No Time to Cry (Nine While Nine Legacy Book 1) (20 page)

I’m in front of one of the large vaulted
mirrors. I study my reflection. My new reflection. My eyes are spectacular.
They glitter and glow from within, very much like the stone in the pendant. I
am vibrant. I am life.

I notice something on my arm, on my
reflected self; it’s a dark image in shades of gunmetal grey. I look down at my
actual arm and there is nothing there. But when I look at my reflection it is
quite certainly there, very bold. I watch the reflected
me
run her hand
over the mark and I shake, ice trickling over my flesh…because the me
standing
here on this side of the mirror had not moved. I watch the mirror
me
,
her mark—her tattoo—as it begins to glimmer. My arm, on this side of the
silvered glass begins to warm and then tingle. I glance down, not wanting to
take my eyes from that other me, and the mark is now on my arm. I jump back a
step, startled, shocked really. I smooth my hand over the mark lightly, it
still feels warm. It doesn’t hurt the way I would think a tattoo should. It
feels good, right actually. It does feel kind of stingy, but in a good way…like
I can’t quite describe.

As if it was always meant to be there,
and I’m happy it finally is.

It’s beautiful. An altered fleur de lys,
the stem of the fleur has been elongated, like a staff.

I look back up to see the me in the
mirror, but the surface is now shimmering and rippling gently, just as the
stone in the necklace had done. I move closer to the glass, it begins to waver
more quickly and brightens. I feel lightheaded, this time not from spinning
across the ballroom floor. This was like I had felt in the café, right before…

~Milseachd~

There it is. That whisper, again, that
mesmerizing voice. And here I go crumbling to the floor, reaching out to the
mirror, my newly tattooed arm stretching out to steady myself, to stop my fall
to the ground.

My hand sinks through the surface. The
reflection of the room fades. A midnight forest now lies beyond. I can just
barely make out the trees in the velvety darkness, lights floating and bobbing
among them.

As my descent completes to the floor, my
arm follows my body and drops from the mirror. I glance up at the shuddering
surface. It is just a mirror again. The reflection mirrors me perfectly,
sprawled on the cool marble surface. My reflected arm is still adorned with the
brilliant tattoo…so is my actual arm.

 
~ Chapter Twenty
~

We
had a double cull scheduled. Of course we did.

Upon waking I searched my arm immediately.
There was no tattoo, silly me, of course there wasn’t. It was only a dream. A
strange dream, but only a dream.

So as if being
so
not thrilled
about a double cull was not enough, when I peeped through the peep hole of my
front door I was greeted with the visage of Liam, not Gideon as I’d figured I
would be, but Liam. Instead I was treated to Liam’s curt face.  His
expression screamed of not wanting to be there.

Standing beside him was Michael. At
least it was not Halah.

I wondered briefly as I opened the door
to leave, if he was there to act as a mediator of sorts, a buffer…to keep us
from fighting. Or from other things. Or maybe he was there to make sure I
performed my cull completely. Or maybe to pick me up and bring me home if I
passed out again, because I had my doubts as to whether or not Liam would. He
would probably leave me wherever we happened to be at the time.

We had no Lanmhuchadh with us; whoever
was up for this cull must be coming along later.

Michael walked between us. Liam did not
speak to me. I was pondering if that was a good thing or not. The first cull
was to be a simple one, and mine, all mine—as Liam so kindly didn’t mind
pointing out to me more than once. It was also one in which I had chosen in
advance to not stick around to witness the after math of. Get in, get out. Done
deal. That was my motto.

As we walked down the street of one of
the nearby neighborhoods, I admired the houses—Halloween decorations already in
place at some—and the fall colors bursting like fire in the trees. The steady
misting had ceased, but the air remained crisp.

When we approached the house I felt a
tingling grow up my spine, reach from the center of my chest and spread through
my limbs. Finally reaching my head, where it circled inside and then ran a
course back down to my heart. I braced myself for the dizziness to descend on
me…but nothing…it didn’t happen.

What the hell had that been? It left me
awake, and as if everything about me was fine tuned. I had no doubt I could do
this, with absolute perfection, with steely coolness, and with no vertigo-like
symptoms ending with me slumped in a heap on the floor.

 I was ready.

At the door of the appointed house, I
watched as Michael raised his hand, I thought to knock…but then again, does
Death knock? I didn’t think so, and I was correct.

He instead muttered a word, of course
one I didn’t know. It was that other language. I watched the air in front of
the door shake, quiver…kind of like the way a water mirage on the highway does.
But this was no mirage. The door became flimsy looking, wavered in its
solidity, and Michael walked into the home. He grasped my hand and pulled me
through, Liam followed.

I spun and looked at the rear side of
the door. It quivered for only a moment longer and then looked normal, solid
again.

I touched it lightly with my hand, ran
it across its surface. Completely solid.

That had been pretty cool. It reminded
me of the mirror in my dream. I’d have to ask Michael to teach me that word.

“He’s all yours,” Michael spoke softly
to me.

For the barest moment I thought he meant
Liam. Stupidly I looked at Liam, who was looking at me with a blend of desire
and hatred. Wonderful.

I realized my mistake and let my eyes
search the dimly lit room instead of his face.

I saw a sight that was quickly becoming
familiar to me; the faint blue-black haze that surrounded each of my culls so
far. He was passed out cold in front of a flat screen TV, reclined back in his
lounger; beer bottles littered the floor around him and across the end table.

As I neared him I studied his face. He
was out cold…and would never wake. I briefly wondered if anyone else lived with
him. Would anyone be walking through that door anytime soon? Interrupting the
cull? I saw no pictures on the walls or the mantle.

My head tilted as I scrutinized him.
This reminded me a little too much like my own death. Passed out and all. I
felt anger fill me, race through every cell, turn my brain to fire. I felt ice
at the same time, racing the fire.

 I wanted out of here, to be done
for the day, done with this.

I felt the ice glaze over the fire in my
skull, felt it travel through me, through my veins, through my cells. It wasn’t
cold, it was soothing and precise, and as it should be.

I put my hand on the man’s arm. I spoke
the word Gideon had taught me. And let go.

It was fast. Immediate. I saw a flicker
around him, the air just scant millimeters above his flesh rippled and surged.
I had not noticed that at the café yesterday. Strange. This was different.

I backed away. The movement stopped and
there next to the man was his mhésen. As if the flesh had birthed it. Now to
find the Ingress, get him through it, and be on my way. The next cull was
Liam’s. He could manage it without me just fine.

The mhésen approached me. I stepped
back—this part was new to me, I had not interacted with a mhésen yet—and his
advance faltered.

“Don’t confuse him,” Liam said harshly.
“You’re supposed to guide it, be the escort. Do your job.”

I shot him a look of contempt. Why was
he being such a dick?

 I would’ve asked him, but I didn’t
want to bother with it really, or waste my time on it.

I felt that coolness inside my body,
that assuredness, that
something
that I could only identify as that
whatever
that wanted to take over, that made me know things that I could not possibly
know
because no one had told me; and I
knew
how this was to be done, the
better way to do it.

I walked closer to the mhésen, held my
hand out. Spoke to him with my eyes, my heart, my ‘
whateverness
’
that resided in me now, smiled with it, letting him know without a single word
that it was going to be alright.

     I felt warmth
radiating from across the room, like a heater just turned on to chase the
winter chill away. I turned my head to the heat, it was the Ingress.

It glowed like embers in an inglenook,
warm, gentle, inviting.

I took the mhésen by his hand and led
him to it. Again wondering what lay beyond. What would happen if I went through
it, where did it go?

The mhésen gave me a wide smile and
walked through. And then it was gone, as quickly as it had appeared.

“Hey, she did it,” Liam said
sarcastically.

Really though, why was he being so cold
and mean? Why was he being this much of an ass? Even if I couldn’t be with him,
we couldn’t be together, was it really necessary to be so mean? It had not been
my decision. I’d been very clear as to how I felt about him. And yes, I’d
messed up at my first cull, but so had he.

“So, I mucked up my first one Liam, get
over it,” I snapped. “It’s not as though you were much help in teaching me, in
my opinion you screwed up far worse than I did, you did not tell me the word.
Where did your kindness go? You were so nice to me before.” I pushed past him,
past Michael who was saying something to try to diffuse the situation.

“
C
éimnithe
ar S
hiúl
,”
I
seethed from between gritted teeth, and from pained heart.

Speaking it sent
a shock wave through me…because I didn’t know that word and yet I spoke it with
utter assurance of its intention, and because the door did that thing again,
that Michael had made it do.

I walked through
it and stumbled a bit down the front steps, the reality of what I’d just done
sinking further in. Those words I’d spoken, those unknown-to-me magical words
of that language that evades my speech, but I could hear in my mind. They were
the words of our kind.

Our kind.

What exactly was
that? What exactly was I, really? I could feel that there was more to it than
what I’d been fed.

I traveled on down
the sidewalk. I wanted to be far from that house. Far from Liam and the warring
emotions he was pulling from me.

“Iliana!” He
yelled from up the street behind me. I heard him running to catch up. He
snatched my arm and spun me around to face him. Heat traversed up my arm from
his touch. It felt good as it raced across my shoulder, across my chest,
spreading over me. Memories from several encounters crashed into me. Unwanted.

“Stop it! Stop
whatever you’re doing. You’re just being cruel.” I was furious with him. I
pulled my arm away from his touch.

“There’s still
another cull today,
do Mhórgacht
.” The way he spit out that last word, I
could only take it as condescending. Whatever it was.

“You do it. I
did mine. You’re up.” I spewed back at him.

“Don’t you
remember what Gideon said at our meeting? How far are you willing to push him?
Twice now you’ve screwed up. Third time the charm?” He was billowing with
anger.

“I’ve already
died once. I think it’ll be a little harder to take me out the second time.” As
I spoke the words I knew,
knew,
they were true. “What are you really
pissed about Liam?” My chest was rising and falling in fury and indignation.
“You put us here. This was your doing.”

My heart hurt.
Liam was making it hurt. It had been all too clear where he stood. I didn’t
want him touching me.

“Let her go
Liam.” Michael interjected.

“No. Not until
after she does her job.” Liam turned his attention and vehemence back to me.

“She did, and
she did fine.”

“And what the bloody
hell did she do to the door? She shouldn’t be able to do that.” He spun on
Michael, attacking his decision.

Michael inclined
his head to me, gestured for me to go.

 I was
ready to go, but I did hesitate long enough to lean in to Liam, let my eyes roam
over his face, taking him all in. His eyes, his mouth, his hair, even the anger
on his face; again our encounters flooded through my head.

They
had
meant something to me. His friendship had meant something to me.

 I moved my
mouth closer to his ear, it ached to be so close, but I wanted this feeling
destroyed, the feelings he caused in me. The train wreck of emotions he
triggered.

 They would
be with me no longer.

“That’s the last
time you’ll ever touch me.”

I would find a
way to destroy the warm enticing memories of being on his couch, in his arms,
tangled up with him, so much kissing.

 I felt the
tears building.

And before I
could halt them Michael saw them. I hoped they both could feel the rawness of
the pain inside me. Let them feel it. Let them know. Let them hurt, my hurt. I
pushed. Pushed from that place in my heart that had awakened inside that house.

I staggered
back.

Did they feel
it? Michael looked alarmed. Liam looked shocked, I saw my heartache pass
through his eyes. Was I imaging it? Did I do that?

I backed away
before they could gather their wits and speak to me. I turned and loped up the
street, away from Liam, away from that look in his eyes.

I wasn’t ready
to go home yet. I’d been wandering for awhile. I didn’t want to go to the park.
I didn’t feel like hunting for home décor. I briefly considered a movie, but
nixed that too. But then I came across a very cool little shop on Olive that
wasn’t all that far from my place.

Catastrophia,
the sign in the window enlightened me.

Maybe some retail
therapy of the fashion kind would be a helpful salve on my tattered and
befuddled heart. It had worked pretty well so far with antique hunting on
previous wanders. On this trip out my body could use some fresh décor.

A sassy red
plaid skirt and gorgeous, sexy little top beckoned from the shop’s window
display. Oh, and some rather kick-ass leather boots too!

I pushed open
the door and was welcomed with a little metallic jingle from above. What a
find. The place was brimming with glorious wonderments of fashion. A treasure
trove of perfection in alternative attire. I didn’t know which way to look
first, couldn’t decide which pieces to begin with.