by Diana Graves
“Your uncle sent me to see how you were,” he said.
“Why couldn’t he come himself?” I asked.
“He’s watching over your brother.”
“Nil?” I asked. He nodded. “How is Nil?”
“He’s not adjusting well,” Damon said. “Thanks a great deal to Alistair’s madness.”
I just shook my head because I didn’t know what to say. Damon and Seth were loyal to the man for some reason, but how could they be after how he hurt Nicholas. He made him into Nil for his amusement!
“Your arm is hurt,” Damon said.
“Yes,” my tone was flat, uncaring. It had been a long night full of horrors, and I was tired of those sorts of nights. I was tired of being in pain and seeing death.
“You look tired,” he said.
“I have been up since three in the morning yesterday and I haven’t eaten in a while.”
“Go inside and get some food in you and some rest and in that order, now,” he said and he put his warm hand on my shoulder. The contrast between his darkness and the creamy color of my skin was dramatic.
“I guess you’ll see a lot of me next week since I’ve missed so many classes,” I smiled.
“I look forward to it,” he said and with a little shadow salute he walked away, a stalking silhouette and then he simply wasn’t there at all. I couldn’t decide if we needed better lighting on this street or if Damon was just that mysteriously bad ass.
#
The house was dark, and Mom was sitting in her usual spot on the sofa. Her hair was draped over her shoulder. Her whole body was stiff, hands clasped in her lap. The TV was off and she was staring at the floor in her tan silk bath robe. She smelled of lavender body wash and shampoo.
“Mom?” I asked. I was still standing in the door way. She didn’t respond. She sat very still but I could feel how upset she was. Finally I could feel my mom’s emotions, but I didn’t feel triumph for it. I felt like crap. I’d been selfish again. I ran out into the night to fight monsters without a thought for the worry I was causing the people that loved me. I took a step inside and closed the door behind me, ready for what punishment I earned.
“You’re moving in with your aunt next weekend,” Mom said once the door closed. Her voice was low, rough, as though she’d been crying. She didn’t look at me. Her eyes stayed on the Asian rug that took up most of the living room floor.
“Why?” I asked, my voice was just as low but not so rough. I felt guilty for everything, even the fact that my voice wasn’t rough from crying.
She didn’t move, didn’t face me. I could feel her desire not to look at me. Her worry, her pain and her guilt were alive and wrecking havoc on my heart. I sat on the floor at the opposite end of the long coffee table that was in front of the sofa. The boots made pleathery stretching sounds as I sat. Words played in my mind, “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.” I looked up at her face. Through her wet black-gold hair I saw her eyes shut tight, tears pinching out, rolling down her cheeks freely.
“What can’t you do?” I asked. My voice was as calm as I could manage it. I moved to hug her but she jumped to the other end of the sofa like I had tried to hit her.
“I,” she began. She looked at me now, fear written across her eyes, echoing in my mind. Her emotions were flowing into me like a fast flowing river. “I still love you.”
“Why am I going to live with Fauna?”
I suddenly felt weak and I folded in on myself, trying to catch my breath because the room was spinning and my nerves were shot. She left the sofa and walked to the far end of the room and leaned against the wall.
“I can’t bear to have you near me Raina,” she shut down, and put all her weight against the wall. Her voice was weak, distant. She looked at me from the wall, all her long hair draped around her like a heavy wet cloak.
I was still sitting on the floor. “You keep so much from me. You evade my questions about my father, my real father and now you’re abandoning me? This doesn’t make sense!” I closed my eyes and felt hot tears stream down my cheeks. “Dan turned his back on me the day I was born, and so did my real father apparently. But I never thought you would!”
Mom shook her head. “No, I’m not turning my back on you, Raina. I’m setting you free and I’m setting me free.” She shook her head, “You’re life’s going in a direction I don’t understand. I can’t stand being home all night waiting for someone to call me and tell me that my baby’s dead? I can’t live like this! Every night you leave the house to play with the monsters. It’s like you’re already a vampire! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“Mom?” I pleaded.
“Raina—no. You’re moving out this week and you aren’t coming back to work either.” She tossed an envelope on the couch. I hadn’t seen it a moment before. It was crumbled from being held too tightly in her fists. I looked down at the sad looking tan envelope. Black lettering read, “Last paycheck,” across it.
I was crying, my head in my hands. This was worse than being grounded. “You’re kicking me out of your life!” I screamed into my hands. “Mom!”
She moved to sit down but stopped herself. She dug her nails into the back of the sofa instead.
“I know that if you live here with me I will try to stop you from being who you are because it scares me.” She let go of the sofa.
“You mean, you’re scared of what I am,” I corrected her.
“A vampire?”
“Something nowhere near human.”
She said nothing for a moment. She walked to the entrance of the living room and turned around. “I am,” she said and then she was gone.
“Mom, don’t throw me away!” I cried for hours until sleep took me, but I found no rest.
32:
I was wearing a simple black dress and standing on a hill that over looked Tacoma and the surrounding towns. The view was clear and complete, like the world had been laid out for my viewing pleasure alone. I knew no hill such as this existed, but that’s dreams for you. Mount Rainer loomed over all, impossibly large, impossibly white and sapphire in the twilight. The sky was pale with pink and orange neon clouds streaked across it well into the darkening horizon. I stood on the soft golden grass and I couldn’t look away from the mountain.
Blackness, thick and choking, rolled down the mountain side. I stood in awe of the sheer magnitude of the blackness until the black gave way to billows of smoke that rose to the heavens. I dreaded this day. Every Washingtonian does. The volcano was well overdue for an eruption. I screamed into the night, out at the cities and small towns that lay like some great sacrifice before the mountain.
“Run!” I cried until my throat hurt. “The mountain, for heaven’s sake, look at the mountain!”
My heart broke for the cries I heard from the cities. Crimson death poured down into the valley, cutting through trees, buildings and people all with the same quick indifference. The sounds of panic were clear. The screams were loud enough to take my breath and I fell to the grass. My hands balled into the thin black fabric of my dress.
“You can’t save everyone,” said a gentle female voice. The accent was thickly British. It was so out of place, so pleasant that it insulted my misery. “You have to accept that.”
I looked up at her. She looked like a porcelain doll, white flesh, golden curls and lacey dress.
“My family’s down there! There are thousands of people down there! I have to save them!” I screamed.
“You don’t have the power,” said the woman. She bent down to me, cradled me against her cold body and I looked into her calm face.
“I have to,” I whispered, knowing she was right, knowing that it was impossible.
Boiling ash rained down upon us, burning my skin, my lungs.
“Accept it,” Adia said as I clung to her, choking on the ash. “Just let go.”
“I don’t know how.”
33:
I WOKE UP huddled on the sofa surrounded by pillows, with swollen eyes from cryi
ng myself to sleep. I felt weighed down and clammy. I sat there a while, just staring at the clock, watching the minutes go slowly by. I was zoned out, thinking about nothing and everything, and wishing I could feel nothing instead of everything. As if my own emotions weren’t enough, I had to feel others pain, fear, hatred and jealousy. It wasn’t fair. It was too damn much!
My leg vibrated. I was still in Mom’s boots and so was my cell phone along with a lot of other crap. I tossed pillows away to get to my faux-leather clad thigh. A small piece of paper fell out of the boot as I pulled the phone out. It was Greg’s number both on the phone and on the piece of paper that lay on the sofa cushion.
“Hello, Greg.”
“I didn’t tell you everything last night. I only trust you and Sheriff Mato, but he won’t be up for a while. Is there somewhere we can meet?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah, um—just one moment, I’m not entirely awake.” I still felt sick to my stomach from last night. My mom wanted me out, out of her house, out of her bakery and out of her life. For how long, did she still love me?
“Um, I know a place. It’s called Kamaria’s Café. It’s just up the road from the Bastion Fatal,” I said.
“I’ll look it up and be there within the hour,” he said.
“Okay, bye,” I hung up.
#
After a very quick shower and a change of clothes I was sitting in a booth at Kamaria’s Café in a green summer dress. I wore a thick comfy grey sweater that covered the bandages on my arm nicely. Greg was sitting beside me. He was wearing dark blue tight jeans, a Metallica tee and a black blazer.
I ordered myself a feast of a lunch: baked tofu, steamed veggies and artichoke pizza with a soy based alfredo sauce. I offered Greg some but he gave me a disgusted look and refused. Not everyone loves tofu or artichokes the way I do.
I scanned the nearly empty café. Kamaria was behind the counter fidgeting with whatever, and two other patrons sat at separate tables. An older man in jeans from head to toe was watching a football game on the television, and a younger man was on his laptop two tables away from us.
“Anax’s true name is Admetus,” Greg said.
“Admetus?”
“Yes, the ancient king of Pherae, in present day Thessaly, Greece.”
“This sounds familiar somehow,” I said, and it did. In college I took a class that separated myth from history. If, I’m not mistaken, the story of Admetus was taught as a myth.
“Yes, the tragic story of Admetus. He gained immortality by asking his wife to take his place in hell,” Greg took a great gulp of his coffee.
“I don’t remember that part of the story.”
“Most people don’t know the whole story, Raina,” he said.
“But, wait, I thought you said he’s dying.”
“He was an immortal once.” My eyes narrowed. “The god, Apollo, asked the fates to spare Admetus, and they did, but with one stipulation.”
“Someone had to take his place in Hades,” I said.
“Yes and his wife volunteered.”
“Alcestis.” He nodded. “So, why is he dying?”
“It doesn’t really matter right now. What matters is that the whole family has decided to stand up against him. I know he will retaliate, Raina. Anax will do something about it. I know he will. He’s an evil bastard,” he said that last part under his breath, as though he was afraid Anax could hear him.
“Why the sudden mutiny?”
“Anax bailed out my other three cousins. He had them killed, and he’s asked my father to bring me to him for the same fate. The family is outraged. He controls everyone, always has. But, collectively we’ve grown tired of being under his thumb. We’ve suffered too long.”
That was a lot to take in. “Why are you telling me this stuff?”
“I don’t have many people I can confide in. I don’t have anyone really. You don’t know what it’s like to have your whole life shrouded in secret.”
“Maybe a little,” I had a lot of secrets kept from me, and I kept a few as well. “Are you only telling me this stuff to get it off your chest?” I asked with one eye brow raised.
“For the most part. Look, Raina, I don’t know how he’s going to retaliate, but if something happens to us I want someone to know the truth.” He set a thick folder on the table. “My father showed this to me when I was eight. I had developed an attachment to Admetus and my father wanted me to know who I was admiring. Throughout the ages my family has been keeping a detailed history of Admetus. It’s quite incriminating. I want you to do with this what you think is best.”
“You’re entrusting me with a great deal, Greg. You should give it to someone—”
“Who? A close friend?” he interrupted me. “I was never allowed to get close to other kids. I don’t have any friends outside the family and the police won’t listen to me. They’re in Admetus’ pocket. The only law in Washington I trust is Sherriff Mato, but he’s asleep and I can’t wait for him to wake to give this to him. I have…plans for tonight. I know I can trust you because of what Admetus has done to you and yours.”
He slid the folder to me and I grabbed it. It was heavier than I thought it would be.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Whatever you think is right. I leave that up to you.”
Great…
34:
I JUMPED IN my seat when someone tapped on my driver’s side window.
“Shit, Tristan. You scared me!”
He was smiling down at me as I brought the window down with the push of a button and turned my music off. After Greg left Kamaria’s, I spent the rest of the day reading through the folder he gave me. I had only then just arrived home. For the first couple hundred years Admetus was a kindly man; giving and loyal. But, some people can’t live forever, not and keep their sanity. And, when he went mad, he went way mad. There was no limit to his cruelty. He raped, tortured, and murdered men, women and children indiscriminately. And, his family always took the brunt of his special brand of crazy. They were like his bottomless toy chest. When he got board of life, they got hurt.
“Oh, sorry,” he laughed. “Where have you been?”
“Kamaria’s…I just can’t be around Mom right now. What are you doing here?”
“Uncle Seth and I came to tell Mom how Nil is doing, but she doesn’t care.” Big surprise that. “So you’re hiding from Mom? Clever strategy. You have a degree in psychology, little sis. Why don’t you just use your psych-mumbo-jumbo on her and badda-bing badda-bomb, we’re all one big happy family again,” Tristan joked, trying to make light a heavy subject.
But, I didn’t want to talk about psychology. I felt like a failure in that. I earned the degree. I’m in debt something fierce, so where’s the job opportunities everyone said would be there?
“How's Nil doing?” I asked to change the subject.
Tristan leaned on the car, “Not that great. Seth thinks he might have the same illness that Master Alistair suffers from.”
“I wouldn’t say Alistair’s the one suffering. But, what exactly is it? Damon said it’s some kind of madness.”
Tristan bent down to my window. “Well, this is how Seth explained it to me. He said that vampires are bombarded with a large amount of sensory information from the moment they’re infected. That’s where they get their powers, like pyrokinesis and levitation. Most vampires naturally learn to control it, like a—reflex. But, the amount of sensory information steadily increases over time and eventually all vampires go crazy, like Alistair has. It’s rare for a younger vamp to suffer from it but not unheard of. Seth says that it can be brought on by a traumatic event.”
“You mean like tearing a live goat into iddy-biddy bits?” I asked sarcastically.
Tristan shrugged and stood up. “So, you’re moving out of Mom’s place this weekend?”
“Mom told you?” The thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
“She said you want to move in with Aunt Fauna until you find a job and place o
f your own, because you’re tired of her hovering over you.” He reached in and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it little sis. I’m sure you’ll find a job soon. You have a degree and that’s more than I had when I was your age.”
“Yeah, sure…I should really get going. I have class tonight.”
“Actually, your class has been cancelled.”
“Why?”
“I’ve been worried about Michael for the past couple days. His personality has changed dramatically since his turn, so I asked Damon to meet me at Darkness tonight.”
“How has Michael changed?”
“He’s happy but he’s—I don’t know how to describe it. He’s not himself.”
“Well, at least he’s happy.”
“Yes, but I want Damon’s professional opinion.”
“Did you tell Mom about class being cancelled?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to pretend you didn’t tell me either,” I smiled up at him.
He gave me a long look. “You better behave yourself, little sis.”
“Never,” I joked.
“Okay, I’ll see you later,” he laughed and began to walk away.
“Wait!” I shouted after him. “Can you give something to Mato? It will be dark by the time you get there so he should be up.”
“Yeah, sure.” I pulled the folder Greg gave me from my book bag and handed it to him through the window. Mato would know better what to do with it than me.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“They’re documents given to me by a man that was working with Mark Press.”
Tristan’s eye brows rose at that. “Why don’t you come with me and give it to him yourself. I know Michael would love to see you…and Mato.” I raised an eye brow at that last comment. Who has he been talking to?
“I think I just want to be alone tonight. Maybe I’ll do some moon bathing or something.” Taking a nude stroll in the woods on a warm night like tonight always lifted my spirits.
He shook his head and smiled. “Whatever. See you.”
