Blood and Apples: An Annora Park Novel: Book One

Chapter Nine: Dark Fae Drinks

    Okay, so the potions room wasn't too bad. The lab...now that was an entirely different story all together. The lab really did look like something straight out of a horror movie about a killer who tortures and stores his victims away for preservation. It was creepy as hell, and contained so many jars and bottles and preserved...pieces I couldn't even begin to name or place them all.
"...You sure this is just a uh...lab, man?" Garrett mutters. Can't say I blamed him...much. The room was a tad bit disturbing to say the least. Of course, I'd seen things like this before, well, similar things, Garrett, not so much. Garrett was entirely human, and thus with out of jurisdiction cases of a magical variety, well, he wasn't invited to attend. So he hadn't ever been exposed to much of this...uh, stuff before.
"Whatever do you mean, Goodson?" Walker looks sincerely befuddled. "I have the most comprehensive, the absolutely best potions room in the state, hell in the entire Western World for that matter, that goes double for my lab, and other rooms."
"Modest too," I mutter.
Walker laughs. "Now dear I have no need for false modesty, when the truth suits me so much better. My rooms, the equipment, ingredients, tools, hell everything is quite simply the best that there is. You will literally never come across anything comparable to what I have here."
Arrogant ass, he was probably right. Strike that, he was definitely right. Between him and his mother, there was no way that I'd ever come across a better set up than the one I was getting first hand access to now.
"We need to start here, in the lab, but first let me grab a few things from the potion room...now you two..." he laughs, "...don't go running off anywhere." Walker strides quickly from the room, leaving Garrett and I to look around the room that would be a serial killer's wet dream.
"Annora...God...I don't know if I can handle all of this bull—"
"—No, no don't say that, Garrett. You can. I know you can. You're strong. You're capable. So you don't have a lot of experience with all of this weird shit, but hey, you've put up with my magical grumpy weird ass for four years, right? That has to count for something." I smile crookedly and let out a relieved sigh when he nods and smiles slightly.
"I have put up with your weird ass for four years, Ann. And I have seen some weird stuff in those four years...maybe not as weird and disturbing as all of this...and uh...him...but you don't get paired up with a Treader and not see some stuff that has you scratching your head and boggling your mind. So yeah...you're right...you're right. God. I hate when you're right."
"Right back atcha," I say smiling.
"I can do this. No, I will do this. I've got you, Parks. Like always. I've got your back."
And there was the Garrett I adored. Oh, not in that way. But I did adore him. Hell. Who else would've put up with all of my shit for four years?
   "Voila!" Walker comes rushing back into the room holding a few bottles.  "Okay, so now we can get started."
   "What exactly are we starting, Walker?" I ask the million dollar question.
   "We need to know the composition of that...thing in the morgue, right."
   "You mean human being.  That thing," Garrett snarls, "Was a human being, man, have some decency for the dead."
   "Why?  They don't often have any for me?" Walker cocks his head to one side examining Garrett as if he were a particularly interesting specimen.  "Oh, you're one of those, aren't you.  Of course you are...I mean, really, your last name is Goodson for Heaven's sake."
   "What the hell does my last name have to do with anything?"
   Walker rolls his eyes.   "You're just...good.  Hmmm it's what human's like to call, 'having a good soul?' I think.  You're just...good."
   "Well what the heck is wrong with being good?  Annora is good, in fact, she's one of the best people I know.  Is it some crime in your messed up book, to be good?"
Garrett was so wrong there.  I wasn't good.  I mean, I wasn't exactly bad either.  But I definitely wasn't good, not the way Garrett was good.  And the look that Walker shared with me had me believing he knew exactly what I was thinking, and agreed with it all.
   "You're right about one thing, Goodson.  Annora is one of the best people, no...she is the best person I know.  So now that we've established those parameters, can we continue with the experiment?"
   "Depends on what the experiment is," Garrett says bitingly.
   Oh Jeez, Garrett do not question Walker when it comes to magic, magical experiments, or frankly anything.   "Garrett, I'm sure the experiment will be just fine.  And if Walker says it's necessary, then I'm sure it's necessary." Garrett still appeared skeptical but he nodded curtly. "Okay, Walker, what do you need from me...us?"
"From him, nothing," Walker said curtly. "From you? When I say, 'when' I need you to drop your shields, as far as you can, and initiate a Tread."
"But..." I frown, "...Walker, we have no body, we have...uhmmm, we don't have anything actually. You said so yourself....there was nothing left. What exactly do you expect me to be able to Tread toward?"
"Just trust me darling. I have more than enough to work with, or at least enough for what needs to be done. Just do what I ask of you, when I ask it of you, all right?"
I let out a deep sigh but nod my head. "All right...yes, I trust that you know what you're doing." Dear God, had I just said I trusted him? No, no, I'd said I trusted what he would be doing with the experiment, yes, that was much better.
    I watch intently as Walker begins to set up bottles on one of the lab tables. He then proceeds to make ready some beakers and other instruments that I'm not all familiar with.
"Who would've thought these horrible things would actually come in handy, and be of some damn use?" Walker says, as he pulls from his pocket the gloves he'd worn at the morgue.
"You kept the morgue gloves?" I wrinkle my nose in distaste.
"Yes, and you'll be ever so glad that I did darling, here in a moment, that is." Walker pours a little of this, and a little of that, into one of the beakers, stuffs one of the gloves into it as well, and then swirls it around, it immediately begins to smoke.
I cough and gag a bit. "Jesus Christ, that's just—"
"—Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention it's a bit potent in smell. Ohhh it seems that the kid has a delicate stomach." Walker says just as I see Garrett sprint from the room hand over his mouth.
"It smells like, God, Walker, it smells terrible." Hell, even I felt like vomiting a little bit, and I'd pretty much seen and smelled just about everything out there.
"Well, rot, and decay usually does, darling. But this is worse because of what was done to the body. Now..." Walker begins to chant and I watch as the color of the horrifically awful smelling concoction changes colors right before the beaker shatters and a huge billowing cloud of fog like smoke erupts. "Now, Annora, now darling, drop your shields and Tread!"
    I don't hesitate, not even for a second. I drop my shields and immediately reach for it...death. Shockingly I begin to feel the threads of it cling to me, coil around and inside of me. I see it, I can actually see it now. Whereas before I had only gotten a shadowy image of a man over the victims body, now I could actually SEE him. He was beautiful, terrifyingly so. Dark hair, black as midnight, eyes the color of snow and silver, skin that seemed pearlescent and appeared to glow. He was...God...what the hell was he doing? I watch as this beautiful man...no, creature—this was no man—cuts Amber Star, first over her heart, and then slits her throat. I watch as he immediately seems to breath in, as in, literally breathe in her blood, it appears to leave her body in tendrils and waves only to slip through and into his mouth, his nose, even his eyes. What the fuck? If that wasn't horrible enough, after all the blood has been taken in, he leans down and kisses her gray lips and I watch as she begins to shrivel and decompose. Oh my God. Walker was right. He really was taking everything. Taking everything out of this poor girl.
    My heart is pounding and beating wildly in my chest. I see him take a knife and begin to cut some shriveled flesh from her body and then suddenly I'm out. The vision snaps shut and I'm thrust back.
"NO! NO! NO!" I scream wildly, as my head pounds and my body screams in agony. "NO! I wasn't done. I wasn't finished. There was more—"
"—NO Annora!" Walker is suddenly in front of me, enveloping me in an embrace which I do my best not to stiffen up. "You were most certainly done, my darling girl."
"Walker, I saw so much...but there was more, I could have seen exactly what he was—"
"—I'm sure you saw plenty darling. More than enough, more than anyone else would ever have seen. But you were done, Annora," he says, using my Christian name again, oh yeah, he was serious, "...Annora...your nose and eyes...they began to bleed. Hell...you still are." He pulls back a bit from me, takes a handkerchief out of his back pocket and begins to wipe me up.
"You have a handkerchief in your pocket, Walker?"
"That's all you can think about right now, sweet girl?" Walker chuckles.
"Well, it's just...you don't seem like the handkerchief sorta guy."
"Why ever not? They are most useful, practical, and they were used in a time when men were courtly and galant. Which, perhaps I'm not, but I certainly can appreciate the actions."
Why were we talking about handkerchief's again? Oh yeah, cause my mind was total slush right now. I feel my limbs begin to grow heavy and before I know it Walker has scooped me up and begun to carry me from the room.
"Where's....wh...where's we go...go...going?" I slur.
"You, dearheart are going straight to bed, after you take a few Quintinimime. You'll sleep for however long you need, sweetheart, and I'll work in the lab...and promise not to kill the kid."
"Ohhhhhsssss thaaaats goooood...nooooo kill....nooooo maim either..." I mutter, right before I allow the darkness to pull me under.