memento mori

She’d been distracted for only a moment – eyes glued to the ass of the tall woman in front of her – but Judas recognized the sound that was ringing through the hall. A sickly smack, wet, as violence for violence’s sake broke skin and drew blood. She flinched, knowing well the feeling of that particular punch from both the giving and receiving end. Her eyes lifted not a moment later, and she watched as one of the two men reeled back, arms dead at his side, and collapse onto the floor, a heavy thud and dead weight. That was a fight ending hit.

Her youth in New Orleans taught her to avoid conflict. Her training in New Orleans taught her that she was legally obligated to help if someone around her was hurt. And sure, this was an illegal underground fighting ring, but the paramedic training kicked in easy. Might as well’ve just another fucking day in the Quarter, stitching wounds from drunk bros who thought they needed to fight each other.

“I knew I shouldn’ta come out here,” she grumbled.

The man was already beginning to recover, sitting up and looking around, when Judas has pushed her way through angry witches and annoyed vampires to the front of the crowd. “Hi there,” she said, forcing her rough Cajun accent into a drawl. People in this part of Washington seemed to get a real fucking kick out of her sweet southern drawl; probably because they associated it with that famous southern charm. “Are ya doin’ alright, here?”

Judas hadn’t bothered waiting for an answer before pulling on a pair of dark blue gloves – likely left there by Addison, in case she’d wanted to help someone later – and beginning an assessment. “Can ya tell me ya name, and who the President of the United States is?”

“Fuckin fine,” responded the man in a gruff and deeply accented voice. He looked disoriented, trying to see through blood covered eyes to someone or something he was missing. “I’m Danny, and I ain’t getting into that nonsense with you.”

“I’m not asking ‘cause I care about ya political beliefs, Danny.”

So he knew his name, and he was definitely going to be difficult. Verbal response, four.

He groped madly along the floor, searching with his hands until he found a grimy rag tucked in a shoe. The brutish man lifted his tattoo covered hand and held the rag to a deep gash on his forehead. “I’m fuckin bleeding, love, so maybe not as fine as I’d like.”

Ugh, ignore the disgusting pet name. Southerners did the same shit, sure, but… Oh wait, he was bleeding. It was going to need some stitches. Three, maybe four? Could have it done in… five minutes, if he was going to be a difficult patient. Definitely seemed like he would be. Probably that accent. Aussies made the worst kind of drunk tourist. Loud, like they fucken own the place. We get it, no one wanted the Cajuns, either. We feel the kinship, we just don’t feel it as loud.

Judas dropped her eyes from the gushing wound and looked the patient in the eye. The corner of her lip quirked up into a friendly smile, and she rocked back on the balls of her feet, giving him some breathing room. “I can see that. Ya gonna be alrigh’, though. You are in the hands a highly trained paramedic.”

“Well so long as you’re a paramedic and not just some person who wants to slice and dice me for the fun of it.”

That was a new one. Fucking dumb, but new. Jude smiled, a distinct lack of humor in her eyes. She held up a single finger, six inches from his face and asked, “Can ya follow my finger, Daniel?”

He probably had a concussion, but if it wasn’t too bad, she’d be able to stitch him up and send him off to the hospital without having to do some kind of follow up or whatever. His eyes were blinking rapidly, attempting to clear the blood from his lashes, as he followed her finger just a second too slow.

Eye response, er… three, kind of four? Closer to three.

“Did I pass?” he asked, a wicked smile of blood covered teeth spreading on his face.

“Ya did alright,” she told him. “But ya need some stitches. And ya probably have a concussion.”

“Sounds like I lost fairly epically tonight then.”

She reached a hand up and left it hovering a centimeter from the fresh crack in his forehead. “D’ya mind?”

She was not asking, though. A sure finger poked at the wound. She could feel flesh separating from flesh as she pushed at the point of pain. The pressure lasted for less than a second, but she could imagine that it felt far longer to him.

“FUCK!” He winced away quick enough, and she nodded. Motor response, five.

He’d be fine – maybe – but he would need to be watched overnight and sleep with his head propped up. “You definitely need stitches, and ya definitely have a concussion. I can do the stitches if ya want, but I don’t have any a my shit with me.” Judas rocked back from the balls of her feet to heels, and stood, looking down at him. She tucked one gloved finger between flesh and nitrile and pulled, pulling her gloves off her hands. A look tinged with amusement fell on her face, and she told him, “So we’d have to leave here.”

“This your way of inviting me back to your place?” His tone clearly indicated that he thought he was being clever, but she was not amused.

The witch grabbed her cellphone from the front pocket of her button up white shirt to text her roommate a warning. Without looking up, she said, “Ya barkin’ up the wrong tree, Dan.”

[text to Addison Lockheed] A – I’m bringing someone by the apartment for a minute. Needs stitches. Grab the red bag from under my bed and put a towel on the couch.

[text to Addison Lockeed] The black couch, not the green one.

Judas put the phone away, this time in her left back pocket, and leaned forward slightly to look at the cut.

“I’m kiddin, love. That’d be great, Mum might not like me looking too atrocious for the holiday season.” Danny pushed himself up from the ground to a shakey, but standing position. He hovered for a moment, but seemed to pass vertigo quickly and gain his balance. “Only issue, I drive a motorbike… so might need to Uber if you don’t have a car.”

Yes, she had a car. A car that she loved. She really didn’t want to put the bleeding, concussed man in her car, but she also didn’t want to leave the car overnight in this shitty part of town. “Yeah,” she sighed, voice a half whine. “I got a car.”

She jerked her head towards the back entrance where the deep blue 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS was waiting to be driven back home. That vehicle was the only part of her inheritance that had made it through her excommunication. It was a good thing pawpaw had given it to her when he did, or else Jude would’ve been homeless from the get-go.

Judas lead the man through the collection of supernatural creatures outside, walking next to Danny just incase he decided to pass out in the middle of the floor. Once outside, she popped open the passenger door for Danny to crawl in. It took a moment, but the man got himself situated and buckled. Jude shut the door and walked around to the back. She popped the trunk, pulling out a wad of gauze packets from her first aid kit to give to Danny. Hopefully that would stop him from bleeding all over the car.

The driver-side door creaked open with a nostalgic sound, a reminder of times when cars were built like tanks and were about as safe. She sat herself in the driver’s seat of her car and stretched her legs in front of her. The seat had a healthy lean to it, a leftover habit from when she drove an ambulance every night and had to find the angle she could sit in for hours on end. Her keychain jingled as she shoved the key into the ignition and twisted, the car roaring to life under her hands.

“My roommate might have somethin’ t’ help wit da scar,” she told him once situated in the driver’s seat. “Some a that plant magic he raves about all the time. Kid’s been beat up worse than this an’ ended up wit’out a real scar. Y’ just gotta be real nice t’ him if ya want his help.”

In their time spent together, the only plant magic Jude had seen Addison do was keep far too many plants alive in their apartment. But there was something to what he had been doing for the last however many years.

“Won’t work on me, love. Witch magic ain’t too good on elves. An’ vice versa.”

Fae didn’t hang around Jude all that often. They always seemed to find a reason to run off soon after meeting her. The first interaction she’d ever experienced with elves was years ago, on a warm solstice night. He had charmed his way into a seat at the dinner table, a beautiful elf from France with dark hair and darker eyes contrasting with the palest skin she had ever seen on a living creature. Truly, he was a beautiful man. The family was enamored by him, asking thousands of questions and fawning over his every answer. But from the moment he set eyes on Jude, he did not seem to like her. “You smell like death,” he had told her.

She felt as though she might pass out. In that moment, she thought that she had been caught. She thought that her mother had heard the fae’s comment. She thought that her mother would question what the fae had meant. She thought that her mother would find Jude and Nicco out. It was likely a fluke; a poor choice of words on the part of that elf. But it was enough to make Judas want to avoid elves for a long while, on the possibility that they really could smell the death on her. She had made a point to keep them angry with her, and therefore away. But being so far from family left her caring a whole lot less what people thought of her.

They drove the rest of the way to her apartment in silence – Jude’s preferred mode of transportation with strangers – and the silence followed them up to her apartment. She spoke only once, when they met an old biddy in the elevator of her shitty apartment. The old woman had been glaring at the small company with a truly disgusted look on her face, leaving that not caring what people thought thing behind for a moment. When the elevator doors open, the Cajun ushered her guest out the door before turning to the lady. Her eyes flashed – literally – with a flare of bright silver, a favorite trick against annoying tourists. Not too much, to make the old bitch positive something was off, but enough that she would question what she had seen. “Mind ya own fucken business,” she threatened.

A moment later, she rounded the corner to where Danny was waiting for her, then took him to apartment number 1013. She tested the knob, knowing the answer to her internal question but hoping for the opposite, and groaned as it gave way. Fucking Addison was going to get their place robbed. “Addy?” she called, once inside. “It’s Jude; I got a bleeding Aussie here. Come play!”

She led the pair down the narrow hall, to the apartment. The open concept floor plan was covered with thriving flora. Pots sat on tables, hung from hooks on stark white walls, and crawled through every open window. Now dark, the floor to ceiling windows added little to the home, but with the sunlight, the whole home shone with life and joy. Judas pointed to a towel-covered couch, facing away from the windows, and instructed Danny to sit.

“Your name’s Jude,” he said. “Did you tell me that already?”

“Jude Melançon,” she confirmed. “Don’t know if I said that, no. Think I was mostly workin’ on figurin’ out if I could just leave ya there.” With a sly by broad smile, she asked, “Ya ready for me t’ shove a needle through ya skin?”

“‘Course,” he grinned, falling hard onto the couch. “Sew me up, doc.”

Judas reached behind the wounded man and wrapped her fingers around an old iron stool, a piece she’d grabbed off the side of the road in Seattle before she had moved. Sure, some might have called it yard furniture, but it was technically on the side of the road. It scraped against the floor like nails on a chalkboard and the muscles of Jude’s back and neck tightened in response. She whispered a near-silent curse in response to the hair raising sound, but leaned herself against the stool and looked down at her patient.

With an unnecessary trepidation, Judas unclipped and ripped open her bright orange and highly reflective kit. Hidden amongst the stolen drugs, fluid, and gause was a plastic suture kit. Part of her hated that she was spending this kit on a stranger, when she would likely need it herself in a few weeks, but she had already offered.

“Hold this for a moment?” she said to the man, more demanding than asking as she set the pack on top of his lap. Jude kicked her boots off and padded over to the kitchen to where the liquor was, all arranged nicely on the counter. Where was Addison, anyway? His bed was up and the living room was empty, but she could feel him. Plus, he had organized all her alcohol since she left. Probably on the balcony. She pushed a couple bottles aside and grabbed the clear liquor with a distinct aura of death.

Bottle in hand, she pushed open the window above the sink filled with dishes and yelled out the window for her roommate to come inside, then walked back to her patient on the couch and handed him the bottle.

“I’m not sure how everclear effects fae,” she said, grabbing the kit off his lap and ripping it open, “But you might wanna drink up. I’m outta anesthetic.”

“Don’t know about other elves, but I’m basically human,” he responded, pulling the lid off and taking a deep gulp of the FDA approved poison.

Judas watched as the man, in a show of his manly man-ness, downed the spirit. She waited until he had consumed a fair amount until she warned him, “Careful. That’s the shit creepy men give t’ young woman on Bourbon t’ get ‘em t’ do what they want.” She reached over and took the bottle from his hands, not waiting for him to give it back. Judas pulled her arms back behind her, forcing her chest forward and stretching until a loud pop – her sternum – echoed in the room.

The bottle went on the floor, and Judas perched herself on the edge of the stool, looking over her patient. She noted, thankful, that cut had stopped bleeding – most head wounds like his bled only for a few minutes – and Jude opened a small foil packet with an antiseptic wipe. She wiped down the wound, pausing as he winced with the introduction of benzalkonium chloride to raw flesh, then pulled the needle, medical grade nylon, and forceps out of her kit.

With the needle threaded and held between her forceps a moment later, Jude gently pinched the two sides of the wound together, edges coming together to form a peak.

“Shit’s one-ninety proof;” she told him, beginning to place the sutures on his wound. “If ya need t’ vomit, I can get an emesis bag. Er— a puke bag.”

He grunted, as if to confirm the strength of the drink, but – to his credit – swallowed it down without issue. “I don’t need a damn puke bag,” he replied, “But if this is as strong as you claim, maybe you should be joining me in drinking.” He winked, and she responded by shoving the needle through his skin with more force than necessary.

Every single person that Judas had ever worked with in EMS had developed a deeply dark sense of humor, and she, herself was no exception. Jokes like the one she had made were considered highly tame amongst her peers, and average amongst others living in Louisiana. Part of her had been holding out hope that the contrasting politeness between the north and Louisiana extended to the lower rung criminals of the area, but that was obviously not true. Even in this liberal oasis, men still made jokes about rape.

“Yeah,” she snipped, nostrils flaring in anger. She didn’t even bother finishing the suture she was on. Jude snipped off the end of the thread and covered the rest of the open wound with a piece of medical tape. She stood from the metal stool and took two steps back from him. “Get the fuck out of my apartment.”

Danny kicked his feet off the couch, turning in his seat and sitting up as he did so. He looked at her for a second, then anger set in on his face. His hairy paw reached forward and grabbed the Everclear bottle from the ground next to her feet. For the second time in a night, he down a manly man amount of the drink. He stood up from the couch, wavering on his feet for only a second, then smashed the bottle on the ground. “Fine, you fucking bitch. I didn’t wanna fuck you in the first place. Probably all wrinkly and used up. You’re the one who brought me here, anyway, being a fuckin cock tease.”

Just as they had in the elevator, Jude’s eyes slid from her natural blue to a bright silver as anger coursed through her system. “Get. Out.”

He took the warning, but did so angrily, stomping the whole way out of the apartment. In one final act of anger, he shouted from the doorway, “I’d better not see you at the arena again, Jude. I’ll make you join those girls on Bourbon.”

“Not if I kill you first,” she replied with a knowing and dangerous smile. Jude lifted her right hand and flicked her wrist to the left. The front door slammed shut on his face. Just like magic.

This is the forest primeval. Trees taller than anything she has know surround her, skin cracked with age as new growth pushes through. The young witch walks an unknown path, wandering amongst would-be druids. Wind whips through the trees and blows tresses of white hair around her face like a chaos god, while waves crash with abandon against unseen cliffs.

The air is chilled, but the witch does not shiver, for she is warmed with the prospect of what hides in this forest. Fear? No, excitement. How often the two are mistaken for each other.

Unknown creatures thrive in the dense collection of trees around her. Though she cannot see them, each life-force sings to her like whispers of a lover – quiet and gentle. Each sound is enough to capture her attention for a moment, but not enough to hold it. For hidden amongst those delicate murmurs, is something far harsher. The monster – she knows it – is waiting at the edge. Calling to her. It threatens to destroy her from the inside out. It promises pain and destruction and chaos, and yet she walks towards it.

She sees him now, waiting on the edge of the forest for her. He cannot enter the sacred space, but his call is strong and the witch walks forward to meet him. The monster lifts a hand and she takes it, letting him pull her fully from the protection of the forest.

It is only then that the young witch hears the cries of caution. Departed souls surround her on all sides, urging for her to release the hand of the monster and return to safety. They are faces she recognizes, and the young witch is met with a rapid onslaught of dread as she realizes her fate.

                                                                        “Ellis.”

The name draws her attention from the dead around her back to the monster. His face has now contorted – less man, more monster. Eyes are large and clouded, skin is grey and lips are blue. The monster wraps a hand around her throat with incredible strength and forces . As black spots begin to cover her vision, the monster presses his lips to hers and forces her backwards. She can feel the edge of the cliff at her heels, but knows she cannot stop the monster to save herself. He pushes. Her hands scramble to grip something that might save her, but she is tumbling through the air. The sound of water slamming rock increased in strength and—

SLAM

Judas woke with a start, fingers desperately grabbing at her white sheets as ragged gasps filled her lungs. A bird sang with the cold Washington sunrise outside her window, in chorus with the sound machine next to her bed playing a thunderstorm. She turned the sound machine off and placed a hand on the center of her chest, focusing on getting her heart rate down below 120. That had been a new one. Death was a common theme in her nightmares, but it was usually watching other people die. That is, Austin or Wesson. No one else had ever mattered enough to her for Jude to fear their deaths.

The witch was still unused to living with another person, and it seemed that Addison was, too, as Judas realized that it was he who had awoken her from the nightmare. The front door to their apartment was heavy, but he always managed to let it slam with a certain intensity that never failed to make his roommate jump a foot in the air.

No longer tachycardic from her nightmare, Jude peeled sheets wet with sweat from her skin and ran a clawed hand through her chaotic blonde hair. She didn’t bother with pants as she left her room and headed down to the living room that the boy had claimed as his own. “Addy, we talked about this,” she called from the hall. “Ya have t’ be more careful wit’ the–”

It was the sight of a small creature in the boy’s hand that literally stopped Judas in her tracks. It was living – she could hear small sounds coming from the thing – but she could see that he was being purposefully tender with it. Perhaps it was hurt? A look of confusion had settled on her face, and Jude took a step forward to get a better look. Aw, fuck, what the fuck kind of person was she living with?

“Addison,” she said, incredulous, “Did you bring home a baby bird?”

It was a beautiful day - the sun was shining low and the frost was melting in the early dawn light. Addison had been outside since the first peeking of light through the normally oppressive winter clouds of Washington. With the birds. The young witch often enjoyed meditating on the balcony before dawn, but today, he opted for the lawn out front of their walk up apartment. The morning dew soaked into his pajama pants and socks, but he embraced the chill. It was part of nature - even human nature - to be cold.

Addison closed his eyes once again, pulling morning air into the deepest recesses of his lungs. He practiced mindfulness, feeling everything around him. The, at times, choppy wind. The warmth of the sun on his bare skin. The scent of earth and sea salt mixing and melding together. The sound of - a loud thump, hollow and harsh all at once. Addison’s eyes snapped open.

The last one did not belong.

The source of the sound was a small bird, crash landing into the glass pane of a lower apartment window. Addison stood slowly, his wet socks leaving footprints on pavement as he stepped away from the grass and towards the creature. It was still, in shock or in death, he was unsure.

“Oh, little one, you were not made to live in a world with transparent force fields,” he spoke softly, scooping the little bird, into his hands. It was grayish-green on the belly, with beautifully iridescent wings. The sunlight shone on the small beast, somehow breathing life into the lifeless body. “Snap out of it,” Addison urged, a soft frown penciled into his forehead, “Come on.”

It fluttered, and Addison burst into action, cascading into the apartment and up the stairs. His large fingers cradled the bird with a gentle firmness. The apartment door slammed loudly - as it often did. And Jude erupted from her slumber.

“Yes, it’s hurt. I think it broke a wing…” Addison peered down at the creature, still recovering from the shock of such an impact. He looked up with Jude with hope shining in his own eyes.

“You gotta be more damn careful wit’ dat fucken door, man.” She crossed towards the kitchen. The smell of chicory and coffee – Community Coffee, a favorite from home – had and since filled the rare find, two floor apartment. Jude pulled a black ceramic cup from the cabinet. It clanged against the edge of the cupboard and again as it made contact with the laminate countertop. Either she had set up the coffee the night before, or Addison had started it that morning. Jude filled her cup with the fresh-brewed awake, and topped it off with far too much powder creamer.

“You gon’ take care a him?” she asked, as she poured two pack of that yellow-contained artificial sugar that might as well fuel her life into her coffee. “Ah’m sure as hell not doin’ it. I don’ give a fuck if ya keep ‘im here, jus’ clean up after it an’ don’ let it fly randomly aroun’ the apartment.”

Jude had a weird thing with birds; when she was 11, a neighbor had found a parakeet with clipped wings on a branch of their lemon tree, and brought it to her house for “storage” while they looked for the owner. It was almost as if the bird had chosen her to harass in that day, the way the thing was flying around her head. “You got a plan t’ keep ‘im from throwin’ himself against the windah? I’ve seen that happen a couple a times, after animals get stuck inside.”

Addison divided his attention between the tiny, injured creature in his hands and Jude. The bird would wiggle a little here and there just to remind him that it was still alive, but was calm a majority of the time. Calm, or still in shock. “Yeah…” he risked a glance backwards at the front door. “I’ll try.” It was a loud, heavy, monster of a door. It crashed closed and shook the walls with force. It was nothing like the doors that Addison grew up around - they were always smooth, silent, and closed with a whisper. Better craftsmanship and innovation built a catching mechanism that prevented a door from being slammed, and his parents were too civilized to own a door capable of slamming. Addison chuckled a little to himself, wondering the chastising he might receive from his father for slamming a door in his company. Jude was asking him to exercise restraint because the noise startled, or annoyed, her; his father would order him to be silent out of decorum, tact, and the possibility that it might shine down on him in a negative light. The two were remarkably different to Addison. The former practical and respectful, the latter seemed inconsequential.  

Jude brought Addison out of his mind and back into the world. “Yeah…” he returned his gaze to the small bird, now breathing in measured intervals and resting. “I would like to try and see if we can get the little guy flying again. He’s a fighter.” He smiled largely, happy to hear that Jude did not seem bothered by their new guest.

Mention of a plan shocked Addison into reality. He didn’t have a plan. He didn’t even realize he would need a plan. “A birdcage?” It was all he had to offer, but he did not much like the idea of placing the tiny guy into a cage. The apartment was already more of a cage than anything it had ever experienced. “But… can’t we just let him… heal… he might have learned to not fly into windows after this attempt…”

“Man, that’s a bird,” she shook her head. “It ain’t gonna learn that it can’t fly int’ the windah. Birds ain’t that intelligent.” Jude smiled and pressed her lips to the rim of the cup. The coffee sliding down her throat was hotter than she was prepared for and she had to swallow hard to get it down. “Ah! Ooh… Shit, Add. I mean, we can keep the thing until it can fly, but I don’t know– fuck!”

She cracked open the fridge and wrapped her fingers around the distinct square milk carton. People put yogurt on sunburns, maybe milk could do the same for coffee burns? Logic said no, but the drink was cooling anyway.

“Apparently I’m incapable a drinkin’ coffee today.” Jude haphazardly tossed the carton back into the fridge filled with takeout and condiments, then spun on her heel and faced the boy with the bird. “I’m not sayin’ we have t’ use a bird cage, an’ I’m not sayin’ he does throw himself against a window. I’m just telling ya that that ya gotta do somethin’ t’ ensure he won’t throw himself against the window. A little blinder or somethin’.”

“Yeah…” Addison nodded, agreeing, “I know it’s a bird, but it is capable of intelligent thought and learning just like the both of us.” He looked down to the creature, “We all have our own lessons to learn… don’t we all fly into some metaphoric window at some point in our lives or another?” He had a bad habit of posing philosophical questions around Jude. The older witch did not seem to like it, but Addison had to say, that she indulged him a lot more than someone who disliked it. A row of expletives rolled out of Jude’s mouth and Addison sighed softly, smiling at his friend’s scramble to soothe the burn from the coffee. She wasn’t from Seattle, that much he was sure of.

Addison followed her to the fridge, bird in tow. “Well… he is pretty injured and I need to reset his wing. I don’t think he’ll be flying anytime soon. We could just put him in a box or something… for now… look how cute he is…” He held the bird up to Jude’s eye level, practically thrusting the tiny creature into her face. The small black eyes of the bird faced Jude’s silver ones directly… a moment passed… and another… and the bird blinked, before beginning it’s struggle once again for freedom. Addison teased, “I think he likes you!”

Was he on mushrooms? Boy was talking like he was living in a cage himself; an entirely ridiculous concept, as Addison was – baring the whole soul thing, which he didn’t even know about – the freest person she knew. The Cajun rolled her eyes in an overly dramatic fashion as the younger witch indulged in his stoner train of thought. “I ‘on’t know ‘bout you,” she grumbled under her breath, “But don’ fly enough t’ hit a winda.”

His insistence that she lock eyes with the bird was disconcerting, but Jude remained non-reactive to his prodding. The bird was cute, that much was accurate. The little guy reminded her of the birds from the aviary at the zoo in Seattle. Back when Jude had been working in Seattle as a paramedic, she had worked a call in the zoo. Compound fracture; some kid got too excited in the African Village and broke his arm falling out of one of the huts. The parents were smart enough to know that a car would be faster than an ambulance, and Jude and her partner were welcomed to explore the zoo a little on their way out. Since she was in uniform, the workers in the aviary kept giving her free feed sticks. By the time her partner was ready to leave, Jude had amassed a small army of tiny green, blue, and grey birds perched on her shoulders, head, and arms. One of the zoo workers called her a bird whisperer, but Jude merely shrugged off the title.