21 – Clearing the Air

Ward took a step toward Lisa and snapped, “If you’re going to keep pointing guns at me, you might as well pull that trigger ‘cause I’m about done with that shit.”

Lisa looked down at her pistol, and then her eyes darted to her shredded robes and the empty vial from the healing potion. A flicker of doubt marred her determined expression, and she sighed heavily, lowering the gun until the barrel clicked against the metal floor. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

Ward folded his arms and scowled down at her. “Appreciated.”

“What’s going on?” Haley stepped to Ward’s left, looking at Lisa. “Why did you pull your pistol?”

“She saw Grace.” To her credit, Grace hadn’t yet appeared, and Ward hoped she was waiting to hear the results of this conversation before she decided to show up with any smart-ass remarks that might shift Lisa’s point of view in the wrong direction.

“When?” Haley looked around the room as though she’d missed something.

“If Grace is the woman who held your wound during the fight, then yes, I saw her.”

Haley mimicked Ward’s posture, folding her arms and scowling down at Lisa. “So? What’s the problem?”

Lisa held her ground, her gaze flickering between Ward and Haley, clearly searching for the right words to explain herself. “The problem,” she began, her voice steeling with conviction, “is that creatures like her—those that ride alongside another person’s consciousness, using their vessel to achieve some semblance of life—are dangerous. They’re like parasites with a…with a goal in mind. They manipulate, control, even corrupt without us realizing. I’ve been trained to look for exactly this sort of thing! This is what my order does!”

Ward frowned and started to protest, “What exactly—”

Maybe Lisa could see the doubt in his eyes, the objection on his tongue, because she hurriedly spoke over him, “I don’t think you’re evil or up to no good, Ward! I spent too much time with you on that ship to think that. It’s why I’ve put my gun down. I don’t believe you’ll hurt me. That tells me it’s not too late! The spirit—Grace, if that’s what it’s called—hasn’t turned you to evil yet; it hasn’t—”

“Grace isn’t evil, and she’s not an ‘it’!” Haley interjected with a viciously deep scowl.

Lisa pushed on, her voice thick with emotion. “My order has documented cases! A woman whose spirit was overtaken by a shadow entity so completely her own family couldn’t tell it wasn’t her. When she started hurting people—killing people—it was too late! A sorcerer, a burgeoning talent, the pride of Westview, who let a trickster into his mind, thinking he could control it, only to be used as a puppet in a cruel game. He ruined so many lives! Entities that jump from one body to another, leaving their victims hollowed out. Mind leeches that—”

“Listen, Lisa,” Ward interrupted, squatting down to look at her more directly. He could hear the sincerity in her voice, the genuine concern. If she’d been raised and trained to believe a certain way, he knew how hard it must be to look at the issue from an unbiased angle, “Grace lives in me, yeah, we’re sharing this ‘vessel.’ She’s not like that, though. She doesn’t do anything to control me other than talking to me and presenting her opinions. Yeah, she has some strong opinions, but half the time, she’s right. The rest of the time, I do what I think is right, and she doesn’t do anything other than argue a little—like any other person would.”

Lisa leaned forward, away from the wall, staring into Ward’s eyes. “Maybe she’s not what I fear, Ward, but maybe she is. Beings like her…they don’t always show their true colors right away. They play a long, slow game, patient as they build trust and slowly begin to exert control over your life. Before you know it—”

“None of that slippery slope bullshit with me, Lisa. Grace isn’t taking me over by inches. I’d be dead without her half a dozen times over.” He nodded to Haley. “She’d be worse than dead.”

Lisa’s eyes darted to Haley. “Worse?”

Ward nodded. “She’s got no anima, remember?”

Lisa licked her lips, frowning as her certainty faded. “Oh…”

Haley lowered herself to her knees, looking Lisa in the eyes. “Grace gives good advice, and she’s been very kind to me…for the most part. She’s a person, and she’s listening to everything we say, and I think it’s probably very hurtful for her to be talked about like she’s some kind of parasite. She has hopes and dreams, and she cares about Ward and me. Maybe you’re right, and there are creatures that live in a person and turn them bad, but Grace isn’t like that.” Haley looked up at Ward, her pale eyes wide, pleading, “Tell her!”

Ward shrugged. “I did. I don’t know what else to say to you, Lisa. I owe Grace everything. She’s not evil; in fact, lately, she’s been actively encouraging me to do good. When Haley and I saved a girl from some trogs, Grace talked to me about how it made her feel, that she appreciated the fact that Haley and I want to do good things in the world. She talked to us both about wanting to consciously find ways to choose the “right” way to act. She’s not perfect; she makes mistakes, and she’s been colored by her experiences, but she’s trying—just like you and me and Haley. She’s not a devil or a shadow or some other evil thing. If you want to put a label on her, then you could call her an angel just as well as you could a demon.”

Haley nodded, reaching out to take Lisa’s hand. “Isn’t it possible that the people who trained you, all the stories they told you, focus on the bad when there are plenty of examples of good? Haven’t you heard of guardian spirits, fairy godmothers, angels, and celestials? Couldn’t people like Grace be just like us—some good and some bad? Should all people be condemned because there are some bad ones like Nevkin and Raymond LaCorte?”

Haley’s mention of LaCorte seemed to hit home, and Ward saw Lisa’s chin move up and down slightly as the point registered. “Will she speak to me?”

Suddenly, Grace was there, standing beside Ward. She reached out and took his hand in hers, gently squeezing it. “Thank you, Ward and Haley, for your very kind words. I’m—I feel…” She sniffed and turned toward Ward, pressing her face into his shoulder as though hiding it. “I feel overwhelmed.”

Ward looked at Lisa, saw how she stared at Grace with wide eyes and saw how her hand drifted back to her pistol but didn’t touch it. She was scared. Grace was a creature she’d been told horror stories about all of her life, and maybe those stories were justified; if Grace’s “uncle” was any metric, then at least some of the beings like her were bad, if not evil. He put an arm over her shoulders, surprised, himself, by how right it felt. He did like her. Despite their constant bickering and the rocky situation with his missing anima, he didn’t think she was bad.

Of course, he couldn’t overlook the callous way she’d often spoken and behaved—cutthroat and pragmatic to a fault—but she never spent time debating with Ward when he chose to ignore her less-than-considerate advice. When she’d told him to kill the scavenger woman, for instance, it had been out of concern for his safety; Grace had thought she’d be a threat to him—not precisely angelic behavior, but not necessarily sociopathic.

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Lisa interrupted his thoughts, “Well, Grace? Can you tell me what sort of entity you are?”

Grace turned her head, peering at Lisa with one eye but still pressing her forehead against Ward’s arm. “A pathetic one.”

Lisa arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

“Because I am a parasite. I cling to Ward because, without him, I’d be a bodiless mass of emotions drifting on the aether.”

“Are all your kind such?” Lisa’s question caught Ward by surprise, and he frowned, wondering why he’d never pushed Grace like that. Never grilled her for details about her “family.” Was she influencing him, or was she just really good at dodging conversations when they got uncomfortable?

“No.” Grace straightened and turned to face Lisa fully. “Some of my kind steal anima from their hosts and trick them into helping them move to a new host to repeat the process. If they do it enough times, they begin to have more freedom, more presence. They gain the ability to move about in the physical world for a time and work more powerful magics. I’ve never been comfortable stealing anima and haven’t ever gotten enough from my hosts to do more than work a few minor magics.” She looked up at Ward. “Other than from Ward. I used some of his anima to save his life and activate a spell circle to transport us here.”

Lisa shifted and looked around the room as though something might come out of the shadows to attack her. Ward figured she might feel cornered with the three of them surrounding her, especially with him and Grace standing, looming over her. He sat down, mimicking Haley’s posture, and was pleased when Grace did the same. The gesture got a small, quick smile out of Lisa, and she nodded. “Do you think you’re good, Grace?”

“I think I’m an individual who can choose good.” Her answer was quick, and Ward had a feeling she’d rehearsed it before, and why wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t it make sense that, if she were as old as she claimed, she’d spent days, weeks, even years contemplating her nature? She’d definitely seemed damaged when he first met her. When she talked about her old hosts, there was trauma hiding behind her words. The more he thought about it, the more he felt sorry for her, and he reached over to take her hand again.

He looked at Lisa while he folded his fingers around Grace’s. “I don’t know if you have some method of harming a person like Grace, but you need to understand that I’ll stand in your way. It’s not her fault she’s the type of being she is, but she’s trying damn hard to be decent.”

Haley nodded, leaning even closer to Lisa, locking her strange, pale eyes with hers. Her voice was earnest and breathy as she insisted, “It’s true, Lisa. Grace hasn’t harmed us!”

Lisa shook her head and blew out a quick, pent-up breath. “I must be honest: I’ve been trained to recognize the signs of possession, and I don’t see them in either of you.” She looked at Grace. “I’m sorry I assumed the worst, but you must understand that I’m dealing with many years of ingrained prejudice. Seeing you without those preconceived judgments clouding my vision will take time. Will you be patient with me?”

Grace nodded. “If you’ll keep an open mind, I will.” She looked from Lisa to Haley, then Ward, and despite the fact that her body wasn’t physically real to anyone other than Ward, she had tears in her eyes. He wondered at that. How could a being without a physical body feel? Weren’t feelings or emotions—if there was a difference—chemical reactions? Didn’t hormones bring them on? Was she using his body for that? He had so many questions, but Grace, as usual, ended the conversation, or at least her part in it. “I feel a little overwhelmed. I’m going to rest for a while. Be careful, please. I didn’t like how close you came to serious harm in here!”

“I’ll be better about protecting—” Haley started to promise, but Grace was already gone.

Lisa slipped her pistol back into her leather pack, and Ward cleared his throat, grunting as he stood up. He held a hand out to Lisa. “You feel better about things?”

She looked at his hand for a moment, then clasped it, her fingers warm and a little moist. Ward wondered if it was nerves or the adrenaline dump in the fight and her near-death experience that made them so. As he pulled her to her feet, she replied, “I feel better, Ward. I could tell there was something you were holding back from me, and now I know. I feel like the air has cleared between us.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.” Ward walked over to the chest. “There are five more potions in here.”

“Healing or something more?” Lisa’s hopeful tone was barely masked; Ward knew she was looking for a refinement.

Haley moved over to look inside. “I doubt it. They’re all different looking.”

“I’ll pull them out one by one, and then we can talk about who gets what, all right?” Both women indicated they were fine with the idea, so Ward sat down before the chest and waited for Lisa and Haley to sit to either side of him. “Let’s keep this civilized; I don’t want Haley beating me up for one of these things.”

“Oh, hush. I wouldn’t beat you up—just knock you out!”

Ward chuckled under his breath. “Cute.” Without looking, he reached into the chest and lifted out the first vial his fingers touched. It was the big one shaped like a beer bottle and filled with cloudy orange fluid. “Recognize it?” He asked as he held it high, turning it slowly, looking for any sort of marking on the glass.

“I do not,” Lisa replied, and Haley shook her head. Ward’s thumb found the label—raised letters molded into the glass somehow.

Squinting, he read it aloud, “R and a…plus symbol. R plus.”

He looked at Haley and Lisa, but neither said anything. “You guys have never seen a refinement potion, have you?” He knew Haley’s answer but watched as Lisa slowly shook her head. “Okay, setting this one aside.” Ward did so, putting it on the ground beside his knee, then he reached in and picked up another potion he’d recognized the moment he’d opened the chest. It was smaller, about eight ounces, and had a curlicued “R” stamped onto the wax seal. “This is a refinement potion.” He pointed to the stamp.

“Ah!” Lisa’s cheeks flushed, and she leaned toward it, literally licking her lips in excitement.

Ward chuckled and set it beside the orange one, noting that Haley’s eyes also tracked it closely. “I wanted to show you guys that because of the ‘R.’ It makes me wonder about the orange one—if that potion’s ‘R’ also stands for ‘refinement,’ then it might be more potent or something. What do you think?”

Lisa shook her head, still staring at the refinement potion next to Ward’s knee. “It makes sense, but we can’t know for certain.”

Haley frowned. “I thought you’d studied the challenges. Shouldn’t there be, like, a lot of records about this stuff?”

Lisa chuckled. “You would think so, wouldn’t you? I know a good deal, but the list of possible rewards in the challenges is staggeringly long. After Ward showed us the refinement, of course, I recognized the description I’d read in many accounts, but I swear, I’ve never read of one like that orange potion.” She shook her head, correcting herself, “No, I should say that if I have read of it, I don’t remember.”

“Well, let’s keep looking at these before we try to make any decisions, okay?” Ward glanced from Lisa to Haley, and when they nodded, he reached in and took out the next potion. It was tiny—the size of his thumb—and the liquid was thick and silver, reminding Ward of mercury. It had a black wax seal stamped with a “B.” When he held it up, Lisa sucked in her breath.

“It’s a bloodline refinement!”

Ward turned it left and right, lifting an eyebrow. “No shit?”

“I speak the truth!” Lisa nodded, emphatic.

“Just a figure of speech.” He set it beside the other two. “Okay, two more.” Ward pulled out a small, bulbous potion, and its cobalt blue contents caught the light, revealing swirling sparkles inside. He didn’t see any markings on the wax seal, but when he turned it over, he found an “M” imprinted on the glass.

“I think…” Lisa squinted, watching the liquid sparkle. “I think it will enhance a person’s mana capabilities—sensitivity, pathways, and the like. I’m almost certain, but, as I said, my memory is far from eidetic.”

Ward nodded, setting the potion next to the others, then took out the last. It was about the same size as the healing potion had been, narrow and long, like a test tube, and it was filled with a thick, syrupy forest-green liquid. When he searched it for a label, he found a word printed in the glass. “Fortitude,” he read aloud.

“Ah!” Lisa cried. “I think it will improve a person’s vessel capacity!” She frowned. “Or just their vessel’s durability.” She clenched her hands into fists, squeezing her eyes shut, and Ward almost snorted with laughter at her physical cues, indicating she was thinking hard, searching her memory. “I can’t be sure. I’m sorry!”

“It’s all right!” Haley reached past Ward to pat Lisa’s knee. “You know more than we do.”

“Yeah, but that’s going to change.” Ward set the potion down. “I’m going to start taking notes on this shit, and if we get out, I’m going to visit a library or bookstore or something.”

“I agree that would be wise.” Lisa stared at the potions while she spoke. “How will we decide who will take which reward?”

“I have an idea,” Haley announced, pulling her backpack close and digging through a side pouch.

“Oh yeah?” Ward watched as she rooted around in the pocket for several seconds and then pulled her fist out. When she opened her hand, he saw three polished ivory dice sitting on her palm—six-sided with silver-inlaid dots to indicate the number on each face.

Haley grinned, her pale irises shining in the spire’s strange lights. “How do you feel about rolling for our picks?”