Beasts and Burdens (14 page)

“Who are they?” Ethan nodded to them.

“Our resident guard dogs, Gog and Magog. They’re harmless as long as you don’t call them by the wrong name.”

Ethan scanned over the similar beastly faces and scruffy hair. “Which one is which?” he asked in case he needed to address one or the other.

Levi cleared his throat and ushered him toward one of the exit paths. “I have no idea,” he mumbled giving the giants a furtive glance.

35

“So what’s her story?” Ethan asked once they were in the tunnel. Levi’s lantern was the only light separating them from the level of pitch black that can only be experienced inside a cave.

“Adrianna?” he asked as if he was surprised Ethan had even remembered the girl from five minutes ago. “She’s sort of…well, nuts, I guess.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

“Not really. Do you know much about Greek mythology?”

“I’m sure I have a few entries left in my memory.”

“Do you remember the furies?” Levi asked.

“They were spirits of punishment for evil doers.”

“They were?” Levi stopped and crinkled his nose. “Huh, I guess I need to catch up on my mythology. Well, I can’t say she does that, but she definitely could if she wanted too.” He started walking again shouldering the strap on Ethan’s bag a little higher.

“I can carry that you know. You don’t have to be my bellhop.”

“No, it’s okay, I don’t mind. It’s kind of what I do. In addition to being an errand boy, I also moonlight as a personal assistant, maid, and a sacrificial lamb.”

“Excuse me?” Ethan asked as the tunnel opened into another fire lit room. “You’re kidding right?”

“Not really.” Levi shrugged. “I mean they don’t kill me or anything, but sometimes a ceremony requires a representative sacrifice, like blood or something. I usually don’t remember it anyway. Up this way.”

Levi led him up a set of carved stone stairs minus the safety rail. The room was lined with two stories of at least a dozen arched openings sheathed by curtains. After they ascended to the top level, Levi slipped through the curtain of one.

Ethan followed him into what turned out to be his quarters for his stay. The single room had a bed and wood table that served to hold a lantern, water pitcher, and basin. Levi dumped his bag on the bed and raised his arms to the room.

“It’s not much but, it’s…” He shrugged giving up on the positive end to that statement. “We don’t have plumbing so you just have to use the basin to wash up as needed. There’s a chamber pot under your bed for evening…emergencies. It’s gross, but walking around at night is discouraged for newbies. Plus it’s like a five minute walk.”

Ethan nodded. It wasn’t quite the solid walls that he was looking for, but three out of four wasn’t too bad. 

Levi stepped through the curtain again and pointed to the matching curtain on the opposite open balcony path. “That’s my room over there, so if you need anything, just down these stairs, and up the opposite ones. We usually just rustle the curtain to knock.”

“They all look the same.” Ethan frowned wondering how he would even remember which one was his, let alone Levi’s.

“The floor.” Levi scraped his foot over the number three chiseled into rock.

“Don’t worry, sir, I’m pretty much going to be on you like glue while you’re here. Designated personal assistant, remember?”

“I think you should call me Ethan, Levi.”

“Annette wouldn’t like that. She has an old school ideal about titles and shit—stuff.”

Ethan smiled. “You can call me whatever you want when she’s around then, but rest assured I have plenty of people at home to boost my ego with proper addresses.”

“Okay, Ethan.” Levi tried the name on. He probably was more comfortable calling him sir, but at some point, the title stopped being respectful and started being detached.

36

After a quick tour of the bath house, which offered a natural water source that they heated for proper showers and relaxing baths, Ethan started to cheer up about the quality of his vacation. The hotel may have sucked, but at least they had a hot tub.

The next stop was a room big enough to fit a two story house and its adjacent neighbors. There were three openings, apart from the door they had just come through. The openings were at least garage door sized, and Ethan knew without asking that they were for dragons.

The center of the room held an ornate stage carved into the rock several steps above the surrounding floor. An altar of sorts he assumed. The multiple concentric circles carved into it coalesced in the middle. Annette was standing in the center of the altar with her hands raised to the heavens—or at least where the heaven’s would have been had they not been standing under a mountain.

Her tall, slender, yet muscular figure was as he remembered it. Instead of jeans and a t-shirt, she wore a red robe. Her blond spikey hair, had grown out in the front enough to tuck behind her ears, but the back was still a short, immobilized frenzy.
Adrianna was off one side of the altar kneeling on a mat. She might have been meditating, sleeping, or doing yoga, whichever it was, she was impossibly still. “Why can’t you touch her?” he asked Levi.

“Who?” He asked.

“Adrianna.”

“Adrianna?” he asked with the same surprised confusion in his voice as he had the last time the subject of her came up. “She has a knack for reading people, but only the bad stuff. She…” Levi glanced surreptitiously over at Annette. “She got the wrong mix, and now she’s…messed up.”

“Messed up how?” Ethan asked lowering his voice to match Levi’s concern for Annette’s ears.

“She was supposed to get the yin and yang, but she just got the…actually that’s a bad analogy. She was supposed to get the whole garden, but she just got the dirt.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means she’s broken,” Annette interrupted as she walked over. She gave Levi a keeling glare before smiling broadly at Ethan. “Ethan.” She pressed her hands to his cheeks. He could sense she was resisting pinching them.

“Hello Annette, it’s good to see you again.”

“Oh, you sweet boy. Had I only stayed a little longer that day…my goodness, I would have boxed you up and taken you with me. So, I suppose it was better I hadn’t stayed.”

Ethan gripped her hands drawing them down from his face. “I know this is a very important visit Annette, but I must be honest about my displeasure with your timing. My wife is eight months pregnant, and I have not been given a time line for my stay.”

“Oh, I see, I’m sorry. The timeline is dependent on several things, but of course my invitation, is only that, an invitation. You are not my prisoner. If you wish to leave this instant, I will understand.”

Ethan chuckled and released her hands. “I appreciate the offer, but I am ready to pass out. I would at least like to eat, sleep, and bathe and not necessarily in that order.”

“Of course, how about food first? Levi will take care of you. We can talk tomorrow when you are properly rested. Perhaps you can stay a few days or even a week. I just need enough time to determine if the dragon’s blood does what you said it did. Not that I don’t believe you, but it is known to have hallucinogenic effects.” She pouted and he couldn’t help but smile, since he knew she was probably hoping it wasn’t the latter.

“I’m rather curious myself. Don’t worry, I’ve come all this way, we might as well check. Besides, Danato would rip me in half if he knew I didn’t cooperate.”

“I hope you know how proud he is of the man you’ve become.”

“I think I do, but it’s nice to hear.”

“Adrianna!” Annette hollered and whipped around to look for the girl, but she was right behind her. “Why don’t you go with them?” She looked back at Ethan. “You don’t mind a tag-a-long, do you?”

“Not at all.” Ethan nodded to Adrianna.

“I do,” Levi mumbled under his breath.

“Ungrateful…” Annette’s eyes flared, but she shook away the anger. “She is mute, but she is not dumb. As I’m sure Levi has told you, she is not as affectionate as this old woman, so just respect her space, and none of you has to be uncomfortable.” Annette leaned in and kissed Ethan on the cheek. “Thank you, so much.” She turned and left before Levi could further object to the tag-along aspect of the evening.

37

“Eat!” Levi scolded Adrianna as if she was an obnoxious child throwing her food instead of eating it. They were in a small kitchen that looked like it had been copied from a medieval castle. With several fires burning for the stone ovens, the room was toasty warm, making Ethan drift off even as he ate. Levi’s sharp command lifted his lids again.

“Why are you yelling at her?” Ethan questioned Levi across from him. Adrianna was sitting next to Levi, though a good distance away. Her small serving of stew hadn’t lost more than two bites.

Levi looked at him sheepishly and shrugged. “Look at her.” He sighed. “She never freaking eats.”

Adrianna pushed the bowl away. Levi glanced at Ethan. Levi probably wanted to scold her again, but didn’t want to do it in front of him. Instead, he pushed the bowl gently back to her. “Please,” he said gently, “one more bite.”

She stared at him a moment, before sticking her fingers in the bowl and pulling out a hunk of meat that she popped in her mouth and chewed. She spread her arms for her accomplished magic trick.

“Congratulations, maybe for your next feat you can figure out that the brush bristles go against the hair.”

Adrianna frowned and smacked her bowl into his lap. She moved herself further down the table away from them and lowered her head onto her arms, effectively giving herself a timeout. Levi griped as he wiped the remainder of her food off his pants.

“What’s that all about? You seem like a pretty even tempered guy, Levi.”

“Yeah, I guess, it’s just…I don’t know.” He looked down at Adrianna. He grimaced revealing the guilt he felt for what he had said. “She doesn’t talk, she barely listens. Look, I’m not trying to be an ass, but sometimes hurting someone’s feelings is what it takes to get them to listen to you. I’m a one man intervention.”

“What exactly are you trying to get her to do?”

“I don’t know.” Levi rubbed his forehead. “Be human again, I guess.”

“When did she stop?”

“The incident,” Levi air quoted, “happened before I was ever in this gig. I hear stories about the beautiful Russian princess, with the voice of a song bird, that all the men were in love with, but all I see is a malnourished brat,” Levi said it loud enough for her to hear, but she didn’t move.

“Princess?”

“Yeah, I don’t know if it’s really true. What I do know is that her mute-ism is selective.” Adrianna peeked up at him and Levi gave her a wry smile. “Just like her hearing.” She set her head back down ignoring him again.

“How did she get here?”

“She was selected by Annette, to be her apprentice. She wanted someone to learn her craft and carry it on for future generations.”

“Familiar story, just a different job. What happened? Why is she like a wild animal?”

“Because she is.” Levi rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, the girls got mad skills. She is amazing to watch.” Adrianna’s head moved slightly to uncover her ear, probably to hear the conversation better. “The stuff that goes down here is like rehearsal for future performances. Annette goes all over the world for rituals, blessings, and a bunch of odds and ends house calls for people who like to use earth magic like toilet paper.”

“I thought you guys just dealt in dragon’s blood?”

“Dragon’s blood is like fertilizer to earth magic, or maybe it’s the seed. Anyway both are pretty intense on their own, but together you can do some pretty nifty stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Grow an entire field of crops overnight. Undo the damage of forest fire in weeks, instead of years.”

“Mostly farm work?” Ethan tried not to sound disappointed.

“No, but that’s the stuff I’ve witnessed. I don’t always remember the rituals. When they are particularly high energy rituals, that’s when I get to play sacrificial lamb.”

“Why you?” Ethan interrupted before he forgot.

“I don’t know. She says I’m worthy. I’m not a virgin, so I don’t know exactly what that means, but I guess it just means that I have a good heart. At least I hope that’s what it means.”

“How did she talk you into blood-letting for crops?”

“She didn’t.” Levi shook his head and ducked his eyes shyly. “The first time I ever did it, I…sort of volunteered. It was the energy of the spell, and I suppose that means it wasn’t my choice, but I wasn’t scared, and Adrianna was so…” Levi looked to Adrianna, and she slowly turned her head to look at him. For a moment, Ethan thought he saw something more than conflict between them. “The rituals are very intense,” Levi said turning back to Ethan. “If Annette allows it, you should observe one.”

“I was present when she took the dragons blood. That was pretty impressive.”