Pure Healing

by Aja James

  Rites of Passage: decadal three-day trial in which six chosen unmated, qualified Pure-males undergo three final tests to apply as the Healer’s Consort. The first day tests the Pure-males’ strength and vitality. The second day tests their endurance for pain and ability to heal. The third day tests their sexual compatibility with the Healer.

  Rogue: lone vampire who does not belong to an organized vampire society or Hive.

  The Royal Zodiac: twelve-member collective of the Elite, the Circlet and the Queen of the Pure Ones. Sacred Laws: One, thou shalt protect the purity, innocence and goodness of humankind and the Universal Balance to which all souls contribute. Two, thou shalt maintain the secrecy of the Race. And three, thou shalt not engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is not thy Eternal Mate. Also known as the Cardinal Rule.

  Sanctuary: physical seat or residence of the Healer during the time she presides over the Jade Lotus Society.

  Service: the contract between the Healer of the Race and her Consort. The Consort’s provision of Nourishment to the Healer over the course of the thirty-day Phoenix Cycle.

  Shield: referred to as the base of the Royal Zodiac, wherever it may be. Not necessarily a physical location.

  Sustenance: the strength that Mated Pure-Males take from the Pure-females’ spirit. Once Mated, the Puremale becomes dependent upon the Pure-female for sustaining his life. If his Mate dies before him, he too will perish. In equal exchange, the Pure-male provides Nourishment. See Nourishment.

  Universal Balance: underlying order that is essential for the continuation of time. The idea that everything exists in cycles or pairs – good and evil, darkness and light, past and future, right and wrong, male and female, life and death, etc. Disruption to this balance leads to destruction, chaos, and eventually, the implosion of time and space.

  Vampire: supernatural being who prefers to live in the night and who gathers energy and prolongs his/her life by feeding off the blood, and sometimes souls, of others. Vampires are made, not born. Some vampires are Pure Ones who have chosen Darkness rather than death after they break the Cardinal Rule. See also Glossary in Dark Longing.

  Zodiac Prophesies: events yet to come, foretold by the Seer of the Pure Ones through the Orb of Prophesies.

  Zodiac Scrolls: events past, recorded by the Scribe of the Pure Ones.

  Preview for Dark Longing

  Present day. New York, NY. “Mr. D’Angelo, you may come in now,” the nurse said as she exited the hospice room, pushing a rolling laundry basket of used bed linen and towels.

  Gabriel quietly thanked the nurse, his shaggy dark hair shielding his expression, his head and eyes slightly lowered, further hiding his face. Though he knew that he was being rude, he was unable to reciprocate her small smile of encouragement he caught through the filter of his lashes. Instead, he acknowledged her sympathy with a barely perceptible nod and shuffled into the dimly-lit sterilized room after she passed by, closing the door behind him.

  As if the click of the shutting door sent a buzz of electricity through his body, turning him on, Gabriel abruptly raised his head and greeted the woman in the mechanical twin bed with a beaming smile.

  “Hey beautiful,” he said as he moved closer to sit in the deep-seated armchair by her side. “You’re looking better today.”

  “Hey yourself, handsome,” the woman bantered back, her eyes sparkling with happiness at the sight of him. Though her voice was barely a whisper, her tone vibrated with good humor.

  As if she weren’t dying of cancer.

  Gabriel determinedly tucked away the dark thought in a remote corner of his mind. He pulled out a folded piece of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket and revealed colorful scribbles before her eyes.

  “A gift from Benji,” he explained, helping her to raise her head a little bit from the stack of pillows, his warm palm cradling the back of her head with care.

  Had her skull always been so small, so fragile? Like egg shells.

  The images and colors blurred together in front of her eyes, no longer able to see with clarity, only recognizing light and shadows. Nevertheless, she proudly proclaimed, “Another masterpiece. Our little man is an artistic genius. I always knew he would take after you.”

  “It’s heaven,” Gabriel interpreted the drawing for her so she could picture it in her still vivid imagination. “There’s a red brick house with a chimney and smoke coming out of it in puffs as big as clouds. A snowman with the scarf you knit for me wrapped snugly around his neck. You’re kneeling down in front pinning the carrot nose on his face. I’m standing on your right side not offering much help. Benji’s on your left holding three sticks of marshmallows. He told me to tell you that this is the house he built for you in heaven.”

  Having painstakingly related the message from their five-year-old son, Gabriel exhaled deeply, silently, as if releasing a great burden that had been

  suffocating his lungs. He hoped she didn’t notice how his hands shook, how his voice grew deeper with barely contained anguish.

  “He built me a house,” she mused, using what little strength she had to lift her hand an inch to smooth her thumb over a corner of the drawing. “How did I get so lucky? To be sandwiched between the two most wonderful men in the world? Benji has indeed depicted the heaven within my heart.”

  She turned slightly toward him, he helped her the rest of the way until she could look upon him fully. After a long silence, he teased, “Do I have mustard on my face? I ate a Crif Dog on my way here.” Selfconsciously, he swiped at his lips and chin, trying to avoid her penetrating gaze.

  “Don’t hide,” she said softly. “Let me look at you. One of my biggest regrets is that I haven’t gotten a real good look at you in all the years we’ve known each other. And now my eyesight is misbehaving and I have to concentrate extra hard to see and memorize everything I’ve…”

  “Don’t,” he interrupted when he saw the sheen of tears in her eyes. He didn’t want to hear about her regrets. He didn’t want her to blame herself for a past that could not be changed.

  But she took a deep breath and stubbornly pushed on. “Everything I’ve stupidly taken for granted for so long.” She wiggled a finger and he was instantly there, holding her hand in both of his, ever in tune with her needs. But alas, she had never tended to his needs, never considered his feelings and desires. Until it was too late. Selfishness was yet another regret in the long list of sins for which she wished she had the time to atone.

  “Have I ever told you that you are the most beautiful man I have ever known?” she told him with a slight curl at the corners of her lips. When she’d been well, this would have been her most charming, most saucy, most flirtatious come-hither smile. Now it was a mere shadow of a thought of a smile.

  “You don’t have to say that,” he returned, shaking his head a little with disbelief. He didn’t know how much more of her revelations he could take. It was all he could do to hold back the grief, to pull a mask of hope and cheerfulness over his countenance when, inside, he was frozen with despair.

  “There are many things I must say before I go,” she insisted, her voice surprisingly firm despite the raspy belabored edge. “You must hear them.”

  When he started to shake his head again, she said, “No. Please let me say them. There isn’t much time.”

  “You’re tired,” he said, switching topics desperately. “It’s time to rest.”

  She whimpered in distress when he tried to pull away, a tear leaking out of the corner of her eye. “Don’t go. I can’t… sleep in peace if I don’t tell you.” Desperately, she clung to his hand with her last bit of strength, her breathing becoming more ragged from the exertion.

  “I’m here,” he assured her, relenting to her request, infusing warmth into her icy-cold hand by enfolding it completely within both of his. “I won’t leave you.”

  She took a shuddering breath, and her eyes shut immediately, as if she were preserving her energy to speak and keeping them open would have cost too much.
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br />   “I love you,” she stated clearly, her voice full and resounding in the silent room. In that moment while she spoke, even the persistent whirring from the radiator by the window could no longer be heard. Time stood still.

  Gabriel squeezed his eyes shut as well, clenching his jaw through a wave of pain that rose like acid in his throat.

  “I’m sorry I never told you,” she continued, “I’m sorry for many things. Countless things. Sorry for being blind and foolish. For my misguided

  stubbornness. For making you carry my burdens. For being so selfish. For hurting you unforgivably…”

  “Stop,” he beseeched her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze, as much pressure as he dared exert on her brittle bones.

  “No,” she answered strongly and took a deep breath for fortification. “Indulge my selfishness one last time.”

  With visible effort, she peeled open her eyes, as if raising the heavy lids required strength equal to raising a castle drawbridge. Her pale blue eyes glittering with unshed tears – from anger, frustration or remorse, he could not tell – she pierced straight into his soul with their laser lights.

  “I want Benji to have a mother.”

  Gabriel sucked in a gulp of air and would have interrupted her if not for the quick, resolute shake of her head.

  “It is my last request,” she told him firmly. “I have all the necessary paperwork prepared.”

  Gabriel sat straight suddenly as if lightning lit his veins afire.

  “Her name is Nana Chastain.”

  He’d heard of her, but he had never met her. In the years since the “incident,” his wife had sometimes spoken of this Nana with great affection and respect. But Gabriel knew nothing of his wife’s friend and confidante, didn’t even know how they met, or anything about who she was. Other than his wife’s words, there was never even a trace of physical evidence proving that Ms. Chastain’s existence wasn’t simply imaginary.

  As Gabriel’s ears rang with inner alarm, his wife went on, “I want you and Nana to raise Benji together. I know Benji will love her madly if he doesn’t already.”

  What? When had their son met this mysterious woman?

  “Do it for Benji,” his wife implored, “Do it for me.” She didn’t add – do it for yourself.

  Maybe those closest to death had the most insight to life. Somehow she knew that Nana Chastain was exactly what Gabriel needed to rejoin the living. All the time, energy and emotion he’d wasted on her over the years had worn him down just as surely as disease had worn her down. If not for Benji, she thought he would have gladly, disastrously, chosen to join her in the afterlife.

  “Have I a choice?” her husband whispered, his voice shaking, his head bent, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He already knew the answer. She had made her decision, and she was Benji’s mother.

  She sighed, hearing the reluctant acceptance in his words, and the strength all at once seemed to seep out of her, her eyes closing again on their own volition, her hand going limp in his grasp.

  “You’ll like her,” she promised, her voice so soft he could barely hear her over the radiator.

  Time marched onward.

  *** *** *** ***

  Inanna watched the couple through the thin wall of the hospice, seeing clearly every hair, every eye-lash.

  For the most part, her unique ability could be likened to infrared vision, but it was much more powerful than that: she could see through walls as if they were entirely transparent, and she could zoom distant objects into focus to the finest detail.

  His chin-length hair hid most of his expression, but Inanna understood the exchange between husband and wife as if she’d heard every word. She knew what was being discussed; Olivia had told her late last night after Gabriel had taken Benji home.

  Benji. Benjamin. Inanna’s new son. Human son.

  How did a four-thousand year-old vampire get into this predicament?

  Because she was greedy, that’s how. She’d fallen in love with the little boy and his bouncy, blond curls at first sight. And first sight was before he had any hair, right after he was delivered, in fact, at New YorkPresbyterian Morgan Stanley-Komansky Children's Hospital.

  But who was she kidding, Inanna silently chided herself. She wasn’t just in love with the boy. She was head over heels in lust with the husband.

  Gabriel D’Angelo.

  Inanna turned away from the hospice room and walked briskly outside toward her sun-proofed gunmetal Lamborghini Aventador. Folding her long limbs into the vehicle, she fired up the ignition and raced out of the hospice parking lot, into the pitch-black night.

  She would grant husband and wife one last night together before collecting on Olivia’s Blood-Contract. And fulfilling her own.