Better Off Dead (11 page)

Bill was about to continue his word raid, but swallowed whatever was on its way out of his mouth, his shoulders deflating instead as he glanced over at me, and doubt clouded his eyes. “Oh.”

“What?!” I started, my cheeks coloring with mortification that this ... stranger knew such an intimate detail about me. I wasn’t sure why, but I was suddenly completely embarrassed by my chastity. “How? How do you know … that? And, really, what difference does it make?”

Tallis shook his head, crossing his arms against his chest. “
’Tis mah gift,” he said simply, before continuing. “An the difference it makes is that ye are an innocent. Ye willna survife in the Oonderground City.”

“Why?” Bill asked before I could.

“The Oonderground is naethin’ boot strife, sufferin’. All who venture intae it hae ah past an’ it is that past which allows those ah oos who are able, tae escape.” He glanced at me with something like regret in his eyes. He shook his head. “Yer innocence would be ah freat ta yer safety as well as mah own.”

I swallowed down the surge of panic suddenly overtaking me as a vision of one hundred years in Shade cast itself before my eyes. “I have no choice,” I said in a bereft tone. “I don’t want to go to Shade.”

“An’ if ye venture intae the Oonderground, ye will die anyway ... oonly ta find yerself in Shade ... sae whit is the point?”

So it was a Catch-22. If I abandoned my post of Retriever, Shade awaited me; but die while on a mission and Shade still awaited me.

But Tallis Black can keep you alive!
a voice chimed up inside me. It was that voice, otherwise known as my subconscious, which I trusted.

“This really isn’t such a problem,” Bill started, eyeing us both, smiling as if he had the answer. “Someone just needs to slip her the sausage.”

Although I frowned at him, I couldn’t say the idea hadn’t crossed my mind. If my virginity was throwing the figurative wrench in my plans, the solution was pretty readily apparent. “If this is just a case of my virginity,” I started, flushing from my head to my toes. I couldn’t spit out the rest of the statement. Then something occurred to me, something which spared me further embarrassment. “But what if,” I started and took a deep breath. “What if my body isn’t ... a virgin?” I mean, I couldn't imagine the body I now inhabited once belonged to someone who died a virgin—not looking like I did.

“Ah
doona oonderstand,” Tallis said as he eyed me speculatively.

I cleared my throat, but Bill beat me to the punch.

“That’s just a borrowed body,” he said, inclining his head toward me as if I weren’t standing there and listening to him. “Skeletor, er Jason, offered it to her ’cause it weren’t her time ta go when she, uh, went.”

Tallis faced me and narrowed his eyes. “Ah see.”

“So maybe my body isn’t a virgin?” I continued, not even sure how I should feel about this conversation—it was just so foreign and weird. Furthermore, I didn’t know how to feel about Tallis knowing this body wasn’t mine. Somehow I felt like an imposter, like I’d done something I shouldn’t have. It was a strange feeling and I immediately forced it out of my mind.

Tallis shook his head emphatically. “Ye are ah virgin, an innocent aboot the ways ah men, regardless.”

“But if my body has already had sex,” I started, getting frustrated and embarrassed all at the same time.

Tallis’s lips tightened. “Ah could feel yer innocence in yer spirit.”

Okay, so it seemed my virginal status was going to haunt me no matter where I went. Fabulous. Realizing I was now stuck, I quickly weighed the options in my head:

1. Have sex and lose your innocence, thereby allowing yourself a chance in hell, literally, or, 2. Continue being a virgin, die a virgin and spend the next hundred years in Shade ... a virgin ...

Yep, having sex never sounded so good.

I faced Tallis again, forcing myself to hold his gaze. What was about to come out of my mouth wasn’t going to be pretty and it definitely wouldn’t be easy. I held my chin up high and reminded myself of Robert Schuller’s words:
Tough times never last. Tough people do.
And Lily Harper was determined to last. “The only obstacle standing in our way is my … virginity,” I started, spearing Tallis with my determination. “The solution is pretty obvious.”

I never expected Tallis Black to be struck dumb, but that’s the exact expression he wore as soon as the words left my mouth. He cleared his throat, arched a brow and simply turned to face Bill, as if Bill might be the solution to my problem. He wasn’t.

“Somehow, dude, I don’t think she’s talkin’ about me,” Bill said and I nodded emphatically, glancing back at Tallis with resolve. When it came down to it, I would rather spend a hundred years in Shade than have Bill for my sexual partner, especially my first.

Tallis cleared his throat and glanced back at me again. I could swear his cheeks were a little redder than before. “Aye, well ...”

“Fifty thousand pounds and you take credit for the retrieved soul,” I said simply. “Does your offer still stand?”

He cleared his throat again before taking a deep breath. “Och aye, mah offer was tae act as yer guide in the Oonderground. That doesna include the ...” He dropped his attenti
on to the ground. “The oother soobject.”

“Fuck, dude, you gonna charge her for that too?” Bill demanded,
shaking his head, as if he just didn’t get it. “Look at her! She’s the bomb dot com!”

“Nay!” Tallis thundered at him, anger suddenly infiltrating his expression. “Ah willna deflower ’er. Ah willna hae that oan mah conscience.”

I felt my stomach drop. “You won’t?” I asked softly, not understanding why he wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to have sex with me. I mean, Bill was right, I
was
the bomb dot com. Or, at least, I looked that way.

“Why? Are you like ... into men?” Bill asked, taking a few steps closer to me.

“Nay!” Tallis thundered at Bill, who held his hands up in mock submission.

“No need to throw a mantrum, dude,” he whispered. “I just wanted to make sure, that’s all.”

Tallis faced me and sighed, rubbing his head as he realized he owed me some sort of explanation. “Ah hae enough tae make amends fur. Ah doona need tae add ye tae the list.”

“But,” I started.

He shook his head and interrupted me. “Besides, Ah dunno fur certain if that ... act would remove yer innocence. ‘Tis yer spirit that’s innocent an’ naive.”

But somehow I didn’t believe him—my spirit being innocent just sounded like a line intended to get him out of having to have sex with me—a subject which still floored me. I
’d basically just gotten a smart slap to the face, even with a face that was entirely more beautiful than mine used to be. But none of that mattered anymore. What mattered now was asserting myself. I
would not
spend the next hundred years in Shade. “I’m going,” I said resolutely, eyeing Bill and Tallis. “Whether you come with us or we go alone, I’m still going.”

“Lass, didna ye hear me?” Tallis asked in an irritated voice, his eyes narrowed and dangerous.

“Yes, I heard you!”

“This mission could
s cost ye yer life,” he repeated, spearing me with his glare as he folded his beefy arms across his beefier chest.

“And if I don’t do it, I’ll end up in Shade for the next century, which isn’t an option,” I threw back, holding my lips in a straight line as I gathered whatever strength I could find within me.

Tallis shook his head again and sighed, long and hard, dropping his attention to the ground as he seemed to weigh the argument in his head. Finally, he glanced up at me and there was fury in his eyes. Ah willna allow ye ta go.”

I threw my hands on my hips, anger flaring up within me at the thought that this man, whom I’d only just met, had the gall to tell me he wouldn’t
permit me to go. “Just who in the hell do you think you are?”

“Nice,” Bill said as he smiled at me encouragingly, no doubt pleased over the fact that I
hadn’t said “heck.”

“Ah am the oonly one ah us that will keep ye ali
fe,” he said in answer to my question as he returned my scowl. “An’ ah am also th’ only one ah oos that appears tae hae ah speck ah intelligence.”

So now he was insulting my intelligence? Well, I might not have been beautiful (the old me, anyway) or popular or “cool,” but one thing I did know about myself was that if I were anything, I was smart. Damn anyone who tried to convince me otherwise. “You listen here, Tallis Black,” I started, not meaning to sound like a ninety-year-old librarian chastising an unruly child, but c’est la vie. “Regardless of what you say, I AM going to the Underground to attempt to do my job. If I die trying, then so be it, but at least I’ll know I tried.” I took a deep breath. “No one is going to change my mind, not you, not Bill, no one!”

Tallis’s eyes narrowed and both of us played the game of stare down for another few seconds before he spoke. “Ye are too stoobborn fer yer oon good.”

“Are you in or are you out?” I snapped, no longer interested in his reasons why I shouldn’t venture to the Underground.

He stared at me for another few seconds, but I refused to back down. Tallis took a few steps closer to me until we were maybe two inches apart. He was so close, I could feel his breath against my cheeks and smell his earthy scent—a smell I found heady in its raw masculinity. I felt my heartbeat racing as I realized how enormous he was—when it came down to it, he could simply hogtie me to ensure I didn’t make it into the Underground. And given the ire in his expression, I wouldn’t have put it past him.

“Ah will go wi
f ye,” he ground out and then leaned down until his nose was mere millimeters from mine. I felt myself gulp and wanted nothing more than to take a step back, but absolutely disallowed myself. I started to answer, but he cut me off.

“Boo
t oonderstand that ye will do as Ah teel ye. An’ Ah doona want ta hear ah peep oot ah either ah ye,” he finished, alternating his glare between Bill and me. Then he grumbled more to himself than to either of us. “Ah’ll be damned if Ah lit ah lass teel me whit ta do.”

“You won’t hear a peep from either of us,” I said, glancing over at Bill for confirmation. He simply nodded.

Tallis continued to stare right through me before he released the breath he was holding. “Ah will do mah best ta ensure yer safety, but Ah cannae guarantee it.”

I nodded. “That’s good enough for me.”

“And if it’s good enough for her, Tido, it’s good enough for me,” Bill weighed in, with a used car salesman’s smile.

***

After Tallis’s decision to accompany us to the Underground City, he left us to our own defenses, claiming he had to start working on my sword. I didn’t see hide nor hair of him for the next few hours and once the sun began its descent, I started to get a little worried. But worrying about Tallis Black was a complete and total waste of my time. It was like worrying about a great white shark or a saltwater crocodile.

“Where the hell is Conan?” Bill asked as he paced the ground just outside Tallis’s cabin. It was becoming colder
the farther the sun dropped in the sky. Even worse, the less than friendly bladesmith forebade us to enter his home. For the last few hours, we’d basically just hung around a crudely constructed fire pit that Bill put together.

“Ah dinnae ken,” I answered in a terrible rendition of Tallis, but it made Bill laugh all the same.

The laugh died on his lips as soon as his stomach started growling audibly and he rubbed it as he faced me with a sigh. “I gotta take care of this ragin’ food boner.”

I just shook my head. “Do you have to be so crude?”

Bill shrugged. “It’s the only way I know how to deal with Conan’s BMS.”

“His what?”

“Bitchy man syndrome,” he answered as his stomach started whining again.

I laughed, thinking Tallis did have BMS and then some. I stood up from beneath a large pine tree and sighed. “I’ll go look for him and see what the plan is for dinner.”

“’Kay,” Bill answered as I started forward. “Hey, when he gets back, let’s you and me play the penis game with him.”

“The what?” I asked, frowning as I turned to face him. One thing I could say for Bill was that I never knew what might come out of his mouth—the only thing I could rely on was that it wouldn’t be rated PG.

“We gotta slip in the word ‘penis’ while we’re talking, like it’s a normal word in the conversation,” he explained, his smile broad. “Like, for example, I would say: ‘Yo, Conan, what’s for dinner ’cause, penis, I’m starved.”

“That sounds like you’re calling him a penis.”

He shook his head and sighed like it was a damn shame that I didn’t see the beauty in his game. “Jesus, you’re like the red pen police every second.”

“The red pen police?”

“You know, those super annoying people who constantly correct everyone else’s lingo,” he answered and threw me a frown. “Mucho no bueno.”

“Whatever,” I said, shaking my head as I started forward again. “I’m not playing the penis game with you anyway.”

“Fine, no sweat off my balls,” Bill responded, taking the spot I’d previously occupied and leaning his back against the tree. “See you later, masturbator.”