The Everborn (44 page)

There came a profound silence like a blanket cast over a flame to smother the mayhem and Andrew took the opportunity to pitch a glance over his shoulder at Ralston, then beyond him.

The figure of the boy at the edge of the blacktop was no longer there.

Then came a new voice,
Bari's
voice this time, inarguably and clear as a newborn’s first cloudless sunrise, emerging from the silence and from every direction, addressing Salvatia. “You hadn’t expected there to be
two
of them, did you, you venerable monstrosity. You only expected one.
Mine
. But lo and behold, there is
another
Everborn, isn’t there? I was waiting for you, Salvatia. Let it be known to you...you can’t fuck with me!”

Andrew turned.

Salvatia turned.

Bari had materialized before the metal merry-go-round, hovering ever closer with all the confidence of a veteran saint confronting an expert sinner, her orange eyes transfixed upon Salvatia. The two mythic beasts now faced each other, Salvatia now poised for mortal combat. Bari’s eyes charged with readiness, as she closed in further, her body and the wispy air currents where her legs should be were cool and relaxed. The breeze of post-witching hour had grown into icy torrents, capturing the long black hair from both their heads and if the beings were any closer to each other Andrew was certain their hairs would interlock.

Without warning and as a fevered last-chance effort, Salvatia reverted to Andrew and lunged at him, her claws slashing the air, jagged stalactites and stalagmites of teeth protruding from the gaping cave of her mouth.

Another being stepped into her path just then, between Salvatia and Andrew, and at first Andrew assumed it was Bari teleporting herself to protect him.

But Bari remained where she was, in the direction of the merry-go-round.

This being was
another
Watchmaid.

By Andrew’s point of view, the backside of this Watchmaid could’ve been mistaken for Bari’s any day. This Watchmaid was adorned with lengthy, thick black hair as well, the same length as the other two. But skin gleamed and glistened with a brass-like coppertone complexion in an exact likeness to Bari’s, though the body of this one was smaller, more petite.

Salvatia aborted her lunge and Andrew was saved once again. The two Watchmaids faced Salvatia, hovering in on her and Salvatia likewise faced them. She was ready for them, if they were to attack and she stubbornly stood her ground. Her orange eyes glowed like daggers at the unexpected Watchmaid’s intrusion upon the scene. It stood to reason that if there was an unanticipated
second
Everborn she encountered in tonight’s scheme, there’d be another Watchmaid right along with it. The thing was, Salvatia never saw this plot twist coming, not by a long shot.

Bari had foreseen Salvatia’s plan with her Dreg tonight, the plan to overtake her and to kill Andrew, her Everborn. Andrew was hers, yes, and being so she was in the focal point of the knowledge that he had a Dreg twin. So, she’d orchestrated a solution herself, her own plan, involving another Watchmaid to back her up...a Watchmaid Salvatia would never be able to detect was so near.

“I am Camelia,” announced the second Watchmaid. “To kill an Everborn,
any
Everborn, you must first go through me. Be gone, Magdalene!”

Andrew could almost faintly grasp what was taking place between the three beasts, much like comprehending a dream he’d dreamt fading with each waking moment into obscurity.

Andrew twisted his gaze against his better instincts towards Ralston. Ralston was in the exact same position as in Andrew’s previous glance, sprawled out and petrified upon the grass.

Could it be that this shameless stoner coward who took pleasure in beating on Andrew in the most vulnerable circumstance of his life...had a Watchmaid, too?

Camelia was Ralston’s Watchmaid. Ralston must therefore be...just like Andrew!

Upon realizing this, Andrew was certain that soon after this was over, Bari would convince him that this was all just a dream. She’d done that sort of
now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t
thing before, he was sure of it, and this experience was a guaranteed contender for a maturing Everborn to be forced to forget. He realized it now and he’d remember it later...at some point, when Bari would see fit to allow him to.

“So, Camelia,” Salvatia hissed, “you think you can get in the way of me and destiny? How many Magdalene have you encountered, by the way? You haven’t the foggiest notion what odds we have against each other, do you? Maybe, just
maybe
, I can let this world taste of the human flesh that was once your own, now transformed into what you are now, yet to vanish back into this world, lying as dead carnage for all to see! The Magdalene are only but a myth to you. How can you possibly know how to deal with me? How can you know that to deal with me means death, a disintegration back to the human you once were, in bloody remains?”

It was true, for Bari and Camelia had never encountered a Magdalene. They only knew of their legend. They never even considered the consequences nor the outcome of a confrontation with a Magdalene. They only knew enough to protect their Everborn.

Bari and Camelia had known each other for as long as Andrew and Ralston had lived their lives within shared regions. Though Bari was relatively new to this Watchmaid business, Camelia held the appointment of Watchmaid to Ralston for five times as many lives as Bari had been for Andrew. Camelia had witnessed the accidental death of another Watchmaid long ago, the Watchmaid to whom Bari was successor soon afterwards. That previous Watchmaid had been very old and Camelia’s only friend.

She was now Bari’s only friend and equal as well and she would not let anything happen to her.

Or Bari’s Everborn.

So when the two Magdalene each separately sensed Salvatia’s presence and intentions earlier that day, it was agreed that they’d have no choice but to combine forces and face her together. A detailed strategy was crucial. To take the Magdalene by surprise was essential. As for her Dreg, he proved to be no great threat; his fascination with his roots would sedate him, hold him in deep reflection, keep him soul-searching long enough to think twice about killing
anyone.

“
But what of Ralston?”
Bari had said to Camelia in constructing the plan. “
You’d be putting your cherished one on the line, and he hasn’t even a clue you exist...let alone what he is. It’ll certainly toy with his sanity, if Salvatia doesn’t get to him first. If he dies, you would become a Magdalene yourself!”

“
Which is precisely what Salvatia has in store for you!”
Camelia had reminded her. “
The Magdalene is plotting to destroy Andrew and his household and condemn you to eternal misery. Steal Andrew away from his house, at the right moment,to the playground across the street. When the Magdalene is inside the house and confounded, we will cause our Everborn to meet and to clash. Ralston, belligerent as he is, will cause a commotion she will surely sense. She hasn’t caught on to my presence yet, nor Ralston’s. We, Bari, can ambush her, both of us like sisters defending our
sons. Regardless of what the Magdalene can do, together we have the advantage. If we prevail, we can manipulate the facts of the aftermath in the minds of our ‘Born and in the law should any human become involved, which is our blessed forte, we will have this encounter with the Magdalene in the bag. Until the next time.”

Bari would’ve done the same thing for Camelia.

***

Bari spoke in stern retort to Salvatia’s intimidations. “Don’t underestimate us, Salvatia. We’re prepared for you. Be gone, Magdalene!”

Salvatia withdrew further as she turned from one Watchmaid to the other, her expression stricken more with the efforts to shroud her fear than the pressure to fight both of them at once. She inadvertently backstepped into the jungle gym, then resumed her ground. Her Dreg had vanished, retreating perhaps in cowardice or in anguish by his newfound sentiment, but he wasn’t far enough away yet for Salvatia to dematerialize.

There was still time to get to Erlandson.

In militant readiness for each other, the transparent bed of air currents upon which each hovered blazed as of white-hot fire, as a thumb and forefinger to the knob of a welder’s torch, like manifested adrenaline.

Not to be outdone, Salvatia’s stubborn instincts to have the last word bellowed forth like a war cry, “You will
not
stand between me and
my destiny!”

Salvatia went for Camelia with no further hesitation, diving into her, her piercing black fingernails lashing, her mouth an unnaturally widened apocalypse of misshapen teeth, her hair a legion of poised strands like Medusa’s snakes readied to strike.

Neither Camelia nor Bari considered Salvatia’s
own
advantage…centuries of the fervent quest for a backdoor exit from a land of purgatory and for revenge. This was Salvatia’s moment to go for the gold.

Salvatia took Camelia down and with astonishing strength.

The two beasts toppled to the grass like giants just short of Andrew. With furious determination Salvatia wrestled her way toward him and a wide-eyed Andrew with fright-white skin squirmed deeper into the frozen-with-fear snapshot still of Ralston.

Salvatia’s claws reached in labored stretches mere inches from Andrew’s sweat pants as Camelia devoted every might of her being into pinning her away. Bari came upon Salvatia from behind, backhanding her own coppery arms beneath Salvatia’s for a deathlock shoulder hold. Together, they forced Salvatia back towards and into the metal bars of the jungle gym.

Salvatia lashed out again, grasped Camelia’s throat, dug with her claws, drew forth black blood gushing like an eruption of hot oil upon Salvatia’s hands. Transparent hands.

Simon was somewhere else now, roaming farther away from the scene, beyond the playground. And Salvatia’s power was diminishing slowly into nothingness.

Salvatia, without any utterance nor recognizable gesture, faded and retaliated, beyond
their
reach, beyond her reach. She had ultimately failed and within seconds her presence was no longer with them, no longer at the school playground, in the opposite direction of her Dreg. She was defeated, this time and retired to lick her wounds some place far away.

To return to a place and time equally far away.

For as long as she existed in this state, she would surely pursue Bari and her Everborn again.

38.

An Assessment of Casualties

Salvatia would have succeeded, if it weren’t for two unforeseen facts: one, her Dreg ultimately betrayed her. His diminishing interest in the night’s plan gave way to his own selfish feelings regarding this pitifully lost family of his, regarding his brother, spawned by those damnable photographs at the Erlandson fireplace mantle. She thought she’d conditioned him otherwise, but dammit all, he screwed everything up anyway. She should’ve known better, as wise as she was. Two...the second fact...the most important fact...was the presence of that cursed Watchmaid Camelia and her ‘Born. No matter that Simon apparently backed down and disappeared from the playground at the finest hour, this second Watchmaid proved to be her untimely undoing. If it wasn’t for Camelia, as long as Simon was in the vicinity and at least twenty meters or so away, she surely would’ve achieved delicious success.

Fancy
that
chance.

***

For Bari, the casualties were immense; for her own interests, from her own standpoint, they were like unto the aftermath of war.

Though she succeeded in her most desperate goal -- the safety of Andrew and likewise the safety of Ralston -- there were grievous casualties nonetheless.

Andrew’s mother and stepfather had been abhorrently slaughtered in their beds.

Ralston’s three friends were brutally massacred, though their deaths were inescapable. They were in the way, and for the sake of Camelia’s surprise, there was nothing Bari could do. Besides, there could be no outside human witnesses.

Most of all, and most woefully of all, Salvatia had slain Camelia.

At the playground, Bari held the dying Watchmaid within her arms, held her close as Camelia’s metallic flesh fell into corrosive decay, transforming her back into the human young lady she once was, so delicate and beautiful and baring the full-legged fully-formed body with which she’d been born into this world. As Bari’s dear friend passed on, Bari swore to her a solemn promise -- to protect Ralston through to the next life, to keep Andrew and Ralston in close proximity to each other regardless of the cost save for their very lives, to protect both as though they were
both
her own.

But Ralston’s identity would be contained, kept in utmost secrecy. The Magdalene was unaware of Ralston’s name; she was only aware of that wretched nameless Everborn to Camelia. And as far as the Magdalene knew, Camelia was still
alive
.

There was much to be done in light of the aftermath of the incident at the playground. Much to be done. For one thing, this called for a profound cover-up. Bari was faced with the task of shrouding the minds of the two Everborn, an easy endeavor for a Watchmaid at the outset, though Ralston and Andrew were sure to hold
some
memory of the events, a catalyst to account for missing time and the inevitable outcome of the human deaths involved.