After Dawn, What Came Next

Marianne nodded and lifted her chin as Evan tugged the zipper of her jacket up tighter under her neck. Without the inches of hair he worried that she would catch a chill. He shouldn’t worry about such a small thing. She wouldn’t notice the coolness in the air on the hike to the bluffs. On the inside, she was already frozen through. Her senses honed and humming with the force of her focus. Wanting to savor every last minute and knowing this, the simplicity of hearth and home might give her the edge she needed to win, she turned and took a deep breath, trapping the scents of pack and family deep within her nostrils.

Marianne’s footsteps were light on the treads of the stairs. From the study below she could hear the light jingle of beads tinkling against one another as her grandfather made his way to the front door. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to see him again or not before the contest. As was customary, she was the challenger and therefore would be the first to arrive at the bluffs. He would be in the woods right behind her though and no doubt, watching her back as he always had.

Her dad stood sentry by the front door. Gina was tight on his hip. Grant and Claire were there, their faces grim as death. Tristen was in attendance too, with Kacie. Tristen’s lip trembled as Marianne lifted her eyes to meet his stare. There was a light brush of fingertips against her shoulder and a gentle squeeze of solidarity and reassurance. Nobody blamed her for what she was about to do, but it was of no comfort now, that the time had come.

She felt she should say something. Truthfully, what was there to say? Her foot struck the threshold and she paused before taking another step. Daniel stood at on the top of the porch stairs, his eyes wide and wary as they settled on her face. Tears she hadn’t expected to shed rolled down her cheeks at the sight of him. He dropped his bag and before she knew it, he scooped her up into a big hug she was more than happy to reciprocate. “Danny.”

Daniel squeezed his little sister tighter against him. “God Mouse, God,” he said. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her. She was tiny, her frame slender, dwarfed in his embrace. He had forgotten how much smaller than he she was. The sun was rising rapidly behind him. If he thought he could postpone the fight or perhaps, put it off forever, he would never let her go. Nothing was going to prevent today from happening. There was no way to delay it. As abruptly as he had snatched her up he released her from his hold. Mouse had no braid to tug so he settled on the next best thing and tweaked her nose before sending her on her way to whatever the fates had in store for her.

Daniel stood at the doorway, uncertain of whether he wanted to cross the threshold or not. He had come back just as he had left twenty-five years ago. With just the clothes on his back and the contents of the duffel bag slung over his shoulder. From his vantage point he could see Tristen and Kacie and his dad and Gina, and Grant and Claire standing as couples arm and arm, desperately trying to keep it together, and seeking out the comfort and surety of love’s embrace.

He made no move to enter. No one said a word to invite him in. From the depths of the family room Daniel heard a sound that stopped his heart in his chest. The tinkling of the silver beads dangling from the fringes of his grandfather’s buckskins.

Nash steeled his breath and thrust his chin high. He would not slouch in what were probably the final hours of his life. Rather, he would go to his most likely end proudly and bravely as a pack master and warrior should. Eloise lingered behind him, her arm wavering between reaching out to pull him back and pushing him forward. His family stood at the door, not the great grandchildren though, for they were not old enough to fully understand, but Hunter, his son, Grant his adopted son, and their wives. Tristen, his grandson, and Kacie, his wife, were there to bid him goodbye as well.

He would catch glimpses of them during the fight, but this was the last time he would see them without the haze of vengeance, pain, and defense clouding his vision. He wanted to reassure them, but there were no reassurances to be had. Today was an end and also a beginning. The necessary resetting of the clock to restore things to their proper order once more.

There were brushes of fingertips against his shoulders and squeezes of his biceps, and the hushed clearing of throats clogged with unshed tears. Someone he was glad he got the chance to see once more hovered uncertainly in the doorway. Daniel had grown up into a man. The boyish roundness of his face had thinned to sharp angles and a chiseled jaw. His eyes still held that haunted expression. Some things never left a man no matter his age. He was taller than Nash remembered, lean and in his prime, broad shouldered and narrow in the hips and waist. He wore his hair long, gathered back into a tight leather thong in the traditional way, highlighting the ridge of his high, broad cheekbones of his proud heritage.

Nash felt a surge of pride looking at him. The family resemblance between Daniel, and his father, and him was uncanny. Even if his body ceased to draw breath, Nash had no sadness because of it. He would live on and on and on even though he died. Daniel was the proof of that. Nash stepped over the threshold for what was most likely the last time and drew Daniel into his arms.

Daniel was overwhelmed by his grandfather’s embrace. He had always thought his grandpa was larger than life and somehow immortal. Daniel could feel the beginnings of frailty in his grandfather’s body, in the softness of muscle, thinness of bone, the stiffness of joints, and snapping of cartilage.

The fingers that caressed his cheek were long and bony. They were the hands of an old man with swollen knuckles and gnarled and twisted bones. Daniel had always thought those hands were so capable. That somehow, if his grandfather set his mind to the task, they could stop the world from turning. Blue veins stood out in stark relief from the tanned paper-thin flesh on the tops of his grandfather’s hands. Tears he could not control tumbled down his cheeks to gather in the palm cupping his chin. He had spent so much time trying to find himself that he had lost everyone else in the process. Words wavered in his throat trapped and clogged in the urgency to spill from his mouth.

Nash dabbed at Daniel’s tears, swiping them away with the pads of his thumbs the way he had when Daniel was a little boy. The tears were bitter and filled with regret and apology. There wasn’t time for anything more than the task at hand. He patted Daniel’s cheek and rested his palm on the top of his bowed head before releasing him. The sun was climbing higher and higher in the eastern sky and the dawn waited for no one.

Fallon overheard the raucous giggling of little girls ticked awake by their father’s fingertips. Evan was waking the girls, giving them what little comfort he could in the shelter of laughter and his love. She wanted to get to the bluffs a little early and set up shop. The pack might think what she planned to do was an exercise in futility. They expected only one outcome and maybe they were right. She was not going to stand idly by and accept it though. The pack might be wrong and there would be something she could do to prevent an unnecessary death. Thomas was supposed to meet her there to help her man the fort. Together, they were a force that sometimes even nature bowed to.

The medical kit weighed a ton. The bag clunked against her thigh throwing her awkwardly off balance as she tromped down the steps in her heavy boots and thick winter jacket. Unlike the rest of the pack who had a tendency to run around half dressed in the middle of February. She ran a little cold-blooded and preferred the comforts of fleece and goose down to freezing her butt off. For a kid that had grown up in Washington DC, she hated cold, damp weather with a passion.

Nash and Mouse had already left for the bluffs. A tiny piece of her was put out that neither one of them had stopped to say goodbye. But, she understood. Goodbye had a finality to it no one was completely ready to face. She wiggled her way past the crowd at the front door and barely squeezed through the doorway with the bulk of her bag. She froze mid stride, her way blocked by a figure silhouetted in dawn’s glow. She wavered, her body rocking from the weight dangling precariously from her shoulder. “Daniel.”

Daniel was shocked to see her. Not shocked so much as surprised. Fallon looked nothing like the little girl he remembered. She still had that wild tangle of red curls the color of turning leaves in the fall. The bridge of her nose and tops of her cheeks were dotted with brown freckles standing out against the peachiness of the blush tinting her skin. Her blue eyes, an indescribable shade of navy, were locked on him and wide with hesitant recognition. She was tall, long and lean with womanly curves hidden beneath the thick layer of her coat.

She had abandoned her pigtails for a disorderly bun gathered at the nape of her slender neck. Tendrils of disobedient curls escaped the stocking cap sitting haphazardly on her head. Her rose hued lips were curled in a restrained smile almost as if she had to remind herself that today was not the day and now not the time to unleash such a pleased grin at the sight of him. Faint laugh lines crinkled the corners of her eyes and mouth, evidence of her joy. He could see the wheels of her mind turning, thinking of something to say. There were a hundred thoughts running through his head, but nothing appropriate for the occasion. “Hello, Fallon.”

Chapter 9

Carter ghosted through the woods at preternatural speed. There didn’t seem to be anywhere that he could retreat to dark enough, deep enough, or desolate enough in this place of natural bliss to escape the memories of the past that had come back to haunt him. What in the hell was he doing here? Hadn’t he seen enough death on the bluffs for one lifetime? And yet, the Great Father had called to ask him to witness the blood flowing and soaking into the thirsty ground once more. Well, who was the greater fool, Drew for calling him or him for coming?

The Guardians had very little to do with pack business. Why had Drew called him out of his ivory tower in the city to come down to this desolate corner of the known universe anyway? Didn’t the stoic leader of the Sons know how to take a hint? Of course, he did, but no, he hadn’t. Carter didn’t have to come, but here he was a ghost being chased by the memories of things he would rather forget.

He had not stepped foot in these woods or traversed the brotherhood’s sacred compound in twenty-five years. He had his reasons for it. Several good ones as a matter of fact, but only one occupied the forefront of his mind and it was she he hoped to avoid. He was not alone in the woods. The pack moved on silent paws or softly treaded soles through the barren underbrush and fallen leaves. He felt the preternatural energy of other prickling along his skin.

He was in no danger from the pack. He had their Great White Wolf’s sacred seal of approval and the pack would not attack him unless provoked. It was an entertaining thought. Probably number nine on his tip ten list of ways to die, only to be topped by the ever-popular death by insanity via starvation. He had tried that one once and here he was, as alive as an almost six hundred year old animated corpse could ever hope to be.

Sarcasm didn’t suit him. It was the only defense he had against the sudden flood of memories assaulting his inner dialogue. His thoughts ran rampant. Bouncing off the walls of his head like a ping-pong ball in a box. One moment he was thinking about Eric and remembering the last words they spoke to one another before his death on the snow covered bluffs some twenty-five years ago.

After his memories of Eric’s death, he enjoyed a self-inflicted pain fest scourging his mind and his heart with thoughts of Shayla as the whip across his back. He could still recall the exact color of her eyes as they stared upon him with such love and devotion. If he focused hard enough he could conjure up the feeling of her body beneath him and hear her sighs of pleasure. And then there was R.J., the little fellow was barely toddling when he had seen him last. Today, R.J. was a grown man, perhaps with a family of his own. Carter could still recall the sound of that cherubic, high-pitched, infant voice and the last word he had heard R.J. say. Dada.

He was not R.J.’s father. That was quite impossible from a physical standpoint. There was nothing but a barren wasteland in his testicles. The equipment still worked, although it had been quite a while since he had last put it to the test. But, to create a life was far beyond his capabilities. He had been quite a fool at the time, caring for the child and playing house with Shayla. Daring to live a dream well beyond his reach and in the end he had failed not only himself and Shayla, but her son as well.

He had accomplished nothing but causing so much pain. He had traded the life he could have had with her for the sake of another. Yessette. To this day he still could not think upon her without seeing the stain of her blood on his hands. She was a vampire. Crazed, demented, and so beautifully insane he had no choice but to put her to the blade. He had loved her once. She hadn’t always been what she was. Yessette was a vibrant spirit so full of life, until the night he had sought to end it and had made one of the biggest mistakes of his preternatural existence. He had left her for dead and Eric had brought her back. Her body was unchanged, but her mind had been ruined in the process. He didn’t regret ending her suffering forever, but he had plenty of regrets for snuffing out that light in the first place.

He spent centuries running from his maker. He had hated Eric for all the wrong reasons. Looking back seeing it from the perspective he saw life from today instead of how he saw it then, he understood why Eric had done the things he had. Eric loved beautiful things. He longed to keep that beauty alive, to preserve it instead of watching the flame flicker and die. His father claimed Carter was the most flawed creation he had ever made, but the most beautiful for his imperfection. Carter had never understood what Eric meant until it was too late.

Eric had been alone in the world. He had chosen Carter and later, Bianca to fill the void. His children had lived to spite him. Carter spent most of his life hating Eric for cheating him out of the grave. Carter was wrong to hate Eric, so wrong, and in the end he realized it wasn’t Eric that he truly hated, but the parts of himself that he saw reflected from the shallow looking glass that had been Eric O’Sullivan.

Carter blinked against the bright light of dawn and dodged for the spindly cover of dried autumn leaves. One would think that after five hundred years a certain tolerance for daylight might be acquired. Apparently, the system of checks and balances that made up the immortal world didn’t agree. He fumbled with his sunglasses, pressing them tightly to the bridge of his nose. Sighing in relief, Carter wondered exactly what it was he was supposed to be doing with himself. The Great Father hadn’t changed a bit, cagey and stoic as ever. Carter wouldn’t know what the purpose of his impromptu invitation to the compound was until Drew was good and ready to tell him. One thing was for certain though. Carter was not going to seek Shayla or R.J. out.

Chapter 10

Bianca watched Carter brood in the woods. Often, she would accuse him of brooding and he would blink at her, scowl, and say he was a vampire and it was his nature and his God given right to brood. The two of them had been orphans going on twenty-five years. O’Sullivan was dead and gone and good riddance to him too. Her brother and she didn’t necessarily have heart felt reunions. From time to time their paths might hazard to cross. Such as when Michael had brotherhood business in the city and required such niceties as a visit. But, she had not seen Carter in years.

Time mattered little to a vampire. The passing of days and weeks and years was like the blink of an unchanging eye. It was strange to see Carter in the woods, drifting through the curling tendrils of morning mists like an ethereal figure. The two of them had been quite a pair in the very beginning. The products of their father’s making and as such lethal, beautiful, and ruthless willingly eager to set themselves to whatever task he had in mind for his children.

For a time in those early days, Carter made her life bearable. Eric doted on her and lavished her with gifts for services rendered, but it was Carter who held his eye and his black beating heart. Carter was no lover of men and for that matter, neither was Eric. He explained it to her once, his fascination with Carter. At that time, Eric was an ancient. The oldest vampire Bianca had ever encountered. And per his word, after a time the sex of a companion mattered less. It was Carter, his beauty and his tortured soul that Eric sought to possess. The heart that beat well beyond its human limitations Eric hoped to win. Carter hated their father, despised him for the gift he had been given. And in return Carter taunted and tortured Eric with the one thing he could not have, his love.

Eric called them Beautiful Death. She was the darkness in contrast to Carter’s light. Raven haired and midnight blue eyed, sleek curved and long legged, her body was prized. Carter was pale, his hair a golden halo of ringlets encircling a face that made the angels weep. He was long and lean, blessed with the height of his Nordic ancestors and unfortunately, the mysticism and brooding ways of his Irish-Scot upbringing.

The three of them were tortured with the things they could not have. Eric with Carter, Carter with the humanity he had lost, and she with the thirst for a crown she would never wear. She fucked kings and sat court for acquisition, but an immortal queen was impossible. Not that it mattered, looking back on it. With the dawning of this new era of mankind, the thrones were no more.

Carter did the unthinkable and fell in love. How he loved his precious Yessette. Ultimately, he loved her to death. Fitting he should be the one to bring about her end. Carter was too human and taking her down to death, drinking in her life, he discovered his conscience and left her to die. Eric should have followed his offspring’s example and let her die. He didn’t. He brought her back too late. The flesh and bone shell of her body contained the twisted, demented soul of an immortal child. Her mind was gone and just a shadow of what it had once been.

Carter lived in self-damnation over Yessette’s death. Lurking in the shadows always on the run from their father. She was left behind under Eric’s tender mercies to bear the burden of his abandonment. Eric followed Carter to the New World, from city to city and port to port. Carter was a ghost drifting amongst the living always one step ahead of their father until the day came when there was no place else to run.

For the second time in his life Yessette had almost been Carter’s undoing. She was his biggest fall from grace. The rubble left behind in Eric’s wake had long since been cleared away. The once glorious old brownstones demolished and replaced with crackerjack box apartments. She would like to believe all was well that ended well. Eric O’Sullivan was dead, mercifully put out of his misery by a human girl. Yessette had finally gone the way of the angels by the kindness of Carter’s dutiful hand.

Bianca had an angel of her own. Michael was her redemption and in this remote corner of the world she had finally found her place. Carter and she never spoke of the times before. Everything was in terms of after. The Guardians were in good hands under his leadership. She wondered if he had forgiven himself yet or if regret and his guilt were still his only bedfellows, cold as they were.