by J. R. Rain
Few have escaped the reach of the devil, Sam. We are among them. We understood our enemy well.
The devil was your enemy?
Of course, Sam.
I would have thought Dark Masters and the Devil were a match made in heaven. Er, Hell.
Droll, Sam, even for you. Anyway, you would be wrong. Although we appreciated the role he fulfilled and the fear he inspired, we had no use for him, and we bow to no one. We operated outside of space and time, and, as such, we knew what awaited for us at death. In particular, we knew the bastard would be there, waiting to escort us into a false hell. Really, he was a nuisance and nothing more. But a powerful one... and one that needed to be dealt with.
And now he’s gone, I thought, narrowing my eyes.
And so he is.
Wait. Fuck. You can’t honestly be saying...
No, Sssamantha. Even we are not powerful enough to orchestrate the downfall of the Prince of Darkness himself, especially with our limited access to physical bodies.
I thought about that, and thought about it hard. When I’d first met the devil, he was searching for Danny. Hell, he’d even tricked me into finding Danny for him.
Elizabeth remained silent. I continued my thought process... Danny couldn’t have escaped the devil if he hadn’t been taught the ways of the dark masters—or at least, taught enough to avoid the devil and hell. Which he’d done, hiding inside my son, where he remains to this day. Except when Anthony transforms into the Fire Warrior and then, I assumed Danny hides out in the Void.
Elizabeth continued remaining silent. And when the devil came sniffing around—well, when his three-headed dog came sniffing around—he saw something he’d liked. Or, rather, a quality he liked. But it had nothing to do with me. No.
Good, Sam. Good. Yesss...
It was my daughter’s telepathy, her very powerful telepathy, that caught his eye. He’d said he could use her. Needed her, in fact.
Fascinating...
And when he lured my daughter away, I’d declared war on him.
You did what you had to do to protect your daughter, Sam, and your family. Very admirable, Sssamantha.
Oh, shove it. The only reason he was interested in my daughter was because of the telepathic abilities she’d inherited from you. Well, not inherited, but you damn well know what I mean.
She was receptive to my gifts, you can say.
Fine. Whatever. You knew the devil was looking for someone like her.
Did I?
You did. But what I don’t know is how you could have possibly known that I was in the Book of All Living Things.
I felt a smile creep across inside of my skull.
Your friend the Alchemist wasn’t always the owner of the book, Sssamantha. Your friend the Alchemist—my dear son, by the way—was a meddling fool who took it upon himself to steal the most powerful of my books.
The books in the Occult Reading Room... are yours?
Of course, Sssamantha Moon. Some, he collected over time, true. But most are mine. Mine...
That’s why they call out to me...
No, Sssamantha. They call out to me...
I blinked, shook my head, absorbing this information as best as I could.
You... you helped orchestrate the downfall of the devil...
We helped facilitate it, Sssamantha. The downfall of the devil was all you.
And now your greatest obstacle has been removed.
You could say that.
But how does eliminating the devil help you?
But before she could speak, I knew the answer.
You don’t have to run anymore, I thought.
No more running, Sssam. No, never again.
But you’ve been banished to the Void.
Temporarily, Sssam. Only temporarily...
And once you are free of the Void, you never have to fear the devil himself will drag you to hell.
You catch on quick, Sssam.
And you need me, of course.
You and only you can break down the walls of the Void. You, and only you...
Okay, I thought. Enough. Back in the box with you.
Sssee you soon, Sssister Moon.
I shook my head and used the full power of my mind to collect her and bind her and drag her as far down as I could, where I locked her up in a heavy mental vault and threw up a few dozen virtual heavy-ass chains and a thick-as-hell imaginary padlock.
Rattled, I took a deep breath... and turned my attention to the rolled parchment.
The vampire who attacked me wasn’t one of them, after all? And his own dark master spurned them for hell?
Okay, now I was interested.
Very, very interested.
Chapter Six
I slit the wax seal cleanly with my nail.
As I did so... something happened. Something stirred within me. Or was that my imagination? Still, my sluggish heartbeat picked up to not-so-sluggish. Hmm...
I unrolled the scroll and spread it out over my desk, holding it down with both hands.
Luckily, the paper wasn’t made of weird and creepy materials, such as human skin. I’d seen human skin-bound books before. This wasn’t it. But the paper was surely old, and the swooping penmanship was flawless... flowing and looping in some spots, tight and intense in others.
The author made bold and liberal use of space, with “f’s” and “p’s” and “j’s” dipping low, well into the next line. His capital letters were grand and majestic and swooping, and his periods and punctuation marks were emphatic and deeply dimpled. The scroll was an orchestra and the author, its maestro. The flowing woodwinds and stringed instruments of lighter expository melded with the percussion of emphasis and emphatic explanation. It was all engraved with deeply grooved letters, furrows of sentences and lines that were easily seen from the opposite side of the parchment.
The man had a story to tell, and with my kids in the next rooms, gloriously going about their lives as if they were normal kids, I began reading the parchment before me...
It was, after all, not just written by someone who’d wantonly and brutally attacked me. No, it was written by someone far, far closer to me.
It was written by my father.
My one-time father.
Chapter Seven
Dearest Samantha Moon,
If you are reading this letter, it means I am dead. Undoubtedly, I died tragically—and at the hand of the hunter known as Rand. I am aware that I have attracted his attention. He is human, yes, but I have heard of his prowess and success. Truthfully, I am a little more than concerned.
I am also familiar with his kind: that is, humans born to hunt, humans called upon to rid the earth of our kind, humans born of a hunting bloodline, of which I suspect my own nemesis is among. Be wary of such hunters, Samantha Moon. They have been the bane of our kind for centuries and will likely to be so. They add balance, I am told, which is necessary for life on earth to exist at all. With immortal killers comes also the fearless human hunters. Human but not quite human, either; after all, such hunters must be supernaturally sharp, skilled and driven. Their tracking is not understood, and their reflexes are second only to our own kind. Still, a well-prepared hunter can and will destroy the strongest of our kind. So, be wary, Sam.
Perhaps I should have heeded my own advice, eh? Sure, I have long since been dead by the time you read this letter; that is, had my own bloodsucking attorney done his job as advertised. You can never trust werewolves, Sam. Especially half-breeds. They make for damn fine attorneys, but they are a tight-knit bunch. They form smaller packs, but, ultimately, they are part of a much bigger pack, of which many willingly give their allegiance. Half-breeds straddle both lines, often with allegiance to both sides.
So, we have established that I am quite dead, so dead that even my own attorney can safely deliver the news of my demise. Surely, you are surprised to have heard from me at all, let alone my attorney. I trust he has found you, no? Hopefully, you didn’t wander too far off from your little
home in Fullerton with its detached garage and big backyard and surrounding chain-linked fence. All new parents should have such fences. A wise choice, your little home, despite the fact that you had your misgivings about it. How do I know such things? Do I have to tell? Oh, I do? Well, as you might have guessed, I had been watching you for quite some time, well before your attack that fateful night. I knew you well, Samantha Moon. Better than you can possibly know.
Oh, Sam... where do I begin? There is so much to tell you, so much you should know.
Perhaps, then, I should begin at the beginning?
Chapter Eight
And so he did.
Jeffcock Letholdus had been a farmer, a simple man with a simple family. They grew potatoes and harvested peat moss and fished the nearby rivers. It was a hard, clean, invigorating life. He and his family lived off the land, and, really, back in those days, there were few who didn’t live off the land. Save for the nobility and warriors, who came through towns and took what they wanted, when they wanted, how much they wanted. The humble farmer accepted his fate, and those who fought back were made into examples.
Jeffcock did not accept his fate, and wished for freedom and peace. And so, he moved his family far away and relied solely on their wits, ingenuity and themselves, and life was good. For a while.
After just one daughter, his wife grew barren. He accepted this; indeed, he was content with his only daughter, who he loved so very much, and she loved him in return and they were a sweet little family who worked hard together, sung songs together, and told stories over fires together.
So many stories.
His daughter had a knack for the fantastical and was a clever girl. Her exposure to the outside world was nil, and so, he often wondered where her stories of witches and werewolves, and of bloodsuckers and demons, had come from. She claimed they were from dreams and memories of another life, and he often laughed them off, although some chilled him to the bone.
In particular, his daughter seemed connected to the earth itself. Often, he found her not only playing with small animals, but surrounded by small animals. He would shoo them off, only to have her cry. Later, he learned to leave her alone with the animals that she often talked to as if, well, as if she were having real conversations with them. He and his wife just shook their heads and watched her commune with the creatures for hours upon hours. Later, his daughter would disappear into the forest and return with fistfuls of plants and herbs, claiming these would heal inflamed joints or fever, or still others were for stomach aches, runny noses, infection, and a number of others, for general good health.
He and his wife had heard of such plants, but never knew which was which, and, once, when he had been stricken with a pain in his side, his daughter had dashed off into the forest, only to return with a prickly plant that she claimed would heal his ailments. He had asked how she knew of this and she had said the animals had told her. As the pain increased, he had looked over at his concerned wife who had nodded once. And so, groaning and doubled over in bed, he allowed his daughter to make a tea of the pungent plant. After his first tentative taste, he’d found the concoction bitter. It had gone down smoothly, though, and his body seemed to accept it willingly. And so, knowing he was in bad shape, and trusting his little girl with his very life, he had gulped down the hot tea, and prepared himself for a long night of pain... perhaps many long nights.
The relief wasn’t quite instant, but sometime in the night it came. Sweet, blessed relief. His daughter had him drink one more follow-up cup of brew a few hours later, and by morning he was back in the field working, astonished by the unlikely help he had received from his daughter... and the animals, herself no more than five years of age.
Later, he had paused in his morning routine, leaning on his rake, and watched his little girl skip off into the forest, followed by squirrels who dashed down trunks, birds who flew behind her, and a bobcat who came slinking around a boulder. The bobcat had made him nervous, granted, but his daughter had assured him over and over again that the big cat was the wisest of all.
Years later, tragedy had struck.
His wife, who often ignored the pleadings of their daughter to drink this tea or chew on that root, grabbed her heart shortly after finishing dinner one evening. Seconds earlier, he had just looked out the window, and spotted their child rushing out of the woods and across their fields, when his wife gasped from over the sink, clutched at her chest, looked at him pleadingly, then sank to the floor in a heap. He had just rushed to her side when his daughter burst through the structure’s only door. Together, they fought to keep her alive, doing all they knew to do. His daughter, crying and shaking, rushed around the home to prepare a special tea, but his wife was already long dead. As his little one tried to tip a not-so-hot brew into her mother’s partially open mouth, he held the woman he loved in his arms. The tea spilled out, and, after further attempts, he gently took the mug from his daughter’s hand and pulled her into him, too, and together they held the woman they called mother and wife. They held her throughout the evening and into the night. Finally, he picked up his child, who had cried herself to sleep, and carried her over to her bed against the far wall.
While his daughter slept, he buried his mate of nearly two decades in the back of the field, near a ring of stones. It was where she had asked to be buried a year or so earlier. She was young and he had only shrugged and agreed, dismissing the request. Well, he didn’t dismiss it now, and it had been hard shoveling the wet sod upon the face of the woman he had come to love, even if it had taken a few years for him to find the love.
Come morning, his child had wailed even louder to discover her mother gone and buried, but he had felt it important to not subject the little one to the nastiness of the grave. He had held her and soothed her, even as she had beat upon his chest and pulled at her own dark hair. This had gone on all day and well into the night, until finally, she had cried herself to sleep again. After that, she spoke little of her mother, and he followed suit.
For many years after, they lived a solemn, somber existence, although his daughter still wandered off into the forest, still claimed to speak to animals, but now, she also added “forest spirits,” of which he had heard rumors of all his life but never believed, until now. After all, his daughter was gaining an education, from whom, he did not know. Imagine his surprise, then, when one day, she returned with a book she claimed to have found wrapped and bound in a nook of a tree, a book given to her by one of the forest spirits, a book that she, amazingly could read.
He himself could not read. Nor had his wife.
And yet...
He watched in amazement as his daughter pored over the unusual book with chicken-scratch writing and colorful pictures, all wrapped in vellum of the finest quality. He watched her close her eyes and commit what she had learned to memory. Often, he caught her reciting what she had read. And oftener still, he found her at the kitchen, brewing twigs and leaves and roots. Some things she wrinkled her nose at, others she smiled at approvingly. Once or twice he asked what she was doing, but both times she smiled and said she was only keeping herself busy.
Never did she forgive him for burying her mother without at least giving her a chance to say goodbye. He regretted his act of mercy and realized his mistake. Every day after, he nearly dug up his beloved to give his daughter the goodbye she needed, but as the days piled on, the chances of that happening grew less likely, until he was certain the corpse was little more than a dried husk. Digging her up would do more harm than good, surely.
And so it was with a heavy heart that he watched his daughter grow more and more distant, although he was pleased to see she had found a hobby that so interested her. She still performed her duties around the farm and in the peat bogs, helping him remove the heavy bricks, to be used for fuel in wintertime. His daughter insisted that he only take fallen branches and trees from the forest, and even then, she was careful to point out which he could use. Some, he would learn, were home to her many friends and
were off-limits. He smiled and sighed, allowing her to have her way. It was, after all, more important to her than him. Besides, the mossy peat bricks often provided more than enough fuel.
She was beginning her teen years when she told him she was a witch, and she had been such a witch for many lifetimes before, or so she was told by the forest spirits. This lifetime was just one of many, and the animals and spirit friends helped her remember. She was good at being a witch and loved the connection to all things it provided. She loved the power of it, too, and wanted to do good work in the world.
“What kind of work, little one?” he had asked.
“I want to help the weak and poor.”
“’Tis an honorable ambition.”
She had nodded and said two more would come. He had asked what that meant and she had shrugged and said the spirits had told her that individually they were strong, but together, they were powerful. Together they could move mountains, literally.
She had asked if he feared witches and he said he did not understand them, but did not fear them, and if his precious little girl wanted to become one (was one, she had corrected) then being a witch, he believed, was the greatest thing he could imagine. She had hugged him then, and he sensed she had been afraid he would not accept her. He had hugged her back and when she laid her head on his shoulder for the first time in many years, he told her he was so sorry for not allowing her to say goodbye to her mother, that it was his greatest regret, and if she could ever forgive him, he could die a happy man.
She held him tighter and he felt her own hot tears on his neck, and as the wind slapped at their front door and found the small fissures in the planks, wafting over the fluttering candles, she asked if he could ever forgive her in return.
As the wind howled and the rain drummed against the panes and roof, they held each other like that for a long, long time...
Chapter Nine
I continued reading, his flowing penmanship confident and sure, his words leaping from the page and into my heart: