by Jae Vogel
Lucien clapped Lester on the shoulder. “There. You did good.”
Lester grinned and nodded, and took a deep breath.
“So I’m just going to go back to the hospital,” Lucien repeated, one last time. “I’m going to go as a dog—no one will notice me that way.”
To Aurora’s disappointment, he stepped out the door as a human and shut it behind him. Milo chuckled.
“That eager to see him naked?”
Aurora blushed. “No! That’s vile. You should be ashamed.”
Milo rolled his eyes. “Please. But that’s not really important, not right now. Miss, I think it’s time we start showing you what your father really gave you.”
Aurora stepped back involuntarily. “What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Why bother denying it? Milo could read minds. Aurora exhaled the breath she had been holding and looked down at her hands. Magic.
“What do you want me to do? Levitate the table? Light some candles with my thoughts?” These suggestions came out sharply and without sincerity—and even Aurora found them a little spiteful. Denial was a form of survival for humankind, and in this situation, even that little respite had been taken from her. She flexed her fingers and sighed. “Look, I… I don’t know if we should.”
Milo sat down on one end of the couch and gestured at the other, his meaning crystal clear. “We won’t know what we should do until we’ve crossed over into what we shouldn’t.”
“That’s a terrible saying. I hope you don’t live by that kind of logic.”
“Of course I do,” Milo replied, smiling a little. Lester had quietly, half-unnoticed, taken a place across from the couch on the loveseat. Milo’s smile widened wickedly. “That’s the only way to really live, when you think about it.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Aurora retorted, but she was already sitting on the end of the couch that Milo had indicated. Against the leather couch, her pants grated and made an obnoxious creaking sound. “I have got to get some new clothes.”
This time, Milo didn’t argue, but nodded in agreement. “Absolutely. Any preferences?”
Aurora thought about what Lucien had said this morning. You’re one of us, now. You don’t have to worry about money again. A shiver went down her spine. It sounded too good to be true. She’d never been free of debt, free of bills before. She believed in witches and shapeshifters and magic before she truly believed that she would never worry about her bank account again.
“Jeans,” she said finally.
“Skinny jeans? Boot cut?”
“I… I like skinny jeans.”
“And a warm coat—”
“Two lighter ones would be better,” Aurora admitted quietly. “And sneakers. Something without a heel. Please.”
Milo nodded, leaning back a little into the couch; it was a soft piece of furniture, and the cushions molded around his body. “I’ve told Lucien what you need.”
Aurora stared. “Just like that?”
Milo shrugged. “He might not be able to get it just now—when they transform, they lose their clothes, and he’ll have to stay in dog form until he gets back, but he might be able to arrange something sooner. He’ll probably want to look for Cheng first—”
“Of course,” Aurora blurted. “There’s no rush. Whenever it’s… convenient. I suppose. Thank you.”
“Aurora, Lucien told you the truth,” Milo leaned forward again, out of the couch. “We’re going to take care of you now, because like it or not, you’re one of us. Our lives are stuck together. So yes, we’re going to take care of you, like you would if our roles were backwards.”
Oh, there it is, Aurora thought to herself. The catch, finally. I knew it was here, somewhere. Of course they weren’t going to just take care of her. That… that would be too simple.
Yes, actually it would be. Aurora thought of how her mother had just taken care of her, until it had destroyed Ramona Potier and driven her mad under the weight. Another, fresher, stab of guilt pricked Aurora in the chest, so raw still from the heartache of yesterday. And then what had happened? Aurora had taken it upon herself to do what her mother had done, fighting for years, alone, to stay afloat.
Nothing was ever that simple, and by now, Aurora felt that she should know that lesson through and through. You didn’t get something for nothing; these people were convinced that they were part of her life, now. And she was part of theirs. They didn’t want her enslavement, not like she’d been a slave to keeping her mother. No… they wanted her to be on a team. Part of a… a different kind of family.
Aurora looked up at Milo and nodded. She understood.
“Great!” If Milo had been listening to her thoughts, he didn’t show it. He made himself comfortable on his side of the couch, leaning closer to Aurora. Lester watched in eager silence. “So what I want you to do I just to touch the power. Just… get in contact with it, and see where we go from there.”
Aurora watched him suspiciously. “How do I do that?”
With a sigh, Milo scratched his head; with a start, Aurora realized his gun was still in the holster, which he wore even without a jacket as cover. It just seemed such a part of him that she’d forgotten to notice it. “There’s a problem. I’m not a vampire. I’ve never been a vampire, so I don’t know exactly how to access your powers.”
Aurora shook her head. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
She exhaled impatiently. “The ‘V’ word.”
“Vampire?”
“Yeah,” Aurora agreed, annoyed. “That would be the word I asked you not to say.”
“That’s a bad strategy,” Milo warned. “That, my dear, is called, denial, and it will never, never, never help you. Not once.” He looked at her, intent, for several minutes. Aurora stared back, wondering if he was trying to read her mind. “I’m serious. It will blind you to truth. It will take reality from you. It will leave you helpless. The moment you decided to deny what is real, the power to see it for what it is flies out the window.”
“Maybe I don’t want to see it for what it is,” Aurora hissed. “Don’t you think I’d find it a little shocking to have someone suddenly tell me I’m a vampire? I’m not! I’ve lived a normal life for twenty-four years, without a speck of magic—”
“Because we hid it from you,” Milo interrupted, his voice a coaxing murmur. “Come on, Aurora. We had to. If you discovered your magic, your father would have found you long before you were strong enough to threaten him.”
“Well, that’s convenient,” Aurora replied.
“It’s not wild, things flying off the shelves, lights flickering, storms coming out of nowhere, magic. Your power is much more subtle—even if we hadn’t hid it from you, it’s possible you would have never noticed.”
“So, what do you want me to do?” Aurora asked again, sharply.
Milo held his hands out. “Try to feel my energy. My life force. Take my hands—or don’t, suit yourself; you don’t have to give me that look—and just… feel.”
Hesitant, Aurora held her hands near Milo’s. She didn’t feel anything, and she told him so. Milo rolled his eyes.
“Did you expect it to jump out and bite you? You have to meditate, a bit. Focus.”
“On what?”
“Your breathing, or something. I don’t know. Breathing always worked for me when I was learning.”
With a small growl, Aurora took a deliberate inhale. Still nothing. Slowly, she pushed out the breath through her nose, feeling her nerves settle a little as she did so. She could definitely do with less nerves, so she took another breath in, and another breath out.
“Concentrate on feeling the air circulate through your body.”
“That’s not what happens—”
“Don’t get scientific on me. Just focus on the feeling of drawing in life with each breath, and exhaling the stress and negativity.”
“Don’t get meta on me, now,” Aurora mutt
ered, but she did as Milo said, envisioning the air circle through her. But then, in her mind, it wasn’t really air. That isn’t what it felt like, after all. When she focused, it felt more like particles, dust motes, glowing and living, that she drew in with each breath. And when she exhaled… it seemed as though she was expelling ash.
Shocked, Aurora blinked. The vision in her head had been so vivid. She closed her eyes and tried again, not even noticing how closely Milo had begun to watch her.
It came easier this time, the glowing particles and dark ash spots clear in her mind’s eye. Aurora followed their progress, watched the golden specks gather in her chest, and the black ones swirl into the room and dissipate. Fascinated, she had no idea how long she watched, when she realised all of a sudden that she wasn’t the only one with the glowing dust motes.
They flocked around Lester and Milo, in much greater density than Aurora. She kept her eyes shut, but in some abstract way she could see the two of them sitting there, glowing.
“Whoa,” she murmured, hardly daring to breathe. The particles filtered in and out of her with the air the moved with her speech.
Milo’s hands were still outreached; Aurora inched her own hands closer to them without even a thought for what might happen. She watched, amazed and enthralled, as the gold particles in Milo’s skin began to creep towards her, like metal shavings to a magnet. Her fingers grew nearer and nearer until his hands were just below hers; still the particles snailed up to the surface, as if they were survivors hailing a plane.
Aurora had no idea what all this meant, but she took the next obvious step. She lowered her hands to rest on top of Milo’s, as he had asked.
Immediately, the gold particles seeped into her. Aurora gasped; it felt like summer sunlight, after a long winter. Wonderful, full of hope and promises of better days. Tears welled up in her still-shut eyes. It had been a long, long time since she had ever felt something so warm.
Take more. The voice in her head was unfamiliar; it wasn’t even a voice really. It was something primal, like the need to sleep and eat. It wound through her brain over and over, with the same two words. Take more take more take more take more…
It seemed a thrilling thing to do, and Aurora couldn’t figure out why. Yes, these light drops, like snowflakes, were beautiful and filled her with contentment and wellness. When they absorbed into her skin, she felt rested and whole, as if she would never need anything again. She knew she didn’t need more, but she called for it anyway, summoned it instinctively from Milo’s body, just because she could.
A sharp cry jolted Aurora out of her meditation, and her eyes snapped open.
“That’s probably enough for now,” Milo said hastily. He’d already withdrawn his hands.
Her heart punched a beat against the hollow of her throat, terrified. “What was that?” she asked. If her voice was higher and shriller than usual, no one mentioned it.
Milo went through several facial expressions, a grimace, surprise, hesitation, then resignation.
“That… well, that was a taste of your powers.”
“That was…” Aurora’s voice failed her, and she flopped back against the couch. “That was… amazing! What—did you see the lights, too? What was that?”
“It was how your father beat me the first time,” Milo muttered.
Aurora froze. She dropped from her cloud like a stone, and looked at Milo, really looked at him, in the light of the lamps. His young face seemed to have aged a few years in just seconds—or had it been minutes? Aurora was no longer sure. She felt bright and vibrant, which was the exact opposite of how Milo looked. His skin was grayish and his hands were shaking. His blue eyes were sunken and ringed in dark bruises.
“Oh my God!” Aurora leapt forward and put out her hands to help, although she had no idea what she was going to do about his condition.
Milo flinched back. It was clearly a reflex, but it stung nonetheless.
“I’m sorry,” Aurora snapped—and felt sorrier still for snapping. What had she done?
“You did what you’re designed to do,” Milo answered her thought. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the couch. “You took some of my energy. I can regain it the normal way, sleep and food, but I can only recover so fast. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right… eventually. And hey, can you check to see if Lucien has anything to eat in that fridge? Shapeshifters are always hungry, I’m sure he has something…”
Aurora leapt up in her socks (she still hadn’t put her boots back on) and hurried into the kitchen. Like the bathroom, Lucien kept his kitchen neat and clean, and she dug out a can of loaded baked potato soup from the cupboard and threw it in a bowl. All of this she jammed in the microwave and hit buttons until it roared to life.
“What was that?!” Aurora asked again, even less calm now than before. “Milo! Did I just suck the life out of you?”
From the couch, Milo looked at her, eyes glittery bright in his sunken face. And that was answer enough for Aurora. She stood there, breathing as if it pained her, feeling the euphoria of Milo’s life force that she’d stolen right out of him. The microwave beeped before she spoke again, and then Aurora was able to busy herself in retrieving the sizzling canned soup stirring it frantically to hide her fear.
“Here,” she set it on the table in front of Milo. “Careful. It’s hot as hell.”
Milo gave an unimpressed snort and scooted towards the bowl. Indeed, it was still sending up wafts of steam where it sat. He sighed.
“Look, don’t get upset,” he told her. But even as he told her this, his voice was scratchy and small, like a lesser version of what it had been just minutes ago. Aurora rubbed her face.
“Don’t get upset? How can you say that? Could I have killed you, if I kept it up?”
Milo shrugged. “Of course. You could have taken all my life force—the coroner would have said I starved to death and wasn’t getting enough oxygen at the same time. The cells of my body were straining to support me on nothing, and finally, everything just shut down.”
“And you tell me not to be upset?!”
“Yes, Aurora.” Milo picked up the spoon and tried a tiny bite of soup. “Mmm loaded baked potato. Anyway, yes, I’m telling you not to get upset. It’s not like this is some uncontrollable thing. You chose to take more of me than you needed. Next time, just don’t.”
At the mention, Aurora grew uncomfortable. She sat back down on the couch. “You know?”
“Of course I know. We were connected for a minute.” Milo took another bite, and blew madly on the soup until he wheezed. It didn’t work very well; the bowl still steamed. “But you’re learning. You had to learn what could happen, and it’s better that it was with me than with someone who doesn’t know to pull away, believe me.”
“I don’t think it’s better,” Aurora pointed out irritably.
“It probably is.” Milo shrugged. “Just look at yourself. You look almost back to normal. The energy did you good.”
“Yeah, by taking it from you.”
He made a frustrated sound in his throat. “You’ve been doing it without realizing for a long time,” Milo told her, exasperated. “Years. Your ability to draw people’s energy has grown with you, and believe me, it’s driving Ian crazy. It’s really a huge help. As your abilities grow, he gets weaker. Eventually, you’ll kill him without even meaning to.”
“What?” Aurora shrieked. How could he just say this, like it was nothing? Seeing Milo’s face, she took a deep breath and tried again. “Look, I get it that you’ve been at this for years, but I just found out my father is alive, I just found out he’s in New York, I just found out he wants to get to me, and I just found out about all this stuff that’s been happening for years behind my back. Do you even understand how it feels when you tell me I have to kill him?”
Aurora mentally shook herself. Of course Milo knew; he was probably the only one out of all of them who knew precisely what she was going through because he could read her mind. He was watching her now,
probably listening to all this play out, but it didn’t show on his face.
Finally, he sighed. “I’m sorry we’re all being so callous. We aren’t trying to be—you’ll just have to believe that we aren’t.
“BUT,” Milo held a finger to silence her. “But. Keep in mind that you’ve never known your father. You’ve never met him. You don’t know how he is. But we were all friends before he left… so if you think it’s cruel for us to talk so openly about killing your dad, try to think how long it took for us to accept killing our friend.”
“I’ve only got one father, though,” Aurora pointed out. He was right and she knew it. But damn if she was going to own up to that—not when it forced her to consider the reality that was coming her way. That they were all right. That eventually, she was going to do exactly what they expected her to. “You all still have each other.”
“And you have us, too,” Milo insisted, stirring his soup. “You’re going to have to get used to us butting in, now. You’ll love and hate us as much as a real family in no time, believe me.”
Aurora sighed and watched him poke at the soup—she hadn’t eaten since the eggrolls yesterday. When she’d been shaken awake by Lucien, her appetite had been gnawing out the inside of her belly. Now, however, she was barely interested. Her hunger was gone. It was a disconcerting thought.
“I’ve never had a real family,” she realized suddenly. Milo had a mouthful of baked potato soup, so she rambled on. “It’s been just me and my Momma for… all my life. I guess I have grandparents in Louisiana, but they didn’t approve of her running off with my father, so I’ve never spoken to them. I’ve never even seen pictures of them. We don’t have any at all in the apartment.”
Milo chewed thoughtfully. “Your mother always used to say she didn’t look back because she wasn’t going in that direction.”
Aurora smiled. And then, she looked at Milo sharply.
“How long ago?”
