Killarel
By Poto
It took approximately one thousand, two hundred and thirty four normal strides between the front door of Brangwen Andersen's apartment building and the bookshop where she worked.
She'd counted them more than once, sometimes coming up with different values, taken the average. Sometimes she was happier and it would take more steps, because her stride shortened when she walked at a leisurely pace. When she just wanted to get there, when she was a little bit late, when the wind was howling or the sky looked heavy and threatened rain she would take long purposeful strides, knocking about thirty steps off the total, give or take.
Her next project, when she was really bored and contemplating the fact that life seemed to be getting duller by the minute, was to calculate the average stride length, and work out an approximate distance, taking all the extraneous factors into account.
She was at four hundred and thirty six, rounding the corner by the bank and heading up the steeper slope of Grace street, when she heard the scream.
She turned sharply. Just up ahead there was an alley off to the left.
Brangwen looked at her watch, twisting her arm to try and see the time in the distant street light. 10.15pm. The Thursday night shopping crowds had thinned to a trickle of people she could barely make out in the distance on main street. Too far away to call for help in any case. In the pitch darkness no one up there would have any idea there was someone down here.
Then there were more voices, the scratching sounds of boots on concrete. A whimper, and then a soft hiss, deeper, from a different person. A man yelped in pain and anger, and then seconds later something wild tore from the mouth of the alley, arms flailing. She was almost naked from the waist up, clothes shredded, her face, knees and arms scratched and bloodied. Brangwen flinched as the woman stumbled and fell, her hands hitting hard bitumen.
The desperate woman looked up and caught Brangwen's eyes. Her frenetic movement had stopped, she lay on the cold ground, breathless with shock.
Without thinking Brangwen ran to the woman, struggling out of her long, brown coat. She wrapped it hastily around the stranger, hauling her roughly to her feet. The woman whimpered in pain but didn't resist.
Brangwen heard another noise from the alley and turned her head in time to see three men emerge. When they saw her the leader sneered, indecisive about chasing their quarry now there were two. The second man ran off, his laughter a sick song that wafted in the air after him. The leader followed, grunting. The third man emerged last and held his left hand with his right as if nursing a wound as he ran. She blinked in the darkness, trying to make out features, clothing, anything that could help her when the questions came.
"Priests…" The stranger croaked.
Brangwen's attention was brought back. She blinked, confused for a moment. "Priests? You want a priest? Oh shit, you must be freezing." She gently fed the injured woman's arms into each sleeve of the coat, wrapping the front around her. They walked slowly, each step wrenching a small breath of pain.
The stranger refused to lean on Brangwen's shoulder but didn't resist an arm around her to keep her steady. Her eyes were glazed, staring at the road, or at nothing. She couldn't tell for sure.
"Listen, we'll go back to the store where I work, it's closer than my apartment. My boss will still be there. He has a first-aid kit in the back. Come on."
She nudged the woman on, expecting any minute for her legs to collapse beneath her like an old accordion. Even as the darkness grew thicker around them as they moved further away from the street lights she could see bruises already starting to appear on the woman's features. The small cuts on her hands and face were too precise to have been caused when she fell. At least one of the attackers must have had a knife. Shuddering, she tried to put their maniacal laughter from her mind, but it echoed still, making her nauseous.
"You can do it. It's not far, I promise. You're safe now, they're not coming back." She whispered, brushing long tendrils of black hair from the stranger's forehead and away from her eyes.
Like never before Brangwen felt each of those carefully numbered steps back to the bookshop. The trip took forever. She glanced constantly at her watch. The stranger didn't speak again.
"Come on. It's going to be all right. Just a little while further now. It's around this block, see? Soon we'll see the little green light above the door."
She couldn't think of anything to do but keep moving and talking. The cold was sharp now, cutting through her too-thin shirt. A wind ripped between the buildings, the narrow streets acting like wind-tunnels.
Finally they were standing on the doorstep of the shop and Brangwen peered through the darkened windows, spotting a light peeping softly under the door to the back room.
She banged loudly on the door. "Christian! Christian it's me, open up!"
There was no answer at first. Brangwen stood banging for another thirty seconds, sure that Christian would come out eventually if only in annoyance. The stockroom door opened and he peered around.
She banged again. "Christian. Help! Open the door!"
A broad shouldered giant crossed the floor of the shop in moments, keys jangling in his hand. He stuck one in the lock and twisted it roughly.
The door swung open. Brangwen pushed her burden gently across the threshold, relinquishing her into Christians stronger arms. He picked her up softly, carrying her through the store and out the back without a word.
When they reached the stockroom he looked around, frustrated. "I don't even think I have any blankets up here. Damn it!"
"We have fire blankets out the back, I'll grab those." Brangwen replied, not waiting for an answer. She raced into the small kitchenette and searched in the top cupboards, finally pulling out three wrapped, red packages. The blankets were thin but warm, and it was better than lying her on the cold tile of the floor. She tore the packaging off each of them as she ran back.
There was no one there.
"Christian?" She called, confused. Wandering back into the store she looked around. In a few seconds her eyes readjusted from the stockroom light and she saw a doorway ajar on the other side. Her eyes narrowed. She was certain she'd never seen that door before.
She walked softly over, opening the door a crack. It was dark inside except for a light in the distance, coming from below her eye-line After a few seconds her eyes spotted the stairs going down, and she opened the door further, just enough to get her body inside, before closing it firmly shut behind her.
"Chris?" She called again, softer now, almost whispering. Still clutching the folded blankets, she tiptoed down the stairs, not quite sure why she was making an effort not to make noise. At the bottom of the stairs she spotted a door left. The door was half open. A tall candles burned inside, flickering, throwing distorted shadows against the wall.
He didn't turn as she came in. The woman was lying on an old battered sofa, the remains of her dress pulled up to strategically to hide her near nakedness. Christian looked up gratefully as Brangwen handed him the blankets.
"Thanks, there isn't any blankets down here either. There's some water in a little fridge over there. You want to pour some in a cup for her?"
Brangwen only nodded, still looking around her in wonder. What the hell was this place?
The blankets were small, only half the height of a normal person. Christian spread each one in layers over her body so eventually she was covered in a thin layer from neck to foot, her scarred arms resting on top.
"She passed out?" Brangwen asked.
"Yeah, as soon as put her down."
They stared briefly at the stranger in silence. Finally, Brangwen knelt and with a gentle finger dabbed a small amount of water on the woman's dry lips.
"I found her in the alley just before Grace street. There were three of them."
Christian just looked mournful. He examined the knife wounds on the woman's hands. "What did they look like?"
Brangwen sighed. "I don't know. I didn't get much of a look. It was dark and they ran away pretty much as soon as I got there. There was one of them that turned to face me - if I saw him again I think I would recognise him." She put the cup down on the floor and went back to the other side of the room. There was a small hand basin beside the fridge with a worn washcloth scrunched messily in the bottom of the bowl.
"She'll know though, when she wakes up. She took a piece out of one of them. Bit his hand I think. I saw him clutching it as he ran away." Brangwen wetted the cloth slightly and came back. She knelt beside the woman and washed small streaks of blood from her arms and face. "She said something about priests before, when I first found her. I didn't have a clue what she meant. Maybe she's religious?"
She didn't notice Christian's startled look. He bent forward and smoothed some hair back from the stranger's forehead.
A flash of something caught Brangwen's eye as she washed some of the blood away. Near the stranger's hairline, underneath a small widow's peak, was a tiny tattoo. It almost blended with the deep black of her hair, a tiny circle spouting eight lines, with another small circle at the end of each line. It was intricate work, detailed and extremely small.
"What is that?" Brangwen asked, looking at Christian's face and seeing the recognition there. He snatched his hand away quickly.
"I don't believe it." He muttered, softly.
"What?"
"A circle member. Here. Probably an itinerant. That doesn't make any sense. I didn't hear anything about it." He bent down again and peered closer at the mark, as if trying to convince himself that his eyes were lying.
"I don't get it. What are you talking about? An itinerant what?"
"And she said 'priests"? You're sure she said 'priests'?"
"Of course I'm sure. But what..?"
A blank mask settled over Christian's features. "I'm going to get some bandages. We'll do what we can and then..."
She grabbed his arm. "What are you talking about? I don't understand. Where the hell are we anyway? I didn't even know this place existed."
"Look, we don't have time! We have to do something for her before she wakes up and starts feeling any more pain."
She flushed. "Of course. I'm sorry. I just…"
"You're confused. It's all right." He rushed off, leaving her alone with the woman. She stared at the prone creature lying on the rickety couch. Now she seemed even more strange, and completely fragile with her eyes closed in sleep and her face still specked with traces of blood. Chris's reaction was weird. So was the entire underground apartment.
She looked around. A sofa, some bookshelves filled to bursting with books whose titles she didn't recognise. A bar fridge hummed in the corner next to a small card table with an ancient clock radio, flanked by two wooden fold-up chairs. She was kneeling on wooden floorboards, stripped back like the floors of an old Colonial house and polished red. It was some kind of basement. The roof was painted bright white.
She could hear Chris clanking about in the next room, opening and shutting cupboard doors. She got up slowly and peered out into the hall. The whole place was a bit dusty, but neat. The furniture was all clean, but worn and obviously second hand. It was almost like a bachelor pad. For a second she wondered briefly if Chris lived there.
He emerged from the other room holding a tiny black pouch in one hand and some nail scissors and bandages in the other. Shuffling past her he knelt by the bed and started treating the deepest cuts on the woman's hands. The slashed cuts across her palms and fingers looked like she'd reached out to defend herself against the knife of her attacker. The smaller cuts on her face looked more like incisions. Brangwen shuddered when she thought about where else the cuts might be.
"What can I do?" She asked.
Chris looked up. His face was grim and uncertain. "I'm not sure if we should…I think maybe we should call an ambulance."
"Shit, I probably should have done that from where I found her. I didn't even think."
Chris touched the tattoo on the woman's forehead. "I'm still not sure…"
The woman stirred under his touch. He smoothed her hair gently back from her forehead with his fingertips. She moved her head a little.
"No…hospital…please…" A tiny voice struggled its way out of her mouth, and her eyelids fluttered gently.
Chris sighed. "How did I know you were going to say that? You're a crazy lot."
The eyelids came open at last, obviously with great effort. She looked up at Chris with blue, translucent eyes, stark with fear.. "We…? You know?"
Chris put his hand over his face, and drew it down slowly to his chest, making a fist above his heart. Finally he bowed his head slightly, almost in obeisance. The woman's eyes widened, with astonishment now rather than terror. Brangwen could only stare, silently. She wasn't sure the woman had even seen her.
The stranger coughed a little. "No hospital…" She whispered again. Urgency flashed in her exhausted eyes.
Chris acquiesced, though reluctantly. "All right. I understand. But we need to get help. You need more treatment than I can give you."
"You know a safe doctor?"
"I do. But I'll need to go get her myself."
The woman nodded, and Chris rose immediately.
As he stood up the stranger followed his form, finally seeing brangwen wedged firmly in the corner of the room, confused and worried. She lifted a tired arm up slowly, gestured Brangwen forward. brangwen knelt beside the bed and offered her hand, capturing the woman's small fingers in her own, careful not to touch her wounds. The woman coughed again, dry and painful.
Brangwen fetched the cup of water and gently held it to her lips, letting her take a small sip. The woman rested her head back on the pillows and frowned. She looked up at Chris. "How long?"
Hi eyes brightened. "It might take a little time. An hour maybe."
The woman looked at Christian's strained features and smiled a little. "I'm not dying, it's all right…I'd know…" Her voiced trailed off, fatigue creeping up on her again.
Brangwen didn't see him leave but she heard his footsteps clattering into the next room. Seconds later he was tapping away on his keyboard.
All alone with the woman, Brangwen had no idea what to say. She gave her water in small doses, and finished the bandaging Chris had begun.
After a while, there was the whisper of a soft voice. "What.. is your name?"
"Brangwen Andersen. My friends call me Gwen."
"I'm Hannah."
Her eyes drifted closed as complete exhaustion took hold. Every now and then she let out a soft sigh as Brangwen touched some tender part of her wounds as she attempted to clean them some more. Finally Brangwen heard Hannah's breathing begin to get regular, her head lilting slightly to the side.
"Sleep well." She whispered, tucking the blankets tightly around her. The coat Brangwen had given her was in the corner where Chris had discarded it. Gently she laid the thick jacket down over the top for extra warmth.
Christian emerged again, this time wearing a black leather jacket and scarf, concern etched deeply in his features. "Take care of her. She's important."
Brangwen grunted, softly. "I'm beginning to get that impression." She sighed, not even bothering to ask any of the millions of questions swirling in her mind. "Wherever you're going, get your ass back here fast. Do you have any painkillers? She might need them when she wakes up."
"In the cabinet in the other room. Top shelf."
"Do I need to say good luck?" She asked, warily.
He smiled thinly. "I'll be back as soon as I can" Before he could tear himself away from the room finally, he indulged himself a quick moment to lean down to touch Hannah's head once more. Grabbing his keys from the card table where he'd thrown them, he raced out the door, up the wooden staircase and out, the mysterious door clicking shut behind him.
"I think I might be needing those painkillers myself." Brangwen whispered to the quiet room. Rubbing her temples anxiously, she turned her attention back to the woman, no longer quite such a stranger. It was amazing the difference a name made. She was Hannah.
Finally, when she was sure that Hannah was sleeping well and was as comfortable as she could be, Brangwen sat down crossed legged on the hard wooden floor beside the couch. She let out a long, heavy breath.
She hated waiting.
Her patience lasted about ten minutes before she had an overwhelming urge to prowl. She knew she shouldn't - there had to be a reason why Chris had never shown her this room. She didn't know how offended he'd be if she began to explore his apartment, or hideout, or whatever the hell it was.
She slipped out the door to the corridor. Besides the corridor and the room Hannah was sleeping in, there were two other rooms to the apartment. One contained what could almost be called a kitchen, since it had benches, cupboards and a beaten up microwave that looked almost as old as the bar fridge. Since the fridge was in the other room though the kitchen seemed oddly incomplete. By the lack of utensils and even the vaguest of food smells she decided Chris didn't actually live here.
The largest room, she hesitated to call it a lunge room since it didn't contain a lounge, had the least amount of furniture; a desk, an ergonomic office chair, and a computer. On the floor was a large white circle, drawn in chalk and scuffed in some places. There were chalk coloured boot marks everywhere on the polished red floor. Scattered here and there on the floorboards were wax marks and tiny burns, the litter left from overflowing or burnt down candles that had once been on the floor.
"I suppose I should be glad it isn't a pentagram. No animal skins stacked in the corner, sacrificial alters, no abundance of sex toys…" she mumbled under her breath.
Christian had been in such a hurry he hadn't turned off the computer. The screen saver was running, flashing red dots and whirling lines flipped and danced across the monitor. She stared at it for a while and saw green spots when she looked away.
Knowing full well she shouldn't, she tapped lightly on the spacebar of the keyboard. The screen saver exploded in a shower of graphical sparks that jangled her nerves leaving an open browser window. He was, or had been, logged in. The last site he'd looked at was still sitting on the desktop.
The black web page had only one image on it - a large, white representation of the symbol she'd seen on Hannah's forehead, the eight spoked wheel. Feeling less guilty than intrigued she put her hand on the mouse and moved it over the page. The end of each of the spokes contained links and rollover pictures. Each one displayed a title in turn: Singer, Writer, Techno, Ritual, Dance, Circle, Speak, Priests.
Priests?
She clicked that link, because the word had been bugging her since Hannah had first spoken it. The black screen dissolved away into red, like blood dripping ominously down the computer screen.
She didn't know what she was expecting from the page, but what she found puzzled her. The page was nothing but text - a list of dates, locations, numbers and names. It looked as if the names were of the people who had added the information. She scanned it, taking in the long litany of countries and cities. The entries were from people all over the world. Australia, the USA, Europe, Asia. Four continents, and almost all the capital cities. The list on the page spanned a four month period, with a link at the bottom for more. She scrolled back to the top and stopped, reading the last entry made to the database. Today's date. July 7th. Sydney, Australia. Three. Topaz.
Christian was calling himself Topaz? If it hadn't been for the frightened look in Hannah's eyes, and the incomprehensible things Chris had been saying and doing since she'd brought the stranger into the house she might have laughed at his choice of nick. Now she just stared at the name, wondering if it had some kind of secret meaning she had no hope of understanding.
There were three men attacking Hannah. Were they the Priests? What kind of priests were they?
She clicked a small underlined link that said Home and found herself back at the eight spoked wheel. Clicking randomly, she hit Circle. Again the black dissolved away, this time into green, a slimy green crawling slowly down the monitor.
Two links glowed red from the page. Circle. Itinerant. Chris had said them both. Hannah was from the Circle. Or an itinerant. Or both. She clicked on Itinerant. Another long, indecipherable list with dates, locations, names. Sitting at the top was another entry from Topaz. July 7th. Sydney, Australia. ???. Topaz.
All the other entries had names where Christian's entry had question marks. Liandrel. Guide. First. Were these nicks? Of course, he hadn't stopped to ask Hannah's name. It was easy to gather that she was one of this… Circle? She scanned the list a bit longer.
Bored, she clicked out and into another part of the site. Technos. More lists of names, and nothing resembling a real name, just nicks, and pretty elaborate ones at that. Pagan deities, more numbers, Greek Gods, gemstones, literary characters, a couple of super heroes. She giggled. Whoever it was who had snagged "Spiderman" was pretty cool. None of the names had email links. That surprised her. How did they get in contact with each other?
Now she was curious as to what would be under Circle. She clicked back and into the page. Another smaller graphic of the wheel, with nicks beside each spoke. Under each of the names was another word. Singer. Writer. Techno. Under each of these headings was a numbered code. 135478. 145890. On it went.
Drawing a complete blank, she clicked out to the Home page again. Going to the toolbar she dropped down Christian's favourites list, choosing a random URL. As the site loaded a login screen popped up. She closed it, annoyed, opened another. Yet another login.
She went back to the black page since it was the only one she could look at that would tell her anything. Each of the words on the spokes had nothing under them but incomprehensible numbers, dates and times.
She shut down the window with a determined click, shoved the mouse away.
Christian's email program was open. It sat, calling to her. She looked at the blinking letter in the corner of the screen for a long time. New mail alert. She reached for the mouse again and froze. She felt a barrier, a small gnawing itch in the back of her brain. Reading someone's email was like reading their diary. Shaking her head she stood up, shoving the chair away behind her as she rose. It scuttled through one of the chalk lines on the circle, smearing the chalk in a chair-wheel pattern across the floor.
Her brain was filled with even more keywords, more indecipherable concepts than before. What did Christian call stuff like that? Buzz words. Words that made people sit up and pay attention, even if they didn't even know what they meant.
Until reading the website she'd only had Itinerant., and Priest, and the little eight spoked circle tattoo. Now she had more. Singer, Writer, Techno, Circle…
The white circle on the floor seemed to mock her as she prowled the computer room, too pumped to sit, or too nervous maybe. She crept back into the room where Hannah slept and raided the fridge for something to drink. She rummaged around quietly, taking out a can of some soft drink she'd never heard of. Back in the larger room she cracked it open and drank deeply. It tasted like lemon tinged with raspberry, sparkling on the edge of her taste buds. She gulped it down, burping afterwards with a loud, satisfying belch.
Continuing her pacing, she walked the length of the corridor, up and down. Twenty times. Thirty. She stopped counting at eighty. Different stride lengths kept her amused for a while, dolly steps, side stepping. She calculated the length of the room in her head. Recalculated. The calculator on the computer was safe, she could use that. It wasn't like anyone could accuse her of prying if she was just using the calculator.
For a few minutes she was kept entertained working with some mathematical formulae. Then she surfed off to a website she liked to look at, with funky poetry. No one had posted anything new that day. Everything else seemed stale, uninspired. The TV guide site said there was nothing on TV tonight. Not that there was a TV in Christian's dungeon to watch. For some reason she paled at the thought of walking up into the bookstore to find something to read.
Vaguely she looked at her watch. It had just clicked over past 1am. She wondered how long her pacing in the hall had taken up. Wondered how far Chris had to go to get the doctor.
She stared at Chris's computer again. She sat down in the chair, fiddling with the mouse. The email program came up. She looked around, smiling at herself for bothering. She was alone of course.
There were over twenty unread mails in his box, all with subject lines mentioning the itinerant. as if she were some kind of celebrity.
The first hurdle was overcome, she'd opened the program. Brangwen couldn't stop herself from opening the first email, then the next, and the next, marking each email as unread as she went.
She felt dirty. Her mouse hand got goosebumps. It was almost laughable, her body giving her signs that her conscience ignored. Curiosity would not be denied. She read everything in the inbox and walked away shaking. She was gripped with a possessed feeling of having done something intensely stupid. Somehow none of what she read seemed as shocking as her own inability to stop reading it.
Privacy was something she'd always claimed was an inalienable human right. OK, so it wasn't like she'd uncovered any government secrets. It was mostly people writing "You met who? Where? What did she say? What does she look like?!!!!" in a hundred different ways, abusing the crap out of the exclamation mark.
But that wasn't the point.
The soft drink she'd had suddenly didn't agree with her. Feeling sick to her stomach, Gwen wandered back into the sofa room, wanting to be near the basin in case the nausea she'd felt earlier was coming back.
At least she'd confirmed that Topaz was Christian, and that the woman lying on the couch was known all over the world by a lot of different people on the net, even though they didn't even know her name. All of them wrote Killara when they spoke of her. Another buzz word to ponder over. She wandered into the semi-kitchen and found the painkillers Chris had told her about, swallowing four quickly with a glass of water. Then she walked back and leaned against the door frame of the room where Hannah slept. Watching nothing in particular. Wondering about everything she'd read.
Hannah looked so quiet, that peaceful spell of sleep woven around her like a thick wool blanket, protecting her from the evil that racked her body. Brangwen felt the urge to walk over touch her, run her fingers over the wounds as if she could take them away with a touch of her hand.
She walked towards the sleeping form, breath held, expecting every noisy step and squeak of floorboards to wake Sleeping Beauty and destroy the fantasy. Her hands reached out, and stopped just millimetres from skin, so close that heat radiated up and touched her senses.
A thought crossed her mind, a comforting, healing thought from childhood, something she hadn't thought about in years. When she was thirteen she'd taken a tumble from her bike, scraped skin and flesh from her feet so badly that the doctor thought she might have terrible scarring. In her mind she thought she could even remember how much it hurt, even though that kind of searing agony was impossible to remember.
And she could hear a voice, singing to her. As she lay in her bed at night sobbing from the pain the voice would reach out to her, soothing and caressing her senses. Her mother, with that alto voice that slid across notes like a sled on snow, but filled with all the warmth of a log fire. It was easy to imagine only she could hear it, and somehow it made the pain easier to bear. She was rocked, comforted, warmed - healed a little inside, if not the outside.
As she remembered, Brangwen realised she was humming.
It wasn't a song she really even knew. She thought perhaps she might be making it up, working her tongue across notes, imagining it was her mother come back from wherever she was to sing peace to this new soul who had entered her life so violently. The black hair spilled easily across the pillow. Her face, beginning to develop lines of maturity, betrayed her age. She was so beautiful.
Brangwen realised suddenly that she'd sung that last thought aloud and blushed, glad for the fact that Hannah hadn't seemed to move. Beauty was still sleeping.
She'd sung that too! Beautiful, still sleeping, peaceful, radiant, heat, energy, alive.
She felt a flush of heat move through her body, starting in her feet, moving up through her legs, between her legs, crawling around in her stomach, hitting her chest like heartburn. It gripped her shoulders, the hairs rose on the back of her neck, and the heat spread through her head, throbbing at her temples.
Suddenly Hannah's eyes were open, and she smiled up at Brangwen, who was standing, shuddering as if an orgasm had ripped through her. The heat disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving Gwen feeling empty and chilled to the bone. She rubbed her shoulders, pretending Hannah hadn't witnessed that, whatever that was.
"Is it cold in here? Are you cold?" Brangwen asked, righting the coat which had somehow sprawled a little off Hannah's body as she slept.
Hannah shook her head, no. "I don't understand how you can be cold. You're glowing."
Gwen scoffed. "I don't think so." The chill began to drain from her body and she felt her normal temperature gradually return.
"You should see you from where I am."
"Trust me, only pregnant women glow, and being pregnant for me is a biological impossibility." She joked, half-heartedly. "Unless you believe in miracles? The immaculate conception?"
Hannah smiled.
"Well then, no danger for me here then." The remembrance of the heat rushing through her body and looking at Hannah's almost euphoric face was producing another flush to her cheeks. Gwen didn't think she'd blushed quite this much in her life. She was also babbling. "You're looking much better."
"I feel much better, thanks to you."
"What did I do? Anyone can straighten a blanket. I wish there was more I could do."
"What you've done is more than enough." She replied cryptically. "Tell me, what did your mother use to sing to you?"
Gwen stopped and stared, sitting down softly next to her patient. "No, it's really dumb, you don't want to know."
"Yes, I do, or I wouldn't have asked."
"Bay City Rollers."
"Excuse me?"
"You've never heard of them?"
"No."
"Well, join a large and not very exclusive club. Couldn't sing a note of it these days myself. I get a flash of it every now and then, but…"
Hannah reached out to take her hand gently. "It doesn't matter what the song is, all that matters is the energy it gives out." She explained. "Feelings, strong feelings, have the power to heal."
Gwen thought for a moment, and shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't understand. I guess I've never been 'new-agey' like that."
"It doesn't matter." She smiled briefly, and shifted position on the sofa, cringing a little as she moved.
"Oh hey, be careful. Your body has been through some major trauma. You don't want to be moving too much."
Serious eyes looked back at her. "It isn't really the body that suffers the most with stuff like this."
Brangwen swallowed, blinking back sudden tears. "I know."
Hannah closed her eyes briefly, a single tear escaping from her own closed eyelid and running down her left cheek. Without thinking Gwen reached out and brushed it away gently. Hannah ran her hand along her arm, sending a shiver through her spine. Once again she felt hints of the warmth from before spread through her. Hannah was feeling it too. At Gwen's touch her back arched a little and she twitched, as if hit with a small charge of electricity. Gwen hurriedly removed her hand.
Words escaped her. She sat on the floor looking up quietly as Hannah moved a little on her sofa again. This time there were no soft cries of pain.
Gwen could feel a question welling inside her, something she'd wanted to know since she saw Hannah fall to the ground outside the alley. It seemed so impossible to ask, something for a doctor, or a lover, but not someone who she'd just met and barely knew.
Hannah looked over at her, her face impassive. "You look like you've got something on your mind."
"I do."
"Well?"
"Were you…?" She stopped, unable to get the agonising word past her lips. She looked down at the floor, fighting for control of her emotions.
Hannah looked up, her voice barely more than a whisper. "You want to know if I was raped."
Gwen nodded.
"No."
A deep rush of breath escaped and relief poured over Gwen's body.
Hannah continued. "No, that isn't really their style. I mean, there have been incidences, but generally they don't violate people. And these guys just had some pent-up angst they needed to take out on someone, and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You seem to know a lot about them. Did… did they know you?"
She shook her head. "No. I can be grateful for that. It was a random attack. It could have happened to anyone."
Brangwen shuddered, a sudden realisation hitting her. "If you hadn't… if I had been five minutes earlier…it would have been me."
Hannah smiled. "Then maybe I was in the right place at the wrong time."
She cringed. "Oh God, don't say that."
"Well, the fact is, it didn't happen to you. I'm not glad it happened to me, but I'm glad it didn't happen to you. Does that make any sense?"
"Sort of."
Hannah took both Gwen's hands and held them tightly. "And you were there. I don't know what would have happened to me if you hadn't been."
"So it was fate?" Gwen asked, not even sure herself if she was being serious.
Hannah answered anyway. "I don't believe in fate."
"What do you believe in?" Gwen got up from her position on the floor and settled herself on the edge of the couch, still holding one of Hannah's hands
"What makes you think I believe in anything?"
Gwen pointed at the tattoo on her forehead. "That."
Hannah withdrew her hand and reached up to touch the tattoo lightly. She traced a finger over it, feeling the texture of it under her fingertip. "That's just a status symbol. A rank. Actually I should say my former rank. It's definitely not all that I believe in."
"Rank? Rank in what?" Brangwen reached over and touched a darkened spot on Hannah's arm. "By the looks of all your bruises I'm guessing you're not talking Tae Kwon Do here."
Hannah laughed. "No. I used to be in the Circle."
A memory of what Brangwen had read on the website returned, bringing with it all her confusion and curiosity."What is the Circle?"
"Stop it, OK? Stop asking questions." Hannah held up her hand. "We're doing this totally wrong. All I'll do by telling you all this backwards is confuse you, or scare you, or both. I don't want to do either." She touched Brangwen's cheek lightly. "I want to do this the right way."
Brangwen felt the heat rise to her cheeks, and she turned away from the touch, finding something interesting on the floorboards to look at. Anything to avoid staring into the brightness of those eyes. The heat of their gaze felt like they were piercing her skin.
Floorboards squeaked above their heads. Two sets of feet. Both women stopped, their hearts pounding into the silence around them. Then Brangwen heard a familiar but muffled voice drifting down from upstairs.
"Christian!" Gwen breathed a sigh of relief. She looked down at her charge, amazed that Hannah was looking so well now compared to just two hours before. She would have guessed then that Hannah had been close to dying. Now, if it weren't for the blood seeping through the bandages from the deeper cuts, she looked for all the world like the beating had happened weeks ago.
On her life Brangwen couldn't remember when the healing had started, or the different stages it had gone through. It was almost as if it had happened, and she just hadn't noticed.
The door clicked and opened slowly inwards.
"Brangwen?" Christian called out.
"We're still in here." She replied, unable to keep the pure relief from her voice.
Christian and a thin, blonde-haired woman carrying a large backpack entered the room. He rushed over to the bed, his first thought for the frail woman lying there. He swept his eyes over her miraculously recovered form. "What? How…?"
Hannah crooked her finger at him and he bent down so she could whisper something in his ear. His eyes lit up, and he stole a glance in Brangwen's direction, sudden awe filling his face. Gwen saw what a struggle it was for him to replace his impassive mask.
She felt a pang of jealousy shoot through her at their confidence that she was obviously not to be a part of and shuffled slightly, forcing the feeling to retreat back into her chest through pure will.
Far from being buried like she wanted, the jealousy just gave way to annoyance that wrote itself plainly on her face. She twisted her long red braid around her fingers angrily.
Hannah looked at her with sad eyes. "Remember what I said about no questions? You'll understand soon, I promise. We'll explain everything."
Gwen took a deep breath and nodded. It wasn't a rebuke. The voice had been patient, composed even. A promise. A promise that Gwen believed. She was beginning to think she'd believe anything Hannah said, if only she'd say it in that voice.
The doctor was quick with her examination. Brangwen watched in silence as the woman gave the same odd salute to Hannah that Christian had given. Hannah looked almost embarrassed by it but didn't speak, just nodded gracefully in acknowledgement and moved over so the doctor could sit and examine her properly.
It was that grace, Gwen thought, that she admired most. It had been maybe three hours at most since Hannah had arrived, and already she'd managed to fill the room with a kind of peace, a light that shone brighter in her part of the room, but that spread around the rest of the apartment like…like…
She kicked herself mentally for excessive sappiness. Still, it wasn't bad for a woman who'd been beaten badly when she found her.
The doctor's name, she found out quickly, was Katrina. After a few minutes of not quite knowing, Gwen became certain that she'd seen her before in the bookstore. Just another everyday customer. No connection, no sinister purpose. Just how many were there anyway? She half opened her mouth to ask the question, then remembered Hannah's patient eyes and stopped.
Katrina's approach to the situation seemed calm and controlled, a marked difference from Christian's demeanour, which seemed to get more and more fractured every second he stood in the room with Hannah. Gwen almost giggled as he fawned over her, finally earning a stern glare from the doctor and from the still-frail woman lying on the sofa. He retreated of his own free will into the larger room with the computer. Brangwen followed him out.
When she entered the computer room Christian was already online, tapping away at the keyboard.
"I'm sorry." She said, nervously.
He didn't take his eyes from the screen. "About what?"
"I looked at your computer, when you left. You left it on." She swallowed.
His reply was a self-satisfied smirk. "I know. I figured you would."
"Hey!" She railed.
He laughed at her, like a big brother laughing at a little sister who has just learned an important lesson the hard way. "I knew you were going to have questions. I figured doing that was the easiest way to answer them."
"So you just left me alone in a room with an open can of worms I had no idea what to do with? Thanks a fucking lot."
He looked suddenly repentant."What did she say, while I was gone?" He pointed to the back room. "Hell, I don't even know her name. I've been calling her Killara all night."
"It's Hannah." Her resolve not to ask any more questions shattered in an instant. "What is a Killara anyway? It's written all through your email." She didn't see any point in hiding how far she'd ventured into his computer. Besides, after the arrogance of his response she didn't have it in her to feel guilty any more.
He grunted knowingly. "Strictly speaking, it means Of the Killarel - the Circle. Though she's not any more. She's an Itinerant."
"I know, you said that before. It means as much to me now as it did then."
"You'll figure it all out. If you want to that is."
The last part of the sentence sounded ominous, and it stopped Brangwen mid-retort. Silence took over the air between them, awkward and tense. The only noise was the clatter of his fingers against keys as he typed something in his email. She was tempted to look over his shoulder, just to annoy him.
For some reason he was getting seriously on her nerves. This just didn't feel like the Christian she knew. He was always like an older brother, strong and protective, always willing to explain things or to just sit and chat about nothing. He was the first to encourage her when she tried to write, the first to teach her anything she needed to know about computers. He was her friend.
Why did it suddenly feel so odd to be around him? It was like she'd discovered his dirty little secret and he was getting defensive about being found out. Well he could take his dirty-laundry feeling out on somebody else.
Suddenly Christian stopped typing and leaned back in his chair, thoughtful. "I bet I know what the first thing was that went through your mind."
She snorted, ungracefully. "Give it a shot."
"Weird sex cult?"
"Well, it's been hours since I walked in here and no one has offered to sleep with me yet, so that shoots that idea up in flames now doesn't it?" She said, sarcastically. "Of course, Hannah thinks I could be pregnant."
Christian frowned. "Be serious."
"Serious? I have about one-hundredth of an idea what's going on here!" She took a few steps towards him, searching for words, feeling absurdly like she could cheerfully take him by the shirt and shake him until his nose fell off. "OK, let's be serious. My head is spinning so fast I'm starting to feel like an extra from The Exorcist. I don't know who she is. I don't even know who you are any more, and I never imagined I'd ever feel that way."
He looked down at his keyboard. "I'm sorry."
"I thought we were friends." She accused, her voice wavering.
"We are friends. And I was going to tell you. You have no idea how much I wanted to tell you. You have so much talent…" He stopped himself short.
"I have so much…talent?" She asked, doubtfully.
He looked up his face a picture of foot-in-mouth, as if he'd said too much.