Bitter Sweet (31 page)

Vanessa Stanton

Chapter 42.0

             
Aaliyah’s message seemed to mean very little at that moment, despite her declaration to end my life. I sat there not able to take my eyes off of Lilith now. Tears were falling from my eyes again, but I had no idea what I was feeling. There was no sense of loss or sorrow now; no pain or remorse. I felt empty and hollow. June moved toward Lilith and gently lifted her off the ground; Eden and Lucifer seemed to be thinking in separate corners of the room.

              “Where will you take her?” I asked quietly, and Lucifer and Eden also looked up.

              “Can you please bring my sword to the roof? I will meet you there; use the elevator.”

              “Of course,” I said, reaching for her sword when she vanished.

              I took the elevator to the roof; I had never been up there. A small rooftop garden covered most of the space. In the center of a small circle of hedges, June stood looking down. June laid Lilith’s body

on a small circular bench, which stood a few feet off the ground. She crossed her hands over her chest and Lilith looked to be merely sleeping.

              “Has Alik ever explained to you how vampire view each other?” asked June.

              “Yeah, he did once. From how he explained it, I got that power is the power of power to vampire,” I said timidly.

              “On the whole, that is pretty much it. Death is a weakness that should not be honored; immortal vampire who mourn the dead are weak, and those vampire who die are viewed as weaker.”

              “Sounds like a cruel existence,” I said in a low whisper.

              “It isn’t. To lack the ability to feel the impact of death is bliss like you wouldn’t imagine. If we were like those vampire, we would not be here right now, crying,” she said, fresh streaks of blood on her face. “Even so, among the few and most powerful, there is a common understanding of death even if the young choose to ignore this. Death is real and an ever lingering presence to even the immortal and should be respected.”

              “I don’t understand where you’re going with this.”

              “I doubt Lilith would be angry if I told you this story, but there is a reason she only ever made three vampire.”

              “She told me once,” I said timidly. “It hurt her a lot with what she asked you to do and the things she made you see. She said she was surprised that you did not resent her.”

              June turned from me to look back at Lilith. “Is that how you felt, mother? I could never resent you for anything,” she whispered, kneeling and placing one hand on Lilith’s. She stood again, her eyes still on Lilith. “That however, wasn’t the only reason; Lilith had created

a fourth vampire.” I turned to look at her shocked. “Every year, on the seventh of July, she would make a trip to Egypt and I always wondered why, so I asked her one year.”

June Tuski

Chapter 43.0

             
This was just one of my mothers secrets I would have been ok no knowing…             

              'Would you like to come along with me, dear?' she asked in return. Of everything I was expecting her to say, that wasn’t it. I agreed and we were on a plane to Egypt the next day. She was very quiet on the trip and I was still surprised that she let me come, so I didn’t bother to ask anymore. When we landed, there was already a car waiting for us and we got in and she drove for two hours until we got to the edge of the city and parked the car. We got out and headed directly into the sand. By this time, I was confused as to where we were going and she seemed to sense that. 'Are you wondering where we are going?'she asked me.

              'Yes, what could possibly be out here? All we have seen is sand for the last hour.'

              'Have you ever heard of the expression ‘a diamond in the rough’?'

              'So there is a diamond out here that you’re looking for?'

              'I’m not looking for anything dear; I have already found it and have found it every year since for the last four thousand plus years today.'

              'You have been doing this for over four thousand years?'

              'Ever year on the same day, yes.'

              'What have you been doing?'

              'We are going to visit the resting place of someone very close to my cold heart.' She smiled. We continued to walk and the wind began to blow up a small sandstorm, but Lilith just continued on through without a care. I was slightly behind her and I noticed she had stopped and looked around, I stopped too and she looked over her shoulder. 'June, why are you standing there? Come out of all that sand,' she called and I walked to stand by her side and the sand calmed until it lay still. I looked behind me and there was a wall of sand, it was like that on all sides of a clear space about three-square miles. I looked up and the sun even felt less intense in this space.

              'What is this place?' I asked.

              'I’m not completely sure myself. When Javed and I first found this little oasis, the sand didn’t act this way. It kicked up the day I lost him.'

              'Javed?'

              'My first son,' she said, and she started to walk toward the center. I stood there, unable to move. She stopped after a few more steps and motioned for me to follow. It snapped me out of my shock and I caught up.

              'You’ve always said Alik was the first.'

              'True, but to a young vampire who has grown up in the chaos that surrounds me, the scope of your life, which has been blinded by the veil of immortality and the importance of death, ruined by the blood of so many that you carry with you, it would be a hard concept to grasp for him.'

              'I don’t understand.'

              “'aved was ten when I found him, starving in an alley in a old Egyptian city ruined by war. There had been fighting in that area and I guess his parents were casualties. As I moved through the ruins, he followed me in the shadows until I sat down. He slowly approached me and sat next to me. I smiled at him; it had probably been the first friendly thing someone had done for him in a long time. His returning smile was so full of joy that his jade eyes glinted in the dim sun. He was twelve when I made him a vampire; one of the hardest decisions I had ever made. He contracted an illness and I had grown so attached to this boy that I could not lose him. He would have been fourteen when I lost him here.' I didn’t notice that we had been walking through a small grass patch with a few trees and other plants scattered around a spring of cool water. We seemed to be heading to a patch of roses that were growing naturally black.

              'Just four years?' I asked, not sure if she would tell me.

              'I hadn’t explained to him what I had done; he was so innocent. I made up wild stories to explain why he no longer slept, why he was never hungry, and why people wouldn’t wake up after he fed on them. I didn’t want him to know what he was.' She laughed then. 'I’m sure Alik has told you his stance and how he will never create.'

              'Yes, he says we are monsters.'

              'He is right; we are scary monsters. Well, at least to humans. He will someday find someone he loves so much that he will be selfish and turn him or her. I didn’t see that then; I tried to hide what Javed had become from him. We often spent days here together and this

hadn’t been the first time I had left Javed on his own before, so thought nothing of it when a message from Ayara reached me. There was trouble in a nearby valley and she wanted my help; the death I already exposed him to when he fed was enough. So I suggested that he go to the oasis and play while I was gone, and that I would be back in about a week. He happily agreed.' She knelt down next to the roses and lightly stroked its petals. Streaks of blood rolled down her face in the sunlight, but it didn’t burn. She read the look on my face. 'Have you never seen a vampire cry before? Probably not, it’s not something our kind embraces, or maybe I should say it’s something that most of our kind have lost the ability to do.'

              'The blood doesn’t burn?'

              She shook her head. 'No, it won’t. Our emotions affect us much deeper than humans. They control us so completely that they control our very blood chemistry. I found this out when I found Javed slowly burning just in front of where I am now. He pricked his finder on a rose and it allowed the smallest amount of sunlight to touch his blood to where he was slowly burning alive. It was too late for me to do anything for him when I fell to my knees next to him. I lifted his tiny hand to my face and he smiled.'

              ‘Mommy, you’re so warm,’ he smiled. ‘I’m sleepy.’

              ‘I will be here when you wake up, dear.’

              He smiled. ‘I guess the fairies can’t steal my sleep forever, huh?’ he said softly.

              ‘No, I guess not,’ I said, trying to smile as best I could as his eyes slowly closed and his hand fell from my face.”

              'Mother… I’m…' I didn’t know what to say to her.

              'Sorry? It’s okay. Javed didn’t seem to feel any pain. He just slowly drifted away. He was never suited to be a vampire; I turned an

innocent lamb into the wolf.' She took her finger and wiped a small amount of blood from her face and traced a rose in the sand. “This is why I trace the rose wherever I go, my eternal protection for those who carry it. I won’t lose them as I have lost Javed.'

Vanessa Stanton

Chapter 44.0

             
June then raised her hand to her face and wiped away a small amount of the blood. On the back of Lilith’s palm, she traced a rose and held out her hand for her sword. By this time, the sun had risen and was shining on Lilith’s body. With the tip of the blade, she retraced the rose and with every stroke, it glowed a dull orange that spread throughout Liliths entire body. A strong gust of wind then blew my hair all around my face and when it stopped, Lilith’s body was gone. All that was remained was a faint red glow of ash in the cusp of a single black rose petal that sat suspended in the center of a glass box in Junes arms.

              “How…” I asked, stunned.

              “The tears slowed the reaction; Lilith told me that, that is what she did with Javed. I will take this to Javed in July; if she can’t be with us, she should at least be with him,” she said, sealing the box.

              “Can I come with you?” I asked.

              “Of course.”

              I started to cry again and for the second time in forty-eight hours, I passed out again. I woke up in a soft bed in a sunlit room. I slowly sat up and looked around. I was facing a large glass wall where a rainbow was being cast onto a wall. I got out of the bed and looked out into a beautifully laid out backyard. In the center was a pool surrounded by lush grass and a rock path weaving in and around the space. On the far side of the house, I saw June staring out of a window onto the sunset. I looked down and realized my clothes were gone; they must have been covered in blood. A large black dress shirt lay on the bed and I put it on and walked out across the yard to the other side of the house.

              "June, are you in here?"

              "Yeah, I’m over here, behind the cabinets," she said, raising her hand lazily.

              "Whose house is this?" I asked, looking around the large room.

              "Yours, or at least Alik intended it to be."

              "What do you mean?"

              "Doesn’t it suit him? Modern and expensive, but you would never know. Everything could have been bought at Ikea," she said with a laugh. "The blacks, reds, whites, silvers, and glass. Classic Alik."

              "It does suit him," I agreed, running my finger along a wall, looking out of the adjacent glass wall onto the pool that reflected the setting sun.

              "Has he never brought you here before?"

              "No.”

              "For a genius, he's really not good at not being alone."

              "Very true," I said as I walked over to the space set out as a living room. It reminded me partly of Lilith’s penthouse. There were no walls, but the furniture defined the spaces. I sat down on a sofa and closed my eyes. "What happened to me, June?"

              "Despite the large amount of vampire blood in your body, you are still human and need sleep. Plus, that was a lot for you to take in. It might have been a bit too much; your brain needed time to relax," she said next to me on the sofa.

              "You don’t look so great yourself," I pointed out, reaching over to wipe a small red drop from her eye.

              "So what are we doing now?"

              "We wait three days, go to Eden, and die, I guess."

              "Don’t make it sound all fun now." We both laughed at that.

              "Lucifer and Eden went off to do something and will be here on the morning before the third day."

              "Why do monsters and magic exist? I mean, you never read a story like this where you have the weak human, the vampires, and gods fighting against a sub-god vampire who happens to be a home wrecker."

              "The story of our lives… You know what’s the difference between a fairytale and reality?"

              "No, what?"

              “That by the happily ever after, everything has to make sense in a fairytale. Reality on the other hand, is different; even if there is the happily ever after, it plays by its own rules."              June was right. For

the last two days, I was trying to keep up with what I was not and it was taking its toll. My body ached and I realized that I hadn’t had a nice shower in a while. I walked back to the bedroom, it wasn't until I was in the shower I found it odd i knew just where the bathroom was with out asking. The warm water on my skin relaxed me and loosened up my muscles that had become really tense. I walked over to the drawers and took out another one of Alik’s shirts and put it on and went to eat. June was out in the pool just floating on a chair in the center. I knew she was thinking about Lilith. After all, she had centuries of memories with her. I had less than a year and I barely saw her, but Lilith was like another mother until the end. I hadn’t noticed, but I began to cry again into my dinner.

              I had only been awake for a few hours, but I felt ready to sleep again. I walked back to the bedroom and laid down on the bed. My dreams were filled with images of monsters and fantasies too wild for the strangest of dark fairy tales. When I awoke, I opened my eyes and saw another pair looking back at me, which cause me to jump.

              "Don’t do that, Alison. You nearly killed me!" I gasped, my breathing shallow and fast.

              "I’m sorry."

              "I suppose that you have heard by now?"

              "Yeah, I have," she said, looking down. "June told Alisa and me the whole story."

              "Is she here, too?"

              "No, she left already. I'm leaving, too. I just wanted to see if you were okay for myself."

              "Where are you going?”             

              "I don’t know; June told us both not to stay and that there was

no point in us dying with you."

              "She is right, you know?"

              "Why do you have to die anyway; what if you survive?"

              "We would need a miracle and since God will be there and his hopes aren’t too high either, I think I’m all fresh out," I said with a smile.

              "Was that supposed to be a joke?"

              "Did it not work?"

              "Maybe it will be funny when you get back."

              "Well, remember to laugh if I ever see you after today."

              "It’s a promise. Don’t forget to bring Alik with you. If you don’t, I will steal him."

              "I won’t let that happen."

              "Then I will see you in two days," she said with a slight smile.

              "I hope," I sighed.

              Alison got up and I followed her to the door; she gave me a brief hug and then she was gone. She seemed so hopeful even if it was misplaced. I had already come to grips with dying after only nineteen years of life. I suddenly realized I was leaving behind my mom, my dad, Sam, and all of my friends. It didn’t seem to hurt either, as if I was always going to do this in some way.

              The house wasn’t that big, but I looked around all the same, wondering where June had gone when I found her in a loft area in the garage.

              "Good morning," she greeted when I walked into the garage area of the house.

              "Do you mind if I have someone come over?" I asked.

              "It’s your house."

              "I.... I also want to tell her what’s going to happen to me, so my parents know. I could never tell them directly, but this way, they will know and it will be much easier to leave."

              "I don’t really see the need for secrets anymore, why not?"

              I found my phone basking in the sunlight on a coffee table and dialed Sam's number. She picked up and sounded a little tired but fine and agreed to come over here as soon as possible. I told her to pack for an overnight kind of thing and bring me some clothes. As soon as she got here, she immediately picked up on the sad atmosphere despite my best attempts to hide it.

              "Hey, Sam," I said as I opened the door.

              "What's wrong?"

              "Is it that obvious?"

              "You were never a good actor or this falsely cheery."

              "Good point. Well, come in. It’s a long story and you’re the only one I can tell it to."

              We sat down in the living room and as I went on, the look on Sam's face grew more and more shocked. I had to admit, at some points, it was really amusing to see her reactions. She herself even laughed out loud at some parts, saying "I knew he wasn’t a normal boy; you never were one for normal boys." But then I got to the end and horror passed over her face and the objections started to fly.

              "Why do you have to go and let Aaliyah kill you all like this?" she asked angrily.

              "She will find me anyway; I could already be dead, Sam, but she wants to do it at a specific time."

              "Is she really that strong?"

              June appeared next to her then. "Come with me outside," she said. We walked outside and stood by the pool. She got into a stance and drew her sword so fast I doubt Sam even saw her move. "Okay... I don’t get it," Sam stated, looking lost. A moment later, there was a large gust of wind, which created small ripples across the surface of the pool. "How..."

              "I created a vacuum by removing all the air over the pool with the force of the draw."

              "But you never moved..."

              "You just couldn’t follow my movements," she pointed out next to Sam. "Now, imagine that if you couldn’t see me move, and I can’t see Aaliyah move at times, how strong do you think she is? Imagine that on the scale of this pool, I can create that small ripple with the flick of my wrist; Aaliyah can do this with the ocean  to create a full sized tsunami. In the time it would take you to blink, she could have killed you thousands of times. There is no longer any place on earth that could keep her locked out or in. If you can imagine that, you have just begun to grasp the full scale of Aaliyah's powers. If that's not enought think of it this way, she scares GOD himself."

              "Vanessa, you didn’t do her justice in your description,” Sam said, much more worried.

              "I don’t like the home wrecker," I stated, sitting on the deck. "I’m not going to make her sound better than what she really is, a spiteful old woman."             

              "Alik will come back to you, Nessa, I know that. There is no way he can look at anyone else like he does you."

              "I don’t know."

              "You’re not worried about the end of the world as we know it or your own death right now, are you?"

              "Not really to be honest."

              "Wow, you’re really more jealous than anything, aren’t you?"

              "Jealous of what?"

              "Aaliyah and all the other female vampire."

              "No," I said blushing for some reason.

              "Then why is Aaliyah now the home wrecker?"