by S. L. Naeole
“I think…we’ve come to an understanding,” Dr. Bro said quietly, looking at Sean’s pale face and seeing the slight nod that followed his announcement.
Stacy took slow steps to her twin, stopping just a foot away from him, waiting for whatever reaction he might give to her nearness. I held my breath as Sean’s hand rose to poke his sister’s cheek. His finger met the stony resistance that was her skin, but rather than pull away he pushed.
“I’m not moving,” she said to him with a hint of humor in her voice.
“You’re very cold. Not as cold as I thought you’d be, but still, you’re not like me.” He moved his hand to her shoulder and shoved. Hard. “You also feel like you weigh a ton. I always knew you were a fatty.”
The mock indignation that came from Stacy’s lips, coupled with the gentle shove she gave to him that still sent him sprawling onto the ground, did wonders to lighten up the mood. Lark excused herself to go and find Graham, who had holed himself upstairs since last night. I’d brought him a sandwich and some iced tea, but aside from thanking me for the food, he hadn’t said two words to me or Robert.
Dr. Bro approached Robert and looked at him, his eyes never blinking, his face never changing in appearance or expression as he shared with him his thoughts about what was happening with his own kind. The discussion was tense. I knew it by the way the air grew colder despite the heat that I could see reflecting off of the asphalt outside through the window.
Robert sat up straight, his back a ramrod, and his fists clenched into the sofa cushions, easily ripping the fabric and stuffing. He removed his hands and slapped his forehead as though he had just come to recognize the obvious. The sound was like a brick hitting pavement.
“This makes so much more sense. Thank you, Ambrose, for bringing this to my attention.”
“Bring what to your attention?” I asked.
“Do you want to tell her or should I?”
Dr. Bro nodded his head and turned to face me. “I just told Robert what it is that I and some of the others of my kind believe is the cause for the attacks against humans. We believe that it’s meant to be a diversion, to keep Robert away from you, and to switch the focus from you elsewhere.”
“You said something like that before, about Isis,” I said to Robert, whose head bobbed down once in confirmation.
“Isis was a troublemaker. She and others like her instigated tiny wars all over the world in order to draw me away from you. Humans fighting other humans for no reason is always something to suspect, but for turned creatures to simply start attacking humans…I had assumed it was their beastly nature returning.”
“But it isn’t,” Dr. Bro confirmed. “When one of my kind decides to break our own covenant and feed directly from the human body, we rarely consume every part of them. We’re not gluttonous feeders; our ability to feed is limited to what our human bodies once could contain. But with everything that we’ve heard through our own sources, the victims of these attacks have been stripped to the bone. The only person who’s ever been able to do that in my time is Stacy.”
“Y-you don’t think that she-” I looked at Robert and he felt my fear, my concern and his hands took a hold of mine quickly to ease my distress.
“No. I know who her victims are and she could not have done anything of this magnitude, and certainly not as widespread as it is.”
Dr. Bro came to sit beside me, his dark eyes growing darker as the tone in his voice lowered. “I have spoken to someone who has knowledge of every erlking and vampire that exists in this world. There are dozens of new ones, dozens who up until two months ago did not exist.”
“Dozens. That’s not that many, right? I mean, when I heard the story about Miki and what happened with her, there were hundreds. Dozens aren’t bad. And they’re not changing people…”
“Grace, they’re not like me. They’re like Stacy. They were changed while their bodies were riddled with cancer.”
I gaped at him. “What? How do you know? I mean, how do you know that?”
“I’m a doctor. I can access the files if I come across their names. I’ve been given several and all of them were suffering from terminal cancer. Breast cancer, bone cancer, lung cancer. They lived all over the world, came from different backgrounds. The only thing that ties them together is the fact that they were all dying.”
“So what does that have to do with anything?”
“I believe that after Stacy was bitten, the cancer and the virus that makes us what we are somehow spliced themselves together. The cancer’s need to feed on flesh made it the perfect platform for the virus to attach itself, and together they’ve made it nearly impossible for these changelings to satisfy themselves.”
I looked over at Stacy and saw that she and Sean were listening intently to our conversation. “So you’re saying that the reason Stacy feeds so often is because of the cancer?”
“No, Grace. Stacy is capable of satisfying herself, but only for a short period of time. She doesn’t need to feed non-stop in order to feel full, and it seems her palate has developed a taste for the blood of those whom society would deem evil. These others, they feed as though their lives depend on it. They don’t stop. And…there’s one other thing.”
He paused and scratched at his arm, the sound of his nails scraping against the hard surface of his skin almost like nails against a chalkboard. I cringed.
“They’re only hunting at night.”
“What does that mean?”
Sean’s question hung in the air, heavy as Stacy began to understand. “It means that they’re allergic to the sun. Like the first one.”
“Miki,” Sean added. “She was the first one, right?”
“So he told you,” I remarked, looking at Dr. Bro and wondering what else he had told him.
“Yeah.” Sean’s face was still. Obviously I was still persona non grata.
“Miki had a severe allergy to the sun. In humans, it’s called Xeroderma Pigmentosa. It is a genetic condition, one that has been purged from our kind hundreds of generations ago.”
“So how would these new vampires get it?” Stacy sat down on the coffee table, her face tight with concern.
“The only way is if they were bitten by someone who carries the gene, and I don’t mean someone who carried it as a human,” Dr. Bro answered grimly.
I looked at Robert, and I saw the deep lines that now bracketed his mouth. “There’s no way that could happen, is there? I mean, wasn’t that first generation destroyed?”
“Most were. Some had already moved on before the rest were wiped out. It’s from them that the current generation of vampires and erlkings exist, but even those second and third generations would not have the ability to pass on any particular genetic structure to their offspring.”
“So that means-”
“That means that the first of my kind still lives,” Dr. Bro finished for all of us.
“But that’s not possible,” I argued.
“It isn’t,” Robert agreed. “I am tied to those who were there, who saw her die and whose visions have become my own. Miki is not alive.”
“Are you so sure?”
Lark had returned, her eyes nearly colorless as her feet glided down the stairs, Graham following close at her heels. She looked ethereal, dressed in a simple white gown, her long dark hair hanging loosely down her shoulder. She looked like an angel.
She looked like her mother.
“Are you so sure that Miki is dead? That she died as the visions say she did?”
Robert nodded furiously, angry that his sister would dare questions what he believed to be the truth. “I have seen the events through several eyes, Lark. They do not change, regardless of the perspective.”
“Yes, you’ve seen it through the eyes of Llehmai, Grandmère, Mother, and even Sam. But who was it that killed her? Whose vision did you not see?”
Even with the seven of us gathered there, there was no doubt whose vision had been left out. And I felt myself collapse inward as
the piles of deceit kept building, layering one atop of the other.
“It always comes back to her, doesn’t it?” I whispered.
“What are you trying to imply, Lark?” Robert growled, his arm wrapping around my shoulder and pulling me against him in an effort to comfort me.
“I’m saying that Avi was the one who learned about Miki’s illness. She was the one who figured it out, and she was the one who could take away life without actually doing so. What we’ve seen wasn’t what the person who killed her saw, and that’s something that we never questioned. Why?”
“Because of what we are. If we cannot trust each other, then how can we expect the humans to?”
Robert’s voice stilled as he heard his own words echo around us. “And that’s our fatal flaw, isn’t it? We trust what we tell each other. It’s why I believed Grandmère when she showed me the two outcomes if I chose to come to Heath with Mother or if I remained behind in England as I had planned. It’s why I never questioned Mother about Grace.
“Oh God, what a fool I’ve been.”
“You and me both, brother,” Lark said softly. “I thought that by keeping Mother’s secret about Grace that I was somehow protecting her and you. I didn’t understand that I was destroying myself by doing so.”
“I want to know,” I broke in, “why my mother would’ve been the one to keep Miki alive?”
My mind was open, my head clear, and only one thought, one memory was allowed to show itself as both Robert and Lark looked at me and realized that there was no point left in hiding the truth.
“You already know,” Lark answered first.
“Mrs. Deovolente told you the truth about your mother, Grace.” Robert’s face was stark. I had one pillar left within me that remained standing. One last pillar of hope. And as he began to speak, I felt it begin to crumble.
“The first circle of angels is the purest of us all. They were created directly from the light of God, to be his own rays of light between Earth and Heaven. But light cannot exist without hands to point them out, and eyes to seek them out. Humans needed a way to do this, and so the second circle of angels was born, created from the very marrow of those that came before them.
“Three more circles followed, each from the heart of the one prior, until the numbers were nearing a thousand. Mankind had flowered as a crop, and they spread over the earth in fields. But with the gift of life, human and otherwise, there must also be the price of death.
“Death was the only one who could touch both Heaven and Hell, life and death, good and evil. Death had to be the one who could balance both and never let its darkness or power taint it. Avi was created for that purpose.
"She was also the first female of our kind. Humans never knew she was a woman; they still don’t. And, in truth, many angels still do not know. For thousands of years, she existed in two worlds; one where she was adored by those who saw her as the light; the other where she was despised and revered for her darkness. Your mother was Death, Grace.”
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to hear this truth, because if it was true then maybe what Mrs. Deovolente said about inheriting the call was also true.
“It isn’t,” Robert assured me. “I would not have received my call if it were. You are not meant to take her place. You are not meant to take mine.”
“Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait. You guys are talking about this stuff like it’s all freaking normal and crap. What exactly is this first circle, Heaven and Hell Death crap?” Sean’s agitated confusion mirrored my own, and I looked at Robert, waiting for an answer.
“I think we’ve just let the cat out of the bag.”
“There isn’t a bag big enough for that cat,” I heart Graham snort.
“Sean, Lark and I aren’t human. We’re not erlkings either.” Robert’s voice was calm, but he stood with a purpose and I moved away. The sound of his shirt slicing open, and the ruffling of silken feathers in the still air around him was like the exploding of a cannon compared to the silence that filled the living room.
“You’re a vulture?”
Graham hooted. I turned to glare at him and he covered his mouth with his hand, enjoying the fact that he hadn’t been the only one to compare Robert to a bird.
“No, Sean. I’m not a vulture, but I do pick on the dead,” Robert said darkly.
“Tell me about it,” Dr. Bro chuckled.
“Ditto,” Stacy added.
“Oh, for the love of—we’re angels, Sean,” Lark finally informed him, exasperated. “Not birds, not half-bird, half-human hybrids, not super-human mutants, not science experiments gone wrong, and could you please stop running through every comic book you’ve ever read trying to find some kind of alternate explanation?” She grabbed her head and shook it with annoyance.
“You-you were reading my thoughts?” Sean stumbled at the revelation, and Stacy reached out a hand to steady him.
“Thought. I was reading your thought.”
“Wow. So, like, if I took you to my girlfriend’s house, could you go into her brain and tell me if she’s not giving it up because I-”
“Aaaand that’s enough of that,” Graham interjected, putting himself between his wife and an almost too eager Sean. “Dude, you were just about to ask my wife if she’d spy on your girlfriend. That’s a hell no in my book. She’s not here to serve you, alright, so back off.”
Sean looked at Graham and understood immediately, the hierarchy of high school still having sway apparently. “Alright man, it’s cool. Sorry.”
Graham nodded, and then turned to look at me sitting on the armrest of the couch. “Look, are we forgetting something here? Robert just revealed that Grace’s mom was the big D, and Mrs. Deo-whatever knew. How the hell did she know that?”
“She knew it because she was an EP,” I told him before realizing that everyone was now staring at me.
“An extra-terrestrial?” Sean’s question brought out a collective groan from all of us.
Stacy’s eyes rolled in her head and she took Sean by the arm to drag him to an empty corner, her voice soft, yet not quiet enough to not carry over to us. “Not an ET, you idiot. EP. Electus Patronus. It’s like their human guardian, the person who makes sure that their cover doesn’t get blown. And speaking of which, where the hell are yours?” She looked at Lark and Robert and her brow wrinkled with confusion. “You guys don’t have any. Why?”
Lark sighed. “Angels inherit their EPs. We have a few loyal friends who’ve chosen to take on the roles, but we don’t have any to inherit.”
“Why?”
Lark looked at her brother and waited for his nod, permission to explain why they had no guardians of their own. “Our grandfather is of the first circle. Our grandmère is of the second. EPs come directly from the paternal side of the family, but since there are no EPs for the first circle they have none to hand down. The males of the second circle are the creators of the EP. They found them, humans willing to die to protect the angels, and made them their pets.”
“So you can’t go and get your own?” Sean asked.
“Hey, I’m an EP. I look after you and protect you,” Graham spoke up.
“Well then that makes me one, too,” Stacy said with a proud grin.
“Hey, I want to be one, too! I can kick ass, you know!”
Robert chuckled. “It looks like we inherited some EPs after all, only this time they came from a human.”
Lark laughed, the sound full and rich, and soon everyone was joining her. Well…almost everyone. My head was filled with the knowledge that my mother had been what Robert is now. And despite Robert’s insistence, I did not believe for a single second that Mrs. Deovolente would tell me the truth about what my mother was and then lie about everything else. There was no reason for it.
My mother was Death. And because of that, she had seen her death, as well as my own. She had done nothing to prevent it, and instead encouraged it and involved other people including Dad and Ameila, Robert and Lark. I didn’t think it w
as possible to, but while the people I loved and cared about laughed around me, enjoying yet another joke about the humor of their situation, I was searing with the raw hatred of the one person who I had spent the past ten years praying would come back.
I closed my eyes and felt the burn of my lids as my thoughts turned dark and vengeful. I hope you’re burning in Hell.
***
Two days after my “death”, my obituary appeared in the local newspaper. Sean had brought it when he came by to visit with Stacy. My senior year photo was there in black and white, framed in a decorative print box that I was certain cost more than Dad should have spent. It called me the beloved daughter of James and Abigail Shelley, and said that I had been survived by a younger brother, Matthew, and a step-mother, Janice.
There was no mention of Robert and Dad still didn’t know that I was alive.
Two days after my obituary was printed, they held my funeral. I wanted to attend. Some macabre curiosity made me want to see just how many people didn’t show up. But, more than I wanted to go, I didn’t.
I didn’t want to see Dad’s face, or see the phony grief on Robert’s. I didn’t want to see the police officers who would be there, trying to best figure out how to broach the topic of my death once more without insulting or distressing my dad. And more than that, I didn’t want to go because I didn’t want to face the death that loomed ever ahead.
Robert, Lark, and Graham went. It was meant to be a show of solidarity for Dad, who would no doubt embrace Lark and shed a tear or two with Graham, but who would most likely give Robert the cold shoulder. I watched them pile up into Graham’s old Buick and drive off, Stacy remaining with me once more, ever the bodyguard.
The night before, Robert had insisted that Stacy feed to prevent any chance of distraction while he was away. The funeral was being held nearly an hour away by car, and while Robert would be able to arrive in half that time, if not less, he did not want there to be a need.
Stacy couldn’t help but smirk at the idea of Robert ordering her to actually eat someone, but kept a wise silence and left, returning before dawn to fill her role as best she could. I was still asleep while all of this was happening, too exhausted after too many nights without sleep to stay up and wait for her.