by Jeremy Craig
“Indeed,” Madam Maxine Del’Cove nodded seriously as she studied the dangerous dog with obvious curiosity tempered with a healthy respect for what the brute of a dog was capable of. The breed isn’t called a Witchound for nothing after all. “Perhaps if we asked the boy’s permission…”
I just nodded my uneasy agreement and patted the couch cushion on which I was lying, not wanting things to go from bad to worse. Manx peered over his shoulder at me, pink droolly tongue lolling from his mouth as he whined, padded over, and hopped onto the couch. Again, with a pronounced HARUMPH laying down with his head between his paws.
“Well, I’m certainly not going to do it.” Madam Maxine giggled as she continued to eye Manx from under arched brows. Nervously, she sipped at her noxious looking drink and puffed on her long-stemmed cigarette holder, ruby ringed pinky high in the air.
“Oh, very well,” the Countess sighed as she let her elbow slip from the mantle and, hips swaying, sauntered to the couch, and sat at its edge, Manx eyeing her carefully.
I remember she smelled like fresh tilled earth, flowers, and something else that was sickly sweet and decomposing that made the mind fuzzy as she smiled down at me from behind her red beaded fishnet veil. She traced a finger through my hair then cast a startled look at Gramps who seemed supremely unhappy. (Later that night while brushing my teeth I noticed a shock of silver running through my hair that Gramps stalwartly refused to explain past a growled “Don’t worry about it,” accompanied by a troubled look that made me very much worry about it).
She nodded to herself as if accepting something distasteful then fixed me with a brightly pleasant purring smile, full of very white straight teeth. Doing a remarkably good (but not entirely convincing) impression of something not quite human trying to be as unthreatening, reassuring, and soothing as possible.
Manx let out a low whine that told us both he too wasn’t entirely convinced but reassured me he was watching and had my back. She eyed the big, watery eyed dog then returned her alluring, sense befuddling attentions back to me.
“Relax,” she assured as she ran the back of her gloved (but still icy cold) hand along my jawline, sending my blood into a thundering frenzy as a bit of panic began to build.
“This won’t hurt a bit, love,” she promised in a soothing purr. “Everything will be fine,” she reaffirmed almost tenderly, my belly cramping as I instinctively flinched away. For all the good it did, she gently but with incredible strength clamped my jaw with her other hand and held me still, as she pressed a large sapphire ringed finger to my forehead.
I’ve seen this done more than a few times over the years since then, and while I don’t remember much of my own pre-Ascension Day experiences beyond the initial feeling of rushing air, the world spinning and a flash of blinding light. I do, however, recall enough to conclude its impossible to fight if the will applying it is powerful enough in both mind and magic.
I can tell you from my own observations that the eyes roll into the back of one’s head. One shakes and drools a lot, at times losing control of one’s bowels and bladder. And, if you’re stupid enough to fight it, it goes much worse for you.
Once, I saw it leave a formidable and particularly foul (but stunningly pretty) evil witch a mind scrambled twitching vegetable on the floor. So yes, it’s an unpleasant, invasive, at times violating but undeniably effective tool in the arcane empoweree’s arsenal. Peeling the truth out of a mind, willing or not, like the skin of a fruit being shed to reveal the juicy flesh beneath.
Thankfully, Darklings become immune to it after they turn eighteen. As more than a few of my enemies over the years would have been chomping at the bit and likely would have sold (or murdered) their own mothers to take a peek into my head.
I came awake I don’t know how much later and found only Gramps and Manx in the lodge, and somehow, I just knew the others were long gone. Leaving behind them a fading not so nice feeling that perfumed the air unpleasantly.
But, as luck would have it, Gramps had lit up his trusty pipe. Its pungent smoke breezing over our guests’ unsettling remnant and filling the room. I found the rich, cloying scent of it soothing as I peered up blearily at the clock ticking away, shiny gold pendulum swaying back and forth on the wall.
“You’ve had a good long nap,” he chuckled sadly as he puffed on the pipe between his teeth. He sounded tired and seemed like he’d aged a decade as he stroked at his beard, studying me with narrowed, shiny black eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Wretched, and my head hurts,” was all I had for him as I propped myself upon my elbows and scooted to a sitting position against the cool, age worn leather of the overstuffed arm of the sofa. Gramps grunted his understanding and pursed his lips, his right hand hefting his pipe as he offered me an understanding nod.
“Can I ask a question?”
“Obviously, better than pretty much anyone I’ve ever known,” he grumbled in reply in a poor, lackadaisical attempt at humor as he fixed me with a look that was both tired and weary. He sighed and shook his head. “But I see that wasn’t an inquiry as to your own ability to question things, particularly me, now was it?” I shook my head and again he sighed. “Well, let’s have it then.”
“Why was my mom and dad murdered?” My question seemed to deeply trouble him as all but recoiled like a snake had just tried to bite him as he sat there contemplating his pipe uncomfortably. Manx staring up at him from his spot and whining mournfully as a pregnant silence interrupted only by the ticking of the wall clock settled over the room like a wet blanket.
“It’s complicated,” he finally answered, a touch of bitterness in his low growly voice as he took a deep breath and sighed. “But I’ll do my best to tell you now as you’ll only read about it in my books at some point or another, and you deserve to hear the truth of it from me and not some damnable magic ink.”
He took out a tiny silvery knife from his boot and began to scrape out his pipe into the ashtray with what was obviously a practiced hand, despite how it trembled. He took his time with this, then gently tapped the carved wooden bowl out onto his hand and checked it in the flickering low light of the fire.
Nodding in approval of his handywork he opened the drawer built into the end table and rummaged about mumbling about the “the good stuff.” With a grunt of victorious contentment, he pulled free a beaten, cracked, faded leather drawstring pouch and began the task of refilling and packing his pipe.
He lit it with a match from the odd black logo stamped (a VERY provocatively feminine winged gargoyle wearing a monocle, top hat, and not much else) matchbox from “The Cloven Hoof Lounge” that sat by the ashtray.
He shook out the match once he had the rich tobacco in the pipe bowl burning to his liking and took a long satisfying pull, settling back into the chair’s cushions with a sigh and creek of old leather.
This is kind of his custom. Building up to things with the nettling pipe ritual of his as he sits there trying to find the best way to say things. Its maddening but one gets used to it. In a way I’ve grown to appreciate the effort he takes with the world growing less and less caring of its words and desensitized to the concept that that choosing them carefully can truly make a difference.
In this case though, things were so ugly that nothing could ever make them better.
“Darklings, well, us…have a way of rubbing the races and Fey in the wrong way,” he began with a wistful look at the fire, as if he could see old, angry ghosts in the flames. “Most, well, all of them really weren’t too fond of the idea of us in the first place when the Oldfable was first proposed, but at the time, they really didn’t feel they had a choice. It only got worse when the reality of us set in as we started to hunt the worst of them down.”
He shook his head, again puffing away on his pipe as he stared off into space. His pointer finger tapped on the pipe’s bowl as he smoked. He fell silent for moment in aggravated contemplation before continuing his answer, jabbing at the fire with his pipe for occasional emphasis as he spo
ke to better drive his points home.
“It didn’t matter that it was their own council that ordered the hits, or that we only wacked the worst of the worst. Well, you can imagine, just the idea of a new being that’s all but immune to magic but can see it, meddle with it, smell it, and track it all the same was enough to make them want the lot of us dead. Some of them decided to act on it, Council’s will be damned.”
“Ones like that family I saw?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered softly. “I’d honestly thought them all long dead and gone…no, no, that’s not quite right. I hoped they were all dead, and I did my damnedest to assure it.”
“What are they?”
“They are called the Vraad.” He spat out the word like just uttering it made him ill. “They are an Elder Fey. Powerful, enormously powerful. Worst still they are all but immortal unless you manage to kill them properly, and that’s no easy thing to do. Harder to slay than the blasted Vampires.”
“But you killed them?”
“I’ve killed three,” he corrected in a voice so haunted and soft that I could barely hear it over the crackling of the fire and the tick of the clock. “The feud’s been a long one, boy. So long that if it weren’t for the damned books, we would have forgotten all the names of the dead. The first attack came on all Hallows Eve. They hit us hard at midnight, when they’re at their most powerful. All at once in a coordinated strike at our Families. I suppose they were hoping to cut off the heads of the bloodlines and end us Darklings for good. But unbeknownst to them, they missed a few. The survivors of the bloodlines took their time, hidden away and protected by the Council. Watching and waiting as we had families, raised young, and trained them up for what had to be done.”
“For what?” Yeah, I was a little ignorant as a child. I guess I just didn’t understand how violent, long lived, and dangerous hate can be. Having tasted my share of it now over the years I’m afraid I have to agree with old White Owl’s council that before one sets off for revenge, first dig two graves.
Take my word for it, no matter how cathartic it may seem to plot things out of vengeance, it never ends well and never leaves you feeling any better. In fact, it’s been my observation that it leaves you worse, sad, hollowed out, and alone.
Worse still is when these acts of revenge escalate into blood feuds. Which with the long lived of the Fey can last for ages, much like the one between Darklings and Vraad that’s lasted centuries beyond count and exacted a terrible cost.
“Revenge,” Gramps answered simply after taking a thoughtful pull from his pipe. “Our kind knew the Vraad could never let us live and had the powerful things ever found out about the Bloodline’s survivors before we were ready…”
He shook his head and scoffed at the mere thought of this. “Well then, each and every one of them would be as good as dead, so our kind waited and watched like I said, and then we came for them as they had come for us.”
“But we missed a few and then they came for us again?” I asked, a bit of anger in me sparked at the stupidity of it all. “My parents are dead because the Vraad I saw were scared more Darklings would hunt them because I saw them. So, they thought they had to kill my family to keep their family safe?”
Gramps nodded and sighed, placing his pipe back in the ashtray where the last blackened tobacco sent up a fragrant, winding trail of smoke. “That about sums it up. Like I said, it’s been going on for ages. I thought I’d gotten the last of them. I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been to say that I was wrong.”
“My parents are dead because of you.”
I know. It was a horrible thing to say, and Gramps’ shocked, appalled, deeply wounded face told a heartbreaking tale as in an angry rage I ran off to my room and slammed the door. I’d been numb up until then, but the awful story just made it all real and the dam I’d built up in myself just gave.
I think I cried myself to sleep that night. I don’t think Gramps understood for a long time what really upset me. It wasn’t that he hadn’t managed to kill all the Vraad. No, that idea never crossed my mind. I remember thinking about that little girl in her car seat smiling at me and it made me sick thinking what could happen to her and the baby in that mother’s belly should my kind ever find them.
Was I angry and sad? Sure. I’d be lying through my teeth If I ever denied it. But the thought of the whole mess just felt cosmically unfair, none of us alive today asked for this and everyone was afraid, and people were dying because of it. It’s a waste, it’s terrible and it’s wrong.
No, it wasn’t that Gramps had failed. It was that him and all the other Darklings (at that time I hadn’t a clue how many of us there are) had let this horrible feud go on and on, and it had cost my parents—two wonderful, kind, innocent people—their lives.
To make it worse it went against everything Merlin had intended when he cast the Oldfable, the books spelled it out clear as day and they can’t lie. We were supposed to be guardians, not killers. Somewhere along the way we had lost our way. It was at that moment I think, crying into my pillow that I decided I’d never lose mine. I guess I was a bit naive. But we’ll get to that later.
The next morning, I woke to find Manx lying against my door. He whined and peered up at me almost sadly in the way only dogs can the moment I opened the door. Together we walked to the living room, me almost leaning on the huge hound, my head aching, and my eyes bleary and red from crying.
To my relief I saw White Owl sitting at the kitchen table looking pale, bandaged, and a bit frail but still quite happily tucking into a plateful of buttered toast, bacon, and eggs as Gramps worked over the gas stove with a fork at some sausages that were browning and sizzling in his favorite cast iron skillet.
Hesitantly, I took up my place where a plate was set, and orange juice poured into my favorite cup and stared at Gramps while White Owl eyed me oddly as he chowed down on a strip of crispy bacon. One big brow arched as he settled back in his seat which I remember creaked quite distressingly.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out.
And I meant it, I’d never intended to hurt Gramps and even then, I knew he had to have already been hurting quite a bit having lost his son and daughter-in-law. His shoulders sagged and he let out a long wavery breath before silently forking the cooked links onto a chipped green platter.
“It’s me that’s sorry. I let this happen. You don’t have to worry. I promise I’ll get them; I’ll get them all this time,” he replied as he carefully sat the sausages down between his oldest friend and me and gave my unruly hair a ruffle.
“No.” I remember the look on White Owl’s face just as I remember the confusion and shock on Gramps’. “There’s been enough killing.”
“But…” Gramps started.
“We hunt them down, miss a few again then they hunt us some more, on and on. I don’t see an end to it. Just because something lives doesn’t mean it should die because of what others of its kind did.” I remember looking at him pleadingly as again I thought of the mother with her baby and the little girl with her sippy cup. “If you find who did it, catch them, and bring them to justice. Leave the others alone.”
“Ben… It’s more complicated than that,” he started as he ladled some fluffy steaming scrambled eggs onto my plate from the bowl on the table.
“Your magic books say it’s as simple as that, and they can’t lie,” I answered in the uncomfortably insightful way kids do that usually renders an adult effectively speechless.
White Owl barked out a laugh.
In fact, it was one of the only times I’ve ever heard him laugh. I’m not just talking about a mirthful chuckle. Nope. A full on, body rocking, eyes closed belly laugh accompanied by a few bumps of his fist on the kitchen table that rattled the tableware as Gramps stood there with his mouth hanging open.
“Oh, I like this one,” White Owl stated after regaining his composure after a painful sounding racking coughing fit ended his laughing that he pounded at his chest to clear.
“You don’t lik
e anyone,” Gramps snapped grumpily to which the old Master snorted. “At times I think you don’t even like me.”
“At times I don’t. You are why I’m going prematurely grey and eat too much… But here we are,” White Owl replied honestly as another fit of hacking coughs doubled him over the table.
He took a cloth napkin from his green flannel’s pocket and dabbed it at the corner of his clean-shaven lips. He tried to hide that the white cloth came away darkly stained by trying to shove it into the pocket of his worn Levi’s blue jeans. But we both noticed it and just like that the conversation changed.
“That sounds bad.” Gramps tried to put his hand on the big man’s shoulder but was brushed away as he took a long gulp of orange juice and sighed.
“I’ve been worse… Though I can’t remember exactly when,” White Owl admitted as he eyed the plate of sausages and stabbed a particularly fat one with his fork and took a bite.
“What were those things?” I asked.
“Infernem,” Gramps answered unhappily as he eyed his old friend uneasily and sipped at his steaming cup. “Demons,” he added at my confused look. “And when I find out who summoned them and sent them after us…” He shook his head as a dark shadow passed over him. “Such black, dangerous magic is supposed to be forbidden; things of the Infernal plains have no place in the mortal world.”
“Haven’t seen their ilk in about nine hundred and twenty years,” White Owl added, his fork full of sausage pausing as he considered that rather round sum. “Give or take a few decades. I must say, I didn’t enjoy the reunion. Though I must thank you, young Ben, for your help.” He nodded to me with a serious and solemn look that was amusingly compromised by his stuffed squirrel like cheeks as he chewed on an impressive mouthful.
Gramps gave him a dark and meaningful look at this that was pointedly ignored as White Owl stabbed another sausage and took a bite that halved the tiny link as he indicated I should eat up with a full mouth and a wave of his fork at my untouched plate.
