Chapter 18 Ghosts #2
He blinked. Her words fed something deep in his heart.
“I wish I could say I wanted to be better than that, but being a victim…” A shudder went through him. “To be unable to chart your own course, to be at someone else’s whim, to have your life taken from you… there is nothing worse than that.”
“You said you wish you were better but what is better than taking out people like your stepfather and this rich pig?” She shook her head almost violently. “Nothing! And as Vampire we will be able to truly bring justice to this world.”
Grayson lifted an eyebrow. “It sounds like you think the Vampires want to take over? Or should take over?”
She let out a small laugh. “It is inevitable, isn’t it?”
He didn’t get a chance to ask her more as they had arrived at their destination.
Though Lisette had said that they were going to a graveyard, this place was called a Memory Garden by the Vampires.
Memories of friends and vanquished foes.
Some of their bodies had been buried here, but most were not.
Some souls were stored here in soul gems that were set into the white stone columns that were arranged in elaborate patterns–spirals, circles, triangles, squares and more–half a mile from Nightvallen’s walls.
“It’s beautiful,” Hue breathed. “The stone appears to glow. Do you think?”
Grayson nodded. It did. He had a sudden memory of him and Rachel putting Wintergreen mints onto their tongues, which would glow in the dark and give out a spark when they bit them with their mouths open. And that was when he saw her.
A group of reporters had been welcomed to the first part of this evening.
They wouldn’t get to see the personal encounters, but there was to be some kind of show beforehand.
Rachel and a cluster of reporters were standing beside the main path that would lead them to the center of the Memory Garden.
The center was on a gentle hill and Grayson could see Caemorn standing there.
But he broke off to speak to Rachel who waved at him.
“I’ll be right back,” he told Hue.
She nodded, but was clearly overwhelmed by the beauty and, undoubtedly, supernatural pull of the place.
Rachel was smiling at him. They’d seen each other a few times–briefly–since the night the Marrowstalker attacked him.
She had questions. He had not answered them.
She hadn’t stopped asking exactly, but just put them to the side.
Though she walked a few feet away from the other reporters to meet him halfway, the other reporters turned towards him.
There were a few flashes aimed their way.
A bright light from a camera was suddenly encompassing him like a deer in headlights.
“Guys, this isn’t part of the story!” Rachel said with a surprising amount of force.
She put her much smaller form between him and the other reporters, staring them down.
The camera swung away after a long moment.
There were a few more flashes. But then it was just the two of them and she turned back towards him, smiling once more.
“This is so exciting! We’ve heard so much about what the Kaly can do, but it’s all been just theory, you know?
Rumors, hopes, dreams, and, of course, fears. ”
He nodded. “Even for Vampires, the Kaly have always been a little mysterious.”
She cocked her head to the side. “You say that with such certainty, Grayson! But I suppose Ryder has told you so much about them.”
He just smiled. He didn’t want to lie to her, but she could draw whatever conclusions she wanted. Soon, she would know the truth and he would rather had not told her so many untruths before then.
“Who do you think you’ll see?” she asked almost conspiratorially.
It was the same question that Hue had asked him, but he was certain that she wouldn’t think murdering certain men made people worthy.
It wasn’t that Rachel was lacking in imagination.
She was a good person, a moral person, and she would have said something like the law should have taken care of his stepfather and the rich man that preyed on Hue’s sister.
If they pointed out that there wasn’t going to be such a body of law who could do that, an outside force, she would likely tell them to run away, to escape. But that wasn’t really possible either.
Sometimes cutting out the cancer is the best thing to do.
“I’m not sure. Einstein?” he laughed.
She grinned. “Oh, my God, that would be amazing! What about like Abraham Lincoln or Caesar Augustus?”
“If they’re still hanging around here and haven’t moved on,” he said. “But it would be cool.”
“Who would you want to see, Rachel?” he asked.
“I’m not sure either. Like family? My grandparents. Aunt Margaret. Remember her?” Rachel asked almost hopefully.
His mind was cast back to a sprightly woman who talked with her hands. “She died of cancer?”
She nodded. “Breast cancer. She was the one that made me feel I could do anything I put my mind to. Mom and Dad are great, but they had small lives, you know? That’s not fair. They have great lives, but Mom’s a teacher. Dad works in insurance. It’s a stable life.”
“But not one that would have led them to the Ever Dark?” Grayson guessed.
“No, most definitely not,” she agreed.
“How are your parents?” He realized he hadn’t asked and he’d loved her parents.
Like I didn’t ask about shifting or anything to do with Ryder’s gift.
“They’re good. Grayer. A little slower. But good,” she said with evident fondness. “They still live next to your mom.”
His breath caught. He swallowed and asked as evenly as he could, “Are they… they still friends?”
“Yes, they aren’t… aren’t influenced by other people.
So the rumors that swirled around your mom and you after–after your stepfather died, they didn’t care,” she said with a touch of pride.
“There was one time at the grocery store and your mom was ambushed by some reporters and my mom just planted herself between them and her. She put her hands on her hips and told them to go away. That it was indecent.”
“Just like you did for me,” Grayson pointed out.
“Well, thank you. But I am a reporter, too. I want to act though how I think they should. Reporters can be great things when they act as truth-tellers, when they expose the powerful if they’ve abused that power–and they almost always do–or when there’s something people need to know to make an informed choice,” she said.
“You’re right,” he agreed.
But he also knew that they couldn’t have “good” reporters like Rachel telling people the truth about Vampires. It was too nuanced for reporting. Maybe there was too much darkness in them. But she would say that she was simply bringing light and light was curative.
But Vampires live in the dark.
“Have you given any thought to–to what we talked about before?” she asked so hopefully.
“About? Oh… my mother. No, I haven’t had time. Too much to consider here,” he said.
“But when you’re turned, it’s my understanding that you can’t see humans alone for… awhile,” she pointed out.
He wasn’t sure if that was really going to be true of them. He was certain it wouldn’t be. But it was a consideration. If he was going to see his mother, would it be better to see her before he was turned?
One last time as Grayson and not Ashyr?
“I’m still thinking,” he said. “I’m not rejecting it out of hand. I just need time.”
She nodded. “Yeah, of course, I’m sorry. I guess just coming here, seeing the allure of Vampirism, I had this thought that you–you would go away again.”
“Not forever,” he reminded her.
“What’s forever for an immortal being? A year is nothing. Five years? Ten years? Fifteen? Twenty? Whole lifetimes can be gone before you might even realize it,” she said.
That was quite the understanding for someone so young, but then he realized why she had learned this lesson already.
“You’re thinking of the time I’ve already been gone,” he said.
“Did it feel long to you? It felt like a long time to me. But short too. So short. The years just flew by. I imagine for a Vampire it would be even more like that. Years like minutes. Decades like hours. Centuries like months?” she made the last sound like a question.
“Yeah, I think it’s like that.”
Faster actually.
“So I just don’t want to lose you for another decade or more,” Rachel said, smiling, but eyes filled with tears.
He nodded and pulled her into an embrace. His chest and throat felt tight. He couldn’t say any of the words that seemed to want to come out even if he wasn’t sure what they were. When they pulled away, Rachel was smiling and swiping away those tears.
“My makeup,” she said. “Is it all smeared?”
“You’re still good,” he promised her. “Camera ready.”
“Excellent. You better move on. Wow.” She looked past him. “I think Christian Thorn is waiting for you.”
Grayson turned around and saw the handsome blond-haired boy.
Christian was dressed all in black like the other Kaly, even though he was an Eyros.
But through Balthazar, he had received Kaly blood, too.
He was a Speaker to the Dead and would be invaluable to the Kaly tonight.
But it was odd that Christian was waiting for him. Christian lifted a hand in greeting.
“You’re right. I better get going. But I’ll see you after,” he promised here. “Maybe a glass of wine or some food?”
She nodded eagerly. “Absolutely. If you don’t mind me working while we eat and drink.”
He shook his head. “No worries. You gotta do what you gotta do. Get the scoops out the door.”
With a final squeeze, he turned from her and headed over to Christian who was waiting for him. Christian looked elegant in form-fitting black pants, black boots and a long coat with a high-collar that framed his delicate face.
“Hey! To what do I owe the pleasure? Or am I just really late?” Grayson laughed, but he saw that other students were still arriving.
“You’re not late at all,” Christian assured him. “Caemorn thought it would be a good idea if I was your guide tonight.”
“Oh?” Grayson couldn’t imagine why.
Christian and he had started walking up the path. The young man beside him nodded. There was a certain tension in Christian.
“Hey, is everything okay?” Grayson asked.
Christian let out a breath. “Yes and no. You likely don’t know how I really learned I was a Speaker to the Dead.”
“No, I don’t.”
“One of the main things that made me know, acknowledge and take ownership of my gift was because I was haunted by a man named David,” Christian explained.
“He was a man who had hurt me badly. He was someone that I had thought I was somehow responsible for what he had done to me and others. Even as a ghost, he was feeding on that guilt, all those bad things he had inculcated in me, and that I felt towards him.”
“I’m so sorry,” Grayson said.
A nod. “I’m lucky because I got to confront David and free myself not only from his ghost, but my guilt.”
“That’s great.”
Another nod. “Many people have ghosts.”
“Ah…”
“You have ghosts, Grayson,” Christian murmured. “And I’m going to help free you from them.”