by Night, H. T.
I looked at Lena and wasn’t sure if I wanted to discuss the details at this very moment. I was tired, but I knew she would press for details because that was Lena. She knew me as well as I knew her and she knew something was up just by my demeanor.
“What happened tonight, Josiah?” Lena asked again. “Brock Houston just doesn’t invite the Chosen One over for dinner, hermano a hermano, unless something big was brought up that spurred this big face to face.”
“It’s not grand in the way you think and it’s a lot more personal than you can imagine.”
Lena was smart and quickly connected the dots. “Why does he want Jason? What would he need him for?”
“Pierce has been sick for some time.”
“I heard he was getting better.”
“I think that was something they were saying to just to boost their economy where everything is looking up. Not only is he not doing well, he is dying.”
“How old is he?”
“I think he’s five now,” I said.
“That is so heartbreaking,” Lena continued.
“I agree. He’s heard about Jason’s healing skills and has asked me if Jason can heal him.”
“Oh my. What did you say to him?”
“I heard him out first.”
“What did you say, Josiah?” Lena’s voice was on the verge of becoming shrill from stress.
“I said he would try.”
“And you didn’t think about consulting his mother before you made such a giant decision?”
“No offense, Lena. I make giant decisions all the time and never consult you.”
“I know you do and it demeans me as a parent and a partner that you repeatedly do that. This isn’t about leaving the cap off the toothpaste. It is about something, no someone, worth fighting about.”
“Is this an argument? If so, you won’t win, Lena. As the head of the family, I have a pretty good record in not screwing things up.”
“Oh, and I do? I have never screwed up anything in this household. But this is about our son and in anything in this shared journey that we are on, we are on it as husband and wife. If anything is both of ours, fifty-fifty, it is our sons. You should have consulted me. Immediately.”
“Maybe I should have. I probably would have just talked you into seeing it my way.”
“You are one arrogant asshole, Josiah Reign.”
That argument had happened three days ago. Nothing had changed. She didn’t want us to do it for whatever reason, but I was a man of my word, a promise I gave to Brock, and I was sticking to what I’d said.
Chapter Seventeen
That promise to Brock was why I’d been up all night. That and Lena had turned her back to me in bed, instead of sleeping in my arms like she usually did. I didn’t know what I felt about my son trying to heal Brock’s son and pulling back from it. It should have been a no-brainer, but for some reason, the thought haunted me and I didn’t know why. It made perfect sense to heal the poor guy’s sick son. He was just a little, innocent boy, as my boys had been at that age.
After I laid in bed for a while, apart from her, I finally just got up and cooked like the apocalypse was imminent.
After cooking up a storm, I finally got some sleep around noon, by myself. I was getting tired and put all the food out with a note that said: “Up all night. Dig in, everyone.” So I finally went to bed and a got decent amount of sleep.
I woke up at my usual Mani time in the evening, 5:00 p.m., next to my beautiful wife, Lena. She had come back to bed and cuddled me—that warmed my heart. I needed that cuddle. In that embrace was her forgiveness for our argument, or maybe just her acceptance and compromise. I knew she loved me, and she definitely knew I loved her.
I found that waking up around five in the afternoon was an ideal time to wake up for a vampire if you have a house that is sealed off against the sun. My castle was about as sealed off to the sun as any place with a door could get. But throughout the years, I had found it to be an ideal time to wake up if one was so inclined to be a vampire, or just have them for friends, or even for enemies. Most vampires slept all day, so they had little chance to be hit by the sun.
Lena herself had satiny skin that was the color of milk. Not only did she avoid the sun, but she used all sorts of protection on her skin from various mail order companies that promised to screen out all UV light, such as from computer screens and large televisions. I told her that I thought we only had to worry about the sun and not the low-level ultraviolet light from devices, but she was adamant about protecting her skin and it showed. She had not aged at all in her years as a Mani, in fact, each year, she seemed more beautiful to me.
I valued Lena’s opinions, even though she did not always believe it was so. There hadn’t been too many times that I had blatantly gone against Lena’s wishes or challenged her authority as a parent or a spouse. Unfortunately, today would be one of them. I would be taking her little boy to a place where he was to try to heal a young kids, as if Jason was some television preacher.
I frowned. I hoped that there would not be that sort of precedent set. Jason was a loving healer and there were no words or anything that he asked of those who he healed. He did not even ask that they believe in his healing abilities. He just...loved them unconditionally.
Most of his healings had been animals, or family members. And once, when we were in Southern California, I saw him brush against a kid in a wheelchair, on purpose, when I had taken the boys to a midnight movie and we were passing by their row on the way to our seats with popcorn. Jason had pretended to trip and spill his popcorn all over the boy. He touched the boy’s chest when he apologized, I saw it. At the end of the movie, the boy had stood up from his wheelchair and walked out of the theater, his mom screaming and crying behind him.
Today was shaping up to be quite a weird day...It was to be the day of the healing of Brock’s son, or a lack of healing. I remember it was raining in the morning and almost as bad, it was T-shirt weather by evening. But that was our crazy island weather.
I decided to only include three people on the trip: me, Tommy and Jason. I had chosen Tommy to come along because he had a knack for seeing things that didn’t seem right and he was usually right on when he did have a hunch. So he was my right-hand guy, once again, for the job—my friend Tommy, the werewolf extraordinaire. Luckily, he was on one of his periodic visits to Helena Island.
The three of us took the helicopter to Attica to see Brock and his son, Pierce.
When we arrived, we were led up to the very top floor of his mansion. I had no idea how Phantom of the Opera-looking this kid had become since the last time I’d seen him. I anticipated the worst. But the worst didn’t arrive.
He was just the Tandra boy I remembered meeting, however, now he was not full of energy. Instead, he was lying in a bed with his eyes open, but unfocused.
Brock held his son’s head and sat next to him on his bed. He reached out to the two of us and said, “Can either of you save my boy?”
“I’m pretty sure that question wasn’t directed at me,” Tommy whispered, just loud enough that I could hear. Even here, the guy couldn’t help himself. He had to put his two cents in.
I leaned in toward Pierce, and invoked the Triat to take any sickness and restore him with health. I prayed hard but...nothing happened. I was not surprised. Jason was in control of his own healing gift, unlike me.
I stopped trying when I realized it wasn’t working, turned to Jason and I said, “You’re on, son.”
Jason stepped up to the bed with the almost inert boy lying there, his eyes glassy. Unlike me, Jason had his own way of getting close to the subject he was planning to heal. He often mentioned that he saw special images as he healed them.
Jason stood up and knelt down next to the son’s bed. “What’s your son’s name?”
“Pierce. You have met him before,” Brock said.
Jason nodded. Then like I’d seen my son do a few times in the past, he got into position to heal Pierce
. “Pierce, can you hear me?” Jason asked.
Pierce nodded, and then Jason placed his right hand over the boy’s head and his left hand over the boy’s heart.
At first, it was a pretty thing to watch. There was a powerful energy happening in the room as the healing began. It usually began by now and I knew something was wrong.
For the first time, I saw a ripple in the fabric of the atmosphere, as if air was water and from the points where Jason touched Pierce, concentric circles widened. But then something happened. Jason yelped and let go of Pierce, pulling back and almost throwing him off the bed. The ripples of water-like energy in the air disappeared and Pierce let out a weak cry that was like a kitten’s tiny mewing.
“He cannot be healed,” Jason said calmly.
“What is he saying?” Brock said in disbelief.
“He cannot be saved,” Jason continued.
“Why not? Who are you say who is to be saved and not to be saved? He is a little boy. He deserves a chance at life!” Brock said desperately. As a father myself, I felt his pain and anger.
“If he was healed, it would be the end of us all. Even you!”
Jason wasn’t messing around. My sixteen year old was telling this very successful Mani man the way it was.
“What?!” Brock yelled.
“I want to go, Dad,” Jason said to me.
“No one is going, my son isn’t healed.”
I looked at Brock and smiled.
“Don’t just smile at me, Josiah. What has happened here? Why are you leaving without healing my son? I demand to know what happened here.”
I stood up and stared Brock in his face. Whoever he controlled, he knew there was no way in hell that I was one of them.
“We’re going to go,” I said. “I’ll sort out what happened tonight with my son. This may or may not be over. Just hold on tight.”
“Don’t go. This is an abomination to have a gift like this and not use it to help people, to judge people before they are even given a chance to live.” Then Brock got real angry and yelled, “Is that not what you do with my son? Judge him by his future, the one you perceive he will have?”
It was a delicate and tragic situation, but I trusted my son’s decision to not heal Pierce.
I turned around and said very compassionately to Brock, “I will get to the bottom of this. You need to hold on tight.”
“My son may not have that kind of time.”
“I’m sorry. That’s where it stands at this moment. Good evening, Brock.” I looked at Tommy, who just listened and had my front and back covered. I had to admit, it did make me a tad bolder when Tommy was with me.
When we left there that night, Tommy watched our backs to protect us, all the way to the chopper. All the way, I kept thinking was that I should have listened to Lena. Taking Jason there had been unwise. In retrospect, Lena was wise, however, in the moment, she had been less convincing.
In the helicopter, Jason didn’t say a word. The light was low in the interior of the chopper and I didn’t try to see what was going on in his head.
When we got back to the castle, I told him to go to his room and his mother would be in there shortly to speak with him.
I went up and saw Lena. She was already shaking her head as if she knew I was going to return with something bad to report.
“I take it, it didn’t go well,” she said, carefully looking at my face.
“What makes you think that?” I said.
“I know when you win. I know when you have success. There is a look in your eye that is indescribable. I just know, though. I know when you win. Tonight, you didn’t win. What happened?”
I looked at Lena and just her insight on my looks after a success or a failure was partly mind-blowing to me, but I couldn’t let her know that just yet. We needed to speak to our son. Something weird had happened back in Attica and we needed to get to the root cause, figure out what went wrong, and discuss and decide what we should do about it.
Chapter Eighteen
When we got back, and I had told Jason to go to his room and that his mother and I would be down to his room in a minute, I knew that there would be explaining to do. When I went to go get Lena, I knew there were going to be repercussions because she had been against Jason going to Attica to heal Brock from the very beginning. I should have listened to her, but I did what I thought would make the most peace between the two islands. In recent years, we’d had our differences. But something had happened tonight that would change things forever, and not in a good way.
“What happened?” Lena asked.
“Jason refused to heal him.”
“He refused to? Why? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know why he wouldn’t. At first, he laid his hands on him for a good couple of moments and this weird energy thing happened in the room. You should have seen it, Lena. It was like the air was water and I could see these rippling concentric circles in the atmosphere.”
“Wow, then what happened, Josiah?”
“Jason looked up at Brock and me and said he refused to do the healing.”
“He couldn’t do it or he wouldn’t do it?” Lena asked.
“Wouldn’t. He refused. He saw something during the beginning of the healing that made him pull away and vocalize his refusal.”
“Oh no. What did he see?”
“When he laid his hands on Brock’s boy, a presence came to Jason. He had an indignation like none other. No, it was more than that. It was a revulsion and a repulsion.”
Lena said, “I think we should go downstairs and both have a talk with him and find out what he saw.”
“You and your special talks.”
“You say special talks like it’s a bad thing. Things get done in a nonviolent manner,” Lena replied. “It’s problem solving at its most non-invasive and most effective. No weapons, no blood, no tears.”
I nodded, finally seeing just what my wife was made of, as she devised these talks to problem solve, not to get her own way. It was true. Things did get done. “You’re right.”
“This time, I didn’t want to be right, Josiah.”
“Thank you for that,” I said.
“When we have special talks, it is never to say, ‘I told you so.’ It is to be closer to a perfect Oneness of us, a single-minded evolution of us as a married couple, as parents, and as lovers.”
I felt like we had just reached some epiphany in our relationship and I didn’t want to let the moment get by without honoring that. I took a deep breath. “I need to tell you something, Lena.”
“What?”
“I think that sometimes, I seriously underestimate your abilities and also, I don’t acknowledge the importance of your contributions to this family.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“Have I told you lately that you are an absolutely incredible life partner?”
“You just did. Come on, let’s talk to Jason.” Lena got up from her favorite chair and kissed me with tenderness that melted my ego into desire for her. Then the two of us walked, hand in hand, downstairs to Jason’s bedroom.
When we got in there, Joshua was already in his room talking to him. The moment we were in the doorway, the boys stopped talking and looked right at us. I had no idea what Jason had told him, or if he had just got in his room. Either way, Joshua had curiosity written all over his face.
“Joshua, could you give us a minute with Jason?” I asked as I entered the room.
“Why do I always have to leave when you talk to Jason?” Joshua blurted. “Jason was the one who got to go out tonight. I want to know what happened. I’ve been waiting for hours and I need to know. He’s my brother.”
I looked at Lena and said, “They are twins. I guess he can stay.” I didn’t give Lena a chance to say no. I decided on my own. It was time for Joshua to be allowed into the inner circle of the gift of Jason. Just minimal information would satisfy Joshua tonight, I hoped.
“Thank you, Dad,” Joshua said. “I shouldn’t a
lways be the one outside the bedroom, waiting to find out what you and Mom said to Jason.”
“I agree,” Jason said. “No more of that, ever.” My son was coming of age, and resetting boundaries to make sure that Joshua was not excluded from his life. I was so proud of him at that moment, that he took a stand.
So, that’s what happened. The fear of us having a serious family meeting in Jason’s bedroom had ended in the boys getting their own way. Joshua would now be included in our meetings with Jason about his gifts. I knew there would be many meetings about it, after this night.
Jason still hadn’t said a word. He was sitting up against his bed headboard and was staring straight ahead with little expression.
Finally, in his usual nonchalant voice, Jason said, “Brock’s son, Pierce, has a bad heart and his muscles don’t work right.”
“He’s sick?” I asked.
“No, Dad. It looks like that on the surface, but looks can be deceiving, He is very evil and the evilness is what is causing the illness. In fact, the illness is the evil. I saw the future and what it would be if I healed him. He would have caused wars, not just among Mani vampires like the ones you fought in, but he would even hurt those who are like Uncle Tommy.”
Lena and I exchanged glances. Apparently, Jason knew that Tommy was a werewolf.
“Yes, I know what he is. Joshua and I both know.”
“What else?” Lena asked gently, ever the peacemaker, the best talker in our family.
“Pierce was going to do a lot of bad things to a lot of good people. He would have been one of the worst dictators of all time. Not a governor.”
“You saw all that, son?” I asked.
Jason nodded. “When I lay hands on someone, I can always see the future, the good, the bad and the ugly of each person I heal. In Pierce’s case, there was no good in him at all. Just a lot of bad and ugly things. That’s putting it mildly. What I saw was catastrophic. Dad, I have seen some weird things in my life, both in reality and in visions. What I saw when I laid hands on that young man tonight, that would have been the end of all of us, if I had healed him.”
