An Angel’s Road to Hell

Cassandra Pendragon

For once in my life I had been worrying for naught. I had racked my brains for an explanation, a sickly young girl smelling of lilies wasn’t normal, after all, but I hadn’t been able to come up with anything even remotely convincing. Except for the metaphorical connections I had already hinted at. To tell the truth, I would have wagered quite a decent sum on some strange curse or, even worse, some form of magical metamorphosis that was going rather poorly. In case of the former I might have been able to do something about it but if it had been the latter…

Luckily, the explanation turned out to be far less arcane and even heartwarming. I didn’t mean to belittle the girl’s troubles, she was in severe pain, after all, but she was simply sick. To make her feel better one of her friends, a young, timid boy named Amos, had stolen a whole bunch of the flowers and hidden them underneath her bed. They were her favourite and he had simply wanted to make her feel better. Unfortunately he hadn’t told the others, which had led Jimmy to believe she was smelling of lilies and me to curse our luck, once again. But all in due time…

Ahri hadn’t exactly been brimming with joy when I had woken her, but she had quickly stowed her attitude, once I had told her why. A few whispered sentences later, I had deftly grabbed Jimmy around the waist and risen into the air, unwilling to waste another minute. I had meant to bring the girl back with me while she’d stay put, calling for me in case it’d become necessary. I had had to give it to the little miscreant, he had held up much better than I had expected, even when the city had shrunk to a chessboard of different colours below us, the winds shrieking in our ears. He hadn’t even cursed overly much, the only indication of his fear his trembling limbs and the almost frantic way he had clung to me.

A few seconds later I had already descended again, headed for the rundown house my living burden had pointed out. In reality, it was more of a hovel than a house, a tiny, windswept place near the outskirts of town, but smoke had risen from the rusted pipe, serving as a chimney, and despite the piteous appearance it was surprisingly clean. With barley a sound we had landed and Jimmy had rushed off the very moment I had let go of him. Like a triumphant general he had stormed the entrance, screaming at the top of his lungs: “I’ve got her! She’s here and she wants to help! Where are you guys?” He had already reached the door, if you could even call it that, before someone replied.

Pete had been pulling it open the very moment Jimmy had meant to shoulder through and they both had gone down in a stunning display of curses and flailing limbs. Chuckling quietly, despite the circumstances, I had followed only a few steps behind and sought Pete’s eye while he had tried to disentangle himself from the panting boy. Cocking an eyebrow I had said:

“You owe me an explanation but it can wait. Where is she?” Without further ado he had simply lifted the kid off of him, ignoring his indignant protests, and gestured for me to follow. While I had entered a shabby corridor, filled with the sounds of creaking wood and the smell of mould, he had already begun mumbling under his breath.

“I do and you’ll get it. She’s at the end of the hall, the only room we have that doesn’t become flooded when it rains. Follow me. I know you’re not exactly a healer but I just didn’t know… I thought you could at least tell me whom to turn to and if you were already onboard, no one would dare to object.” He had smiled sadly. “Seems kind of silly, I know none of them would have denied us but old habits die hard and old fears die even harder. Still, before anything else: thank you.” I had brushed his words away with a gesture and tiptoed my way past an impressive collection of garbage, ranging from old but clean boots to something that resembled a very strange saddle.

“Save your thanks. You know as well as I that I wouldn’t have turned the boy away, even if he hadn’t been able to toss your name around. How bad is it?” He had shrugged, his eyes clouding over with worry.

“Bad, as in hours or minutes bad, she’s hardly breathing, anymore. Do you have an idea?”

“Not without seeing her, but if anything can be done… you really are one lucky bastard, you know that? While you’ve been visiting old friends, Ahri and I have worked through the night to… you’ll see. If she can be healed by any means, she will be.” Much more quietly, so his words wouldn’t reach the trailing boy behind us, he had asked:

“But you don’t expect her to, do you?” I had hesitated, maybe a bit too long.

“I really can’t say, but looking at our track record…” I had been interrupted when we had neared the end of the corridor, the door flying open, revealing a small, red headed dervish who had stared at us with a mixture of sadness, hope, fear and tiredness gleaming in her red rimmed, blue eyes. The look on the girl’s face had stirred something in me and I had found myself questioning my resolve to keep my involvement to a minimum. So what if I only had precious little time left? If I had to choose between spending it saving a life or playing games, it wasn’t much of a choice to begin with, even if it came back to bite me in the tails, later on. They needed me and in contrast to the other malfeasants I had already met, they were entirely innocent of the shit they had to deal with. Goddamn, I would really make for an awful queen.

Saucer wide eyes had stared at me and I had practically been able to hear the girl’s mind stutter to a stop as she took in my appearance, her lips working without producing so much as a whisper. With a gentle smile I had dropped into a crouch and extended my hand.

“Hi, I’m Cassy, a friend of Pete’s. I’m here to have a look at Brianna. Would you mind if I entered?” She had eyed me like a deer caught in the headlights, struggling to flee, to run, but still frozen in place. It would have been endearing if I hadn’t already been able to smell the stale, sickly sweet scent, wafting through the door behind her. Fortunately I hadn’t been forced to shake her from whatever world she had been stuck in.

“Get a grip, Vi,” Pete had hissed at my side. “I’ve told you what to expect. Now, either get moving or out of the way but stop staring at her. I’m sure she won’t mind talking to you, once she’s taken a look at Bri, do you Cassy?”

“Not in the slightest. He’s right, though. Would you let me through? I’m not going to hurt your friend. Trust me.” Her expression had changed instantly, me mentioning the dying girl apparently more than enough to remind her of what had been at stake. With an almost regal nod she had shuffled out of the way, allowing us access to the door behind her. I hadn’t hesitated, brushing past her with a grateful smile. Once through I had immediately relaxed. In contrast to my human hosts my nose had immediately told me exactly what had happened. The scent of lilies was flowing from underneath the ragged covers of a creaky bed, it wasn’t coming from the girl on top. No need to panic. She hadn’t been cursed, she wasn’t transforming… she was simply sick. Admittedly, she wasn’t in a good place and I didn’t have the faintest idea what she was suffering from, but, all in all, I was much more confident than I had been a second before.

I felt a smile tug on the corners of my mouth when I took in the scene. A surprisingly clean but small room, filled with nothing but a wooden, ancient table, supporting a vast variety of dried herbs and fragrant concoctions, most of them probably stolen, and a cobbled together frame, stuffed with a myriad of blankets and cushions. And lilies, a whole bunch of them, judging from the smell. Upon the makeshift bed, a deathly pale adolescent shivered ever so slightly, her eyes quivering beneath closed lids. She wasn’t overly tall nor decidedly petite, her hair a dark shade of blonde with lighter highlights. Her blossoming figure was hidden beneath the veritable flood of cloth and to me she even seemed a bit… exceptionally haggard, emaciated but that was most likely a consequence of her current predicament.

At first, I couldn’t quite understand what Jimmy had meant, she couldn’t exactly compete with the prettier girls I had seen on the streets, not to mention the ones Madame Sinis called her own, but the longer I stared, the more I realised how wrong I was. There was something like an aura around her, a smell or something else entirely, that made me feel… welcome, at home, even though she was obviously in pain and fighting for her life. There was no telling how strong it might be, once she actually opened her eyes. Which reminded me of why I was here in the first place.

Without another word or explanation I strutted over to her and kneeled, my hands groping in the dark for a second or two before I produced a bouquet of white, dry, disheveled lilies and turned to Pete with a widening grin.

“Look what I’ve found. There’s the source of most of my worries. Why don’t you try and find out which one of the little rascals actually planted these? In the meantime I’ll make sure to bundle her up nicely for a short trip downtown. I might be able to heal her, but I’d rather not resort to flooding her with energy and as I’ve said… you’re one lucky bastard. It just so happens that we’ve spent the entire night creating a pond that will put her right in a heartbeat. No need to worry. I’ll have her back before you know it and she’ll be as good as new. If you want, you can even bring your… family along, but I’m not carrying them.”

He eyed me coyly before he asked through a smile: “promise?” I shook my head exasperatedly.

“No… doesn’t mean I don’t believe what I’ve told you. Now, chop chop, off you pop. The longer we dawdle the higher the risk that something really unpleasant happens. I’m not a doctor but your little errand boy has been right in one regard: she doesn’t look good and I’m not sure how long she’s got. It’s not as bad as he thinks, I hope, but I wouldn’t want to wait another hour. But… has anyone actually looked at her?”

“I… of course,” he mumbled, confusion written all over his face. I rolled my eyes.

“Examined, as in, get her naked and really look for what might have caused this.” To my surprise he blushed and couldn’t quite meet my gaze. “Thought so,” I huffed. “You know, for a street urchin you have a very strange sense of propriety. You don’t have a problem staring at my ass every once in a while but when it matters you can’t strip down a girl? Men…” Without giving him the chance to respond, I shooed him from the room and focused my attention back on the girl.

I didn’t expect it to matter much, the magic we had created would heal her, whatever she was dealing with, but I still wanted to know if she had something unpleasant embedded in her. An infected sliver or something similar. An open wound they would have found, I assumed, or rather hoped. Considering Pete was too bashful to even look, one had fallen for her head over heels and the last one I had seen was a child, they might just as well not have bothered.

Barely a minute later I was already convinced that I was dealing with a bunch of idiots. Seriously… the girl had a tiny piece of wood stuck in her upper thigh. That alone could easily have been missed but the angry red welts around and streaks of infection leading away from it shouldn’t have been. Unless they hadn’t found the courage to remove her clothes. Which also explained the smell that had hit me, as soon as I had taken away her outer garments. They had only washed her superficially. I cursed under my breath and yanked the tiny sliver out, immensely grateful she wasn’t really conscious. That would have hurt. Majorly. Even by my standards. It was followed by a flood of greenish yellow pus and the smell of gasoline. Again I cussed. She could have been right as rain a few days ago, but no… sissies, the lot of them. But what about her? Shouldn’t she have felt or seen the thing, long before she had collapsed?

I brought the sliver closer to my face, the glow from my eyes intensifying. It was an inconspicuous thing. Wood, I thought, soaked through and decomposing slightly along the edges. A frown appeared on my brow and I smelled it gingerly. Gasoline, I thought again, blood, the stench of an infection and something else. Something sweeter but not sickly or… wrong, rather fresh and earthy. Maybe it was the wood itself? I wasn’t much of an expert when it came to plants, anything, really, but I was pretty sure I shouldn’t have smelled it underneath the clumps of pus and half coagulated blood. Strange. Better to not throw it away, then.

Another thought weaselled its way to the front of my mind while I scrutinised the bloodied piece of wood. I didn’t quite know how long it’d take for anyone to develop that kind of symptoms, but I’d still have put my money on quite a while. How long had it been since I had burned the Mask? 9 days? I wasn’t entirely sure, but I had an inkling feeling that she might have gotten hurt around that time, give or take a few days. If she had already been sick back then, she should have healed already, her blood cleansed by the sparkling wave I had turned the Mask’s soul into. It wouldn’t matter in any way if she had sustained the injury afterwards, if it had been before, though, and she hadn’t healed… that’d be an entirely different story. Most likely a much more sinister one. Oh well, this much Pete and his miniature street gang should be able to tell me. As well as why they hadn’t already heard how we had spent our night. But first I had to make sure it’d even matter.

I stashed the sliver and looked around until I spotted a bowl of water. My wings materialised with a flash of light and the sound of ripping silk, the silvery torrents of energy slithering around the earthen container. A cloud of steam rose from its surface as I brought it closer. After a minute or two the liquid had cooled sufficiently and I quickly cleaned out the wound, pressing ever so lightly on the edges to squeeze it dry. It was neither pretty nor overly hygienic but it didn’t have to last for long, either. With a thought I flooded a piece of checkered cloth with enough power to deep fry… well, basically anything and pressed it firmly onto the still leaking, small incision. A second piece of cloth followed a moment later, wrapped tightly around her leg. I was apparently unable to properly fry an egg but the basics of tending to a wound were but a wish away. I wondered briefly what that said about my previous life, and maybe even the current one, but with a shrug I bundled her up in a handful of surprisingly clean blankets and rose to my feet.

“Come on, Brianna, we’re leaving,” I whispered. “You’re going to fly. That’s gotta be worth something, right? A few sentences, a skip and a jump and we’ll have you back to normal. You’re not going to leave me hanging in the meantime, are you?” I didn’t quite know why I was talking to her, but it just seemed… natural, fitting and I even thought I felt her relax, her breathing a bit more regular, the clammy sheen of sweat on her skin a tiny bit warmer.

She felt weightless in my arms, a smelly slip of a girl with protruding bones, grating against my ribs every time I moved. With a few quick steps I reached the door and pushed through, directly into the arms of the vigilant, red headed guard, still waiting on the other side. When she saw my reassuring smile she squealed and screamed loudly enough to wake my breathing burden but Brianna slept on soundly, her head buried against my chest.

“Pete, Amos, Jimmy, Kali,” she shrilled jubilantly, her childish voice a ringing call, filled with hope, “she’ll make it! Do you hear me? Bri will be fine!” I hadn’t said that, I hadn’t said anything to be precise, but her relieve was palpable, her good mood infectious and I just couldn’t get myself to speak up. Instead, I squeezed her shoulder and headed for the door.