by Eli Constant
“A friend.”
“And I’m the fucking Kwisatz Haderach,” I spit the words out like venom.
“I’ve no idea what that means.” He runs his fingers through his hair and then places both hands in his pants pockets. His upper body leans slightly back, his posture full of self-aware cockiness.
“Just get the hell out of my place before I call the police.” I point toward the exit. “I’ve got more than one cop on speed dial.”
“I bet you do.” The smile has not left his face. It’s condescending, like he knows everything about me and I can’t possibly surprise him. Even though I want to punch his smug mouth, I also find myself drawn to him. I don’t like being a contradiction.
He steps closer to me then, the smile still in place.
Before I can react and move away, he wraps his arms around me and pulls me to him. It’s intimate, the way parts of me touch parts of him. The rises and falls of our bodies are perfect fits, as if we are two halves of the same clay sculpture.
His left hand finds my right and he begins to lift my fingers towards his face. I know in that moment, I do not want to be held by him.
Yet, I also do.
I halfheartedly shove against him, but warmth is filling me. It is like light, perfectly controlled so that it can only get so bright before falling into shadow.
His lips lower to mine.
The electric shock from earlier is nothing compared to the lightning storm that comes to life when our mouths meet.
He is still raising my hand as he drinks so deeply of my mouth that I think I might drown.
The warmth has become true heat now. There is flame teasing beneath the surface. It reaches to places a man has not touched in so very long.
My hand is almost at his face.
And for some reason, that fact pulls me away from the cliff. It ices the burn. It cools the unexpected embrace. I shove the stranger away, using my full might this time; his eyes are glowing like jewels by firelight. He seems surprised, his face gone slack. His left hand is now limp, its task forgotten. I move several feet away from him and he makes to follow me.
“Get. The. Fuck. Out.” I feel something building in my body, something I’ve only felt once before. I’ve pricked my finger twice in less than 24 hours. There’s blood magic swirling around my feet, waiting to rise and do what I need. Blood magic and death magic are so similar, working in tandem, but they’re also very, very different animals.
Different shades of darkness. Usually, a necromancer only holds power over one.
I feel very in control of death; it is a natural thing for my kind. But blood… blood is sometimes the thing in control instead of the thing being controlled. There’s a fine line I must walk to be safe. I wish… God, I wish my grandmother was still around to help me.
The man’s gaze trails down to my hands and his brow furrows seeing my fingers flexing. When he looks at me again, he’s gone a little white in the face. Good. He should be nervous.
He gives a little bow of his head before moving out of the service room and towards the reception hall. I can see him as he approaches the front door, extending his hand to turn the knob. I’m later than I should be leaving for the cemetery, but that can’t be helped now.
I take a deep breath, air rushing into my lungs in a painful whoosh. I think it’s over. He’s leaving, whoever the hell he is. He apparently has one more thing to say though and he turns, with his hand on the main door’s grip.
“My name’s Liam Drake. You’re going to want to remember that.” His aloof condescension has returned. He reaches into his jacket’s breast pocket and he pulls out something small and thin. He leans over and places it on the small foyer table with an exact, practiced movement.
“I plan to forget you the moment you leave, Mr. Drake.” I cross my arms, trying to seem tough. Which isn’t the easiest thing to do when you’re of average height and on the slightly pudgy side. The stance also pushes together my not-too-shabby C cup breasts. I see Mr. Drake’s eyes flick to that area. It almost makes me grin. I don’t though. My long hair, a dark mahogany brown with sun streaks, tickles my forearms. I ignore it. Fidgeting and grinning don’t look tough.
“That would be very unwise, Victoria.” It’s the last thing he says as he pushes through the door and disappears. As if pulled by an invisible string, the remnants of electricity exit my body and snake after him.
I drop my arms, letting my hair fall freely against my black dress and burgundy sateen jacket. Strands snake beneath the collar to curl against my clavicle. Normally, I’d revel in the fact that I can feel the hair brushing against my collar bones. It’s only recently that I’ve lost enough weight to even see them in the mirror, but right now there’s a ball of discomfort roiling about my stomach. “Jesus, what the hell was that about?” I murmur, my voice a bit shaky and breathy.
A couple pounds lost seems so inconsequential in the great scheme of things, because I’m one hundred percent certain that this man, who’d flown into my life with no warning and was painted in mystery, knew what I was and what I could do.
And I knew nothing about him save for a name. That fact made me feel weak, not tough in the slightest.
Chapter Six.
I glance back in my rearview as I drive away from the funeral plot. Normally, I would stay until all of the family has left and the grave is being refilled with dark earth, but the mother cannot be consoled. She will not leave her chair.
I can’t say I blame her. If it were my daughter, I would be exactly the same.
She’d delayed even the grave workers from their tasks, until she could be convinced that the clouds overhead would burst at any moment, sending rain cascading down to dampen her daughter’s beautiful coffin. It wouldn’t have, of course. The green tent casting shadows on the two rows of white chairs and portable pulpit is waterproof. But I had to say something so that we could all go home.
Her daughter has moved on now. She’s in a better place.
That’s the thing about the dead. When they leave us, their suffering is over. Ours has just begun. There is no hard and fast rule for healing. And some things never heal. They remain, a gaping wound festering and sickening our lives, until we can survive no longer.
I can only imagine what losing a child is like. A fiancé is different. A fiancé is someone you choose to love. Loving a child is oxygen. It’s everything. That’s what my father used to say to me at least.
On days like today, when death is so heavy it makes life hurt, I try to get away from it all. The sky does look ominous and I know that I will likely get drenched, but I go towards my favorite hiking spot anyways. I’ve got no change of clothes, no proper walking shoes, but I need to be out in the openness, surrounded by things that are vital.
The park is on the other side of the lake, far away from my house, and it’s empty when I arrive. My car is the only one in the lot. A weathered wooden sign reminds me that I only have two hours before closing time. It’s been such a long day. I wouldn’t mind sitting on the hood of my car, listening to the lake water rippling, and watching the stars come out one by one.
Not that the stars further me from death. They are funny things, sending their lights across trillions and trillions of miles of space. Many of them could have died decades ago, their rays reaching us through a marvel of science.
It’s the sort of fact that teaches me that even things that seem very, very alive can be well and truly dead inside.
Sliding out of the black sedan I use for funerals, I push the car door closed and walk towards the water. A developer had tried to buy this community park last year; he’d wanted to build a new area of lakeside condos. I am still glad that the city decided preserving this little portion of nature is worth more than a couple million in the bank.
There are four benches watching over a long walking path that loops from the parking lot to the shore. If you leave the trail, you can walk out onto a long pier that ends in a gazebo. The lights are already twinkling in the wooden st
ructure. I can see their artificial rays dancing about in the shadows preserved by the gazebo roof. I pass by the benches, each one painted black and bearing little gold plaques, each one dedicated to some deceased person or another, and go straight for the lake.
This water is clean, empty of souls, empty of bodies. There was a drowning two years ago—an older woman who fell from a kayak. They believe she fell in and got disoriented in the water, couldn’t tell up from down. She’d washed ashore. Just a little accident.
I know differently.
I was in this very spot, standing at the end of the pier and leaning against the gazebo’s wooden railing, when she’d risen from the water. She’d wanted to tell her family sorry. That she’d made so many bad choices. Not the least of which was letting herself drown. I remember her words so clearly- “I wanted to die. There was a moment I thought about swimming for shore. But then everything went shiny. The sunshine through the waters filtering down on me felt warm. I wasn’t cold or wet. I was just caught in clouds. A beautiful, peaceful haze.”
I hadn’t told her that it was probably just her body and brain reacting to oxygen deprivation. That the peaceful feeling she’d had was nothing more than illusion. I’d told her that I’d let her family know that she was sorry. I’d told her that everyone makes mistakes. She’d disappeared, her business finished.
Suicide is never the answer. At least that’s what we tell ourselves to strike away the demons that say everything is too hard. But none of us really know what we’ll do when we get to a place where we feel we’ll never be happy again. None of us know what measures we will take if hopelessness takes over.
The wood of the railing feels good against my palms now. Firm and real. I grip it hard, wincing when a tiny piece of wood cuts into my thumb. I lift my hand hurriedly, pulling out the splinter with my nails and sucking on the skin to stay the small trickle of blood that follows the extraction of the wood.
Blood magic. Like its own small death.
A euphoria creeps over me. That feeling still swirling about my feet like an emotional hurricane moves upward, reaching as far as my knees before I force it back downwards. It is hard to keep the magic dormant at times. But if I don’t, I will awaken things that should not be awakened.
It started small at first, when I was very little. Flies come back to life. Spiders walking away after being squashed mercilessly with a newspaper. Those were just precursors to the real awakening of my gift. Grandmother Sophia had seen the signs; she’d told me that she knew, even then, that I would be something different when my powers truly awakened.
Still, it is hard. I have not practiced as I should. I’ve not totally mastered the control it takes to use my gift without having it use me. The small knowledge I have of blood magic and Shamanism is not always enough to keep me from losing control of death.
As the sun, mostly obscured by the heavy clouds above, creeps toward the horizon, I walk away from the lake and slowly back to the car. I hate that it is black, even though I know that it’s an appropriate color for a funeral director. It wouldn’t be very acceptable to arrive at a cemetery in a van painted a riotous shade of pink. The rain begins to fall when I’m a few feet away from safety. It’s a light shower and, magically, the sun finds a part in the clouds to shine fully on the world for a moment.
I settle myself back into the reality of the black vehicle and I gaze out over the water once more. The light is dancing across its glassy surface like it has been choreographed and practiced for my sole viewing. Then it is gone, swallowed by the sky that is turning darker. The light shower intensifies.
I find that visiting the park has not dispelled the darkness that is creeping over me like a too-warm blanket in summer.
I flick down the driver’s sun visor and push the flap back that covers the mirror. A little light blares to life and makes me cringe as it highlights every single imperfection on my damp face, including the fading zit I’d been fighting for over a week right on the bridge of my button nose.
“Attractive.” I grumble, digging through my purse for a tissue. I dab away most of the moisture and then pat on a little powder to reinvigorate the hours-old makeup job. My lips have faded into a dull, cracked shade of sad violet instead of a vibrant eggplant. I reapply the shade, which is supposed to last a full 24 hours, and I frown. “As good as it’s going to get.” I’m going home anyways. Who the hell cares what I look like? I rub at my eyes gently, trying to spread out the concealer that’s gathered in the creases. I stop almost immediately as my eyes begin to water. That’ll only make matters worse when the mascara runs.
I push the visor up quickly to avoid staring at myself longer.
I’m not an ugly girl by any stretch, but when compared to perfect models in perfect magazines, I may as well be Grendel. At five foot five, I’m short enough to complain about things on high shelves, but not short enough to warrant an insanely-tall boyfriend with great pecs. My body is getting better. I’d really let myself go after Adam died, gaining nearly a hundred pounds and eight dress sizes. Crushing loss and grief made donuts hard to resist.
I was fighting back now, eating better and avoiding my dietary pitfalls. God, I missed chocolate cake and French fries. I am a solid size 14 and seem to have plateaued. It’s a good thing the dead don’t really care how much you weigh. If any of them were coming back hoping for a Jennifer Love Huge-tits type of medium, then they were sorely disappointed.
I’ve got hazel eyes that always seem sadly dull to me, but my hair is good. I’ve let it grow long, the way Adam used to like it. It’s my natural color at the moment, but only because I’m too cheap and lazy to go to the salon and I’m not savvy enough to dye at home. My Dad told me once that my mom had my shade of hair and eyes. That’s all he ever said about her; so it is all I really know about her. She is a brunette, hazel-eyed phantom in my mind, with no distinct features. I wish I could have known her better. I wish I could remember her.
It’s hard to get to know someone when she up and leaves, taking all of her things, the day before your fourth birthday.
Without warning, I begin to shiver. It’s cold inside the car, the wetness in the air making it more so. The thrum of the engine turning over reminds me of the sound my phone makes when it vibrates against a hard surface. It takes a few moments of me waggling my fingers in front of the vent that’s blowing warm air before I realize that my cell is actually ringing and it’s not just the car at all.
Fumbling through my maroon purse, I find the phone sandwiched between a bible and a folding cosmetic mirror. I press answer before reading the caller ID. It’s Jim.
“Hey, Jim. What’s up?” I can’t force any sort of cheer into my voice.
“You okay?” Jim sounds concerned. He often falls into a fatherly mode with me, even though I’ve frequently reminded him that I’m nearly twenty five and can take care of myself.
“We finished with the little girl’s funeral only a bit ago. It… was harder than I thought it would be.” I wasn’t her family; I hadn’t known her when she was alive, so maybe Jim wouldn’t understand why a stranger’s passing would affect me so badly. I underestimated him though.
“I can imagine. Ain’t right, a parent burying a kid.” He clears his throat and the sound is a bit like a bullfrog’s croak. “That’s actually why I’m calling you, Tori.”
I sat up a bit straighter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Don showed up about thirty minutes ago. Seemed like he was just drinking alone tonight, but then another man showed up. Real tall guy. Expensive clothes.”
“I’ll be right there.” If the lake couldn’t cheer me up, finding Lilly’s killer would damn well do it.
“You bringing cops?”
I shrug and then realize Jim can’t see me. “Probably, Jim.”
“Damn. My patrons aren’t going to like that.”
“Well, I didn’t like burying a little girl today, Jim. I think the shitfaced, lowlife alcoholics that frequent your bar will live.”
“Whoa,
now. You know that’s not what I meant, Tori. I just meant that I’ve got a reputation. That this is a safe place for people who don’t get on too well with the boys in blue.” He’s placating and I can almost see him raising his hands in front of him, trying to calm down the pissed-off mare who doesn’t want to wear her bridle.
“I know what you meant. Guess I’ll just have to pay you a little extra next time I need information.” I press the red icon on the phone to hang up on Jim. Sometimes men really piss me off. Shifting into park, I throw my phone onto the passenger seat beside me and then immediately realize that I have another call to make.
It was time to bring the ‘boys in blue’, as Jim called them, up to date. Terrance was going to be upset that I’d been digging deeper into the case without his go-ahead or his back up. But I didn’t answer to him.
I answered to ghosts.
Chapter Seven.
I wait impatiently as the phone rings, my right hand clutching the steering wheel firmly, my knuckles going white. About the time the sixth trilling starts, I’m ready to toss my cell into the passenger window and smash it to bits.
“Hello, Bonneau Police Department. This is Andrea. How may I help you?” The voice is feminine and high, but not in a nasal, annoying way. It’s pleasant, like a Disney princess. I don’t recognize the speaker and I imagine the woman on the other end of the line is tall and fair with blonde ringlets and a great singing voice to boot. I’ve got nothing against women like that, but, damn, sometimes I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think that life just isn’t fair.
“Yes, my name is Victoria Cage. I’m trying to reach Chief Goodman.”
“Chief Goodman is in a meeting at the moment,” Andrea— aka ‘the princess voice’— responds, a musical lilt threading through her words like she’s waiting for the birds and squirrels to show up, brooms and dusting cloths at the ready.
“So what you mean is that it’s after seven and he’s taking a nap when he should be getting home to his wife and kids instead,” I reply sarcastically. The Chief is a good man, as his name would indicate, but he’s also as predictable as a religiously-wound mantel clock. He makes himself take a nap around this time every day, before he goes home, just in case his three-month-old daughter decides midnight is ‘play hour’, which she often does.