by P. Mattern
Cass stopped for a moment, dug in his heels and urged his steed to a gallop, giving a challenging sideways look to Daniel. For several minutes the men raced on their horses across the field before reigning in in front of one of the overgrown hedges.
After he’d caught his breath and as he was smoothing his hand on the stallion’s neck to thank him for a great run, Cass continued.
“It’s not only that, man. Mitzi - and I know you won’t let this go any further - Mitzi told me that Channing is badly scarred from the attack. Those hybrids didn’t mess around. Even though her injuries are faded to white they will never disappear, they will mark her immortal body forever.”
Daniel felt his hands balling into fists around the reins that he was holding. He had seen the scars that Hybrids left in the wake of an attack before, at the gym. Many of the vamps worked out at Summit Fitness and in the gang showers, after a heated game of racquetball, he and his partner Orry had been showering with Cary and Avinash. He had seen the dreadful patterns of half-moon bites and fang marks on Cary’s back-patterns that extended from the back of his neck to his ankles. They were white scars, some flat and pearlescent, some raised and puckered like fossil imprints.
They weren’t pretty. But then, the aftermath of unspeakable evil never is.
“I don’t care if she’s scarred.” He said, looking Cass directly in the eyes. “Her scars are just a testimony to her bravery. Cass-“ he had to stop for a moment, afraid he was going to choke on a sob as emotion welled upward in him, seemingly from nowhere.
“Cass,” he continued finally, ”she is so exquisitely kind, unbelievably so. She has borne everything she’s been through with incredible grace. Even if I didn’t love her I would admire her and want to know her as a friend forever…
But I DO love her. And because I love her I want to make love to her. I just don’t want to freak her out or retraumatize her or anything. What would you do in my shoes? How would you proceed?”
Cass looked at his friend and saw the earnest pleading in Daniel’s eyes.
To Daniel’s surprise Cass broke into a wide grin.
“You have it BAD, my friend!” he teased, ”As bad as any male energy I’ve ever seen. You are LOVESTRUCK, scandalously so, because she’s so young. How old do you think she is?”
Daniel looked genuinely confused.
“Well I’ve never asked her. I thought I heard Fress mention that she was maybe 16? Or 17? I don’t remember.”
Cass leaned as closely into Daniels personal space as he was able to given that both the men were still on horseback.
“Try FIFTEEN man! And if you don’t think that will raise some eyebrows, even in the shadow world of the V-net, well… you’ve got another think coming!”
“We have to talk.” Daniel told Channing later that same afternoon. They were standing in the hallway outside of Channing’s room, both in their bare feet. Daniel had just taken a shower after horseback riding with Cass. He smelled pleasantly of eucalyptus and his straight hair was wet and slicked back from his brow. His grey eyes were serious, and standing so close to Daniel – smelling him, breathing air from the same space that they were standing in, and feeling the warmth of his touch as he reached for both her hands to hold them loosely in his, overwhelmed Channing’s senses in the most pleasant way imaginable.
Most of the Farm’s occupants were away or in their rooms. The sounds of Cass’s laughter as he and Mitzi had family time with the twins Cory and Ab in the kitchen wafted down the hallway, but the Great Hall was deserted.
Daniel led Channing to one of the overstuffed couches, still holding her hand.
“Chan I didn’t know how very young you are – were - whatever. It makes me feel weird, like I’m taking advantage of your being younger than me.”
Channing looked thoughtful.
“We are both immortals, right?” She asked rhetorically.
“Riiiiiiight.” Daniel answered slowly, drawing the word out and making Channing smile at his teasing tone.
“Well then it shouldn’t matter - at all - how old each of us was when we were turned and I won’t let it. And I don’t care what anyone says about there being this relatively MINUTE age difference. I have discussed my feeling for you with the wisest ladies I know - Mitzi and Fress, and they assure me that I AM entitled to my feelings for you…
They also assured me that if you trifled with me or broke my heart there is NO PLACE you could hide and retribution would be swift and merciless!”
Catching her playful and determined mood, Daniel found himself chuckling.
“No danger of that.” he assured her. “But why didn’t you tell me your age before?”
“Why WOULD I?” Channing countered. “You knew I was younger, Daniel. Don’t pretend you didn’t. And you wanted me anyway. The same way I wanted YOU.”
Hearing Channing say aloud the things that he’d been thinking privately to himself-and just recently confessed to Cass - startled Daniel. Even more so because he knew that, as she usually did, she was speaking the truth.
Channing shifted position so that she was halfway onto Daniels lap. Her eyelids were lowered, giving her beautiful countenance a sultry look.
“I am a fully formed female energy, Daniel Cook. I have a woman’s body and I am NOT a child. Not to mention the fact that, being immortals, we are essentially ageless.
YOU on the other hand have a male energy’s body. I have noticed this! I think it’s high time that we began exploring a physical relationship, because…
…what we do with our immortal bodies is nobody else’s business, and I, for one, am getting tired of waiting on YOU!!!!”
At midnight at the end of the same day, the Farmhouse was quiet. Outside the underground farmhouse the night air was filled with the sound of a cricket chorus and the calls of night birds. The earth seemed to exhale, sighing, and grant peace to creatures cuddled up against her slumbering. The occupants of the Farmhouse were asleep and dreaming.
All the occupants except for one.
The twin stealing quietly down the hallway with only the dim lighting from the electric wall sconces lighting his path was wearing striped pajamas and his hair was mussed from tossing and turning. He was as connected to his real father Adrastos now as he would ever be, and was counting the days until he might leave and live with him permanently at Faquier Hall.
It wouldn’t be very much longer-of that he had been assured.
Stopping in front of a familiar door he turned the knob as quietly as possible, and slipped inside the room. There was a small pink shaded mini-lamp left on as a nightlight, and before him a small rounded figure was breathing so deeply she was almost snoring.
It was Buttercup.
Standing at the side of her bed he reached out with a tentative hand and began to shake her gently.
“Buttercup!” he hissed, whispering, ”Wake up! It’s me!”
The deeply breathing figure startled and sputtered, then seemed to get her bearings. Her round blue eyes opened and stared at him wonderingly as she sat up.
“Young master!” she said softly, sounding surprised, ”Whatever is the matter? Are you hungry?”
“Yes.” He replied. “I need a feeding. Now please Buttercup.”
Buttercup scooted over on her bed to make room for the twin. It was something she had gotten used to doing when one or another of the twins couldn’t sleep when they’d been younger - but it had been two months since the last time one of them had awakened her for a night feeding.
She asked at him as she loosened the ties on her nightgown.
“You must not have gotten enough to eat at dinner. I noticed that you hardly touched your plate.“ She remarked as the twin, now taller than she was and starting to look like a preadolescent attacked her left breast with eager fangs. He drank her blood voraciously for a few minutes. She was about to offer him the other breast when he abruptly pulled back from her so that she could see his face.
“That was great.” He said, looking at her ev
enly. ”I didn’t finish my dinner tonight because I HATE human food Buttercup, did you know that? Mother is wrong for making us eat it. All I ever want is blood and she won’t let me have as much as I want because she’s trying to MAKE me eat more human food - but I loathe it you see.”
His gaze lowered from her face and he seemed to take a visual tour of her warm rounded body.
“Buttercup you don’t do – the other services that clones do, do you? Just milk and blood, right?”
Buttercup flushed a little, thinking the boy’s question was improper somehow, but reminding herself that he was barely more than a child and that children are curious.
“Just blood and milk,” she confirmed.
The twin stretched, stretching to his full length and looking at her through eyelids at half mask.
“That’s too bad.” He remarked. ”I was hoping to get my first screw off of you. ‘Daddy’ Castor explained sex to us you know.”
Buttercup sat up in the bed.
“I believe that’s enough blood to get you through the night.” She said hurriedly, readjusting her clothing and making a mental note to talk to Mitzi in the morning about the boy’s disturbing remark. ”Perhaps you’d better go back to bed.” She suggested, wishing the twin would leave. His very presence was making her feel increasingly uncomfortable.
But the twin was looking at her intensely and making no move to leave.
“Tell me Buttercup.” He continued in a pleasant and animated manner, as if he and Buttercup were continuing a delightful conversation, and pointedly ignoring her suggestion to leave. ”Have you known which of us twins was fathered by Adrastos from the beginning? And I’m even MORE curious to know why you didn’t tell anyone else…especially my mother.”
Buttercup began to shake. She could feel a faint coming on and could barely press her lips together to form words.
“Clones always know the family scents - and I didn’t tell your mother because it wouldn’t matter to her anyway. She has loved BOTH her sons from your conception. And when Mitzi loves, she loves unreservedly. That’s why.” She answered honestly, though her voice was trembling.
“Well I’m sorry then,” the boy said casually, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Because it is just your misfortune to have that ability. It makes you a loose end, Buttercup. Because, besides my father - my REAL father - you are the only one that can tell.”
The twin jumped out of the bed, but still stood looming over her. The look on his face had changed. His features were beautiful, but his face was expressionless and eerily still.
“I’m going to end your miserable life tonight, with my father Adrastos’ blessing.” he said with quiet finality. “You are a deserter and a traitor to the genius that created you. He told me how to do it too so that no one will be able to tell. Don’t worry -you won’t feel a thing of course, since you’ll have fainted away like a stupid Myotonic goat long before I end you!”
His expression had turned to gloating, and for a moment Buttercup saw in his visage the spitting image of his father Adrastos. Her last thought was that she had been wrong about children being born intrinsically good, with their gene pool taking a back seat to how they were raised.
Because the handsome boy standing in front of her had been raised in the most loving environment possible.
And he was pure evil.
Mitzi’s full bodied screams resounded throughout the underground manse of the Farmhouse in spite of the expensive soundproofing. It was a typical weekday morning and everyone had been gathered in the large kitchen area for a group breakfast. Every morning had been pleasant, and Mitzi and Cass’s home was filled to the rafters. Ian and Ruthie Lilly had quickly become part of their extended family. Mick and Brick usually joined the group, as well as Daniel Cook and Channing. The twins, looking tall and gangly and like preadolescents now were both sitting at the table eating breakfast cereal and French toast when the screams rang out. Cass was the first to bolt out the doorway.
Mitzi had gone to Buttercups room to see what was keeping the wetnurse. Buttercup was usually first up in the mornings to see to any blood feedings for the extended family. Recently she’d been supplementing Ian quite a bit because he was still recovering from severe dehydration.
Now Buttercup’s limp body was gathered up in Mitzi’s arms as Mitzi wailed and sobbed incoherently.
“Dr. Caligare!” Mitzi managed to vocalize between the wails that had given way to low moans, ”Call Dr. Caligare! She can’t be… she CAN’T be…” Mitzi raised streaming eyes to her husband Cass. “Oh Cass she isn’t…”
Cass immediately put his arms around his wife. His lips on the top of her forehead, trying to calm her.
“Sweet it seems that she’s gone… I can’t sense any energy around her at all. I’m so sorry my love. So sorry. ”he repeated as others of the group, speechless, hovered just outside the door of Buttercup’s room.
Daniel and Channing hurried the twins off before they actually saw the inert body of the wetnurse clone.
“What’s wrong, what’s happened?” The twins asked in unison, peering back over their shoulders down toward Buttercup’s room.
Channing waited until the four of them were back in the kitchen dining area.
“Cory and Ab, Buttercup has passed - she’s gone. I’m very sorry. I know that she was like a second mother to you.”
Ab looked shocked and Cory lowered his head and began quietly crying. Channing took a seat next to Cory and put her arm around his shoulder.
“What happened?” Absolam wanted to know, ”She was fine just yesterday!” He added in a plaintive and trembling voice.
Daniel sat down on the other side of Absolam.
“You know boys we were lucky to have Buttercup as long as we had her. The lifespan of a clone is not that long in human years, some live as little as five years after they are fully formed. She’s a part of your family, and was loved by all of us. She was a unique and pure soul who gave of herself to everyone, and gladly.”
“No school today.” Channing chimed in, stroking Cory’s hair as he wept; thinking how odd it was that both the twins had blonde hair now, with Cory’s just slightly darker than his brother’s. ”I’m sure everyone will take the day to think about Buttercup and what she has meant to us all. And of course the funeral arrangements have to be made.”
Mitzi appeared in the doorway with Cass. She had composed herself but her eyes were swollen from crying and her face red and tear streaked. She immediately went over and embraced each of the twins in turn, saying, ”Dr. Caligare is with Buttercup now. He has confirmed that she has passed and we will miss her terribly… …but you know she will always live in our hearts. She was not just a wetnurse clone… she was my true friend.”
Mitzi’s eyes glittered with tears as she finished her speech but she shed nary a one. The sense of loss she felt was immense and took her back to the darker emotions that she’d endured after the loss of her husband Sam so many years ago. It was an ancient grief, all-encompassing and familiar. It seemed as if a palpable mantle of sadness that had settled over the entirety of the Farm.
In the meantime, Buttercup’s bed had been made up with the finest linens that Mitzi had available, including a golden coverlet with edges fringed and trimmed with real semi-precious stones. Mitzi had one of her finest gowns altered to fit Buttercups more generous curves, and dressed the wetnurse’s body in it herself, so blinded by tears that she could scarcely tell what she was doing, and pausing intermittently to pull Buttercup’s body against her bosom. Mitzi took her time combing out the wetnurse’s flaxen hair, plaiting it in the two thick braids Buttercup had favored. As a final touch she placed a decorative comb in the shape of a small bejeweled crown above the wetnurse’s still brow. Mitzi wanted Buttercup to look beautiful, as beautiful as she actually HAD been… but Buttercup’s beauty had been the quiet kind, visible only to those who loved her.
After the period of the ‘wake’, allowing everyone a chance to sit with her and say what
was on their hearts, she would be laid to rest in the South meadow under the largest willow tree that overhung the stream that the boys had played in. Buttercup had loved being with the twins during the late spring and long summer afternoons there, sitting with a book, resolving their squabbles and laughing at their antics.
Now she would be part of all that she had loved… permanently.
Ian was still recovering from his near demise, and spent many long afternoons in the bed he and Ruthie Lily now shared. She was constantly at his side, fussing over him and cajoling him to take the concoctions that Dr. Caligare had prescribed to speed his recovery.
On the other hand, every time Ian’s energy level went up enough so that he felt like his old self, the only thing he wanted to do was make love to her. And she of the deep forest folk found that she could not resist. Each time they made love it was with the same fervor they’d felt during their escape, a frantic longing that could only be satisfied by a sexual release. Ian had never been with a half Fay woman before, and delighted in the unusual anatomical features Ruthie possessed.
Ruthie had two female openings between her beautifully shaped thighs, a throwback to the reproductive systems of the earliest Fairy beings, and a very unusual trait for a half-fay to possess, even in the modern age. The unique feature had evolved during a time long ago when females of the Fairy Race had succumbed to a human introduced plague. The Fay male recovery rate from the human borne disease was nearly 100%, but Fairy women rarely recovered.
For two centuries after that catastrophic event nature attempted to make up for the scarcity of females by granting them twice the ability to reproduce, thus assuring the continuation of the Phylum. The additional replication of their reproductive systems enabled Fay women to carry two or more “Failai” or embryotic Fairies at once, and over time replenished the endangered Fairy population worldwide.
