by Tenaya Jayne
She got a piece of paper and a pen and began to write.
My name is Tesla. I wish I could just tell you that, but I am mute.
She paused. Everything she needed to say sounded insane, or it would to him. If he would let her bite him again, then she could actually talk to him. She left the note as it was and put it in her pocket. Excitement and a strange form of fear laced through her. Shivering, she shook her head before pulling the air open and going to the Everpath. The eerie, endless hallway was seemingly empty, but she was more alert since the voice and grasping shadows. She walked down to the door she wanted and pushed through, landing on her feet in his world.
It was night. She glanced up at the moon and stars. They were pale white against an all-black sky. Regia’s aquamarine moon was prettier, but this was still nice. She was close to where he’d been earlier. A dying fire still burned in a circle of stones next to the small house. There were no sounds and no other lights aside from the fire. She came closer, looking at the place more carefully. A new house was under construction a little ways away. Curious, she walked over to the building site. Deep shadows pooled together all over.
She heard him before she saw him. He inhaled sharply and moved from inside the unfinished house. She held still as he came to the doorway. Fluttering filled her stomach and lungs. His hands illuminated a soft blue, dimly lighting the area around them. He looked shocked and quickly smoothed his hair back from his face and straightened his shirt. His actions reminded her of her own a few minutes ago as she looked at herself in the mirror. He smiled. She couldn’t help but smile back. All the pain and chaos inside her quieted and clicked into place just being near him. How could that be? Just his presence seemed to right the wrong inside her.
“You came back. What’s your name?”
She reached into her pocket, drew out the note, and held it out to him. He took it from her and looked at it for a moment. Then he folded it and slipped it into his own pocket.
“Tesla…beautiful name. So, you can’t speak at all?” he asked gently.
She shook her head. Should she have tried to write more? Why hadn’t she brought a pen and some more paper? Frustrated she turned away from him, trying to think of how to move forward.
He came up behind her. “Hey,” he said softly.
She turned around. He held out his hands to her, hope in his eyes. “My name is X. I’ve never felt anything as amazing as your hands in mine, Tesla. My hands are dangerous. It looks like yours are, too. Magic has only recently changed me into what I am now, but knowing I can never touch anyone without harming them has weighed heavy on my heart. I feel like you might understand that…Will you hold my hands again?”
She looked at his hands, wanting to touch him again so badly it scared her. She licked her lips and nodded, reaching for him. A small cry of pleasure came from her mouth as they touched. She pinched her eyes shut against the overwhelming sensation. It felt so good, it almost hurt. She tried to focus on her breathing and force it to slow down. Her bottom lip trembled and tears slid out from her closed eyes.
He tried to pull back from her. She gripped his hands tighter so he couldn’t get away and opened her eyes. He looked worried.
“Am I hurting you?”
She shook her head.
“Then why are you crying?”
I wish I could tell you everything. She thought.
He blinked a few times and turned his head to the side like someone had just called his name. Then he looked back at her, his eyebrows pulled down curiously.
“You…you wish you could tell me everything?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. Can you hear me?
He looked astonished and exhaled on a half laugh. “I can. I hear a voice in my head. Am I losing my mind? You are talking to me, right? In your thoughts?”
Yes! You can hear me. This is amazing! Where have you been?
He chuckled. “I’ve been right here. Where have you been?”
Searching for you. And I didn’t even know it. You unlocked my voice. Can I bite you again? If you let me, I think I could actually speak aloud.
Desire filled his pale eyes. “You didn’t ask my permission the first time.” He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers, holding her gaze. “You can do anything you want to me.”
She smirked at his words. The fluttering in her stomach coming back full force. Are you flirting with me?
He straightened back up. “Well, I was trying. Since you had to ask, I guess I wasn’t doing a very good job.”
She smiled easily. He was so cute. She decided it was best to not go for his neck this time. He didn’t understand. That much was obvious. Biting him wasn’t a sexual advance. So instead she lifted up their entwined hands to her mouth and sank her teeth into the fleshy side of his hand. As his blood flowed into her mouth her eyes cut to his. A whole world of unspoken knowledge seemed to go back and forth silently in their eye contact. She realized she was the one who didn’t understand. Scared by the intensity she stepped back from him and let go of his hands.
He stood still, holding her captive in his eyes. It was as though he had placed her in an invisible cage.
Release me. She pleaded.
He blinked and shook himself. His look was still intense but the heat had banked.
Tesla swallowed. As it had before, a tremor went down her throat. It was easier than the first time and she knew the moment she would be able to speak. “Thank you.” Her voice was quiet, but the words were clear, much to her relief.
He smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever spoken to.”
“I feel honored. Would you like to go and sit by the fire? Have a long conversation?”
Giddy happiness filled her at the thought and she nodded. “I would love that.”
He threw a few logs on the fire and sat down on a stump a few feet away from where she sat.
“So, X? That’s kind of an odd name.”
He tsked and shook his head. “That’s not nice. I picked it myself. I was going for something ruggedly masculine.”
She giggled. He was teasing her. “Were you an outlaw in need of a new identity?”
His expression sobered. “No. I died. Being reborn as something different, I felt warranted a new name.”
She titled her head to the side. “Magic changed you.”
“Yeah. Maggie”—he inclined his head toward the little house behind her—“she’s a witch. Her spell work got away from her, and it hit me while I was in the woods hunting. Alex died.” He held his hands up, the glow in his palms growing brighter for a second. “And a necromancer was born…but since, as you’ve said, I’m the first person you’ve spoken to, I want to know all about you. You said you wanted to tell me everything, or you thought it, rather.”
“I…I don’t even know where to start.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you are and where you come from?” he prompted.
She took a deep breath. “Okay. You asked for it. I’m afraid I’m going to chew your ear off.”
His gaze warmed and he smiled at her as though he thought she was adorable. “As you said. I asked for it.”
She explained as best she could. He interrupted her often, needing more details about things he’d never seen. She feared he would lose interest, but not for one moment did his eyes glaze, or his attention wander. Tesla waited for her voice to fade away as it had before but it didn’t. Being near him was enough to maintain this ability. She talked mostly of Regia and not herself, he’d asked about where she came from but it was evasion on her part. After a while he began to press her more about herself.
“I’m a human, or sort of, but you know that. Please tell me what you are.”
“I’m nervous…I don’t want to scare you,” she admitted.
“I don’t scare easily. I mean, aside from being very powerful, you seem a bit eager to sink your really sharp teeth into me, and I’m still right here. Interested for you to explain. You app
ear out of thin air, and the first time I saw you, you were only partly visible, like a ghost.”
“My father is a vampire and a mage. I get my magic from him, along with my teeth. I can eat anything I want to, but occasionally I have to drink blood to stay alive. If I go for too long without it, my health starts to suffer. My mother is a Halfling. Half elf, half shapeshifter. Elves have the ability to become invisible. Since I’m only one-fourth elf, I cannot fully vanish. That’s why I looked like a ghost. I’ve never been able to shift my appearance, and I have no true face. Perhaps I have some small level of ability there, but for now, it’s dormant. That’s what I am. A mixed-blood freak.”
He frowned. “That’s not all, is it?”
“Isn’t that enough?” She laughed darkly.
“What did you mean, you have no true face?”
“Shapeshifters have a true face. A face they can show no one except their destined life mates. When a shifter meets their destined life mate, all their mate can see is their true face, no matter how they shift. My mother has a true face. She’s shown me a very close resemblance of it, but that is all she can do. Only my dad can see her real face.”
“That’s romantic…So the face I’m looking at right now is the only face you have?” he asked.
“This is it.”
“Good.”
“Good? Why is that good?”
“You want the unedited, honest truth? I think you might need it, if you have to ask me why it’s good,” he said seriously.
Her eyes widened and she swallowed.
“You have the most gorgeous face I’ve ever seen. You’re beautiful… like the darkness of night. There’s nothing easy or soft about the way it makes me feel. Your beauty is violent in its excess. It’s destructive to my heart. Completely disarming. From the moment I first saw your face, it has haunted me…I fear it always will.”
She closed her eyes and hung her head. “Pain has twisted me so far. When I look at my reflection, all I see is the pain. How can you truly see such things when you look at me?”
“Tesla.” His voice commanded her to look up. “It wasn’t easy for me to tell you that. It was a kind of surrender to admit it that freely. Please don’t discount my words as pretty lies, for they cost me greatly to speak aloud.”
She held his gaze. The moment was too intense for her. She blushed and turned her face away. “So, um…you kill people for a living?”
The tension broke, and he laughed. “Yeah. My new profession for my new life. It’s certainly nothing I ever aspired to. It looks worse than it is. I need to show you something, so you don’t think me a monster.”
He got up and walked toward the half-built house. In a moment he was back, strapping smooth, flat, white stones to his hands. Once he had them secured over his palms, the blue glow of his hands began to shine again. He held them out for her to see.
“I don’t think you should touch them. I’m not sure it’s safe for you, or them.”
She looked intently, unsure what she was seeing. The left one swirled black. The right was the same blue as his hand.
“I don’t understand.”
She wanted to know everything about him. He evaded telling her anything about his life before his transformation. He explained his power to her and his desire to use it to help the wrongly accused. She wanted to ask him many questions but she could feel the length of time she had been there and decided to keep her questions for another time. She understood well enough for now. She would wait for the next time to explain to him that he didn’t seem like a monster to her and that both of her parents were revered, legendary killers.
“My throat is starting to hurt,” she admitted. “It’s certainly not used to this.”
“Do you want something to drink? Water? Hot tea?” he offered.
She looked up at the sky. She’d been there all night. “I need to go.”
“Don’t go.”
She smiled. “Just a few more moments. I have to ask you an important question.”
“What’s that?”
“Will you help me save my world?”
He frowned. “What could I do?”
Before she could answer, the door of the little house opened, and Maggie came out. She walked up to Tesla and touched her cheek gently. “I’ve been waiting for you, princess hurricane. I’m so glad you finally found us. Our fates are bound together.”
Tesla examined Maggie quickly. She’d noticed her in the background the first time, but she’d been too focused on X to really take her measure. Her pupils opened and beckoned Tesla in. For a moment, Tesla couldn’t breathe as she realized what was really in front of her. X had called her a witch, but she hadn’t thought he used the word in its appropriate or literal sense.
“You are not adequately protected here,” Tesla said severely. “If they find you…”
Maggie smiled. “I know, but I’m not completely unprotected. X is here with me.”
“How can he protect you?”
“He’s a necromancer. Only the dead can kill a wizard.”
Tesla’s mouth fell open. She felt like she’d just been punched in the gut. She closed her eyes and put her hands on her head. She looked at the blood lock in her mind. Her grandfather was right. He said the answer was probably not what she thought. Now she had the answer right in front of her. She knew it was the answer, but the equation still didn’t figure. What was she not seeing?
“I have a favor to ask. Please, may I have one drop of your blood?”
“Oh…sure,” Maggie said.
“Hold out your hand.”
Tesla pointed her index finger at Maggie’s wrist, a tiny line of lightning shot out of her finger, into Maggie’s vein. The lightning wrapped around one drop and extracted it out through her skin. In her other hand, Tesla spun a marble-sized sphere and encased the drop of blood inside it. She put the sphere into her pocket and turned to X.
“May I?”
He removed the stones and lifted his hand to her without hesitation. She repeated the process on him.
“Thank you both, so much. I have to go now, but I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She turned to walk away, but he caught her hand. “Wait.” He looked over at Maggie.
She smiled, understanding his silent request, and went back into her house and shut the door.
“I have to go, X,” she insisted.
“I just need to know something, in case I misunderstood. Are you married?”
For a second she didn’t understand his question. Then she remembered the word and its meaning from her cultural studies of Earth.
“Oh…no.”
“Are you engaged?”
She smiled, the fluttering filling her up again. “No.”
“You’re not promised to anyone?”
She shook her head. “It’s different in Regia.”
“Is there no one who has a hold on your heart? You don’t have a… destined life mate?”
“Why do you care?”
“I want to know who my competition is.”
“Ah, you’re flirting again.”
“No. I’m deadly serious.” He brought her hand to his lips.
Her heart did a little jump. “I have important work to do. I can see you’re going to make it hard for me to concentrate.”
“Come back soon.” He smiled and released her.
Flushed, she grabbed the atmosphere and escaped him. She leaned back against the cold wall of the Everpath and closed her eyes for a second. “Oh, my…” she whispered to herself. A faint breeze slid down the hallway, slamming off her warm, tingly thoughts of X.
Any wind in the hallway meant someone else had just entered the Everpath. Her eyes darted the direction the breeze had come from. Footsteps echoed down to her. Intuition screamed, Danger. Get out! To get home, she had to run toward the danger to get to the right door. She pushed off the wall and ran, her footfalls giving her away. As soon as she began to run, so did the other person. The door was in sight but s
o were they. The light should have allowed her to see them clearly, but they were nothing but a silhouette. A shadow form, no eyes, just a huge mouth of long, sharp teeth and claws on the hands. It was moving too fast. She wasn’t going to make it.
She skidded to a halt. As soon as she stopped, the thing slowed to a stroll.
“There you are.” It was the same voice she’d heard before, the seductive, dirty voice. It turned its head slightly from side to side, and she knew, even though it had no eyes, it was looking at her. A low growl rumbled from it. An over long, forked tongue slithered out the mouth and licked the lips. “Now I see you, pretty thing. Come with me…let me taste you…”
Tesla held her hands straight out toward it. A blast of lightning shot from her hands and rushed at the thing. Her power pierced through it like spears. It screamed once.
“Vicious,” it hissed. “So lovely… so pleasant… so worthy…” Then it vanished in a puff of smoke.
Disgusted and shaken she reached for the door and went home. The dawn was coloring the sky as she landed in her room. She flopped on the bed, overwhelmed for a moment. Killing that thing, if it was in fact dead, had been easy. Too easy, she suspected. Had she done the wrong thing by attacking it? She exhaled, trying to wipe it from her mind. It was going to stalk her nightmares, of that she was sure.
She heard her parents talking in the kitchen. She got up and put her ear to the door. They were arguing about her. She grimaced, sad she was a source of discord between them. She chanced cracking the door open to hear better, but then their fight was over. The anger left their voices.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too.”
She heard them kiss and felt relief. Nothing could really come between them for very long. Neither one of them could stand it. She’d seen her dad leave for work irritated, only to come back in an hour or so to make things right between them. She smirked and closed her door again as their make-up kiss turned into a make out session. A few minutes later, the front door opened and closed again. She looked out the window and saw her dad leave. Why hadn’t he told her goodbye? Was he mad at her?
