by Lila Huff
Carlo just laughed at my choice of words.
“We could go and do whatever we wanted without any consequences. So why are we here, doing this?”
Carlo turned to me with a strange expression. “There are consequences.” His eyes narrowed. “There are others like Gallu; each can kill us as quickly as the next. We follow orders so that we have Gallu’s protection.”
I just looked at him. He seemed scared; it was not a color I was used to on him. Then he laughed, “did you think we were in this for the money?”
I had to smile at that. There really wasn’t any gain in this employment.
“Kid,” Carlo said as he turned to continue walking. “this right here is the price of immortality.”
He was silent for a few minutes as we walked through the darkened streets of London. “You liked that car, didn’t you?” he finally said.
“Which one?” I asked, assuming we’d passed a car that I’d looked at a little too long.
“The one those guys were driving yesterday morning,” he clarified. “The Cadillac.”
“Yeah, it was one of the cars I had hoped to get once I was settled financially in my new job.” I said with a half hearted laugh. “I guess that my dream garage won’t ever come to fruition.”
“The living are so focused on attaining things,” Carlo said with a sigh.
I had to smile again. “I guess the human race is a little materialistic.”
“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Carlo said giving me a malevolent, yet amused smile. “I pinched these for you.”
He tossed me a set of car keys and pulled a dirty blanket off of the car he stood next to. There was the sixty-one Cadillac; it was beautiful, even in pink. I ran my hand along the long fin that sloped down toward the C pillar.
“Let’s go for a spin.” Carlo said from inside the car.
I combusted and reformed inside the cab and quickly turned the ignition. “Interesting fact: reverse in this car is the last gear.” I said as I pulled the shifter into drive and pulled away from the curb.
The left-hand drive car was strange in the streets of London. It hadn’t seemed that strange when I’d driven in America… but that’s because there weren’t any right-hand options. And at nearly eighteen feet in length, the London streets weren’t quite as manageable as when in a fiat or citron.
“Let me tell you a little about how I joined the Asakku, Paul.” Carlo propped his foot up on the flat dashboard above the glove box. “My father’s name was Petrarca. Francesco Petrarca. He was a poet and a scholar in renaissance Italy. He didn’t know about me, my mother hated him, and I grew up always believing that he didn’t want me.
“I found him, after Gallu had recruited me, and I had resolved myself to killing him. I was so mad at the man for forsaking us. But he wasn’t the man that I expected. He was kind and genuinely upset that he had not known me in life.”
He paused and I realized how easy it would be to want to let the anger that welled within me take over.
“He was an interesting man, and did not deserve to die, so I did not kill him. I spent many years talking to him, visiting him and discussing philosophy, but I never told him about our kind, or the possibilities of an afterlife…. It didn’t help much.”
“Gallu did something?” I asked.
“No. The wind demons must have seen me going to him.” Carlo sighed and pointed left. “Turn here. Gallu saved me from walking into a trap.”
“But you never saw him again?” I asked, as I turned the corner.
“No.”
I thought for a moment. “How do you know that Gallu wasn’t just keeping you from seeing him by saying it was a trap.” It seemed logical enough to me.
“He was interred shortly after.” Carlo’s words sounded offended and I didn’t dare say any more, I knew my temperament… I could only assume that his was just as volatile.
“Where are we going?” I asked after the tension in the car had lessened.
He responded flatly, “There’s a garage four blocks away. We’ll keep this there.”
Four blocks down the road we turned into an industrial parking garage and dropped the car off. It seemed strange to leave the car alone in this deserted garage.
“You going to hit the alarm?” Carlo asked as we walked away and continued as the whooping of the horn signaled that the car was armed, “we all have little toys that we keep secret from Gallu. Just make sure you don’t let her know about them, ok?”
I nodded and followed him as he jumped over the low wall of the garage and into the alley where we both disappeared in a burst of flame.
9. The First
-Joellen-
“Thank you, I know that must have been hard.” Lilith’s voice brought me back to reality. It had been as though I had truly been there. “You were very lucky there was just one.”
Lilith turned, walked away from us, and sat poised in her throne like-chair with her head in her hand.
“We should go.” Adam whispered from behind us, and I jumped slightly. I had not realized he was standing directly behind me.
I felt Demetrius’ hand on my elbow and I allowed him to pull me from the room. “She’s processing,” he whispered quietly in my ear, as if that answered any questions.
We entered the room where Adam and Lilith’s children were and they all looked up at us smiling.
All, that is, but Carla. She curtsied to us – most likely only to Father – and quietly left the room. Nate and Christi watched her from the table they were at in the corner, working on a puzzle, while Lizzie and Billy returned to the book they were reading. Lizzie was sitting on his lap and turning the pages for him.
Earl moved to my side and gave me an apologetic smile, while Father strode off after Carla. “Please excuse her.” Earl said to me quietly as he watched her walk away. Her head poised in a regal, yet not haughty way. “You must understand that she is the one of us who has witnessed what your kind can do when you allow your Asakku side to take over.”
I looked between Demetrius and Earl, questions brimming in my eyes, and Earl obliged me by continuing to speak.
“Davidov was the first of your kind – the first Lilakku. Father met him in Russia where Davidov was studying at the seminary. He was mere weeks away from taking orders and seemed to be destined to become a shining star in the Catholic world, perhaps he would have even become a future pope.” He sighed as he looked back toward the door that Charlotte had gone through. “At this point, Carla was the only one with Father and Mother - the rest of us had not yet been found, and she fell in love with Davidov.”
Earls voice was sad, but it did not sound like he harbored any sadness or malice toward Carla’s previous interest. His sadness was only for her.
“Davidov was an avid outdoorsmen. In that day and age camping was not what it is today, but he often traveled out into the wilderness alone. It was on one of those occasions that he ran into Aleksandr, another member of the Asakku who is older than is to be expected.”
“And he tried to take Davidov, like Hephaestus tried to take me?” I asked, knowing the answer. Earl just nodded. “Why?” I couldn’t see any reason why the Asakku would single out a lone clergyman who had not yet made any sort of a name for himself.
“We think it was simply because of his chosen profession – they’ve killed for less – the Asakku are strongly governed by their impulses.” He sighed at the memory of a less fortunate soul. “Charlotte had been following him when Aleksandr attacked and she managed to save him from being pulled down to Hades, but he was like you are.”
“No longer living, but unable to die.” I finished the thought for him. I suppose I should be happy that I had not been condemned to Hell, but I couldn’t bring myself to be completely sanguine about my prospects in this semblance of an afterlife I had been given. “What happened to him then?”
“As I said, if your evil nature is more prevalent, it can cause you to be more like the Asakku. Your good traits are sometimes suppress
ed by the bad and unfortunately Davidov had some ‘inner demons’ that worked their way to the surface through the transformation. He destroyed the better half of the Polish city of Gdańsk before the rest of us were able to catch up to him.”
“He destroyed half of the city?” I asked, incredulous as to how they could have allowed him to decimate the town without a hastier response.
“He, like you is able to use both the powers of the wind and of fire, as is determined by your lineage. But, as you know, the Lilakku are also able to use the forces of water and earth as well. He brought both flood and fire on the city before we were able to stop him.” He looked at me warily. “The power that you have is something that requires great responsibility. I believe that Gallu would love to find more like Davidov, though she did not know of his full transformation. She is still under the impression that he was only full Asakku. She still blames Siris and her Naiadu following for the flooding. We do not know how a Lilakku will react until their character is determined. That is why we were wary of you.”
“But you aren’t anymore.” I stated, more than asked, looking into the eyes that were now inches from my own, it was as though the pupils were severely dilated and the dark blue that formed the thin ring around them was simply his iris in its contracted state.
“Not really,” he said with a cavalier smile.
I raised an eyebrow to that. Oh yeah? I thought.
It was as though Earl had had a bucket of water poured over him, but none of the rivulets that dripped from his soaked clothing or hair ever touched the ground. He shook his hair, trying to spray me and the others that were within range – out of my peripheral vision I saw Lizzie and Billy both flinched away from the liquid bullets that should have been headed their way in the same movement – but the drops disappeared as soon as they left Earl’s hair.
“That’s impressive,” Lizzie said, her mouth hanging open in awe. “Maybe six months of meditation was good for her.”
I furrowed my brow for a moment before letting it smooth out again. I would not have called six months of willing myself to die with no fulfillment, meditation.
“It sucks.” Earl said, trying to wring himself out again. I smiled and he was completely dry. “Remind me not to mess with you, ok?”
“I thought you said the Lilakku could not be killed.” I said, returning to our discussion of Davidov. “How did you stop him?”
Earl nodded, “Lilakku cannot be killed by us, except for during their first month after the change.”
“But two or more of the Originators,” Demetrius added, “Lilith, Gallu, or any of the Ennead could kill us if they joined forces. But it would be a fairly tense battle.”
“Oh,” I said, glad that we had clarified that point. “So, Davidov destroyed the city during his first month of being a Lilakku?”
“His first day.”
Charlotte had returned. Her lavender eyes were filled with sorrow and anger.
“One day?” I asked, disbelief mixed with anxiety. She looked like she would like to tear my head off.
“Exactly,” She said coldly. “One day and you could destroy a city. Can you imagine the chaos that would ensue if you let a rogue Lilakku roam the planet for a full month before killing them?”
I could not. I didn’t dare say anything to the woman standing before me, with her lavender eyes ablaze.
“Don’t worry, Honey.” Earl said, stepping away from me and slipping his arm around her waist. “Jo’s not a bad one.” His smile was strange, almost as if his words were a joke. I was beginning to feel as though I was missing something extremely important.
She seemed to have been softened by whatever Father had said to her in the hall. “We’ll see.” She said with a raised eyebrow. She seemed willing to give me a chance. That at least was preferable to her fear induced ambivalence.
I heard a laugh trickle through the hall and all of our heads turned toward Christi. Her auburn curls bounced slightly as her shoulders shook with the laughter she was suppressing – quite well, actually – her hand waving wildly as she tried to fan her face. Nate was sitting next to her with his lips in a thin, white line.
“Anyone going to let us in on the joke?” Lizzie asked as she leaned out from behind Billy.
“I just remembered how Carla reacted to Demetrius when he first arrived.” She continued to giggle between her words. “She hit the ceiling every time he walked into the room.”
“Literally.” Lizzie was laughing now too, and everyone in the hall except Carla and myself were soon laughing.
“I don’t blame you for not trusting me.” I said it quietly, though the volume did not hide the sadness in my voice. “I don’t even know myself anymore; I can hardly expect you to trust someone who doesn’t even understand herself.”
Carla’s lavender eyes were no longer narrowed and her brow soon smoothed out. “In my experience, you have a fifty-fifty chance of deserving my trust. In my opinion, those aren’t good odds, but I will try to hope for the best.” She turned from me; her hand firmly entwined with Earl’s, and stalked from the room pulling her companion along with her.
“I don’t know that she’ll ever have a good sense of humor about that.” Lizzie said through a laugh. “Don’t worry, Jo, she’ll come around. She always does.”
“Yeah?” I asked, less inclined to believe her than I usually would be.
“Sure. It only took her two-hundred years to be able to be in the same room with Demetrius and not be as rigid as a board.”
“Two hundred years?” I looked at them both in disbelief.
“Don’t worry, she should get over you faster.” Lizzie was already walking toward the door. “She’s a fast learner. It’ll probably only take her half the time this go-around.”
“A hundred years?” I looked to Demetrius and he just smiled at me.
“Let’s go.” He winked and he led me from the room. I caught a glance of Nate and Christi still working on their puzzle in the corner.
When we returned to his room, I finally had the chance to ask about the difference in their eyes. “You said you’d tell me later.” I prodded.
“That’s right, I did.” He said with a pensive smile as he slid into one of the tall wing-backed chairs.
I sat on the floor in front of him. waiting his answer. I rested both hands on his knee; still waiting. I placed my chin on my hands, staring up at him through my eyelashes.
“It’s nothing too extraordinary,” he assured me. I didn’t believe him. “About four hundred years after they are changed, the Lilitu’s eyes begin to change back.”
“Charlotte had lavender eyes?” I asked, I had never seen someone with lavender eyes.
“They don’t change back to what they were. I’m sorry, I misspoke. They begin to have color again. I don’t know what dictates that color, but Charlotte has the most color in her eyes because she is the oldest.”
“How old is she?” I asked. Wondering if it was as rude to pry into an undead spirit’s age as it was to ask about a living human woman’s.
“She just celebrated her five-hundred and thirty-second birthday, which means that she has been changed for approximately five hundred and two years.”
“Wow. She was born in the fourteen hundreds?”
He nodded. “Fourteen-seventy-seven, unless my math is wrong.”
“It’s not.” I had no idea why I knew so certainly that he was correct, I had never been any good at math in my human life. A curious notion came to my mind then. “And how old are you?”
“I was born in fifteen-eighty-seven.” He said it as though it wasn’t anything I should be surprised at.
“You’re four-hundred and twenty-two years old?” I knew my mouth was hanging open like a fool.
“Yeah.” He said quietly as he pushed my mouth closed with his forefinger. “It’s not so bad. Earl’s just over five hundred too.”
“That’s crazy.” I said still, slightly flabbergasted by the situation, my words held a giggle. “I guess that
it shouldn’t surprise me, being immortal means you don’t die, right.”
“Not quite,” he said with an odd smile. “Davidov was immortal, and he’s not around to try to destroy Polish cities anymore.”
“I guess that’s true.” I looked at him quizzically now, trying to decipher anything in his appearance that would give away his true age. There was nothing.
“What?” he asked, and I felt silly for staring.
“I just find it hard to believe you’re four hundred years older than me,” And that you could possibly want to spend any time with me. “That’s all.” I’m so boring, four-hundred years is a long time to be around, why spend any more time with a boring thing like me.
“I stopped aging at twenty-three,” he said with a small laugh. “I find its best to ignore your actual age for the most part.”
I smiled back, though I could tell mine was more timid than his. “You’ve had a lot of time on your hands then.”
“It’s amazing how much time you can waste just thinking.” He moved toward me, “Then again, it’s amazing how much time you can spend watching a mortal in London, and then again, time can take forever to pass as she’s lying in your bed in a near comatose state.”
“I’m sorry about that.” He was ridiculously close to me now, but I couldn’t step away from him. “I’ll try to keep my comatose moments to a minimum from now on.”
He leaned even closer, barely an inch from my ear, and whispered. “How about we cut them out completely?” He winked at me, and then picked me up and in the same motion we were outside.
I had not realized that the large window near his piano was actually French doors that led out to a balcony. A vast city spread out before us, the lights bounced about in the night sky as though the very air they passed through affected them.
“It’s beautiful.” I wondered how many times I had used those words today.
“I want to show you something,” he said, his voice disappearing in the gentle breeze that passed us.
“What do you want to show me?” I tore my gaze away from the view.
