Forever

by Natalie J. Case

  We discovered things about the Family in those early years, things I had long suspected but had been unable to prove. As the great religions of man were born, and everyday objects became regarded as holy, ground was sanctified, lives blessed, the Family's weakness was to become apparent. Jesse was the first to discover it, when we were set upon by two of them in a small town of a deeply abiding faith. His hands found a holy relic, a sacred stone of the people's faith, during the battle. He held it up, hoping to use it in some way to defend himself. The other reached for it, his hand closing around the smooth curves of it before the smell of burning flesh filled the air around us. The other screamed and dropped the stone, raising a burnt hand. He fled, and in the quiet he left behind, we paused. We speculated about the odd occurrence, tried touching it to my skin, but nothing happened. Even fully Changed the stone meant nothing to me, caused no pain, no burning. We moved on.

  Several months passed, and often our discussions returned to this weakness. We developed theories and ideas, none of which were entirely brilliant or well balanced. Most were wild speculation based on various observances over time. We traveled through a region where the local folk had idols, small statues, some of which were carved of tiny stones and hung around their necks on leather strings. Each was said to possess the spirit of one of their myriad gods. We acquired one, which Jesse took to wearing.

  That seems to be when our running away ended. We set out hunting, searching each long moment of the dark for our enemy. It didn't take us long to find one, a scrapper from Bestin's tribe who was strong, well fed and spoiling for a fight. Jesse and I cornered her deep in a wooded glen not far from Osijek and the battle began. It was, at the onset, purely physical, the two of us taking turns at her, until Jesse pulled out the amulet. At first it gave her no pause, but as he brought it closer she began to react. When he touched the hand that held me by the throat with it, the air was filled with the scent of scorching flesh. She screamed and withdrew, pulling away and warding us off with one hand. Jesse held her to her spot with the holy relic as I moved in for the kill. She died in much the same terror I imagine her victims felt as she released their souls. We had found a new weapon.

  Over the next years we collected items held holy to myriad races and tribes, developed favorites among them, discovered which seemed to have more effect than others. We found that some items needed to be in contact with the skin of the unholy, as Jesse had come to call them, and other items, those that came from a strong, widespread faith, were often effective just by holding it before them. In all of this, the symbols of one faith would become an endearing beacon of all that mankind considers holy, and our greatest weapon.

  Yet, in all of this, I was unaffected.

  Time passed, sometimes slowly, sometimes not. Jesse aged before my very eyes, his dark hair alternately long and shaggy and nearly shaved from his head, depending on his mood. His face grew distant, cold, unreadable. His hair began to show the signs of gray, and the little lines around his eyes deepened with each setting of the sun. He was pale from a lack of sunlight, nearly as white as I. Quite a couple we must have made, should human eyes have ever truly seen us, but few ever did.

  Stories told of a ghostly pair who wandered the night slaying demons, but little more than my dark hair and Jesse's wooden dagger resembled the truth.

  He was changing in other ways too. He withdrew from me, into a deep inner place where he had only his hatred to keep him company. The nights grew quiet, restless. We moved from place to place, through the shadows of humanity, and all the while his feverish fear and anguish brewed within him. I was helpless in the face of it, sitting dumbfounded beside him as it colored his pale face and filled his eyes with a bright fire.

  We found ourselves in a place not far from the Family's ancestral home, where Bestin still lived, and the people around them were cowering and afraid. Somehow this bothered Jesse more than I thought possible. It pulled him up out of that place where he hid from the world and from me. It brought words to his lips, words of charismatic hatred, of death. In the early hours of darkness, beside a bonfire to light the night sky, he stood before the people and proclaimed the evil of Bestin and his Family, of a purging, of the duty of these people.

  They were caught up in it, as was I. I had been so long in his company, and was so lost in my love for him, that I had come to believe him nearly as much as he believed himself. Perhaps my need to believe in something beyond my own eternal existence led me to be swayed, or perhaps I knew our own brand of evil all too well … I don't know, but I followed him.

  It was not well planned, and I, of all those there, should have known better than to wait once the blood was boiled to that point. The smell of it filled the air, a virtual beacon to those who lived off death. Two nights after our arrival there, they came, Bestin and several others, drawn in by the scent of life and rage. Jesse and the townsfolk roared into the fight, but I held back, my heart pounding with fear, my hands tied by sudden doubt. The soft, intellectual man I had first known disappeared entirely that night, replaced by a monster of a different kind. He let a lifetime of emotion consume him, burning away the last of his reason, bringing him face to face with the maker of all that he knew of evil.

  The small town was piling up with dead, and a few, incredibly were Family. Bestin roared in anger and pain from the center of the melee. Jesse and Bestin fought hand to hand and all else stopped, and all eyes fell upon them. Both fought madly, as if set against their equal.

  Jesse held his own against the fury of the enraged Bestin, his dagger slicing through the air, and on occasion, the flesh of Bestin's arms or chest. Bestin clawed down Jesse's arm, leaving three trails of blood and nearly causing Jesse to lose his grip on the wooden blade.

  Bestin's thoughts were free to the night, and I knew he equated Jesse with the tales being spread about us. I could almost taste his anger, his will. Then, without warning … Bestin's teeth were bared, within striking distance, and Jesse, daring all, stepped even closer, wrapping his arms around Bestin, the dagger pressing into the heart cavity from the back … Bestin slumped. Jesse raised his hand, the wood of the dagger stained nearly black … and Bestin fell to the ground, his hands clenching vainly in the air. Jesse went to his knees beside him and all within the town fled into the night … all but Jesse and me.

  Bestin was dead. The maker of our kind was gone. I went to Jesse, but he pulled away from me. The corpse rotted away as we sat in silence beside it and the night melted. I left him there as the sun rose, seeking shelter for myself that he did not need. I sensed his disappointment, but could not place its source. I slept fitfully, awaiting his presence beside me. He never came. When I rose he was nowhere to be found, gone they said to make his peace with his deed.

  I waited for him. Three more nights passed. Not a sound was heard in the breezes, it was as if the Family that remained had fled this spot in terror, spreading the word of Bestin's death to those scattered abroad. On the fourth night, Jesse returned.

  The gray in his hair had multiplied, appearing silvery in the light of the nearly full moon. His face was whiter even than mine, and the lines had deepened to add nearly ten years to him. But, his eyes … it was his eyes that spoke to me from across the ashes of the bonfire. Some of the sanity had returned to them, and they burned brightly with the reality of what he had done. There was pride and fear, shame and elation all fighting for supremacy there. For the first time since those first nights together he needed me. I held out my arms and he came, tears wetting my shoulder before his head touched it. I held him for a long time while he cried silently and when he was done, we gathered our belongings and left that cursed ground.

  Chapter 6

  I am still unsure how we came to the decision, or whether or not we laid out our plans as one does before battle. I remember only the fluttering of fear in my heart, the images of death that filled my mind when I closed my eyes. I was so completely caught up in him, my being centered upon him, that my own voice was a distant sound I ig
nored. Then … there we stood, in the early hours before the dawn, in the shadow of the home where I had been raised. It had grown in the years since I had last seen it, additions made as time moved and the Family grew. They were all within, locked behind dark doors before the coming of the light. We were silent and separate, as had become the normal for us. So much between us left so little to be said. At long last, I turned to him and we moved.

  We found a place to hide ourselves, and protect me against the brightest light of the dawn, in an abandoned room that held the cast offs of those who had died or moved on. We hid far in the bowels of the room where daylight didn't dare. There we waited until the house around us settled and the sun was fully up. I wrapped myself in a dark woolen cloak and gloves and slipped with him through the shadows, skirting windows and the little pools of sunlight that would bring a lingering, painful death.

  It was the beginning of the Great Hunt, and I could smell the gathering fear of the prisoners held against the night of the Birth. We made our way to the dark pits where the prisoners were kept, alive, but locked in terror and humiliation until the time of their death. Whispering to them to keep still and fear not, we slipped the bolt and released them. Jesse led them back out into the light of day and instructed them to run as far and fast as their feet would take them, but to be safely under a friendly roof by nightfall.

  I, in the meantime, made my way through the halls and corridors of the mansion as if in some haunted dream, remembering my nights among them. I paused in a small, unobtrusive room where Crenoral put the pretty things taken from his victims. He was more likely than the others to take things of value. The chest had not moved in the years I had been gone. It came open easily in my hands and I stood before the treasures of a thousand years of plundering.

  I filled my pockets and the leather satchel I had brought with the most easily carried baubles, rings and gems, easily sold and worth enough money for us to begin a life when this was done. In their place, I left the ring from my pinkie, one that Crenoral had given me when I was still small. I set out again, hoping to find Jesse nearby.

  At length I found myself at the door to the lower levels. Floor after floor of the Family's sleeping vaults lay below me. It was bolted from within, lest an intruder open it and cast sunlight down below. There I waited for Jesse. When he arrived, after what seemed to my nervous heart hours, I was beginning to feel weary from lack of sleep. I fished through my pack to find the small flask I had brought to get me through until I could get back to my supply. I drained it in one long swallow, closing my eyes as it filled me, warmed me, pushed away some of the fatigue. “They sleep below.” I said softly and he jumped at the sound of my voice.

  “How many are there?”

  I shrugged and sighed. “There is no way of knowing. When last I was here, less than twenty made this place their home, but much has changed since then. There could be more, or less, but it is definite that we will not get them all in one day, not without waking all the rest.”

  “So, what do we do?”

  “We take those we can, the ones on the upper level. He makes the youngest of them sleep closer to the sun. They will be less prepared for us, and, there is an empty floor between them and the rest, or at least, there was.”

  He nodded and hefted the sack he carried full of wooden stakes. I turned and studied the door once more. I knew there was a release for the bolt on this side, in case of a straggler trying to get in ahead of the sun. I reached up to the door jamb, slipping a finger across the beam until I found it. I could feel the bolt release, and then pushed lightly on the door. It swung open noiselessly and I stepped into the cool blackness. “Let your eyes adjust, we dare not use a light.” I whispered, pulling Jesse in and shutting the door and slipping the bolt. “Stay close, and tread lightly.”

  I led him down the darkened staircase, my heart pounding in my ears. I wasn't sure for a long time as we descended that I could actually go through with it. The scent of Jesse was so strong to me that I was sure the others would smell him and awaken. Eventually we reached the first floor, and cautiously rounded the bend, approaching the first door. “Remember, above all, they must not be awakened. If one comes aware of us, we are dead.” He nodded tightly and I put my hand to the first door.

  The brother within was young, from the smell he had only a few years with the Family. He slept atop a small bed, hands folded over his heart, his face serene and handsome. We crossed to him, I circling to his head, Jesse to his side, withdrawing a stake and hammer from his sack. I stood over the young man, my hands just above his face to thwart any sound if he should awake, and nodded to Jesse who gripped the stake tighter. He held it just above those folded hands and composed himself with a deep breath. With the swiftest of blows, he hit the head of the stake and sunk it through those hands and into the empty chest below it. The brother never even stirred. By the time we had reached the door, all that remained of him was a rotted corpse showing more bone than skin.

  We made it through that upper level quickly, killing seven of them before my instincts told me that the sun was soon to set. We hurried together back up the stairs, carefully closing the door once more behind us, and just as quickly to the side door by which we had gained access the night before. Jesse threw a dark blanket over my head and scooped me up like a child, checking to make sure I had no skin showing, then opened the door and carried me off into the brilliant sunset. We reached the safety of our chosen hideaway, an abandoned cloister less than a mile away, just as the sun's last rays faded into the deepening dark of night. We sat in each other's arms listening to the sounds of the night.

  I could feel the rage and fear welling up from that place as the Family rose and discovered its dead, its missing prisoners. The fury filled the night breezes as one by one they went out in search of the hunters who had killed within their own home. I stood guard as Jesse slept, my senses extended around me for any sign that we had been found. Only one came, and she was easily deceived, easily dispatched. I woke Jesse and left him long enough to discard the corpse far enough from our hideout to keep them searching elsewhere when she was found. Near dawn, I curled up beneath the blanket and dozed, leaving Jesse to watch. He would wake me if one came near, but I somehow knew none would.

  I woke when the sun was not yet half way to its zenith and found Jesse pouring fresh formula into a bottle for me. The remains of his own breakfast lay around and he smiled. He handed me the bottle and waited while I filled my body's need. “We still live,” he said softly, lying back with his head on my arm.

  “For now,” I answered, feeling some deep remorse, some lost pain within me. It told me that I was still one of them, still needed them, and somehow, that it was Crenoral's thoughts, not my own. “Come, the day slips away from us. We must see to the arrangements.” I slipped away from him, turning away and walking dangerously close to that place where the sun was reflecting into the hall. Some part of me willed me to walk out into that light, to end my long existence. Then, Jesse's hand was on my arm, his voice in my ear, his lips on my cheek. I put my arms around him and clung to him, as if he were all that held me to this earth.

  The moment passed and we released each other mutually, stepping away to fill our sack with weapons, to prepare for further death. We had decided through our vigil, that the place must be burned, that we lacked the strength to take them all one by one. Jesse brought lamp oil from forgotten stores in the temple once dedicated to some heathen god and we packed the oil in containers barely of a size to carry. All of this we did silently, even to the wrapping of myself in that stifling black cloth, and he carried me out to the small wagon we had loaded with our supplies. He pulled the wagon out to the road and along its muddy, rutted way, glancing back at me from time to time. I could feel him despite the darkness that separated us, sense his adoration and love for me, despite what I was. It brought me little comfort.

  The house was quiet, sleeping when we arrived and we wasted little time getting inside. I tossed off the blanket and
kept only the long black cloak against the occasional window as we passed through the building like wraiths, dripping fuel onto every burnable surface, marking long paths to be lit as we made our escape. At length, when the sun was high and only hours from setting, we stood once more at that door. I took the last jar of oil from Jesse's hand and smiled gently. “I'll see to it. Go and see if they brought in any prisoners last night.”

  He looked for a moment as if he might argue, might insist on accompanying me into the darkness below, but we were running out of time, and he obeyed. I opened the door as I had the night before, and began my descent, scattering the oil on the wood as I went. The whole first floor was empty, abandoned. My tread was soft on the wood, wincing as each splatter of oil splashed to the floor, sure that its tiny sound would wake someone below.

  I made the turn at the far end of the corridor and slowly descended those steps. Before I even reached the bottom of them, I knew I was expected. I stopped, one foot still upon the stair and regarded him. Perhaps I had known all along that he would be waiting there for me, perhaps I even had wanted for him to be there. Now, a lump of fear and anguish rose in my throat as I met his eyes.

  They were the cold eyes of a hardened killer that afternoon, deeper than I could ever recall having seen them before. I couldn't look away.

  “Welcome home, Daughter.” he said calmly, as if it were any other day, as if I was merely an errant girl, breaking curfew. “I have been waiting for you.”

  I didn't trust myself to speak, and I held myself very still, setting down the jar and crossing my arms to await his next words.

  “I was disappointed that you took our prisoners, but I recall you never did enjoy the celebration. The others were, of course, outraged. I barely contained them until after the sunset. You and your friend are most fortunate that none of them found you last night. Speaking of your companion, where is he, Daughter?”