by Al K. Line
"Oh, er, I mean I don't usually drink tea, not unless it's a really special occasion. Yummy, smells delicious."
"Good girl," said Grandma, pouring the tea into Amber's cup. The best china was out and she even had a saucer. And, of course, everything was already set up for us.
Amber sipped politely and made appropriately happy sounds to which Grandma nodded knowingly—how could anyone not love her tea?
There were also sandwiches. Proper ones, with roughly cut bread, thin at one end, fat at the other.
"Take a sandwich," said Grandma.
"I'm not..." Amber took her cue from Mithnite nodding his head with great vigor. She took one and said, "Yum." Grandma smiled.
"Now, what have you all been up to?" Grandma knows most of what goes on, but the witch grapevine is not without its issues. Mostly in terms of downright exaggeration if not what they like to call, "A gentle manipulation of the truth for reasons of storytelling," and what everyone else calls, "Making stuff up as you have no clue but want to sound all clever."
"You heard about what went down with Dragon, or some of it, at least?" I asked.
"Of course. Nasty business. I told you to be careful of dragons."
"Yeah, but you didn't mention... Um, okay, so you know some of it. I'll fill you in on the rest another time. We got bitten and had to find someone who could help. And that's how Amber came into the equation. She'd gone to see Dancer, told him who she was, and he kept it a secret, until I was feeling myself again."
"Sensible lad," said Grandma.
"Lad? Okay, so, we went to meet Amber. Kate, Mithnite, and Persimmon came to help, even though they shouldn't have, and after a little bother with some vampires we got cured and here we are."
"I'm glad you're not a zombie, Faz, you don't suit green." Grandma got up to stir her potions and to be honest I felt a little lost. It's always hard to know what to tell Grandma as she knows I like to be independent and not worry her, but she also gets the wrong idea about events unless I go through the whole thing in painstaking detail. It would have to wait.
A thought came to me all of a sudden and although I was loath to ask I did, anyway. "Did you know about Amber?"
"Eh, what? Can't hear you." Grandma stirred pots so fast they splashed over the stove which steamed and hissed in ways you knew weren't hygienic. Then she turned up the ailing extractor, the clanging drowning out almost everything else.
I got up and carefully lowered the dial, trying not to breathe near the pots and wishing to hell she'd open the windows and doors.
"I said, did you know about Amber?"
"Only since she came to see Dancer," mumbled Grandma.
"How did you know?"
"I have my ways."
"Aha, so that's it. That's how you always know what's happening. You spy on the Heads, don't you? You have a way of getting in where nobody else can and listening in on what goes on. You never told me." It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact. I don't think I was even angry. Maybe it had been for the best.
"I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do. And no offense, Amber, but it could have been a lie."
"Don't be stupid, why would she lie?"
"Because that's what her kind do," said Grandma matter-of-factly. "They can't help it, not really."
I looked into the wise eyes of this little old lady. This woman I adore. The woman who saved me from myself, helped me grow into a man, and it lasted a lifetime. I saw such sorrow, such deep, bottomless sadness. But a strength, too, an inner fortitude I knew I could never match, never find it within myself to have.
Grandma would do anything to save me, to ensure I survived, and she would never risk me being hurt if she could help it. Not the usual beatings, battering, and near-misses I cope with on a daily basis, that comes with the job and we both know the score in that respect. No, on an emotional level where it really counts.
And this had almost broken her, I could tell. It tore at her heart to know I would be in pain, that I would hurt for a long time and she had played a part in it. Was the one to reveal the truth.
I smiled as the tears welled in her eyes, and with my heart so fucking heavy and my soul so twisted and raging at what was about to be taken from me after only just arriving, I said, "It's okay. I fell for it, but you know best. How long have you known?"
"Since the hug," said Grandma. "I'm sorry, Faz, I truly am. If there was a way to make this right I would have never let on, but you're in danger. I'm sorry."
"Faz? Grandma? What's going on?" asked Kate.
"Let's just go," I said. "Speak soon?" I asked Grandma.
"Very." She hugged me then, an embrace that told me all I needed to know. She loved me more than life itself and I her. Such a sadness we shared at that moment, but we had each other, and always would.
Grandma released me and turned back to her pots.
She didn't respond as a very confused looking Kate and Mithnite said goodbye, and a silent, eyes-downcast Amber all filed out in front of me.
"Just get in the car. I don't want to hear a word until we're at the cottage," I said.
Nobody dared to question me. Not those I loved, not those I hated with my very being.
I drove, just to keep focused. I refused to look in the rearview at Amber, held Kate's hand when I wasn't changing gear, and drove through my city.
It felt alien now. Like a betrayal of the joyous reunion and fresh life I'd anticipated less than an hour ago. Now it was a cold, cruel place.
A city full of broken dreams and shattered hopes. Mine just another in a long line of human suffering that endures through the ages.
Will this pain truly never end?
The Hardest Thing
"Kate, Mithnite, please go inside and close the door. Do not," I warned, "under any circumstances look out the window, come outside until I tell you to, or question me on this in any way. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, Spark, whatever you want," said Mithnite. Poor guy was utterly confused and twitchy as hell, and I wished I could tell him everything would be okay and I was sorry I was being so cold and distant. But I knew the words wouldn't come, that I would break if I even tried to be anything but just business.
"We'll see you soon?" asked Kate, absolutely terrified. She didn't know what was happening but knew it wasn't good. I'd never once shown her this side of my nature. Never spoken to her like that, and I prayed with what was left of my soul that I never would again.
I nodded, it was all I could do, and they trailed up the land to the house. Kate unlocked the door, looked back once, then they went inside. The door closed and with it my family. All that faced me now was a stranger.
What was to be a rant and a rage at the betrayal, the cruelest of deceits, focused violence and an end to this with as much pain as I could inflict, came out as nothing of the sort.
"Why?"
Amber shrugged her shoulders. No big deal.
That hurt more than anything else in the world, hurt me more than anything she could have said. She really didn't care that much at all. She'd had a plan and as far as she was concerned it might not have paid off as she'd hoped, but she'd got part of what she'd wanted and it was better than nothing. All of that was said in the simple shrug of her shoulders. Now it was over.
I felt sick. I felt empty. I felt like a fool. But mostly I felt sad. Not just for me—although there was plenty of that—but for her, for the race as a whole.
"You know," I said quietly, "I've met no end of cruel people and creatures in my time. Things you couldn't imagine, or maybe you could, but this is on another level. Just when I think people can't stoop any lower, can't hurt others in more inventive and terrible ways, along you come and prove me wrong."
"Just trying to stay alive," said Amber.
"And screw everyone else? If you wanted to get away from the vampires you could have asked for help. But this? This is warped."
"Kalle has owned me for years, wanted to marry me. You don't say no to that. I had to find a way to get
away. You were it."
"And screw the consequences for me and mine?"
"Survival of the fittest," she said, her back straightening, saying the words with pride.
"We aren't in the fucking jungle. I'm a human being. I loved Sarah, I watched her die. I would have loved you, with all my heart. Given you anything in my power to give." A realization came, and I'd been blind to have not thought of it as soon as I knew the truth. "You've done this before, haven't you?"
"Lots of times," again with the shrug.
"If you shrug your shoulders one more time," I warned, getting right up in her face, jabbing my finger at her shoulder, spittle flying, "I will rip your arms right out their fucking sockets. Understand?"
She almost did it, but caught herself. "Yeah."
I was in hell, there was no other way to describe it. Utter, nightmarish hell.
"So, what, you wanted me to help you, get a cushy life for a while, so came to visit after you heard about Japan and found I was out of action?"
"Something like that."
"Bet the zombie thing was a bit of a shock, then?"
"Haha, you could say that. But it's easy enough to take others' magic. I just hammed it up a little for you guys to make it seem like it was tough. What can I tell you, Faz? I was in a bind."
"Don't call me Faz! Don't you dare. You don't get that right. My family, my close friends, only they call me that. You call me Spark. For now."
"For now?" asked Amber, confused.
I pointed at the spade, blade sunk in the ground next to fresh earth.
"Grab the spade and start digging," I ordered. A moment later I said, "Wait." Amber froze.
Something didn't make sense. This didn't ring true at all. Then it came to me, the real truth. Hell, just when my opinion of people was at its lowest and now I knew it was about to get worse.
"It was a trade, wasn't it?" Amber said nothing but had the grace to lower her head. "Yeah, you wanted to trap me, get me to that place as a trade. Me for your freedom. You did all of this to me, made me think you were my own flesh and blood, to free yourself?"
"So what? Everyone heard about you, what you did, about the giant and about Japan. The vampires talked about you, wanted your blood. But then you went and gave up magic. So I had to wait. I was so close. I called the vamps when you and Dancer were out of it at my place. It was perfect. And you ruined it."
I'd heard enough.
"Let me see."
Amber knew exactly what I meant, and her body morphed before my eyes. Her true identity revealed. She still looked a little like Sarah, just around the edges, but maybe that was just me, still unable to quite accept what had happened. She was a pretty woman, but her hair was dark, her features fuller, and her body a little smaller, almost elfin.
"I've met a few shifters like you over the years, shape-shifters, but never one so accomplished, and never one that had your skill with magic."
"Guess I'm just special."
"The things you could have done with your gifts. How you can take magic, your control."
"Spare me!" Amber's features creased in anger. "What, be like you? Spend my life chasing bad guys and taking their magic."
I'd heard enough, couldn't stand it for another minute. She'd done all this just to give me as an offering to the vampires in exchange for her freedom.
It was sick. Perverse. And she'd do it again and again, dupe people just to get what she wanted.
"Dig," I ordered.
Fresh Earth
Amber held my cold stare. Didn't protest, cry, or try to run off. She was resigned, and more than anything else I think that broke my heart the most. She wasn't surprised I was going to make her dig her own grave, was no more scared than any of us would be, or any braver. She just accepted it. To her, this was what people were like, how they behaved. This was what we did to each other.
I shut down my thoughts. Banished emotions, and watched with a dispassion and an emptiness that scared the hell out of me for it gave me a glimpse of my dark side, the true horror of what I am capable of.
Amber picked up the discarded shovel and the blade broke the rough turf.
"Not here, over there," I said, pointing closer to the trees. "I buried truly kind creatures here just days ago. You don't deserve to share their burial plot."
Without looking up, Amber wandered over to the trees, trailing the spade behind her, than asked, "Here?"
"Yeah, there."
She dug.
I stood and I watched a beautiful woman who I had believed to be my daughter, a piece of me, a piece of the woman I had loved and lost, watched die and mourned over for decades, dig her own grave. At this moment in time I felt nothing.
I couldn't allow myself to. If I let my barrier down even for a moment I would have been a broken man. Damaged beyond repair.
What was I doing? Letting myself fall for this kind of crap? I should know better. But maybe that was a good thing. I still had my humanity, still clung to hope and the belief good things can happen to people like me, people that aren't really good.
For I wasn't a good man, how could I be? Whatever Amber had done, I was making her dig her own grave and then I would kill her and I'd kick the dirt in her dead face and never think of her again.
Yeah, right, who was I kidding?
"Stop."
Amber paused her work and looked up at me with hope in her eyes. Hope that maybe she had a second chance, hope that she could leave and try again. Get a life away from vampires and away from me, be free.
What then, though? She was a manipulator, through and through. She would use others, use her gift and her appearance to break the hearts of innocents.
"Goddammit. Gimme the shovel."
Amber handed it over with relief.
It was short-lived.
"You saved me, but you killed me, too. Inside, you took too much. You gave me hope and you ripped it out of me. Too much."
She knew my mind was made up, and only flinched a little.
Brave girl.
"What, you thought I'd protect you once it didn't go as planned with the vampires?"
"Worth a shot." Amber shrugged her shoulders.
I swung hard and fast with deadly accuracy. The sharp edge of the blade cut clean across her throat, slicing deep.
She fell into the long, weedy grass.
She was dead.
I think I died then, too. Saved from the zombie virus, one kind of death, only to fall victim to another, much slower and more painful oblivion.
The loss of hope, of trust, maybe even of love. Certainly the ability to feel love without fearing the consequences somewhere down the line.
It was all stripped from me. I had nothing left to give.
Empty.
I fell to my knees and I wept. I don't know how long I remained there, but at some point I guess Kate and Mithnite came out and found me. Found us.
It didn't matter, nothing did.
Why is there always pain?
I'm sorry, I can't continue.
The End
Will there, won't there? Only one way to find out if this was Faz's last ever journal entry.
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Stay jiggy,
Al
