Tales of London #16

Jenna only had flashes of what came next. There was a huge bonfire amongst the tombstones and a smell so bad that she escaped back into unconsciousness. She woke up to being cold. She heard Robert’s voice, and a different one answered, not quite as that deep and calming. Then she saw Marcus' tense face. The next flash was sitting on a car's back seat, Robert's storm-coloured coat wrapped around her, and it was nice because the coat smelled like him. Then a dark staircase she climbed with help, or perhaps, was carried upon.

When Jenna noticed that she was awake for a while now, she was sitting on a very uncomfortable, angular black couch, without her jacket or shoes, and in a library. Then she looked around a bit (only with her eyes because her head felt like it would explode if she moved it), and realised that it wasn't a library, but a small flat full of books. Opposite her, the wall was covered with bookshelves, but there were towers of books in the corners, on the nightstand beside the double bed, next to the couch and even on the coffee table right in front of her.

The flat was a studio apartment, judging by the descending ceiling right under the roof. It had a kinda big, L-shaped room, with the bed at one end and the kitchen at the other. The rest of it served as a living room, although it looked more like a home office. The place was clean but messy. Also, nice and bright even now when it was only lit up by a few lamps around, and it must have been full of light in the daytime because of the skylight-type windows. Jenna could only see the cloudy sky and parts of some clock tower now. It was well after midnight, according to the clock.

She tried to move her head. It did hurt, but not nearly as bad as she thought it would. That was probably a good sign.

'How do you feel?' Robert asked. He was standing behind the kitchen counter, cutting fruits on a plate. His shirt had bloodstains on it and there was a band-aid on his temple. Behind him, next to the sink a kettle steamed.

'Like shit,' Jenna replied. 'Where are we?'

'At my place, obviously.'

Jenna nodded and regretted it immediately. She searched for her phone and found it in the pocket of her filthy jeans. She tried to wake up the screen, but nothing happened. She sighed and put the useless thing aside. There was another one on the coffee table, slightly bigger than hers, with no cracks on it.

'Can I borrow your phone? Mine is dead.'

'Sure, go ahead,' he said.

She grabbed it and opened up the camera, using it as a mirror. It wasn't as bad as she was afraid of. She had an ugly, bloody bump almost in the middle of her forehead, a red bruise on her cheekbone and a long cut above her left eyebrow, something she had no idea how or when she got. Even though she could taste blood, as if her lips were ripped a little, they looked normal, and none of her teeth was broken or missing, so all things considered the ghouls let her off their hook pretty easily.

'What the hell happened? I remember kis… I remember we finished them all, then nothing.'

Holy fuck, she thought. She kissed him. They kissed. Fuck. Fuck on a square. What the hell got into her? Flirting was bad enough, even though she didn't flirt as much as just enjoyed when Robert did it, but now kissing him? That was a mistake. A huge, huge mistake. Probably. She wasn’t so sure anymore.

'Milk and sugar?' he asked back, and Jenna nodded. He continued. 'The first bastard, I thought you killed it with that bench but turned out it survived and was polite enough to bring your bench back. Fortunately, I used a defending spell, which didn't make that much of a difference, but we are still alive, so I think at the end of the day we did well. More or less.'

Robert put a plate of sliced fruits, some sugar, a small jar of milk and two mugs of tea on a tray. He added a couple of paracetamol pills, too.

'Would you…?' he beckoned towards the coffee table, and Jenna leaned forward to make space for the tray by putting aside a small bookstore worth of books. Robert put his cargo down, and then sat next to the girl. She picked up a piece of apple and put it into her mouth just so she won't have to talk for a little while.

'Marcus fixed your ribs, two of them were cracked. He also put a few spells on your head, but he said you shouldn't be alone for the next couple of hours.'

'Relax, it's not my first concussion,' she waved. 'So I guess I will sleep here, doctors order, right? Even though the doctor clearly is your wingman... God, this is fucking weird.'

'I agree, yes. Especially after you kissed…'

'No!' she cut in. 'We do not talk about that. Not yet. Probably not ever. Understood?'

Robert shrugged and took a sip of tea.

'Not like I’d need a wingman. You kissed me, after all…’

Jenna poked him in the ribs, which made him wince.

'Sorry, sorry… How are you, anyway?

Jenna tried her tea, but she found that it wasn't sweet enough so she put more sugar in it.

'Pretty banged up, thanks for asking,' Robert said, massaging his side with a painful grimace. He must have had some bruises there.

'Where did Marcus learn all this?' Jenna asked. 'Fixing broken bones and concussions isn't beginner-level stuff.'

Robert shrugged again.

'I don't know. He is… I think he might be an undercover policeman or something like that. From time to time he shows qualities way beyond his usual goofball self. I assume someone, probably the Commissioner, recruited him to spy on me because we've been friends since we were eleven years old.'

Jenna gave that some thought. It made sense, after all, Robert, as calm and self-controlled as he might have been most of the time, still was a serious threat to the peace of the city. Not to mention that he was the son of a man who might have been even more dangerous.

'And it doesn't bother you? Your best friend spying on you?'

'It used to,' he nodded, looking at the girl. 'But then I realised that he still is my best friend, plus at least he is always in my sight, which wouldn't be the case with another detective or SRU agent they might order to follow me. So it's probably for the best.'

It took another sip of syrup-like tea for Jenna to process that. With that, she also took some paracetamol, because her head started acting up. She threw a couple of orange slices after them just to cover the taste.

'You people are very, very weird, you know that?' she asked, then didn't wait for an answer, she added: 'You know, if you ever got bored of the classroom, you could make a kinda decent demon hunter.'

Robert laughed and suddenly looked much younger. Jenna always looked at him like this older man, a professor with a steady job, heir of a lordship, but when he laughed, he was just some guy, barely even thirty.

'I would make a fantastic demon hunter, hands down, but I think for now I am going to stay with my books. It's not like I don't enjoy being in grave danger and beaten up regularly, mind you, but I will leave it to the professionals. Like you.'

'Fair enough,' Jenna nodded and finished her tea. 'So... Is there any chance I could borrow a T-shirt and maybe… Well, I think I am going to need to see your panties, Montgomery.' she finished with a childish grin.

Robert shook his head and got up. He opened a wardrobe and picked up a tee with his university's crest on it, and a pair of clean boxers. Then he added a big blue towel.

'Shower is that door, but if you are not out in fifteen minutes, I will have to check on you. You know, doctor's order.'

She stood up, closed her eyes for a second while the first wave of pain got quieter then took the clothes.

'In your dreams, Montgomery,' she smiled and left the room.

The bathroom was a small, narrow place, with a toilet at one end and the shower at the other. Between them, there was a porcelain sink, a mirror above it and a shelf with all the basic manly things like shaving foam and razor, plus a plastic glass with only one toothbrush. No girlfriend sleeping over then, she thought smiling, then she shook her head, which hurt, but she felt like she deserved that.

Jenna took off her dirty, blood-stained clothes, and as always, she checked her tattoos. The half-moon on her shoulder was alright, and so was the one on her thigh. That could not be said about her side, under her right boob, where she saw a big, shapeless purplish bruise. Must have been where that rock hit her.

She opened up the shower, waited for a couple of seconds for the water to get hot, and stepped in. She used Robert's shower gel to wash, then borrowed his shampoo too, and rubbed her hair until the water running into the drain wasn't pink anymore with her blood. Her whole body ached when she finally finished, but it was a familiar, after-fight-type pain that she knew very well.

Jenna searched the little cabinet under the sink, and her suspicion got proven: Robert was the kind of man who kept a couple of spare toothbrushes just in case. Probably for the girls that spent the night and never came back, she thought sarcastically. She brushed her teeth and left the toothbrush in the glass, next to Robert's.

The boxers looked like a short on her and the T-shirt was that big it almost covered them up entirely, but they both left half of her thigh naked. That was not only an issue of shyness (in which she most definitely didn't suffer) but also of secret-keeping. Eh, might as well, she thought. He earned it to know. Well, if he even notices the secret of the tattoo, but she didn't see how he could miss it.

She went back, still drying her hair with the towel. Robert didn't even try to be a gentleman this time, and profoundly looked all over her. Lack of shyness or not, Jenna suddenly became very aware that she wore a slightly wet T-shirt and nothing under it. The fabric did not leave too much for the imagination.

'Eyes up here, Montgomery,' she said, and Robert was polite enough to actually look elsewhere, even though he was not particularly interested in her eyes at that moment.

'Interesting tattoo,' he said, continuing to size her up. 'Is that a corner of a Rune…?'

'Might be,' she teased him, putting away the towel.

'Looks kind of like your bloody hellhound. I would even use the word "suspiciously". Do you have a tattooed spell on you, Miss Carvelli? Is that how you are doing it?'

Jenna sighed and walked up to the couch. There was no point hiding it anymore. She tiptoed with her right foot, picked up the ledge of the tee and the boxers, and pulled them back so the tattoo became fully visible. It was the shadow hound indeed, crawling on her thigh. There were ragged shadows around the dog too, and some of them formed Runes.

'Let's concentrate on the tattoo, Montgomery,' she said because it was really easy to read the man's face at that moment as he was looking at her leg.

'Right, certainly,' he said hoarsely. 'So how does it work, then?'

'You tell me, Professor,' she smiled.

Robert examined it thoroughly, at some point requesting and getting permission to touch the girl. He was all serious now, eyelids narrowed, forehead wrinkled. Jenna tried very hard not to sigh or giggle when he touched her thigh.

'I can feel an old scar under the ink… Okay, here is what I think: at some point in your life, perhaps when you were very young, a dog attacked and bit you, hence the scars, which I think are teeth marks. Am I correct?'

'So far,' the girl nodded. 'Continue.'

'I believe since you were young, you had nightmares about the attack afterwards, which is why we have here the Runes of Dream and Memory. And of course, because the mind of a child tends to exaggerate, especially after a traumatic event, you dreamed about the huge, unbeatable demon hound. It's not a dog, it's a force of nature, unstoppable and terrifying. And then you decided to make it real, hence the Rune of Reality. Your fears and memories are powering the spell and making the thing from your nightmares real. Rune of Mirror, now that's an interesting one… Mirror so the dog will defend you instead of attacking?'

Jenna smiled brightly, nodded, and stepped away, because Robert was still touching her thigh, gently and probably unknowingly, but it felt a little too good nonetheless. She sat down and ate a piece of apple from the tray, then grimaced. She forgot that she had brushed her teeth already, and the apple tasted weird.

'Then I only had to add the Rune of Shadow, partly for dramatic effect, I guess, but mostly because in that way the dog can attack out of nowhere, hiding in the darkness. Pretty cool, huh?'

'It is, indeed,' Robert agreed. 'Do you control it in some way?'

'I think it has its own will, or more like the memory of one. It acts mostly like a real dog when its owner is in trouble, actually.'

'I see. But how did you come up with this all? I mean, that is a very extreme form of therapy...'

Jenna laughed.

'Ironically, it did start up as a form of therapy. I used to carry the spell around on a piece of paper until I was old enough to get a tattoo. Everyone kept telling me that I need to face my fears, for years. I think they meant that I should pet a dog or something, but I went a little further and created the very thing I was afraid of. Once it wasn't chasing me in my dreams anymore, I realised I could use it to protect myself.'

'Yeah, it does that,' said Robert, rubbing his arm where the bites from last time weren't wholly healed yet.

'I am sorry,' Jenna said. Her voice was genuine.

'Don't mention it,' Robert shrugged. 'If I can forgive you for my nose…'

She laughed again.

'Anyway… You and your spell are remarkable.' Robert shook his head. 'Truly remarkable.'

Jenna didn't know how to handle an honest compliment, but she didn't have to, because Robert stood up and walked to the writing desk. He returned with a sketchbook.

'A deal is a deal,' he said and gave the book to Jenna. Then he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving her alone with his drawings.

Jenna didn't know the first thing about art, but even she could see that they were very good. Robert mostly used pencil and only a few colours on each picture. They felt like a journal, as he told her already, made up of memories of moments. There was one about the Commissioner turning his back and looking out the window, then one of Teodore sitting at the Broken Shield with a grumpy face, one which looked more like a caricature about an older man who Jenna thought must have been Lord Montgomery. And of course, there was a picture of her. The two-dimensional Jenna was terrifying and breathtakingly beautiful at the same time, with an evil little half-smile on her lips. The thought that Robert sees her like that made Jenna smile and even blush a little. She still admired the pictures when the man came back, dressed in sweatpants and a white T-shirt, his red hair still dripping. He looked a little nervous as his eyes were jumping from the book to Jenna's face and back. She held it carefully as if it was something precious, and in fact, she did think that it was.

'You are very talented, you know that?'

Robert shrugged again.

'I wouldn't go that far,' he said. 'I am decent, sort of. Practised for years.'

There was something in his voice that told Jenna to drop this topic for the moment being, and she did so.

'So… I guess we should get some sleep, right?'

'Indeed,' Robert nodded, but didn't move from the doorway.

'Yeah, well, the thing is, your couch is kinda small, even for me, and also unbearably uncomfortable.'

'Came with the apartment,' Robert said indifferently. If he knew where was Jenna going with all this, he was not about to make it easier for her.

'Whatever. Here is the deal: unless you want to sleep on the floor, we are going to sleep in the bed, together. And just so we all agree: when I say sleeping, I actually mean sleeping. Nothing else.'

It’s not like she’d exclude the possibility, but with her headache, and every other ache, in general, getting stronger, sex was the last thing she could think about. Would have been even if the other participant wasn’t Montgomery.

'Fair enough,' Robert nodded shortly. He didn’t seem disappointed: he probably felt the same. It was a long night, after all.

So they climbed to bed.

Even though Robert only had one not-too-big blanket, they made a point not to accidentally touch each other under it. They were just laying on the bed in the darkness, listening to the other's breathing, unable to sleep for a long time.

'Robert?'

'Yes?'

'I kissed you,' it was so much easier to talk about that now that she couldn't see his face.

'You sure did,' his voice was casual, almost empty.

'It was a mistake.'

'Said the girl in my bed…' he answered sarcastically.

'No, really,' Jenna insisted, 'I was all psyched up, high on adrenaline, you know? It was spur of the moment. Nothing else,' she found that lying is also easier in the darkness. 'It meant no…'

Robert kissed her. It wasn't passionate, just a kiss a couple would share, slow and nice. She was so shocked she didn't even curse him, let alone object. Never decided to kiss him back either, but she realised she did that nevertheless. When Robert stopped, she needed a couple of seconds to reboot her mind.

'You were saying, Jenna?' he asked politely.

'I… Shut up!' she answered, not caring about how childish she sounded, then turned around, so she didn't have to see the man's silhouette. They didn't say anything else that evening, but Jenna woke up sometime in the middle of the night, with her head on Robert's chest and one of her legs wrapped around his, grabbing his tee at his shoulder. The man's arm was hugging her, hand laying on her hip. She quickly realised that nobody could blame her for what she was doing unconsciously, then snuggled closer to Robert and went back to sleep.