“Did I ever tell you how we found Alyssa?” He changed the subject.
“No.”
John then launched into the tale of how he and Kirk traveled the globe for nearly two hundred years, leaving behind their estate and the broken idol that cursed them. All the while, Kirk had been keeping track of the group of gypsies that created the curse. Sometime in the nineties, they made their way back to the United States. The group of gypsies had all but died out over the decades. Of course, it had been Kirk’s hope that eventually one would agree to reverse the curse, to make them human once more.
One day, Kirk went to the home of a supposed gypsy descendant, and found a woman in the bathtub, blue and bloated. She drowned in her own water. With further inspection, Kirk found the needles. Overdosed. He was about to leave when he heard crying. In the bedroom, on the floor sat a young girl, no more than a year or two. He took her home, unable to leave the child there and call the police. At first, it was for selfish reasons. Kirk hoped that she would grow into a Witch, so powerful that she could reverse the curse.
“But as time went by,” I finished for him with a smile, “you both realized she was the little sister you both never knew you needed.”
John sighed. “Sappy, isn’t it?”
I shrugged once, saying, “Maybe, but she did turn out to be a Witch, and from what I’ve seen, a good one. Why didn’t you ever tell her to try reversing your curse?”
“Oh, she has. Many times. Despite all the power she has, it isn’t enough.” John closed his eyes, his lips a thin line. “It seems I’m stuck like this.” He got quiet, probably thinking of his brother, of how Raphael, of all people, managed to purify him for good. Was he wishing that Raphael purified him, too?
“I’m sure Gabriel would help out,” I joked, receiving a harsh glance from John. “What, too soon? Sorry.”
It took him a while to say, “It’s fine. I’ve been assured that Kirk is in a better place now. If only the last twenty years of his life hadn’t been torture.” John walked on, catching up with Raphael. I slowed to a halt at the mention of how much time had passed.
Twenty years?
John and Raphael looked as if they hadn’t aged a single day, minus the hair bit, while Gabriel looked maybe six or eight years older. Definitely not twenty.
“Twenty years?” I echoed as Gabriel passed me.
The blonde man spoke, “Time passes differently in Hell. It felt like a dozen lifetimes.”
“Well, I hope everything turns out,” I muttered as we continued on our way.
For all of us.
Eventually, after a lot of walking, we reached a desolate area of town. Back in my world, it was where semi-trucks full of stock would park and fill up. The warehouse district. Reminded me of that game Gabriel used to play many years ago: Grand Theft Auto.
We stopped in front of a garage door. John was the one who went to lift the door, using his Daywalker strength to easily heave it up. As he lifted it, he muttered, “Are you ready? Let’s hope so.”
Once it was open, I saw nothing inside but an empty warehouse. “That’s it?” I asked, disappointed. “With a name like Haven, I expected it to be more…”
As we walked inside, past the barrier of the warehouse door, the inside suddenly transformed. Instead of the eternal night that plagued this world, the inside held a sun, hanging brightly in an afternoon’s position. Streets and houses lined up behind a barricade. It was a mini city, magically situated inside the warehouse, protected by a cloaking spell, if I had to guess.
“Like this,” I finally finished, right as two people stood behind the barricade, aiming heavy assault rifles at us. A man and a woman, not many years apart. Both were a bright blonde; one had the darkest eyes I’d ever seen, the other a clear, azure blue.
I knew them. I knew I knew them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t place them. Maybe it was the wrinkles around their eyes, wrinkles that weren’t there in my world. Or maybe it was the shiny black guns they held.
“Don’t move!” the man yelled, his aim steady.
I looked around me, noticing that Gabriel hadn’t yet entered. The door behind us wavered in and out of the cloaking spell, his presence not yet known to the two pointing guns at us.
“Why you think you can just waltz back in here, uninvited,” the woman began, practically hissing venom, “blows my mind. And bringing her? You’re lucky we didn’t pull the trigger instantly.”
Her harsh welcome was interrupted by another woman who appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. She walked around the barricade, now on the same side as us. Her hair was long and dark, the same color as her eyes. Her hands were held behind her back, an air of knowing about her.
“That is not who you think it is, Claire,” the woman spoke, her voice confident.
Claire? I was stunned at first, but then I saw her younger self, aged about twenty years. Her short hair was insanely long, and the stern expression she always gave me in my world was mimicked in hers.
If that was Claire, then I instantly knew who the man was. Steven. Her uncle.
The dark-haired woman studied me. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Alyssa,” I whispered, swallowing hard. She’d grown out of the quiet, barely audible phase and into a poised, assured, beautiful woman. If that’s what twenty years did, it wasn’t too bad.
I hoped I would live that long.
She gave me a small smile, motioning behind me. “Tell the last of your group to enter.”
“I can see why you’re nicknamed the Prophet,” I said.
Behind me, Gabriel entered. His appearance riled up the already irate Claire, who muttered a string of curse words and pulled the trigger on her rifle, sending a barrage of bullets at Gabriel. He gave her one look, stopping the bullets with whatever power he held without moving a muscle.
Claire reloaded, frowning as she spoke to Steven, “Why aren’t you firing? Can’t you feel what he is? He’s not welcome here.”
“If the Prophet was expecting them,” Steven was slow to speak, “that means she was expecting him, too.”
Claire began to swear in response, but Alyssa held up a hand, saying, “As long as he is truly with you, I have no qualms with him.” Her eyebrows lifted, waiting for my answer.
With a quick look at Gabriel, I assured her, “He’s with us.”
“What a ragtag bunch,” Alyssa mused, turning her head to her brother. “It’s been a
while—” She paused, moving to Raphael. “—for all of us. Follow me.” She led us around the barricade and through the streets.
“How’ve you been?” John asked of his sister, fingers strumming the string on his bow. Raphael was oddly silent, considering the fact that he and Alyssa were, God help me, at one point together.
“Good” was Alyssa’s simple reply. As we walked, people stopped and stared, those under Alyssa’s protection. She had a good thing going here, and I hoped our appearance wouldn’t break it. “Let’s get down to business. I know why you’re here, and I know you need the staff to get back to your world.”
“The staff, yeah,” I said, moving beside her. “We came to ask you for a locator spell.”
“I don’t need to do a locator spell,” Alyssa spoke, slowly coming to a halt between two houses that seemed, for the most part, empty. “I know where the staff is. Getting to it will be very difficult.”
My hopes soared. “Where is it?”
It took Alyssa a while to say, “I’ll tell you in the morning. For now, gather your strength. Get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow is another day. Use these homes. I’ve had them readied for you.” Her nose upturned, and she sniffed. “A shower would do you all some good.”
At that, I nonchalantly sniffed my armpit. I was a tad on the smelly side, and I was almost happy enough to hear they had running water that I forgot about the tomorrow part. Almost.
“Why not just tell us now?” I asked.
“There is…something I have to make. Some business to take care of. Spells to r
einforce.” Alyssa smiled as she turned her dark gaze to Raphael, who had remained oddly silent. The man was never the silent type. “It is good to see you, Raphael.” And with that, she left.
Raphael looked as if he wanted to say something in return, but by the time he opened his mouth, she was already gone. He glanced to the sun, an hour or two from setting, and said, “We should do as she said. Undoubtedly, she knows best.”
As Raphael wandered to the left house, I asked both John and Gabriel, “Are we safe here?”
“Yes” both men said in unison. After they spoke, they shot each other a distasteful glare, as if it were the worst thing in the world to actually agree on something. Gabriel scoffed and disappeared in a grey smoke.
I muttered a single word “Men” before entering the other house.
Men were ridiculous.
No exceptions.
Chapter Twenty-Seven – Raphael
It was strange, seeing her again. It felt like yesterday when we were together, happy, blissful, even, oblivious to the dying world around us. All because Kassandra Niles died. If only the dead remained dead. In my experience, they didn’t.
Perhaps that was why it was hard to swallow that there was another Kass from another world. A Kass that was whole, one who was still herself. When magic was involved, nothing made sense. That much I was well-accustomed to.
I sat in the upstairs bedroom, looking out the window. For a warehouse, the yards were certainly beautiful. The grass couldn’t have been greener. Alyssa had never been more powerful. She had changed so much, yet I felt the same, as if after all these years, I hadn’t changed one bit.
There was a single knock on the door, and I sensed who it was. “Come in,” I spoke without taking my eyes off the window.
John stepped in, carrying the journal that held so many of my secrets…the one mistake I regret making to this very day. From his heavy expression, I could tell he finished it. I knew he was shocked. Who knew that I could hide things so well?
“I, uh,” John was having trouble finding the right words to say, fiddling with the journal’s border, its edges fraying and decaying. “I don’t really know what to say.”
“You do not need to say anything,” I told him, honest.
John smirked, surprising me as he shook his head. “It explains a lot, actually. Why you’re…like this.” He pointed, encircling me with an imaginary pointer. He thought the journal held my entire past.
It did not.
That small, seemingly insignificant book held only one chapter in my life. I had too many to count. Too many that were not yet put down in words.
John carefully set the journal down on the end table near the bed. “It doesn’t explain how you do what you do, though. How you can purify greater Demons. Did she…do something to you? To make you like this?”
“She did, but it is not Leliana who is the reason I can purify.” I closed my eyes, reliving my past in a vivid, fast flash. As I opened them, I finally glanced to John as I added, “There were two hands in my creation. Leliana was only one.”
“And the other?” John asked me, desperate for the answer I hadn’t given him these past few years.
A gentle smile crossed my face. “You would not believe me if I told you.”
John sighed, not happy with my response but knowing he would get nothing more of me today. He went to leave, but lingered by the door, one more question weighing on his mind. “At the end…did you do it?”
Ah, there it was. My one regret.
“Yes,” I whispered quietly, still disappointed in myself after all this time. “I did.”
“I’m sure you did what you thought was right at the time,” John tried assuring me.
But I had already wrestled with that particular regret nearly my entire life. I knew what I had done was wrong. There was no excuse for it. Revenge was never the answer. It was a human mistake, one I had paid for dearly.
With that, John left.
No. I did not do what was right at the time, and I knew it. I knew it was wrong, but I was enraged at my love. How I hated her as the fires swallowed her. I watched the entire act, tossing the journal in the flames so that no one would ever read its contents.
Yet here it sat in this very room. I had a nagging suspicious who had done it, who had taken the journal from the flames before it was completely devoured, but I hadn’t ever confronted him. I avoided him, for he was the invisible hand behind Leliana’s behavior.
I would come face to face with him soon enough, though.
“Alone and pensive, as always,” a soft voice spoke, disrupting my moody silence.
At her presence, I found myself standing and putting on a façade, the same one I usually fronted: that everything was okay. That everything would be okay, in due time. Given all the time in the world, however, and I was not certain if that was true.
Alyssa gave me a warm smile as she moved closer, gazing steadily at me as if nothing had changed. As if she still loved me, even after I broke her heart by leaving. She was not the vengeful Witch John had thought she’d be. She was understanding.
“You haven’t changed at all,” Alyssa said, the smile slowly falling from her lips. “I wish I could say the same of me.” A long, pregnant pause filled the space between us until she murmured, “It really is good to see you again, Raff.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I always hated when anyone called me that.”
“Anyone but me,” she whispered, deadly serious.
“Anyone but you,” I was quick to agree.
Alyssa inhaled, immediately addressing the one thing on my mind, the night I left. “You didn’t have to go. I grew up with two Vampire brothers. I’m used to the supernatural. I would’ve understood.”
I turned from her, whispering, “I could not have asked you to waste your life.”
“Who said it would’ve been a waste?”
“You would’ve grown old, never been able to have a child.”
Alyssa shook her head. “I never wanted kids. I only wanted you. And as for the aging part…” She moved in front of me, and before I could react, she gently caressed my face, wiping a stray hair from my eyes. “…I think I would’ve had the better half of the deal.”
As I stared into her, feeling her warmth rush through me as it did when we were together, I suddenly grew sad. So very sad.
“Raphael,” she whispered my name, “you are a good man. One of the best I have ever met, but you let your past guide you, not the promise of a future. Forget your past, forget your mistakes and your troubles. Live with me in the now. Let me show you. It’s not as hard as you think it is.” Alyssa cupped my face, and in the blink of an eye the distance between us was closed.
She kissed me softly at first, and I kissed her back. It came so naturally, as if I had never left her, as if we’d been together all this time.
“God,” I breathed into her neck, her smell one I’d missed dearly. “I have missed you.”
Alyssa smirked, pulling me to the bed as she said, “Tell me that when we’re under the covers.”
At that moment, I’d never been happier.
Love was always a precious thing, and only fools voluntarily walked away from it.
I was a fool, but I wouldn’t be a fool for much longer.
I wasn’t going to run away this time.
Chapter Twenty-Eight – John
I couldn’t decide how I felt about that journal. Even when it was no longer in my possession, I could still feel its weight. The lessons inside it were not lost on me, as I knew they were not lost on Raphael, either. He lived it, after all.
With my hands in my pockets, I headed down the hall. As I went, though, I nearly ran smack-dab into Alyssa. She was going to see Raphael. Of course. There was too much between them, still, even after all this time. It was a weird thing to think about, me being her brother and all, so I tried not to think too deeply about why she waited until he was alone to see him.
“John,” Alyssa spoke, smiling at me lik
e she always had, like she did when she came home from school with an A in her hands. Always the overachiever. “I didn’t get the chance to ask how you’ve been.”
“Fine” was my answer, though I didn’t know if it was true. There was something I had to tell her, though. “Kirk…” I stopped the moment she hugged me, wrapping her arms around me tightly.
“I know,” she whispered, slowly pulling away. Our similar gazes met. “I felt it the moment he…” Even she could not finish her sentence. The pain was too much, for the both of us, but she was better able to hide it, quickly asking me, “You do not blame yourself for what happened to him still, do you? I know that’s why you left, but is it also why you stayed away this whole time?”
I frowned, knowing my answer would only disappoint her. I had lived over two hundred years, yet she was the one with all the wisdom. She was the best of us, the best of Kirk and I. We raised her, we taught her, we cared for her…and now she surpassed me easily.
Alyssa sighed softly, shaking her head gently. “John.” The way she spoke my name told me what she was going to say before she said it. “Don’t blame yourself. She would’ve taken him no matter what you would’ve done.”
“She should’ve taken me.”
“Life has other things in store for you,” she told me. “She’s out on the porch next door, if you want to talk to her.”
I had to forcibly stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Why would I want to talk to her?” If Gabriel caught me talking to her, he’d probably take my soul and be done with it.
Alyssa twirled, hands behind her back as she said, “Closure. You both need it before you can move on.” She disappeared into Raphael’s room, gently closing the door behind her, which was my cue to go and not think about what they would do behind that closed door.
Closure? My mind echoed. We were never together, so why in would I need closure? Groaning, I exited the house and despite my better instincts, I glanced to the house next door, seeing that Kass was indeed sitting on the porch.
Her shoes were off, and her bare legs were tucked under her backside as she simply sat in the waning sun. Shadows danced off the muscles on her arms. Her dark hair was down, messy and wild as it usually was. Kass never gave off the vibe that she cared about her appearance or even put a lot of effort behind it, but maybe that’s why at that moment, I thought she looked so beautiful.
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