by Am Hudson
My eyes moved up to meet Vicki’s. She gently placed the sword on the ground, her shoulders lifting with each breath as if she might scream at the top of her lungs any second.
“Hey, Mom?” Sam called, his heavy footsteps thumping up the stairs. “Guess what? We—” He stopped dead on the threshold of the room to take in the scene. “What happened?”
“I forgot my purse.” She collapsed to her knees, covering her mouth as Sam rushed in to catch her. “He tried to kill the baby.”
Sam hugged her tightly for a second, looking down at the disconnected head of his father, and I expected him to cry—to turn his face and look away, but his jaw set tight, his eyes filling with rage, and he jumped up from the ground, storming over to me.
“Are you okay?”
I couldn’t move to say yes.
Sam frowned at me.
“She can’t move, Sam,” Vicki explained, wiping her hands on her apron. “She’s clearly paralysed.”
He looked back at her. “For how long?”
“I don’t know,” she breathed, standing up, her legs shaking. “But we need to move her. And the body.”
Sam seemed to realise then that his father was nothing more now than ‘a body’. He looked up at the window, then down at the blood that had transferred to his hands from Vicki, and closed his eyes.
“His head,” he said, “we need to move it away from his body so it can’t reattach itself, right?”
“Yes,” Vicki whispered weakly
He looked at the head, and his blue eyes filled with liquid.
“Sam.” Jase stood in the doorway, stiff and wide-eyed. “Just go. I’ve got this.”
Sam didn’t argue. He covered his mouth with the back of his wrist and walked backward from the room, leaving the shock of this reality behind. And I knew Vicki and I were thinking the same thing: he was going to need therapy.
“I got ya.” Jase squatted beside me and wiped the foam from my mouth with the corner of his sleeve, then hooked his hands under my arms, dragging my legs through the mess of blood, past Vicki where she stood by the door. He nearly dropped me twice, still not really strong enough for this kind of physical labour.
When he finally got me away from the body, he stopped dragging and bent to pick me up, heaving a little as he hoisted me off the ground.
“Vicki?” He waited until she looked at him. “The baby. She’s screaming.”
Vicki only just seemed to realise then. She shook off the horror of the situation and wiped her hands on her apron again, clambering to her feet.
“I’ll just put Ara in my room,” Jase said, waiting for a reply, moving away when she said nothing. He laid me down on his bed, and I instantly noticed how much it smelled like him—human him. I felt his pillows cradle my floppy form, felt the mattress underneath me, but I still couldn’t move my arms and legs.
Jase squatted down beside the bed and pushed my hair back off my face. “Feel anything yet?”
When I said nothing, he took that as a no.
“Shit. I hope it’s not permanent.” His eyes popped then as he clearly had an idea. “Hang on,” he said, standing back, then he disappeared, re-emerging a second later with his hands cupped, droplets of red dripping from between them and onto Vicki’s white carpet. “Here.” He knelt beside me and brought his hands up to my mouth. “Vampire blood. It should help.”
Smart boy, I was thinking.
The blood of my grandfather dripped against my lips and trickled under my tongue. I felt it move down my throat slowly, leaving behind a slight burn. As it lingered in my system while the clock on the wall passed the seconds hand onto minutes, I could feel my fingertips again. And my lips.
I moved them, shaped them to say “More” but Jase caught on without me needing to say it.
He ran off again and came back a second later with the cup from my bathroom, and Vicki, walking pale-faced and in a numb state behind him.
“Is she okay?” she asked, gently rocking my now quiet but blood-covered baby.
“She’ll be fine. She just needed some blood.” He knelt by the bed again and gently lifted my head, tipping the blood into my mouth. It went a little too fast and I coughed some of it out, splattering Jase with dots of red.
“Gross.” He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand, but didn’t seem all that disturbed by it—any of it.
As the mouthful of blood warmed my limbs, I could finally move my fingertips, then my hands, followed by my wrists and arms. I laid still a moment and let it run through me, bringing life back to my body again, and as soon as I could move my legs, I sprung up out of Jase’s bed and ran for my baby.
Vicki handed her over, breaking into tears.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” she sobbed. “I should have been here to protect you.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Mom,” I cried into the baby’s head. “Besides—” I drew back with a sniffle and offered her a smile, “—you did save us.”
She nodded, but her brow moved down on one side and her eyes seemed to hold all the sadness in the world.
“Ara!” David called in a cheery voice as he came through the front door. “I made it back in time for the sugar after all,” he said, coming up the stairs, and we all looked up to a powdery pop as the bag of sugar hit the ground. “What happened?”
“Lord Eden,” I said, finally letting myself cry. David looked at Jason as I sobbed out my tale in an incomprehensible voice, Vicki echoing my despair.
“Okay,” David said, holding me close to him. “All I got from that was Lord Eden came to kill the baby because he foresaw her being responsible for Sam’s death. And now someone is dead.”
“I killed him,” Vicki said. Jason wrapped his arms around her. “I killed my husband.”
David nodded to himself, his eyes drifting to the floor. “Where’s the body?”
“I moved it away from the head,” Jase said.
“And Sam?”
“In his room.” Jase looked at the hallway. “I’ll go talk to him if you like.”
I was about to tell him to leave Sam be for a moment, when a chorus of little voices called through the front door, demanding candy.
Vicki looked down at her bloody apron, then at me, and shrugged. “Well,” she said, walking past David, “it is Halloween, I suppose.”
Jase, not sure what to say or do, laughed, and we watched from the top of the stairs as Vicki opened the door, covered in blood, and several little faces looked up at her like she was the coolest mom in the world.
She handed out candy and said goodbye, then turned back to look up at us. “What now?”
“Now.” David stepped away from me, making sure I had a good hold of Elora before letting go. “I’ll go speak to Sam.”
“And I’ll go take care of the…” Jase stopped, searching for a better word, but he clearly didn’t find one because he just shrugged and said, “Body.”
Chapter Fifteen
Sam roared, tackling Jase to the ground, the football flying away from the both of them.
“Come on, Jase!” David yelled, cupping Elora’s shoulders when she jumped nearly ten feet in his lap. “You can do better than that!
The boys scrambled to their feet, tripping over each other, charging after the ball again.
“Do you want me to take Elora?” Vicki offered, reaching up to where David sat on the black rock, as if she’d already decided for him.
“She’s fine,” he said absently, jiggling Elora’s pink silky blanket for her.
Vicki lowered her arms, a little disappointed, and I rolled myself back on the picnic rug to look up at the clear blue sky. The trees filled out quickly this year, but as autumn set in they also thinned out quickly, too, leaving the lake in a colourful mess of orange and brown. Time seemed to move so much faster now that we had a baby, and I could almost see her growing every time I blinked my eyes. By the time I finished my seasonal shopping and she had her first Christmas, she would also be turning one. I wanted to slow it all
down—make it last just that little bit longer. I could understand it in a small way now what Lilith said about eternity. It was all just a blink—every moment, every smile, every new little laugh, every cute little face she pulled when she slept. If you blinked too long, you’d miss it, and it would never come back again.
“Ara,” David reached down and tapped my elbow with the toe of his boot. “Our party guests have arrived.”
I pushed up on my elbows, and when I looked into the tree line by the path, saw Falcon walking in with a plate in his hands, followed by Blade, Quaid and Morgana, each carrying a plate of their own atop a package wrapped in blue and green paper—obviously all from the same roll.
“Hey guys!” I jumped up and ran over to greet them, my bare feet a bit stiff now on the cooling ground.
“Hey.” Falcon wrapped one arm around me, precariously balancing his plate and present in the other, and leaned in to give me a hug. “We’ve missed you up at the manor.”
“Yeah.” I pulled back, offering to carry something for him, but he declined with shake of the head. “I’ve been in no state to rule over monarchial affairs.”
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Falcon said, his eyes big round pools of sympathy.
“He wasn’t my dad, and I’m not sorry. He tried to kill my daughter. I’m glad he’s dead.”
“Sure you are,” Morg said, giving me a coy smile as she leaned in to hug me. She squeezed me a bit tighter than Falcon, and I always got the sense that she was making up for lost hugs. “But we’ll talk about all that later. Right now, I need to go hug the birthday boy.”
“Just remember,” I called as she trotted away, “he has no idea who you are!” Which did not stop her or slow her down. She charged over to the pile of Sam and Jase and threw the plate of food at Sam as she wrapped herself almost twice around the birthday boy. But Jase took it with a grain of salt, picking Morg up and spinning her around as if he had even half a clue who she was.
Quaid laughed, bumping me with his elbow. “Hey there, Queeny.”
“Hey Quaid.” I gave him a one-armed hug. “How’s things at the manor without me?”
“Boring. It’s all work and no play now that I’m a Set leader.”
“Better than being bumped down to a grunt,” Blade said with a pout, then it washed away as he smiled at me. “Hi, Ara.”
“Hello, Blade.” I was careful not to hug him or even really look at him; I didn’t want to deepen the link he had to me.
“Did you hear the news?” he asked.
“No.” I looked at Falcon to see if there was any news I should have heard, but he just smiled.
“I’m no longer attached to you,” Blade said, “by the Curse.”
“No kidding,” I said, not really believing him. “So who’s the lucky girl then?”
He scratched his neck, casting his eyes across the carpet of fall leaves to Morgana. “Turns out she carries the Curse too.”
“So you’re hooked on her now?”
“I am. And I haven’t thought about you in an inappropriate way for about six months,” he said proudly. “On my honour as a Knight.”
“If I order you to swear it, can you?”
“I can,” he said, bowing his head.
“Good then.” I touched his arm, where the Mark of his promise sat under his shirt. “Your word is enough. So—” I angled my head conspiratorially, “—how does Morgana feel about this?”
The boys all laughed.
“She’s not interested.” Blade ran his hand through his long hair, looking a little sad. “But it’s not real love, so I’m not all that cut up about it—not really.”
“We just need to find you a girl,” Quaid said, slapping him hard on the back.
He let out a little cough and then looked at Quaid with vengeance in his eye. Quaid squealed like a girl and darted away, both of them dumping their plates and packages on the rug as they passed it, joining Morgana, Sam and Jase by the water for a game of stacks-on.
“Is it true?” I asked Falcon. “Is he really over me?”
“I’m getting the sense that it transfers back and forth based on who the… victim spends more time with.”
“Victim?” I laughed. “That’s not very nice.”
“Well, there’s no other word for it. He is cursed, Ara.” He nodded toward Blade. “And I pity the poor guy.”
I folded my arms and watched them all playing around. Blade seemed to gravitate to Morgana, while she spent the entire time trying to move away.
“So, how’s Jason?” Falcon asked. “He looks good.”
“He is good,” I said, with a tiny hint of ‘proud mom’ underneath. “Vicki and I have been working with him a lot—teaching him the basics like manners and hygiene; you know, wash behind your ears and that kind of thing.”
“He needed to learn all of that again?”
I nodded. “He was basically like a newborn that could talk and walk.”
“Wow. Well, I don’t envy you that task.”
“It’s not so bad.” I shrugged passively. “He started school a few weeks ago and he’s really changed a lot since then, which is good because David wasn’t sure he would.”
“Why not? Why wasn’t he sure?”
“He thought maybe the brain damage set Jason back, you know—to the mind of a child, and that he’d be stuck there.”
“But you don’t think he is?”
“He’s definitely a child, that’s for sure. Maybe about seventeen in his mind, but, like I said, that is changing and I think he’ll be fine eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“These things take time. I think he’ll graduate and then get a job and find a girl, and he’ll age in his mind at the rate his body does—like a normal human.”
“Well, I think that sounds perfect,” he said, letting out a huge breath after. “So, where’s my little Princess?”
“On her daddy’s lap.” I nodded to the bright halo of yellow hair, glowing in the arms of her father.
Falcon’s face split into a big grin. “Will he let me hold her?”
“Of course he will.”
As he walked away, Sam came running over with a pile of ripped paper and a few objects.
“Ara!”
“What’s up?”
“Can you put these in the car?” He dumped the presents in my hands before I was even ready. “I wanna get back to the game.”
“Sure,” I said, shaking my head as he ran away. I looked down at the pile and then over at the car—a whole two meters away. He really could’ve done that himself.
A soft whoosh of air moved my hair then, and a smooth voice said, “Allow me,” the car door opening suddenly as David appeared by it.
“How very kind of you, sir,” I said with a little curtsy, moving over.
“It is my pleasure,” he said with a bow, and I laughed, thinking back to one of our first dates.
“Do you remember our debate about chivalry?”
He tossed his head back, his sharp fangs gleaming. “Yes. I do.”
“It seems so long ago.” I put the gifts on the seat and turned my spine into his chest, stepping back until his arms came down around me, both of us watching the little party from afar.
“It was.” He gently kissed my head. “But we’ve come a long way since then, haven’t we?”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded, closing my eyes to enjoy the warmth of the sun and the touch of his bristly stubble against my cheek.
“Any regrets?” he said softly, almost hesitantly.
“Plenty.”
He laughed. “Then you’ve lived a good life so far.”
“I’d say a full life, but it’s only just beginning to get good.”
He moved his feet apart to bring himself down to my height, snuggling his chin right into the curve of my shoulder. “This was a good idea.”
“What was?”
“The party—for Jase.”
Every time he said Jase, it still made me smile, even though I’d he
ard it a hundred times before. “It’s technically his first birthday—the first one he’ll ever remember.”
David nodded against my shoulder. “He looks happy, doesn’t he?”
“He does.” I laid my hand over the back of his. “And I suppose, even though we agreed your birthday would be in January—according to your new birth certificate—that I should say happy birthday to you, too. After all—” I turned in his arms to face him, “—this was the official day you were born, and I will eternally be grateful for that.”
I watched as my words moved through his ears and into his mind, becoming thought and then feelings. He just smiled then and pulled me close, resting his chin on the top of my head.
“Sometimes, I still can’t believe we’ve come this far—that we’re free, and that all of our worldly problems are finally resolved. After all this time, it still hasn’t sunk in.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I suggested. “It’ll keep you humble. Make you grateful for the life you have now.”
“Very true,” he said, his voice carrying on the end with consideration. “But… do you sometimes find yourself looking over your shoulder—wondering if there’s still someone out here waiting to hurt us?”
“Sometimes.” I nodded. “Sometimes I think maybe we should have looked harder for Walter’s bones, or buried Lord Eden’s head in another state—away from his body—”
“Or burned the evil witch at the stake?”
“Yeah.” I laughed, and then it stopped dead inside my chest, like a rock finally hitting the bottom of a deep well. “Oh my God!”
“What?” David stood back, looking around as if there were danger nearby.
“Oh my God!” I said again, getting a little louder as the idea formed completely in my head.