AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I entered one of my booktrailers into a contest. Would you mind voting? If you don't like mine, it's for Scotland's Guardians, vote for one of the others. There are some really awesome ones. Please help me out. Here's the link: http://yougottaread.com/category/video-contest/ (you need to copy it by hand. Sorry)
That said, here comes the highlight of the story (for me it was the scene that started the whole story). Plus, I have now posted 2/3 of the story.
I'm super delighted to let you know that I reached Round 3 in TheWriteAwards! See here: http://www.wattpad.com/17376825-the-write-awards-2013-going-on-to-round-3
The judges have done a spectacular job of weeding through 100+ stories. The next step will include the writing of 3 short stories for the 15 remaining finalists. I'm really, really excited.
Cat
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She went to her flat to fetch the handicapped ID first, and then she went on to the nerlôpital. The ceiling of the entrance area was just about high enough that a human could move without crouching. Moira asked the nerl at the reception to announce her visit to the injured nerl's doctor and followed the receptionist's directions to the intensive care unit.
A healer hardly reaching up to her knee caught up with her in the hallway. "I'm really sorry but we cannot allow you to visit even though you're from the Gendarmerie. Gronk is traumati…" He stopped and stared at her. Then, he grabbed her hand and dragged her along. "Come, hurry. Maybe it's good for you to talk to him after all."
Moira wondered about his sudden change of attitude but she followed without resistance. The healer pushed her into a windowless room that looked like a cave. Stalagmites covered walls and ceiling and the air was moist and cold. Somewhere, water dropped on stone. On a small mound of pieces of plate, Gronk sat and stared into space. Although the room was rather small, he looked lost. He didn't react when she greeted him.
"Get him to make a contract with you," the healer said. "With a lot of luck, it will help him. It's worth a try."
Hesitantly, Moira sat on the ground beside the mound of plate. For a while, she studied the armless nerl silently. The wound had already healed but Gronk's expression was anything but happy. When the healer had left, she said, "I know it's not a good time just now, but I have to ask you a couple of questions."
Gronk stared into space, motionless.
"The Gendarmerie depends on your statement. You're the only one who survived the bloodbath."
"Survived? Pah." Gronk spit and looked at her. "Piss off."
"I will stay here until I get a statement." Moira crossed her arms in front of her chest.
"In that case, you can wait until the dragons' world freezes over."
Moira remained silent.
"Go away. My word isn't of worth any more anyway."
"Why that?"
"I'm a dead nerl walking, a cripple who'll never grow again." Gronk slumped until his head rested on his knees.
His shoulders trembled, but his crying was so low, Moira couldn't hear it. She wanted to stroke his back, but she understood nerls well enough to know that she'd only make him angry. If only I could help him. She sighed. At that moment, she remembered how the nerl in the museum's archive had taken his payment out of her aura. After her visit, he'd been bigger than before. Also, all nerls working for her were bigger than average. Maybe Gronk will grow despite the lost arm if he touches my aura. She remembered that the archivist had moved his right hand over her arm. If he can't move his arm over mine, I could move mine over his. She bent forward and poked Gronk.
"Will you give me a statement if I can help you, even if it's just a tiny bit?"
Gronk moaned tormented. "Why didn't you let me die?"
"So, how about it?"
Gronk sat up and looked at her with sad eyes. "If you really can help me, I'll tell you all I know."
"Deal." Moira reached out with her right hand and moved it over Gronk's armless shoulder. Waves and swirls surged through her, and she felt dizzy. It's working. She lost consciousness.
When she came to, Gronk stood on her chest lifting a cup of water over his head with both arms. Before she could say anything, he poured the water into her face. Coughing and spitting, she sat up.
"That wasn't necessary." She took the nerl who was clinging to her neckline and sat him down on the ground.
Gronk beamed at her. "You healed me. Look! You really healed me." He turned in a circle holding out both arms. The right one was slightly shorter, and its skin was neither green nor knobbly, it had a decidedly human tinge to it, but it was an arm complete with hand. Gronk laughed, and it sounded like a fire in a fireplace. "Thank you, thank you, than you." He clung to her arm and kissed her wrist.
When Moira had recovered a little, she said, "Now for your part of the deal."
Gronk climbed back onto his mound of plate. Satisfied, Moira noticed that it was too small for him now. The nerl smiled at her so merrily, he didn't look ugly at all, all of a sudden.
Gronk sat down with his legs crossed. "What do you want to know?"
"Did you record anything before your injury?"
Gronk shook his head. "I hadn't been activated. But I heard a lot."
"Can you repeat it?"
"Not word by word, but the housemaid has set an ultimatum for the master. She said that if he didn't manage to hold his wife away from her beloved, they'd both resign. The master wasn't very angry when he heard about his wife's affair, which surprised me a little. He sounded resigned." Gronk scratched his chin. "The housemaid left, and I heard sounds as if something was opened. Maybe a box. And paper rustled. Then, there was this new voice. I had never heard it before."
Moira bent forward with anticipation. "What kind of voice was it? Can you describe it?"
Gronk pondered the question. "It was wonderful, harmonic, and silvery-bright like a Glockenspiel. The voice talked to the master as if it were a slow-witted dog. After a while, Madame came to tell him, she needed to go shopping. She screamed once, then everything fell silent. Even the silver voice didn't say anything. A little later, Mademoiselle was singing in the living room, and heavy footsteps walked over form the library. Her song ended with another scream. Yes, and then, something shot through the lid of my box and my arm went up in flames. I can't remember anything else."
Moira thanked him. She had to endure many more thank-yous before she could leave.
In the patrol carpisto, she pondered Gronk's statement. So, it wasn't a killing spree. There was someone else in the room. Who could that be? She wondered whose voice one could call silvery-bright. Probably not that of a human and surely not that of a nerl. Maybe it was an elf, a friend of Leclerque Bastide. The assumption seemed sensible. If one elf became an offender against all expectations, why not a second one? I should talk about this with Sabio.
The patrol carpisto stopped at the entrance of the Gendarmerie, and Moira got out.
Nearby, Excelsior exited a taxi. His suit looked as if he had slept in it. His hair and beard stood off in all directions. When he noticed Moira, he ran to her and grabbed her. His fingers dug painfully into her shoulders. "Where is my son? He wasn't with any of his friends. "
"Let go." Moira tried to break free, without success.
Excelsior shook her. "Tell me where to find Druidus! What did you do to him, witch?"
"Nothing." Moira remembered the night and forced herself not to smile. "He meant to take the evidence of last night's murder to your archive. But I can't say if he's still there or not."
Wordlessly, Excelsior let go and hurried into the building. Moira adjusted her clothes and followed more slowly. From the cellar, she heard Druidus' voice before the fireproof door to the archive slammed shut with a reverberating thud. Poor boy, she thought. Hopefully, Excelsior gets his temper under control soon. She walked along the corridor to Sabio's office.
Sabio was still dictating a report into the funnel of a write-a-nerl. The nerl at the other end had difficulties writing equally fast, but Sabio ignored his protest. When he saw Moira, he made a break. "That was fast."
Moira reported, what Gronk had told her.
"So, we can forget about the idea of a killing spree. I guess a simple case of violence in a family would have been too easy." Sabio sighed, closed his eyes, crossed his hands behind his head, and leaned back. "I'm at my wits end. Pete Huudien is the only clue we've still got, and we can't seem to find him."
"And the silvery-bright voice," Moira reminded him.
A gendarme knocked and entered the office. He bent nearly to the ground. "Commissaire Marten, Colonel Magique begs you to come to the archive vault. Druidus Van Steen is asking for you."
That didn't sound good. Moira ran. Undefined fear throttled her and made her heart beat faster. Since Sabio has been sitting, she had a head start. She flew down the stairs and through the open security door of the archive. Inside, she stumbled over Excelsior's head lying directly in the doorway. Only the wide back of the Colonel Magique stopped her. The empty gaze in Excelsior's dead eyes made her shiver. Where was Druidus? What had happened?
She freed herself and looked around. With wide open eyes, she stared at the scene in front of her.
Blood dropped from ceiling and walls. The sweet metallic scent of it made her gag. Druidus crouched on the ground holding Excelsior's body in one arm, a sword in the other. He rocked to and fro and whimpered.
A gigantic fist crunched Moira's heart. Her legs refused to carry her any longer, so she squatted beside him. Hesitantly, she put a hand on his shoulder. "Druidus?"
Slowly he looked up and looked at her as if she belonged to a different word. His eyes were filled with fear and pain, but his face was motionless. He looked as if he didn't know her. "Can you find his head?" He smiled, but it didn't look genuine. "Father lost it." He giggled.
His low laugh set Moira's teeth on edge. She felt her breakfast rise in her throat and fought hard not to vomit.
"The boy is high," a gendarme said who stood beside the Colonel Magique. "I arrested a guy on a similar trip four weeks ago in the bar district."
At this moment, Sabio stumbled into the archive. His face expressionless, Druidus looked up to him. "I killed him, Sabio. Just me." Then, he bent over his dad's body, hummed a melody, and didn't say a word.
Moira pressed her hand over her mouth to keep form crying. She was too weak to get up. Tears ran over her face, and her heart hurt as if someone had cut it in two. Steadfastly, she stared at Druidus. She couldn't believe she had slept with a maniac murderer. But he confessed. Had he been playacting like his mother? Was that the reason Excelsior and Aparta tried to keep Druidus from having a permanent relationship? Did they suspect he was raving mad? Maybe even known? Moira's stomach cramped. Her breakfast wouldn't stay down much longer. Instinctively, she got up and stumbled out of the archive. Beside the stairs, she vomited into a trash can, until her body was empty.
Gently, Sabio put a hand on her back. "Something is terribly wrong here. Druidus would never do anything like this. I know him. Come, let the gendarmes do their jobs."
Moira stood straight and looked at him. His face was pale as death. She longed to believe him, but what about Druidus confession? Without resistance, she followed him past their colleagues and up the stairs. Sabio talked soothingly to her, but all she caught was his promise to visit Druidus in remand prison together with her.
"Since you're an aspirant of the Gendarmerie, no one can keep you away," he said.
Moira clung to this thought like a drowning person to a lifeline. If only she could talk to Druidus, everything would be all right. He would explain what truly happened.
In the hall, they met Aparta. Despite the chaos in her mind, Moira noticed the contempt in her eyes as she glanced at her. With honey-sweet friendliness, the auralogist said, "Don't worry. The examination board isn't all that bad."
Moira ignored her. She let go of Sabio and collapsed onto one of the benches in the hall.
Aparta pulled up an eyebrow and looked at Sabio. "What's wrong with her? Is she ill? Do we have to reschedule the test?"
Sabio didn't answer. He simply gazed at her in silence.
All color drained from Aparta's face. All of a sudden, her voice quivered. "Is something wrong with Druidus? Excelsior said he found him."
Sabio turned away and walked toward his office. "Please come with me. We need to talk."
Aparta grabbed his shoulders and barked, "Tell me right now what happened to Druidus!"
"He beheaded his father," Moira yelled. "Your son is a damned murderer!" Crying, she flung both hands over her face.
Aparta staggered a few steps backward, then she lunged at Moira. "That's not true." Screaming, she hit Moira who barely managed to keep her head covered. "My son would never do anything like that. Never! It's just not true."
"Don't you care that your husband is dead?" With her arms over her head, Moira's voice was dampened.
"He was an Idiot. But Druidus. My son. My little darling. He wouldn't do that." Aparta grabbed Moira's shoulders and shook. "It's all your fault, damned slut."
Moira's head jerked to and fro. She didn't have the strength to fight back. In vain, Sabio tried to pull Aparta off. He needed the help of two more gendarmes to control the raging woman until Doc came running and injected a sedative into her arm.
He put his hand on Moira's shoulder. "Are you all right? Do you need a sedative as well?"
Moira shook her head. How could she be all right if the man she loved was a murderer?
"Fine." Doc took his bag and walked down the stairs to the archive.
Moira sat motionlessly on the bench in the entrance hall until an ambulance came to fetch the sleeping Aparta. Right behind the ambulance men, Franka and Tord entered the building. "Poor thing." Franka hugged her friend and held her close. Moira clung to her as if she wanted to squeeze her to death.
"Come, we'll take you home," Tord said.
At this moment, Druidus was led past them in handcuffs. He stared at the ground. Franka let Moira go, turned, and spit at him. He didn't react.
The gendarme leading him made a quick gesture with his hand, and the spit rolled off a temporary shield. He frowned at Franka. "Don't do that again."
"Druidus." Moira walked toward the captive. As little as she trusted it, her heart insisted he wasn't guilty. "You didn't really kill him, did you? Tell me the truth."
Druidus lifted his gaze and looked at her. "Truth. I killed him. Just me."
His voice sounded apathetic, but his eyes were full of sorrow and tears. Moira reached out toward him. She trembled. "Why?"
The gendarme pushed her arm aside and dragged Druidus forward. "You're not allowed to talk to him."
A wave of despair buried Moira. How could she tell if Druidus' words lied or his eyes if she couldn't talk to him? She felt as if someone sliced her heart with a sharp knife. It became constantly harder to stay on her feet. She faltered.
Franka put her arm around her. "Come, Moira, you need to rest."
Reluctantly, she allowed her friend to pull her along. When they entered Tord's rickety carpisto, she had an idea that didn't fit one bit with the turmoil of her feelings – a thought that seemed terribly funny. She giggled. Now, the will have to find yet another day for my testing. Giggling mixed with sobbing. The whole way home, she giggled and cried and tears ran over her cheeks.
She was still laughing when Franka pushed her into her bedroom and took off her shoes and the spoiled dress. She only stopped when she lay in bed. Cover and cushion still smelled of Druidus. Moira threw them out, curled into a tight ball, and locked the world out of her mind. This, she knew how to do ever since her father had left. Franka's voice bubbled past her like the purl of a brook. After some time that seemed endless to her, Moira fell asleep.