So we got all the crap to the funeral, and got the procession started, and the Baron took Gunnar over again, as they'd apparently agreed on Saturday. It's still weird.
Like I said earlier, Nate stayed with Odette.
I shouldn't have been surprised when I got a text from Nate, like, two minutes after we got to the cathedral.
"hlp"
Dammit. I handed my guitar off to some bystander, glad that I hadn't bothered to string up Don's Nemean catgut on it. Gods know where the guitar ended up.
I grabbed the attention of Camila, Jack and Brendan and waved in Gunnar's direction, who was busy, um... dancing...
Anyway.
Odette's house was on fire when we got there, and Nate was nowhere to be found. It looked like the others were going to circle around the place so I figured I could get in and out of the shanty before the flames got too bad.
I shrugged out of my jacket so I could move more quickly (which turned out to be the second-best decision I have made all day), and ran into the house, covering my mouth and squinting against the smoke. And then I realized the smoke wasn't bothering me. It was a pain in the ass to try to see through (I wish I had Gunnar's eyes sometimes), but my lungs were fine. I was kinda standing in one of the flames, and as part of one of my sleeves fell away in cinders, I realized I have another reason to thank my dad; I guess he decided he didn't want a repeat of when the building burnt down on me outside Kabul.
I decided quickly that fire was not nearly a cool enough way to die for either Nate or Odette. Fortunately for that decision, Nate turned out to be outside and Odette's body was already missing its head.
I'm conflicted whether to mourn her loss. I knew the moment I looked at her that she wasn't long for this world. She had maybe a year, on the outside.
Not surprisingly, she had no interest in knowing.
And, being dead now, she could be reunited with her daughter and granddaughter, if Caleb didn't bind her to the park... I need to ask Gunnar if he knows how that works.
Mourn-worthy or not, her death pissed me off. Everyone should be able to die of natural causes, and decapitation definitely does not count (is it still decapitation if the head is pulled off instead of cut off? Sure). I moved her body outside, stepping over debris and more flames. I felt Sibyl getting warm against my skin and realized I no longer had pants. Dammit.
I caught a glimpse of Nevermore moving around the side of the house, and figured that's where the action was. The shortest route was back through the house. Back through the fire.
Every step made me angrier. I should have been with the rest of the funeral party. I should have been rocking out, waiting for Odette to show up so I could thank her properly. I shouldn't have been striding through a burning house of a now dead woman, looking for what-the-fuck-ever took her head off to begin with. I was going to make it hurt, bleed and die.
Maybe somewhere in the back of my head I thought maybe I should be careful, because the last time I got this angry (and shot something in the head for messing with my plans and my friends) it didn't turn out well. I was a little too pissed to care.
I stepped out of the back door, fire still kissing my skin. What was left of my blouse fell away, and I was really, really, REALLY glad I had opted for more... conservative underwear this morning.
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