On the Far Side of Darkness (32 page)

“Just what I said,” I reply.

His knuckles turn white on the barrel. “Not good enough. Give me a reason not to pull this trigger.”

There’s a rapid pattering noise and Diane is standing between me and her father. “Dad,” she states in a flat voice, “don’t. You’ll have to shoot me first.”

Mr. Patterson’s jaw drops, the muzzle of the shotgun droops as his muscles relax. He blinks as his mind tries to grasp what he’s just seen.

Lilly comes into the room in a rush, her face ashen with shock. She stops and then her expression matches her husband’s. After a moment she steps over to her husband and wraps her arms around him.

“Mom, Dad,” my love tells them then, “we have to talk. Let’s go into the living room.”

They nod. Diane reaches for me and I for her. We turn to the door. “You won’t need the shotgun, Dad. I promise.” she says as we exit.

On arrival in the living room, we take the second sofa. We sit, hips touching, hands clasping. Her parents enter and sit themselves across from us. Their faces are studiously blank although tears twinkle in Lilly’s eyes.

“Can Georges and I take a moment?” Diane asks.

They nod a careful agreement.

My love and I lean our heads close. “What can we do?” she asks.

“Several things,” I tell her. “You know what they are.”

Her mouth tightens. “No. I won’t kill my parents. I can’t.”

“Then we won’t.”

She ruminates for a second. “Could we erase their memories?”

“Doubtful,” is my reply. “They have too many of you. I doubt we could create a lie that wouldn’t fall apart and quickly.”

Diane gets a very bleak expression on her face. It seems to her we have no choices, and she’ll have to participate in a horrific act. One that will scar her deeply. Perhaps more than she can stand.

That isn’t the case though.

“How much do you trust them?” I ask then.

“They’re my mom and dad, Georges.”

“So we tell them. We know they can keep a secret.”

She nods. “Fangs only,” she says. “That will be enough.”

“Fangs only,” I agree.

We draw apart and turn to face them once more.

“Mom, Dad. This is what you need to know.” As she finishes I pull my lips back and extend my fangs. I know she’s doing the same.

Lilly makes a strangled noise, buries her face in Jim’s neck and starts to weep. His face falls. No tears emerge but his eyes glisten.

Diane releases me, gets up and walks over to them. She kneels to place a hand on their thighs. “It’s still me. I swear to God, it’s still me!”

Lilly swallows her sobs, looks at her daughter. “Are you?” she asks. “How can you make us believe that?”

“What would you do if you wanted me to be honest in the past, Mom? I’ll do it.”

Diane’s mother ponders for a moment. She looks just like her daughter when her offspring is thinking. Lilly gets up and goes down the hall. In a minute she returns with a leather bound book in her hand.

A moment’s fear tremors through me. What she holds could be dangerous to my love and I. But I keep quiet. I don’t dare interfere.

Lilly extends the book. “Swear on this,” she says. “My daughter wouldn’t lie on this.”

Diane turns on her knees to face her mother. She places the palm of her right hand on the tome. “I swear, Mom. I’m still me.”

She jerks back with a pained groan as the stink of burned flesh suffuses the room.

In a second I’m wrapping her in my arms. Together we stare at her hand. The skin is black, red streaks of flesh showing through the cracks in it. Wisps of smoke still rise from it.

Then it begins to change. The black returns to the pale pink it was, the cracks vanish. In moments her hand is back to normal.

A gasp sounds from both her parents.

Diane grips me very hard. She sounds a whine of effort and her body strains against my grip.

“Shh,
cher
,” I tell her. “I’m here. Hold on.”

Her mother takes a half step towards us. I look up, give my head a little shake. She stops, drops her Bible with her face is full of misery.

“Jim,” I say then, speaking quickly, “go to our vehicle. There’s a fridge in the back. Bring three. Hurry!” My voice places a heavy emphasis on the last word.

He’s goes without a word, moving with a speed and grace that belies his age and size. In barely a minute he’s back.

Extending my arm, keeping a tight grip on my love I say, “Give me one.” He places a blood bag in my hand and I bring it to Diane’s mouth. With a convulsive movement she sinks her fangs in it.

“Gently,
mignonne
,” I tell her. “Don’t waste any.”

She sucks at it with a voracious strength, showing how close to starvation she is. Her throat works, drawing the sustaining fluid into her stomach.

I squeeze the bag as she drains it to make sure she gets every drop. As she finishes it I reach to Jim for another. He gives me one, I offer it to Diane and she starts to feed again.

She’s not as hungry now, so emptying this bag takes more time. Her body relaxes so I loosen my hold.

The third bag she takes her time consuming. When done, she turns her head to peck at my cheek. “Thank you, love,” she says.

I take her lips in mine and we share that deep kiss. Then I release her, move back and nod my head at her parents.

At once they kneel and embrace her. “I’m so sorry, honey,” her mother blubbers. “I didn’t mean to hurt you like that.”

“I know, Mom,” is the reply. “I’m as surprised as you.”

I let them hold there for several minutes. It’s good to let them be. It will help rebuild the bond nearly broken by our revelation.

“We have to finish our talk,” I say finally. “We’ll need the rest of the night.”

They draw apart and we take our previous positions.

“Convinced now, Mom?”

Her mother gives her a smile flavored with shock. “I am. You always did the right thing no matter how much it hurt.” Lilly looks at me, her eyes and lips slit with anger. “Why didn’t you warn us?”

“Because what happened is a very unusual phenomena,” I tell her.

Lilly’s anger fades. Both her parents frown with confusion.

“You have faith, Lilly. Not just belief, faith. You know without proof that the power behind the words in that book exists. You have no doubt of it.

“So, in your hands, the book becomes a focus of that power. Diane and I come from a different power. Thus the power of the book hurts us.

“I didn’t know you well enough to be aware of that. I’m sorry. What happened is my fault.”

Her parents smile again. “Forgiven, Georges,” Lilly tells me. “It did prove she’s still my daughter. As I said she always did the right thing no matter what the consequences. I don’t understand how He works but anything else wouldn’t have convinced me.”

Jim interrupts. “It wouldn’t have been good if we weren’t convinced, would it, Georges?”

“What makes you say that?” I ask in return.

“I keep an eye on the world, Georges. I’ve lived a long time and I’ve heard not even a rumor of thi…people like you. You must work hard to keep your existence from the world, and I’ll bet that the methods you use aren’t always kind.”

“You have the right of it. But your daughter and I don’t like to use those methods. We value human life. Furthermore, your daughter trusts you. Which is why we revealed ourselves.”

“Thank you, Georges.” he says. Jim ponders for a moment. “So what really happened?” is the question he asks next. “To you and my daughter?”

Diane and I start talking, leaving nothing out. I stop when it’s her turn to speak, she picks up the thread, hands it back to me when she’s done. It’s a single story we tell, not the same story from different perspectives.

We tell how we met, how we grew closer, how we fell in love. How what I am drew her into my world and how the conflict that came to me almost destroyed her.

Lilly’s features blank with horror as I talk of that, her eyes tear and she grabs her husband’s hand tightly. “A mage?” asks Jim, astonishment and fear in his voice. “There are actually people who use magic?”

“Yes,” I reply. “They are very rare. Even rarer than our kind. It’s hard to tell, though. They, from what I’ve learned, are as careful to hide as we are.” I go on telling of how my conflict finished, but I leave out some of the darker parts. I don’t want to create a new breach between my love and her parents.

“Thank you, Georges,” says Lilly as I finish. “Our daughter as a slave would have been too much for us.”

“Don’t. It was my fault, the reason I left her.”

“Why do you say that, Georges?” Jim queries.

My love and I start talking of what happened after. I fled to Paris, she fled into herself. We both became empty people wandering through our lives. I tell of how I realized I needed her, how I had people find her and how I sent for her. Diane speaks of her journey to where I was, of us meeting again and of the conflict that once more befell us. We speak of me rescuing her and how it revealed what I am to her. She tells of the break this disclosure caused, her struggle to accept her discovery, and her eventual reconciliation with me. I speak of my offer and her agreement to it.

“I see,” remarks Jim. “It seems you’re often in trouble, Georges. You were afraid of my daughter being hurt by it.”

“
Oui
. Even here, we had a small conflict.”

“Oh?”

“Georges and I encountered Dwayne on the way here,” my love informs them. “They picked the wrong people to start a fight with.” Her mouth shapes into a satisfied smile.

Jim and Lilly blink at us for a second. “I guess I’m not going to be grounding you any more am I, young lady?” her dad remarks. His eyes twinkle with humor.

“No, Dad,” Diane grins back, “you’re not.”

We all chuckle for a moment.

I pick up our tale. “That shows one of the reasons I asked Diane to join me. If we had encountered Dwayne and his cronies while she was still human it might not have turned out well. I might not have been able to protect her. I had been lucky the other times. Now she can protect herself.” I smile and lift her hand to mine to kiss, “and she did very well at it too.”

Diane squeezes my hand lovingly.

“The other reason, Georges?” is Jim’s next question.

“How would you feel, Jim, if you were immortal and Lilly was not? What would your feelings be knowing she was going to fade from your life and there was no hope of her returning?”

He swallows and grimaces in pain. Lilly brings her other hand up, Jim also, and they grip each other tightly. “I’m not sure I could stand it,” he says, his voice thin and bleak.

“Nor could I. Now Diane and I will never be apart.”

“And Dad,” Diane interjects, “Georges told me everything before he changed me. I knew just what I was getting into. It was scary, but not half as scary as the thought of losing him.” She leans towards me, wraps her free arm around my stomach and huddles close.

“Have you…?” Lilly starts to ask. Her face is fearful of the answer she’ll receive.

“Fed on people?” my lady replies. “Yes I have, Mom. But I haven’t killed anybody. I only need to feed. I don’t need to kill.”

I do nothing to give away the fact that my Diane is lying. Her parents need to know, but they don’t need to know
everything.

Her mother’s expression lightens a little. “Are you happy, honey?” is her next question.

“More than I’ve ever been, Mom.”

“
Moi aussi
,” I add.

Both her parents form a content smile at that statement. “Then we’re happy for you, honey,” her dad says. “That’s all we’ve ever wanted for you.”

We sit quietly for a while, each of us wrapped around the person we love. This is a time when being with the most important person in your existence is a great comfort.

Jim yawns, Lilly a second later. I check the clock, it’s only a couple of hours until dawn. Our stories have filled the night.

“You’d better get to bed,” Diane tells them. “Sorry we kept you up so late.”

“No, honey,” Lilly returns. “We should have asked. We should have trusted you. But you had changed so much we were frightened. We’re sorry for that.”

“Then consider that our mistakes cancel each other out,” I say. “We’re even and start with a clean slate.” They smile and incline their heads in agreement.

We stand and they escort us to the door. Lilly hugs her daughter and myself in turn. Jim shakes my hand and then embraces my love. “You’re always surprising us, honey,” he says.

“I surprise myself, Dad,” she replies with a warm smile.

“I guess we’ll see you tomorrow night?” Lilly asks. Her face is a rich melange of emotions. Happiness and love are mixed with confusion and sorrow. She blinks tears free from her eyes.

“You will, Mom. Good night.”

“
Bon nuit
,” I add.