by Mason Sabre
A fae carried trash from one side of the yard to the other. Then he dropped it into a heap and walked back. A witch waited where the fae dropped the rubbish, and she picked up her own armful and carried it back to the pile the fae was emptying.
“What in the hell?”
They did this over and over. The fae carried the trash to the witch's pile, and she took it back to his.
“You’ve got to be kidding me? Really?" This wasn't clearing the yard. No. It was pointless, useless shovelling shit, literally. It was a proper punishment, Stephen had to give the Humans that much credit. The monotony alone of the task would be enough to drive anyone insane. That was probably why the Humans who stood guard had weapons on them. They'd be tranquillisers. Well, if they were smart, they would be. A regular bullet would stop a witch, but fae needed iron and shifters needed silver. It would be impossible to carry every bullet required for each species and load it in time.
The boy was out of sight by the time Stephen decided he’d really seen enough. It didn’t matter; he knew the way to the house, and that was probably where the boy had gone. If he hadn’t, well it was where Stephen was heading regardless of what the kid wanted. Helena came first … she always came first. Even if he couldn’t touch her or talk to her. Being close to her wasn’t enough … but it was enough for now. Enough to take the edge off the burning in his soul.
As he crossed the area where it went from a rubbish yard to the shattered ruins of the town, Stephen paused. Both lungs jolted and closed with death-like silence like they'd been crushed and let go all at the same time. He fell to a knee and wheezed out a cough. He even tried to suck in a breath, but all he managed was a soft whisper. "Ride it out. Just ride it."
A numbing pain pushed at the back of Stephen's head and made him open his mouth as if he could release it into the world. Heat rose in hot spikes along his spine, and they ended at his nape where cool air ducked into his skin and out of the way.
“Shit.”
He flattened his hands against the ground to give himself some balance, and then he leant into them for support as he shifted to put his other knee on the ground too. He would not be a dead soul lost in whatever this was, limbo perhaps? Fuck that. No.
Riding it out was the better idea because his body didn’t tense with it, and whatever it was, was happening even faster, or maybe that was his perception. He didn’t know, nor did he really care as long as whatever it was, got lost. When it eased enough, his vision cleared and the humming in his ears ebbed away, he straightened himself and tested the waters within his own body. There were no aches, no throbs, no agonising searing bolts through his muscles. Only then did he exhale, and with shaky legs, he let himself stand again.
Stephen Davies was not dead. Yet.
He didn't let confidence fool him into believing he could suddenly just dash to the house. He took each step cautiously, but each one grew easier and with that, so did his chest until he could almost fool himself into feeling normal again. Whatever normal was now. This would be different if he were solid. Helena was a doctor. He could have gone to her to ask, but instead, he was left with this near death that gave him the experience of a weaker body. Hell, he'd never yell at an elderly person again when they moved too slow. Now, the only thing he was looking forward to growing old, was a walking stick, to beat the youngsters with.
He made it to the house, but he was breathless, and he sat on the steps before going in. Sweat poured down his face. What was the good in being a ghost if bodily functions still worked? He shoved back thoughts of bathroom trips and ghosts before his mind could even go there. It was one thing thinking he was crazy, but it was a whole new ball game if he crossed the border to insanity. Especially if there was no one around to see it.
This, though, made no sense. His hair stuck to his head, flat and wet. His shirt clung to his muscles where perspiration covered his body in a slick gleam. He was a fit and healthy man … well, as fit and healthy as any dead person could be, but that wasn’t the point.
"I swear to god, whoever did this to me, better not tell me, because I'll kill you." When his breathing had calmed enough, and he felt confident to stand, he got up. But he was so used to being solid, he forgot he wasn't, and when he reached for the rail to support himself, his arm sliced through nothing, and he fell. "Oh, for god's sake." He braced his hands, braced himself too. His words were strange in his mouth, almost like there was a taste to them, but then everything, since the bus had had some peculiar twist to it, tasting words, should not have alarmed him.
He forced himself up the steps that led to the door of the house, and then he went inside. Everything was different in there too. The air was lighter, peaceful. It was like he had been gone for weeks, not hours. In truth, he had no idea how long he had been gone. It could have been months for all he knew, and he swallowed that thought because if it were months, he'd missed the birth.
“Just a day or two.”
The boy was sitting on the floor next to Xander. He wasn’t doing anything really, just sitting. His little legs were crossed and his hands in his lap. Xander leant across the coffee table, and he had a sheet of paper unfolded in front of him. He was marking something on it. At one point, he paused, leant back and then lifted the patch off his missing eye and rubbed around the socket. Did eyes work like limbs? Stephen wondered. People said they could feel their arms and legs when they were missing. Did Xander’s eye work like that? He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to have any part of him missing.
“You gonna help him?” he said to the boy.
The boy only glanced in his direction, and his expression was nothing but sheer contentment.
"Well, this …” Stephen said, with each flick of his gaze from one to the other. He went to grip the door handle and missed, but he caught himself and didn't suffer the same indignity of falling through it and landing on his arse. "I'm so blind, aren't I?" The boy only stared, but as the words came from Stephen's mouth, he ticked off a mental list. Same eyes, same nose, his hair was a different colour, and his face was a little rounder, but the expression was the same, and the more he compared. The more he saw the similarities.
“He’s your father?”
Chapter 17
Eden and Aiden were in the kitchen. It was a large kitchen, with an island in the middle, but it had certainly seen better days. Eden had cleaned it pretty well, though Stephen had to give her credit for that and it was workable, so what more could they want? The counter where she was working away had the odd stain from what he could tell, and one corner was missing a chunk like something had taken a bite, but that didn’t matter. He’d fix it up when he got his body back, make it into something that looked better.
Eden had a selection of bowls in varying sizes with tubes connecting them scattered around the table in different places. She had drawn chalk symbols in places.
“Witchy chemistry experiment?”
She had a plastic spoon in a bowl, and she worked it like a pestle and mortar. At the bottom of the bowl was a small sieve-like net and the red liquid oozed through into a dish below. It ran through a tube and into another tub. Stephen sniffed the air instinctively, and when that came up short, he rolled his eyes at himself. Old habits and all that. But he knew it was blood, even without scenting the metallic tang in the air. Who it belonged to was perhaps the thing that intrigued him the most.
“God, I hope that’s a Human’s. Lee would be better.” It wouldn’t be of course, but he could dream and wish a little. She muttered to herself and leant down to put her face over a steaming pot; then she wafted her hand over it to bring the steam to her nose.
“Aiden, pass me that bag please,” she said without glancing at him.
He did. It was a little zip-lock bag filled with dried leaves. He opened it first and sniffed, and then scrunched his little face-up, which made the colour of his eyes flicker to a red hue. "Blegh."
She frowned at him and took the bag. “Don’t stick your nose in things then.”
"It smells like a cow turd."
"Turd?" She arched her brow and put her hand flat on the table. "Did we not talk about our words?"
A cheeky smile that gave him a sort of sheepish look. “Xander said …”
As she leant across the counter to Aiden, his grin widened, and she took his little chin in her fingers. “Xander is going to be in a lot of trouble. Those are big boy words.”
“I am a big boy,” he said proudly, leaning back so he could free himself from her hold.
“Yeah?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, when you’re as big as Nick, then you can use those words.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “That’s millions of years away.”
“Exactly. Now, get back to your sums while I do this.”
When he went to protest, Eden cocked her head and whatever he was going to say, fell away into silence and he went back to his work. There was a small exercise book in front of him and a half-chewed, half-charred pencil, a page full of numbers and sums he had partly worked through. It pleased Stephen to see. Xander had taught him to read and write, and as soon as he had been able, he’d sent letters along with Eden’s through the system they had while in captivity. It was good. He needed that. He needed to have some semblance of a normal childhood, even if he was a demon.
Eden took some of the leaves out of the bag Aiden had passed to her and dropped them into the bowl. They fizzed and then sank. Herbs and spices had been Stephen's mother's thing. She could cure almost any ailment with the stuff she grew in her garden, and she loved it. Right then, he was glad he couldn't smell a damn thing because the aromas of leaves and plants would feed the longing in him he managed to deny so often.
When Eden added the heated leaves and pushed them into the tub at the end, tiny flecks of white rose to the top, and she scooped them out and dumped them on a dish. They were so small, and it was only when they were together, could they be seen properly. Tiny shards, sharp and broken. “Is that silver?” He lifted his gaze to her. “Well, shit. That’s my blood.”
He rubbed a hand at the side of his neck where the Human had jabbed him before he leapt from the bus. The skin was smooth now, and he couldn't feel the silver in his body, but then he wasn't in his body, was he? And that was a whole different ballgame. "This is why I can’t get back, right?” He shook his head and nodded as all the pieces started to weave themselves into place. “Great.”
He was only distracted when Eden started to mumble words he didn’t understand, and then she held herself in the posture he liked to tease her about—one hip sticking out, her face full of concentration, but right then, the teasing comments were lost. He owed Eden so much. She had done more for him and Helena than he could ever hope to repay. Helena was safe because of her. Aiden was safe and alive … even Xander.
“Do we have ice cream?” Aiden piped up a minute later and disrupted Eden mid-chant. She clamped her mouth shut not to say whatever it was on her mind at his interruption and sucked in a breath. Aiden and ice cream … he was a fire demon, an Urobach. His blood ran hotter than anyone’s, even a shifter’s, and their temperatures rose to levels beyond fever readings. Ice cream was just cream to Aiden—warm cream, but he would do anything for it. Eden had commented on it so many times in her letters.
“I’ll get you some in a second.” She placed the pot on the counter with a little more of a clang than she probably intended as she held in her annoyance. It certainly didn’t match the tolerant and understanding tone she tried to portray.
"I can get it." He hopped down off the stool and made his way to the freezer.
“No,” Eden shot, almost at the same time in an instant reaction to him. She nearly knocked her shit off the counter in her desperate need to get to him and stop him. “You’ll defrost everything in there. I’ll get it in a second. Go and sit back down.”
Aiden did without a word, and for just a minute, Eden let the weight of everything show as she pressed her hand against the freezer door and let her head bow as she breathed … just breathed.
“If I could tell you how much I appreciate everything you're doing, I would." He offered the words, but she couldn't hear them. If there were just some way to reach to her and lift the burden from her shoulders, even for a moment, he would have done that too. It was heavy in his gut even as she came away from the fridge and went quietly back to her pots and potions, another layer of something stripped from her, leaving her bare.
Helena was in the back room where his body was. Not surprising really. If the tables were turned, he’d have not left her in the room alone. Actually, that was a lie. If the tables were turned, he'd probably be lost with what to do, and every wall would be nothing but broken bits of brick where his frustration would have come out. He was almost afraid to see her. Not Helena, but what she meant, how she made him feel. The moment he stepped into the room and took her in, the sight of her took his breath away, every time. “I’ve never wanted to touch anyone as badly as I want to touch you right now.” If he could have just crossed the veil of the two worlds and made contact … it was a need in him, a longing so deep that maybe he’d not survive much longer.
He went to crouch beside her. She was sitting in an armchair with her feet resting on a small cushioned stool. She had a lamp by her, and the book she'd been reading was upturned on her lap. He wanted to push the hair back from her face and run his fingers along her skin. "Helena?"
No answer of course, and he could do nothing but stare at her. There was a plate on the small table next to her with an uneaten sandwich and an apple. His body lay useless on the bed near to her, with machines still bleeping and the monitors still saying there was life in there.
“I’m sorry,” Helena said, and she opened her eyes. The rims of them were red, and the whites were dull and grey. She had her hair tied back; it brought out the sharpness to her cheekbones. Even though he couldn't feel and couldn't offer her any comfort, Stephen still ran a knuckle along the edge of her face. “Don’t cry for me,” he whispered. “I’m not worth it.”
This was all his fault. Everything. She didn’t deserve to cry. The Humans did. They deserved every bit of pain he planned to give them. They would cry and scream and look at the world with fresh terror in their eyes after he was finished.
With a sharp inhale, Helena swiped a hand across her eyes and sat up properly as the door burst open and life suddenly erupted into the room. Aiden bounced in happily with a bowl of ice cream soup clutched between his little hands. He’d already slurped half of it and made it dribble down his chin and onto his top, but he didn’t wipe it away as he perched himself on the stool next to Stephen’s body.
Eden came in behind him, but she went to the larger table in the corner of the room where they had set up a medical station of sorts. Helena struggled from her seat, arching her back to get up, and then she ran her hand over her swollen belly. "What time is it?" she asked and let out a yawn.
“A little after five.” Eden paused. She eyed the plate on the table. “You didn’t eat your lunch.”
Helena regarded it a moment as if she had forgotten it was there. “I fell asleep. It’s all I seem to do these days.”
“Is Nick going to wake up soon?” Aiden asked, cutting in. Eden arranged her bowls on the table. She had an IV bag in a tray, which she picked up and smoothed out. “Soon,” she said, answering him absently as she took the bag across the room to the IV hook near to Helena’s chair.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know it is soon?”
“I just do.” She shot him a glance. “Eat your ice cream.”
“I am.” He scooped another spoonful of the slop into his mouth, and then another. His eyes on Stephen, but his head pondering something. Some of the ice cream fell off his spoon and back into the bowl, but Aiden was off in his head and didn’t notice. “Does he need food? Maybe then he can wake up?”
"He has food." Eden pointed to the bag that was hanging f
rom his IV hook, clear liquid dripping through tubes and into Stephen's hand.
Aiden stared at it, his little brows pinched together, and his lips pursed. “It doesn’t look like food.” He used his spoon to extend his reach and poked the bag.
“Aiden ….”
“It’s just water. Water isn’t food.”
Helena moved to him and smoothed down his hair and then kissed the top of his head. “It’s not water. It has all the things in it that his body needs so he can get better and wake up.”
Ice cream forgotten, Aiden held the bowl on his lap. "What kind of food?" There was a pause, and Aiden leant closer to Stephen. "It doesn't look like it tastes very nice.”
“He doesn’t eat it. It just goes straight inside. When you have food, it has to taste nice because it goes into your mouth, but for Nick, it goes straight inside, so it doesn’t matter.”
Aiden went quiet with that, probably summing it up in his head, Stephen thought as he kept himself out of the way, not that he was in the way, but wherever he stood felt like the wrong place. He moved back to let Helena pass, and for that second, he could pretend he could feel her presence close to him, could feel the brush of her, the scent of her …
Neither Eden or Helena had realised what Aiden was doing. He had put his bowl on Stephen's chest, and he leant over to his face, little sticky fingers pulled at Stephen’s eyelid so that he could peer inside, eye to eye.
“Aiden …” Eden shot, and he let go, but Stephen caught the flash of the bright green in his eyes, the eyes of his tiger. Shit. Maybe that was why he couldn't shift on this side of things. Hadn't his tiger come properly over? "Do not climb on there. How many times do I have to …" she stopped, closed her eyes and shook her head. "I can't do this anymore. I just …" Her words cut off with a sob, but her eyes were dry. Only her face flushed, giving any indication of the emotions there.
