by Gilmore, RM
We didn’t burn Tatum. She was an innocent, as innocent as Tatum could be. She had chosen this life; she’d chosen this for me too, to some extent, but this death wasn’t in her plan. Shit, it wasn’t in Malcolm’s plan either. Those voodoo cocksuckers tried to take her from me once before, so many months ago. I stopped them then. I saved her. Regardless of my heroism, they got her anyway. And for what?
So many questions without answers. Moreover, so many answers without questions. I’d rather not know ninety-percent of the mythical bullshit I now knew – even if it was only a fraction of what was actually out there.
I was so pissed at her. She’d been such an asshole, but I’d give my life to have hers back. There was nothing I could do about it. The dastardly deed was done, and there was nothing on this earth that could change that. Nothing I’d uncovered anyhow. Dwelling on things unchangeable was for pussies and alcoholics. Even if I did stop burning bodies and mourned over my friend, if I gave myself a chance to grieve, I’d slide down that hole of despair and loathing, and never find myself again. That couldn’t happen. I had people - living people - that counted on me. I didn’t know it before, but I had people. Some folks spend their whole life looking for people. Mine were right under my nose. Along with scary shit that I wished I never knew about.
I stood, numb and barely conscious, watching the flames destroy Azelie’s miniature body and Malcolm’s lonely head. Where the hell the body was that went along with that head was anybody’s guess, and not a one of us had time to search for it. My bag, with all my shit in it, was gone, along with Mike’s wallet and Cyrus’s everything. We were stuck in New Orleans, virtually naked, and covered in blood and battle scars, superficial and otherwise.
Mike, through masculine tears, instructed us on how to position Tatum’s body so the police would find it and know without a doubt she’d been murdered in some form of ritual. He’d hoped the police would somehow link her to the others, all those headless dead girls, and we’d be left out of it. It was true, no need to lie, just omit the lot of us from the equation. We couldn’t leave the vampire bodies lying around to be found, or Azelie and Zorin for that matter. Too many questions, too many heads, one too many to be exact. I should have kept hers as a souvenir. Had it stuffed and mounted to hang above my television. I did manage to pocket one bauble from my recent kill, not the whole shebang, more like the smashed penny sort. Just in case.
According to Mike, we would call in a missing persons report once all the bodies were burned down to nothing. We would call and report Tatum missing. They would look for her, and they would find her with the help of an anonymous tip. A sad, lonely, pathetic corpse in the middle of where ever the fuck we were. Tied, bloody, nearly decapitated.
It was not as easy as one would assume, burning bodies to bones; not decapitation, though that was no picnic either. It takes a high heat and lots of time. For whatever fucked vampy reason, Marienne and her alien henchman were dust long before the voodoo twins. Yet another question for my ‘tie Cyrus up and force answers from him’ list. The later list. The ‘not fucking today’ list.
We didn’t really talk, not really. We made a plan to stay alive and that was it. Dominika and Cyrus worked together to clean up any blood in the dirt; no they didn’t lap it up. Together, they tossed it by the handful into the fire. Mike and I, after Dominika kindly axed his cuffs apart, stared at Tatum for a while. It was surreal. Like I wasn’t really there, like it wasn’t really happening. You read about people in intense situations going on autopilot. It was no bullshit. This was how personalities splinter. Shit like this.
The sun was coming. The sky above us a dark shade of grey just before dawn. “Mike, thanks.” You know, for covering up another of my murderous rampages. I didn’t need to say that part. He knew it. I knew it. Besides, the words wouldn’t form at my lips even if I wanted them to.
He nodded, a sad and halfhearted sort of nod. The kind you saw at funerals. In a way, that was where we were. A funeral. Eventually, it’d sink in what I’d done. It’d really hit me Tatum was dead. I’d killed her. But for the moment, all I could feel was hate. Azelie wanted her penance, her fucking sacrifice for my trepidations. All along, I thought she’d just take me, kill me, or keep me as a slave, something. Killing someone I love, taking a life I held above most others, killed more than just my body; it killed my soul, rotted it from the inside out. The decay was still fresh, but there was no stopping it. She’d gotten the ball rolling. I was on my way to becoming a monster, just like her.
My penance, my sacrifice – my humanity.
Chapter Sixteen
We put the fire out with the garden tools from the shed and tossed the flesh-ash around the trees that circled the space we’d occupied for what seemed like years. I arranged the skulls and a few bones that were left—only a few as the blood suckers burned up fairly well—around Tatum as if they were part of the ceremony. I used a stick to draw symbols in the dirt around her. Finishing them off the best I could recall from Azelie’s tattoos and the shit she’d drawn on Marienne’s front walk.
The four of us stood in front of Tatum’s slumped body. “You can’t make her a vampire?” I asked. Hearing how stupid I sounded as I was saying it.
Cyrus rubbed my back, “It doesn’t work like that.” His voice was sympathetic, but he obviously had bigger fish to fry. Like being Primus.
“There’s nothing that can be done. She is gone, Dylan,” Dominika said my name. My real name, not some bullshit she made up in her head.
It was time to leave. We needed to alert the police to complete our plan before we headed back to California, and we couldn’t do that from the swampy ass of hell. The flight records would show our flight back to New Orleans and we’d use that to our advantage. We’d make sure the police had us at House of Porte searching for Tatum when it all went down. I trusted Mike to keep us out of prison. I trusted him with almost everything, and realized only then how stupid I was to think otherwise. Ever.
I didn’t want to leave Tatum there, but Mike said if we moved her, we’d leave our DNA and all sorts of shit all over her and us. So, I left her there. I wanted to hug her and kiss her, and let her know I loved her, but he said no, not to touch her. He’d scoured her body for hairs or any other visible sign of me or anyone else. Any minute fiber on her body could easily be explained away by our recent contact. When she was still alive, the last time I’d seen her. He promised she’d be home soon and we could bury her properly. He also pointed out how she’d likely make headlines, and how much she’d love that. It was sick, but true. If she had a choice of deaths, a front pager would be her first choice.
The three of them walked away, leaving me behind for one last moment with Tatum. I bit my cheek and held back the insanity that threatened to crawl from my gut. “I cannot fathom the rest of my life without you. I love you more than you ever knew. Thank you for…everything. Thanks for being an asshole. Thanks for opening my eyes to my world, not just now, but since the beginning. You’re a bitch and I fucking hate you for this.” Tears began to form. “I hate myself so much more. I will spend the rest of my life protecting those I love. Even if it kills me.” I turned from her; it was time to go. “I hope it does.”
Dominika led the way out, back to civilization and a vehicle. Surprisingly, we had been only yards away from a road on the overgrown property of a home, likely belonging to the d’Entremonte tribe, located in the middle of nowhere. The sun was peeking through the horizon, turning the sky a muted shade of blue. I walked side-by-side with a vampire, or what society would call a vampire I supposed, and watched the sun come up in the sky. Never once did I assume Dominika would burst into flames. As Cyrus said, it didn’t work like that. I knew that now. I knew more than I ever wanted to know. Me, the curious cat. It didn’t kill me, just made me more fucked up than I already was. Like a wise man once said, what didn’t kill you only made you stranger.
Dominika drove. I sat in the back with Mike, and Cyrus sat shotgun. A motley looking crew we were i
ndeed. Cyrus’s makeshift dick coverings and oversized stolen shoes, my crusty boobs, Mike’s partially cuffed hands. The Hungarian was perfect, as you could imagine, not a hair out of place. A vampire if I ever saw one.
After so many devastating events, the mundane portions that followed seemed to pop through my haze in bursts of reality. I didn’t bother trying to dissect the situation; it was all still too raw to poke at. It was too agonizing to try to decipher. Ignoring things was far easier. Granted, one could only ignore life for so long; but again, later, it would all come later. And later, I’d be ready.
Shockingly, Dominika was kind enough to purchase us all new threads at a nearby store. Nothing fancy, just enough to not be naked and flashing cuffed wrists.
Mike kept me close to him on the ride. Never taking his hand off me. Grounding me in a way. Reminding me, I had someone whose heart still beat right here with me. It was exactly what I needed. All I needed in fact.
While Dominika was inside, Mike used a payphone – I hadn’t seen one in years either, but there it was – to call the police and tip them off to the body out in the middle of nowhere. They could do the rest. They would figure out it was Azelie and Zorin, and rightfully so. Mike could use it to his advantage to secretly close a few cases back home too. We would never be able to link those two to the hookers publicly though, that was insider information we couldn’t bring to light without incriminating ourselves. Sadly, those women would go on, unsolved, and unwanted. Dead for no other reason than greed and vanity. I supposed most people died for those exact reasons though. I had used Dominika’s cell to call in Tatum as missing. My voice was small and not like me at all. It worked well for the situation. I told them I needed to get back home and they suggested maybe she had gone back and was already there waiting for me. I knew better, but pretended to be relieved and left it at that. When they found Tatum, my description would be there to help them identify her. Mike said it wouldn’t take long.
There was no way in hell any airport personnel in their right mind would allow us on a plane. But no one gave a shit about who gets on a train. Mike flashed his badge and told the clerk he was escorting Cyrus and me back to California for a court hearing. She bought it. It might have helped that Cyrus was in the background smiling and winking at her. Besides, Cyrus and I looked like we had just crawled out of the nearest crack den to make the appearance. We gave no room for disbelief. Dominika chose to catch a plane home, because, well, it was Dominika. I didn’t really expect anything less from her.
There were too many things to take care of when I got home to count, let alone allow to seep into my thoughts, or lack thereof. I kept my head on the surface, focusing on each step I took. The people in the lobby of the train station. My portrayal of a druggie informant to the Los Angeles police department. Or whatever I was supposed to be. Anything but Tatum. Anything but death, blood and magic.
I shot up a little prayer to whatever was listening to get us home safely. Surely if there was a God, like folks said there was, Tatum would be alive. As of the moment, she was dead. The moment I killed her, God lost his spot as top dog. Two days on a train, with two of the three people on this planet who knew really what kind of monster I’d become, wasn’t exactly the most calming situation. I wanted nothing more than to sleep. Well, drink, and then sleep. And I would do both, in that order. Over and over and over again until I didn’t care about anything anymore.
“A little something for you,” Cyrus smiled and handed me a small bottle of booze he’d fetched at the club car.
My eyes widened and a weird little smile tickled my cheeks. "Well, I'll be damned, alcohol. Aren't you a sight for sore eyes? Come here you sexy thing." I snatched up the bottle of sugary brown booze and cradled it in my arms like a child. In that moment, there was nothing else on this planet that could replace the exquisite burn of liquor making its way down my gullet. Well, maybe an expertly rolled joint and a pair of yoga pants. But almost-dead bitches couldn’t be choosers. Wait, that’s not right.
“I thought you might need it.” He thought right.
Dominika had paid for our passage on the train, but she wasn’t too generous. Even to her precious Primus. We sat coach with the rest of the peons.
“You know,” I started, weak and broken, “you owe me a shit ton of explanations.” Mike scoffed and rubbed his hand over his head. He agreed and it was his jerky way of saying it.
“I do,” Cyrus nodded.
“Primus,” I smiled. It seemed weird. Malcolm was gone. I hated him, sure, but I’d take him on as a fucking brother-in-law if it meant bringing Tatum back. I cleared my throat and tried to keep my grief from hitting my eyes. A breakdown was coming, but not now. Not here. Later.
He nodded again. “As I told you, another day; and now you know you have another day,” he smiled reassuringly.
Sadly, I did. I had more days. More sad, grief-stricken days. More days for me to recall how my actions led to the death of my best friend. More days to think about all the things I could have done differently. All the things I fucked up.
I sniffed snot back into my nose and forced my thoughts to the bottle in my hand. Temporary salvation. I flipped the cap off and let it hit the carpeted floor. Cyrus picked it up and handed it back to me. I was too busy guzzling spicy whiskey to acknowledge him.
“She won’t need it,” Mike said. He was right, I wouldn’t. The tiny bottle would be gone in no time.
I felt the burn instantly that sweet and hot sensation of alcohol settling in my body. My liver would hate me in an hour, but not as much as I hated myself at that moment. With the bottle empty, I leaned my head against the window and let the numbness takeover. I watched the scenery whiz by. Buildings, trees, cars, and people, none of which made any sense in the fashion in which I saw them. Just basic shapes and outlines. My brain filled in the rest, as brains tended to do.
The boys talked about something, but I wasn’t paying attention. I heard their voices, not their words. Just the sound of them talking was fine for me. It let me know they hadn’t left me. They were there. They knew what I’d done and they hadn’t left. Shit, they helped me cover it up. The two of them put their shit down to keep my ass out of trouble. I could deny it. I could try to make it go away. I could tell myself I was not good enough, but it was all a lie. I had two amazing human beings, sort of, who loved me very much for all I was and all I was not. They also would like to have sex with me, which most fat bitches with a bad attitude thought they couldn’t get. Hell, I did. I had so much sitting right in front of me, yet I left it all behind for stupid insecure causes. How could one person be so prideful and insecure at the same time? I’d like to thank Gordon Hart for that. My dad.
A tear ran down my cheek and I swiped it away before anyone caught it. There was no crying in the occult. Crying only let your enemies know you were weak. Let them know you had something they could use against you.
I closed my eyes and listened to Mike talk. His words didn’t matter as much as the inflections in his voice. The breaths he took between them. He sounded sad, and rightfully so. Cyrus’s voice was new and not quite as comforting, but not unwanted. He’d proven himself worthy of my time, regardless if that meant naked time or not. His lack of intel, though annoying and possibly life changing, was with the best of intentions and to save his own ass at one point. Knowing what I did, I couldn’t turn around, and he knew that it would happen. There was no going back to my old Dylan Hart journalist and bitch extraordinaire life. Only forward from here. Forward through the occult and all that brought with it. I’d need more than a metal trinket at my throat and a semi-automatic if I were to keep my ass, and my friends’ asses, out of the thick of it. Monsters didn’t care so much about guns and such.
Protection isn’t enough. Power. I’ll need power.
Chapter Seventeen
I woke up only long enough to transfer trains; even then, I think Mike practically carried me. The next time my eyes saw anything other than the backs of my lids, we were in Los Angel
es.
I let out a sigh after I breathed in the thick, filthy air. Home sweet home. It’d never be the same.
“Can you just take me back to my mom’s? Please,” I mumbled to Cyrus. “I want to let her know I’m alive and that…” I let it trail off. They knew what I had to tell her. I couldn’t tell her everything, obviously. But she was like Tatum’s second mother; she deserved to know.
So much needed to be said that wasn’t. I’d slept on and off for nearly two days. Lord only knew what conversations I’d missed. In the car, no one wanted to talk about anything that mattered, so we just didn’t talk at all. Cyrus was right, another day. I’d spent my life talking and expecting others to do the same. When and where I wanted them to. It was time to change that. It needed to be discussed, but not today. Later.
The two got out of the car in front of my mom’s, but didn’t follow me up. I hugged them both and tried not to cry when I did. We were alive, back where we’d started, but we hadn’t completed anything. Nothing we’d set out to do. In so many words, we’d failed. From the look of them, I wasn’t the only one trying not to cry. I’d lick donkey balls if one of them shed a tear in front of the other. It would happen just as soon as I shed one.
It was exhausting always being the strong one, trying to be so many things at once. It was time to just be a daughter for a while.
I kissed them both and left them standing at the curb.
My mom opened the door before I got to the knob. The look on her face was awful. Contorted and weathered. I heard the news playing in the background. She knew. They found her.
“Mom,” my voice shook, “I didn’t get her,” I said so quietly, I wasn’t sure I’d actually made the words or just thought them.
“I know.” Her red-rimmed eyes sparkled with the threat of more tears.
“The body, a yet unidentified young woman, was discovered by police early yesterday morning.” I heard the newscaster report from the television behind Mom.