“Wow! A street fighter and a mind-reader!”
“I made it sweet,” Crowley said. He hefted the carton. “You want milk?”
“No, thanks. Black and sweet is good.”
She wrapped her hands around the mug and breathed in the steam first, sighed, and took a sip. “Thank you.”
“Tea I’m good at. Just don’t ask me to cook you a meal.” Crowley added milk to his and took a gulp. The burning sensation in his throat and chest felt good.
“No, I mean thank you for everything. It terrifies me to think what might have happened if you hadn’t come by.” She nodded to a chair and sat in the other one herself.
As Crowley took his seat he said, “You’ll torture yourself with what ifs. It’s lucky I came along, but you weren’t doing too badly for yourself.”
“Not well enough. They had me beat.”
He grimaced. “Yeah. But three strong guys is bad odds for anyone.”
They fell into silence for a while, sipping their tea and staring at nothing in particular. The slow, drudging release of adrenaline felt familiar to Crowley, but he doubted it was anything with which Rose was well acquainted. “Don’t be surprised if you feel a bit sick,” he said. “The shock might make you nauseated.”
She tipped her head toward the bathroom. “I nearly threw up in there, but it didn’t quite happen.” She lifted the mug. “This helps.”
“Nectar of the gods.”
They were silent again for a moment, and then Rose said, “Do you think they wanted to rape me? Kill me? They didn’t seem to be robbing me.”
The haunted, beseeching look in her eyes pained him. “No idea. Some people are broken inside, you know? I do wonder why they came after you. Maybe just a random choice?”
She made a noise that was almost a laugh, almost a curse. “I didn't have time to ask them, but I'll be sure to check next time.” She threw him a crooked smile to show she wasn’t being mean.
“Maybe you don’t need to know. Best not to dwell on it.”
“Hell of an impression for a first date,” she said. “I’m not likely to forget this night.”
Crowley made his eyes wide in mock outrage. “For all the wrong reasons! I’d hope to have made an impression without a potential… whatever that was.”
“You did make a good impression, only more so after that.” A strange look passed over her face, her words fading to quiet.
“What is it?”
“I just remembered something. One of them said ‘This is her’, like they knew me.”
“How could they know you?”
She frowned, thinking, staring into her mug. Shook her head. “No, not like they knew me. One of them dragged up the back of my jacket and I thought they were going to pull my clothes off, to… you know. But then he said, ‘This is her. Hold her down.’” She turned a quizzical look to Crowley. “Any idea what that meant?”
A chill rippled along Crowley’s spine, the supposedly random attack suddenly seeming like anything but. “What might they have been looking for? Or seen? You got a tattoo back there or something?” He raised a hand. “Sorry, don’t mean to get personal or pry.”
Rose’s mouth twisted in concern and confusion, a strangely vulnerable expression. “Not a tattoo, no.” She stood, turned her back to him, and lowered the bathrobe.
Chapter 6
Crowley swallowed, wondering what he was about to see. Rose’s smooth, lightly tanned shoulders gave way to a firmly muscled upper back. But as the robe reached halfway down her body, Crowley’s attention was completely absorbed by the distinctive birthmark. A blood red line, maybe an inch wide with slightly undulating edges, ran down her spinal column and disappeared into the folds of the robe a hand’s breadth or two above the swell of her hips. Almost at the top of the vertical mark a wavering horizontal line came off of each side, making a double downward-facing L pointing left and right, slightly rounded at the top.
“Wow,” Crowley muttered, a little lost for words. He swallowed. “It looks a bit like…”
“An ugly eagle?” Rose slipped her robe back up and over her shoulders, to Crowley’s subtle disappointment. “Pretty disgusting, huh?”
Crowley shook his head as she sat back down and faced him. “Not at all. It’s quite beautiful, really, sort of like a stylized tattoo.”
Rose sipped her tea again, looked away. “I call it my Blood Eagle after the Viking form of torture.”
“Viking torture?”
She laughed quietly. “Aren’t you the history teacher?”
“True.” Crowley tried to sort through all the Viking lore and legend he knew from the syllabus, but no particular forms of torture were forthcoming. “You’ll have to educate me on this one though.”
She nodded. “You haven’t watched the TV show?”
“Vikings? No, but people tell me I should.”
“It’s pretty good. They showed the blood eagle torture once. It’s about as grim as it gets. The victim is tied with their arms out to either side, usually on their knees. Someone slices them open along the spine, makes two cuts sideways and opens the flesh out to either side exposing the back of the ribcage.”
“Holy crap,” Crowley muttered.
“That’s not even half of it.” She grinned at him. “Then they use an ax to hack the ribs away from the spine, lift out the lungs and lay them on the victim’s shoulders like eagle wings. Hence the name. If the victim survives the pain and shock, they suffocate once the lungs are moved.”
Crowley grimaced. “Let me guess. You love slasher films.”
“No, actually. Hate them. But I love history.” She made a cheeky face.
Crowley chuckled and lifted his mug in gesture of defeat. “Fair call.” He logged away the information for future reference. He would study up on the practice and see where he might fit it into his lesson plans. Nothing like a bit of gore to get the teenagers’ attention.
His mind wandered back to the issue at hand. “But how does the birthmark matter? And how would anyone know you have it?”
Rose shook her head, lips pursed. “No idea. It’s not something I make public. Beyond my family and those who have seen me naked, no one really knows. I’ve always worn one-piece bathing suits rather than bikinis, because I’m a little self-conscious about it in public.”
“I guess I can understand that, but you really don’t need to be. It’s kinda fascinating.”
“I don’t really want to be fascinating to people.”
“Yeah, right. Sorry. I can understand that too.”
She smiled. “That’s okay.” Her eyes widened. “I just remembered something else. I went to a birthmark removal clinic last year for a consultation, but they told me nothing could be done. I wonder if there’s a connection there. When I heard about the possibility, I thought it might be worth checking out, though I didn’t really have much hope.”
“Why did you..?” Crowley stopped, didn't finish his sentence when he realized there wasn’t a way to phrase it that didn’t sound insulting.
Rose laughed. “You mean why didn't I care until I was almost thirty?”
Crowley shrugged. He’d actually been about to ask why she decided to get it removed at all, and decided it was none of his business. But she did make an interesting point. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said.
“It's embarrassing to admit,” Rose said. “But I did it for a girlfriend.”
A quick wave of disappointment washed over Crowley, with swirling crests of confusion. “Oh,” was all he could manage. “Right.”