Chapter 12
Vie
Unlike Sorrow and Pain, Vengeance didn’t bother to keep in touch with me, so I didn’t know where he was living these days.
Once I took my mist form, I sent my magic out in all directions. I could only hope he was still in the area. Usually when a wraith moved any significant distance, we’d inform each other, but Vengeance was the one brother I didn’t think would bother with those niceties.
Sorrow and Pain might find me aggravating, but they still visited with me. No one sought out Vengeance.
Except when they needed to hunt someone down.
I felt a trace of him to the east, deep in the desert. Flowing in that direction, I continued to send out feelers. He must have finally felt my searching because I got a harsh smack of magic from him and a pull. He wasn’t avoiding me, but I could tell I’d irritated him.
When I got to the place where he was, I floated around until I found a suitable place to materialize.
I was struck by the desolation of the area.
He was located inside an old mechanic shop on a large, poorly maintained lot.
Yellowing weeds grew between cracks in the asphalt, the chain-link fence surrounding the property was falling over in several places, and ancient, broken-down cars covered in dirt and grime were parked so close you couldn’t have opened a door on any of them.
I couldn’t feel it, but it must’ve been hot here because heat shimmered up from the ground.
I couldn’t see a single living thing. There wasn’t even anyone inhabiting the properties next door.
The entire area seemed deserted. This was the type of place that died off because a freeway or bypass was created somewhere else.
I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Vengeance owned everything around him and deliberately kept them empty.
I stood outside the property line, giving Vengeance plenty of time to come out and greet me. It was an old custom I never bothered with, except for him. It wasn’t that I expected him to come out, but I wanted to make sure he noticed that I was being polite.
I waited for a very long five minutes before he slapped me with his magic again as an invitation to enter his property. What a dickhead.
Stepping through one of the gaps in the fencing, I walked to the building at the center of the property. All the bay doors were shut so I walked to the glass office door. It was so dirty I couldn’t see inside.
Stepping inside, I was startled by how clean and orderly everything was.
No dust, no dirt, no heaps of detritus. There was a desk with a few folders and a laptop on it.
Stepping through a door to my left took me to the mechanic bays.
Like the office, this place was neat and clean and full of gleaming motorcycles.
Moving further inside, I found Vengeance sitting on a stool next to one of them. Ignoring me, he continued to work on the motorcycle.
I stood next to him, waiting for him to acknowledge me.
The only sound was the click of his wrench.
Impatient, I nudged his foot with mine. “Vengeance, I need your help.”
“I figured,” he said without looking up.
He was wearing old, oil-stained jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather vest that had the image of a hooded figure with skeletal hands at the center.
Written over the hooded figure was Wraiths and under it was written SoCal.
When he moved a little, I saw a patch that said Vengeance on the front of the vest.
I knew he’d been affiliated with a motorcycle gang fifty years ago, but now it seemed he’d formed his own.
“The Wraiths?” I said. “Really?”
Whatever part he was working on came loose, and he pulled it free. Setting it and the tool on the floor next to the motorcycle, he picked up a rag and stood up.
“What kind of help do you need?” he asked, ignoring my questioning of his club's name.
Suddenly, I realized that I didn’t want to tell him about Willow.
Vengeance could be unpredictable. Sorrow's reaction to finding out about Willow had been excitement that there might be a human out there for himself. Vengeance’s response could be to steal her and see if one wraith was as good as another.
“I want to hunt down some humans,” I said. “They destroyed a friend's apartment.”
Vengeance continued to slowly wipe his hands with the rag. “You don’t have any friends.”
“Why does that matter? There are still men to be hunted down for doing evil to an innocent.”
He drew a long breath in through his nose. “I can feel your rage, but it tastes odd,” he mused. “This person isn’t a friend. They aren’t a wraith. They’re something more. Something new.”
I reacted without thinking. “You can’t have her!”
Vengeance’s only reaction to my angry outburst was to turn and walk to a counter with a sink. Unsure what else to do, I followed him. Silence continued until he’d meticulously washed the grease from his hands, even using a special brush to scrub under his nails.
“Are you going to help me or not?” I burst out, unable to handle the quiet any longer. “I’ll tell you about Willow, but I don’t want you to go near her.”
Drying his hands with a paper towel, he turned to face me. “You afraid I’m going to steal your new toy?”
Rage made me act without thinking. I grabbed Vengeance by the throat and lifted him into the air.
He vanished from my grip and appeared behind me with a speed that was surprising even for a wraith.
He shoved me hard, sending me stumbling several steps before I could regain my balance.
I turned to face him, ready to charge again, but he shook his head at me.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice just as calm and unaffected as before. “You came to me. You sought me out. Don’t make me find out if I can kill a fellow wraith.”
His threat didn’t shock me. It was a common one with him. There would have to be something wrong with him if you weren’t threatened with death at least once. He had a gift for pissing others off, and I wasn’t the only wraith to ever attack him. His reaction was standard, and so was what I did next.
“You’re such an asshole,” I grumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets and glaring at him. “You love to fuck with everyone’s head and act like we’re being irrational.”
Finally his expression shifted into a smirk. “There’s a clinical name for it, but I don’t remember it. You’ll have to ask Sorrow.”
“Psychopath,” I shot back.
He shrugged. “Aren’t you one also?”
I shook my head. “Maybe I was, but not anymore.” I tried to think of the best way to describe what had changed with me. “I have feelings.”
“We all have feelings.”
“No, not like these,” I insisted. “They aren’t tied into my powers as a wraith. I feel love and joy when I’d only ever felt satisfaction and satiation before.”
Vengeance went perfectly still. “You’re lying.”
I shook my head, my heartbeat kicking up as I thought about Willow. “It’s amazing, Vengeance. There’s so much out there that I didn’t understand. Humans did such odd things and acted outside their own best interests, and I never got it. But now I do.”
Moving with the speed only he could achieve, Vengeance grabbed hold of my jaw. I didn’t fight it because I knew what he wanted. I opened myself to him so he could feel my memories. I was still a little worried he’d try to take Willow from me, but it was more important that I share what I’d found.
His eyes were unfocused, and he sucked in a harsh breath. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know, but it’s real.”
Vengeance’s eyes refocused on me, and I was shocked to see rage. His hand tightened on my jaw for a brief moment, then he let go and stepped back.
“Why did you get this gift?” His voice was low and angry.
“Out of all of us, why were you the one who was given this? You, who’s never wanted someone to love.
The only brother who never longed for connection.
The wraith who hates humanity the most gets to experience physical passion and has the heart of a human.
How dare you get so much when the rest of us have nothing! ”
I wasn’t prepared for any of these emotions and wasn’t sure how to respond. Something Sorrow had said rose up in my mind.
“Maybe I’m the beginning of the change that will come to us all.”
Vengeance jerked back, as if my words had physical force. The anger melted from his features, replaced by hope. “Do you really believe that?”
That was an easy answer. “Yes. I’m not special, so if this happened to me, it will happen to the other wraiths.”
He seemed satisfied with that. “What do you need from me?”
“Willow’s home was desecrated,” I said, then quickly explained everything. “Will you help me hunt them down? Everyone knows you can find anyone.”
His face was back to the familiar stony expression. “Yes, but I want something from you.”
“What?”
“Let me touch Willow,” he said, then stepped back before I could lunge at him. “Only her hand. I want to feel her essence. Her soul. It might help me find another human like her.”
“You can have one, brief, handshake,” I agreed.
He gave a single nod. “Let's hunt.”
I didn’t like the way Vengeance walked around Willow’s apartment.
He moved systematically through the small space, methodically touching everything damaged.
I had to hold back my objections when he walked into Willow’s bedroom.
I must have made a sound when he picked up an article of clothing because he gave me an annoyed look.
“Shut up or leave,” he ordered.
I turned on my heels and marched out the front door. It was just as cheap and flimsy as the original and it made me want to hunt down the manager and eat him.
I was so full of anger and helplessness that I scowled at a young man carrying groceries to the apartment next door. He rushed inside, and I heard some things fall to the floor.
Willow wouldn’t have liked that. I worked on schooling my features to a more pleasant expression, or at least less angry.
Vengeance finally emerged from the apartment.
“There were three humans who did all the damage,” he said. “One of them was focused on Willow, the other two were concentrating on enjoying their destruction.”
“I knew that,” I grumbled.
“Then I guess you don’t want me to take you to them?” he asked and turned to walk back into the wrecked apartment. I hurried after him.
“You can have the two who weren’t focused on Willow. I want the one who targeted her.”
His expression didn’t change. “Follow.”
Turning to mist, he moved high in the sky and headed southwest with me right behind him. He paused several times but finally sank down into a small house. Two men were sitting on a couch playing a violent video game.
I materialized between the men and the TV. There was no reason to be subtle in this enclosed space, and I trusted Vengeance to lead me to the correct men.
As expected, the men screamed with surprise and fear and tried to run. Vengeance appeared to block them from escaping through the kitchen and out the back.
Realizing they were trapped, the two men started acting in predictable but different ways.
The shorter one sank to his knees and brought his hands together in front of his face. “Holy Mary, mother of god, protect me. Holy Mary, mother of god, protect me.”
“Take anything you want,” the other one said. “There’s money in the kitchen, I can get it for you. And my truck. You can have my truck. It’s yours. I won’t say nothing. Nothing!”
I shook my head. “Tell me about what you did last night.”
He blinked rapidly. “Last night?”
I could tell he was trying to figure out what I wanted to hear, which meant I wouldn’t get the truth. I turned my gaze to Vengeance and nodded at the man. He stepped close and grabbed the man around the neck.
Part of Vengeance's power was the ability to force a confession out of someone. A large part of how he fed was on that confession. The victim needed to know what he was being punished for. They needed to know they’d brought their pain and death on themselves.
The man gasped but didn’t struggle. His gaze focused on Vengeance’s glowing eyes.
“That bitch Willow made us do it,” he said, speaking rapidly. “She broke up with Alex. She wouldn’t even talk to him so he could explain. No woman gets to treat one of us like that. She deserved what she got.”
I leaned over and put my face in front of the man still praying. “Are you Alex?”
He shook his head so hard, his entire body shook. “N-n-no! I’m Jim. Alex isn’t here. He hung out for a while but then decided he needed to do something more.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “More? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know!” the man wailed. I could smell violence on him, but it was minor. Pushing people out of his way or tripping others in crowded places. I looked at Vengeance.
“Do you want him?”
“Oh yes. Don’t let the other one get away while I feed,” Vengeance said before turning his attention back to the man he held. “Tell me about your victims. The ones you hurt the most that are still out there. Still suffering from what you did to them.”
Words poured out of the man's mouth. He wasn’t a murderer, like most of the people I hunted, but he was violent and sadistic.
I hadn’t seen Vengeance eat for a long time, and I’d forgotten what it looked like.
Along with the confessions that came out of the man, his life force flowed from his mouth to Vengeance.
The more he spoke, the weaker he looked.
His flesh sank until the bones of his face were prominent.
If I could see the rest of his body, he would look like he’d spent months being starved.
His voice weakened the longer he talked.
Soon he was only mumbling his confessions.
His eyes rolled back into his skull and disappeared.
His lips pulled back, revealing white, receding gums. With a sigh, his words stopped and his skin dried and dissolved.
It was like watching a time lapse of a body disintegrating in a hot, dry desert.
At the end, his bones fell to the ground and turned to dust. With the first man gone, Vengeance turned to the second man and licked his lips.
“Tell me what you’ve done,” he said, grabbing the praying man by the throat. “Tell me all of it.”
After he was also nothing but dust on the floor, Vengeance faced me. “I won’t be able to track the third man while he’s moving. If I were you, I’d find Willow and never leave her side.”
His words made me startle. “What do you mean?”
“He’s out there, and we know he’s capable of murder,” he said. “You might not have heard it, but that first one told us about the time Alex killed an ex-girlfriend. Then these two came in and helped make it look like a random home invasion.”
“When you find him, I want him,” I said, but didn’t wait for Vengeance’s response. I turned to mist and raced off to find Willow.