The Old: A Night Novel

[ChrisGibson]

T H R E E
MONSTERS





I myself am a murderer and murdered, sacrificer and sacrificed. You all have a share in the murder.

-The Red Book


“That was the best concert in the world,” Alease declared.
“We need a night away from the kids. Every once in a while at least,” he said, his eyes not leaving the road as he squeezed her hand.
“Looks like we’ve still got the magic, Mr. Goodson.”
He smiled at his wife and kissed her quickly.
“Did you ever doubt it?”
That night the traffic lights on the rainy streets made red and green glowing patterns on the asphalt. Jack Goodson was driving home with his wife from the Aragon. and he stopped to let the man in the parka cross the street As the man was crossing, suddenly he fell on his back.
“Oh my God,” Alease said.
As the man trembled on the ground, Jack got out of the car and cried, “Alease, call 911. I’ll see what I can do.”
Alease nodded as her husband stepped out into the rain while the lights of the SUV flowed yellow on the street mixing with traffic lights, and other drivers slowed their vehicles to move around them.
“Sir,” Jack said, “are you alright? I can’t even see your face. Say, we’re going to—”
Jack made a startled noise, and pain exploded in the back of his head as he fell in the street, and the man with the metal stick in his hand jumped up, laughing and ran across the street into the night. Through the thick pain, Jack heard his wife calling his name, but he could not get up, not just yet.



“So, we had sex,” Erika said. “And it was the best sex I’d had in a long time. Of course, it was the only sex I’d had with someone who wasn’t Jordan. And I forgot what it was like to be with a man whose body I actually like looking at. He looks so good. I mean, look at him.”

Erika took out her camera and showed a picture of a man who looked much like every other man she’d dated and said, “Isn’t he beautiful? But Vera’s dad just moved back into town and though people can’t understand, I’ve got to stop myself from fucking him because good things never happen when I’m with that man, except Vera, but aside from that—good things never happen. And that man just got out of prison anyway. So, but anyway, it’s all about Mike now.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” Lewis said, and he almost meant it.
“When am I going to meet that man of yours? I mean, meet him again?”
“I suppose you could stay a bit . He’s going to be here soon.”
“Well. I’d like to, but Mike is saying he wants me to come over.”
“Doesn’t he live across the state line?”
“Well, it’s only an hour and a half trip.”
“You mean one way?” Lewis said neutrally.
“If you could just be there for the sex. My God, the man’s so big he kind of hurts me. Have you ever been with someone so big it hurt?”
“Yes,” Lewis said. He wondered if Erika was asking about Chris, but he didn’t like to talk about Chris and bed. Their love was personal to him and not an object of discussion. God knows there had been plenty of men before Chris who were completely up for gossip.”
“He stretches me so bad I can hardly walk. The hole next day I could just feel that man in me. I mean he really damaged my bpussy. But I needed to have some more. You know what he said the other night?”
“Huh?”
“He growled, ‘This cock is yours!’ I mean he was like, ‘This cock is yers!” And oh my God it made me shiver. I let that man fuck me sideways.”
She drifted off on a reverie and then said, “and the shadows on the wall of our doggystyle. I’ve never been able to see that, but just being able to see the reflection of yourself. Oh, my God, and the way he makes it clap when he’s… “
Erika crossed her legs.
“I want to be a good friend and stay, but I don’t know if I can. I need to be with that man again.”
Lewis hated the way some gay men talked about sex as if it just weren’t very important. As if it was a low thing. He wondered, if Chris didn’t stay here every night what would he do to be with him? But then, being with Chris was a lot more than the sex, he told himself. No, the sex is a significant part of it, and wouldn’t Chris think it was funny when he repeated this story when he came home?
“I don’t begrudge you,” Lewis said. “I think you ought to go. What you’re in is new, and you deserve.”
“Thank you so much,” she was forking around the last of the Chinese food and she said, “I’m not going to eat the rest of this. Do you just want to keep it?”
“Thanks. Yeah..”
“Can I use your bathroom before I go?”
“Absolutely. Toilet paper’s in the closet across from the door.”
While Erika got up. Lewis wondered if he’d gotten fifty words out, or if he trusted fifty words out. There was so much on his mind, so much to say, and it wasn’t that he didn’t wish to tell Erika, just that it took far too long to process it and express it. She was so here, there and everywhere and now the toilet was flushing, and she was coming back in, and she kissed him and said, “Are you going to walk me out, friend?”
“Of course I am.”
On their way out Erika said, “Mike says he wants to build me a log cabin in the woods. He told me that after we had sex last night and were all curled up in his bed, and he is a construction worker. I love a man who can build. He’s thinking our kids should meet, and that could be real nice too.”
Privately, Lewis thought that Mike should build himself an apartment and get out of his grandmother’s house before talking about building a log cabin, but he kept this to himself. He walked Erika to the car and returned, going down the long hall and past the former ballroom to the elevator, going up the five stories and to his apartment, through the main room and into the kitchen where he flung back his head and screamed.
“Oh, hey!” Chris was opening the refrigerator and taking out coffee creamer. He cocked his head.
“Did I scare you?”
“Did you come through the back door?”
“No,” Chris said, “I actually came in through the window.”
Chris said it so matter of factly that Lewis realized it wasn’t a joke, and he said, “You’re like a bat.”
Chris shook his head, pouring them cups of coffee.
“That bat business is a myth. I just climbed up the walls.”
“Like Spider Man.”
“Yeah!” Chris snapped his fingers.
“If you can’t see why that’s not scary—”
“It shouldn’t be scary to you cause you’re my boyfriend,” Chris gave him his coffee. “However, Erika was here and I was like, shit. So I waited for her to leave and then climbed in. She sure does talk a lot.”
“She does,” Lewis said, then, “And how long were you just hanging outside on the wall.”
“Chris shrugged. “I dunno. Twenty minutes or so. I really wanted to shout, Lewis! I’m here.”
“You could have called. Or do you need both hands to hang on?”
“I’ve never tried to make a call and hang on to a wall,” Chris said, sitting down across from him. They were both in their spectacles and Chris said, “Ey?”
“Yeah?”
“I feel like I’m not small.”
“No, you’re six’ two.”
“I didn’t mean that.”
Lewis raised a mildly irritated eyebrow and then said, “Oh! No, you’re not small at all. You’re… more than adequate.”
Chris smiled like the Cheshire Cat and Lewis said, “Now what?”
“Well, when she was going on about Mike I thought… I just feel like you could have said that I was—”
“Oh, really! For real? You’re a grown vampre and you were hanging off of my wall eavesdropping—”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping!”
“Hoping I’d tell me best friend about how big my boyfriend’s penis is?”
“Well,” Chris squirmed. “A little.”
Lewis cleared his throat and sipped his coffee.
“I don’t like talking about you that way. This Mike or whoatever he is just some moron who’s going to be gone in a couple of weeks. You… well, I wouldn’t talk about you that way. What we say in bed is no one’s business. If I didn’t love you it would be something different, but I do, so there.”
“I’m just being a goon.” Chris said, putting his coffee down and rounding the table ot kiss Lewis on the cheek.
“I haven’t been someone’s beau in a long time.”
“Holy Little House on the Prairie, did you just say beau?”
“That’s what it is, right?” Chris raised an eyebrow.
“I forget how old you are until you start talking.”
“Fuck,” Chris said.
“Huh?”
“Fuck Fuck Fuck. Do I sound old now?”
“Now you just sound silly. Besides, that’s not even a new word.”
“Everyone thinks it is.”
“That’s because everyone thinks they just discovered sex. Say, how would you feel about Erika and her daughter coming to dinner tomorrow night with my uncle?”
Chris’s eyes opened and he gave an obviously fake smile. “Sure, I think that would be—”
“See, I can tell jokes too.’
“You’re a cruel man.”
“Besides, it’s likely you’ll never see Erika again.”
Chris raised an eyebrow.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It’s just the way she is. She comes into my life and then disappears more and more frequently, the way some friends do. It’s more than likely I won’t see her again for at least half a year.”
While Chris contemplated this, there was a knock at the door, and Lewis murmured, “Who the fuck can that be at this time of night?”
But he went to answer it anyway.
A woman was at the door with a fevered child and she said, “He’s not waking up, and before you ask, I can’t get him to the hospital.”
“Bring him in here,” Lewis said, nodding to the bed, “Place him there. I’ll be back in a moment.”
Lewis went through the kitchen, and then to the bathroom. and cleaned out the tub and then he said, “Bringing him in here, and in the bathroom, Lewis began to undress the sweating boy and place him in the tub that was semi full of cold water. Chris watched as more water rumbled into the tub, and Lewis told the mother. “You just sit there. Right on the toilet, and I will hold up his head.”
While Lewis submerged the boy in cold water, Chris wondered why this woman hadn’t had the sense to do the same thing, and why she would come to Lewis this late at night, but Lewis said, “What happened before?”
“I put him in the water, but it didn’t seem to do anything, and this is the third time it’s happened in a week. He speaks to himself, and even after the fever is broken, he doesn’t always wake up right away. I spent three hours in the emergency room waiting for them to do anything, and do you know how much it costs me?”
Lewis did not answer, but put the back of his hand to the boy’s head.
“The fever is gone. Chris, lay out one of the old blnakets on the bed for me.”
Chris nodded and left and a moment later, Lewis brought the dripping boy back into the living room, and laid him on the bed, opening the windows.
“I need you all to be very quiet,” he said. The woman nodded., Chris did nothing, and Lewis pulled out a chair and sat down across from the boy, closing his eyes and resting his head in his hands. For a long time the boy lay there in deep sleep, and Lewis in silence, and it was at the time when Chris almost spoke that Lewis stood up and went into the kitchen and retrieved from behind one of the portraits on the altar, a vial, and from the vial he began to pour oil into his hands, anointing the boy.
“Blessed be thy feet which have brought thee here, and blessed be thy knees which kneel. Blessed be thy navel, which is the source of thy fire. Blessed be thy breastbone, blessed by thy throat which speaketh to praise the Lord.”
And while Chris looked on, Lewis continued, “Blessed be thy limbs which carry you. Blessed be thy arms and thy legs, blessed be thy mind, blessed by thy lips. Blessed be the space between the eyes. Chris bring me the sage. It’s half burnt. You can’t miss it.
And while he burned the pungent sage, moving it across the sleeping boy, he continued to murmur over and over again:
“Blessed be thy feet which have brought thee here, and blessed be thy knees which kneel. Blessed be thy navel, which is the source of thy fire. Blessed be thy breastbone, blessed by thy throat which speaketh to praise the Lord.”
And while Chris looked on, Lewis continued, “Blessed be thy limbs which carry you. Blessed be thy arms and thy legs, blessed be thy mind, blessed by thy lips. Blessed be the space between the eyes...”
His voice became quieter until it was a whisper, until it was nothing but a groan, and his body trembled in trance, and now his hand went to the boy’s chest, and now he lay himself across the boy, and it was as if he were asleep too. The mother watched, saying nothing, and Chris watched with a frown until, at last, Lewis rose, and blowing out his breath he said, “I expel thee. Trouble him no more. I expel thee,” and as he spoke the boy’s eyes began to flutter.
“Mama…”
“I expel thee,” Lewis continued, taking the sage and burning it again, “Trouble him no more. I expel thee. Clothe the boy,” he said as an aside, “I expel thee, trouble him no more.”
And he took from under the bed, the thin metal wand Chris had seen before, and he began to trace over the boy and over the room a pentagram, and then another and then to describe another five pointed star. And now he took his wand through it, and though Chris saw nothing, he saw the boy’s expression, and the woman’s, and he felt as if a great heaviness had been lifted or scattered, and then Lewis put down the wand and said, “I need to sit down, but by all means, don’t feel like you have to leave. Chris, could you get some juice for the boy. Madam, what would you like?”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a good start to the chapter! I am liking where Lewis and Chris are at the moment. Erika seems a bit flakey but I hope she sticks around. It was interesting to see Lewis use his powers. I am glad he can help people. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Erika is based on my friend Erika. In fact the two of them are basically the same and she is very flakey, so don't be surprised if you never ever ever see her again in this story. I debated that for a while and then realized she was necessary in chapter one and that in life there are many people who do not stick around. Lewis's use of magic is something I thought long and hard about as well, so there you go. I'm not going to write an essay about it. I'm glad you read and glad you enjoyed this and there will be more tomorrow night.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER THREE
CONTINUED

Twenty minutes later, when the woman and the boy left, Lewis was still exhausted, and as Chris shut the door behind him, he looked at Lewis.
“So,” he said, “that was magic.”
Lewis shrugged
“It’s such a reductive word.”
“You healed that boy.”
“I did.”
“Some people are so bad. Like that boy they say is running around here. Hit that poor man in the back of the head, and his wife brought him to the hospital. But you come and heal her son. He was burning up. He was on fire.”
“He had a brain fever. He would have been brain damaged. No point in telling her that. I did not do the full anointing. I relied on my will to make up for that. The full anointed requires oiling his genitals, and the witch being naked as well. And solitude. I didn’t think any good mother would allow that. So, I relied on the strength of my will to make up for what was lacking in the rite. I had the feeling there was a presence at the back of it.”
“A demon.”
“What some would call a demon. But he has departed now. He has departed from this world,”
Lewis yawned deeply and, as he did, he began to undress, pressing himself against Chris.
“We are both very tired. I feel it is time for us to depart from this world too. At least for a few hours.”



They are people of the night. Obviously, Chris more of a person of the night than Lewis. And he had worked at the college until one in the morning. It was nearly two when he got in, and when the woman showed up with her son, it was at least three. They don’t go to sleep until there is grey in the sky, and there is nothing to do for Chris or Lewis but hold each other. He plunges into the the deepest of sleeps, not that dreams have ever been a part of his nights.
In the morning, as Chris stirs, Lewis is tracing his lips with his fingers, he touches his front teeth. Chris’s pale blue eyes, blinked up at him as he began to smile.
“Touch them. Touch my teeth.”
Chris opens his mouth, and Lewis’s index finger moves up and down the front row. It reminds him, though he doesn’t dare say it, of his dogs, when he was a child, how he would tickle their gums and run his fingers along their teeth, and he passes, further back than a dog’s would be, the canine teeth.
“I didn’t,” he began, “I knew they were there, but…”
Lewis’s hands go to the top of Chris’s mouth, and Chris looks at him steadily Back in his jaw, two at the top two at the bottom, not like a dog’s at all, but like a serpent’s, strong, strong like ivory, and because Chris is his lover now, he runs a finger along the inside of his cheek where there is skin stronger than any skin, slicker than sny skin, skin which would not be bothered by the closing of fangs, and before and behind the great fangs, smaller fangs, Lewis withdraws his finger without drying his hand.
“You know, every time were making love there’s a part of me that wants to bite you,” Chris said, looking at him eyes hooded, seeming almost drunk.
Lewis turns from him, his back to him either ignoring his words or inviting, Chris doesn’t know. He is erect with his admission, and presses himself to Lewis, his penis turgid between the hills of his ass.
Lewis reaches back and pulls Chris’s head to him, messaging his hair and the back of his neck, and Chris presses his mouth to him and licks the nape of his neck, his penis becoming harder with the pleasure.
“You have to tell me to,” Chris says, “I won’t do that to you without you telling me I can.”
“I’ve wanted you to. A little. But I did not ask what would happen.”
“Nothing,” Chris runs his hands up and down Lewis’s side.
“To kill, takes a different bite,” Chris licked him. “To transform takes a different bite still. But to taste?”
“Do it.”
“I will,” Chris said. “But you have to do something.”
“Yes.”
“Fuck me. Fuck me so deep. Fuck me, and I want to feel your fingernails on my back. I want you to scratch as hard you can. I want that this morning.”
Lewis bends his neck to Chris’s mouth, to the sharp pain of his teeth, and then to something like ecstasy at his bite, at his blood being taken, and he turns to kiss him. In the bed that morning as the sun rises, Chris feeds, and Lewis’s hands run down his back, wanting to do what they’ve always done, raking him in return for the ecstasy and the pain of kisses which are bites on the thronat and arm, on the breast and finally, as Chris turns on his stomach, he takes in Lewis, so hard with desire, and Lewis grits his teeth while he fucks Chris so hard his lover cries out like a horn, and the bed shakes, hitting the wall until orgasm stretches through Lewis’s body, cramping and uncramping his toes until they both call out together and then collapse, Chris body’s still flexing and pulling on Lewis, still pulling his cock deep inside of him. While Lewis, drained of his seed, still fucks on. The bed does not stop shaking. They are both wearied from lovemaking, drenched in sweat in a bed speckled with blood.

They lay curled on the bed face to face, half sleeping, fingers linked together and Chris began murmuring, though in a different voice than Lewis had yet heard:

“About Yule, when the wind blew cool;
And the round tables began,
A' there is come to our king's court
Mony a well-favoured man.
The queen looked o'er the castle wa',
Beheld baith dale and down,
And then she saw young Waters
Come riding to the town.


And then she saw young
Waters come riding to the town.”

Chris yawned.
“What is that?” Lewis asked. “It reminds me of songs I know.”
“It is from my youth.”
Lewis placed the palm of his hand against Chris’s cheek, and then along his shoulder.
“For some reason I never asked. I guess I thought it might be too personal. Where you came from. How things happened.”
“How I became a vampire?”
“Well, yes.”
Chris smiled.
“That’s a sort of long story,” he said, “and so unrelated to my childhood and to being a lad that it’s hard to put the two together.”
Lewis noted that Chris had said lad, that his voice had again drifted into that accent.
“Part of me thought, maybe you’re like Louis and Lestat, some French vampire with depression and aristocratic tendencies. And then the other part thought, well, it‘s probably like people with past lives who wish they were Cleopatra, but turn out to be scullery maids.”
Chris laughed deeply at this and said, “I am definteily more on the scullery maid end of things. And I am not French. I’ve been depressed, but never French.”
He was over three hundred years old, older than this country.
And then Chris lay on his back, turned to Lewis, grinned. He said, “Well, I’m fascinated. Where do you think I came from?”
“Well,” Lewis said, “Lawrence told me your favorite era was the fifties.”
“I did enjoy the fifties. The sixties were necessary, for sure, but bloody and painful, and the seventies never really got finished.”
“But if you are three hundred years old and,” Lewis laid on his back, “the fifties is your favorite era, then I can’t imagine your growing up was that wonderful. You were not a prince.”
“I was far from a prince.”
“You were… born in America. In a colony. You lived some place like Salem. No… Not American. I… give up.”
“You don’t give up,” Chris said. “You just want me to tell you.”
“Well, yes.”
“I could tell that even though you thought you were just guessing, you were seeing.”
“You want me to use my power”
“I suppose I was asking for a cheap show.”
Lewis turned on his side looking over Chris.
“Once upon a time I was English,” Chris said. “I was one of fifteen children. We lived in a hovel like one of those hovels you see on the history specials. We thought water was bad for you, and had no concept of germs or anything. I was illiterate and by modern standards… or by standards then even, foul, probably more foul than homeless people you turn your nose up to on the streets. It’s hard to describe that world. It’s so different. When you continue to live you have to change, and when you look at the self you are, then it’s hard to remember the person you were.
“But you are right. I did come to America. I did live in a little colonial town where I dug the ditches that people shat in. I was a slave. Not like a Black slave. They couldn’t get away. Things were getting stricter then.”
“You were an indentured servant?”
“That’s exactly what I was.”
Suddenly Chris sang:

“His footmen they did rin before,
His horsemen rade behind;
Ane mantle of the burning gowd
Did keep him frae the wind.”

“Something out of a history book,” Lewis said,
Chris groaned, turning in a circle on the bed and lying back on his back.
“And it was not like in the history books where they make things sanitary and sweet and white. That’s what white means, you know?” Chris said. “Not your white skin, but your whitened out history. All darkness, all truth, all heritage removed. It was not simple. It was backbreaking. It was...” Chris frowned.
“Not something you really wish to talk about.”.0
“No,” Chris said. “The past… when there’s so much of it, sometimes it is a comfort to leave it where it is. Especially now that the present is so good.”
Lewis nodded, pressing himself against Chris whose long arm went around him.
Chris murmured, “I wish I’d been a prince.”

“Mister! Mister! Can you help me?”
Dreaded last words before the homeless man asks if you have the quarter it costs for a a cup of coffee at a diner that hasn’t existed since the 1950s. or before they broke out into a tap dance and song, and asked for a few dollars you didn’t carry because ever since the ATM card had been invented, you don’t carry cash anymore. But this was just a kid. Some teenager who should probably be on his way to school hanging around Lunt Avenue. And Lunt wasn’t dangerous, not really, but night was approaching, and not many people were around. Up the road, across the El track, was the Golden Cowboy, the burger place with the street café.
“Whaddo you need?”
“I just need to know how to get to Morse.”
“Well,” Tim said, “That’s easy. You just go the next block over. What neighborhood are you looking for?”
“Twenty four hundred.”
“Even easier, you’re a block and a half that way.’
“Which way, sir?”
“Oh, there,” Timothy pointed up the street.
“Well, what’s over there?” the boy asked.
“Over there—”
As Timothy Burgess, aged twenty-four hit the sidewalk, face down, the front of his head joined the pain in the back of his bleeding head while the boy ran down the street with his metal stick, laughing.

MORE TOMORROW NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great portion! It was nice to hear about Chris's history. The last bit of this portion has me intrigued. It will be interesting to read more of that as well as everything else. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! Hope you are having a great night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I thought that last bit should come in just for the very purpose of being intriguing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER THREE
MONSTERS

CONCLUSION

“So this is your uncle’s house.”
“It’s really all of our house,” Lewis said. “It’s where I grew up. We used to live in a huge apartment over the store down on Bryn Mawr, a few blocks away. But then we moved up here into the old neighborhood, and this is the house I remember from when I was about ten.”
Lewis shrugged as they went up the steps.
“Much nicer,” Chris said, coming to the steps of the newly painted porch, “than the house I grew up in.”
“Now that you’ve told me, I don’t doubt,” Lewis said. He did not knock on the heavy glass door. The first floor of the house was stone, and the second floor brick while the attic dormers were grey wood. As they entered the living room, Chris thought, Yeah, I could see a witch living here.”
“We’re in the kitchen,” Owen shouted.
“Here we come,” Lewis said, and then he turned around and told Chris, who was already looking at the bookshelves, some of them sagging with tomes, and tables which had in turn, crystal orbs in elegant stands, jade dragons, glass curios, and skulls, human and otherwise, and wands which were long and polished or twisted and curved.
Chris nodded and Lewis added, “Though, of course, you know it wouldn’t do to run around touching things.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Down Morse Street a car slowly passed, and looking to the great harp in the corner and the tapesty hanging form the wall, Chris thought that, though witches cottages had abounded in his day, they were nothing like this.
“Tell your vampire to come back here!” Owen called, and Chris was so shocked, he went through the great dininig room and down the corridor bordered by bedrooms and bath to the kitchen where the man he had only half seen a few nights before stood over a great boiling pot of… well, no potion, but gumbo, sprinkling file powder into it, and then turning from the pot as he turned down the eye.
“You are Owen,” Chris offered his hand.
“And you are Chris,” Owen took his hand. “Welcome into my home. And this is my other nehphew, Seth.”
Owen a\was dressed much the same as Lewis, in a Cuban shirt, and loose pants. But Seth was in fine black trousers and an immaculate white shirt and a trim vest, like something out of the past, like something a vampire would wear, Chris imagined, and as he took Seth’s hand he noticed what no one else mentioned, which was that Seth was, as far as Chris could tell, white. He had a thin dark beard lining his jaw, and wavy dark hair, and Chris imagined that perhaps, in this country, he might not have been entirely white, or, and this was as likely, Lewis was not entirely Black.
“Lewis hasn’t told me anything about his family,” Chris said.
“Well, then this would be the time to ask lots of questions,” Owen said.
“Seth. Lewis. Get bowls and silverware. Chris, be so good as to help me with drinks and bread. It’s Sunday, we’ll eat at the table like civilized people.”


While the phonograph played behind them with the rich old sound Chris was convinced you could not get any other way, Owen speared a shrimp from the bowl of brown gumbo and said, “Lewis is my sister’s grandson.”
“Grandson?”
“I flatter myself and think that this confuses you because I look so young and virile for my years.”
“Well, Chris allowed, “there is that.”
“I like him,” Owen told Lewis. “You should keep him.”
“Is the entire family… ? I’ve heard of family witchcraft.”
“As have I,” Owen said. “Usually it means that people live in a clan, and we do, and that the clan considers its members family, though I have heard of hereditary witches. I’ve heard of people who say they grew up with it. The way some folks grew up Methodist. Me? I grew up a Roman Catholic like most Dunharrows. As far as I know, you cannot raise someone as a witch. The best begin as something else and come to the Craft later. I would not say it was coincidence that Lewis came to it, Not entirely. Some bloodlines have more of a talent for it than others. I will not say, even, that it was coincidence that he came to be part of my clan. But ti was not entirely familial.”
“I had no idea what Owen was until I was almost twenty,” Lewis said. “He is my father’s uncle. My father had… There is nothing magical about my father or my mother. I was looking for somehting else, feeling other things. Meeting other people. They say it happens to every witch. One of the people who came to me was Owen. He looked at me and said, “I always knew it. And that was that, really.”
“But we are a family of witches,” Seth said. “Only I’m not.”
“Seth has dreams,” Lewis noted.
“But that is not quite the same,” Seth said. “Being saddled with weird shit you can’t understand isn’t the same as being a witch.”
“I’ve told you—” Owen began.
“Yes,” Seth said tiredly, dipping his crusty bread. “If I could apply myself my gift could turn into something real.”
Seth was handsome in an odd way, his face oval, his eyes wide apart.
“I would rather not have wacky dreams,” he told Chris, “than sit around and learn from them.”
Owen closed his mouth, looked at the table, and Chris thought he might be holding his tongue from saying things he’d said before.
“Seth is our cousin,” Lewis said, at last, taking mercy on Chris’s curiosity. “He is from the McCrory side.”
Seth nodded. “I came to live with Owen after my parents died. Back then it wasn’t just Owen here.”
“It was also my sister, Drusilla. She left the left the world younger than she should have. Lewis’s grandmother. She was more like Seth. They were close.”
“But the clan?” Chris said.
“The clan is something else,” Owen said, “as I’m sure your blood clan is different from, say, your blood family.”
“My blood family is long dead.”
Owen nodded, but did not say anything like, “I’m so sorry.” That would have sounded stupid.
“I am one of the heads of the clan. They call me the Master. The other head is the Maid. But in days gone by my mother was the Maid, and Lewis may be Master after me. I never knew a witch more powerful than my mother.”
“Save Augustus.”
Seth had said his name and when he did both Lewis and Owen gave him sharp glances.
Chris turned to Seth, uncertainly.
“He is another uncle,” Lewis said, shortly.
Owen said, “I am the head of my clan, but strictly speaking, Augustus is the head of our family, and,” he turned his eyes to Seth, “The less said of him the better.”


“Do you feel that?” Lewis asked.
“By that do you mean the chill in the air?”
“Yes. Not much,” Lewis said, “just the reminder that summer’s almost done.”
As they walked down Morse, Chris squeezed Lewis quickly.
“Uncle Owen wanted to drive us home.”
“That’s a very long drive,” Chris said, “and I just wanted to walk with you to this El Station and then sit with you and look at you and-”
“You’ll get tired of me soon enough.”
“I doubt that very much, Mr. Dunharrow.”
As they passed the alley a block from the station, a boy was coming down and he said, “Excuse me.”
“Yeah,” Lewis and Chris said together.
“You all catching the EL?”
“We are,” Lewis said before Chris could speak.
“I was wondering if maybe, if you have a card you could fit me in too. I’m trying to get back to Logan Square and I’m fresh out of cash.”
Lewis Dunharrow was more disconcerted about someone walking out in an alley in the approaching evening than usual, and he looked at Chris who looked down on him only for a minute before he said, “Sure we can.”
“Thanks, guys,” the boy said. “I really appreci—”
But even as he said it, he took out the gun, and he aimed it straight at Lewis, and in the same moment that Lewis realized it was a tazer, Chris lifted the boy up by his neck with a super strength, and knocked his head against the wall, the tazer falling.
“I was just fucking around!” the boy cried. “I was just fucking around. I was going to shock you.”
“You’re the one,” Chris’s voice changed while Lewis watched. “The one that hit the man in the back of the head when he got out of the car to help you. His wife was afraid for his life. Do you know my boyfriend went to the hospital to look after him? You’re the one that cracked a kid’s head open on this very street. Left him with injured eyesight and high hospital bills when he was just minding his business and heading home?”
“I was playing!”
“And two others from what I’ve heard. How many?”
The boy kicked Chris in the stomach, but when Chris’s grip only grew stronger, the defiance in the boy’s eyes died, and he tried to scream, but Chris’s free hand went over his mouth.
“Please!” the boy’s eyes went ot Lewis. “Don’t let him hurt me.”
Lewis only watched.
“What should I do, baby,” Chris turned to him.
“You should do what you think is best,” Lewis said.
“What you think is best!” The boy’s voice went up an octave. “What the fuck—!”
“How many more people?” Chris said again.
“Three. Some old bitch the other day. So… six. Six.”
“You…” Chris began, “prevail upon people to help you. Pretend to be in need, and then when they come to help you, severely injure them? And you think that’s… fun? That’s your entertainment.”
“I don’t know!” the boy wailed, tears springing to his eyes and washing down his red face. “Please let me go. I’m evil. I’m crazy, alright. I’m a crazy fuck. PLEASE let me go! I’m a fucked up person.”
Chris lowered the boy so they were face to face. The boy’s eyes widened see those teeth, seeing the fangs, rise up in Chris’s mouth. Lewis watched the dark stain of urine blossom at the boy’s crotch, and run down his leg
“You’re a monster,” Chris growled.
“I know!” the boy admitted,.
“Unfortunately for you,” Chris told him, before lunging on his throat, “So am I.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an action filled portion! It was nice to meet some of Lewis's family. I am glad Lewis and Chris didn't get shocked but I kind of hope they don't kill this kid. Great writing and I look forward to more! Hope you are having a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

If you don't know what happened to the kid, you better go back and read the last paragraph.

 

[CharmedFan28]

You are right I did not read close enough. Thanks for clarifying. Also reading back I think what happened was for the best, he was really hurting people.

 

[ChrisGibson]

F O U R

FAMILY
AND
OTHER EVILS


But I ask you, when do men fall on their brother with mighty weapons and bloody acts? They do such if they do not know their brother is themselves.

-The Red Book



“I was watching Vampire Diaries last night.”
“What the hell for?” Chris demanded.
“Because they live the way vampires should. They’re good and beautiful and mysterious—”
“Hey! hey!” Chris lifted a finger and took a fry off of Lawrence’s plate, “I’ll have you know I’m plenty mysterious, and what’s more. I think I’m goodlooking. You’re not bad yourself.”
“And they don’t have to have jobs,” Lawrence said wistfully, almost leaning in on the table and putting his chin on his fists.
“Strictly speaking, we don’t either. There’re cemeteries all around town that would be glad to have us.”
“Ick,” Lawrence waved it away, “I went through my coffin phases back in the seventies.
“But have you noticed that?”
“Your coffin phase? Yeah. And the whole black cape and top hat. Stylish but—”
“Shut up,” Lawrence said. “Have you noticed the tv vampire, they always have nice houses, nice cars. Houses with electric, mind you. And no jobs. When in the world did being immortal come with shit tons of money? Do you know how much I would love to not go to work?”
“You love your job, you love your clothes, you love your Rolexes and your fancy cars and you love your hot girls.”
“Damnit, that’s just it!” Lawrence threw his napkin down on the table. Outside, where the the rest of the restaurant was a street café, and students walked up and down Sheridan, Lawrence looked for just a moment and then he said, “I have tried to make myself a sort of sexy guy.”
“As a gay, gay vampire, you’re totally sexy, Laurie. And you always smell good.”
Dark and bold, bold featured, always in good suits, like the dress shirt, white and blue stripped with white cuffs, red tie he wore now.
“The girl I’m seeing, was seeing,” Lawrence murmured, “was trying to see. Do you know what she said last night?”
Chris raised a pale blond eyebrow.
“Last night,” Lawrence leaned in, narrowing his dark eyes, “she said, ‘Please stop, I don’t think I have the emotional dedication to commit to finishing this.”
“This… relationship?” Chris tried.
Lawrence frowned and went red.
“She said it in the middle of… Oh, hell, she said it when I was fucking her. She said it just like that: ‘Please stop, I don’t have the emotional investment to finish this.’”
Chris covered his mouth.
“You think that’s funny? And then she just got dressed, really bored, didn’t even hurry, and left. I scarcely had the condom off.”
“It’s not funny,” Chris said shaking his head, and to his credit, the smile was gone. “It’s really not, and God knows I’ve had some disasters too.”
“You think Lestat ever had someone say please stop having sex with me in the middle of stuff?”
“I think Anne Rice vampires don’t really have sex.”
“Not my point, Chris.It’s just… It’s really I’m older than all of these stupid shows and books, but, when I … back then.. when I was just an ordinary person, I thought I would become something amazing. And so often I feel like I am. I’m the Lawrence who can climb up walls and walk through closed doors, who can drive a Maserati at full throttle, and hypnotize people if I want. Who wears fancy suits and, so I thought, hold womens’ attentions. But… I feel like I’m still that Laurie I always was, when I’m just alone with a person, with a woman. She knew all that I had. The car, the money. We were in my apartment. And that’s one hell of a place. And she still just.. She literally told me I was a boring person. She was bored to tears while we were having sex. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
“Becoming what we became does not make us proof to the bullshit of humanity,” Chris said. “It just means we go through more and more of it. Forever.”
Lawrence could tell that the tone in the conversation had changed, and Chris was staring out of the window eating fries absently and so he said, “And now you?”
“What?”
“Tell, Dr. Lawrence what’s getting at you?”
“Lewis.”
“Lewis is great. What the hell do you mean?”
“Not Lewis. Me. I mean… I killed in front of him. I killed in front of Lewis the other night.”
Lawrence frowned, his eyes shocked.
“Did you ever do that before?” Chris asked.
“I never trusted anyone enough,” Lawrence said.
“Not even Veronica?”
For a moment Lawrence looked… raw was the only way Chris could describe it, and then he only shook his head. No.
“How did he take it? I mean, he’s not acting different, is he?”
Chris shook his head. “No. But it’s just… I’ve seen him do what he does. I’ve seen witchcraft, Lawrence. I’ve seen him heal sick people, relieve people in pain. I’ve seen him give life. And he watched me kill someone. I showed him that.”
“You showed him something he accepted.”
“And he did accept it,” Chris said. “He… almost encouraged it. He… I keep looking for a part of him that doesn’t accept me, thinking he can’t be alright with me being me. And he was.”
Neither one of them spoke for a while and Lawrence finally said, “Veronica… since you brought her up.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“God, no! Don’t be sorry. She... she loved me. I loved her, and I never thought I’d love anyone. She knew what I was and she loved me. I was very silly around her. A braggart and… you know, the way I can be. And one night we were on the Lake. It was a very different lake then, and I told her everything. I thought she’d run away, or get the whole neighborhood to come and stake me. But instead she just… she just put my face in her hands and kissed me, and then… Well, we didn’t come home that night. And that night, while she was asleep and I was lying next to her, I got terrified. I wanted to run away. I was even thinking about doing it when suddenly her arms went around my waist and she said, Don’t you be doin’ that, Laurie Malone. You know… in that voice of hers. And… I think that’s what you’re feeling. A little. You wish a part of us wishes to be in the shadows. We’re afraid for people to see us as we are, and you wish that Lewis was…”
“Still innocent.”
“He was never innocent. I’ve met him. He is a witch. Witches do not only heal, they kill. They live in the dark and in the light. Part of you wants someone who is so good they would run away from the real you, but what you’ve got is someone who understands you, and if you’re troubled about it, fine, be troubled. But you’ve got to get over that.”



“Can I touch the cards?”
“You can,” Owen said. “In fact, you’d better.”
The nervous man across from him picked up the large deck of cards and began awkwardly shuffling, and Owen said, only half looking at him, “Now you should find a card that you think of as yourself. When you find it, put it face down. Perhaps, next, you should find a card that reminds you of your situation. Whatever it is you are thinking about. Your ex, your lover, your job. Pick that card.”
“I don’t really know anything about Tarot cards,” the nervous man said.
“You don’t have to,” Owen told him, looking from the table, through the whole shop to the window that showed the tree veiled brick apartments of Bryn Mawr. Owen Dunharrow had no sympathy for nervous people, especially nervous men.
“Now are you done?”
“Yes,” the man stammered. “I think so.”
“You need to calm down,” Owen said, levelly.
“I’m just nervous. I’ve never done anything like this.”
“You’re having your cards read, not fucking a goat for the first time. Now, please, since you’ve already placed down two card,s without looking, withdraw four more.”
When the man picked them up, Owen repeated, “Without looking.”
“Now take those four and the ones you withdrew and let me see those two, and now shuffle them best you can. And then give them to me.”
When the man was done, Owen laid them down smartly in the form of a cross, with two lain over each other at the axis.
“Alright.” Owen said, sounding satisfied for the first time, and rubbing his hands together. “Now take the first card up. The one in the middle.”
The man obeyed, and Owen ignored his trembling fingers, and said, “Now, overturn the second.
“This is the Two of Swords. Truce, peace, and it is crossed by the Five of Swords—” which isn’t much of a surprise, Owen thought, “—which is worry. Now, turn over this one. Ah, the Four of Staves. And this is your past—”
The bell tingled as someone new came into the shop, and Owen looked up for only a moment. In the midst of a shop with constantly burning Nag Champa, amidst crystal orbs, skulls, bags of resin, herbs, frankincense, and myrhh, was the last woman Owen ever wanted to see, black haired, dark skinned, and as far as he was concerned, she could wait among the heavy tomes lining the wall until he was ready for her.
“Under the worry that crosses peace, that is the card you chose for yourself. Ah… the Chariot., And then, over it, is the one you chose for your circumstances, Queen of the Earth, and—”
“Owen!” the woman said.
“Can it not wait?” Owen said.
“No.”
“It can wait,” Owen told her, and continued, “and your future, this is the Aeon. This is something unknown coming. Largely because it is what you make of it. Now, I have given you the basic meaning, but, let us go and look a little deeper. Like, why did you choose the Chariot?”
“Owen,” the woman said again.
“I think,” the nervous man said, “you should just talk ot her., I’ll still be here.”
Between Eve’s badgering and the man’s nerves, the reading was half botched anyway and Owen said, “Well, I will be back shortly,” and went to Eve.
“Who taught you manners?”
“My Grandfather.”
“Obvious. Well, you could use a little reteaching.”
“Doubtless you’d love to be my tutor.”
“I may if you ever interrupt me again.”
“Come to the front of the shop.”
Eve shifted her purse over her shoulder.
“And by the way,” she said, when they stood between the window and the row of crystals, “don’t pretend that idiot needed as deep of a reading as oyu were about to give. You know half the shit in this shop is for…”
“Watch it, lady.’
“Is not for witches,” Eve rephrased what was about to come to her mouth.
“If I only catered to us, then there would be no businsess,” Owen said. “We are… notorious cheap. And practical.”
“Good God, a seventy dollar orb,” Eve said, disdainfully. “And you know the bitch whose going to by it couldn’t scry to save her life.”
“I have a business that relies on a lot of silly white people with magical ambitions and no true ability,” Owen said. “Most of us do. Now tell me what you want, and then go to the house, make some tea and wait for me.”
“I can’t really stay.”
“Surely you didn’t come to the city just to ask me one question and walk out. Even your grandfather wouldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Well, he did.”
“Well you can still wait.”
“He wants the sword.”
“My sword?” Owen said. “The sign of the clan? The clan he doesn’t belong to?”
“Well, that’s just it, it is your sword, and he needs your permission.”
“For what?”
Eve looked frustrated and sighed.
“He didn’t really say.”
“Then I’m really saying no.”
“Owen—”
“In fact, even if he did say, I would say no. Tell him no.”
“You know he doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“He does from me. He does all the time. Now go upstairs or go to the house and see Seth. Occupy yourself a minute while I finish with this man.”
Eve sighed again and stopped herself from whatever she was about to say then, as Owen turned to go back to his customer, he said, “By the way, Lewis is dating a vampire.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an interesting start to the chapter! Lots going on and I am liking it. I hope Chris killing in front of Lewis does not spell trouble for them. I like them as a couple too much! Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice Sunday!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I suppose in a story with a plot all things that happen spell trouble, but whether Chris killing in front of Lewis is what spells trouble.... will be revealed later. The matter at hand now is Eve.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That's all true. Eve seems like an interesting character that I look forward to getting to know better.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CHAPTER FOUR CONTINUED



As the priest bowed and left the altar of Saint Patrick’s, the congregation sang the last of the hymn.

Frail as summer's flower we flourish,
Blows the wind and it is gone;
But while mortals rise and perish
God endures unchanging one,
Praise Him, praise Him,
Praise Him, praise Him,
Praise the High Eternal One!

All around the church people sat down in their pews, or knelt to pray a moment. Some took out their rosaries, and not a few got up to move to the small alcoves and pray or light candles. After a moment, some headed into the vestibule to say a few words to each other and head back to work, and Lawrence would head back to work as well, but not just yet. They would close up the church soon, anyway, and he would begin his walk from the far west side back into downtown. This was the place where downtown died so suddenly, west of the Towers and all the great buildings. Here the El track gave way to almost blank spots where the city had a foreboding emptiness. If he had not been what he was, it would have been dangerous to wander around as he often did.
Once he’d actually caught himself feeling strangely oppressed and odd, not quite afraid—what was there for him to be afraid of?—and he thought, if I can walk toward the El, if I can walk toward it then I will be back in civilization. And he found himself at last, at an old El station by something that looked like the city again. There was a Dunkin Donuts near the hooded walk up the El platform, and he had to pass a woman sitting on the sidewalk eating a pizza off the ground. Pigeons came from all over to peck at it with her, and she did not wave them away, and Lawrence felt faintly sick, could not stop looking, and then reminded himself that he was not like other people and he had to walk on.
Today he sat in the old church he remembered so well. And, more from habit than faith, he crossed himself, then genuflected and turned to leave the church, dipping his fingers in the marble holy water font before heading into the vestibule and then out in the world.
His mother used to say that church made her feel sorted out, but church didn’t make him feel sorted. If anything it made him feel weird and discombobulated, and yet it was a weirdness he wanted. He came for it a few times a week. Heading down the steps back onto Lasalle Street, he saw a dark haired woman waving at him.
“Hello,” she said, and Lawrence smiled from the side of his mouth and offered his hand.
“I see you here a few times a week,” she said.”You always come in at the very end.”
“Yeah,” Lawrence said. “Just for a few minutes. “You pray here a lot.”
She had a slightly embarrassed look, and the dark haired woman said, “Truth is I don’t really pray anywhere. I just come here to get some connection. I’ve been doing research.”
“Research?”
“I hope that isn’t insulting. I mean, you’re not… are you religious?”
“I’m not an atheist,” Lawrence said. “I… grew up Catholic. I come here to just take a breath. Remember some stuff. You know?”]
“Yeah,”she said. “That’s the great thing about these old churches. They’re just here for you. The priest and all, they ask things from you., The buildings are just here. My name’s Lynn by the way.”
“Lawrence,” Lawrence offered his hand. “Or Laurie. Laurie Malone. Just a guy trying to make his way in the world.”
Lynn laughed and said, “Lynn Draper. Just a girl trying to do the same.. Well,” she patted her purse, “maybe I’ll see you around next time I’m here. I always come a few times a week.”
“Yes, Miss Draper,” Lawrence said, “I’d like that a great deal.”


“Oh, you’re staying for dinner. That’s great,” Seth said. “We never see you guys.”
He had turned from his computer, and Eve stood in the living room, pacing. Seth said. “Why don’t you kick off your shoes and get something to eat and drink. We can hang out when I get finished with this. Or,” Seth thought, “we don’t have to. You can just crash. You must be tired. Did you come right here from the train?”
“Yeah,” was all Eve said.
“You didn’t even stop downtown and look at anything? No shopping? I can’t believe a classy lady like you didn’t hit up any store,s Eve.”
“Well,” she said. “There’re stores back home. Granddad was serious. He really wanted me to do this, and so I came right away.”
“Had a day off?”
“Yeah, Seth. I had a day off. Say, I actually am going to get something to drink. Would you like something?”
“Nah, I’m good. I just gotta finish working on this laptop. Can you believe this guy was going to send it back to the factory? It would have cost so much money, and I’m only charging about one twenty. It’s really amazing.”
“It is Seth,” Eve said, sounding as interested as she could, and slipping her shoes off, before going down the hall.
“And it’s amazing,” Seth continued, “how everyone needs computeres these days, but no one really knows how they work. It’s like it’s our most basic instrument, and everyone says we’re in a computer age, but no one really knows anyhintg about them. They think they’re mysteries but…ooh. Look here! They’re machines—”
Seth suddenly looked up and around the room and frowned. “Oh, you’re gone.”
And then then he shrugged and continued his work. People were difficult. He didn’t really understand them. When he was younger, and he thought he did, things had been worse, when he couldn’t tell that people were either shrugging him off or laughing at him behind his back and what they said was either not serious or an out and out lie. His life had been considerably different. In ways that he didn’t like to admit, the death of his parents had been a liberation which had sent him to the bosom of his odd family.
An odd family was a welcome thing for an odd person, and it wasn’t that he understood Owen, or didn’t miss the mark with Lewis. But they never lied to him, and they looked at the rest of the world as an absurbity, just like he did. He always felt safe around Lewis and Owen. With Eve he didn’t feel uinsafe, but he didn’t feel at home. He expected her to be like them, but he was always surprised that she wasn’t. Eve was like any other girl he’d known. He couldn’t make a link with her. She was… he tried to think about it… not entirely real. Eve was—
“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Seth jumped up, and ran down the hall, up the stairs to where Eve was screaming. His hearing was good, and her screaming was loud, and so, in a moment, he was in Owen’s large bedroom watching Eve on her knees screaming, as her hands grasped, impossibly, in a way that made Seth want to vomit, a glowing poker, deep orange and black.
Seth threw up his hands and called, “Ashanko!” and at once, Eve tossed the poker away and as it hit the floor it did not burn but resolved itself into a long black sword, hilted in grayish black metal, faintly inscribed in signs which still shone for just a moment.
Eve wept on the ground and held out her raw, red hands.
“Do something!” she wept. “Do something!”
“We can go to the emergency room,” Seth offered.
“No!” Eve growled, tears running down her face.
“But, Eve.”
“Do something. Do a spell.”
“You know I can’t,” Seth said.
“You did that one.”
“Actually, Owen did it,” Seth said. Then he explained. “He had a feeling you’d try to steal the sword. He gave me that word for if you should find yourself…. In trouble. He didn’t detail what the trouble would be.”
“That asshole!” she screamed her mouth full of saliva as she swayed on the floor, holding out her damaged hands.
“Eve that’s really bad. You need medicine—I’ll go get some ice,” Seth was headed down the steps. “But the ice won’t be enough.”
“Just go!” Eve wailed while she lay on the floor and kept murmuring, “Asshole! Asshole! Asshole…..”


On TV, the reporter announced, “A body found in an alleyway near Lunt Avenue has turned out to be twenty-three year old Max Shelter, a young student at Roosevelt College. But as pictures of him surface, many claim that he was also the Peekaboo Striker, a name given to the young man who made his reputation by asking other men for help and then, once they had assisted him, violently striking them. A metal bar was found near him with Shelter’s own fingertips, and some suspect that he may have attempted to assault the wrong person. There are signs of strangulation along his throat…”
The door flew open and Lewis jumped from his seat while Laurie strode in announcing, “I had the most amazing day.”
“No, don’t knock, just walk in,” Lewis said.
“Oh, sorry about that.”
And then, looking down at the bed where Chris was looking up, half awake and pulling a bed sheet over his naked body, Laurie said, “I wasn’t thinking.”
“If you keep not thinking I’ll resend my invitation.”
Lewis had learned that some vampire myths were true, some not, and some half true. A blood drinker could come through any door, but a door sealed by a witch or a shaman was sealed indeed.
“Don’t be harsh, Lewis,” Laurie swooped down and kissed him on the cheek. “you know I’ve nothing but love for you. Look what I brought my best friend’s best guy.”
Laurie handed him like a bouquet a sachet of “Lemongrass? Sage. Well, thank you for this.”
“And wine and chocolate for your drink tooth and your sweet tooth, and a pack of Winston’s. A witch cannot live by ritual alone.”
“Amen to that,” Lewis murmured heading itn othe kichtn to drop them off.
“I’ll put coffee on,” he called while Chris got up from the bed and pulled on underwear. When Lewis came out he realized that in their long centuries together they must have seen each other naked and this was the reason Chris felt no compunction in combing his hair or putting on more than the briefs he was wearing.
“I was in church and I met the girl. Woman, and her name was Lynn and we had a really nice talk and I’m sure I’ll see her again. I really hope I do. There was just something so… familiar about her. Like when you are looking for a sort of person and then you meet that sort of person and it’s just like you’ve always known them.”
“And,” Chris said, taking the cigarette Lawrence handed him and inhaling, “you feel like that with her?”
“A little bit. Just, I’m tired of meeting the women I meet. Women have changed.”
“Everybody’s changed,” Chris said, exhaling smoke as he stood up and then pulled on trousers and reached for his shirt.
“Yeah, but I’m not trying to date everyone. And I must admit I liked some of the changes. But… I would like to meet a woman who… doesn’t do what the last one did,” Laurie said in a lower voice at Lewis re entered the room.
“I never figured you were a church person,” Lewis said.
“Well, I go there to clear out my head, to remember the past,” Laurie said. “There’s power in it. The building. I don’t know about the religion though.”
“There may very well be power in it,” Lewis said. “all the prayers, all of those people through the years.”
“I’ve lived too long in a Christian world and seen too much of what Christians do in the name of their god to be one,” Chris said. “when I was a boy we were as heathen as we were Christian. The state made sure people in town went to the church and you were fined if you didn’t, but in the north, where I lived, there were many who were still secretly Catholic, and on the walls of the church and its buttresses, and in the grave yards as well, there were signs and images from older religion. We had three village witches, and in the nights there were people devoted to the old ways who went about their business. It wasn’t until I came to America that I saw Indians murdered, black people enslaved, the poor put down, all in the name of Jesus, and I don’t really have much time for him.”
“I’m not as old as you,” Laurie said, “I’m just an Irish lad. So I don’t really feel quite that way, and there is a power in it. For me. I know that Christians have done bad things, but so have I. Nothing that exist for a long time can do otherwise.”
“Yes,” Chris said. “But the difference between us and the churches is we know we are monsters and we don’t claim to save anyone by what we do.”
“What about you?” Laurie looked to Lewis.
“Oh, I am of a mind with Chris and of a mind with you. Few witches are raised as witches. My family is Catholic, if not Roman. This is how Owen was brought up too. It was only years later that I was done with church and initiated into the Old Way. But every witch worth their salt has a religion that is at least, on the surface, influenced by the churches. What we do is the wisdom of the western world, and that was the western world. It still is. Even a Voudon form Haiti keeps crucifixes and saints in his peristyle. Though those symbols may mean something completely different there then in a church. And so it is wit h us. We do not deny Christianity, but we do not take it on its surface, and I know I don’t have time for its priests and ministers.”
“Like the English people of my day,” Chris put out his cigarette.
“Or, honestly,” Laurie said, “the Irish and Italians in mine.”
“But the old churches do have power,” Lewis said. “They are temples, many of them build on spots sacred to gods older than Rome and Jerusalem, build on lines of power like what the Indians in South America called tikal.”
“Like a lee line,” Chris said.
“Wait,” Laurie said, “I don’t know what any of that is. I came to talk about a girl at church and now we’re…. what’s a lee line?”
“They exist in England, or at least are talked about in Englnad. Great Britain. They are networks… spiritual highways linking to each other like spiderwebs and joining at certain places of power. They send power all through the land, and power is strengthened on these lines. Many of them are now highways or sacred places. And the same thing occurs here, in America, only the Indians called them tikal. The places of offering or sacrifice. The places of prayer and power. From there, power was taken and power is sent back and moves through those passages all around the land.”
“Astounding,” Lawrence said
There was a knock at the door.
“Well, enough esoteric conversation for today.”
“I wonder who it is,” Chris said,
“Well, at least we know it’s not a vampire,” Lewis said. He got up from the kitchen table where he’d left Lawrence and Chris, and opening the door was shocked to see Seth and, leaning on his shoulder:
“Eve!”
“Help me!” Eve said.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! Lots going on still and I am enjoying this story a lot! I hope that Eve can be helped even if she was trying to steal. Excellent writing and I look forward to more! If you want to take New Years Eve and New Years Day off I completely understand.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, now that's up to you. New Years isn't that big of a deal around here, so Ill be posting same as usual. As for Eve, there is certainly less mercy here than in Rossford, so what happens to her.... who can say?

 

[CharmedFan28]

Cool, I will be reading tomorrow then!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That will be lovely!

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF FOUR

“She burned her hands.”
They were bound in a towel, and when Lewis unwrapped them, there was a wet cloth between them and Lewis , taking her hands from the red stained wet cloth, saw the bloody and blistered hands.
“Oh my God! Seth, go get all the ordinary stuff. Peroxide and witch hazel. And then I need you go get thyme and basil and the moon weeds., and could you also get the salve? Eve, sit on the bed.
Eve, still grunting with pain, nodded and sat down. When Chris came out, she looked up and said, “Is this the vampire?”
“Tread carefully,” Lewis said. Then he nodded to Chris and Laurie who was coming out.
“Chris Eve, Lauie, Eve.”
The vampires nodded and murmured courtesies, and Eve, still eyeing the tall men said, “Likewise,” and didn’t stop looking at them with what Lewis considered discourtesy.
Seth came back down the hall with the bottles and pots, and Lewis, taking up the peroxide said, “What happened?”
“Things happened,” Eve said.
“She tried to steal Owen’s sword.”
“The Clan Sword?” Lewis said, his voice changing.
“Yeah,” Seth said.
“My inheritance?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly Lewis switching from the soothing peroxide, to isopropyl alcohol, and Eve screamed when he squirted it into her palms.
“Disinfection my dear, disinfection,” Lewis said while Laurie looked at Chris and Chris tried to stop himself from laughing.
“I told you he wasn’t innocent,” Laurie murmured.
“If you’re going to murmur and snigger you can leave,” Lewis said curtly, and Chris and Laurie were silent after that. Lewis applied the cream savagely to Eve who took it as best she could.
“Doubtless your grandfather wanted it,” he said. “Well then the old bastard should have come nad gotten it himself.”
“As you said,” Eve said proudly, “he is old.”
“He is not!” Lewis nearly snapped. “He’s full of evil and he’ll outlive us all,” and, as Lewis began to bind her hands, roughly, he continued, “and now you know what happens to thieves, cousin, and your branch of the family was always thieving.”
“Ouch!” she cried as he slapped down tape on her palms.
“And wicked!”
“Ouch!”
“And conniving”
“Damnit, Lewis.”
“And now,” Lewis stood up, “your hands are bound and done, and you may leave.”
“She was going to stay for dinner,” Seth said.
“Really, Seth?” Lewis said. “Eve, you should leave right now and save yourself the embarassment of when Owen comcs back.”
“The Sword was only going to be taken for a time.”
“It shouldn’t have been taken at all,” Lewis said. “As you now know. And what was he going to use it for anyway?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Lewis snapped. “You were going to steal a magic sword from the Master of a Wtich Clan and you don’t fucking know what your Grandfather was going to do with it?”
Eve opened her mouth
“Get out,” Lewis said. “and don’t let the door hit you in the ass. Seth, you could stay, but someone’s got to get her to the train station.”
“How soon should my hands heal?” Eve asked, trying to summon her dignity as she scooted her purse over her shoulder.
“If my will had been in it, probably tomorrow, but it isn’t so who the hell knows. Quicker than if you’d gone to a doctor. Now, about that hwole get out thing—“
“Why don’t you guys come to dinner tonight?” Seth said as Eve went out the door.
“Chris has to go to work.”
“I don’t,” Laurie said.”
“Really?” Chris raised an eyebrow.
“Sure come, along,” Lewis said tiredly. “Lately I like you more than most people.”
“You guys are funny,” Seth said, heading out the door.
“They’ll still rip your throat out and drink your blood,” Eve said from down the hall, and Lewis firmly shut the door.
He took a deep breath and said, “So… family.”
Lewis went back to the bed, taking up the pots, and the vials, and Chris took up the bottles.
“So… your cousin?”
“A distant one. There are a lot fhem. That is a different branch of the Dunharrows.”
“And their Grandfather.”
“You heard us talk about him before. Augustus.”
“Oh.”
As Lewis and Chris put things away and came back into the living room, Laurie said, “So you all are like the good branch and they are the bad branch.”
“Good and bad are red herrings,” Lewis said, “And you should know by now no one ever called themselves a villain. For now, let it suffice that we have things that belong to us and we plan to keep them. Putting good and bad into the equation will only make things hypocritical when we do everything we can to see that we keep what and who belongs to us.”