Chapter 6: Valkyrie, Vetala, and Valuable Lessons
Eir watches the constellation of bruises across Dean's face change from purple to green to yellow. She's speed-healing out of annoyance. His conquest of the day doesn't even notice that his face is flickering like a discotheque. She's hanging on his right bicep, darting quick glances into his eyes, giggling and burying her face in his shoulder. Eir's not sure if the girl is an underage virgin or an idiot, but either way she's disgusted by Dean's choice. She's rolling her eyes for the hundredth time when the room seems to get a little brighter and warm up several degrees. She recognizes her sister's influence even before everyone in the bar starts eyeing each other with lustful intent. The goddess of good times is here. Eir wonders how many of the women here will go home tonight with a new life nestled within.
"Eirie! Fishing for alcoholics?" Freya murmurs gleefully in her ear. Her sister collects the spirits of warriors who die on the battlefields, winnowing out the brave and beautiful for her own purposes. She heals and blesses the heroes who catch her eye. She has never thought much of Eir's interest in the damaged and lost souls who continue to stagger through life when the wars are done.
Eir has managed to avoid her almighty sister for a few restful decades. She doesn't dislike her, but she doesn't like to feel inconsequential. In her sister's company she is diluted, ineffectual. She doesn't mind that Freya draws energy and people to her like a magnet – goodness knows, Eir doesn't want the attention – but she feels her competence and quiet power drown in her sister's wake.
Freya hones in on Dean. "Ooh, pretty." She eyes Eir speculatively. "Stalking a crush? Are we regressing? Shall we call him names and pull his hair so he doesn't realize we like him?"
Eir startles. "What? No, that's not -"
Her sister makes a rude noise. "Your fingerprints are all over him. You're hovering even though he no longer has need of you, lurking in a corner instead of claiming a tribute. You're not the creepy stalker type, so this pretty boy must be an object of timid affection. I could do a taste-test if you'd like; see if the product lives up to the packaging." Freya frowns at the young woman who is now licking the side of Dean's neck. "Of course, he may be a bit...muddy. Not choosy, is he?"
Actually, Dean is usually more discerning than this. He doesn't mind the occasional moron, but he tends to steer clear of what he calls jailbait. Eir sits up a little straighter, wondering what she's misread about the situation. "Something's about to happen," she realizes.
Freya snorts. "Indeed; that infant is about to stick her tongue right down your boy's throat and rub her nasty mortal germs on every inch of him. There will be nothing aesthetically pleasing about the spectacle. As a voyeur, you have terrible taste."
"Just watch a minute." Eir scans Dean's mood. She had thought he was unusually restless; now she realizes he is alert and focused, but not aroused. Despite the outward signs, he's not enjoying the bimbo's ministrations. He's hunting. And the girl isn't human.
Not-a-girl squirms closer to Dean, licks his earlobe and whispers something into his ear. He grins and tosses a handful of bills onto the table, then lets her pull him out of the bar through a side door.
Eir grabs hops off the bar stool and tugs Freya by the arm to the same exit. "Come on! I don't usually get to see this part. Be careful, okay? Don't let him see you." Her sister rolls her eyes and Eir makes a face. "This isn't about me being a shy idiot. Please, for me? Don't do your shiny goddess thing, or your casual mortal thing, either. You can stand to be invisible for five minutes."
By the time they slip into the alley Dean is in the midst of a brawl with the creature, who is no longer a giggly teenager but a hissing angry thing with superior strength and a mouthful of sharp teeth. She throws him against a wall, leaps across the alley after him and stomps on his arm. A knife clatters to the ground and he lies still, briefly stunned. The not-girl crouches over him and yanks his head back by the hair, making the tendons in his neck stand out.
Eir thinks about the near-catatonic state she found Dean in just a few hours ago, of the deep puncture wounds she healed, laced with a venom that made him heavy-limbed and lethargic. This can't be the same creature he fought this morning; surely they would have recognized each other and skipped the farcical flirtation scene in favor of violence. Still, she guesses this girl's teeth will inflict similar damage. She's not looking forward to tasting that poison twice in one day.
Dean's hands scrabble along the pavement. He recovers his weapon and slashes up from an awkward angle; the force isn't enough to do serious harm, but the bimbo monster falls back with a snarl. It's only a few inches, but Dean takes the opening, surging up from the ground and stabbing right through her gut. The creature crumples in on herself. He regains his feet, then raises his weapon again, and the bimbo's head comes to a rest several feet away.
"Fucking Vetala," he mutters. "Guess they come in pairs." He rubs the back of his neck, eyes the door to the bar longingly, then turns on his heel and walks out of the alley to the street.
Eir evaluates him as he goes. She doesn't sense any breaks or breaches, just a new complement of bruises. Nothing worth chasing him down the alley for. She shivers, replaying the fight in her mind. She's not sure if she's aroused or terrified.
"He's a fierce one," Freyja remarks. "And sparkly inside, like a lighthouse. I can see the attraction."
She arches an eyebrow. "Eirie? You going to mope, or go put some more fingerprints on that fine specimen?"
Eir's hand creeps up to cover the place where Dean's knife cut deep into her chest several months ago. The skin is unmarked, but sometimes she flashes back to that blade biting through her pectoral muscle and lung, remembers the searing lack of oxygen and drooping shoulder. What she experiences when healing someone is abstract and ephemeral, but when her own body was breached the pain was deep and sharp, somehow taking over every nerve ending and coherent thought, continuing to amplify until she was sure she would never feel or think anything except agony. She feels her gorge rising at the memory.
"Mope," she says firmly.
Freya considers her for a moment. "I'll leave you to your obsession for now, but this is not healthy, baby sister. Somehow this mortal has you behaving like a battered wife." She leans down from her greater height to look Eir in the eye. "If he dies in battle, I will take him, if only to save you from yourself."