Blood Oath: Part one: Chapters 1-3

Chapter One
         He crossed the corpse in a bloody X with his finger tips. It was not the corpse’s blood but his own that went from left shoulder to right hip, right shoulder to left hip. Slipping the glove back on his hand, he pulled his knees back in to his chest and shivered again. Five degree weather was not pleasant, even though he was sheltered from the wind.
         He fought tears back because he was worried they would chap his face in this cold. The cold was slowing the reaction, possibly even preventing it. And the fact that she’d been dead for twenty-seven hours wasn’t helping much either.
         For Adrian, this one was more important than any of the other souls he’d tried to save.
         “Three-hundred-seventy-two saves, three losses. Please, please, just don’t let her become the fourth.” He put his blood-stained glove against her cheek. “Jasmine, please, rise. Don’t leave me, Jas, please.”
         He felt for a pulse, but the corpse was still. He’d tried every method he knew, but the body stayed as cold as the snow around it.
         He no longer cared about his face chapping—the tears fell onto Jasmine’s body without reservation. He laid himself down next to her in the snow and held her tight. “Three-hundred-seventy-two saves, four losses. Four fucking losses. I’ve only lost one percent, and I couldn’t care less about anyone other than this point-two percent lying—here—gone—dead.”
         Most people would go through the normal stages of loss, but not Adrian DeRes. There was no “normal” grief for Adrian.
         He looked over at Jasmine. As though taunting him, the scarlet X turned jet black. He lifted his white-gloved hand to his face. It, too, was now stained black.
            The blood of your sons
                Shall run as black as yours.
                Adrian shook with rage. Nothing he did was good enough. His father grew to hate him, but nothing changed. He saved three-hundred-seventy-two lives, but nothing changed. His blood still turned black.
         He sat up and wiped the tears from his face, even though his eyes still ran like faucets. Shaking, he fumbled around in his pocket until he was able to pull out a small jewelry box. Flipping it open, and still shaking as he did, he pulled out a small diamond ring. He slipped the ring around the corpse’s finger.
         “I know you would have said ‘yes’,” he whispered in her ear as he sobbed. He kissed Jasmine’s dead cheek and slipped his left arm under her knees and his right behind her back.
                     “Lift with your knees, Adrian,” his father cackled as the thirteen-year-old boy picked up the corpse of his best friend.
         Adrian didn’t cry for his dead friend; he couldn’t in front of his father.
                Adrian walked down the deserted, three a.m. street, late girlfriend in arms. All he wanted now was to get her down to the morgue and arrange her funeral. The wind stung his tear-stained face, and, just as he feared, it felt chapped. It didn’t matter, though. Not much did.
         He knew exactly who killed Jasmine. There was no doubt in his mind. After all, his father never liked her at all.
         “Pure and white, plain and simple, Adrian. I forbid it.”
         “I don’t care what you think of her, I love her.”
         “You’ll regret loving her, Adrian, if I have anything to do with it.”
                Adrian gently bent his knees until he had a grip on the door handle of his silver sedan. He pulled it open and then gently lowered Jasmine onto his back seat. Strapping the seatbelts on to keep her body from sliding around in the back of the car, he bit his lip as he made sure she was completely in the car and slammed the door. He drove off, thoughts running through his head.
         Most would have found sneaking a dead body to a morgue a difficult task, but Adrian knew the guy on the night shift. Adrian unloaded the body from the car and began to carry her across the dark parking lost.
         “Adrian? Is that you?” the night mortician called out in hushed tones.
         “Yeah, it’s me, Bryan.”
         “Don’t tell me you lost someone. Ah, geez. Who’s the poor soul this time?”
         Adrian’s steps began to falter when he thought about replying. He wasn’t prepared to say it to someone. He fell to his knees, Jasmine still in arms, and began to weep. The light from the morgue door illuminated only their shapes, not their features.
         “Adrian?” Bryan shouted, dashing over. “Adrian, you okay—oh my God.”
         Bryan finally saw the corpse. “Oh God, Adrian, I—I—no. It’s not—it can’t possibly be—I mean—“
         Adrian’s puffy, red eyes looked up into Bryan’s, which were also now filling with tears. “I was going to ask her to marry me.”
         Bryan started sobbing as he knelt down and put his arm around Adrian. “What are you going to do? Should we, I don’t know, call her family?”
         “Bryan, it’s not that simple. They’ll want to know what happened to her, they’ll want to know how she died, and I can’t tell them the truth.”
         “Why, what’s the truth?”
         “I feel it in my gut, and you know how good my gut is at these things, I feel—I feel my father killed her. And I can’t tell her family that, and I can’t even say that my father hated her, because then they’ll want to know why. And Jasmine’s family doesn’t—know—about my family.”
         “You mean they don’t know what you are?”
         He shook his head. “As far as they know, Adrian DeRes is Jas’s sweet boyfriend with a few issues to work out. Nothing more.”
         “Well, let’s get you inside. We can work it out there.”
         Bryan wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with Adrian in his time of loss. Adrian didn’t experience death like normal people.
         “Bryan,” Adrian said as he placed Jasmine’s body on the cold, metal table. “Why? Of all the people I’ve saved from this, why did I have to lose her?”
          “No one who is white can be your true friend, son,” his father said as he sharpened his knife. Every scraping noise of the sharpener made Adrian wince and made his heart pound faster.
         “Now you’re going to learn what to do with this corpse.” His father gestured to the body of Adrian’s best friend. He grabbed Adrian’s right hand. “Now, just hold out your middle and index fingers, attaboy, it’ll only hurt a second.”
              Adrian stared at the black X staining Jasmine’s blue jacket. The X burned into his mind and seared into his thoughts.
            “Ha, there we go, it was red at first, but now your fingers are dripping coal black, just as they should be. Now, follow my lead.”
         Using his own uncut fingers, Darrius DeRes demonstrated what his son was to do. “Cross from left shoulder to right hip, and then back up that line. Don’t go right shoulder to left hip, remember that.”
         “Why not?” Adrian asked quizzically.
         “Because, it’s—the charm that goes with it goes like this.” Again, using his own uncut hands, he demonstrated. Darrius crossed Adrian’s best friend from left shoulder to right hip and recited the first part of the words to the charm: “With body risen,” and then, with emphasis, crossed from right shoulder to left hip: “With soul regained,” then he stepped back and finished the words: “Take back thy life and take back thy name.” He turned to Adrian. “Now, see, you do that and they have life and free will. If you want to keep them yours, you seal the spell by retracing the ‘body risen’ line.”
              "That bastard’s going to get what he’s had coming to him for years,” Adrian grumbled.
         “Adrian, don’t do anything you’ll regret later,” Bryan warned.
         “Regret?! Do you think I have room left for regret? I’ve helped my father kill my best friend and twelve of my other friends. I’ve seen him kill hundreds of other people—including my mother—and I grew up in a mansion full of zombie servants! There’s nothing I’d like better than to see him die.”
         Actually, there was a death that Adrian wanted to see more, but he wasn’t going to tell Bryan who it was.
         “I can’t imagine being you.”
         “Besides the thirteen that I helped kill, my dad’s killed twenty-two of my other friends. I tried not to like anyone in school, I tried to hang back, but I couldn’t. I always made friends. I didn’t want friends, because being my friend was almost a death warrant.” He broke into tears. “My best friend still washes the dishes in my father’s mansion, and my first girlfriend is the maid in charge of the east wing.”
         “Adrian, I think you just need to go home for now, man. Come back in the morning. I don’t know how you’re going to sleep, but you need to try, please.”
         Adrian nodded and wiped his eyes with his clean glove. “I just wish I wasn’t me,” he said as he left.
         Adrian pulled out of the morgue in silence. He switched on the radio. The love songs pouring from the speakers made him quickly turn it back off. He’d lost Jasmine. For the first time, it really hit him. No more smiling face to help him through his darkest moments. No more gentle hand on his cheek, telling him that everything was going to be alright. No more goofy air-guitar solos in the middle of rock songs while Adrian was trying to concentrate on getting through rush-hour traffic. No more flaming household appliances whenever she decided to cook. No more Jasmine hiding behind the door and jumping out to scare him, because she knew that, even though Adrian was almost completely immortal and had seen more death than almost anyone else, he was still afraid of things jumping out at him. He loved all of these things more than anything in the world. He’d loved Jasmine more than anything in the world.
         He pulled into his garage. The small, friendly suburban home looked as innocent as any other. White house, black shutters, a little front porch, and an old maple tree in the yard. This house had been chosen because no one would suspect that a dark magician could be inside. No one would suspect that anyone who could live in this place could perform necromancy blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back.
         Adrian made a swift, tiny J-motion with his index finger. The lock on his door clicked open.
         What waited for him on the other side of the door was utter chaos. The mail that had been neatly stacked on the table in the entryway was shredded and strewn across the floor. Decorations were broken, dirt and houseplants were thrown everywhere, lamps and chairs were on their sides, and, the first thing Adrian saw, there was a message written on the wall in the blackest blood he’d ever seen:
         YOU DISAPPOINT ME, WHITE BOY.
         Adrian was enraged. He grabbed the dagger out of his jacket that he always carried to slit his fingers with. He stroked the cold blade gently, and then scowled. “If you had any balls you’d just kill me instead of torturing me like this, you bastard!” He turned the knife over and over in his hands. “It probably won’t work, but…” He then thrust it into his own chest. The red blood that poured from the wound made him smile.
                   Then the blood turned its familiar black, and Adrian sat down on the floor and cried as he felt the hole seal itself.
            For as long as you remain
         Undefeated by blacker hands,
         Your life is forever.
         The lives of your sons
         Are, too, forever.
    “Just let me die!” he sobbed. “I don’t want to live anymore! I haven’t wanted to live since I was a kid! I can’t spend a fucking eternity like this!” Laying down on the rug, broken glass and ceramic, as well as dirt and paper, beside him, he continued to speak. “Twenty-four years old, and I might as well have grown up in a concentration camp. I’ve seen more death and more ways to die than most people even thought possible. I’m the white sheep in a flock of black, the disappointment. I can’t be like Alison, perfect, dark, Alison. It was always ‘Why can’t you be more like your older sister, Adrian? Why can’t you be more like Alison?’ I don’t want to be Alison!” he screamed at the messaged wall. “I’m sorry I’m not Alison, and I’m sorry I couldn’t have been perfect little Boone!”
         He stared at the wall until he noticed that, sticking out from behind the toppled recliner, there was a playing card: the two of spades.
         “Boone?” Adrian whispered, slightly disbelievingly, as he picked it up. He found it was accompanied by two other cards: the king and ace of spades.
         Also accompanying these was a note, written in blue ink on yellow legal pad paper in Alison’s familiar handwriting:
    We told you we didn’t like her.


Chapter Two
         Adrian needed someone to talk to, but that had always been Jasmine. “Bryan was right about not being able to sleep,” Adrian whispered. Then the thought dawned on him. “Bryan. I’ll go talk to Bryan.”
         Leaving his house in chaos, he drove back to the morgue. He tried switching on the radio again. It was Jasmine’s favorite song.
    Jasmine placed her hand on Adrian’s knee. “You know what this song makes me think of?”
         Adrian’s car was moving at a steady zero miles per hour. “What?” he asked.
         “Us,” she replied.
         “Mmm, deep,” he joked back.
         She slugged him on the shoulder. “I’m serious, close your eyes.”
         “Can’t, I’m driving,” he said playfully.
         “You are not,” she told him. “The car’s not even moving; we’re sitting in rush hour traffic that’s backed up for miles. Now, close your eyes and picture it.”
         Adrian did, and a smile crept across his face.
         “What do you see?”
         He grinned but kept his eyes closed. “Fatty,” he said.
         “What’s that supposed to mean?!”
         “I mean you’re pregnant,” he replied.
         “What?” she asked, thrown off. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
         “It’s summer, and we’re sitting under the maple tree. We’re eating watermelon, and you’re very much pregnant.”
         She laughed. “I’ll do you one better. I see the next year, and we have the kid on a baby leash.”
         They both laughed this time.
         “Adrian?”
         “Yeah sweetie?”
         She looked into his eyes for a moment. “I love you.”
         He smiled. “I know, and I love you too.”
         That was just a week before, but to Adrian it seemed like an eternity.
         His family had done many a cruel thing to him, but this seemed by far the worst. He’d finally found happiness, true, real happiness, and they tore it right out from under him. Less than a day and a half ago, he’d been the happiest man in the world. He’d also been the most nervous man in the world, pacing the floor as he thought about how to ask for Jasmine’s hand in marriage. Now he flipped through the three cards in his hand: his father’s calling card, the king of spades, his sister’s, the ace of spades, and his brother’s, a two of spades. This last card was meant to be an insult to Adrian; his father was king, the first child was the ace, but the third child was the two, thus excluding Adrian from the group. Thus excluding Adrian from the family.
         He pulled up to the morgue and parked. Bryan heard the car and looked out the door.
         “Adrian? What are you doing back here?”
         “I couldn’t sleep, and without Jasmine, I have no one to talk to.”
         “What’s on your mind?”
         Adrian stared at him. “What the hell do you mean what’s on my mind? My girlfriend’s been murdered! I don’t know, I’m thinking of puppies and it really bothers me. What do you think is on my mind, Bryan?”
         “Sorry, dumb question, it’s just, that, well, I wasn’t expecting you, and…come inside, it’s freezing.”
         “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s just, I mean, how do I even describe this? My girlfriend’s dead, and my family did it.” He placed the playing cards in front of Bryan.
         “What do those mean?”
         He pointed to the king, ace, and two in that order. “Dad, Alison, Boone. Their calling cards.”
         “Where did you find those?”
         “At the trash heap that is the inside of my house.”
         “Don’t tell me they trashed your house.”
         “Yeah…right down to the ‘YOU DISAPPOINT ME, WHITE BOY’ written in my father’s blood on the wall.”
         “Oh my God.”
         Adrian started to tear up again. “Bryan, I mean, a lot of people turn to family when they have the worst day of their life, but family’s the cause of mine. A lot of people would turn to their significant other, but my significant other is the effect. I want to die and I have nobody to lean on. Nothing could make me feel any worse than I do right now.”
         Bryan was silent for a moment, then said “No, probably not.”
         Adrian looked at him inquisitively. “You hesitated.”
         “Did I? I didn’t mean to.”
         Adrian narrowed his eyes. “What are you not telling me?”
         “I’m not—I’ve got nothing—“
         “You’re lying. You suck at lying, Bryan. What is it?”
         Bryan looked into Adrian’s eyes. “I don’t think you’re ready to hear this yet. I wasn’t going to tell you for a couple days.”
         “What are you keeping from me?! I need to know! Tell me, or so help me, Bryan…”
         “You’re not prepared to hear it. Go home, clean up your house a bit, and go to sleep.”
         “I can’t, Bryan, and now that I know you’re keeping something, I really can’t.”
         “Well, I don’t think you’re mentally sound enough to hear yet.”
         “Why not?” He grabbed Bryan’s collar. “You son of a bitch, what are you hiding?”
         “Adrian, back off! Whoa, it’s me, Bryan. Your buddy Bryan.”
         Adrian let go and stepped back. “I’m sorry, I’m just, just…”
         “Not mentally sound?”
         Adrian’s watery eyes looked into Bryan’s as he nodded. “Yeah, I guess. But why won’t you tell me? Is it that bad?”
         Bryan sighed. “I don’t know, there are some guys who might even try suicide over it. But don’t you get any ideas!”
         Adrian laughed bitterly. “Bryan, there are very specific rules on how I can die. Besides, I’ve already tried suicide tonight, it didn’t work.”
         “What? You’ve already tried it?! Are you out of your mind?”
         He looked at Bryan and slowly nodded. “Duh.”
         “You were going to just throw it all away?”
         “Bryan, it doesn’t matter anyway. I can’t commit suicide.”
         “I don’t mean this to egg you on, but, of all the people I know, you seem least likely to lose your nerve, Adrian.”
         “I didn’t lose my nerve,” he said as he unzipped his white winter coat, revealing his black-soaked sweatshirt. “Trust me.”
         Bryan got a little pale and took a faltering step back. The matted black blood coated the front of Adrian’s sweatshirt, and the tear where the knife had gone through revealed the black scar that wouldn’t heal for a couple more days.  “Dude, Adrian, I’m a mortician and I think I'm going to throw up.”
         “Everything looks worse in black.” Adrian sighed as he rubbed his hand over his scar. “Sometimes it sucks to be almost immortal.”
         “So, you mean you physically can’t commit suicide?”
         “Nope. The rules are that I can only die when defeated ‘by Blacker hands’. In other words, lose a battle with a more powerful black magician.”
         “Wow.”
         “Yeah.” There was a long silence, which Adrian finally broke. “So, what were you going to tell me?”
         “I—I don’t know how to say it.”
         “What don’t you know how to say?”
         Bryan looked down at his feet and whispered something.
         “Bryan, there’s no link between necromancy and super-human hearing.”
         Bryan looked back up with tears in his eyes. “Adrian, she…she…” he started sobbing heavily. After taking a deep breath, he finally said, “Jas was three weeks pregnant.”
         Adrian went pale and backed into the wall. He slid down it and sat on the floor. “No. I don’t believe you. That can’t be, because that would mean that Fate favors evil.”
“Adrian, I told you I didn’t want to tell you yet…”
Adrian put his head on his knees and cried. With each sob he shuddered more heavily.
His friend looking like a wounded animal—blood-stained, shaking, and pale—Bryan started speaking his mind. “Immortality—I always expected that the immortal looked more like…tan, giant, weight-lifting, flawless people, without a care in the world. I still just can’t imagine that you—I mean, you’re immortal. I’ve known that for a few years now, but I still just can’t imagine it.”
“And if I weren’t so slow, Jas would’ve been immortal, too. Just a few more hours and she would’ve been immortal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once I would’ve asked her to marry me, she would’ve gained immortality. I was that close, Bryan.”
“Adrian, don’t beat yourself up about it. Think about it—your father still could’ve killed her. ‘Blacker hands’, you know.”
Adrian wasn’t comforted by this thought, and he went back to sobbing into his knees. “I’m not meant to be happy. I mean, I was that close to a family of my own, a child to raise better than my father raised me. Better than he raised Alison and Boone, although at least he respects them. I won’t say he loves them; he can’t love. But at least he didn’t hate them like he hated me.”
“What’s the age difference between you?”
“Alison’s twenty-seven, and Boone’s eighteen. He’s going to be graduating that damn Whitewall Prep in the spring.”
“Whitewall Prep?”
“It’s a private school for dark magicians.”
         “Is that where you graduated from?”
         Adrian looked at him. “Are you kidding? I didn’t get in. I failed the entrance exam. I was the first DeRes after the family got the magic to not go to Whitewall. Just one more way I disappointed my father.”
         “So, where’d you end up going to school?”
         “Rose Valley High. It was just the local public school. After I didn’t make it into Whitewall, dad wanted to keep me at home so he could teach me himself, a last-ditch effort at making me a powerful magician.”
         “Wait, what you’re doing isn’t considered powerful? Because I’d hate to see a powerful magician.”
         “No, I turned out powerful, just, you know, not how my dad expected. I wanted to turn the DeRes name around, raise a family of” he slowed down; “white…magicians.”
         “Aw, great, here come the tears again. I should’ve never told you.”
         “No, no, I’m glad you did; it makes me even more eager to kill them.”
         “Adrian…”
         “I’m serious, Bryan. This was the final straw. My dad’s finally killed the one that made me snap. Keep close watch on her body; she is not ending up one of their servants.”
         “But I thought you couldn’t save her…”
         “I couldn’t save her soul. The longest possible time you have to save a life is thirty-six hours, and each hour after the sixth it gets a little harder. Add in elements like cold and snow and you get…” He bit his lip, then shook his head to clear his mind. “But the body can be animated at any time.”
         “It’s a whole different world that you live in, Adrian. I live in a world where dead bodies are my job, and they’re pretty much guaranteed to stay dead. You—you live in a world where there are about a thousand ways to use a dead body, and death is a term used lightly.”
         “Bryan, what part of ‘my girlfriend is dead' don’t you get? I do not use that term lightly, in case you haven’t noticed. She…” He hesitated, then grew angry. "They are dead. My girlfriend and my baby are dead. Those demented assholes don’t know what they’ve got coming.”
         “Adrian, really, I mean, come on…”
         Adrian put his fingertips together and rested his thumbs between his eyebrows. He closed his eyes and concentrated. A scowl slowly crept across his face. “Cowards!” he shouted, slamming his hand against the floor. “They’ve covered their tracks well. They put an anti-tracking charm on themselves. I can’t find them.” He stood up and zipped his coat. “Doesn’t mean I won’t try, though.” Rustling through his pocket, he pulled out his keys. “Bye, Bryan.”
         “I can’t stop you Adrian, but I just have one question.” He paused. “Why don’t you ever just, like, teleport yourself home? I mean, you can track people, you can raise the dead, but you can’t just, ‘poof!’ I mean…”
         Adrian looked at Bryan. “You’re a dumbass sometimes, Bryan.”
         “Yeah, I know, I’ve just always wondered about that one.”
         “Well, I’m just going to go home in my car—or is it a time machine? Come on, Bryan, I mean, really.”
         Bryan shrugged.



Chapter Three
         Adrian busied himself with picking up shards of glass and ceramic from his living room. The glass on the floor sparkled coldly in the light of the lamp, and this shimmering told him that this was going to take a long time, even with magic.
         Realizing he hadn’t even seen the damage in the other rooms, he cautiously toured the rest of the house. He found his kitchen turned to ash. They had charred everything and left it a smoldering gray. The plates were smashed and the silverware had been stuck into what remained of the cabinets and walls.
         He ascended the stairs towards the bedroom. When he reached his right arm through the doorway to flip the light switch, his arm flooded with intense pain, like he was being attacked by a group of sharp-clawed animals. He jerked his arm back and rubbed it.
         “Nice touch, Boone,” he mumbled. “Hawktalon charm on the room, eh? Yeah, Alison was obsessed with that one in high school, too.” Adrian stretched his arms out in front of him. He placed his right palm on the back of his left hand and then drew back his arms so his palms faced out, towards the doorway. Pausing and staring like he was seeing through the blackness of the room with his fierce blue eyes, he thrust his hands forward as though attempting to perform CPR on an invisible person in front of him. A ripple of energy flashed through the lit bit of hallway before him, and then it struck the darkened doorway.
         Adrian again reached into the doorway and again drew back, his arm teeming with twice the pain he felt before. “Oh, he’s getting good. I didn’t expect the sealant spell.”
         He rotated his wrist until he felt that he had gained back most of his range of motion in it. Every twist hurt, but he was glad that his wrist was still moveable.
         He began to think. Hawktalon…that’s one of those rare spells with the downside of ‘if you turn on the light, it will go away.’ So, how to turn on the light? An idea struck him. He opened the hall closet, took out a wire hanger and, stretching it out, reached in and flipped the light switch on with it. The charm made the sound of a dying firework as it fizzled out of the room. The room appeared to be in pretty good order otherwise, but Adrian stepped in just to make sure.
         The lights faded and turned a bluish tint. Adrian watched himself enter the room.He was smiling and singing to the music in his head. He closed the door, at which point Jasmine jumped at him. Adrian jumped, and clutched his chest from fear.
         “Did I scare you?” she asked with a smile.
         “You’re going to pay for that!” he laughed as he lifted her up. He tossed her onto the bed and happily kissed her.
         Half of Adrian wanted to move toward the door and escape the torture of the things that would never again be. The other half was content to watch memories of Jasmine coming from the ‘if These Walls’ spell forever. They were so real that, if he hadn’t known any better, he would have sworn he could reach out and grab her by the hand.
         The half that wanted to stay was stronger. The first memory faded out, and the bluish room was momentarily empty. Then a figure of Jasmine sitting on the bed faded in.
                     She was crying. It seemed to be tears of joy.
         “Adrian,” she practiced aloud. “I don’t want you to—no, that’s wrong.” She gave a sigh of frustration. “Adrian, I love you more than anyone or anything else. And I have something to tell you. I—“ Wrong again. “Adrian? I’m pregnant. There, short, sweet, and to the point. I’ll just tell him straight.”
         She sighed and smiled a little. “I can’t believe it. I’m pregnant.”
         Tears came to Adrian’s eyes again. It was as though Jasmine was finally able to tell him, even though she wasn’t here and he was never meant to hear this conversation she was having with herself. That memory faded out, and was replaced with one of Jasmine lying in bed reading.          
                      Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail and she was wearing her square, lime-green reading glasses. Soft footsteps trudged down the hall. “Hey Adrian? Are you finally home? Look, I’ve been trying to tell you something for over a week now, and if I don’t tell you soon, well, you’ll figure it out anyway. Come in here.” She sat her book, binding to the ceiling, on her lap. “Adrian! Get in here, goofball! It’s important!”
         A hand appeared on the doorframe. Adrian knew that it was not his hand.
                     A blonde-goateed man appeared in the doorway, wearing khaki slacks and a blue-and-red-striped shirt. “Honey, I’m home!” he cackled.
         Jasmine shrieked and pulled the blankets up farther, as though she could protect herself that way. “Darrius—Mr. DeRes, sir, what do you want?”
         “What we want,” said a thin, blonde woman, “is to teach Adrian a lesson.” The blonde woman looked like the slut she was—deep red lipstick, tight, low-cut black shirt, and short, denim skirt.
         “He’s got to learn to listen to his betters,” said a teenage guy as he, too, stepped into the doorframe. His hair was dyed a black with an intensity rivaled only by the blackness of his soul.
         Adrian scowled at the way his younger brother said “his betters”. Boone was six years his junior, but saw himself as ranking far above Adrian. But, the whole family ranked Boone above Adrian.
         Adrian desperately wanted to flee this memory, but the terror had him glued to the spot.
         “What do you want with me? Leave me alone!” Jasmine cried from the ropes that Darrius had cast around her.
         “No-can-do, sweetheart,” Boone laughed as he caressed Jasmine’s cheek. “You’re the last thing in the world that Adrian really cares about. We can’t have that, now can we?” He kissed her softly on the lips.
         “Boone, we’re here with one goal,” Alison reminded him, “and it does not involve you getting into her pants.”
         “Come on, does it really matter? We’ve got her tied up already!”
         Adrian grew even more furious. He trembled with rage. His elitist family didn’t even see her as a person, but more like an animal or object.
         “Look, Boone,” Darrius said, “Your sister’s right. Adrian will be coming home soon. We’ve got to get rid of her now.”
         “Leave me alone!” Jasmine screamed. “Please! You don’t understand!”
         “We’ll never understand,” Alison growled, “because we don’t understand why Adrian could fall for you.”
         Jasmine looked pleadingly at Darrius. “Please, you don’t understand—I—I—please, you’re harming more than me here!”
         “Oh, boo-hoo,” Bonne mocked. “Crushing poor little Adrian? That’s our goal! Did you miss that memo?”
         “You’re killing your own flesh and blood!” she screamed. She turned to Darrius again. “You’re killing your own grandchild!”
         The DeReses fell silent. Their eyes narrowed.
         Alison slapped Jasmine across the cheek. Adrian could almost feel it himself—the cat-like nails digging into his face, the stinging of the palm. After all, he’d felt it enough as a kid. “Any child of a white, non-magic whore like you is no relative of ours.”
         “Allow me to correct you, Alison,” Darrius added. “It’s not just you—I refuse to call any child of Adrian’s my grandchild. Now, finish her and get the body out of here. Throw it somewhere that Adrian will have a slightly harder time of finding it. Wouldn’t want him to get to her fast enough to save her.”
         The red lights streamed from the fingertips of Boone and Alison and hit her square in the chest. Her screams resounded through the room as the memory faded out.
         The room was back to normal, but Adrian was still frozen in place, still in shock. His blood was running cold, his face was turning pale. He was overcome by a feeling of nausea and dizziness that threatened to send him plummeting to the floor. The bed was his only source of possible rescue, so he allowed himself to collapse on to that.
         
         Somehow he must have fallen asleep, because his eyes opened to sunlight poking through the chinks in the blind. The red numbers on his clock declared the time to be nine-twenty-seven. Then, suddenly, he realized why he’d woken up as the telephone rang a second time.
         “Hello?” he mumbled.
         “Hello, Adrian? This is Gary. Where are you?”
         Adrian fell back into the pillows. “I’m not coming to work today, Gary.”
         “You sound awful. Are you sick?”
         “No it’s—family emergency.”
         “Oh no, what happened?”
         Adrian paused. He considered whether or not to tell Gary the whole truth or to make up some story. Grandma? Grandpa? Beloved aunt? “My sister’s two-year-old died.”
         “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. What was wrong?”
         “He was born with a small hole in his heart. There were no donors available.” Adrian decided to really play it up and make it believable. He began to sob. “He was like my own son.”
         “So sorry. Any idea of when you’ll be back to work?”
         “I don’t know, I really don’t. I’m just so…”
         “Hey, Adrian, it’s okay. Take as much time off as you need.”
         “Thanks Gary.”
         “Okay, you just take it easy, and I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”
         “Bye.” Adrian hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling for another ten minutes. I wouldn’t give a damn if some kid of Alison’s died.
         Finally, he pulled himself off the bed. He showered, trying to get the blood off of his skin. Dressing himself warmly, he stopped at Jasmine’s jewelry box. His hands shook as he gently pulled out the long, cheap, steel chain. On it hung an assortment of random items: a bottle cap, a yellow-painted metal star charm, a tiny bottle of souvenir sand, a bus token with a hole through the center, a small charm that appeared to be just three interlocking rings—the two on the outside were silver and the one in the middle was gold, and a key.
         Each little thing meant something to her, to both of them. The chain was like the story of their relationship.
         “Stupid bottle!” grumbled twenty-year-old Jasmine. She tried to pry the cap off of her soda.
         “Let me help you,” said twenty-year-old Adrian, stopping at the bench she was sitting on. He picked up the bottle and flicked the cap off with his thumb. Jasmine didn’t notice the tiny green spark that slid under the rim of the cap.
         “Thanks! I never can get the caps off of those bottles.”
         “I didn’t know they still sold pop in glass bottles.”
         She put the cap in her pocket. “I know, I love it. This soda is homemade; my neighbor makes it.”
         Adrian laughed. “You sure it’s not moonshine or something?”
         She laughed right back. “Pretty sure—no hangover yet.”
         “Adrian DeRes.” He extended his hand.
         “Jasmine Lowell. Pleasure to meet you Adrian, oh great opener of soda bottles.”
         “Pleasure’s all mine.”
         That was how they met. Adrian hung the chain around his neck as memories whirred like an old movie reel in his head. The paint was starting to chip off of the cheap star charm.
         “This is the clearest night we’ve had in awhile, isn’t it?” Jasmine softly said to Adrian as they stood on a hill somewhere in the country side.
         “I’m sorry, Jasmine. Your first date with me and my car breaks down. That can’t leave a very good impression.”
         She smiled. “I think that there’s a reason for everything.”
         “You think there’s a reason we’re in the middle of nowhere?”
         “Is it really the middle of nowhere? I think it’s the middle of everywhere.”
         “What?”
         “Adrian, we live in a fast-paced, harshly-lit, storm of a world. This place is calm, like the eye of the storm. It’s so beautiful here.” She pulled the picnic blanket out of his trunk and spread it on the ground. “The tow truck won’t be here for another hour at least; we might as well make the most of this.”
         Adrian sat down beside her on the blanket and tilted his head back. “Wow. I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen so many stars.”
         “They’re all so perfect. To think; we’re looking at the same stars that helped lead conquistadors across oceans. These stars have seen every war, peace, famine, and major political event. They’ve seen every child, every mother, father, brother, sister. They’ve seen every animal and every tree. They’ve seen every pair of lovers that have ever walked this Earth, and yet they’ve remained largely unchanged. The amount of time humans have been on the planet is only a tiny, tiny fragment in a star’s lifetime. It really makes you think about how short our own liv—“ She had to stop talking now, because Adrian was kissing her.
         She had bought that charm to represent their first date and first kiss. He went past the bottle; he knew what it meant. Beach, night, more stars, more than a kiss.
         The bus token was a page in their history together that most normal couples don’t quite have.
         The bus was empty at this time of night. Adrian and Jasmine sat in the back seat as the public transportation took them to their stop.
         They were silent for a moment as Adrian nervously rubbed Jasmine’s hand in his.
         “What’s wrong, Adrian? You seem worried.”
         He quietly and quickly started speaking. “If I told you I had a deep, dark—really, really dark—secret, would you hold it against me as soon as I said it or hear me out? Because I need to tell you this, but I’m afraid that you’ll get off this bus and never come back to me.”
         “I’ll hear you out; what is it?”
         Adrian sighed as he dropped her hand and kneaded his own. “Jasmine, sometimes—sometimes people aren’t what they seem, and I’m one of those people.”
         “What’s your big secret?” she joked. “Did you kill someone?”
         Adrian bit his lip. “Well, um…that’s not the secret, but…”
         She laughed. “You’re a goof, Adrian.” As she looked into his sad blue eyes, her smile faded.
         “Jas, I wish I was kidding with you. I wish my past and childhood weren’t haunting me with every step I took. I also wish that I’m not what I am. Jasmine, I’m a dark magician.”
         She didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then she laughed. “Stop with your bull, Adrian. You’re such a good actor sometimes; you had me completely duped up until the magician thing.”
         Her laugh stung him, because it proved what he feared; she didn’t believe him. “Jasmine, hear me out. Don’t dismiss this as fairy tale. I’m serious here.”
         Now she looked a little uncomfortable. “You can’t let a good joke die, can you?”
         He grabbed her hands. “Believe me, Jas; I want to be lying to you. I want this to be fake. It’s not. I’m practiced in the arts of magical torture, magical killings, and things like necromancy. Not that I don’t know other things about magic, but those were the ones my father taught me, and taught me, and taught me, and wouldn’t stop teaching until I understood them perfectly, no matter how many lives it took.”
         “I don’t believe you,” she whispered. “There’s no reason in hell why I should. This makes no sense. This stuff isn’t real.”
         Not wanting to perform a spell on the bus with the driver watching, Adrian pulled out his pocket knife and cut his fingers. Jasmine squealed, “What was that for?”
         “Shh, just watch what happens to my blood.”
         “What?”
         “Look at it.”
         “It looks like normal blood.”
         “Right now, yes, but just wait a second.”
         She looked at his finger until, finally, it started to bleed black. She jumped. “Adrian, what is that? Why is it changing that color?”
         “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. That blood represents an inerasable darkness in my soul. I can’t get rid of it, no matter how hard I try. It won’t go away. I’ve been able to keep my blood red longer and longer, but it always turns black, just to remind me that I’m evil, whether I like it or not.”
         “Adrian, you’re not evil. Evilness is something that comes from your heart, and I’m pretty sure that goodness comes from yours.”
         “Where do you think this comes from?” he sarcastically asked, rubbing the blood between his thumb and fingers.
         “You know what I mean. You can’t let something else tell you who you are. Whatever you are…”
         “Are you saying you believe me?”
         She stared into his eyes. “I don’t know. It’s hard to believe, but it’s just as hard not to, coming from you. Just tell me: how?”
         “How? How what?”
         “How did you become—this?”
         Adrian sighed. “My great-great-great-great-great-grandfather loved power. He still does, in fact.”
         “Are you trying to tell me that your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather is still alive?”
         “That’s another thing—I’m almost completely immortal.”
         “Almost?”
         “I’ll get to that eventually. Anyway, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Bela DeRes, loved power. In his native country, he’d tried assassinating the king, he tried sparking a revolution, he tried posing as major nobles—nothing. He wanted power. The thought of it possessed every fiber of him, beyond any other kind of obsession ever seen. Power was his main goal.
         “Then, one day, he stood on a stump in the middle of the forest and screamed out his frustration. ‘I am not powerful!’ he cried to nothing. ‘I need it! I need it! I need it!’
         “Out of the thicket appeared a black deer. Bela stopped screaming as he stared at this animal. Never had he seen anything like it. Then, suddenly, the deer turned into a tall, handsome man.
         “‘Bela DeRes?’ he asked.
         “My ancestor fell off the stump. ‘Witchcraft! Back from me, you demon!’
         “‘I thought you wanted power, Bela,’ the man said. ‘I can give you power.’
         “Suddenly Bela was interested. ‘You can give me power? How so?’
         “‘You do something for me, and I’ll give you all of the powers I have. You can use these to attain the political power you so desperately want’.
         “‘What do I have to do?’
         “‘I need you to kill the daughter of the governor.’
         “‘What? But why me? Why can’t you do that?’
         “‘Because, the governor is one of the last…correctly superstitious, if you will…men left in the country. He knows how to guard his house against magic, but not average cunning intruders. Kill his daughter, and then bring her back here. I’ll be waiting. If you can manage to bring her violin with you, all the better.’
         “‘Why?’
         “‘Don’t ask questions; just do it.’ So, long story short, he did. He killed the lovely seventeen-year-old daughter of the governor and brought her and her violin back to the stump in the clearing. As soon as he laid them on the ground, the girl and her violin disappeared from his sight. An envelope appeared in their place. Bela opened it. It read:
         “‘Bela DeRes:
         “‘My promises I shan’t break.
         “‘The blood of your sons
         “‘Shall run as black as yours.
         “‘The hearts of your sons
         “‘Shall beat as cold and black as yours.
         “‘You lend me your eyes
         “‘That you may better see.
         “‘You lend me you hands
         “‘That you may better touch.
         “‘You lend me your mind
         “‘That you may better think.
         “‘You lend me your life
         “‘That you may better live;
         “‘For as long as you remain
         “‘Undefeated by Blacker hands,
         “‘Your life is forever.
         “‘The lives of your sons,
         “‘Are, too, forever.
         “‘The magic in your veins
         “‘Shall pulse in hatred
         “‘For all generations
         “‘Of the House of DeRes.
         “‘Now, slit your finger tips and sign in blood, and all the power you’ve ever thirsted for can be yours.’ That was all Bela needed to sign his entire family and descendants over to darkness. The promise of power.”
         Jasmine looked at Adrian for another long moment. “That really sucks that because your great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was—and is, I guess—totally power mad, your whole family is condemned to this.”
         “It does suck.”
         “But trust me, Adrian, you’re different than them.” She kissed his forehead. “Now, you want to hear my deepest, darkest secret?”
         “Go for it.”
         “I have two unpaid speeding tickets in my glove compartment.”
         They laughed.
         The next charm, the three rings, was the worst thing he could have ever done to Jasmine, but she insisted.
         “What part of 'evil' don’t you get?”
         “I understand that they’re evil, Adrian, but you’ve met my family, and I want to meet yours.”
         “You say that, but you don’t really understand that you don’t mean it.”
         “Adrian, I want to meet your family. I want to at least see your siblings, and father, and mother—“
         “I don’t have a mother.”
         “Oh, I’m—I’m sorry. What happened to her?”
         “My father killed her when I was a kid.”
         “Why?”
         Adrian shrugged. “I have no idea. She was the only member of the family that wasn’t constantly pushing me, though. I wish she would’ve lived a little longer. But at least now you understand the evil I’m talking about.”
         “Don’t care; I still want to meet them.”
         “Fine, you want to meet them that badly, we’ll drive out to my father’s place tomorrow. What a great way to spend Thanksgiving!”
         “Great, I’ll go pack.”
         Adrian looked dumbfounded. “Are you serious? You really want to go still?”
         “Yes, I really do.”
         “Fine; once you make up your mind there’s no changing it.”
         “Exactly.”
         The next day, they drove five hours to the old DeRes mansion. “We’re here,” Adrian shouted as they started up the long driveway toward the mansion.
         “You lived here? This place looks huge!”
         “Yeah; if my siblings hadn’t been totally evil and if I wasn’t always spending all my time learning ways to kill and use the dead to my advantage, it would have made for great games of hide-and-go-seek.”
         He parked the car near the house right beside a luxurious, sporty, red convertible. “Well, Alison’s definitely here. And Boone is because it’s late-fall break.”
         “Are those your siblings?”
         “Yeah; Alison’s my older sister and Boone’s my little brother. They’re going to love that I’m here. Not.”
         They walked up to the door and rang the bell. The door slowly creaked open, pulled by an ashen woman. “Ah, Yolanda, our faithful old door-maid!” Adrian said to her. “How’ve you been?”
         “Mmbluguurrrrrthbpthbt hurmmm kllkllll,” she gurgled back.
         “Oh, silly goose, you always say that,” Adrian replied, tapping her shoulder with sarcastic glee.
         “Adrian,” Jasmine whispered as they walked in past her. “What’s wrong with her?”
         “Oh nothing—she’s just dead.”
         Jasmine stopped in her tracks. “She’s what?”
         “Dead. Zombie door-maid. This house runs on zombie power. Did I fail to mention that earlier?”
         “Um, yeah.”
         Adrian shrugged. He yelled, “Dad! Alison! Boone! I know you’re here!”
         Alison appeared first. Her first action was to grab her brother by the collar of his shirt and, sharp nails digging into his throat and collar bone, hiss “What do you want? You’re not welcome here.” Then she noticed Jasmine, who winced. “Who’s this?”
         “Alison, this is my girlfriend, Jasmine. She insisted on meeting the family, and so here we are.”
         Alison glared at Jasmine and looked her over. “She’s white, I can feel it, even more than I feel it from you, baby brother.”
         “You’re missing something, Alison,” Boone pointed out as he too showed up in the foyer. “She’s not magic at all.”
         Alison whirled back around to Adrian. “Is this true, little brother?”
         “Yes it is.”
         Alison slapped him. “Oh, wait until dad hears this. Dad, get out here!”
         “What do you want, Ali?” He looked at Adrian and Jasmine. “No! Get out, boy! We don’t want you around here. And who is she anyway?”
         “Dad this is Adrian’s, white, non-magical,  girlfriend,” Alison informed him smugly.
         “She’s what now?”
         “You heard me.”
         “Get out and never come back.”
         As Adrian and Jasmine got into the car, Adrian said, “Definitely worth the drive, wasn’t it?”
         “I had no idea.”
         She saw the charm at a store on their way home and thought of Adrian, the golden middle child.
         The key was the last item on the necklace.
         “Adrian, I can’t believe it!”
         Adrian looked away from the television as Jasmine slammed his door behind her. “Hey baby, what’s wrong?”
         “I got kicked out of my apartment!”
         He turned off the TV. “What? Why?”
         “Apparently they have a policy against creating papier-mâché gargoyles and attaching them directly to the door. I thought it really livened up the hallway, but no…”
         “I have no policy against papier-mâché gargoyles.”
         “Wait…you’re not suggesting that I…”
         Adrian handed her a key. “I made a copy this morning when I heard your landlord grumbling about gargoyles. I knew there was only one person in that building who would think to put up gargoyles.”
         “Adrian!” Jasmine squealed as she threw her arms around him.
         Adrian tucked the necklace under his shirt and zipped up his jacket. He didn’t really have any clear-cut idea of where he was going; he just knew he had to go somewhere and do something.