by Aya DeAniege
I left with the mace settled on my shoulder. Sucker was heavy, but I was pretty certain that was how the weapon had been designed. At a quick walk, but not running, I went down the street and around the corner. I had always heard that one should walk with confidence when they were doing something they weren’t supposed to. Just look like you belong and everyone else will assume that you do. It’s a lot easier said, than done.
Around that corner, I stopped and looked around me, then pulled out my cell phone. I texted Peter an address and then put my phone into airplane mode. No texts or data in or out, which would keep Quin from getting a hold of me. I was sure if he had access to his IT guys, he’d be able to force my phone to accept the call. But Kevin was locked up and the rest of the stock was on lock down.
And I don’t think Lucrecia would be in the mood to help either of us for some time.
If Peter thought it was a trap, well, that was his problem. While I wanted him, there was still that small chance that I didn’t need him.
The mace was some super weapon, after all. Quin’s hands were still burnt. The damage shouldn’t have been so new still. It had scarred over, but not begun to heal. I had felt the ridges of the burn as we had held hands. The healing portion was still something to wrap my head around, because as they told it, healing was sometimes fast, sometimes slow.
I think what they meant to say was that fledglings, such as myself, took the normal amount of time to heal. Then through the successive destruction of the body, or simply with the age of the blood in their veins, healing became quicker. Vampires telling the stories of their trouble centuries later on in life probably didn’t think of that fact, which was why sometimes Quin healed overnight and sometimes the only way he could heal quickly was with Maker’s Blood.
Wonder how long it takes to replace an organ.
Upon arriving at Lucrecia’s, I realized just how long it had been since Quin’s hands had burned. It had just been superficial damage and, unlike the scars on his chest, had not been caused by something magical ripping into him. He had just had his hands on the mace. For a moment on the… the… you know, the bashy end, then a couple minutes on the handle.
When he had gone after Lucrecia, I had studied the mace. I had dared to put a finger on it, then my whole hand. No flames or bleeding. No screaming and death. Just wood under the palm of my hand.
Together, the bits and pieces made a legendary weapon. It could cause blisters on the hands of the user and probably ate their soul as the original tool did. Dragged them down to the afterlife.
Afterworld.
Oh yeah, and Banshee was back.
“Shut up, this is my story, not yours.”
To rejoin, we have to cast aside the duality of our existence.
“Which is a week old,” I snarled. “You’re a baby.”
Denying me doesn’t make me go away.
“Wanting to rejoin kind of makes you suicidal, doesn’t it?”
Resisting kind of points out your self-destructive tendencies which, I have to say, with our limited training in psychology, really emphasises your daddy issues. Maybe if he loved you more and beat you less, you’d be able to have a healthy relationship.
“Psychoanalysis not welcome.”
I rounded the bend and sat on the bench at the address I had given Peter. Grumbling to myself, I set the mace onto the ground.
For all its might, even its ability to kill vampires and the need for a special something to allow Bau to wield it even once, the mace was just witch magic. Werewolves were immune to that magic, wasn’t that something special?
It also meant that I was immune to the mace. The bits that were held together with magic were just bits to me.
Don’t get me wrong, I still avoided the teeth at the end, and I adjusted my fingers whenever there was that flare of sunlight across the veins. I had been stupid to steal it, but that didn’t mean I was a complete moron about it.
If you’re going to be stupid, think smart.
A car stopped at the curb. I picked up the mace and stood at the same time, looking down as I did so. There were little indentations in the sidewalk which could not have been there before, because they were laid out around a little rounded portion the shape and size of the mace head.
The mace altered reality.
Let that sink in for a moment.
If the mace alters reality…
In a split second, Banshee and I had a debate and came to the conclusion that the mace had to be destroyed if it still survived the night. It might have become a weapon, but might have started as a way to unlock the afterworld. As much as my curiosity nagged at me, I didn’t think I was ready to walk through the gates of Hell.
No one knew what was over there. After all the years and all the things, not a single race had any firm idea of what happened in the afterworld. And these were the people who could teleport and lived otherworldly lives. The ones who knew all the other secrets of the world.
Best not to reach for the unknowable, just because I had an inkling of how to get there.
“You stupid or something?” Peter called from inside the car. “Get in before they realize you’re gone.”
I slipped into the passenger seat and glowered at him, thumping the mace onto the floor of the passenger side.
“It’s going to eat your car.”
“I said the tool, not that abomination.”
“The tool was with the Great Maker, who didn’t take it to the witches like she said she would.”
“She tried to use it,” he muttered. “I see that light, so let’s just be clear on this: I am Death, not Peter. Peter is dead.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “Why would the tool not work?”
“The tool without me is just a scythe,” Death said as he pulled away from the curb. “So, had she used it, it would have just hurt. There are some small remnants, probably. I rode someone who knew about computers. If I said there was a backup program, would that make sense?”
“It has the ability to become you again,” I said. “In case you, I don’t know, became more parasite than symbiote, and decided to give up your duty?”
“Something like that. There are backup programs for backup programs. The witches weren’t taking the risk of a vampire having that ability. Because there’s rumour of one of you being able to revert things to a previous or original state.”
“I’ve heard of that myth. The vampire who can turn vampires back into humans. She doesn’t exist. You know that right?”
“They didn’t know that at the time,” he said. “I learned a great deal from Lu, but he only read fiction. Pathetic creature. His appetite is still written into me, which is really annoying. I almost kidnapped a child. I don’t even like it, I don’t want to, but he was there, and his parents weren’t paying attention.”
“It’s like Lu is riding you instead,” I chuckled. “So, you are getting a helping of yourself?”
He didn’t look happy about that.
“I’m sorry, are you evolving?” I asked.
“Humans know so much, and you?” he glanced at me, then chuckled. “You have the power to learn. All will open before me. I want to know of this soul the humans believe they hold. Lu had none, not a single spark in him, but humans? They hold onto this idea, and it almost manifests. It’s like they all have this little light inside of them and it resists me, fights me.
“One man threw me out! Oh, it was quite a thing to behold. A pathetic meat sack tossing me out.”
“And you still want this under your terms?” I asked.
Death considered me for a moment, then turned back to the road.
“Even the most well-built humans burn out in the end. One life for many, that’s another notion that I’m learning from the humans. Not just any vampire can hold me, there’s something wrong with them, that keeps me from entering.”
“The Great Maker did say that no supernatural could be turned,” I said.
Death frowned at the road and adjusted in his seat.
“What’s that mean?” he asked finally. “Lu, you, even Quin would be perfect hosts.”
“We’re called Witchblood. The only ones who can turn supernaturals because we were born of one.”
I wasn’t going to tell him the bit where we could possibly ignore all the Great Maker’s commands. I didn’t even want to utter that one out loud. I’d like to continue living, and I might one day want a Progeny of my own. Not all of her commands were ignored, though. As the one on one commands to Quin and me seemed to have taken quite well. It was just that broad command line that we could ignore if we so chose.
“Huh, that’s an interesting philosophy. Perhaps if you survive my taking you, we might debate that at length.”
Remember, he’s the bad guy.
It wasn’t quite so easy, but I tried to hang onto that thought. Of course, a willing host would be easier to manage. While I had promised to go willingly, I hadn’t said that we would be friends.
He would be killing all that I was.
“How long have you been riding Peter?”
“A week, I figured you’d reach for home. Most do within a few weeks, they settle their debts and then move on.”
“Why Peter?”
“I figured I’d burn through him and then slip into your mother as you ate her.”
“You didn’t think I’d eat Peter?”
“As someone who grew up reading vampire fiction, and the comparison between sex and biting in that fiction, no, I didn’t think you’d want to taste him.”
“But my mother?”
“You’d eat your whole family, but stop at Peter. It’s an indescribable thing, but when I slipped in to check, I just knew. Some of his knowledge remained, but most crumpled when he did.”
I made a sound at the back of my throat and looked out the window, suddenly uncomfortable with the notion.
“I was never going to go home. The interviewers made me. Idiots.”
“And your family wasn’t going to accept the other end of that contract,” Death said. “You people are so twisted. Only daughter and they were willing to cut all ties, even when that amount of money was offered because you’re just… Helen. What in the hell did you do to them?”
“I resisted,” I said, then sighed out. “I wasn’t the daughter they wanted.”
“You’re not gay. Your religion doesn’t align with your mother, but neither does that of your brothers. That still doesn’t explain it.”
“Guess you had to be there.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“No, I haven’t talked to Quin about it. There’s no way I’m telling you.”
“Peter had been studying psychology. Nothing formal, mind you, but trying to explain what was done to him growing up. To wish away his demons, I suppose. It’s some human mentality, to search for an excuse. Not just for yourself, but for that of your abuser.”
“My father was my father because he was a bad person, not because someone else made him that way. He had a choice.”
“The idea that Peter had formed was that your father was part of a cycle. He was the way he was because of how he was raised. Whoever broke him was that way because someone had broken them, and so on and so forth.”
“Could you just kill me now and save the babble?” I asked.
“You can’t break a cycle unless you know the cycle existed. He was going to break the cycle. Or thought be would.”
“Then you ate him, and the world was a better place for it.”
Death chuckled. “There’s the vampire.”
“No, there’s the pissed off sister,” I snapped in response. “It might only last a second, but you know what? Screw you and screw Peter and all your research. People have a choice to be bad people. When you make that choice to be a bad person, you don’t get to look out on the world and point fingers, saying it was his fault or her fault, or the fault of your victim. You are a bad person. Plain and simple. I do not wish you bad, but I do not wish you well either.
“And I don’t like this conflicted feeling, so stop talking about him.”
“About your father?”
“About Peter, the man whose meat sack you’re riding.”
“Why are you conflicted about Peter? He’s fodder.”
I struggled for a moment. “Look, we have history, right. And you’re about to kill him upon leaving his body. It… it causes this dilemma. I care, but at the same time, there’s just this part of me that wants it to be done.”
“Ah, yes, I’ve felt that emotion through Lu. The dread of the end, but just wishing it would come. Unable to end it yourself out of fear of what might happen afterwards, but constantly seeking out the method of one’s, uh, solution.”
“He knew how to kill himself?”
“Three moons besides the tool. Thirteenth, second, and sixth.”
“When do the moons change over?”
“Summer solstice,” he said. “So, if my understanding of your calendar is right, it’s August, December, and June, sort of?”
I swore and adjusted my hands on the mace.
“Couldn’t even know this month, damn it.”
“No, Lu did not know that one.”
There was a tone in his voice that seemed to imply something else, something more. Like Death knew where to find someone who knew the death of the month. That would have been spectacular, but he also wouldn’t want me to know because then I’d just go to that person rather than agree to being his host.
“How do you plan on finding her?” he asked, looking down at the mace. “I can’t just drive around all night.”
“Fastest way is to call out her name, but then she falls from the sky. You could go back to where Quin tried to kill her.”
“He missed, didn’t he?”
“He can miss?”
Death glanced at me. “He’s only ever killed one on one, and his power works with you around. So, he goes off but is trying not to kill you specifically, but at the same time the target is female. Yeah, I’d say it’s possible for him to miss.”
“We did not factor that in.”
“Obviously not, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“You could have told me.”
“That’s kind of beside the point of what we’re doing here, tonight, Helen.”
“You could have gotten me killed!”
Death winced at the volume of my voice in the confines of the car. He leaned away for a moment, then settled back into his seat and gave his head a little shake.
“It was a risk I was willing to take. I thought, if anything, it would be Quin who died, not you.”
“She thinks I killed her baby.”
Death chuckled. “Trust me, she’s not looking to kill you over that.”
“Oh, she’s the long torture type, isn’t she?”
“Yes, if she wanted to kill you, she would have come down from the sky swinging that thing. She has that to kill daddy dearest so that he can’t come after her and rescue you.”
“Does that mean she’s given up on killing the world?”
“Being turned made your cells inert. You still hold the sickness inside of you. It just has to be, how do I put this? Distilled?”
Horror gripped me tight as I stared at Death. A week ago, I would have stopped and wondered what he meant. But after all I had seen, and everything that had happened, my mind went to the most literal form of the word.
“Doesn’t that require grinding me down, boiling me and then all kinds of other stuff?”
“You don’t need your hands or feet. As long as your entire being isn’t cleansed in a fire, the sickness will continue to ride inside of you.”
“You cannot unleash a plague.”
“The human population has clearly exceeded what the world can handle. A plague would help solve that. Then I can rule them as a god and make them tear down the old civilization and clean the oceans and fix what they broke.”
“It’d go a lot faster if seven billion people did that work inst
ead of seven hundred thousand.”
“There’s an estimated seven and a half billion humans. That doesn’t count the supernatural species.”
“The sickness I’m carrying would kill over ninety percent of the population, possibly all of it.”
“So? No more humans isn’t a bad thing. Look at what you people do to one another.”
“I’m pretty certain you need us to fix some things. I don’t think it’s safe to just abandon a nuclear reactor.”
“Those exist? I thought that was just some science fiction bullshit.”
“Chernobyl?”
“I didn’t exactly get news for the last two hundred or so years. What is Chernobyl?”
“What happens when a reactor overloads but is still stopped before the full meltdown. I think. I read something once about two workers swam down and shut something off. But if you just unleash a plague and it kills everyone who knows how to stop that, you’ll eradiate the entire world. Nothing will survive.”
“I will look into it.”
“No, you’ll burn my body.”
“Or you’ll what?”
“Or I’ll take my chances with the mace. I’m pretty certain if I hold it up as she falls from the sky, she’ll be skewered on it.”
Death flinched, then grimaced. “She falls straight down.”
“Being killed hurts.”
“But you’d, you know, technically…”
“I know, but if you won’t agree to my terms, that’s what I’ll do.”
“Fine.”
“Good. And Quin goes free. You don’t try to kill him or hurt him in any way.”
“I want to be as far away from him as possible.”
“Or Troy.”
He looked a little annoyed at that, taking a moment to compose himself before he said, “Fine. Anything else?”
“Burn my body, don’t hurt people. Try not to miss?”
“I’m not going to miss. It’s almost impossible for me to miss once I’m moving.”
“This is a mace, not your tool. It’s possible for you to miss.”
“I’m not going to miss,” he protested.
He pulled into the parking lot where we had been not an hour before. Bau wasn’t there, but I could see the broken asphalt from where she had fallen from the sky.