September 21, 2010
Later.
It’s hard to like an uncle who’d been scrupulously absent your whole childhood. That’s me and Uncle Roland in a nutshell. Mom was always after me to be nicer to him, but, honestly, I don’t recall ever meeting him until I was twelve. I mean, I knew who he was – he’d been pointed out to me before, when he’d come ’round the house or we’d go to the Library – but whenever he saw me, he’d find some convenient excuse and slip away.
So you can understand why I think he’s a jackass, Mom’s excuses for him aside.
And honestly- what’s with her, anyway? Even I know Uncle Roland despises her; everyone in Arkham knows he’s loathed her since she came here for college. But Mom still takes his side all the time. Jeez.
I didn’t know why I was thinking about him, but I’ve got enough of a knack, as Gramma puts it, to not be too surprised when I passed by the Field and saw him sitting slouched against Dad’s headstone.
Figures. It’s a bright, clear day, not a cloud in sight, and so of course I have to run into Uncle Roland. He’s like some depressing anti-vampire, I swear.
He raised his head and I saw the weird feverish glitter of his eyes, and it was my turn to try and find a bad excuse to leave. But I’m like Mom, I suck at dissembling, so I just sort of skittered off. Not my best moment, there.
A hand yanked me onto the roof as I approached the school doors. I tried to ignore Aunt Alice and set about fixing my collar, but she’s freakishly strong and just grabbed my chin and turned me to face her.
I’m eighteen. I’m on the freakin’ football team. And Aunt Alice, who comes up to my chin, can sling me around like an empty potato sack.
“You need to knock this shit off,” she said.
“What?” I asked. But feigning ignorance doesn’t work with any member of my family.
“This thing you’ve got against Roland. You’re hardly being-”
“Being what? Reasonable?” I snarled. I immediately felt bad about it – being angry at my aunt is like being angry at a woebegone kitten – but it was like she’d set a match to a fuse. Once I’d started I couldn’t stop. “You want me to be all buddy-buddy with a guy who ignored my existence until I was twelve? Who still won’t come near me?”
She sighed, clapping a long-fingered hand over my mouth almost absently. “You know why that was. And yes,” she said, glancing sharply at me when I made a muffled objection, “he carried it a bit far. But you’re old enough now to look at things from more than just your own hurt perspective. Your uncle’s always been extremely wary of small children. You being who you are, it just made him even more cautious, to the point of paranoia. He made me or Talia handle all the gifts he sent you – he never so much as came in the same room as them – because he was utterly terrified he’d somehow contaminate them.”
Something in my expression must have settled, because she took her hand off my mouth before continuing, “And it’s not sane. None of us ever said it was. But we also have no way of knowing if you’ve inherited your father’s immunity, and the only way to test it is fatal if you didn’t. You didn’t see him,” she added abruptly. “He was there when your father was killed, which is why he’s so paranoiacally obsessed with you now. And he killed your father’s murderer by breathing in the man’s face.”
She settled back on her heels, elongated hands clasped around her knees, humming a bit before looking over at me. “Did your mother ever tell you Roland got the first blow in? Before the guy even killed your dad, that is.”
I felt hotly numb. I’d never heard this before. I couldn’t bring myself to shake my head, but Aunt Alice was always good at reading me.
“I’m not even sure Dora knows. Your uncle’s always had the odd problem of being fast on the uptake, until he’s upset,” she continued. “He’d figured out what the man was up to, if not the specific target, seconds after he entered the room. And he did get in the first blow – and promptly broke two fingers on the guy’s body armor and was unceremoniously chucked across the room.” She sighed, shifting on her perch, and I began to realize how uncomfortable this conversation must be for her. “Whoever this guy was, he was well-informed. There wasn’t an inch of skin visible, and even after he’d killed Wulf and Roland had gone completely berserk on him, he couldn’t get through the fabric. Couldn’t work his fingers past a hem or a cuff, couldn’t tear the damn stuff. The guy ran him through, but I doubt Roland ever noticed, and it freaked the guy enough to give your uncle a second’s breathing room, and he took it. Exhaled straight into the guy’s nostrils.”
“You were there.” I sounded even to my ears like a stunned rabbit, but Aunt Alice just gave me a grim little smile.
“I was. I was climbing down the wall behind the guy, actually, and would’ve gotten him in another few seconds if Roland hadn’t poisoned him first.” She looked at me for a long moment. “Roland was there when you were born,” she said, “I remember him, standing as close as he could to the nursery window without fogging it with his breath, watching you in your bassinet. He was the one who finally talked your father into actually getting some sleep – your dad was way too excited, and kept chattering about you to everyone he ran across. Your uncle actually held you a bit when you were an infant – only at your dad’s insistence, sure, but he was always afraid you’d accidentally touch him and he wouldn’t be able to stop you. But he’d sing silly old showtunes to you, and you’d laugh and laugh, and roll off his hands onto the rug, and laugh until he’d sort of helplessly join in. Even after your dad died – he never missed a game, and he hates football. He rants about the stupidity of it after every game. He’s never missed a birthday or a Christmas. He’s got copies of all the articles on you and all your school portraits and report cards that your mom shared with him. He keeps the wonky mug you made him in kindergarten on a shelf above his desk and cleans it every day – he won’t drink out of it so it’ll last longer. He even hid in the back by the doors at that disastrous school play. He loves you, Chris,” she said, more solemn than I’d ever seen her, “and I know you don’t believe that and you don’t remember that, but it’s true. He’s gone a bit stupid with old promises and paranoia and the madness your father’s death brought out in him, but he thinks the world of you. If he’s been distant, it’s because you’re all he’s got left of his twin, and he’s terrified of losing you.” Like he did your father hung unspoken between them.
Aunt Alice watched me with her weirdly luminous eyes. “I’m late for class,” I said.
Sighing, she helped me off the roof.
I didn’t want to think about what she’d said. I didn’t want it to make sense, but it did. I didn’t want to feel sorry for my uncle, or understand him, but I did. And I hated it as much as I hated my aunt’s unspoken criticism. You’ve been a real brat, Chris-my-boy.
But their birthday was coming up, and ok, I had no idea what to get an uncle I barely knew, but if it’s the thought that counts then maybe he wouldn’t mind a random visit from his nephew.
People always told me I was so much like my dad. Maybe it was time for me to start acting like it.
April 10, 2008
Meet the Ladies
The castle rose over the forest, tall and imposing. Ekion didn’t like it.
“Why do we have to stop here, again?” she snapped, trotting to catch up with her ward. They were the same height, but Nathan possessed a ground-eating stride that was hard to match.
Nathan sighed. “Because the Countess is one of the great powers of the region, and I am just an ambassador. I can’t risk offending her.”
“I still don’t like it,” growled the guardswoman. “You heard the rumors – you collected them in the first place. If the Countess really is capturing and killing all the beautiful women in the area, I’ll be hard-pressed to keep her away from you.”
Ekion could have sworn Nathan was blushing, but the light was dim and she couldn’t be sure. “And yourself? Surely the Countess would be interested in you, too.”
It was Ekion’s turn to blush. “Hardly.”
“Besides, she wouldn’t come after me,” Nathan said, quickening her stride.
Ekion snorted.
Staring fixedly ahead, Nathan finished, “I heard she’s only interested in virgins.”
Ekion barely avoided tripping over a root in the path.
And then they were at the gate.
***
The Countess was charming, if arrogant. She welcomed her guests warmly and summoned servants to take them to two warm bedchambers. Ekion was worried to note that the rooms were at opposite ends of a hall, but Nathan’s quick look silenced her protests.
***
Midnight came and went, and Ekion couldn’t sleep. She swore she could hear screaming from some distant part of the castle, and once, she’d heard people run past her room.
She hoped none of it meant what she feared it meant.
***
Midnight came and went, and Nathan was trying very much not to touch anything in the room. As clean and refurbished as it was, nothing could remove the lingering traces of blood – not enough for it to be hidden from her power. The stones, sometime after sunset, had compounded the problem by singing out the torment of some hapless servant girl.
People rushed down the hall to her door. The stones screamed a warning, and Nathan dove.
***
A hand reached out and gripped Ekion’s shoulder; only sudden recognition kept her from screaming. The rest of Nathan emerged from the stone wall.
“They came for you,” Ekion said after a moment. It wasn’t a question, and it was.
Nathan shrugged. “The stones warned me. We either need to leave, or confront her.”
“I vote for the latter,” the Siren said, flexing her talons.
Nathan smiled a wolf’s smile. “Me, too.”
***
Three shaken, bloody girls, formerly servants at Castle Bathory, turned up in town the next day. They told an amazing tale – the Countess a bloody murderer, who’d tried to kill two female guests; for her wrongdoings, the pale guest had killed her, like some great avenging angel. The dark guest had freed the three girls – the only three left not accomplices of the Countess – by commanding the stones to release their chains; she had waited for them to leave, then made the earth swallow the blood-soaked castle, the Countess’ body, and all the Countess’ henchmen. They’d last seen the two strangers disappearing to the north, heading towards the Monastery.
Irina heard this, handed the girls some coins, and smiled.
Strange School.
Diplomats’ children tended to attract a great deal of attention at any school they attended; even the most unattractive of them had an exotic allure that drew flocks of followers. Nathan Thaziazhsta was hardly unattractive, but “striking” was a better description for him than “handsome”; in fact, with more ordinary coloring, he’d be considered just a little good-looking.
Predictably, he had a following. It didn’t help that he was as much a diplomat as his mother (moreso, if rumors were true); he was too polite to drive off any of his admirers.
He was canny enough to stay away from everyone, too. Until Ekion.
No one ever learned Ekion’s last name – not even the administrators. For all anyone knew, he wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t have one. He was almost certainly not lying when he said he hadn’t even wanted to attend this school, but his claims that he was actually forced to attend were too far out to be believed.
White skin, white hair – “ghostly” might have been a good description for Ekion, except that he was far too solid to be a ghost, in body and in presence. Nathan, for all his striking looks, could be quiet and overlooked when he wished. Ekion, for all his soft-spoken nature, was so focused that his mere presence sent prickles down the spine of everyone else in the room. Except Nathan.
Everyone was surprised when the two of them became friends – and yet somehow, no one was.
Plenty of people were angry, though.
***
“No one knows why the Howlers hate the Librarians so much.” Nathan rested his chin on his hand, staring out over the field.
Ekion blinked and adjusted his dark glasses. “So…a group of vampires with motorcycles routinely attack members of the most bookish club in the school?”
Nathan nodded slightly. Ekion stared at him.
“You know why, don’t you?”
Nathan glanced sidelong at his friend, then looked away again. “I have some idea.”
***
“You’re kidding.”
“You didn’t think it strange that a librarian club would be able to hold its own against vampires?”
“Psychic powers?!”
“According to some of the Howlers, the blood of psychics tastes the best. I wouldn’t know.”
“Let me get this straight. A group of vampires is targeting a group of psychic librarian wannabes because their blood tastes better than normal blood, and the librarians are holding their own against the vampires. In other words, there’s some major vampire-psychic war going on in our school.”
“Yes.”
Even sunglasses couldn’t hide Ekion’s shock. “And no one’s doing anything to stop this?”
Nathan’s cool gaze settled on Ekion. “Better them than me. For all concerned.”
***
The Howlers had always steered clear of Nathan, for one very good reason: his mother. The lure of a psychometric’s blood, however, proved irresistable.
Nathan didn’t show up for days after the attack. No one at school knew what had happened. Rumors flew. By the end of the first day, half the student body was convinced that Nathan was dead. The other half was equally certain that he’d been bitten and was now the newest member of the Howlers. By the end of the first week, half the students were convinced that the Thaziazhstai had been sent packing after Nathan’s mother killed half the Howlers. The rest of the students were sure that Ambassador Thaziazhsta was just refusing to let her son come back to school, for fear of the Howlers attacking again.
Ekion was simply frantic. He’d almost worked up the nerve to face Nathan’s fearsome mother when Nathan returned to school.
The first indication that something was wrong came when his flock rushed out to see him. Ekion, who’d long since learned to stay back or be crushed, saw the crowd halt and heard a shocked silence fall. Nathan just kept walking, ignoring everyone.
The second indication that something was wrong came when Nathan came into view. Nathan was walking with his head down and a book raised in front of his face. Nathan never hid his face.
The third indication that something was wrong came when Nathan kept walking right past Ekion, without even acknowledging his presence. Slightly hurt, Ekion followed.
“Nathan?”
Book still held in front of his face, Nathan turned. Ekion tried to tug the book down, but Nathan was stronger than he looked, and the book didn’t move.
“Nathan…”
The book wavered, and this time, when Ekion tugged at the book, Nathan released it.
The scar ran right below Nathan’s eyes.
A red haze fell across Ekion’s vision, and he turned, snarling. If any Howler’d had the misfortune to run across him, the vampire would be dead.
Nathan’s grip on Ekion’s wrist snapped Ekion out of his killer trance as it pulled him into Nathan’s mind.
***
It was a little after midnight when Teleika woke him. “Is not right outside.”
Nathan sat up. “What’s not right, imp?”
Teleika wrinkled her nose, but didn’t respond to the nickname otherwise. “Is not same-same.”
“Same-same?”
“Same as other nights.”
“Someone’s outside.” Liamariye Thaziazhsta stood just outside her son’s open door, naked sword in hand. “Several people. Not human – the tread is off. Vampires, I think. I’m going outside to take care of them. Watch your sister.” She disappeared down the hall.
Wild howls – the gang’s trademark cry – sounded outside … only to become screams of pain and rage moments later. Ambassador Thaziazhsta was on the warpath.
On instinct, Nathan grabbed his own sword – and the window crashed in behind him. Teleika shrieked. Nathan swung his sword at the same time the Howler swung his knife. Both dodged; neither dodged enough.
Sharp pain seared across Nathan’s face. The vampire, screaming, fell with Nathan’s sword in his gut and Teleika beating him about the head with her tiny fists.
Outside, vampires died or ran. Inside, Nathan tried to staunch the bleeding from his face. Teleika kicked the corpse of the one Howler who’d made it inside the house, fuming.
***
Ekion floated out of Nathan’s memories. Disoriented, he found himself being held up by Nathan. A crowd was beginning to gather – and whisper.
Nathan grimaced, though only Ekion noticed, probably. The last thing he needed were more rumors surrounding him, but at least this scene could still be steered into a better direction. No one would believe that nothing had happened here, so Ekion gave them the first plausible explanation he could think of.
As their minds meshed again, Ekion found himself swept up in mental laughter. Never tell my mother you saved my reputation by kissing me in the hallway. I’ll never live it down.
Their schoolmates were gaping; neither Ekion nor Nathan cared.
