Dead and Gone

wounded for you to disturb.”
    I didn’t absorb that. My mind was racing ahead. It was a mighty slow race, but I was thinking a little more clearly. “Has someone told Sam, do you know?” How long had I been out? How much work had I missed?
    Dr. Ludwig shrugged. “I don’t know. I imagine so. He seems to hear everything.”
    “Good.” I tried to shift positions, gasped. “I’m going to have to get up to use the bathroom,” I warned her.
    “Claudine,” Dr. Ludwig said, and my cousin put away her knitting and rose from the rocking chair. For the first time, I registered that my beautiful fairy godmother looked like someone had tried to push her through a wood chipper. Her arms were bare and covered with scratches, scrapes, and cuts. Her face was a mess. She smiled at me, but it was painful.
    When she lifted me in her arms, I could feel her effort. Normally Claudine could heft a large calf without any trouble if she chose to.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I can walk. I’m sure.”
    “Don’t think of it,” Claudine said. “See, we’re already there.”
    When our mission was accomplished, she scooped me up and took me back to bed.
    “What happened to you?” I asked her. Dr. Ludwig had departed without another word.
    “I got ambushed,” she said in her sweet voice. “Some stupid brownies and one fairy. Lee, his name was.”
    “I guess they were allied with this Breandan?”
    She nodded, fished out her bundle of knitting. The item she was working on appeared to be a tiny sweater. I wondered if it was for an elf. “They were,” she said. “They are bits of bone and flesh now.” She sounded quite pleased.
    Claudine would never become an angel at this rate. I wasn’t quite sure how the progression worked, but reducing other beings to their component parts was probably not the route of choice. “Good,” I said. The more of Breandan’s followers who met their match, the better. “Have you seen Bill?”
    “No,” Claudine said, clearly not interested.
    “Where is Claude?” I asked. “Is he safe?”
    “He’s with Grandfather,” she said, and for the first time, she looked worried. “They’re trying to find Breandan. Grandfather figures that if he takes out the source, Breandan’s followers will have no choice but to stop the war and pledge an oath to him.”
    “Oh,” I said. “And you didn’t go, because . . . ?”
    “I’m guarding you,” she said simply. “And lest you think I chose the path of least danger, I’m sure Breandan is trying to find this place. He must be very angry. He’s had to enter the human world, which he hates so much, now that his pet killers are dead. He loved Neave and Lochlan. They were with him for centuries, and both his lovers.”
    “Yuck,” I said from the heart, or maybe from the pit of my stomach. “Oh, yuck .” I couldn’t even think about what kind of “love” they would make. What I’d seen hadn’t looked like love. “And I would never accuse you of taking the path of least danger,” I said after I’d gotten over being nauseated. “This whole world is dangerous.” Claudine gave me a sharp look. “What kind of name is Breandan?” I asked after a moment of watching her knitting needles flash with great speed and panache. I wasn’t sure how the fuzzy green sweater would turn out, but the effect was good.
    “Irish,” she said. “All the oldest ones in this part of the world are Irish. Claude and I used to have Irish names. It seemed stupid to me. Why shouldn’t we please ourselves? No one can spell those names or pronounce them correctly. My former name sounds like a cat coughing up a fur ball.”
    We sat in silence for a few minutes.
    “Who’s the little sweater for? Are you going to have a bundle of joy?” I asked in my wheezy, whispery new voice. I was trying to sound teasing, but instead, I just sounded creepy.
    “Yes,” she said, raising her head to look at me. Her eyes were glowing. “I’m going to have a baby. A pure fairy child.”
    I was startled, but I tried to cover that with the biggest smile I could paste on my face. “Oh. That’s great!” I said. I wondered if it would be tacky to inquire as to the identity of the father. Probably.
    “Yes,” she said seriously. “It’s wonderful. We’re not really a very fertile race, and the huge amount of iron in the world has reduced our birthrate. Our numbers decline every century. I am very lucky. It’s one of the reasons I never take humans to bed, though