by L. C. Davis
Such a lack of decorum normally wouldn't have been tolerated, but it was Prentice, after all, and Emily had always gotten away with everything. For what was supposedly a passionate kiss, she made a lot of effort to keep her eyes open through it so she could glare at me.
I turned away and pretended to have a newly awakened interest in the wallpaper rather than giving her the satisfaction of reacting. Someone tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around to see that it was my sister, Jennifer. She looked pretty much how I imagined an older female version of me would, only she was tall and willowy. She scowled down at me, her blue eyes narrowed in disgust, but at least she noticed me.
"Hi, Jen," I said in a feeble attempt to break the ice.
"I'm only talking to you because Grandpa Hugh wants to see you," she said firmly.
Well, at least someone did. My heart rested a bit easier knowing he was still alive. I didn't think Prentice would keep his death from me, but who knew what the pod person who had taken over his body was capable of?
Oh wait, I did. Torture, murder and mayhem, that's what.
"He's in his room," she said impatiently.
I glanced back at Prentice, who was still busy being worshiped. "Okay, thanks," I said, walking past Jen. I knew if I waited around for permission to leave the answer would be no.
I knocked softly on Grandpa Hugh's door. No answer came and my heart skipped a beat. What if I was too late? He had been pale and sickly when I left. Maybe he had taken a turn for the worse. I opened the door and stopped short at the sight of him.
He was hooked up to a heart monitor and oxygen tubes. He was either sleeping or barely conscious and I could hear his breath rattling as his chest rose and fell ever so slightly.
"Grandpa Hugh?" I ventured, taking another step inside to close the door.
The sound made him jolt and he lifted his head. His hand trembled as he held the oxygen tubes to his face. "Arthur?"
Without wasting a moment, I hobbled to his bedside as best I could. "I'm here, Grandpa. Prentice just brought me back," I said shakily. "Jenn said you wanted to see me?"
I knew he probably wanted to lecture me or at the very least make sure he knew how ashamed he was of my selfish antics, but it didn't matter. Just seeing him and knowing that he was alive was a soothing balm to my heart's many wounds. As long as Grandpa Hugh was alive, no matter how horrible or confusing this world became, there was something in it that made sense. Something I could rely on.
Of course, he had that effect on us all. He was just the only person who had ever thought fondly of me in return.
His hand searched the air before I grasped it. "Is he here?"
"Prentice? No, he's out in the lobby. Should I go get him?"
"No," he said with sudden intensity, tightening his grasp on my hand. "Stay. There isn't much time before they take you."
"Take me?" My heart faltered. "Where?"
His eyes were clouded but they cleared momentarily to reveal a sadness so great I thought it might swallow us both whole. "I'm so sorry, my boy," he said in one long, rattling breath. He patted my hand sympathetically. "If I could stop it I would, but he's already taken so much. I didn't even notice until it was too late to do anything. There's more of him and less of me each day. The more my life force erodes, the stronger his becomes."
"What are you talking about?" I asked, terrified. I had never seen him like this. Even in his advanced age, Grandpa Hugh had always maintained his strength, his authority. This was the first time I had ever seen him afraid and I wasn't entirely sure that he was aware of what he was saying. Could dementia set in so quickly?
When he didn't answer me, I pressed on with, "Who's taking life force from you?" My blood ran cold as my mind raised an answer to my own question. "Prentice?"
He shook his head faintly. "He's not Prentice. Not anymore."
I gulped. Somehow I had deluded myself into thinking that confirmation would be a relief. It wasn't.
"Grandpa, I know about the blood," I ventured. "I know that you and Prentice aren't like the others, that you're still alive. That's why you're different, isn't it?"
Surprise registered on his face, but he nodded vaguely. "He told you that?"
"Yes. He gave me a transfusion of his blood after the accident."
His eyes widened in a way I could only equate with pure horror and he grasped the sleeve of my shirt, pulling me in. "His blood is in you, child?"
"Yeah," I said warily. "You can't smell it? He can."
He murmured something unintelligible under his breath and I worried that I'd sent him over the edge. "He said he'd done it before, though, when I was little," I added, trying to soothe him. "Nothing happened then."
That didn't calm him as I had hoped. He let go of my arm and his head fell back against the pillows, knocking the oxygen tube loose. I leaned over and quickly fixed it. "Be careful, Grandpa," I pleaded.
"Listen to me carefully, Arthur," he commanded. For a moment, he was his old self again, authoritative and earnest. "Your salvation may rest in your cousin's blasphemous actions. There may be hope yet."
My heart sank at the mention of my salvation. "Grandpa, I don't want to become a hunter. I'm sorry. I know I'm a disappointment, but I'm not like you or Prentice. I know I won't survive the transition as myself."
"I'm talking about the salvation of your humanity," he said in a ragged voice. "Prentice has tainted your body with his blood, but there may be hope for your soul yet. You must be human to wake from the earth as a proper vessel for the Patriarch."
"So the others really are gone," I whispered. It was a truth I had known all my life, but hearing the head of the Family himself confirm it was still a shock. "The Patriarch is possessing him, isn't he?"
"It's complicated with Prentice," he said, taking on a distant look. "He's not a normal hunter."
"Neither are you, according to him."
He chuckled. "Prentice and I are different creatures, despite what he thinks. I was chosen as a conduit of the Patriarch's consciousness, allowed to maintain my own free will insofar as it didn't interfere with his own. I am his emissary on earth, as my grandfather was before me."
I swallowed hard. "So what does that make Prentice?"
He watched me for a moment as if deciding whether I could handle the truth. Ultimately, the answer was no. "I can't say this for certain, because I've never known a leader insolent enough to fathom the act of blasphemy Prentice inflicted upon you not only once, but twice, but I believe you're different, too. I don't think you'll come back the same way the others do."
"You mean I'll be like you and Prentice?" I asked with cautious optimism.
"No. When you go to the grave, you will wake as a creature that is neither fully hunter nor fully human."
"But I'll be myself?" I pressed.
He watched me for a moment and his look of pity was wounding. "Not in the manner you hope, I'm afraid."
The cryptic answers were making me more confused than ever. "When you found out about the transfusion, you said there was hope for my salvation. What hope is there if I have no choice but to go through ascension and become a hunter?"
"There is hope in the sense that although you may wake as someone you don't recognize, in a way you may become more yourself than you ever were," he murmured. "The fact that Prentice has done this is also cause for hope that the Patriarch has not fully consumed him, not yet."
"Why would he do that?" I asked, shivering. "He didn't consume you."
"The Patriarch may not have bound my will, but it is a decision I'm sure he has come to regret," he said in a wry tone. "As I said, Prentice and I are not the same. He has been chosen as a host for the Patriarch's consciousness, destined to serve as his vessel here on earth."
My eyes widened in horror. "How can there be hope if Prentice is being possessed by the Patriarch?"
"As long as there is free will, there is always hope, even against the cosmic forces that manipulate us like pawns," he murmured. "His blasphemy, even i
n the midst of infusion with the Patriarch's consciousness and life force, gives me a reason to hope that he can still make his own decisions."
"So you're saying that some part of Prentice is still in there?" I asked, afraid to dare to hope once more.
"Put simply, yes. And if there is anything human in him that has survived through the transition process, it is a weakness that can be exploited," he said, taking on a dark, gravelly tone. "The vessel can be broken."
His words sent a shiver down my spine, snatching away the hope he had given me moments before. "You can stop him, Arthur," he whispered urgently. "You can fulfill the premonition I was given from the moment of your birth, my very own act of blasphemy."
"Your blasphemy?" I frowned as realization slowly dawned on me. "You mean when you gave me my name?"
"Yes. I was told long ago that you, a hunter child born weaker than all the rest in body but not in mind, had been given a spiritual gift capable of redeeming the sins of all the Patriarch's wretched children," he said in a fervent whisper. "I didn't understand her words then, but now I do. Our existence, our very creation is blasphemy perpetuated by our divine Patriarch against himself in the name of grief."
He was gripping my wrist so tightly I was beginning to lose sensation in my hand. I tried to pull away but he held me tighter. "You're hurting me, Grandpa."
Maybe he really had lost his mind.
"She was right. Our hope lies in you."
"Who was right?" I asked, frowning.
He ignored me. "She told me that once the possession is complete, within the very first moments of the sunrise before the hunter's moon, the Patriarch would be fully vulnerable due to his vessel's sin," he said with a wild look in his eyes. "In those few moments, both Prentice and the Patriarch can be slain."
I listened in horror as he spoke. "He's your grandson."
"He's the Patriarch's vessel now," he said coldly. "Centuries of bitterness have warped him as the continual cycle of revenge against those who slew his beloved son has yet to produce his desired outcome. He's set his mind on the ultimate revenge and he won't rest until the Kingdom of Night has been destroyed completely and the Kingdom of the Sun along with it. Prentice may only be a pawn, but he is one that must be sacrificed to preserve the rest of the board."
"What do you expect me to do?" I asked shakily. "What role could I possibly play in this?"
"Do you know why you were named Arthur, boy?"
I shook my head. I knew it was a source of great tension among the Family, but no one would ever tell me why.
"Arthur was the name of the Patriarch's beloved son, the one slain by the wolves," he said calmly. "It isn't common knowledge as the name has been redacted in our legend and only appears in the Apocrypha of the wolves."
"Why would you give me a name like that?" I asked, equally confused and hurt.
"Because Arthur was both the Patriarch's greatest joy and his greatest weakness," he murmured. "When you were born, the moon appeared to me in a dream and when she told me what you were to be called, I balked. Even moreso when she told me that you were to serve a special purpose one day alongside the hybrid prince. I thought it was madness then, but when all that she showed me within the vision has come to pass over the years, I began to take her seriously. I can see that you have lived up to your name in ways I never even imagined."
"The moon is the one who told you what to name me?" I cried.
"The light of truth shines as brightly from one source as it does from another," he replied, watching me carefully. "You know I'm right, beyond the resistance. From the time you were little, you saw our kind through an objective lens that took me centuries to cultivate. You know he must be stopped."
"No!" I screamed at him for the first time in my life. Even if he was right--and something in me knew he was--I could never fall in line with his plan. "A world that needs Prentice to die in order to keep turning isn't a world worth saving. Not to me."
His disappointment showed clearly on his face. "Fortunately for us all, you won't have a choice in the matter. Simply by existing, you fulfill your role in her divine plan."
"This is why you made the treaty, isn't it?" I asked, standing. "All this time I thought you were just trying to make us better, but you weren't. You just stopped the hunting so the Patriarch would be furious and come down when he was at his weakest, so the fucking moon could destroy him."
His silence told me I wasn't far off. I laughed, shaking my head. "Unbelievable. My whole life you praised me, told me I was special for not being a pawn. Now you're just trying to make me a pawn for some moon goddess who preyed on your own self-hatred."
He narrowed his eyes. "Watch your tongue, boy."
"No! You're no different from the rest of them," I yelled. "If anything, you have even less excuse. The Patriarch may not have hollowed you out, but the Matriarch sure as hell did a good job. Did you ever even love me? My whole life, thinking you and Prentice gave a damn about me made it easier to deal with everyone else hating me, but you didn't. All you saw when you looked at me was the fulfillment of some prophecy that would end your self-inflicted misery!"
The door swung open before he could answer and my mother stepped into the room with Uncle Ezra. "What's going on here?" she demanded. "What's all this yelling?"
Grandpa Hugh returned to his passive state and looked away.
"Is he bothering you, father?" asked Uncle Ezra.
"It's fine," he said weakly. "The boy is just tired from his ordeal."
"Ordeal," Uncle Ezra muttered. "That's one way to put destroying months of work and putting the entire Family at risk. How dare you speak to our leader that way?" He demanded, shoving me against the wall.
"Ezra, please," Grandpa Hugh protested faintly.
Uncle Ezra glanced over his shoulder before grabbing me by the arm and dragging me out of the room. As soon as we were out of earshot, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and flung me face-first into the wall. My nose made a sickening crack as it collided with a stud in the wall and flakes of drywall fell into my eyes.
I barely had time for a bloody sniffle before he grabbed the back of my jacket and arm and threw me to the floor. I managed to put an arm up to protect my face before my skull bounced off the tile and my bottom right canine split my lip on impact.
"Who the fuck do you think you are talking to your elder like that, you little fat fuck?" Uncle Ezra snarled, looming over me. Blocking my face was difficult without the proper orientation to know which way was up. I could see him raise his leg, ready to introduce his steel-toed boot to my ribs.
"What's going on here?" Prentice's voice rang through the hall. Uncle Ezra froze, his leg still raised. He looked like a bully that had just been caught on the playground.
"I was just teaching the boy some manners since his pa is gone," he said, stepping back. "He was disrespecting the old man."
"And I'm sure he would find that term so respectful," Prentice said, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he approached us. He grabbed Ezra by the collar and shoved him away from me unceremoniously before landing a solid punch that broke his nose on impact. "Per his mother's request, the boy's care and discipline have been entrusted to me. Perhaps you should focus on reigning in your own child's behavior because at present she happens to be sobbing her eyes out because I refuse to buy her a yacht to look nice in the background of her selfies."
Uncle Ezra staggered back, sputtering in confusion as he covered his face. Blood poured through his fingertips. The adults had never treated Prentice like a kid, even when he was one, bit his overt aggression towards an elder was still nothing short of shocking. Ezra ran off with his tail between his legs and Prentice knelt down beside me.
"Are you alright?" he asked with a surprising amount of concern for someone who had just tortured me for months on end. He dabbed at my nose with the edge of his pristine white sleeve and winced. "We'd better get that set right away."
"You hit him," I said in disbelief, still reeling from the conversation wi
th Grandpa Hugh that now seemed so long ago. My voice sounded like I was in the throes of the flu.
"Of course I hit him," he said sharply, looking me over. "The bastard's lucky that's all I did. If your nose heals crooked, I'm going to make sure that his matches."
"He's your father-in-law," I protested.
"Not quite," he murmured, gently wiping off the drywall flakes around my eyes. "Not ever if his branch of the family tree keeps producing such rotten fruit. Did he hurt you anywhere else?"
I shook my head pathetically.
He muttered something unintelligible and pulled me to my feet. "Can you walk?"
"Yes," I said quickly, afraid that he'd carry me again if I couldn't. I didn't need one more reason for the rest of the family to think poorly of me, or to remind them that I was gay.
Prentice put an arm around my shoulder and hurriedly led me into the nearest bathroom. He closed and locked the door before lifting me onto the counter like I weighed nothing. Grabbing a big wad of paper towels, he wet them and started to gently clean the blood off my nose.
"What happened back there?"
It was a shock that he even cared. "I yelled at Grandpa Hugh," I admitted sheepishly.
He froze and stared at me in disbelief. "You can tell me the truth, you know. I'll believe you."
"I am," I said. Now that the shock had worn off, I was gravely disappointed in myself. Removed from the situation, I was left to conclude that our grandfather really was going senile. The things he was saying were just too insane for any other explanation to make sense.
"What did he do?" Prentice asked, resuming his task. "You'd never yell at anyone without a reason, especially not him. What was it?"
I swallowed hard. Supposedly mind control didn't work on hunters, but maybe I was the exception. I certainly felt compelled to tell him the truth. Then again, maybe our close proximity was just messing with my head. "He was saying weird things," I admitted. "It scared me, but looking back I think his mind is just slipping. I feel awful."
He frowned slightly without breaking his focus. "What sorts of things?" he asked casually.