I'm Calling This Home When It's Not Even Close

as the gentle rain from heaven

At night she dreams of rain falling heavily from three different skies, each one of them home. The first is the barest memory, a small glimmer in her mind of what she thinks she may remember, tied together with bits and pieces of someone else’s memories and the things she’s seen in films.

Just clouds, and rain, and cold.

The second is different; sun shining as the rain pours down, sky gone golden, streaks of yellow backlit against bright orange. Beautiful, but threatening. The danger there was worse than the dark of a thunderstorm, so deceivingly like the simplicity of a sunshower. The wind howls there as the rain drips down from the golden sky, the roar in the air so like an oncoming train, announcing the arrival of the funnel cloud set to sweep them all away.

The last is grey, stormclouds over city streets, brick bungalows and broken pavement. Flashing lights burn into the night, traffic horns baying at the moon while a thousand burning headlights blink in the downpour. The sky has no color, only sheeted texture of cloud upon cloud blotting out the sun and whatever hints of blue might hide behind. The water seems grey, puddling in the streets and dripping from pipes and gutters, trash-choked sewers spewing out torrents they are unable to hold.

And yet it is bright and alive and home, another home to hold dear, even as the years pass and the burnished desert becomes more the picture of home than the bustle of the gleaming city on the lake.

At night she dreams of faces. None the same, though some strikingly alike. Drifting past and drifting into one another, never staying long.
Only long enough to love.
Only love enough to hurt.
Only hurt enough gut her when they leave.

They have no order; the flit in and out of her dreams, over and over, throughout the night, as though some beacon in her mind pulls them close and ever closer, refusing to let them be. Refusing to let them go.

Lately now, a brother. Large dark eyes, like hers but not the same. Dead now. Gone far too long to make her dreams his nightly haunt, and yet still he appears and reappears so often. Sometimes in the darkness of her mind’s eye, she can see him only as she was made to see him, dead and broken and corrupted by the hand of hell itself, played before her like a puppet. Sometimes.

Tonight he is different than that. Himself. Smiling. The curve of a smile bringing to mind another, the face melting into someone else’s, til another of the dearly departed smiles at her. The smile soon fades, and he shakes his head, reaching up with a scarred hand to brush sawdust from his dark hair. He frowns, disappointed. He doesn’t speak, because the voice her mind could conjure wouldn’t be right, wouldn’t be the same. But she knows that look, that frown, and she tries to explain, but she can’t find her own voice to speak, her body broken and drifted into something incorporeal, there but not there, as the images drift past her.

The sky brightens; she is home again, the second sky, though the threat has subsided and the wind no longer howls. The breeze is softer now, warm, the rain still showering down but lightly now, soft and almost welcoming.

Unseen the darkness comes, brought by the one she still most fears. It drips into her world with a malevolent grace, like so many drops of ebony ink falling and spreading their whispering tendrils through a world made of cool, clear water. Everything darkens, that blackness spreading and infecting the very air around her.

She is home now, the solid home of wood and plaster and stone sunken into the desert floor. A sprawling dusky blue house, so out of place and yet so at home along the lonely desert road. She is in her room, in her bed in the twilight, and she sees a door that isn’t there. The wood is old and blackened as though by fire, pulsing and groaning as though something behind is trying to push through. A brass keyhole gleams, something silvery and evil shining behind, hoping to pry its way back.

A shimmer of disconnected particles, and she crouches and peers through the keyhole; she sees only herself, some ink-eyed bastardization of her own soul, crouched over death and glaring back at her. She gasps, pulls away and pulls herself apart again into nothingness, drifting in the rain that begins to fall from the ceiling, drowning the room. The door still heaves, but the keyhole has gone dark, and she knows what lurks behind is not the scene she had witnessed but something darker, something more familiar.

The door pulses and she wills it away, afraid it might burst.

At night she dreams of her mother, the small wasted woman in the hospital bed, limp strands of blonde hair spread on her pillow as she glares with accusing eyes. Blaming, hating, all your fault. The blonde goes lighter, shorter, and stands there a warlock with a smirk and a dark cloud around him. Pulled together again she feels small, something protected, a surrogate for another, and she forces that grip again. That way madness lies… shun that, no more of that.

At night the world around her fights, but she only drifts and cries and feels the quiet rain falling from home-skies. The others walk in the night, search for answers and for cures, but she only lets it all fall away from her.

At night, Emmy sleeps. At night, she dreams of rain.

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Waking the Dead

It had been a very long day.

The day itself, so far as Emmeline was concerned, had actually begun over the weekend. It just hadn’t ended quite yet. One, long, terrible day, encompassing sunrises and sunsets and long tedious hours. She wasn’t sure if she had slept at all; she had tried but it seemed as though she’d been suffering an unending consciousness, never able to blink it away to the quiet of dreams, not even for an hour.

The viewing for that day was over, leaving Emmeline still in her shop with the stragglers. She’d given her home over to Aidan’s family; his mother and father, an aunt and uncle, and a young cousin who was taking everything very hard. In hushed whispers, the plump blonde that would remain forever ingrained in Emmy’s mind as ‘Ma’ had said the girl, Erica, had slept the previous night in Aidan’s old room at the house and they’d heard her crying through to the morning.

The family treated Emmeline as one of their own. In the lucid moments when their grief flit away for just a moment to share a laughing memory and a smile, they spoke to Emmy as though she were family.

Now she stood alone at the counter, staring at the coffin. Liam had switched off the lights for the evening, leaving only the shop’s normal dim nighttime lighting on. The coffee still perked beside her and the half-eaten plate of pastry sat next to it, and Emmy stood quietly, hands clasped in front of her on the glass, just staring.

Destiny was living a nightmare. Last night's family visitation hadn't gone well for her mentally and waking up the next morning sticking to the floor in her ruined dress wasn't the best way to bring her spirits up. Seeing Aidan's mother for the first time since the memory thing was heart-wrenching, knowing now who she was. She couldn't believe that Aidan's mom knew about her, let alone that she hugged her. Her heart ached that she and his family hadn't met under better circumstances.

Part of her didn't want to come back, but today was the official wake. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a black sweater, so she would look normal for the other mourners. They came in and came out, and soon Aidan's family left for Em's and it was just her and Emmy...and Aidan.

Destiny made sure the sign on the door read "Closed", then closed the door and leaned against the door jamb, watching Em. Em was paler than usual, if that was even possible. The usually proper young woman stood with a new tightness and tautness in her stance and Destiny knew she was hurting just as much, if not more.

"Em, honey? You okay?" Such a stupid, futile question, but what else could someone say at a time like this? "Hope you're having fun?"

There was a gentle hum and an audible click as the air conditioning system sprung to life.
“You’re welcome to stay, though it’s going to get very cold in here,” Emmy replied absently, voice in a measured cadence that lilted somewhere between robotic and strained. “We put the thermostat as low as it will go at night. It’s quite cold but that’s alright. The books don’t mind the cold.”

A short, hard laugh that choked off into a strangled sob. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to retain control. It was difficult, but she could do it if she tried.
I am too absent-spirited to count. The loneliness includes me unawares.
It was a trick her father had taught her. Fight off fear. Fight off emotion. All by recitation. Repeating in her mind, over and over, the same sparse lines, held some comfort.

It had been The Raven at Bailey’s funeral.

Emmeline swallowed hard, then gave Destiny a tired half-smile.
“You should sleep. The rest of the family is staying in Las Vegas so they didn’t come in for the whole day, but his mother said they would all be here tomorrow. Everyone. It’s going to be a very long day.”

"I lived in New Jersey. Cold doesn't bother me. That's why I'm wearing pants and a sweater. Even if you didn't stay, I would've. 'Cause this time--" Destiny choked up. This time, I have to do it right. I will not let him rise. He deserves more than that.

She took a deep breath and crossed the room to stand behind Emmy, whose gaze still focused on the coffin. She had to fight back her own tears when she heard Emmy sob. When Emmy turned around, Destiny saw the same tired, empty eyes that she had seen every morning in the mirror. "Screw sleep. I'll sleep when I'm--" She trailed off, realizing that turn of phrase was inappropriate right now. She set her jaw. "I'm staying here with you. I belong here...with you... a-and him."

“I think I’ve forgotten something,” Emmy said quietly. “I tried to do everything I should have. I did everything he wanted, so far as I can tell. But I think… I think I’ve forgotten something. Someone. People. Who should I have called? Who else? I tried to remember everything but I…”

She trailed off, staring once again at the quiet coffin across the room.
And lonely as it is that loneliness will be more lonely ere it will be less
“It’s difficult. I can’t think properly. I didn’t think… this was not supposed to happen and I don’t know if I’m doing it right.”

She lapsed again into silence, hands gone cold and aching with the blasting of frigid air from the vents. Aidan had fixed the vents. He hadn’t been able to do all the work himself, but the company she had hired had done such a poor job that he’d run cleanup for two weeks before it was working properly.

In the quiet, a soft shuffling caught her attention and she watched in silence as Liam emerged in his diminutive demonic stature and headed up towards where Aidan rest, carrying a small stepladder hooked over one arm and an ancient-looking glass bottle in another. Still without speaking, Emmy watched him as he opened his ladder and stepped up the ladder and gazed down on body. Speaking in his guttural native tongue, the little demon poured a clear liquid from his bottle onto his clawed fingers and then pressed them to Aidan’s forehead, eyelids and mouth.

She watched his small shoulders shudder with what could only be a silent sob before he finished his task and headed back, ladder in hand, towards his couch. Even Gus had stood in reverent silence at the door, waiting for her owner to finish.

Liam paused at the door and glanced over his shoulder at the two women standing in the storefront.
“This is an honor my clan only gives to its greatest warriors. He was a good man,” he spoke quietly, before padding back to his private area.

Emmy seemed barely to notice.
“It’s a wonder the city even allowed this, you know,” she spoke. “They approved the paperwork in less than a day. We’re not zoned for such things.”

"All you can do, Em, is do what he told you to. It's not like we had in-depth conversations about our demises." Destiny started rubbing her arms with her hands. "Aidan did a good job on the vents. They work." The levity she was trying to bring to the conversation fell flat because she couldn't muster enough happiness. Sadness threatened to engulf her heart.

Her eyebrow furrowed as Liam climbed up the ladder. "Wha--" She fell silent when he started to chant. It's like baptism. I'm not sure if that's holy water, so I can't tell if-- She cleared her throat. If he's turned. Her eyes pricked with tears as she heard him sob and a lump rose in her throat at Liam's explanation.

She turned her head at Emmy's spoken words. "They probably don't want to deal with the transport," she said bitterly, pain evident in her voice. "It's a vamp attack, so they're hoping that if they don't bring attention to it that it will just disappear. All they want is to get us freaks out of here. I swear to God, if every Slayer dropped dead, no one would give a shit and the town fathers would throw a fucking parade."

“I had to pay for the temporary permit,” Emmy replied, as though she hadn’t heard the Slayer’s bitter rant. “Twelve dollars. Isn’t that silly? Twelve dollars.”

She reached beneath the counter and pulled out several plastic containers, stacked one inside of another, and their lids beneath the pile. She walked around the counter and began to slowly and methodically place the remaining cookies into the containers, separating each by flavor and size as she put them away.

“Do you want anything to eat, Destiny? I have some frozen dinners in the little refrigerator in my office. And we have these as well. I’m going to leave the coffee on, mind. I’m sure I’ll be needing some soon enough.”

Pausing in her work, she sighed; her eyes closed and she gripped one icy hand to the back of her neck and squeezed, trying to work out a near-permanent kink that had developed and been paining her since that morning.
“A blanker whiteness of benighted snow,” she muttered, surprising herself by speaking the words aloud rather than in her head. Glancing up, she gave Destiny a tight, thin-lipped smile. “That was kind of Liam. He’s really rather fond of all of us, I think. In spite of his usual… cranky… demeanor.”

Destiny's eyebrow rose. Em was like a zombie... a robot. She hadn't even batted an eye at the d-word and the non-existent reaction to the f-word scared her. "I'm fine, Em." She crossed to the counter where Em was OCD-ing the cookies into submission.
You're not. You're not fine at all. Emmeline Keddle, snap out of it. You're scaring me." Destiny grabbed at Emmy's arm to stop her from robotically putting the cookies away. She sighed when she figured Em couldn't get knocked out of it quite yet. "Yes, that was kind of Liam," she said gently. "I'm fond of him too, though his dog pees on me way too often." She smiled a little, but it soon went away.

"Emmy, please look at me. I know you're not fine. Talk to me."

Emmy squeezed her eyes shut again, tightening her grip on the plastic container in one hand hard enough to crack the edge with a resonating snap.
With no expression, nothing to express

“Destiny… Destiny, please, let me be. I have to do this. I have to do this to get through it, please just leave me alone. When it is over and I can breathe again and think again I will be better but if I am going to make it through the next two days standing then I need to do this right now so could you please just fucking back off and let me be.”

She was breathing hard, eyes closed, ignoring the Slayer’s grip on her arm.
“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces,” she muttered in a breath barely above a whisper. “Between stars… on stars where no human race is…”
She forced a deep breath and opened her eyes, pretending not to feel the twin tears snaking down her cheeks. “I have something for you,” she said quietly.

Destiny jumped at the sudden sound of the plastic giving under the strength of Em's hand. Her eyes widened under Emmy's tirade and let go of Em's arm with a shaking hand. It was like watching a self-contained explosion, a loud boom in a tiny room. Destiny was sure that she was watching Emmeline completely crack, pardoning the pun in her mind. She fought the urge to wipe the tears away on the other woman's face while she fought the urge to cry herself. Emmy looked like she felt. You'll feel so much better if you let it out, I promise. It was a lesson in mourning. Exhibit A: quiet devastation, Exhibit B: the screaming banshee. She wondered which Rhiannon felt. She wondered if Rhiannon knew. If Taryn knew. She wondered if Taryn cared.
Goddamn it. Now I feel like a bitch. "It wasn't supposed to happen this way. None of this was." She crossed her arms to ward off the chill.

Her heart started to race. "What do you have?"

Emmy sniffed and hitched her breath, dropping the plastic container to the countertop without another thought on the matter before reaching into her sweater pocket.

She had thought it should be his mother who gave it to her, but the woman had declined; she’d insisted Emmy do it herself.

“We wrote things down, you see. Just in case. These days… you understand? After the first time we were in real danger, we wrote things down. He added to it over time, I suppose. He wanted you to have this.”

A silver cross, on a silver chain. Emmy barely remembered seeing it; once, maybe twice. Only on the hottest days, working on the shed at the house, or the porch, when he’d strip down to a thin sleeveless t-shirt to combat the weight of the sun. His mother said he’d never taken it off.

Not even the last time he was hurt. Not even at the hospital, rushed into surgery so quickly that some absent minded nurse’s aid had left it. Not even when he died; the kindly coroner had left it, sympathy for the dead. His mother had been the one to lift it, when Emmy showed her Aidan’s instructions, hand-written on a sheet of yellow lined paper.

“He wanted you to have it. His mother said he hadn’t taken it off since Confirmation when he was twelve.”

Destiny's breath rushed out of her with a loud whooshing sound and the vise around her heart clamped a little tighter at the new information. She opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't. The last bit of self-control broke and she started to sob.
"I-I can't take this. It should be with his mother. With you. I don't deserve it."

She had thought that the silver cross was part of him. It was a touchstone for her, something she always looked for when he walked into the room. The reassuring presence of the silver chain made her smile every time. It meant everything was fine. It was his, it was him. Seeing it in Emmy's hands meant things were wrong, that things would never be the same. And she wouldn't accept that. She couldn't.

Emmy shook her head. “No. You. You have to. It’s what he wanted. You have to take it.” She held it out, chain dangling from her pale cold hands, the cross swaying gently with the motion, caught in the steady breeze of the air conditioner.

I have it in me so much nearer home
She sniffed, running the back of her free hand beneath her nose to clear away the puddle tears; it was a childish gesture, but she couldn’t help it.
“You have to,” she repeated, shaking her head. “I promised. I promised I would do what he asked and I’ve done everything so far, just like he asked. He said it was for you. You have to take it,” she went on, voice rising a frantic octave as she spoke.

The instructions had been a comfort. Rules. Something to follow. Left to her own devices, Emmy would have been lost, but he had written it all out for her. Made sure to follow what he asked to the letter.

“You can’t make me break my promise.”

"Oh, Em," Destiny murmured. "Please, calm down. I'll take it. He's going to haunt me for the rest of my life if I don't take it." Destiny took the necklace out of Emmy's hand and was shocked at the coolness. Fastening it around her necklace, it fell just above the other cross necklace Adam gave her. The irony struck her and she let out a short, sad chuckle that made her cover her mouth and start crying again.

"This is so wrong. I was supposed to save this one, keep him safe. He was my second chance. And I fucked it all up. I fucked it up again. I hate it so much."

Destiny's eyes widened and brightened. "Could we bring him back? Could we? Adam came back. We can bring him back and it'll be like nothing happened. And then you and I can go kick a bunch of vampire ass and cast a spell so they all go away and we'll live happily ever after." Destiny's voice had turned manic, words spilling out faster than she could think of, with every word giving her more hope. "We can do it! I know we can." She grasped Aidan's necklace in her hand, the cross imprinting itself into her palm.

“What? No!” Emmy said quickly. Shocked at the idea. Horrified. A brief image flashed in her mind, something she had witnessed not long ago: a creature, a shade of her self, chanting over someone… a body. Bringing it back. Those ways were wrong. If there was anything close to evil that Emmy could possibly do…

“No. No no no, I’d never. Even if I could, I’d never. Some things aren’t right. No. I couldn’t. You shouldn’t even think… not even wishful thinking, no.” She paused, shaking her head. She knew the Slayer was hurt. Desperate. But the very idea put a bad taste in her mouth.

“What if I made a mistake? I’m still a… a novice! What if I did it wrong? What if he was wrong? Something I did, that made him not… not human! Or what, what if we could and he was here and alive and angry with us for it! Or what if we did and he just got hurt again, died again… I couldn’t stand it, Destiny, none of it. And his mother. How could she understand…? No. Never. Don’t ever think such things. Magick for protection and for… for growing things, bringing sunlight, bringing rain, for keeping away the dark and for… for helping. For good. But not that. Never that.”

She took a step back, as though the very spoken words frightened her, one hand reaching up to clutch her dark purple sweater closed at the throat.
“Never.”

Destiny's eyes had a new fire in them. "You couldn't do it? Have you tried? We have all the necessary ingredients. The necklace, a store full of magical supplies... the body..." Destiny turned from Emmy and looked down at Aidan's cold, still face. "He couldn't be mad at us. He would have done the same for us." She resisted the urge to touch him again and her hands dug into the fabric lining as she looked him over again.

"He would be fine with it. He has so much more living to do. I'm going to protect him. I'm going to keep him safe. He owes me as much! He never got to tell me what he felt about me." Destiny smiled at Aidan, not taking her eyes off his face. "We could have been so happy."

Destiny looked up at Emmy, a new idea blooming. "And if you need blood, you can bleed me out. I'm a fast healer. I'm willing to give everything I have. I'm supposed to die for him. It was supposed to be me."

“The magick I use is all nature. Primal elements, stones, herbs, words. That’s it. What you’re asking isn’t nature. It’s not natural and I won’t do it.”

She made a gesture with her free hand and brought an orb of blue flame to life in her palm.
“If you can’t understand that, you need to go home. Aidan loved you, we all damn well knew it. He wouldn’t do it, not for either of us. He cared too much to think he should play at… at… at devilry! That’s what it is. It’s not right.”

She stood her ground shakily. She would never even attempt to hurt Destiny. She couldn’t. but she had to make the Slayer understand. What she was asking, so far as Emmy was concerned, was blasphemy.

It wasn’t fair. She was too tired. Overwrought. She couldn’t manage everything and try and keep the Slayer in check on top of it. She sighed heavily, trying to keep her composure.

“To scare myself with my own desert places,” she muttered, eyes still on the Slayer.

Snapped out of her mania by the sudden magical display, Destiny gulped at the flame exploding in Em's hand. "That doesn't look natural to me," she managed weakly. "I'm not going to hurt you. Don't hurt me. I can't make you do anything..." Tears sprang to her eyes again. "It just hurts. It hurts so goddamn much. And I let it happen again, which is what kills me the most. First Adam, then Aidan. I-I want to warn the male population of the world to not be interested in me because every man I've ever loved died because I failed to protect them. I want to give them their life back." Destiny sniffed hard, coughing a bit. "It's not fair that they die just by being with me. It just isn't fair."

“It’s not on you to protect the whole world anymore,” Emmy responded, closing her hand on the conjured flame and wincing. Fresh tears sprang to her eyes and she laughed ruefully. “He never did get to show me how to end the flame without burning myself.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and nearly crumpled, leaning against the counter for support as two days worth of tears began to fall all at once; the poem had ended and she had no more lines to recite, nothing left to strive to remember, to recite in cadence in her mind to stop the crushing swell of emotion from breaking free.

The words came in a tear-choked rush.
“It’s not fair. It’s not, you’re right. Everyone you love dies. Everyone I love dies, or leaves. Anyone I even begin to care about disappears and I don’t know how to stop it. He should’ve stayed away. Stayed home with his parents and sold computers and been happy, been alive. This place is hell and I can’t leave it anymore than he could stay away.”

She swallowed hard and was surprised to suddenly see the sky outside taking a pinkish hue. It couldn’t be, not already. She frowned.
“Is it morning already?” she asked.

Destiny crossed over to Emmy and hugged her, her floodgates bursting open to match the brunette's. She kept Emmy upright and tried to keep her strong, to keep herself strong. "Let it out, Em. It feels a little better, I promise." She wiped at her tears with one arm as she stepped back a little as Emmy looked out the window. She looked at Aidan.
"He's safe," she whispered. "I don't have to kill him again." The relief made her lightheaded. "Oh, thank God. I couldn't kill him. I would have let him kill me." Destiny sighed and traced the edge of the coffin with her fingers, running the tips of her fingers up and down the surface. "I'll never be able to leave here now. I can't anymore. I can't leave him here."

Emmy hugged the Slayer back, heaving a deep sigh. Opening her eyes, she watched as the sunlight began to dance across the storefront; her books and her candles, her shelves and her crystals, and finally across Aidan’s face.

“Then I guess we’ll both be here, for a good long time.”
Friends were the family you chose yourself, she decided, and home was where you made it. Even in desert places.

NOTE: Post contains excerpts from the poem Desert Places by Robert Frost.

Absent Spirit

I don’t like wakes.

I’ve always thought they were a bit morbid and daft. My mother insisted we have one for Bailey, though we had to keep the casket closed. His friends came in, filed past the wooden box and said a prayer as they went. There was bad coffee and stale cookies and the whole place reeked of old potpourri.

I had one for Mother as well. That day, it was only me, sitting there in the same cold, reeking room that we’d had for Bay. Ten hours, just sitting, staring at my mother’s corpse. No one came. No one cared. I decided that day, I’d never attend another of these morbid experiments in grief ever again, yet here I am.

The closest place was Diamond and Sons in Laughlin, but it didn’t feel right to take him so far away. Searchlight was his home. He said it was the only place that ever made him feel as though he really belonged. I never thought I’d have to see someone laid out among the books and charms, but then I never thought I’d have to bury a friend in this little desert town either.

The casket is grey steel, shining under the overhead lights that create this lurid little shrine to the dead, with a bronze crucifix gleaming on the lower half of the lid. The people from the Laughlin mortuary were contracted to set this all up for us, and the gaudy display of flowers and lights sickens me here. Liam moved the raised level shelves back to make room for the casket; I tried to help but my hands went weak, arms limp at my sides, at the very thought of touching those shelves that he had made just for me.

Standing here now, I still can’t believe it. Everyone is here; his mother and father, aunts and uncles, cousins and half-cousins and third-cousins and on and on. His family is much larger than even I had realized and they must have loved him as dearly as the family he had made here, to come all this way. The wake should not be until tomorrow, but they were here already and the mortuary had finished their work, so here we are. His mother had agreed with me, that he should be buried here. He’d left no instructions for us, only a few brief scribbled notes on a legal pad in a little lockbox he still kept in his room at the house.

No cremation, because the thought of burning all away frightened him. Catholic mass, if possible. Send a letter to a post office box in Seattle, addressed only to ‘Eddie’, to let him know. His car to a young cousin, Erica. The papers still spoke of his Mustang, though I suppose we could take it to mean his Jeep at this point. Ring a tattoo shop in Wisconsin and leave a message for someone called ‘Chicago Ed’. Send a letter to an elderly professor at a seminary in Chicago. Simple things. Little things.

He wants me to have all of his books and magickal supplies.
He wants Destiny to have his confirmation cross, the one he wore hidden beneath his clothes, everyday. I wonder if he ever took it off.

He doesn’t look right. They never do, really, laying there in a box. You can give the mortuary people as many photos as you’d like, they never get it right. Thick paste of make-up made him far too light in tone. The man had worn a perpetual tan for three years now; it just wasn’t right.

They’d smoothed back his hair, which was all wrong. It was longer than he would have liked now, no time for a cut in recent days. I reach out and push my fingers through the dark locks, brushing them down to fall in his face, messy and reckless and so very normal for him. Seemed wrong that there was no sawdust; he was always littered in sawdust when he was working, golden brown flecks adhered to his clothes and falling from his hair with every movement he made.

Thick dark lashes – too thick for a boy, I’d told him, such a waste on a boy, and he’d laughed and told me his mother always said the same. Of course they are closed, his eyes, and find myself wishing for just one more glance from him, one last look into the laughing brown eyes that I had taken for granted every day. The light had danced in his eyes. I wonder if beneath the lids they’ve already gone dull and filmy and dark.

His mouth is the worst of it. It always is at these things. Gone slack, corners pulled down from resting on the back, muscles dead and useless. Gravity pulls it down, making a wide, deep frown, skin puddle there like dripping wax so that it doesn’t even seem real. Some strange dripping-mouth mask; soon it would all slip away.

I keep waiting for him to sit up, to laugh, to tell me it was all a joke.
Just sit up, Aidan. Please. Just open your eyes. I won’t be angry, I promise. Tell me it was all not real and I will believe you and I won’t be mad, I won’t be mad at all.
I know he won’t; I know he can’t. But still as I gaze down at him I am begging, pleading in my mind for a wink and a smile and a short deep laugh.

I don’t want to forget what it sounds like to hear him laugh.
I can’t remember my father’s voice or Bailey’s eyes or even my mother and shrill, berating tones. Please, God, don’t let me forget him too. Don’t let me forget Aidan too. I can’t. I couldn’t stand it.

He’d had no suit or dress clothes. All we found in his closet was a crisp red button-down shirt, and a pair of black slacks that looked oddly dated. Still, they would have to do, and I can see how it complements him now. They’d been stored in a box on his closet floor with a black masquerade mask and a book of Poe; I placed them at the foot of the casket, since they carried some meaning for him that I am not to understand.

His hands are folded in front of him and I pull the small black satin bag of runes from the pocket of my sweater. He had many sets, all left to me, but these were his working stones, the ones he used the most. Carved by his own hand, stained by his own blood. I place them in his hands; he’d left them for me to do as I please, and I want them to go with him. They are as much a part of him as his scarred hands, as the mapwork of tattoos he wore and wide, cheerful grin he always had. As much a part of him as the perpetual bump on his head from the underside of the counter he had built. He should have them now.

His hands are cold and heavy and stiff, so strange to me as I push the little bag into his dead grip and feel the cold smoothness of his skin. These hands had built the bookshelves that surrounded the coffin. These hands had built the countertop and the table in my kitchen, the shed in my yard and poured the concrete on my basement floor. These hands had bled and painted runes to bring protection. These hands had carried me, lifted me from possession and brought me back to life and myself. These hands will shrink and shrivel and wither away to dust and bone and the bile rises in my throat as I think of it.

I want to turn them over, and look at his lifeline. I had tried to read his palms but I never really understood it all. What did I miss? Is it there, written on his hands? Should I have known this would happen? If I had known, couldn’t I have stopped it?

It has to be a mistake. It has to be wrong. Somewhere someone made a huge cosmic error and it’s not Aidan, not Aidan who was supposed to die. Someone else. Someone else, far away from here, who was meant to be laying in a box, and not Aidan.
Or maybe closer. Maybe it was me. Maybe someone just made a mistake and I’m supposed to be dead now and that would be better and right because I don’t have a family to leave behind and I’m the one who is always in trouble and getting hurt and I’m the one who is weak so it should be me, me in the box because he is better than me and deserves better than this and needs to be up and alive and smiling with his family and with Destiny and even with Sam.

I close my eyes and stop the tears, order them away, for another day.
Wakes are not for crying and carrying on. Wakes are for keeping composure and making sure everyone else is okay and that the coffee isn’t burned in the big silver coffeemaker set out on the counter and that the cookies and cakes aren’t gone stale on the platter beside it. Wakes are for handing out tissues and smiling at the memories the guests will talk about and pausing to stare at the posterboard full of photographs near the door and holding his mother as she shakes with sobs.

I will not go home tonight. I will stay here, stay with Aidan, and wait for the morning funeral at the dusty graveyard where not so long ago he lay bleeding and dying until a Slayer found him. Then, after it is over and his family has gone home, I will go home and take many pills from the little bottle on my nighttable.

Then I will sleep. And maybe when I wake again, this will all just have been a nightmare.

Goodnight, Emmy

Emmy had forgotten what it was like the previous year.

Small town Halloween could be tough on a business like hers; the few young people found in Searchlight were eager for holiday fun, and there were few other recourses but to visit the strange little shop that had landed in town some years before.

Add in a few rentals of The Craft, and Unseen Insight saw a boom in business, beginning on Halloween and often extending into early November.

For her part, Emmy was beat. She needed more regular help at the shop; Aidan was a constant no-show, and when he did come in, it was only to fix this or that. Liam worked hard because it was the terms of their bargain, but between the two of them, it just wasn’t enough. Emmy had spent most of the day on her feet, shooing people away from the more specialized or dangerous items and books, or doing Tarot readings on the fly. She had made more money in a single day than she had all month in the physical shop (since the internet version did fairly well) and she was dead on her feet.

She opened the door to her silent house and slung her shoulder bag down in a living room chair, sighing softly to herself in the quiet. Her evening plans were simple: a bit of reading and a long sleep. She was just barely hungry, having sent Liam out for sandwiches in the early afternoon and having had nothing since, but too tired to bother with the kitchen. Maybe a cup of tea, or even chocolate later, before bed, but nothing more.

Emmy felt tired and lazy, and was quite content to stay that way.

Opening the door to the small study just beyond the front parlor, Emmy expected to find the same scene she had left early that morning: a comfortable chair, a lamp, a desk, and books, books, books. Opening the door to find a hazy dark horizon gleaming where there should have been a full wall was startling at best. The smoky fire on the littered hardwood floor was a little more unnerving, and the site just beside it was downright maddening.

The familiarity was instantaneous. Wide, staring eyes set in a round, pale face; but where Emmy knew she should see dark brown eyes, the same as her father’s, she saw only black. Her hair was long, past the waist, and unruly, the startling red that Emmy had played at before losing herself in a darker magic and ultimately abandoned with the unsavory memory of her behaviors during that time. Scantily dressed, with a dirt-smudged cheek and a bloodstained dagger in hand, she knelt over the fire and something… something else.

Emmy could barely make out the outline of a body, there on the floor. It faded into the darkness and out of the shimmering outline that seemed to encase the scene before her, where the dirty floor of the vision there melded into the spotless flooring of her study, and the half-broken wall with a fearful, hazy sky beyond flowed seamlessly into the dark paneling she knew should be there.

“He calls forth the spirit of Uurthu, the restless,” the other spoke, running her hand along what Emmy could barely see as a face; there was a body on the floor, there before the other woman… the other Emmeline. It faded into the shimmer and she couldn’t make out any real features, but she knew it was there. “No one shall speak,” the other continued. “He shall arise. Hear me.”

Emmy began to shake, collapsing back against her own solid wall. All at once the scene disappeared, and she stood there, wide-eyed and terrified, staring at her books and her chair, frightened out of her wits by what she had seen. All at once she began to run, booted feet carrying her up the stairs and into the quite solace of her bedroom, where shaking hands sought out a newly refilled prescription bottle on the nightstand. She had to order them by mail, because no pharmacy in the area would carry a glutethimide product.

Four little round white tablets, swallowed dry. She collapsed into her bed, willing the images out of her mind, though they kept persisting. A hallucination, she thought. A portent? A glimpse into her future? Or perhaps it was the past? All she knew, all she was certain of, was that it was her, her own face and body, changed somehow and doing terrible, terribly magick.

The thoughts drifted away on a medicinal dream-cloud; she didn’t wake until late the following evening.

Gasoline By Starlight

Byron was bored.

Unlike his job at the video store in Las Vegas which had a television playing movies all day, the gas station yielded little to no form of entertainment, save for the odd customer who came in every now and then to pay for their gas. It'd been a lull period, later in the evening, and the werewolf sat behind the front counter with his chin propped up on his hand. In the back of the convenience store, an older lady sat shovelling quarters into one of the five never-winning slot machines which lined the back wall. The constant beep-boop-beep cha-ching which followed each pull of the handle was the only noise that Byron could hear, save for the small radio beside him which was only able to get the country music station.

But as bored as he was, it wasn't as though Byron had anything better to be doing. He had to remind himself after all, that he had chosen to live in Searchlight. He gave up his job in a busy city of entertainment to live a quiet life in a one-horse town. He could have at least been at home playing his X-box, but that wouldn't exactly pay his rent.

The slot machine finally cut out the noise and Byron sighed in relief as the woman stood and got up to leave. "Them machines never pay out," she muttered, "I think Gary had 'em fixed."

Byron sat up straight. "Maybe you should stop playing them, then," he suggested with a yawn.

"I'm takin' my quarters next door to Terrible's," she said defiantly as she left the store in a huff.

Byron rolled his eyes and pushed his glasses back up his nose before he resumed the leaning position. "And I thought I lead a sad life," he muttered to himself.

Things had been quiet for Emmy as of late.

Quiet at the shop, where customers seemed few and far between and there was precious little work to do. The books were shelved in proper order, new merchandise put where it belonged, and no great looming crisis to be worked upon and worried over. She never thought she’d find herself longing for something to be afraid of, but even that would be a way to pass the time.

Quiet at the house, where the only visitor on most days was Sam. And, friendly as he was, the cat just wasn’t much for conversation since Aidan had returned to Searchlight. Aidan himself had been by only the day before, but it was a brief and hurried visit. Liam did stop over on occasion, but Emmy was certain it was only for the food – she’d been keeping both the diminutive demon and his yippy little dog well-fed for some time.

The quiet had seeped into Emmy herself, as she realized well into the evening that she hadn’t even spoken to anyone all day long. Hidden away in her office with books to read and a computer to waste time on, she hadn’t greeted a single customer or even given Liam any instruction. All in all, it was depressing.

She had finally decided to head home well after dark, and though it wasn’t that pressing, stopped to fill the gas tank on her car.

The crackled droning of Keith Urban on the radio to Byron's left had been interrupted with the sound of a car's engine pulling up to the pumps. Turning around on his stool, he peered out the window behind him to see a young woman pull up to fill her tank. She'd been the first customer in awhile, and for lack of anything better to do, the young werewolf stood and rounded the counter and made his way to the store exit.

His black Adidas sneakers made no sound as he crossed the pavement towards the pumps, and Byron approached the vehicle with a light jog and a smile. "Evening," he said to the woman as she got out of her car, and he went directly for the squeegee bucket. He withdrew the instrument and gave it a swing to flick off the excess liquid, and brought it directly down on her windshield. "How are you doing today?"

When boredom strikes, customer service appears at it's finest.

“Erm… fine, thanks,” Emmy spoke after a long moment of puzzled contemplation. If memory served, the last time she had stopped for gas, the man behind the counter had regarded her with quiet contempt – save his less than polite leer-laced remarks inquiring as to whether she would like him to “check under her hood”.

She watched the young man with a subtly arched eyebrow as she wrestled with the pump. Emmy tried not to be suspicious of everyone she came across, but the instinct to be on constant guard had been trained into her by experience, the same way she automatically would effect the more polished and posh version of her accent when meeting new people.

“And you?” she asked cautiously.

"Quite well actually," Byron replied politely as the front windshield of the car was quickly and promptly cleaned. With his lack of height, he almost had to stand on his tip toes to reach the other side of the car with the squeegee. "Kinda bored though, this place doesn't get much business it seems."

His brown eyes watched the woman as she struggled with the nozzle of the pump. It was one of those old ones which wouldn't budge too easily from the cradle that it sat in. Byron had had problems himself with that very pump the very first time he had come to put gas in the tank of his Vespa.

"Uhh here, let me," he offered as he pointed in all due hesitance towards the pump, then reached forward and grasped the handle of it and gave it a good hard yank to free it. "This one kind of sticks. I guess we really need to fix that."

“Oh, you don’t have to…” Emmy began, finding her protest fallen on deaf ears as the nozzle handle slipped easier from her hands and into the somewhat more deft grip of the attendant. Biting her lower lip, her pale cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

“You didn’t need… I mean, I could of…” she stammered, frowning. With a heavy sigh, she gave in and let it go. There were worse things to worry about, she reasoned, the overly polite gas station attendants.

“I imagine it stays quiet here, especially at night,” she pressed on, making conversation. “My shop is not too far from here, and business does seem to taper off after dark.” She offered a tense smile, brown eyes gone wide and friendly.
Make friends where you find them, if you can, she reminded herself.

"It's no problem, really," Byron said to her with a smile and a shy chuckle, "It's what they pay me for." After the nozzle had been freed from the cradle, Byron unscrewed the gas cap and plunked it in. His hand grasped the handle and squeezed.

"I'm guessing it's usually quiet around here," he continued on conversationally. "I wouldn't know though, I mean this is only my third night on the job. I'm new in town, so I'm not too familiar with the way things go around here."

He craned his neck to watch the readout on the pump, then turned his head back towards the woman. "Your store?" he asked her, curiously, "You own a shop around here? What kind?"

“A book shop, not too far from here,” Emmy explained, gesturing in the vague direction of where Unseen Insight lay. A small smile came to her lips, as it always did when she spoke about it. The little shop had become her pride and joy; for the first time in her life, Emmy had something that she had accomplished and could be proud of.

“Well, it’s a bit more than books now, really,” she relented after a moment’s pause. “But that’s the way I started and it is still the main feature. Older texts, you know… antiquarian books.” She gave a short laugh and shook her head, loose waves of her dark hair falling from the simple clip that had been holding them back. “That’s why… with the gas pump, you see,” she went on explaining, gesturing to the nozzle in the man’s hand. “I feel like I never get the scent of it off my hands so I’m always very careful… too careful, I suppose, and I couldn’t get it out properly because of it… silly, I know, but the books, the old ones… I can’t let them get damaged with even a trace of it, you see.”

She paused and closed her eyes for a second, realizing that, for a short moment, she had been running at the mouth. Lack of social interaction could cause such things, it seemed.

"Hmmm," Byron replied quickly, then smiled, "I didn't know there was a bookstore in this town. I knew there was a thrift store in the Senior's Center, which is kind of weird, but not a bookstore."

He shrugged. "I haven't exactly had a lot of time for sight seeing," he admitted, then his expression fell, "Although I guess there aren't many sights to see around here."

The lever on the nozzle in his hand clicked back into position, signaling that the gas tank was full. Byron withdrew it from the car. "I do a lot of reading, though," he went on to say as he replaced the nozzle back in it's cradle beside the pump and went to screw on the gas cap, "Suppose maybe I'll come check out your shop and see what kinda stuff you got. Antiquarian sounds interesting."

He snapped the little door shut over the gas cap and pulled the rag out from his back pocket and used it to wipe his hands. "There ya go," he said with a wide grin, "Tank's full and you're gas-smell free."

Emmy smiled, laughing softly. “Thank you,” she replied, marveling a little at the man’s oddly polite behavior. But then, he was a newcomer, perhaps not yet learned in the ways of snubbing the customer. Being a newcomer to Searchlight could mean something else entirely, of course.

She reached into the open driver’s side window and pulled the tan leather shoulder bag she always carried from where she had left it sitting in the driver’s seat, waiting for the polite man at the pump to begin the trek inside towards the cash register. It would be nice to have someone stopping into the shop, but the thought occurred to her that she had better give him fair warning.

“We have more contemporary books as well,” she explained. “Not the widest selection… in fact, a good deal of what we carry tends to lean more towards… erm… well I suppose its called ‘new age’? I would use the word ‘occult’ myself, though it does take on a negative connation now, doesn’t it? Books… incense, charms, herbs… I do Tarot there as well. Sort of… sort of a mixed bag.”

"Cool," Byron said to her in response, his voice as level and unsuprised as if she had just told him she ran a store that sold ordinary old cookbooks, "I dig that kinda stuff. Well, not so much the incense and charms kinda thing, but that occult stuff's always been a bit of an interest of mine."

Technically, that wasn't necessarily true; Byron hadn't really done any reading of anything other than comic books and sci-fi novels until he was bitten, but in his endless quest to find some kind of cure to his condition, Byron had found a whole other world in old volumes that he never even knew existed. The normally curious young man's interest had been piqued, and soon, as it turned out, his interest in finding a way out of werewolfism rerouted itself into learning more about things that he never knew existed.

He shrugged with one shoulder, smiled, and then gestured towards the convenience store. "Anyway, I'll get you all rung up so you can get home," he offered. "You probably don't want to be wandering about in this town in the dark." He told her, then paused thoughtfully. "Well, from what I hear, anyways."

Emmy nodded and followed him towards the store. “Searchlight is nice by day… in relative terms, I suppose… but no place is really safe after dark,” she agreed, not saying too much.

It was always tricky, speaking about such things. The world, she knew, existed on two levels when it came to the dark. Some people knew; others didn’t. Some simply had an idea, but Emmy was never sure if she should tell them the truth. Once the knowledge was there, it couldn’t be taken back. She herself had wondered from time to time if she might have been better off unaware of all that went bump in the night.

“I think it’s good for people to have an interest in things… you know, out of the norm. Of course, you have to be careful,” she went on, the flat heels of her ankle-high boots clacking against the asphalt as they went. “And not just because I make my living that way,” she went on with a soft chuckle. “It’s good to open up the mind to things outside of the normal realm of possibility… of course, one does have to be careful. You can’t be playing at that sort. That’s if you believe in it, though.”

Byron nodded at the woman and smiled, then turned as he made his way into the small convenience store. He held the door open for her, and once they were both inside he released it and it closed behind them. The small man made his way around the counter and plunked himself down on the stool and began punching buttons on the cash register. "I was kinda forced to have an open mind," he said conversationally in between the beeps of the machine in front of him, "Not really much you can do when the things that go bump in the night creep up and bite you in the ass."

Literally speaking, of course.

He smiled at her and twisted the register's readout so she could view it. "Twenty seventy-five," he told her, then went on, "I mean, if you were around for the Fourth of July party, you'd've seen the kinds of stuff that comes crawling out of the woodwork around here. I mean I was only here visiting at the time and man, I was pretty shocked. Funny how I ended up moving here after it all."

He flashed her a sheepish grin, "Guess I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment, what can I say? Still better than the stuff I saw in Vegas, though."

“I missed a lot of what happened on the Fourth. I had a Tarot booth set up during the day, but I was home before dark. I did hear a lot about it, though,” Emmy replied, fumbling around in her bag for the black canvas change purse she used in lieu of a wallet. “My… erm… assistant, at the shop, lives on the premises and saw quite a bit of went on.”

Finally closing her fingers around the elusive change purse, she gave a small smile of triumph and pulled two tens and a five from where they rested, neatly folded, against her license. “Personally, I stay as far away from Las Vegas as I can,” she replied, holding out the newly straightened bills. “Bad memories, I suppose. At least Searchlight is a slightly smaller scale of… of strangeness. Didn’t the airport there explode or something last year?”

Byron accepted the money and plunked his small fingers into the number pad on the cash register. "Yeah, something like that," he told her as the tender button was pushed and the change drawer clunked open. "I heard about most of whatever went on last year on the news. They said it was, you know, like terrorists or something, and I actually believed that until I was riding home on my scooter from work one night and I saw one of them. Definitely wasn't that kind of terrorist."

His eyes widened in an 'Oh boy,' expression as he shook his head in disbelief and pulled out four one's and a quarter from his change drawer. He slammed it shut with the palm of his hand and turned to hand her the change. "Kinda creepy if you ask me. I stayed inside most of the time through whatever was going on. I mean, I didn't even want to leave and get groceries, either. Those guys weren't messing around, they meant business, whoever they were - and I definitely didn't want to get caught up in it."

With a short, rueful laugh, Emmy nodded and accepted her change from his outstretched hand.
“I’ve learned never to believe the excuse given for things like that,” she replied with a sigh. “There’s too much of the unexplainable being explained away, it seems. It could rain blood in the desert and they’d tell you it was a freak storm.”

She sighed again and gave a friendly if barely forced smile. “But I wouldn’t worry over it. Things happen, but they have a way of evening out now and again. I should be going, though. Thanks so much – and it was nice meeting you, erm…” She trailed off, brow crinkling with a frown. “Oh, I never caught your name, did I?”

"Byron," the werewolf supplied with a smile. "They uh, haven't given me a nametag yet," he felt the need to add. It had only been his third day on the job. He assumed they would make him one sooner or later. Or at least one of those patches with his name embroidered on it that he could sew onto the left breast of his dark grey button up uniform short.

"I didn't get yours, either," he added with a smile.

“Emmeline,” she replied, returning his smile. “Emmy, if you like. It was very nice to meet you, Byron, and thanks for you help. My shop is just down the road from here, Unseen Insight. Please, stop by if you get a chance.”

She tucked away her change purse with the newly returned change and pulled her keys from the bag, the set of house, store and car keys jingling against a green plastic keychain bearing the logo of a store she had worked at some years before. Heading for the door, she cast one last smile over her shoulder.

“Good night,” she called.

"'Night!" Byron called after her with a wave, and when Emmeline had gone, the sound of her car's engine fading off as she drove away, the young werewolf slumped back onto his stool and reached for the radio knob, filling the small store with twangy old country music.

He could definitely get used to this job. Searchlight didn't seem like such a scary place, after all.

A Learning Experience

Hands on her hips, Emmeline surveyed the dusty wasteland that should be her garden with pursed lips and a creased brow. She had been doing everything right, just as the books had said. Channeling primal earth was supposed to be one of the easier elements to master; she had already pulled fire which was much more difficult. Of course, she’d been under extreme duress at the time, but that shouldn’t matter.

She knelt onto the hot ground, pulling up her mid-calf length skirt and trying to ignore the soft burn of the heated ground against the tender flesh of her legs. Running her fingers over the ground, she could see that no bird or animal had made away with her seeds. All the work she had done was still ready and waiting for the lush garden that should be there.

The theory of primal elements was simple enough on its own. The idea was that there existed still on the earth somewhere a holy place, untouched by man, where the very elements of the world and its creatures were together pure and never tainted. The earth itself – the ground, and the things that grew in it, a brilliant burning fire pit, clean water, a pure and holy spirit and a strong wind. Earth, fire, water, spirit and air, as well as smaller offshoot elements, metals, animals and even emotions. Channeling the power was a long sought after ability. Emmy had begun the journey accidentally, but she intended to finish it.

Primal earth, however, was not cooperating.

She sank her fingers a short distance into the earth, pressing hard to break the cracked dry surface. Closing her eyes, she tried to bring back the sensation she had first felt when she had unwittingly called primal fire. For a moment, she felt it. Cool, green and lush. For just a moment, and then it was gone. Sighing, she leaned back to sit on her feet and opened her eyes, pulling her fingers from the dirt.

What she saw elicited a short shriek from her lips; the tip of each finger had grown green and leafy, reaching vines extending outward as though searching for some rock or tree to climb. Startled, she jumped to her feet, unsure of what to do or where to go for help, when all at once it stopped. Her fingertips were fingertips again, no hint of green or leaf in sight.

“I think… I think that will be enough of that for today,” she muttered to the still dry air and clasped her hands together as though checking to be certain that her hands had returned to normal. Not bothering to brush the dirt from her knees, she hurried up the back stairs and into the welcoming cool of her kitchen.

A quick wash up in the kitchen sink stripped the last of the back yard dirt from her hands and left her free to clear the accidental magic from her mind with a good long browse through a few books. Aidan’s purchase of his own home in town had set the idea to turn his former room into a small home library into Emmy’s mind; when it came down to it, though, her sentimental nature just wouldn’t allow it – and stripping the furniture from the third bedroom would too easily was away the memories of Jo and Destiny in turn. Instead, the small spare room off the front parlor would have to do. It was quiet and cozy, and had only one small, high window, leaving Emmy to feel a bit safer getting lost in a book than she would in the wide open parlor.

She pulled a very specific volume from her shelves, with good reason.

Two cards had surfaced for her personal reading during the July 4th festivities in town: the Queen of Pentacles and the five of the same suit. The Queen was old news, one of the rare instances when the card’s true meaning was useless and only the image it portrayed projected what it was meant to signify. Elfleda had chosen it as her calling card, and so long as the Lady had any interest in Emmeline herself, it would always mean the same thing. The other was something new.

The fives of the Minor Arcana were unpleasant cards, at best. Ruled by the Hierophant of the Major Arcana, they were cards of loss, disappointment and uncertainty. The Five of Pentacles outlined a specific part of loss, that which would occur through business dealings. As a person, it would represent someone who preferred intellectual work over physical, often a perfectionist of some sort. There was an air of legality about it, something akin to a contract riddled with hidden clauses and negative loopholes. Strike a deal with the devil, and you always lose.

The very specific aura of the card had led her to a tome that listed granted wishes and bargains struck with demons and witches that had led to disaster. It was long, and dull, detailing often only possible outcomes of deals gone sour that might have been, since many somehow changed reality and could be totally erased if they had gone through as planned.

It was tedious reading, and Emmy still wasn’t sure why it should have anything to do with her at all, until she saw the name. It was written only in a footnote, no specific disastrous events in history linked to him, though the fact that it referenced an entire other volume gave her pause.

“Darian (Darin): See The Metamorphoses, Crullson (trans.), c. 1899”

“I think I have that!” she exclaimed to the bookshelves, jumping to her feet and, in a rare show of carelessness with a book, tossing her text in her lap to the carpeted floor. It took several minutes for her to locate the volume she was looking for, and Emmeline made a mental note to start organizing the books she brought home with her. But that was for later, when the thrill of the research hunt wore down. For now, she had to find more on this Darian.

It was a thick book, oversized and dark green with bronzed bracketed ends and musty yellow pages. A translation from an earlier Old English text that was thought to have been written after a firsthand experience, printed in London at the very end of the 19th century. She would, of course, make an effort to find the original version as well. So much could be lost in the early translations by the careless men who wrote them. But, again, that was a thought best pondered at a later time. Now was time only to discover the identity of the strange man – for he had been a man then, even if he was not born one – who had visited her shop. It seemed a good deal of the text was devoted to his strange genesis.

“Darian’ was born many centuries ago as a lower order of demonic creature, one of the more primitive species humans are accustomed to seeing, in both appearance [i.e. the horned, clawed variety] and in intellect, though he was always intelligent enough to aspire to greater things for himself. He had a lust for advancing his station in the demonic order, and was not satisfied with his level of power and somewhat directionless existence as a minion of older entities. The demon respected what was ancient, and had aspirations of becoming closer to the pure source of all things dark: a pureblooded demon, something as far from humanity as can be.

Others before him had been infused with darker essence until they were transformed into creatures of larger significance. Some by choice, and others not. Such a path wasn’t easy to obtain, especially for a nameless demon arrogant enough to seek it willingly and with single-minded purpose, the way that he did; in a way that almost begged for things to go wrong and give him a taste of humility.

The demon’s opportunity came from a most unexpected source. It was a human sorcerer called Iain, who was powerful enough to manipulate others through magic, but unable to do so for himself, so that he had to go about empowering himself through other means. The sorcerer discovered that he could use a secondary source -- a vessel into which mystical energy could be channeled and even strengthened -- as a conduit through which power came back to him.

In the demon, Iain found a willing subject. A deal was struck, in which the sorcerer literally transformed him at the molecular level into a different being, one of sharper intelligence and purer blood lines, one who could ignore the baser urges of other demons who were slaves to reasonless violence, and one with more abilities than simple strength. The demon became a maker of deals, a ‘metaphysical tax collector’ who fulfilled wishes and desires in exchange for actions, valuables and sometimes morals. The ‘psychic weight’ of each agreement empowered Iain. The demon was named ‘Darin’ at the time, which meant ‘precious gift’, and later called ‘Darian’.

There were several catches. One was that Darian would have to face alone any resulting anger from those hierarchical entities that he answered to before.

Another was that he would be a servant to the sorcerer, his power connected to Iain, so that at any time he stopped performing his work, the sorcerer could retract the deal and return him to humbler beginnings.

The third catch was one that went unexplained until after the transformation took place. Darian became identical in physical appearance to what he hated most -- humans -- in order to be more effective in his work.

The relationship between sorcerer and dealmaker was turbulent. Darian’s existence felt hypocritical, because he was made to uphold the honesty of straightforward business transactions when his with Iain had been forged without full disclosure. He was an ‘employee’ of a human -- a magic user that he felt had deceived him, and who reaped the benefits of work that Darian did. And though Iain’s intent was not to punish humanity, the innately corrupt nature of Darian meant that he took satisfaction in causing pain and chaos through his work, to both his clients and his mystical maker. The suffering of Darian’s clients became a source of guilt for Iain, but since his renewed strength was tied to the Dealmaker’s successes, he did little to redirect the behavior.

Around and around they went, until Darian broke their bond through mysterious means (of either violence or manipulation), and the sorcerer was either killed or left for dead. Once that happened, the deals that Darian made continued to fuel his own existence for several centuries. Hisoric evidence indicates that if he were to fail at them, he’d slowly and painfully revert to his older form. He also inherited Iain’s greatest setback, in that he couldn’t use his talents to elevate himself, without some other source being involved.

His physical resemblance to humans has always seemed a sore spot for Darian, and explains the fastidious mannerisms the demon is purported to have developed, as if protecting himself from the imperfections of humanity. The Dealmaker likes to believe he is a ‘self-made’ demon, and he won’t verbally admit that his aspirations are what led him to suffer as he does in bearing a human physiology.

Shutting her book, Emmeline heaved a great sigh. The Dealmaker had come to her store and relayed some information, probably part of some greater game of which she was not aware. He had been human then, but perhaps it had only been a passing experience. Either way, she began to wonder if the information she’d been given was somehow tainted. Or if she had played some small role in a greater picture she didn’t even want to imagine.

***OOC: Italicized portion of Darian's history written by Kate

An empty plastic pill bottle rolled lazily back and forth in the breeze of an oscillating fan on Emmeline’s night table. The Doriden had been a last resort on her physician’s part some years ago; he had sternly warned that it was rarely prescribed and there was a very good reason for that, but Emmy had been desperate. She didn’t use it nearly as often as she used to, but tonight she needed to sleep.

The need for sleep had always been something of a risk for Emmy. Dreams came and went, many absurd and useless, many dark and terrifying. Occasionally, in her sleep, she allowed herself to recall the little things she liked to forget in daylight hours. In her dreams, and only in her dreams, Emmy let herself remember that she was all alone.

***

Richard Keddle sat at the large mahogany desk in his study. His work often drew him away from home, so the few moments he was allowed to spend in his house with the noises of his family and their daily routines filtering in were rare and treasured. At half past noon, the house was mostly silent. His wife was off doing the day’s shopping, and the children were at school.

Or so he had thought.

The door to the study was left open to the hallway beyond, and he heard the shuffling noises coming from the corridor only minutes before the toe of the first white-stockinged foot could be seen on the burgundy hall carpet. Four little fingers held the doorjamb, and within seconds a head of tousled raven curls, followed by two wide and staring brown eyes. When their eyes met, she let out a squeak and slipped back into the hallway.

“Emmeline?” he called, setting down the heavy book he had been pouring over in the quiet of the afternoon. Another brief peek from his daughter, and she again slipped back into the refuge of the hidden hall. “Emmy Claire, you can come in.”

The eight year old girl stepped back into the doorway, standing on the dividing line of the hallway carpet and the polished hardwood of the study floor, looking uncertain. Clasped in her hand was a blue sheet of paper, folded in half and stapled once to close. Richard smiled again, casting the girl a sympathetic look.

She wore her school uniform, a blue plaid pinafore dress over a white long-sleeved blouse. Her hair, long almost past the middle of her back, was pushed away from her pale face with a navy blue headband. Somewhere along the way from the front door to the hall, she had lost her dress shoes and stood instead in the white stockings she had worn all day, standing oddly with one foot on top of the other, teetering in place at the doorway.

“Come along, Emmeline. I see you have a note from your teacher?” Richard went on, voice sterner in hopes to make the girl enter.

Mutely, Emmy nodded, and broke the household rule that had kept her in the hallway. Stepping slowly across the floor as she made her way towards her father, she kept her eyes on the floor and away from the shelves lining the walls. Her father had hundreds of books, none of which she was allowed to read.

Reaching her father, she handed over the note and he lifted her to sit on his lap as he opened it to read.

“So, you’ve been sent home again, have you?” he asked, frowning slightly. “Honestly, Emmeline. I don’t understand that school of yours. Your brother put a boy’s head down the toilet yesterday and they didn’t send him home. Tell me what happened.”

Emmy cast her eyes to the leather blotter on the desk, ashamed to face her father as she spoke.
“S’library day,” she muttered. Tears began to fill her wide brown eyes, threatening to spill over. “I’ve read all of the books they let me have. I just wanted something new to read.”

“Ah, so that’s what it is then,” Richard said slowly, shaking his head. Like his daughter, his hair was jet black. She got her eyes from her mother, a doe-eyed slip of a woman. “Did you take one of the regular books again?”

“But I’ve read all of the red dot books!” Emmy exclaimed, and promptly burst into tears.

It took everything in Richard Keddle to keep him from laughing. The ‘red dot’ was a point of contention between himself and Emmeline’s teacher. She attended a private school where the library was restricted by age. Those at Emmeline’s grade level were only allowed to read books with a red dot sticker placed on the spine. He had tried to explain to her teacher, an insufferable woman, that Emmeline was well advanced in her reading and should be allowed some privilege when it came to the library. Of course, the teacher would have none of it. There was no privilege in the school, she explained.

That was the reason Emmeline hadn’t been brought up grade levels ahead of her age, another travesty so far as Richard was concerned.

Holding his daughter close, Richard stroked her hair and tutted away her tears.
“Now my Emmy Claire, you stop this crying. It’s just fine, just fine… I’ll speak to Mrs. Leslie this week, I promise. She shouldn’t be sending you home like this just for taking a book out of turn.”

“But…but… I told her… something bad,” Emmeline replied, her sobs coming harder.

Richard closed his eyes. Judging by his son Bailey’s foul mouth, it was a wonder Emmy hadn’t picked up on any poor language sooner.
“What did you tell her?” he asked. Emmy cried for a long moment before he prodded the words out of her.

“I told her… that if she…” she began, and sniffed loudly before continuing. “I told her that if she wasn’t a good enough reader for anything but the red dot books, she shouldn’t punish the rest of us for her being a great stupid cow!”

Richard shook with silent laughter, setting his lips in a firm straight line to keep it from spilling out. When the fit had passed, he shook his head.
“Oh, Emmy,” he said, the laughter reaching his eyes and his voice. “You know better than to talk to your teacher that way, but I suppose I can let it be just this once. You’ve been having a bad day today, haven’t you? Your mother told me about this morning. She said you’d hit her this morning.”

Emmy glowered. “I didn’t hit her.”

“Oh?” Richard asked, raising his bushy eyebrows.

The little girl on his lap sighed. “I bit her.” He couldn’t control the laughter after that. “But it wasn’t my fault!” Emmy protested. “She pulled my hair and it hurt! I didn’t mean to do it, honest! Please tell Mother I’m sorry, please Daddy! She won’t believe me and she’ll be angry!”

“Of course she will believe you, Emmy Claire. She knows you’re sorry. She told me all about it, how she was plaiting your hair and there was a knot she hadn’t seen. It’s alright now. My poor girl, you’ve had an awful day,” he said with a sigh.

Emmy nodded. “Bailey sat on my lunch on the bus,” she added.

Her father gave her a smile. “Tell you what, love. I’ll give you a little surprise.” He opened the book on the desk before them, and changed her world forever.

***

The memory changed, reflected and rewound as Emmy tossed and turned beneath her blankets. One minute, she sat with her father at his desk, a child of eight years old learning to speak Latin and make the world bend to her will. Seconds passed and it was morning again, sitting in a kitchen chair while her mother swore beneath her breath and yanked a large paddle brush through her wavy hair; the pain was terrible and she screamed and bit at her mother’s hand. But the pain wouldn’t stop, just kept pulling and pulling and pulling…

***

“God damn it Emmeline, not again!”

Bailey’s voice cut across the smoky atmosphere of the van as harshly as the rays of sunlight from the side door that had been thrown open. He reached into the haze and grabbed at his sister, catching her hair in his hand as he grabbed her jacket and yanked her towards the door.

“Bay…? Whas’rong, Bay? Whas’rong?” She mumbled, lost somewhere in an ecstasy fog. Tony was passed out in the front seat, Kevin sitting on a bean bag chair beside where she had been laying on a pile of ratty quilts and afghans in the back of the van. She had hooked up with the band two months before and followed them around as they played with a handful of friends. The Eddie Haskells were the biggest thing on the local band scene in Cheektowaga, New York. Emmy made it to the inner circle, riding with the band in their painted van.

She had left with them on a gig two days before… or was it three? She didn’t quite recall.

Bailey pulled her to her feet and slapped her hard across the face. Emmy stumbled and grabbed her brother’s arm to steady herself and cried out in a delayed reaction to the pain.

“Gah, Bailey that fucking hurt!” She lisped out. She’d had her tongue pierced only days before and still wasn’t used to the awkward silver stud in her mouth.

“Emmy, Christ, what’s the matter with you? I’ve been looking for you for two days!” Bailey asked, gripping her hard by the shoulders. “I’m taking you home.”

“NO!” She shouted, pulling away. “You’re not! You’re not my father Bailey, you can’t tell me what to do!” She spat back.

He glared back and opened his mouth to speak…

***

Again, the memory changed. Something newer, now. Something that had walked in her dreams. Something terrible…

***

A dark forest… somewhere real, yet unreal… the memory had faded even in her dreams. And yet, there was again. Real.

Bailey. Mutilated, almost beyond recognition. Reeking and ripped to shreds, crucified and held in front of her eyes. Emmeline had seen the corpse when it happened those many years before, but this was a thousand times worse.

Emmy’s eyes squeezed shut again. She knew it wasn’t real. She knew Bailey was buried and long ago scattered into naught more than bones, but still the vision brought tears to her eyes. It hadn’t been fair. He had only been trying to help her, and it had gotten him killed. Her mother never forgave her. Emmy never forgave herself. But it wasn’t time to dwell on a past she couldn’t change.

“You can’t torture me with my own memories,” Emmy had said. “I see them every time I close my eyes.”

***

Emmy sat upright in bed, eyes wide and staring. She was slick with sweat in spite of the fan and the air conditioner that had been running without a break for days on end. The drug pumped through her system, her heart pounding and her hands shaking, but there would be no more sleeping now.

It made sense. Now it made sense.

Perhaps she had been tortured with Elfleda’s own weakness. Family had always been the most important thing to Emmy; maybe they’d had something in com

Some days Emmy thought she should just set up a camp bed in her office and stay at the shop all the time. She'd been home only for a brief sleep, quick shower and even quicker breakfast before going back to begin what might be an epic research adventure among her books. Sam had decided to tag along, and Emmy certainly didn't mind the company. The pudgy grey cat had taken to pouncing Gus at odd intervals during the day, and even Liam had no objections. Both animals were growing so round that it was much needed exercise.

Emmy was at an impasse; then new information about Elfleda was spinning around her brain and she was desperate to find a way to exploit it. At the same time, the enigmatic stranger who had provided the information was just as heavy on her mind. He had given his name; she knew it had to be in a book somewhere, but for one of the few times in her life, Emmy had no idea which book to start with. It was information overload and she needed a distraction.

She sat at her desk, pulling a battered notebook out of the top drawer. She had kept notes on her experiences with Elfleda, most written well after the horror had lessened and she'd found her faculties again to put into words what she had endured. It was her own small compendium, and she had new information to transcribe. A brief note on Darian would also be entered.

Swallowing the last of the coffee she'd bought at the diner, Quinn walked up the steps to Unseen Insight and opened the door to let herself in. The bell jingled cheerfully, and she looked up at it with a mildly balefull expression. She'd been awake all night brooding and pacing, and she didn't think anything had a right to sound so cheerful right now, not even a stupid bell.

The shop was quiet because of the hour, and the redhead dropped the empty cup into a wastebasket before moving further into the place. The bookshelves looked tall and imposing, and she eyed them before moving in the direction of the counter. She didn't even know how to begin looking for what she wanted - needed - which meant she'd need knowledgeable assistance.

Clearing her throat hesitantly, she rapped lightly on the wooden surface of the counter, then waited in silence. It looked like a case of now or never.

Emmy heard the bells over the door before the knock on the counter top, and was out the door of her office in a moment. She could hear Liam grunting and swearing in the voice that accompanied his diminutive form in the back storage area and knew he was probably working through a box of heavy stone artifacts and wouldn't be in any shape to work as a counter clerk. She really did need to hire some more help.

"Yes, can I help you?" she called, tucking her notebook beneath the counter as she greeted the new customer. "Also, the glass in our counter displays is fairly temperamental, so it would be appreciated if you could use the bell if there is no one at the counter," she added with a polite smile, gesturing to the counter bell placed atop the counter. It was a simple request, no annoyance in her voice whatsoever. Many people missed the bell upon first arriving in the store, especially since many who rushed in had business that couldn't wait.

Quinn immediately removed her hands from the countertop and put them in her pockets, flustered. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I'm kind of not awake yet. I didn't realize there was a second bell."

She looked over at the bookshelves again, then across the counter at the store's proprietor. "I was hoping you could help me find something," she said, straightening her posture self-consciously. "I'm not sure if it’s a spell or what, but this is the first place I thought of looking. Can you help me out, please?"

The shopkeeper offered her a kind smile. "It's quite alright. The doors over the bell are more or less an alert to another presence in the store. This is the service bell, should anyone need help. Just for future reference."

Emmy stepped out from behind the counter, her usual ankle length skirt and sweater attire proving slightly suffocating with the heat of the day. The air was cool in the shop, so long as she didn't move around so much. "I would be glad to help, if you told me what exactly you were looking for? Spells, we have. So many that there isn't a single cure-all, really. A bit like a pharmacy, really. Only the remedy is rarely a simple pill."

"Yeah, I figured that part out already."

The redhead's voice was rueful and tired, and she rubbed the back of her neck as she slouched, focusing her attention on the bell Emmeline had just pointed out. She glanced over her shoulder at the door, found no one on their way in, than faced forward again.

"I need to revoke the invitation to my house," she said in a low voice. "There's this...there's this vampire and I invited her in. Now I have to uninvite her."

"Ah, well, that's simple enough," Emmy told her, heading towards the bookshelves to retrieve the proper volume. "Of course, it does require a fair amount of Latin, burning a bit of moss and some holy water sprinkling," she called as she went, plucking a particular book down from the shelves and returning to the counter to transcribe the basics of the spell. Searching out a pen and notepad from the counter, she glanced up and added, "A few crucifixes nailed to the wall as well."

The idea itself seemed fairly ludicrous to Emmy. She had heard tell of the odd tame vampire here and there, but the potential for danger was beyond reason. She couldn't fathom actively - knowingly - inviting one into her home. Of course, for all she knew, it had been accidental with this girl. Looking up from her writing, Emmy nodded towards a newly installed wall of shelving that contained the more common herbs needed for ritual.

"Over there, second shelf from the bottom, on the right. Grab a packet of the carrageen moss, one of the larger ones... the purple, not the green... and a smaller packet of the peat moss wouldn't hurt either."

Quinn collected the two packets of moss, then looked down at them contemplatively. "I don't know Latin," she admitted, "but I can probably fumble my way through if I have to. And there's a church in Vegas, if I can convince a priest that I'm not a lunatic I can probably get him to bless some water for me."

This was going to hurt. But she hadn't done one thing right when it came to Vicky since she said how she felt. Maybe this would hurt, but it might just be the best thing she could do.

"Uh, you don't have to actually be a priest for this to work, do you?"

“Oh, of course not,” Emmy replied. She reached for the moss packets and ripped them open, dumping the mess of branch and bramble onto the counter. She mixed the two together and took a large handful, rolling the mess together to form one large stick and wrapping it in organic twine from beneath the counter.

“Burns better like this,” she explained with half a smile, intent on her work. “But, as I was saying… you don’t require a priest at all. The incantation is simple enough, and if you’d like I can put it down phonetically so that it’d be easier to read.”

The redhead nodded, features set. Watching Emmeline prepare the bundle for her, she slid her hands into her pockets, then looked over at the bookshelves.

"This is a neat little shop," she said a bit absently. "I come in sometimes and read when I'm not at work. Have you been in business for a long time?"

Emmy paused, a small smile coming to her lips. “Very near to two years now,” she replied, rolling the reconstituted moss into packaging paper. “Didn’t have the best welcome, I’m afraid, when I opened, but since then things have gotten better. New faces pass in every few days, and then there are the regulars. I don’t spend nearly enough time here anymore, or I imagine I’d have met you before. Looking to fix that up, though.”

Turning back to the incantation, she quickly scribbled out a more easily pronounce version, skewing the spelling to reflect the phonetic sound. “Hicce verbis consensus rescissus est…” she mumbled, finishing it off. Looking back to her customer, she smiled. “There you are, then.”

Quinn watched the other woman write, tilting her head to see more clearly. When Emmeline was finished, she said, "Wow. That's all? Huh."

She took her hands out of her pockets, bringing out some bills. "I guess I thought it'd be more complicated. Shows what I know." She looked at the money in her hand, then at the items on the counter. "What do I owe you for this?"

“The spell is at no cost, of course, just the moss,” Emmy told her, and gave the small parcel a brief glance before casting an apologetic look towards her customer. “Fourteen even. Sorry. I have to have them flown in dried like this, raises the cost all around. We’re just not quite in the right place for me to keep an herb garden.”

"Yeah, too much sand," the redhead agreed with a nod, then went to counting out the money she needed. "And I understand about stuff costing more, I guess. A specialty store like this, it makes sense even without having to have things 'imported'."

She passed the money across the counter into Emmeline's slender hand, then picked up the bundle of moss and the piece of paper with the incantation on it. "It's worth it anyway," she said with another nod. "Seriously."

“If you think of anything else you may need, don’t hesitate to stop by,” Emmy told her with another kind smile, depositing the money into the aged cash register. “The books are mostly antiquarian and fairly expensive, so I leave friends have spells and information they need at no cost. I’ve got a decent blood rune dwelling protection spell around here somewhere, you might try that after you revoke your invitation. Never hurts to be prepared, right?”

And it was too hard to explain the whole thing to the woman, so Quinn simply smiled and nodded. "I'll probably be back at least to browse if nothing else," she said, indicating the tables where she'd spent more than one afternoon reading. "Like I said, this is a really unique place."

She glanced at her watch, then let out a small sigh. "I gotta get going," she said, gesturing towards the door. "Thanks for your help. I'm sure you'll see me in here again."

Emmy nodded at her. “No problem, and good to meet you,” she called. Her eyes fell on the herb shelves and she frowned. She would really have to do something about that problem. It would, at least, give her something to think about until she decided what to do with her new information.