by Vance, Ramy
“We’re here for the Amulet of Souol. Well, your half of it,” my mother said, clearly impatient by this little display.
Amulet of Souol, I thought. Mother was holding out on me.
“I know,” Lizile said.
“You do?” Mother sounded genuinely surprised, which gave me a genuine taste of satisfaction.
“Of course, Charlotte Darling—your legend proceeds you, and a vampire of your ilk would only come to this secluded place for one purpose.”
“Really?” My mother lifted a dubious eyebrow.
Lizile’s lips curled upward as she pointed at a telephone that probably once stood in a phone booth—once, as in the 1950s. “Dostarious called me.”
“Really?” my mother said again. “I thought you two weren’t speaking.”
Lizile lifted a lecturing finger. “Not seeing each other. Different than not speaking. We are still scientists, after all. We still have notes that need comparing, experiments that require peer rev—”
“The amulet?” my mother cut in, her hand out.
“Now who’s being rude?” I said, glaring at my mother.
“I do apologize, darling, but it has been a long night and there is much still to do.”
“Indeed,” Lizile agreed.
This surprised me, as I half expected her to be insulted by my mother’s taciturn positioning and kick us out. Well, she could try at least. I very much doubted my mother would leave without a fight.
“There is much to do. Tell me, Charlotte Darling—why should I give you the amulet?”
“Because my organization will protect it.” My mother hit the word “it” hard, and I got the sneaking suspicion she wasn’t talking about the amulet.
“Protect it?”
“Yes … with our lives.”
“Use it.”
“If we can.”
“You can’t. Dostarious and I have tried. It is beyond the knowledge of anyone but the truly divine.”
“Hold on,” I cut in, turning to my mother. “I thought you said the amulet answered your greatest question.”
“It does, darling,” my mother said. “Now shush.”
Lizile nodded.
“So what’s all this cryptic shit of beyond the knowledge and protect it?”
Lizile leveled a raised eyebrow at my mother. “She does not know?”
My mother gave Lizile a deadly look and said, “She knows enough.”
“Indeed.” Lizile returned her unblinking gaze to me. “Your mother tells the truth … the amulet will answer its owner one and only one question. Oft, it is not the question asked, but rather the question that hides in the heart of those who ask. Many a fool have wasted its use by filling their heart with a meaningless or temporal query.”
Now it was my turn to lift an eyebrow. “Can I have an example?”
“ ‘Dost he love me?’ ” she spat. “Love is fleeting, it changes. The amulet may answer yes, for today he does, only to be wrong tomorrow when he does not. I wasted my question by asking ‘Can lead be turned to gold?’ when I should have asked, ‘How is lead turned to gold?’ Do you understand now?”
“Yes,” I said.
“So the bearer must be prepared—must meditate on their question, mold it in their heart, pursue it with every fiber of their being. This is why your mother is the perfect one to ask—”
“Enough,” my mother interjected. “Do not presume what my question would be. Nor presume that I intend to ask it a question at all.”
I looked over at my mother and saw an immutable sternness I hadn’t seen since I was a child.
“My apologizes,” Lizile said. “I shall give you my half of the Amulet of Souol. But only in exchange for something I desire.” As she spoke she continued with her unwavering gaze at me.
I was beginning to get nervous.
Finally she said: “That your daughter and I have a few minutes together, alone.”
Why? I thought. If it was for a staring contest, I was a goner. But a part of me knew it would be something much more sinister, and I was probably a goner anyway.
No Staring Contest, No Questions, No Future
Lizile persuaded my mother to not only leave us alone for a few minutes, but also to give up her half of the Amulet of Souol. There were a few rules my mother put in place, which mostly revolved around Lizile staying out of our relationship. Clearly Lizile believed my mother had a question she wished to ask—and even more clearly my mother didn’t want me to know what that question might be.
Note to self: ask my Psych prof, what is the technical term for “micro-managing, control-freak, nut-job”?
I half expected the strange former vampire to protest, but she just nodded, gave her half of the amulet to my mother without so much as a second thought and led me into a back room, gesturing for me to sit on an old cigar chair with cracking leather.
I sat and she gestured to see my hand. I thought she was going to read my palm or some crap like that, but with a speed I did not think possible for humans, she pricked my finger with her hair pin and collected a drop of my blood on a piece of glass.
I pulled away, sucking my finger. The taste of blood still repulsed me, after all these years. “What the hell?”
“Shush, girl. It is only a drop of blood. I wish to share knowledge, but knowledge should only be shared with those deserving of it. I must see your mettle, first,” she said, then, standing, she pulled out an old microscope I think I once saw at an apothecary’s lab in pre–Industrial Age London. She placed the glass under the microscope’s lens, adjusting its focus before smiling and looking up at me again.
“By the GoneGods … my brother was right.”
“About what? What did you see?”
Lizile ignored my question with a question of her own. “Do you know how to imbue an item with magic?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never really thought about it. I guess divine creatures transfer some of their magic into the item, right?”
“Really? Do you think a god would ever imbue this place with magic?” She waved her hand, drawing attention to our surroundings in a dismissive gesture, as if acknowledging that her place was less than pretty. Less than magical. So she was a self-aware vampire. How rare.
“So how do you keep the glamor going? You’re not an Other. You don’t have magic. When we entered, you mentioned something about depleting your resources …?”
“Significance. I long ago learned how to imbue a place or object with significance. Something easily done before the gods left, and perhaps by instinct or dumb luck, I managed to imbed this secluded cabin with much significance after they had left.”
“Significance?” I repeated.
“Yes. Significance.”
“Forgive me, but what is the significance of significance?”
She sighed, not hiding her disappointment in my lack of understanding (she was beginning to remind me of my Psych prof) and said, “Even the most powerful amongst the newly made mortals cannot give their magic to someone or something. Only a god can … it is one of the traits that makes them gods and not simply powerful Others.
“No, items become magical because of significance. Take this amulet, for example … it is over seven thousand years old, its first owner the Pharaoh of Narmer. Every night the Pharaoh would ask the amulet a question, placing it erect on the palace shrine. Then he would wait for the sun to rise. If the sun pierced the amulet’s center, casting a shadow on the Key of Life, he took it as an omen meaning ‘Yes.’ If the first shadow cast was partial or not at all, then the answer was ‘No.’ ” She chuckled. “In other words, the answers ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ solely depended on how cloudy the morning was.”
Worse than a Magic 8-Ball, I thought. You’d think he’d eventually clue in.
“Indeed,” she agreed to my out-loud thought. “He might have, but he placed so much significance on this ritual that in time—and much shorter than you’d expect—the amulet did start to answer his questions. And his children’s questio
ns. More and more asked, prescribing more and more rules as to how to ask, and eventually we got this item before us. An amulet imbued with thousands of years of significance, and rules as to how to ask. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Magic by mistake. No miracle required.”
She smiled. “So many items possess both minor and major magical properties. In fact, it was this very process that created the very first vampire.”
That caught my attention. “How so?”
“Have you heard of the Rooh Ina’ah? The Soul Jar?”
I shook my head.
She gave me an admonishing look. “You were never curious where your soul went when you were turned?”
“Heaven?” I said, with a bit of cheek thrown in to mask my indignity.
“More like limbo. Legend says that there is a jar—more of an urn, really—that holds the souls of all those turned. Vampires, werewolves. Everything infected. When the gods left, it is said that the urn was destroyed, thus letting our souls return to us.”
I thought about this. A jar that held our souls. I had always assumed that our souls went away, but never thought about where or how. It made sense that they would need a place to go, and I guess I had hoped it was a pleasant place. Seems that our souls weren’t so lucky. A jar. Or urn. Whatever. That sat on some shelf somewhere on Earth, abandoned.
“Interesting legend … but is it true?”
“We don’t know,” she said.
“OK,” I said, getting a bit bored of this cryptic, Look at me, I’m a scary vampire routine. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Promise me that you will not ask the Amulet of Souol a question until you are ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To embrace your destiny.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Promise me,” she said so forcefully that I actually jumped in my chair. Not my proudest moment.
“OK, OK, I promise. Not that I understand what I am promising, but I promise.”
“Good,” she said, calming down. She handed me the glass plate that had my blood on it. “Destiny is held in blood … and your blood tells me that your destiny will be full of …” She searched for the words. “… choices and questions. I do not know what your fate will be, but I can tell you this … you will play a significant role in the war that is to come.”
I gulped, forgetting to breathe. “What war?”
“The war that will end everything.”
Goodbyes, Car Rides and Crashes
We left the strange alchemist vampire’s lair in silence, me clutching my glass slide of blood, both lost in our own thoughts. My thoughts went to everything that was messed up in my life. My boyfriend didn’t know who I was … and once he found out, he was going to leave me. My friends (boyfriend included) were hiding, afraid that the Divine Cherubs—the leader of whom used to leer at me while working for my father—would come after them … again, because of me. Some strange, possibly insane ex-vampire thought I was going to be instrumental for some upcoming war … but how? I was barely instrumental in managing my own laundry!
But I’ve met enough weird ancient creatures to know that you never dismiss their comments out of hand—no matter how nonsensical they may sound.
And if that wasn’t enough—I was failing Psychology 101.
OK, that last one wasn’t true. I could very well fail, but not until I didn’t pass Tuesday’s test. Of course, I’d need to show up first, and given the direction my mother was driving now, even that wasn’t a given.
I looked over at my mother as she held the steering wheel at 10 and 2. She stared ahead, but I knew enough about how she operated to know that the road was the last thing on her mind. I wasn’t sure what my mother was thinking about—I guessed it was about the amulet. She needed to finish her mission. But I hoped she was also thinking about me and the lie—or, rather, omission of truth—that hung between us. She wasn’t telling me something, and it was obviously weighing on her. Whatever it was, it was going to piss me off. She knew it and now I knew it, too. But she also knew that not telling me would piss me off even more.
I reached into her purse and pulled out the amulet, putting it in my bag. If she wanted it back, she’d have to convince me to give it to her. Or fight me for it. Both were bad options, but given how banged up I was, fighting me might be the path of least resistance. And my mother was the “least resistance” kind of gal. But my mother didn’t even react to me taking the amulet. She just kept staring ahead. Part of me wondered if she even noticed.
I briefly considered that she was suffering from depersonalization disorder or anxiety-caused detachment—and that thought was immediately followed by my utter surprise for knowing those terms. Maybe I would pass my test, after all!
I shook away those thoughts—that would have to wait for Tuesday—and focused on my mother.
Still, so much had changed. For one thing, she saved me—twice. For another, she spoke of the “right” thing, and about saving people, and she lamented about how hard it was to be human. She even drove a Prius. Vampires were generally into the big, loud and pollution monsters … which didn’t make sense. If global warming was going to kill us all in a few thousand (hundred?) years, and you lived forever, you’d think the green movement would be led by vampires.
So either mother was changing or this was the greatest performance since the “I’m mad as hell” speech by Howard Beale in the movie Network (a little early for me—I’m more of a 1980s movie gal—but still a great film). Looking over at my distracted mother, I guessed it was a bit of both.
I also guessed that if either of us were going to get past any of this, now was the best time to get into it. But how did I start?
Then something my mother once said struck me.
What was the shortest distance between two points?
The truth, I thought.
“Excuse me, darling?” my mother asked, not taking her eyes off the road.
“Mother, there is so much you’re not telling me that I find it hard to believe anything you say,” I said.
Shortest distance isn’t necessarily the easiest.
“Like what, darling?” my mother said, her voice now a challenging tone, her attention more on me.
“Like why you really want to get the whole amulet. Lizile alluded to something that you clearly didn’t want me to know.”
My mother bit her lower lip.
“Well?”
“It’s complicated, darling.”
“Try me. We have time.”
My mother looked at me, her eyes surprisingly tearing up. “I just want us to be a family again. You and me.”
But I didn’t let her tears stop me. I charged on. “So stop lying and tell me what the hell is going on!”
This time a tear actually fell down her cheek. “I … I can’t. I need more time to figure out how to tell you. You get that, don’t you? You understand why I can’t tell you now.”
Those words, I can’t tell you now, caused me so much frustration that I contemplated opening the car door and rolling out. I might have, too, had it not been for my aching ribcage.
That … and Justin.
I suddenly knew how the poor boy felt. I was always saying “Not now.” “When the timing is right.”
“Later.”
“Soon.”
“Eventually.”
I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, but really it was the selfish thing to do. The cowardly thing to do. I wanted him to react in a certain way and was terrified he wouldn’t. Putting it off was my way to delay the rejection I was sure he was going to throw my way.
Given that I had more of my mother’s personality in me than I cared to admit, I knew that she was feeling the same way. Like mother like freaking daughter. She had a secret that she feared would make me walk away from her. Abandon her. And (given our history) try to kill her.
She was scared, and that was why she held back.
OK, I could wa
it—for a little bit longer at least. I’d need to know before I let her run off with the amulet, but I wouldn’t press her to tell me until that moment came.
“Fine,” I said, “later. But know that later will be sooner than you think.”
She nodded, tapping her head as she drove. “Formulating the narrative as we speak.”
“A bullshit-free narrative.”
“A bullshit-light narrative.”
I managed a small laugh. “Good enough. But there’s more. What about Simione? You say it’s him, but how could it be? The people we fought were super strong. Simione would be a human now. There’s no way he could throw us around like that. Old Inverness accent or not.”
My mother sighed. Then, pulling over at a rest stop that amounted to a gas station with two pumps and an empty parking lot big enough to accommodate two hundred cars, she put the car in Park and said, “You’re right. But it’s not just the accent. It’s what he said when he was bearing down on you with his boot. The god of peace will soon crush Satan under your shoe.”
“Romans?” I asked. “And isn’t it ‘feet’?”
My mother shrugged. She wasn’t one for memorizing things unless it was the Bluefly website. “Wherever it’s from, darling, that was exactly what he said to me when I …” She closed her mouth.
“When you what, Mother?”
“When I buried him.”
↔
“You what?”
“You have to understand that he and his buddies burned down my home, darling. I was angry. And you know what I’m like when I’m angry.”
“Mom, you sound like the Hulk.”
She glared at me. “You know what I mean, darling. I don’t make the best decisions and I ... ahhh … I kind of turned him into a vampire and then … well, I didn’t bury him, per se …”
“Oh good,” I said, relieved.
“I locked him in a coffin and threw him into a lake. Loch Ness, to be exact.”
Holy guacamole—my mother was one vindictive bitch. “All three of them?”