by C. J. Anaya
I drifted off into an easy slumber.
***
“You healed the Vampers,” Amatsu said. His tone was incredulous and his look held a hint of admiration. “I hadn’t even realized you left the enchantments of the shrine, and now I sense your power in the middle of Vamper territory.” He moved closer and eyed me suspiciously. “The bond allows me to track your movements outside of the shrine. It troubles me that I had no knowledge of your whereabouts.”
I blinked weary eyes at him, sensing the pull and attraction I usually felt in his presence, but relieved to find it muted, more easily dealt with and easier to resist this time around. I figured the gold barrier encasing my heart had a little something to do with it, but I had hoped it would prevent any more visits to the Underworld. Apparently, the barrier could only accomplish so much.
Amatsu’s words finally registered. He knew we had left the enchantments.
Now what?
He needed a distraction from his current train of thought before he figured out where we were headed and how the bond had been blocked.
“Your evil poisoned the forest. The Vampers suffered for centuries under the burden of so many heinous sins committed by others within the Underworld. It wasn’t fair to make them pay for crimes they never perpetrated.”
His lips twisted into a troubled frown.
“I suppose I never thought of it quite like that, but I can’t control the evil escaping this realm. The fissure in Kagami is widening, and the two worlds are merging.”
“You see how dangerous that is, don’t you? The Earth will be completely destroyed if the veil comes crumbling down.”
“No,” Amatsu said, slowly moving his way toward me. “The Underworld may hold evil within, but I am not evil. Together, you and I can heal the veil once I am on the other side and seal up all of the evil it contains.”
“You’re delusional if you think there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re delusional if you think the world will function as it always has if you’re a part of it. Our First Parents gave you your assignment and you rejected it. The consequences of that choice landed you in the Underworld. Now you have this assignment, and you can’t run away from it.”
Amatsu’s eyes lit with fury, but his voice came out deceptively calm as he stood directly in front of me.
“We have our assignments, Hope, but as you just stated, we make our own choices. I cannot pretend that I would rather live apart from the evil that surrounds me rather than monitor it, rule over it, and control it. Can it be so wrong to want to live a normal life surrounded by beauty, and goodness, and light…with you?”
I let out a stuttering breath, but kept my arms in check and my feet in place.
“You had a chance to be surrounded by that. You had the role of ushering everyone on to the next phase of their journey, not just those who are evil. You were given the honored responsibility of taking care of every soul in the afterlife. It could have been an amazing adventure for you.”
His eyes darkened and his shoulders slumped. “Well, that is no longer an option now, is it?”
I scrutinized his expression, wondering if what I actually saw was remorse or simply a show for my benefit.
“I can’t help but wonder if that’s really all you’re after. Do you want to be a part of my world or do you want to rule over it? Would simply existing within it be enough for you?”
“Yes.” It sounded as if even he was surprised at that admission. “It would be enough.”
“I don’t think I can believe you. After all of the centuries you’ve planned for the moment you break free from this place and use your power to take control over everything you felt our First Parents denied you, how would simply existing in my world be enough?”
“It would be enough if I had you, Hope.” He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “I planned for every contingency and reworked my plan when new twists and turns to the puzzle of your soul mate surfaced, but in all the centuries I plotted to bond you to me, and planned how that bond would affect you and help me in my quest, I never once considered how the bond might affect me. There was simply no preparing myself for what I’ve experienced now that I’m in love with you. Since I’ve never loved anyone but myself, I had no way of knowing how thoroughly that love would change everything about me, including all the things I thought I wanted.”
This admission took me by surprise. He planned for everything, everything except me.
“But your love for me is fake. Can’t you see that?”
“I think it started out that way, but there’s no denying it is every bit as real as what anyone else feels.”
Sadness overshadowed the soft lines of his face as he lifted his hand to trace fingers down my cheek. Disappointment lingered in his gaze when he found no purchase there.
“We’ve digressed,” he whispered. “I thought for certain the next time you came to me, you would never leave me again.”
“I love Tie,” I said.
“But you love me too.”
I shook my head in vigorous denial even though the tight aching in my chest validated his words.
Not love. Just an unnatural obsession that doesn’t actually come from me.
“You healed the Vampers without any thought to yourself,” he said, breaking me out of my thoughts. “Being bonded to you has shed some light on patterns of behavior and thought I’ve never understood throughout the centuries.”
“What do you mean?”
He considered me carefully as if he were studying a rare gem under a microscopic lens.
“I feel your worry for others through our bond. I sense your pain when you fail to heal people, when you disappoint others, or when you fail to meet certain expectations, perceived or otherwise. You’re hard on yourself, you’re demanding of yourself, and you are ready to sacrifice your life for your loved ones. It truly fascinates me.”
“I suppose you’ve never felt the need to sacrifice anything for anyone.”
He shook his head in response and kept his searching gaze locked on mine.
“You talk about the love we feel for one another as unnatural, but I experience every ounce of love you feel for those people in your group and recognize it as illogical even though I can’t help but experience it and relate to it because it comes from you.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“I care for Kirby because you care for him. I care about what happens to the people you love because I can’t bear the pain you experience when you feel you’ve let them down. It’s been a maddeningly horrific education on my end and one that at times makes me wish I’d never come up with the idea to bond you to me in the first place.” He paused for a moment and raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s caused me to experience quite a bit of remorse for centuries worth of deplorable behavior. Behavior I’ll never have any hope of redeeming myself of.”
“Sounds like you need the help of a healer.”
His lips quirked in a rueful half-smile.
“Are you offering your services, Hope?”
“The first step toward redemption has to come from you. Do you really want to change?”
“You make me want to change. Isn’t that what all of those sappy movies and love songs pontificate upon? How one person’s very existence encourages another to be a better version of themselves?”
“In other words, my bond has taken you from narcissistic sociopath to someone who actually cares about the wants and needs of others? Are you saying you want to be good?”
His amused smirk tugged at my heart a little.
“I wouldn’t go that far. I still want to get out of here, and I still plan on stealing you from Tie and making you mine forever.” He let out a soft chuckle when I folded my arms and glared at him. Then his gaze softened as he said, “But I care about your wants and your needs. I genuinely care about you, Healer.”
“I think you’ve come a long way in understanding what love actually is, but you’re far from an expert if you th
ink taking me from Tie is a way to prove your love for me.”
His anger spiked at that, but he didn’t say anything as I continued. “If you care about my wants and my needs then you’ll sever this bond and allow me to be with the man I truly love even if it hurts you. When you love someone, you want them to be happy.”
“I can make you happy.”
“You can’t make me or force me to be or do anything.”
“Of course I can. I’m one of the most powerful beings in the Universe.”
“But is force really going to net you the results you want?”
His angry voice rang through the cavernous space. “I’m a god. Force is all I understand.”
“And you’re trapped in the Underworld because you’ve never grasped this important lesson.” I reached my hand out and formed my palm against the curve of his cheek even though I felt nothing underneath my skin except a light buzz of energy. He closed his eyes, appearing to relish in the almost physical contact. “Love is sacrifice. Life is sacrifice. Choice, in many cases, is fraught with sacrifice. We all have important roles to play which benefit the world as a whole, and by fulfilling these roles we are often called upon to sacrifice our time, our emotion, and our energy. It is our choice to accept or reject what is best for us all. But to force any individual to choose anything robs that person of growth, knowledge, experience, and even the best possible outcome. The only outcome that will give us true happiness. Isn’t that the goal, Amatsu? Don’t you want to be happy?”
He cleared his throat and placed his hand over my insubstantial one. The buzz of energy heightened.
“I do. With you.”
“I’ve already found my happiness with someone else.”
He took a step back, eyes flashing, a dark shadow passing over his features.
“Then let me make my choice very clear. I choose to be with you. I choose to break out of this prison forever, and once I do, I will never allow anyone to place me in it again.”
One step forward two steps back. The feeling was nauseatingly familiar.
“Amatsu, our First Parents are not going to stand back and allow this to happen.”
His smile held a secret I wasn’t sure I wanted him to reveal.
“Your powers are able to do more than just heal the veil, Hope. And once your powers are bonded to mine, our First Parents won’t be able to stop me.”
In desperation, I threw out the only threat I thought I could make good on.
“Then I’ll stop you.”
He stepped right in front of me and lowered his lips close to mine.
“From you, I expect nothing less.”
He dipped his head low for a kiss, but failed to make contact. I closed my eyes as a warm hum of energy slid across my lips. Knowing I was seconds away from returning a kiss I never should have yearned for, I stepped away and threw my spirit form backward, praying the movement would somehow jerk me out of this realm and plunge me into my physical form.
Tie’s lips were what woke me eventually. His soft kisses along my jaw-line and down my neck created delicious spirals of heat curling within my stomach. It was exactly what I needed after another encounter with the demon god.
I’d very nearly felt something akin to sympathy for that man, and I didn’t think it advantageous.
“Hope,” Tie murmured against my neck. “Honey, it’s time to wake up. You’ve been asleep for a several hours.”
I bolted upright at his words, causing him to pull back in astonishment. Several hours? In a forest filled with dangerous beings? The end of the world was happening tomorrow and I was sleeping?
“I swear your kisses are filled with some kind of stimulant,” Angie said. “I’ve never seen her do that with anyone but you.”
I surveyed the little cot I sat on and the small camp beyond Tie’s shoulder. The rest of our group busied themselves with food preparations.
“You haven’t had any other problems with the Vampers?” I asked.
“What Vampers?” Tie said, grabbing my hand and giving it a soft kiss. “You healed them all, and you saved us in the process.” His words were filled with awe and wonder, and his eyes held so much love and pride. I loved that he could still look at me like that after everything we’d been through.
I leaned into him and pulled his face to mine. I needed his kiss more than anything at the moment, if only to be rid of the sorrow I felt on Amatsu’s behalf. What a waste of an existence. Amatsu could have been so much more.
Tie seemed to read my thoughts because he held me still and searched my eyes before saying, “You visited him again, didn’t you?”
“I can’t control it.” The defensiveness in my tone made me cringe. “I’m sorry—”
He lifted my chin and brushed a soft kiss against my lips.
“I told you I was done sulking about our situation. I’m not going to sit back and just let him take you from me. If you need me to counteract whatever it is that he does to you when you visit him, I am more than up to the challenge.” He kissed me again and deepened it to the point that my toes curled just a little. When he pulled back, his eyes held a salacious glint. “As I recall, it’s never taken much to make you putty in my hands.”
Perhaps I should have pretended outrage at his cocky attitude, but there was nothing about that statement that rang false.
“Do you remember our first kiss?”
“Remember it?” He snorted like I’d just asked an incredibly stupid question. “I dreamed about it on an endless loop when you were in that statue, and then it became pure torture for me to even think about it once I finally saw you again in mythology class.”
“Because you thought I belonged to Victor.”
“Because I knew I was the only one with any memory of it. There were so many moments during that conversation I wanted to pull you into my arms and reenact that very kiss in those ruins with you desperately begging me to acknowledge what was between us.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Chinatsu watched us like a hawk, Victor would have killed me, and you didn’t remember me.”
“Sounds like torture,” I said.
“That kiss was one of the best and worst moments of my life,” he said.
I ran my finger along the line of his eyebrow and softly kissed his cheek.
“Worst moment? Why?”
“You gave me all of you, and I pushed you away. I hesitated. I had a plan that didn’t involve falling in love and possibly feeling things that might take away the one thing that had been driving me for so long. I wasted so much time, fighting what I felt for you, and all I could think about once you were dead was how much I regretted all of that wasted time.”
I thought back to that moment with perfect recall, the anguished words he’d said when I tried to reason with him.
“The right kind of love can soften the hardest of hearts, Musubi. I would hate for you to miss out on such a glorious experience.”
“What if I’m never destined to have such an experience?”
“The right kind of love,” I said aloud.
“I held everything when I held you. Letting you go is not a mistake I will ever make again.”
He lowered his lips to mine, but the lecherous glint in his eyes was gone, replaced by a heated passion I wanted and needed more than anything. When his mouth took mine in a demanding exchange, I was more than lost to him, connecting to him in a way I hadn’t for centuries. The golden substance around my heart pulsed with power and I drank from Tie’s affections as if I’d been thirsting for weeks on end.
When we finally came up for air our eyes locked and that distance that had grown between us was no longer there blocking what had always been right and real.
I finally remembered we weren’t exactly alone and turned my eyes to Angie who currently perfected the Cheshire Cat’s smile.
“Don’t mind me,” she said. “I am a silent, avid follower of your epic love story.” She settled back in her curled position and regarded us with amusement
. “There’s no Netflix out here, you know.”
“So happy we’ve managed to entertain you,” I said.
Kirby approached with a bright smile on his face and offered me a bowl of rice and some roasted meat. I decided to avoid asking what kind of meat he proffered.
“Thank you,” I said, taking his offering.
He sat down next to Angie and said, “Glad you’re awake. We were a little worried you hurt yourself when you healed the trees.”
“I didn’t.”
“We know,” my father said as he came up to stand behind Angie and Kirby. “Tie connected with you and checked your cerebral functions. It’s like having my own personal MRI machine. Oh, the things I could do with that kind of ability.”
He gave me a smile filled with love, but also with a weary sense of acceptance. He didn’t feel up to the task of protecting me, and was finally starting to realize that he probably couldn’t. Not if I kept doing things like healing evilly mutated trees or launching myself at sword-wielding nekomata. He wasn’t happy about it, but he’d certainly come a long way from that father who was ready to take me to Germany at the first whiff of danger.
“What’s the plan now?” I asked him.
“We’re moving again just as soon as you finish your meal. Most everyone got a little rest in.”
We had just lost the rest of the afternoon because of me. The sun would be setting soon. Not great for travel, but travel we must. And with fissures in the veil randomly cropping up, it made that loss of time unacceptable.
“You should have wakened me,” I said as I stood with Tie. Angie and Kirby scrambled to their feet.
“We tried, Hope,” she said, “but for once it was you who slept like the dead.”
I shivered at how close I had recently come to joining the Underworld. I couldn’t risk another encounter with Amatsu. I just didn’t think I’d escape the next time.
“Amatsu knows I’ve left the grounds, but he doesn’t know where we’re headed,” I said.