PANDORA

by Rebecca Hamilton

  Ripping away from her, I threw her onto the ground. Cecilia crashed into a pile of empty boxes next to a dumpster and placed a hand on her neck while I took several steps away from her. Our eyes remained fixed on one another, my right hand rising with a violent tremor as I wiped the blood away from my mouth. I could not help but to stare at this peculiar creature I now knew far too much about.

  “Get the fuck away from me,” I said, my voice a low rumble. I stumbled close to the building and rested a hand on the concrete facade.

  Cecilia sat up, regarding me with tears in her eyes. I could not bear the sight any longer. Pointing, I growled, my voice rising in volume, my frustration saturating each word I spoke. “Go!! Before I change my mind and cut you into so many fucking pieces, the coroner will need your teeth to identify the body!”

  She whimpered and stood quickly, eyes afraid to leave mine until I hissed, my crimson-stained fangs offering a reminder of what I had just done to her. I did not even have the thought to glamour her, I simply wished her gone and the action served its purpose. She sobbed once before running in a hasty manner. I watched her, still clutching onto her neck, while disappearing from my sight. Once she left, I closed my eyes as my head began to spin. “What the fuck did that witch do to me?” I asked. “Bloody hell, I heard her thoughts.”

  “Did you know that a vampire can go as long as a month between feedings before completely losing their minds?” an irritatingly perky voice chimed. Lifting my eyes toward a fire escape on the wall across from me, I saw the wiry imp of a witch sitting on the edge, kicking her legs like a five year old sitting on a chair too tall for her stature. Monica grinned as our eyes met, her hand rising to wave. I noticed the manner of her dress was the same as it had been last night, with the exception of a green scarf matching her irises secured around her neck this time.

  I narrowed my eyes and sneered. “You have a lot of fucking nerve appearing before me again, witch.”

  “Hey, I’m just giving you information that might be valuable to you in the future.” She stood and, as fragile of a girl as she appeared to be, surprised me when she jumped to grab hold of the metal stairs above her and swung herself over the railing. Sailing into the expanse over the alley, she rolled once mid-air before landing on the street, her knees buckling, but her posture straightening after just a moment’s pause. I blinked while she brushed at her sleeves and continued speaking. “Gymnastics classes paid off at last. Anyway, the olden ones have found ways of going as long as several weeks, but I wouldn’t recommend a young vampire like you trying that.”

  Her nonchalant manner only served to enrage me that much further. I charged for her, grabbing her by the throat. Fangs bared, face contorted with anger, I slammed her against the wall and spat in her face as I spoke. “I shall not be an emasculated vampire on your account, you meddling bitch. Now, either undo whatever spell you have cast on me, or I shall take great pleasure in ripping you limb from limb before sending myself into the afterlife.”

  “This isn’t coming from me, Flynn. It’s coming from you.” The smile faded from her lips, but the bemusement lingered in her eyes. “The only thing I did was bring it out.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What do you find so hard to believe? That you have any good left in you?” She chuckled. “That has to be it, because I have a strange feeling that if Flynn the vampire would have discovered these gifts on his own, he would have had a merry power trip, wouldn’t he? But no, that humanity you thought was gone might not be so dead after all.”

  “And I think you are teetering on the edge of your last breath. Now tell me, what is this?”

  “It’s the sight.” The smile returned, in all its mocking glory. “You’re a seer. You read people’s thoughts. You know what others don’t the next layer of things. Their intentions, their natures . . . Flynn, this is the gift.”

  I laughed. “Then I do not wish to have this power.”

  “It’s not a choice either of us made. You were born with it.” Monica attempted to wriggle out of my grip and I allowed her, too dizzy to issue a protest. She straightened the scarf around her neck and looked at me, sighing. “Listen, I brought it out prematurely for several reasons, not the least of which includes the fact that the voice of Peter is getting drowned out by your vampire machismo. Even as it stands today, I don’t know if you’ll use this gift for good, but it was going to emerge sooner or later. I’m just here to try to wake you up before she sinks her claws into you.”

  I perked an eyebrow. “I am being played around with, then?”

  “In some ways. But, then again, you always have been.” Monica lifted an eyebrow at me in return. “Why do you think Sabrina took you under her wing and made you an assassin? Why the hell do you think she made you a vampire in the first place?”

  Just as a biting retort seemed want to surface, my mouth shut and brow furrowed as I searched for the answer to her question. Truthfully, my Mistress had never told me why I had been turned and I never asked. I had merely assumed my service to Sabrina had proven me invaluable to her. “Do you mean to tell me Sabrina has known I was to be a seer all along and refrained from telling me?”

  “There’s using your brain, Pete.”

  I muttered a low growl at her.

  She held up her hand. “Yes, I know. I know. Not the Goody Two-Shoes name. We all know how he cramps your style.”

  I scoffed, my voice developing an edge to it. “Yes, please, let us discuss what a model citizen Dr. Peter Dawes was the man who swore his life to helping the huddled masses and then murdered two people in cold blood.” I shook my head. “Somehow in these hymns of praise every bloody entity in the cosmos wants to sing, that little detail gets overlooked.”

  “That’s what this whole thing has been about?” The smile on Monica’s face faltered. “You figure . . . what the fuck? You started off this way, why not go the full monty and shit all over life in general?”

  As I looked at her, the expression on my face betrayed me, eyes becoming pained, words only previously thought drifting past my lips. “You have no idea what it is like to live under a curse. I do not loathe the name because it was my mortal name. I loathe it because Peter was precious little more than a hypocrite.” My gaze shifted away. “He lived out his days pretending to be a healer, only to kill the thing he loved most.”

  Silence settled between us, neither of us apt to speak for interminable moments until Monica finally cleared her throat and sighed. “So, with that, the doctor becomes an assassin.”

  I indulged in a sardonic chuckle and glanced back at her again. “No, with that, the assassin becomes what he truly is.” A finger pressed into my chest, just above my heart. “I am a killer. I feed from mortals. I live in blood . . . damn you, I am a vampire! And a vampire unable to kill is little more than the same sort of hypocrite Peter Dawes was. The best fucking thing anybody ever did was to rid him of his cursed humanity.”

  A mysterious grin crept across Monica’s face, her eyes not faltering in their gaze. “But here’s a brain teaser for you, Flynn. Something I’d wager every mystical power in my life force you’ve never considered.” She strolled closer to me, careful, calculated steps with a deliberate tenor to each one. Lifting a hand, she poked my chest directly where the pendant underneath my shirt hung. “Did Peter Dawes kill Lydia Davies? Or did Flynn?”

  My brow knitted in confusion. “What kind of ridiculous question is that? I had not yet been turned.”

  “But Sabrina was already inside your mind. You’ve just been played like a fiddle so long, you don’t know how to tell the difference.”

  Our eyes locked in a staring match. Unable to respond, thoughts waging war inside my head, I spoke the only words I could in my own defense. “I do not believe you. In fact, I believe you are the one attempting to manipulate me.”

  “If you truly believe that,” she said, arms lifting from her sides. “Then put a knife through me, right now, and be done with it. End my incantation and go back to business as usua
l.”

  My hand rose, sweeping back my coat in a practiced motion as second nature as my hunger for blood. Fingers brushed the handle of one of my blades while my eyes remained fixed on Monica. If this truly was her sorcery, it would end with her death. A distinct part of my psyche could not help but to ask, though, if she might be telling the truth. In which case, what would I do with these new abilities? Would infatuation with life and humanity overtake me, or would I use them toward my own ends? Surely the voices could be dulled, my senses attuned to derive the same perverse pleasure from their thoughts I relished from their screams. I could have my vampire mistress and together, we would reign with absolute power.

  That was precisely what Sabrina wanted, though. I recalled Robin stating that he feared for my well-being. It was not outside her capabilities to manipulate a mortal, turn them, and train them to do her bidding. The cold-blooded assassin within could not care less and wanted to embody the term ‘killer’ to the fullest, most inhumane sense of the word. A more distant voice, however, struggled to understand how he became what we now were.

  My hand lowered from the knife. I could not determine if I wished Monica’s aid or if I purely intended to exploit her knowledge, but now was not the time to end her. “Put your fucking arms down,” I said, frowning.

  She grinned. “I knew you weren’t that bad of a guy after all, Flynn.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do not try my mercy, woman.”

  “Very well, then. I’ll leave you to your brooding.” Monica played with her scarf. “I had to cast half a dozen spells to get you into your coven earlier, so I’ll reserve our meetings for out here, on the streets.” Glancing from the emerald green fabric back to my eyes, the grin remained a fixture on her face. “Besides, I got in Sabrina’s cross-hairs once. If you told her that I’m dead, it wouldn’t look good for us to be seen together.”

  “And if I need to find you?”

  “I’ll stay close.” And just as I believed she could not grate on my nerves any more, she winked. The cocky gesture forced me to suppress an urge to grit my teeth. “Trust me, if you’re in trouble, I’ll know.”

  With a curtsey, Monica turned and begun walking away. I watched her take several paces before calling out, “Witch!”

  Monica paused, glancing back at me with an upturned eyebrow. “The name’s Monica, Flynn. What can I do for you?”

  “Monica.” Her name burned my lips like acid splashed on flesh, becoming just as vile to me as my mortal name had been. “What of this necklace? How did retrieving it after all these years force this torrent of nonsense to the limelight?”

  “There’s no such thing as a coincidence. You’ll be mindful to remember that.” She neither smiled, nor frowned merely regarded me in an even manner. “It belonged to a special girl, let’s put it that way. Somebody who’s been looking out for you longer than you know. Try not to let Sabrina get her hands on it, okay?”

  I nodded slowly as Monica spun around again and, this time, vanished from my sight. Even after she had departed, though, I found myself frozen in position, examining the air where she once stood as though the vapors of her presence yet lingered with riddled answers. I was confused, hungry, and tired, and the moment I broke my trace to regard the night sky, I realized the hour grew late. Not enough time to even attempt luring one of the late night stragglers someplace secluded. As if I possessed any desire to after that debacle.

  So, I dug my hands in my pockets and strolled back to the coven house, opting to drain a few glasses of blood before retiring to my room again. The rays of the sun had not yet touched the horizon as I lay in bed, fingers tracing the pendant around my neck until sleep took me under. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized a battle for my soul had commenced anew, promising to be long and bloody. I could not figure out my posture on the matter yet. I simply knew one thing prevented the sinner in me from swallowing me whole.

  Lydia. The push that sent me barreling over the edge in the first place was the same thread tethering me to my humanity. The direction of the wind hinged upon the death grip she had on the scattered remnants of Peter, but then again, a lot had always hinged upon her.

  I simply did not yet have the eyes to see it when I was mortal.

  Part Four

  The Secret

  “For nothing is hidden that will not

  become evident, nor anything secret that will

  not be known and come to light.”

  Luke 8:17

  Chapter Fifteen

  I have never cared for the light. Even as a human, I rarely liked to wake early and tended toward late night walks and odd shifts at the hospital. This is partly what made the eternal darkness of being a vampire so appealing to me. While the mortal world basked in the dawn, I gloried in the dusk. Lydia often commented on what it did for my pallor, but then again, she was always a child of the morning.

  We met under a pitch-black sky, a most unlikely circumstance as Lydia hated being outside so late. She was a creature of superstition that way, always harboring the fear that some power or entity might do something to her when sunset found her outdoors. Whatever compelled her to leave her apartment that night sealed her hatred of darkness. It probably also sealed her death, because being out there led her to me.

  A chilly wind blew past, forcing me deeper inside the protection of a warm, wool jacket as I strolled through a park in North Philadelphia. Looking for some sort of reprieve from my thoughts, I marveled over the tenor of my adult life. My parents were dead; my aunt gone and my uncle falling sick himself. Terminally alone, I felt content to be as such, but there were times when the burdens of the world weighed heavier on my mind than others. On those occasions, I would look around only to discover I had nobody with whom to speak. So, I indulged the habit of walking around the neighborhood.

  My gaze often drifted to the heavens, regarding the stars for the answers to my private musings. I did not harbor any faith in a higher power; night after night spent at the hospital reminded me of the ills which befell humanity and prevented me from believing anything benevolent could exist. On nights like this, however, I still held out hope there might be a God, and that he could shine a little enlightenment down on me.

  With a deep sigh, I stared upward, soaking up the moonlight with my bare eyes.

  That was when she came slamming into me from behind.

  The force caught me off-guard. I pitched forward and sprawled out on the ground before I could remove my hands from my pockets. My face impacting concrete, I added an extra grunt of offense when she landed on top of me. “Oh god,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking and I”

  “It’s alright,” I said, coming to a stand. My finger dabbed at my nose when I felt something warm trickling from it, but jerked away at the burst of pain radiating from the touch. Blood coated my digits. I frowned as I considered it might be broken, and then looked up at my unwitting assailant to discern what in God’s name had just transpired.

  As I did, two things about her caught my attention. Her eyes jumped around nervously, almost fearful, but their bright green color still appeared warm and inviting. Tempted to stare into them for a while, I caught sight of something, which drew my attention to the side of her neck. I frowned at the rivulet of blood running from a deep gash. “Miss,” I said, walking closer and reaching out to examine it. “This is a bad cut. You need to have it looked at.”

  Her eyes shot back toward me. She tensed, but failed to stop me as I continued inspecting the wound. When she did not respond, I lifted my gaze toward her emerald irises again. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Someone tried to attack me,” she said, tilting her head obediently to give me a better look. Her eyes shut and the breath she exhaled was rife with apprehension. “I’ll get it looked at. I just need to get out of here first.”

  “I’m a doctor.” I paused and corrected myself. “Well, I’m a resident, but I work at the hospital. Why don’t we get you over there and see about patching
you up? You’ll be safe with me, I promise.”

  I backed away from her a little, allowing her to resume a more comfortable posture. She seemed to be weighing something internally, her eyes narrowing and a world away until some light of decision illuminated her face. Immediately, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you . . . ”

  “Peter.” I smiled, placing my hand on her shoulder in some effort to offer her comfort as we walked toward the edge of the park. “But I could ask that you call me Dr. Dawes. A resident needs to get his ego trip somehow.”

  The comment made her chuckle and gave me a chance to see the finer points of her beauty, no longer shrouded by her flustered panic. She had long, brown hair and a delicate smile that curved upward at the corners of her mouth. It was just the right sort of expression to shoot a bolt of sunshine into the psyche of the beholder. She had me instantly smitten.

  “My name’s Lydia,” she said, regarding me in return. “And your nose seems to be bleeding.”

  I laughed. Touching it again, this time gingerly, I spoke in a dismissive manner. “It’s not like this is the first time I’ve screwed it up. Horsing around near farm equipment will do that, too.” I paused to glance back across my shoulder briefly. “I’m more concerned about your well-being. You said someone tried to attack you?”

  She nodded. I caught a shiver running up her spine as she answered. “Yes, I was. That thing came at me out of nowhere, but I think I scared it away.”

  “Thing?” I perked an eyebrow. “You mean, like an animal?”

  When Lydia’s eyes found mine again, her expression was almost harrowing. “No, nothing like that.” Those words served to be her only response and I thought it rude to pry. So, I did not press her for further explanation. We walked in silence the remainder of the way to the hospital and I quickly slipped into the mentality of a doctor the moment we passed through the emergency room entrance.