by Danae Ayusso
After finding what might work for this in the service cubby, I pulled on the plastic tubing that connected the fountain to the water filtration system. Once free, I blew the water out of it and hurried back over to Maximus.
“You should not be here-”
“Morning or night, you have no right to be here,” I interrupted the confused grim reaper. “Oh, that might work!” I practically squealed when I saw the small Italian style clay stove that Maximus had used to warm his breakfast pastries and kettle for his tea. “You are a Herald of Death, not Death herself. Are you so bored with life that you read while the lives of those you are commissioned with claiming die at your feet?” I demanded, scooping out some of the hot charcoal with the small shovel next to the stove then dropped it on the stone floor.
The Jeoseung Saja watched me, curious as to what I was doing and how it was possible that I was doing it at all. “It is their book of life,” he explained. “The pages are filled with every breath they have ever taken, from each of their previous lives, and every action they have done, and with the last breath they exhale the final chapter is written… What are you doing?” he asked when I grabbed the heaviest thing I could find and used it to bash the smoldering charcoal.
“Hoping that the activated charcoal will bond to the poison in his system before it does any more damage,” I said, scooping the fine powder I was able to make up with the shovel then carefully brought it over to Maximus. After using some water from the pond to mix the powder into a viscous paste I hurried over to the pond access panel and grabbed the hand siphon that was stored in there for when they worked on the pond.
After checking to make sure Maximus’ airway was clear, I forced the rubber tubing down his throat to his stomach.
“You were watching the page for it to be written?” I asked, trying to distract myself from if this doesn’t work.
Tybalt wouldn’t handle his father’s death very well, that I knew without question.
“I was,” the Jeoseung Saja said.
“And yet it was in the middle of the book,” I pointed out, causing his brows to pull together. “If it were truly meant to be the end of his wolf’s life, you would be on the last page of his book of life, not in the middle. Even an accident would be at the end, not the middle, regardless of which life he’s on?”
Again, his head tilted to the side, and he looked to the book in his hand. He waved his hand over it and the book opened and the pages fanned on their own until they fell open to where he left off.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” I asked, using the hand siphon to force the activated charcoal down the tube to Maximus’ stomach.
The Jeoseung Saja looked from the open pages to me. “This is not right,” he whispered. “Something is wrong.”
“Then help me save him so you can figure out what is wrong,” I pleaded, forcing the last of the charcoal into his stomach.
The book varnished from his hand. “What do you need?”
“I smell or saw fennel, goldenrod, gravelroot, hawthorn, and juniper,” I said, motioning the direction their scents were coming from. “I need some of each and clean, hot water to break them down in.”
He nodded then disappeared.
I rolled Maximus to his back then pushed on his stomach, trying to mix the contents with the charcoal for better absorption.
Tybalt would never forgive me if I didn’t save his father, even if it wasn’t my fault in the least. It would be guilt I’d harbor for all eternity. I had to do everything in my power to save Maximus because he did everything in his power to save me when his son asked him to.
The Jeoseung Saja appeared next to me with a steaming kettle in one hand and a handful of roots, leaves, and berries in the other hand. “Which did you want to chew?” he asked.
“Put the fennel in the hot water to steep,” I instructed. “Did you find goldenseal?”
He nodded.
“Add that as well,” I said, taking the gravelroot from him and stuck the entire flower, stem, leaves and all in my mouth and started to chew in order to break them down faster to add to the tea.
Usually you have to dry out the flowers, steams, leaves, roots, and seeds in order to prepare them for tea. That was, after all, how the Monkshood got into a wolf’s tea, but I didn’t have a choice. Monkshood goes by many names, many know it as Wolfsbane, and it is toxic and poisonousness, and fatal for wolves.
That I knew without question.
There was only one explanation; this was another attack on a crown, one that hits much too close to home and my heart.
I spit the masticated gravelroot into the kettle and Jeoseung Saja spit the goldenrod and hawthorn he chewed up into the kettle before adding the smashed juniper berries and needles to the brew. I swirled it around in the pot as I hurried over to the stove and pulled out some smoldering charcoal with my bare hand, burning it in the process, then smashed pieces and grounded them into a powder and added it to the tea.
“Why are you doing this?” the Jeoseung Saja asked I hurried back over to Maximus.
“The mixture should help counter the effects on the stomach, heal the sores in the throat and mouth, and the lesions in the stomach,” I explained.
“Yes, I know. That is not what I meant-”
“I know it isn’t,” I said, looking at up him. “You don’t like the role you have been cursed with in his life, I see it clearly in your eyes, and yet you do it without complaint because it is the role you were given. I don’t know what role I have in this life, but I’m not about to jeopardize it by not doing everything in my power to help those that are in my life,” I explained, ignoring the tears that were staining my cheek and falling into the kettle. “I have to save him, because he tried to save me.”
I used the hand siphon to push the tea down the tube and into Maximus’ stomach, making sure I didn’t plug it with any debris.
“Wolves, to my knowledge heal faster, but not when poisoned. Nothing can promote healing when the toxins are still breaking down in the system. I’m hoping I found him in time,” I whispered, another tear rolling down my cheek.
The Jeoseung Saja looked at me curiously. “No one would do this, would risk their life as you are, for a stranger. You are not in his book of life, in any of them, and yet you are writing yourself into it. Why?”
Of course he had a point, but it wasn’t one that I wanted to argue.
“Maximus fought for me,” I explained, pulling the tube from his stomach while pushing what remained of the tea through it in order to coat his throat and mouth as it went. “Before I met him, our paths crossed through blood, and he tried to save my life because of that. Now I have to repay that debt.”
“Even if it kills you?” he asked when little wisps of smoke started to rise from my skin.
“Because I know it will kill me,” I said.
Maximus’ pupils expanded, and he choked and coughed, his hands slapping at me and the tube I was pulling from his throat.
It felt as if my heart was going to burst from happiness flooding it because he was responsive and might be okay now. But that happiness was quickly replaced by unimaginable pain; my body was overly hot, I felt as if I was smoldering, and as if at any moment I would combust!
Huh, I guess vampires don’t do the sun very well at all.
Maximus’ eyes met mine and they widened just as the sun filled the arboretum and I cried out in pain.
The swaying from side to side made me want to puke, but it was easily ignored by the searing in my body. I suppose, in a questionable and nonsensical way, it gave confirmation that too much sun was bad for vampires.
Finally got confirmation on the one thing I knew when it came to vampires.
With that said, it didn’t make sense.
I should have been dead.
Burned to a crisp or reduced to a pile of ash.
Instead, I felt everything and I wish I didn’t.
Never had I felt physical pain like that! It was as if I was being burned alive at the stak
e. It felt as if my blood was boiling, my skin was on fire, rivers of molten lava were surging beneath the surface, and at any moment I would spontaneously combust taking everything and everyone in the vicinity with me.
A ticking Shawn bomb!
I didn’t explode. If I would have, I wouldn’t be in someone’s arms if I had, but I still felt as if I was burned alive.
It was safe to assume that I didn’t die, again, and that someone was trying to protect me, but I didn’t know who or why this time.
I didn’t feel safe, not like I do when in Andrei’s arms.
And the touch wasn’t warm like Tybalt’s either; I fell asleep in his arms last night, using his chest as a pillow on the bed of blankets and pillows he made for us before I sleepwalked to the sun.
When I was laid out on something soft, I whimpered in pain; regardless of the soft, billowy bedding under me, it felt as if I was laid down on a bed of needles.
Feet shuffled from next to me.
“You are safe now. The sun cannot get you here,” he slurred before something heavy landed on me and I cried out in pain.
Flashes of light flooded my vision before everything went dark and I was suddenly falling.
I landed on the ground, my head connecting to the hard surface and it causes flashes of light to flood my vision again, but these were accompanied by blobs of floating black that distorted my view.
Once the flashes of light and darkened spots cleared from my vision, it cleared to reveal a thick canopy of leaves from the massive sweet chestnut tree I was sprawled out under. The huge burls on its wide trunk made it appear like something from a fairytale, the expansive roots stretched out from it and poked out of the ground in places and were covered in a thickened bed of moss in other places.
I landed on the mossy bed and my head made contact with one of the burls.
“This isn’t right,” I whispered, sitting up and looked around, confused. “This tree doesn’t belong in Seattle… I’m not in Seattle anymore,” I stammered, just realizing it.
The hill I was on was covered in a grove of ancient sweet chestnut trees, in the distance were tall, expertly carved stone pillars that stretched into the sky, temples of marble and granite, and the surrounding landscape was a blanket of pasque flowers and columbine that swayed slightly in the breeze. The sun hadn’t even broken the horizon, telling me it was predawn; soft shades of marigold that softly caressed rose that blended to pale violet that darkened as it stretched towards the heavens where it was enveloped in navy.
It was beautiful, but it wasn’t real.
Those temples fell hundreds of years ago. Every Italian knows that!
“There you are,” a familiar voice said, their voice carrying on the breeze and teasingly wrapped around me. “I was wondering where you ventured to this time,” Andrei said with a smile.
There was something different about him, something different and very wrong.
He looked happy.
Unbelievably happy.
His hair was longer and tied back from his face and danced on the breeze as he walked, his purple tunic expertly showed his broad, heavy muscular physique; he was much bigger than the vampire I partially undressed in his closet after he was attacked.
“This is wrong,” I whispered.
“Perhaps I was waiting for you to join me,” a woman said, stealing my attention.
Where did that come from?
Andrei chuckled, offering me his hand.
With much reluctance a started to take it when a hand passed through mine and wrapped around his and Andrei pulled them to their feet, their body passing through mine.
I gasped, the feeling was wrong…
That’s the only way to describe it.
Ice cold, frigid as death and just as uninviting, and it caused my breath to stick my throat and I struggled to breathe.
Andrei pulled the woman into his arms and a smile filled his handsome face. “The sun is nearly up and I do not long to cause a war this morning over the blessing you have bestowed upon your husband,” he teased.
Wait, what?
That effectively pulled me from panicking about not being able to breathe.
Andrei is married?!
The woman threw her head back when she laughed, and her long, dark, white streaked hair blew away from her on the breeze.
“What the others do not know, my only love, will not hurt them,” she darkly reminded him, one hand caressing over her stomach and the small baby bump that was there.
Andrei chuckled before bringing his lips to hers. “You will forever be nothing but trouble, Solnyshka,” he mused before caressing her lips with his.
The moment she was in his arms, her body started to blacken and split apart, her hair burned away, and smoke started to rise from her.
“What the…” I stammered.
A hand wrapped around my arm and they pulled me back into them.
I was ripped away from the hill in Italy, away from the passionately kissing couple that was burning away to smoldering cinders, and everything moved in a nauseating blur before I was slammed back into something substantial.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “You were not supposed to see that.”
That voice, I knew that voice and it was the last voice I should have been hearing.
I rubbed my eyes, pulling away from him. It felt as if I was missing a piece of me, and that piece I couldn’t live without.
And I didn’t like it.
It was a struggle, but eventually I was able to catch my breath, with it the regulation of my racing heart, and to feel as if I was one with my body again.
Wait, this can’t be right!
“Am I dead?” I asked in a panic.
“No, you are very much alive.”
If that’s true, why was he here?
“Why are you… Were we cuddling?” I asked, trying to figure out why he was so close to me and it felt as if I had been held for a long period of time.
“Not intentionally?” he offered.
“I’m not amused,” I warned. “I have severe boundary issues, and I don’t like the dark. Am I in a coffin? A really big, huge, echo, coffin?” I whined.
He chuckled, to my surprise.
“A safe house of sorts, not a coffin, though we are to ground in a sense,” he admitted.
Okay, that still didn’t answer any of my questions that actually mattered.
“Time out. Start over,” I said. “What was that and why did you pull me from it?” I demanded. “It was a dream, wasn’t it? A vision? A nightmare? Was it a side-effect of getting too much sun and now I think I’m Andrei’s wife and carrying his baby?” I gagged. “Not going to happen. Why wasn’t I supposed to see it? Was it a past life? I was told I don’t have any and that I’m a clean slate. Did they lie?”
The bed next to me moved, causing me to shriek and I scrambled away from them, hitting the wall.
I didn’t realize he was literally that close.
“Calm down,” he said. “If you do, your eyes will adjust.”
Calm down. Calm down. I can do this.
After many deep breaths, my eyes finally adjusted, but I couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing.
It was dark.
Way too dark to see without a light source, but I could see outlines and lightened shadows that gave a shape to everything. There was a strange hum that I could see and it outlined solid objects and others pulsed with a gentle hum that showed what the darkness was concealing.
“What in the…” my words trailed off.
“Watch your eyes,” he warned then waved his hand through the air and bright light illuminated the area.
I shrieked and ducked back under the jacket that was covering me, thinking it was the sun coming back to finish what it started earlier.
“It is only candle light,” he promised in a whisper. “You are safe from the sun, though I speculate many suns have risen and set since arriving.”
That didn’t make sense.
I pul
led the jacket from my head and looked around, confused.
We were in an unfamiliar building, but one that was strangely familiar for some reason.
The stone walls were covered in moss and creeping vegetation, doorways were all arched and without doors, there were no windows, the ground was moss covered stone, and it smelled heavily of bitter foliage and earthy musk. The air was heavier than it was before, without a brine taste that I was accustomed to along the water around Seattle, and it coated my tongue and flooded my nostrils. Around me were the remains of wooden pews that were overgrown with moss and fungi. Overhead, wrought iron chandeliers hung from dark wooden beams that were fighting against the creeping vegetation; the glass shade of each was coated in black mold or possibly soot, and candles were burning in each. The ceilings were domed stone with extensive detailing that was over a hundred years old, and that’s where I recognized it from.
I was in one of the decommissioned rail stations around Snohomish. I had seen pictures of it online, but the location was never made public. The stone work was amazing, masterfully crafted by one of the greatest IInd Empire Baroque style architects of the 19th century.
The Jeoseung Saja had his back to me, moving methodically as he unhooked his pocket watch and laid it on the table next to him, then repeated with pulling everything from his pockets; change, billfold, a pair of glasses, and a small book and fountain pen.
“Jeoseung Saja, what was that?” I asked, looking for a means to escape.
“Do Yoon,” he said.
“I’m sorry, my Korean is not very good,” I apologized. “It’s non-existent.”
He turned to face me. “My name is Do Yoon,” he explained. “Jeoseung Saja is what I am, not who I am. You should not have seen that,” he said, his brows pulling together, as if trying to find an explanation to it.
“Was it a dream?” I asked, offering him his hat that was on the bed next to me.
He joined me, taking the hat then took it over to his other belongings and set it down.
“Please tell me what it was,” I whispered, examining my hands and arms in the light, checking for any damage from the sun but my skin was once again intact and pale. “It felt so real.”