Turning back to Jack, I had another burning question, “So you don’t have any more children running around? It’s just me?”
He paused, and it was the first time I saw him looking even a touch remorseful. “There were a couple others that initially took, but it never lasted.” He poured two glasses of wine and handed me one. “Your mother had a rough delivery with you.”
“Yes, I know.” I knew the whole story of the emergency C-section. She had started hemorrhaging. Somehow, her uterus had ruptured, and they hadn’t known the why or how of it at the time. Now I was sure it had been my fault. I had almost killed her.
“I was there when it happened. I knew her time was close, and I was so excited that I had a hard time leaving her side. She never understood how her husband kept getting all these checks with so much overtime when he was always home.”
The mention of my father, or who I had thought was my father, made me realize he had no blood relation to me at all. I couldn’t tell him. How would I ever explain? I would take it to my grave however long away that was. I didn’t want him to be hurt.
“So my father isn’t my father at all? No blood relation, not even a tiny bit?” I already knew but this was something I had to hear him confirm.
“Nothing, your all me, well me and your mother, that is. Your mother couldn’t have anymore afterward. She was the only one that had been able to even come close to full term.”
“I don’t understand why though. Why was it just my family, or my mother to be precise, that you could have a child with?”
“I’ve been manipulating your family’s blood lines since the sixteenth century when I first stumbled across one of your ancestors and saw the potential. There is something in your bloodline that I don’t understand. I tried to ask Frank about it, but he likes to keep his secrets. He’s mad at me right now. He thinks I got the scientist started with the cloning.”
“He doesn’t think that cloning is right?”
“Nah, he’s just a bit of a control freak. He doesn’t like people messing in his domain. Before that, he was all mad about birth control, which was one of my contributions, like I said before, he’s got control issues. You can start to understand why I left, right? He was constantly giving me the silent treatment or turning off the ac. I don’t mind being cold, but I hate being hot. He was very hard to live with.”
“Why did Caden leave?”
“I used to be very tight with Caden. He made the move with the rest of us when we went. Then we had a falling out.”
“Why?”
“He thought I tricked him into a human body for a while, which I did. It was quite funny. He was only stuck for a month or so before the guy died, but once he got his body back, he was just never the same. I miss him.” He looked down and paused in his speaking. I was at a loss for words. The tension broke when his phone started ringing and he pulled a cell phone out of his back pocket.
“Hang on, I gotta take this. Hello? No, I didn’t start the cloning. Fine.” He hung up the phone. “And he’s so nosey too. He has to listen to everything. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” He made a face as he placed his phone back in his pocket.
“That was..?”
“Yes, that was Frank. He gets irritated when I even bring up the subject of cloning.”
“So he knows you are here with me?”
“Yes. He’s annoyed about you as well. Says I did too much tinkering, unnatural or something, he says. He can complain about that until I’m deaf in the ears, but he still won’t tell me what’s out of whack with your family.”
“So, Frank, I mean god, didn’t want me to be born?” It was a good thing I wasn’t very religious. That was a hard thing to take in and I wasn’t even a devout Catholic. I’m not sure anybody wants to hear something like that. I would bet that would rattle even the most hardened criminal.
“You can’t take it personally. It’s not you he dislikes. He’s just mad about how I went about getting you.”
“So it’s not that he doesn’t like me?”
“Exactly, he doesn’t dislike anyone. He’s just annoyed I tinkered.”
God didn’t hate me. That definitely sat better. I could understand his annoyance with the tinkering. I was annoyed myself with the tinkering. I didn’t like being a freak of nature.
“How long have you been around?” I asked.
“I’m as old as the earth.”
I was becoming overwhelmed by all the information he was giving me. I couldn’t even digest his words anymore.
“I really need to get back to the bar.”
“You don’t want to stay? I’ve got a room for you here, all set up. I’ve got one set up for you in Paris and all my other places as well. We are going to have a marvelous time together!” He smiled, and he was trying to take my hand to show the room to me.
“I appreciate that, but I come from a very normal place. I’ve lived a normal life for a long time. I need some adjustment time. I hope you can understand that.”
He looked a bit disappointed but resigned.
“Okay, I’ve got to handle some business out of the area. I’ll stop by in a couple of years and see how you’re doing. I don’t want to crowd you. I know how you teenagers can be.”
“I’m in my twenties.”
“Yes, I almost forgot how young you really are.” He held his hand out, and I took it hoping we were really going back to Caden’s. I didn’t know whether I could trust him or not. I was starting to wonder if he was even sane. He’d lived forever in a reality that differed from mine more than I could really grasp, yet I wasn’t sure it was right to call him crazy. Maybe this was sanity when you existed for this long.
Chapter Thirty
Luckily, when the haze cleared, we were outside facing the building. The familiar brick façade stood in front of me like an oasis in the Sahara.
“Please excuse me if I don’t see you in. Caden is going to be very testy with me for taking you.”
“Are you afraid of him?”
“Of course not,” he said, but disappeared as soon as Caden was walking out of the door to meet us.
Caden stood in front of me, looking no worse for wear.
“What happened once I left?” I asked while looking over his body for injuries to confirm my initial assumption.
“Not much. Once you were gone, Rufus got more agitated. Carried on for a while but wasn’t much he or anyone else there could do. The council isn’t going to get any more involved now. Not with Jack stepping in. Meeting him up front and personal really shook them up.”
“And they’d never met him?
“A few of them have but not most. The ones that have will school the others and that will be the end of that. Jack doesn’t normally get involved on the lower levels like this so it really threw them.”
“So now what happens?”
“We wait for Rufus to come at us, and we take them out.”
“I guess I should start packing up my things.”
“No, that’s not a good idea anymore. That was the plan before I was sure about Jack, and I didn’t realize his full intentions. He’d have you knee deep in things you can’t even imagine. If you aren’t with me anymore, nothing will stop him from insisting on you stay with him.” He started walking back in the bar like it was a done deal because he had decreed it.
“What’s wrong with that? I just found out the man is my father.” I said it, but I didn’t mean it. I had no real desire to go stay with the devil, even if his name was Jack, and he happened to be my father.
“What you think of as a father, and what Jack is capable of feeling, are two very different things. You’re not ready for that scene.” He opened the door for me and followed in behind me.
“And you would know because you’re just like him? Do the guys know what you are?”
“Yes.”
“What about Rufus?”
“I’ve never discussed anything with them, but I believe they suspect, just have never confirmed it
.”
I stopped just inside the door and turned to look at him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He stopped and looked down at me. “You were struggling enough with the idea of what I was when you thought I was part human. How could I tell you that I wasn’t anything close to human? And don’t ever say I’m just like him. We are worlds apart, him and I. By the way, should you really even be casting judgment? I’m not sure you are any more human than I am.”
“At least my mother was human.”
“That remains to be seen. I’ve never seen a human light up like a glow stick on Halloween before. Actually, I’ve yet to see any creature, human or not, pull that trick off.”
“I’ve got to talk to my mother,” I said, distracted from our argument. I needed to know if she knew anything. I left him standing in the bar alone, as I walked back toward the elevator and the apartment, leaving him to follow or not.
I stopped suddenly just before I left the room. “So, just to make it clear, I’m staying simply because you don’t want me to go off with Jack?”
“Yes. It’s the best for you,” he said and this time he was the one to walk away.
“Uh huh.” I realized my big demon didn’t actually want me to leave. I knew on some level, I should be freaked out about the fact that he wasn’t even part human, but I still wanted him. Maybe I was the insane one. He wasn’t even human, yet I thought he was the most perfect man I’d ever met.
“Just so we are clear, I’m staying because I think it’s the right move. Not because you are telling me to.” That wasn’t me speaking, but the big bruised pride inside of me. I refused to act as if I cared about staying. He’d almost kicked me out.
“Uh huh,” he mimicked back to me.
“I’m driving out to see my mother tomorrow. I need to talk to her.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“No, this will be a lot easier if I go alone.” I waited a moment. “You’re not going to give me a hard time going out there alone?”
“Not after you showed me you could fry everything that came near you with your little glow trick. Make sure you take the Hummer. Your Mini isn’t safe.”
I followed him downstairs to what I was starting to think of as our apartment. We both went our separate ways. Neither of us ready was ready to bend and be the one to seek the other out, but neither of us left the apartment either.
Chapter Thirty-One
I barely slept thinking about the coming discussion with my mother. I wasn’t prepared to give her the whole truth, and I didn’t even know if I could face seeing my father knowing what I now knew and be able to not cry. Beyond anything, I couldn’t hurt the man that had given me everything he could.
I woke even before my alarm went off at six. I climbed into the huge borrowed Hummer that was waiting outside the bar for me. It was a small concession to make. Beyond not being safe enough, he thought my happy yellow colored Mini Cooper was too conspicuous, which was sort of funny considering the large black Hummer hardly blended into the background.
It took me about five hours to drive out to the suburbs in Pennsylvania where my family lived, but I was finally pulling into the driveway of the charming cape cod house I’d grown up in.
The man I considered my father my entire life was at work, and I was guiltily happy to be able to avoid that situation. I didn’t want to lie, and I knew he would sense something off in me.
As I walked up the driveway, I could see the smoke coming from the chimney. My mother always loved a fire going on cold snowy days. I hadn’t made it to the door yet when it opened, and my mother was standing in the threshold beaming. She must have been checking for me every couple of minutes. The small woman took me into a huge bear hug before I could even get inside.
“Whose car is that?”
“A friend of mine lent it to me. Thought it might be too snowy out here, and this would be better than mine.”
“Good! Good! That truck is much safer in the snow. I made you some of your favorite pine nut cookies to take home with you. Sit down and I’ll get you lunch.”
I sat down at the checkered table in the cheery yellow rooster themed kitchen and wondered how I could possibly broach the subject. I looked around at the cheerful home my mother had made, and I froze. Every opening I thought of just seemed to fall flat now that the time had come.
“I wish you could’ve come later. Your father would’ve loved to see you,” she said as she came over and hugged me again.
“You didn’t tell him I was coming, did you?” I asked panicking slightly. I had asked her not to.
“No, I know you didn’t want to make him feel like he had to take off when works so crazy right now.” She placed a gallon-sized bowl of stew in front of me and a whole loaf of French bread.
“Ma, I can’t eat all of this.”
“Just try, you look like your losing weight.”
I picked up my fork and tried to humor her. I knew she was right. Even my new clothes were starting to bag on me, and I didn’t like her to worry. I wouldn’t mind putting a couple pounds back on so everyone would stop about the weight.
“So Ma, how’ve you and Dad been?”
“Good, Daddy’s diverticulitis was acting up so the doctor has him eating this high fiber diet, but he’s really mad he can’t have his steaks anymore.”
“I’m sure it’s put a real damper on his dinner. He does loves his steaks.” I ate a couple of bites thinking of how I was going to get around to the subject, and I couldn’t think of a good opening, so I just blurted it. “Did Dad ever seem different to you when we were younger?”
“What do you mean?” She stopped and looked at me oddly.
Oh no, please let her not have known. My stomach did a flip-flop, and I was in danger of losing the stew I had just eaten.
“I don’t know, a little funnier, maybe a little crazier sometimes? He seemed a bit more carefree when we were kids, right?” I asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. If she did know, I certainly wasn’t looking for a heart to heart confessional. I hoped see had the sense to not give me all the dirty little secrets.
“Oh yes, I think he was hitting the sauce here and there. He never smelled like alcohol, but he would get, you know.”
I looked up at my middle aged mother’s matronly face and saw a girlish blush come over it, and I would have sworn there was a naïve twenty year old buried under there.
“You mean?” and I raised my eyebrows and she actually giggled.
“He would get in these crazy moods. I didn’t care if it was the booze. He would have these crazy mood swings, and I started to even think he might be an alcoholic. He was always so happy and fun when they hit that I didn’t really want him to stop, even if he was an alcoholic. That sounds horrible, I know, but they were some nights to remember.”
“That’s a bit too much information Ma,” I joked with her. I struggled, but kept the smile on my face, to not hurt her feelings, because I knew exactly what had happened those nights. I’d had my own demon experience and I could understand why she hadn’t wanted it to stop. My mother had indeed had sex with the devil, and not surprisingly, he seemed to really do it for her. So now, I at least knew she had probably not even known.
“Was there anything else odd about our family? I remember you telling me about a crazy Aunt Louise?”
“Oh yes, great, great Aunt Louise. She was a bit off in the head. She was living in Germany during World War Two with Uncle Edgar. They were helping Jewish families get out of the country. She used to say that the Nazis knew that they were helping the resistance, but wouldn’t do anything to them because they were scared of our family.”
“Scared of what? Why would the Nazis be scared of us?” I leaned forward, completely intrigued.
“Nobody knew what she was talking about. She was a bit off and had dementia towards the later portion of her life.”
“So you don’t remember anything else?” I slumped back in my chair.
“No, th
at was it. Why?”
“It was nothing,” I shook my head, “I was talking to somebody about ancestry the other day and it had me wondering is all.”
I moved on to a different subject asking who was doing her hair now, as I flipped through an old photo album. I hadn’t found out nearly what I had wanted to, but I found out enough to confirm that Jack was probably telling the truth. He was my father.
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was late afternoon when I left. I said I needed to leave for some fictitious doctor’s appointment. I literally had to climb up into the massive Hummer. Pulling away, looking in the rear view mirror at my childhood home that had kept me secure in ignorant bliss, a part of me wished I could go back to that place where I knew nothing but my happy delusions of what life would hold. Another part of me, a slightly larger part, was starting to realize the benefits of this new life of mine. I had never known how vulnerable I was before or how naïve. Colonel Custer once said, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down; it’s how many times you get back up.” I might have taken a couple of rough hits, but I kept getting up, and I was tougher for it. I liked the person I was becoming.
Driving back, I had a lot of time to reflect on the future I had always thought I’d live and the reality of what I would have. Kids might not be an option for me anymore, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t adopt. I already knew who I wanted to be with, and I had a long time to make it work now, much longer than I ever imagined.
Caden had told me to pull up around back and that he would have one of the guys put the Hummer in the garage. I didn’t see any need to impose on them, so I pulled it into the garage myself. It was a good thing to, because it gave me a moment to compose myself before I got too close to the situation. It was early evening on a Tuesday night. The streets were always crawling with people coming and going to all the restaurants in the area right around this time.
Obsidian Souls (Soul Series) Page 21
