by A L Hart
My muscles tensed. I didn’t like this.
At the desk, Jera gave me a look: oh well.
I stepped forward. “Elise, as my wife and I tell all of our . . . patients, there is a very real chance that the medicine won’t work. While we hope for the best, you should always prepare for the worst and understand we’re going to do everything we can.”
Elise gave a firm, understanding nod. “Of course, sir. I understand entirely, and if there is anything on my part that you need to enable the success, please, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“A strand of your hair,” Jera pitched in.
We both looked at her.
“My hair?” Elise wondered.
“Peter has to study the intricate makeup of your dark energy, as all immortals host their own unique makeshift—similar to a human’s DNA. Only through his understanding of your energy’s idiosyncratic makeup can he prepare a medicine designed specifically for you.”
I couldn’t tell if what she was saying contained truth—in respect to cases outside of this pair with the unbreakable bond—or if it was all one elaborate lie. Seeing as it was Jera, my money was on the latter.
But I didn’t interject for one reason alone.
I needed something from them. Her husband to be exact.
Eager to comply and up the chances of success, Elise unbraided a lock of hair and tugged a strange free with hardly a flinch, then handed it off to Jera. “Is there anything else?”
Jera accepted the strand, tucked it in the drawer, then propped back into her former feet-up pose. “Five hundred dollars.”
“Actually,” I said sharply, ignoring Jera’s bristle. “There was something else we needed and it’s not money.”
Elise settled for looking behind at me, and I could see her mind open, as well as her heart, to anything I proposed. “Anything.”
“You said your husband was an archivist, right?”
She nodded hesitantly. “The best I’ve ever encountered, as well as the most intelligent.”
I managed a half-hearted smile. This was exactly what I wanted to hear. “I would like to ask him a few questions. Tomorrow, if possible.”
Confounded by the request, her face became unsure.
“And if you don’t mind,” I started. “I would suggest you talk with him. There’s something he wants you to know, but fears how you’ll take it.”
A breath wisped in between delicate lips, her eyes dazzling and searching mine for answers.
“Something you need to know,” I pressed softly.
She swallowed her nervousness and gave a commendable nod, her shoulders squared. “Of course. If you believe it vital, I will broach the topic with him tonight and tomorrow we shall be here . . .”
“9 PM,” I said, taking into account the shop’s closing hours and the fact that none of us would be particularly happy with the vampire’s ashes were we to schedule it during the day. At least, I think they turned to ashes.
Elise nodded in agreement and moments later was off on her way.
Leaving me alone with Jera, who stared ahead blankly.
“Did you mean what you said?” I asked quietly.
“About?”
“The hair.”
Jera retrieved the strand, examined it, then shrugged. “For those whose ailments are actually curable, yes, discovering their dark energy’s makeup is essential for curing their woes. To control dark energy, you must understand it. But for this succubus, no, it’s impossible.”
I nodded, searching her face for remnants of anger, but she’d shut down completely, leaving me with nothing but a strand of succubus hair and her threat of making my life a living hell.
*****
There was only an hour before Elise and Vincent arrived, and I was at my wit’s end with today’s lesson.
Retracting my wings.
As it turned out, it was much easier to sense the dark energy in those around me rather than what was inside of me. Only thing I had was that cancerous ball of darkness tucked away in my stomach, something that’d grown exponentially since the sprout of these wings. But that couldn’t have been the dark energy I needed to control my wings. If anything, whenever I focused on that substance, it felt a lot like probing death.
“Come on, one more time,” I prompted Ophelia. We’d been practicing for all of an hour, leaving the night crew to close up shop.
She gave one longing look at the door.
“Hey,” I said. “If Jera doesn’t want to join us, that’s her choice. You have the same basic information as she does and are more than qualified to train me, right?” It wasn’t like Jera’s lessons had been getting me anywhere, as infrequent as they were. Besides, the woman was likely still getting through the dishes—and avoiding me.
Thankfully.
Still donned in the white and black uniform, Ophelia shifted back in her chair and crossed her legs. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?” I tried to keep the impatience from my voice. I didn’t simply want to know how to tuck away these monstrosities—I needed to know. I needed to be active within my own shop, needed to know what was going on.
Ophelia shook her head. “Never mind it.” A smile. “One more time.”
We both closed our eyes.
I went through her instructions once more.
Deep breaths. Count down from one hundred.
At one, I did as I was told, separating the flow of blood in my body from the flow of energy in my wings. They were two separate entities, she’d assured me. As such, controlling them took an entirely separate set of skill sets.
Before I could learn to retract them, I needed to do something as basic as flap them. But to do that, I had to get them to listen to me.
Last night in the kitchen, they’d responded to multiple things as if they had a mind of their own.
“They aren’t sentient things, Peter,” Ophelia said. “Dark energy as a whole is entirely in tune with emotions. It responds to our feelings primarily, our cognitive thought secondarily.”
Just then, my emotions were in a perennially conflicted state. Had been for a week now. Anxiety. Anger. Regret. Sadness. Stress. Dread. It was all scrambled around inside of my chest, and when I sank myself deeper into the black void of feelings, I sensed the connection, where the emotions danced with that black orb of throbbing vines, feeding into my wings.
“With the Maker, his wings fluttered whenever he was happy,” she revealed. “So, dig deep. Find what makes you happy and try again.”
I did.
I hauled up my vaults of memories, ideologies, and opinions and I began to rifle. Spreading them out in one clustered heap and examining. Find something that made me happy . . .
The results were eye-opening.
And disheartening.
There was nothing there. Nothing pertaining to what I needed. The memories came in a series of images stained by desolation, tragedy, and my own negatively composed outlook on life. From childhood, there’d been very little to make me happy. Baseball had once been a comforting part of my life, but after breaking my wrist right before Nationals and being benched, Dad went after the coach blaming him for the injury, so that even after it’d healed, he’d banned my participation, the one place of solace I’d had. The one thing Liz hadn’t been better than me at. The sport had become nothing more than a black splotch in my memory, something I avoided revisiting.
After losing my jock status, I’d stopped hanging out with the meatheads, and by extension, the cheerleaders. I’d become that kid that others toed around, whispered about, and eventually forgotten because newer, freshman game became available.
Beyond that, I’d always resented my dad for what he’d done to my high school life, and that resentment had followed me into college, when both he and Ma had pressed for a prestigious title because I was “brighter than all of the others” and “had so much to offer”. But those glazy-eyed sessions spent sitting in a class of five hundred, stuffing my head full of knowledge I couldn’t car
e less about had done nothing but reward my parents with a 3.0 GPA while Liz was off trying to save the human race, studying to become a doctor. And succeeding.
I hadn’t been envious or jealous. I’d just been aware. Aware of myself fading. Disconnecting from reality and recognizing that my life was meaningless. Convinced all of mankind were but products of sciences. Like plants. They’re planted, they rise, they fall. The sun, it rose, it shined, it fell. An endless cycle. One I had no interest in participating in.
One I’d convinced myself was meaningless.
Until the day I’d witnessed that cycle firsthand in a car accident. Until the day I realized I could have very well have stayed at Grandpa’s house another day like the majority vote had wanted instead of lying and claiming I had a business meeting at the university. Until the day I saw my family fall, the cycle washing them from the earth as naturally as waves dragging algae back into the abyss.
I’d done more than fade then.
I’d disappeared inside of myself. I’d discovered what true gray looked like.
I’d . . . never been happy.
It was a harrowing revelation, one that disposed me farther from my objective than before, slaying me with image after image of the lifeless reveals of my existence, the true pathetic nature I’d encompassed, and then my desperate, mindless scramble to add color to it all by reviving the shop, reading mom’s books, writing in Liz’s journals—as if I’d been resurrecting them, taking care of them in a way I never had before, when in truth, everything I’d called up from the sea of myself was nothing but colorless paint.
I shivered at the truth’s cold embrace, staring into the memory vaults of colorless liquid that denoted me.
But it was then that I saw something.
Deep in the pools of blanched paint, I spotted something red.
Narrowing my eyes, leaning in closer, the structure panned out into a square, a photo, something that’d been plastered into my mind. Recently.
It was an image of her.
Jera.
It was the first day after her first shift, when she’d been sitting at the sweets station, having somehow wiped clean the entire pastry compartment then fallen into a sugar coma in no less than three minutes. The sunlight had taken a liking to her and I remembered now, how I’d felt something in my chest in that moment as I watched her sleep, as I slipped my fleece around her shoulders and felt time suspend itself. Something I couldn’t describe then. And couldn’t describe now.
“Y-you did it!”
Ophelia’s voice was a blade through my concentration.
My eyes snapped open, the office coming into focus in hazy sheets.
Shadows surrounded us, moving in drowsy, languid motions back and forth. And behind me, I watched the deeply shaded wings flutter.
*****
The phone rang.
Elise and Vincent had arrived.
The two of them were brought into the office space by Ophelia and I, Jera still in the kitchen, having yet to finish her task (which I suspected was deliberate now).
By the look on the couple’s face, I knew Vincent had told Elise the truth: just as she was concerned about killing him, he was concerned about killing her.
I also discovered rather quickly just how much odder the two of them were when together.
Since they’d entered, they’d hardly paid any mind to Ophelia or me. They were too caught up in fawning over the other, prattling, worrying and ultimately, digressing into soppy messes.
“Darling, my loveliest, the fault is not your own, I promise,” went Vincent as he settled into the chair beside Elise’s. “You’re simply so ravishing and me, I’m a weak male who cannot help but crave more of you.”
“Oh Vincent, my dearest, please do not sully such a lovely tongue with lies, for you are the strongest male I know and it is my own delicate and meek design which hinders you, needs more of all you have to offer.”
“Oh Elise . . .”
“Oh Vincent . . .”
Ophelia and I looked at one another.
When they started up an entirely new string of affectionates, I cleared my throat, taking up a seat on my desk once again, since chairs and wings weren’t the best of friends, while Ophelia took the chair.
The two quieted immediately, seeming surprised by our presence.
Resisting the urge to shake my head, I held out the purple satin sack with the milk pills inside of them. “I concocted these specifically for the two of you after analyzing your dark energy,” I lied. I could practically feel Ophelia tensing behind me. “I took a sample from the mug of coffee you drank out of, Vincent, and the hair your wife provided. I have faith that these will do the trick, but I make no promises. If—” When. “—they fail, consult with me immediately so we can discuss more options.”
I knew I was digging myself in deeper in the lie, inviting their inevitable return when the medicine failed. But I needed information from them.
As Elise marveled over the contents within the bag, it was Vincent who removed his fedora to look at me intensely, his once smitten eyes now awash with seriousness.
“My wife tells me you requested my presence here today for a specific favor,” he noted. “Please, ask of me anything.”
Keeping my expression one of business, I asked, “As an archivist, would it be right to assume you’ve extensive knowledge of many of Kansas’s operations?”
His answer came after a pause. “Generally—depends. In terms of what?”
“Buildings, businesses.”
“Examples.”
“Libraries, large companies, police departments, law firms, even, say, illegally operating businesses.”
Beside him, Elise stiffened, her attention now rapt on the conversation, likely sniffing for possible trouble I might lure her husband into. But Vincent’s eyes never wavered, even if his mouth did venture away from its usual chipper design in turn of a hard line. “Yes.”
I nodded, and again, could feel Ophelia probing the conversation as thoroughly as Elise, reluctant to participate.
“Does that apply for the . . . immortal world as well? Your world?”
“Yes,” he answered again.
“Then is it fair to say you are intimately familiar with the organization known as the Hunter Bureaucracy?”
Finally I got a reaction out of the vampire—a strong one. The man’s face darkened, his lips lifting the slightest as long fangs snapped down. I barely kept from flinching back.
Elise gripped his hand. “Calm, Vincent.”
“What business do you have with that despicable organization, you Maker’s child?” Vincent hissed into the space between us.
For a second, I was thrown by the name. Maker’s child. He was mistaken on that part. I was strictly the child of David and Margaret Bately. Not some unknown, unseen and unheard of immortal godlike creature.
It was a fight for another time. For now, I leaned forward and with equal venom, “My business is that they’re threatening my shop, my patrons, my friends. And apparently no one else’s is doing anything about it, so I am.” I needed to be able to take the garbage out without feeling like a bullet might catch me on the other side of the threshold. I needed my freedom. I could only imagine what level of paranoia Anisah went through daily.
A gleam of pleasure smoothed away the vampire’s malice. “Ah, I see, I see. Forgive my outburst. Most unbecoming of me, I know.” He patted Elise’s hand. “Forgive me.”
“Always,” she murmured.
To me, Vincent said, “The only way to ensure peace of mind from those monsters would be to eradicate them, same as they intend for us.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, or to be more precise, the word eradicate. “I’m not looking to kill anybody,” I said stoically.
“Then you’re looking to get killed should you act against them.”
Scowling, I rolled my shoulders, brushing into the leathery burdens behind me. “There has to be another way.”
“To do what exa
ctly, young man?” asked the creature who looked just shy of a decade my elder.
“Remove myself from their radar as well as my friends.”
Vincent nodded, but looked doubtful. “Admirable, indeed, and I must say, not totally impossible. Simply . . . trying. A difficult task, seeing as the organization stationed here in Kansas has its main compound down in Wichita. It’s main secure compound, might I add. And the only way to get off of their radar without bloodshed—which is a pity—is to erase yourself from its system. Quite literally.” He pinned me with a stern look. “You would have to get through hundreds of heavily armed, heavily trained and promisingly lethal humans who would love for nothing more than a ripe old mysterious being the likes of yourself to march up to their doors with magnificent, rare wings like that for them to snap and study.”
I swallowed, understanding what he was trying to drill into my skull.
The chances of getting in was fairly low, let alone getting in without killing anyone.
Not to mention, I was the least tech savvy person on this planet. May my ancient Dell dinosaur attest.
And still I said, “Can you help me or not?”
A smile curled his lips. “Give me a day to compile the details.”
My shoulders sagged in relief. And not just any relief, but one that I only just realized had been flooding my body and drenching my bones since the first night I’d met the twins.
The fact that I had someone with knowledge enough to assist me, the fact that I soon I might be able to move forward and now had an advantage over those hunters, gave me a peace of mind I hadn’t known I needed until behind me, my wings fluttered, rippled—
Then vanished.
Ch. 15
I was back on the scene.
The shop was bustling on a typical Wednesday evening, the staff were in high spirits and Jera was in her typical low, avoiding-everyone spirit, but most importantly, my. Wings. Were. Gone! Ophelia theorized that while the Maker had retracted his wings with happy thoughts, I retracted mine in the absence of stress. Though, the word retracted was relative; the wings hadn’t necessarily retreated into me, rather they’d reduced in size and simply disappeared, followed by a bout of malaise.
