The Vapor

by Nathan Parks

  It was a letter . . . not written on lined paper. He always hated that. He felt letters were to be written on blank sheets. “A blank sheet with only memories and deepest thoughts placed upon it,” he would say.

  She felt tears start falling when she noticed a small coffee stain in the upper righthand corner. She lifted it up and smelled it. Yep, it still smelled like coffee.

  My Dearest Eve, My Daughter,

  I am not going to placate to the art of sympathy and all the words that can be shared about how if you are reading this, what it means. No, I will not taint this for you in that fashion.

  Instead, I will make an ill attempt to do what I have always desired to do: express my pride, love, and instruction to a woman who once was a young girl, now a lady who has taken on the weight of the world head-on with such tenacity and fortitude that you have allowed an old man the opportunity to swell with such waves of pride.

  From the day that I saw you inside that booth, I knew. I instantly had no doubt that you were placed into my life, not just for your sake but for mine. As a human, I knew that you could accomplish greatness, and as a Nephelium, I knew that the world would be hard for you. I worked diligently to keep you protected and loved. I wanted nothing more than you to live out your existence on this earth knowing that you had been loved more than my own life.

  There are two roads, My Daughter, that lay before you. One is the road that leads to revenge that your heart will, in anger, scream out for. This road is the road to destruction. It is not the way I desire for you, but I am not the one to choose your journey—you are. If you choose this road, know that it will not diminish any love that I have for you. If I was there, it would break my heart to see you travel down this road that has no real reward or end, but my love remains.

  The second road, if I could choose, would be the road I would choose for you, My Dear. It is the road not so easily visible, but the best roads rarely are. It is the road that will lead you to fulfillment. Oh, there will be heartache on both roads. There will be rough times on both roads. The second road, though, is one where you take all that I have poured into you and invest it back into others. This road—ah—this road, my dear Eve, will swell up within. It will embrace you. It will nurture you, as I have; for in nurturing others, we find true nourishment within ourselves.

  Farewell, My Daughter. I am never gone, for as long as you are, there I am also.

  Love,

  Alfonso

  As the tears flowed freely down her face as if a dam, which had been in place for so long, finally broke, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She leaned her head against it. “You were wrong in holding this from me, Isaiah; but I also believe that if I had received this back then, I would not have read it the way I do tonight.”

  “I know, Eve. I hate to see what you have become . . . what we both have become.”

  “You can change your path still, Isaiah . . . but I am not sure that I can. I chose my road, as he says in this letter, years ago. Revenge feeds me every night. I cannot run from its tentacles. It holds me tightly and comforts me in the darkness when my mind’s demons confuse me to what is real and what is only in my imagination.”

  “Come with me. Maybe we can cut those ties together.”

  She looked up at him. His smile accented his dark skin. She had not seen that smile in a very long time. “I will go with you; but not for me . . . for you, Isaiah. Eve, Alfonso’s daughter, died the night he did.”

  ◆◆◆

  Denora was cursing at Hecate right now. She wasn’t sure how Hecate had discovered that Mantus was meeting with Michael, but here she was sitting in the middle of the desert trying to make heads or tails of the Overlord’s meeting and movements.

  The night was starting to fall, and a chill was setting in. Mantus had just left, but Hecate had instructed her to keep tabs on Michael. He seemed to be camped out inside a very non-glamourous dwelling.

  “Who would think the desert would be cold?” she griped as she looked through a set of binoculars to see if she could see anything worth remembering. A pack of coyotes was starting their evening hunt, and a bobcat had hardly given her notice as he walked past about 30 minutes ago. “Light the place on fire; dance naked, for all I care! Just do something!”

  Denora was sitting at the base of a Joshua tree, stomach growling for food and her mind frustrated. In the flash of one breath, she caught a sense of someone beside her and felt a blade pressed against her neck.

  “Don’t move! Don’t look around . . . and whatever you do, I beg you to go for that blade you have tucked away!” It was a male voice, one that she believed she should recognize but just couldn’t pinpoint it.

  “Ok, I hope you understand who I am and what I can do if you choose not to run that blade across my neck,” she spat defiantly.

  He laughed. “Well, it has been a while, but let me see if my memory is still as keen as I think it is. You are Denora, former Lieutenant of Arioch, a former member of the Clan Adramelech; but of course, that is only because Arioch wasn’t successful in his bid for his own Clan. Grant it he has his own now, but that is a story for another time. I believe now you may be with the House of Hecate.”

  There! She recognized the voice. She took her hand slowly and placed it against the double-edged blade, pushing it against her neck until she could feel the pain of it cutting her skin and her hand. She then removed her hand and licked the blood from the cut. “Kadar, half-breed, wanna-be assassin, hired gun, and self-proclaimed leader of the Nephelium Clan! It has been some time!”

  Kadar removed the blade from her neck but kept it pointed inches away from her as he moved around to her front. “I’m flattered!”

  “Don’t be,” she said in disgust. “You are far from home, Castaway.”

  “I could say the same about you; and I also could think of a few other choice names to call you in return, but all those are such childish things.”

  He wiped the blade and returned it to its hidden sheath. He plopped down beside her and looked out in the direction of Zarius’ house. “So, what are you doing?”

  “Straight to the point, Kadar?”

  “Well, would you like for me to pull out a picnic? Maybe snap a selfie?”

  “Maybe. I am starving.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of unwrapped jerky and attempted to hand it to her. “It is my last piece, but I’m willing to share.”

  Denora looked at it in disbelief and pushed it away. “No, I think I will go without.”

  She never understood how poised he could be and so relaxed. He actually lay down and propped himself up on one of his elbows. He looked down at the jerky in his hand and took a large bite out of it. The rest he used as a pointer toward the house. “So, we on a stakeout or something?”

  “WE are on nothing. I work alone, and YOU just happen to be here for some bizarre and freaky, stalker-type reason.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one with binoculars!”

  He had her there. No, he was just the one who seemed to appear out of nowhere, thousands of miles from where she was used to seeing him. She really did despise him. Sure, he was attractive; but she couldn’t get past the part where he was an outcast, a half-breed. “You never do anything, go anywhere without a reason, Kadar. We both know that neither of us is acting on our own; and most likely, neither of us want to be here. So, let’s cut to the chase.”

  He took another bite of jerky and waved it around indicating that she should continue.

  “Hecate has me watching Mantus and Azrael. For some reason, they just had a meeting in there.” She pointed to the building. “I have no clue why; and honestly at this point, I really don’t care.”

  “You ever get tired of all of this?” he asked. “What are we really doing all of this for? Over and over we find ourselves like bad remakes of the same movie, and we continually get a supporting role!”

  “Nope, not going to join anything you got going on, Kadar.”

  He feigned hurt. “I can’t b
elieve you would even insinuate that!” He paused, and then laughed. “Ok, so don’t hate on me for trying. I’m just saying.”

  “You still haven’t told me why you are here.”

  “You are right.” He got up and stretched. “What I can say is this: I have always told you to be careful the game you play. I’m serious, Denora. You are one hell of a fighter, and you have a great strategic mindset. There are not too many who I think could give me a run for my money, but you are one. Don’t get me wrong; I would still leave you hanging on a fence post, gurgling in your own blood and choking on your own tongue, but it would be a good fight.

  “Think about it, though. You come from a lineage of hierarchy and strength! Your father, Paimon, a loyal lieutenant to the Morning Star, still to this day is revered as one of the fiercest of all the Houses. You should be controlling things, yet you continually play second fiddle to others.”

  “Why are you here, Kadar?”

  He started to walk into the darkness of the night. “I miss you, Denora . . . I missed you.”

  She reached for the knife inside the top of her boot. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would sure stop him. She reached around, looking down to see if she could see it sticking out.

  “I will send it to you, My Friend. I would rather not have it in my back,” the assassin yelled out to her.

  “Curse him!” she muttered. She should have realized he had swiped it.

  ◆◆◆

  It was dark enough outside where she was able to move up to the house without having to worry that the barren landscape offered barely any cover. She pressed up against one of the walls and tilted her head so that she could look inside the window and not be seen.

  She observed and listened for several minutes and could tell the place was empty. “Damn it!” she cursed. “Michael must have slipped out while I was being taunted by Kadar!”

  She made her way to one of the doors and let herself in. Standing in the center of the living area she stopped and focused. There had to be a reason why Mantus and Michael were here; there had to be some sort of value to this place.

  She closed her eyes and allowed the energy of the area in which she stood flow through her. She tapped into the threads of time. Kadar was right: to some, she was royalty within the Clans. She had gained certain traits from her father, and one was the ability to stand between mortal and immortal where the strings of the concept of time stopped and eternity began. Many mortals may consider this a form of time travel; then again, that would indicate that time was a real thing and not just the curtain of measurement created by mortality.

  Blurred visions of a woman walking around with a cup of coffee and a cell phone came to her. She sensed that she was a part of the fabric of the place. Denora watched her as she went over to a desk and began to write things down inside a notebook. Denora mimicked the vision and walked to the desk. The journal in which the lady was writing was not on the desk, but Denora kept focused. She watched as words began to form in her consciousness.

  “Artifact,” “Vial,” “Ancient Text,” she spoke each out loud. She began to sense another presence, so Denora turned. There was another figure, but he seemed different. She felt like she was seeing him as a reflection within a bathroom mirror covered in steam. “Why are you not coming into focus?” She sensed there was a conversation going on, but she could not hear it. “Voices . . . where are their voices?” she questioned to herself. “Strange,” she pondered.

  The lady in her vision was still writing, and Denora looked back down and gasped. The lady was drawing now. She was sketching out a pyramid-shaped stone and writing out the dimensions of the stone beside it.

  “A delta? Where are you getting this information?” She continued to watch as the vision faded and came back. Now the woman was writing down a few more things and a name. “Gerault?”

  Denora felt she had enough to take back to Hecate. She wasn’t sure what it all meant and still wasn’t quite sure why Azrael and Mantus had been there. She had not seen them in her vision, and who was the male figure? She wasn’t sure; but what she did have, she hoped Hecate could make sense of it.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Can we talk?” Leah had walked up beside Serenity as she was standing, looking out at the snow that was starting to fall.

  “I will try; but to be honest, Leah, there is a lot going on in my head right now, and I’m not sure I am in a good head space to talk.”

  “That is fair. I just need to share some things before we get caught up again in whatever all of this is,” she motioned around her.

  “Sure.”

  Leah felt vulnerable, and that was new. She didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much right now she was going to be able to do about it. “I’m sorry.”

  Serenity turned and looked at her with some confused puzzlement. “About what, Leah? What exactly is it that you are sorry for?”

  “This isn’t easy for me,” Leah said, putting her hand up to stop her counterpart, “so, could we forego the sarcasm?”

  There was no response, just silence, so Leah continued, “Since you came to the Alliance, I have not been myself.” That sounded more like an excuse than an apology. She was growing frustrated. “Listen, you are great at everything you do. You are great at looking at things differently than those around you, and that makes you vital!

  “I hated being stood up to, but I also admired that from you. Honestly, you kept me in check and even probably saved all of us from making some stupid choices. I appreciated it and hated it all at once.

  “You were a constant reminder of many things. Your voice reminded me daily of what I was supposed to be, who I used to be. You reminded me often of why we do what we do, even though many times I just wanted to throw it all to the wind. You also kept reminding me that I was slipping away. My anger, my stubbornness, and my personal vendettas were eating at me, clouding my judgment. For all of that, I am sorry and grateful for you.”

  Serenity took in everything that her former leader said. She didn’t respond right away but just chewed on it. After a moment, she responded, “Leah, thanks. I’m pretty sure I know how hard that was for you. Not really sure I could have done it, and not sure I can. I’m sure I owe you an apology, also; but right now, I just don’t care. Why you are a Vapor or whatever you are doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that young girl. What matters is that we get all this right.

  “I can’t promise a friendly end to all of this. I won't promise to send you Christmas cards or go out for drinks when everything is said and done. What I know is that mortal man has been a pawn within the web of immortal deceit. We have been treated no differently than ants inside one of those stupid little ant farms.

  “Yeah, you may think you helped us; however, all you really did was rearrange the sand to make us believe that our world had changed . . . and sometimes for the better. The whole time we have still been sandwiched inside some small glass cosmic container. You don’t get a medal for refusing to hold a magnifying glass up over our lives and burning us with some holy ray of light.”

  “You are right, and I have nothing more to say,” was Leah’s response. She didn’t. She was lost between two worlds, and that is where her new world now was being built.

  Serenity just shook her head and walked away, leaving Leah standing alone. She felt cold, almost dead. She couldn’t clear her mind. It seemed like so many voices and sounds were screaming and having an argument inside.

  “I just wish I could find silence and peace! I wish the voices would just shut up,” she stated out loud.

  “I can totally relate! You can hear them, too?”

  She looked behind her and recognized the young lady whom the team had brought in from The Warehouse. She had walked up from the opposite direction in which Serenity had gone. She was the same girl, yet different. She looked . . . well, she looked alive for one thing but also not as troubled.

  “Hi, I’m Tori.” She held out her hand.

  “I know.” Leah smiled and sho
ok her hand. Twinges of guilt stuck at her like small pinheads. The team had been right; she had been willing to just throw this young girl to the wolves. Had losing so many really become like thick scales over her empathy?

  “How did you know?” she quizzed.

  “Well, my name is Leah, first off.”

  A small cloud passed over Tori’s face. “The same Leah that wanted to just have me dropped off at a hospital?”

  Yep, there was the sledgehammer. “Guilty as charged.”

  “Hmm . . . I was expecting some old, crusty hag who was just grumpy and hated people. You seem like someone pretty cool.”

  This made Leah smirk a little. “Well, actually you were not far off. I’m older than you may think; I do tend to be grumpy; and slowly I have begun hating people. Thanks for the compliment, though.”