After their laughter had died down, Marcus came in and took a seat on a nearby chair while Stan strolled into the kitchen, returning with three beers. Xander was surprised to see that his friend had brought him a bottle and accepted it as it was offered to him.
“Thanks. Don’t suppose you got any cigs on you, though?” he looked up and smirked.
Stan frowned and shook his head. “You know I don’t smoke.”
Xander nodded. He didn’t mind so much that he couldn’t smoke since he had not felt the tugging urge since he’d been changed. Instead, he looked around the house, noting the small changes that Stan had made in the décor and took a sip of the beer. He’d been surprised that, despite the entire bag of blood that he’d emptied into himself earlier, he’d felt hungry again soon after. Marcus had explained in the car that his body had used that meal to work on healing the wounds he’d sustained from the attack and that he’d need more soon.
Stan, taking a long sip from his own beer, crossed his legs as Marcus rolled the neck of the already-empty bottle between his fingers and let loose a belch that made the tiger jump.
“It’s been a while,” Stan finally said to Xander, “Lots of very, very new things to talk about.”
Xander nodded and set the beer down on his wooden box before having second thoughts about it and rested it instead on his lap. Marcus stood up and signaled towards the kitchen and headed, without acknowledgement or permission, towards the fridge.
Stan rolled his eyes after him, though it didn’t make a difference at that point, and turned to Xander. He smirked as his gaze locked on his eye and he shook his head, “I have to say, the look suits you.”
Xander scowled and raised a gentle hand to it. “Yea. I still don’t get it though,” he sighed and let his hand drop as he took a sip of his beer. “I mean, this can’t be natural.”
Stan shook his head. “Not for humans, it’s not.”
Xander looked up with a scowl. More riddles; just what he didn’t need, “So this is normal for vampires then?”
Stan shook his head again. “Not exactly,” he leaned forward, “Look, you had just come back from the dead, Xander! You’re body had been making some very massive changes; changes that were still in their final stages! I mean—Hell!—you were still metabolizing your first meal when the auric attack hit you.”
“Final stages?” Xander frowned.
Stan nodded, “Like a baby’s skull not being completely formed at birth a vampire doesn’t emerge from the transformation fully changed. It still takes a few hours, sometimes a day or two. In your case, all the hemorrhaging to your eye was incorporated with the final stages of the change.”
Xander stared in silence, not liking the new explanation any more than the old one.
“So,” Stan changed the subject, a broad smile spreading across his face, “can you ‘see’ them?”
Xander raised an eyebrow, “‘them’?”
Stan nodded and smiled, “Auras, man!” He motioned towards the kitchen, where Marcus was still raiding his fridge.
Xander’s frown tightened, “Auras…” he looked back towards Marcus and the strange blue haze that still surrounded him. At first he’d passed it off as an annoying after effect of what had happened to his eye, like the similar outline he’d seen around people when he’d gotten too much chlorine in his eyes at the public swimming pool. But, studying Stan, he noticed that there was nothing surrounding him.
Stan smirked, “You’re not going to find one around me.” He took a sip of his beer, “Like an auric vampire, I’ve absorbed my aura. I’ve become a part of it—or rather it has become a part of me.”
Xander nodded, though he wasn’t sure he understood, “So that strange blue thing around Marcus is…”
“His aura,” Stan finished for him. “It’s his energy signature. They’re not all blue, though. The color is unique to the person; nobody’s aura shines the same, so don’t trust the colors as some sort of code.” He grinned and nodded towards the kitchen, “Blue just happens to be one of the more common shades.”
“You guys talking about me in here?” Marcus stepped between the two before sitting down with several new beers.
“Just seeing where the boy is in his development,” Stan replied.
Marcus nodded before turning to Xander with a grin, “You’ve barely touched your beer!”
Stan smiled and nodded, “Yea, drink up! I stocked the fridge so you’d have something to take the edge off!”
Xander frowned. He knew that a lot had happened, but the way Stan had said it…
“What edge are we talking about, exactly?”
Stan had the bottle to his mouth when he froze and looked over at Marcus with an angry glare, “You didn’t at least mention it?”
Marcus rubbed his neck, “I just figured enough shit has hit the fan that I didn’t need to squat a fresh batch on him just yet.”
A heavy sigh escaped Xander and the two turned back to him, “I’m really in no mood to listen to your side conversation. So why don’t we all take our heads out of our asses, turn them towards me and tell me what we’re taking the ‘edge’ off of!”
Marcus sighed and tossed Xander his reserve bottle.
Xander, catching it, still glared at the two but nodded his appreciation as he chugged the contents of his first bottle before opening the new one.
Stan frowned, looking down. He’d known from experience that it was best to be straightforward in this kind of situation, “The psychic attack you suffered awakened the auric potential inside of you. The process was a violent one, and the…” he paused, “… the ‘container’ that was holding all of it ruptured, spilling all the abilities that you should’ve been born with back into you.”
Xander stared at him.
Stan frowned and looked down for a moment before looking back up at him, “Listen: you were born a half-auric because of your father, but, as you already know, your father attempted to contact you at the time of his death. Most of who he was got stripped away during the process of reaching out to you, but what did get to you—what was left of him—needed to find a way of staying intact so it could watch over you. So it wrapped itself in an auric bubble in your mind, using most of your own auric energy to sustain it.” Stan frowned and glared at Marcus again for not having said something about this sooner, “A lot of your untapped powers were in that orb and when you were attacked the orb burst, flooding your head with the ‘borrowed’ auric energy as well as the entity, which, when unable to sustain itself, simply diffused into your mind.”
Marcus sighed and turned to Stan, “Why do you have to make it so hard?” he turned to Xander, looking exhausted, “Xander, you absorbed Trepis.”
It was then that Xander realized that he hadn’t heard a word from his life-long friend since he’d awoken on Marcus’ couch. He saw his own aura at that moment—a red and black, semi-translucent tendril that whipped out from his chest. He opened his mouth to say something but a choked sob emerged and he shut it to prevent a repeat. He looked at the tiger, the real Trepis that had shared the link with Mind-Trepis.
He hadn’t looked at him once since he’d sat down!
Suddenly, despite all the company, Xander felt more alone than he ever had in his entire life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Truth
It was a foreign sensation… albeit a familiar one.
“Xander! Put it down!” Stan repeated.
Cold metal.
Hot tears.
The hope of no future.
No way out but through the squeeze of the trigger. To think he’d reached a peak in life where this ritual seemed unnecessary. How could he ever have trusted life so much to let his guard down?
The tiger—the only Trepis left—had slinked away and was curled up in the corner, his tail darting back and forth in nervous protest at the chaos.
Marcus stood beside Stan with a frown that showed more than just a little nervousness, “STRYKER! CUT IT OUT!”
He
ignored them. They were just more noise; noise that would be turned to blissful silence soon enough. That round had sat in the chamber long enough! It belonged in his skull once and for all!
He looked at Stan through teary eyes and the red and black cloud his protruding aura had become. As if following the cues of his eyes, the dark mass stretched towards his old friend as it sparked and spiked, mimicking the muscle spasms of his over-tense body.
“Do you think it will take me tonight, Stan?” he asked in between sobs.
Stan furrowed his brow for a moment before all visible tension left his body, “I know that it won’t, actually.”
Xander shut his eyes against the answer. It wasn’t the one he wanted; wasn’t the one he needed! He felt his jaw tighten and the burning started at his back and wrapped around to his shoulders. His tear-welled eyes opened and he could see it; saw the rage-fueled auric tendril as it coiled around him like a neon red serpent. It was what was burning him; what had always been burning him! It stretched and grew until it all but consumed him. As the streak of anger came to coat his entire body Xander felt the heat spread and overcome him.
Stan watched this happen and steadied his footing on the floor, “Xander!” his voice was calm-yet-stern, “You have to relax!”
Noticing Stan secure his footing, Marcus narrowed his eyes at Xander and took an uncertain step back, “What is it? What’s he doing?”
Stan couldn’t know.
Not like that.
He’d said it himself: nobody can see the future! It was nothingness; an unwritten book!
He was bluffing, and Xander was going to prove it.
The tightness of the revolver’s trigger was the only resistance he faced as he pulled the trigger and finally fired the weapon.
For many years he had held Yin to his head and pulled its trigger. Every time he was fully prepared for the blast, wanting it more than anything.
He’d never expected it to be so loud, though.
His body was blind and frozen, waiting for the final tug away from his horrid existence.
But he could still feel his heartbeat…
And he could hear Stan’s and Marcus’—hell, even the damn tiger’s—hearts!
There was a metallic clink on the floor and Xander thought of a dropped coin and paid it no mind. The hammer had finally fallen on the one round!
And he was still alive?
“But… how?” he frowned and looked at the gun in his hand, the barrel still smoking from the recent firing. He glared at it and then up at the two non-humans in front of him.
One of them had to responsible!
Stan hadn’t shifted into a relaxed state yet, and Marcus stared in shock and awe, as eager for answers as him. So much was not adding up: if the gun had fired, where was the death that should have followed?
Even a vampire couldn’t survive a shot to the head! Marcus’ bewilderment told him that much.
But Stan…
Why was he still tense when nothing had happened?
He’d known!
He’d known and that wasn’t possible and Xander hated him for it!
The rage-serpent that had constricted him and burnt him sparked, “WHY?” Xander roared at him. His aura whipped forward with the scream and crash into the two in front of him.
Marcus cried out as he was tossed back to the other side of the room and in the fireplace. He rolled away, slapping out the flames that had caught on his legs before looking up to see if Stan had met with a similar fate. A look of disappointment spread across his face when he saw that he’d been the only one affected.
Xander dropped to his knees, breathing hard as Stan finally relaxed his stance and approached, kneeling down and picking up the bullet that had dropped to the floor.
Xander looked up at him, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion, “How could you have known?”
Helping him to his feet, Stan shook his head and handed him the bullet, “Because this was never yours to begin with.” He turned and sat down on the couch and lifted the bottle that rested nearby, “and a part of you has always known that.”
Marcus sighed and shook his head as Stan sipped at his beer. He dragged himself to his feet, the burns on his leg already beginning to scab over.
Xander’s aura—showing the same exhaustion that his mind felt—rippled and receded back into his chest, “Not mine…”
Stan sighed and shrugged, “Consider that the poet’s explanation.” He let his head fall back onto a couch cushion and paused, “How many times have you pulled that gun on yourself?”
Xander frowned and looked away, feeling his face turn red. “Too many times,” he shrugged, “At least that’s what you’d tell me, right?”
“‘Too many times’… and to never land a single shot? A one-in-eight chance taken day-after-day for so long and yet here you remain. Even Trepis could have taken control any one of those times and put the weapon away, but he knew something I didn’t realize until now: you didn’t want to die!”
Xander glared at the preposterous statement.
Stan ignored him and continued: “You’ve had these powers your entire life, but while you’ve been using them to do parlor tricks and throw hissy fits, they’ve been getting stronger. How easy it was for your mind to make sure that that one chamber wasn’t fired once! And just now, in that stunning display, your own mind played tug of war with the decision of whether or not to die.
“Sure, you finally fired the one bullet, but your aura—your own goddam aura!—stopped it in the barrel before it could even touch you! Your own subconscious is telling you to cut this shit out.” Stan smiled, “Joseph Stryker’s bloodline will not go out that easily, Xander! You’ve got too much to do with your new life, and a big mess to clean up from your old one.”
Xander frowned, “A mess?”
Stan nodded, “A big fucking one! And even though you don’t know it, your auric powers can sense it; could always sense it!”
“Sense what?” Xander bit his lip.
Stan frowned and handed the bottle back to Marcus and leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, “It’s time you finally know the truth:”—Stan paused for a moment—“he’s still alive.”
Xander frowned, considering his words before looking again at the gun. After a moment he set it back in its box, slumping down in one of Stan’s chairs. His eyelids were heavy then, and he fought the urge to close them.
He didn’t need to ask who he was talking about; Stan was right: a part of him knew already.
Xander watched his aura seep out from his chest. Tiger-striped bolts of red streaked through the blackness as it came to hover in anticipation around him. It felt like fear and hatred and tasted like a dream come true. It stretched across the room then as Stan’s own greenish-orange aura extended out as well. As the two met, Xander could suddenly “see” into Stan’s mind—read his thoughts as if they were his own.
They talked for hours in the span of seconds before Xander finally pulled himself away and separated the link.
Clenching his teeth, Xander reached up and clutched the charm on his mother’s necklace until he felt the corners digging into his palm. He shut his eyes and bit his lip, allowing his fangs to cut into him. The two tiny wounds bled for a moment before his superhuman body healed them. Then he did it again… and again, repeating the process until he’d finally mustered the courage to say the name:
“Kyle.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Motivation
Xander was only eight years old when his mother met Kyle. He remembered little of the early years; whether that was normal or if he had repressed the memories was something he never let himself dwell on long enough to decide. Despite this, some memories refused to be forgotten.
Memories of times that he’d sooner wish to forget than reflect upon…
Like the memory he had of Kyle forcing his young, frail body to the stove-top and pinning his back against the electric burner. The act left him with a dark, spiraled burn scar in
the center of his back that had warped and stretched as he’d grown.
How many scars had he been given that he’d never be able to identify?
How many torturous memories had his mind let slide into blackness?
But it would never let him forget the most torturous one of them all.
It was almost a month before his thirteenth birthday and he was sitting in the living room where Kyle had told him to wait for a surprise. Xander hadn’t wanted the surprise; Kyle’s surprises were always painful and humiliating. But his punishments were far worse. So Xander did as he was told and stayed quiet, pulling out his Batman action figure and trying his best to play.
After a short while there was the roar of a car engine as it pulled into the driveway followed by a moment of calmness before Xander heard the car doors open and slam shut. The voices of Kyle’s friends picked up and faded as they passed by the window, heading towards the front door. Then the doorbell rang.
Xander, already nervous, had turned towards the hall that led to his mother and Kyle’s bedroom. He could hear fragments of their voices—of Kyle yelling—and then the distinct and familiar sounds of Kyle hitting his mother.
The room had gone silent and the doorbell rang again.
The caped crusader figure was held in mid-attack—frozen in imaginary time—as Xander listened to all of this, wishing beyond wishes that he had the strength of Batman; the strength of a hero. He wanted so much to be stronger so that he could help his mother and chase his stepfather and his awful friends away.
The doorbell rang several more times, demanding an answer and Kyle’s steps sounded across the floor.
Kyle’s boots had always warned Xander of his approach. It was the sign to stop if he was doing something he shouldn’t—like playing with his action figures, which Kyle had said were only for infants and retards. His stepfather’s footsteps were always quick and purposeful, never giving him much time to react. On that occasion, Kyle had moved faster than usual, and a panicked Xander was forced to hide the toy under the couch before he was seen and beaten for being a “doll-loving faggot.”
Noir: A Crimson Shadow Novel Page 20
