Faith, Hope & Charity

A Faith Lehane Mystery

by

STFarnham

AKA Freelancer47

Chapter Nine

"Faith! What happened? Who was that? A demon? Why didn't you stop her?"

"She said she was my sister, I didn't expect her to stab me." My blood dripped.

"All you alright? How deep is the wound?" He was starting to sound a little frantic. I withdrew the knife.

"Wait, you shouldn't do that!"

"Stop worrying, it's just a flesh wound, didn't even go past my ribs. I've had worse, remember that K'tah demon last year?"

"You were a month recovering from that one."

"No way was it a whole month, three and a half weeks, max; this is nothin' compared to that. But I do need some bandages 'cuz my blood is getting all over everything and making a mess."

"Faith, even slayers can die from getting stabbed in the stomach! Why did you let her do that to you? Why didn't you defend yourself?"

I held the wound closed with my left hand, the bleeding was already slowing. I could tell from past experience this really would heal up in a couple of days. But in the meantime it was a little gory, and people around us were starting to stop and stare.

"She said she was my sister, and fuck me if I didn't believe her."

"Faith! Hold on, I'll call an ambulance!" said Xander, very nearly in panic mode.

"Hold on there Xan-man, it's just a scratch, a little bloody, but it's already healing – I'm a fucking slayer, don't panic. Give me your jean jacket to hide this and we'll go back to my bike. I've gotta first aid kit, that's all I need."

Xander slowed down, stopped panicking finally, and said, "My jacket? I bought this in Italy..."

"And you don't wanna get my blood on it, I understand," I sighed.

He stripped his jacket off and gave it to me, I bunched it up held it on the wound. "I'll get the blood out for you, don't worry," I said.

"Shit Faith, I don't give a damn about the jacket – I was just, you know, not thinking straight – just don't bleed out."

We started walking back to the bike, slowly, only a half-block away. The people around us, not seeing my blood any more, decided it couldn't have been all that serious after all and wandered away to enjoy their weekend.

"Keep an eye out for that crazy girl," I said, "she might try again."

"Okay. Uh, I don't remember you mentioning any sister before. Unless my memory is shot."

"No, no, your memory is fine, they've been out of my life for years and I just haven't wanted to talk about them."

"Them?"

"Yeah." I told him about Hope and Charity and how Hope died of SIDS, and then Charity disappeared into the foster care system.

"So that must have been Charity Lehane?"

"I guess, if she wasn't a fuckin' imposter."

"And you were, what, two years old when Hope died? You remember that?"

"Well, no, of course not. Mom told me about it later."

"So really, that could have been either one, your mom being so economical with the truth."

"Huh, you're right of course, I don't actually have any proof about Hope being dead."

"I'll call Willow and get her to research it."

"Do you have to? I don't like spreading this around."

"Yeah, I think we have to, what with murderous girls popping out of the woodwork to use you as a pincushion. Suppose she decides to use you for a little target practice next time? With say, a thirty-aught-six?"

I didn't like it, but I could see his point. We got to the bike and I pulled out my first aid kit from under the seat. Xander's eyes got big when the kit turned out to be bigger than the seat. "A Willow special hiding place," I told him.

"Ahh," he nodded in understanding. He opened the box and lifted my shirt, cleaned the wound, sprayed some antibacterial shit and bandaged it. It felt better not to be bleeding all over the fucking place. Now what the fuck was I going to do about my sister? Because I was convinced that was Charity, but why the fuck did she stab me? What did I ever do to her?

"I was six fucking years old the last time I saw Charity," I said to Xander, "what the fuck happened to her in the last eighteen years to make her hate me like that?"

Xander just shook his head.

We got back to my house an hour later. Xander had never driven a motorcycle in his life, so wounded or not, I had to; naturally the trip took longer than usual. I told Xander to go ahead and wrap his arms around my waist – I mean slayer here, I could take the pain in stride. But he just held on to my shoulders. I took the scenic route, sticking to the less busy of the two roads leading out of town towards my place. It wasn't long before I was waving at Ernie again as we cruised through the gates and turned the corner to my house.

I pulled up at the front door, parking carefully, setting my feet gingerly on the ground. "Hey Xand, would you kick the stand down?"

He did, it was a relief to let the bike go and stand. I started to wobble a little, and Xander caught me, although it wasn't too bad.

"I guess I need to learn how to drive a motorcycle if I'm gonna stick around here, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so." I think we both shied away from the implications of that statement, cause we didn't say anything more and went into the house, he helped me upstairs to my rooms.

"I'll clean up, change, and be down a a few minutes," I said.

"You sure? You sure you don't need a doctor?"

"Yeah, I'm sure, it's just a little blood loss, but maybe I need some stitches – you can do that, right? Then lunch'll fix me right up."

"Okay," he replied doubtfully, but why not get a doctor?"

" 'Cuz the doc'll wanna come back and take them out, and I'd have ta explain why I do two weeks of healing in two days."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot you haven't been here long enough to find a doctor who can keep their mouth shut, good reason. Sure, I stitched up entirely too many slayers, as well a myself, while I was in Africa."

"Thought so. You'll probably need the first aid kit from my Harley."

"You think I can get into Willow's magical space?"

"You really think Willow would keep you out?"

"I suppose not."

He came back a few minutes later and found me lying down on my side, wounded side up, with my shirt off, the bandages off, and my pants scritched down a couple of inches.

He looked at me, all of me, for a few moments before concentrating on the cut.

"Hmm, okay, this should be a snap. You want some anesthetic?"

"Not unless you're purposely clumsy."

"Okay, let me spread some of this antibacterial stuff in the wound and I'll get started."

He was really quite gentle, apparently he really did have plenty of practice patching up wounded slayers. He tried not to allow himself to be distracted by my display of skin, but I could see he was stirring a little below his waist. It only took about ten minutes to finish the stitches, then he cleaned and bandaged the wound again.

He turn around when I got up to find some clean clothes. "I'm ready for lunch now," I said to his back.

"Then I'll go down and warn Jacques." So either he couldn't wait to get out of my sight, or he didn't want to show me how much I had turned him on, which was it?

And shit, how come he didn't have any trouble pronouncing my chef's name?

After I changed clothes I followed down to the kitchen and joined him at the oak table. Jacques set down soup bowls and plates. He said with a flourish, "Gratin de Poireaux, watercress and bacon sandwiches, and fresh squeezed vegetable juice." At our puzzled expressions he added, "Gratinee of leeks and ham." We were still baffled. "A Gratin is a sauced dished that is broiled, thus forming a gratin on top."

Both Xander and I must have made faces.

"Before you reject it, please, taste it."

"Okay," I said with a long-suffering sigh. We cautiously tasted the whatever it was and – tasted it again. "Hey, that's pretty fuckin' amazing."

Xander took a bite of his sandwich. "Umm, the bacon's damn good, maybe the best bacon I ever ate, but I'm not ever gonna be a big fan of watercress, sorry man."

Me neither, but we did eat it all. I was still hungry, so I said, "Um, that was good, you have any more?"

"Me too," agreed Xander.

"Seconds coming right up."

Man, it's so cool to have my own personal chef. But I couldn't help but wonder, is this really me? Would I be able to fight to my limits after waddling into battle, stuffed with leeks and ham in cream sauce?

After lunch Stone called. "What's happenin' Stone?"

"Are you gonna be there in two hours?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Wait for me, I've got something."

He hung up, so Xander and I hung around. I went to study my aunt's papers some more and Xand went to sleep for awhile.

In the back of the center drawer of her desk I saw a packet wrapped with a red ribbon. Curious, I pulled it out and looked inside. There were a bunch of letters, when I saw the address, I nearly fainted. Well, not really, but if I hadn't been a slayer I might've nearly fainted, or maybe not, maybe I would just think about it. Anyway, there were a dozen or so letters all addressed to me, and all stamped, 'RETURN TO SENDER' with various notes scribbled on it like: 'no such addressee at this address' or 'left no forwarding address'. Some of them had been forwarded a couple of times before the Post Office gave up. Huh, makes sense I guess, for a number of years I was pretty hard to find. And it's not like I was scrupulous about keeping anyone up-to-date with my address – especially after I landed in prison.

Since the letters were addressed to me, I read them, starting with the earliest one.

After I finished reading my Aunt's letter's, I felt like crying, not that I ever would, but the feeling was there. Helen had spent years trying to find me, she wanted me to come live with her. I mean I had recently figured out that she would have taken me in if I had shown up on her doorstep like a bedraggled kitten, but now I knew for sure that she had really wanted me. I could've skipped a couple of years of living on the streets of Boston; on the other hand, it's possible that experience strengthened me, made me harder inside. Was that good or bad? Fuck if I know. If I had moved here at twelve I might never have crossed paths with Kakistos, and my first Watcher would still be alive and I never would've gone to Sunnydale and I never would've gone to work for fucking Mayor Wilkins and the whole world would be a different place today. Hell, one of the rich young men I had seen strutting around Sag Harbor might have made me a young unmarried mother and then where would I be? Or had been or somethin'. I stared out the window at the ocean, the seagulls were soaring and swooping again, maybe they never stopped.

My secretary knocked on my door frame and said, "Mr. Barrington is here, waiting in the library with Mr. Harris."

"Thanks," I replied. My secretary had to double as my butler. I wondered how many of my neighbors would think: 'Poor girl doesn't even have a butler, how will she ever survive?' I'm not at all sure if I want to meet my neighbors.

I went down to the library. "Hey Stone, so what's the what?"

He said, "I looked into Mr. Wilkerson's will with a little more detail. He left a bequest of twenty-five thousand dollars, to, and you're gonna love this, Randolph Reardon, of your local police. But he also left a sizable amount to the American Cancer Society, more than a hundred thousand dollars."

Well shit, I was about to make a crack about him being the world's best cock-sucker, but now... "Huh, cancer research? So there was more to my cousin than met the eye. Still, we need to find out what he and Randy had going."

Stone said, "It certainly bears investigating."

"How?"

"Let's go ask him."

We found our way to Officer Randy's house, a small affair tucked into a cheaper part of Sag Harbor. I was astonished to discover that there was such a neighborhood on this part of Long Island, but I guess you have to have a place for public servants to live. And after all, poor is relative – it wasn't exactly a ghetto.

I knocked on the door and – surprise! – my alleged sister answered. "Whoa! I get to kill two birds with one stone, where's your knife?" I said with broad grin. She looked horrified and tried to slam the door, but it ran into my foot. "Hi lil sis, aren't you going to invite me in?"

From the next room I heard Officer Randy yell, "Who is it, hun?"

Ah hah! I shoved the door open and invited myself in, Stone and Xander followed. Randy came out of the kitchen. "Wait, you can't come in here!"

Stone asked, "Who is this?"

"This," I said with my hand holding on to her arm while she struggled ineffectively to get away, "is supposedly my sister Charity. But she tried to stab me in the stomach this morning, it's a good thing I'm so hard to kill."

Stone said, "And how long had it been since you last saw her?"

"Eighteen years, I was six years old when CPS took her away."

"Yeah," said 'Charity', "and you stole my life! You lived the good life while I had to take the dregs!"

My jaw dropped, I stared at her, amazed and dismayed. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You, you lived with mom all these years, she loved you and you stole her money so she died broke!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I sounded like a broken record, but I didn't know what else to say, except, "Where are you getting this bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit! It's true, TRUE, TRUE!" Charity shouted, nearly losing it.

"You know," said Stone, "when people lose control of their emotions over an argument, it's often because they know, deep down, that their facts are wrong. You compensate being wrong with getting highly emotional."

"NO! NO! It can't be! Faith stole everything from me!"

"Faith," said Stone quietly, "see if you can calm her down." I took her over to her couch. I sat next to her and we just sat there and watched everyone else argue.

Patrolman Randy repeated himself, "You people shouldn't be here."

"And why not officer?" said Stone, "Don't you want to explain your relationship with this woman, the alleged Charity Lehane? I advise you to obtain legal counsel, however, as you may be entering rough waters."

"I don't need any legal assholes! I watch you guys get rich buttheads off, you're just a bunch of bloodsuckers! Charity an' I are lovers, you can't stop that."

"Okay, that's a good start. When did you first realize that she murdered Roger Wilkerson?"

"What the fuck! She didn't! Faith did! I saw her standing over the body!"

"But the GSR tests show otherwise."

"She musta been wearing gloves!"

"Possible, but even with gloves blowback deposits will end up on shirts, even the face. It's very hard to prevent gunshot residue from appearing somewhere, not just on hands. And Ms Lehane had no trace of residue on her. But you did."

"But, but... You know what? That's my business! Now get the fuck outta here!"

I turned to Charity and said, as gently as I could, "Charity, our mother was a drug addict. Any money she got, she used to buy drugs. As time went on, it just got worse. This land she had in Boston is a surprise to me, but I have my lawyers working on tracing it."

"NO! That can't be, that's not what I was told!"

"By who?" I asked.

"None of your business!"

"I ran away from home when I was not quite thirteen because mom was planning to pimp me out..."

"NO NO NO! That can't be! She was an angel and you were a whore!"

"Charity, you've been had. Someone's been feeding you bullshit and you've swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker. I've been on my own since I was twelve, because I had to get away from mom in order to protect myself from her."

I can't imagine that I was that persuasive to her, she was so stuck in her wrong-headed beliefs, but it looked to me like she wanted to believe me. If so, it had to be because she had doubts herself, which wouldn't be surprising since her version of the facts was so at odds with reality. How could she not have doubts?

"Charity, who's been feeding you this garbage?"

"I can't tell you, I can't go back on my word."

"Charity, we're sisters, we can talk about it."

"Sisters, right. You abandoned me eighteen years ago!"

"I was six years old! It wasn't by my choice!"

Stone had wandered over. He said, "If you gave your word to a series of lies, you have no legal responsibility to honor it. The law is very clear."

That sounded like bullshit to me, I doubted there was any law on the subject – but lawyers are bound to be good at bullshitting non-lawyers on the finer points of the law. Then again, what the fuck do I know?

"Charity, come by the house any time, you'll be welcome, and I'm on your side." She looked at me, I couldn't tell what she really thought of me, but there was a faint look of longing. I hoped I was getting through.

Randy started frothing at the mouth again. "Everybody out! I know my rights, get the hell out!"

"Okay, sure," said Stone heading towards the door. He turned around and said, "Just one thing, do you know why Roger left you twenty-five thousand dollars in his will?"

Roger looked like someone hit him over the head with a 2x6. "What? He did that?"

"Yes."

"Well I'll be damned, he kept his word."

"What word is that?

"None of your business, and nothing to do with any of this, now get the fuck out!"

We left, I couldn't see anything else to do, unless I wanted to get medieval on their asses, which I surely wanted, but chose not to.

TBC