Chapter 36 — Decidedly Unfair

  I stood looking over Fren for a long moment. He had partially morphed back into his tree form but even that looked sickly from its normal. The basement was dark, only moonlight filtering in from above giving objects in the room vague shape. The moonbeams fell on Fren’s form, and I was thankful, they would help him heal. He fed off light, life, and people's joy and comfort. That was one great part of my shop, the guest who loved rocks and who were always a little overjoyed to be inside gave Fren increased sources of energy.

  I walked over to the shelf that now held the new flats of glass bottled cola and took one to Fren. I popped off the cap and walked into the glade, pouring its contents onto the ground near Fren’s root system. The hum picked up in fervor and I knew Fren was pleased. “Get well my friend,” I said.

  I limped upstairs, grabbing my bag full of iron implements as well as the pair of iron knuckles, tossing them inside. I wanted them as far from Fren as possible.

  The stairs took a solid minute to climb, each step painful, but I made it up. At the top, I paused and watched the world out the front windows of my shop. Despite our loud practice, no one outside had been aware of anything untoward. The drive was quiet though it was early evening, only the occasional car passed as someone made their way home.

  I wanted to sit down before I made my way upstairs and resolved to get some nice chairs to sit out in the shop. The one behind the register was much too far away. It would be good for my more elderly patrons as well as bruised and beaten wizards. The streetlights out front were blown out from the night before so it was darker than the rest of the block, like some ill omen had befallen the store and street, marking it for the world to see.

  It was probably true.

  I brought death to the inn, injured my friend, and got Lana hurt all in less than two days. I saw a new aspect of wizardry I hadn’t considered; one I’d tried to ignore. Perhaps I needed to be more like Clair. Live alone and far from others. For the first time I reflected upon the reasons that Clair might live the life she did, let alone the other more ancient wizards who separated themselves from mankind.

  I grimaced and gathered my resolve as I looked up the long stairwell to my room. I wanted nothing more than to fall into my bed and sleep. I could feel the soft bedcovers, the mattress hugging me just before I fell asleep. Pain in my back flared halfway up and I missed a step which caught my toe about a third of the way up the stair. I fell, rolled, and ended up in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

  It hurt.

  I lay sprawled in a pile, cursing the world. Fren not rushing upstairs or the branches visible in the room twitching with his form of laughter showed me how dire his state was.

  I deserved the pain.

  I would have laid there all night, resigned to sleep on the floor and not move, but a knock at the back door stirred me some time later. I managed to stand despite cramping muscles and pain that caught my breath. Cursing tonight of all nights for something as dumb as this to happen. My knees were stiff, and the muscles of my back felt as tight as leather. I hesitated after getting up, if the creature who had killed Phillis came tonight… But no, an evil creature of darkness wouldn’t knock. Right?

  It took me far longer than I would like to admit shuffling to the door. I reached in my bag gripping an iron knuckle in case opened the heavy door to the back alley.

  It was empty, other than my Jeep. I looked up, down, and along the length of wall running the back of the shops. When nothing made itself obvious, I extended my will. There were beings of the fae that could basically move about invisibly under glamor and wards. None revealed themselves and they were either so good, I simply needed to hope they didn’t want to end me, or no one was there. I closed and latched the door when I heard a knock at the front. I cursed, limping more quickly towards it now that I was moving and wanted this mystery solved.

  I glanced through the blurry glass that made the door and saw a person-shaped blur through the glass and shadows outside. I clung to my weapons, harnessed what remained of my will, and opened the door.

  Lana stood out in the cold hugging herself against the night air. She gave an awkward wave, “Hi Cal. I wanted to see you again, but you don’t have a phone so… What happened to you?” her expression turned to that of concern. She’d changed out of her work clothes into a form fitting pair of jeans and a maroon t-shirt which poked out from a black hoodie.

  “I fell down the stairs,” I said, stepping aside and ushering her in. “The lights are still out; I haven’t had a chance to install new ones.”

  “You fell down the stairs. Was it from the magic you used earlier?”

  “At the inn?”

  She nodded and I shook my head. “No, the stairs were my fault.” I took a deep breath, “Most of what you see-—however I look, is from training with Fren. We both got too into it tonight.”

  She stepped inside and I locked the door. The store was dark and uninviting, its normal luster wearing thin. It made me feel more like shit, “Did you knock on the back door?”

  “Yeah, then I ran around to the front when no one answered.”

  “Where’s your car?” I asked, my mind feeling like it was ticking over details like molasses.

  “No offense, but you are hard on electronics, and I love my Audi. I left it at home and walked over. It was nice, I needed some fresh air and time to think after work.” Lana’s eyes looked strained as she said the last, and I thought about how much longer she’d probably had to work at the inn.

  “Did you find anything else?” I mustered; the very act of speaking hurt my ribs.

  “No. Nothing beyond what you said. Chris was annoyed after you left but that’s his baseline.”

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons we never worked out.”

  I praised the world for assholes worse than me. “I apologize, it’s not the most accommodating in here right now. We can go up to my room, the lights might work up there… I think. If Fren got around to changing those.” He usually managed the ones downstairs, and I did all the others, but I hadn’t checked to see. “There are candles if not.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Where is Fren?”

  “He’s healing. Our fight was… well rough on him too.”

  “Oh, you won?” She said, giving me the lightest elbow jab she could. I was worried even that might send me falling over. She hadn’t seen the full extent of my injuries in the faint light.

  “Without a doubt,” I said, mock bravado filling my voice. “I got banged up and I’m sure I have some bruises, but he was so worn out he couldn’t heal me right away.”

  I saw the leaves on a tall fiddle leaf fig in the corner shiver. It made me smile and some of my pain vanished. Fren would be alright.

  “Really?” Lana asked, incredulous as she squinted and leaned in to see my face more closely. It probably had bruises all over it.

  I feigned insult. “Well, yes. Wizard,” I said, patting my chest. Then I led the way through the shop and we both made our way upstairs. The lights it turned out, did work, at least enough of them to dispel the gloom, Fren had been busy while I was gone today. I groaned knowing that meant he’d probably tired to fix the ones on the main level, but they must have been beyond repair. Those would be expensive to replace.

  “Oh my?” Lana said as most of the lights flicked on. I looked down at myself. My shirt was ripped, and I’d forgotten about the wound on my shin. My pants were bloody—like soaked clear through and staining my shoe bloody. I made my way to the bathroom. I had obvious bruises setting in on my face and arms. I smelled like burnt hair and really didn’t want to look in the mirror to assess the damage, but my anxieties wouldn’t let me ignore it. When I did, I groaned again as if feeling the wounds for the first time. The end clumps of a few tuffs of my hair were burned, glassy-looking and matted together.

  “Shit,” I said, patting at them and then taking in the state of my shirt. “This was one of my favorite shirts.”

  “Are you sure you won?” Lana asked from the doorway. Her dark hair shone in the bright light, the darkness of it pulled to the forefront. “I’m not so sure you did.”

  “In all honesty,” I said before dropping to a whisper. “It was more of a draw, but tying with a plant hurts my street cred.”

  Lana laughed and I started to pull my shirt off but couldn’t manage it as a wave of pain lanced up from a few of my ribs and the muscles along my back. Lana helpfully stepped in and helped me extricate myself from the shirt. Her hands were gentle as she stood close and helped slide it off. We both whistled as my skin was revealed.

  I had a massive lumpy bruise forming on my right side, easily a full square foot of bruised real estate, my real estate. The pain stupidly got worse now that I could see it. The skin had split, and a cut ran along one of my ribs, torn by the simple pressure transferred through the skin. It had clotted and some point, probably from me laying on the stairs for an indeterminable amount of time. Taking off my shirt had reopened the wound and the blood began to ooze out.

  It looked bad.

  “I think you need stitches,” Lana said, not looking squeamish in the slightest.

  “Nah. I’m not going to a hospital.”

  “Yes, you are! What if that gets infected?”

  “Fren can fix it up in a day or two. I can manage until then. I’ve survived worse”

  “You probably have broken ribs.”

  “And I don’t feel like breaking an x-ray machine just to find out. Who knows what kind of radiation that would release, and others need it working.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Lana said, her forceful resolve to drag me to the hospital no matter what I wanted vanished. She sighed, looking me over like a stubborn child. “Can Fren heal bones?”

  “Yes, but it takes a while,” At her glance I explained more. “Three or four sessions of healing like we did last night, or a very intensive single session for him.”

  “That’s not too bad. That’s sounds more like a retreat.” She grinned, then figured at one of my wounds.

  “Ow!” I said, hopping back.

  Her eyes widened, “We should put some antiseptic on it.”

  “No, we shouldn’t,” I said, imagining the burning pain that would entail.

  “Well, we have to do something?”

  “Help me get on another shirt. That’s all I need. Really, I’m fine.”

  “What if we took you to an urgent care? Some place that wouldn’t do x-rays?”

  “They still have a lot of equipment they need to work well to help other people,” I said. “If anything gets worse, I’ll think about it.”

  “You’re just like my dad,” Lana grumbled.

  “Huh?” I asked as I looked over shirts in my closet and tried to decide which one blood wouldn’t stain too bad.

  “He didn’t like the hospital or doctors. Never went until he was beyond sick, or had an active infection that was weeks past what should have got him in.”

  I nodded. Slowly getting more of the picture of the person she loved and missed deeply. It brought to the forefront my own concerns I’d harbored since learning more about her past life from Chris, and her father’s interests. “So, what brings you by?”

  “I wanted to see you. Nothing else,” Lana said with a sly grin.

  “Just to see me, huh?” I asked, mildly surprised.

  “Well, possibly other things,” she said, looking me over appraisingly. “—It has been a long time, but you're clearly in no shape for anything else.” Her tone was sarcastic and clear enough to convey she was joking. Likely alluding to the awkward comments Fren had made from earlier.

  “Right,” I said, letting out the longest sigh of my life. “Shit,” I mumbled.

  She laughed and put an arm around me with a quick hug to let me know it was all in jest. I hadn’t picked a shirt yet, so she did. It was an old button up fleece which she helped me get on. I looked down at my pants, covered in blood. “I can get these—”

  “-—Not while I’m here to help,” she said, forcing me to sit down on the edge of the bed with an aggressive hand and light push to get me to take the first few steps backwards. Under other circumstances it would have been fun play, as it was, I felt like a child corralled into caring for myself.

  In a few seconds I was sitting in my underclothes feeling like this night was decidedly unfair. I told her as much and she reminded me that I got an eyeful already at her place.

  “My back was turned!” I said, knowing it was only partially the truth, she clearly did too as she gave me a no-nonsense glare. “Fine.” I agreed.

  I thought back on the events of the day as she debated what pants I would wear. My shin was bloodied, and I took a moment to put some bandages carried from the bathroom on it. My mind kept returning to the things Chris had said, and the possible connections they might have to Lana’s response to events. If true, they meant she had more than purely romantic interest in me.

  “We should talk,” I said. “About… everything. This is all moving really fast-—And I’m fine with that.” I said before she could speak. “But we both have a past, and I love what we have starting here. Really, I do. But I don’t want to ruin it by jumping into something too quickly.”

  “Yeah,” Lana said sitting on the side of the bed.

  I regretted not waiting to start this conversation until after I had my pants on. It would have helped me feel a whole hell of a lot more confident.

  “That would probably be good,” she said, her shoulders seeming to deflate a little. “Despite what it looks like, I’m not the type of girl that ‘chases’ often. Yet, I’ve come here two nights in a row and we’ve either slept together or someone’s been mostly naked each time.” She held up the pair of pants she’d selected from the closet. I grinned at her choice of words. Her eyes were penetrating, deep, and full, her long lashes adding an intensity to them. I wanted nothing more than to live in this moment and not harbor any concerns, but I couldn’t. I’d been betrayed once and I couldn’t allow that to happen again. Not when it would risk Fren as well.

  I cleared my throat, “Talking would probably be best, for now. Do you want to talk here, or go get something to eat somewhere?”

  “I ate on the way.”

  “Well, that solves it.”

  “Did you eat already?”

  “Yes,” I semi-lied, but my stomach chose that moment to betray me with a rumble. The half sandwich hadn’t been enough, and with my energy expenditure both in mana and physical exertion, I needed more.

  “Are you sure you’re not hungry?” Her eyes narrowed.

  “Lana, I was going to sleep on the stairs where I’d fallen had you not come over. Food is the least of my concerns.”

  “That wasn’t a no. You haven’t eaten, have you?”

  I looked away, “I ate a little a while ago. What time is it?”

  She laughed, “You’re not a good liar.” She held up my pants, looking at them as if they held the secrets of the universe, but I could tell she was seeing through them, thinking deeply on something else. “I like that in a guy,” she said softly.

  I should have asked more, asked why but the moment passed quickly. I nodded, “I am hungry, but it really is the least of my worries right now. What time is it?”

  “Close to ten, and you have to eat,” she stood, turning to face me, my pants held out in front of her like a shield. “Worries and wounds get worse when you’re not taking care of yourself. Trust me, I know. Do you think you could walk to my place? I can cook something.”

  “Do you think you could drive my Jeep; it’s got a loose clutch?” I countered.

  And that’s when I learned you don’t ask a Navy SEAL's daughter if she knows how to handle a stick shift.

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