Not All Who Wander are Lost (9 page)

“Those bastards broke one off, seriously Crimson, can I slap him? Will you do it for me?” Ivy looked Finn over, frowned and covered his eyes with his hands. “What do you have on your feet? Is that…no, don’t tell me, plastic? I can’t take it, it’s so wrong!” Finn looked down at his flip flops. He’d been in a hurry, and they were the only pair of shoes he could find.

“Shut up Ivy,” Crimson said. “Sorry, Finn. It’s not you. He’s very sensitive about some things.” Crimson glared at Ivy. “Behave!” she mouthed. “Why don’t you go check on Kate. She seems really upset.” Finn nodded and went to find Kate. He found her in the back yard on the swing set, still crying.

“Katie? Are you ok?” Finn asked, sitting down on the other swing.

“No, laddie. I have really made a mess of things. All these years, I thought I was doing what was best. I thought I could make a difference, but I was wrong. And now, everything is coming down around me and it’s all my fault. The entire Council, including my dearest friend, is dead, murdered by Amiee. I should have stopped her then, before she got so strong. But I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“You can’t blame yourself for something someone else did. What I don’t understand is why she would murder the entire Council just to find Crimson. It just seems so extreme.”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand it at all. When she showed up in the shop, I thought I’d run her off, but she had already killed the Council. I don’t get why she let me live. My prowess with a sword is not nearly a match for her, even with the charmed silver blades. It just doesn’t make any sense.” Kate got off the swing and started to pace the yard. “We can’t let her find Crimson. Crimson is such a good girl. Amiee would have her turned dark and cold just like her. I just can’t stand the idea of letting her win at the expense of that sweet girl.”

“I love her Katie. I’d die before I let that happen.” Finn was startled by his own admission. He knew he’d allowed himself to care for her, more than he ever thought he could, but it was true, he was in love with her. He wanted to spend his life with her, raise a family, have a future. It wasn’t fair that he’d found her and now might lose her.

“Aye, I know. I’d hoped you two would find each other. I’m sorry, I’m just a meddling old woman, but I’ve hoped for this for a long time.” Kate smiled, and patted his arm. “We’ll figure this out. We have to.”

Rickon looked up from his work as Drella came in the door. He stood up and turned his back to the table, shielding it from her view. “Did you get the money?” He demanded. Drella handed his the envelope. He opened it and thumbed through the bills. “Where’s the rest of it? I told you to get an extra $500 from her.”

“I tried, she just wouldn’t go for it.” Rickon slapped her, hard. Her eyes watered, tears threatened, but she knew crying would only make it worse.

“You should have tried harder. I knew I should have gone myself instead of leaving this to a stupid whore like you.” He spat. “After all I’ve done for you, this is what I get? You are useless. Go get the girls ready. Somebody has to make money around here.” Rickon turned back around and went back to work, weighing and packaging the white powder on the table.

Drella lingered, watching him expectantly. “I need a little,” she whined. “It’s been hours. Please, baby? I’ll do whatever you want.” She got down on her knees in front of him, reaching for his belt. He slapped her again, this time hitting her eye. That was going to leave a mark. He was getting careless, he’s never left marks where they would show before. Without a word, he threw a baggie at her and went back to work.

Drella wandered down the hallway of the rundown mobile home. She stopped outside the door to the small bedroom. Not for the first time, she wondered how she had gotten herself into this. She came from a good family. Rickon had seemed like the man of her dreams, enough for her to want to steal him from her insipid sister. But Crimson was the lucky one here, she knew it. Sure, things had been great. For awhile. The parties, the sex, it had all been good. She’d loved being in the Human world, being bad, defying her family. But that was before she had allowed herself to get addicted to the powerful Human drug.

The first time, Rickon had said it was just so she could party all night. She trusted him, and it had felt amazing. She’d danced all night, then they’d made love all day. She couldn’t get enough. It was so different from her everyday boring existence. She’d felt like she could take on the world. But eventually, it took its toll. She didn’t just need it to party all night anymore, she’d needed it to get out of bed, to even function. She was hooked, and she didn’t know how to stop, didn’t really even want to. Then he’d brought her here, to this isolated, dingy place, and introduced him to the girls.

She had been jealous at first, but she soon realized that Rickon didn’t care for them, he used them, and when they were used up, he would throw them away like yesterday’s trash. Jessamine was an Elf, like her. Beautiful, but with empty eyes. Mariah was a sylph. She was broken, thin and gaunt, she barely even spoke, lost in a drugged stupor most of the time, and when Rickon even looked at her, she would cringe and cower. Drella’s biggest fear was that she would someday end up in this room, in their place. But for now, Rickon still wanted her, as little as that meant, and she had a job to do.

Rickon was there now, but he would often disappear for days. He always had an excuse—some job to do, some contact he needed to meet. But sometimes he would come back smelling faintly of perfume. She’d made the mistake of accusing him once, only once. She hadn’t been able to sit comfortably for a week. He’d been rough with her before, she’d even liked it at first, but that night she’d been terrified. She’d cried and begged, but he didn’t stop until she was battered and bleeding. She cried herself to sleep, huddled in the corner of their room, wondering how it had all gone wrong.

After that, things changed quickly. The Rickon who promised to marry her was gone. In his place was someone she didn’t even recognize. He took what he wanted, she didn’t fight. She just did her best to keep him satisfied, hoping things would get better. Instead, they got worse. She wished she had the strength to run, but if she left, she’d be forced to deal with her addiction on her own. Whatever horrible things he did to her, at least he kept her high. She was like a rat in a trap, sickly dependant on him. Yes, Crimson was the lucky one. Sometimes it made her miss her sister, sometimes it made her hate her even more.

Resigned, Drella opened the door. The girls were sleeping. Jessamine was sprawled on her back, one arm thrown over her eyes. She stirred when Drella clicked on the light. She muttered something foul and turned over onto her stomach to shield her eyes from the light. Mariah was curled into a ball in the center of her mattress, her once vivid wings, now faded and tattered, were curled around her like a blanket. She whimpered. Unaffected, Drella kicked both mattresses. “Get up! It’s late and you both have appointments to keep.”

Drella went to the closet. Reaching in, she grabbed two outfits and threw them on the beds. “Rickon’s in a mood tonight. You better be ready to meet his clients if you know what’s good for you.” Reluctantly, both girls roused. Jessamine grabbed her dress and headed for the bathroom. Mariah sat on the bed, still dazed. “Don’t go back to sleep,” Drella warned. “You have an hour. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Rickon’s clients were rich Human men who would pay huge amounts of money for what they considered “exotic” girls. Some were outright criminals, but most were just men with too much money and no scruples, who were used to getting what they wanted, and what they wanted was something they couldn’t get anywhere else, something to mark them as elite. Rickon had been bringing girls to the Human world for centuries for his special clients. Drella had heard rumors over the years that sometimes girls would go missing, but it had always been serving girls or girls from working families. She’d never dreamed she would end up here, and she never would have believed Rickon was involved, until she found out firsthand what he was capable of.

After about 45 minutes, Jessamine wandered out into the living room, ready for her date. Mariah had yet to appear. “Where the hell is that lazy bitch?” Rickon yelled. “Drella, if she’s not ready in 10 minutes, I’m going to end her miserable life for good, and you will take her place!” Suddenly terrified, Drella ran back to check on her. Mariah was dressed, but still huddled on her bed. Drella grabbed her arm and drug her out. She tried not to think of Mariah as a person, rather as a means to protect herself for a little while longer.

“Good,” Rickon said, barely looking up. “Get them over to the house. We have a special client tonight. Prince Geoffrey is here from the other realms.” Rickon looked at the girls with a particularly cruel glint in his eyes. “He’s an old friend. Make sure you treat him right.” Jessamine nodded absently. Mariah shuddered and started to cry silently. “Tears already? Save it, slut. You’ll need your strength after he’s through with you. He has very, well let’s just say, peculiar tastes.” Rickon gave Drella a card with an address. It was an estate out in the outskirts that was owned by one of Rickon’s many unsavory contacts. He often used it for special clients because there were no close neighbors to hear the screams.

Drella pushed the terrified girl out the door to the car. Jessamine followed. She just wanted to get this night over with. The sooner this was done, the sooner she could lock herself in her room and sink into the abyss, leaving all of this behind, if just for a little while. They soon arrived at the estate and the door was opened by an expressionless Human guard. He took the girls and directed Drella to an opulent room to wait. She rummaged in her purse for a bottle and popped a sleeping pill. This would take hours, and she wanted to get some sleep while she waited.

Drella awoke to screams. She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, but her head was fuzzy and it took her a minute to remember where she was. The screams continued and she looked around frantically, wondering if she should do something. Rickon’s special clients often hurt the girls, but this was somehow worse than usual. Then the screaming stopped. The surly Human guard entered the room. “Prince Geoffrey is finished. You can clean up the mess and leave now.” His expressionless face unnerved her. She didn’t understand what he meant by cleaning up the mess. She cautiously followed him down a long corridor. He pointed to a half open door, and then turned and unceremoniously left.

Drella gasped and almost fell to her knees when she saw the carnage inside. Jessamine was dead. She was laying in a pool of blood, her head at an obviously wrong angle. She was covered in cuts. It almost looked like he had tried to skin her alive. Mariah was on the bed in a bloody heap. Her skin was also cut to ribbons, but somehow, despite losing so much blood, she was still breathing. Drella didn’t know what to do. All she could think about was that Rickon had threatened to make her take Mariah’s place. This could have been her. “No, no, no,” she whimpered under her breath over and over. She sat on the floor, hugging herself and rocking back and forth for a very long time.

Eventually, her head started to clear. There was only one thing she could do. She couldn’t get rid of Jessamine’s body, and if she went back to Rickon, he’d just put her in Jessamine’s place and it would be her next time. Mariah started to come to, and she made her decision. She half carried her out to the car and headed north. Kate was in Seaside, and Kate knew where to find her sister. Regardless of everything she had done, she prayed that Crimson would forgive her. Crimson was a lot of things, but she was a badass Guardian. If anyone could protect her from Rickon, it was Crimson. Thinking only of staying alive, she didn’t even think about the drugs waiting for her back at the trailer. With Mariah huddled in the back seat, maybe dying, she drove into the night hoping for salvation.

Amiee threw the spiral notebook she was reading from against the wall. Her fury grew by the second. It didn’t make any sense. Why did seers always have to speak in riddles? After all of the trouble she had gone to get it, it was useless. She picked up a vase from the side table and threw it at the wall as well. Maybe the dwarf translated it wrong, she thought to herself.

The hag had warned her when she sold her the spell that she was playing with things she’d never understand. That if she used it, she would set things in motion that she’d never even imagined. That the power was fleeting and it would come back on her sevenfold. She hadn’t paid any heed to the ramblings of a crazy old witch. She wanted power, and she intended to take it, through any means possible. When she heard the rumors of the prophecy, she’d initially dismissed them as having anything to do with her. Then her powers had begun to wane, and she could no longer ignore that something was happening. She had gone back to the hag, and she had laughed in her face, called her a fool.

Her fury at the old woman’s laughter had opened a floodgate inside her. As the old woman burned, she had ransacked her hovel, looking for anything that could explain what was happening to her. All she’d found was a letter warning the hag of a prophecy that signaled that the balance was shifting, that a new power would rise, change was coming, but nothing specific. Now she had the prophecy in her hands and truth still eluded her.

Illiana had been useless as well. Amiee had thought it would be easy to break her. She never imagined that Illiana would die before she would allow Amiee to win, and even sacrifice the lives of the entire Council. Killing the  Council had done little to assuage her rage. Then that bitch Kate had thwarted her again, with silver no less. There was a time when a silver sword would have glanced off her skin like it was nothing, even charmed silver. But Kate’s sword had affected her deeply.  She’d felt it draining her and knew if it touched her skin it would be like ice, it would pull the fire from her body, and she wouldn’t be able to stop it.

So she’d ran, ran like a coward. Amiee had never run from a fight in all her long life. She’d always been the one with the power. The thought of a miserable creature like Kate wielding that much power over her made her want to scream and pull the ebony hair from her head. It was so wrong. She wanted to tear her apart with her bare hands, leave her a pile of bloody offal in her wake. She vowed that she would make Kate pay.

She needed Crimson. It was not motherly instinct that drew her to find her daughter, but a more selfish reason. The spell was hungry. She’d fed it the powers of many young girls, but as she felt herself weaken, even after feeding, she knew she needed something more. She needed a power closer to her own to restore her. From everything she’d learned, Crimson didn’t even know of the powers she held within her. She was a vast, untapped resource. So much power just begging to be stolen.

It felt so good to take power from a sweet young thing. Most of them had never even seen it coming. A simple glamour to ease their fears, and a kiss was all it took. After she’d taken what she needed, they were left empty eyed and pliable. It had been so easy to sell them to Rickon to cover up the mess. He’d been eager to take them off her hands. She had occasionally wondered what he used them for, but decided it didn’t matter. She’d gotten what she wanted and so had he. She knew he’d pay a pretty price to take Crimson off her hands when she was done with her. Now, she just had to find her.

Interlude