by Dianna Hardy
“This is genocide. No one here died of natural causes, and it looks like they were all killed at the same time.”
It certainly seemed that way. Blood had also been spilled, and although the sand had soaked up most of it, Pueblo could tell their annihilation had taken place recently – probably no more than twenty-four hours ago.
“Look out!” shouted Teigas, flitting his small form in front of Pueblo.
He spun around to find the cause of worry, ducking at the same time because he didn’t know what might be coming at him.
The sand ahead of them moved in an odd way, and, for a minute, it didn’t look like sand at all, but some strange shroud blanketing the dead.
In a very specific spot, it bulked in the middle, rose up, sank down, rose up, sank down, and then exploded, sending the small grains biting into them both.
“Shit!” Pueblo covered his eyes with his arm, finally looking up again over his raised forearm to find an older Dessec female standing tall and staring him down. A bright blue, silk scarf decorated her neck and marked her royal status.
She spoke with no hesitation. “They didn’t see the attack coming, although I tried to warn them, but the ruling males were fools who stopped listening to reason a long time ago. You’ve come a little later than I expected, but I’ve been waiting for you, child.”
His heart pounded against his ribs in both astonishment and trepidation. He lowered his arm and placed his hand on Teigas’ shoulder, although whether it was to restrain the imp or steady himself, he hadn’t a clue.
“You’ve grown strong,” said the woman, her voice filled with pride and as kind as he remembered it … well over two hundred years ago now.
Somehow, he found his voice. “Hallo, Bel’louma.”
Hello, Grandmother.
Chapter Nine
Elena emerged from the shower feeling marginally better, to find Karl slumped on the edge of the bed waiting for her.
He looked up wearily, eyes red from crying. For a moment, he looked startled, and then she remembered that she currently looked more Shanka than human.
A fresh film of tears glistened in his eyes. “I’m so sorry. Fuck, Elena, I’m so, so sorry.”
Maybe she should stand a firmer ground, but love rarely had logic, and her love for him rose above all else, forgiveness riding its tide. This was the boy she’d known for twenty years.
She placed herself next to him on the bed and laced her fingers through his. Nestling into him, she kissed his cheek. “It’s okay. What happened?”
“I don’t know. I can barely remember what I was thinking, just bits and pieces, and the stuff I do remember – shit. Did I hurt you?” The question came out barely audible, the words trembling with something that seemed like fear. And he was so rarely afraid.
“Not really. I mean, you did here,” she put her hand over her heart, “but if you’re okay, that will heal… Are you okay, Karl?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know…” He broke then, his sobs filling the room as he let his head fall onto one hand. His other squeezed hers. “Never in a million years did I think I could … forgive me. Please. Elena…”
“It’s okay, it’s okay… I already have.” She brought him to her, cradling his shaking frame, and held him like that for a few minutes, allowing him the time to get himself together.
Eventually, he fell silent.
She dropped another kiss on the top of his shoulder. “I want to help, but I need to know what you’re thinking.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I find myself daydreaming so often, and when I come back to myself, I have no idea where I’ve been. This morning – I remember us arriving at the house, I remember looking at the mess and seeing you stand under the doorway between the two rooms, doing your spell. My mind wandered to that last time we were all there together … and then nothing. The next thing I know, I’m walking by the river just outside,” he nodded towards the window. “I don’t even know how I got there. I get flashes of things I think I said to you; things I … think I did.” He looked like he was about to cry again.
“Look at me, Karl.”
He turned to face her.
“I’m fine. I’m hurting because you’re hurting, but I’m fine.”
He looked away again.
“How long has this been going on for?”
“A couple of weeks maybe. I thought it was because of the apocalypse – a result of everything merging – but then the gaps in memory got bigger. This morning was the worst. I must have lost two hours.” He glanced up at her again, his face paler than usual; shadows under his eyes. “And I’m tired. I’m tired all the bloody time.”
“I did a spell to check for demonic possession earlier.”
“You did?”
She nodded. “But it was negative. I need more details – anything you can think of. Is there a trigger? Something that sets off the daydreaming?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Sorry.”
“Okay. Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” She stroked the top of his hand with her thumb, then stopped when he winced. They both looked down.
Three red, raw welts broke his skin there.
Karl frowned. “I don’t know how I did this.”
Fuck. She did: with her fingernails. But she wasn’t about to tell him that now. “Nevermind. They’ll heal.”
There was something else she didn’t want to mention, but if he knew the answer, it may provide a vital clue to what was going on. She mustered her strength. “There was something you said back at the house. It might be important.”
He glanced at her and waited for her to continue.
“Um,” she licked her lips, nervously, “you said that I ‘remind you so much of her’. Is that something you remember?”
Confusion ruled his features, and it quickly turned to a look of alarm. “No, and Jesus Christ … Elena, there’s no one else, you have to believe that.”
“I do. Of course I do.”
“I said that? Why would I say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no one you remind me of – you’re you. Wholly you. No one even comes close to … damn it.” He stroked her hair, and then cupped her face. “There’s only you.”
He kissed her.
She almost cried, because it was Karl. This was a proper, familiar kiss filled with so much love and made up of everything that was her best friend and soulmate.
As suddenly as he’d kissed her, he pulled away, shaking, his eyes lit with both clarity and despair. “I remember… It really happened, didn’t it … I attacked you.”
She held her breath, unable to answer, and not because of the lump stuck in her throat.
“Well, did I?”
“It wasn’t you.”
“Oh, God.” He rose sharply from the bed. “Oh God oh God…”
“Karl…”
He looked down at his hand – at those tell-tale red welts – realisation dawning on him. “I have to go.”
“What? No.”
“I can’t stay here – I can’t be anywhere near you.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not! I fucking attacked you. I can’t be near you if I don’t know what I’m doing one minute to the next.”
He paced to the wardrobe, opened it and pulled an overnight bag down from the top shelf.
“What are you doing?” Although it was obvious.
“I’m going to stay at the house until we figure this out.”
“I don’t want to be apart from you.”
“Neither do I, but there’s no way I can be with you – not if this,” he held up his hand, her scratches scarring it, “is the result. You’re not safe with me.” He haphazardly threw clothes into the bag.
Panic set in. “What if whatever’s happening to you gets worse when you’re on your own? What if … I don’t know … what if there’s something inside you that wants to get you on your own?”
“I can’t
put you in danger, that’s all I know.”
He rushed into the bathroom and came out with his toothbrush. Damn it, he must have just broken the record for quickest packing in the world. He was at the bedroom door in what felt like mere seconds. “Wait…” Her voice broke.
He stared at her and held her gaze.
What the hell could she say? Don’t leave me? Don’t go? All true, but all futile if he thought he was capable of hurting her. She was well aware of his history; of the damage his dad had littered his past with, throwing him into two futures: one he had fought endlessly to have, and one he rejected with all of his being. She knew the dark thoughts that now tortured his mind. “Karl … it wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t you.”
He stood there, uncertain.
Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I’m going to fix this. I’m going to find out what’s going on and I’m going to fix this.”
He turned to the door and opened it. He looked back one last time, and his face was as streaked as hers. “You’re my whole world, Elena. I love you. I always have. I always will.”
The door shut behind him, and he was gone.
~*~
“What are we going to say to him?” hissed Amy as they waited in the room for Dr Jefferson.
They’d arrived ten minutes late, not that it seemed to matter, because the doctor was running late too – the nurse had said by about another ten minutes. They’d waited fifteen, but it felt like an hour already. Her nerves were shot.
“I know him – he’s a good man – but he won’t recognise me and we need to keep it that way. I’ve put our names down as Paul and Elizabeth May – anyone looking for you will be looking for Amy. With respect to…” He glanced down at her huge bump. Talk about unexpected… “Er … I think we need to play it safe to start with and wait to see what he says. We should say you’re… What do you think? Do you look six months gone? Seven?”
“Hmmm, let me think back on all the vast experience I have of being pregnant … oh, wait – I have none. How the bloody hell should I know what I look like? Shit,” she wrung her hands and paced up and down the room, “do you think he’ll know just by seeing it? Do you think he’ll be able to take one look and know that my foetus has just undergone the biggest growth spurt in history? What does this mean? Do messiahs do this? Was this supposed to happen? Is this a good thing? What if it’s bad? What if—”
“Okay, calm down.”
She threw him an incredulous stare. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
She suddenly winced, halted all movement, and then drew in a sharp breath and clutched her belly.
Paul was there in a heartbeat – as always seemed to be the case. She wondered if he’d magically appear at the last moment to save her if she one day had an impromptu urge to jump off a cliff.
Yes he would, answered her mind with no hesitation. Because he watched you die once – he’s not going to do it again.
He stood in front of her, steadying her with his hands on her arms. “Calm. Down.”
She looked up at him, astounded, hushed words tumbling out of her. “Oh, my God … Paul.”
“Are you all right? Are you in pain?”
She shook her head, a strange sense of awe filling her from inside out. Taking one of his hands, she placed it to the left of her now protruding belly button. “Just here.”
The kick was a strong one.
Paul’s eyes widened … and then his face lit up like a beacon.
A laugh erupted from her and before she knew it she was crushed against his chest – or at least as much as her bump would allow – in an all-encompassing embrace.
His hand remained glued to her swollen abdomen, and after the third kick (this baby had clearly inherited Pueblo’s muscles) he squeezed her tighter and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “I’ve dreamt of this moment with you. For so many years.”
Her heart lurched at is words, and before she could stop it – before she even thought it – she returned his kiss on the side of his neck, just above his shirt collar; that warm, familiar scent of his that she’d secretly stolen the past few nights, invading her senses once more.
They stilled in each other’s arms.
His next kiss was to her forehead, and it pushed her head back a little so she met his eyes.
The way he looked at her, with so much love, took her breath away. It had a month ago when he’d told her she was pregnant, and it did now. There was a time when she had looked at him that same way with all of her being, and at this precise moment, sixty-odd years ago might as well have been yesterday.
That four-lettered feeling that she refused to name surged within her, and so did her earlier panic. Any minute now, she’d be suffocating again.
His thumb stroked her cheek.
The door flung open. “I’m so sorry to have kept you,” boomed Dr Jefferson, a short, somewhat average-looking man who was probably in his early fifties. He addressed them whilst reading a file.
Paul let her go and Amy stepped back quickly.
Inside, she felt a mess. What the hell just happened? I can’t go there … I can’t…
“Mrs May?”
Right, that was her.
“Sorry – yes?”
Paul stared at her from behind the doctor, and she glanced away. Too much hurt; too much longing; too much to lose … already lost.
“If you could take your shoes off, and hop on the couch, we’ll take a look and see what bubba’s doing,” he smiled, kindly, and then went back to his file. “Erm … for some reason the nurse has you down as six weeks pregnant…”
“Oh, er—”
“Six months,” chimed in Paul.
“Ah,” said the doctor, before he closed the file and flung it on his desk. “Bit of Tippex will sort that out.” His smile returned and Amy found herself smiling back – he did seem like a good man.
He turned to Paul. “And you’re the father?”
She saw his shoulders drop slightly.
She answered for him. “Yes. He is.”
“Excellent!” He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and reached for the ultrasound jelly. “Things are bad enough at the moment, with people not able to make head or tail of anything. It’s good that you’ve both stuck together. I was late to see you because I was treating a woman who was pregnant. She’s suffering from severe depression.”
Amy leaned back on the slightly raised couch and pulled her elasticated joggers (the only pair of trousers she now had that fit her) down about two inches until they were level with the top of her underwear.
Dr Jefferson, spread the cold jelly across her skin and continued. “She was perfectly human before the quakes began and the world went to pot. All of a sudden, she started developing a knack for magic, but that’s not all: her body began to change. Her genitalia disappeared.”
“What?” gasped Amy.
“Yep. Turned out, she had Brujii demon blood in her somewhere in her ancestry – don't even ask me how – and it was all presenting itself now. I don’t know how much you know about the Brujii, but they have a distinct lack of sexual hormones – as in, none. No oestrogen, no progesterone … her system was unable to sustain the pregnancy, and, sad to say, she lost the baby. She lost her husband too, as he couldn’t cope with her physical changes on top of the loss of the baby.” He reached out with his foot and hooked it around the leg of the trolley that housed the scanner, and then pulled it all over. “All right, try to relax if you can.”
Amy gaped at him. “But, that’s awful.”
Paul took one of her hands in comfort and she was grateful. He frowned at the doctor and she guessed he was irritated by his badly timed story. “Is it wise to be telling us about your clients?” he asked. “Confidentiality and all that…”
Dr Jefferson grinned at him. “Well, if I told you her name, I’d have to kill you.”
“Get in line,” he replied, wryly.
The scanner came down on her stomach. “My point, Mr and Mrs May, is that you don’t kno
w what’s around the corner – you never did anyway, but it goes double for now. Every moment is precious and any moment might be your last. So enjoy your time together. ‘Now’ is the only certainty. Well, well, well … this is one strong baby, that’s for sure.”
“You can see it?”
“See for yourself.” He turned the monitor around a bit more until it was facing them, and then turned a dial on the machine.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room.
It was strange how in the midst of chaos, something as simple as a heartbeat could instil such peace. Tears sprang to her eyes, and for the first time in months, calm stole over her. Forget bending time and time travelling and time loops, and anything else that had happened to her – this was time standing still. It topped them all.
“See here?” The doctor pointed to the left of the screen. “This is the head. The heart you can hear is about here. These are the legs and feet, and here – the arms.”
“So it’s … er … human?” asked Amy, trying to make the ridiculous question sound casual.
He raised her an eyebrow. “That’s something we can spend the next fifteen minutes talking about, but so far, so good. Would you like to know the sex?”
Oh, my God. “You can tell?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
She turned to Paul, excitedly. “Maybe we should wait and be surpri—”
He’d frozen in place standing behind her, eyes on the screen, hand tight on hers, the combined joy and grief in his gaze simply overwhelming.
She could have kicked herself for her stupidity.
There was no waiting.
What would she choose, she wondered, if she knew she’d never see her baby grow up; if she knew she might never see her baby at all?
How long did he have left after the birth? A day? An hour? A second?
‘Now’ is the only certainty…
“Paul,” her quiet voice broke, “do you want to know?”
He didn’t manage a word, but he did manage the smallest of nods.
She looked back at the doctor. “Tell us.”
He silently took them both in, clearly seeing there was more to the story than he knew, and his eyes softened in sympathetic compassion. “Congratulations, Mr and Mrs May – you’re having a boy.”
