“Yes, I believe I did.”
“Huh,” she said. “I’ll be damned.”
“I try. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes, you even succeed.”
“I do indeed.”
She was looking at me, and I at her. She blinked before searching my eyes, half in confusion, half in… something else. I couldn’t quite pin it down, and I must admit feeling slightly afraid to identify it in case I might be wrong. That peculiar, flustered condition, brimming with cosmic nausea that rang so pathetically human, swarmed into me again. It began turning my insides to slush, filling me with an uncomfortable heat from the inside out. Vampires have hearts and blood that circulates, but it flows so slowly that we scarcely have a pulse. In that moment, mine was racing the same as anyone else’s.
“I have not always been a worthy friend,” I said.
Dulcie snorted. “You don’t say?”
“I have only rarely been a worthy friend, and rarer still were my moments of… chivalry, shall I call it? I have subjected you to countless nefarious, demeaning dinners, knowing you needed my help and had no choice but to suffer through my games.” I sighed. “I have also been rather callous in my dealings with you, and I regret that profoundly. But my greatest regret, I believe, is…” The words caught in my throat, avoiding my tongue and rendering me, for a moment, completely mute. I blinked down at Dulcie, losing myself and my words in the smoothness of her skin, the curve of her lips, the metallic shine in her eyes, always so strong and bold and sure…
“Bram?” she asked softly.
I reached out and touched her face, cupping her cheek in my hand.
“I was not with you,” I said, “when you needed me most. When Vander violated you…” Anger swept through me again like a hot wind. I bit back the words that came next, waiting a fraction of a second to avoid accidentally screaming in Dulcie’s face. “I was not there. I was elsewhere, as I am always elsewhere.”
“Bram, that wasn’t exactly how things happened and don’t forget it was ages ago,” said Dulcie. I saw the coldness of the memory behind her eyes. She reached up, perhaps to remove my hand, and I dropped it before she could. “You don’t understand what was really going on.”
“Vander admitted that what I saw was the truth.”
“Yes, it was, but there were details Meg withheld. Pieces that would have softened the blow of what actually happened.” Explaining it didn’t really matter now because I had a sneaking hunch I wouldn’t see Knight again. “And Knight and I were in a weird place at the time.”
“I know you care for him,” I said slowly. “And I know your relationship has been complicated. Full of snags and barbs and thorns, but Dulcie, every problem landed on you. Every action you ever took with Vander was to protect him, and how did he repay you? Forgive me,” I said a little softer, “I do not wish to turn you against him. Only to offer you something better.”
“What?” asked Dulcie in scarcely more than a whisper.
“My eternal loyalty and service,” I said. “I have always claimed to be your friend, but now, I simply hope you will allow me to be there for you… to…”
Suddenly, I was very close to her. For a moment, I did not touch her. Hovering a hair’s breadth from her body, my hands frozen, and still as stone, I was hesitating until the last possible second. I searched her eyes, green and glowing, brilliant and bright. She was staring at me with an expression I could not identify…
“To do what I can,” I said at last. They were not the words I intended to say, but the only ones I could allow myself to admit.
She was not ready to hear my true feelings for her. Not at this moment. Not after everything that had just transpired.
Dulcie looked back at the burning house and gave my hand a small, almost imperceptible squeeze. It was so faint that it may have been an accident. She seemed exhausted, sad and quiet. I wondered what thoughts were traveling through her mind although I had a very good idea that they centered on Vander.
The dregs of Meg’s power hung in the air like smoke after a forest fire. The taste of death and rotting bodies, as well as stale blood, steel and bone marrow was pervasive. The house was, of course, not alive, but the putrid song of something dying seemed to echo in its burnt rafters. Perhaps that should have been obvious. Spending the better part of the last several months constructing unholy monsters from the bodies of the dead, Meg’s special craft certainly reeked of death and rust.
But despite its proximity and undeniable intensity, I was calm. The night seemed to curl around Dulcie like a blanket, soft, warm and tender. The world smelled of death, yes, and decay and burnt things; but with Dulcie so near, it also smelled of flowers. I could not say what kind; only that the scent was very sweet, and also very welcome.
“I am sorry I did not kill Meg sooner, when fate gave me the opportunity,” I said.
Dulcie did not reply.
We stayed like that until the fire burned down to a few embers. The night it left behind was warm and still.
###
Knight
Dawn came, but very slowly. Bram disappeared, like always, and the rest of us were carted off to the nearest hospital, which seemed to be a new trend.
People came to visit us once we were stable. The FBI mostly, and some CIA agents asking cryptic questions about D.C. and the missing Secretary of State. The same questions they’d pulled from the ashes of a problem gone cold. I didn’t know the answers and quite frankly, I didn’t care.
There were IVs in my arm, bandages around my throat, and cold air tickling my nose through a cannula looped around my ears. Sunlight blared through the hospital window.
“You look like hell.”
I looked up. “Fuck you too, Gabe.”
He smiled and sat in the green plastic chair next to the bed. “We saved the world, dude! Smile a little.”
I beamed very badly.
“Hades, promise me never to do that again.”
I softened to a grin. “How you feeling?” I asked.
“Me? I’m fine. It’s all sunshine and daisies up here.” He drummed his fingers on the wooden arms and looked out the window. “You?”
“Decent,” I said. “At least, I’m not dead.”
“Not dead is good.”
“Yeah.”
Drum, drum, drum, now on his thighs. He pursed his lips, sighed through his nose, and looked up at me without lifting his head.
“So. You and Dulcie.”
I stiffened. “Not going there right now.”
He sighed again through his nose, louder, and leaned back in the chair. “Your mind was open, dude.”
I felt my heart sink. “Then everyone saw what Meg sent Bram and me?”
He shook his head. “No, so far as I can tell, you went dark for everyone else, but I could still see it. Maybe because I’ve known you so long, or because I was the closest person to you at the time you were broadcasting or… I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But that was fucking brutal.”
“Brutal,” I said, shaking my head slightly. “Is this what you came here to talk about? Really?”
“I came here to check on you. See how you’re doing. Ask if you need to talk.”
“About Dulcie.”
He shrugged. “This is heavy stuff.”
“Can we talk about anything else?”
“Well, yeah, but then it’ll just hang in the air like a bad smell and that’s not any better.”
He wasn’t wrong. “Are we talking about me and Meg? Or me and Dulcie?”
“The second one, but I saw that other stuff about you and Meg. It’s in your head too. You got some bad shit to work out.”
I almost laughed but swallowed the sound before it even made it into my mouth. “No fucking kidding.”
There was a long silence. People filled the hall like running water: nurses, doctors, custodians, and patients in wheelchairs. Everybody was either staring at the ground or the horizon as if they were seeking somebody they didn’t really want to find.
>
Hades, when did the world get so fucked up? It seemed like all we ever did now was search for things we weren't allowed to find. The only things we did find were specifically designed to destroy us by ripping us into little, bite-sized pieces.
Everybody was already shattered, like tiny splinters that got embedded into your skin, but we couldn’t get rid of each other.
“What are you gonna do?” asked Gabe.
I wanted to laugh, which seemed like the right thing to do just then, the appropriate thing. But laughing on top of the grave can't bring back the dead and laughing at the past can't rewrite it. All it does is convince the people around you that you’ve descended into a hysterical version of yourself, one that finds tragic things amusing.
“I’m gonna leave Dulcie the hell alone like I should have done a long time ago,” I stated. “And I plan to excel at my job as I move on with my life.”
“Probably for the best.”
“Probably.” I paused even though the words echoed in my head. I wanted to scream and cry and throw up all at the same time. “I think I’m gonna put in for a transfer.”
“Really?” he asked without sounding surprised.
“Yeah.”
“Back to the Netherworld?”
“Anywhere. As long as it isn’t here.”
“To start over for yourself, or just to avoid Dulcie?”
I glared at him wordlessly until he held up his hands in surrender.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said, “but you need to forgive yourself for whatever baggage you’re holding onto.”
“Okay, Tony Robbins.”
He smiled. But half of his mouth was not committed to the expression. “I’m serious. If you’re gonna move on, that’s great; but make sure you do move on, you know? Don’t hold onto this shit because it’ll only fester and pretty soon, you’ll start hating yourself.”
“Too late for that. I already do.” We stared at each other for three very long seconds.
He nodded slowly. “Well. I’m gonna head out. People to see.”
“People to see,” I echoed.
He clapped me once on the shoulder, gripping it firmly. “Take care of yourself, Vander.”
“You too.”
He put his hands into his pockets and walked out of the room, whistling. The door clicked shut softly behind him. And I was left alone.
For like… five seconds.
You have done well.
My jaw instantly clenched as a reaction. Great.
Hades was standing at the foot of my bed, tapping on his staff. His robes moved in a soft wind that wasn’t even there. Early dawn light washed over his skeleton like wet paint.
“Thanks,” I said. “What are you doing here?” What else could he possibly want?
Thanking you.
“Wait, what?”
I came to thank you.
“Really?”
Yes. Is that so hard to believe?
“Yeah, it is, actually.”
Meg is dead. The Darkness is gone.
“And your dimension doesn’t have holes in it anymore?” I asked.
And yet you are still unhappy.
“Well, gee, mister, I wonder why.”
I expect it has something to do with the woman.
“Fuck you.” Anger emanated from me in blasts and waves. Getting pissed at Hades wouldn’t gain me any favors, but “repressing” it didn’t even begin to describe what I’d been doing all morning. “And since when do you care, anyway?”
You have only yourself to blame.
“I know that!” I shouted before I sighed and sat back, covering my eyes. “I know that.” I looked up. “I can’t do a damn thing about it. I made a stupid, idiotic mistake. Fuck, I’ve made so many stupid mistakes, so many inane choices, and now…” I gestured at nothing and everything before dropping my head in my hands. And now it’s over. And this time, it’s going to stay over.
I didn’t want that to be true, but I couldn’t think of any reason it would not be. There was no way to fix this. I looked into Dulcie’s eyes and saw how hollow they were. And the hollowness wasn’t the result of what happened on the side of the road. That might have been Bram’s beef with me but it wasn’t Dulcie’s. Why? Because she was there and knew what really happened. She wanted me as much as I wanted her. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t try to explain more to Bram, or to convince him of the real truth but I didn’t. Maybe because I knew Bram wouldn’t listen to reason. He was so in love with Dulcie and he always had been. He would have eagerly leapt at any chance to hate me and Meg had certainly given him that.
But, no, I knew the hollowness in Dulcie’s eyes had nothing to do with what happened all those years ago. No, it was more about what she witnessed between Meg and me. The toothpaste was already out of the tube and there was no way to put it back in again. We both saw and knew things about the other that were impossible to ignore.
But is that true? a voice inside me demanded. How can that be true? If we truly love each other, that should be enough and we should be able to overcome anything! If…
But I ordered the voice to shut the fuck up.
Sometimes, said Hades, reparation is not the answer.
“No shit.”
It is easier to build a new ship than to try and retrieve the one that sank to the bottom of the ocean.
“Great, and how does that translate in the real world?” I snapped but I already knew.
Go somewhere far away and begin again. Find the version of yourself that exists in tandem with this unfortunate reality.
“Why, because you need me for something else?” I asked. “And if I’m sad, I can’t be useful to you, since I’ll be distracted?”
Then Hades was right next to me. Staring at me with those little, red, pinprick eyes, he dressed me down all the way to my bones.
I cannot turn back time, but you are a beast of superior strength; you should have no trouble paying it forward. He paused. You will not see me again.
And poof! He was gone.
TWENTY-THREE
Dulcie
The grave was no more than a simple grey headstone, the name carved into it above the words: beloved friend. Flowers—some real, some fake, some in brightly colored vases, some in Styrofoam cups embedded in the ground—surrounded it. They appeared to be basking in the sun when it occasionally broke through the latticed branches of the willow above the plot. It didn’t feel like quite enough; but I was sure he wouldn’t have wanted anything more extravagant.
Sitting cross-legged in the grass, I was plucking the little green blades and pulling them apart like fraying strings. I had all the parts to make a flower crown, but I couldn’t begin to braid them together. I just plucked and pulled and plucked and pulled until I had a little pile of blades of grass in front of me. My pathetic little offering, full of grief and confusion for an old friend.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked back to find Henry standing with his hands in his pockets. He had a massive white bandage over one cheek and a patch over his eye that made me wince. His glasses were perched at a weird angle on his nose. His hair was clean, his skin was covered in bruises, and he was wearing a blue shirt, cargo shorts, and bright green tennis shoes.
“I’m surprised to see you,” I said. But I was also happy to see him. I couldn’t explain why.
He shrugged. “I was worried about you so I followed you here.”
He looked more like a little kid than an adult. I kept thinking he should be in a playground somewhere, and not inside a graveyard. “You did everything you could. Don’t be sorry,” I said, addressing his first statement.
“Oh, I wasn’t referring to that,” he answered, coming forward to sit next to me. “I meant, I am sorry, but I didn’t mean sorry sorry. I meant, I’m sorry.” He motioned toward the grave with his head. “I have my own people in the ground. I’m sorry you do, too.”
People in the ground. Not dead friends, just “people in the ground.” It sounded so whol
esome. “It’s okay,” I said. “Not okay okay, but… you know what I mean.” Damn, the kid was rubbing off on me.
Henry smiled. He looked up through the willow branches, letting the stripes of sunlight fall across his face. “This is a peaceful place. It’s very pretty.”
“It is,” I said. “He would have liked it.”
“What was his name?”
I started to point to the grave before remembering his bout with the abominations; his eyes would still be fuzzy for a while yet. “Trey,” I said.
“Was he a good friend?”
“My best friend.” I reached out and ran my thumb along the cold marble headstone. “You two would have really liked each other.”
“You think so?”
“Oh, I’m positive,” I answered. “You’re both really… sweet.” And just a little bit irritating. I ruffled the hair on the unbandaged side of his head and he laughed.
“I’m glad you think I’m sweet,” he said.
“Really?” Sweet isn’t usually a word that thrills guys to hear when describing them.
“Yeah.” He smiled. “Usually, people tell me I’m irritating. Unless you think I’m sweet and irritating, which I guess is a possibility.”
“I don’t think you’re irritating.” Hey, it was just a white lie.
“Awesome.”
Pause. Cool wind enveloped us, carrying the smell of freshly mown grass and rich soil right up into the trees.
“The last twenty-four hours have been pretty crazy, huh?” he said. His eyes were still bright, and his tail very bushy. This kid was impossible to keep down.
I couldn’t help smiling at him, all the way up to my eyes. I laughed a little too; it came out as really more of a grunt, but it was there. I sighed, pushing my grass pile around with a finger. “Do you ever want to just… start over? Factory reset your whole life?”
“No,” Henry said, shrugging. “But I haven’t been alive very long. And nothing very interesting has ever really happened to me. Well, up until recently.”
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