Free To Hell and Back by H. P. Mallory Page A

wounds, resembling chocolate snail trails that snaked to the ground below. Without respite, I flogged Tallis again, hating the sound of the leather when it snapped his bare skin. But I hated thinking about the damage I was inflicting on him even more.
    Luckily for me, he didn’t make a sound. He didn’t flinch. Nothing.
    I whipped Tallis with the cat o’ nine tails another four times before I felt content with the number of wounds I’d inflicted. The color of the blood that was streaming down his back changed from a deep brown to a lighter, brownish-red and was no longer gluey in consistency. However, it still wasn’t moving as freely as it should have. Either way, I was exhausted and doubted if I could ever hold either of my arms over my head again.
    “That’s it for now,” I said, my voice revealing my exasperation and fatigue.
    I watched Tallis’s blood pool into a large puddle on the dirt floor; and just like the snow I’d witnessed earlier, the earth refused to absorb it. The blood just continued to puddle on the ground until it resembled chocolate Jell-O pudding. Then, all at once, the puddle completely dissolved into the earth without a trace, as if it had never been in the first place.
    Dropping the cat o’ nine tails, I approached Tallis, stepping over him so I could check his breathing and make sure he was still alive. The expression on his face was just as placid as it had been before I flogged him. His breathing seemed more regular, and less labored. Or maybe I was just imagining it.
    Intending to clean up the wounds I’d inflicted on him, I reached for the muslin and doused it in water. I sopped up all the remaining blood that trickled from the various gashes on his back, and observed the wounds already healing themselves. That was one of the benefits of being immortal … Tallis could heal himself.
    I supposed being possessed by an unruly warrior spirit did have some advantages …

“Near to a fount that boils”
– Dante’s Inferno
    FIVE
     
    Tallis slept for another two days and two nights.
    During that time, he continued to toss and turn, thrashing around and mumbling incoherently. But the more time that elapsed, the less frequent were his bouts of unease. By the second day, I figured out Tallis’s disquiet was an indication that Donnchadh’s pollutants were building up inside his body and needed to be purged. That meant I had to release the impurities from Tallis’s body, yep, by flogging him with the cat o’ nine tails. Once the lashing was over, he would sleep like a baby.
    Tallis’s peaceful sleep wasn’t the only sign that the floggings were helping him. His blood was no longer coagulated and dark brown like it was the first time I took the cat o’ nine tails to his back. Now, it was a bright crimson that flowed freely as soon as the blades of the leather braids tore his skin.
    It is Monday morning , Bill’s phone announced via a buzzing text message. I was lying on Tallis’s bed, the gigantic Scotsman beside me on the floor, snoring peacefully. I had just been about to get some zzzs, myself, before the phone alerted me back to wakefulness. With a grunt, I fished it out from my fanny pack, which lay beside me, and flipped open the top of the phone.
    Thanks, Alaire, I texted back clumsily. I’d had to whip Tallis so many times, the palms of my hands were red and blistered. Consequently, I’d wrapped my right hand, which suffered worse than my left, in the muslin after soaking it in cold water. It seemed the muslin was the only thing to relieve the stinging from my chafed and blistered skin.
    I daresay you are in the midst of your voyage to meet me at the gates of the Underground?
    Not exactly, I typed back, thinking he was probably going to have a big hissy fit once he read the rest of what I had to say. In fact, I’m running late. Really late.
    There was a ten-second delay before he responded. Explain.
    I heard myself sighing audibly as I faced the sleeping Tallis and suddenly