by Aya DeAniege
“The boy who seeks the siren?” she asked. “Why do we care about the boy?”
“The boy is mine. I made him. This is my boy,” Lu snapped back. “You made a comment on my boy, so I brought him. Here he is.”
“We do not want the boy,” the Oracle said sternly. “We want our brother, whom you took as your plaything. Have you brought him back to us?”
“No, I brought the boy!” Lu snapped.
“He is the wrong boy. Bring the right one, if you can still recall where you buried his body. Bring us back our boy. Or we will take yours from you. Was that not made clear before?”
Lu snarled in frustration but did not advance on the woman. If she had been a vampire, he would have killed her for questioning him. Killed her and her maidens, her father, and probably would have started hunting witches.
Thankfully, what Lu does isn’t held to all vampires. Most of the time mortals can separate him from the rest of us. We are not like him. He is not like us.
Infuriated, Lu stormed out. I was caught in my place, staring up at the Oracle in awe.
Here was a woman who obviously held sway over Lu. I felt a desire to submit to her, to find my way into her heart and never leave.
She sounded upset.
She was, and rightly so.
Lu took me from there. We travelled four days south and two days east. He counted out his footsteps and then had me dig in an undisturbed area.
He always buried them deep. I was never certain of why.
The remains of the Oracle’s brother were little more than bones. No linen to cover him, no preservation method used. Just dumped in a hole like so many others. The bones were not new either, they were old enough that I questioned whether they belonged to that young woman’s brother. I did, however, know better than to voice my questions out loud. I had to allow Lu to do whatever he was going to do.
It wasn’t until that moment that I realized Lu never forgot. He knew where each one of his victims was laid to rest. Some nights he’d get that look in his eye like he had just finished. Except he’d be there with me, under the stars as we wandered to do our duty.
He never forgot, and he could recall everything he did to them.
I think that was the start of my truly pulling away. Somehow him remembering it all made what he did to me real. Made the others more than just... I don’t know... chickens to feed the dog?
He had me put the bones in a bag. Just a bag. Not even a big one. He made me sift through the entire thing. Counting all the bones. He knew how many there were.
I knew, by then, how many bones were in a body. He was one shy, but when I made a comment, because he was being so careful about the others, he told me not to worry about it.
“Mortals don’t know the difference, boy,” he grumbled. “You tell them it’s all there. How many of them have taken apart a body? How many of them know how many bones there are?”
“I knew while mortal,” I said.
“Because I made certain you were educated. Unlike what that woman does.”
Before you ask, no, my tutors did not teach me that. No, I don’t want to discuss it right now.
Stab the bad man in the face.
That’s usually the reaction to those who learn of Lu’s existence.
Then stab him in the dick with the tool.
Well, we got rage filled fast.
Recall, that’s pretty well the plan. And please stop making stabbing motions. A pedestrian may see and call the police.
We returned to the Oracle once more. This time old women greeted us instead of maidens. They too were naked. Some of them had the tattoos that moved.
I held the bag and kept my eyes on the floor as we were delivered the blood. Then they took the bag from me.
My hand must have lingered. I wanted to tell them about the missing bone.
This woman who was younger than I was, but who looked like a grandmother, set her hand on mine and smiled at me. It was the first expression of emotion from any of the elderly maidens.
“You’ve carried him this far, let us carry him home.”
“It’s not all of him,” I blurted out.
Lu’s head snapped around so fast that I thought he might break his neck. He glowered at me as the bag slipped from my fingers.
“It couldn’t be,” she muttered. “We had to fetch a part of him, so he could tell us which one of you took him.”
And she walked away from me as Lu continued to glare.
“We will place the bones to make certain the Maker did not slip out another trophy while the boy slept,” the woman said as she set the bag ever so gently on the clean stone flooring.
And then we watched as they placed the remains back in order. Right there on the floor.
It just didn’t seem right to me. For them to do that there, instead of doing it on a table or perhaps a coffin. To have to move him again?
They worked at it for hours. For so long that the sun began to rise.
“I need sleep,” I said.
“Yes,” Lu said. “We must come back tomorrow least we perish in our sleep.”
“Our treaty with your Council remains,” the old woman said without malice. “You will sleep here.”
There was no uttered threat, no ultimatum given. Simply a statement. If I had been there by myself, give that it was my first time, I might have argued with them. Then it may have turned bloody. Lu listened to the statement and took it as the end of the conversation. Something I had never witnessed him do for man, woman, or immortal.
I had not been given permission to sit or lay down. So, I stood, exhaustion coming over me before the sun, just above the horizon, made me sleep like the dead.
When I awoke, I was on the stone floor. Lu was already awake and standing once more. He probably went down gently, however.
My cheek and face ached all over. I had landed on my shoulder and did damage to it. As I stood, I reached up and pushed it back into place.
I wasn’t allowed to ask for help with such matters. I simply had to do it and not whine as I did it.
Standing once more, I found that the body had been put back together and tenderly cleaned. I have no idea how they cleaned every bone of dirt and debris while we slept. They must not have slept at all yet they appeared to be as fresh as they had when we first arrived.
Still naked as the day they were born, though.
We were given more blood. Lu, upon wetting his lips, attempted to hand the cup back.
“No, you must drink of the cup of the house which you violated.”
Lu grimaced. Witch blood is, of course, female blood. He still did as he was told. He emptied the glass, which they then refilled with their own wrist, not out of sight as they had the first time.
This one, they brought to me.
“Now you will drink deeply of the house your Maker violated.”
I was certain I didn’t want to. I was also certain by that point that it wasn’t just them being polite and offering their guests a beverage.
However, I took the cup and drank it down. It coated my stomach like sludge, sitting like a ton of bricks.
Not unlike spoiled Maker’s Blood, come to think of it. Although it didn’t make me vomit, just sat there like a bad meal.
We were then cleansed with incense and sent in. There was the same pomp and ceremony as there had been before and the Oracle appeared just as she had before.
She was an old woman.
Colour me confused. I’ve lost track of time before, but never that much. Also, I had counted the days because I hadn’t been fed in that amount of time.
Ten days does not age mortals like that.
“You have brought our boy back to us,” the woman said.
Ancient as could be, though wearing clothing. She may have been pretty once, but time was no kinder to her than it would have been to the plain woman from before. And she was most definitely not the woman who had greeted us before.
“Per your request,” Lu said, though I knew it had b
een no request.
“You may go.”
Lu looked furious once more. Staring up at the woman, he gritted his teeth.
“You spoke of my boy.”
“And so, he shall remain to sate our curiosity.”
“But he’s my boy!” Lu protested.
“We care not what your Council has spoken of another. All shall be free and choose their own way. So, she spoke, so it shall be.”
A reference to the Great Maker?
Yes, all the races speak of her, just as we speak of the Great Alpha and the Grand Witch. The first of each kind. Ours, as far as we know, is the only one still alive. Simply due to the nature of the beast, so to speak.
But the fae are immortal too.
Only one left alive, I don’t know how that happened. Find the Great Maker and ask her. Though you should know, the Great Maker might have eaten the faerie queen and can eat you too. Let me finish my story.
Lu’s rage was plain, and building, as she spoke.
“You will leave our land immediately. If a witch does spy you with her eyes, you shall answer to us. Touch one of our boys again, and you will answer to the Council.”
“Mine or yours?” he sneered.
“Both, if necessary. You forget your place, little Lu. We are chosen. We know where she is. She would not be pleased with you. She would be greatly disappointed.”
Lu went a deathly pale sort of colour.
I’ve never met his Maker, who I assume the Oracle was speaking of. I have no idea what her thoughts are on Lu’s sins, only that while away from her, he was free to do as he chooses if he obeys Council law. I know myth says that she kept the beast in food, but maybe as he became less useful, the beast was given less to eat to bring out his mean edge.
Let’s not mince words that much. You mean to say that Bau may have cock blocked Lu for not doing things her way, and he may have even taken the Oracle’s boy without permission.
For all I know, she’d castrate him for what he did. That has been a thought that has entertained me many nights.
He took his leave, probably headed for a border that I didn’t know existed. I knew where he expected me to go once the Oracle released me.
Once Lu left, I turned my attention back to the Oracle. She had approached me as I watched Lu go. The only person to ever sneak up on me.
Startled, I watched her as she seemed to study me.
“So, you’re the boy,” she said quietly.
“That’s what he calls me.”
“And sometimes he calls you like a dog, by another name,” came the voice of the younger Oracle.
I thought you said they didn’t know.
Telling the whole truth is new for me, you’ll have to forgive me if I mess it up a time or two.
I think this is like five or six now.
Be nice to your Maker.
I don’t have a—oh shit.
Heh, finally silence. Where was I?
The younger woman appeared from seemingly nowhere and walked towards us, dressed in gauze and... well floofy stuff. Looked like a damned Pomeranian.
“What of it?” I asked.
It was well known by then that when Lu called, I came. Among the others, I am sometimes referred to as a dog, though I am the lapdog to Wraith’s hound.
You’ve lived in your own shadow.
For centuries. Some part of me found that amusing, but I’ve come to hate lapdogs.
“A hound can be of great use,” the younger said, reaching for me.
I batted her hand away, annoyed that she thought she had the right to touch me. I glared at them both.
“I have no time for your trickery, tell me why you wanted to see me.”
“We did not ask to see you,” the older one said with a shake of her head. “We wanted our boy back. He made the assumption.”
“Then why did you have me remain?” I asked.
“He took something from us, now we will take something from him,” the younger one said with a giggle as she pushed herself against me.
I pushed her away.
“No,” I said because I recognized the look in her eyes.
“Me?” asked the older.
“Respectfully, no,” I said. “I think I’ve had enough of that. Mortals are not getting that part of me.”
This took place before Lover. How I ate my words later in life.
“We can tell your future if only you lay with us,” the younger said. “Come now. Even your Maker has done so a time or two.”
“I care not about the future you might weave in exchange for services,” I said.
Because yes, I once spoke like that.
“But every vampire does,” the older said, the confusion plain in her voice and on her face. “Your fortune, or who you might turn. Perhaps how to free yourself of him?”
I shrugged. Truth be told, I was afraid they would reveal that I would never be free. I worried they would see me bound to Lu for all eternity. I already knew I couldn’t die. I didn’t want to know ahead of time that I’d be trapped until the end of my days. I wanted that spark of hope that not knowing brought.
So, I said no to the Oracle.
I would later discover that they charged an exorbitant amount to tell the future of vampires. They would even take a price from the curiosities who visited them, to create a balance.
The Oracle is the only witch permitted to take and hold vampire blood. Anyone else caught with the item is killed on the spot. Not even their maidens may hold it. Only the Oracle.
They had asked no price of me. I once told myself that was because I had a pretty face. But then I met more vampires and realized they were immune to attractive men.
“No fortune to tell then, how unfortunate,” the older one muttered. “A witch spell, I suppose, then?”
“Witches are real?” I asked.
“Vampires are real, and you’re going to stand there and ask us if witches are real?” The younger one snapped at me.
The older one slapped her on the shoulder, chiding her for being rude.
“I want nothing of you, besides to go home,” I said.
“He has many tells, but does not voice who it is that has laid a claim on you,” the older one said. “And one must have, for his insistence that you are his and no other’s.”
“Lucrecia has taken me into her home,” I said.
“Who is Lucrecia?” The younger asked.
“The girl who came to ask us for a name,” the older whispered. “And the other, the fae of a girl who is also in Lucrecia’s house. What of her?”
“Sasha, Lucrecia’s Progeny?” I asked them.
The pair shared a look. In that look, I swore I saw a hundred things pass between them. Then they turned their attention back to me.
“She’s taken to him,” the older one said.
“Perhaps we should call her instead,” the younger muttered.
“You fool, she ate the last one to try to call her,” the older snapped.
“Sasha ate one of you?” I asked.
“The Great Maker did, the last time we called her out of curiosity. She does not appreciate the Oracle commanding her about. Believes we are children dabbling in that which even the Grand Witch would not touch.”
“And so, she eats you?” I asked, then motioned numbly to the door behind me. “Why didn’t he eat you, then?”
“Witch blood, boy,” the older said.
“We also know the ways of old,” the younger said.
“Passed from one to another, never alone,” the older said. “Except that time she ate one of us.”
“We will see your way home,” The younger said. “We will send you with one of ours. She will pass the message on. It will be heard and hopefully heeded.”
They called one of the younger maidens. Just a child, ten years old perhaps. Her skin writhed with those markings that I had seen before. They gave her food and clothing, a few coins.
Then they sent a ten-year-old girl out into the world.
&nbs
p; It was when we reached the edge of the border, and I tried to follow Lu, that I realized the power of the witches. When I went one way, she went another. All she did was walk away.
When I bedded down, I was in one place. When I woke, I was at her side by a fire. I tried to leave again and again woke beside her.
The third night I got desperate. But I couldn’t put my hands on her. Something stopped me as if there were a wall between us.
She didn’t even seem upset with me. Just reached out and patted me on my arm, then continued.
When I got hungry, she drew a mortal from a village and into the dark for me to feed on. She made no comment on my killing the man, then dumping him in a shallow grave.
In front of a ten-year-old?
Recall, I grew up seeing something similar. I thought it was normal and she certainly didn’t go running for the hills.
She took me home. She took me right to Sasha and placed my hand on hers.
“What’s this, little witchling?” she asked the girl.
“My sister bid you care for him,” she said. “He brought back my uncle from the darkness so his soul may rest.”
“What does she mean?” Sasha asked me.
“Lu took the Oracle’s boy and did what he does. They demanded he be brought back, so we did.”
“And was Lu disrespectful of the Oracle?” Sasha asked the witch.
“He behaved just enough to keep his bits and pieces,” the witch said. “The Oracle was not pleased, however, and banished him from witch territory. Any who lay eyes on him may do harm. It will be reported to the Council.”
“Which was why you escorted Quintillus home to me,” Sasha said, her hand tightening in mine. “Thank you, little witchling, for bringing the boy home to me.”
“They hoped the intrusion might be forgiven this time?” The witch asked.
“I wouldn’t eat a witch,” Sasha said pointedly. “Every vampire knows that eating a witch is a bad thing.”
The witch watched Sasha, then glanced at me. When her full attention turned back to Sasha, she sucked in a loud breath.
“We might ask a name by which of reference to call the fae of a girl whom Lucrecia has claimed as Progeny,” she said so quickly that it sounded like a slur of words, only half of which I understood.