The Wicked: A Love Story

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, yes, this was a big old bunch of Pamela, and I enjoy her too. Thank you for the good wishes. I hope you have a great weekend as well.

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE JOURNAL OF PAMELA STRAUSS

This was my first time in the South and my first time seeing Augustus. All of my life has been lived in these cold countries, but for the first time, in that warm country, I felt at home. In his large kitchen with all of his herbs and roots, I learned more than I ever had before. At the feet of Augustus, I learned how to mix the potion which, despite my trust in him, I still had fears of working.
Even though it was spring it still seemed cold and grey in Ohio, and Germantown seemed worn down, not as lovely as I remembered it. All the area was filled with church bells, and people moved around me quickly, some of them stopping to say hello, many whom I had never known.
It was a relief to shut the heavy door on them and enter into the quiet world of 1948 Dimler Street. That night, in the dining room at the long table, after dinner, I told Jimmy to take some of the wolfsbane. Because Steiger had suffered so much from Jimmy’s suffering, I told him to take some as well.
“I feel as if you and Jimmy are linked that way,” I said, and Steiger accepted it.
“But it’s not…” Jimmy began, “It’s not that time.”
“You must take it every day,” I said. “A tablespoon every day.”
“It tastes awful,” Jimmy said.
“It tastes better than being locked in a basement for three nights you stupid boy,” Friederich boomed. “Now drink.”
Maris and Claire looked at each other. I could tell that to them, this was an inconvenience, the inability to be a good American girls, to be normal. Katherine only pressed her hands together and said, “But it will work, won’t it?”
“Yes,” I said, because what else could I say?



We waited, and for the very first time, there was no Change. As long as we kept Jimmy drinking his potion, as long as I had the supply to make it, there was no more transformation, only mildly strange feelings in him, and Steiger no longer suffered for his friend.
But soon, the matters of the Strauss family were absorbed into the matters of the world, for that winter, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and as America entered into a new war with Germany on the other side of it, many of us began to fear, remembering what had happened twenty years before.

But I had learned much, for back in the South, Augustus had been right. By his potions, Hagano had come to me. I had been afraid, feeling my body old and undesirable, but when he had come to me, he had been just as old. He said, “For you. For you, Pamela. I am ageless. This is for you. You are ageless to me too, though you do not feel it. I come and I go. I am not here. I am tied to all the Strauss women, even before you were the Stauss.
“Who was my father’s father. Who was his mother.”
“I do not know, for I did not appear in this world again until the time when my help was needed, and I did not keep company with the Strauss until I saw you.”
“But who are you?”
“I am the father of Leinghelde and Holving.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
I turned on my side, looking at him.
“Leinghelde was the mother of your clan, the first of you. She was the mother of the mother of the Strausses.
“And when did she live?”
“Over a thousand years ago,” Hagano said, touching me gently.
“You are so like her. Before Friederich was your father, it was me. I am the father of you all.”
“Were you always a wolf?” I asked him.
“No,” Hagano said. “How could that be. I am the first.”
“But, not the first ever?”
“No. I have heard and seen others who came from other lines. And other changers. When I was young there were the berserkers, those who changed into the bear both in form and spirit. But I was the first of our line, the beginning of what you are.”
“Then you must tell me,” Pamela. “You must tell me your whole story, that I may know my own.”
He looked as if he were thinking. I wondered, maybe if he were having me on, and then his face changed and he said, his voice heavy. “I will tell you, then, my Pamela. I will tell you all.”



”But she doesn’t tell us!” Marabbeth lamented, almost throwing the book across the room.
Jason sat shirtless in the chair on the other side, of the room, his feet on the bed and an ashtray full of cigarette stubs. He had been avidly reading the first part of the journal Marabeth had ripped apart and she said, “I forgot to tell you something. Something I just learned tonight from my cousin Myron.”
She loved the idea of absolute truth telling, but thought that bringing vampires up at this time of night, after everything else they’d been through was too much. Blood drinkers could wait till the morning.
Jason looked up at her from the book.
“Apparently most of us were killed. Back in Bavaria. We had enemies. Friederich was the only survivor. It seems that Hagano was the one who rescued him. Hagano along with Frau Eva.”
“THE Frau Eva? The witch who taught Pamela? The one who’s like your great-great grandmother or something?”
“Yes,” Marabeth said.
“Well, then that means she must have known Hagano.”
“Yes,” Marabeth said.
“She must have known so much,” Jason said. “If only Pamela had asked.”
“If only Eva had told.”
“Or even her daughter,” Jason said. “But I bet no one in your family knows about that now.”
Marabeth shrugged.
“In the journal Pamela brings up Eva having a daughter. We’re all descended from Eva’s son. Her daughter would be my… great-great aunt. Maybe off somewhere they continued being witches and still have the knowledge Eva had. But we’re out of touch with them.”
“Would that cousin of yours, Peter, know about them?”
“No,” Marabeth shook her head. “We’re a parochial family. A big one, but parochial. Concerned about one thing. Eva’s daughter never married into the Strausses and neither did her children. She was Pamela’s age. Pamela didn’t go to her for help when things happened to Jimmy. That branch of the Kellers just went off and did its thing. In fact, since Eva’s daughter married, they wouldn’t even really be Kellers anymore.”
“Marabeth, there’s really one thing you have left to do.”
“What?” she looked almost bored as she turned to him.
“You can keep reading the book just so long. And then you’ve got to reach out to him. You’ve got to dream again. You’ve got to make contact with Hagano yourself.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Pamela’s writing provides answers but also questions. I hope Marabeth can find the answers she needs. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Sometimes I think Pamela raised even more questions than she answers. Now I'm about to post again, and maybe there will be answers from someone.... somewhere?

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT EVERYONE GOES TO CHURCH, AND SETH GETS PSYCHEDELIC


It is the most beautiful church he’s ever seen, and he’s seen the big brick structure, the concrete arches and solid, high tower of Saint Jerome. Seth loves Saint Jerome. He always believed in God, He certainly believes in Chicago, but Saint Agatha is the most lovely church he’s ever been too.
The choir sings.

“I call on the Lord in my distress,
and he answers me.
Save me, Lord,
from lying lips
and from deceitful tongues.
What will he do to you,
and what more besides,
you deceitful tongue?”

And what does that mean? What does it mean when he says, and now he really believes? That he has been a spectator up until now. Maybe up until now he has never truly been a witch. He has watched Owen be the witch. He has watched Lewis, and even Loreal. Owen always said, “You will feel the Gods when you are in your power. You will feel the Gods in the wind, and in the fire, in the earth, in the oak, the ash, and the thorn. You will see the Virgin and Mother and the Dark Lady in her many faces. You will see that She is He, and He They and the Gods God. You will see the truth in everything.”
But these were promises, and in the end, he had to take Owen’s word for them.
This evening, on the Feast of the Baptism of Christ, in Saint Agatha’s, the pink stone church with its white pillars and jewel box stain glass windows, Seth feels touched by God.

He will punish you with a warrior’s sharp arrows,
with burning coals of the broom bush.
Woe to me that I dwell in Meshek,
that I live among the tents of Kedar!
Too long have I lived
among those who hate peace.
I am for peace;
but when I speak, they are for war.

The stain glass windows were cut by Gerard Freneau. He knows that name. He has heard the story of the talented man, mixed like himself, back then called… Seth grimaces, a quadroon, who cut these windows in New Orleans and sailed up rivers and took trains to insert them into these windows. There is Saint Solange in white, holding a blossoming hawthorn tree with white flowers, but even as he observes the serenity of her face which is that color, not of a black person or a white person but the color of a sans colour gen, his own color, he sees her closed eyes. When they open for him, and he is not afraid, she looks upon him and he knows this is the Whtie Goddess. Her names go over him. Belili, Belial, Lilith, Don, Arianrhod, Freya, Branwen, Mary. Her names and faces travel across his mind like a river.


“ I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber…”

They are all gathered here. Lewis kneels in the front aisle under the golden light, the giant stones of his old rosary about his fingers, and beside him, looking like an angel—vampires really are angels—fine boned and nearly white haired is Chris Ashby, and what is this? He has a black beaded heavy rosary around his white hands. Where did that come from? Chris never said he was a Catholic? Jim is beside him. He loves Jim. He just does. He loves them all. But what was last night, when he gave himself to Chris and then, after love they came to surround Lewis. What was this morning with Lewis after the previous morning when he was with Jim and the world was new and knew everything? He loves sleeping in Chris’s arms, loves Lewis’s body being linked to his, loves kneeling right next to Jim, before God in this beautiful rose and gold lit church, smelling the frankincense, knowing that before the night is over they will share in another sacrament, just as pure, just as offered up to God, as they give themselves to each other, for he must go to Jim tonight. He must figure things out.

“Indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

And there on the altar, all in white, surrounded by white candles and holding up a golden, round faced child, was the Virgin, crowned and noble, brown eyed, offering her son and his outstretched arms to the world. Seth heard the old prayer, knew he was hearing Lewis, knew Lewis was not saying it out loud, that they were linked again, and always, heard the old prayer and murmured it to the Queen of Heaven.

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection,
implored your help, or sought your intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To you do I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in your mercy, hear and answer me.
Amen.

And there is Marabeth, and there is Kris, looking most out of place, almost as out of place as Laurie beside Loreal. But Lewis had said they must all be there. He has not explained, but he has said that tonight, on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, a week after Epiphany and only a few days after the burial of Marabeth’s father, Jim’s uncle, they must be at this evening mass, at Saint Agatha’s, a church which, Loreal has just learned, was built by her grandfather nearly one hundred years ago.
It is such a comfortable church, how could such a thing come from Augustus Dunharrow? He did not build it himself, of course not. The pillars are high, the ribbing leading to a vaulted ceiling hung with brass lanterns. And yet, it feels as close as a jewel box, or as a cave, as the cave where Christ was born.
Seth remembers Owen saying, “They got it all wrong. This is why so many of us walked away from the Church. They told you that Christ did it all. That all you had to do was believe in him and he would take aways your sins and your suffering, and make everything happen. And yet, here we were, believing, sinful, and still suffering. You must not stand and watch. You must enter the place of Christ and become him, and then all things will happen. The Craft is really nothing more than this.”
“Things must begin this way,” Lewis had said, “and you must be content with not understanding for some time. And then, in the night, all things will begin.”
More and more he talked like that, though Lewis had always been a mystery. Perhaps Lewis simply didn’t explain everything because he didn’t have the time, but now the hymn changed.


The priest had been droning on, which sounded like a horrible thing to say, but this is how Jim thought about it, droning on like bees, like drones, buzzing in the summer and what they were saying didn’t matter, it was the rhythm of it. The beehive, the beehive, there was something in that, and the golden light of the sun. But this was not a sun, it was a Host, it was a cream colored wafer half as large as a human head, made golden by the lights of candles and, suddenly, it was a cracked sun and more light came through it.

“Amen
Amen
Aaaaa aaa men!”

They were rising for Communion and the choir was singing

“You shall cross the barren desert
But you shall not die of thirst
You shall wander far in safety
Though you do not know the way
You shall speak your words in foreign lands
And all will understand
You shall see the face of God and live

Be not afraid
I go before you always
Come follow me
And I will give you rest.”

Seth rose up, was nearly pushed up it seemed, and followed Jim. But as he was approaching the altar the lights were brighter and brighter, the candles like twirling stars, and suddenly, in place of all was a woman in white, and she held out a chalice and it grew brighter, its silver burning. A voice cried, “Take and eat.”
And Seth suffused in whiteness, passed out on the floor or Saint Agnes


MORE ON TUESDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a wonderful scene in the church! I enjoyed this portion quite a bit! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days.

 

[ChrisGibson]

We'll all be back in a few days, and hopefully I'll be feeling better. Thanks for stopping by.

 

[ChrisGibson]

E I G H T

REUNION




Love one another with burning

-The Book of the Law




It was that morning sun that was so gold it was white, and the fields were white with snow covered wheat and snow covered grass. Or maybe this white was the color of the vegetation, for it wasn’t cold at all, and a high pure voice was singing:

I like to rise when the sun she rises,
early in the morning
And I like to hear them small birds singing,
Merrily upon their laylums
And hurrah for the life of a country boy,
And to ramble in the new mowed hay.

Seth looked for the source of the voice, and he was approaching a girl, or a woman. It seemed that when he was trying to distinguish if she was young or old then there were, distinctly, two of them, a young laughing girl, and a doting mother, but as he settled on it not mattering there was only one woman, and she was wrapped in white and crowned in white and white hung about her neck, and all the white was of wheat and flowers and snowflakes. Her eyes were wide and deep like chunks of amber and her skin was like his, not dark, not light, neither black nor white.

Beside her, though, was a man not nearly as indescribable. He sang with her:

“In spring we sow at the harvest mow
And that is how the seasons round they go
but of all the times choose I may
I'd be rambling through the new mowed hay.”

“Seth!” he called, and now that Seth had spent some time with the Strausses he saw that this tall man, more like a boy than like the sad man he had seemed, had Kris Strauss’s coloring, Peter Keller’s build and somewhat sharp features, but above all and despite his darkness, Jim Strauss’s wavy hair and movie star looks.
“Nathan,” Seth said, and turning to the woman, “Lady. What happened? Am I dead? I’m not ready to be dead.”
Nathan grabbed Seth’s shoulders.
“You fainted, buddy! But you’ve got work to do.”
“You do,” the Lady said.
But now she was surrounded by others, bright and burning and some dark and burning, and she said, “You fainted in our place, so close to the borders of things.”
“Does this… does this mean anything?”
“It means you are Aos Si,” one of them spoke. “Like us. You are about to wake now.”
“Should I say anything?” Seth asked. “Are there any messages?”
The others looked at Nathan Strauss and he said, “At this moment no. The last thing they need is me sending messages. For now the message is you. Just love them.”




“He’ll be fine,” Seth heard Lewis saying as he came back into consciousness. His head did not hurt. He felt, really, as if he’d been asleep. Jim was sitting on the pew, and Seth was laid out on the pew beside him, and as he turned on his side and then tried to sit up, he saw that the church was empty.
“What happened?” Seth asked.
“You fell,” Jim said, quietly. “You passed out.”
“Where is everyone?.” Seth whispered.
“Oh, they’re gone,” Lewis replied, not quiet at all, and apparently quite able to hear Seth.
“Father Jefferson left me the keys when he heard the name Dunharrow. Apparently they regard this, sort of, as our church. Extraordinary!” Lewis said, but in a different voice, bending over to look at something.
When Lewis did not elaborate, Seth got up and, not without genuflecting, moved up the flagstone aisle, and then turned past the altar to where Lewis was standing. It was in the corner of the church beneath the altar of the Blessed Virgin. Mary was to the right of them and they were near the door that led out to the little portico on the northeast of the church when Lewis murmured, “The Golden Lantern.”
“But it is the Golden Lantern,” Loreal insisted.
It had a brassy holder and hook, but the majority of the lantern was of glittering stain glass, and the base of it transparent so that golden light burned clear from the bottom, filling the rest of the lantern with rosy color. It stood on a table beneath the open right hand of the Virgin, and Loreal looked behind them and said, “And yes, there it is.”
When Seth looked back, he saw, fairly new, a wide, round, glass baptismal font and, beside it on a table was a heavy glass dome that must have been used to cover it. A little futuristic, Seth thought, for such an old church, but good none the less, nothing like the old stone baptismal font across from it, carved with figures and Loreal said, looking from the glass one, to the stone one, “The Glass Orb, and the Stone Bowl.”
“And lastly,” Lewis said, looking to the communion cup which was set up on a dais in a display case near the back, “the Silver Chalice.”
Seth looked to Jim, but Jim said, “I don’t know. This seems like your business.”
“They are the Four Treasures of the Four Castles,” Loreal explained. “It’s on a chart that came from Grandma. It’s the way the witch clans of old traced their circles and did their rites. The way Wiccans have four watchtowers.”
` “Only the Castles are real,” Lewis said, “and so are the treasures.”
“But this is a church,” Jim said.
“Built by our uncle,” Lewis looked about.
“See…. Over there, in that window.”
“A saint. Ah,” Jim shrugged, “I don’t really read the Bible like I should. Or at all, really.”
“Saint John the Baptist,” Lewis said. “After a fashion. But no, it is he Lord of the Wild. And there, that is the White Lady, the one some called Arianrhod, dressed as Saint Solange. And there is the Lady of the Waves, she who is called La Sirene and Yamaya, but is also Aphrodite or Don, as Saint Mary Magdalene. They are all here, disguised in the walls and the carvings.”
Lewis sighed. “Of course. Augustus would never give a damn about building a church that’s just a church. He is a Catholic like the rest of the family. It is the outer form of the inner worship, and even Augustus worships as a witch. He didn’t build this church for the poor Black Catholics of Lassador to worship. That was accidental. He built this,” Lewis gasped, looked around, seeing in all of the paintings something wildly different than he had seen before, seeing the stations of the Cross a mild interruption to what Augustus was trying to do.
“He built this as a witch’s temple.”
“You say it like you admire him,” Seth accused.
“I do admire him,” Lewis said. “Who could do less? I don’t care for him as a person and I certainly won’t let him oppose me. But admire him.” Lewis sighed, grinning and looking around. Oh, yes,”
“What we did in Chicago was phenomenal, the lines of power leading from all over, converging under Saint Jerome’s. But Saint Jerome’s in itself was not our making. The chamber was, and the chamber was great, and it is a mighty work. But this, this was what the witches of old in Africa and Spain and England did. This is what the people of the old faith did with their half memories, carving green men and goddesses into cathedrals, raising up Chartres in France on the sight of a druid temple, placing the labyrinth on the floor when men had forgotten what the labyrinth meant. But in America? What witch has done this in America? Built a witch temple and had it blessed by the Church of Rome? Put in daily use for over a century?
“When everyone else was gone, this must have been the place where the witches of the area gathered for their own worship, the way we only dreamed of doing at Saint Jerome’s. Amazing.”
Chris watched Lewis, who was shaking his head in wonder
“Well, I’ll bet,” Lewis continued, “that there is some line of power which connects this church to Saint Jerome, and I wonder, if we follow the lines here, what else will we find?
“What else will we find, what else will we find,” Lewis stood up tapping his chin, and Chris turned to Jim and said, apologetically, “He gets like this sometimes.”
“All the time,” Seth said.




“What is this?” Marabeth wondered.
“It was in my grandmother’s book, her journal. She left me her journals, the family history,” Loreal said.
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Kris commented, but Marabeth was still looking at the quartered circle with the spirals in the center, and at the middle of the quadrants, markings for castles.
“Northwest, The Glass Castle. The Crystal Orb. Northeast, the Golden Castle… But what does it mean?”
“Is it like the Watchtowers?” Peter Keller asked, frankly
“What?” Lewis said.
“Don’t be so shocked,” Peter said. “When we were kids, Amy wanted to be a Wiccan, and she was into the Circle and calling the corners and the Watchtowers. Is it like that?”
Loreal hesitated over the answer, but Lewis said, “Yes. It is like that.”
“Except real,” Peter filled in for him.
“I do not know if what your sister or many a teenage girl does is real or not,” Lewis said. “I do know form requires force. And will. People of little will can call up very little. When we call up something, we expect it to show up, which is why it is a thing not done lightly.”
“But our castles were never to the north, east south and west,” Seth said. “Or, at least, those were called, I think Owen called them, the Hidden Castles.”
“Yes,” Lewis nodded.
“And when you called, you called the Gods, the High People, the Ancestors, the Aspects of God, whatever was in that particular castle, or place,” Seth said.
“The Castles are real,” Joyce said.
“They are names for what is real,” Lewis said. “And, also, there are actual places which correspond to them. Real in this world. Loreal, since she got Susanna’s journals, is looking for clues, for things our family has lost, so that she can become what Susanna was, the Maid. Or one of the Maids. The Maid is the other side of our clan as I am the Master.”
“The only problem,” Loreal said, “is that I do not know what the Maid lost. Onnalee had the Crater. She used it in the ritual, so the Cup is not gone.”
“Unless the Cup and the Crater are not the same?” Lewis suggested.
Loreal looked at her cousin in amazement.
“Let me guess,” Peter leaned forward. “May I?” he asked holding his hand out.
“Yeah,” Loreal said. Then, “Yes.” She liked him and thought Peter was a stable sort of fellow.
“You have marked it. This is a new one. You drafted this from the old?”
“Yes?” Loreal said.
“The Maid, you say her castle is in the South?”
“I’m guessing.”
“That’s very vague,” Peter said.
“I know. That’s why I’m going with your cousins to ask my grandfather. He must know more.”
“But surely Owen would know too?” Seth said.
“Owen may not know as much as we thought,” Loreal said, regretfully. “I’m not saying my grandfather is perfect, or even good. But it seems as if Augustus innovated while Owen only preserved.”
“It seems that way at the moment,” Lewis said sternly, “but let’s not be so quick to judge what we are just coming to understand.”
Loreal opened her mouth, and Lewis said, “At any rate, we are closer to Augustus than we are to Owen, and it is Augustus who has the answers to Marabeth’s questions, so it is to Augustus that we will go."


MORE THURSDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a very interesting and informative portion! I look forward to what Augustus has to say when they go and see him. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are starting to feel better. Thanks for continuing to post.

 

[ChrisGibson]

ON THE THEIR LAST NIGHT IN LASSADOR, JIM, MARABETH AND KIRS GO OFF TO HAVE VERY DIFFERENT EVENINGS


As they walked up the street, Jim said, “I should have parked closer.”
“No,” Seth said, “I told you I wanted to walk.”
“I know,” Jim said, grinning. “And that was really crazy of you.”
“I shouldn’t have asked you to walk.”
“Why not?”
“You just fainted!”
“I’m over it.” Seth brushed it off.
Jim looked at him, and Seth said, “What?”
Suddenly Jim kissed him.
“James, what are we?”
“What?”
“I think I love you. I know I love you,” Seth said. “But that sounds ridiculous and… I wanted to call you last night. I thought of it.”
“I thought about it too.”
“And… I didn’t sleep alone last night. I… I have been in something. But… if we are something… we should decide that.”
Jim nodded and he said, “I’m sort of in the same thing too. And I didn’t think there would be anything new. Any you. This is…”
Jim stopped talking, and then he said, “Well, now that we know, now that we know everything, do you want to work through it together? Figure us out?”
“Yes,” Seth said. “I do.”
They were in car coats, and Seth’s cap was pulled down over his ears, but Jim wasn’t wearing one at all, and when Seth looked to him his breath was frozen and his ears were red.
“Are you still coming home with me?” Jim asked him.
“Yes.”
“Excellent,” Jim said.
“The moon is so beautiful,” Jim’s voice almost cracked.
“You know the sun is wonderful, but the moon is better. The sun is so bright it makes the sky blue and all you can see is the earth. But the moon? The moon shines on everything, makes everything down here a pure white light, and the sky isn’t black, it’s this brilliant dark blue, and you can see all the stars, the road to heaven.”
Jim said, “Do you know, I never did have the Change, not what Chris and Peter talk about. I just got really ill and funny and I got the pills. I wonder what would happen if I didn’t take them.”
Jim’s eyes turned on Seth. “Just once.”
His eyes were large and blue and almost laughing and Seth said, “Could you do it?’
“In the basement of the house,” Jim said, “once I found the chains. I didn’t know what they were for. The chains and the harness. It must have been where Uncle Nate was locked up. Or maybe my grandfather. But, what if I could do it, do it well and not be a monster? Or… whatever. There’s so much I don’t know. So much that growing up I suspected. I always knew something was wrong, but I never knew what it was.”
“Did you look at the book yet?”
“No,” Jim said. “Peter has, some of it. Marabeth looked at the rest, but I haven’t seen any of it.”
“I don’t like the way they treat you.”
“Who?”
“Your family,” Seth said. Then he said, “I mean, they’re great, but, you need to know. You’re not some side character. You can’t let Peter and Marabeth make all the decisions.”
“What do I say? Give me the book?”
“Yes,” Seth said.
Jim though. “Well, maybe I will.”
As they continued walking up Case Street with its stylish apartments, Seth heard Jim muttering, as he looked up at the moon.

“Virgin most prudent,
Virgin most venerable,
Virgin most renowned…”

Seth started, “What’s that?”

But then he also said with Jim,

“Virgin most powerful,
Virgin most merciful,
Virgin most faithful uh…”

Jim looked at him tenderly and lifting a gloved hand said, “Mirror of Justice?”
“Yes?”

“Mirror of justice,
Seat of wisdom…

“I’ve forgotten the rest,” said Jim. “That’s usually when I start making stuff up.”
“My grandmother used to pray it,” Seth said, “In front her Virgin Mary.”
“We had to learn it in school,” said Jim, “but I always said it to the moon. I thought she was the real Virgin and Mary was just sort of a stand in. I don’t know,” he shrugged.
As they stood on the corner across from the three storey white building with its balconies and square windows, light peaking through white curtains, Seth said, “You don’t have to come with me, you know?”
“But I want to.”
“Well, then let me be next to you when you tell your family you deserve to look at that book.”
“Alright,” said Jim.
“Tower of David,” Seth said.
“What?”
“The rest of it:

Tower of David, .
Tower of ivory,
House of gold,
Ark of the covenant,
Gate of Heaven.”

“It’s cold,” Jim said, pulling Seth by the elbow across Washington Street.
“Let’s get inside.”


“Are you coming home?” Marabeth asked when Kris dropped her off.
“Not just yet,” Kris said. “I’ve got to do something before we leave.”
Marabeth nodded, leaned into the car to kiss her brother, and then watched him drive off. She turned to walk up the steps to the great old door. Marabeth Strauss hadn’t returned to her apartment, because she had to speak to her mother, and because the house on Dimler Street was closer. In the past, when she had needed to speak to Rebecca, needed the woman to read her mind, drop the business of her husband and the business of Kris or Jim and come over and ask what was the matter, she had not. When Marabeth had stood awkward before her, begging inside, “Mother, untie my tongue. Help me say what I’m trying to say,” the help had not been forthcoming. It had taken almost until Marabeth was thirty-five to learn the mantra “mothers are not magic”. But it was even now, when she was finally believing it, that Rebecca was waiting for her in the living room.
“I put tea on,” Rebecca said. And then she said, “And I never drink tea.”
“It all sounds so civilized,” Marabeth jested, and Rebecca smiled and said, “Come with me and let’s get cups.”
They did, and while her mother was pouring, Marabeth said, “Pamela wrote about a man named Augustus in her journals. He’s the one that gave her the formula that became the pills. Her friend.”
“I can’t imagine Pamela Strauss having friends.”
“And he is Lewis’s uncle.”
“Lewis Lewis? Dunharrow? Who’s in town? Who you all were with?”
“Yes. They think,” Marabeth said as she took the tea from her mother, “that he could know a lot, and we’re going down to see him.”
“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said, sitting down in the kitchen. “How is that possible? I mean, if he knew Pamela… She’s been dead thirty years. He must be so old. And when did he know her?”
“He knew her in the 1930’s.”
“What?”
“Or the 40’s. Right before World War II.”
“But…”
“It seems that he is…. Very well preserved.”
“Well,” was all Rebecca said with a deep sigh.
“Yeah,” Marabeth said.
Then Marabeth said, “He was one of the last people who saw Dad.”
“What?” Rebecca shook her head. “I need to stop saying that.”
“Dad must have read Pamela’s journal. He was looking for answers. He was going to Augustus. He must have died somewhere near him. It was Augustus who sent me these books, Augustus, I believe, who sent the police to look for Dad so that his remains were finally found.”
“Do you think he killed him?”
“No!”
“Well, he was friends with Pamela.”
“Pamela wasn’t evil,” Marabeth said. “At least not that way. And if Augustus is evil, it seems like he is evil regarding his own concerns.”
“Then this Augustus is…. Magical.”
“He is a witch.”
“I am afraid for you. For you all. Are you taking Kris?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca nodded.
“I’m almost of a mind to go too. To see the man who saw Nathan last.”
Neither of them spoke for a while, but when there was speech, it was from Rebecca.
“When your father disappeared I told myself he’d be back in a few hours, then a few days. And I’m not sure if I ever believed he was gone. And then when Detective McCord told us….
“And do you know, I had to see him. I can’t blame your grandmother. I had to see him too. And the thing is, no matter what I saw, there is a part of me so lonely for him, so in need of him, I would crawl into the grave and cling to him if I could. I really would. I don’t know another way to describe it.”
“Mom,” Marabeth touched her mother’s hand, “I can wait. We can go later.”
“Oh, baby,” her mother touched her hand. “Your staying can’t stop me from feeling this way. You’d better go. I want to know, too. It won’t make me feel happy, but it will make me feel better.”



“Ohhh, God!” she groaned. “Ohh, God! Fuck me. Fuck meeee! Stay in me. Stay!”
Her voice rose.
“Fuck me! Fuck me!” she insisrted.
On the living room floor of her apartment, under the long windows that looked up at the burning moonlight, head buried in her shoulder, hairy ass arched in the air as he buried himself in her, Kris Strauss fucked Jenean Morrison.
“Stay in me, stay in me, stay in me,” she prayed, her voice shallow, as she turned around and wrapped her thighs around him. Her hands landed on his back, caressed his sides, the sides of his thighs, went back to his hard ass.
“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna fucking come—” he moaned.
“Come in me,” she whispered. “Come inside of me.”
She placed her hands on either side of his face and she said, “I love it when you come, I love the way you look when you come.”
She tightened her thighs around him and received his thrust, and the sofa behind them scratched the floor, then his body froze, His eyes were wide, his mouth open like someone being hit. He stared into her, vulnerable, He was perfectly still as. buried inside of her, his lips parted, his eyes almost far away, almost frightened, he spurted. He closed his mouth, gritting his teeth, his body twisting for the last of it. When it had passed over him, as it had passed over her, Kris lay across her and in her, wrung out. She stroked his damp hair while his cheek rested on her shoulder.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said.,
“I don’t want to leave.”
“When will you come home?” Jenean asked.
And then she said, “And I don’t mean that this is your home. I’m not trying to be possessive, I just…”
Kris smiled at her and ran his finger along her cheek. She turned to look at him. His cock was still hard, arched in the air, damp with her pussy juice.
“You don’t have to explain anything he told her. “And besides, what if I wanted to make a home out of this. Of us? What would you say?”
But as satisfied as she was, she was not through with him, and he was still hard for her, and so she mounted him and rode him, taking him in deeper and deeper, pressing his shoulders while his eyes sparkled and his mouth parted, until he began to thrust back and they thrust together, fucking, staring into each other’s eyes, until, at last, with a growl, he picked her up and took her from behind, fucking her like a jackhammer until they both came, shouting and sweating, him collapsing across her, and neither one of them saying a word until, half exhausted, Kris began to chuckle, and then so did she, and stroking each other they laughed, then stopped, then laughed again.


MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a good portion! I hope Jim does stand up to his family and read Pamela’s book. Things seem to be progressing well in this book and I look forward to more after the weekend! I hope you have a nice weekend.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Thanks for enjoying. Jim has missed a lot of respect, and hopefully he can get it along with some knowledge. More to come. What a week. Now I need a rest from the rest.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AS WE END PART ONE OF THE WICKED, JIM AND MARABETH HAVE A TALK


Marabeth was up early the next morning, and walked the five blocks to Jim’s apartment. It was closer to downtown on Case and Washington, on the other side of Buren, the street that ran south and north toward downtown and divided Germantown from what once had been Little Hungary. She was going to buzz, but someone coming out let her in, and it was a treat coming to Jim’s place, an expensive and well kept apartment that not even he spent much time in. When she knocked on his door, she wore a perfect poker face as Seth Moore, shirtless, opened it.
“Good morning,” Marabeth said while Seth was pulling his dress shirt on. Always a dress shirt, she noted, just like Jim. “I could come back.”
“Not at all,” Seth ushered her in.
Jim was coming out of the kitchen and he looked a little surprised, but not at all embarrassed much to his credit.
“I could go,” Seth said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jim said. “You didn’t drive.”
“Well, I’ll take a trip to McDonalds then and give you some time. I’m probably going to hit up those curio stores too.”
When Jim opened his mouth to protest, Seth opened the closet by the door and took out his coat.
“I insist,” he said. And then he said, “Remember what I said.”
“About?” Jim began. Then, scratching his head. “Aw yeah.”
“Yeah,” Seth said, and was gone.
Marabeth looked after Seth, or rather looked at the door through which Seth had gone.
“I like him,” Marabeth said.
“Yup,” Jim said. “They’re a good family. What the fuck did they do to get mixed up with us?”
“Look,” Marabeth said. “I won’t take up much of your time.”
“Fuck that. Let me get you some coffee.”

“I was surprised,” Marabeth said.
“By?”
“Mom’s blessing,”
When Jim looked at her, Marabeth said, “It’s just, me and Mom haven’t always got on. I wished we did,” she said to Jim,” but we didn’t.”
“She was afraid for you,” Jim said. “She didn’t understand you is all.”
“And I don’t really understand her either,” Marabeth confessed. “I think I’ve always felt bad about that. Us not being on the same page. Not understanding each other.”
She was quiet for a while and she said, “I wonder if I wasn’t a little jealous of you. Not in that angry way. Not in a hateful way. No,” Marabeth reconsidered this. “Not jealous, but just… wistful. I wished I could understand Mom the way you did. Love her like you did.”
“You love your mom,” Jim said. “Come on, everyone knows that. Even Peter, no matter some of the things he’s said.”
“Yes,” Marabeth agreed. “But not the way you do. And, I have to admit, none of us makes her smile like you do, Jim. You have a way about you.”
“Well, you know, gay men have to be pleasing.”
“Is that really a thing?” Marabeth said.
“Sometimes,” Jim said. “I had to talk to a shrink about it. It’s like, once you’re accepted you feel so grateful you’ll do anything. And it’s not like I told everyone in the family. But… ” his brow had furrowed and Marabeth said, “What is it, Jim?”
“It’s just, you know how you say you wished you’d gotten on with your mother? I wish I’d had a sane mother. I wish she hadn’t been so… you know? I wished my mother hadn’t killed herself.”
“Oh, fuck,” Marabeth, said putting down her cigarette, “I’m such a fucking cunt.”
“No,” Jim said, “I didn’t mean it that way. I wasn’t trying to make you feel like that.”
“I know, but—”
“It’s just, I wish that a lot. And the truth is, I felt anger and jealousy too. I was angry, and I was jealous, and you know what? Part of it was I though it was my fault.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
He lifted his head and sighed, not able to talk for a minute, not quite able to get to his words.
“But, it’s like, what did I do to have a mom who killed herself and a Dad who probably did the same thing too?”
“We didn’t do anything, Jim,” Marabeth said, fiercely. “We didn’t do anything but be born into this nuttiness.”
“Mara, I need to see the journal. I need to read it. It’s my family, I need to know about it too. Especially if Peter—”
“Of course,” Marabeth told him. “Is that what Seth wanted you to talk about? I am a fool. I should have asked you immediately. Peter made a second copy, and I don’t want to read it by myself and God knows Kris won’t touch it. Maybe you and I can make something of it together.”
Jim blinked at her and Marabeth said, “What?”
“I just… I don’t know… I was looking for more of a fight.”
“Why?” Marabeth frowned. “I mean, if Peter read it, Peter who I cannot believe is fucking my best friend, then…”
“I don’t know,” Jim said. “Maybe it’s because I never knew my Dad. Maybe it’s because the whole reason I’m in this family is because… my granddad was your granddad’s best friend.”
“Our granddad. Grandfather. James Strauss was your grandfather too. That’s why you have his name, dufus.”
“But,” Jim shook his head, “I don’t know… Why do I always feel like some stepchild?”
“I don’t know,” Marabeth said. “Because it’s me who feels like the stepchild.”
“How in the world?” Jim said. “You’re the artist. You’re… You’re Nathan’s daughter. You’re Pamela’s heir.’
“What the fuck does that even mean?” Marabeth said. “The heir of a sketchy, shadowy old aunt who had no children. Except… that’s not even true.”
“What? Aunt Pam had kids?”
“She had one,” Marabeth said. “But… See, you really do need to read the book. Yeah. It’s upstairs. Go knock yourself out with the craziness.”
“Will I regret it?”
“Probably.”

MORE ON MONDAY

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Marabeth and Jim had that talk. They are being honest with each other and that is refreshing. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, this is true. Of course Marabeth and Jim have always been allies, and I wonder if its not so much a matter of them being honest with each other--though it is--as primarily beind honest with themselves. Even though Marabeth has the journals, it appears she has still very much been an outsider..

 

[ChrisGibson]

P A R T
T W O

SEARCH





N I N E


ABOUT

ALEXANDER



Beware therefore! Love all, lest perchance is a King concealed!

-The Book of the Law



Levy Berringer was in the back of a car. He was with his foster parents, Lewis Dunharrow, a witch, and Chris Ashby, his lover, who had killed Levy Berringer’s persecutor, his mother’s boyfriend, and then whisked him off in the middle of a winter night six days ago. Levy had received the news that he would be living with a witch and a vampire with, not stoicism, but a measured joy. His life before hadn’t been much to talk about. But almost as soon as he’d come to them, they’d had to leave to sort out something about werewolves that was too dangerous to take him into. So they had left him with vampires, and the vampires had left him with Dan Rawlinson. And then those vampires had decided to go to exactly the same place Lewis and Chris had gone and so Lewis and Chris had returned for him.
Levy had traveled on Dan Rawlinson’s back through the sky, from Chicago to northwest Ohio in the space of five minutes. He hadn’t been there very long when another gang of vampires, captained by Chris’s sister, had attacked them, but Levy had pushed them back with his power, only he didn’t know he had power, and Dan had killed Chris’s sister who would have been glad to kill him, who, Levy imagined, looking at the back of Chris’s head, must have been his foster aunt.
He had lived in the house of Kruinh up until the time when Loreal returned one night and said that Lewis was on his way. He had assumed he would live with Lewis, but wasn’t sure that it made any sense. After all, as he had said to Kruinh, he’d spent more time with the vampires, than he had with Lewis Dunharrow.
Lewis had something of the nature of Kruinh about him. There was a simple grandeur to him. Even in jeans and a tee shirt with a flannel over it, and cracked glasses, he was something of a prince. He had taken with measured grace the cup of tea Sunny brought him, and Lewis said, “So you have a choice. You could come with me, or you could stay.”
Levy was surprised by the flat statement that he had a choice.
“Whatever you choose you will have an unconventional life.”
“Do you think they would keep me?”
“They would keep you,” Lewis said. “The only question is what kind of life you would have?”
He’d said it casually, and Levy waited for an explanation which, at last, Lewis gave.
“You would live in a house full of vampires. They can’t help themselves, they have no real care for what the mortal world is like anymore. They wouldn’t make you go to school. You wouldn’t have to see anyone but them. You would be fit for nothing but living in a world of vampires. Only, you are not a vampire.”
“Do you think they would make me one?”
“Do you?”
When Levy did not answer, Lewis said, “The Gift is not given lightly, and it certainly isn’t given to children. Do you wish to be a vampire?”
“I wish to be me.”
Lewis nodded.
“And you are a witch?”
“Yes.”
“In a family of witches.”
“Yes.”
“So, if I were with you, I would be part of that family.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“You’d make me go to school?”
“Don’t you go already?’
“Most of the time. I don’t like it, though.”
“I didn’t like it myself,” Lewis said. “And didn’t see much value in it. It does have some purposes. It educates. Sort of. And it socializes. Sort of. I would make sure you were schooled. You would have school. I’d make you get up every day and see people your age. Exactly how we’d handle that…” Lewis shrugged.
“But I am no vampire. You would not live in my house the way you would live here.”
“Is your house big?”
“My house is…”
And then Lewis sat up straighter. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve made a decision.”
Levy looked at him.
“It was my selfishness that told you that you had a choice. You don’t have a choice. Neither of us does really. I am a middle aged Black man who is a witch and the head of a witch clan. You are a fatherless Black boy who happens to be a witch. Pack your bags. We’re going home.”

There were some very real concerns. Lewis Dunharrow had started his working life late, but when it had begun, after eighteen million years in graduate school, he was an adjunct who ended up, by processes stranger than magic, as a substitute teacher and a worker in a day care. Teaching little children was very different from teaching college students. Teaching was a matter of being. One morning, as he sat on the floor in nursery school, a little white girl had made her crooked but intentional way toward him and climbed up onto him, going to sleep.
“I am a lap.” he said simply. He was a lap. He was a shoulder. He was arms. He was an ear. And he was good at it. Lewis had never thought he was the type of person who would want children, and by the time that children were all around him he realized that, as much as he cared for them, in their littleness, and in their growing, and as much as he thought the idea of rearing a child would be wonderful, it simply meant that he would have to have a very different life to be a parent. He was single. He was poor, and he lived in a very, very humble studio.
The truth was Lewis wanted a child eight hours a day. He had come to love his life with Chris, and did not want it turned into a nuclear family. In fact, it seemed almost a high jacking of their love to see it become this so quickly.

The night before Christmas, when Lewis had undergone the ritual to take back all of his lives, a process that reeled and bumped through him for some time, he had finally learned what Hindus and Buddhists were always yammering about when they talked about the ego. His ego was Lewis Dunharrow, aged forty-none-of-your-business-thank-you-very-much-and-definitely-not-fifty. But that Lewis crashed into the greater, longer lived whole of him, into Melek and Malachy and many others, stretching back and back and further back still. It was the greater Lewis that took Levy, not with a guilty feeling that he should, but with a certainty that he must.
As they traveled back to the hotel, Lewis told the boy. “I never planned to be a parent, and I will not be a conventional one. You don’t need a conventional parent anyway. The place we live in is far too small for all three of us. It’s barely large enough for two of us. I can’t move out of it just yet, anyway. The lease and all. You’re a family concern, and that’s a fact. With the Dunharrows it really does take a village. There’s a school I’ve looked at, and I always thought, if I had a child I would send him there. I think you’ll like it. But not just yet.”
“Huh?”
“See, you’ve fallen off the grid. kid. And at the moment we’ve got places to go, people to meet.”
“So, I’m coming with you?”
“Oh, Levy,” Lewis said. “From now on, I think it’s best we not be parted again.”



“You’re a family concern, and that’s a fact. With the Dunharrows it really does take a village. There’s a school near my uncle Owen’s house, and whenever I’ve looked at it, I always thought, if I had a child I would send him there. I think you’ll like it. But not just yet.”
“Huh?”
“We might think about finding your mother, but that’s up to you. At any road, as long as you’re off the grid, why not send you during the days to Uncle Owen? At his shop you’ll learn everything you need to know.”
“Is it a witchcraft shop?’
“It is, but it’s not for real witches, not for the most part. It’s for people who wish they were witches and spend all their time buying crystal balls, and what not. But in Uncle Owen’s presence you’ll learn what you need to know. Of the craft. Of everything. Owen’s that kind of man. He taught me everything. We’d come and pick you up from there in the afternoon. Just like ordinary school. You’re turning thirteen, right?”
“Yes.”
“What if you took the studio next door? Between me and Chris and Owen I’m sure we can raise you right. You’d get privacy in your studio. Does that suit you?”
Lewis left out that it meant he had privacy too. He left out that he was sure Levy would be bored in a normal school, would run away form it. That there would be a cycle of useless discipline because Lewis had found very little value in ordinary school. He had left out the fact that he refused to have Levy coming back to him in the middle of the day while Chris was fucking him.
Chris Ashby pointed out all of these things as Levy was in the shower on their first night together. They had been smoking in their suite in the Midland Hotel.
“I think it’s elegant,” Lewis said. “It’s too many people who believe in self sacrifice and discomfort for everyone for no particular reason. We would all be happy this way. Nine months out of the year.”
“Nine months out of the…?”
“Yes, the bulk of the year, because we will be his foster parents, the bulk of the year because he is a witch and I am a witch and he should be among witches. But he has been taken in by Kruinh’s house. They love him, He loves them, He isn’t fit for ordinary life anymore, if anyone ever was. He will go with Dan and Laurie for three months.”
“Have you asked them?” Chris said.
Lewis just looked at him like he was stupid.
“You assume a lot, Lew,” Chris said.
“I do,” Lewis allowed, blowing a jet of smoke out of his mouth so that his glasses were obscured.
“The thing is, however, my assumptions are rarely wrong.”
Chris smiled, but he looked distracted, and Lewis touched his hand.
“Before we leave, I’ve got to talk to someone.”
“Yes?”
“I need to see Sunny.”




When it happened to him, the first thing Sunny had thought of was his family, of how to get back to him.
“It wouldn’t even be possible,” Evangeline had said to him. She was alive back then. “You’re new. You cannot walk in the day and you cannot not feed.”
“Feed?”
“But you know what you are,” she had said. “You know what Rosamunde made you, and what you are is something that must feed, on and on, and that cannot live without drinking.blood. Welcome to what you are?”
“So, I’m stuck here,” Sunny said, and he hated saying that because the words were totally unnecessary. The smile on Evangeline’s face made him want to stab her. Stabbing would have done nothing.
When he slept he dreamed of the sun and of the white beach. He dreamed of the waves that were like liquid glass that yellow sun shone through, turning blue and green and white as they curled and rippled over him like liquid stain glass. He was not a poet, he had a hard time stating how he felt when he was on a surfboard or when he was simply on the beach, when he was running with the wind through his hair. This business was never supposed to happen to him. He was never supposed to be sleeping in a casket, and getting up to kill people at night.
That was what he hated. That he had not come gently into that long night of death. That when Rosamunde had made him, she had not personally fed him. She had sent him out into the streets to kill and come back home.
“If you don’t come back, where will you go?”
The first time, he hadn’t killed. He had resisted his urge the whole night, feeling a hand that clawed him from the inside, scratched at the inside of his very being, made his veins bulge out. He’d gone back into his coffin twitching and screaming, and as it had been locked on him in the approaching day, he had been rocking and battering against it and Rosuamnde’s voice said, “Don’t worry, he’ll figure it out soon.”
He had figured it out, or rather, it had been figured out for him. It was what Sunny hated them for the most. He had nearly leapt out of the coffin that second night, his face red and white, veins bulging and teeth gnashing.
“We have a thing for you,” Rosamunde had announced.
Carter had unveiled her.
Sunny could still see her now, how beautiful she had been, She was a work of art, the most beautiful girl he’d seen till then, like Venus, her skin utterly white, her breasts round and high, her hair deep red, her face terrified. Her body trembled. If he could say anything now to the girl bound to the stake he would say, “Do not worry, no one will harm you.”
But when they had released him, and he opened his mouth, what he did was launch himself upon her and sink his jaws into her throat. As he growled with consummation, she was gone in a shower of blood and gnawing, and his pain began to dampen as his jaws clamped down on her broken windpipe, and she died in his arms. The madness cleared from him and as she died, the pain in him died, the hunger was assuaged, and at last the madness, and when he was done he lay there with the dead girl in his arms, understanding what he had done.

 

[CharmedFan28]

A great start to part 2! It was cool to read about Levy, Lewis, and Chris becoming a family. I also liked the part about Sunny. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, it is nice to see them becoming a family, isn't it? And to meet Sunny, whom there will be more of tomorrow.

 

[ChrisGibson]

SUNNY'S STORY CONTINUES

Even though Alexander Kominsky, generally known as Sunny, would bring up far more than once the moment when Kruinh Kertesz had set him on fire, that was not the first time he had met him.
Years later he would see the giant painting of Ivan the Terrible, where he was kneeling on the floor of his palace, holding the dead and bleeding body of his son, his eyes wide with horror and terror as he cradled him. The moment he saw it he ran from the gallery and vomited and Kruinh had found him on his knees, weeping, the way he was weeping this moment when he held the girl.
“Now you’ve eaten,” Carter said over him. “Now you are back to yourself. Now you understand how necessary it is to always drink.”
Above his head, dispassionate, not happy or sad, Rosamunde had said, “You are too young to not eat. Do not try such stunts again.”
Sunny was one of five. Rosamunde and Carter had made them all, all of them new, all of them sleeping in coffins by day and doing what they were told in the night. One called Mitch said, “You just have to learn to do what they say. Then it’s better.
“I learned, the one called Tom said, “that no one’s really that great, and if you just pick someone to… you realize everyone’s done something wrong and nobody’s totally innocent.
Sunny went out that night to find his kill. He was working nights at the bar he’d come to, and his employers could tell no real difference in his life. After all, he was from out of town, and no one was paid to care for a server.
Sunny was drawn to him, and the attraction had never stopped. This lean faced elegant man sitting there, composed and concentrated, and he came to him and poured more water and said, “Is there anything else I can get you?”
And Kruinh said, “Why don’t you get your best wine.”
Sunny smirked. “Our best wine is about eight bucks.”
“Well, then,” Kruinh smiled and held open his hands, ‘Why don’t we make that happen? I can certainly spare eight dollars.”
“And do you prefer—?”
“A red,” Kruinh said.
When Sunny pulled away from him he knew two things, “He s like me. He is a vampiure. And also, “He knows that I am as well.”

“You don’t look like you’re from around here,” Sunny said, pouring the wine.
“I look like I am as much from around here as do you,” Kruinh told him.
Sunny smiled and said, “Fair. I came looking for my dad. He came from around here. I found something else entirely.”
“That’s often how it is,” Kruinh said.
“And you?” said Sunny.
“I’m looking to settle. My family got an old property around here, and I’m getting moved in.”
They talked through the night and Suuny was drawn to the elegant man, and finally Kruinh said. “You look hungry. You have the look of someone who comes to a city and doesn’t know the good places to eat.”
Everything in Sunny sharpened. He sat upright, but said nothing.
Kruinh said, “When you learn to listen, you know all the great places, but you are young so right now I’ll simply tell you, if you go over to Victor Terrace you will find all the great cuisine you’re looking for. Especially this time of night.”
Kruinh nodded, as if tipping his hat, then place an actual tip on the table, and stood to leave.
Sunny was off forty-five minutes later, and he discovered the speed that became flying in him. At Victor Terrace he found a man crawling up a trellis to murder and rape an old woman, and it was wonderful—no that was not the right word—how the thoughts rose from murderous minds like shouting. Even as the man’s fingertips touched the window ledge, Sunny, like a hawk, lit upon him and pulled him into the darkness, sinking his fangs into the man and draining him of life. It was a feeling more exhilarating than surfing.

Alexander Kominsky loved killing people. He wasn’t like Dan or even Chris sometimes. There was very little ambiguity in the kill, perhaps because his first kill had been so awful and so certainly wrong. The feeling of leaping out in the night onto the back of a would be murderer or soon ot be rapist, and ripping his throat out, the spray of blood on the face and down the throat, was wonderful. Evil knew several faces, and Sunny had grown more nuanced in his work over the years. Reading the papers to learn of a man who was about to evict everyone in his building and toss them out on the streets with nothing, and then breaking into his house, coming slowly, room by room through his house, filling him with terror before he met his end, was lovely. Women who had abused their children and lived to tell the tale, or rather to keep it secret, died well in his arms. Groups of teenagers who harassed a gay boy to suicide or any girl to her own life taking, were like rare treats to be taken one by one. Over time his ears grew sensitive to those crying out for mercy. They thought they were crying out to God, but some were crying out to him, to be delivered from the boy who had shamed her, the kids who kicked him and called him faggot, the judge who was about to sentence you to life and prison even though he damn well didn’t believe you had done it. They all had fallen before the avenging angel called Alexander Kominsky. Throats gurgled, necks snapped, and never had Sunny given his killings a second thought unless the thought was pleasure. There were over eight billion people on the planet and many suffered, but many caused suffering with pleasure, and to wipe them out as the lion takes the gazelle was the chief joy of Sunny who had known injustice himself. That first night, guided by Kruinh to Victor Terrace, he had felt the joy of killing, and never turned back.
Was he a savior? No. Was he a vigilante trying to bring justice? Not at all. Did he feel like he was doing good for the sake of humanity, impressed with a noble task? Maybe at the beginning. At the beginning it had certainly helped to tell himself that. But he was what all vampires were, a predator, and in order to give some boundaries to his predation, rules were set down. Were the rules vague? Yes. Could the lines be crossed? Easily. In an ethics class could one debate if it was right to kill someone because they were intending to murder someone as they climbed a trellis, yet had not actually done it, though the knife was in hand? Supposedly. And there were all manner of uncomfortable moral questions swimming around what he did. Except this was not about morality, it was about predation, and setting down rules meant that he knew full well that the madness that had struck him so that a girl died in his savage arms was unjust, and the rule of untamed hunger was the true evil. He could not exactly say what deaths were totally just, but he knew he could only afford to think of justice and not commit mindless atrocities because he fed. He began to think like this at the end of his fifth night in the house of Rosamunde, and returned to that house sated, strange, different from the others.
“I don’t like what has come over you,” Carter said.
Sunny only smiled as he climbed into his coffin.
Had he known that he would never speak to Carter again, his smile would have been even wider.

He heard a thumping. In the dark there was thumping, and was it at the door? There was no door. No, there was the inside of this coffin. Someone was banging on it. Was it Rosamunde? Was it Carter? But should he not simply wake when night came? When had he ever had to be awakened? There was thumping again. There was screaming, and now a sharp rap over his head.
As Sunny pushed up the coffin lid, he saw Mitch on fire, dancing about like a whirling stick man in the sunlit streets. He saw Abel and Carl exploding into flame and following the fire dance. Luke had leapt out of his coffin, and even as he came out the sun was scorching him, his hair blazing. There was a blond man cutting Nick down, and a dark haired man on Abel. There were hands on him. As Sunny leapt out into the scorching heat. He lunged out, still strong with the feasting of last night, and took this attacker of his by the throat, He dragged him under the shadow of an awning, and while this one tried to stab him, Sunny pushed up his arm and sank his fangs into his throat. He crushed his windpipe, and in his furry, rolled up his hand into a fist and then punched through the man’s chest. As he died, Sunny drained him.
By then he sensed others on his back. In the empty street. God what a bleak area of this town they must have been in? And sure that was an abandoned house where they had been kept, the blond one and the dark haired one were coming for him. Sunny did a handspring and kicked the dark one in the face, and then sprang across the burning surface of the street on his red hands, and into the shadow of his house, leaving behind the scene of dead vampires and open coffins. He came into the house where Carter, or rather Carter’s body was on the floor, and Rosamunde was trembling, and the man from the other night, the man whom Sunny did not know was Kruinh was holding Carter’s severed head, and now released it at the sight of him.
Sunny and Kruinh looked at each other, and in this moment the blond man who had been chasing him came back and wrapped his arm around his throat.
“Get the fuck off of me,” Sunny growled.
“He killed Orlando!”
“Chris, let him go,” Kruinh said.
“What?”
“I don’t need to repeat myself. You’re not deaf,” Kruinh said. “Let him go. He will be the only one to be let go. And apparently he can fight. He is strong. Her survived you and Laurie.”
Laurie was coming into the old abandoned house now, and Kruinh said. “Lawrence, take Rosamunde with you. She must be dealt with. This is the last time she will do what she has done. Take Orlando’s body with you.”
“Orlando?” Lawrence began.
“He killed him,” Chris said, accusingly.
“Is Orlando the fucker who was trying to murder me?” Sunny asked. “Because if he was, fuck him too.”
Chris snarled and stepped forward, but Kruinh snapped, “Enough!” and everyone froze.
“Orlando was of my sister’s clan,” Kruinh said, composing himself. “We all knew the risk. If you attempt to kill, you face being killed. No crime was done. For my sister’s sake I am grieved, but I cannot pretend private sorrow. Orlando volunteered himself for this, and he was always quick to kill.”
“Miriamne will not forgive this,” Chris said.
“Of course she will,” Kruinh dismissed this. “She knows the ancient codes even better than I.”
“Who are you?” Sunny demanded, looking down at Carter’s head. “What’s happening?”
“Those are both fair questions,” Kruinh said, distractedly.
“I… I made a great mistake. I really should have had them be on the outlook for you. How could you have been part of any other gathering but this one? I should have… I almost got you killed. Well,” Kruinh seemed distracted. “Come with us.”
“I’m not going anywhere with anyone.”
“You will,” Laurie growled.
Sunny hit him in the face.
“Stop being a bully,” Kruinh said to Laurie who was picking himself off the floor and rubbing his jaw. “All I need you to do is take Rosamunde to Tanitha. She will do the rest.
“You’re right,” Kruinh said, turning to Sunny. “You shouldn’t have to come with us. I suppose you’ve earned that right. And much was done to you that shouldn’t have been done. But I would prefer it is you did come. At least for a little while.”



MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sunny’s history and story is very interesting! I am glad he survived all the action in this portion. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! Hope you’re having a nice week!