Chapter 10 #2
Skar makes some small polite efforts at conversation, as do I.
Then, as the plates are cleared, he asks something that matters. “I am told you can call down the sun.”
“Yes,” I say. “I can.”
“I would like to see it done.”
“It is not a party trick.”
There is a snort of surprise, a sort of choking noise from Skor. Apparently one does not speak such a way to his father.
“I am sure it is not,” Skar says. “But the night is replete with vampiric predators.”
I find myself outside in due course, with two expectant men flanking me.
This house has extensive grounds, and I am surprised that any vampire would dare be on them.
We are not all that far from the back door when we encounter the first dead thing.
We are within a hundred feet or so, and as it comes forward, Skor and Skar move back.
This is a trial. I wonder if they plan to let me die if I fail.
I wonder if Skar knows what love is, or if I have always been a tool to him.
It has been some time since I felt my power the same way I did in the mountains.
I summon it now as the vampire slips through the shadows.
It is a cruel thing, hunger in human form, desire without a heart.
I know that I am doing it a service by ending its unlife, because there is nothing inside it anymore, nothing left to hope for. Nothing left to live for.
I lift my arm and I will the sun, and a beam answers me. Weak and wet, but still sun. It hits the creature and makes a moist, sizzling sound.
But it does not kill it. The vampire makes an awful sound, a screech of pain that it should not be able to feel. It should be dead. It should be ash on the wind, but instead it is a writhing, raging, contorting thing and it is begging for a merciful end.
I know in that moment that my power is not mine to wield alone. It is related deeply to the mountains. It comes from the hills themselves. And though they answer my call even at this distance, I cannot be as strong as I need to be.
In the moment I realize I have failed, I snap my fingers and green light flashes around me as I take my wolf form. My teeth have long yearned for blood. For days I have suffered as a captive, been humiliated as a thing to use and a body to claim and not honored as the animal I am.
It is the sun-mutilated vampire that pays the price for my rage.
I bite it, again and again and again until it is so dead that no part of it will ever animate again.
I destroy the heart. I eradicate the brain.
I crush the spine. I let rotten marrow flow over my animal tongue and spit it onto the ground.
When it is gone, I take my human form and allow Skor to wrap his cloak around me. He’s dressed like a lord now, which makes sense. His family is obviously prominent and rich beyond imagination. He has privilege and power, but he rules over a rotting world.
“Messier than I imagined it would be,” Skar says. “But still impressive.”
“My power does not work well here. It comes from the mountains,” I say. “It won’t ever work well here. I should be on my own territory. I was a master of it. Here I am weak and I am useless and…”
“You just did something nobody here could ever do in a thousand years,” Skar says, speaking to me with a paternal kindness. “That was truly impressive.”
“I am weak,” I tell him. “I am weak and my power will probably dwindle to nothing if I am kept here. I have to go home.”
“Yes, dear,” Skor says, wrapping the cloak around me more tightly. “It could also be that you are tired and need rest. Come now, let’s get you into bed.”
Skor
When I have ensured Tabby is fast asleep, I return to my father. He is in the study, whiskey in hand, staring thoughtfully into the fire. I had hoped for him to be happy, perhaps even excited. He is neither of those things.
“I did not expect to see you again, son,” he says. “Even less did I expect to see you with a mate. She is impressive, and beautiful. You’ve done well. But…”
“But?”
“But you know that the prophecy involving a woman of her talents involves…” My father pauses. “Sacrifice. Much will be lost if you insist on doing this. It’s foolish, and there is no hope of it working.”
His grim attitude is not helpful, but he does not care. I think some part of him would be sad if we were to lose the dark and the rain and the death that stalks our family. Who would we be if we weren’t the cursed line?
“I was hoping we could skip that part,” I say. “She is far too precious to be allowed to die.”
“It wouldn’t be us killing her,” my father says. “Her death would be an inevitable part of the prophecy being fulfilled.”
“It doesn’t say that specifically. It says:
Power in darkness.
Those who bleed must fall.
Evil stalks the land.
‘Till she does call.
Her hair of red.
Her gown of green.
Her light from lands distant.
Never before seen.
She lifts her voice.
She parts her thighs.
Her essence flees.
Evil cries.
When dark meets light, a new day will rise.”
“Those who bleed must fall,” my father says. “She’ll die.”
“That’s our bloodline, Father. Not hers. Our women die. And it can’t happen anymore. Under any circumstances. No. I forbid it.”
He walks to his decanter and pours some whiskey into a tumbler, handing it to me.
“She could be the difference,” he says. “But you should not have brought her here if you were not prepared to lose her. Prophecies are best avoided, my boy. I should know.”
He glances over at the portrait of my mother that hangs above the fireplace.
There is another in his bedroom, and one in the dining room.
At least one in each hall, and in most rooms. My mother’s visage looks down at us reproachfully day after day.
Her face is burned into my memory, not as a living thing, but as an image that I have surely disappointed.
I let her die. I could have saved her if I had broken the curse earlier, but I didn’t. We didn’t.
Our mother died after my youngest sister was born, after the wise woman told us the baby would take everything from us. She was right. My father didn’t believe in curses, but I do.
“How much do you love her?” My father sees me looking at the portrait of my mother, but he is asking the question about Tabby
“With all my heart, Father.”
“Then you will never be the same,” he declares. “You will forever regret this.”
“I thought you would be pleased,” I say, confused.
“Pleased for my pack perhaps, but not for you. This is a reckless plan. There is nothing we can do about the curse. It is better to accept it. Sali has years ahead of her before it comes for her.”
“I lost my mother. I will not lose my baby sister as well. I won’t let a curse destroy our family.”
He takes a long draught of his vessel and gives me a look of pure derision. “You’re willing to sacrifice your mate?”
“If she’s my mate, then she’s part of the curse anyway,” I say. “Sooner or later she bears a female that is subject to the curse, right? It’s time this ended, Father. It’s time. She can do it. She’s the only one who can.”
“So my son left my home to find someone to save his sister, and he came back with a girl barely old enough to be mated, and that is who he pins his hopes on?”
He has no faith in me. He has never had any faith in me.
I intend to prove him wrong, because I have to.
I knew the moment I met Tabby that we would one day be here.
I knew she was the one I needed. He can look down his nose at me all he wants, but if the males of our family were able to end this curse on our own, we would have done it a hundred times over.
“I didn’t start this curse, Father. But I will end it.”
“You mean she will.” He shakes his head. “I will be left with no sons when this foolishness is over, and life will take me and my daughter too. This is how the curse will end. With the end of our bloodline.”
“And on that cheerful note, Father, I have a curse to break.”