Page 36 of Spelunking Through Hell

I’ve always fallen at least partially into the last camp, which has made the past fifty years even more fun. When getting into a big fight makes you want to be touched so badly it causes physical pain, and there’s no one around who you want touching you, you spend a lot of time feeling like your skin doesn’t fit quite right. As Thomas pulled me down to him, I had to swallow the urge to shout with relieved joy, and then he was kissing me, and there wasn’t room for much of anything else in my head.

Fifty years apart, and he still remembered the way I liked to be kissed, and I still remembered how to kiss him back. I’d been a little worried about that. I finally let go of his hand in order to wind my fingers into his hair. I was still angry, but that only added fuel to the last fifty years of helpless, hopeless longing, and so for the moment, I just kissed him, and he kissed me back, and it was enough. Dear God, it was enough to pay for everything I’d lost and everything I’d given up and everything I’d left behind.

At first, I didn’t even register the distant sound of shouting. It was happening somewhere else, and it wasn’t my problem. The door slamming open, thatcouldbecome my problem, as could the footsteps that ran across the floor behind us, moving fast enough that the acoustics of the room didn’t have time to swallow them the way they’d been swallowing every other sound. They slowed as they got closer, and I should probably have been concerned about that, should probably have stopped kissing Thomas long enough to look, but honestly, I didn’t give a fuck. Let them stab me in the back, let this be where I died; at least I’d go knowing I’d been right all along. I hadn’t thrown my entire life away for nothing.

“Boss?” said Sally, Mainer accent impossible to mistake for anything else.

Thomas was underneath me, and the floor was underneathhim. He couldn’t exactly pull away. What he could do was stop kissing me.

I decided to hate Sally a little bit.

“I’m fine, Sally,” he said, breath hot against my cheek. It was one more reminder that he was here and real and alive, not an illusion or a cruel trick. Some sorcerers can do a lot with illusions. I’ve yet to meet one who can make a mimic of a man believable enough to keep seeming real to a woman when she’s straddling him and they’remaking out like a couple of horny teenagers behind the diner. There were too many physical tells and reactions for even the most elaborate spell to keep track of.

“But shehitme,” protested Sally, sounding furious.

Thomas sighed.

I knew that sigh. It meant he needed to pay attention to a problem, and I needed to stop distracting him. I hated that sigh almost as much as I hated Sally. I pushed myself away from him, sitting up, but didn’t get off of him as I turned to glare over my shoulder at Sally and the four guards who had come with her.

One of them was the guard I had originally taken the fauchard away from, presumably looking for a little redemption. I didn’t spare him from my disapproving expression. Couldn’t they see that we were too busy for them to come crashing in and breaking the mood?

Also, now that I was no longer actively making out with my husband, my split lip was starting to ache, and I didn’t like it. Kissing was not going to resume until I’d had some time to patch myself up, and that was enough to make me even crankier.

It showed in my face, too, because the guards looked even more uncomfortable. Beneath me, Thomas pushed himself up onto his elbows—not the most dignified position for an Autarch—and sighed again as I turned my attention back to him. “I’m sure she did,” he said. “Alice has always been prone to thinking with her fists when under pressure. I apologize for the lack of introductions. Sally Henderson, meet my wife, Alice Price.”

“Alice Price-Healy,” I corrected smoothly. He flashed me a quick, semi-startled look. “I’ll explain later, sweetheart.”

I didn’t start habitually hyphenating my last name until sometime in the eighties, when it became a common enough practice in America that I realized it was an option, and I discovered that some doors that slammed shut on the name “Price” would crack open, just a little, for the name “Healy.” I have pride. That didn’t mean I could afford to leave any tool unused during my search.

“Quite,” he said, and returned his attention to Sally. “As I was saying, this is my wife. I’m sure she was unsettled to wake up disarmed and surrounded by strangers.” He shot another glance at me. “We still have a great many things to discuss, but now that we’ve established our bona fides, I’m sure she won’t be assaulting any more members of the household.”

“Only if they make me,” I said. “Don’t start none, won’t be none.”

“Even so.” He looked past me to Sally. “Does this address your concerns?”

“Not in the least,” Sally said. “Your wife’sdead. You’ve always been very clear on that point. ‘She was the love of my life, but walls have more common sense than she did, and it’s been fifty years. Even if Mary was able to keep her from doing something stupid right away, she’ll have found plenty of opportunities to be stupid between then and now. I’m a widower, and it would be cruelty to try to tell myself otherwise.’”

“It would seem I underestimated her resourcefulness,” said Thomas.

“I’m a human cockroach,” I said blithely, and turned again, to see Sally glaring daggers at me.

“Or she’s a trick intended to get you to lower your guard,” she said stiffly. “This... woman... looks young enough to have been in the grade below me at school. She’s not your wife.”

“Yes, and we’re going to discuss her apparent age as soon as we get a moment to ourselves,” said Thomas. “I promise you, she has passed every test I’ve set before her, even the accidental ones, and I am convinced of her identity.”

“I’m sorry I hit you,” I said. “I may have thought I had good reasons, but I could have tried to discuss things further before I resorted to violence.” Given that she’d been trying to convince me I’d never be able to get Thomas to believe that I was myself, I wasn’t sure there had been any other ending to our conversation, but I was trying to apologize, not make excuses.

Sally scowled at me. “You’re making a mistake, sir,” she said. “This is a trick, and you’re going to regret it.”

“If so, it’s my mistake to regret,” he said. “You may all go. Thank you for your concern. Please tell the others I would like to be undisturbed for the rest of the afternoon.”

Sally looked like she wanted to argue. She didn’t. Instead, she took a long step back before turning on her heel and storming away, the guards following after her. The one whose fauchard I’d stolen paused to recover the abandoned voulge from the floor, then scurried after his companions, and in another minute, Thomas and I were alone again.

“Alice...” he said, reaching up to grasp my hips and pull my attention back around to him. He looked up at me, expression filled with what looked like genuine regret. “You have to let me up now. I need toseeyou.”

There was still a note of genuine awe in the way he said my name, and that alone kept me from arguing as I pushed myself away from him and rose, leaning to offer him a hand. He took it. and I pulled him to his feet.

He looked me up and down as we both stood, not bothering to disguise the motion in the least. With me wearing nothing but a thin robe, it wasn’t like I had a lot he couldn’t see. He paused when he reached my left calf, asking, “Alice... where’s the scar from the Bidi-taurabo-haza?”

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