Rose: Briar's Thorn (6 page)

A minute later she came back out and stepped up to our vehicle.  Parker rolled down the window and Rachel leaned her head in to look at everyone as she handed Parker a key.  “We paid for every room for a week, decimated my savings.  We have the place to ourselves.”

Red joked with her, “Oh you poor baby.  Just get with my service, they will reimburse you from my accounts.  This is for Wolf Hunting business after all.  Get enough funds for the entire month, I'm not sure how welcome we will be in the city.”

Then Rachel actually scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue out at the Red Hood, who growled in a wolf voice.  I grinned at their playfulness, it was good to know that other cursed like me could still have fun.

Then Mari said, “Okay.  Rose and everyone safe from her toxins in one room, all the fragiles in another room until Gretta can figure out how to protect them.”

Ella grinned a toothy grin at Rachel, “That's you, love.  One of the bitsy fragile lot.  Go along now, we'll protect your bloody arse.”

Rachel growled and flipped a chuckling Ella off with a grin, and we waited for the other vehicle to unload and enter a room before we unloaded.  I smiled down at the wolf who pressed herself against my leg as we went into the next room.  I think she instinctively knew I was savoring every touch I could share with these amazing sisters of mine.

We settled in.  Parker sat on a chair by a little table by the door with Ella looming behind her, hands draped on her shoulders possessively.  Parker said before Red could, “I know we have a lot to discuss and we all have a thousand questions for Rose.  But first things first.  We all need fuel and sleep or we are going to be worthless.”

This timid woman who could make her hand glass seemed to have the respect of the Avatars in the room, as they all looked at her and she gave a weak show of determination.  Then Ella spoke in a resigned French accent, “My Parker eez right.  Oui?”

Mari regarded the room then smiled and nodded. “You heard the woman.”  She looked at Parker. “Would you order up the food, please?”  She handed a black card to her, I knew that is what they used instead of coin or money now.

Parker looked at me. “Do you like Chinese?”

I looked blankly at her.  Did I like Chinese?  Did I like food?  I didn't eat much, I didn't need to.  I ate what I killed sometimes.  I would cook up the animals over a fire.  The ones who were foolhardy enough to touch me or my brambles as I slept.  It made me remember food, when I was human.  I liked breads and meats and cheeses.  I ate wild fruits in the forests I hid in.  What did they eat in China, was it vegetables?  This was a hard question.  I shrugged and whispered, “I don't know, I have never had any.  Is it vegetables?  I think I miss vegetables.”

She smiled and said, “We can certainly accommodate that.”  I slid myself into a corner and sat away from the others while she ordered on the phone.  Daria followed me and flopped onto the floor and laid her head across my legs.  I almost skittered back, but I was already in the corner and I remembered she wasn't affected by me.

I smiled and dug my fingers into her soft fur and smiled.  Mari came to sit beside me and smiled at me and bumped my shoulder as she ruffled Daria's ears.  I couldn't help it, she had cajoled a smile from me.  I loved the foreign feel of a smile on my lips.

There was a light knock on the door and Gretta virtually glided in without a sound.  The white-hot power of her presence warmed my soul.  Ella said to her, “Parker ordered up some grub.  She's insisting we eat and sleep before we talk.  The pushy bird.”  She smiled down lovingly at Parker, who leaned back into her.

Snow winked at Ella and said, “We know, we all have wolf hearing you silly Brit.”

Ella teased back, “Hey now you Romanian fairy, you don't hear me disparaging your heritage now do you?”

Gretta seemed to pull in the world around her, I tensed.  I thought they were playing, but was she going to attack?  She released a burst of power that smelled like a mountain breeze, which was centered on something that was lodged in Ella's hair.  A little purple flower bloomed.  It had been a tiny seed, how had she known it was there?

Gretta winked, “There there, princess.”

Ella blurted out, “I'm not a p...”  Then stopped mid sentence and pointed at her.  “..well played.”  But then she lifted a hand and lightly touched the flower but left it in place.  It was an almost bashful motion that belied the tough appearance she tried to project.

Then Gretta made her way in front of all of us.  She reached a hand toward me and asked as she antlers grew out further and her feathery white cloak started to appear around her shoulders.  Her voice took on that ethereal tone of her nature goddess form even though she kept herself half way between.  “May I see your vines child?”

I knew I was a little older than her human form, but Perchta walked the Earth long before man, so to her I guess I was but a child.  I timidly raised my hand and she grasped it in one of hers.  I could feel her magics soothing the black magic in my toxins.  Coaxing them into something else, something not deadly to her.  I allowed a black, twisted, thorny vine to slither out of my cloak and she took it in her other hand.

I blinked. “Where she held it, it became a lush green color.  A healthy vine.  And she opened her sight.  I could feel it like a rush, like I had been pushed back three feet yet pulled forward four.  And she was looking at my soul.  I could see what she saw and I could feel tears rolling down my cheek.

I could see the dark energies inside me like a web now, it was such an intricate casting that bound it to me.  Where my heart should have been, was the dark writhing mass of spells, it truly had consumed my heart.  She looked up at me. “You poor child.”  Then she asked as she tightened her grip on the vine, “May I?”

I looked down then nodded.  With a swift movement, she snapped off the end of the vine and I withdrew it into myself.  She soothed me with a smile and then sat down near us and seemed to get lost as she examined the section of vine.  I felt my awareness slip back to normal and I was so relieved I didn't have to see the evil that had shaped me into this monster anymore.  A monster that was good for nothing but death, die, kill.

She murmured to herself as she examined the now green vine and its thorns.  “This is such a complex casting.  Almost to the level of a forest guardian, it is pure death and malice.”  Then it was like the structure of the spells that imbued the vine seemed to hover around it like a floating code of light.

She glanced at me.  “I could help you, but it would take a lot of time since it has tied itself to your life force.  It would always be there, but I could possibly contain the negative aspects.”  I blinked at the impossibility of what she was saying.  Could she make me... safe... to be around humans?

Then she smiled sweetly and said, “But this,”  she tore the vine in half, “I can do now.”  She held a half in each hand and I could see the black spells being rewoven and they began to change colors from black to red to white.  And they seemed to flow in an intricate dance instead of slithering.  Small vines grew out of the pieces and formed loops, and tiny white flowers bloomed on the segments.

Then the illuminated spells seemed to fade away and she was left holding what looked like two necklaces with delicate flowers at their center.  She stood as she was just suddenly fully Gretta again, with those cute little antler nubs sticking out of her white hair.

She stood and walked toward the door saying softly, “You can come in now.”  I was confused then Rachel and Amanda walked in.  Ahhh... wolf hearing.  Gretta smiled and gave Rachel a peck on the lips and held out a necklace.  Rachel bowed down so she could place it over her head.  She did the same with Amanda.

Then she said, “As long as you wear these, you will be immune to any of Rose's toxins.”  They nodded in understanding.  Perchta could do that?  And make it look so simple?  It made me wonder about the arrogance of human witches, believing they knew so much about magic.  But compared to what I had just witnessed; the unweaving of spells and spinning them into something else;  mortal magic users are just like children playing with things they don't fully understand.

Could she truly make talismans to protect people from my evil?  Rachel stepped over to me and crouched to my level and extended a hand. “It is a pleasure to greet you properly Rose.”

I recoiled and looked around.  They all had so much confidence in Gretta.  I timidly reached out and grasped her hot hand.  Her vine necklace seemed to pulse green.  She tilted her head and smiled.  I savored the hot touch.  She was wolf hot like Mari and Daria were.  But most importantly, she wasn't dead.  She was shaking my hand and not dead.  I shook more enthusiastically.

I realized everyone was watching me.  I was still shaking, this was too long wasn't it.  You're supposed to let go after.  But I didn't want to let go.  This was human contact again.  I wanted more.  I grinned sheepishly and released her and my hand became almost instantly cold.  I was mumbling under my breath, “I can touch.  No death, kill, poison, dead.”

Then Amanda was there, holding out her smaller hand. “A pleasure Rose.”

She may be smaller than Rachel, but she still had the steel grip of a wolf.  Her vine pulsed, and I reveled in our contact then said, “Not dead, poison, kill.”

She smirked at me and said, “Not so much.”  Then she looked at our hands.  Oh.  I released her.  I was so happy to be surrounded by people I could actually touch, instead of looking in from the outside, detached from life.  I didn't know what to do so I just grinned and hugged the silly wolf on my lap around her neck.  Her tail pounded the ground beside me.

They all moved to the two beds where they could all sit facing each other.  Parker looked over at me as I just watched them.  She rolled her eyes and patted the bed on the other side of her.  I rose up on my vines and spidered over toward them.  Amanda's eyebrows rose.  Oh, yes.  Human.  Must act human.  I put my feet on the floor and walked the rest of the way as I retracted my black vines.

We started to just talk about anything but what Parker called “business”, since “that can wait till we are fed and rested.”  The food arrived and I can tell you now that yes, I do indeed like Chinese.  Enough was delivered for a small army, yet these women seemed to eat two or three times what I remember being able to eat before my curse.

Even Parker seemed surprised at how much she ate.  She caught my questioning look and clarified, “I haven't been... ummm... paranormal for long.  So I'm not used to how much fuel I need.”  I closed my eyes a second and felt the black magics in her.  They tasted so much like Ella's.  Did Ella somehow... make her?  Share her curse?  Who would do that to someone they loved?  But then again, I didn't understand human nature very well, I spent so little time of my existence as one.

Red then announced that we needed to sleep, as per Parker's orders.  She looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand between the beds.  It was close to noon.  “We can regroup at four o'clock to debrief.”  Four hours?  Did they not need to sleep much like me?  She seemed to answer my unasked question. “We can't indulge too much if we want to sleep tonight.  We need to get back into a normal sleep pattern for the rest of the month.”

With that, Gretta and her... pack... left to the next room.  Ella and Parker claimed a bed.  I stood near a corner, but Daria curled up on the floor at the base of a bed and Mari laid down on the floor, using the wolf as a huge fluffy pillow.

I looked at them all and moved haltingly toward the other bed.  I looked at them all and they didn't say anything as I reached out and felt it with my hand.  I sat in the middle of it, marveling at how soft it was.  I had always slept in the mountains on beds of leaves or more recently, in the DOD base, a suspended concrete slab with no blankets.  It had been so long since I slept on a proper bed.

Parker stretched and asked, “You want to go first, Rose?  If not, I got dibs on the shower.”  Go first?  First what?  Was there a social convention to sleeping?  Did I forget so much?  She prompted as she pointed at the door at the back of the room. “Shower.  To get cleaned up before you sleep.”

Oh yes!  My cell had running water.  A sink and outhouse in one fixture, and a pull chain for cold water showers over the little brass drain in the concrete floor of my cell.  It was the only thing I enjoyed about my voluntary imprisonment.

I smiled and hopped up and went to the door and looked inside.  This may be a seedy inn, but it was much nicer than my cell.  After a minute, I figured out the shower, and the water was hot!  I stood under the water and soaked the heat in, it was amazing.  Finally, I shut it off and grabbed a towel and dried off.  I looked at my clothes and smelled them.  Rank.  They smelled like me.  Smelly, poison, yuck, stink.

I started the shower again and piled my clothes in it.  I often wondered why my clothing and mother's cloak had not disintegrated over the centuries.  Was it the contact with my cursed skin?  Like how they never tore when my vines exploded through them and me.  I scrubbed them then put them all over the rail to dry.

I grabbed one of the two robes hanging on the door and pulled it around me and looked in the mirror.  There was the monster.  Pale, almost white skin, eyes glowing violet and my lips looked almost green.  Sickly was the only term for the girl I saw.  She was almost pretty, if it weren't for all the unnatural tones and how she was looking at me with her head cocked more like a bird than a human.

I ran my fingers through my wet tangles of hair to look a little presentable, then I stepped out of the small room and scurried to the bed, remembering not to use my vines to move.  They were all staring at me as I pulled the covers up on me.

They were looking between the Red Hood and me.  Daria was too, then pawed Mari's shoulder, who just nodded and said, “I see it.”

Parker said, “The resemblance is uncanny.”

I was feeling self-conscious and Ella caught onto my unease. “You're a bloody vision, Rose.  A true beauty.  If we didn't know better, we'd say you were Red's sister.  You look almost like bloody twins.”  I looked at Mari, who removed her red cloak and look at me.  She was so pretty.  I blushed.  Did I look like her?  Were we in some way related?  I know we both shared Romanian heritage.  I tilted my head to examine her as she grinned and nudged her head like she was prompting me.  Oh!  I tilted my head back to a natural human angle.