by Su Williams
“Nick, I…” I tried once again.
“Just don’t, Sabre. This is one experiment I hope to God you don’t fail. Now, leave me the fuck alone.”
Nick wasn’t prone to swear much, even at me. His more traditional ways found the coarse language of today somewhat offensive. But I couldn’t fault him for a few maledictions. What had I done? Had it been the right choice? To let her fall to her death and in the process destroy the heart of the one person I loved above myself. What if I was wrong? Would he hate me eternally? Would he leave? Abandon me and leave me utterly alone? Decades with him at my side could be irretrievably washed away by this one rash decision. I left the room in silence. His weeping soon filtered through the house and permeated my soul where they shattered what remained of my heart.
I forced myself to slumber, to rejuvenate myself, but the screams of the girl lacerated my dreams. Worse yet—his cries eviscerated my soul. What have I done? Had it truly been for her? Even for him? Or was it just another of my ruthless experiments for the sake of knowledge gained? Information to know the quantifications of the Caphar ability?
She lay upon her bed. A pedestal of worship. And he bowed his knee and worshipped. No. From the day of his rebirth I was his father. His brother. His friend. Everything. And yet he bowed his knee at the altar of ‘the girl’. Could I stand that she was now more significant than me? That his life and breath were hers to own—if only she would awaken. If only she’d open those glimmering emerald eyes and flutter those lashes at him.
Strange heat flushed my body. Rage? Hatred? Toward who? Him? Or her? Or perhaps, myself. Jealousy that I now had to share his devotion with her? And yet, I knew the joy, the respite he felt at her presence. The voltage that charged his being at her touch. But part of him was mine. Still mine. Though the girl apprehended his heart and held it under lock and key.
* * *
As the hours ticked by, the grey lifeless day eked by as slowly as a month. Heavy fog engulfed Emari’s cottage, like the sky itself had fallen in woe. Even the little barn at the border of her property was lost in the mire. Inside, the oppressive layer of grief socked us in. The door to her room clicked softly as I opened it to check on Nick. He knelt on the floor at her side, his head rested on his arms. He raised his head and sliced a dangerous look my direction. With a snort of disgust, he rose to his feet and charged me. My hands remained at my side, defenseless. I would not defend myself against anything he believed I deserved. But just as his fist swung at my face, with the roar of a savage beast, he evaporated from the room.
I could only stand and stare at her prone form. Fear that I’d jinx the magic, that my touch would taint her soul, left me fixed to the spot. My chest throbbed, my throat tighten with sorrow. My fingers ached to touch her, to feel for a pulse or a breath, yet I knew there would be none. My gaze traveled the grayscale décor of her room, memorabilia of famous movie monsters plastered the walls. Yet none was as monstrous as me. My picture should adorn these walls as the evilest, most vile monster of them all. I turned to go, left her in the dim, shadowy room alone and pulled the door quietly closed behind me as though I might awaken her from her slumber.
Hours later, I heard the quiet rustle of Nick’s clothes as he sat at her side like a funeral watch. As two a.m. slid into three, and marked the first twenty-four hours, her bedroom door swung quietly open and Nick stepped out.
I stood to meet him. “Nick…” I tried again.
“Sabre. Just don’t. There is absolutely nothing you can say that will fix this,” he said, his voice heavy and slow. I’d never heard his voice so burdened with defeat.
“But if I’m right…”
“If? Don’t you get it, Sabre? You can’t risk lives on an ‘if’,” he yelled. The pup, who I’d finally coaxed out of his crate, tucked his tail and retreated to safety.
I nodded in concession. “But she could be immortal, Nick.”
“Again, ‘could’ sounds just like ‘if’.”
“But you felt it in her as much as I did. And when William said she had to die, it just clicked in my head. You died and became Caphar. I died and became Caphar. They thought William was dead for two days until he shambled out the woods, alive and well. It just made sense,” I explained.
“It was a hunch, Sabre. That’s all. Why would you do this to me? Because you lost Sarah Rose, so I shouldn’t have anyone either?” I staggered back from him as though, this time, he’d truly struck me. Emari must have learned more of my past than I’d realized—during, yet another of my ‘damned experiments’. But, Nick couldn’t possibly believe I would intentionally wound him. “It was impulsive and you took no thought to anyone but yourself when you let her go,” he continued his tirade.
“But she’ll be Caphar,” I said like that explained and excused everything.
“That wasn’t your call to make. It was hers. What if that’s not what she wanted? What if she didn’t want to be immortal?”
“But she did,” I defended.
“She told you that?”
“Not exactly.” This meek thing was getting old. “But she understood when I released her.”
Another growl rolled from his throat, he turned his back on me and returned to his vigil at her bedside.
* * *
As the second day slipped into darkness, headlights bounced off the windows. Lamps from the yard illuminated blue and red lights on the top of the car. Panicked, I phased into the bedroom to Nick. “There’s a cop here,” I hissed.
“Good,” he said.
“Good? What if they come in? How do we explain a dead body in a house that’s not ours?”
“It’s fine. Just one more witness to the glorious crash and burn of the infamous Sabre James.”
Stung by the venom, I could only gape at him.
A car door slammed.
“Did you lock the door?” I asked.
Nick rolled his eyes, a gesture I was sure he’d gotten from her. “My hands were a little full, if you remember.”
“Shhh.”
A knock thundered through the empty house. We sat like statues, still and unbreathing. The knock sounded again. I shot a glance of panic at Nick but he shook his head in disdain and turned away. The pup was silent in his kennel, still cowed by the scent of death and the anger in Nick’s voice. Another knock. Persistent little bastard! Panic clouded my judgment. Should I phase without him? No. He’d see it as just another betrayal. Finally, the engine of the car revved, and we heard the tires crunch away down the drive. Despite acting unconcerned, Nick released a relieved sigh. But, the deep-seated dread remained. The final hours were fast approaching.
I had to admit the girl looked anything but alive. I couldn’t conceive of what was happening to her body. If I was wrong, she was decaying; her smell would ripen. Soon. And then what? I was not accustomed to disposing of mortal bodies. Generally, a dead Caphar will disintegrate to dust at the end of his days; and the Rephaim we’d killed were disposed of in a barrel of lye. But a mortal body shattered from a fall? I couldn’t see Nick allowing me to place Emari’s body in barrel. I continued to hope I was right and her body was knitting its brokenness under the swaddling of blankets he’d wrapped her in.
“What were you thinking, Sabre?! Look at her! Does she look ‘alive’ to you? Do you ever stop to think before you do something or do you really just not give a shit?” Nick was shouting again, backing me against a wall, jabbing his finger into my chest. I could have knocked him on his ass and he knew it. But I had done enough. Perhaps too much.
Despite an hour of sleep, I felt haggard and weak. “I give a shit,” I retorted. Even to my own ears, I sounded uncharacteristically meek—and it was getting old.
Nick stormed away, still raging at me for my stupidity, my compulsive nature, my ‘damned experiments.’ “What if you’re wrong, Sabre?! What if you made the damned decision and you’re wrong? I could have saved her. I could have reached her hand. I was almost there and you just had to…”
He was right. He
could have saved her. Easily. But if I was right, she would return to him. Better. Stronger. For the better part of forever. Doubt eked through me like the crawling London fog on a dark night I remembered from so long ago as a child. Forty-eight hours had nearly ticked away; the deadline to her mortality or immortality.
Nick finally deigned to allow me at her side. Her cold hand rested like ice in my grasp. Cold? Not cold and stiff?
“Nick. Did she ever go into rigor?” I asked on another damned hunch. Nick closed his eyes and shook his head in disgust. His lips pinched shut, like he was barring angry words. “No, listen. ATP stops flowing in the muscles when a body dies. It’s like a conduit for the electrical impulses that keep the muscles soft and fluid. If the body didn’t go into rigor…” Nick’s nostrils flared and I knew I said the wrong the thing. Emari wasn’t ‘the body.’ And I used the word ‘if’ again. I didn’t think he could stand another ‘if’, even if it meant a ray of hope. So I closed my mouth and hovered silently, watching her with eager eyes for any sense of movement, a breath, a pulse, a twitch of an eye—anything. My body was rigid with tension and hope, nearly as cold and still as the girl.
Nick paced the room like an anxious father in a waiting room anticipating the birth of a child. He picked up books, gazed at them without seeing, then put them down; peered out the window to the darkness; glared daggers at me; grumbled swear words at me. He stared at Emari’s movie monsters like he, too, believed I belonged right there with them. The sudden and brutal truth of what they’d called me so many times, sank my heart like an anchor. It was true. I have finally proven, without a doubt, that I am indeed an ass.
As though my inner confession held the power of life, Emari’s body suddenly arched and jolted as if a surge of electric heat shot through it. She gasped and convulsed in pain. Her eyes shot open and stared, unseeing, her vision obscured by the haze of death that coated her lenses. The room, that was silent before, grew more silent yet as wonder short-circuited both of us. Nick flew to my side, his hands vibrated gentle caresses across her face, and clutched at her hand like a man about to drown. My trembling fingers enclosed her other hand, rubbed the coldness from it. Her joints hadn’t yet shaken off the effects of transience. Deftly, I worked the joints, loosening the death that had possessed her body. My throat seized. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t even find it in myself to gloat; couldn’t find room for ‘I told you so’s’.
I’d been a mortician in another life, back when found him, so Nick followed my lead. We flexed and straightened each finger; massaged her palms, flexed her wrists, elbows and shoulders. Her chest pulsed with shallow, panicked breaths.
“It’s okay, Em. Everything’s gonna be fine now,” Nick comforted her and petted her hair.
Finally, her eyes cleared and darted questioningly between Nick and me. She choked and sputtered, trying to speak. “In time,” I soothed her and patted her shoulder. I remembered finding Nick, the fear and confusion in his eyes. I laughed at my reprieve, so grateful not to be wrong. I touched her pinking face just to tactilely verify the life within her—to feel her warmth, the pulse under her skin. She struggled again for speech and Nick leaned closer to her lips. Her eyes closed as though digging in for strength. “What, Sweetie?” He stroked her hair from her face.
“Potty mouth,” she breathed through half-frozen vocal chords.
Nick chuckled, kissed her forehead, and bathed her cheeks with his tears.
Chapter 17 I’m Not Dead
Emari
A lot can happen to a girl in a year. She can survive, and wonder why. She can lose her innocence, and find her way. She can fall in love, and be afraid. And on a cold, dark night, at the hands of a friend—she can die.
I’d never been colder in my life. Icebergs gouged their way through my veins. Every muscle spasmed out of control. My teeth rattled together like ice cubes in a glass. Nick wrapped us both in my fleecy blanket so his body heat calmed my shivers.
“Wh-why am I s-so f-freakin’ c-cold?” I stammered.
Nick smiled because I didn’t swear.
“Aside from the fact that you just came back from the dead?” Sabre teased. “Your body is in a sort of shock. I was telling Nick about the ATP in your muscles that stops working when you die. It’s what causes rigor. I believe once it starts flowing again, your muscles are a little confused.” Nick huffed a frustrated snort. “You’ll probably feel better faster if you move around.” Nick squeezed me closer and glared at his friend. “Remember, Nick?”
Sabre’s arm was wrapped around Nick’s waist, escorting him past the rows of the departed in the makeshift morgue where Sabre found him. They eased out a back door into the inky night. Despite the autumn chill, heat radiated in Nick’s chest and spread through him with each footstep.
Nick gasped as the images spilled from his memories into me. “Geezuz!” he gasped. “That wasn’t abrupt or anything.”
“S-sorry.” Though I wasn’t quite sure why. “May-be I sh-ould get up…” I wanted to say more but the shivers frustrated me. Nick helped me to my feet and guided me around the room. And just like his memory, heat bloomed in my chest and thawed the ice in my muscles with each step I took. “I’m—good—now,” I told him after several minutes of pacing the room. He scowled and I knew he didn’t want to release me. He just got me back. I raised my hand to his face with only a tiny tremor and cupped his cheek. He was so warm. I wanted to curl up next to him and steal his heat. My thumb grazed delicately over his lips. “It’s o-kay.” Damn it! I didn’t like the wobble in my voice. He wasn’t convinced but relinquished his hold. I wandered the house in silence, a little discomfited by their constant gazes, like I might just fall down dead again.
Sabre had never been real touchy-feely with me, but now, each time I got within arm’s length, his hands brushed my arm, my back. He suddenly reached out and drew me into his arms. Silent and still, he held me, until his body shuddered. Then, just as quickly, he moved away. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, and I cast questioning looks across the room to Nick. He was no help. He scowled at his mentor, then smiled at me. His shoulders crooked up, and his mouth twitched upward at the corners. Was Sabre trying to tell me he was sorry? Sorry that he’d plunged me to my mortal death? Sorry he allowed me to die, and awaken like him and Nick? Or did he really care? Maybe he was just glad he was right. Now that would be a truly Sabre-ish response.
A mist-grey day was awakening on the horizon, and I wished Sabre would leave. His silent ruminating was driving me nuts. I was sure he was wearing the varnish off the floorboards; and that Eddyson was nearly as frustrated with his affectionate mauling as I was. So when he finally set the pup down and announced his departure, I breathed a sigh of relief. But he just had to hug me one more time, then took both of my hands in his own.
“Emari…”
“Sabre, what are…” But my throat seized around the words. His hands seared against mine. My heart slammed against my ribs, and the room vanished. And I saw everything. Sabre’s heart illuminated before my eyes. Sorrow, centuries-old loneliness, jealousy, anger, comprehension, fear, anguish, panic, relief. Wave upon wave hurtled into my mind with images of the last few weeks. Sabre’s voice whispered in my mind. I have finally proven, without a doubt, that I am indeed an ass. And I wanted to agree. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say I was happy about his ‘damned experiments’ and ‘hunches’—not sure that immortality was truly what I wanted. Up to this point, life kinda sucked; and now he wanted me to be immortal? This would take some time to wrap my head around.
I wanted to be angry. Truly. But the Sabre I saw in his memories was not nearly the Sabre he portrayed on the outside. Perhaps, this was the man that Nick loved so dearly. I stretched up to my tip toes, drew him close, and pressed my cool cheek to the heat of his. There were only three words he needed to hear from me and I wouldn’t be the one to withhold them and hold him captive. He couldn’t apologize because he honestly wasn’t sorry for the decision he made. But for the physical pain? For
the mental anguish he inflicted on Nick? For that, he felt regret.
“I forgive you,” I whispered in his ear.
Sabre’s body melted against mine, and once again his arms enfolded me. “Thank you.” Nick’s presence tugged at me. Sabre cleared his throat and straightened himself like he was someone too cool and in control to be hugging me like that. He walked away into the darkened kitchen. Scattered sparkles of light bounced off the leaded glass built-ins, and he was gone. I was so intent on watching the dancing lights that I hadn’t heard Nick’s approach behind me. I started at his touch.
“Sorry,” he whispered, his voice warm and soft as velvet.
“Will I be able to do that?” I asked, nodding toward the kitchen.
“Sure, but I’d like to keep you in one piece for a while. It can be very—disorienting at first.”
I turned in the circle of his arms. “Then, teach me something else. I want to know everything. I want to know all of the old stories.”
“Slow down, Em. You don’t have to do everything at once. Let’s see if you’re able to memoryprint.” He pulled me to the front door and the crystal bowl that held my father’s military ribbons. Before Christmas, we rummaged through the boxes of my parent’s belongings in the garage, and found Daddy’s ribbons and pocketknife, and Mom’s cameo locket. Nick dragged me to the couch and pulled me down beside him. With tenderness and respect, he placed the ribbons in the palm of my hand, curled my fingers around them, then slid away from me.
My eyes narrowed with disappointment, but he reached over, took my hand and pressed his lips to my curled fingers. “I, uh, tend to leak when I’m too close to you. So, if it’s going to be all you, I need to keep my distance.”
“Oh. Yeah. There is that.” Though I still sounded wounded.