by Mason Sabre
The Rise of the Phoenix
Mason Sabre
Rise of the Phoenix
Mason Sabre
This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this novel are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author: Mason Sabre
Cover Art by Kellie Dennis at Book Cover by Design
www.bookcoverbydesign.co.uk
Copyright © 2015 by Mason Sabre. All rights reserved, including the right to publish this book or portions thereof (except for reviews, news media reports, brief quotes with attribution, and purposes of promotion of this book or other novels by Mason Sabre) in any form whatsoever.
Written permission may be obtained from the author.
www.masonsabre.com
[email protected]
https://www.facebook.com/msabre3
Dedication
As always, my dedications first go to Tony and Cynthia. Without your care and support, my writing would not have made it this far.
Thank you to Kellie for my amazing cover.
To Angela, for all the work you do for me. Thank you.
To Terrie and Kimberly for your continued support, encouragement and endless supply of book teasers.
To my street team, for all the shares and promotion you do for me. Without it, I’d just be a shadow in a vast sea of authors.
To Jamie, my inspiration.
ONE
He didn’t belong. He stood on the outside looking in through some kind of invisible barrier, one that used to keep him safe, but now, it only kept him out. He was the outsider. He was the thing in the shadows that stared in through the darkness.
They stood on the pavement, but not together. They all stood in a small group, but he stood to the side. He was the reason they were there. None of them spoke to him. None of them looked at him. He didn’t blame them. It was his fault, but it did not stop the tugging inside his chest.
The black hearse pulled up alongside them, but he didn’t look. He didn’t let himself. Not out of sorrow, but out of guilt and shame and the blame. She was in there because of him. Eternally sleeping and forever gone, just like he was. Only, he was still alive. He still breathed air. He still saw each new day, but now with different eyes. That was what he had caused. Perhaps he should look. Perhaps he should see the damage he had caused. He knew the wreath on the top said ‘Mum,’ but his name was not on the card that went with it. Why should it be? Children don’t kill their parents.
He watched the man who was once his father. He wished with anything that he could tell him how sorry he was. He could hear his father’s heartbeat speed up. He could hear everything now. Now that he was different.
He reached down into his pocket with his small hand and touched the rose that was in there. It was red, freshly picked from his mother’s favourite part of the garden. He had spent the last few days there. They had all blended into one. Days turned to night, and then night turned to day again, and it all didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. She was gone and he had done it. In that garden, on the bench she had there, it was as if he could almost feel her there. He wished she was really there, to show him forgiveness for what he had done. Her scent mingled with the scent of the flowers. Each one bloomed from years of her guidance. Yet, he had taken it all away. The sorrow in his heart roused the creature inside him from his sleep.
“Not now. Not now. Please,” he whispered to himself and clutched his hands to his face. The bones of his cheeks vibrated, threatening to move and realign. “Please,” he begged.
He had dreamt the night before, while sleeping on that bench. He had dreamt of her. It was a cruel dream. She had knelt beside him, whispered to him and told him that it wasn’t his fault. She had even run her hands through his fur… Fur. He didn’t know whether to love or hate it. He had woken with the impression of his mother’s hand against his face and his clothes in tatters from where his body had shifted.
The Wolf inside listened to his plea and the hackles on the boy’s neck began to calm. He silently thanked his Wolf. The family’s car pulled in behind the hearse. He would not be welcome in that anymore. He was different now. Not one of them. Not a member of their family. He peered at his father, his brother and sister through the blonde hair that had fallen over his eyes. At least that way no one could really see the tears he held there, tears that he knew he didn’t deserve to shed. They didn’t look at him, though. His father held his siblings’ hands, one on each side as he swayed between them towards the car.
He followed them, his feet as heavy as his thirteen-year-old heart. He passed the hearse where his mother lay. The sunlight startled him as it bounced off the polished surface. He saw the casket. Three red roses rested on the top in front of the mum display. Three red roses. His was missing. He wasn’t allowed to place one on it. His father had told him not to even dare. “You’re dead to me,” he had spat. The boy let his fingers slide along the glass as he walked towards the car and what was left of his family.
His father’s shadow covered him, blocked out the sun and shrouded him in intimidating darkness. “There is no room for you in this car,” he said. The boy didn’t argue, just nodded glumly. His father was right, he didn’t belong with them. He belonged where his mother was. There was no place for him in the family anymore. He stayed by the side of the road as he watched his father slide into the car and sit between his brother and sister. His father didn’t even look back, just closed the door, stared ahead and lifted his pocket flask to his mouth.
The boy held the rose in his pocket, curling his fingers around the thorny stem. It bit into his flesh and he welcomed the pain. Someone in the distance yelled his name. He glanced up at the woman, a friend of his mother’s. She didn’t speak to him. She knew, too. They all did. There he was, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed child who had killed his mother. He knew what they would be whispering about him. They all knew it. He rubbed the scar across his arm. It seemed to throb with the reminder of that one bite that had changed his life. It knew, too, what he had done. His mother’s friend opened the door for him, motioning for him to get in. He did so without looking at anyone.
Even when the car stopped at the cemetery, he knew his place - behind everyone else. No one spoke to him. No one ruffled his hair as they did with his brother, or stroked his back as they did with his sister. They simply forgot about him. Everyone said their goodbyes before him. Even people he didn’t know. Women and men who acted as if they had known his mother for years, yet he didn’t recognise their faces. He’d almost stopped at the sign on the gate. For one frightening moment, his father had glanced back at him, and he had thought he would stop him from entering.
Humans only, it had read. Only he wasn’t anymore. He wasn’t one of them in any way. He was Other.
When they were all gone, the boy knelt down on the felt covered ground. His small hand shook as he placed his single rose with the others. He didn’t whisper his tearful goodbye to her. He didn’t deserve to grieve for her. He just left the flower and walked away.
At the house, he sat on one of the chairs in the dining room, keeping himself out of the way. He was quiet in the corner. No one had to look at him. No one had to bother with him or offer him condolences. He could feel their stares as they walked past. “That’s him, he’s the one.” He knew that’s what they were thinking. He knew what awful thoughts crossed each of their minds, but he deserved it. He’d seen enough slaughter that the Other-kind had committed, that he knew.
One thing wrong, one more reason, and they would kill him. He wasn’t going to give them reason, though. Not yet. Not until he found the boy who had done this.
His grandmother was the one he watched. She was the one he would miss from his Human life. The one he was sorry for. She busied herself, refilling and cleaning away plates and glasses. But he saw her sometimes. She’d stopped and plucked the tissue out from her sleeve, dabbed her eyes and then carried on. He wanted to tell her more than anyone else just how sorry he was. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.
Even when everyone had left, the boy stayed in his seat. His legs had long since gone numb, his stomach aching with its empty rumbles, a hunger like he had never felt before. But he didn’t move from his chair. He even ignored the need to use the bathroom. He didn’t want anyone to realise he was there. He wished he could be like a ghost and simply vanish. That would be better for all of them, wouldn’t it? If he just went away and they never knew. They’d probably not even go looking for him.
His brother and sister had long since gone to bed. His father was in his study, in an appointment with Jack Daniels. The dining room was in darkness, and the boy stayed in the shadows, forgotten.
He didn’t know how long had passed. Maybe it was an hour, maybe it was the whole night. The door opened and light from the hallway filled the room, exposing the boy and giving away his hiding place. He squinted at the light, even though he didn’t need to. Not anymore. Yet, it was something he was used to doing. His father staggered over to him, his fist clenched. He had something in his hand. The boy sucked in a tremulous breath and waited.
“You left something behind,” his father said. He held out his clenched fist and unfurled his fingers. A broken and crushed rose lay there. He turned his hand over, letting the fragments fall to the floor, the crushed petals scattering in the darkness.
“I…”
Thick hands cut his words off as they grabbed both sides of the boy’s jacket and yanked him from his seat. His feet dangled off the floor as his father brought him up with no effort at all until their faces were inches apart. The reek of whiskey and cigars pitted inside the boy’s nose and mouth, and he did everything he could not to show a reaction. He felt pressure in his groin as his bladder threatened to give way on him. His Wolf rose inside. The skin on his arms tingled and his eyes suddenly blurred. The hunger in his stomach churned with sickening emptiness. Suddenly he was falling...no, he was flying. The world moved in slow motion around him as he was hurled backwards through the air. Glass smashed and something thudded and crashed as his head and back hit the glass cabinet, shattering it to pieces. The breath exploded from his lungs and pain stabbed through him. His heart lurched as he watched his mother’s favourite vase topple sideways. He reached for it, ignoring the tearing in his back. It bounced off his hand and fell to the ground with a loud crash as it smashed to pieces.
“Not happy with killing your mother, now you smash her things?” his father bellowed.
“No, no. I… I…” Sobbing, he shuffled meekly along the floor sideways, lifting his arms up to protect himself. Glass bit into his palms as he tried to scurry away, but his father was faster. He was big. His fists came crashing down, slamming into his cheek. The boy fought tears. They blurred his vision until the tears finally betrayed him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he begged. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was so fast. I’d change it if I could. Please…”
His father grabbed his arm, his thin fingers digging in through the suit he still wore. He lifted him up, but the boy’s sore legs threatened to give way beneath him.
“My wife is dead because of you,” his father spat at him. “It should have been you. You bring shame on this family. You make us all outcasts like you. You make people look at us, not with sympathy, but that look, because we have a creature for a child now. You are not my child any longer. Do you hear me? I will never accept you as my son.” His father struggled with the words. Forced out every letter. His eyes glistened, but his face was twisted in anger. “You are just a creature that looks like him.”
The boy stood there like stone, his heart tearing inside with icy pain. He had stopped breathing without realising. His father let go of his arm and the boy collapsed onto the floor. He stared up at his father with huge, pleading eyes. “Please, Dad,” he whispered. His father turned his back on him as if he hadn’t spoken.
The boy watched his father leave the room and listened to his footsteps as they climbed up stairs. He could hear everything now. His hearing seemed to increase by the day. He heard his father crashing about. Probably to get more drink, the boy supposed. When he heard no more sounds, the boy reached for an old newspaper, unfolded it and began to wrap the broken fragments of the vase in it. Tears fell down onto them. He allowed them when no one could see. They dropped onto the print and it began to smudge. When he heard footsteps coming back, he held his breath to make the tears stop.
He quickly stuffed the wrapped vase into the waste paper basket. He could clear it up afterwards, when his father was sleeping. Bury it in her garden perhaps, where no one would find it.
He expected his father to come back into the dining room, perhaps remembering he hadn't finished with the boy. But he didn’t. Instead, the front door to the house banged open and then a series of smashes and thuds followed. The boy crept along, not wanting to alert his father to his presence.
He caught sight of his father, arms laden with the boy’s possessions. His trophies, pictures, clothes. He marched with them to the front door and flung each one of them out into the dark and into the rain. The boy didn’t protest, but bit down on his lower lip as he watched everything he owned smash into little pieces. The ninja figure that had taken months to make landed on the ground and shattered. The snow globe his grandmother had bought him last Christmas smashed and the snow flecked water spattered everywhere. With a scornful look, his father looked straight at him and sneered, then brought his heavy, booted foot down on what was left of the figure and crushed it.
“Get out,” he said calmly. The boy didn’t move. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Was he going to hit him when he walked past him? Not let him get out? Or was he going to let him go? The boy didn’t know which was worse. His father stood in front of him more like a stranger in his father’s body, not the man who had taught him to ride a bike. Who had picked him up and cheered with pride every time he had scored a goal. Not the man who loved him and laughed. The boy didn’t know this man.
In two steps, the stranger in his father’s body was in front of him. The boy clutched the door frame.
“I said get out,” his father yelled. His fist came fast. The boy didn’t expect it as it hit him in the face. The punch of Human to Other, not to his child. The boy let go of the wood, sobbing as he put up his hands in an attempt to protect his face. The last blow had him sailing backwards. He landed in a heap on his mother’s new rug, blood spurting from his nose. He didn’t get time to wipe it away. His father came at him; hands yanking at his jacket. The boy groped for something to grab onto, but his father was stronger, faster. He pushed him towards the front door and then shoved him out, discarding of him as he had just done with all of his material things.
“You’re dead to me. I will never accept one of your kind into my life. Do not ever come back here.”
The door slammed shut, and the thirteen-year-old boy stood there, blood running down his face and sobs racking his small frame, alone and forsaken in the rain and in the dark.
TWO
The wind howled through the gap between the two houses. The house next door offered little shelter from the rain that came from the sea. The weather was unrelenting as it lashed down on the boy’s back. He stared at his belongings and then lifted tearful eyes towards the door, hoping that his father would change his mind and come let him back in. The light on the other side of the door went out, dashing any hope and leaving the boy standing crying and helpless in the rain.
He couldn’t take everything with him. Much of it was damaged through the rain or his father’s efforts now anyway. Most of it didn’t even matter. What did all these things really mean when his mother w
as dead? Dead…never coming back. And it was all his fault. He kicked his stuff with one wet shoe. What did any of it matter anymore? Shoulders slumped; the boy bent down and retrieved his school bag. Was he ever going to go back there? It didn’t seem likely. The boy who had left school that day was not the same boy who stood outside now. He was not even…Human. He could hardly think about it. He opened the bag, not caring to remove the stuff in there. Picking up the clothes his father had tossed outside, he shoved them into the bag with trembling hands.
He hugged the bag to him and sat himself down on the step. He didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. The thought of knocking and begging his father to allow him to stay dissipated when he touched his sore face. His father wouldn’t care. With a broken heart, he sat down slowly and stared into the darkness. The driveway taunted him, the vacant space where his mother’s car would once sit staring back at him. Now it was gone. Broken, smashed and somewhere he didn’t know nor did he ever want to see. Every time he recalled it, all he could hear was the bang. The sound of metal on metal. His mother’s scream. It was an echo that had embedded itself into his memory and would never disappear. It was the sound of his mother dying. It was when he had killed her. And for what? A stupid joke?
If he could just go back and change things. If he could just undo it all. Not tease the Other like he had. The scar on his arm was just that now - a scar. It had healed so fast he had never seen anything like it before. Neither had his mother. He hugged himself tight, never having felt more alone in his entire short life.
He didn’t know how long he stayed out there. It might have been hours, he wasn’t really sure. He had no place to go. No one to turn to. No one that would take him in after what he had done, he knew that much. So, instead, he sat on the step, praying for a miracle. Praying for his father to feel some compassion and mercy, to remember that he was his son. The rain didn’t cease, though, and by the time he finally resigned himself to the fact that his father clearly wasn’t going to come back out, and decided to move on, he was soaked to the skin. Even his bones felt as though they were heavy with rain. His face was cold, but that didn’t stop the throbbing or help with the swelling. He gingerly reached up to touch it. It had doubled inside he was sure. It was hard to keep both of his eyes open. He did try, though, but the eye on the swollen side fought to close. His nose was blocked, too, caked in dried blood; he was forced to breathe through his mouth as he sat on the step picking glass splinters from his hand. He watched the rain wash the blood from his wounds and looked on with idle curiosity as the smaller cuts knitted together and closed. It wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before, except in the movies maybe. He had never really understood why Humans and Others hated each other so much. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He had wanted to see what it was like. And now he could. Forever.