by Kate Wendley
The ground felt more and more electric the closer he got to the tank’s edge, so he stopped and opened his senses wide instead. Was Gaia trying to keep him away? Before he could think more about it, the feeling subsided and the air was calm again. Everyone in the crowd visibly relaxed at once. Anthony stepped forward, rolled up his sleeves, and stopped and stared into the pool.
The strong smell of all the blood hit him hard and nearly made him turn away. He steeled himself and reluctantly dunked his hands in, the liquid feeling thicker than he thought it would. He jerked in surprise when something touched him and grabbed hold, though it was weak. He carefully pulled out of what he was hoping was Daniel’s grasp and felt around for his shoulders. When he had a good hold of something solid, he slowly hefted him up.
Echo said in a trancelike voice, “He thinks he’s drowning.”
Christopher and others gathered around the pool’s edge again, and as soon as Anthony had Daniel pulled out enough to get a good look at him, he almost dropped him right back in. Daniel was still growing some of his muscles and bones and everything else a person should have. He was definitely becoming whole, though. His back arched as he gasped for air, and his mouth gaped like a fish out of water. He looked wildly around with wide open eyes that didn’t have skin for lids formed yet, and Anthony had to force himself not to cringe in horror at the sight.
“Daniel, it’s Anthony. You need to finish forming your body. I’m putting you back in the blood. You’re all right, ok? You don’t need to breath. You’re ok.”
Daniel kept gasping while his mouth opened and closed and no words came out. When his eyes finally locked on Anthony, he stopped thrashing, but his body shook all over.
“I’m putting you back in the blood, Daniel. You’re… not done yet.”
Daniel actually nodded then, though he still didn’t speak, so Anthony slowly lowered him back down and waited, trying to calm his own shudders from what he’d just seen. He might be powerful, but that didn’t mean he liked to be around things like a half formed person.
To distract himself from the overwhelming smell, and the fact that he had blood all over himself, he looked around the crowd again. Christopher was a few feet to Anthony’s left, looking intently into the pool. Seth was busily doting on Nala and helping her feed and gain a body again, and Ethan was clinging to Harmony at the back of the crowd. He locked eyes with him for a moment, then nodded and turned his attention back to the night’s main event.
**
Ethan kept hold of Harmony as they watched the show. He could honestly care less about Daniel right now, not with thoughts of Harmony leaving him overwhelming his mind and heart. Feeling her own grief as he held her close wasn’t much consolation because she was still determined to leave, and he didn’t blame her one bit for it.
Understanding why she was going didn’t make it any easier thinking about her not being in his life much longer, but it did help him realize that nothing he could say would make her stay. Not now, not when nothing at all had changed. He was past the point of even being mad at himself anymore. Now he was just tired of it all, only wishing that someone really could wipe his mind clean so he could start over fresh with Harmony.
But he didn’t want that, either. He just wanted to get control over himself, so maybe it was for the best that Harmony left. Then he could figure out what was going on without hurting her even more in the process. He swore he’d never forget the feel of her soft body next to him as she stood by his side, her arm snaked around his waist and her head on his shoulder. The small bump of a dagger tucked in a hidden pocket along her thigh pressed against him and made him reluctantly smile. She was relentless about her safety, and he hoped she’d taken his self-defense lessons seriously. He dreaded thinking of her traveling across the country by herself, but the fact that she had his blood in her now gave him some measure of comfort. She was a lot stronger than she was when she’d first arrived in Atlanta, so he’d just have to hope and pray she’d be all right.
Together they watched Seth nurse Nala back to health. He’d imagined going on some new adventures with his friends after Harmony left, but now he felt his idea of creating and fulfilling a bucket list was really just another way to distract himself from his personal problems.
The ceremony continued, along with Echo suddenly being possessed by someone, and he felt too numb to pay much attention to any of it. Contemplating what his life would be like after Harmony was gone made him feel too much like he had after Sonya’s death. He’d stopped feeding back then, and it took Seth and Nala’s relentless mothering to finally convince him to take care of himself again. They’d even left the family so their presence wouldn’t constantly remind him of Sonya and his crippling grief. He didn’t want them to leave again, but maybe he should this time. Maybe it was time to move on from Atlanta.
The crowd stirred when Anthony reached back into the pool and hauled out a trembling, awkward man. Daniel. He was like a newborn, his limbs shaky and awkwardly flailing about. The jerking abruptly stopped and Anthony was able to pull him out of the pool without issue, no doubt using his power to control the man.
Daniel was bloody and naked, but he seemed to have the correct number of limbs and other body parts. Christopher helped Anthony cover him in a blanket while Daniel shook and cried out in agony.
Anthony said, “Daniel, it’s ok. You’re all right.”
He said in desperation, “I feel pain. Why do I hurt?”
“Because you’re turning vampire. People have to go through a painful transition to become vampire. Apparently even you can’t skip that step.”
With hope in his trembling voice, he said, “So I’m a physical being? And I’ll become a vampire?”
“Yes, Daniel. You made it. You’re alive.” Anthony suppressed a smirk. “Welcome to Atlanta. No matter where you’re going, heaven or hell, you’ve got to pass through Atlanta.”
**
Someone thought to bring a robe for Daniel to wear, and Harmony chuckled as Christopher awkwardly helped get his arms into the sleeves. He tried to help him walk back to the buildings, too, but Daniel kept fighting him.
Christopher said in exasperation, “Daniel, we’re going to your new home. We need to go this way.”
Daniel sounded just as frustrated when he said, “I need to do something first.”
“What do you need to do?”
Daniel grumbled, “It’s slipping. I’m trying to remember.”
Christopher stopped fighting him and seemed like he was trying his best to be patient.
With uncertainty in his eyes, Daniel looked around, then stopped and pointed shakily in Ethan and Harmony’s direction. “She needs to taste my blood.”
Harmony glanced around wondering who ‘she’ was, then realized he was pointing at her.
“Forget it buddy. I’m not tasting your blood. None of that is even yours.”
Daniel sounded desperate when he repeated, “You need to. Please, before I forget.”
“Forget what?”
“It’s slipping away so quickly. Please.”
Anthony was suddenly standing in front of her, staring her down, and she tensed. “I think you should do as he asks.”
Harmony looked to Ethan, wondering if he’d stand up for her or if he’d let Anthony push her around. To her irritation, Ethan stood tense and silent by her side.
Anthony more quietly said to Ethan, “This may help you find the answer to your problem. He had knowledge of things as a spirit guide, but he’ll lose that knowledge quickly as a physical being, if it isn’t already gone.”
She frowned at Anthony as he looked back and forth between them.
Ethan said, “I won’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do, even if there’s a possibility it’ll resolve my problem.”
She stared at him in shock, unbelieving that he was putting his emotional wellbeing on her shoulders. His face was calm and nearly expressionless, and she finally realized something was off since she felt almost no
emotion from him. Dammit, he was breaking down on her. Or freezing up. Same difference.
She growled and pulled a dagger from a pocket in her jacket. “Fine. I’ll do it, but if he makes one funny move, I’m stabbing the bastard.”
Anthony cocked an eyebrow. “Fair enough.”
Ethan let go of her and didn’t move as she stomped over to Daniel. She briefly looked back at him and got the distinct impression he was scared. What the hell?
She turned back to her gross task in frustrated confusion. Daniel was overly helpful by pulling his robe sleeve up to expose his arm, and she curled her lip at the thought of drinking his blood. He’d just flowed out of Nala. That wasn’t normal, and not something she’d ever think of as food, so she was having trouble making her fangs come in.
Daniel snapped, “Hurry!”, then surprised her by snatching her dagger and harshly stabbing himself in the arm with it. She jerked at his tone, then cursed him out in her head as she quickly leaned over and tasted his blood…
…and her world spun out of control.
**
Ethan froze in place as Harmony bent over Daniel to drink from him. If Daniel’s insistence had anything to do with helping Ethan fix the problems in his head, he wasn’t sure he wanted that anymore.
What if Harmony had been right and he’d been keeping Sonya in limbo all these years? Was she just now trying to speak to him from beyond the grave? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he’d been keeping her trapped, and it made him sick to his stomach to think about it.
His head knew that would be a ridiculous solution to his question of why he’d been so insane with thoughts of her lately, but his heart didn’t know what to think. It’d been less than a week since both Echo and Anthony thought the answer had something to do with Nala and a chain reaction, so he really had no idea what to expect. Watching Harmony drink Daniel’s blood made his own turn cold as he prayed to gods he didn’t even believe in that his fear that he’d somehow trapped Sonya in eternal limbo wasn’t true.
He braced for whatever Harmony might say or do next. Dread consumed him and made him think up horrible answers to his questions about his sanity. Everything ultimately led to realizing his mind was slipping past the point of being able to heal himself, and still it felt like a stake to his heart that Harmony was leaving.
She didn’t drink from Daniel for very long before the man passed out from the pains of his transition to vampire. She let him go, and her face scrunched up just before she started gasping. Her hands went to her head and she looked like she was trying to hold her skull together as she dry heaved in between louder and louder cries of pain.
Ethan didn’t go to her. He felt like she was his poison and his cure, and he wished she’d already gone back to her Maker because he didn’t want to hear her tell him he’d simply gone insane. He imagined her in his mind’s eye laughing at him about it, the entire vampire community in on the joke.
He woodenly watched Anthony crouch by her side and try to talk to her, but she just kept holding her head as she rocked back and forth on her knees. Her gasps eventually turned into whimpers and her gaze looked far, far away.
Anthony said, “Ethan, perhaps you should take Harmony inside. Christopher and I will oversee Daniel and the cleanup.”
Harmony sharply eyed him and he reluctantly went to her. As he knelt down to help her up, she said, “Ethan? What’s going on?”
He got her on her feet. “Maybe you should’ve stabbed Daniel after all instead of drinking from him.”
She looked horrified. “What? What are you talking about?” She looked around herself then, jerking in shock as she took in her surroundings. “Where are we? And who are all these people?”
He frowned at her, not in the mood for games. “We’re at Wild Woods.”
“Wild Woods?”
“Do you feel all right?” When she didn’t answer him, he said, “Harmony? Hello?”
She stilled and slowly whispered, “Harmony.” She covered her mouth with her hand and her eyes went wide. “Isaiah killed Sonya.” She looked hard at Ethan, then. “And you turned Isaiah vampire, then waited here to kill him for good.”
He snapped in irritation, “Yes, we’re all aware of that. Are you all right? Do you need to sit down again?”
She stared at him for a time, then took his hands in hers. “Ethan, you’re going to think I’m crazy when I say this, and frankly so do I, but when I drank Daniel’s blood, I think he opened my mind up to remembering who I was in the past. Before I was Harmony.” She took a deep breath and said, “Ethan, I think I used to be Sonya.”
Ethan exploded out of her grasp. He pointed angrily towards the parking lot and seethed, “I think you better leave. Now. And take your things with you.”
“Ethan, no.”
“How dare you throw this all in my face like it’s some kind of game? I may not have gone to enough therapist appointments for your liking, but I’m trying, Harmony.”
“Ethan, I’m serious. I’m Sonya.”
He reached out with his hands as if he might choke her, though he never touched her as his whole body violently shook. “Shut up!”
“Ethan, please. I can prove it. Ask me anything.”
“Shut up!”
She kept talking as if he wasn’t completely furious with her. “Your hair used to be longer in back but shorter up top. And you used to have a picture of your parents and you from when you were twelve years old framed on your dresser. You liked that picture because it was the last time you remembered your family being truly happy.”
He sucked in a breath and stared at her in furious horror. “You’re a seer, aren’t you? You’re playing a game with me.”
“I’m not a seer.”
“And how would I know you’re not?”
Harmony got that damn sassy look on her face that Sonya used to get when she was irritated with him, and it made him confused.
She snapped, “Because you can tell when people lie. Am I lying to you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her, then scoffed and looked away. “My head’s too messed up right now. I don’t know what I see.”
Anthony stood behind them and carefully said, “I could put her in a trance and ask her. Then we’d know for sure.”
Harmony firmly said, “Do it.”
Anthony looked to Ethan for confirmation.
“Do whatever you want. It doesn’t make a difference anyway. Her Maker’s beckoning her home and she’s sick of my problems with my memories of Sonya so she just wants to hurt me before she goes.”
Harmony looked stung by his accusation and tears immediately filled her eyes. If he wasn’t so furious with her for pretending to be Sonya, he’d almost think she was telling the truth.
She didn’t move as she stared at him, eventually wrapping her arms around herself. He sighed in defeat and pulled her into his arms. “Harmony, please. I told you, I’ll go back to the doctor. Just please don’t do this. You don’t have to pretend to be Sonya as a way to help me with my problems.”
She sobbed a laugh and pulled back from him. “I wish I were, Ethan. This would be so much easier, especially since the only reason I wanted to leave was because you had one too many women on your mind, and in your heart.”
He stilled at that. He didn’t believe she was Sonya, but maybe this was a way to get her to stay. “So will you stay while I go see the doctor again? Will you give me more time?” His hope quickly rose and fell because she still had her Maker beckoning her home.
Harmony said in exasperation, “You dummy. Aren’t you listening to me? I’m telling you I made a mistake. I can’t be mad at you for loving Sonya so much because I am Sonya. At least I was.”
He sighed and stepped back from her. “Stop it.”
“Ask me something Sonya would know.”
“Stop it!”
Harmony turned to the crowd and said, “Christopher! Remember when I was a little girl and you taught me the song that your mother taught you? We sang it together ever
y time you came to the house to visit Papa. It was about a duck and a rabbit, walking over the hillock.”
Christopher frowned in shock.
Ethan said, “Christopher?”
He narrowed his eyes at Harmony as if trying to catch some detail he’d missed. “You can’t be…” He shook his head. “No. This is a trick.”
Harmony quickly said, “And Papa, your favorite color to dress me in was pale green, but I liked the lilac dresses better. We’d constantly argue over which I should wear, so you finally had the seamstresses make dresses with both colors in them.”
George eyed Harmony suspiciously, just as Christopher was now doing.
Ethan said, “George?”
George looked at a loss for words as he stared at her.
“George?”
“Well, I… I… well, the dresses…”
She turned to Ethan next. “And Ethan, the first time you kissed me was on that bench in the botanical gardens, in front of the lake. I nearly ruined it, though, because I−”
Ethan lost his breath and took her in a crushing embrace, giving her a harsh, desperate kiss. Back when he’d first kissed Sonya she’d been so nervous of him because she’d never been intimate with a man as an adult, not since surviving a childhood out of any woman’s nightmares. He hadn’t known that at the time, though, and almost pushed her away because of his boldness.
When he finally released her now, he looked into her sultry eyes and said, “You didn’t nearly ruin it. I did.”
She looked hopefully at him. “Ethan?”
“Sonya?”
Tears streamed down her face. “I used to be Sonya, my patient love. Now I’m Harmony.”
His heart nearly burst in his chest. Harmony would never know that Sonya had a pet name for him. Not unless… “I don’t care who you are, my beautiful butterfly, as long as you’re mine.”