Apotheosis of the Immortal (40 page)

Chapter 80

“No, please, stop.”
Elijah heard a shrill, small voice cry out behind him. He could tell Khalid had also heard it, as his fierce stare had shifted and was now focused behind Elijah.

Emira
. The thought frightened him; she might be in trouble. He quickly turned to see her nearly at his back. Her body collapsed into his like two puzzle pieces falling into perfect conjunction. He imagined it was like a double shot of heroin would feel to an addict after a long jones. He didn’t know if he was in love or addicted, or if there was a difference.

“You stupid boys! What are you doing?” She was nearly crying as she pounded her fist against Elijah’s shoulder, still wrapped in his arms. Elijah’s heart sank as he realized he had let his emotions get the better of him once again. He had upset Emira and possibly put her life at risk. The man before him might not be the one he would choose to accompany him on this journey, but he was the one who was here. He had proven himself strong, and willing to protect Emira, and for that, Elijah was thankful.

“I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again. I just got carried away.” Elijah whispered, his mouth pressed against her ear.

“No, it was my fault. I was poking my nose where it didn’t belong. I do apologize Elijah. Emira, I’ll be on the couch.” After apologizing Khalid gave Emira a hug before walking inside.

Chapter 81

“Let’s take a
walk.” Emira turned back and took Elijah’s hand, pulling him forward, away from the fire.

“Where are we going?” He didn’t want to take her very far from the cabin.

“Don’t worry. We won’t go far,” she assured him. It was night, but a nearly full moon lit the fields and valley around them. Winding their way through a thicket of spruce trees, he found the strong smell of pine a welcome change from the nauseating effect of smoke from the fire.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked shyly.

“Sure,” Elijah sighed. He could imagine the questions reeling in her mind and braced himself for the worst.

“Well, are you… are you a v-vampire?” she stammered nervously. Elijah wasn’t sure whether she was afraid of offending him or of having her blood drained. “I mean, I know I asked you before, and I heard what you said to your brother, but—”

“No, I’m not a vampire. I mean, I don’t think so. The desire to consume blood has never burned in my mind or body. I have spilled enough blood to fill the heavens, but it has never found its way to my lips. It might sound silly, but as I told my brother, perhaps when he and my father lie dead beneath me, when my purpose is finished, my vow complete, perhaps then the ghost that keeps me alive will depart as well.” Elijah spoke in a low and solemn voice. This had been his hope for as long as he could remember.

“You want to die!” she gasped.

He was silent for a moment as he stopped and gazed, nearly unaware, at a pinecone lying at his feet.

“What I want is an ending; I want all this to be over. I want to close my eyes and fade away. There was an artist from your time, well, a little before your time, his name was Tupac Shakur, and his words reflect how I feel in a lot of ways. He embraced death; he said his only fear of death was coming back reincarnated. I think when a man, or a woman,” he gestured politely towards Emira, “has struggled for so long, it is only natural to desire an ending.” Elijah lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

“What about heaven? Don’t you want to go to a better place, a place filled with happiness?”

“No, I want an ending, endless unconsciousness. I truly hope, when I do die, that it can all be over, no heaven, no hell. Let it be finally the end of an ugly story and a wretched man.” Elijah was overcome with emotion as his eyes traced the soft curves of her face and bathed in her brilliant aura. “Life is pain. The Buddha taught that pain comes from our attachments, our desires, and he was right. Any form of consciousness that exists will have to come with those desires and attachments, love and hate, and it all leads to pain.”

He reached forward and caressed the side of her face as he brushed a wisp of hair behind her ear. “Believe me, when you have been around as long as I have, you understand just how much life is overrated. There is no version of an eternity, besides one where I do not exist, that would appeal to me. I just want this to be over, finally and truly.”

“Well, I hope that’s not the case. I will take the good with the bad before I give up on attachment altogether,” she asserted.

“Tell me that again in a thousand years.” Elijah grinned.

She squeezed his arm tightly, resting her head against his shoulder as the pair walked a little further and came upon a small creek. They stood in silence for a long while, just listening to the music of water flowing from rock to rock.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly, as she wrung her hands and then turned to Elijah. She seemed to see right through him.

“Sorry for what?” He turned and started back towards the cabin. Quickening her pace, Emira caught him by the hand once again and coaxed him to face her.

“I’m sorry for what happened to you and your family,” she said softly.

Elijah was quickly becoming uncomfortable. Once again his emotions were rising and falling like an elevator. He was not used to empathy, and he didn’t react well to it.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to hear about all of that,” he snapped, his tone growing colder and harsher by the moment.

“I didn’t really hear everything, but I heard enough,” she said, pulling him to her by the tips of his fingers.

Elijah pulled his hand away and continued walking. He was growing more and more uncomfortable about his feelings for her, about how she affected him. He couldn’t understand how, after so long, he could suddenly feel this way about someone again. How could he trust it?

He was afraid he was fooling himself, seeing what he wanted to see rather than what was truly there. Perhaps he was confusing his feelings for Sara with feelings for Emira, believing in a fantasy because of the coins hanging from her neck, quite possible the very coins he left to burn in the pyre.

She darted in front of him and blocked his path.

“Why would you be sorry? You weren’t there; you didn’t sit idly by, looking into my little brother’s eyes while my father snapped his neck.” He closed his eyes, and that entire night seemed to flash through his mind, sudden and complete as a bolt of lightning. The conversation was beginning to stir up old, dangerous feelings, feelings Elijah had attempted to bury over and over again.

“I just meant I’m sad you had to… to endure such pain and loss,” she explained.

Elijah didn’t want to hurt her, but anger and frustration were reaching the outer edges of his composure.

“And what exactly would you know about either one? You’re just a silly girl looking to be entertained,” he growled, his emotions beginning to boil over.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to upset you.” Emira’s eyes were wide with shock. The sudden shifts in his demeanor were making her nervous.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve gotten yourself into? How you’ve complicated things for me?” he demanded. Her questions had brought to the surface all of Elijah’s old memories and griefs. He didn’t know what to do with them, how to force them back into the dark corners of his psyche.

“I know I’ve caused you grief. You had one goal in life, a single-minded purpose, allowing nothing to get in the way. I know you hurt, and I know I may have complicated your plan, but I didn’t mean to.” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “But don’t walk around pretending you are the only one who has ever been hurt. I have also experienced pain… and loss.”

Elijah could see tears welling in her eyes.

“I was only eight years old,” she said, “when the Army of the Republika Srpska marched into our village. Mother hid me in the cupboard just before five soldiers broke through our door. I could see through a crack in the cupboard door. Two men held my mother down and another one raped her. My father tried to stop them, but there was nothing he could do. The other two men tied him to a chair and forced him to watch as they took turns with her.” Tears began to leak from the corners of her eyes as she spoke.

“When the soldiers were finished, they spat on her and called her a whore. They were laughing and joking as they hacked at my father with a machete for fun, or maybe they just didn’t want to waste a bullet. I did nothing. I sat quietly and looked into my father’s eyes. He held my gaze as long as he could, until life vanished from his eyes.”

“Now it’s my turn to apologize, Emira. You don’t have to tell me this.” Elijah’s folly now filled him with guilt and sympathy. He stepped closer and reached out for her, but she backed away.

“Just listen,” she demanded, taking another step back as she wiped her eyes. “When the soldiers left, my mother took a small knife out of a drawer in the kitchen and jammed it into her neck twice. She was dead in seconds, but I know it wasn’t the knife or the blood loss that killed her. It was those five faceless men who I wouldn’t recognize if they were sitting across the dining room table. It was the world, watching as I was, through a crack in the cupboard door, as General Mladic led his ethnic cleansing campaign, which had been underway for more than three years by the time my village was raided.”

Elijah could hear the anger and frustration in her voice. He remained silent.

“They were just a ragtag group of thugs; any real army in the world could have stopped them. It’s never what you can do, but what you are willing to do that matters. That is what you have Elijah, an absolutely unstoppable will. That is what’s so beautiful about you, and about the hero character in general.” As she spoke the last sentence, she stepped forward and pressed her index finger against Elijah’s chest.

“Why do you keep saying that?” Elijah forced a laugh. “What is it in your wild imagination that paints me a hero?” He asked.

“You remind me of my father; there is good in you, even if you refuse to acknowledge it. You have reserves of strength I can recognize because I’ve seen it all before—in my father. I have rested easy in the depths of his passionate commitment. It’s nothing supernatural or overtly noticeable. It’s much more than that; it goes much deeper… it’s… maybe it’s primal.

“It’s a look of resolve a dying father gives to his daughter to comfort her in his last moments of life. It’s a determination and desire for justice that carries a man through thousands of miles and hundreds of years without losing an ounce of fervor. There are very few men with that kind of grit. I have to admit, when I heard your story I almost couldn’t believe it. I was blown away.” She laughed playfully and batted her eyelashes.

Elijah was moved in spite of his determination to remain aloof; to realize someone had so much faith in him was inspiring. It made him want to be the man she imagined him to be. But, for her own good, for her safety, he could not encourage her interest in him, or allow her to continue believing in her fantasy that he was a good man.

“There are a few things wrong with your story. First, I’m not good; I’m about as far from good as someone can be. Second, I haven’t traveled thousands of miles over hundreds of years for justice. I couldn’t care less about justice. I’ve come for blood, and vengeance.” Elijah closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Her words had touched him, but he was stubborn. Still, his regrets were mounting like ash from the hope and joy he had experienced from being with her. He realized now that, in his astounding selfishness and impulsivity, he had once again leapt to a conclusion based on his own cynical beliefs.

“Well, sometimes, they are one in the same thing. And sometimes people on the outside of a situation have a much clearer perspective. If you were really so bad, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.” She smiled wryly.

“How do you know I’m not right where I want to be? How do you know you and Khalid are not my bait?” He knew he’d made his expression intimidating, piercing and vicious, but could also tell she wasn’t buying it.

“I’ll take my chances,” she said. Her laugh sang the song of a siren once again as it compelled him forward, closer to her. “Read me the inscription on your pendant.” She pointed to the necklace that had worked its way from beneath his shirt.

“This was my mother’s,” he said, lifting it up to admire it. He didn’t need to read it; he knew the words by heart. “‘Everything begins and ends with a will, and a purpose is only as strong as the will that propels it’.” He looked up to see her eyes tracing the circling words.

“See, do you not think that pendant found you for a reason?” She smiled wide as she hesitantly touched the pendant. As she dropped her arm back to her side, the moonlight struck the coins on her necklace and Elijah was reminded of why he had taken such an interest in her in the first place. He decided he needed to tell her the entire truth about Sara.

“Emira, I need to tell you about those coins.” He tucked the pendant back under his shirt and reached forward, rubbing his fingers against one of the coins on her necklace; it was lying at an angle against her prominent collarbone. A rush of memories filled his mind and he was overwhelmed; tears sprang into his eyes as he began to speak. His voice shook as he explained about Sara and the coins, about how much she had meant to him and why he was concerned that what he was feeling in his moments with her, Emira, might just be his feelings for Sara projected onto her.

“I understand,” she said as she reached out and cupped the side of his face. Her empathy and demeanor took him aback. She might have been young and impulsive, but she risked a lot and seemed sure of her decisions despite the risk. She was brave, and Elijah admired her for it.

He didn’t know if it was because of the coins, or the way her soft touch brought peace and ease to his mind, or if it was because he was so tired of being isolated and alone in his grief. But, for the first time since Sara had died, he completely dropped his guard, and he didn’t feel guilty about letting her come closer.

“I’m truly sorry about before. I had no idea what you had been through. I just lose control sometimes.” Elijah rubbed his hand across hers, which was still nestled against his face, and then cupped it between his and held it at his waist.

Her reply was poignant. “It’s okay, I’m just glad you are here with me now. I don’t want to lose you to that darkness that always seems to be lurking just below the surface.”

“Yes, it’s definitely there.” He knew she was right. It was so easy to give into that vacuum. “That darkness is who I am, or who I’ve become. For nearly a millennium I have carried it and it has carried me. It has been my comfort and my strength.” Elijah gently tugged at her hand and started walking back towards the cabin.