Submerging Inferno

by Brandon Witt

  One of the few areas where Grandpa had been willing to splurge was his office. All the walls were a deep mahogany wood, and large stones surrounded the door, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that ran along the walls, and the windows. It felt a little like stepping into a castle that had a large modern desk and huge squishy leather chairs in the middle.

  I joined Finn at the glass wall.

  He looked up at me, his eyes twinkling teasingly. “Do you think we’d wake up your grandma if we took a few seconds to have sex here? This is crazy beautiful.”

  He was right. The office was on the back of the house and looked over the cliff. On either side of the window were trees, but beyond that, you could see nothing but the jagged rocks that dropped off into the ocean, which stretched on endlessly, the moon shimmering on every rippling wave.

  I leaned down and kissed him, letting our lips meld together.

  Just as he pulled me tighter into him, I pulled back. “Finn, we gotta do what we came here for and get out. I’ll call Grandma later and ask if she minds if we have hot and heavy gay sex in front of the window of Grandpa’s office.”

  He snorted. “Ass.” He gave me another quick kiss and let go of my waist. “Fine. Get to it. Where do we start?”

  My gaze ran over the room. I’d never spent much time in the office. This had been Grandpa’s space, and Grandma and I rarely interrupted him when he was in here. “I guess with those.” I pointed to the middle of the room. “You wanna take the desk, and I’ll take the file cabinet?”

  “Sure.” Within a couple of steps, he was seated at the desk and pulling on the center drawer. After trying two others, it was clear they were locked. He motioned toward the file cabinet. I went over and pulled on the top drawer. It didn’t budge. Finn stood, and after a light touch of his hand on each drawer, I was able to open them and begin to sift through the papers. He returned to the desk and went through the same procedure.

  Within twenty minutes, Finn had already gone through the entire contents of the desk, finding nothing except a picture of a gorgeous dark-headed girl. “Yeah, that’s Jessica. She was my mom, or so they told me. I’m wondering if they just made her up so I wouldn’t ask questions about being adopted since they were so old.”

  After finishing with the desk, Finn joined me at the filing cabinet. Despite Grandpa being ridiculously organized and neat, he’d devised his own filing system, complete with codes and symbols. This didn’t surprise me in the slightest. In addition to being frugal to a fault, he had always been convinced that other people were going to try to get access to his finances and business dealings. As I couldn’t tell what any file was about from his tiny slanted scrawl across the top, each one had to be inspected to determine if it could be helpful. Each of the eight drawers was packed so tightly that it was difficult to even pull an individual file from the group. I didn’t want to make a mess or make it obvious that things had been moved if Grandma came in to go through the files one day.

  It was a mind-numbing process, and after an hour, we had only finished with the second drawer, finding nothing other than paper after paper dealing with receipts, tax returns, and business contracts.

  A gasp from behind us caused me to jump, dropping the file in my hands onto the floor, papers scattering everywhere. “Brett, is that you?”

  I turned around to see a small, fragile frame in the doorway, a gun trembling dangerously from shaking outstretched hands. The moonlight cascading in lit up Grandma’s face. Her eyes narrowed and darted back and forth, attempting to see our faces, which I realized were silhouetted with the light from behind us.

  She took another quavering step toward us. “Brett?”

  “Yes.” My voice cracked. “Yes, Grandma, it’s me, Brett.”

  “Oh thank God.” Her face glistened as tears began to trace down her cheeks. “Brett,” she breathed out reverently.

  The shaking of the gun increased, the muzzle vibrating awkwardly.

  “Grandma? Do you wanna put the gun down?”

  She looked at the gun in a shocked manner, as if unsure of how it had gotten there. “Oh Lord Jesus.” She quickly dropped her hands and lowered the gun to the floor as if it were a serpent getting ready to strike.

  As soon as she was erect, she took several steps toward me, her arms wide, and wrapped me in her embrace, her head nuzzled below my chest. She began to sob so hard that I thought her body was going to shatter if she didn’t stop shaking.

  “Grandma, it’s okay. You’re safe. I’m sorry we scared you.” I caressed her small head, her gray hair soft and thick.

  She cried harder. “Oh, Brett. I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you so much. You shouldn’t have gone.” She let out another sob. “He was wrong. I hate to speak negatively about his memory, but he was wrong. I was wrong.”

  I felt my tears begin to burn behind my eyes. I pulled her closer and held her as she cried. “It’s okay, Grandma. It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m here now.”

  After several minutes, her trembling began to subside, and her breathing started to return to normal.

  “Here”—I led her across the room to the huge sofa—“why don’t we sit.”

  She sat down, never letting go of my hand. “Oh, Brett. I’m so glad to see you. I’ve almost called you a hundred times. I’ve even seen your house. It’s so cute.” I felt myself cringe at the mention of the house. She gasped again and looked at me, her eyes huge. “Oh, and your Grandpa. Oh, Brett, he’s….” Her voice fell away as more tears overtook her.

  “I know, Grandma. I know.” My hand covered hers. “I was there.”

  “Really?” She smiled. “I knew you would be. Somehow, I knew you would be. I’m glad you were there. That means so much.”

  Finn tried to take a step quietly but accidentally scrunched some paper beneath his foot, causing both of us to look up in surprise.

  I had momentarily forgotten about him, about why we had broken in, about the possibility that there was a vampire waiting for us outside or tormenting his family back at the house.

  Grandma looked from Finn back to me. “Is this your… your friend?”

  I paused, unsure of how to answer. “Uhm, yeah, he is.” I looked up at Finn, and he gave me an encouraging smile. “Grandma, this is Finn de Morisco, my boyfriend.” I hadn’t spoken the word aloud, and it felt weirdly good, though I hadn’t pictured ever saying such a thing to my grandmother.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. With a firm nod, she stood up, offered a hand to Finn, and smiled warmly. “Nice to meet you.”

  Finn took her hand, offering a smile of his own. “Nice you meet you as well, Mrs. Wright. I’m so sorry about your recent loss.”

  Her smile faltered for a second. “Thank you, dear. And, please, call me Beverly.” She gestured to the armchair next to the sofa. “Have a seat, please.” She sat back down and looked at me. “I’m sure you’re not here for the fun of it. Why don’t you just tell me what you need, Brett? You know I’ll help you anyway I can.” She made a pained face. “Are you needing money, dear?”

  I shook my head emphatically. “No. No, of course not. I would never steal from you.”

  “I know. But, what do you need?” She reached out and took my hand. This was the grandmother I knew. The grandmother I loved. The woman who was strong enough to face anything. The woman who would rather know the truth, no matter how hard it would be to hear.

  I glanced over at Finn, giving him a questioning look. Now that she was in front of me, all the questions I had wanted to ask her seemed impossible to put into words.

  “Go ahead, Brett.” Finn nodded encouragingly. “I think she can take it.”

  “Take what?” Grandma looked at me, her eyes once again large with fear. “What’s wrong, Brett? Just tell me, please. I don’t think I can handle not knowing. Whatever it is can’t be worse than this.”

  “I’m not so sure of that.” I closed my eyes, unbelieving that I was actually getting ready to tell her. I didn’t think there would be anything hard
er than having to tell her I was gay. I’d been wrong.

  “I’m a demon, Grandma.” I blurted out the words, and I couldn’t take them back. I cracked my eyes open, looking at her cautiously.

  After another deep breath, she met my eyes. “I know, dear.”

  There was nothing she could have said that would have shocked me more. She could have told me that my grandfather had spent the last two years as a drag queen and I wouldn’t have felt more surprised. “You what?”

  She nodded. “Yes, Brett. I know.” She waved a hand. “Well, I didn’t know demon, necessarily, but I knew it was something, and demon had crossed my mind.”

  “You mean they told you I was something else besides human when you adopted me?”

  It was her turn to be confused. “What?”

  “Well, from whoever it was you adopted me. What did they tell you I was?”

  “Why in the world would you think you were adopted?”

  I cocked my head at her quizzically. “I’m not?”

  “Well, of course not, sweetie. You’re my grandson, through and through.”

  I looked over at Finn, who shrugged, and turned back to Grandma. “If I’m not adopted, then how do you not know what I am?”

  She glanced down at the floor, tears once more filling her eyes. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Brett. I don’t think it’s best if you know.”

  Finn spoke up, his voice gentle but urgent. “Beverly, I know this is probably a lot to take in, but I think you appreciate directness.” She gave him a nod, and he continued. “This is going to be hard to believe, but here’s the bottom line: there is a vampire after Brett, and by extension, my family. We don’t know why, but he thinks there is something about Brett that makes him special, something he wants. For us to figure out a way to keep Brett safe, we need to know where Brett comes from.”

  Grandma looked at me, back to Finn, and then back to me once more. “Vampire?”

  I nodded. “It’s the truth, Grandma. It’s been a really crazy week or so.”

  “I had no idea.” She touched my face with her fingertips. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. Thanks to Finn and his family, but I won’t be if we can’t figure out what is going on, why he wants me so badly.”

  I could see her battle internally. I had a good idea what was going on behind her eyes. I was sure that whatever she wanted to say, Grandpa had forbidden her from ever speaking it out loud.

  Her eyes hardened and she looked up, taking Finn and me in at the same time. “Your grandfather wasn’t always like he was, you know. He used to be such a sweet, gentle man. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for me. Everything I ever wanted, he got for me.” This didn’t sound anything like the man I knew. “That all changed after I became pregnant with Jessica.”

  “He didn’t want kids?” I guess that would explain why he seemed so resentful of my existence.

  “Oh no. He did, but he knew that Jessica wasn’t his. We’d tried for so long. We’d given up the hope of ever having children. The doctors said it had something to do with his testosterone levels.” She let her words sink in as I gaped at her wide-eyed. “He’d gone with the church for a three-month business trip to Japan. When he left, I wasn’t pregnant. When he got back, I was.”

  She was right; I didn’t want to hear this. “You had an affair?”

  She slapped my hand. “Lord, no, child. You should know better! I loved your grandfather with all my heart. That never changed, even after he did.” She took a final deep breath and then plunged ahead with her story. It came rushing out as if once the flood gates opened, there was no slowing it down.

  “It was here, at the house.” She motioned out the window. “Down there, beneath the cliff, actually. Marvin and I always walked down by the ocean right after sunset, every single night. I continued to walk even after he left on the business trip. It made me feel closer to him.

  “Marvin had been gone almost two weeks. I was down by the ocean, just sitting there, enjoying the sea and stars, imagining Marvin out there looking up at the same stars. Silly, I know.” Up until this point, she had been keeping constant eye contact between Finn and me, but now she looked down at the carpet, her voice growing quieter.

  “I felt a sudden burst of heat behind me, and everything lit up for a moment. I turned around, expecting to see a fire or something. I don’t know what I thought, maybe a falling star that I hadn’t noticed, or something equally as stupid. There was a man there. He was huge, larger than you, Brett. He was naked, and he was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. He had long black hair and skin as white as moonlight. For a moment, all I could do was stare at him. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my life, not before or since.” Even in the dark, I could see her cheeks flush.

  “He took a step toward me, and that’s what snapped me out of it. I turned and ran. I don’t know if I was screaming or not, but I just knew I had to get away.” She shuddered. “I doubt I made it even ten feet before he had me. He whirled me around and shoved me to the ground. I couldn’t do anything. He was so very strong. He clamped his hand over my mouth, and then he… his skin felt like fire….” She broke off, tears flowing once more. “After… he left. Just disappeared.”

  “Oh, Grandma.” I couldn’t believe this was the same woman in front of me. How could such an atrocity have happened to her? Who could have been willing to hurt her so badly? “I’m so sorry. If I’d had known, I would have—”

  She cut me off. “I’m not even close to being done, and if I don’t get it out, I never will.” She looked back up at me, her tears already gone. “By the time Marvin returned, I was showing. The baby grew fast. I was a mess. I had a fever the entire time. I couldn’t stop throwing up, not ever. I didn’t even leave the house.

  “I’ll never forget Marvin’s face as he saw me, the pain. I’ll never forgive myself for that pain. I told him. I told him that it had to have been something not human. I even said demon, I think. Of course, I said lots of things. Lots of ignorant guesses. I had no idea what he had been.

  “Your grandfather never believed me, I don’t think. Of course he didn’t believe the demon part, but I also don’t think he ever believed me about the rape part either. Of course, Marvin being Marvin, didn’t want to hurt me or shame me. He told the world that the daughter was his. That Jessica was his. He never questioned me about that night again, never accused me again, but he was never the same, never able to really look at me again.” Her voice got even quieter. “Never able to make love to me again.”

  I reached out to her, but she looked up, her eyes fierce. “I’m not done yet. Wait!” She looked over at Finn this time. “Jessica. I tell you, you’ve never seen a prettier baby, a prettier child. By the time she was eleven, she looked like a grown woman, and there was never a more gorgeous woman to walk this earth, I promise you. Nor was there one more mean or evil. From the time she was little, she was setting things on fire. Why, when she was seven, I bought her a little cocker spaniel puppy, hoping that she could learn to love something beside herself. Learn to care for something. She hadn’t had that dog for more than two weeks when it was burned to death. Poor creature.

  “We tried everything. Even therapy, which Marvin was so against. We tried boarding school after boarding school. She kept getting expelled. Nothing worked. Every year she got worse, every year more cruel. I’ll never repeat the things she said to Marvin and me. Never.

  “In a last effort to bring the family together, I convinced Marvin to take us all to Mexico. I thought maybe a family vacation; we’d never taken one before. I thought maybe time away, someplace beautiful, someplace new…. I don’t know what I thought. I was desperate. I was such a fool.

  “Our first night there, our very first night, I got up and saw that Jessica was gone. She wasn’t in her bed, not in our room. I didn’t wake Marvin. I just left, determined to get her back before he woke up. Even though she looked full-grown, she was only thirteen. She couldn’t be by herself.”
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br />   She shook her head, a look of disgust on her face. “I found her at the beach, in the ocean. Having sex with some man. Well, at first I thought she was with another woman. The person on top of her had such long white hair. I yelled at them. The man looked up. I honestly don’t think he was human either. Maybe it was the moonlight, but his skin looked like pearls. It was shiny and sparkled. As soon as he saw me, he somehow flung himself backward into the ocean. He just disappeared into the ocean, I tell you. I stayed there for a while with Jessica, and he never surfaced again. I don’t know if he drowned or what, but he didn’t come back. It was like he swam away.

  “Jessica was so angry at me. I’d never seen her like that. She hit me and I fell. She stood over me. She had fire coming from her hands. I swear she did. I thought she was going to kill me. She screamed and cursed at me, but the fire went out, and she ran off.

  “She showed up a few hours later, before Marvin woke up. I didn’t tell him, at least not then. Of course, Jessica ended up pregnant, and I had to tell him anyway. It was the final straw for Marvin. He didn’t say anything, nothing at all. He just looked at his lying wife, making up stories about a man from the sea, just like she had made up about a man of fire on the beach thirteen years before.

  “Jessica’s pregnancy was nearly as rough as mine had been, and much longer. It was thirteen or fourteen months until she finally gave birth, to you, obviously, Brett. That night, after she gave birth, she left, just ran away. I’ve never heard anything from her since.”

  Chapter 32

  I COULDN’T help but laugh as we walked back into the de Moriscos’ house. I jumped in surprise when we walked through the door and Wendell, Christina, and Caitlin were sitting at the table, staring at me, their eyes huge with anticipation. The rest were asleep in various locations around the room.

  “Good grief, you guys.” Finn rolled his eyes as he shut the door behind him. “It’s past one in the morning. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  Caitlin gave him an eye roll of her own. “Gee, Finn, I wonder.”