by Aya DeAniege
I had wanted to murder Margaret for centuries. She always riled me the wrong way and was plain disobedient of Sasha’s rules. Ethics had never controlled her.
And now given the opportunity to put her down, I was struggling with myself because I was being left out of a greater whole.
I’m supposed to save the day, not them.
It was my job to take Lu down, my burden to put in the ground, not theirs. I was the one who had failed before. I was the reason why what was currently happening was happening.
But, I suppose, all three of us felt that way. If not for Helen’s involvement in my life, the events of that night might not have happened for another couple centuries. If not for Sasha’s failure to kill Lu before, if not for her bitterness over everyone else’s refusal to help themselves, the events of that night might not have ever happened.
Yet I was the one sent off like an invalid, while the Great Maker took a fledgling too young to remain immortal to bait a vampire who had split into two bodies.
What kind of monsters were we, really?
I started my car and reached into the back seat, grabbing the mask.
The moment I touched the mask, I heard that howl again.
As Lu would have said, He was biting at the bit, pulling at the leash. Wraith wanted to step into the physical world, but I didn’t want to let him. He only existed because of what Lu had done to me and I was determined to finally shrug off the last of my Maker.
Wraith was what I had become in order to survive, but his destructive darkness had no place in the modern age.
What would Helen think?
I gripped the mask tight and pulled it into the front seat, dropping it on the passenger side. The witches had spelled the mask so that modern mortals could not see what I was or what I was doing. I had no idea if that spell extended to cameras, but I did know that those affected by certain mood-altering drugs could see through the illusion spells that witches created.
In the physical realm, the mask was made of brown leather, shaped like a hound’s muzzle, up over the face and even showing off the ears. The nose was long and just on the slighter side of a dog’s nose. Not overly broad, but not too narrow either. The leather had been worked to show off the creasing of the muzzle into the nose and the cheekbones of a regal dog. Above the head, the ears stood like those on a dog whose ears had been cropped. The eyes were black, made of some stone or tinted glass, lined with gold trim.
I pulled out of the parking spot.
“You and I need to have a talk,” I said to the mask as if it could talk back. “You’ve done a great deal for me, and I know you’ve slept all these years, but we have to stop this game. You and me? We are two halves of one whole, and that’s not going to work anymore. We have a child now.
“No, damn it, not a child. A full-grown woman, a woman who grew up in an age so unlike our own that we never imagined meeting a woman like her. She’s not going to just put up with the flickering back and forth, or let you do what you want to do to her. What you make me want to do to her.
“She won’t stick around for psychotic ramblings or hold our hand when we start talking about you skulking about in the dark.
“I want better for her than we had. She’s better that we deserve. Not everything in the world needs to be crushed underfoot.”
I hesitated, glancing into the rear-view mirror and glimpsing my own eyes. Sighing, I adjusted the mirror so that I’d see out the back of the car instead of my reflection.
“I get that any vampire needs to learn pain and it’s the job of the Maker to give it. And I understand that we are very good at giving pain, but do you at least get where I’m coming from? What I… what we need to do to survive?”
A calm came over me, then frustration.
“Yup, I’m a crazy man, talking to himself in his car in the early hours of the morning. God, how did it come to this?”
With a sigh, I pulled off the avenue, onto a side street and pulled to a stop just down the road from Margaret’s home.
No apartment for her, she had always lived in a house of some sort. In a few more days, she would no longer be in the city, having moved to another country even. She hadn’t been happy in the country. It was too polite and civilized for her tastes. She had only remained because that was her job as Younger Council.
I grabbed the mask and put it on, wondering what the hell the witches thought they were doing. The original mask had had a bit inside of it that I had bitten down on. The new mask’s snout was hollow and smelled like leather, nothing more. The hollow muzzle, plus the ability to move my jaw inside the mask meant that I could still speak while wearing it.
The muzzle might even help others hear what I was saying, rather than completely muffling it.
“Last time I ask them to make something for a friend of a friend of mine,” I grumbled.
Could just eat them all.
I swatted at the voice, realizing too late that he wasn’t really in the car with me.
Grumbling about the mask, I went to step out of the vehicle and saw another car coming down the road. I had to wait for it to pass.
When was Halloween?
Don’t scare the mortals, remember when that was the whole point?
Gritting my teeth, I got out of the vehicle and locked the door. Walking to the back of the car, I opened the trunk and pulled out my tire iron.
Used to be, I’d have a rod to go along with Lu’s scythe. At the end of the day, both did the same thing. They were blunt instruments meant for breaking bone.
I was never there to end another vampire. I was there to make them wish the end would come.
Closing the trunk, I checked on the phone’s battery.
Sasha’s car had a private line built into it. Most of us were moving in that direction. We lost cell phones too easily. Losing a car was a great deal harder. And if someone stole the car, well, it was always fun to call your own phone and force push the answer, then talk like someone from an action movie.
I may have done clean up for a few friends.
I slipped the tire iron up my sleeve and curled my hand just slightly. The phone, I kept in plain sight, in my hand with the recorder out.
“Your big debut,” I muttered as I walked down the street.
Our big debut.
He was thinking about sinking his teeth into Helen. Practically drooling over the little sounds she would make as she struggled to get away. Somewhere, at the back of my mind, he was replaying the turning. Catching up with things, as it were.
“I’d like to be whole one day,” I muttered.
Sounds like the women are plotting.
“Yup, they definitely are. First, it’s get the tool. Then it’s don’t touch the tool, but kill Lu. Now it’s don’t kill Lu, and it’s just so sad and stuff like I’m a stuffed animal who had its arm ripped off. I wish they’d make up their mind.”
They’re women, what do you expect?
As I muttered to myself, I passed a couple of teenagers standing on the sidewalk, smoking a joint. Even with the mask, I could smell it. Not quite a pure drug, something else had been added to it to give it more of a kick. I quieted my muttering and turned my head slightly towards them.
They bolted like I was there for them.
I smiled behind the mask. That was a feeling I remembered and enjoyed.
Walking into the driveway, I saw a curtain move. I walked around to the back, we all used the back door not the front of houses.
The front was for mortals and strangers. It left us exposed to the street and any eyes that might be spying from other houses.
Margaret lived in a quiet neighbourhood. It probably had a neighbourhood watch and a block party once a year, which she likely attended. She would be known as the generous house on Halloween, probably bought all the cookies and school drive items.
She even kept bottles on hand for those collection drives that local children might be having.
All in all, Margaret painted the picture of a kind, givi
ng person who led a boring and simple life. She would sit in front of her window doing work, reading papers or on the computer.
But only if she knew for certain that someone was watching her.
I slipped in the back door and closed it quietly behind me. The door opened onto a small landing which led down a full flight of steps to the basement. That would be locked up and sound proofed. If I didn’t go downstairs, I wouldn’t have to deal with them.
Even Wraith felt a moment of disgusted pity for the stock kept in the basement.
The landing also led up just a few steps to the kitchen. I slipped up those steps and then ducked out of the way as a cast iron frying pan attempted to hit me square in the face.
Who have you been playing with?
Werewolves were quicker than vampires. Dodging their attacks had honed my ability to avoid damage. I hadn’t just prepared myself by strengthening my powers. I had fully intended on taking Lu down myself. Body and whatever bits of my mind that I could salvage had been worked until I was certain.
I hit Margaret’s arm with the tire iron, but not hard enough to break it. Just enough to hurt like it was broken. Okay, might have fractured her arm just a bit.
But I had also trained her. Sasha had asked me to push her pain limits to keep her alive. I knew what damage she could take before her limits were really pushed. I also knew her signs and symptoms of true pain.
I turned and set the phone on the table, moving to the side as the pan whistled through the air. With my free hand, I turned and struck her in the face. I knocked the pan out of her hand, grabbing a fistful of hair as I did so.
I pushed Margaret against the wall and said not a word.
“I’m Council. I’m protected.”
My head cocked to the side. Under the mask, I smiled.
Do it, say it.
I knew how to alter my voice, and did so then. Lowering the tone and making it sound like it had been used and abused. I was painting the picture of Wraith, Younger Council. He would have to answer questions verbally, he would need a voice.
“The Great Maker sends her regards.”
Margaret’s eyes grew wide. She struggled to get away. Jerking herself out of my grasp, she ran for the front door, leaving me with a handful of hair and a bit of scalp.
Try not to be too concerned. We were trained for moments like that. I was the one who taught her how to escape. What was a handful of hair in the greater scheme of immortal life? Hair and scalp could grow back.
But when I was done with her?
I threw the iron like a spear. The iron was a typical iron, with the nut bit on one side and the sort of pointed end on the other.
While it had come from my car, and I could change my tires, I did not know the proper terms. I called them pointy end and nut end, what they were actually called did not determine my ability to use them as both tool and weapon.
Throwing it meant using that chiselled side as the front. It struck her, cutting into her but being stopped by her ribs as she went down.
I grabbed the phone and walked through the kitchen, setting the phone on the back of the couch.
I saw no one in the living room, no one at all. Not a single soul.
That’s totally believable.
Whatever I did see, the living room was empty by the time I crouched by Margaret. I picked up the tire iron and then stood, kicking her over as she struggled to breathe.
The iron must have broken bones in her chest. The bones and an airtight seal were required to breathe properly. While not necessary, breathing helped move oxygen and blood through the body, which sped up healing. Breathing also affected speech, as I had been told that speech was created when air left the lungs and went over the larynx.
I think, Margaret would be the one to ask about that, but I wanted her to save her breath to answer my questions.
“Quintillus’s Progeny,” I growled.
You’re beating on someone for hurting something that is yours.
There was a giddy little acknowledgement that traced itself through my nerves. Margaret had wronged me, for the first time in centuries I was able to exact revenge. No waiting for permission, no doing it quietly.
“The whore?” she asked, wrapping an arm around her chest as she struggled to sit up.
Breathing was not necessary, but it made healing go faster and allowed speech.
“Thousands of years of tradition down the drain for a fledgling?” Margaret asked. “You’re going to let him destroy the Council, and for what? A woman who never should have been turned?”
I used the iron to tap her chin. Margaret glared up at me defiantly.
There was blood in her mouth. As she glared at me, a little trickled out her nose.
But she was not as soft as she was pretending to be. I remained on guard as she whimpered like a mortal might.
I had witnessed her doing worse to stock who had forgotten the right amount of sugar for her tea.
“The old man made me an offer I could hardly refuse,” she said with a grin.
“He has nothing he can offer.”
“A purge is coming. The death rate of his new sickness is eighty percent amongst first world nations. All I had to do was help him manufacture it, let him play with the medicines and work around them. And I’ll be a god.”
“A god of a dying world holds no power.”
“Like we hold power now?” she laughed, then choked.
Margaret turned her head and spat up blood.
She’d make a convincing mortal.
I had no pity or concern for her. At that point, Margaret was on about a one on our pain scale. I had never taken her beyond a five before because humans weren’t typically capable of doing more harm than that.
She had been taught to cough up blood because it caused a visceral reaction in mortals. Coughing up blood equalled serious stuff.
For me, it just made a mess. At least it was one that I wouldn’t have to clean up this time.
Oh, I don’t have to clean up the mess!
I hefted the iron, turning it in my hand so that the chiselled side was facing her. Then I slammed it into her shoulder just below the collarbone and into the drywall behind her.
She screamed, but I was betting on her sound proofing her entire house like she did with every house before.
Margaret was also a fan of booby trapping her home. Given the modern era’s odd propensity for making things seem like magic, I was probably going to be in pain as I left the house.
Liquid latex in a bucket—I had not been joking about our reaction to that—acid to the eyes, maybe even a live webcam broadcast across the world.
Keep the mask on.
I placed my hand on her shoulder and yanked the iron out of the wall. Blood dripped off the end, soaking into the grey-beige carpet and turning it almost black.
“Just kill me already,” she said. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To get revenge for your precious child?”
I used the iron to stab her in the meat of her thigh, not appreciating her tone of voice at all. I certainly didn’t like that she was telling me what to do.
She wants to make you angry.
I yanked the iron out of Margaret’s leg. While I could have monologued, or gone on about purity of the Council, I chose not to.
“If this were about his Progeny, I would wait until the Council no longer needed you,” I growled.
“My Maker will have your head.”
If I were killed, Lu would also attack the one who did the deed. It was a gut reaction to such news.
“Your Maker is dead,” I said. “Part of your bargain with my Maker, no doubt.”
“What? That wasn’t our deal!” she snapped.
Finally, I had hit something I could use. I was tired of her voice and wanted to stop her ability to speak.
“Then what was the deal?”
“I provide him with my research and statistics. He makes me a god, ruling under him, and she is made my slave. A blood bag for me to tap
into whenever I want.”
That was a pretty simple deal. Easy enough to remember.
I had gone to war over less.
“How is he spreading it?” I asked.
“He’s not yet. He can’t while Death is in a mortal. It’s on the tool head, in case you catch up to him. Death is going to find himself a suitable host, then unleash it himself.”
“Why steal the head? He could have just taken it.”
“I stole it, he was still bound and couldn’t leave. We had to make sure it still worked, so I used it on Flavius. I messed it up, and his damned whore was there.”
That was why there had been two bodies the night before. To clean up her mess. Flavius had been about to leave the Council, and given his cheating on Margaret, I could see him being the first victim chosen.
“George,” I growled.
Why did George have to die?
“Said no.”
Which meant that he had known about the plot.
It wouldn’t have been the first time the old man had planned murder and mayhem though, so there wouldn’t have been a need to tell me about it when I visited the night before.
“Head needs the staff for anyone else to use it,” Margaret panted.
She paused to spit blood to the side rather than swallow it. Swallowing would have been better for her, maybe helped her heal enough to try to escape.
“We couldn’t find the staff, so Death had to burn through some bodies to get it to work. With the sickness on the head now, they can’t use it until they’re ready to start the cull.”
“Very helpful.”
“I told you what you wanted to know, so kill me.”
“Hmm, no.”
I turned and picked up the phone.
“You need to answer to Quin,” I said.
“Oh please, you’re not going to do anything to me while recording for her.”
“That’s why I’m shutting it off,” I said a moment before I ended the recording.
“Helen, we don’t have time for this,” Sasha said as she got out of the car.
“I’m just asking what it is that you don’t like about me,” I said.
