by N. P. Martin
I shook my head. "No shit. That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? I’ve wanted answers my whole life, Frank. Don’t make me beg."
He sighed. "You probably won’t like what you hear."
"I’ll be the judge of that."
"Fine." His dark eyes focused in on me. "The demon that took your mother, it took her to Hell." His eyes remained on me, intense, brooding, full of obvious guilt.
I looked away as I stared at the floor for a few long moments, the unfailing truth of his words like a slap in the face. "I’ve always known," I said, as much to myself as to him.
"How much did you see that night?"
"I saw the four-legged beast that killed my father—"
"Jesus. A hellhound."
I nodded. "Yeah. I also saw the demon lift my mother’s near-dead body and disappear with her into a portal in the floor."
Frank seemed surprised, a new expression—a kind of respect and deep understanding—now present in his eyes. "I had no idea you saw that much." He shook his head in some measure of sympathy. "I’m surprised you were able to stay sane after that."
"Oh, believe me, Frank, I didn’t. You’re not the only one with a substance abuse problem."
"Drugs?"
"Off and on for years."
"And now?"
I looked at him and laughed. "Definitely fucking off."
Frank chuckled. "This life is fucked up enough."
"You got that right." I shook my head. "So my mother is in Hell. I can hardly even…"
"Yeah, I know."
"How did she end up there? Why was my father killed?"
"He got killed for putting up a fight."
I shook my head as I felt anger at my father’s death, even after all this time. "Fucking bastards," I said. "Why, Frank? Why were they after her in the first place?"
Frank looked away, as if he was unwilling to answer that question, but at that stage, he knew it was in for a penny in for a pound. I wasn’t giving him any choice anyway. When he finally looked at me again, his face was tense. "They were after her because of me," he said. "I’m the reason Rachel—your mother—is in Hell."
I stared at him for a long moment, then shook my head. "You’d better explain that, Frank. What the fuck did you do?"
He took a mouthful of whiskey before speaking, like he needed courage to continue. "Well, I lived in the city at the time, and one night I got a call from your mother, telling me she’s in trouble. She says she went after this gang of demons on her own, even though we were supposed to go after them together. But your mother was always going off on her own, that’s just who she was. No fear, you know?" He smiled somewhat fondly.
"You two were partners? It seems that way from her journal. You seemed to work a lot of cases together."
Frank nodded, directing his gaze at the table for a moment. "I guess you could say we were partners."
"Even though my father hated you…for some reason."
"Yeah."
"Why didn’t he try to stop it?"
Frank shifted in his seat, then drained his glass, placing it on the table, but keeping his hand on the glass. "Look," he said. "Things were kinda complicated back then—"
"He didn’t know, did he?"
"I’m not sure if—"
"Cut the bullshit, Frank," I said. "It’s pretty clear that you and my mother were more than just partners. Why don’t you just admit it?"
He stared at me for a long moment as he tapped the glass with his fingers, then he sighed. "Fine. We were more than just partners. Now you know."
"Yeah, now I know."
Frank got up to refill his glass again, while I sat there in stunned silence as his revelations sank in. Anger was the first thing I felt at the thought of my mother cheating on my father. How could she? And with my dad’s brother of all people!
When Frank came back, he placed a glass of whiskey on the table in front of me, then sat down with his own refilled glass. "You can hate me," he stated bluntly. "It’s fine."
I threw him a look. "I’m sure you’re already doing a good enough job of that yourself."
He nodded. "You’re not wrong."
"Why the fuck would you do something like that to your own brother?"
Frank shook his head. "Like I said, there’s a lot you don’t know, because you weren’t there."
"Well, then, why don’t you enlighten me, Frank?"
"Rachel loved me before she loved your father," he blurted out, seeming as if he was trying to hold back his own anger. "She only chose Peter because…"
"Because what?"
"Because she wanted kids, and because she wanted a safer option, knowing Peter could give away the life of a Watcher, whereas for me…the die was always cast."
"Then why didn’t you just accept that and move on?"
He made a snorting sound and shook his head. "Believe me, I tried. We both did."
That admission didn’t make me feel much better. I just couldn’t help feeling sorry for my father, and anger at my mother and Frank for hurting him the way they obviously did. "My father was a good man," I said, having to choke back my emotion.
"Hey," he said, leaning toward me. "He was, and he didn’t deserve the brother he got."
"You’re right there!" I snapped.
Frank sighed as he leaned away from me. "I told you, didn’t I, that you wouldn’t like what you heard."
"Fuck you, Frank. It was never about whether I'd like it or not. It was about needing to hear it, if only to better understand the things I never knew about my mother." Grabbing the whiskey in front of me, I drank half of it, wincing at the taste as I slammed it back down on the table again.
"Like it or not, that’s what happened," he said. "And there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change it. You came here wanting answers, and I’m doing you the courtesy of giving them to you. And trust me, Leia, I don’t give answers like that to just anybody."
It was my turn to snort. "What, I’m supposed to feel flattered now?"
He shrugged. "Feel however you want, that’s up to you. But for your own sake, and for the sake of Josh, I suggest you get straight with, and concentrate on your training."
I nodded. "You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Frank? Much more convenient for you."
He sighed. "What do you want me to say, Leia? That I’m a terrible person? Fine, I’m the biggest fucking asshole you will ever meet, and I only care about myself. Is that what you want to hear?"
I shook my head and sat in silence for a while, soon realizing that he was right about one thing: I couldn’t change the past, only affect the future. "Finish the story," I said eventually, hardly looking at him.
"The story?" He looked confused for a second until he realized what I was talking about. "Right, yeah. So I turned up at this abandoned office building, and your mom, she’s in there, firing like crazy at these demons that seemed to be everywhere at once. So I helped her kill them all, and afterward, we’re standing and I’m inspecting your mother’s wounds, because she was cut a few times…" He trailed off then, as if lost in the memory.
"Then what happened?"
He sighed. "Well, it turns out we hadn’t cleared them all. We’d missed one. The bastard came running out of nowhere while I was seeing to your mother, and before I could react, I was stabbed in the back with a length of rebar. The bar went right through me, punctured my heart on the way through."
"Jesus. How are you still alive?"
"That’s the thing, I wasn’t. I died right there on the floor. Our grace is finite, and there’s only so much we can heal ourselves before we die." He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it himself.
I frowned, confused. "Then how the hell are you still here?"
Frank puffed his cheeks out before continuing. "Rachel, she apparently couldn’t accept the fact I was dead. I guess she panicked."
"What did she do?" I asked quietly.
"She summoned a demon to help her."
I shook my head. "So she…"
/>
He nodded. "Yep. She got the demon to bring me back."
"In return for…her soul?"
"Yes. That’s why the demon came to your house that night. It came to collect."
"Jesus Christ."
His revelations were too much. I leaned over and gripped my head in my hands, rocking gently back and forth as I did so.
"Leia? Are you okay?"
I didn’t want to speak to him anymore, nor even look at him. I just got up and walked away from him, down the hall to the bedroom. When I went inside, I slammed the door behind me, fell onto the bed and lay there for the next several hours, hardly moving as I tried not to go insane.
15
I must have fallen asleep, because the sound of my phone ringing on top of the bedside table woke me up. Groggily, I grabbed the phone, which was plugged into a spare charger Josh kept in the glovebox, and answered it without first looking to see who it was.
When I heard Josh’s voice, my eyes snapped open as I quickly sat up. "Josh?" I said, so glad and relieved to hear his voice. "Oh my God, Josh! Are you all right? Where are you?"
"Don’t worry about me, Sis," he said, his voice free from the distress I expected it to have. "I’m doing just fine. Better than fine, actually."
I frowned and slowly shook my head. He never called me Sis. He knew I hated it. "Josh? Why are you talking like that?"
He laughed, like my question was funny to him. "You were right, Leia, you know."
"Right about what? Josh, where the hell are you?"
"About accepting who we are," he said, completely ignoring my last question. "We can’t run from our natures. In fact, I’ve discovered there’s greater power in running toward my true nature. He showed me the way."
"He? Who’s he?" I swallowed hard. "You’re scaring me, Josh. Did the demons do something to you? You know, like they tortured and then killed poor Diane!"
He laughed to himself, a laugh that chilled my blood, and which sounded like it was coming from someone else. "They aren’t what you think, you know. Demon’s aren’t evil, Leia, they just know how to embrace their true natures, instead of hiding from it like everyone else."
Jesus Christ. How long has he been drinking the Kool-Aid? His beliefs sound so fucking entrenched…
"Just tell me where you are," I said. "I’ll come get you. I’m with Uncle Frank now and—"
"Fuck Uncle Frank!" he spat. "Why would you go and see him? He was never there when we needed him."
"It’s more complicated than that."
"Whatever, I don’t care anyway. I’ve found my true family."
My eyes snapped shut like a dagger had gone through my heart. "Why would you say such a horrible thing?"
"It’s the truth, Leia. These people are here for me. They respect me, they give me power…so much power."
"What have you done, Josh? Did you have something to do with…with Diane’s death?"
He hesitated before answering. "No."
Did I believe him? At that point, I honestly didn’t know.
"What power are you talking about?"
"You’ll find out if you join us."
"Join you?" I shook my head. "This isn’t you, Josh. Those demons have brainwashed you, or—"
"No! They’ve opened my eyes to the truth, that’s all. This is me, Leia. The real me. Get used to it."
"I won’t!" I said back. "I’m going to find you, Josh, and I’m going to save you from those monsters."
Josh laughed again. "You can’t save me, because there is nothing to save. Like I said, this is the real me, and Sis... if you aren't willing to join, then don't come looking for me, because you won't like what you find."
Before I could say anything more, he hung up.
"Josh!" I said into the phone. "Josh? Shit!" In a burst of rage, I flung the phone across the room, hearing it crack against the wall somewhere.
Then the door opened, and Frank walked in. "Everything all right?" he asked.
I shook my head at him as tears began to roll down my cheeks. "They’ve done something to him," I blurted out.
"To who?"
"To Josh! They’ve changed him somehow."
Frank looked more suspicious than concerned. "You just spoke to him? What did he say?"
I relayed most of what Josh said on the phone. "I think the demons have done something to him. Or else…"
"Or else what?"
"Or else that was one of the demons, and they were just imitating Josh’s voice."
"Did it feel like Josh? Demons can imitate voices, yeah, but they often miss the nuances that make a person who they are."
I thought for a moment, then nodded. "It felt like Josh to me."
"Then it was. The question now is, why did he call you?"
I stared at him a moment, not having any satisfactory answer. "I don’t know."
"It just seems strange that he would phone and not tell you where he was."
"Maybe," I said shaking my head. "It sounded to me like…"
"What?"
"That he…wants to be with the demons who kidnapped him."
"He will, especially if he’s under the influence of a powerful demon, who will use that bond to make sure Josh and the others do as they’re told and don’t go anywhere."
"There’s something else," I said. "I went back to the storage facility to get some of my mom’s things, and while I was there, one of those demons grabbed me. A real scary son of a bitch. He said to me that Josh was with 'them' now, and that I would soon be too."
Frank shook his head as if to say I told you so. "Did the demon say anything else?"
"Yeah. When I asked him why he was doing this, he said—and I quote—so we can finally take what is ours."
He also said the phrase "fucking hybrids" which made me wonder what he meant by that. Was the demon referring to my Nephilim genetics, or to the fact that I was perhaps something else, something different? I wasn’t sure, so I kept it to myself for the time being.
"Finally take what is ours." Frank mulled this over for a moment. "That’s all he said?"
"Yeah."
"How did you escape?"
"Hector, the old guy who owns the place, shot the demon, and it ran off."
"Good old Hector," Frank said smiling.
"You know him?"
"Yeah, I know him. He’s a lecherous son of a bitch, but he’s okay. He saved you, huh?"
"He did, otherwise that demon would’ve taken me. Come to think of it, maybe I should’ve just let it take me, at least then I’d know where Josh was, and what's been done to him."
"And then what? You’d be trapped along with him."
I shook my head. "I just think we’re too late to save him. You didn’t hear him on the phone, Frank. He sounded like…one of them."
Frank came and sat next to me on the bed. "There’s always a way," he said. "We’ll figure out a way to help Josh, once we find him."
Nodding, I said, "Thanks, Frank."
He looked surprised. "What for?"
"For being here, I guess." In spite of myself, I did really mean it. As we'd pretty much just established, my situation would’ve been more dire if I’d been alone.
A slight smile crossed his face. "I’ll do my best, though I can’t promise anything."
"Actually, you need to promise me one thing."
He frowned. "What’s that?"
"You need to get some decent vodka in here. I can’t go on drinking your old man’s drink."
"Sure," he said, shaking his head. "I’ll sort it out. In the meantime, I think we should make a start."
"A start on what?"
"Your training."
16
It turns out Frank was deadly serious about the whole training thing. As he immediately began to drum into me, regular training was an essential part of any Watcher’s life, which for the time being at least, I was.
"The more you sweat in training," he said. "The less you bleed in battle. Always remember that. Write it on your forehead if
you have to. Watcher’s who train all the time don’t die as easily as those who don’t train all the time. That’s a fact."
Before I knew it, Frank had me on a grueling daily regime that I was happy enough to go along with, if it meant I would be better prepared to help Josh when the time came—and the time would come, I had no doubt about that. Although after that only phone call and as time in training went on, I became even less confident that what had been done to him could be reversed.
Getting assaulted by that demon at Hector’s place also made me want to learn to better defend myself. I hadn’t been in the game long, but I’d been in it long enough to know that there would almost assuredly be a next time, especially when demons were involved. If my lucky escape in the alley that night, and the intervention from Hector at the storage facility had taught me anything, it was that I needed proper training. Without it, I would most assuredly be screwed in my next demon encounter.
So Frank would begin the day by rudely insisting I got out of bed at 5 a.m. for a six mile run around winding mountain roads in near complete darkness. He’d explained that Nephilim had much higher outputs relating to fitness and metabolism, both of which required much higher maintenance and establishments respectively, than the portion my otherwise human genes contributed to. This was lest we risk dropping to levels he deemed unacceptable, and astringently denounced as the most frequent factor before even skills in being responsible for falling afoul of what our combatants brought to each confrontation. Figuratively, Frank was very surgical in his approach and beliefs, and his resilience to my entrenched grizzling would be commendable, if I didn't hate him for it. My reconditioning was largely a decade behind that which might've been, had my parents not been murdered or taken to Hell, and had they then peacefully resolved with an outcome that would've seen our early training start at around the ages of eight to ten.
"You’re going to be up against beings that don’t get tired, that don’t lose strength or stamina no matter how long they fight. Which means you can’t afford to be anything less than optimal."