Authors: P R Mason
I moved down a few steps to make room. Panting to catch my breath, I plopped down to sit. Rom also seemed to need time to recover.
“How long were we gone?” I asked.
“An hour,” Zen replied. “How long did you stay there?”
“About four hours. We arrived on May 17th at about 8 a.m.”
Zen lifted the ghoul and propped her against the wall.
“I’m sorry this one got by me.” Zen gave Namia a shot with his elbow. “I wasn’t expecting her.”
“What?” My breath caught in my throat. “Are you saying Namia followed us through the wormhole? That’s how she got there?”
“Yeah,” Zen said. “You two had just disappeared down the hall when she showed up here and rushed past Senji and me.”
“No.” I shook my head. Soon all of me shook. “No, no, no, no…” I couldn’t stop myself from repeating the word.
“Kizzy! I’m sorry,” Zen pleaded. “We didn’t have any weapons and I didn’t want Senji to get bitten.”
Rom said something I didn’t understand. His voice became an angry buzzing in my ears. I wondered when I had begun rocking back and forth. And that was the last thought before my brain wound down like an old tired clock.
“Kizzy.” Rom’s deep baritone in my ear roused me but I couldn’t respond. “Entreaties,” he murmured. “Return to us.”
His touch on my cheek, over my shoulders, down my arm, and along my back enraged me. Gentleness was the last thing I wanted. Even realizing I lay on the soft surface of a bed angered me. Soft bed? I deserved nails.
"You're safe at Zen's house now, Kizzy." Petra's fingers stroked the hair back off my face. “It's going to be all right.”
Really? I wanted to ask. How did you come to that conclusion? How could anything be all right ever again?
“Why is she just lying there?” Chase asked. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Maybe the depth of your stupidity put her into a coma,” Senji drawled.
“You’re the stupid one,” Chase countered.
“At least my IQ isn’t the equivalent of pi,” Senji responded.
“Are you saying I’m as stupid as a pie?”
“The mathematical pi, not the baked goods,” Senji said. “You know, 3.1415—”
“Jupiter’s eyes,” Rom screamed. “Halt that prattle else I shall—”
“Calm down, Rom,” Zen shouted.
“Chase, sweetums,” Petra said. “Why don’t you go make me some tea?” I heard the door open and close. “That’ll keep him busy for awhile.” Petra’s hand returned to my forehead. “Now, Kizzy—” she began.
“Leave me alone, can’t you?” I didn't open my eyes. My voice was faint even to my own ears.
“Out everyone,” Rom ordered.
The sounds of them filing out soothed me. Thank heavens. They’d finally given up on me. I could return to my cocoon.
“Kizzy, you must rouse.” Rom lay down next to me and I felt his arms embrace my body.
With reluctance I raised my lids and stared over his shoulder at the faded floral wallpaper of what appeared to be Zen's guest bedroom.
“If we are to journey to Dorcha immediate departure is required.” Rom's breath was warm against my cheek.
“I’m not going to Dorcha. Wasn’t it you who said I’d led you on repeated fool’s errands.”
“The effects of the ghoul bite spoke and not I.”
“The ghoul bite was right. Everything I’ve done has made things worse."
“We must go,” Rom insisted.
“That’s a change from your original position,” I said. “You tried everything short of killing me to keep me from opening the vortex. The ghoul bite wasn’t influencing you then. I’m doing what you wanted so just leave me alone.”
“Going to Dorcha is a violation of my vow to family and empire. Yet there is truth to your reasoning of earlier. We must enter Dorcha.”
“No.” I closed my eyes again. “No more.”
“We go.” He shook me until my eyes opened again.
“Don’t you understand what I’ve done?” I asked, tears coming to my eyes and trickling down my cheeks. “I’ve destroyed my father and killed Adam.”
“No.”
“Yes. I killed Adam and now there’s nothing left.”
“No,” Rom insisted.
“I led that ghoul Namia into the past.” Turning my head into the pillow, my next words were muffled. “I led her to my father.”
“You could not know.” Rom pulled me into a sitting position and, grasping my chin, forced me to face him.
“I blundered into it but that doesn’t make it less my fault,” I said. “If it weren’t for me, the ghoul wouldn’t have bitten my father and he wouldn’t have gone crazy. He never would have shot Adam and me. We never would have even been on that bridge.”
“Truth. Yet, for these things you are not at fault.” Rom's thumb caressed my trembling lips. “The ghoul and her prince have the blame. Do you wish to allow them to destroy Juliette and Billy the douchebag?”
Rom’s use of the word douchebag produced an involuntary smile but the effect was short lived.
“If we go back to Dorcha, I’ll just cause more disasters, more screw-ups,” I said.
“Without trying we shall certainly fail and I shall be dead or worse. Insanity.”
“Go alone if you want to.” I jerked away from him and hid my face in the pillow again. “You’re better off without me.”
The growl from Rom quickly turned to a roar. Seizing my arm, he jerked me up. His arms went roughly under my knees and around my back as he tore me away from my grip on the bed and lifted me. Rom carried me out of the room and into the hall past my curious friends and a surprised Zen.
“Rom, don’t—" Zen began.
“Cease interference!”
Rom stomped his way to the psychomanteum room and kicked the half closed door. His action sent it open wide and crashing into the wall behind. Once inside, he practically tossed me to the floor, although I did land on my feet. Rom slammed the door shut, closing us in. He moved to light the candles as I crossed to the exit, intent on leaving.
“Halt.” Rom spun around. His whispered tone was far more ominous than his previous yelling. “Control of my actions…I cannot…You must not…”
Not knowing what Rom would do if I failed to obey him, I returned to the center of the room. He finished lighting the candles. Without any active meditation from me the fog swirled in the mirror. The mist cleared revealing an image of Juliette surrounded by nothingness. No furniture. No landscape. No nothing. She stood in front of a white background as if she were planted in the midst of a cloud. Her mouth moved and it took a few moments for her words to register.
“Kizzy, help me. Please. Help me,” she pleaded, her blue eyes wide and swimming with tears. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Juliette,” I called. “I hear you. Where is the prince keeping you?”
My stepsister had no reaction, as if she could not see or hear me.
“Why?” she cried. ““Why haven’t you come for me?”
Gradually, her image faded and Prince Leopold appeared in his Palace room.
“Yes, dear Kizzy. Why have you not come for your poor sister?” he taunted with a smirk. “Seems quite cruel of you.”
“Why can’t Juliette hear me?” I demanded.
The prince ignored my question. His smirk widened to a grin and his eyes sparkled.
“Ah,” the prince continued. “There is your friend Rom. Red face, rapid breathing, obvious recent fit of rage. He’s no doubt suffering the effects of the ghoul bite.” The prince made a tisking sound and sauntered to the flower arrangement at the room's center. “So easily remedied.” He toyed with a leaf. “If only you would come for a visit.”
Beside me I heard Rom’s breathing increase to angry puffing and a low growl rumbled in his throat. I felt his energy ramping up to a rage again.
“However—” Prince Leopold's expression changed as his lips formed a sad pout. “Perhaps it is too late. He’s such a handsome boy. What a shame to lose him to lunacy.”
Rom went batshit. His growl turned to an unintelligible bellow. Twisting, he turned to the table. He grasped it, upsetting the candles and sending them crashing to the floor. With the table in hand, Rom raised it over his head and marched toward the mirror.
“Yes.” Prince Leopold gave a chortling laugh. “Too late.”
“Aghhhhhhhhhh,” Rom screamed as he swung the table into the mirror, smashing the glass. Shards flew and I flung up my hands to shield my face. Rom swung the table repeatedly hammering away at the already broken mirror. Finally, he stopped and threw the table, now mostly broken itself, to the floor. He stood, his breathing heaving, before collapsing to a cross-legged sitting position on the floor. He bent over with his head in his hands.
I went to him and knelt by his side before placing my arms around his shoulders. He resisted me for a moment before he sank against me and buried his face in my neck. Rocking him as his breath calmed, I lost interest in my own misery and thought about— truly thought about—what he faced.
“Kizzy,” he said finally, his eyes meeting mine. “I lack strength for a journey to Dorcha alone.”
His gaze went to a spot over my shoulder.
“My duty calls for your death and also my own. Performance of duty has always been preeminent for me. Yet you destroyed the old me.”
“That’s me.” I gave a sad laugh and turned my head away. “I'm a people destroyer.”
“Yet you remade me also.” Rom reached up to turn my face back to his. “You showed me right instead of duty. Caring instead of obligation. Devotion instead of edict.” Rom’s gaze bored into me. “My father, my government, would say I dishonor myself. Yet I want nothing more than life. Life to live with you.”
His lips covered mine in a gentle kiss.
“So, will you not journey with me to Dorcha?" Rom kissed me again.
“That’s unfair,” I said between more of his quick kisses.
“Unfair?” he asked pulling back. “What?”
“Those kisses.”
“Why?” he asked.
“They make me want to live again, too.” In spite of my father and in spite of Adam, I wanted to live. I might feel ashamed that I did, but I did. I wanted to live. And I wanted to go to Dorcha.
PART III:
CONCILIATION
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
“So what do we know?” Zen asked as the group of us sat round his dining table. “Prince Leopold seems to parallel a figure in our history who was the son of Queen Victoria.”
“I think he was the queen’s son in the Dorcha dimension also,” I said. “Everything he told me about himself was similar to our history except the part where his hemophilia cure turned him into a vampire.”