P. Wilson - Imperative

“No.” I wondered if he heard the desperate note in her voice as I scanned the ground. “You don’t know. I’m different.”

“Okay, sweetie, don’t get upset.” He kissed her before taking the glass. “If you really want me to, I’ll take it, but I’ve never needed help.”

I looked up, a chunk of brick in my hand. She smiled and leaned into him as he swirled the glass. I stepped forward to throw the brick.

Too late, he tipped the liquid into his mouth. I saw him swallow and then drop the glass which shattered on the cobbles. The fairy stepped back as the man reached for her, his body contorting. The man twitched and spun on his heels, it looked like he was searching for something. Then he started swinging as though he was fighting more than one opponent.

Suddenly he stumbled, one leg giving out. His hand grabbed at his stomach. He groaned. The groan changed to a gasp, and then a wheeze as his body buckled to the ground.

The fairy beckoned to the Sidhe and held her other hand over the man as he bucked on the ground. His movements getting smaller until he almost lay still. The Sidhe bent as though to kiss the man. I saw his spirit leave his mouth to be sucked into hers. It brought back memories of vampire feasts: bad memories. Taking too many victims is where the vamps made their mistake. If the Sidhe weren’t careful they would disappear, too.

“Well,” the fairy snapped. “You have your feast, give me my payment.”

The Sidhe wiped the corners of her mouth before speaking. “Why should I pay you, fairy? I have what I wanted. You should have taken payment first.”

“Do you think to cheat me? How many of us do you think would be interested in playing your game if we didn’t get to breed?”

“True enough. I suppose you are not so blinded by desire for offspring that you would play the odds.” She straightened and reached into her cloak, withdrawing a vial. “Here, you and your mate will need to ingest this before procreating. I will guarantee one child.”

With that the two separated, leaving the human body in the shadows. By the time he was found all traces of the poison would be gone. His convulsions would have left enough bruises to convince the authorities he was beaten to death.

“Olan, stop that.” I needed sleep, badly. Unfortunately, I needed to figure out how to fix whatever The Morrigan had done to Olan more. I couldn’t stop the Sidhe by myself.

I tried to get my patience back, but the bird kept bumping me with his head or with his wing. I know he wanted to tell me something but I couldn’t figure out what. I had my healing spell book open but couldn’t find anything about curing him.

Olan bumped my arm again. I slammed my hands down on the bench. “What! You know I am doing my best. I don’t know where to look. If you have any great ideas, find a way to tell me.” He jumped on my hand, the back of my hand, but I got the hint. He couldn’t fly or talk, but he could point and I could move him around. I held up my hand and walked over to the bookshelves. If there was anything in my place that would help it was on those shelves.

“Don’t damage my books. You peck my finger when we get close. Don’t peck my books. Do you hear me?” Olan stared at me with one beady eye then pecked my finger, hard. “Okay, point taken.”

I held him at the top shelf. “Do you know which book you want?” Olan nodded. “Okay, peck when we get to the shelf.” I lowered my hand slowly and Olan pecked half way down, he drew blood. This was not going to be fun.

My bookshelves ran the length of the wall. “Okay peck gently this time. I need my fingers. Is it closer to the left?” No peck. “The center?” No peck. “Okay, the right.”

A few pecks later, I held an old volume in my unpecked hand and a cloth to soak up the blood in my other. This volume had belonged to my great grandfather. The last time I remember it being open was at my father’s funeral. It contained random spells and speeches; there were maybe six hundred pages.

“There’s no index. I can’t let you find the spell because you’ll pick holes in the book. I can’t let you pick any more holes in my fingers. What now?”

Olan spread his wings in a good impression of a shrug. I opened the book. The first page was covered in runes, a speech about the dangers of using most of what the book contained. I flipped gently through a few pages hoping fortune was willing to lend a hand. No such luck. Each spell and speech had a bold title and a sub heading that explained the use. After a minute, the writing started to blur and jiggle. I rubbed my eyes and it all settled for a second, then blurred again.

“It will take a while but I can read each one. I’m really tired, though. I need a nap.”

Olan ran over and pecked my hand. “Ouch, that didn’t help. Look, I know it must be bad for you, but I’m going to fall asleep in the book in about five minutes. Is the spell in the first few pages?”

He shook his head back and forth. “How do you know?” He continued to shake his head. “Oh, you mean you don’t know.”

He flapped his wings at me. “Half an hour, I just need a half hour nap. You can wake me up then if you don’t need to sleep.” I ignored his chirping and went upstairs to bed. Light was spilling in through the window, so I pulled the blackout shades and lay down fully clothed.

I woke up to the sound of breaking glass. I shot out of bed. There were dangerous things in bottles in my house.

Olan perched on the end of my bed. He opened his beak and I heard another bottle smash.

“Couldn’t you wake me with a nice sound?” I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked at the clock, an hour. Olan had let me sleep an hour. I guess I should be grateful. “Thanks.”

I was refreshed and I had an idea. I grabbed a glass of water and went downstairs.

“It will go faster if I can just read the titles.” I grabbed a big sheet of paper and a Sharpie. “I’m going to write the alphabet on here and you can peck out the letters.”

Olan hopped onto the bench and looked at me. I took that as agreement. “It’s mostly in English, do you know if the title is in English or Runic?”

Olan looked at me again.

“Oh, yeah. Okay, is it English?” Olan tapped his beak on the bench. I nodded and wrote the alphabet on the sheet, letters far enough apart so that he could tap them. “Go ahead.”

Olan started tapping letters and I wrote them down. “Slow down a bit. I don’t want to miss something.”

In less than a minute I had the title of one spell, Minimization of repercussions of punishment by Elementals. I guess it would have been clear when we found it. I laid the book open in the center, said the locater spell and flipped directly to the blue glowing page. It was three pages before the end of the book.

“Okay, almost there, Olan.”

I glanced down the list of ingredients and I had all of them except one — Olan’s blood. Now don’t get me wrong, I have done blood rituals before, they aren’t all black magic. But I wasn’t looking forward to taking Olan’s blood.

He was looking over the page with me. I pointed to the blood requirement. Olan stepped away from the pages and started pecking at his chest. A few blood drops hit the top of the bench. “That’s plenty.” I grabbed a brush and dabbed the pink liquid.

I wrote the spell on a scrap of paper and mixed the blood with rosemary. When I painted the rosemary mixture across the words, they faded. Then I used the brush to dab Olan’s beak and wings.

“Okay, did it work?”

Olan strutted back and forth then pronounced. “I can speak.”

“And fly?”

He flapped and got a bit of air. I hoped it didn’t mean I had failed. I needed my energy for solving the Sidhe problem. If I had to cast that spell again, I would need another nap. Maybe Olan had an unlimited supply of power, but I didn’t.