I hesitated, staring at her.
Esteemed Bridge. Those were the exact words the other woman had used...and the same ones Revik called me whenever he didn’t forget and call me Allie instead. Or when he was stressed out and wanted me to do something, like when he’d been dragging me across Golden Gate Park by the wrist, trying to get us out of San Francisco.
Before I could ask, Ullysa pushed gently at my back until I sat on the edge of the bed.
She very efficiently removed the jeans I’d stolen off the clothesline earlier that day, leaving me with the long-sleeved T-shirt and nothing else. I slid my legs under the quilt, not caring. Lying down was followed by unspeakable relief as I sank between clean sheets. I watched Ivy continue to work over Revik, bandaging his shoulder. If I’d known him even a little better, I might have curled up on his other side, maybe even wrapped my arm around him.
I was tempted to do it anyway.
I turned to Ullysa, but she held up a hand.
“Shhh, Esteemed sister. Do not talk. I apologize profoundly for the lack of warmth in your greeting here. Revi’ has already told us that you saved his life several times...”
I was about to argue, then decided she probably didn’t care.
“What do I do?” I said. “The holding thing, I mean?”
“Relax,” Ullysa said.
This time it was a command.
My eyelids immediately closed.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
11
VOW
I stand in a field.
Grasses pool at my feet, flooding down the hill below me like ocean waves. The wind stirs them into rippling patterns, woven wildflowers creating a mosaic of dusty pinks and purples in the cold, clean air, and I am awake, more awake than I can ever remember being. Snow-covered mountains loom above where I stand, jagged and coarse, and incredibly still. Those mountains have their own presence, even apart from the sky and towering clouds, and I look up at them, drinking in their beauty until...
He pulls on me, turning my head.
He stands there, alone, staring up at those same mountains, his long form utterly still.
He doesn't seem to see me, but I feel him all around me, as if I’m looking at him through him...as if I am inside him, too.
This place, it is a part of him, somehow.
...I walk a corridor now, barefoot.
It is carpeted, with high-walled, dark wood paneling, oiled to a lustrous shine. Lamps hang down the center of the ceiling at regular intervals, made of crystal and iron. They flicker as I walk past, but I am a ghost here, invisible. Brightly-colored paintings garnish muted wallpaper, as different from the paintings on Ullysa’s wall as they can be. I trace them with my eyes—white men on muscled steeds, Wagner-esque with a hint of Valhalla. The riders’ expressions mirror one another, stern but wise, unintentionally cartoonish.
Through an open doorway, a harsh, emotional voice speaks over the crackle of an ancient radio.
Servants stand over it, listening. They don’t notice me, but I recognize the voice, even understand the words, although in the real world I don’t understand German.
“God knows that I have indeed wanted peace...”
Ahead, the sounds of a larger party beckon.
The man’s strident words pull at me, inexorable.
“...We were forced to fight. In the face of such malice, I can do nothing but protect the interests of the Reich with such means as, thank God, are at our disposal...”
Voices grow louder from the room off the corridor ahead. I hear laughter interspersed with the murmur of conversations, some of it tinny and off-kilter, drunk-sounding.
A cluster of men walk towards me, wearing uniforms.
“...They were bound to regard this action as a provocation emanating from the State that once had set the whole of Europe on fire and had been guilty of indescribable sufferings. But those days of using seers and Jews to fight the battles of men are now past. An error we regret, one we will not repeat...”
Four men approach in that group. Soldiers. I recognize the color and shape of their uniforms and what they mean, their import, but here, the clothing feels mundane.
They speak German, like the radio.
“The Fuhrer’s speech is not finished,” a tow-headed boy of maybe seventeen says. He shoves a cap back on his head, rubbing his forehead. “We shouldn’t have left.”
The man next to him throws an arm over his shoulder. “Aw, read the text in the papers. I need something stronger to drink...and there are nothing but dogs in that pen.” Drunk already, he grins, eyes bleary. “...At least that I could bark at without getting shot!” He laughs, slapping the tow-headed one in the back of the head. “Dogs! Ha!”