by A. J. Aalto
“He’s sober,” Wes said, “and he’s safe, he’s just taken the lead on something. For Mom.”
“Okay, Mr. Enigmatic, keep your secrets for now,” I said, slowing for a stop sign. “Just tell me which direction to turn before I lose patience and call Harry.”
“He won’t answer,” Wes said, and began dicking around with the stereo to distract me. He pushed a half-ejected tape into the cassette deck. The Tea Party started playing “The River.”
“Hey, wait a second,” I said. “I think this is my tape. Harry stole my tapes!” I had a short list of suspects, and didn't think Mr. Merritt was much for rocking out as he trundled around, running errands.
Wes craned over into the back seat and brought forth a faux-leather box full of old cassettes. My old cassettes. Wes plucked one out. “Party Mix 4? Since when did you have one party, never mind four?”
“You don’t know,” I cried, pulling into a roundabout. “I could have partied. Where am I heading?”
“North. The fire lanes off Lakeshore Road.”
My mind went immediately to the old church there, where Grandma Vi was buried, and I hoped I was wrong. I didn’t dare glance over at Wes. I mouthed the words to the music under my breath to stay distracted, but as I got closer, and Wes’s directions changed subtly, I tensed further. Wes changed the tape to one of my so-called party mixes — though he was totally right, I had never partied in my life, other than one ill-considered, booze-soaked, hotel room, sea shanty session with Declan — and Jimi Hendrix came on. It was oddly soothing to hear “Voodoo Child.” I took a back road, careful of the deep ditches on either side that were nearly invisible in a soupy fog as we neared the lake end of the city.
When we hit Lakeshore, I could see the spire of the chapel through the low evening mist, and I could feel the distinct hum of my Cold Company out there somewhere in the dark, our Bond sparking to life, drawing me closer. Harry would have felt me a long time before I felt him, and there was no resistance from him.
Wes’s throat clicked as he swallowed hard. “Oh, it’s awkward, it’s awkward.” He flapped a pale hand at me. “Don’t turn in at the church just pull over and park here. We can’t interrupt them.”
“What the fuck, Wes?”
Shadows moved through the cemetery, passing stones and trees that were mere suggestions in the gloom. The longer I stared, the more I could recognize things, and the elegant sway of a man in a proper cape gave Harry away. I knew the spot they were heading toward, Harry and the shadow of my father.
“He’s steady,” I said of Dad, without knowing I was going to.
“He’s chosen to die sober with his mind clear, Marnie-Jean,” Wes whispered, and the words hooked under the sorest part of my heart to hang a heavy weight that could only serve to drag me down with it. I decided Wes was wrong.
That’s clever, Marnie. Doubt a telepath. Doubt your immortal brother, who is reading his own father’s mind. I slid my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and thumbed a text to de Cabrera.
Positivity failing. SOS!
He didn’t answer, so I figured he was either working or asleep early. That was okay. There had to be a good reason my father would ask Harry to come out to the graveyard that held the long-dead remains of Grandma Vi. Harry normally avoided this place like it was the flaming gates of hell. He didn’t want to risk drawing Vi’s spirit back to this realm, to disturb her rest with the call of Kinship of the Departed.
There was a third shadow, one I didn’t recognize at first, even after he came closer to the first two and the fog cleared from his face. It had been years since I’d seen Grampa Matts in person. I wondered how long it had been since Harry himself had seen my grandfather, the man whose wife he’d taken away when she was newly pregnant, carrying my mother in her belly.
“I can’t just sit here,” I said.
“Give them some time. They’re fine.”
“Harry needs me,” I said. “They’re going to gang up on him.”
Wes hooted a laugh. “Marnie, honestly? He’s four hundred some-odd years old. I think he can handle himself, even with those two.”
“Why are they doing this?” My heart ached. This would cause nothing but pain for everyone. The man who lost his wife. The man who felt shame for taking the woman he loved. The man who was thrown aside. No one was going to get the satisfaction or resolution they wanted.
Wes shook his head, but his eyes had gone entirely over to pale violet, and he avoided looking at me. A wash of sadness rolled through the car from his direction. “Marnie, this is their idea, not mine. If it were me, I’d avoid this until the end of time.”
The Bond was making me jumpy, my core tightened and shivered. Would my father or grandfather try to hurt Harry? To punish him? I needed answers. I slipped my gloves off, but Wes anticipated my move and shrank away from my touch.
“Fine. I’ll do things my way.” Head on. I threw myself out of the car, ignoring Wesley’s frantic whisper that I should stop. Stay out of it. That’s all I hear lately. It wore me out.
My Keds crunched the soft shoulder. I waited while two cars careened by at double the posted speed limit on the poorly lit road. Further up, there was a sharp turn and a deep ditch that collected inattentive motorists on a regular basis. Despite the signage, no one ever learned.
I stepped over some unidentifiable, long-flattened roadkill; the cold, eerie crimp between my shoulder blades returning. I clenched to relieve it, shaking it off, setting my focus on the shadows in the fog as they became clearer. I had nearly breached the oldest ring of trees at the edge of the cemetery when Wesley’s hand landed on my wrist. He hauled me behind a wide oak and scowled to keep me quiet.
I Felt Harry’s unhappy focus fall on me, but he accepted it resignedly. I heard my father’s raised voice, but the words were unclear. Not slurred by the varnish of booze, but running together with the passion of decades’ worth of anger. The wind shifted, stirring the fog with lazy fingers. My father’s voice sharpened. Accusations. Unfulfilled longing. Illness, which he ascribed to hopes being dashed. Harry’s head hung and he was silent, absorbing my father’s rage. My grandfather stood silent, too, but he was seething with just as much fury. When it was his turn, he pointed at the stone beneath which his beloved wife’s bones lay, finger shaking, as though this said everything he needed to say.
“You took her,” Matts said. “She wasn’t yours, but you took her.”
She wasn’t anyone’s, I thought at my brother. She belonged to herself.
Wes held my arm and gave it a squeeze. Harry said nothing in his own defense, nor did he attempt to explain Grandma Vi’s decisions or choices, her mistakes, her independence or desires. It was not his place to speak for her, and he would not, I knew, speak for himself. I ached to. More than anything, I wanted to swing out from behind the tree, march up to my family, and tell them off. Harry wasn’t perfect — far from it. He had many flaws. He was well aware of them.
I watched Harry interlace his fingers, cup his hands together before him, and bow slightly.
“And then,” my father rasped, “you took my eldest daughter. You hooked her on the milk of your fangs so she couldn’t live without you, and you hauled her into a dangerous life — criminals, monsters, demons. She lives with death. She risks death every minute that she’s with you. She’s damned her soul for you. Just as Vi did.”
Harry opened his mouth, but Grandpa Matts cut him off. “If you cared about Marnie-Jean at all, about what’s truly best for her, you would admit that it isn’t you. A life with you is not healthy for her. If you cared for her as you claim to, you’d pack your things and leave. Go back to whatever revolting corner of hell you slithered out of. But you won’t, will you? Because you’re selfish, just as selfish as you’ve always been. You’re a parasite clinging to this family. A bloodsucking leech.”
My mouth hung open at the unexpected viciousness being hurled at my Cold Company. Still, Wes held my shoulder and gave it a tug to keep me in my place. I looked back at
him pleadingly, wanting to shield Harry. I felt each word slip through Harry’s usually formidable emotional armor like needles, piercing and jabbing, each one finding flesh and wounding deeply. If he was feeling these emotions, he was opening himself to them willingly, I knew.
“And worse than that,” my father added, “when a normal, living man arrives who loves her, what do you do? Do you let her have him? No. Of course not. How could you consider her needs over your own? You run him off.”
“I have done many a vile thing, it is true,” Harry said, drawing himself up to full height indignantly, his eyes flashing chrome in the dark. “I am a wicked, degenerate creature full of debauchery, thirst, and corruption. My behavior has been disgraceful, my manners ignoble, my decadence scandalous. I have invaded, seduced, and plundered this family. I am not blind to the damage my ingress has caused. I will not deny your right to hold me accountable, nor will I turn my face away from your wrath, for I have earned every drop of it and more. As for the matter of the vampire hunter, however, you are categorically mistaken. I did not always tolerate his presence, no. Though I wish to be above such things, I am not without my petty jealousies.” His gaze swept to me for just an instant, pinning me with a keen, piercing wash of being a complicated admixture of caretaker, companion, pet, and, with the tiniest hint of wry, lustful heat, prey.
“But you underestimate my devotion to your daughter. If she wants a mortal man in her life, sir, I will do whatever it takes to put him there. If she wants his commitment, I will do whatever it takes to keep him there. If she wants to wear his ring, I will roll through his thick skull until he’s on one knee. If my pet wants this world, I will break it into pieces, shove it in a box, and wrap it in ribbons and bows for her.” Harry collected himself, running his pinkie finger across his eyebrow until it hit the piercings, a nervous tic he’d had as long as I’d known him. “You accuse me of placing my advocate in danger every day of her life. I promise you, sir, you are wrong about that, too. If only I could tell you how many times I’ve made your daughter hate me, just to keep her safe. I do not enjoy doing so. It is true, I am a greedy, selfish thing. I am not the man who deserves the monumental gift of her heart. I know I’m not.” He nodded, his chin sinking, unable to face either man now. “Truth be told, the vampire hunter did not deserve her, either. Though he was warm and alive and full of passion, he was no more worthy of her heart than I. There will come a man who is worthy of it, though, and when she chooses him, I vow to you, I will conquer my jealousy and do my very best to…” He trailed off, suddenly exhausted.
“Break him in pieces, shove him in a box, and wrap him in ribbons and bows?” I asked, stepping brusquely out from behind the tree. Wes joined me as I came around the last few rows of stones to stand in front of Grandma Vi’s grave. “Hey, guys. Are you all done lurking in the fog deciding on who I get to love? No, wait!” I held up a hand. “Let me guess. You want me to butt out. Well, it’s your lucky fucking day. I’m on a butting-out roll lately.”
Dad huffed. “Marnie-Jean. Don’t swear in front of your grandfather.”
“The grandfather who called my companion a parasite? That grandfather? Excuse me, but the two of you can bite me.”
“MJ,” Harry scolded. “You must not speak to your eld — ”
“Oh no, no, don’t you dare start that elders shit with me, dead guy,” I pointed at him. “Go park your happy ass in the car.”
“I beg your pardon?” Harry reared back, stunned.
I stared him down. He blinked. My stare got sharper. He blinked twice.
“You will do as your advocate wishes, Lord Guy Harrick Dreppenstedt,” I said, my voice dropping, “and you will do it right the fuck now, without any more of your back talk. Hearse. Now.”
“Uh, hi, Dad,” Wes said, shifting in his Converse Hi-Tops. “Hi, Grampa. I’m just going to head off a little domestic spat here, and, uh… Harry, let’s go, eh?” He tugged Harry’s immovable elbow. He tapped his temple. “No, seriously, man, she’s gonna lose it in a minute.”
Harry hesitated one more heartbeat, then bowed elegantly for me and turned away to follow my brother back to the car.
I turned on my father. “Now you get this through your skull, Dad, because I am so done with this family’s crap. That wicked, ignoble degenerate belongs to me. He chose me, and he asked for my companionship, and I chose to say yes. See how that works? Choice.” I squared my shoulders. “And I’ve got news for you. Yes, maybe it hurt everyone that Vi chose to handle family the way she did, but that was her choice. Harry didn’t club her on the head and throw her over his shoulder. He offered. She accepted. That’s ancient history. She’s long dead. Harry’s sorry for his part in all this, he’s happy to accept all the blame if it helps you, but you have to accept the truth and place the blame where it belongs. On Vi. And when it comes to me, if you wanna be angry with someone, I’m right here. I’m perfectly capable of calling my own shots. You of all people, should know — nobody tells a Baranuik girl what to do. Nobody. I don’t care if he’s rich. I don’t care that he’s cute as a button. I tell him to go fuck himself at least once a week. Harry could force his mind on mine and make me obedient. Clearly, he doesn’t, or I’d be far more domesticated. He likes me the way I am.”
I swung my gaze to Grampa Matts. “I’m sorry, Grampa, Harry didn’t trick Grandma Vi into leaving you. He didn’t steal her. He didn’t seduce her. He didn’t fiddle with her brain. He didn’t force her to obey his wishes. Maybe he shouldn’t have offered, I’ll give you that much. But she simply wanted to go with him. She wanted that life. I know that hurts, and I know you need to hate him. But I will not let you treat him unfairly. So, no more of this. No more secret meetings in the graveyard. This is morbid and gross and reeks of… possession and ownership.” I didn’t dare bring up the inherent ownership of the metaphysical Bond between DaySitter and revenant. The truth was, it would just confuse the matter — that Bond was created long after Vi decided, with a clear mind, to accept Harry, just as it had been when I’d inherited this strange creature.
I turned to go, and paused. “I’m glad you’re sober, Dad, but maybe you need to find a better use for all this new spare time.”
“What’s better than protecting my daughter?”
“I haven’t needed you to do that for a long time,” I said gently. “Maybe go home and protect Carrie from the sins of your wardrobe. You’re out here worried about monsters and she’s wearing your horrific leisure suits.”
My father softened, chuckled ruefully, and stuck a hand in the pocket of his jeans.
“Mom saved you a plate. You missed dinner. She’s kinda pissed, so you better come up with a better excuse than, ‘I was out yelling at a dead guy with your father.’” I walked off, waited until I was a solid three rows away, and then dropped the news, “Oh, and Wesley’s a revenant now. That also wasn’t Harry’s fault. It was his choice. Bye, Grampa.”
I strolled around the roadkill, waited for a car to zip past, and got back in the driver’s seat. Something was tickling in the front of my skull, fluttering like a panicked moth trying to get out of a lantern. Kinship of the Departed. That’s what was bothering me. Harry wouldn’t normally risk tempting Grandma’s Vi’s soul back to the realm of the living before, why did he deem this meeting so important that he’d do it tonight? Death was a comfortable release. Grandma was at peace. At the kind of peace that revenants ached for, that demon-touched souls would rarely taste, the silent reconciliation and redemption of heaven. Harry would never willingly draw Vi from that. So why this meeting? Why now? Why here?
“What a jolly evening,” Harry remarked, eyeing me sideways, wary of the ugly thing dawning on his pet.
Wes sank into the back seat, but shot back up when he picked up the train of my thoughts. I didn’t understand the importance of Kinship of the Departed just yet, and neither did Wes, but it was important, here. It stuck out like a fresh bloody spot on the collar of one of Harry’s crisp white bespoke shirts. Harry feigned obliviousn
ess. I drove back to North House in silence, but the nagging feeling didn’t go away. Grandma Vi’s remains lay silent in an urn in her grave. But…
But. Kinship of the Departed. And House Sarokhanian. Yes, that’s something. But what? My brain chewed on it savagely, but it just wouldn’t come.
Write that down, Wes thought at me hard enough to press into my mind.
Harry shot him a cutting look over his shoulder, dark and full of admonishment.
Wes just stared back at him, his pupils going softly to violet. My brother was getting awfully ballsy as he aged away from new-dead to young maturity. I liked it. I wasn’t sure that Harry shared my appreciation. But I wrote it down in my notebook at the next traffic light.
Eighteen
North House stewed in a tense blend of anticipation, full of Vi and her memories. Upon arriving home, Wes slouched to the Winter Room, where Mr. Merritt sparked the fire anew in the big stone fireplace, and lit some of Grandma Vi’s beeswax candles. She always filled the house with them, Mr. Merritt said, because they had a warm, sweet, homey scent. They did, but even so, they couldn’t drive away the shadow and chill of the evening. My family had left us emotionally battered and bruised. I almost preferred the idea of busting Sarokhanian’s nest up and getting my ass handed to me than the thought of seeing my family again any time soon.
Wes looked weary and blue, and he didn’t bother hiding it. Harry removed his cape with a dramatic swirl, hanging it on the coat rack.
I followed Wesley’s example and slumped into the chair by the fire. “I need a personal vacation from my family vacation. At least I can probably avoid the rest of them now. What are you doing about Rena’s quote-unquote forgiveness, Wes?”
“She’s on her way,” he grumbled morosely.
I bolted upright. “What, now? Here?”
“Yup,” he said. “Warning: high level of bitch-swagger, incoming.”
I bolted.
