Seventy
Him
I slam into Maddox, wrapping him in a hug as soon as I come down the stairs and see him standing in the living room with our other brothers, mother, and the three women who are now a big part of this family. I didn’t know if he had survived inside my brain until I saw him in the fight.
From the teleportation circle to the disease Antonio gave me, I feared he’d died. I could not tell Khalid about my plan beforehand, knowing he’d try to stop us, so he didn’t get the opportunity to study Maddox’s tapeworm egg form, which meant he couldn’t make a soul doll of it. Couldn’t check in to see if he was alive. The fact he’s returned is a relief to us all.
“Oh… big guy’s actually allowing hugs,”
Enoch teases as he and his twin join in too. When Ez pulls out his phone to snap a group selfie, I start to pull away, but Khalid shoves me back into it. He doesn’t join in himself, unlike Mother, but he keeps his hand on my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Well, I didn’t get laid for two months, so not going to lie, this is giving me a hard-on –”
As one, we all groan and shove him away from us. He laughs. Then he quiets. “It was pretty fucking terrible,”
he says. He looks me in the eye, lets me see the honesty. “But I’d do it again.”
I nod at him, my throat too tight to speak. He would’ve been aware the entire time, locked in a form that couldn’t move. Completely in the dark and cut off from everything that was happening.
“How is she?”
he asks. Micha hasn’t come downstairs with me. Her sister moves closer to us, needing to know.
“Tired.”
My heart aches, the tattoo on my chest seeming to burn. “We just cremated our daughter.”
Mother pulls me into her arms, and I stiffen against her. I want to ask her how she managed it. How she kept having kids even though she knew she might have to say goodbye to each one. But that wouldn’t be fair. She stopped having them until after the treaty. She changed the world she lived in so her kids could have a better life.
And as I finally understand her sacrifice and pain, all the anger I’ve been holding on to, all the blame I’ve placed on her shoulders for making me paranoid enough to hurt my wife, eases from my chest. She fought to change the world for us. She’s only ever tried to protect us. It’s just... she’s still human. She still has faults. Still makes mistakes.
“I’m sorry,”
I murmur as I finally hug her back. “I never should’ve tried to sell you to Aleric.”
“You did what now?”
Ezriel asks.
“Say again?”
Enoch demands.
“Bruh, not cool,”
Maddox says.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“And I’m sorry for being so secretive in my dealings. I should have come to you – or at least the reaper, with any concerns.”
She sighs as she pulls back. “You think I would’ve learned from that given how many times secrets have hurt me.” She looks around the room. Straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin. “Aleric is his father.”
“What the fuck!?”
Ezriel shouts.
“I’m going to kill him,”
Enoch says.
Khalid simply heads for the door, and Mother darts in front of him with a shake of her head.
“Bruh, that explains so much about Varius.”
“What does that mean?”
I ask, turning on Maddox. He holds up his hands in surrender, then uses one to give the ‘coo-coo’ sign at his temple.
My eye narrows, but the tension in the room dissipates, even though all the questions from my brothers remain. Did he rape her? What happened? Is Maddox also his? Out of all of us, he actually seems like Aleric’s kid. As if he called me fucking coo-coo.
But now it isn’t the time for any questions.
It is time to take Rudy into our shadows. It’s the reason we’re all still up. The reason I’m not currently in bed with my wife, holding her in my arms.
As if they can read my mind, the mood shifts, becomes somber. Then everyone looks to Mother. I assume she has him in her shadows inside Maddox’s cage, modified to not let anything even reach between the bars.
She nods. Swallows. Then heads for the front door. There is a collective inhale of trepidation. Of hesitation. Then one by one, we walk outside, off the front porch, and through the blooming row of flowers.
We already held a passing for Krypto and Leno, taking them both into our shadows, and now, within only a few months, we have to do another.
Tears burn my eyes. I want to drop to my knees and scream. To rage against an uncaring world “watched over”
by uncaring gods. Maddox turns to me and throws his arms around my waist. When he’d shifted into a tapeworm egg in the cave on Mljet, having pretended to go through the portal to Blo?dyrio? so Khalid wouldn’t question his absence, he was so determined to not lose another brother. And I failed him.
“I’m sorry,”
I croak into his hair as I hug him back. My chest swells with all the pain I hold inside. It feels like it’s going to burst, to explode. To kill me with the shrapnel that will pierce every inch of my soul.
“It’s not your fault,”
he says. But he doesn’t know the choice I made.
I try to pull back –why should I be able to find comfort when Rudy is dead because of me?– but Maddox clings to me tighter. “I need this,”
he murmurs. “Please.”
Closing my eyes, swallowing hard, I hug him back until he’s ready to let go.
When he finally pulls away from me, his eyes are wet, but there’s a fierce determination there. “You owe me for the tapeworm bullshit,” he says.
“Of course.”
He shakes his head. “You really don’t, but I’m calling it in anyway. Therapy, bruh. You’re going to fucking therapy.”
“I don’t –”
“Tough.”
I close my mouth. After all he’s done for me, I can give him this. I’ll just need to find someone I trust all my secrets to.
“I might as well put my psych degree to use, you know?”
he says, an attempt to laugh making his throat tight.
I blink. “You want to be my therapist?”
“Who else could it be? You’d legit scare them all off.”
He pauses. “Or bury them somewhere.” He shrugs confidently. “You ain’t gonna do that to me.”
Unable to argue with that, I breathe out. “Alright.”
He nods, and together, we rejoin the rest of our family. Mother has already pulled Rudy from her shadows, and he lies face-up on the grass.
“Fuck, he almost looks at peace,”
Maddox says.
“He always was so annoyingly optimistic,”
Enoch says, a smile breaking his voice.
Ezriel groans. “Honestly, he’s probably kicking it up right now. A goodie two-shoes like him?”
“In the Elysian Fields, no doubt.”
Enoch nods.
I’d like to think so. That he’s being rewarded for all the pain he’s suffered. That he’s finally able to be at peace, away from the nightmares of his magic and the cruelty of this life.
“I bet he’s being swarmed by a thousand puppies.”
“Just one,”
Khalid murmurs, and my chest tightens.
He would’ve found Krypto. And Leno.
I can’t find it in me to say anything though, to voice all the love I have for him. I want to be able to say something as he goes, but my throat is just too damn tight.
I love you.
A small hand slips into mine, and I turn my head to look at my little monster. She’s pulled herself out of bed to face a crowd she isn’t ready for just for me. “I love you,”
I whisper.
She squeezes me, and I curl the only remaining finger on that hand around hers, having lost the others permanently to Antonio’s teeth.
“He is gone but never forgotten,”
I finally manage to say as I take a deep breath and pull on my shadows with my other hand. It takes a lot of concentration for me to hold them, even more so to make them form under Rudy rather than wherever they wish.
My brothers and Mother pull on their shadows much easier, having had years in which to perfect their craft. In the silence that rings through the night, Maddox starts to sing. Beautifully and clearly, and for a second, we all freeze.
“You little shit,”
Micha says, voicing what we’re clearly all thinking. All this time, he’s sang like a cat being dragged against a chalkboard.
He grins as he winks at her, but he doesn’t falter in his singing. And one by one, we join him, and Enoch even pulls a guitar out of his shadows.
“The sun is only rising,
The dew’s not even burned,
The colors are all enticing,
But, Mama, I’m ready to come home.
Oh, my days.
Coming home.
I sit by a lake in the mountains
Throwing in coins to cross the black
I dance in the arms of my lover
Feeling her chill across my back.
The Devil’s come a’knocking
And I’m opening up my door
Offering her a beer
Then grabbing up my coat
And though I untie my shoes
The laces are still used.
Oh, my days.
Oh, my days.
Oh, Mama,
I’m coming home.
The moon is finally rising,
The dew’s turning cold,
The colors are all shaded,
Thank you, Mama,
Thank you, Mama,
For welcoming
Me home.
Oh, my days.
Oh, my days,
I’m
Finally
Home.”
Swirling our shadows around him, we all take him home together.