Hannah's face was calm, curled up under the blanket and sleeping, her long lashes touching her cheeks, her lips slightly parted as she slowly inhaled and exhaled. She smelled of apple blossoms and the wild feral smell that always excited me even in her sleep and I could smell the slight scent of mint and wild berries on her breath. I could tell she was dreaming by the way her eyelids twitched, knew she was in REM sleep because her eyes were rapidly flicking back and forth.
One night I had asked her what she dreamed about and although she had tried to explain, it had made no sense to me. She spoke of strange smells, the singing of bees as they flew, the faint whispers of far off events carried on leaves stirring in the wind that she referred to as the world's breath, and many other things.
She was strange, but I loved her.
I knew that most of those who knew her feared her, but I looked at it like this: She was no more dangerous than any of the "normal" humans in my squad. Stillwater was malevolent, a barely restrained killing machine with some stripped gears; Bomber was six feet of Texas lethality chomping at the bit to burn the world; Nagle was a hair from being a sociopath; so there was no reason to fear Hannah/Aine more than them.
My fingers grazed her cheeks and the corners of her mouth turned up slightly and she gave a pleased sigh. I didn't want to get up, didn't want to leave her sleeping, but I really had to take a leak.
Well, like Bomber always said: Ain't gonna get done if'n ya dawdle.
Aine sighed in pleasure and curled into the fetal position as snuggled down into the quilt when I tucked her in, her thumb moving up to her mouth. I'd noticed that in a lot of my squad after Atlas had exploded. Almost all of the survivors had started sucking their thumbs, often curling into the fetal position once they went to sleep. Cromwell had mumbled something about 'reversion" and "infantilism" before I'd driven her to Frankfurt to put her on a plane to go to Special Weapons training.
Stillwater had tried to send me, but his application had been kicked back. I was a radioman, there wasn't any specialized training, and to be honest, after seeing what Special Weapons training had done to my squad mates, I sure as hell didn't want to attend whatever torture-fest they called training. I mean, holy shit, that training apparently took normal people, chewed them up, and spit out goddamn psychopaths.
Fuck. That.
I didn't bother turning on the light to the bedroom. The sun was just setting, and I'd always had good night vision. This might feel like too much information, but the faint smell of honey-suckle mixing with good old fashioned sex was a strictly Aine/Hannah thing, and immediately brought her to my mind. If I hadn't already been completely spent, even her venom ineffective, it would have definitely had an effect upon me. I loved the smell of her and I mixed, and that was the reason I passed on taking a shower. It was an odd thing, unique to Hannah/Aine, since I'd always hurried to the shower after I'd finished with Gail.
I flushed, moved to the sink, and washed my hands. That, more than anything, reminded me that I was no longer at Atlas, no longer in the field, I was finally home and away from Group. The soap, which was usually Dove for mother and whatever soap my father stole from wherever or had randomly shown up, was instead my favorite. It had some unpronounceable (to me) German name, but it was orange and the smell reminded me of those cheap orange cream ice cream sticks from my childhood that my mother bought me now and then during the summer. The smell was nice, and calmed me, and I ran my finger through the lather, which was rich and thick.
After wiping down the sink I left, heading into the kitchen to go to the fridge. Opening it I was not surprised to find orange creme sodas in a cardboard six-pack that looked like someone had stolen it from a carnival. I pulled one out, used the bottle opener glued to the fridge door, the cap dropping into the small metal box under it, and took a long drink off it before moving over to sit down at the table, still completely naked. The vinyl of the chair felt sticky, but not in a bad way like it used to in the summer when I wore shorts, or my father made me sit in one of the chairs naked for reasons I'd rather not get into, but rather the soft comforting stickiness of clean vinyl.
How far Gail would push her claim that my mother had given her the house? Would she go to the sheriff? Would she try to take me to court? Or would she take the path of least resistance and figure that as soon as she left she and Dave would move in and figure I would never know.
The thought of the two of them in the same house I had made love to Hannah inside of made my hand itch. Well, not itch itch, but a tingling tactile memory of how my issue .45 felt in my hand when it got ugly. I rubbed my hands together to banish the feeling and stared at the condensation beading on the bottle, trying to figure out what to do.
Gail's parents had come into a lot of money. She had always bragged about how an aunt was rich. Not wealthy, but rich. We're talking Beverly HIllbillies rich. I had figured it was just another one of the lies
I love you, Paul, her voice whispered, bringing an instant bitter, metallic taste to my mouth.
she constantly told me. However, she had mailed me a full page article from the local paper about her parents inheriting the old woman's money, stocks, property, and possessions.
Which confused me as to why she was still living in this Kentucky ho-dunk po-dunk well there then now shithole small town.
Atlas training made me want to find out.
Know your enemy, know what they will do, and you can predict their responses to your actions on the battlefield in order to control the flow of battle. Rule of land warfare, Lancer's voice whispered in the back of my head.
If I left, she could go to the courts and I wouldn't be able to fight it. She could drag it out for decades, with her parents money, and bury me under flesh eating feral lawyers powered by hatred for all things decent. She could bribe the cops. Don't look so shocked, it's a shithole town, and the purchase of a few houses, some cop cars, and a large donation to the Policeman's Welfare Fund and the cops would probably monkey-stomp me and film it for her to masturbate to.
OK, I was starting to feel a little bitter.
Burn the place down, salt the earth, and sneer at the bitch, Stillwater's voice growled from somewhere deep in my head.
Goddamn you, Stillwater.
That had been happening more and more. I unpacked and examined why. It had started after the Vympel attack, when he'd gimped over to my cot and held my hand when I had cried from the pain of the wounds I'd taken in the nasty final fight that had gone down when the Vympel made their final push.
Flushing, I remembered how he hadn't remarked upon or reacted to the fact that a couple times I'd accidentally called him "Dad" when I'd gone to speak to him privately over something.
That would be where he's coming from. My first goddamn father figure was a barely restrained homicidal maniac who's first response was shocking and overwhelming violence. How more than once I'd finished something, or been working on something, hoping that it met with his approval.
But he'd been there when I'd needed him. Given me advice. Been more of a father than my own father.
Goddamn you, Stillwater.
He just laughed at me in the back of my head.
Bomber was more like the wise uncle, with his Texas accent and home-spun advice. Nancy was the scary older sister who didn't care about personal space or modesty. Cromwell was the mother. That made me jerk slightly, but then it made sense.
She kissed our booboos, put a bandage on them, wiped our tears, and sent us back out to play.
Great. The Atlas crew was more of a family than I had ever had.
God help me.
I watched the sun set, keeping my brain in neutral, and drank the orange creme soda.
At eight-o-clock at night the church bells rang, just barely audible, and it gave me an idea.
I would talk to Father Tremain, the pastor, and see if there was a young couple or a widow who might want to rent the house. I'd put him in charge of handling the house and property, sing it over to the church for the time I was in the military. I'd donate half of the rent to the church, and maybe they'd be able to use it to lure a younger pastor to the church.
The idea made me smile. I knew that Hannah would approve. She had an odd relationship with the Church. She could quote the Bible, knew all the Catholic rituals, but she had also told me that she secretly believed in a different God, far older than Jesus, but respected the Church due to it's age and martial youth.
That had startled me. Pop culture would make it seem like she would hold Christianity in contempt. She thought the New Testament was "weak" and preferred the Old Testament, but that was just her.
I'd discuss it with her when she woke up. Yeah, the house was mine, but I loved her, and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I'd want to talk it out with her.
There was always the possibility that she had already decided that we would return to her Washington home, but then her family was scattered all over the United States, and I doubted she would want to run the risk of living beneath her mother's hand.
She had an odd connection to the land, so I'd need to know she could live here.
I sighed, finishing the soda and getting up to toss away the empty soldier and get another bottle.
It was surprising to me that the six-pack of soda was missing one and that when I passed the trash I glanced into it and saw that the bag wasn't empty, the soda bottle I had thrown away still at the bottom of the can. I had half expected the six-pack to still be full, the bottle to be missing.
It wouldn't be the first time that had happened.
She loved me.
The rain started up again, whispering against the roof, and I could tell that the wind was starting to pick up. I got up, checked on her, saw that she was smiling even though she was sucking her thumb, and went back in to sit down.
I still had an odd feeling. That itching between the shoulder blades. That cold feeling beneath the puckered bullet scar on my hip, like a chunk of ice still lodged inside of me. That tingle at the base of the skull that raised the shaved hair up on my neck.
Something was coming.
Hannah would say that my weird was twisting and I was feeling it. My grandmother would have said that it was someone walking over my grave.
My father would have slapped me across the face and told me to quit being such a faggot.
Gail was going to be a problem, so would Dave, but I doubted that they were why I felt that way. The two junky pushers from the store? Maybe. I wasn't sure how bad it had gotten since I left.
The wind picked up, howling around the house, and the rain hammered down. The sound of both changed, no longer sounding like a typical late-autumn storm. Now it sounded threatening, almost oppressive. Before I could even draw a breath I heard thunder follow a lightning strike that I could see. It was lurid, purple lightning, multiple bolts combining halfway to the storm clouds.
By the sixth bolt I realized that the lightning was coming closer, marching toward the house.
The uneasy feeling got worse.
Two more bolts, the thunder shaking the whole house, the lightning lighting everything up.
The lights went out in the house and the warmth of the house turned muggy.
There was a growling behind me. I turned in the chair and saw two glowing green eyes staring at me over the back of the couch, the shadow looking like a massive dog that's back would be as high as my shoulders.
Lightning hit in the front yard, shaking the whole house. The flash illuminated the front room.
The massive hound was not there, even though its eyes reappeared when the flash dimmed away and the growl was deep enough that it vibrated my bones.
Long seconds passed, and two more sets of eyes appeared. One in the hallway, blocking me from reaching Hannah. The second set of eyes staring at me through the sliding glass door.
I could smell moss, berries, cold brook water, hot blood, and pine trees.
The emptiness inside of me swallowed the fear that started to blossom, and I took another drink off of the bottle. Whatever was happening, I was powerless to change it, and any of the reactions that training insisted I took felt like it would be the wrong answer.
There was a knock on the door.
It was a light polite knock.
The wind and rain had returned to what it had been last night. Normal late-autumn weather. Rain whispered on the roof as I stood up and walked to the door.
Something gave me the feeling that it might not be wise to make whoever was knocking wait while I put on clothing, and a hunch told me that the person knocking wouldn't care that I was naked.
I unlocked and opened the door, revealing a diminutive woman with long red hair that touched the ground. Fireflies darted around her, glowing green and unaffected the wind. Flowers and vines were intertwined with the thick wavy hair. She had glowing green eyes, a small button nose, and a cupid's bow mouth.
She was as naked as I was, only her forearms and calves were wrapped with vines, venomous looking red flowers here and there on the vines. Blood and milk leaked from her thorn guarded nipples, and her public hair was wild on her legs, groin, and under her arms.
"Hello, Paul," The woman smiled.
Tauth du Aine, my future mother-in-law leaned forward and kissed my lower lip.
"May I come in?"