Chapter 19 #2
“I wish I had a clever answer for you,” he replied. “But the truth is that I was scared of Magnus. He loved her, Eryx. He loved that woman more than anything I’d ever seen him love.”
Anything. As though Cassandra Necroline were an object. My stomach soured at the notion. It didn’t matter that it had been a different time. That the world’s views had been different. My disappointment dug deeper in me, taking root.
Roman just kept talking, “Or at least that’s what I’d thought. Now... I understand it was an obsession. She was a challenge, difficult and beautiful, much like your Rhiannon.”
That got my attention. I wanted her name out of his mouth, immediately. With the way he’d talked about Cassandra, I didn’t want him even thinking of Rhiannon.
He smiled, not sensing my hackles rising, in the slightest. Roman had always been self-centered to the point of hubris.
“I’ve looked in on you when I could.” He stared out at the misty cemetery for a long moment, as though we were having a heart to heart.
“I didn’t understand until it was too late that he was trying to break her.
That he’d picked someone headstrong and brilliant like Cassandra because she wouldn’t break easily. ..”
My stomach turned. “He was a psychopath.”
Roman shrugged. The casual way he talked about this shit was terrifying. “You’d have to talk to a shrink about a diagnosis. But you are right that he wasn’t balanced.”
Logically, the next question should have been about why he didn’t take the steps to prevent the kind of haunting that had happened at Oleander Cottage.
The kind that came from a soul so tortured she couldn’t help but draw others in and try to make them understand.
Every death that happened after Cassandra’s was on both Magnus and Roman’s hands, not hers.
A spirit that died that gruesomely was not in control of their actions. And the worse things got, the more souls they dragged into their misery, the less conscious they became about what they did. Until their message was understood, they were little more than rage. I knew something about that.
“Did you know that he beat me?” I asked, my voice soft.
Next to me, Roman tensed. “What?”
“As a kid, your brother beat me for every little mistake. You didn’t know?”
Roman tried to grab hold of my arm, but his fingers passed right through me.
I shivered from the intensity of the chill.
“Son, you have to believe me. I had no idea.” His hands covered his face.
I watched him swallow hard, his voice cracking.
“I thought you were fighting with the other boys, like Ares. The bruises… I thought you were making your way with the Dynasty children...”
His words made sense. I did believe him, but it didn’t help anything. “If you had known, would you have stopped him?” Roman paused, fear in his eyes. I shook my head, my lip curling in disgust. “Don’t answer. I don’t want to know.”
At least he did me the favor of following my wishes.
Any respect I had for my father disappeared.
Disappointment dug deep into me, cutting through layers of fear that I’d been hiding behind in seconds.
I saw the truth in the fresh, gaping wound—the way that fear had obscured so many realities over the years.
The way I’d gone along with shit I knew was wrong, over and over, hoping to preserve what little was left of our people’s way of life. To keep our people safe, all of us had given in to fear and isolation, rather than binding ourselves closer together. Something had to change.
Roman placed a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t feel it, not exactly, but there was a kind of pressure there. “You say you’re a monster, but you’re not. You and Ares both have retained your integrity in a way Magnus and I never could manage. We lost ourselves to power and immortality.”
It was too little too late. His compliments rang hollow. I understood what he was attempting, but I no longer wanted it. I could forgive him, eventually. But I didn’t want anything he had to offer anymore.
He stood, pushing off my shoulder. “I am sorry Cassandra was collateral damage to my cowardice. You tell her that for me, all right?”
Did he think that was all it took to make things right?
Something was fundamentally wrong with Roman Necroline.
The world had taken too much from him, and he’d never bothered to fill himself back up with what was good in life.
I didn’t pity him. He’d had the same choices to make that Ares and I had, and he’d chosen wrong every time.
Even now, with all the wisdom of death at his fingertips, he didn’t see what he’d done.
I’d never wished for Ares’ ability to grab spirits by the aura.
Not in all my long life. I knew the toll it took.
The way it connected him to them in ways that damaged him.
But in this moment, I wanted that power.
I wanted to thrash Roman Necroline into a second death, if that were possible.
“That’s it?” I cried. “You don’t have anything else to say?”
He shook his head, so calm it was eerie.
“I knew he was hurting her, but I didn’t want to know.
I knew he was plotting something, and I didn’t want to know that either.
I loved my brother, Eryx. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t capable of loving me, or anyone, back. I am sorry he hurt you, though.”
But not sorry enough to have ever done anything about it. “And what about the people who died there because neither of you took care of her spirit?”
Roman shrugged. “That fault lies with Magnus. Not me.”
My blood sang in my ears. The last time I’d been this furious was when Frannie died. He took no responsibility for any of this. I spat at his feet, making the ancient Necroline gesture that translated loosely to may your spirit never rest.
My adoptive father bent down, his eyes gentling. Perhaps he was the psychopath. “You came here for a confession, and that is mine. I wish I knew more, but Magnus made sure I stayed in the dark, and I made it easy for him. I’m sorry to disappoint you, kid.”
Disappointment wasn’t the half of it. The rage I didn’t allow to the surface bubbled in my gut, threatening to boil over into my fists, my legs, my teeth. I couldn’t remember another time when I’d had the urge to rip someone apart with my teeth.
But now, here in what should be the most peaceful place in the world, I wanted to do an incredible amount of violence. For me. For Frannie. For Cassandra. For all the lives that Roman Necroline had failed to save when he let his corrupted brother live.
By contrast, Roman Necroline pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “You’ll probably never know how sorry I am to have disappointed you.”
Tears stung the corners of my eyes as I clenched every muscle in my body so tightly that I was immobilized. When he faded, I felt him go. He wasn’t gone-gone. He wasn’t at peace, but I doubted very much that we’d ever see him again.
And that was just fucking fine with me.
I’d come here for closure, or at least something new to go on. Not a confession of cowardice. Roman had finally come clean, and it gave me nothing. Coming here had been a waste. All it had done was rile me up.
I rested my head in my hands, sitting on the mausoleum steps in the same position Roman had, breathing shallow, panicked breaths. The spiral out of control was tightening, the slide to the center of chaos frustrating, infuriating even. What did all of this mean?
Tears streamed down my face, sobs wracking my body.
I cried for the child I’d been. For the man who’d lost his first love more horrifically than anyone should have to live through.
For Cassandra, who’d needlessly lost her life.
I screamed into a void that could never be filled.
I screamed until my throat gave out, until I was hollow inside, but for the endless quagmire of disappointment that was this wretched world.
Would there never be enough cruelty or violence?
I rocked back and forth, shaking with helpless anger. Somewhere a raven squawked at its mate. Sparrows chirped. A few little crocuses peeked out of the fading patches of snow, turning towards the soiled sky to face another spring of struggling to find the light.
It was a terrible reminder that this had all happened before in myriad ways, and it would probably all happen again, because this was people.
We were horrible, wonderful, good and bad.
There was no escaping this, and if you had the misfortune to live long enough to see the cycles of it ebb and flow, it would run you ragged.
This would never end, and I didn’t know how to bear it.
“There you are.” A familiar voice broke through my sorrow. I looked up to find Av standing before me, spritely, but not a bit cheerful. “Cassandra Necroline said I would find you here.”
Av’s amber eyes were soft, concerned. Her tiny fists were clenched into balls. She was worried about me. From the hunched set of her shoulders, she’d been worried for a while. As my eyes met hers, I smiled through my tears. I was just so damn happy to see her.
This was how we bore it. This was how we survived. The people we loved, and who loved us back. This was all that mattered—all there really was in this abattoir of an existence.
I laughed—a shaky sound—grabbing her hand and pulling her down next to me on the steps.
She wore her usual suit and tie, though she’d cut her black hair into a severe bob with a thick fringe of bangs across her forehead.
The style gave the sharp angles of her face so much gravitas, I was nearly intimidated by her.
“I like the new look,” I murmured.
“Scarier than ever,” she said, miming claws with her fingers and baring her teeth to me.
It was so silly, I smiled. It was good to be near her extremely specific mix of terrifying and goofy. My heart needed this. Av knew the darkness in me and it had never once scared her.
I asked the question I hadn’t dared think about. “Did you kill my fish?”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “Kind of.”
I raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to admit she was joking but she shook her head. “I’m sorry, Eryx. I’m good with the dead, not the living. The little guy is a great spirit though, I think he’ll find you when the time is right.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I snorted. Only Av would charm a goldfish into sticking around as a spirit. “Where’s your poltergeist, by the way?”
Av shrugged. “Stanley’s probably getting snuggles from Rhi about now. He hasn’t been himself since the two of you left. Did you know that hedge made us forget you?”
“No,” I answered, letting the familiar feeling of talking something through with Av wash over me. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
I leaned back on the steps of the Necroline mausoleum and let the cadence of Av’s storytelling soothe my tired soul. If there weren’t going to be answers, at least I could have comfort.