by Marcus James
“What do they want with me?”
The spirit was silent, and for a moment Kathryn feared that it would suddenly evaporate like smoke on the wind.
Her thin, long, almost skeletal finger outstretched to point at her. ‘You will bear the key to destruction... you will carry part of the whole... that which will help bring an end to your plague...
‘That which will be able to end the existence of a god...’
“I don’t understand...” Kathryn couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “I don’t understand!” she said again with a desperate shout, as if it would make the thing bend to her.
The spirit was already backing away, receding into the shadows from whence it came.
“Wait!” she shouted again, but the entity was gone.
As if from a waking dream they emerged, and the night was once again filled with the sounds of the nocturnal beasts of the earth and sky, as if there had never been any eerie silence, and all around them the listless dead continued to make their way without the slightest indication that they had borne witness to any sort of disturbance to their phantom world.
X
Sheffield had been sitting at the bar of the Rainbow Bar & Grill for over an hour, dressed in denim Levi’s and a black Harley Davidson tee which was faded from years of wear, the bald eagle printed on the front with outstretched wings was almost completely lost to its countless cycles in the wash.
He had hoped that perhaps Kathryn would be there, or that she would come waltzing in, commanding the attention of every single patron with her heart-stopping beauty.
No such luck.
Four whiskey’s in and an ever-growing crowd had brought Kathryn Blackmoore with it.
He wished he had known where she was staying, and he wondered if Magdalene had tried calling him at his house back in Bellingham, if perhaps he had made a mistake in being so impulsive in his love that he had sent himself prematurely on what was becoming more like a fruitless mission.
Three different women had approached him at the bar, all of them looking like strippers and flirting with him in hopes that he would pay for their drinks. He had said no every single time. He didn’t want their company and he had no desire to pick up their tab either.
With the first two women he had tried to be polite as possible, telling them that he was fine with being alone, but by the third, some blonde with brown roots at the crown of her head and tits that had obviously been paid for, who continued to stand in his sight of the door, Sheffield firmly ordered her to find someone else; that he was waiting for his girlfriend.
Girlfriend. The word injured him. It took hold of his heart and gave it a near-lethal squeeze. He had no idea if he would even see Kathryn, and even if he did, there was no promise that he would ever get to call her his girlfriend again.
He held the wallet-sized photo of their prom picture between his fingers, staring at it with intensity, and a longing for ghosts of better times.
They had been so happy that night, and the future before them had held so much possibility. He had looked so proud in his Perry Ellis suit and that shag of brown hair, holding tight to Kathryn’s waist while he smiled.
She had been radiant in her crimson evening gown, her auburn mane in a chignon, and her signature pearls draped around her neck. Her blue eyes were lined in black and looking at the camera seductively, and her rouged lips were cracked in a slight and seductive grin.
She was smiling for him. she had only had the future Sheffield in mind as they had stood there for the photographer, a back drop of a nighttime lake behind them, her smirk and those eyes reaching out through that eight year tunnel, piercing into him and making her ache for her and desire to cover her face and body in his kisses.
He needed to find her. He needed to confess everything and make it right with her. Perhaps in the end all he would receive was her forgiveness, and though forever shattered, he would take solace in the fact that that forgiveness was more than he had deserved.
“Sorry, man.” Sheffield looked up from the photo to see a slender guy dressed in black jeans and a white Sex Pistols tee standing to his left, his hair artificially black, matching the inky wells of his eyes, and his white skin was covered in macabre tattoos.
“Oh, um, no problem.” If the guy had bumped in he didn’t know. He had been too adrift in memories to have noticed.
“I’ve never seen you around here before.’
Sheffield shook his head. “Nope, you certainly wouldn’t have. I’m just visiting.”
The guy nodded and waited to order. Once the older female bartender with brown hair took his request for a shot of Jameson and a bottle of Jack Daniels, returning with both and taking payment, the stranger began to walk away, but suddenly stopped and pointed to the picture in Sheffield’s hand.
“I know her!’
Sheffield sat up and turned to look at him. “This girl? This girl right here?!” he asked, shaking the picture.
The guy nodded. “Yeah, she’s a friend of mine.”
He couldn’t believe this. In that instant everything changed. As if the sun had pierced the blackest clouds, falling once again upon the earth. “Kathryn, you know Kathryn?”
“Yeah, Kathryn Blackmoore!”
Sheffield stood. He hadn’t even thought about it. His legs had just reacted to the news as if ready to set off on the mission once again.
“I have to find her. It’s the whole reason I’m here.”
The stranger looked at him, a slight suspicion glared in his eyes and the shadow of apprehension fell over his face. “Why are you looking for her?”
Sheffield was anxious. They were wasting too much time on questions. He just wanted this guy to take him to her. Ask me questions on the way, but just take me to her! He couldn’t say that. He knew it would be a fatal error in judgment if he did.
He had to be calm, he had to show that he wasn’t some sort of psychopath stalking the young woman in the picture.
“It’s a long story. Suffice it to say, she’s the love of my life and I stupidly broke up with her because I was afraid of some things.”
“What kind’s of things?”
“Just some shit that’s pretty hard to believe-trust me-but with my own eyes I saw it, and I just wasn’t ready to deal with it. It took me eight years to figure my shit out, and I’m just trying to make it right.”
The man’s face softened, and he appeared to be satisfied with Sheffield’s answers. “I’m Richie,” he offered with outstretched hand.
He took it and smiled. “Sheffield.”
“I’m actually on my way to see her right now...”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” everything was seemingly falling into place, and perhaps all of those invisible things, all of those ancient gods that came to a witch’s call, were rooting him on. Perhaps he was in their favor and they were guiding the lovers to each other once more.
“Please dude, take me to her.”
Richie didn’t say anything right away. He threw back the shot glass and looked at the bottle of Jack Daniel’s in his hand and then turned his attention back to the bar.
“I think we’re going to need more than one of these tonight.”
XI
They had spent the past thirty minutes in silence, sharing a bottle of red wine between them, the words of the dark spirit weighing heavily on the both of them. Kathryn wasn’t ready to talk. Not until she had sorted it out. She would carry part of the whole, what did that mean? The prophecy of the Blackmoores came back to her, the promise of salvation born in the tenth generation-a direct line from Sarafeene and Malachey Blackmoore-witches who would bring an end to the Legacy and stamp out the Dark God of the Wood forever.
Or at least would have the potential to.
“I don’t want this,” she suddenly spoke aloud without meaning to. Cutting into the silence and both she and Magdalene looked at one another. Her cousin’s eyes looked at her with sympathy.
“I don’t think there’s a choice in t
hese things.” She said helplessly.
Kathryn rolled her eyes and shook her head.
“I can refuse to have kids. I have no desire to be a mother, especially if it means this! I don’t want to be the one to fulfill some family prophecy-some legend that may or may not be true-not if it means condemning my child to this darkness!”
Magdalene leaned back with her glass of wine and sighed.
“If we ever doubted its validity-if we ever thought it nothing more than a legend to scare us-tonight has proven that it is real. And why wouldn’t it be?” she asked. “When it is true that we kill our lovers with our passion? We have just ignored the rest of it for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because it has been so far removed-just words on page in a book back on the shelf in my house-that we chose to regulate it to legend.
“But Grandma Fiona has always been adamant that it was all true. That the evil is very real, that what drove the Dianaca’s away-the great war of the families-was all real. That it would come again. That it had always been there, bloodthirsty and lying in wait.
“If it would come again, then perhaps it is. Perhaps this is the time, and right now, it all comes down to you.”
Their whole lives they had heard the story of Sarafeene and Malachey Blackmoore, of the voodoo queen who had bewitched Malachey and lured him into bed, wearing the face of Sarafeene.
They had always been told the tale of Sarafeene discovering them together and of the voodoo queen’s curse on the Blackmoore name, condemning them all to be unwilling bringers of death by the very cells that made up who they were, and the prophecy found writ in blood on her mirror the next morning when the woman was found dead in her apartments in the French Quarter, naked and covered in blood.
“The Devil shall come for his witches...” Kathryn said.
“Exactly.”
“What do we do?”
Magdalene shook her head. “I think we need to call someone. I think we are way in over our heads.”
“No.”
“But, Kathryn-”
“I said no.” she interjected. “If this is all true, then even more reason not to involve any one else in the family. If they are not in danger then there is no reason to put them in any if it can be avoided.
“We’ve had no sign that any other Blackmoore is in harm’s way, and we need to keep it that way.”
Magdalene rolled her eyes. “This isn’t just about you. This is about all of us!”
“Wrong. This is about me. I’m the one these things want-no one else-and that means that whatever we do, it’ll be my decision.”
Kathryn got out of the dining chair and walked over to her purse, which was sitting on the bar, and took a cigarette from out of the case and lit it.
She needed something stronger than wine. She was all out of liquor and had forgotten to request more from room service earlier that day. She thought of the dreams and the memory of Kuri between her legs. She thought about Angelina and wondered if perhaps she should head down to the Rainbow to see if she was working. But she was too tired and too tipsy for that.
She thought about calling her, but knew that it was too late to be calling anyone’s house; especially when they lived at home.
There was a knock at the door, pulling Kathryn out of her thoughts and reminding her that Richie was coming over to discuss everything that she knew and to fill him in on Angelina Ramos.
“Hold on!” she called as she made her way to the front door.
Kathryn took another puff from her cigarette and opened the door, smiling when she saw Richie standing in the dark, his smile wide and infectious, with two bottles of Jack Daniels in his hands.
“I brought provisions.” He said.
There was someone standing behind him. For second Kathryn had thought that perhaps it was Angelina, but she quickly saw that the shape was strong and male. The figure’s shape was familiar to her. The way he stood with hands tucked in the front pockets, turned Kathryn’s stomach in nervous longing.
“I ran into someone who has been looking for you...”
Kathryn stepped to the side, and as Richie made his way in-skirting past her cautiously-as if afraid of what she might do to him-that face came into view. The strong chiseled jaw and plump lips, the slight baby fat almost gone entirely from his face, and those emerald eyes just as lustrous and just as vibrant as she remembered.
Her heart raced and her knees buckled. Kathryn had to brace the door to keep herself steady as Sheffield Burges came into full glorious view.
He froze as soon as he crossed the threshold, and everything stopped. There was no time. There was no Richie or Magdalene looking at the two of them anxiously. There was only this moment, those eight years flooding back, all of the tears, the suffocating heartache, and the desperate search for him; those nights spent in her room hoping against hope that he would call or come back to her.
“Hey.”
XII
“What the hell? What the-what the fuck are you doing here?” her voice was tinged with excitement, and her cheeks were flushed. She was a woman now. Like wine she had only gotten better with age. She stood there barefoot; one hand on her waist, and her body was serpentine in the tight black dress that hugged her hips and breasts.
“What do you think I’m doing here?” Sheffield didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to stand in the entryway and feel the gulf of those eight years between them. He wanted to take her in his arms and crush her against him. He wanted to press his lips against hers and devour her kisses. He wanted to lift her from off the ground and carry her to the bedroom and make love to her. He wanted to traverse the avenues of her body and survey the land like a trail from childhood, discovering all that had bloomed since he had been gone.
“I just-I don’t believe this! I can’t believe you are here. This is just-”
“Just what?”
Kathryn hesitated for a moment before answering. She averted her eyes to the floor and shook her head. When she looked up at him again, those icy eyes pierced into him and forced him to catch his breath.
“It’s just too much.”
“Please Kathryn. I just want to talk. Can we do that? I’ll go if you want me to, but please, can we at least talk first?”
Kathryn said nothing. She pushed the door shut behind him and turned, walking straight down the hall. He wasn’t sure if she wanted him to follow, but he did. Magdalene and Richie were both staring at him as he followed her.
He had spent so many years contemplating what he would say to her. Since his return to Bellingham he had rehearsed these things over and over again, and yet now, walking down this hallway, past the bathroom and a bedroom with two full beds and into the larger master suite in the back, he suddenly forgot all of it.
The reality was more than he could bear.
Kathryn walked over to the bedside and switched on the lamp that was fixed to the wall. The room blinked into existence in the soft glow, and there, like a raft beckoning them to climb onto it and drift away, was the bed.
He closed the door behind him and stuffed his hands back into his pockets. Kathryn stood there staring at him, her arms folded across her chest and her hip popped. She was deliciously combative. Guarding herself against whatever may come next.
Sheffield wanted to go to her, to close the distance, but he thought better of it and leaned against the dresser instead.
“So, how have you been?” she asked him. Her voice weary.
“Empty.” Of all the words he could have used, that wasn’t the one he had intended, but it was the most apt. “I’ve been lost for so long. I’ve been consumed with you. I tried to forget you, but it’s been impossible.”
Kathryn gave an embittered chuckle and placed her hand to her forehead. “Empty? You’ve been empty? You’re the one who left, Sheffield. Not me!”
“I know, why do you think I’m here?”
“Absolution.”
This stung him. Kathryn seemed unable to even conceive his intentions. Was that how long it had
been? Had those eight years eliminated any familiarity between them that she could think so low of him?
Absolution. It sank into him slowly like a blade being forced in at a snail’s pace, and with each thrust, the deeper the penetration and pain.
“No. I came to make it right. I came to get you back!”
Kathryn’s face flashed with rage, a rage that she quickly swallowed.
“To get me back? Eight years Sheffield. It’s been eight fucking years! It took you this long? It took eight long years to decide that you miss me and that you want me back?!
“You want to talk about empty Sheffield? Try spending eight fucking years mourning the loss of the only man you ever loved! Try spending a big chunk of that time desperately hoping and praying that the man you love would come back. Giving up on any sort of life in the process of having that hope.
“No dating, no parties, no connection of any kind. Spending a big chunk of your twenties just going to school, and then home, not wanting to leave your house because you’re too afraid that if you do-even for one night-that that will be the night that he fucking calls and you will miss it!”
Her voice was rising, the tone becoming sharp and her face was red and hot, and the tears were welling in those eyes. “I fucking kept tabs on you for those first few years, and wherever I heard you were spending your summer or where you were on your breaks, I would go, hoping to find you! Looking for you and hoping to run into you!
“You want to talk about empty? That is fucking empty, Sheffield Burges!”
“I know...”
“No, you don’t know! Eight fucking years Sheffield,” he watched as Kathryn quickly grabbed a water glass from the bedside table and raised her arm. “Eight fucking years!” she pitched it at him. Sheffield saw it coming, and he ducked just in time to have it miss him and hit the wall instead, raining glass like frozen showers around him.
“Kathryn!” it was Magdalene. “Kathryn, are you okay?”