The clock chimed twelve in the afternoon when I roused. Ms. Alice's face was tranquil in the twilight of the lamp: the softness of her eyelids, eyebrows faultless even when left to grow, lips the same glossy rubies that colored her eyes. Her pale skin was of angel's, skin smooth as a babe's buttocks, and the merest of blemishes nowhere to be found. God was unerring when He had made this woman—this ghoul—who seemed a minx but whose heart mellowed and cared for mine.
She opened her eyes. "You are awake, Mr. Diggory." And you too.
"Shall we proceed then…" a pause, "Anima." Yes, I believe we should, Alice.
Remove the clothing on your torso. I did, feeling her gaze as I took off the articles. The coat slid easily from my arms. Vest unfastened. Shirt. Lie on your stomach. I did. Her delicate fingers stroked my back, the movement running over where monsters had bitten, the wound they left opening and, thanks to the blood that ran through me, closed, not even leaving a mark of the scar. It will hurt, she said. I brace.
The pain was the same as the smoldering that etched my abdomen then, before I came to Yarim, like a blade forged from the inferno of the hearth. My mind goes blank from pain and I wish it ends sooner. Each and every inch of my body prickling from ten thousand heated needles—the room panged with the stench of coal dust and molting iron, burning my nostrils with the thick odor.
"It is done," Alice said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "You are now able to summon fire, Anima."
I croaked a laugh. "You say funny things every now and then, Alice. What am I able to do now?"
"I do not jest, Anima." She enunciates each syllable clearly A-ni-ma. "See for yourself."
"How, then?" I ask challengingly.
"Your way is not my way. Try."
I try. Fire, I thought. No. It is not its name. I search for its name in my mind. In the warren of my principal faculty, I search for the words, like flipping through pages of an old tome. I find it. Flare.
In my hands I held a flickering light; not a candle nor a lantern but a ball of raw flame, attended by nothing more than my bare skin. I was flabbergasted. It was impossible yet it happened right before my eyes. I felt like a caveman that had discovered fire, staring at it wide-eyed, my jaw unhinged.
Alice looked uncomfortable in its presence, and she told me why. "Some ghouls are weak to fire. I am one of them though I am half-blood."
I am one of them. She had said it so carelessly, as if remarking some fresh gossip that circulated in town. Not to mention that she was telling it to me: a man who had entered her life because he neared death, and he needed her blood. I put the flame out, noticing that her expression had remained the same: fearful and wan.
"Alice," I said, not wanting silence to dawn upon us, and wake us up from this peaceful dream. "Will you tell me more—about you?"
She tilted her head in confusion as if she had been never asked about it. "Why?"
I bit my lips, timid and bashful from what I was about to do. But it did not harm her, did it? Surely, it may be granted. So I spoke. "I wish…" I glanced at her eyes, beautiful rubies, "to know more about you."
She smiled. Amused? Confused? Delighted? Perhaps she had been feeling all three but I could not determine it. She hid everything behind that sweet smile of hers. A lusty dame that one would have regarded cultured and sophisticated with her manner of walk and talk but hid a vast wealth of secrets. All beneath that smile of hers.
"There will come a time, Anima, when you shall know everything about me. My history, my transgressions, my faults, my strengths, my loves, my hates—it shall come," her face was serious, grave, "and now is not the time for that. Free Yarim. Find the Ichor. Then you will know me. You will know everything that is to know about me."
I nodded. We left it at that. I would have wanted to know more but if she was not prepared to strip her past as easily as I had, then I ought to respect it. There was a vexation in me however, that seemed to believe that those words did not mean what I had taken it to be. I dismissed this. What else could they have possibly meant?
I donned my clothing once more, the door groaning as we entered the common room where wild-looking hair sprouted from the horizon of the couch's rear. When I perused the face, a rough iron, pink gummy flesh presented itself. It was Alfred. Days I had not seen him in the city but he was a Hunter. Like me. Though I knew nothing of where he pursued the ghouls. Perhaps in Old Yarim. Or the Ward. I kept these conjectures to myself, and greeted him. He greeted back, sneaking a glance at the ash-blonde that stood beside me. His jaw tightened. For a while I felt the rush of blood when a ghoul was intent on killing me.
"Virgil," Alfred said, shifting his gaze to look at Virgil. "Why'd you call me?"
"I have come to discuss matters regarding the Hunt, Alfred. And it is necessary that these should be held with Ms. Alice and our new Hunter." Virgil replied.
"I don't get why—my dawdles are twisted and tied holding back ghouls in Old Yarim while you lounge in the Sanctuary," his voice is gravelly, rough as his visage, "Then you pester and vex me in my dreams to come to the Sanctuary, forcing me to either die or use the orbs." His breathing is ragged. Angry. It was the first time I saw him like this. He seemed out of it. The tugging in my stomach had risen but I dared not notice it. The question had been forming ever since he shot that glare. But I know I would not like the answer.