Under Luvari’s guidance, Mitchell and Lethelin broke down the tent and moved Allora’s body into the cabin. Rather than stay in the main room, Mitchell carried her through the doorway with the beaded curtains. Inside, he saw a bedroom with two roughly twin-sized mattresses and a chair.

“Place her there,” Luvari said, indicating the bed to the left. “And strap her down. Make sure they are tight.”

It was then that Mitchell saw the thick leather straps hanging down and dragging the floor. Each one was almost three inches wide and at least a quarter of an inch thick.

Once he had her laying in the bed, Lethelin helped him bind her arms, wrists, chest, head, legs and feet.

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself in English after they stood up from their work.

“Indeed,” Luvari said from behind him as she scanned his work. “This far along cleansing the curse from her body will not be easy. And elves are strong.”

“The other bed is for you, moon child,” Luvari said. “Extracting your blood will leave you weak, and you’ll want to be lying down. Would you prefer to do it now, or after I have cleansed the knight?”

Lethelin looked to Mitchell, but he only shrugged.

“It’s up to you,” he said simply.

Lethelin looked at her bed warily then back to Luvari.

“I think I’ll wait until after you’ve finished with Allora.”

Luvari gave her a single nod, then asked Mitchell the same question.

“Are there any effects of having a memory removed? Or of giving you my name?”

“Yes to the first, no to the second. Extracting a core memory often leaves the subject feeling disoriented for a time, but not overly so.”

“I’ll wait as well.”

“As you wish,” Luvari said. “Stand clear, please. Feel free to sit on the bed or wait outside. The creature that has grown inside her will seek a new host, but I will contain it. You will be safe.”

“There’s something inside her?” Mitchell asked, surprised.

The fey woman blinked.

“Of course,” she said in a somewhat surprised tone. “What do you think has been consuming her mana? If it fully matures, it will consume her soul as the last act before it totally possesses her body and turns her into a wraith.”

“Will it die when you take it out?”

“I cannot kill it on this plane. I can only banish back to the one it from which it came.”

Mitchell nodded, and he and Lethelin went to the other bed and sat. Luvari approached the head of the bed, pulling the vial of black liquid from her pocket as she did so.

“This will make her body toxic to the creature,” she explained, as she placed her hand behind Allora’s neck and pulled up slightly, tilting Allora’s head back. “Once it emerges, I will contain it and then send it back where it belongs.”

Mitchell was getting strong Exorcist and Constantine vibes as he watched Luvari unstop the vial and pour it delicately into her mouth. Once the vial was empty, the fey woman pushed Allora’s jaw shut and clamped her hand over Allora’s mouth and nose with evident force.

“I will release her from stasis now. Get ready. And don’t interfere.”

Mitchell felt a slight tingle across his skin, but that was all the warning he had. On the bed across from him, Allora’s body suddenly bucked, and she began to thrash wildly. The bed frame creaked and groaned as her body pulled against the restraints and her eyes snapped open emitting a bluish-white glow. Luvari held her head firm as Allora tried to free herself from the straps. Mitchell could hear a feral growl trying to escape Allora’s throat, but Luvari’s hand blocked any air that might escape.

“Oh, but you are a strong one,” Luvari said, almost as if she admired the display. “But be a good mana leech and swallow what momma gave you. That’s a good girl.”

Allora, or whatever was inside Allora, twisted and yanked, sliding the bed several inches across the floor, but the straps held. Just barely in Mitchell’s estimation. He felt a pressure on his arm and looked down to see that Lethelin was gripping him tightly, her eyes wide with terror.

“Shhhh, it’s okay. Swallow it all down, there you go,” Luvari cooed. “We’ll get you out of the nice elf and send you back where you belong.”

Allora’s body convulsed then, bending upward as if trying to go into a fetal position. The bed bent upward as Allora contracted and something in the frame groaned and snapped, but it wasn’t one of the straps. As the bed settled back down, now warped and uneven, Luvari finally stood up and removed her hand. Allora gasped, pulled in a large breath, then began hacking and wheezing.

“I know, it burns, doesn’t it? You’ll feel much better if you come out, don’t you think? Come on. Out of that nice elf lady’s body. That’s a good leech.”

A string of sounds Mitchell had never heard before came frothing out of Allora’s mouth and her face twisted in pure rage.

“Language!” Luvari said and clucked her tongue.

Sweat was pouring off Allora’s body, and she began to shudder violently. The glow from her eyes brightened in intensity then faded, then surged again.

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“Mitchell!” Allora suddenly called out, her voice normal once more as those glowing eyes found him sitting there with Lethelin. “She’s killing me, Mitchell. Stop her, please! Don’t let her kill me!”

Mitchell wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it. He’d seen something like this often enough in movies and read about it in books. Still, even though he knew it wasn’t really Allora, part of him ached to go to her. It had been agonizing to see her get sicker and to be able to do nothing for her.

He glared back at the creature wearing Allora like a party mask and said, “Time for you to go.”

Allora’s face twisted with impotent fury, and she began to curse at him, only some of which he understood. She turned that hateful gaze onto Lethelin then, but before she could get any actual words out her body seized up once more, and then she started to convulse violently. A voice that sounded like it belonged to an Icelandic death metal singer screamed as she tried once again to break free of the restraints. Something else in the bed gave way, and it sagged to one side. The glow from her eyes intensified, and Mitchell saw that the light was permeating her skin as well.

Only then did Luvari move from her place at the head of the bed. She walked to the center and held her hands up and began to whisper an incantation. The air around Allora’s writhing body rippled, and Mitchell could just make out a shroud or a dome that had settled in place around her as she shuddered.

“Almost there, you can do it,” Luvari said to the creature. “Just a little bit more…”

Allora let loose a scream of primal fury that began to increase in pitch and volume until both Mitchell and Lethelin winced and had to cover their ears. His skin began to itch and then, as the scream went on much longer than humanly possible, began to feel like needles were jabbing into his flesh. Lethelin apparently felt it too as she began to squirm. Mitchell felt his insides begin to quiver from the sonic assault, and he squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his muscles tight to try and endure the power of it.

Just as he thought the noise was going to turn his brain to jelly, the sound stopped. The silence was so sudden it took his breath away, and he titled forward, almost falling off the bed as the pressure he was fighting against vanished. Beside him, he felt Lethelin struggle to right herself just as he had. Mitchell slowly opened his eyes and pulled his hands away from his ears, which were ringing loudly.

In front of him the bed was a twisted ruin, half on its side, only one leg still supporting it. Allora’s body hung limply in the straps like wet laundry over a clothes line. Above her, floating at about chest height, Mitchell caught his first sight of the creature that had nearly killed her.

It was a parasite. That was the best way he could describe it. A worm. It was broad and flat maybe a foot wide, an inch thick, and about two meters long, although it was hard to tell as it was swimming around in the bubble in which Luvari had captured it. It curved and looped around, testing the barrier in which it now found itself. Its body was an opaque white, and it glowed with the same blueish white light that had been shining from Allora’s eyes moments before.

“Oh, you’re a big one, you are,” Luvari said.

The creature responded to her voice and threw itself at the barrier, and Mitchell could see a mouth, of sorts. It reminded him of the mouths of parasitic worms he’d seen in his biology textbook. A small hole ringed with teeth-like protrusions. It sucked hungrily at the barrier, but it could find no purchase.

Mitchell got slowly to his feet on wobbly legs. Lethelin was hunched over and didn’t join him. He stepped up next to Luvari and stared at the thing, then down at Allora who looked dead herself. He could make out a weak rise and fall of her chest, though, so she still lived.

“Poor mindless thing,” Luvari said. It sounded like she meant it.

“Poor? It nearly killed Allora!”

“It was just feeding,” Luvari replied. “It’s a creature of instinct and hunger. Dangerous, yes, but not evil. Evil implies intent. Is a virus evil? Bacteria? Blame the one who put it in her.”

“Well, I think I know who did it, and he’s dead.”

“Just as well.”

Lethelin joined them then and looked in terrified awe at the parasite that swam around its prison.

“Are you sure you can’t kill it?”

“Possibly, but it is far easier to banish it.”

Luvari brought her hands up to either side of the bubble and guided it away from Allora and toward the end of the bed.

“Do you know where it came from?” Mitchell asked her.

“I have some ideas, but the multiverse is vast, and I don’t care to find out exactly where. No place nice, I can assure you. Summoned creatures like this one require energy to maintain a presence in a foreign realm. The magic that makes it possible is included in the spell that brings them here and binds them. If I interrupt that, it can’t maintain its presence, and is pulled back to its home dimension.

“Like…” she paused and Mitchell felt his ears pop. “This!”

The parasite began to vibrate and blur, and then it began to fold in on itself geometrically. From the center of the bubble a little black void appeared, and the shrinking parasite was sucked down into it as if the void was a miniature black hole. Then, it was gone.

Luvari dispelled the containment bubble and let out a contented sigh.

“That’s my part of our deal concluded,” Luvari said, and made as if to brush the dust from her hands. “Now, it’s your turn.”

“Can we see to Allora first?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Luvari said, as if she had already forgotten about the elf. “She really did a number on that bed. It’s safe to unstrap her. You can lay her in the other one. She will be unconscious for several hours, I suspect, but she will live.”

Lethelin helped Mitchell get her unhooked from the damaged bed and placed her gently in the fresh one. After that, Lethelin volunteered to have her blood drawn as the first part of their payment. Now that the other bed was occupied, Luvari led the wary thief back out into the living room saying she would extract the blood as she sat in the La-Z-Boy. She assured him she would be fine and he should stay with Allora.

Mitchell grabbed one of the chairs from the other side of the room and sat it next to the bed. He pulled her hand into his and held it. From out in the living room, he heard Lethelin yelp.

“Stollar’s balls, woman! That hurt!”

“Oh, don’t be a baby! It’s just a needle stick.”

“Maybe don’t use a needle bigger than a dragon’s cock!”

“You whine an awful lot for someone who’s supposed to be a hardened assassin.”

Mitchell couldn’t help but grin listening to the two women bicker.

He was exhausted, both mentally and physically. Allora would be okay, though. He knew he wasn’t supposed to care about her more than the mission, but he didn’t feel bad about doing so. He held her hand, felt the callouses on her palm, traced each one with his finger.

Mitchell tried to imagine what she was like before all this had happened. He tried to imagine that young girl sneaking around in the palace and getting caught. Skipping her lessons, being carefree, having every opportunity open for her. Mitchell wanted her to be able to smile easily again.

Inadvertently, his mind went back to that morning after the fight with Dakath when she’d collapsed from exhaustion on the trail and woken up delirious. If she was speaking honestly, Allora had killed someone. Maybe it had been a mercy killing – that’s what it had sounded like, at least – but it was obviously eating her up inside. He wasn’t sure what to do with that knowledge. When she was better, should he ask her about it? Maybe if she talked to him, unburdened herself, she would feel better.

“A problem for later,” he said out loud.

With his free hand, he reached up and brushed some of the bleached and sweat-dampened hair from her forehead. Then, no longer content to just sit in the chair, he stood, kicked his boots off, and crawled into the bed beside her. As gently as he could manage, he lifted her head and slid his arm underneath her and pulled her into him. He felt tension begin to drain out of him as he lay there, feeling her chest rise and fall.

“We’re going to be okay,” he whispered to her.

It might have been wishful thinking on his part, but he thought he felt her body relax into his just a little bit. Slowly, Mitchell nodded off.