Into Death's Arms (15 page)

    My father shrugged
like he didn’t care what the council had to say. Of course, he’d never been much for worrying about the council maybe this was why
.
“No.”
H
e turned to r
e-
enter the room.

    The priest hissed. “You know the consequence AoD
. Y
ou and the
AoLi will be cast away;
you will be cursed b
y the Ao council. They will send an enforcer for you and take the child from you.” The man’s
beady little
eyes had grown darker with his threat.
    This time my father
smiled. I
t wasn’t a pleasant smile. “
I have served as the council’s enforcer for three centuries.” His smile grew even more m
enacing if that was possible, “A
nd that was before I had my AoLi. I think they understand just what will happen if they are foolish enough to send someone against us.
He opened the door, entered the room again, and slammed it in the priest
’
s face.

  
 
The dream darkened. I had seen this before.
I didn’t want to see it again.
My father tore through the house carrying me in his arms. “Iris,
Iris
!
God damn it
! W
here are you
?
” H
e slid in the hallway. “No,” he whispered
,
sens
ing something I did not.  “Iris,
” the word was torn from his throat like something living. My mother lay on the floor in the bedroom. Blood had soaked into the carpet all around her. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused. He backed out of the room quickly
,
carrying me to the garage. He hit the ov
erhead lights. “Stay here
, Macyn!
” He demanded. I didn’t want to
.
Mommy was hurt
,
and I was scared
,
but I was too small to reach the doorknob.

      
For the first time
,
I saw what had happened after he left me. He raced back into the bedroom.
His knees made squishy sounds as he knelt in the puddle of blood.
“Iris.
” He shook her limp form. “Iris, y
ou must heal yourself. Iris now,
” he yelled. H
e had never yelled at my mother. 
“Iris please
,
”
h
e begged
burying his face in her hair
. “I
can’t
,” he sobbed
brokenly.
“I can’t do it. Please baby
,
heal yourself.” It was too late. He held her in his arms weeping openly.
It felt like a knife in my chest.
Finally,
he whisp
ered to her, “I’m sorry,” h
e said hoarsely. “I was so arrogant.
I thought... I will make it up to you Iris.
I will find a way.” H
is
eyes close
d. “How am I supposed to keep this up without you?
” He lay on the floor with her in his arms until the sun rose. I never knew. I knew he had hated himself since her death
,
but I never knew why. He blamed
himself. He thought
it was his fault.

    “Daddy,” I cried as I woke. Deanna’s eyes were filled with tears. “
Why? W
hy would you
show me that,
” I hissed.
I was back to hating her. I had almost liked her for a little bit.

    She closed her eyes
. A
movement so much like the one my father had made when he wept that I had to blink to shake off the ghosts. “He has been of
fered a
chance to see her. T
here are a few Ao who are strong enough to contact the departed.
” Her face was bitte
r now. “But he will not take it; h
e thinks you n
eed him here, so he has refused. Talk to him Macyn,
”
she growled.
“If
you cannot convince him he may never be the same again and Iris.” Her eyes filled again. “Sweet Iris, I would
give my soul to take her place,” s
he whispered.
Her face was no longer perfect but red and blotchy.
“Talk to him. You are the only one who can convince him.”
I wanted to ask why she would trade places with my mother. I wanted to ask how she knew all this. I wanted to scream at her for telling me, but mostly I wanted to erase that horrible shadow that had been growing across my fat
her’s eyes for the last seventeen
years.

   “What does he have to do?
” I asked
, my
voice
was
shaky.
I didn’t want him to go
,
but I didn’t want him to suffer anymore.

   She smiled like the sun coming out after the rain. “The
Shifters
in Peru…
he has to take out the entire pack of them.”

    “Has the council gone
insane?
” I asked
.
I had seen what those monsters could do
, and that
pack was something like twenty strong. “He doesn’t even have an AoLi
. I
t would be suicide.” I was starting to get
really
piss
ed with this w
hole damn system. W
hat
the hell? Spend your whole life defending the innocent. Get no reward, no beni’s
,
and by the
way,
if you d
on’t do just as we say
,
we’ll hunt you down and
kill
you
!
Yeah, fuck a whole lotta that.

     “I
volunteered
to go
with him.
” Her voice was solemn
,
but I could hear the fear in her voice. She volunteered to go with
him.
Why would she do that?

    “Are you insane?
”
Yes,
I know it was rhetorical but I felt it bore saying anyway.
Maybe I was the one who was insane.

     She smiled and it was a s
mile that answered the question. Y
eah, she was just a little crazed.
“Since the first time I saw Caden standing in the courtyard with Iris in his arms, yes.” She looked at her lap.
Her hands folded neatly lying in her lap.
“Iris was my sister. Not by blood
,
” she waved one of those manicured things at me,
“
but by all that counts
. S
he cared for me. She held me when I was afraid. As children
, we were raised very strictly. I was…
” tears slid
down her
face
,
falling onto those perfectly manicured hands.
“I was always so naughty
.
I would mix ants into the nuns
’
sug
ar bowls, muddy up the hallways.
I was
so
wild and never thought about the consequences.
Iris always took the
blame;
she would bear the beatings meant for me.
Sometimes she would have bruises on top of bruises,
but
she never complained.
She never asked anything in return, but when I saw her with your
father,
I would not give her my blessing. I was so jealous. I didn’t want to lose her
,
and I am ashamed to admit, he was so handsome I wanted him for myself.” She buried her face in her hands.
Her voice was muffled but I understood.
“Her whole life I failed her. I
n
death I will do better by her
.
I will make it up to her.” 
Wow, I knew she had a crush on D
ad
,
but this was, wow, just too much. Her face was all blotchy now
. T
he sun shone through the window behind her
,
and I could see how frizzy her hair had become during the night. She looked like a train wrec
k
, and I liked her better for it
even if she was crazy.

    I took one of her
lovely
manicured but very
wet hands.
“I’ll talk to him.” What else could I do?
I would have done it anyway. I couldn’t leave those people in Peru to suffer like that and I wasn’t s
trong enough to help them yet, m
aybe someday but not yet.

     She thanked me and left which was good because I really felt the need for a shower. Nightmares are conducti
ve to sweat; sweat makes you smell
bad. I was sticky and smelled
,
well
,
not as bad as I expected
,
but hell it was time for a shower anyway.

    
I turned the water up to steam broil and stepped in. I am never pink after a shower. I am bright red. I like it hot. I stood under the flow of water and let it wash away the residue of last night’s dreams. Would I dream like that every night? God I hoped not. I soaped
,
lathered
,
rinsed
, and
repeated all in a daze
,
trying to assimilate all that I had learned.  I realized one thing. I knew very little about myself. I knew
lots about
Shadow-born
.

    
Vamp
ires
can make you do things you don’t really want to.

    
Shifters
can tear you into littl
e bite-
sized pieces but usually only got really fr
isky during a full moon.

    
Dream-walkers
can cause your heart to give out using your own fear and those were just the
Shadow-born
that walked
among
us every day.

   
There were others.

    Every
culture has stories about monsters.
Pretty much all myths have some basis in fact.
The Mexican chupicabra. The Russian Baba Yaga. The Japanese Oni. We all have something that makes us afraid of the dark.

   
There’s a thought that’ll keep you up at night, locked in a room brightly lit with ultraviolet lights. Yeah, ultraviolet lights hurt most
Shadow-born
.
Thank God Ao heal to quickly to get skin cancer.
I needed to buy stock in a u.v. light makin
g company
. N
ow that the world knew
Vamp
s exist
ed
,
I
was
bet
ting sales went
up. Ohhh, I wish I could buy stock in holy water
, too
. Silversmiths definitely
. E
very
Shadow-born
I had ever seen or even read about could be harmed by silver, in varying degrees.
I got out of the shower, dried off, brushed my hair, teeth, and began to feel a bit more human.

    I wandered down stairs. Father
Mike
was cooking. I
planned to grab something and go hunt down my dad, but Father
Mike
had other plans. He forced me to sit down and eat an entire meal.
He
gave me
eggs
benedict
and hash browns.
Then when I’d polished those
off,
he gave me a stack of waffles.
He said
something, about needing to eat regularly or I’d get sick.  I didn’t care
. E
verything smelled so good. I had seconds, and then thought thirds might be a good idea. Man I was hungry.  Father
Mike
seemed to understand and filled my plate back up. Okay eating regularly is
one thing, eating like three defensive linemen was
another. After drinking three
eight-ounce
glasses of
orange juice
,
I
decided it was time to go find D
ad.

   
Father
Mike
didn’t want to let me leave
,
but I finally convinced him I’d be back. He chuckled like an indulgent parent and let me leave while he cleaned up the dishes.