The Gathering

by Fiore, L. A.

  “Aren’t you going to say good bye to your daughter?”

  “We did already.” She reached the door, leveled a glare on me. “I’ll be expecting a new phone. You might as well upgrade it.”

  I fucking hated her, more concerned about her phone than her daughter. I wanted full custody; I’d fight for it, but only if that was what Aria wanted.

  Rebecca walked out, the door closed, and I almost lost my shit, but I didn’t. I kicked what remained of the cell under the sofa then walked into my room. Dahlia was trying, Aria was too, but she was on edge.

  “How do you feel about living with us?” I said from the door.

  Hope stared back. “Forever?”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  Her smile nearly brought me to my knees again. And Rebecca said she didn’t feel emotion. What a load of bullshit. “That’s what I want.”

  “Then I’ll make it happen.”

  33

  Outside the apartment, Rebecca climbed into the car. “I unloaded the brat,” she said, turning to her boyfriend. She hated work, but this man was a doctor. He would keep her in the lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

  “Good,” he said.

  “So, let’s go.” She was eager to see France. She’d never been.

  She didn’t see the dagger until it was too late. Blood poured from the wound at her neck.

  “You’ve outlived your usefulness.”

  Gary Ellis climbed from the car, excitement racing through him. Someone was protecting her. He could feel it, even from his distance across the street. He needed her; she was the weak link...the final piece.

  For now, he and the human wanted the same thing. He climbed back into his car. He’d ditch it then inform the human she was in New Orleans.

  “We take them now.” Impatience, another flaw of the human.

  “They are protected. We can’t get to them. During the celebration, we’ll have better luck.”

  Gary waited. Felt the tension and the anger before the human reached for something. Glass shattered against the back wall. “To be so close.” He turned, his eyes lit with madness and fear. “We will strike during the celebration, but you bring them to me. Do not fail me.” The human turned from him, the slight was not lost on him. Gary’s fury simmered, but he controlled it. Now wasn’t the time. “Soon I will have immortality.” Gary sensed something in the human he hadn’t felt before…doubt. It was too late to change sides now.

  Gary smiled as he walked from the office. He wasn’t a complete monster. He’d help the human with his struggle of conscience. As soon as the spell was broken, his first act of freedom would be killing him.

  34

  Bain

  How many of these creatures would you say there were?” I asked Brock after we broke off into teams to hunt creatures we knew we wouldn’t find.

  “Hundreds.”

  “Hundreds of creatures, but there have been no sightings. How do you contain a group that large that seems to only want to hunt and kill?”

  “I’m guessing magic.”

  “It’s a pack. Pack mentality would dictate an alpha. What if they’re evolving, what if they function more organically?”

  “But they aren’t real, they’re created.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  Brock stopped walking. “Not sure how much I like you comparing us, even slightly, to those things, but with that said, it makes sense. Are you thinking Ellis is the alpha?”

  “I’m not sure, but if it’s a pack…”

  “You challenge the alpha.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How do we figure out if it is a pack?”

  “We have to find their den.”

  Brock’s head snapped forward at the same time mine did. “You feel that?”

  “Yeah.” Evil, the street stunk of it.

  “One of the creatures?” he asked.

  “Let’s go find out.”

  The streets were crowded; nonetheless, we easily tracked the smell but there were no creatures, just tourists.

  There was a group ahead of us. It happened so fast, one broke the bottle he was drinking from and ran it across the throat of the girl whose hand he’d just been holding.

  “What the fuck,” Brock hissed. “What the hell just happened?”

  “We need him, her too.”

  People screamed and ran, but not him. He looked like a vampire who had his first taste of blood. He was on the hunt, and he reeked of evil. He smelled me. My size didn’t deter him; he was definitely under the bloodlust. He attacked, frenzied like a wild animal. Curling my arm around his neck, I rendered him unconscious. All those who ran were returning, more curious than careful. We couldn’t take the bodies; there were too many people watching, so I reached for my phone.

  “We need the sheriff on Dumaine Street. There’s been a murder.”

  Josiah

  What the hell are we looking at, Jasmine?”

  “There is nothing supernatural about him.”

  “His blood?”

  “Normal. Good news, well not for her, but she isn’t infected either.”

  Bain stood by the door. I couldn’t read him at all. “He just killed her.”

  “Yeah, like a switch turned on,” Brock replied. “Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Our lovers in the alley, the woman with the knife to the heart…maybe it was the same thing. Maybe not an infection, maybe more an inhibitor,” Jasmine suggested. “I need to look at their brains.”

  “You mean, like stripping them of their inhibitions?” I asked. Ivy had said that.

  “Or numbing the part of the brain that handles impulse control.”

  I looked over at Bain. “You tracked him. How?”

  “We smelled evil.”

  “Wait. You can smell evil?” Jasmine asked. “What does it smell like?”

  “Decay,” Bain said.

  I needed to pace because this was just fucked up. “So, we’re thinking it isn’t just spreading through the blood and the creation of these creatures, it can also randomly attack someone, shut off the part of the brain that handles right and wrong?” I turned to the others. “How the hell do we fight that?”

  “It could be a contagion. I might find that, but it could also be metaphysical…the ones predisposed to causing harm are more easily affected.”

  “So closet killers get the green light.” Fucking terrific.

  “Josiah, there’s nothing I can do for that.” Jasmine was worried, so was I.

  Bain’s phone rang. “Yeah. Bring it to the house. Where did you find it? Okay.” He pocketed his phone. “We got another creature.”

  “Where did they find it?” Jasmine asked.

  “St. Anne’s Street.”

  I felt Jasmine’s attention before she said, “Don’t you live on St. Anne’s Street?”

  35

  She wasn’t sure all of this was happening. It was likely she’d done damage when she’d taken a hit of acid in college. Don’t do drugs, kids. Her hand shook a little when she cut through the gray, leather-like skin of the creature on her table. She had done it once before, and still, she struggled to believe what she was doing.

  Esther was quiet at her side. Her focus on the spells she conjured to keep the creature from reacting. It was dead, at least she hoped so, but they weren’t going to take a chance.

  She cut and curled back the skin. She studied the specimen as she would anyone on her table. Methodically she went through the steps, noting what she was seeing. She finished, washed up then let the emotions in. And they slammed into her. She gasped and rested her hands on the table and let it out. She wiped at her eyes and pulled herself together. “I can’t believe this was once a human, but like the other, the blood is different, but the anatomy is all human though.” The implication was horrifying. They were killing humans, ones who were transformed into these things. They were pawns in the truest sense of the word.

  Esther’s focus was on the creature.


  “The brain is like the man Bain brought in the other night. There’s scarring of the frontal lobe, which is what is stunting their ability for rational thought. It’s like they’ve lost a few hundred million years of evolution, but I don’t know what caused the scarring. Maybe a spell?”

  “I’ve got to go,” Esther said and hurried for the door.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll explain just as soon as I check something out,” Esther promised.

  “And the bodies?” Jasmine asked.

  Esther glanced back. Something was troubling her. “Burn them.”

  “Did you think I wouldn’t know your magical signature, Cyril? What the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s not what it looks like. I’m trying to stop it. It was a scribing spell that I masked, so it wasn’t linked back to me.”

  The door to Esther’s home opened, they both looked at the newcomer. Cyril released a breath. “It’s only you.”

  The newcomer said, “I really wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “Done what?”

  There wasn’t time to react; he felt the cool steel on his neck, felt when it sliced through his jugular. The last thing he saw was his grandmamma meeting his same fate.

  36

  Ivy

  It’s the scarring on the frontal lobe that is making people act crazy, but I don’t know what’s causing the scarring. Esther isn’t sure either. Have you spoken to her?”

  “No, why?” Josiah asked.

  “She left here earlier. She was rattled. Something spooked her.”

  “We’ll send someone to her place,” Bain offered.

  “We isolated the gene that transforms humans into this. It acts like a virus on crack, thanks to the magic, but I’ve reverse engineered it, so it fights the gene rather than replicates it. As terrible as it is to say, with the host dying it stops the human cellular generation, which is what made it easier for me to isolate.”

  “That’s incredible. What do you need to create the vaccine?” Josiah asked.

  “I have what I need, but I think based on the numbers, we need to make it airborne. I just don’t know what to use to carry it.”

  “I have an idea.” I wasn’t sure it would work, but I knew whom to ask. At the silence, I added, “Evil is using magic. I think it’s time we did too.”

  Jasmine had questions. She wasn’t the only one, but she didn’t press and instead said, “Okay, I’ll get to work and make as much as I can.” She paused then added, “Ivy, could you stay back for a second?”

  “Sure.”

  She waited until we were alone. “I wasn’t sure who to share this with…” She looked uncomfortable and a little scared.

  “Jasmine, what is it?”

  I was working with the blood, testing the samples of the victims. Josiah asked if I could find a link. I did. The McKinnons, Henry Werth and the body that was ripped apart, Leslie Squire, all share some alleles.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “They are related, very loosely, but they share DNA.”

  “And from the look on your face I’m guessing that’s unusual?”

  “There’s more. I started testing the blood of the others, though supernatural blood is a bit tricky, and I think Bain’s sample was tainted because it wasn’t like the others, but I was still able to isolate common alleles between some of them.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Two of the people on your team are related, same family tree, different branches. One human and one supernatural, but both are direct descendants of the same person. The same person some of the victims are related to.”

  “Who?”

  There was a touch of fear, but a bit of awe too. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “But they aren’t just a match to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They’re Bain’s too.”

  I stood on our hill. How was it possible that I had descendants? I never had children. A child with Bain, I had wanted one. Dreamt of one. It never happened for us.

  “You made a wish.”

  My mother stood at my side, the same woman I saw among the ghosts, her focus on what remained of that long ago lifetime. She waved her hand, and the scene changed. My legs went weak seeing myself kneeling at Bain’s grave. The grass had yet to grow back; his loss still new.

  “You wished that he would live forever.”

  “I was mourning. I had just lost the best part of me.”

  “The fairies granted your wish.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Their world is different than ours. The concept of family is different. Everyone helps everyone. They felt your sadness and his, knew how pure your love was because of your tree…growing so tall and strong and majestic.”

  “So they created a child?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “With a little help from the goddess of birth.” She looked contrite, pained. “I hated to see your pain too. I wanted him to live forever for you. Someone you would catch a glimpse of on a crowded street, hear in the cry of a baby, feel in the hand of a friend.”

  “The visions I’ve seen my whole life.”

  “Some are your visions, others are snippets of the lives of those linked to you.”

  “Being able to read people’s thoughts?”

  “You can only read those who came from you.”

  “Which is why I can’t read Bain.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was our child a girl or boy?”

  “A boy.”

  Had the ghost at Misty Vale been our son or had he represented all those who came to be because of that one beautiful lifetime? My heart ached even as anger bloomed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because we realized you would have to watch him die and his children…it seemed cruel to make you live through that pain again and again.”

  “The beauty of a life with my son, with my family, would have outweighed any pain.”

  “The difference between humans and gods. I didn’t see that, not then. I understand it now. I understand your love for them too. They are remarkable.”

  “What happened?”

  “You need to know that you and Bain meeting wasn’t what stirred evil. You were the balance to that evil. It staked a claim here long before you came along. You aren’t responsible for any of this.”

  “How long ago did Bain and I meet?”

  “You met very close to the beginning.”

  “How’s that possible?” She looked confused, so I clarified. “How was Bain a human during a time of the gods? You’re the goddess of birth, was it you?”

  “No.”

  “If not you, then who?”

  “I’m not the only god of birth. I’m not even the oldest. Bain came to be from one of them.”

  Was that why his blood was different? Hades couldn’t see him, but was that because Bain wasn’t one of his?

  “And our child…” My stomach twisted in dread because there would be an opposite response to something so beautiful.

  She read me perfectly when she replied, “Yes, when the fairies granted your wish, it tipped the balance, and as your family tree grew there was a cost. Some were gifted in magic and some weren’t. Those not gifted in magic, many of them could see things they didn’t understand. It drove a lot of them crazy. And those not gifted in magic grew resentful because they, unlike most humans, knew what else existed in the world because their own family was a blend of it.” She paused then added, “Humans are the key, Ivy. You figured it out.”

  I remembered, and it wasn’t just that I remembered. “It was you and my father who did the ritual on me when I was a child.”

  “Yes, we were binding your powers and putting a protection spell on you.”

  “And the claw marks?”

  “They came, just like you planned. We stopped them, but not before they marked you. That was part of your plan too because you needed Josiah.�
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  “You were the woman who gave me the tiger’s eye, took the pictures.”

  “The necklace was yours; the pictures were another breadcrumb for Josiah.”

  “And the bodies in the fire were the creatures?”

  Her eyes went hard. “Yes.”

  “This happened before; evil almost escaped.”

  “Yes. Evil has been trying from the very beginning and every generation it grows stronger. Dr. Ellis and his creatures, on the cusp of all the evil man has done onto himself, it gave Evil the strength he needed to break free.”

  “Ellis is one of mine, isn’t he? I can read him; I can only read those who are mine.”

  “Yes. Dr. Nelson had visions he couldn’t explain. He set out to help humanity, but fear twisted him.”

  I felt sick knowing that the catalyst to the end of the world shared my blood, Bain’s blood. “I stopped it, but it’s trying again.”

  “You knew your fix was only temporary.”

  “Why did I come back now? What’s so special about this lifetime?”

  “Because the one you were waiting for came to be in this lifetime.”

  My head snapped to her. “One I was waiting for?”

  “It’s all part of your plan.”

  A plan I was beginning to remember as the pieces settled into place. “Bain and Jareth don’t remember, but we’ve been here before.” She opened her mouth, but I answered for her, “All a part of my plan.”

  She smiled and nodded. “If they knew, they would try to stop you.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “You’ve been helping me all along.”

  “I helped create this; I needed to help fix it.”

  “You were Luna Blackwood.”

  She touched my cheek. “Yes.”

  It seemed like so small a piece, but it made me happy to know I had always been theirs.

  “I’m sorry, Ivy, for all of this.”

  “Bain has lived on, and he will continue to live on. How can I be upset about that?”

  “But you missed out on your child?”

  I looked beyond to the house that started it all: to the world I wanted so much to be a part of. “I didn’t because he’s out there. My family is out there.”