curious_spells | Cupidity - chapter twenty-one

Previous chapters here.

Angel and Robin trailed behind Alberich down a wide, stone staircase that hadn't been there earlier. The light grew rather than faded as they went down, until the torches no longer lined the wall, and the stone itself seemed to glow gently with a white light.

Angel expected something amazing around every corner, but there was only more white stone until he was utterly lost.

"I've never seen this before," Robin said.

"I don't think it's here when I'm not," Alberich told him. "Ah, here we are."

It was the biggest room Angel had ever seen, and it was full of more books than he would've thought existed anywhere. Only one wall was lined with shelves, but the they went up until they vanished from sight, and the wall stretched right and left farther than Angel could see, as well. It was a room with its own horizon.

"My library," Alberich said. He swept forward toward the nearest section, which seemed to contain mostly leather-bound monsters, with spines a few inches thick.

"Mother did say he spent a lot of time reading," Robin murmured.

"Like, say, seven hundred years?"

Alberich pulled a few volumes off the shelf and set them in mid-air beside him while he flipped through yet another.
Angel pushed his hands deep in his pockets and leaned against the wall. He felt like he was doing pretty well, all things considered. Not freaking out, not going nuts, no hysterics or fainting or anything, even with the queen of the fairies out to suck his soul and Rose keen to slit his throat, and being buried underground in a big white maze with a crazy, ancient ex-human. He took a deep breath and tried to think about the future. It wasn't something he usually did, and the thoughts came slowly.

"So, we gotta steal her bow somehow, right?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I haven't the least idea."

"Well. Do you know where she keeps it? Maybe we could just sneak in and grab it while she's distracted."

"While she's distracted by what, precisely? It would have to be quite a large distraction for her not to notice that."

"What, like she could feel it or something? Like the Force?"

"The force?"

"Okay, we need to watch Star Wars when we get home."

Robin frowned. "I saw one of those. With the clones. I didn't like it very much."

"The prequels don't count."

They talked about Star Wars for a while. Eventually, they sat down on the floor. They talked about Apocalypse Now, and about Sleepless in Seattle, a movie Robin seemed disturbingly fond of. They talked about a lot of things, and every time they glanced at Alberich, he was still looking at his books.

Eventually, Angel got up and went over to him, ignoring Robin's anxious expression.

"Hey, so. Found anything?" he asked.

"Oh, a great many things. I'd forgotten I even owned some of these works."

"Found anything useful?"

"Oh. Oh, the spell, yes. I found that ages ago." He hefted one of the books up and walked over to Robin. He sat down, and a chair materialized under him. He opened the book in his lap.

"Morning dew and winter frost," Alberich said, licking his thumb to turn the page. "Birch bark curls, the case of a scarab beetle. Fulgurite."

Angel settled next to Robin on the floor and leaned against his side.

"But these won't do you any good, of course," Alberich said.

"What? Why not?"

"Why would the same things that turn a human into a fairy turn a fairy into a human? That wouldn't be sensible at all. No, this is a list of--I have to say, rather romanticized--ingredients that worked for me when I was several centuries younger and a great deal more foolish. These are, in the mind of my younger self, the essence of fairy. Of course, now I might lean toward snake's venom and stardust."

"Yeah, stardust. Not romantic at all."

Robin nudged him sharply, but Alberich only chuckled. "Maybe I haven't changed as much as I sometimes think. Tell me then, little angel, what is the essence of humanity?"

Angel frowned. "I don't know. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll?"

"Hmm. Not a bad start, but let's give you a little more structure. Paracelcus suggested that the elements of creation were moistness, dryness, heat, and cold. He might even have been right."

"Uh. Blood, bone…"

"Stop trying to think as you believe I would. Not only am I not human, but humanity is not what it was when I belonged to it."

"Hey, I'm trying okay?"

"You are extremely trying. Shut your mouth and think for a moment."

Angel managed not to snap something rude back at him and hunched up against the wall. He looped his arms around his knees and thought.

"Tears," he said. He couldn't imagine Alberich or Eos or Rose, or really even Robin crying. And he remembered his mom crying after Neil left for months, making sure there was no sign of it by the time dad came home. "And don't give me shit about it."

"Oh, I wouldn't dare. That's one."

"Tea leaves, or coffee, or both. For the heat. Gold, or just coins, for the cold."

"And the dry?"

"Socks," Angel said, after a second.

"Socks?"

"My uncle fought in Vietnam. He said dry socks were the only thing that kept you human out there in the jungle."

Alberich laughed. It was deep and soft and made Angel feel oddly shivery. "I've heard worse, certainly," Alberich said. "I think that, plus the binding agent, should serve you quite well."

"What binding agent?"

"Did I neglect mention that? My lady's blood. You'll have somewhat of a worse time getting it than I did, of course."

"Fuck. Why does everything come back to her?"

"It has to," Alberich said. "In a very real way, the queen is the land, and our land gives us shape and breath and life." He looked over the top of his book and off into the distant shelves. "I think it weighs on her sometimes. Yes, she suffers for us, in her own way."

"How can you even tell?" Robin said, quietly.

There was a note in his voice that Angel recognised; a kid who just can't work out why the world sucks so much.

"To her, the span of your life is as fleeting as that of--well, a bird," Alberich said, not unkindly. "You'll never know her as I do, or as her women do. Or even as Rose does."

Robin nodded and looked away, fingers twisting together. "I know that."

Alberich bent over his book. Robin wouldn't look at him. Angel shivered and drew his arms round himself. The lights dimmed and flickered. They needed her blood. Angel tried to think. She'd never let them have it. She'd never just give it away. He closed his eyes. He could see her in the darkness there, coming towards him with her hand outstretched. She had roses in her hair and she was smiling. He knew the answer. Angel opened his eyes to see them both watching him, as if they were waiting.

"There's one way," Angel said. His own voice sounded small and echoey in the vastness of the library.

"Yes," said Robin, softly, just as if he knew what Angel was going to say. His face was drained and almost grey looking.

"We could--I mean. I could. Do a deal with her." He sucked in a breath, because his lungs didn't want to seem to work. He didn't even dare look at Alberich. "She's got her own rules, right, but she's fair? She'd give me what I wanted in return for--for what she wants from me?"

"Yes," Alberich said. "That would be most marvelously distracting, too."

"Yeah," Angel managed, looking only at Robin. "Distracting. So, you could steal the bow or whatever at the same time. I give her what she wants and ask for the blood. Easy."

"No," Robin said. His voice was flat. "Do you even understand what you're suggesting? How dangerous it is?"

"Yeah. I get the general idea. She wants me. Right?"

"I won't let you do it," Robin said, shaking his head.

"What other choice is there? It's not like we can attack her."

"She could kill you," Robin said, and he sounded as cool and as calm as Angel had ever heard him. It made his skin crawl. "She could rip out your soul if she chose. Or your innards. You said yourself that it wasn't worth the cost if you died from it."

Angel thought of her smile and the way she talked to him. Yeah, scary, but he thought that maybe she didn't want to hurt him. "This is what you got me for in the first place, right? For her?"

"That's not relevant."

"Once she's got what she wants she'll leave us alone. And you said she doesn't eat people very often."

"I'm not letting her have you."

His words bounced off the walls and echoed for too long, all sharp and spiky in the vast space.

"It's not up to you," Angel said.

"He's right," said Alberich. "It's not."

"Oh, shut up."

"You got another way then?" Angel said. "No? So, we just walk away from this and make like it never happened? That's what you've done every other time, right? I guess it's easy for you."

Robin's mouth thinned into a hard line. His eyes darkened. Angel could almost see the static around him, like an angry cat about to lash out.

"A deal with my mother is not the simple transaction you seem to think it is. You're not doing this."

"Well, what a dilemma," Alberich said, folding his hands and sitting back.

Standing there between Robin and Alberich, lost and underground in this freaky place. Angel began to get a bad feeling, like if he lost it now he might never get his sanity back. Looking between them he realised he didn't even know what they were, not really.

"Okay," he said. "Okay. Bad idea. I get it. We can think of something else." He took a breath, feeling Alberich's gaze on him. "Can we just--go home? To the hotel or something? Please?"

Robin's shoulders relaxed by about a millimetre. He watched Angel with a wary expression. "All right," he said.

Alberich followed them to the white arch. The hills were shot with the setting sun, bright peach-coloured light laying in bands over the scrubby hills.

Alberich handed Robin the book. "Never say I don't do anything for you," he said. "Good luck."

"Wait," Robin said, but Alberich had already turned away.

"I've got some reading to do," he said over his shoulder.

The archway faded and so did he, until there was nothing but grassy mound and silence. After a moment crickets began to chirp. The light was fading quickly.

"Come along," said Robin. "We'd better leave."

Angel wasn't about to argue. They didn't speak in the car. Angel sat and ran through the spell. Tears, tea leaves, coins, socks. It didn't sound like anything that could ever work. Robin was probably right. He looked over. Robin was expressionless.

Back in the city, it was easy to forget that the mound even existed. The streets teemed with people and traffic. Angel's stomach rumbled.

The hotel had a doorman. He dressed neatly in a black suit with a tie. He had slicked back hair and a gleaming white-toothed smile, and he'd said buenos dias to them this morning like he'd really meant it. Rose was standing next to him on the sidewalk outside the hotel, her nails sunk into his throat. Blood dripped down over his fingers. His eyes were closed and he was sagging.

No one was looking. No one could see, Angel realised. At his side, Robin stiffened and caught Angel's arm in a tight grip.

"I don't think he wanted to live," she said, and let him fall. He dropped like a sack of meat, with a soft heavy thud. There was a red slit across her throat, half healed. "Robin. Do you want to live?"

"Yes, Rose," he said.

"Why?"

Robin's hand tightened on Angel's arm. "Don't, Rose."

"Don't what? Don't ask what sustains you? Don't I have the right anymore, little bird, since you destroyed me?" She walked closer. Her feet were bare and her toes blackened with dirt from the street. "Is it love? That's what humans always say, isn't it? Oh, love."

Her clothes were stained with huge patches of dark red. Angel wanted to back away, but Robin held him still.

She peered into Robin's eyes. "I could kill everything he loves," she said, glancing at Angel. "His mother, his father, his sweet runaway brother. Neil, isn't it?"

"Don't you even fucking say their names." Angel launched himself at her, shoving her back, away from them, as far as he could. His hands skidded across her chest, feeling the swell of her breasts and the terrible stiffness of her bloody clothes.

"Your faithful staff, your horrible friends, your mother, ha yes, little brother. I already killed your father. Oh, you didn't know that?"

"Stop it," Robin said. The world around them shimmered and swayed, the solid concrete and incandescent lights replaced for a single second by dark branches and moonlight. "Stop this."

"There's nothing to fear in death," Rose said, fading under Angel's hands. She was smiling, and it was matched by the jagged red slash across her throat. "There's everything to fear in life."

Her image shimmered and was gone, leaving a dark shadow that lingered too long on Angel's retinas. The air stank of blood and that poor dumb guy lay dead on the ground where she'd left him. He still looked surprised. Someone screamed and then Robin was dragging him away.

"Stop," Angel panted, then had to lean against the wall and heave. Nothing came up, and he gasped and panted, wiping at his running eyes.

"She won't do it," Robin said. He pulled Angel to him and wrapped his arms tight around his shoulders, shockingly hard. "I won't let her."