by S. J. West
“Strengthened you?” I asked. “How exactly?”
Lucifer turned to look at me and smiled. “Anger is a force all unto itself. If you have the right instrument to absorb it, you can gain unimaginable power.”
He didn’t say any more than that, and I still don’t know what he meant exactly.
“Justin tells me that you’ve been abstaining from drinking blood,” Lucifer said in disappointment. “Why is that, Aiden?”
“I don’t see why that should concern you,” I replied, not wanting to tell him anything about Kate.
“It concerns me because you’re denying what you are.” Lucifer grabbed my arm closest to him and phased us into one of the large tents used as a makeshift hospital for the wounded.
The smell of fresh blood assailed my senses, which is exactly what I think Lucifer wanted. I tried to phase away, but he wouldn’t allow it and kept me close to his side.
“Stop rejecting who you are…what you are,” Lucifer hissed at me. “Don’t you smell their blood? Don’t you miss the sweet metallic saltiness of it against your tongue and sliding down your throat? Don’t you want to feel the flow of their life as it leaves their body and fills your gullet? Why are you denying yourself the experience of that ecstasy, Aiden?”
Lucifer phased me outside again and left me in the middle of the woods. A second later, he returned with an unconscious soldier who was covered in blood from head to toe and flung the stranger’s limp body at me. I instinctively caught the man but immediately laid him on the ground to get him away from me.
“Take what is rightfully yours,” Lucifer commanded harshly, pointing to the soldier. “Or are you as delusional as some of your other Watcher friends? Do you really believe our father will find enough compassion in his soul to forgive you for the atrocities you’ve committed here? I never took you as being someone that naïve, Aiden.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, finding it hard not to pounce on the gift Lucifer had just given me. My whole body trembled from want, from need.
It had been months since I drank blood, and I felt my resolve begin to crumble like a sandcastle being overwhelmed by an incoming tide.
“I’m doing this because you need to realize you can never change!” Lucifer stormed. “We are who we are, Aiden. Even if you refuse to drink today, I know you will succumb to the urge eventually. You can’t help yourself. Why live in agony when the cure to your pain is right in front of you? Stop trying to deny who you are and just accept it!”
Lucifer phased, and I stood there staring down at the half-dead soldier. I knew from experience that if I didn’t drink his blood now it wouldn’t taste as good after he was dead. I knelt down by the body and noticed the man wasn’t exactly a man. He was a boy of maybe fifteen years of age. His life had barely started and now it was swiftly coming to an end. Even if I didn’t drink his blood, he would die from the injuries he sustained in the battle. Wouldn’t it be more of a mercy to end his life quickly than allow him to die a slow and excruciating death?
“Please,” the boy said in a hoarse whisper, “help me...”
I looked up at his face and saw the desperation in his eyes. He saw me as his savior, yet, I was anything but. I couldn’t speak or move. I feared if I did, I would give into my bloodlust and never find myself again. It was what Lucifer wanted. His hold over me was one of my own making. Either I could allow him to continue to control me, or I could find a way to break free from the bonds that shackled me to a life I didn’t want anymore.
With trembling hands, I reached out and touched the boy’s arm, phasing us back to the hospital Lucifer had just made me visit.
“This boy needs help,” I said to a nurse before phasing away, leaving him in safer hands.
I phased directly to Kate’s bedroom in her house in Richmond. My body was shaking so violently by that point I curled up on the floor in a hopeless attempt to find some comfort. I’m not sure how long I laid there, but eventually I felt a gentle hand rest on my shoulder.
“Aiden,” I heard Kate say, her voice full of concern, “what’s wrong? What happened?”
I opened my eyes and saw her knelt down in front of me. When I looked at her, all I could see was red. My mind conjured up a vision of her drenched in blood, beckoning me to feast on what her body had to offer. The illusion made me lose what self-control I had left.
Before she could react, I grabbed her by the shoulders and pressed her body down onto the floor beneath me.
“Aiden!” She screamed just as I sank my teeth into the side of her neck, tasting the sweet nectar of her blood and losing my soul all over again.
“No,” she said weakly, as her life began to leave her body. “Aiden, no. I love you.”
Those three little words acted like a knife in the heart of the monster I had become. They brought me back to my senses long enough to realize what I was doing.
Love can come in many forms. The romantic love you and I share, Caylin, is beyond measure. And the love of friendship Kate and I shared was what saved me from myself that day. I immediately backed away from her and stared in horror at the large bite mark I had left on her throat. I tore off the sleeve of the coat I was wearing and wrapped it around her neck in a hopeless attempt to stop the flow of blood still gushing out of the wound.
There was only one thing I could think to do.
I lifted Kate up in my arms and phased us to the only person I trusted to help her.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Through the years, I would occasionally check to see where Desmond was living and what he was doing. Since that night at Justin’s, he had done exactly what I asked and stayed away from me. There were times within the last few years that I had wanted to speak with him again, but I wasn’t sure how he would receive me. Now, I needed his help to make right one of my worst wrongs.
During that period, Desmond was a doctor in Cardiff. I had used the connections the Pinkertons had to help me find his exact location. I phased us to his small office and kicked in the door. I found Desmond sitting at his desk writing in a journal. When he saw me, his eyes widened in surprise.
“I need your help,” I told him, rushing inside, and placing Kate down on the examination table in the room.
Desmond didn’t miss a beat. He stood from his desk and strode over to us.
“What happened?” He asked, quickly running his gaze down the length of her body, but only seeing the bloody material at her throat as a point of injury.
I couldn’t seem to verbalize what I had done to Kate, only stare at her in abject horror.
“Go sit down, Aiden,” Desmond told me, seeing that I was still in shock over what I had done. “I’ll tend to her.”
“Will she live?” I asked desperately.
“Just go sit down,” Desmond said patiently, not daring to make me any promises.
I sat down in the chair at Desmond’s desk and watched him as he tended to Kate’s injury. An hour later, he finally seemed satisfied and draped a blanket over her body to keep her warm.
“She should be fine,” Desmond told me as he walked over to where I was still sitting. “She lost a lot of blood, but her body will slowly replace it. She just needs some time to rest and recover. Who is she to you? Someone important?”
“She’s my friend,” I muttered, unable to take my eyes off Kate’s still form. “And I almost killed her.”
“But you didn’t,” Desmond reminded me gently. “You stopped before you took too much of her blood.”
I forced my eyes away from Kate’s still form and looked up at Desmond.
“You say that like it’s something I should be proud of,” I said.
“How many times have you been able to stop yourself from drinking blood once you started?”
I swallowed hard and replied, “Only this once.”
“Then I would say that’s an improvement,” Desmond declared. “You said she was your friend. Are you romantically involved?”
I shook my head. “No. We’re only friend
s. At least we were before I did this to her. She’ll never trust me again, and I’ll never trust myself to be alone with her.”
“Do you mind me asking what happened?” Desmond asked quietly, not wanting to press me too hard for answers.
The story spilled out of my mouth completely unfiltered. It had been hundreds of years since Desmond and I talked, but it was almost as if we had never been separated at all. While Kate recuperated, Desmond and I caught up with one another. He told me that he still met Mason every year in the desert, but as the years passed by, fewer and fewer Watchers showed up.
“Last year, only Daniel, Isaiah, and I went to meet him.” Desmond sighed heavily. “Mason still shoulders the blame for our fall. I think he’s going to need some sort of mission from God before he’ll find a way to forgive himself.”
“What happened to us wasn’t his fault.”
“You, me and every other Watcher understands that fact except for him. No, the only way he’ll be able to push past the guilt is if he does something that makes him feel as though he’s paid his dues. It’s just the type of man he is.”
“Aiden…”
I quickly stood from my chair and went to Kate. I felt on the verge of tears when I saw her smile at me. I shook my head at her.
“You shouldn’t be smiling like that at me,” I told her. “You should be cussing me out instead.”
“And lose the biggest ‘I owe you’ in the history of favors? Have you lost your mind?”
“There’s no way I can repay you for what I did.”
“So you bit me and drank some of my blood,” she joked. “You didn’t kill me. You need to remember that.”
“I could have, Kate. I could have done it so easily.”
“But you didn’t. You’re stronger than you think you are, Aiden. You just proved that.”
“She’s right,” Desmond said. “You have more self-control than you give yourself credit for.”
Kate looked at Desmond and smiled brightly at him. “And who is this handsome Irish devil?”
I introduced them and saw that Desmond seemed to affect Kate more than I did. I found it strange at the time, but I didn’t question it. Our relationship was never based on sexual attraction, only mutual camaraderie. I needed that more than I need a partner in bed. Those were easy enough to come by for me. A friend was not.
The next day I took Kate back home, and she made a speedy recovery with the added benefit of Desmond’s daily ministrations.
Kate may have forgiven me for what I did to her, but I never forgave myself and made sure to keep a distance between us. I also resumed giving into my bloodlust so that I would never lose control of myself like that again. I didn’t tell her that part because I feared I would lose her friendship forever. But, Kate wasn’t stupid. I think she knew what I was doing. She just refrained from asking me too many questions.
After the Civil War was over, both Kate and I stayed in the employment of the Pinkerton Agency. On New Year’s Eve of 1867, Allan Pinkerton hosted a party for everyone who worked for him.
As the clock approached midnight, Kate turned to me and said excitedly, “We should both make New Year resolutions, Aiden.”
“And what do you suggest mine should be?” I asked, already knowing what her answer would be.
“Do I have to say it?” She replied with a delicate eyebrow arched.
I smiled at her and said, “No, you don’t. I will do my best, Ms. Warne, but I make no promises.”
“What do you think mine should be?” She asked me.
“I think you should resolve to remain just as you are. There’s nothing you need to change.”
Kate giggled but then started to cough uncontrollably just as the clock struck midnight. I quickly fetched her a glass of water, and she drank it gratefully.
“Are you all right?” I asked, noticing that her brow was now covered with a fine sheen of sweat.
“I think I might need to go home,” she told me, trying to hide another cough behind her hand.
“Then let me take you.”
Kate was sick for a full day before she allowed me to bring Desmond to diagnose her condition.
When he did, the news wasn’t good. Kate had pneumonia and back in those days, it was a sure death sentence.
I think people who are on the brink of death know when it’s their time to pass on. The day before Kate died, she asked me to sit with her at her bedside. She took one of my hands into her own and gave me some advice.
“I think we both knew this day would come,” Kate told me. “It’s happening sooner than I had imagined it would, but I’m not immortal like you. I’m only human.”
I squeezed her hand. “You’re one of the best humans it’s been my pleasure to know.”
“Aiden,” she said, gently tugging on my hand to make me look up and into her pleading eyes, “you have so much potential. You’re a better man than you give yourself credit for being. After I’m gone, you may want to drown your sorrows and give into your bloodlust, but, I want you to make me one last promise.”
I immediately shook my head because I knew what she would want me to promise.
“I can’t promise you I won’t kill anyone else,” I told her truthfully. I refused to lie to Kate on her deathbed, even if it would have made her feel better.
“It would be nice if you could, but that isn’t what I was going to say.”
“Then what? What do you want from me?”
Kate sighed wearily. Her body was so tired from being sick for almost a month. She had very little energy left by this point.
“I want you to promise me that one day you will find a way to forgive yourself for the things you’ve done. We haven’t talked much about God, but I know He still loves you. He loves all of us, even when we make the worst mistakes of our lives. Continue to talk to Him, Aiden. I know He’s listening.”
“Then why has He never answered me?” I asked almost angrily.
“Maybe He has and you just haven’t realized it. Sometimes God doesn’t always talk to us by using words. I understand that’s what you were used to when you were in Heaven, but, and this is just from a lowly human’s perspective, I believe He talks to us in other ways too, like sending certain people into our lives when we need them the most,” she said with a sad smile as she looked at me meaningfully. “Your friendship has been an unexpected blessing to me, Aiden. And I will always be grateful to the Lord for bringing you into my life when I most needed a friend and a confidante. You have so much to offer people, yet you refuse to acknowledge that fact. You see yourself as monster when you’re not.”
“But I am,” I argued. “You know the things I’ve done.” I reached out with my free hand and touched the scar on the side of her neck where I bit her, a permanent reminder of the fiend inside me.
“And you’ve told me about the things you’re sorry for. You need to start believing in yourself. I do and I always will. Maybe I can be your guardian angel when I’m gone and help you find your way to who you are truly meant to be.”
“If such things existed,” I said, “you would make the perfect one.”
Kate died in my arms on January 28th. She was one of the strongest and bravest women I have ever known, and her passing was a loss I would feel for many years to come.
I continued to work for the Pinkerton Agency after Kate’s death because it was what I wanted to do. Justin hadn’t asked me to move on yet, and I saw no reason to leave a job I enjoyed.
In 1888, Allan Pinkerton asked me to travel to London. He had a friend there by the name of John Shore who asked Allan for some help. Jack the Ripper was terrorizing the Whitechapel district of London during that time. Shore was a Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard but not the one directly assigned to the Ripper case. Another Chief Inspector by the name of Frederick Abberline was in charge but having trouble finding the murderer. During that time in London’s East End, women were commonly attacked. When I was sent, the murders of four women had been accredited to the same killer. I
n the end, there would be five female murders in the Whitechapel district that year which would be attributed to Jack the Ripper.
I have the dubious distinction of being one of the witnesses to the last murder of that sadistic bastard. Unfortunately, he turned out to be someone I knew, and that fact would be enough help me make a decision about the course of my life.
As soon as I reached London in early November of 1888, I read everything that Scotland Yard had accumulated about the four previous murders. The fourth murder took place on September 30, and it was thought by many that the Ripper would strike again soon. The police doubled their patrols of the streets, investigating all suspicious activity in the area. Nevertheless, I noticed many of them were lax late at night and during the early morning hours, not being as observant as they should have been. Though, I guess I had a unique advantage.
I doubt anyone would have paid much attention to a poorly dressed man entering the alleyway between 26 and 27 Dorset Street. It wouldn’t be an uncommon sight, even at close to three o’clock in the morning. I probably wouldn’t have paid him much mind either if I hadn’t instantly recognized his face.
It had been a few years since I last saw Jered, but since we don’t age, he looked just the same. I followed him down the alley and saw him stop at the corner of one of the buildings in Miller’s Court. He stood facing one of the doors as if he were listening to something happening in the room beyond.
“Please tell me you’re not here to kill someone,” I whispered as I walked up to Jered, not wanting to draw any unnecessary attention to our conversation. “I didn’t take you for the Jack the Ripper type, Jered.”
Jered turned his head to look at me in the dark.
“No, I’m not him, but Justin sent me to bring the Ripper to him for a good talking to.”
“Then he’s one of us?” I asked, feeling sick to my stomach at the thought.
I wasn’t sure why the idea bothered me so much, but now that I think about it, Kate’s influence on my life probably played a major role in my change.
“Who is it?” I asked, hearing the quiet mewling of a Watcher child in werewolf form inside the room.
