War Bird

42. It Happened To Me.

“Can’t you just feel it!” Alice yells and throws her head back. Her hair billows up like tentacles and she closes her eyes in ecstasy as her hands dive into the wound on Birdie’s chest. She ain’t bothered about me right now, so I yank my right arm free and power up my Cleaver, and hack through the ties on my left. I can’t quite reach my bound ankles though so I bounce my chair up and down until the wobbly leg splinters, sending me to the floor. The crash distracts Alice from where she hovers over Birdie.

“Now now, you aren’t paying attention!” She scolds me.

“Sorry about that,” I say. I bend down, slashing the ties on my ankles with my Cleaver, and my legs spring free.

“No!” Alice jumps forward but I’m on my feet before she can get to me. I send a bit of broken chair flying up and into her face. It doesn’t hurt her but it slows her down, lets me run to Birdie’s side. Oh crap, she’s so pale, eyelids flickering over those big, beautiful eyes. I just have time to cleave some fabric from my shirt and clamp it over her wound before Alice flies at me, sending me reeling against the windows face first. Here, I can see Finlay and the others gathered together, fighting what look like several large black monsters who must have successfully completed their journey through Mortal Doorways. Grace and Susan are huddled behind the trees, and it looks like Grace is holding Susan back from joining the fight. I pound the window with my Cleaver, sending spidery cracks through out the glass. Arkwright stops, points up at me, but that’s all I see before I’m pulled away from the window by Alice’s sharp fingers.

“I said you were trouble, Marla True,” she snaps. I twist out of her grasp with a stun spell that doesn’t even touch her. Strands of my hair dangle from her fingers. She curls her lip in disgust and throws a nasty looking spell back at me. I duck and tackle her spindly little legs, taking her down. I slide past her and bounce up, throwing the Incussus Uro as she lies there. She dodges it easily, rolling over and hopping to her feet with a smile. “You can’t stop me,” she says. She flicks her hand and slices a cut on my cheek like my shield isn’t even there. Desperate to make a dent in her, I turn to the dressing table, littered with glass bottles and stuff. I use my TK to lift it all up and launch every last bit of it at her, but she just giggles as they splinter against her shield. She stretches out her arm and lobs me across the room where I land on the arm of Birdie’s chair. Pain shunts through my back and I slide to the floor, curled across Birdie’s feet, where the heady stench of her blood fills my nose. Black spots and yellow stars crackle across my vision and hot sick burbles up my throat.

“Now, if I may just finish up here?” Alice pulls a face as she watches me spit up. She draws her leg back and belts me in the gut, so hard that just for a second, everything goes completely dark. I cough, dribbling more bile down my top. Alice looms over me. “If you’ll just lie there long enough, I’ll get around to killing you just as soon as I can.” She flicks a hand and her spell weighs on me like bricks, holding me down to the floor. I can’t move. I’m frozen here, with a front row view of Birdie’s death.

Alice reaches down and picks up a fancy looking goblet, which she places in front of Birdie so her blood flows into it. She tuts at me. “You know you’re really in the way down there.” 

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” I mutter. Even my lips feel like they’re weighted with lead. “I’m going to send you to Hell.”

“Of course you are. As if you could.” She won’t even look at me, just concentrating on the blood flowing steadily with greedy, hooded eyes. I don’t have long. I have maybe seconds before Birdie’s dead. I can hear her tiny little breaths escaping far too quickly to be healthy. My fingers flex as Alice’s spell wears off, pins and needles prickling my skin. This could be my chance. I close my eyes and concentrate, remembering what Grace said; that some Sorcerers don’t even need words to cast spells. I don’t need words. I’m a True and it’s about time I started believing that.