Bloodlines

by Powell, Jaime W.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “You’re eyes. They’re—”

  “Oh, that. It’s okay, Em. Sometimes they seem a bit more…err…animated when I’m extremely happy, or angry, or so forth.”

  I hesitate, but step toward him once more. “Well, what are you now?”

  He barely shakes his head, as if trying to erase a thought. “I’m not sure. I’ve never felt this way before.”

  I catch my breath. “Me either.” I laugh.

  “And she laughs,” he jokes.

  I laugh harder. “I’m sorry,” I say between chuckles. “This is just so unreal that it borderlines ridiculous. You’re an Incubus and don’t want to be. For all intents and purposes I’m your destroyer and don’t want to be. I almost have to laugh to keep from crying. Yet I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever wanted to be with more.

  “Silas, it doesn’t matter to me what we can’t do. I just want your arms around me,” I admit, pulling him to me, “and your body against mine, and my lips on yours.” Crushing my lips to his, our kiss becomes more passionate, but slows into a romantic and gentle one as he strokes my face, and my hand runs across his hard chest.

  The kiss slows to a stop, and I gaze into his lit eyes and smirk. “I happen to like your eyes this way.”

  He laughs. “You’re such a weirdo.”

  Soon our laughs fade and we stand in silence again, peering at one another. I know what he’s thinking. I’m sure he knows what I am, too.

  “What are we going to do, Silas?”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” an angered voice says from behind Silas. It’s Zeke, and his eyes have the same glow as his brother’s, although I’m sure for a different reason. “You’re going to stop this foolishness. Silas, I understood telling the human about us, but getting involved with her is a selfish and dangerous act. For her and us.”

  “The human?” I repeat.

  Zeke takes a step toward me in frustration, but Silas stops him.

  “I think it’s kind of cool, myself,” Kutz admits, walking up to us now as well.

  “Shut up, fool,” Zeke says. “Do you realize she’s exactly who we’ve been trying to avoid our whole lives?”

  “I would never hurt any of you,” I say. “You all saved me and I would do the same for you.” Silas opens his mouth to speak, and I take notice. “What?”

  “You’re not eighteen yet,” he says. “It’s different when you’re of age. You may feel differently. It’s in your blood.”

  I shake my head. “No, I won’t. You three don’t have to worry about me. Look,” I say giving Zeke my attention, “I care for your brother. Actually, I care for all three of you. That’s never going to change, and you can’t convince me that it will.”

  I pull Silas away from his brothers. “You believe me, don’t you?” His eyes close. “Silas, trust me. Trust me like I trust you.” He stares blankly at me. I drop his hand and face everyone.

  “You three are half-breeds. It’s in your blood to take advantage of people, to do harm, to hurt others. In all actuality you are demons. Yet here I stand because you all saved my life and trusted me enough to confide in me despite the fact your first instinct may have been to kill me upon meeting me, or manipulate me somehow. Why would I be any different when my time comes?”

  They glance from one another, and I see Zeke’s eyes slowly calm into their usual lime-green color, no longer having the angry glow they once had. “Think about it,” I instruct before getting in my car. Silas closes the door for me.

  * * *

  Today at school, I feel rejuvenated, regardless of it all. I answer questions in class, despite sitting in the back row and usually trying to go unnoticed. I walk with a purpose from class to class, and when lunch rolls around, I’m all ears as Simone, Evan, and Josh talk about their classes. I even join in on the conversation and ask Josh’s help with my Algebra 2 class when he offers his assistance.

  “You seem different today,” Simone takes notice as we walk to our World History class. “You’re…interacting. There’s even a glow about you. What’s happened recently that I don’t know about?”

  I hesitate, but figure what’s the harm in a little tidbit? “It’s Silas. Well, it’s me and Silas.”

  “I knew it!” she screeches. “He’s the youngest, right? Oh my! He’s dreamy. No wonder you had no interest in Josh. Although, I still think Josh has potential. But I go more for brains than beauty.”

  I laugh. “You trying to say Silas is without brains?”

  “No, Emma. Way to twist things.”

  I chuckle again. “I’m only giving you a hard time.”

  “What do your parents say? He is a couple years older after all.” Oh, if she only knew the whole story. I shake the imagine of it all from my head, thinking briefly on the hatchet ring my father wears.

  “They…aren’t exactly on board. Actually, they don’t know at all. I have a feeling they don’t like Silas to begin with, so I haven’t told them yet. Not sure I will,” I admit.

  Simone seems disappointed. “Emma, you know secrets are the root of all evil.”

  My face twists with confusion. “That’s money, Sim.”

  “Well, we aren’t old enough to have money, so for now, it’s secrets.”

  I chuckle. “If you say so. But for now, keep this to yourself.”

  “Oh!” she comically zips her mouth and hands me the imaginary key, which I fling over my shoulder.

  * * *

  I arrive home to a less than warm greeting. My father gives me a hardened eye, and my mother’s mouth curls into a forced smile. A pity one, I’m sure. Stalking up the stairs once more and closing the door, I slide down against it, no longer feeling rejuvenated as I had before. Dad’s face is a constant reminder of how hard it will be for Silas and I to be together, if it’s possible at all.

  “It’s going to be okay, Emma,” a recognizable voice says. It’s Micah…again.

  “Why do you keep coming back? You know what I want.”

  He kneels beside me. “I suppose you could say I’m in mourning for the one who got away.”

  “Mourning is for someone who died. I survived, and you know why. If it were up to you, I’d be dead.”

  “Only in body.”

  Forcing myself up from the floor, I cross the room to the window. “I can’t do this with you today, Micah. Go talk to my father. I’m sure you two can compare notes or something.”

  “I go where I’m needed,” he says.

  “I don’t need you, Micah. Stop saying that.”

  He takes a deep breath, and I feel him behind me now as he places a cold hand on my shoulder. With his touch, my shoulders slump and I sit on the edge of my bed, my head in my hands. “Why does everything have to be so hard, Micah? I know what my heart wants, and I want to make my father proud, although he’s never tried to make me so. But I can’t be what they ask of me.”

  “You were chosen a long time ago for this task. Your family was.” He kneels in front of me. “Emma, this is a gift you’ve been given and a great honor. You’d be cleansing the world.”

  “Of what? Good people like Silas and his brothers? I know you are supposed to think the way you do, but you of all people have to know they aren’t evil. They saved my life. You can say they had some sort of motive if you want, but we both know that’s not true.”

  “Emma, this isn’t for me to decide, or for you to. This is how the world works. This is how things have to be.”

  “Not my world. Now, get out. Go!” As soon as the words leave my mouth he vanishes.

  I go to the window again, remembering peering from this windows days ago and admiring the kids playing and the trees and everything about this small town. Nothing was as it seemed, though. There’s a battle brewing. Not just in the world but with me. There’s something building inside me now.

  Like a small flame growing into an out of control blaze, taking over my feelings and my soul. I used to know who I was. The invisible girl. But
now I wonder if that was instinctively my motive all along. An assassin would need to be quiet, disconnected, and yes, invisible. Maybe I am what they say I am. A killer.

  Twelve

  Breaking the Silence

  Having this feeling like something or someone foreign is taking over my insides is unnerving. Still, I can’t help thinking I might not have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me. Now it’s all I think about and focus on. More so focusing on controlling it as Silas and his brothers control theirs. I have to assume the sensations are somewhat the same.

  Still, if they are able to control theirs, I believe I can control mine as well. I owe them that much. But I don’t owe my father a thing.

  The rejuvenation I felt is long gone today, as classes seem to drag on for days. Even gym, by far my favorite, seems to take much longer than days before. My coach notices my laziness and pulls me from the game of tennis, and I remain on the bleachers the rest of the class with my head planted in my hands, staring at everything but not truly seeing. When the bell rings for Algebra 2, I’m able to remember what Josh has taught me, somehow, but still it barely holds my attention. By lunch, I’ve checked out of school completely, telling the front office I’m not well.

  When I arrive home, I expect questions from my mother about why I’m there early, but she only gives me the same pitiful look she has been for two days now. This time though, I return it. I climb the stairs, dragging my heavy feet up there, but before I reach my doorway, curiosity gets the better of me and I walk back down to my mom who is sitting on the sofa knitting — something I haven’t seen her do since I was a child.

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, love?” she says, keeping her eyes plastered on her work. I take the items from her hands and place them beside me.

  “What would you do if it were you?” I ask.

  Her shoulders slump. “I’ve probably asked myself that a million times over the years. Your father didn’t tell me who he truly was until after we were married. For a while it was easy to pretend he was at work like every other man during the day. At least it was when we were in Arkansas. I still had my family around me, which made it easy to forget.

  “When we moved here, that all changed. There was nothing to distract me. It became painfully clear what his mission was and what you would become one day.” She stares at me for a moment, brushing my hair behind my ear. “But since coming out of my drunken fog, I can see this is what our life has to be. Emma, you wouldn’t have been chosen for this if you weren’t meant to do it.

  “I know you feel it creeping up inside of you now. The fire, the urge. It was explained to me long ago what it would be like for you. I went back and forth about having children if that was their future, but your father told me no future could be a better way to serve God. And I believed him, and trusted him. Still do.”

  Thinking of my mother as a young woman, freshly married, relying on her husband to take care of her, and clinging to every word that falls from his lips is a view I’ve never had of her. I can’t decide if she was näive or not, to think this would be a fulfilling life she passed on to a child.

  “What if I’m not meant to join, Mother? What if I’m meant to stop it?” I bow my head, afraid to meet her eyes. It isn’t until after I have spoken the words that I become conscious of how ridiculous they must seem to her.

  Instead she takes my hand. “Emma, I’m your mother. You can’t hide things from me as well as you think you can. I know the owners you work for are different than us. I’ve gathered that much from your father. And if I’m correct, you must have feelings for one of them.”

  My eyes finally glance up to meet hers as she continues. “What you must understand is demons are not human. They can take our form, but they are manipulative and out to destroy us one life at a time.”

  Anger boils inside me. I thought my mother was going to be the one person who understood for a moment. “You’re wrong,” I scoff. I shake my mother’s hands from mine and stalk up to my room. When I close the door, I lean my head against it with my eyes closed.

  They don’t have to open to know I’m not alone. “Okay, Micah. What am I supposed to do? Rid them of the Earth? Send them to Hell even though they are my rescuers?”

  “I don’t make the rules, Emma.”

  I chuckle. “Neither do I.” I lie across my bed and pat the side of it, beckoning Micah to join me. His body is so light it makes no indention in the bed, nor do I feel his weight beside me. But I can see him here. “I’m not meant to do what they ask of me. Not with Silas and his brothers.”

  “But with others?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. They say it would be all instinct when I’m of age.”

  “In July.”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “I already get the feeling my life is not my own anymore. I can’t imagine what eighteen will feel like.”

  “I know the battle inside you. I know how you feel about Silas. Unfortunately, I can’t help you with this.”

  “Who can?” I turn on my side facing him now. “If not you, then who?”

  He faces me as well with a heavy sigh and barely shakes his head. “No one.”

  My eyes fall. “So if you didn’t want to be an angel anymore…” I begin but hesitate.

  “I have a choice.”

  My head rises to meet his eyes again. “You have a choice?”

  “Everyone has a choice, Emma. Life is only choices we make from one day to the next. They make us who we are.” I hang on his every word, every syllable.

  “So, wait,” I begin, sitting up. “If I wanted to destroy the bad ones but let the decent ones live…”

  “Emma, there aren’t many decent ones, and whether you kill them now or God’s Huntsmen do it, it doesn’t matter. They will be destroyed at some point.”

  “There has to be more than God’s Huntsmen admit to. Silas and his brothers can’t be the only ones. You can’t tell me that the only three decent ones in the world just happened upon one another one day. I don’t believe that.”

  “Emma…”

  “No, Micah. Everything is so clear now. My bloodlines and my beliefs don’t have to be kept separate. I thought I had to fight against the Huntsmen, but I don’t. If at eighteen I see a demon and my instinct is to destroy it, I can, and maybe even will. But as a human, I can see the difference between good and evil.”

  It’s as though someone has unlocked my brain or I’ve awoken from a deep sleep. I always felt different, even among my family, and now I think I know why. Maybe it’s because I’ve been shown that there is good and evil within us all. It’s our actions that differentiate where we go when this life is over.

  Yes, I’m an assassin of sorts, or will be. But I can also save the lives of the deserving. That has to be my mission. It’s true when they say everyone has their own place in life and their own job to do. It’s plain to me now what mine is.

  “You can go now, Micah. I know what I have to do from here on.”

  “I’m always with you,” he says. “Just in case.”

  * * *

  I fly down the stairs. I’m going to tell my mother everything. Something tells me she will understand and maybe even support me. “Mom! Mother, there’s something I have to tell—”

  “Emma,” my father says. I hadn’t even heard him come through the front door. Too consumed with my breakthrough, I imagine.

  “Dad.” My voice is almost lost. He towers over my mother as she knits on the sofa as she was when I got home. “I wasn’t expecting you this early,” I admit.

  “Nor I, you. Why aren’t you in school?”

  I choke on my own laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Suddenly God’s Huntsmen want to make sure I know algebra and tennis?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, Emma. I’m your father. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”

  I nod. “My father. Yeah, I suppose you are. The question is, Dad, are you my father first or are you first my trainer?” He stares blankly
at me, and my mom’s knitting has ceased. His eyes never falter, but I can see in them that he’s trying to decide — surprised by the question. Finally, he sits beside my mother on the sofa and waves me forward.

  “I’m always your father first. Which is why I told you I don’t want you working with those kids. They aren’t what they seem.”

  “Dad, let’s say for a moment that you’re right, and they aren’t of this world. Would you be able to destroy my rescuers? The people that saved my life?”

  “They didn’t save your life, Emma. The gunman shot at the wall. The bullet was nowhere near you,” he protests. Now I have a choice to make. If I tell him he is right, he will try to find a way to kill them. But If I tell him he is wrong, and I was shot and they saved me, he will know they aren’t human and think they only saved me to manipulate me.

  “Dad, you’re wrong this time. I know them.” I take a deep breath. “I was shot, Dad. The gunman…he shoved the gun in my ribs and he pulled the trigger with everyone there to see. The customers ran out, but not Silas. Not Zeke and not Kutz. They stayed and healed me, Dad. Silas pulled the bullet from my body, and Zeke healed me. Kutz stayed with me the whole time the police were there.

  He shakes his head through my whole story. My mom’s mouth hangs open, eyes wide with concern.

  “A demon wouldn’t save a human,” he replies, still shaking his head.

  “No?” I cross the room to my father and lift the side of my shirt, grabbing his hand and placing it on my ribs. “You feel that?”

  “Jesus, Emma. You’re cold as ice,” he says.

  “No. I’m not.” I shift his hand to my other side where he feels the warmth and the difference between the two. “The cold you feel is where Zeke used his powers to heal me.” His face falls emotionless and his hand drops from my side.

  “Then there must be a reason they want you alive.”

  “C’mon, Dad! Who am I to them and why would they bother? I’m just some seventeen-year-old girl who brings pizzas to their customers. Speaking of which, I need to get ready for work.” I let my shirt drop back down around me and head for the stairs.