I drive the scooter like I'm on autopilot. Total obedience to the rules of the road. I can't risk being pulled over carrying a bag of drugs and an SMG. Keep Mary safe. Get back to Raven. Nothing else in my head, until Mary nudges me. A Ford Lincoln has pulled up next to us at the lights. Big flashy car. Car that she points out is about to ram us, until I take off down a back street and spent some time losing them in the maze of alleyways better suited to a little scooter than a big car. At least I still remember how to do that. And we make it back to the hotel before the battery runs out.
Raven's clearly on edge when he lets us back in and I can't blame him. I plug in the scooter, hand over the stash, and apologise for not being able to get him any clothes. He pulls out a blister pack, pushes out a couple of pills, then throws it to me. Diazepam. I swallow the pills. Maybe when they take effect I might be able to keep going a bit longer.
There's a problem though. I've got Raven's notes but the book itself isn't in English. I glance at it, just on the off chance it's in one of these new languages I seem to have picked up lately but no such luck. Raven was using the internet for translation but that's no use to us now. We're going to have to go old school and get a book. Maybe the hotel receptionist can give us directions? I'm not asking. I don't think I should be having important conversations in my current state.
Mary reports back. There's no library around here, but she's got an address for a bookshop. Raven goes through his notes and writes down the details of the book we need. He gives Mary some money for the book and some extra to pick up some food. He wants wine as well. Not happening. Not until the benzos wear off. I can't handle seeing him unconscious.
It's just the two of us now. Raven rolls the biggest joint I've ever seen, lights up, and pulls out his moleskine. It's poetry time. And what do you know? Fucked up on benzos and second hand skunk turns out to be the ideal state of mind to listen to his gender-swapped retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. I could listen to this for hours. Or is it just that I needed so badly to hear his voice that I don't have to pretend to listen?
Part way through there's a knock at the door, and Raven insists I take the SMG while we answer it. But it's just Nathan, coughing violently. I guess it did get a bit smoky in here after Raven shut the window. I don't think Nathan likes the poetry though. He starts talking about another appointment or something, but then there's a tap at the window. Nathan goes to look while I cover him with the SMG. At first I don't see anything. And then I hear Beatrice's voice.
She's in a bad way, and I really don't need to be doing first aid in my current state, but she needs that dislocated arm reset. With a bit of help from Nathan we get it back in place, and after Raven hands over his joint she manages to talk. She's lost Harry. She took him back to the hospital but those plastic soldiers were there waiting for them. She couldn't stop them taking him. All she could do was escape herself. She slips a hand into her jacket, then pulls it out again covered in blood. And before I can even figure out what's happening, her face turns pale, and she falls back on the bed.
Oh god. Beatrice. I pull up her blood soaked t-shirt and find the massive bleeding wound. Fuck. I am not sober enough to be trying to deal with this. But if I don't she's going to die. I tell Nathan to go and get a first aid kit, and try to staunch the bleeding with a handful of tissue. So much blood. So much pain in her eyes. My hands are getting slippery from the blood but I can't stop. Cocaine stops bleeding, doesn't it? And it's a painkiller. Raven throws me a bag. This is probably a terrible idea and going to leave a massive scar, but either that or the pressure I'm applying is starting to work.
Nathan is back with the first aid kit. Everything I need to treat the wound. Just need her to hold on a bit longer. And now she's convulsing, but I am not losing her, not today, and while Nathan holds her down and Raven shoves some crushed up pills into her mouth, I finish dressing the wound. She's stable. She's going to be OK. Although we are definitely not getting the deposit for these sheets back.
Nathan still has to go out. I'm left with Raven and a sleeping Beatrice. Covered in Beatrice's blood. So tired. Raven wants to know if I'd like to see some real magic. Absolutely fucking not. I've seen far too much weird shit in the last few days. He knows some kind of incantation that will supposedly help Beatrice heal faster. But he doesn't know where that power is coming from. Best not to mess with dark forces after all the shit we've been through.
Raven can obviously see how tired I am, as he suggests I get some sleep. When the hell did I last sleep? At the hospital, when I had to stab myself to wake up. Fuck. OK. I'll sleep. But he's to wake me up if I seem bad. And if I randomly start bleeding, that counts as bad.
I'm sitting on a bench face to face with a Roman soldier. He asks me my name, and I tell him. He says he knew before I said it. How? Probably the same way that I know his name is Huldra. There's some link between us, spanning fifteen hundred years. I dream of him, and he dreams of me. He tells me how he killed Tertius, his Centurion. Something came from the blood. He wants to know what happened with the pagan wise woman and the Centurion and the red leather book. I don't know enough Roman history to know about the people. But I know about that book.
We have to destroy it, he tells me, and all the people who've used it. How do we do that? It's a magic book, and must be destroyed with magic. Surely as a barbarian I have magical abilities? I don't think so. But I'm pretty sure I know people who do. Then he leans forward and hands me his spear, and the next thing I know I'm waking up back in the hotel, still with the spear in my hand.
Raven has gone to sleep, but Beatrice has woken up again and is staring at me. I remind her of the hospital and how this isn't the first time something's followed me back from my dreams. She asks me if I know how to use it, in perfect Latin. More to the point, I ask her how she knows how to speak Latin.
She tells me about a dark moment in the hospital while I was being treated for my leg wound. Do I believe in past lives? I didn't last week, but I'm rapidly reconsidering. She remembered being a Roman soldier. Ave Huldra, she says to me. Ave Manius, I reply. What the fuck is going on? How do we know each other's Roman past life names? Is this some kind of messed up fate thing?
We spend some time just talking, trying to get used to this whole thing. Beatrice is a bit upset by memories of things Manius did. I understand. Huldra did some things that I'm finding pretty upsetting too. We moved on to discussing Raven's poetry, taking advantage of him being asleep. Beatrice is worried about whether it's healthy for him to be writing a poem that's basically retelling the story of him being dragged to hell and tortured. I have no idea. It's not like I'm a model of good coping strategies after all.
Mary gets back and Raven wakes up at the sound of the door. She's unfazed by the state of Beatrice - or me for that matter, still covered in her blood. Mary's got a massive burn on her hand and needs the first aid kit breaking out again. Once that's dealt with, she hands over the book, casually mentioning that she had to deal with Mildred to get it.
I look at Raven straight away. I can see the look in his eyes at the mention of that name, and hear the sudden silence that's more than simply not speaking. But he's holding it together. And we've got everything we need now to read the book. I'm briefly distracted by Mary, who's found a letter than Nathan left for her. I'd forgotten all about it in the panic of dealing with Beatrice.
She reads it, and then hands it around. It's from Vilde the Viking, who I've never met, but know of by reputation. Word on the street is, she burned a bunch of people alive. She's terrifying. But compared to Mildred...well, no. Not demon scary. Just regular human scary. And the letter says she's rescued Mary's brother from something or other, so it sounds like she's not all bad, and maybe Mary should go and meet her like the letter says.
Shit. Mary's brother. I was supposed to be going with her to find him, and forgot all about it. But there's nothing I can do about that now. I just have to read this book.
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