Chapter 20: Chapter 15] Unknown Future

In time, it was May, and graduation was soon approaching. My four-year ordeal was finally coming to an end. I was ready for it all to be over, to go my own way in life, and journey the path before me. Your mother was often at the front of my mind in those lazy days. She said she wanted nothing to do with me when I missed your birth in late February. And I was certain she meant it, truly, as she never showed you to me—let alone tell me your name—but it’s not like I tried to reconcile. With no evidence other than her word, I doubted that you even existed—that you were even mine. I managed to hide all those worries from the others, remaining social, and yet, I always found myself regressing back into my own head.

I wanted to ignore it all.

“Are you even listening?” Sam threw a grated cheese packet at me. “Well?”

We were out having dinner at The Missing Pizza; the place was packed enough to be noisy but not enough to distract from conversation. Already at attention, I caught the second packet Sam threw at me and placed it aside. I said, “Don’t have a fit. I have a lot on my mind.”

“Are you gonna have some of my pizza at least? You hardly eat anymore.”

I stirred my drink with a straw and said, “I think I’ll stick to water for now.”

At that point in time, I stopped eating most foods as everything was becoming hard to keep down in excess. I avoided going out, but The Missing Pizza was the one exception as Sam liked the pizza well enough. It was a pain to try and pretend to eat, but it was better than seeing a sad Sam.

Evie came around and smiled as she placed the tray on the metal stand. “Here’s your pizza. Medium BLT with extra mayo.” Evie’s eyes were as expressive as ever now that she had to take much better care of the volume of her voice. It had only been a few months since I last described her, but she was finally starting to look like a real teenager despite nearing her twenties. She was taller, about Lyca’s height, but still shorter than me. I also caught Sam staring at her two other noticeable developments hidden under her uniform. She turned to me and asked, “What day’s graduation?”

I said, “It’s on the twenty-third. You’re welcome to come with us.”

“Next Friday?” She tilted her head back. “Dang it… I have work.”

Sam lifted a couple slices of pizza onto her plate. “Don’t worry—we’ll be coming by to celebrate after the ceremony.”

Evie made an OK sign with her hands. “Don’t be afraid to share some of that graduation money, Eli. I’m counting on you!”

As Evie went to the back, Sam had already finished her first slice and was halfway through a second. “You’re really putting that away,” I said. “I thought you were lactose intolerant.”

She stuffed her face with more pizza. “Ah awm, but isso wo’th it.” She continued to eat undeterred and threw the crusts away like discarded bones to save room for more cheese. When she finally finished, she looked down at the metal plate and burped, blushing and covering her mouth. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You do it every time.”

Evie eventually came back to pick up the remains. The restaurant was getting busier, so we decided to go ahead and pay at the front after leaving Evie a tip—letting her work without added distraction. Sam latched onto my arm as we were heading to the car, leaning into me. “Eli… It’s no fair that you’re spending so much more time with Beth. Is she your best friend now? Or maybe your girlfriend?”

I tried to shake Sam off. “You know she’s like family to me.”

Sam ran her fingers across my chest. “Then it shouldn’t be a problem for us to be together.”

I got annoyed. “Don’t make things difficult. I already told you to stop teasing me like this.”

Sam winked and gave me some distance. “I wasn’t exactly teasing, you know. But I understand now is a difficult time for you… With how much you’re changing, I’m worried that you won’t be my friend anymore.”

“Nothing’s changed, Sam.”

“Yes. They. Have.” She pointed at me, guiding her finger to every detail. “You’ve gotten taller, your arms are bigger, and your voice has changed a bit. You carry yourself with more confidence—or maybe you’ve stopped caring what other people think. And your eyes look much darker… like you’ve lost your spirit.”

“Yeah, yeah. I think it’s time I took you home.”

Whatever Sam thought was different I didn’t see myself. It was true that I had grown a bit; that much had become obvious to me as my clothes started to fit differently. As for my eyes and personality, I thought nothing of it, and refused to give it much thought. Such things are irrelevant—and I know myself better than anyone.

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It was fairly late into the night when I dropped Sam off at her house. Normally things got pretty dark outside with no streetlights on the main road, though there was a full moon which lit everything up. As I stopped at the end of Sam’s driveway, I decided to pay Beth a surprise visit and took the unpaved road near the pecan grove deeper into the woods behind it. The road soon came to a dead end, and I got out to walk the rest of the way to Beth’s camp near the groundwater pump.

In my short walk, I heard whispers with shadows appearing between the trees here and there, moving silently, following me to my destination.

Shades.

I could hear Beth’s voice carried by the calm night air as she was in conversation with a man. Her camp was adjacent to the groundwater pump in the middle of a clearing, a lantern giving a sparse amount of light inside the tent. “Do you have a knife?” she asked the man hidden behind the pump from the position of my approach.

The man replied, “You should be able to force the blood out yourself.”

Beth lifted her hand and stared at her palm. “Wouldn’t hurt to try.”

A spike of blood shot out of her palm, thin and long, then pooled in her hand and adhered to her skin. Reacting with every twitch of her palm, the blood flexed and morphed, flowing to her fingertips, and forming into a free-floating ball. I stared in amazement at the crimson orb which swirled before her, my own excitement betraying my hidden position. The blood suddenly spilled to the ground, quickly decaying into an oily vapor which returned to Beth’s body as she turned to see me, though she did not acknowledge me.

“It’s almost sad to see.” Arbiter Alice appeared resting atop the pump in a white robe. “Blood magic, reduced to a mere parlor trick!” She laughed. “I thought it was supposed to come naturally to you.”

The unknown man moved from behind the pump into my view, now clearly Arbiter Sid with a black blindfold on and in a matching ceremonial robe with shimmering red accents in the form of a serpent. “No one is born into the world knowing, Alice. Even that which comes naturally must be refined through practice.” Shadows whirled around my feet, tethering to my arms and legs and locking me in place, dragging me into the clearing to be viewed by all. “Nice of you to visit unannounced, Elliot.” Sid then released me from his tethers, looking beyond me. “Another still wanders the woods. I fear for them, for there is no one to protect them from what lurks in the shadows.”

“Leave them be,” replied Beth. “There are no unwelcome guests in the Deer God’s territory. The shades know better than to hurt someone here.”

Sid shrugged. “Still, I was under the assumption this would be a private lesson.”

Alice leapt down from the groundwater pump but her legs never touched the ground. “Do what Lucian told you to do, Sid. You’re not on duty—stop getting distracted. It’s not our place to interfere with shades.” She then floated over to me, grabbing my arm, and guided me to sit beside her on the cement platform.

Beth and Sid stood opposite of each other and returned back to their lesson. Sid said, “Try to go even further this time. Allow the pain to grow. Let it all come out.”

Beth gritted her teeth and her eyes quickly began to glow a crimson red. With a scream, she lurched over and bled a viscous red liquid from her eyes like tears. She then twisted her left arm again and again until it was nothing more than a mangled stump. And with no use for it, she viciously tore off the dead limb and threw it beyond the trees to be consumed by shapeless creatures that let out maddening and unintelligible whispers.

The serpent on Sid’s robe spiked and flowed in response to the use of blood magic, moving around his robe and then separating from it, swirling freely around him. “The pain is amplifying your power. Now, release it!”

The red stream from Beth’s arm bloomed into a multitude of crimson tendrils, each one moving furiously to form a much larger hand. She raised her left arm and slammed the crimson fist down upon Sid. And in the windup, Sid dodged and sent the serpent towards Beth, grabbing her right arm with its mouth—knocking her down. The crimson hand retracted and reached out to grab the serpent, causing it to release its grip. And as Beth got up, the crimson hand split back into red tendrils that shot out to strike at the serpent in a flurry as it flew around her.

As I watched, I asked Alice, “All vampires are able to do… that?”

Alice eagerly nodded. “Yep! You could say it’s in their blood. But this is tame compared to what the others have done before her. In a way, she’s defective—a failure!”

“Doesn’t seem like a failure to me. She’s obviously able to use her own blood as a weapon…”

Alice tilted her head with a grim smile. “You silly thing! It’s not about being able to use it, it’s about being able to control the desire that comes with it. There’s no coming back if you go too far—you lose a part of yourself in the process, forever changed with a fractured mind. Continue down that path and there’ll be nothing left but twisted desire. A complete deviant!”

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I look at Alice, her red eyes filled with glee at the sight of combat. “Is that why you’re so… erratic?”

She pressed in her cheek with a smile as she blankly returned a stare. “Whatever do you mean…? I’m perfectly normal. It’s the rest of you who’re strange!”

Sid’s serpent landed a couple damaging blows with its fangs on Beth’s leg, causing her to kneel. “You have range,” he said, “but it means nothing if you stand in place. Come at me now. Hold nothing back.”

In a bloodlust, Beth screamed and charged at Sid, sprouting more hands to try and subdue him. He then faced Alice and nodded. Alice then looked at me and said, “Tag, you’re it!” before hitting my back.

I found myself standing in Sid’s place, Beth coming at me in a mindless frenzy. Alice faked a frown at the sight. “Uh-oh! You should probably try saying something. Be her voice of reason. Otherwise I’ll have to report this use of blood magic.” She laughed. “Assuming you even survive.”

I started to run from Beth, a stray tendril swiped at me, inches from my face. “This is starting to get out of hand!”

Beth’s voice gurgled out, paced by exacerbated grunts. “Why do you run, Elliot? Are you afraid of me?”

I got behind a thick tree. “I’m afraid you’ll lose your mind if you continue this rampage.”

“Then you think I’m weak.” Several lashes at the bark soon followed. “Allow me to show you my true self. My true strength!”

“But you’re not yourself! You were already strong—stronger than I’ll ever be. You don’t need blood magic to prove it.”

Beth paused, my words seemingly getting to her, her voice calming a bit. “I can hear the others calling me… crying out in pain… showing me how they suffered—cast aside for their failure. How am I any different? A parasite unworthy of love…”

I left the false safety of the tree and turned to her, letting her get closer, and said, “Those worries inside of you—it’s distracting you from the truth.” Red tendrils wrapped around my body, squeezing me. “What you are… what you were made for… doesn’t matter. You are worthy of love; I know it for a fact… because… I love you.”

A part of Beth was able to regain control and stopped herself from crushing me completely. I tried to speak to her, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I felt a dampness across my face, my eyes flinching in response. When I opened them again, Beth was headless and still, her body slumping over as the blood magic dissipated. I had thought her to be a corpse and held her mangled body against me. Words cannot describe the hollowness that I was left with, feeling her grow cold and seeing her as nothing more than lifeless flesh. I could neither weep nor scream. There was simply nothing. As nothing as can be.

“She’s fine.” Alice placed a gentle hand on my head. “The core of her being isn’t in the brain.” She gripped my hair and rattled my head around slowly. “And in your case, your head might even be empty!”

I mumbled something in shock, though the specifics matter little.

Alice looked up at the moon. “Guess I’ll tell Lucian how it went. Tell Beth her cooperation is appreciated when she awakens. Many more lessons ahead for her.” She laughed. “Hope she doesn’t lose her head!” And as my mind went into disarray, Alice vanished into the night.

Arbiter Sid came to me in my catatonic state, the serpent returning to his robe. “Elliot, if I may speak to you privately for a moment…”

The shock and trauma awoke memories deep within me. Memories of another life. Of battles won and lives taken without remorse—the echoing roar of a leviathan ringing in my ears. I was losing myself and spoke without thinking: “Stay away from me, stale blood.”

“Stale blood?” Sid looked at me in confusion and then became serious. “What makes you say that?” He grabbed me and lifted me up, shaking me. “Answer me!”

I ignored him, keeping my eyes on Beth, her blood welling at the neck.

Sid threw me at the groundwater pump. “Insolent child.”

I stood up; my trance broken by the pain. “What was that for? Have you lost your mind!?”

Sid looked away. “My mind? No… just my patience for you insufferable creatures.” He took off his blindfold, staring at me with eyes glowing red. “I do not mean to be an enemy, Elliot.” His voice conjured a darkness in my vision. That suffocating isolation—it was blood magic. “I wanted to warn you that Lucian seeks to use you as he did the chimeras on Lenoa. He hoped to take the secrets of the Dark Ones for himself, their minds joined with the gestalt consciousness, but all were maddened by the taint. It’s a madness that he seeks to control—the same one that will one day consume you.”

Sid tried to isolate me in my mind, the singular me, but I was not alone. A thousand eyes appeared around us in the black, all staring at Sid. I said, “I am not unaware of that fool’s plot. He’s just another puppet thinking he pulls the strings. I, however, will make my own choices. Live this life as I please. And any madness that you see in me is merely a projection of your own.”

Sid smirked. “You speak confidently for someone so insecure. You’ve already noticed the subtle changes, haven’t you? You thought it would all get better if you did nothing; that you’d simply grow out of your delusions. But they aren’t delusions, no. It’s the truth that’s been staring you in the face every time you look in a mirror—and you can’t even do that anymore.”

I scowled at his words. “I will not tolerate your existence any further if you continue your annoyance.” A gaping maw appeared behind Sid, saliva lining the infinite row of sharp teeth. “Your kin are calling out to you, Kieran. They betray your identity, the last of your clan, and hope that you will accept the same fate they did—coward.”

Sid gave a pained look and calmly said, “It was I who betrayed them. And there is not a single thing the dead can say that I haven’t told myself.” His honesty caused the maw to retract and close. “There’s no need for secrets and lies here, Elliot. The threat of death doesn’t bother me; and I’m not doing this to control you. I simply wish to speak with you in private—away from the eyes of mara and shades.”

I relaxed, only a bit. “Then speak.”

“I believe we can work together to right the wrongs done against both our kind. This feud we have is born from Lucian’s betrayal. He was once an inquisitor, you know, until the disaster in Vaud that brought chimeras to Earth. The fungus they found was meant to be used by the Order. To serve the Valkuth Church. But Xanadu-403 was too hostile a planet. The blood of their scouts, their scientists, fed the fungus, making it smarter, until chimeras like We started to form without their notice, destroying much of the facility and wounding Lucian in the process. So he made a deal in haste to ensure his survival—and you saw for yourself how far he’s gone with it. Too far. And now he—”

“Enough! Lucian can wait. SomniCo and their subsidiaries are my main concern. They took everything from Beth—from me. I will not rest until all of those involved pay for it with their lives… Lives better spent as my new vessels. And those vessels can be used against the Valkuth and anyone else who seeks to harm those I hold dear.”

Sid shook his head and sighed. “They are quite troublesome, I agree. Weapons to kill monsters… mitigate mana… the vampires, the chimeras… all to eliminate the need for soldiers. SomniCo’s agenda aligns with the Valkuth Church… and so does the funding. To protect the humans is to protect what the valkyrie see as vassals. It was their intention with the formation of the Valkuth Church—and Lucian continues their plan in a rivalry with the archon who dominated Atarah, ruined it, and subjugated all of the other angels—all to claim a tiny strip of land in the habitable zone. Earth is just another battlefield to them… and I don’t want to lose another home to the squabbles of power-hungry valkyr.” He then extended his arm as one would for a handshake, an appeal to my humanity. “As it stands, SomniCo is not the true enemy, not yet. They are the one hope humanity has at surviving into the future. At the very least, let us not deny those who will come after us a chance to live freely.”

I stared at his hand. The whispers of the gestalt consciousness corroborated his story—and while SomniCo and the Valkuth Church had similar goals, they were not truly allies. “You wish to make a deal in the same way that Lucian did with We…?”

Sid smiled. “Not a deal, but a promise. From one father to another; that we may ensure a future for our children—and that our kind may remain in check until madness or death takes us both.”

“A promise is not binding. You would really take that risk?”

Sid lost the glow in his eyes as the darkness released us both. “I’ll bet my life on it.”

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I watched over Beth as she regained consciousness, her body whole once again. I looked down at her, blocking the light of the moon, my face obscured in darkness, and said, “Welcome back from the dead. Did you get to see God?”

Beth shook her head. “Guess there’s no pearly gates waiting for me… How long was I out?”

“About an hour, I’d guess. Gotta say… it’s kinda traumatizing watching you regenerate. Your new head grew from bone while the original dissolved into a red paste. Your eyes were the last thing to come back.”

“Eugh. Gross. I didn’t need to know that…” She looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“They left a moment ago. Said something about continuing lessons later.” I helped Beth get up from the ground. “Using blood magic… what was it like?”

She seemed perplexed, struggling to remember all that occurred. “I only really remember how I felt. There were… so many voices. I had almost forgotten my own—until I heard yours calling out to me. For all the danger of using the blood magic, it never really felt wrong. I understand now how tempting it can be; and how foolish I was…” She sighed, then smiled at me as she ran a hand through her hair. “You wanna spend the night? Maybe hit the bar for a little pre-graduation celebration with Marie?”

I nodded. “That would be nice. I need a drink.”

The light of the moon helped guide us back to the car. But in my careful steps through the underbrush, I noticed the sound of a third party running through the woods away from us. Further still were the glowing red eyes of shades watching us, and I can only assume that the Deer God was among them—keeping them away from the lost lamb.

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