Courting Trouble (Chapter 10) (Patreon)

         Index
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9 

Chapter 10

Four minutes later we made it to the next stop. Evidently we arrived before anyone with hostile intentions had but I kept my fingers close to the pistol I had stuck into the back of my pants. I kept swiveling my head around like a periscope, though I wasn’t sure how much good it was going to do. Elves seemed to have a habit of naturally falling out of my sense of perception.

As I helped Nemue up the steps, I kept my fingers pressed to a particularly ugly gash in her shoulder. From my assessments on the train, the wounds were messy but not life threatening. As We made our way out of the subway tunnel I noted everyone around us, paranoia getting the better of me. It was an odd sensation, that I was aware of Nemue’s condition and wasn’t hiding it well, but nobody seemed to care, their eyes casually flicking to us and then away, as if we were an uninteresting individual reading a book.

We got up the last step, and the cool evening air brushed against my face as I squinted into the setting sun. I pulled out my phone and tapped a few buttons one handed until I pulled up a list of nearby motels. The closest was a block away. I glanced at Nemue. “Come on, we’re going to get you somewhere safe.”

Ten minutes later we were standing under the neon glow of a vacancy sign. I sighed with relief.

“Can you stand here on your own?” I asked Nemue, looking down the rows of room doors outside the entrance. The parking lot was only about half full and there was a clear line of sight in all directions. “I don’t want to draw attention by tracking blood into the lobby.”

Nemue looked distracted, pale and woozy, but eventually she nodded.

I helped her onto a bench. “I’ll be right back.”

I stepped through the front doors into a relatively small reception area. A slightly overweight man with frizzy blonde hair sat at the counter, and he peered at me with half glazed eyes, either from drugs or exhaustion. As I approached I thought I could detect a whiff of something that proved the former but I paid no mind. “Can I rent a room?” I asked, trying my hardest to put some degree of politeness in my voice despite the recent events.

The man wasn’t particularly slow but I could tell he was slightly dulled and it took him a split second longer to register my appearance and words than if he was sober. “Yeah, sure. Just for the night?”

“No, the rest of the week, please,” I answered, feeling anxiety crop up in my chest and running pins and needles up my spine. “And a ground floor room, by the parking lot.”

Grunting, the motel employee punched keys on a keyboard. “Cash or card?”

“Cash,” I said, unclasping my wallet and staring at it blankly for several seconds. I had just thrown all of Nemue’s retainer away at the subway not half an hour prior and I had nothing left. “Shit,” I murmured to myself, pulling out a credit card before raising my voice to speak to him. “Sorry, no. Card.”

He continued to punch keys and he pushed an electronic reader to me. I tapped my card against it and looked out the front doors, feeling my anxiety turn to worry. It already felt like I’d been away from Nemue too long.

After signing a few forms, I got the room key. “Enjoy your stay,” the employee said, with a slight blurring around the words.

Outside, Nemue was still there, thankfully. I dragged her to room nine and, with one final check to see if the coast was clear, I spotted a pharmacy and convenience store across from the motel, over four lanes, a strip of grass between them. A twist of the key and a moment later we were out of sight.

I put Nemue on the bed and pressed the comforter to her wound. “Hold this. I’m going to see if there is anything we can use from the store across the street.”

She mumbled something in the affirmative, so I slipped out, locking the door behind me.

Despite my legs’ protests, I sprinted over to the pharmacy, darting through a gap in traffic. I timed my crossing right and I didn’t get honked at.

The inside of the store was even cooler than outside, heavily air conditioned. The floor and walls were white and there was the barely audible buzz of fluorescent bulbs overhead, providing sterile, white light to the interior. I went through the aisles at a jog, grabbing whatever I could; bandages, gauze, iodine and several cartons of over the counter pain medication. I had to swipe my card three times to get it to register but I eventually got the items paid for, exiting the pharmacy and ducking into the convenience store.

Inside was a lot seedier than the pharmacy, with slightly yellowing light, chipped paint on the walls and a somewhat grungy counter, where an equally grubby clerk stood by a tarnished register. Despite all that, I felt a bit less uneasy in the dirtier establishment. The overly clean, sterileness of the other store made me think of hospitals and waiting rooms, both of which made me uncomfortable.

I began to take rations of microwavable food off the shelves, enough for a couple days. As I was picking up bottles of water, I spotted cartons of cream in the cooler and recalled Nemue’s preference for it during her stay at my apartment. Despite it  being less than twenty-four hours ago, it felt so much longer after the day’s events. I took a carton, kicking the cooler door shut with my foot as I fumbled with an armful of items, attempting to balance everything with the addition of the cream. I passed by a section of liquor on my way to the cashier and awkwardly plucked one up by the neck between two fingers. 

Unlike the pharmacy’s register, my card went through immediately. I felt somewhat justified in my appreciation of the homelier business in comparison to its neighbor. I got the food and drink bagged and hurried back over the four lane street, a little more cautious now that I was laden down with two bags of supplies.

Back inside the tiny motel room, I didn’t waste any time. I pulled off the bloody comforter and began to gently strip off Nemue’s hoodie. “I need to make sure you’re okay,” I whispered to her. She nodded but didn’t respond otherwise, turning her head and sinking into exhausted silence.

She had several wounds on her upper body,most were shallow except for one puncture in her shoulder, which was crusting but still oozing slightly. There was another moderately deep cut on her hip and a defensive gash on the palm of her hand. Both were gummy with coagulated blood. All of it was ugly and I felt a pang of both pity for the woman and anger at her attacker.

I wasn’t any sort of surgeon but I knew general first aid. I cleaned the shoulder wound with water, removing the blood as best I could. I liberally applied iodine, which made her wince and arch her back in silent protest. “Sorry,” I mumbled, continuing on and packing the wound with gauze and wrapping it in a bandage. I hesitated and then said, “I couldn’t get to you in time. This shouldn’t have happened.”

Nemue’s eyes opened and I saw the light reflected in them shift as they swivelled to look at me. She spoke in a quiet, tired voice that  barely clung to  the lyrical quality it held  when we first met. “It was not your fault. You are helping.” She shifted slightly on the mattress and exhaled sharply as doing so obviously caused some pain. “Nobody else did. And you saved me.”

“Still,” I responded dully, “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to go through this.” I finished with the bandage and began to repeat the process on her hand. “They must’ve followed me.”

I was going to apply the iodine again and decided that keeping her talking was the best way to keep her mind off the approaching sting. “Why did nobody notice them? Or you when you were hurt?”

“It’s called g—” She broke off as I touched the cut on her palm with iodine, sucking in a breath. She continued a second later. “Glamor. It makes people ignore us if they’re not looking for us. It dulls perception. All our folk have it.”

“So they couldn’t see you?” I asked, applying gauze and slowly wrapping her hand. “How is that? Too tight?”

“It is more like I was not relevant. And if I was, I was indistinct.” I saw her fingers flex slightly, testing the bandages. “Yes, that is okay.”

She looked at me slowly and across her inhuman features I saw the shadows of several emotions I could recognize: fear, weariness, sorrow and worry, but also relief, surety, and gratitude. The look on my face must’ve spelt out my unabated guilt because she touched my hand with her fingers. “Do not blame yourself. I chose you to help and you have. I am alive because of you.”

I smiled slightly but inside I couldn’t shake the feeling I was somehow responsible for this.

The rest of the evening proceeded that way, me cleaning her wounds clumsily, her wincing and answering questions when she could muster the strength. The entire time a growing sense of anger gnawed away at me. Seeing her move like she did while escaping, I glimpsed something in her, a grace and splendor I hadn’t noticed, and again I couldn’t help but compare her to a doe in a meadow. But now, it was like watching that same doe  struggling for life after being struck by a car. My mind kept flashing back to the elf in the alleyway, his smile cutting clear through the haze of rage, and part of me regretted not doing more than just crippling him.

It was well into the evening by the time we were finished. The entire time I kept my pistol on the bedside table, within reach should something kick down the door. Given how the day was going, that wasn’t out of the question.

Nemue was under the sheets, wrapped in a blanket, with a cup of cold cream and sugar from the motel’s complimentary coffee tray, while I was half shirtless, wiping a piece of iodine-soaked gauze on my  graze arm. It stung like hell but the last thing I wanted was it to get infected. Eventually, I managed to awkwardly wrap it in a bandage and put my shirt back on.

The entire time Nemue was watching me with a tired but interested look. “Why did you pull me out of that alley?” she asked, after I was dressed. “You could’ve ran when they started shooting.”

I picked up the bottle of vodka and started unscrewing the top. “Because you didn’t deserve to die. Not there and not for something you didn’t do,” I answered. “You’re my client and you’re innocent. I know that much. And I’ll be damned if I’d just abandon you in a situation like that.”

I cracked the seal on the vodka and saw Nemue wrinkle her nose, as if the smell had already wafted to her. I poured some into a small, plastic cup and tipped it back into my mouth, feeling it burn its way down my throat.

“Do you drink often?” she asked.

“No, only if I need my nerves settled. And if today doesn’t count, I don’t know what does,” I answered, smiling wryly.

Her laugh was something small and tired but for the first time her voice regained a bit of that subtle music I related with her. It was a good sound, but I could tell it was fragile. I settled down next to her, on top of the sheets. “I’m going to fix this.”

I felt her eyes on me again but she didn’t say anything. There was a span of several minutes where I just sipped my vodka. It wasn’t an awkward silence, only one occupied by an overwhelming sense of weariness. Each of us drank our respective drinks; I refilled mine twice in that time, and by the end of my third small glass I figured I’d had enough liquor for the evening.

Setting aside my cup, I looked at the elf. The height difference between us basically put us on par, despite me sitting up and her half laying down. “I didn’t mention it, in all the excitement. I met Belkor. He hopes you’re alright.”

Nemue blinked and then nodded. “I was worried he would be caught in all this.” She played with her cup in those long fingers of hers. “He’s a friend.”

“I know. And he’s okay. He seems like he can take care of himself.” I smiled, the impacts of vampire on stone cobble streets echoing back through my thoughts. “You sang for his clients?”

She nodded, looking a little taken aback by the fact that I knew that. “He paid me to. I didn’t have any other work and no other skills.”

“He seems nice,” I murmured, thinking back to his general demeanor and his overt tenderness in carrying me. Despite his somewhat brutish and thick appearance, my general impression of him was that he put on a harder face than his heart would want.

The elf finished her cream and she handed me the mug politely. “He is. I could not forgive myself if he was hurt because of me.”

I set the mug aside and gauged Nemue’s condition. Some of her color had returned, her pale skin looking less waxy and corpse-like. Her eyelids were drooping slightly and it was clear she was close to sleep. “I bet you sing wonderfully,” I told her quietly. “When this is all settled, I’ll come listen to you. I promise.”

She made a small noise of affirmation and a smile touched her mouth. She gently pushed against me and almost immediately after, she drifted off. She was hot to the touch, more so than any human, and I could feel her heartbeat through her skin. That felt good in spite the terror of the day’s events. It was that same sort of comforting warmth that comes when you squeeze an gentle animal, like a lamb or a dog.

I looked at her quietly for a moment, watched her chest rise and fall slowly with each breath. She looked peaceful in sleep. And I filled with a quiet determination. Nothing would stop me from proving her innocence. Somebody so gentle did not deserve, in the slightest, the sort of injustice and pain being forced on her right now.

Dulled by liquor, worn by stress and near death, with a warm touch on my arm, I couldn’t help but close my eyes. I nodded off several minutes later, the concern in the back of my mind fading and I felt myself swallowed by gentle sleep.