Hair, Greg - Werewolf 03 (13 page)

Chapter 27: Requiem

Entering the same Venice bar where he met Gar, the werewolf who put him at the bottom of the lagoon, and where he most recently met the father who was too drunk to find his daughter, Landon had some reservations. He held fear too closely to his heart.

But, he thought, for the past several months, since this all began, I’ve had nothing but reservations; nothing but fear. It’s time I work this out.

Seeing no signs that told him he couldn’t smoke, Landon pulled out a cigarette, grabbed an empty rocks glass off the bar, and sat at a table beside a window.

Your father would be proud of you, he recalled LillyAnna saying.

Pulling out a lighter, the same lighter he picked up off the ground at Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, the one that was used to kill his father, he lit his cigarette.

The owner of the bar hadn’t installed a stereo system to pump music through the air, but the owner wasn’t there today. Instead, a scrawny teenage looking young man with mussed up dark hair was behind the bar. And he brought his own portable CD player.

Soon, U2’s One began playing. It set the tone for where Landon was going within his own mind.

He thought about some of the fears that had been plaguing him for quite some time.

He feared for LillyAnna. Finally, he’d found someone, somebody he could be himself around, his true self if need be, who wouldn’t judge him. For all intents and purposes, he found his soulmate.

I didn’t marry her so I could watch her die. She’s come too far, and I love her too much. There’s gotta be a way to keep her safe from Nicholas.

His thoughts turned to his fears for Liam and Mara.

They’ve already lost their mother, now they may lose their father. How are they supposed to grow up dealing with that? On top of dealing with what they are? How can I protect them if I’m dead?

He feared for the lives of his friends, and all the strangers that flocked to Venice to follow him.

I’m supposed to lead all these people to their death? Is that what you want me to do, God? Just lead them to slaughter? The way Nicholas slaughtered all those babies two thousand years ago?

With smoke rising from his hand like a fire brewing inside him, he turned his thoughts from the present, back in time, to his childhood. How his father, Allen, had always told him to walk away.

You don’t fight, he’d say. Walk away. Run if you have to. Then, one day, Allen took his own advice, leaving his wife, Jean, to raise their son. Until, finally, she died.

He thought about the first time he changed, stopping a rape in a Louisville park. The fear, confusion, and pain, as his body burned, bent, and broke, inside and out. The first time he killed. Three men—slaughtered. The feeling of drowning as he shifted back to human form the next morning.

All his running for ten years. Meeting Paige and leaving her. Traveling to Europe to search for answers and ending up at Burghausen.

All the lost children he saved, and those few he didn’t. All the murderers, pedophiles, and rapists that, in his powerful werewolf eyes, had it coming.

He took a draw from the cigarette and looked out the window at the beauty of Venice, and sighed, blowing smoke at the window. As if it were his own last viewing of the Jewel of the Adriatic. One continued to play.

He remembered how he met LillyAnna, someone like him who, unlike him, still retained her beauty and humanity. Meeting Jamie, the teenager with so much rage and hatred, who turned out to be his son.

Nicholas, the true wolf in sheep’s clothing. The great betrayer. The one who corrupted Jamie, kidnapped Liam, Mara, and Paige, and subsequently killing the latter. The one who died. And the one who rose again.

Landon got up from his seat, taking his rocks glass to the bar.

“Fill it,” he said, and the bartender quickly obliged. He then returned to his table with the amber liquid, and sat down.

Nicholas, the one he killed, who came back to destroy him. Took Jamie and the children again, sending them back, and killing Celeste in their place.

Landon’s father, Allen, returning to his life, seemingly brining LillyAnna with him. All the repairs he made between himself and his father, himself and LillyAnna. His second chance with Allen. That second chance snuffed out as Allen was engulfed in flames.

Landon looked down at the lighter on the table, the weapon that took his dad from him, as Bono’s falsetto voice brought One to an end. Then, a brief pause, and Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight began. Though he tried to hold them back, a couple of tears escaped.

The destruction of Burghausen, and the death of the Consuls. The Senate broken and on the run. Himself on the run, even after ascending to Consul, with his new powers, all the way to Mexico where he lost the one gift he counted on the most to beat Nicholas—his newfound, Consul given, immortality.

Landon, having not yet taken a drink, gripped the glass hard, thinking about the taking of Annelise. His best friend’s wife, gone, and her subsequent torture.

Then, his own near death, left to drown at the bottom of the Venice canal. Nearly killing LillyAnna in his rage when he was released.

Jamie’s betrayal of Bianca, who now carried his children, as he married her sister, Serinda. Serinda, killed by Nicholas.

Just another pawn, he thought. All pawns to raise himself to a god-like state. To kill God.

Landon sat with the dead cigarette butt in his hand, the light having gone out minutes earlier, as he stared at the liquor in the glass, his mind wandering to the intervention, and his own long battle with alcoholism—his other demon.

He looked up to suddenly see the father of the missing child Landon saved walk through the door. The man spotted Landon and rushed over to his table, taking the werewolf’s hand and shaking it vigorously as he smiled. He jabbered on in Italian, Landon not understanding a word, but letting the man say what was on his mind, anyway.

“Anybody in here speak English?” Landon asked, motioning for the man to sit in the other chair at his table.

“I do,” said the young bartender.

“Well, get over here. What’s he saying?”

The young man ran over to the table by the window.

“Ask him to start over,” said Landon. “Then, please translate.”

The bartender, himself now jabbering in Italian, again acquiesced to Landon’s request.

“He says,” the young man began, “that he’s very fortunate to see you here again. He notices that you have a drink, and wants to know if you’d like another when you’re finished with that one.”

“I’m not gonna drink this one,” Landon said.

“Did I give you the wrong drink?” the bartender asked, no longer translating. “You want something else? I’ll get it for you.”

“No. I don’t want something else. This is fine. Don’t worry about the drink, just keep telling me what he’s saying.”

The bartender listened further to the father sitting opposite his daughter’s savior.

“He says you are a hero. That everyone will know who you are and what you did.”

“You tell him to stop right there,” Landon said, as the young man translated. “No one needs to know. And tell him I don’t want a drink. I don’t think you told him that a minute ago. And tell him that, apparently, he shouldn’t drink, either. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to go looking for his little girl if he’d been home, sober, like he was supposed to.

“Look,” he continued, hearing every word he said in English, regurgitated in Italian, “it’s what I do. I find missing kids. I was very happy to save her. As long as she’s alive, and safe, I don’t need any kind of reward.”

“He says that he has quit drinking. He turned to alcohol when his wife left him several months ago, thinking his world had ended. He realizes now that his daughter is his world. He wants to know if you have saved others.”

“Yes, I’ve saved lot of people. Like I said, it’s what I do.” Landon began to listen, and pay attention, to his words.

The father continued.

“You are a hero, he says,” the bartender translated. “The world is safer with someone like you in it. We are all very lucky. Obviously, there are bad people in it, like the one who took my daughter. His daughter, I mean,” said the young man. “God sent you here, to this place, at the right time, when you were needed. He knew what He was doing. And I thank Him for that. And I thank you. My hero.”

The father stopped talking, and the bartender followed suit.

Landon sat there, quiet, unresponsive.

“Sir,” began the bartender, “did you hear what he—“

“Yes,” Landon said. “I heard. I was listening.”

He thought again about all the fears he held so close, for LillyAnna, his children, his friends, and the strangers who rallied to his side. Then a new fear raised its head in his—the fear of a world ruled by Nicholas.

The werewolf stood up, as Phil Collins entered his famous drum solo, leaving his liquor untouched, and the cigarette butt lying on the table. He began to walk away, when he suddenly came back.

“Thank you,” he said. He placed the lighter still in his hand, on the table. “I don’t need that anymore. Tell him it was my pleasure to save her.”

“Where are you going?” the bartender asked.

“To save everyone else.”

Chapter 28: Requiem

Landon awoke before dawn. He sat in an old chair in the small makeshift bedroom he shared with LillyAnna, watching her sleep. She tossed restlessly, at times talking in her sleep, though he could never make out what she was saying.

With the first rays of the Venetian morning cracking the dark barrier, LillyAnna stirred, eyes opening and closing, repeating several times, until she noticed him sitting in the chair.

“Good morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

“Not really. Today’s the day, right?”

“Yes, but—“

Her eyebrows furrowed and she shot up in the bed.

“Oh, no, not again,” she said.

“What?”

“You’re about to tell me stay here, aren’t you?”

“Well…”

“I knew it!” she said, jumping out of bed, dressing her nude body. “I’m not staying here while everyone else goes to fight. It’s not right, it’s not fair, and you can’t tell me what to do. Just because you’re my husband, doesn’t mean you can control me.”

“Lilly, I need you here.”

“Why? To protect me?”

“That’s part of it. Of course, I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t know how this is going to end.”

“You can’t always protect me. Besides, I can take care of myself. I think I’ve proven that multiple times.” She paused. “Wait. You said that’s part of it. What’s the other part?”

“Bianca. She can’t go. Someone has to stay here, be here with her when the babies get here. And, Liam and Mara.”

“So you thought you’d pick me. You could have picked anyone else, but you picked me. It’s not fair, Landon. Calling the shots for what’s about to happen, and because you’re Consul, doesn’t translate to being able to call the shots on what I do. Look, I love Liam, Mara, and Bianca, with all my heart, but all I’ll be is a babysitter. Everyone else will be fighting for their lives, fighting to save the world, and where will I be? Babysitting.”

Landon sat quietly.

“Please,” she said, kneeling, draping herself over his legs. “Don’t do this. It’s not like me to beg for anything. Please don’t make me stay behind. It’s not about me having to watch the kids, or take care of Bianca, you know I don’t mind doing that. But, I need to be there for you, I need to help you bring Nicholas down. You need me there just as much I need to be there.”

“I’m sorry, Lilly. You’re staying.”

“No. You’re not sorry, at all.”

She stormed out of the room, footsteps fast and heavy down the stairs. Landon rushed to the window and watched her stomp away from the building, and out of sight.

“This is bullshit!” he heard her yell from somewhere he couldn’t see.

He turned his attention to Bianca, and headed to her room.

“How you feeling?” he asked, entering her quarters, seeing her lying in bed.

“Never felt better,” she said, not even trying to hide the sarcasm. “You guys may carry me to a local church, but you can’t carry me all the way to Scotland. Have you figured out how you’re getting me there?”

“Bianca, you don’t really think you’re going, do you?”

“Uh, yeah. What the hell?”

“You’re pregnant. You can’t travel, let alone fight. Why would we take you up there? It’s way too dangerous for you, not to mention for your babies. What do you think Nicholas would do if he saw you there, pregnant? You think he wouldn’t put it together? He’d be after you in a heartbeat. No, you need to stay here, where you’re safe, and bring those babies into the world.”

“I know I’m going to give birth, but I figured by the time we got there, that will have happened, and I could fight. My friends may need me. You may need me.”

“Who’d take care of the babies? No one’s available. No one should be available, except for their mother. Your children need you. Look, you won’t be alone down here. LillyAnna’s staying, and my twins will be here, too.”

“I’m sorry, Landon, but this is ridiculous. It’s not fair.”

“I seem to be hearing that a lot, this morning. You’re about to give birth, Bianca. Think. You have to stay here. I’ll leave a couple of the Mexican vampires here with you and Lilly, to help out. That’s the way it is.”

Landon turned to walk out.

“This is bullshit,” said Bianca.

“Yeah, I’m hearing that one a lot, too,” he said, leaving the room.

One more stop, he thought.

Landon approached a closed door, and knocked.

“Come in,” came a small voice from the other side.

Landon opened the door to find Liam and Mara playing together on the old, wooden floor. He’d had Jacinda get toys for the children from toy stores in Venice.

“Daddy!” said the twins, in unison. They jumped up, running to his arms.

“Hey, my beautiful children.” He sat on the one bed the kids shared, then propped them up on either side of him. “Whatcha guys doing?”

“I’m a princess,” said Mara, “and Liam’s being a handsome prince.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You’re just in time for the wedding. We’re getting married.”

“You and Liam are getting married? I know that a lot of royal families are connected through intermarriage, but I don’t think siblings—.” He stopped suddenly, remembering he was talking to two five-year-olds when he saw his kids looking at him with confused expressions.

“Nevermind. Look, I need to talk to you guys for a minute.” He stared off in front of him, then turned his head continuously to each child as he talked. “I have to go somewhere. Actually, almost everyone on the island has to go somewhere. But, LillyAnna, Bianca, and a couple of others are going to stay here with you. You’ll be okay.”

“Are you coming back?” asked Liam. “Mommy didn’t come back when she went away.”

Landon felt his soul, all his answers, jerk out of him. He didn’t know what to say, but knew he couldn’t sit there speechless forever.

“Mommy’s body went away, honey, but her soul, the part of her you can’t see, is still here. She’s with you all the time.”

“Is that where you’re going?” asked Mara. “To Heaven? And then you’ll watch us when we can’t see you?”

“I will be back,” he said.

The twins hugged him, and he pulled them in as tight as he could.

Now, I get it, he thought. Now I understand what being a father is all about.

Landon watched one of his tears fall on Liam’s red hair. The boy didn’t move.

Suddenly, the lyrics to a song he hadn’t heard in a long time flooded his head.

There’s too much, that I keep, to myself, and I turn my back on my faith; it’s like glass, when we break, I wish no one in my place.

Richard Butler whispered, loudly, in his mind’s ear, singing Love Spit Love’s Am I Wrong. The song stayed in his head as he left the twins’ room, and made his way outside to the waiting crowd of werewolves and vampires. The lyrics still swimming in his head, he thought carefully about what he was about to say to his troops. The population was quiet.

“I wish no one in Nicholas’ place.”

The crowd parted, cheering, as Landon walked toward the Poveglia’s dock.

Floating, waiting, around the dock, and wrapping around half the island and stretching halfway out into the lagoon, were hundreds of boats, gondolas, and water taxis.

Landon entered the first he came to, and looked back at LillyAnna, looking out their bedroom window. He watched his children run out of the Octagon, and down to the dock, jumping up and down as they waved.

In moments, he was moving across the Venice Canal, his army following behind him.