The Veil

by Stuart Meczes

  Everything changed in my fourth year as a Guardian.

  It was 2006. I’d been promoted to Huntmaster of Silence after Jason Baker, the Guardian who’d originally bought me into the fold died from Heptacemia after he got bitten clearing a Bloodling nest. It was no ones’ fault – unless you count the bastard who bit him and we gave instant justice to, of course – just one of those terrible things that happens from time to time. But Jason was my friend and leader, and I took his death hard. I started drinkin’ and doing more drugs than I had before, and it wasn’t long before I became cloudy during missions. Nothing too obvious, just my reactions weren’t quite as fast, and I’d miss the target sometimes when taking shots with my marbles.

  Anyway, this was around the time that new Awakenings had taken a nosedive, so any premonitions that the local Coven received were taken very seriously. When news arrived of an imminent Awakening, the Sage tasked me with the infiltration. I was shocked when I was told that the person I was infiltrating was a catcher for the Longhorns. I was completely floored when I was handed a file with the target’s name and picture inside. When I opened it, I saw a man with thinning blonde hair covered by his father’s old Stetson hat and blue eyes that always seemed to be half closed as if he was about to fall asleep.

  It was Kieran Delagio.

  I couldn’t believe it. The odds of a new Awakening even being in Austin were slim, considering the rate at which they were slowin’ down; the odds that out of the eight-hundred-thousand that were livin’ there that it would be my old friend were massive. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. After all those years of lost contact, Delagio was about to become part of my new world. It was strange – in one way I was so happy to know that I could finally speak and see him again, but in another way I was sad – Delagio was making a name for him in baseball, and that would all be over for him in a flash, just as it had been over for me.

  Still, there was no way that we could leave Delagio to his own thing; it was and still is a rule that all new Awakenings have to be approached. Besides, the longer he was on his own without contact, the more vulnerable he was to an attack. The Soldiers of Sorrow were thrivin’ at this point, and Delagio was livin’ way too close to a Veil section to go unnoticed. He wouldn’t have lasted a week if we’d left him unprotected.

  So one evenin’ I went to his house when I knew he was alone. He’d graduated college and was livin’ with a couple guys from the baseball team in a shared apartment. When he opened the door to me, his face was so shocked. But Del man, he was never one to hold grudges, and within’ five minutes I was sittin’ on his couch and we was catchin’ up. He told me how he’d tried to find me but it was like I’d vanished off the face of the earth, that even my folks’d had no clue where I was. Of course they’d been charmed into automatically forgettin’ my whereabouts whenever they were asked.

  I was sad to hear that not long after I’d joined the Alliance, Del’s ma had left his pa for some ex-bodybuilder with a couple of dollars behind him, and that it’d driven Delagio senior to finish himself off with the bottle. He told me how he’d sunk into a bit of a depression after losing both my friendship and his pa so close together. I felt awful that I hadn’t been there for him when he’d needed me the most, that as usual I’d been so wrapped up with my own life, that I hadn’t even bothered to check up on him beyond his baseball stats. His ma had taken the house from the dissolvin’ of his pa’ assets, and all he had been left with was a couple thousand dollars and his pa’s old Stetson.

  We carried on catchin’ up for a while and then it was time for me to bite the bullet and tell him the full reason that I’d come knockin’ on his door after four years. I backed up my words by pulling all the signed baseballs he had on his mantle off with my mind, spinning them around us and then setting them back one by one in their stands. I remember that he just stared at me opened mouthed, and then his face broke into this massive, excited smile. He asked me to take him to Blackwall. Good old Del was always just so acceptin.’

  I wish I’d been more like that.

  That void in my life vanished the day that Delagio joined the Alliance. We fell back into our friendship like there hadn’t been a four-year gap. Like me, Del’s gift was telekinesis. I became his personal mentor, pushing him hard and trainin’ him. Not just with his gift, but all aspects of being a Guardian. I wanted him to become one of the best, so that when it was time for him to officially join, he would nail the Trials of the Chosen at the international Prolesium event, and choose to be placed in Silence under me.

  He came seventh.

  As difficult as it is for me to say, the hard truth is that Delagio was an average Guardian at best. He always tried his hardest, but he just didn’t have the skill to be in a team like Silence. I should never have requested him to join…as always it was a completely selfish action. All I could think about was us being a team again, like we’d always been.

  The other problem was that although everythin’ was back the way it should have been, I still couldn’t shake my addictions. That monkey was well and truly on my back. So I kept goin’ out to drink, doing drugs and sleeping with chicks. The first time, I invited Del with me. I tried to hide the drugs, but he caught me huffing some coke in the bathroom. I could see the disappointment in his eyes when he realised I hadn’t really turned a corner at all, that all I’d done is moved my habits to a new location. He went home early and I carried on partying. The next day was the first time that Delagio actually got angry with me, he pounded on my door and practically knocked me to the ground when I opened it. I’d never seen him so furious. He was shouting about how I was puttin’ the lives of all those under me at risk, and that I couldn’t be messin’ around with that pointless shit anymore, when we had such an important job to do. He shouted about how it was only a matter of time before somethin’ went wrong and I was thrown out of the Alliance. He held my shame up for me to see, and it was ugly. I promised that I would get a handle on my situation and get back on the wagon.

  Instead I just learned how keep my addictions a secret from him.

  It took a year before Sage Navarro reluctantly allowed Delagio to join Silence, and I could tell that it was an unpopular decision among the rest of the team. Still, I was the Huntmaster and they kept their concerns to themselves. Even Del knew that he wasn’t equipped to work at the level Silence demanded, but like always, he accepted it because it’s what I wanted. I didn’t stop to think about the consequences of what I was doing…I never did. It was doing more drugs and more drink than ever before, and it was starting to have a big effect of my mind and body, just as it had done before my Awakening. We might be evolved physically and mentally, but we ain’t invincible, and there’s only so much of that we can handle.

  It was a bad idea lettin’ Del join the group. He was too clumsy and half the time he let the bad guys know we was coming by bumpin’ into something or freakin’ out and shooting the air, thinkin’ he’d seen a target hidin’ in the shadows. He also insisted on wearin’ that dog-eaten Stetson, which made him much more of a visible target. Shit, I’m makin’ it sound like he was some kind of idiot. I don’t want you to think that…he wasn’t at all. He was competent as a Guardian, he’d just been thrown into a pool that was far too deep for him to swim in. He would have been great in a second response team, or even a first response with a bit more intensive training – where it didn’t matter as much about going in loud. But as part of a special operations stealth unit? Bad idea. I spent half my time worryin’ about what he was doing and stoppin’ him from getting his throat slit.

  Del wasn’t the only problem…the other issue was me. My mad behaviour meant that I was missin’ things that I should have noticed. During missions I was slower on sighting targets, slower to go for my weapons, and less effective in hand-to-hand combat. But I was missing things outside of the field too, specifically with Delagio himself. I think the moment I should have realised that somethin’ else was goin’ on with him was when I asked if he missed baseball
and he just shrugged. I was floored. This was baseball, the sport that we’d both loved since we’d been little nippers. We had grown up talkin’ about baseball together and it was the sport that we had vowed to make our joint dream to play professionally. I mean, even after I’d fallen off the radar, Del had still kept goin’ with our dream, and was on the cusp of makin’ it to the big league.

  I just couldn’t get my head around it.

  He didn’t even seem to care his name was being systematically erased from the history of baseball, just like mine had. He just stood there and shrugged man, like I was askin’ him if he missed Monty, the mouse we’d caught and kept for three weeks when we was nine.

  If I hadn’t been so messed up I might have dug a little deeper at that moment instead of waiting, and been a little bit more prepared by what I found out. Maybe if I had done that and realised what was really going on, then Delagio would still be alive today.

  *

  So, we were due to head to an old abandoned ranching farm out near Driftwood in the early hours, actin’ on intel we’d received that a group of Bloodseekers had holed up and made a nest. Apparently they’d kidnapped several members of the Texas Senate and were trying to bribe the Alliance for a whole lot of money, threatenin’ to turn the officials into Bloodlings and nest them – making them about as good to anyone as a hole in a spacesuit – unless we complied with their demands.

  Anyway, Delagio and I was sittin’ on the porch of our own ranch house the evenin’ before – which served as the above-ground entrance to Blackwall. The rest of Silence were gettin’ some sleep down below, to make sure they were fresh for the mission. We should have been doin’ the same thing, except Del had asked me to join him on the porch and instead we were sittin’ there on a bench, starin’ up at the sky and sippin’ glasses of cola, which I’d spiced up with a couple sneaky rails of coke.

  I could see that Del was nervous, his leg goin’ up and down at a rate of knots against the porch – which was weird since I was the wired one. I remembered that I told him to calm down or he was gonna wear a hole in the floor ‘n expose the base. He laughed, but it was hollow and distracted.

  I clapped him on the back, telling him it was all gonna be fine. How if he stuck close to the team I would have his back, and we’d be in and out with targets in hand before the bad guys even knew anyone was missin.’ But Del just kept starin’ down into his glass and rollin’ it around in his hands as if it was the last drink he would ever taste.

  He said he needed to tell me somethin.’

  His strange attitude started to mix with the coke and weird me out a bit. I mean, I’d seen him unsettled before a mission in the past, but never anythin’ on that level. I moved closer to him on the bench and put my arm around his shoulders to try and settle him. I said how we were best friends and he could tell me anything.

  I remember man, he looked up at me and his eyes were full of tears. That was when he tried to kiss me. Before I knew what was happenin’ I’d jumped right up off the seat and socked him in the jaw. I know it was harsh man, but he caught me by complete surprise.

  He was cut deep, both physically and emotionally. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he pressed a hand to his jaw. I demanded to know what he was doin,’ why he was messin’ about like that.

  And that was when Del told me he was gay and that he had loved me since we was kids.

  I felt like everythin’ I knew to be true was a lie. My mind clouded over and I felt physically sick. I’d never suspected for a minute that Delagio saw me as anythin’ other than how I saw him – as my best friend. With that confession he’d completely upset the balance. For me, it was a betrayal of our friendship.

  I remember just pacing up and down the porch, my hands over my face and tryin’ to hold myself together. All I wanted to do was rewind those thirty seconds and never have that conversation. Meanwhile Del was starin’ up at me, looking like the whole world was restin’ on his shoulders.

  I told him he was just a bit mixed up, a bit confused. I explained that we was best buds. How we played baseball together. How we chased chicks together. But Del sat there shakin’ his head. He told me how he’d never slept with any of them girls, not after the first time when he had hated it. How he always made excuses when he was alone with em. And then he told me the thing that hurt me real bad.

  He said that he only ever started playin’ ball because I was so into it.

  That was when I felt tears in my eyes man. It might sound stupid, but that was the only thing he could’ve said that could have got to me even more than he already had. When I accused him of lyin’ I sounded desperate, as if I could somehow get him to change what he’d just said. I told him how he was the one who’d had the baseball cards when we’d first met. How he had shown em to me.

  He told me they were his pa’s. That he was nervous about the first day at school so he stole ‘em and bought ‘em with him. He said how he was plannin’ to give them out to people to make them be nice to him. Apparently he was never into baseball at all, but when he saw how passionate I was about it, he wanted to get into it. But apparently he never cared about it the way I did.

  It felt like I was being given terminal medical results. Everything I thought I knew about Del, about my best friend was bullshit. That was when my surprise turned into real anger. I shouted at him, swearin’ and tellin’ him how he’d tricked me.

  I remember what he said perfectly. He just looked at me and said, ‘Trick you? Ricardo, I was six years old! All I wanted to do was make friends and so I did exactly what any other person my age would do…I lied!’

  I asked him if that was the case then why did he keep playing after I vanished. He just kinda shrugged and said that he didn’t really know. That even though he was angry ‘n upset he liked the money and attention he gave him. That it was nice to be the one in the limelight for once. But as soon as I turned up on his doorstep, he was happy to give it all up so that he could be a Guardian with me.

  I asked if it had ever been about the game, or always about me. His reply was that it he’d never really cared ‘bout baseball. He’d only ever cared about me.

  I couldn’t take it Alex, it was just all too much. I just started bangin’ my fists against the side of my head and tellin’ him to shut up. Tears were spillin’ down his face and he was apologisin’ sayin’ he shouldn’t have said anythin’ but he just couldn’t hide it anymore. That when I’d confessed how hollow my life had felt without him, he’d thought there might be a chance. I didn’t want to hear his excuses or explanations.

  I just couldn’t listen to it anymore.

  I’ll remember what I said to him then until the day I die. I stormed into the base and Del ran after me, shouting for me to stop. I turned and grabbed him around the throat. ‘Don’t you dare follow me, fag!’ I hissed right in his face and shoved him on his ass.

  Shit man, I feel so awful about it, but that’s what happened. It’s no excuse but I was wired and angry and confused and it just all came out like that. He went down hard and didn’t even bother trying to get up; with that one awful word, all of the fight went out of him. My best friend had just confessed the hardest truth to me, and in return I’d punched him, insulted who he was and thrown him to the ground.

  *

  I know that I sound really cruel, and there isn’t a moment of my life that goes by where I don’t regret the way I acted that night. But you have to understand the way I felt. It wasn’t that he was gay – I didn’t actually give a shit about that. If Del had told me the truth from the start, I don’t think it would have changed a thing. It was the lies that I couldn’t accept. Everything I thought I knew about our relationship had been built on sand. It wasn’t that I didn’t care…the problem was I cared too much. What he had told me had pulled the rug from under my feet and all I felt was anger and betrayal. I didn’t consider how he might have felt, how agonising and painful it would have been for him to want somethin’ more than we already had.

  No prizes for guessi
n’ what I did next.

  I had stashes of alcohol and drugs hidden around my apartment, which I’d told myself I was keepin’ just in case I needed a little top-up, but maybe if I’m bein’ honest I always knew that there would be a moment like that one, a day where somethin’ tipped me over the edge and I just drank and snorted my way into oblivion. It was inevitable, I’d been a car slowly crashin’ since I’d come kickin’ and hollerin’ into the world twenty-three years before.

  So I locked my door and went at it all, sittin’ in the corner and tryin’ to blanket over the words Del had said to me, and what he had tried to do. I went through enough gear to kill a normal human being, no question. By the time Silence was ready to get goin’ I was hammer drunk and wired as all hell. I was used to hidin’ it from everyone and I’d gotten good at makin’ myself seem sober, but that mornin’ the whole team could see that I wasn’t right. As we was all gearin’ up in the armoury, they kept exchanging glances and a couple suggested that I ‘sit this one out’.

  I acted like an asshole, pullin’ rank on all of them and tellin’ them that if I said I was fit to go on a mission, then I was damn well fit to go on a mission. Delagio was as quiet as a shrew through the whole thing, avoidin’ all my stares and getting kitted up away from everyone else. God man, he looked like he was collapsin’ from the inside out.