Fatal Allure Collection

by Woods, Martha

  Faye opens the door to my car and slips inside without so much as a hello. She immediately seems uncomfortable, and I begin to wonder if maybe she usually gets around town on a broomstick. That seems like an inappropriate question to ask her.

  “How is Damon?” she says after we have been driving a few miles. She’s clinging to the oh-shit-handle with her teeth clenched together.

  “Unconscious when I left him,” I say.

  “That’s for the best. I’ll get this fixed up for you,” Faye says.

  “By making him forget me,” I murmur.

  “Better then him killing you,” Faye replies.

  I’m not really sure if she is right; a part of me feels half-dead already. I’d like some compassion or empathy somewhere, but there is no one to give it. I can’t even tell the entire story to my best friend Cara, but when all this was over I was going to call her and ask her to come by so I could cry my eyes out to her. I was going to have to give her some half-truths, but all that would matter to her was that I was hurting. At least that’s what I hoped.

  “I won’t ever be able to be with Damon again,” I whisper, more to myself than to Faye.

  “It’s probably best that you aren’t. You can’t kill vampires, you won’t become a full witch, and he loves you.”

  Bad combination, apparently. “If I became a full witch I could be with him?”

  Faye is silent, pressing her lips together then letting her breath out in one long sigh. She takes her eyes off the road and looks at me.

  “You can’t Awaken just to be with someone. You have to Awaken because you want to help, which means giving up the freedoms you have. Regular friends, possibly even your job. Consider this a chance to let your life go back to normal. That’s what you wanted,” Faye says.

  She’s right – that is what I wanted. I often told Damon I wished my world could just go back to the way it was before vampires. I just never recognized that that world would be without him.

  “I don’t think I can ever go back to normal,” I say as I pull up to my apartment complex.

  Faye nearly jumps out of the car and takes in a deep breath. She bends down to touch the grass as if to reassure herself that it is real. I stand there awkwardly, waiting for her to commune with the Earth, or whatever she’s doing.

  “Cars give me anxiety. They’re so…man-made,” she says as she slowly stands. I begin to walk towards the apartment, and she follows me. I decide to take the stairs instead of the elevator, even though it’s a lot of floors to cover. If cars give Faye anxiety, I can’t imagine what a closed-in metal case like an elevator would do to her. I unlock the door to Damon’s apartment, intending to follow her in, but she puts a hand on my chest to keep me out.

  “If he’s awake, I can’t save you,” she says. I see some compassion in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Amy, but whatever moments you spent with him before getting me were your last.”

  “He won’t remember me at all?” I croak out, I can’t keep the emotions down. She’s holding her hand out for the keys to his apartment, and I drop them into her open palm.

  “He’ll think of you as a neighbor. Someone he’s never paid much attention to. The less you interact with him the better,” she says.

  “There is no way we can ever be together again?” This is my last hope. I have to ask. Couldn’t I just make him fall in love with me all over again?

  “If he remembers you, and the Sisters still live, he will kill you,” Faye says. She ignores the tears that stream down my face. I nod my head and step backward, wanting to go in and give Damon one last kiss, but knowing that time has passed.

  “I’ll knock on your door when I’m done,” she says, going inside his apartment. I stand on his doorstep a moment longer before turning to go back to my apartment that has never felt quite so lonely.

  Chapter 5

  I lie on my couch and stare at the ceiling, waiting for Faye to finish. There is a small sliver of hope in what Faye told me: as long as the Sisters live…that means if I can somehow kill them I can get Damon back. Except I don’t know the first thing about tracking down vampires and the only person who could give me that knowledge is about to forget me. I could always Awaken, but Faye told me I couldn’t do it just to be with Damon. There is also the actual fact of killing. I’ve never killed anything in my life – but is it really killing when the creature is already dead? Right now, I’m not thinking clearly. I have lots of friends. I have a job I love, that does real good for the world. I have a life. Am I really prepared to give up everything and spend my years surrounded by things that are not even supposed to exist?

  Faye knocks quietly at my door; I open to her with puffy eyes. She doesn’t give me a hug or anything like that, but I see something like empathy pass across her face. I step back and let her into the apartment.

  “Do you have any tea?” she asks.

  “What kind do you like?” I ask. It feels like such a normal question to ask in a situation that is so far from ordinary.

  “Jasmine or chamomile,” she says.

  Jasmine tea sounds good. I begin to make cups for both of us as she takes a seat at my small kitchen table. She looks around my apartment, which isn’t really decorated. I’ve got a large blue couch in front of an entertainment center that holds an expensive TV I never actually watch anymore. There are books and pictures of my friends around it. It is in need of a dusting; my entire apartment could actually use a cleaning. It doesn’t look very lived in anymore, and the dust is collecting on most surfaces.

  “How is he?” I ask.

  “Awake, but weak. He didn’t want to drink the potion,” she says. “It took some convincing. He wanted to just try and see you, but when I told him the risks he took it. He’s in a deep sleep now. He swore to kill the Sisters and win you back.”

  Somehow that gives me some comfort, even though I’m not sure it’s even possible. I feel like I’m in a fog. I feel like I should have fought for Damon, for us. I feel like I should have looked for other options. But what do I really know about this world? I bring Faye her tea and she holds my gaze with the intensity of her own.

  “Even if he does accomplish that task, I have to advise against the two of you getting back together,” she says.

  “Why does everyone want to keep us apart?” I snap.

  “Because love doesn’t have a place in this line of work. It’s a weakness,” she says a lot more gently than the man from last night.

  “I’ve always heard it provides strength,” I say, quoting my best friend Cara even though I’m not sure I believe the words.

  “To some, it may, to normal humans going about their everyday life, to the rare occurrence of soul mates who only meet once in millennia, but to people like Damon, and like me, it is a distraction. We walk the path of loneliness to make the world safer. There’s no love when the world is constant nightmares,” Faye says, and I see her eyes glaze over. As if she sees horrors beyond what is here in this room.

  “It hurts so much,” I say.

  “It’ll hurt worse when he dies,” Faye says. “Hunters don’t live to have a family. I don’t know why Damon is optimistic. He always has been.”

  “Live in the moment,” I mutter.

  “That’s what he did. It almost got him killed,” Faye says.

  “I can’t go back to normal,” I whisper, staring into my tea but not drinking. Faye sips her tea and falls eerily quiet. Everything goes so silent I can hear both our heartbeats.

  “You should try,” she says finally.

  “What?”

  “I can see what was done in your apartment even though the blood is wiped clean,” she says. I go still. “When I’m outside my shop I can see the horror on every street corner. I try not to see – and it doesn’t bother me as much as it did when I first Awakened, but I can see the pain everywhere. There is no closing it off except for providing a safe haven for your mind. For me it is my home,” she says. “You don’t have to live that way.”

  I ignore that last pa
rt, even though I wonder if it is true. “What made you get involved with the hunters?”

  “Tristian, the man you met last night, when he was much younger he wandered into my store. He brought in with him a host of spirits that were attached to him, wanting to be free. I learned they were trapped there because of a vampire. I made a promise to them to set them free,” she says, taking another sip of her tea.

  “Have you?”

  She shrugs her shoulders. “Some of them are gone, others remain. Hunters don’t get to kill the vampire every time. It is human versus undead. Humanity is just a little more stubborn. More of them die than live. Damon was lucky.”

  I am the one who was lucky. But not anymore. I guess I didn’t know what I had until it was gone. I look at the door to my apartment, I know not far from that door is his. A place where I found safety, laughter, and a sense of belonging. I never felt like I belonged to anyone before in a relationship. Not as if I was his property, but in the sense that we were each other’s. That we were whole because we were together. I was the one he would share most of his secrets with. A person who would listen when he needed me to and just be silent and kiss away the troubles when there were no words to say. But not anymore.

  “So, he won’t miss me?”

  “He’ll feel that something is missing. I erased the memory, not the feeling. You’ll have to do your best to avoid him until the Sisters are taken care of.”

  “Then I can be with him again?” I repeat. I hate the weakness in my voice. I want to be stronger. I want not to need him.

  “No. I don’t think you’ll ever be able to be with him again. There are too many complications. You should try to forget him.” She stands. “I need to get back to the store.”

  Faye’s words are firm, but I can’t accept them. She’s done talking about it, and all her empathy has dried up. The words make sense; what Damon and I had was good, but it couldn’t last forever. But I’m not asking for forever. I’m not ready to give up on it just yet. I don’t ask Faye any more questions. We’ve both finished our tea. There is nothing left to say. I grab my car keys and she follows me out. I linger at Damon’s front door for a moment, but she puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me away from, it towards the stairs. We get into the car and she holds onto the handle for dear life again, her knuckles turning white.

  The ride to her shop is quiet. I stop in front of it and watch her let out a breath. She gets out but lingers at the car door for a moment.

  “You have the potential to be a high witch for good, but there is something in you I cannot process. Darkness. If I were to Awaken you, if you were to take the journey, you could hinder the hunters rather than help them. You care for the vampire too much.”

  “The vampire?”

  “When I read your cards, you had two lovers. The hunter and the vampire. You have feelings for the vampire.”

  “He hasn’t come around since Elric died. Anyway, I don’t think you have to worry about me falling for the undead.”

  Faye stares at me long enough that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. She closes the car door and waves to me before vanishing inside. Her shop door closes and I feel like a chapter in my life has ended. I should go back to normal? Forget everything that has happened? Do I have the potential to be something dark? None of it sounds right. None of it is what I want from my life. I am being shut out of this new world by everyone who brought me into it – I might be able to see the dead, and the vampires might not be able to influence my mind, but even that is not enough to make me belong in that world. So, where am I supposed to go from here?

  Chapter 6

  I got back to my apartment and go straight to bed to cry into a pillow. I’m mentally and physically exhausted. I didn’t even sleep the night before. Through tear soaked eyes I text Cara to tell her my heart is broken. Over the past couple of months, I have neglected my usual friends – there was just so much I couldn’t tell them. They wanted to know everything about Damon and there was so little I could say. Still, Cara is quick to respond and tells me she will be over as soon as she gets off work with a tub of ice cream and two bottles of wine. I decide to just let the loneliness consume me until she gets here, allowing myself to drift in out of uncomfortable sleep.

  The heart can be a horrible thing. It is a physical ache all over my body, and I feel like the tears will never stop falling. I’ve never cried over a guy, except for maybe that first boyfriend who taught me that love is a sham. I knew Damon would never cheat on me, though. He wasn’t even supposed to form attachments to another human being. Even a one-night stand meant the possibility of a human being killed. But he chose me. And now he was out of my reach, even though I could run to him in just a few minutes if I wanted to.

  Cara knocks on the door around 6 p.m. I muster my strength and open the door to her, looking like a sniffling mess. Cara looks gorgeous as always, even though she’s just wearing jeans and a plain gray long-sleeved sweater. She has long blonde hair with the kind of natural highlights people pay hundreds of dollars for. I always feel so typical next to her. But she is one of those individuals who is beautiful inside and out.

  I can’t count the number of times I have been at her apartment with a tub of ice cream and a bottle of wine. She gave her heart freely and generally to the wrong type of guys. I don’t know what it is, but she is attracted to the bad boys who need fixing – but no girl is going to fix them. She is extremely smart, just not when it comes to her own relationships.

  Though who am I to judge at this point?

  “Oh, sweetie,” Cara says, coming in and embracing me. My arms are flat at my side; I can’t hug her back. I’m just too emotionally drained. “What happened?”

  I want to tell her everything, starting with Damon’s profession as a hunter. I want to explain to her about the Sisters. About being something not quite human, not quite witch, not quite anything. But I can’t tell her any of that. I can only give her half-truths. The realization that I am going to have to lie to my best friend about sends me over the edge again.

  “Let's sit down. You need wine and some ice cream,” Cara says, leading me towards the sofa to sit. Like a child, I grab one of my throw pillows and hug it to my chest as I watch her.

  “Damon and I broke up,” I stutter through. She looks at me from the kitchen with that look of compassion I’ve been searching for these past 12 hours.

  “Did he dump you?”

  “No, not exactly. We just…realized our relationship just wouldn’t work,” I mutter. She comes over with the wine and hands it to me. I don’t sip it. I gulp it.

  “Family?” she pushes gently.

  “Yeah, I guess you could say his family didn't approve and made it obvious to both of us,” I say, taking another large gulp of the wine. Cara sits beside me on the couch and hands me a bowl of ice cream. I have no appetite for it.

  “You can’t let family get in the way. I’ve never seen you so attached to a guy, and he seemed to like you too. Though I have to admit you haven’t been coming out much since you’ve been with him.” Cara takes a delicate sip of her wine.

  “I know. He just works nights, and we were both so busy.” My voice cracks. “I’ve never slept so good in my life,” I get out, my eyes watering again.

  “I couldn’t believe you actually moved in with him.”

  “I know. I couldn’t either. It was all so fast,” I say. I finish the wine. I start in on the ice cream, but quickly give up on it. There are some things that a bowl of ice cream can fix, but this isn’t one of them.

  “Maybe too fast. You always scold me for throwing everything into a relationship,” Cara says. She’s teasing me, but my heart is too sore to hear that right now. I drop the bowl of ice cream in the sink and walk back over to her, falling back onto the couch. I grab up the wine glass again, but it’s empty.

  “I know Damon was a whirlwind. But I didn’t want it to end. It felt so right that it scared me,” I say.

  “Were you in love?”

 
; “I… I think I was,” I say, and the tears come again. Cara fills my wine glass to the brim again and I drink it down, perhaps too quickly, and lay down on the couch with my head in her lap. She gently runs her hands through my dark hair, untangling it with expert precision. It feels nice, but odd to have the roles reversed. How many guys has Cara cried about on my shoulder? Here I am in my late 20s dealing with one of the worst heartbreaks of my life. I think Cara had her first ugly cry over a guy when we were sixteen.

  “You can’t give up on love,” Cara says. “Even if his family thinks it is a bad match. I’m sure Damon will come to his senses.”

  “It was a mutual agreement.”

  “You need to learn to follow that heart of yours, Amy. If it says Damon is the one, then you need to fight for that. I used to judge my relationships and how much I cared about them by how much they made me cry.”

  “That sounds like a horrible system.”

  Cara kisses my forehead and falls silent. She lets me cry as the alcohol rolls over me, creating a deeper hole of depression. I want to get angry and tell her all about how his “family” made him forget me. It would feel so good just to let all of the pain and emotional turmoil out to her, but I have to keep it inside. There is an unwritten rule that if a person brushes against the undead they just don’t talk about it. The last time I broke that rule, my mentor thought I was crazy. And it is probably safer for Cara if she doesn’t know the truth, even if she could believe it. I now have an entire chapter of my life I can’t let me friends into, and that hurts even more. Cara likely thinks the reason I’m crying so much is from the heartache, but it’s more than that. I had to push my friends away out of my life the minute I let Damon fully into it. Now he is gone from it, and I can’t just let them back in like nothing happened. Cara flips on the TV, to some sitcom I can’t pay attention to. I know she’s trying to get my mind off of Damon, but he is hanging over me like a bad hangover I just can’t shake.