by Am Hudson
“You don’t think they’ll be happy?”
“About the engagement, yes. My mom always loved Mike. But they won’t be happy about me moving to Australia.”
“Oh.” I smiled, cringing a little for her sake. “So, when are you coming?”
“As soon as the boys go on Christmas break…” her voice trailed off. “Start of December.”
I sighed. “It’ll be so great to see you all. Have the boys grown heaps?”
“Oh my God! They never stop,” she breathed. “And they never stop eating!”
I laughed.
“And how’s my goddaughter?” she asked.
“Fat. Happy. Crawling now,” I added and Em squealed. “We might hold the Christening while you guys are over here then.”
“Sounds perfect,” she said. “And send me some more photos. It’s been two weeks since the last one.”
“I will,” I promised.
“Okay, gotta go,” she said. “Say bye, Mike.”
“Bye,” he called.
“Bye,” I said. “Love you guys.”
“You too,” they both said, and hung up the phone.
I looked at Vicki and we both just grinned.
***
Jase bounced down the stairs and swung off the ball on the end of the balustrade, projecting himself around and into the kitchen. “Morning!”
“Someone’s excited today,” Vickie noted, placing a warm plate of pumpkin bread in front of him.
“This is essentially my first Halloween,” he said, tapping his feet under the table in the same way Sam did when he was excited. “I don’t think I slept last night—at all.”
Vicki laughed, sitting down beside him where she’d left her coffee. “Have you got your costume ready?”
“Nice try,” I said. “But he won’t tell anyone what he’s going as.”
“And before you ask,” he said, digging into his breakfast, “it’s not a vampire.”
“What’s wrong with going as a vampire?” David flashed his pearly fangs as he walked past Jase.
“I’m not really in to the whole bloodsucker thing. Sam and I are going as something cooler.”
“Cooler?” I whispered under my breath, smirking at David. He leaned down and kissed my brow, then kissed Elora’s, and headed over to the coffee pot.
He’s like a child now, he thought. It’s hard getting used to it.
I know, I replied. It’s almost like he’s Sam’s age.
In his mind, he’s not far off that. He hasn’t really grown up, he thought, turning around and leaning against the counter with a coffee mug in hand. He was essentially born only eight months ago—when he first woke up—he doesn’t have any life experience to grow from.
He’ll be okay, I assured him, sipping my coffee. He just needs some time.
David nodded into his cup, exhaling.
“I’ve asked you two not to do that!” Vicki screeched.
“Do what?” I said, looking at David, confused.
“Talk with your minds.” She pointed at her temple. “It’s rude.”
David and I looked at each other with wide eyes and then broke out laughing.
“I didn’t even realise we were doing it.”
“My apologies, Vicki,” David said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Oh you little fibber,” she snapped playfully. “It will and you know it.”
Jase, chewing his food around a smile, watched Vicki as she left the room, then leaned forward to whisper, “You were talking about me, weren’t you? In your head.”
“What makes you think that?” I sat back a bit, bringing my coffee with me.
“You kept looking at me with the same expression.” He crinkled his nose in thought. “You’re worried about me for some reason.”
“We think you should change your birth certificate and go back to school for a few years,” David said, tucking his tie against his shirt as he sat down at the table. “You’ve recovered enough now. It’s time to start doing something with your life.”
“Finally.” Jase sat back with a sigh of relief. “How long have I been asking you to send me to school?”
“Well, now I’m agreeing.” David reached for the newspaper. “You can enrol this week.”
“Sweet.” Jase tapped the table with both hands and then stood up. “I’ll go tell Sam.”
“Tell Sam what?” Vicki asked, nearly toppling over as Jase ran past her up the stairs. She looked back at him and watched for a moment, then frowned at us.
“He’s going to school,” I said, spooning another clump of banana into Elora’s little mouth.
“He seems to have regressed a few years since he became a human, and we’re concerned it’ll continue.”
“What makes you think it’ll continue?” Vicki asked.
“He has extensive damage to his brain. We weren’t sure he’d ever walk or talk again, and since he’s been awake, he’s… different,” David explained. “I haven’t seen him progress beyond the thoughts and ideas of a young teenager, and I’m hoping now that school might help with that.”
“I think it will.” She sat down again. “I’ve been saying that for months.”
“I know,” David said into the paper. “I just wasn’t ready to let him go until now.”
I held a smirk in place, keeping it on David’s face until he looked at me.
“What?” he said.
“He’s driving you nuts, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” He sighed, lowering the paper. Vicki and I laughed.
“He is very different to the Jason I remember,” I said, missing that old Jason a little. “But he’s sweet and I think he’ll be fine at school.”
“So do I.” Vicki stood up and took Jason’s plate. “Although, I may need to start teaching him some table manners.”
“Please do,” David offered. “The boy needs some mothering, and I know Ara won’t do it—she encourages his childish ways.”
“I do not.” I slapped him in the arm. “But we’re buddies. I’m not his mother and I don’t want to be.”
“Well,” Vicki said, putting the plate in the sink, where Jase should have put it. “Someone has to.”
“And that’s why you’re just so amazing,” I said with a grin.
Vicki rolled her eyes, but smiled after.
“Well, I have to go.” David shut the paper, took one last sip of coffee and kissed my head again as he stood up.
“Just one case today—at court?” I asked.
He nodded, kissing Elora’s little blonde wisps of hair. “So I’ll be home pretty early.”
“Early enough to pick up some more powdered sugar on the way home?” Vicki asked, standing on her toes to look into the pantry.
“Sure. Just text me exactly what kind.”
“You’re a gem,” she said. “And get some milk, too, will you?”
“Sure,” he said, picking up his briefcase. “Bye.”
Elora turned in her chair and extended her little hand, opening and closing it to wave goodbye.
“Bye-bye,” David said in a silly voice, backing into the entranceway. “Bye-bye.”
I looked over at Vicki when she laughed as the front door closed.
“What?” I said.
“I never thought I’d see the all-powerful King turn to goo around a baby.”
I smiled, looking out the window to watch as David got in his car. “He has this amazingly sweet and gentle side that he very rarely lets people see. He was playing peek-a-boo with Elora in her crib this morning, and I think he was having more fun than she was.”
“He’s a good dad, Ara. And a good man. I think you did pretty well there.”
“Yeah, I think so too.”
“However,” she said, and left it at that.
“However?”
“He’s awfully young. I know you changed his birth certificate to make him twenty-seven, but you still look eighteen, and Elora will go to school soon, what do—”
“We’re getting Age Kit
s.”
“Age what?”
“They’re these kits designed by a vampire-owned company. They contain special makeup and masks and stuff that make you look older.”
“And… can you wear these masks all the time, or do you have to put them on every day?”
“The old ones needed to be applied daily, but they just brought out new ones that can be worn for a few weeks at a time.”
Vicki’s lips turned down with thought.
“But for me, for the first few years, I only need the special paste stuff that makes your eyes look older.” I drew a line from the corner of my eye to the side of my head. “It creases the skin, like crow’s feet, and you put it under your eyes as well—layer it to get a deeper, more wrinkled look, or you can put it on thinly to add about five or ten years.”
Vicki laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I said.
“I was so worried.” She sat down again, still laughing. “I thought maybe I was going to have to pose as her mom, and send you back to school. But I’m relieved to hear you have it all worked out.”
I nodded, focusing on the messy smear of banana across Elora’s plump little chin.
“And what about after that?”
“After what?” I said absently.
“After Elora finishes school—grows up, moves out of home. What will you do then?”
I shrugged. “Maybe go back to school and be a teenager, or get a job as a concert pianist—maybe even go back to running the monarchy from Loslilian.”
“So many possibilities,” she said wistfully, her eyes drifting off to the ceiling with a dreamy glaze.
“What about you?” I asked. “What are your plans once Sam moves away?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged dismissively. “Maybe I’ll marry again—adopt some children. Or foster,” she added enthusiastically. “Maybe I’ll travel, or buy a hundred cats and sit in my den writing sappy romance novels.”
“Or you could play Mom while I go back to school,” I suggested.
“I won’t need to play Mom, Ara. I will always be your mother. I will always be here to care for you.”
I cocked my head and smiled.
“Here.” She slid a plate of pumpkin bread over to me. “You haven’t eaten yet, and we have a big day ahead of us.”
***
“Ara!” Vicki called up the stairs, her voice reaching me with a waft of smoky air and cinnamon from outside.
“Yeah?” I tried to keep my own voice low so I wouldn’t startle Elora as I changed her diaper.
“David just called. He’s not going to make it to the store on time. I’m just heading out to get that sugar.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering then why we were calling out when both of us had super-vampire hearing.
“Oh, and Sam took Jase over to the school to enrol. They’ll be back in a minute, so I’ll leave this door unlocked, okay?”
“Okay,” I said in a softer voice than last time, smiling down at the baby. She flapped her hands excitedly and grabbed the bottom of her dress, bunching it up into a chewable portion, calling it ‘bub-bub-bub.’
“Does that taste good?” I asked in a silly voice, leaning down to kiss her belly. “Is that a yummy dress, Lora? Is it? Is it yummy?”
She giggled at me, grabbing my cheek and my hair, thrusting her legs out straight then as she released a high-pitched squeal.
“You’ve got a good set of lungs on you, don’t you little bubba?” I kissed the tiny curled-over foot and fastened her diaper. “Is that better now, bub-bub?”
She showed her two bottom teeth in a very cheeky smile as I picked her up off the changing table. Through the window, I could see Sam and Jase coming across the oval toward home. They’d taken a football with them, or they found one, and were tossing it back and forth to each other as they walked. I liked seeing Jase act so human and so young. David might’ve been worried that he’d never grow up, but I wasn’t. Jase had always had that much younger kind of air to him. Take away immortality, heartache and responsibility, and you get a carefree almost-nineteen-year-old boy—exactly the way he should be. What David needed to realise is that Jase truly was just a kid. But he was a good kid. And I knew Vicki would steer him right, now that she’d taken on the self-imposed role of mother. That was all Jase needed really—a mom.
I laid Elora down in her crib and shut the curtains to keep the sun off her, and as I headed toward the bathroom for a much-needed pee, the long shadow of a man in the hall caught my eye, making my heart skip a beat.
“Where is his body?” he said firmly.
“Vampirie,” I gasped his name inward, the sound turning to fear as I recalled exactly why I should fear him. “What are you doing here?”
“Tell me—” He stepped into my room, “—where you have buried my son’s body.”
“Why?”
“Because I wish to resurrect him,” he said angrily. “Because you should never have taken his life. Because I have a right to know where my son is buried!”
I stood in front of Elora’s crib, blocking her from his sight, my eyes flicking to the drawers across from the foot of the bed—where my gun was.
When his eyes followed, I pushed off the ground and ran for it, but his hand shot out and caught my arm, holding me in place.
“No one has to suffer, Amara. All I want is the body of my son, and the death of that child, and I will go—you will never see me again.”
“She’s your granddaughter,” I tried desperately, hoping it would change his mind. “I’m Drake’s daughter—did he tell you?”
He let go of my arm but turned us around first so he stood between me and Elora, blocking my path to her. “Yes, and I still and always will love you as I love all my children, Amara, regardless of how you feel about me, but I will also do whatever it takes to keep my sons alive.”
“Including resurrecting an evil witch.” I took a step sideways, mapping out a path over the bed to Elora. “If you bring Drake back, you bring back the one person in this world that will also do anything to resurrect Anandene.”
“Which is precisely why your daughter must die today, honey,” he said in a creepy, condescending tone, as if explaining to a child why they can’t have that candy they asked for. “You will have others. But this one—” He pointed to the crib, turning his head so his eyes landed on her—one step too close, as far as I was concerned, “—she will bring more evil to this world than the witch Safia. And I must also protect the human race as fiercely as I protect my children—”
“Then don’t resurrect Drake, because Safia will—”
“Safia is no threat without the help of immortals,” he yelled. “Locked in a dungeon, without her potions and herbs and spells, she can bring no harm—”
“Then why do you want to kill my child?” I studied him with narrowed eyes, and as my gaze went deep into his, the cold blue soaking it in like cotton on water, an image became crystal clear. “No!”
“Yes,” he said, moving closer as I stumbled back against the drawers. “That is her fate, Amara—”
“No, nothing is set in stone. She can choose her own path, she—”
“She will be the death of my son!” he demanded, his voice gruff. “Her mere existence will see to it that Samuel meets an all-too-early end, and she will end countless human lives in the process—”
“We can stop it—if we work together, but you can’t just take her life to prevent it,” I said, my voice breaking. I could feel my power building with the fear and desperation. I knew he would never get close enough to hurt her, but I knew also that merely stopping him today was not enough. I refused to spend my life looking over my shoulder; he would, one day, be the end of my daughter’s life if she was fated to be the end of Sam’s.
“I’m sorry, honey.” He cupped both my cheeks firmly. “I’m sure, one day, you will come to forgive me.”
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “I would never forgive you. Just as I will never let you kill her.�
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He leaned forward slowly and pressed his lips to my forehead—once, my favourite kind of kiss—and as he leaned back, I charged my hands. One strong zap and he would go down. But my head filled suddenly with liquid, a sharp jab slicing through the temple.
I held my onto my face with both hands, looking down at them then for signs of blood, but a frothy white liquid dribbled from my mouth instead, my throat seizing up, cutting off my voice.
“You will wake by morning,” he said, helping me to the floor, my body convulsing uncontrollably. “And this will all be over.”
As my head rested gently against the carpet, numb now, my limbs paralysed, he swept my hair back and stood up.
“Don’t watch,” he warned. “I’ll make it quick and pain-free.”
I tried to scream, to reach out and grab his ankle as he stepped over me to close the bedroom door, but nothing in my body worked. Even the telekinesis seemed shut off—disconnected, like a TV remote with no batteries.
Dad! I tried, my thoughts ripping through the air; he turned back and looked right into my eyes, his face softening. Please! Just not today. Just—
But my thoughts stopped short when a thin wooden shaft broke through the blue of his shirt, a red stain growing around it. As he slowly turned, my eyes followed his to the small, thin woman behind him.
“Vicki,” he grunted.
“No one hurts my granddaughter,” she said through her teeth. And my body warmed with hope as she lifted David’s sword from the wall, and aimed it at the vampire.
“Vicki,” he said, “you must understand—”
“I understand.” She moved closer, aiming it to his chin, her arms straight. “This will never end unless you’re dead.”
He grabbed my drawers with a bloody hand, trying to hold himself up. “It’s Sam, Vicki,” he tried, but his body stiffened suddenly, the flesh at his neck splitting open on one side as the blade came down hard into the bone.
Without wasting a second, Vicki reached forward and yanked out the wooden handle in his chest, pulling the small wound wide open. As he tumbled sideways he hit the floor, his head falling against my hand, and Vicki brought the sword back down into the gaping wound across his neck; it cut my wrist painfully as it went through the bone, but no sound came from my mouth as I tried to scream. Blood splattered all over my arm and chest, tiny dots spraying across my face and Vicki’s, destroying the pretty bedcover I’d just bought. Warm pools of it leaked out from the headless body, bleeding into the carpet and my shirt, and I just wanted to get up—to move away and lift my screaming daughter from her crib, but my body wouldn’t obey.