Sorceress' Blood (13 page)

“Are you alright?” Jin asked.

“Edward was acting weird.”

“Was he?”

“Yeah. I don't know why. It didn't seem bad, more like he was
keeping something from me.”

“Maybe he has got a surprise for you.”

“Maybe. I don't know.”

“Don't worry about it. Come with me. I have got something else
to show you today.”

“Alright.” Rebecca followed Jin down to the entrance hall
and then through a corridor beneath the stairs. There were no doors
or other corridors leading from that one. The corridor ended in an
old cage elevator that was small and would have been cramped with any
more than two people. The elevator and the corridor it was attached
to seemed out of place as if they were an afterthought years after
the castle had been built.

The elevator stopped at a level beneath the ground. The room it
opened to was long, white and well lit.

“What is this place?” Rebecca asked.

“This is one of the many places we train. This room is for
swordplay.” He stepped out of the elevator and then waited for
her. Rebecca walked past him and scanned her surroundings. The back
wall was lined with weapon cases, each displaying its contents under
glass. The guns were arranged smallest to largest and then jumped
back to smallest and started again as the room stretched on. Opposite
the weapon cases were elevated platforms separated by two walls. Ear
muffs hung on one side of each wall, one for each platform. Beyond
them was a row of dummies running the length of the room and each one
was riddled with holes. Rebecca had never been in a place like this
but she knew she was standing in a firing range.

“Why did you bring me down here?”

“This is the most important part of practice for all the
knights —more vital to what we do than being strong, running to
mountains or dodging knives. Time has seen the battle field change in
only one way and that is in the swords we use.” Jin walked over
to a weapons case and lifted the glass.

Rebecca stepped up onto one of the platforms and looked down at the
dummy. The muscles in her arms began to ache at the thought of trying
to shoot something that was so far away - even a dummy. Jin came up
behind her with the chosen weapon.

“Try this one.” Rebecca turned around and looked down at
the pistol in his hand.

“Jin, there's no way I could even hold that.” The weapon
in his hand looked like the ones she'd seen knights carrying before.
The barrel was shining and had an engraving on the side:
Is fhearr
fheuchainn na bhith san duil
.
The handle was white, and
marked with a coat of arms unique to the branch of the order it
belonged to.

“Try it,” Jin repeated. Rebecca picked it up, surprised
at the ease with which she could lift it. Her hands barely fit around
the handle but she just managed to get her fingers on the trigger.

“What does this writing on the side mean?”

“It's better to try than to hope. It's written in Gaelic.”

“I guess that's good advice.” She turned and aimed at the
dummy. Rebecca aimed as best she could. She closed one eye and looked
along the top of the gun, levelling it with the body of her target.
She fired. Her whole body was lifted and kicked backwards by the
recoil. Jin caught her and stood her up on the platform again.

“That is the weakest grip I have ever seen. How can you expect
to hit anything if you are not holding the sword and yourself
steady?”

“My wrists hurt. I told you this was too much.”

“Try again.” Rebecca sighed and did as Jin instructed.
This time she held on tight and dug her rear heel into the ground.
She leaned forward slightly and aimed again. She fired. The gun flung
back and smacked her in the face. She dropped it. She fell backwards
again. Even dazed as she was, she could hear the sound of Jin's
laughter.

“Your nose is bleeding,” he managed to choke out before
returning to laughing.

“Thanks.” Rebecca wished she hadn't dropped the gun so
she could use it to threaten Jin and make him stop laughing. She had
the feeling that he'd given her something too powerful just to see
her get hurt. Even if he hadn't meant it, he sure did sound as if he
was pleased with himself.

Rebecca picked herself up and slapped Jin across the shoulder.

“Shut up.” She covered her nose with her hand and looked
for something to wipe away the blood. Finding nothing, she chose to
use the sleeve of Jin's shirt. That made him stop laughing and he
shouted something in Chinese. Rebecca started to laugh a little with
the satisfaction that only sweet revenge can give.

“Alright,” Jin said, as he examined the new stain on his
sleeve. “The bathroom is down there. Go clean your face and I
will get you a smaller sword.” Rebecca did so and when she
returned Jin handed her a new weapon. “Most knights use an
arming sword like this one. Do you think you can manage it?”

“I'll try.” Rebecca was happy to find her hands fit
around the arming sword and she stepped up to the platform with more
confidence this time. She aimed. She fired. The bullet pierced the
dummy's wrist.

“Good shot,” Jin said.

“I was aiming for its chest.”

“A hit is a hit. You won't see him holding a weapon in that
hand. Try again, but try holding it like this.” Jin squeezed
onto the platform and adjusted her hands on the pistol grip. When he
was done, Rebecca felt as if she had a better hold on her weapon.
This time she struck the dummy's stomach. “Where were you
aiming that time?”

“The chest again.”

“Well, you probably did enough to put him on the ground, but we
can improve your aim.”

“Would he be dead?” Rebecca asked before Jin could step
onto the platform again.

“He would be dying.”

Rebecca turned around. “Before we came here...” She
paused. She realised she hadn't thought about that night at the hotel
since it happened. She'd practically forgotten it had ever happened.
“Before we came to China, Ashley and I were attacked by
Thralls. I killed one of them. He was standing there and I shot him.
I killed someone just like that. All it took was me twitching my
finger and I killed someone.”

“Rebecca, I'm sure you-” Her eyes were turning stark and
hollow as she quietly relived the moment in her mind.

“I never thought I'd be able to kill someone. I didn't want to
kill anyone. Oh god, I'm a murderer.” Rebecca slumped against
the wall of her platform.

“You must have had a good reason to do it.”

“When it happened I thought I was protecting Ashley. We had to
get away from them. I couldn't let them get her.”

“Is that not a good reason?”

“That's not true, though. I wanted to kill him. If I just
wanted to get away I could have shot him in the leg or I could have
shot nothing to scare him away and bring help. But I just wanted to
see him die for... for coming near us. I wanted to kill him just
because he was there and I could.”

“I don't know what it is like to kill someone. I have never
been in a fight. But if I ever had to kill a Thrall I would do it
without a thought.”

“That's sick.”

“Death is what happens in war and we are fighting a war. But we
are on the right side. We are the good guys in this war. If we do not
do what we have to do, then lots more people will die.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just know. Sometimes you do not have any choice and you do
what you have to. If you did not kill that Thrall he would have
killed you and taken Ashley, no matter where you shot him. They say
the Sorceress used her magic to make the Thralls unstoppable, strong,
and fast, right up until they die.” Jin paused. Rebecca kept
silent. She was thinking over everything she'd done and everything
Jin had said. She heard it again and again in her mind but she
couldn't make sense of it. Killing was wrong and she was a killer.
She was a murderer, a criminal … and she'd wanted to do it.
“Would you do it again?”

“I don't know.”

“Would you let them take Ashley?”

“No.”

“Then doesn't that mean you would do it again?”

“But...”

“Whatever you felt at the time, you did what you had to do to
protect her. Just like I would do what is necessary to protect the
world. Your reasons do not matter.”

“Don't they?”

“Why don't you decide that?” Jin took the handgun from
Rebecca and put it away. Then he grabbed her hand and walked her back
to the elevator. “No more swords today. You should rest.”

“I think I will.”

Rebecca went back to her room and lay on her bed. She couldn't get
what happened out of her mind and she considered it until she fell
asleep. She never could decide if she was right or wrong in what she
had done, only that she had done it. Thinking about it was hard and
confusing and in the end she didn't want to think about it more than
she wanted to know if killing a Thrall was alright. She slept and she
dreamed dreams she couldn't remember and awoke to the call of her
body crying out to be fed. Rebecca realised, as she stood up, that
she hadn't eaten that day and now she was starving. The hunger
reminded her that she had to go to dinner with Lord Edward and
Ashley. She looked at the clock on her wall and then, in spite of the
pain, she put on her shoes and practically ran to the top of the
castle where she would finally get to see Ashley again. When Rebecca
came up the final flight of stairs and burst into Lord Edward's foyer
the receptionist stopped typing and she could hear Lord Edward's
voice muffled by the door of his office. The receptionist eyed her
and then returned to typing. She was always typing and Rebecca
wondered, as a passing thought, what she had to type. Maybe she was
typing up dinner menus for the week. Or maybe she wrote letters to
Edward's family to report on how things were in China. Every chance
she was just pretending to work and looking at pictures of cats.
Edward had admitted to having plenty of slow days in his job and so
Rebecca wasn't sure what a receptionist would have to do when no one
ever came to visit. Her train of thought ended when she had to talk.

“Could you tell Edward that I'm here?”

“I'm sorry. Lord Edward is not here. I can make a message for
him if you want.”

“Edward is here. I'm eating dinner with him and Ashley.”

“Lord Edward isn't here and he did not say anything about
dinner.”

“I know he's here because I heard him talking.”

“No. He is not here.”

“He's here and I'll show you.” Rebecca had not run
through an over-sized house, up countless stairs and waited days to
see Ashley only to be turned away by some low paid worker who could
barely speak the same language as her employer. She walked over to
the office door and opened it. The room was empty.

“You see? Nobody.”

“I heard him in there.”

“Lord Edward has not been here from this afternoon.”
Rebecca stood at the door to the empty office with frustrated anger
building inside her and no way to vent it.

Rebecca left. She considered going to eat dinner with the knights but
she went past them and descended directly to the kitchens. After some
issue finding someone who spoke English, a maid told Rebecca that she
would bring food up to Rebecca's room. The ordeal did nothing for her
nerves and she spent the rest of the evening in her room. When her
food at last arrived she ate it and everything tasted bitter. She
realised with seething hatred that once again she was powerless to do
anything and once again she'd been forced to resign to her defeat.
No. Not this time. This was just like falling over or getting punched
in the gut. You get back up and you make it happen. She would go up
there to Edward first thing in the morning and demand to see Ashley.
She would not let him say a word unless it was 'right away, ma'am'.

Rebecca finished her food and she made sure she enjoyed it. She knew
it was silly but it was a small and meaningful victory over the
world. If she could enjoy her dinner when the rest of the world was
against her, then just maybe she could do anything. Maybe it was
small but it was meaningful and that was enough. She put on her
pyjamas and went to bed bitter and unsatisfied. She didn't sleep well
that night but in her sporadic and restless sleep Rebecca saw herself
and Ashley together and she dreamed of her mother there too. All
three of them were somewhere warm and quiet on a picnic or maybe just
watching the clouds – she couldn't quite remember – but
they were all one big happy family.

Rebecca wasn't sure what it was that woke her the next morning. She
thought she'd heard a knock on her door and after dragging herself
out of bed and across the room like a sloth, she opened the door on
an empty hallway. Turning back to her room and gazing wearily at the
curtains drawn across her window, she could see the day was bright
outside. This realisation snapped her mind into action and her
resolution of the night before stoked the fires inside her. In an
instant she felt awake and she was ready. She didn't shower and
didn't stop for breakfast that morning. As soon as she was dressed
and the laces on her boots were fastened, she was marching up stairs
towards Lord Edward's office. The foyer was exactly as she had left
it.

“I want to see him,” Rebecca demanded of the
receptionist.

“He is very busy this morning.”

“I don't care. You're going to let me see him.” The
receptionist stared sternly at Rebecca as if she didn't want to
repeat herself. Rebecca glared back with equal intensity and twice
the determination. The receptionist buckled first and picked up her
phone. There was a ringing from Lord Edward's office. When it ceased
the receptionist spoke into it in Chinese. The conversation sounded
almost like an argument and Rebecca waited impatiently for it to
finish. When it had, the receptionist looked at Rebecca and faked a
smile. The effort was pathetic.