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“He’s right. What’s going on in Otherworld?” Trillian said. “That will only be multifold should the Demon Lord make it through the portals.” He brushed his hand over his eyes. “I’m going to the kitchen and check on my wife, if you’ll excuse me.”
As he left the room, I turned back to Roz, but the incubus was leaning back on the sofa, asleep. He must have been exhausted. I picked up a throw and gently covered him with it. None of the men had slept much—of that I was sure.
At that moment, Smoky and Vanzir returned.
I pointed to the kitchen. “Camille is in there. Trillian and Delilah are with her. And Roz is asleep. Let him rest, if you can.”
Smoky gave me a gentle nod. “I’ll go to her then.”
Vanzir gave me a speculative look. “Do you need to be with them—your sisters?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I’d do much good right now. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” I stepped past him, then headed outside. I knew what I had to do, even though I didn’t want to.
The rain was slashing down, stinging needles against my flesh. Vampire I might be, but I could still feel jabs and punctures and bruises. They may not hurt as much, in fact most of them bounced off, but I was aware of them.
Clouds boiled across the sky and I stared up at the racing storm. We were in our rainy season, and it would last until June. The Seattle area managed about fifty-five to sixty cloud-free days a year, most of them in the summer. I relished the chill gloom—it seemed more appropriate than winters in more southern climes, where I’d still have to stay in my lair, asleep until the pull of sunset woke me. I loved the rain and wind that swept through, making the Northwest its semipermanent home.
As I approached the shed-cum-apartment, I stopped for a moment. I was better suited than either of my sisters for this, but still… I wasn’t sure just how it would affect me. It had been only hours ago that I’d attended the funeral of a good friend. Now, I’d be standing vigil by another corpse, but this one… this one I had roots with.
After a moment, I summoned my courage and pushed through the door. There, neatly laid out on the sofa, was the shrouded figure of Sephreh ob Tanu, the man who had loved our mother, the man who had shared his genetic code with us. I knelt by the leather couch, pausing before I reached out and slowly pulled the shroud away.
It was Father, all right. Even through the pale, bruised skin… it was Father. I thought about lifting the cover all the way, seeing just what had happened to him, but then I decided to forgo the idea. I didn’t need the gory details. I’d lived through my own death and torture. I didn’t need to see what pain he’d been through when he died. I could afford him that much privacy.
As I watched his face, I realized I was searching for any sign of life—a flutter of breath, or a flicker of the eyelashes. But silence ruled, and Father remained still as the silence of my own body. Only for him, there would be no second chance, there would be no life after life, no living death. He had gone to our ancestors, and I had no doubt he stood arm in arm with Mother now.
The thought made me smile. He’d missed her so very much, and had never been quite right after her death. He’d become hardened, harsher—more demanding. Poor Camille had born the brunt of his expectations, but we’d all felt the withdrawal. A guardsman at heart, Sephreh’s grief had turned him from stoic to rigid. But in the end, he’d given more than we ever thought possible, and he’d tried to make his peace with us.
“I don’t know if I can ever forget the years you ignored me after I was turned,” I found myself saying. “Or the way you treated Camille… she was just a little girl and you turned her into the household servant. You were only kind to Delilah, but even then you ignored her.”
Pausing again, I thought about what I wanted to say to him. His spirit would most likely be around, and I was certain he could hear me. “But… despite all that… despite the way you treated Trillian, in the end, you made the effort to return to us. You were kind to my wife. You apologized to Camille. You apologized to Trillian. And in the end of things… I believe that you meant what you said. I believe you were sorry.”
Falling silent, I realized I was almost done. Short and sweet, that was my style. “So I’m letting it all go. I’m letting you off the hook. And I hope you’re with Mother now, in the Land of the Silver Falls. I hope you’re happy… because I don’t want you to be lonely anymore. You loved Mother with a passion I don’t know if I can ever feel… but I’m trying. I’m trying to open up, to let my wife in, to love her as much as you loved Mother. So… thanks… thank you for the lesson. If nothing else, you taught me that such a love can exist. You taught me to hope.”
With that, I’d said all I had to say. I gently leaned down, kissed the silent forehead, and whispered. “Good-bye, Father. We’ll never forget you.”
As I entered the kitchen and washed my hands, Hanna looked at me. The room was empty and her eyes were suspiciously red.
“Your sisters, they have gone into the living room. Would you like a goblet of warm blood?” She folded the hand towel and placed it on the counter, which was spotless. Both Hanna and Iris were meticulous about cleanliness.
I shook my head. “Thanks, Hanna, but no. I’m not thirsty.”
“You went to say good-bye, did you not?” Her English was improving. The Northlander was learning the ways and customs here, and she seemed content, though she’d taken one hell of a journey to get here.
I glanced at the kitchen door, lowering my voice. “Yes, but please don’t tell Camille or Delilah. They couldn’t handle it. They need to remember him alive, loving them. Not cold and ready to go in the ground. I’ve been there before, Hanna. I’ve been dead. And I went home to kill my family. Camille and Delilah saw me the night I died. They don’t need to see Father dead. You know?”
She paused for a moment, then gave me a gentle smile. “I understand. I truly do. You would not have wanted to see Camille when she returned from Hyto’s lair. I had to tend her, keep her alive so he could abuse her again. I washed the blood off her thighs, I washed the vomit out of her mouth.”
I stared at her, feeling like she was punishing me for some reason. “What are you getting at, Hanna?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Nothing, except you… you underestimate Camille and Delilah. You act as though you are the only one who has seen trauma enough to handle the harshness of life. You do them a disservice. You insult them.”
Normally, when someone talked to me like that, I got mad and wanted to beat the crap out of them. But Hanna’s clear gaze challenged me. I worried my lip. Reality was? She was right. But I seldom found anybody willing to read me the riot act. Most everyone was too afraid. Nerissa could stare me down—and Camille, at times. But very few had doused me with ice water and walked away unscathed.
If I breathed, I would have taken in a long breath and let it out slowly. Instead, I counted to four… to five… to ten. Then, when she still didn’t move, I blinked and looked down at my feet.
“You may be on to something with that. But what am I supposed to do? Let them go look at his body? Trust me, I didn’t even pull the shroud away that much, just enough to see his face and it was bruised and battered and scarred.”
She shrugged. “You do what you feel is right. But make sure you do it out of compassion, and not an assumption. I am a mother, remember this. And you girls, you are still young. Still growing. Still in need of guidance at times, whether or not you choose to believe it. Iris, she is busy with her own kinderkins now, she cannot keep track of you the way she did. But I… my own daughters are scattered from me. I hope they live. My son, he is dead and you know that I killed him to save him. Let me take a moment, now and then, to remind you of what you might be overlooking. Would you do this for me?”
