by Alia Bess
“Fuck, Jasper. Damn. Why would I want to see it?” She reached for the tissues and blew her nose. “I can see it all now in my head.”
Jasper put a tiny monkey hand on her knee. “But you are getting the wrong idea, and you are making it worse.”
“Making it worse?” She slid form the bed and towered over the little monkey demon. “How can it get any fucking worse? It seems that I am responsible for the deaths of three good men. The only men I have ever loved…and I killed him. Three times.” She picked up the whole box of tissues and headed for the bathroom.
“Don’t take the sedative, Victoria.” Jasper leaped ahead of her and blocked the door to the bathroom. “It will make you lose control. You will not be able to think clearly and will be at the mercy of your imagination. You don’t need that right now.”
She stopped mid-kick and put her foot back on the floor. “Why do you even care, demon? Isn’t it your job to torment the living? No wonder you want to take me back to watch him die. Bastard.” She reached for the doorknob.
“Don’t do it, Victoria.”
She kicked at him again and he darted away from her foot to stand by the window. She went into the bathroom and with shaking hands opened the medicine cabinet and fumbled through the prescription bottles for the Valium. She wanted to sleep. To sleep with no dreams, no nothing. She shook out two of them and swallowed them without water and then set the bottle on the sink while she drew a bath. She could still feel the blood and cum dripping down her thighs and only hot water and bubbles could take that away. Bubbles and sedatives.
Jasper’s little face peeked around the doorway. “Victoria. You need to go back.”
“Go to Hell, monkey demon. Go back to Hell and leave me alone.”
He disappeared and she was glad. The warm fuzzies started to take the edge off the pain in her mind. The warm water would ease the pain in her arms and legs, but nothing could ease the pain in her heart. She had killed him. She had killed him as if she had thrust a sword through his heart or squeezed the life from his throat. And Marcus. She blinked the vision of her dark lover from two thousand years ago. He had earned a little farm as retirement bonus for surviving twenty years of marching for Rome. Marcus grinned as he chucked her chin and kissed her ear as he told her about it. He was ready to take up farming. He would grow grapes and olives and spend his last years basking in the kind of peace he had never known in his life.
Then she saw the door open. She saw the faces silhouetted in the opening. Marcus withdrew his cock from her body and turned to look over his shoulder. She saw the look on his face when he turned back to her, and on the faces of the servants at the door. Two of the intruders fled immediately, and Victoria knew they were running to tell Cestius that his favorite concubine was being fucked by one of his men.
She and Marcus locked eyes. There were no words. She knew she would never see him again. His eyes told her that. Her eyes told him how her heart was lost and she was now dead inside. Victoria sobbed in her bath. He had been ordered to Gaul and died there a month later, his throat slit ear to ear. She had seen it. She knew. There would be no farm for him, no bower of grape vines or arching olive trees. He would die as he had lived, in blood and gore. Victoria wiped her nose.
And Torgal. He also had died for her. She wished the sedative would work faster. She splashed the bath water in her face and used the end of a towel to dry her eyes and her nose. Those chains were there because he had been found in the straw with her the day before her wedding to another man. Her espoused husband and his brothers had taken Torgal and bound him in a neighbor’s remote farmstead until his family could pay restitution for her virginity. Her wedding day had been more like a funeral. Her husband had shut her in her room and not come to her that night to consummate the marriage.
He had married her for her beauty and for her dowry, but now she disgusted him. Not disgusted enough to give up the rich farmland that came with her hand, but enough to keep him from touching her. When pressured by the law weeks later, he had held her down and fucked her with his brothers and uncles in the room as witnesses. She had screamed. It had hurt. She remembered the cheers from the drunken men on the other side of the door. They had made a party of it. Her husband had beat her afterwards, but never touched her or spoke to her again.
She had lived that life in shame and desolate loneliness, dying years later of some pulmonary disease in the dead of winter with no children or friends or family to mourn her. She saw this. And she saw that it was her love for Torgal that had precipitated this disaster. She had arranged for him to meet her, she had thrust herself into his arms. A young girl’s selfish foolishness and a belief in true love had ruined the lives of three people.
Victoria dunked her head in the soapy and water and rubbed her face with the towel again. She still did not feel clean. She took great gulps of the steamy air and blew them out like she had learned to do in yoga class. It did not help. She felt as filthy and disgusting as a sewer bubbling up from broken pipes. Michael Brand, from Legal entered her mind and she let out a great long groan. Here was another man, an innocent man, not even a lover, and he was dead because of her. His children had no father, his wife no husband in her bed at night. All because of her. And she was supposed to be glad with the money from the settlement. Blood money.
She slid under the water and put her feet up on the spigot. She wondered if it hurt to drown.
“Victoria! Stop this!” A hand grabbed her by the hair and brought her face back into the air. “There is nothing more disgusting than self-pity. Do you understand me?”
She opened her eyes and her sedative-dulled mind struggled to recognize Albert Magnus. She sputtered a drugged greeting.
“Jasper told me you were sliding down that path again. We are trying to help you, Victoria. Why won’t you take the sandwich?”
She blinked. It had sounded like he was offering her a sandwich. She shook her head, but it did not clear. She still felt like a brick in the bottom of a tub of water. She couldn’t eat. She may never eat again. Her stomach twisted and agreed with her. Something was lifting her from the water and wrapping her in a towel. Someone was speaking, but it seemed like a foreign language. She sniffed. Soap got in her nose and her eyes burned. Strong hands rubbed a rough towel over her face.
“You are going to fall asleep, Victoria. There is nothing we can do to stop it.” She understood those words. “You should not have taken the sedative. Now you will sleep and the dreams you dream will not be your own, but the wild images of your emotions. You have made it worse. You cannot hide from the truth. You cannot drown your sorrows or erase your pain by deflecting or ignoring it. You have to face them, Victoria. You have to look them in the eye and conquer them.”
“No, I don’t,” she slurred.
She heard him sigh. “Yes. You are right about that. And you have not for many centuries, yes. You are right,” he agreed again sadly, “but he is here, he has come to you in this time and he is trying to save you, Victoria. He is trying to save you from yourself but you will not let him.”
She rolled to one and realized she was now in her bed. Mr. Magnus had her hand and was patting it. She tried to squeeze it to let him know she was listening, but her muscles refused to obey any direct orders from her brain. It was foggy and warm and soft fluffy blankets and litters of mewling kittens surrounded her. She smiled. This is nice.
It wasn’t nice. Lord Brigayne’s men dropped her unceremoniously off in front of the cottage. Jack saw their horses as they trotted around the bend in the road and left his forge. His eyes were angry and sad and his mouth was in a firm line that told her he did not want to talk about it. Then he saw her bloody skirts.
She had guessed right. His face darkened and without a word to her he turned and strode to the barn. Victoria was watching now. Maggie cried for him to stop, but she did not go after him. Instead she limped into the cottage and closed the door. The barn doors opened and the big cart horse leaped out wearing only a bridle and Jack on h
is back. Victoria followed him. She was like a ghost flying through the air over his left shoulder. She tried to reach out and touch him but could not.
She followed as he galloped to the manor house. She was there when he leaped from the horse, and when he dropped the reins as he landed and let the animal run down the road. That is when she realized he knew he would not be going back to the forge or to Maggie. Victoria wondered if she were watching events as they happened or if this was like a memory play-back. He took the steps three at a time and drew a sword from his belt. Victoria knew this blade was another he had made for another man, a marquis who lived in the next county. The first two servants who tried to stop him from entering the house were slain with a heavy backhanded blow from that sword. The next one tried closing a door on him. He was knocked down. The next held a chair as one would fend off a wild animal. And Jack was wild. She saw it in his eyes. She saw it in the way his hair stood on end and the way he waved the sword. He was breathing through his teeth with a loud hissing sound and his jaw muscles bulged. The chair was splintered and the servant fled as Jack made his way to the second floor up the grand staircase.
Lord Brigayne met him, sword drawn on the mezzanine. He held the scabbard in his left hand like a shield. He fell into a practiced en gard and the smirk on his face told her that he had no fear of the blacksmith.
“You made this fine sword, John. You did not expect you would have to battle it.”
Jack waved the sword in his hand as one would swing an ax or a scythe. He had no training in swordplay.
“I’m sorry about Maggie, John. Truly. I did not mean to harm her.”
Jack did not answer but his face purpled with rage and he charged. Victoria put a ghostly hand to her throat. The battle was one sided at first. Lord Brigayne easily dodged the attack and slapped Jack on the back with the flat of his blade as the bigger man sped past. He was playing.
Jack was not. He turned at the end of the walkway and raised the sword. Lord Brigayne raised his and they stepped together. The two blades clashed with the ringing sound of beautifully worked steel. Brigayne stepped neatly to and fro, avoiding Jack’s murderous sweeps easily. He would touch Jack here and there with the tip, ripping his tunic and breeches with little laughing snorts. Jack bled from many minor cuts and did not seem to be winning this fight. Victoria was puzzled. He was supposed to be winning. Brigayne kept Jack moving backward which Victoria knew from watching the Olympics was very disadvantageous. Had this been a sporting event Brigayne would be racking up the points while Jack was clearly out of his league.
Out of his league in skill, but not strength. She watched his face and saw when that realization came over him. He relaxed his jaw and started to use his body instead of his arm. He turned and twisted to dodge Brigayne’s thrusts and used his longer legs and greater strength to his advantage. She saw that he was no longer trying to beat him with the steel, but to disarm the lord. It happened in a flash. Brigayne’s sword missed a stab at Jack’s chest and passed harmlessly under his arm. At that moment Jack turned and brought his sword down as one would swing a golf club. His blade met Brigayne’s at a right angle, the force of the blow knocked the hilt from the lord’s hand and sent the blade clattering over the rail of the mezzanine and to the floor below. Jack threw his blade after it.
This act surprised both Brigayne and Victoria. But just for a moment. Jack was on Brigayne in two steps with a wicked upper cut. The lord went down on his back, surprise in his eyes. He had probably never been struck in his life. Jack danced backwards, his great fists balled up like boulders. His shoulders moved back and forth as he evaluated his enemy. Brigayne did not want to play any game he could not win, and now his face held none of its previous arrogance. He got to his feet and put his hands in front of him in the universal gesture of a time out. His eyes darted over the servants gathered on the floor below, watching this drama.
“Go for the sheriff’s men,” he shouted at them. Make sure they bring a pistol.”
A pistol. The great equalizer. Then this was at least seventeenth century, probably eighteenth, the historian in Victoria noted. Jack swung at Brigayne and missed. The lord ducked and danced away, reluctant to engage those huge fists and arms. Jack outweighed him fifty pounds at least. Brigayne shouted at the servants to get the groundskeeper and “have him bring a shovel!” Jack swung again and this time connected with Brigayne’s chest. The lord staggered back and put his fists up. He glared at Jack. “How dare you, ruffian. How dare you strike me. That blow was your death.”
Jack sneered at him and threw another punch, then bounced back on the balls of his feet. He ducked, weaved between Brigayne’s arms and connected a heavy straight armed blow directly on his nose. The lord’s head snapped back and Victoria could hear a popping sound. There would be a broken nose and a concussion from that strike. Jack did not stop, but followed up with mini jabs at Brigayne’s’ neck and chest before landing another powerful punch on the lord’s jaw that snapped his head back so far his nose pointed straight up. Brigayne went down and was still. One leg twitched and Victoria watched from over Jack’s shoulder as a puddle of piss formed under Brigayne’s buttocks. That’s when she knew the lord was dead. Jack knew it too.
He put his fists down and leaned over the mezzanine’s rail. All the lord’s servants stood looking up at him in horror. The groundskeeper was there with his shovel, but he didn’t come up the stairs. Jack turned his head. All the doors on the next floor were closed and bolted. Outside they all heard the sound of galloping horses and shouting men. Victoria wondered if she needed to stay to watch any more of this. There was no place for him to hide, no place to run to. He had murdered Lord Brigayne in broad daylight in front of a dozen witnesses. She watched his face. She saw no regret. He then turned sad eyes down to the floor and she knew he was thinking of her. Of Maggie. Victoria tried to touch him. Her ghostly hands went right through his sweating body. As the sheriff’s men barged in through the front doors with rope and swords and one heavy pistol, Jack put his hands up and surrendered. Victoria covered her eyes. She did not want to see the rest.
But she had to. Even with ghostly eyes closed, she stood before the gibbet with every member of the village as Jack swung back and forth over the wooden platform. She tried to turn around, but he hung there everywhere she looked, hand and feet tied, but no hood covered his purple death face. Victoria turned away. Sedatives could not help her here. Jasper and Mr. Magnus had been right.
They were both looking at her when she opened her eyes for real. “Ugh,” she groaned. “That was a really bad trip.” She moved her hands and feet. They hurt.
Mr. Magnus steadied her as she tried to sit. “It can only get worse unless you listen to me.”
She winced and touched her forehead where a flamenco headache was forming. “I’m listening,” she whispered.
“He is not dead. We will start with that.”
She looked at him, then at Jasper. She frowned, then thought better of that. “This is why I do not listen to you. I saw him die.”
“Everyone dies.” Mr. Magnus sat on her bed. “Many times. It is an inescapable fact. The first thing you must do is stop thinking that death is a ‘bad thing’. We can’t go any further while you are still under the impression that the worst thing that can happen to a person is for him or her to die.”
She took a deep breath. ”Okay.”
“You are humoring me. Let us pretend that it is true. That may be easier for you at first.”
She nodded, then winced. Jasper handed her a glass of water and she drank it gratefully.
Mr. Magnus continued. “Pretend then. Pretend all of life is a video game, and that you must learn the rules as you go. There are no cheats. Are you following me?”
She handed the glass back to the monkey demon. “I am.”
“When you die you get a re-start. Sometimes back to the beginning, and sometimes further along. What do they call those?”
“A save-point”
“Fine. Then
we will call that a save-point. You do have a mission, just as in the game, and every time you fail to complete that mission you return. Sometimes in a different century, sometimes in a different country, always in a different body but some things remain the same so you can recognize them in the cloudy mists of eternity.”
“His scar?”
“Exactly. He is trying to contact you and get you to remember him. You resisted at first because the memory was too painful. You made up all kinds of fantastic reasons that this could not be Torgal or Marcus or Jack. You formed him into a demon and an incubus. You told yourself you might be crazy. You took the sedatives. Anything to keep from facing the truth, Victoria.”
She wanted something stronger than a glass of water before she must ask him the inevitable question. Jasper grinned and help up a smaller glass. She sipped and recognized a gin and tonic. She smiled back, but her eyes were leaking tears as she asked, “What is the truth, then, Mr. Magnus?”
“You are not responsible for his deaths. None of them. We each die our own deaths for our own reasons. Your guilt and erroneous beliefs are what are imprisoning you. Wake up and see the bars of this prison, Victoria. Shake them with both hands and then turn the lock and let yourself out. I can’t turn that lock for you.”
“Where is he?”
“He can’t come to you until you have jettisoned this tremendous guilt. You have told yourself for centuries now that you don’t deserve a lover. You don’t deserve to love or be loved. You don’t deserve happiness. You need to be punished forever. These beliefs become real and you have now found yourself in Hell. A Hell of your own making. These beliefs have formed a great barrier that he cannot penetrate. He is trying to get you out. He has been trying for a long time. He loves you so much. He will never give up trying.”
Victoria sniffed. “Which one?”
Mr. Magnus patted her shoulder. “All of him.”
