Episode 61: Ulysses’s Sister (Xander)

Rather than move Eulalee from the prison to the presidential palace by car or other method that risked escape, Xander had opted to open up one of the holding cells in the palace for temporary transportation.

The room was re-sealed as soon as Eulalee was in there, alone.

Xander turned to Farnum, the head of his guards.

“Whatever happens, don’t come in there.”

Farnum opened his mouth to protest.

“No,” Xander insisted. “Even if she kills me, it isn’t worth it.” He could be brought back anyway, once they found a safe way to get his body out of there.

As the youngest of his brothers, he thought probably his step-aunt was most likely to be sympathetic to him, if anyone, and they needed to know if she could be used for a tool or if she was a lost cause.

“Yes, sir,” Farnum agreed. He frowned in displeasure, but Xander didn’t give a damn. Farnum was head of the guard and had a responsibility list a mile long.

Xander was head of the country. His responsibility list was actually a reproducing fractal pattern that changed constantly and never stopped stabbing him.

Either that, or he was just in a bad mood.

His money – and there was a ton of it – was in bad mood.

He wrenched open the door to the cell and strode in without looking at the creature who occupied it: He’d already seen her on the security cameras, and he knew enough to be sure of two things: She was beautiful and volatile.

He closed the door behind him and listened to be sure that Farnum followed his orders to lock and seal him within the cell. He and Farnum were the only two people in the country who knew the word that would let him escape the cell despite the wards.

“Eulalee,” he said for a greeting. He left off ‘aunt’ deliberately: She either knew he was her nephew or she didn’t; he didn’t care either way.

“Did you come to play a game with me?” she asked. She bounced on the tips of her toes as she walked towards him.

Well there was no hope of talking her into anything sane; she was obviously certifiable.

“I came to see how you’re doing,” he said. Hey, at least he was honest, right? He sat down at the chair – they’d warned him that she made chairs into weapons, but he liked to sit. If she was going to kill him, she was going to kill him. “How are you doing?”

“I miss my friend,” she said.

She’d been in solitary for decades. He wondered who her friend was, whether her friend even existed.

“Will you have some tea?” she offered. She made a mug full of tea appear and offered it to him, smiling.

Well, it probably wouldn’t hurt to hold the cup. He took it from her. “Your friend?” he asked.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone about him,” she said. “Promise you won’t?”

“Promise,” he said. For some reason, he crossed his heart like a little kid would.

“Why did you move me here?” she asked. She watched eagerly to see if he would drink the tea, so he pretended to.

He set the cup down on the table. It was less full than when she’d handed it to him, enough so that she would believe he’d drunk some unless she looked too closely at his sweater.

“Did you know we’re releasing gays and lesbians?” he asked.

“Is this what you call released?” she countered.

So she was nuts, but she was cognizant.

He almost laughed, remembering Zach and his reaction to being told he hadn’t been arrested.

Zero’s son and the crazy lady had something in common.

“You’re not being released,” he told her. Better to strip her of what delusions he could now. “What’s wrong with men?”

“Do you like men?” she asked.

This time he did laugh. She’d be amused if she know about Spence.

She laughed with him, like she did know about Spence. Too hard and too long, and she stopped exactly when he did. She was a creepy psycho.

“What are you going to do with me? Are we going to play?”

What he wanted to know was whether or not he could use her as a weapon against Effie. How volatile she was versus how reliable she was.

“Sure,” he said, “what do you want to play?”

“I want to play with my dolls.” From somewhere, two dolls became manifest. She held one up – an exact replica of his dead wife, Fiona, down to the large freckle on one side of her face.

“Do you miss her?” Eulalee asked. She handed him the doll.

He chose not to miss her. That had to count for something. “How many people do you have dolls for?”

“I have a doll for everyone.”

How creepy.

“That seems like a lot of work,” he commented. “Would you like a house for them to play in?”

Her eyes lit up and she rocked towards him on wobbly feet before the pendulum of her body swung away again. “Can I build it myself? They have special kits just for dolls.”

He couldn’t think of anything more terrifying than what Eulalee could probably get up to with her dolls and a house she designed for herself.

This was just plain shitty.

“I want to build this one,” he said. “Actually, I think my nephew does.” There, this should throw her. It was easy to have dolls for people who lived in-realm, but Stetson wasn’t from this realm, or even from its ally, Elesara. “You don’t have a doll for him.”

Maybe if they made the dollhouse right it could ward the entire room against her magic, while helping him observe what she was capable of.

“Yes I do,” she said, indignant. She pointed to the doll who had just looked like Fiona, only know it looked like Stetson.

How creepy.

“Those are interesting toys. Where did you get them?”

She was going to kill him unless he could get those dolls away from her.

He shouldn’t have come in here.

What a piece of shit life was sometimes. Try to do the right thing, and this happens.

Thanks a lot, Spence.

“I made them,” she told him, proud. “Do you like them? They like you.” She held up the not-Stetson doll, which now looked just like Xander.

Fine, time to go for broke. “Do you have a doll of someone named Effie?”

She grinned and made one of the dolls dance up his arm. He tried – and failed – not to shiver. “You want to be bad?” she asked.

“I want to be bad,” he agreed. “You give me the Effie doll and my doll, and I let you keep the rest. Fair?”

Hey, it might work.

Nope. She shook her head. “My dolls need me. How about you make me a big princess room upstairs and let me play whenever I want. And I will help you be bad.”

“I can’t do that, I’m sorry,” he told her. “I’ll be right back, okay?”

He wasn’t giving her a room, even a warded one, in the same place where his children slept. He wanted her out of this house. He wanted her dead. She was too dangerous, his dad was right. Those dolls…

He shuddered.

She squeezed his doll and he felt his ribs contract. “Why are you leaving? We haven’t even played yet.”

“I have a present for you,” he said. “Wait, I’ll be back.”

There was a way to strip magic. It was cruel, but it would let her live a more normal life and it would mean he wouldn’t have to kill her. He’d just need to get some of her hair.

He stepped back into the hall.

Farnum stood against the opposite wall of the hall, looking as disturbed as Xander felt.

“I need,” Xander told him, “The supplies for the purification ritual.”

Farnum scowled. “You’re not going back in there!”

“I only have to get one of her hairs – just one – to fall into the bowl. It should be a big bowl. If she spilled it onto the carpet, that would be even better.”

Farnum stood upright. “Sir, I’m not letting you do this. I’m placing you in a secure location until she’s been neutralized.”

Xander sighed. He loved idiots, especially when he was one of them, but really. This situation should have been more obvious to Farnum.

“She can’t be neutralized by anything except trust. And her trust is almost nonexistent.”

Someone brought him the damned bowl and supplies and he mixed the spell there in the hall. Once the ingredients blended, the green-brown sludge turned silver with a mist that hung over the surface like fog over a pond.

Ready. He pocketed the scissors he’d used to slice the stems off the herbs.

“Good luck, sir,” Farnum said unhappily.

Xander grinned. “Luck doesn’t work on crazy. Remember, no one goes in there, no matter what she does.”

He walked into the room and set the bowl on the table in front of Eulalee.

Quick as he could – she was too smart for him to be able to trick her into giving some willingly, too smart and too magic-aware – he snaked his arm across the table and gripped a section of her hair.

He expected her to have a normal response, to attack him and try to get him to let go of her hair. Instead she grabbed his doll and bent the ankle back, forcefully. He felt the crunch in his leg.

Focus. Just one hair.

He wrenched her head toward him, scissors in hand, and sliced the hair.

Something sliced his neck. He looked at her, shocked, as blood poured down his front.

The doll. She’d stuck the doll between the scissor blades.

He coughed.

Be calm. Blood would flow more slowly if he was lying down, so he did.

But he couldn’t breathe. There was nothing he could do for that.

This was going to be painful. He’d heard suffocation was excruciating.

“I thought you were my friend!” she said. She loomed over him.

He felt her hands on his body, touching him. She was removing his pants, she was on top of him.

What the fuck.

He’d said not to help him no matter what.

He was an asshole.

He died.

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