TWO

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Trouble was a mild way to put it. Nina mused sucking at her bottom lip as she watched Rose fussing over the unconscious man. For one - he was a handful for both of them to handle. She cracked her shoulders to get rid of knots that were not there before remembering she was far beyond aching muscles and joint pains. Had she not been the ghost that she was; carrying that injured intruder to the unoccupied room across the hall would have sealed the deal for both of them. What was the point of being angel of death or whatever if you couldn’t simply levitate a man instead of hauling him with sheer determination? Nina rolled her eyes as she recalled the dark look Rose had given her at the suggestion.

To be honest at the moment Nina could see no real attraction to the job - unless of cause you have a fetish for herbal tea and empty shops the prospects were rather bleak as a grim reaper. On the other hand there was a three thousand years problem. Nina cleared her throat against her better judgement deciding that she did not want to aid or abet in a murder after all.

Rose ignored her which obviously had the stark opposite of its desired result.

“Aham - hum - aren’t you supposed to sterilize that first?” She speculated into the air, not quite looking at Rose who looked ready to kill anyway. Perhaps Nina should not have asked that.

Rose looked at the scissors and blew air from the corner of her mouth.

“Why? Am I supposed to worry about his shirt getting infected” She asked cutting the offending garment off as she spoke. Nina sighed. The shirt of cause. It had to be dealt with to reach the injury underneath.

Rose discarded the bloody pieces of garment and Nina sucked in a breath. Never mind that trouble also seemed to have six pack abs and a toned body of a athlete. For a moment Nina thought not even Rose and her three thousand something years would be immune to such flawless creation of male perfection as she watched her fingertips slightly skim over the tanned skin. Instead Rose announced in her usual monotone -

“Stab wound - may be four inches. Lucky man to meet an amateur with a sharp weapon. So much energy wasted without managing to reach a single vital organ.”

She pressed her lips together and sighed, as if lamenting the potential failure of an attempted murder.

“Listening to you -” Nina said trying hard not to yell at Rose’s obvious disinterest. Not everyday would a dying Adonis land on your doorstep! “One might think you ordered the hit.”

“I don’t order hits,” Rose frowned. “Who would want to multiply their paper work?”

“Paper - of cause.” Nina berated herself. “Who am I talking to but the PA to death itself?”

“So can I safely assume you would save this unlucky guy who was lucky enough to survive a knife but ended up on the death’s doorstep instead?” Rose continued to frown, not even bothering to answer. “And do you have any idea who he is?”

“No.” She rose and went to fetch some tools. An old green bottle, a tin box and a poker.

“Strange - you called me by my name even when I did not remember myself…” Nina mused aloud. “Special privileges?”  

“I know only those whose names appear in my cards,” Rose muttered absentmindedly, sticking the poker under the pile of ashes in the cold hearth where fire sprung to life automatically. “Yours did. His didn’t.” She pointed the man with a jerk of his head. “Meaning his time has not come yet.”

“Neither did mine - as you said.” Nina let her voice trail off and went closer to get a good look at the intruder.

That man belonged in a land of sun as much as Rose belonged in her frozen eternity. His skin was the gold of sand, though covered in a sheen of sweat. His hair thick, dark and stubbornly wild unruly curls lay clumped against his forehead. He had a sharp bone structure - a fainting scar on his jaw and lashes thick enough to invoke the envy of any woman.

Something akin to an unease stirred in the pit of Nina’s stomach the longer she stared at the beautiful man. It was not a memory she had to remind herself. It was more like a flash of thunder. Though his eyes were closed - Nina knew they were the color of deep caramel - a brown that hinted at red and it was his brother who broke his nose a decade ago.

“What?” Rose had noticed.

“This guy - I know him.” The words were dragged from her before Nina had thought it over. “I don’t know how. I don’t know from where - but I just know him - and what are you DOING?”

“Stitching him up.” Rose said curtly. “Unless you have a better idea to stop him leaking all over my embroidered bedspread - mind you I haven’t embroidered in a century so better safe than sorry.”

“Are you honestly worried about a damn bedspread” Nina asked hysterically, waving her hands. “Do you even know how to stitch? And leak? People don’t leak - they bleed!”

Rose rolled her eyes and turned back to her job.

“As you wish,” she said tastelessly. “The faster he wakes up the quicker he walks out - in case I give the wrong idea I have no interest in playing the hostess.”

“Oh that is very clear -” Nina swallowed her words and watched her progress with a critical eye. “Is that alcohol?”

“Close enough.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“You wouldn’t know even if I tell you.” Rose did not look up while answering and her hands worked with the practiced ease of a nurse. “There are bandages in that box,” she spoke after a pause. Dip them in that cup and give them to me - one by one.”

“What is this? A herbal brew?” Nina sounded curious as she fingered the cold, yellowish green liquid in the bowl.

“It’s a chines medicine - helps arrow wounds fill faster. Soldiers use it during battle.”

“Arrow wounds? Soldiers? Oh yeah -” Nina shook her head at her own stupidity. “Three thousand and eighteen right? What were you - the royal physician’s eldest daughter?”

Her hands jerked to a halt and Rose lifted her gaze to meet hers. For once her eyes did not look empty instead there was a look of biting frost. Unknowingly Nina shuddered at the ice in her look.

“I was the general’s wife.”

**

Imaan Malik drifted somewhere between awareness and bliss. Sharp jabs of searing pain pulling at the strings of his conscious. Faces and voices flitted in and out of his focus. His thoughts were dim, unfocused and tangled between past, present and dreamy fantasy.

Once he dreamed himself a head of arms - long haired, bulky armed and polishing a wide blade with a hilt of an open mouthed dragon head. There were fragments of battles - injuries he could not care to count. Shifting images of a white faced woman playing an instrument he could not place. Her eyes were cold, withdrawn and distant. But he felt himself intrigued - compelled to watch her as she performed a complex melody he could almost convince his subconscious that he could here.

The lights shifted and the shadows danced. There was the same woman with fire in her eyes. She was close enough for him to feel her breath on his skin, close enough to look into her eyes and see the deep rooted hatred brewing within. She laughed like derailed, in wild abandon. The sound plunged into him just like the blade between them, inch by inch of liquid fire penetrating into his body - his heart as she continued to laugh.

“Rui!” He gasped the unfamiliar name that felt sickeningly right on his lips as his eyes snapped open, and his fingers curled around something soft and cool.

Flickering light of candles had danced around them the first time he saw Rose. She was the palest woman he had ever seen - almost as fair as snow, hair as dark as ebony and lips as red as blood - he thought offhandedly. Her hair cascaded around her brushing against his skin as she bent forward to check on him. Her eyes were wide and her mouth agape in a mute surprise.

Her features went blank as soon as he noticed their expression and her eyes narrowed. With a jolt he realized he had his fingers swathed around her throat and retreated with a jerk. She was far away from him in a blink of an eye, arms folded and expression hard as if the concern he woke up to had never been there.

“You are awake,” she observed. “Good. The herbs are working fine.”

She clumped her mouth shut and rolled her eyes at someone. Before gritting her teeth.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” She snapped apparently at no one and then exhaled.  

“I’d like to know who you are and how you got here -” again she cut off abruptly to scowl at the wall opposite as if it was making suggestions that she found annoying. “What I mean is - how you got hurt - I mean are you alright?”

“Obviously he isn’t! What a foolishly stupid question!” She muttered under her breath.

Imaan tried to sit up, confused by the odd behaviour of his hostess. He had no idea where he was - only a faint idea how he got there. The sharp smell of drying herbs made his head turn. It smelled like an orthodox drug store - with outdated candles. The owner was not right in her head. Imaan bit his lip as pain seared from his mid section anew and a hand quickly rose to find partially drying bandages around what he suspected was a raw wound.

The woman almost jumped to stop him from moving and then physically restrained herself. That strange concern touched her eyes for one brief second before they went cold once more. Taking the hint from his protesting nerves Imaan lied back and watched the shadows dance across her pale face with mild curiosity. He remembered enough of his attacker to know it had not been this strange woman - but he was not naive enough to completely exclude the possibility of her being an accomplice. He was nowhere near telling her everything than getting up and leaving this oddly smelling room.

If possible the woman’s eyes narrowed a fraction further and she tapped a foot impatiently. Answers, she was waiting for them. There was something very clear about her posture that screamed waiting was an alien thing to her.

On a whim Imaan rubbed his forehead with his finger tips.

“I don’t know -” he invented mildly. “I - I can’t remember. Where is this place?” He looked up at her dark expression with what he thought was an innocent curiosity. A muscle was working at the corner of her mouth, annoyed - he noted. She clenched and un - clenched her fists trying to calm herself.

“It’s 13th Dante avenue.” She said curtly and as if wanting to occupy her hands went to shut the curtains in the far corner. “I found you on my doorstep late evening. It’s nearing midnight now. Someone had attacked and wounded you. Since it was too stormy I couldn’t call the authorities - which I would do the first thing in the morning. You should sleep. Try not to pull at your stitches if possible.”

Finishing her little speech that sounded so monotonous that she might have been announcing her shopping list, the woman finally turned around and faced him. A thin frown curled between her brows, her nose scrunched up a bit. Not used to company. Imaan concluded.

“I appreciate it.” He said as soon as he worked past the first wave of shock at the mention of stitches and storm. “I’ll be grateful if you don’t mention this to anyone - for the time being. The nature of my work is rather delicate.”

The frown deepened.

“You are not a fugitive by any chance are you?”

She addressed him like a mosquito rather than a potential threat to her life. There was no fear - only a mild annoyance. “Look - I have no fantasies of playing the model citizen. But I’d rather not have cops in my shop. As you can see my work is also rather delicate.”

She tilted her head, waiting for an answer.

“I’m not a criminal.” He assured her wondering as he did so, why he bothered. “And I’d be out of your hair as soon as I can. It’s just I’d rather keep me being here a secret from certain people. It would mess up my entire mission to have cops poking and prodding right now.”

“Not forgotten much have you?” She asked with a bitter snort.

Smart. Imaan thought as he bit his tongue. And very perceptive.

“Very well,” she nodded in a very old woman kind of fashion and clapped her hands together. “There’s chrysanthemum tea -” She pointed at the cup on the night stand easily in his reach. “It’ll help you sleep. I’ll take it if I were you. The painkillers will be wearing off soon and its going to hurt a hell lot more.”

She walked off and stopped at the door as he called out. Imaan put it to the back of his mind to reflect on later - why he wanted her to linger a bit longer.

“My name is Imaan.” Guilt. He decided. He felt guilty for getting caught in his lie. Some truth he could afford as compensation.   

“Drink the tea,” came the curt reply and the door snapped shut.

Well, thought Imaan. There went his attempt at good behaviour.

**
A woman with secrets meets a man who is a secret himself. There's a little at play, and lot between the lines. A shared past? Common demons? Love or betrayal? What exactly do you think would be the flavour of their relationship?
Comment below and tell me. Vote if you please!
Thanks for reading!