"Sounds like you have a group dynamics issue. I'd suggest team-building exercises."
She flew at me--literally flew--her arms becoming wings, her edges turning to smoke again, teeth bared, blank eyes fixed on mine, her face coming so close all I could see were those eyes.
"Our sluagh is right," she said. "You do think you are clever. You don't need to worry about becoming one of us, Miss Larsen. You have no soul to give. You are as empty as the bitch who whelped you."
"Right, yeah, because I don't feel sorry for you. Is that what this is supposed to be? A tableau to make me feel guilty about what my mother did?" I snorted and headed into the hall.
"Don't you walk away on me."
"You want to chat? Keep up. I have some escaping to do. As for making me feel bad, don't bother. First, I'm not my mother. Second, my soul is just fine because, third, I really don't give a shit about the terrible fate that befell someone who decided it'd be fun to slaughter innocent people with her boyfriend. That's not my idea of date night."
"You have it all figured out, haven't you? You know exactly what happened, just like your mother did. You don't care to dig deeper because then, if you decide I didn't deserve to die, well, that's a little bit uncomfortable. Much easier to tell yourself I deserved it."
I paused near the hole in the floor, considered edging around it, and then decided to take another route. As I walked, I said, "I'm sure you've convinced yourself--"
"I thought it was a performance. A game. A staged performance. That's what Eddie told me, and I was young and stupid and in love. Crazy in love with this guy who showed me a whole new world. A world where I didn't need to be the good girl anymore. Where I could be bad. And by bad, I mean having fun with dark-magic rituals. Don't pretend not to understand what I mean. The good girl from the rich family, running around abandoned schools with a switchblade and a biker."
"I definitely understand the power of a good adrenaline rush. I also understand that morals and ethics are luxuries we can't always afford. But this?" I waggled my switchblade. "This has never killed anyone. I could, in self-defense. What you did, though, was cold murder, and to call it a game only makes it even more loathsome."
"You are so smug, Eden Larsen. You aren't even listening to me, are you? I said I thought it was a performance. That's what they did to me--Eddie and Marty and Lisa and that bitch who brought us together, who promised us the moon if we did as she said. They told me we had to pretend to kill that boy in the fun house. But it wasn't real. They swore it wasn't real."
I stopped at the end of the hall, considered my options, and turned left. "Uh-huh. So you're telling me you were so drugged up--"
"I was naive--I wasn't stupid. After the fun house, I asked questions. I doubted. So when we had to make our kills, Eddie pumped me full of drugs. When I still said I didn't want to go, he beat the shit out of me. Knocked me out, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up in a forest beside the dead bodies of two street kids. Eddie's holding my hand and forcing me to make the cuts. We had to do it together. That's what the bitch said. Do it together, or it wouldn't work. I threw up. So he hit me, knocked me out again. That was my level of participation in those murders, Miss Larsen. A drugged-out, beat-up, half-conscious 'partner' who held a knife while her lover moved her hand to cut up the kids he'd killed."
"And what would you like me to do about that?"
Stacey swung in front of me, her eyes going from blue to blank white. "My God, there's nothing in there, is there? When I said you didn't have a soul, I--"
"You were goading me. Which is what you're doing now. You want me to feel bad for you. Maybe your story's true. Maybe it's not. Maybe you aren't even Stacey Pasolini, but a phantom conjured to wring a few pangs of sympathy from me."
I locked my gaze on hers. "I know there are innocents in that swarm of melltithiwyd. But unless you're here to tell me how I can help them, I don't see the point. If you didn't take a more active role in those murders, then you don't deserve this fate. But you aren't the only one. There are others more wronged than you in there. The only thing that tells me is that the sluagh don't deserve a moment of my consideration. The Cwn Annwn might be a little bloodthirsty, overzealous in their pursuit of justice. The Tylwyth Teg might be conniving and amoral and completely self-absorbed. But the real monsters? That's the sluagh, and your story only confirms it."
She flew at me again, flew at me in a full rage, half woman, half bird, pecking and pounding and beating. I stabbed at her with the switchblade, but it was as if my knife passed through thin air.
I dodged past her and ran, and I was still running full out when someone shouted, "Olivia! Stop!"
Had it been anyone else, I wouldn't have listened. Even then, as soon as I put on the brakes, I cursed, certain I was hearing another mimicry. But I still skidded to a halt. My foot dropped, as if through the floor itself. Then there was a snap, and I was back in the original hall, inches from falling down that damned hole again. Gabriel stood on the other side, his hands out.
"Thai for lunch," he said. "Bacon and eggs for breakfast. The scratches on my back are not from the melltithiwyd."
I sputtered a laugh. "You're quick."
"I'm learning."
"You're also not supposed to be here."
"Yes, well, I am."
"Gabriel..."
"I'm not doubting you could have handled it. I'm not suggesting you require my assistance. But they aren't going to kill me, Olivia. I'm too valuable as a tool to control you."
"Ricky--"
"I may have incapacitated him. I may have left him in Patrick's care. He is not going to be pleased with me when I return, but I will return. The sluagh won't kill me. I could not guarantee the same for him." He looked behind me. "You were running. Was something chasing you?"
I glanced back to see the empty hall. "Stacey Pasolini manifested. She's one of the melltithiwyd now. She claimed she didn't kill anyone and then didn't like it when I failed to express the proper degree of sympathy."