Unafraid aa-3

by Michael Griffo

  Gazing up at the cross again, Brania almost glowed. If Michael hadn’t known any better, he would have thought she was having some sort of holy revelation. The plaintive look on her face was really starting to freak him out, but of course it was so compelling he couldn’t turn away. “What if you have no other choice?” she asked. Michael wasn’t sure, however, if she was asking him or God. “What if you were forced to live out the rest of your life alone? Banished to an eternity of solitude and isolation?”

  “Your father’s banished you?”

  Brania rubbed her palms on her skirt, introducing the scent of leather into the air. It mingled with the incense, and Michael felt himself get light-headed, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of the smells or the revelation that David had turned his back on his only child.

  “My father is more clever than that,” Brania said. “He would never speak the words, but his actions don’t carry with them any hint of doubt.”

  The thought came to Michael quickly, with such force that he almost forgot where he was; he was almost knocked unconscious. Despite how contentious his relationship was with his father, he still held onto the hope that the situation could be reversed, that it wasn’t final, that things could go back to the way he had always dreamed they would be and he could have the father of his dreams. The reason his hope was possible was because his father had made it known that he wanted Michael in his life and that everything he did, all his actions, were based on his love for his son. Obviously, Brania didn’t know that comfort. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Michael replied.

  Smiling, but unable to look Michael in the eye, Brania mumbled, “Thank you.”

  She leaned back in the pew and looked around the church. Michael imagined it had been quite some time since Brania had seen the inside of this or any cathedral, so he allowed her to spend some peaceful, undisturbed moments gazing at the elaborate stained glass windows, the lifelike sculptures of the various saints, the convergence of marble and wood in the dome that loomed over their heads.

  These were all images that brought Michael comfort, and he hoped they did the same for Brania, since she clearly couldn’t find comfort anywhere else. She had a similar hope for him.

  “I know you don’t really like your father,” she said. “But I think you know that down deep Vaughan is a good man.” Before Michael could agree with or argue the point she continued. “He’s imperfect, as most men are, but considering how evil he could be, I don’t think he’s all that bad.”

  Michael thought he knew what Brania was getting at, but he waited for her to clarify her point.

  “Before things become irreversible like they have for me,” Brania added, “you may want to pay him a visit and see if you can ... patch things up.”

  He listened to her words as if they were a prayer. “I told Ronan the other night that I was thinking of doing just that,” Michael said, more convinced than ever that a reunion with his father was the right course of action. “I wasn’t sure why I was doing it, I thought ... Well, I had my reasons, but you’re right, I should do it to get our relationship back on track.”

  “At the risk of sounding like a daft little girl instead of the all-powerful vampire I am,” Brania said, her eyes finally smiling, “family is all we have.”

  Michael should have been confused, but he wasn’t. Despite the threat of danger that came directly from Brania’s people, Michael felt safer than ever before. He was on friendly terms with Nakano, he had just had an amazing conversation with Brania, and now he was going to make peace with his father. “You’re absolutely right, Brania,” Michael said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put those words into action.”

  Exercising her newfound caution, Brania waited quite a while after Michael left to laugh so he wouldn’t hear her. But when she did she laughed so heartily and with such joyful abandon that the windowpanes shook and the priests crossed themselves thinking the ground was being assaulted by an earthquake. They had no idea they were merely witnessing a girl relishing the success of her plan.

  Michael didn’t realize it, but he was going to do exactly what Brania wanted him to.

  chapter 14

  “Are you sure this is what you want to do, love?” Ronan silently asked.

  Michael’s knuckles were an inch away from banging on the door to his father’s suite at the Eden Arms Hotel. He held them in midair and turned to face his boyfriend. “I thought you were all for this?”

  “Well, yes, of course, I completely support you,” Ronan replied. “But ...”

  “Why is there always a but?”

  “Buuuut ... I just want to make sure you’re not doing this because I’ve been, you know, in a hump but because you really want to reconnect with your dad.”

  Shaking his head, Michael realized that as wonderful and sweet as boyfriends could be, they could also be exasperating. “I’m sure,” Michael said. “And anyway it’s not like I can back out now.”

  Ronan grabbed Michael’s fist and pulled it away from the door. “Nobody knows we’re here,” he reminded Michael. “We can be back at school in an instant and track Ciaran down to make him write that bio lab for me.”

  “I didn’t think vampires got cold feet?”

  “I don’t have cold feet!” Ronan protested.

  “And you shouldn’t. It’s my wayward father we’ve come to surprise.”

  “Fine then,” Ronan replied. “I’ll knock.”

  “I don’t need you to knock for me,” Michael said. “I’m perfectly capable of knocking on a door all by myself.”

  Ignoring each other, Michael and Ronan both knocked on the door at the same time. When the door opened, they almost wished that they hadn’t.

  “Mum!” Ronan cried. “What the hell are you doing here?!”

  Michael wasn’t sure if he was more surprised to find Ronan’s mother standing in the doorway to his father’s apartment or to see that she was dressed in a plain black T-shirt and jeans. Every other time Michael had seen Edwige she was dressed impeccably; her clothes and accessories were all perfectly coordinated and perfectly expensive. Her hair, thanks to Marcel, was always expertly coiffed, whether it was blond or jet black as it was now. The color of her hair, however, was practically the only thing that was recognizable about her; she looked like a completely different person. And she sounded like one too.

  “Please leave,” she said. Her voice was hardly audible and caught at the back of her throat as if it didn’t have the courage to create sound. Her eyes, usually clear and commanding, were glassy and lost. Michael was stunned by the transformation; it was that drastic. Ronan, however, had only noticed that he was finally looking at his mother once again.

  “Why have you been ignoring me?” Ronan asked. “Haven’t you heard me? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for months!”

  Edwige tried to close the door, but Ronan’s hand went up and stopped it from moving any farther.

  Michael thought she could have easily pushed back; he knew she was way more powerful than she looked, but she just stood there, eyes staring at the rug that surrounded her bare feet, her shoulders slightly hunched forward. She looked as fragile as she always did, but now she appeared weak, as if she could be broken. “Please, Ronan,” she said, the words clearly an effort. “Leave and forget that you saw me here.”

  Anger was gradually replaced with worry, and Ronan’s eyes and mind refocused. He was looking at his mother, but she was not the same. “Mum, what’s wrong?”

  Finally she looked up. The unexpected presence of her son and his companion was almost too much for Edwige to bear. She felt her body wobble, and she leaned against the door, not knowing where she found the strength not to fall into a heap on the floor. Placing her hand on her hip she tried to capture a pose from her past, but it only served to remind Ronan how small she had become since the last time he had seen her.

  “Mum, please, what’s going on?” Ronan pleaded. “You don’t look right.”

  When Ronan reached forw
ard to grab his mother’s arm, Edwige lurched back and stumbled awkwardly until she grabbed the back of the couch. Ronan was about to run to his mother’s aid, but Vaughan entered from the bedroom, and the realization hit him—his mother had left her children to live with one of Them. “What the bloody hell is going on here?!” Ronan screamed.

  Vaughan ignored Ronan’s question and the boy himself. “Would you mind closing the door, son?”

  he asked. “Don’t want to give the neighbors a show.”

  Absentmindedly, Michael closed the door behind him. When he turned around he saw Edwige’s prized painting hanging on the wall across from the sofa. Clearly she wasn’t just visiting his father’s apartment—she was planning on living here for a while. The realization was as shocking to Michael as it was to Ronan, but he remained silent, not knowing what to say. Ronan didn’t have that problem.

  “Answer me!”

  As if pushed back by the force of her son’s words, Edwige slumped onto the arm of the couch. She only moved, flinched was more like it, when Vaughan placed his hand on her shoulder. “Your mother made me a very happy man and moved in with me.”

  The clock on the wall ticked, the blinds tapped against the kitchen window courtesy of a restless breeze, but there was no other sound in the apartment. Until Ronan felt that if he didn’t scream he would lose his mind.

  “You’ve abandoned your children! You’ve ignored me for months! And all because you’re living with this ... thing!”

  Vaughan took a step forward in an attempt to defend his significant other. Edwige, however, preferred not to be rescued. She held up her hand, which looked slight against Vaughan’s chest, as a silent request that he allow her son to vent, say whatever he needed to say, no matter how ugly the words might sound. Reluctantly, Vaughan agreed. But it didn’t mean that he would remain quiet. “You should watch how you talk to your mother,” Vaughan reprimanded.

  The only reason Ronan didn’t lunge at Vaughan was because he felt Michael’s hand on his arm.

  They hadn’t come here to incite violence; they had come here searching for peace. Granted the rules had changed when Edwige opened the door, but still these were their parents, and wasn’t it some consolation to have finally found Edwige? She wasn’t dead; she wasn’t lost forever; she wasn’t taken from Ronan like Michael’s mother was; she was still alive, and in time their relationship could be repaired. Michael knew that Ronan couldn’t see that now; he was too consumed with shock and anger.

  The best thing Michael could do was get him to leave, get him far away from the mother he had been desperately searching for.

  “I think we should go,” Michael said softly.

  “I wish you wouldn’t,” Vaughan replied. “It really makes me so ... bloody happy to see you again.”

  Michael had no idea how he felt. There was a part of him that was indeed happy to see his father again, but finding out that he was living with Ronan’s mother, that maybe he was in love with her, had turned things around, changed things so drastically. He was filled with so many feelings, he was almost numb. He nodded his head, heard himself mumble something, and felt his hand tug at Ronan’s arm to get him to leave.

  “Michael’s right,” Edwige said. “You should go.”

  It wasn’t going to be that easy. “Not until you tell me why you’ve abandoned your children!” Ronan demanded. “This is not how we act! We’re not like Them!”

  Before Vaughan could move to defend his race, Edwige stood in between her lover and her son. In between the two robust figures, she looked like a porcelain doll that had been tossed aside and had lain dormant for years. “You’re better off without me,” she answered. “You don’t need me anymore.”

  Michael shuddered at the sound of Edwige’s voice. It was so fragile, so lost, it sounded just like his mother’s when she would shut down. Michael looked at Edwige closer and saw that she had some of the same physical characteristics that Grace had when she was depressed and despondent. He also knew from experience how quickly depression could turn into rage. Ronan was about to get his first lesson.

  “You mean you don’t need us!” Ronan shouted back.

  “No, I don’t!” Edwige shouted, her voice finally reclaiming some of its old thunder. “I don’t need to have my children scampering at my feet, begging for my attention, tugging me to look at them when I should be looking at myself!” Edwige paused to take a breath and watch the color drain from Ronan’s face. “I have spent more than enough time being mother, father, protector, problem solver, nursemaid, fool! I am done with all that, do you hear me?! I want to live my life, not yours! And this is the life that I’ve chosen!”

  Edwige shook violently, but no one could tell if it was because her tirade had weakened her or had reintroduced her to her celebrated strength. The rush of excitement distracted her long enough that she didn’t notice Ronan move until he was across the room.

  “How dare you bring this with you?!”

  When Ronan turned around, they all saw that he was holding a simple, mahogany box. And they all knew that the box contained Saxon’s ashes. “How could you disgrace his memory by bringing him here?” Ronan asked in a voice that once again reminded Michael of a little boy. “To the home of one of the people who murdered him?” His mouth opened once more to ask another question, but no words came out. He had to try a few more times to be able to speak again. When he did, he was through with questions; he had nothing more to ask. “I don’t understand how you could do that.”

  It was good that Ronan didn’t have any more questions, because Edwige clearly wasn’t going to answer her son. She only wanted one thing from him, the box he was holding. “Give that to me.”

  Michael watched as Ronan’s grip on the box softened. His whole body seemed to cave in, and it looked as if he finally realized that he was holding his father’s remains in his hands, the father who had died a violent and ghastly death, and that he was standing in front of the mother who he had thought might have suffered the same fate. Michael thought these revelations would bring Ronan peace, some odd comfort, maybe not now, but in the near future. Not a chance.

  “I said, give that box to me!” Edwige shouted, sounding exactly like the woman she used to be.

  “I’ll give you exactly what you deserve!” Ronan shrieked. “TRAITOR!!”

  Ronan flicked open the latch on the box and held the lid as he hurled the contents at Edwige. His father’s ashes remained brown and black as they flew through the air, changing color only when they touched Edwige’s skin.

  “Ahhhh!!!!”

  As the ashes touched Edwige’s body they turned bright red and became flames that penetrated her skin. Michael, Vaughan, and even Ronan watched in horror as Edwige screamed out in agony, her arms outstretched, her head tossed back, as the little pieces of fire pierced her flesh, ripped through her, turned chunks of her body into pockets of flame. She screamed even louder when she saw Saxon suspended in front of her.

  It was anguish enough to be reliving the physical pain that her husband had suffered, but casting her eyes once again on his face, she was also forced to relive his emotional suffering. Consumed with the flames that had once destroyed Saxon, Edwige reached out to try and hold onto the image in front of her, but it was only an apparition. She could only see Saxon; she couldn’t touch him. Even still, she could feel every raw emotion that had coursed through his body while his life was being brutally destroyed.

  “Saxon!!” she cried. She felt the fear that he desperately tried to keep hidden, his anger at her betrayal, his disappointment when he discovered that she had violated their sacred covenant. She felt it all, and it was more excruciatingly painful than the red-hot flames that were passing through her.

  “PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!!” she cried out to no one and to everyone.

  Vaughan ripped the tablecloth from the dining room table—the pewter candelabra that sat on top of it crashing to the floor with a thud—and wrapped it around Edwige’s shoulders. It was as if he had doused her bo
dy with gasoline; the flames exploded with more fury than ever, and Ronan and Michael had to step back from the heat that was blazing off of Edwige’s body. They were helpless to do anything except watch the fire engulf and consume her.

  Unmoving, Edwige stood, staring into the eyes of her dead husband, movement, sound, salvation, all unattainable. She felt that the pain of both the past and the present were deserved, so she did nothing except look at her beloved Saxon until his image faded when the last piece of ash pierced her heart and fell onto the pile of cinders behind her. Only then were the flames extinguished; only then could Edwige finally feel what had been buried within Saxon’s soul: his undying and unconditional love. This knowledge, this unexpected gift that Saxon had loved her despite their years of separation and her duplicitous actions, was almost as blinding as the pain she had just been forced to bear, but at least it gave her renewed strength. “Get out.”

  Her voice was quiet, but stern. Her body had returned to normal despite having been ravaged by the unnatural fire, and in fact the experience seemed to invigorate her. She no longer looked weak, vulnerable. She had her husband’s spirit inside of her, and that was all the strength she needed.

  Ronan’s strength, however, had been drained by witnessing the horror he had caused. It fled his body, and if it hadn’t been for Michael pulling him from Vaughan’s apartment, he would not have been able to leave.

  When the boys were gone, Vaughan bent down to help Edwige return Saxon’s scattered ashes, which were once again the colors of charcoaled flesh, to their resting place. It was not the wisest thing he had ever done.

  “Do not touch my husband!” Edwige shrieked as she grabbed Vaughan’s wrist. It felt like his hand was caught in a steel vise. Only when Edwige was certain Vaughan would comply with her order did she let go of him. He lingered in the room for a few moments, but then felt as if he was intruding on a very private moment and retreated to the safety of his bedroom.

  Alone, Edwige finished the task of returning Saxon’s ashes to the place they had called home for over a decade. She looked at a handful of ash and acknowledged that the pain had been worth it. She knew that underneath all the hatred, anger, and confusion, her husband still loved her as much as she loved him.