most of them looked back to a well-dressed woman stepping out of a fancy looking, black automobile.  “If you have anything else to say to my client or question her about, you can call my office.”

Her client?  A shyster?  I had no council.  Then I saw the proud and loving look that Ella Deathbringer shot the woman.  Family?

I stood tall and remembered to straighten out my neck so I looked more natural.  I said, “Ah yes... she is my...”  What was the common term in this time?  “My shingle.”  No that was too seventeen hundreds.  “My... lawyer.”  I looked at the other Avatars for confirmation.  The Red Hood gave me a single discreet nod and I smiled.  See I'm not as disconnected from society as you thought.  I observe.

The woman in charge just shook her head in mock dismay. “Helena Calliwell.  Just how can this woman be your client when she just arrived at the gates after breaking out of a secure government facility?”

The other woman got a shrewd look on her face as she stepped up to the four women who had shared touches with me.  “Well, ever since she just declared it approximately thirty seconds ago.  And if she broke out of a secure facility, is there a warrant out for her arrest, or was it a black site and she was being held illegally?”

She held her hand out to the officer and prompted, “Warrant?”  Then she smirked. “Didn't think so.”  Then she looked through the bars of the city gates with a smile.  “Miss...”

She stopped talking and it took me a few seconds to realizing she was asking my name.  I knew this one!  I said, “Rose of Deva.”

She smiled softly at me, putting me at ease.  “Rose, as your attorney I advise you not to say another word to these nice officers without my okay.”  I nodded, I liked the sassiness of this one.  Then she turned to look at Pike.  “On the city monitors, I saw the officers at the gates open fire on her without provocation and saw this man try to execute her.  We will not be pressing charges against the officers at the gates. We know the stress and confusion of battle makes their jobs hard enough, but we will be asking that this man be charged with attempted murder.”

The other woman shook her head. “I'd love to, but it will never stick.  Guys like him and the black agencies are like Teflon, as much as we would like to.”

The  Calliwell woman just grinned and said, “I'm aware of that, but it will make things... difficult... for him and those agencies for a while they brush it under the rug.”

The other woman grinned.  “You know Calliwell, I can't decide if I hate you or love you.”

The shyster snorted and winked. “Go with the love, less headache.”

The other rolled her eyes. “More like a pain in my ass.”  Then she ordered one of the paramedics that had arrived to take Pike and sent an officer to watch him until he regained consciousness and they could arrest him.

She made a rolling motion with her arm and the huge motors on the gates started groaning as they started rolling to either side on their giant tracks.  But she pointed at me as she spoke to Calliwell.  “That...”  She paused, searching for a word.  “Person.  Is not allowed in my city.  Her touch is poison and I'm not endangering my civilians.  Keep her nearby in Seattle Outer until we figure this whole clusterfuck out.”

The Red Hood stepped up and said as she showed something from her pocket.  “Okay.  As an appointed CSCLD Wolf Hunter, I need to commandeer that Humvee there as provided by subsection three of the Lupine Defense Directive.”

The officer's temper started to flare, but Red stopped her outburst. “We need to be able to transport her if you want her away from your gates.”

The woman finally nodded once and then she looked around at the other women with a sheepish grin.  “Umm... can any of you drive without shorting out the electronics?”  They all chuckled as Gretta and the other Avatar I did not know, raise their hands.  Ella Deathbringer just waffled her hand in a so-so motion.

Ella said to the shyster in a less harsh accent, “We will call as soon as we are settled in somewhere.  I'm sure that we will be in need of your services soon.”  The two exchanged smiles as a mother and daughter would.  I squinted, Avatars could not have children, so I had to be mistaken.

Red nodded. “Okay, Parker and Gretta up front, the rest of us as far back in the vehicle as possible.”

This Parker girl stepped up to the large vehicle and got in.  It roared to life and it lurched forward before stopping.  I heard her squeak out as she restarted the vehicle, “Sorry.  I've got this.”  The others chuckled as she drove it out the gates.  I watched volunteers arriving at the gates from both sides to assist in cleaning up the mayhem and help out survivors.  I was moving back away, not wanting anyone close.

Then I skittered into the back of the large vehicle when Parker stopped next to me.  The other women piled in and I was twitchy as they crawled over me, touching me.  I think they were doing it on purpose.  I smiled as they each did, and they didn't fall dead.

The Red Hood was last she just stood there with the door open for a minute, mumbling, “Where is she?”  Then one of the biggest female wolves I had ever seen, landed lightly by her side after leaping off of something, possibly the city wall.  It took a moment for it to register with me that it was a werewolf, and of the impossibility of it being in the sunlight.  I was about to attack when Red leaned down and hugged the beast and said, “It's about time slowpoke.  Now get in love, I have someone to introduce to you.”