“Keep going,” I say. She clears her throat again.
“‘She is associated with sovereignty, prophesy, war, and death on the battlefield. She sometimes appears in the form of a crow,’” Liesel pauses and looks back at me. “Didn’t you-”
“See them constantly,” I say. “Keep going.”
“It says here it can also takes the form of an eel, a wolf, and a cow, and can be connected to fertility, wealth, and the land. The Morrigan is a triple goddess, the most common combination being Badb, Macha, and Newain. The Morrígan means ‘terror’ or ‘phantom queen’ or Mórrígan meaning ‘great queen’ and has been associated with the Banshee, Furies, and the Valkyrie. Shit. The Valkyrie,” Liesel says. She looks at me over her shoulder again. “Jeezus, Bonnie.”
“I know,” I say. “Is there anything else? Something about the stone or her death or anything?”
Liesel scans and scrolls. “No,” she says. “I mean, there are tons of things referenced here, but no, nothing neatly summarized. Damn.” Liesel swivels around. “How did you know you’re The Morrigan?”
“Well, I had some kind of dream or vision or something and some woman, maybe she’s the actual Morrigan? Or the original Morrigan? She said to me ‘We are a God. We are The Morrigan’.”
Liesel seems to be at a loss for words, and I’m there too. I rub my temples and Liesel comes over to sit with me. She puts a tiny hand on my broad shoulder and pats me almost like I’m a cat, trying to soothe everything away. It’s nice to feel that someone loves me so unconditionally, to love back, to have known bona fide fairytale-like true love with Clark, and reconnecting with Jasper. It’s a lot to live for, and I’m afraid to lose it.
But if Lola has her way, there will be no peace, for me, or mine, or anyone. I close my eyes and think of all the things I have seen and what they add up to. The stone, the bird on the stone, the crows the day my mother died on the road. Three of them standing above me, watching me. The mark on her wrist when I took off the bracelet.
And suddenly I get an idea about how to maybe even the odds a little bit.
•
Adrian is passed out and so I set to work on getting these weird mittens off. I can’t seem to get enough leverage with my hands behind my back to just strong arm them off and so I step my legs through until my hands are in front. My legs are long, but so are my arms and so it works pretty easily.
I try to ignore the fact that I still can’t feel my hands.
Once the mittens are in front of me, it’s a simple matter of brute strength to break them down. First I force them apart and once my arms are separated I just start punching the concrete walls until they start disintegrating. It’s another five minutes and the building sounds like it’s going to come down around us before I get the first hand free. As the metal falls away I see why I can’t feel my hands.
He’s crushed them to pulp.
They look not unlike Felice did, bits of bone sitting in strange-shaped bags the color of my flesh.
I scream almost loud enough to bring the building down. They haven’t been healing all this time because I’ve been focusing my energy elsewhere. I spend another five minutes getting the second glove off and finding my left hand in similar condition. I go to Adrian’s briefcase and see all the treats he had planned for me. Among other more interesting things in the case there’s a set of regular cuffs. I don’t know what the hell he thought he was going to do with these but they work for me. With much difficulty – my hands still useless to me – I maneuver Adrian over to the distorted but still intact metal ring cemented into the center of the floor. With even more difficulty, I manage to cuff him to it. Just his one hand to the ring is all I can manage, and probably all that’s really necessary. I make sure nothing – including the tire iron covered with my guts – is within his reach, and sit with my back against the cement wall, legs crossed, facing him, laying my little flesh bag hands on my thighs and focus on my healing like I haven’t in a very long time. I don’t know how long it will take to fix my hands, but neither of us are going anywhere until it’s done.
My hands are better before Adrian comes around. As a matter of fact, I start snapping my fingers in his face to help wake him up. When he’s conscious enough to realize that the tables have turned, a darkness settles over his face that almost scares me.
“Nice try with the hands,” I say, snapping my fingers a few more times in case he missed it before.
“It was worth a try. I would have preferred to do it while you were conscious, but I was worried you’d get out. Clearly, I was right to be concerned,” he says, lifting his bound arm off the ground and tugging the handcuffs against the metal ring. “I don’t suppose I’m getting away with a leg wound this time.”