CHAPTER TWENTY
Jack was wearing slacks, a button-up shirt and a tie. He looked really nice, and I was pleased I had chosen to wear a dress. He was a perfect gentleman and opened the car door for me, even helping me in to the car.
"Is it okay if we go to the city to eat?" he asked when he started the car. "It's a bit of a drive, but there's a restaurant there where I feel it's worth the extra travel time."
"Of course. You could take me to a taco stand and I'd be happy," I replied with a smile.
He chuckled. "Well, it's a little higher class than that."
We drove off and I asked, "So where did you disappear to? We didn't really talk about it last night, but I am a little curious what could take you away for over a week."
"I felt... that perhaps I had been too forward with you. At the hospital. You were safe, and I felt it would have been best to leave you alone. I ran across Mina on my way from the hospital and started chasing her. I managed to capture her and get information from her. It took many days to get what little information I could, and unfortunately her clan found her and helped her escape. I thought I had her secure enough... my ego got in the way.
"She said she knew about the plot behind summoning the fire demon. She even hinted that she knows where Dane is now, and that the American I heard while I was in Germany also knows. I couldn't get much more information from her than that. I went back to Germany to investigate further. The castle where your mother and I had been detained was almost completely empty. The only creature that was there... well, I don't know what it was. It was like someone had formed a golem in the shape of a demonling, then imbued it with some sort of earthen power."
"Hold up a second. Was this golem thing disoriented to the point it didn't know up from down?"
"Not at first. It was very firm on why it was there - to guard the castle and alert its master - but once I started asking where it had come from, it fell into a downward spiral of confusion until it couldn't even pay attention long enough to answer any of my questions. Why?"
"I saw one of those things! It looked like a reptile cat thing, and it was made of clay but it was on fire, and it couldn't leave a certain area but it still caused a whole mess of trouble. I tried telling my dad, but he didn't really believe me because he'd never even heard of a thing like that before. You don't know what it is, either?"
"No, but I'm glad you saw one, too. I can start forming theories about it now. Where did you see this creature?"
"In the school parking lot. It couldn't leave, no matter which direction it went. It was really bizarre. What do you think it is? Are they related?"
He ignored my questions and just said, "Interesting. What else happened to you while I was gone?"
I told him more about the golem/demonling and about the fight with Mina (which I realized as I was telling the story was just an excuse to get a piece of my clothing with which to bloody up and taunt my mom).
"That's it, really. Well, when you were gone the first time. Just this last week I almost set the studio on fire. Oh, come on, don't look at me like that! It was an accident, and I didn't actually set it on fire! Wait. We have to go back a ways to establish what happened. Shortly after you left the first time, I found out that dancing helps maintain balance in my life – keeps the fiery side of my personality in check and whatnot. Apparently I can summon fire, too, though I didn't know that before the winter show. So anyway, this last Friday I snuck into the dance studio and danced on my own, since it had been a week since I had danced and I was getting anxious and also because if I didn't dance then I was going to be afraid of dancing for the rest of my life.
"When I dance, I go into this kind of trance... and apparently when I was in this trance I was on fire, like literally my feet and possibly the rest of me was on fire. I probably could have set the whole studio on fire if it weren't for Nobuko, who happened to walk in on me and started screaming and brought me out of the trance. And then I accidentally burned her but then I healed her and I had to tell her a lot of stuff but don't worry I didn't tell her about you." I had to take in a deep breath, realizing that I was talking almost as fast as I was thinking.
Jack was silent for a few moments, not reacting at all. I started to worry that I had said something to cause him to want to draw away. "Is it... related to the demon?" He finally asked.
"What? No, no. Well, kind of, but it's not his power, it's mine. Taking in that demon helped me remember - no, wait, not remember. Unlock? Maybe both. Well, anyway, it was this power that I've always had that I now know how to access. The healing part, anyway. I have no idea why my feet were on fire." I trusted Jack with my life, but I wasn't ready to tell even him about Adena. Not yet, anyway.
"Interesting," was all he said to that.
The rest of the trip was spent on lighthearted topics. He took me to a tiny little restaurant that called itself a "lounge" where the owner himself (who seemed to know Jack) greeted us and sat us in a booth that was partly curtained off from the rest of the restaurant. It was insanely cool, and the food was amazing.
We took our time eating and stayed there for a couple of hours. It was well past dark by the time we left, but I was starting to get used to the idea of being up late at night. He drove us to a park that was part way up a canyon. He led me down a path until we reached a waterfall.
The beauty of the scene took my breath away. The waterfall wasn't the tallest one I had ever seen, but it was almost completely frozen. The ice was solid white, and while I knew it took a long time for water to freeze like that, it still looked like it had flash frozen in place.
"Wow..." I breathed, and sat down on a boulder. Jack sat next to me, wrapping his arms around my shoulder to help keep me warm.
We sat blissfully like that for a bit, when suddenly he asked me, "Do you think you can try summoning fire?" The question took me off guard and I wasn't sure how to answer that. He saw my confusion and explained, "You said that you were on fire when you were dancing. Do you think that you had summoned fire without realizing it?"
"I... well, I hadn't given it much thought. I suppose that's a good theory."
"Why don't you test it out?"
"What? How? Now?"
"Yes. We're alone, away from other people. Why not now?"
I gave it a minute's thought. "I suppose I could give it a shot. I honestly don't know what to do, exactly, but I'll try." I hopped off the boulder and stood a ways away from Jack. I held out my hands, palms up, closed my eyes and tried to summon fire. I hit a wall of sorts, and realized I had my necklace on. Whoops. I took it off and handed it to Jack.
I wasn’t sure how to summon fire, exactly. The only time I had done it was by accident when I was dancing, and I couldn’t remember how it felt, exactly.
Before I could give up I saw a glimpse of something bright in the darkest reaches of my mind. I remembered what Adena had said – that I’m a part of her and she’s a part of me, and that everything she knows I know. She seemed to be able to control fire without having to think too much about it, and I tried accessing whatever knowledge she had on how to control fire. I was amazed at how easy it was when I found it – it wasn’t like reading from a manual, but instead a feeling of warmth and brightness. I felt my hands growing warm, and smiled when I realized that I had actually done it. I was interrupted by a yelp.
I opened my eyes to see Jack trying to approach me. I looked at my hands - there were flames on them that were starting to die down, but I could also feel my hair settling on my head, and I realized that I had been completely on fire.
"Um. Sorry about that," I said sheepishly.
Jack opened his mouth a couple of times to try and say something. He finally settled on, “You were on fire.”
“Well, yeah, I told you so, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, but… you were on fire.”
I rolled my eyes and went to go sit down again. Jack followed suit, but then froze in
place and started looking around wildly. “What is it?” I asked.
“Something’s here,” he said quietly and grabbed my arm to pull me closer to him.
Suddenly a figure sprung out of the shrubs and swung wildly at us. Jack pulled me down onto the ground with him and rolled away from our attacker. We both got up and faced him.
He was disheveled, hunched over, panting, and altogether too pale, but I could have recognized the being no matter what state he was in. “Dane?” I said aloud.
He turned to face me and slowly tilted his head to the side until his ear was touching his shoulder. He grinned, eyes wide, and said, “Kenna… Kenna… my queen… my fire goddess… I can smell your power… oh, how sweet it is… the demon granted your wish for power, didn’t it? Oh, I would be so jealous of you if I didn’t have a greater power myself, now…”
I stepped away from him, not sure of what happened to him, but afraid of what I was seeing. “Dane, what happened? I thought you were dead…”
He howled with laughter, but started wheezing partway through, his voice unable to sustain the strain laughter took on it. It was in that moment I realized what had happened, and Jack pulling a stake out of his jacket pocket only confirmed it.
“You… you’re a vampire?”
“Can you believe it? Would you ever have thought in a million years that vampires exist? I was turned after the demon killed me, and now I have more power than I ever would have imagined! I can live forever, and now that I’m a vampire I can practice magic the way I’ve always wanted to!”
“But… you’re dead. You are literally a walking, talking, rotting corpse. Look at yourself! Your burns from the fire demon haven’t healed at all! You’re going to spend the rest of your existence looking like something that belongs in the ground! You actually do belong in the ground.”
Jack put his hand on my shoulder and said, “He’s not the person you knew when he was alive any more. I’m sorry. You… might want to turn away from this.”
I saw him tighten his grip on the stake and I knew what he meant by it. I looked up at Dane and tried finding my ex boyfriend in his eyes somewhere, but all I could see were two flat black marbles, lusting for blood – my blood – staring back at me.
In the same moment Jack moved to attack Dane, the new vampire leapt into the air. Jack stopped and stood his ground, ready to strike at Dane when he landed, but Dane never landed. Jack and I looked around, wondering where he went, when we heard a chuckle from well above us. Dane was perched on the very top branch of a tree, grinning and baring his fangs at us. I glanced at Jack and was surprised to see a hint of fear on his face. Before either of us could say anything, the ground started shaking and we started stumbling around to try and keep out balance.
“What’s going on?” I said aloud.
“I… I really don’t know…” Jack replied. The shaking intensified and we both lost our balance, falling backwards. I tried getting up, but before I could take my hands off the ground ice formed over them, securing me to the ground. Ice soon covered my feet, too, and I was completely immobile. I looked to Jack for help, but he also had a prison of ice crawling up his limbs.
Dane jumped down from his treetop perch and chuckled. “I told you I had newfound power.” He whistled and a couple of small figures emerged from the bushes, falling in step behind him. They looked very similar to the fire golem I had seen in the school parking lot, but with less defined shapes and much, much smaller. One was covered in leaves and twigs, while the other looked like it was leaking water.
“Do you like them? They’re my minions. It took a lot of trial and error, but we finally perfected the art of harnessing demonlings’ power. We build a nice little body for them covered in wards and witching symbols, and they will do anything I tell them to.”
“You’re the one that created that poor golem I found in the school parking lot?”
“Yes, well, that was a trial run. Got away from us and was short-lived, I’m afraid.” Dane looked at me hungrily. “But we’ve got the process down, now, and the next one I get to create is for a blood demonling. I need blood for the construct, though, and not just any blood. I need human blood from someone who has a great capacity for magic, and you… you’re just perfect for that.” He drew a knife from inside his sleeve and grinned a maniacal grin.
Jack struggled against his icy restraints. “No! Not her! I’m a better candidate! I’m a half vampire! Human blood, with magical properties!”
Dane stopped for a moment and snarled at Jack. “Ha. Half vampire. How gullible do you think I am?”
“You didn’t know that vampires existed before… so why not half vampires?”
Dane thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Well, I suppose I’d taste it in your blood if I had a sip. I’m hungry, anyway, so it’s a win-win situation.”
“No!” I screamed, and Dane looked harshly at me. Something in him had snapped, and his demeanor changed from a quiet, spacey crazy to a mad insanity.
“Whore!” He screamed. “It doesn’t matter what your boyfriend claims to be, I should have thought of killing him first and making you watch! I tried so hard to ignore that your heart wasn’t completely mine, tried so hard to tell myself that this bastard meant nothing to you, that I was better than him in every way, but the moment he came back from his little ‘vacation’ I could tell he was the one that had claimed your heart. Well, now you get to watch as I take his heart right out of his chest.” He leapt over to Jack, knifepoint held right above his chest, and said, “Any last words?”
“Just one question. Who helped you build those constructs?”
At this question I could see the look in Dane’s face turn from anger to pure adulation. “Oh, he is wonderful. He knows about everything – magic, charms, vampires, demons. He told me that it’s our time to stop living in the shadows, out of sight from humans. We are so much more powerful than those weak, pathetic humans, so we should be the ones ruling the world! He has quite a following, you know, and is passing on his talents to all his stu–”
He was cut off mid sentence by a stake embedding itself in his chest with great force, knocking him back. He started to disintegrate, and as he was falling apart, so did the constructs. I heard footsteps coming from behind us, and tried turning as far as I could to get a good look at who had saved us.
Mina slid out of the shadows and commented, “It’s always a shame when I have to kill one of my children on their very first hunt. Especially one as talented as him – did you know he’s the first vampire ever to be able to control witching symbols after being turned? Pity. Still, no use having him around if he’s going to be a blabbermouth. Glad he trapped you for me, though, Jackie-poo,” She cooed.
He struggled against the ice bonds, which had failed to melt when the water construct disappeared. I watched in horror as she crouched over him and bore her fangs. “We can finally put our little struggle to an end. I’ve so looked forward to the day I can drink your blood… every… last… drop of it.” In a motion too quick for me to see, she tore his collar down and plunged her fangs into his neck.
He struggled against the ice, but it was too thick. Soon his struggling started to become weaker, and I could see his eyelids start to droop.
I struggled against my own icy shackles, calling out Jack’s name, but the ice was also too thick around my hands and feet to do anything about it.
Just as I was starting to lose hope, a familiar voice spoke to me.
God, you’re so dumb. What melts ice faster than anything else, Kenna? Seriously, what were you showing Jack you could do literally five minutes ago?
I felt my hands and feet growing warm, and I concentrated on making them grow hotter and hotter. Within seconds the ice around my arms and legs exploded in shards away from me. Some of the shards embedded themselves in Mina’s back, which surprised her enough to stop drinking Jack’s blood and see what was going on.
br /> “You stay away from him,” I said, anger fueling the fire surrounding my fists and causing the flames to spread up my arms and across my body. I roared and sprinted at her, fist cocked and ready to throw a punch when I reached her. She dodged out of the way, but midstep after missing her I turned around and tried punching her anyway. My knuckles didn’t land, but that didn’t matter – a ball of fire jumped from my fist and made direct contact with her face. Her hair caught on fire, and she dropped to the ground in attempt to put it out in the snow. It didn’t matter, though – not only was she on fire, but it was my fire. I narrowed my eyes, and with every one of her screams I imagined the fire growing bigger and hotter until soon there was only a pile of ash on the ground. The fire still raged on long after she no longer looked like anything – she wasn’t good enough to exist even as ash. I wanted to burn it until nothing was left, and in order to do that I needed to make the fire hotter. It grew hotter and hotter, and even though I myself was on fire I was starting to sweat from its white hot glow.
I was losing myself to the flames, and I couldn’t help myself – it felt so good to be in so much power. I could make the ground melt, if I wanted to, and turn the whole park into a pit of molten stone. The flames jumped higher as I took pleasure in the thought of the extent of what I could potentially do.
Somewhere in the distance I heard a voice calling my name. It was scared, and I was annoyed by the fear. There was nothing to be afraid of! Fire could purge the world of evil and unite everything. It was so warm and bright in this world of cold and darkness.
The voice kept saying my name, though, was pleading with me to stop. I kept going, though, until some of his words – words I wasn’t even sure I heard clearly – came through.
“I love you. Please stop.”
It was Jack’s voice. Jack! I immediately killed the fire as I remembered that Mina had seriously hurt him. I looked down at him and saw that he was red and sweating, and I realized what I had done. I fell on my knees next to him and started to try to help him up, but withdrew my hands when I realized that I could potentially just hurt him more.
The heat from the fire melted the ice that was keeping him bound to the ground – in fact, it had melted all ice and snow within a thirty foot radius of where I had been standing - but he was still lying there, panting.
“Jack… I’m so sorry… are you okay? We need to get you to a hospital.”
He propped himself up on his elbows and shook his head. “No. I’m fine. A bit weak, but I don’t think I lost that much blood. What about you? What was that?”
I looked down at my palms and quietly said, “I… I don’t know. I lost control. I got so angry at Mina for trying to kill you, and I wanted her dead so badly… I nearly set you on fire, didn’t I?”
He shook his head. “No. Your fire got really hot, but I’m fine.” He tried reaching out to take my hand in his, but I drew it away.
“Don’t touch me. I don’t want to hurt you.”
He paused, then took my hand anyway. “Why do you think you’re going to hurt me?”
“Because… because something happened there that scares me. I had control of the fire, but I liked burning Mina so much that I just wanted to keep going. If you didn’t stop me I would have kept going and burnt the trees, melted the rocks… I would have destroyed everything. What sort of monster revels in such destruction? What am I? Is this the demon I now have inside me?”
Jack gently squeezed my hand, and adjusted his position so he could put his other arm around me. “You’re still you, but it seems you’re more powerful than you thought. Do you feel the desire to burn down the park right now?”
“Not really… but when I think about it all I can think of is how much fun it would be to set something on fire again. See! I’m awful.”
“No, you’re not. It’s just going to take a little bit of training to control yourself once you summon fire like that. I mean that – you are absolutely amazing, and you’ve gotten so much stronger in the time I’ve known you, and you were a strong person to begin with. I’m going to be by your side, I promise, and I’ll help you through this, no matter what. I mean that.” He tilted my chin up so I would look at him, and as I looked into his eyes and saw his sincerity I felt relief wash over me. I didn’t completely believe him, but it was comforting that he still trusted me. I smiled, and he said, “See? You’ll be all right.”
I stood up, offering a hand to help Jack up as well. He wobbled a bit, but was able to walk on his own. He went over to Dane’s remains and the piles of clay that used to be the demonlings’ bodies. All that was left of Dane were his clothes and a few bones, and none of the clay that had been left behind showed any sign that they had been anything but piles of clay.
We got in the car and drove back to Steven’s Ridge in silence. It wasn’t until we got off the freeway exit that Jack spoke up. “Are you okay, Kenna?”
I shook myself out of my thoughts and replied, “Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not the one who was nearly eaten tonight.”
“Well, yeah, but what I meant by that was… well, you’ve seen someone you knew personally – someone you dated - get killed twice now. Are you really okay with that?”
I watched the street lamps whiz by as I thought about my answer. It was true, seeing Dane alive – well, moving and talking, anyway – did cause me to catch my breath. But was it out of fear or surprise? I went over the course of our relationship in my mind and realized why I wasn’t missing him as much as I should have.
“You know, it’s true that I was happy around him while we were going out, and I thought that I deeply cared about him, but I think I only superficially cared about him. He was fun to be around, but… well, something he said near the end made me realize that that was all my relationship with him was – fun. Not the permanent, everlasting sort of relationship you hear about in fairy tales. If I’m going to fall in love, it’s going to be with my best friend. Someone who knows everything about me, that I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not when I’m around them. He didn’t fit any of those criteria. So really, I don’t feel any sort of loss because I didn’t really have something with him to begin with.” I looked at Jack, but it was too dark to see what his reaction was. Snow started gently falling, and we fell back into silence.
We pulled up to my house and he went around the car to open my door for me. We walked up to my door without saying a word, and once we got there we stood for another silent moment. Remembering something, he reached into his pocket and pulled my necklace out of it. “You’ll probably want this back, won’t you,” he muttered.
I took it from him and looked at it as it sat in my palm. I realized I was way too dangerous without it at least near me, and I started to put it back on around my neck. He stopped me, though, as if he were reading my mind, and said, “I meant what I said. You’re not dangerous at all. With a bit of practice, you’ll be just fine.” He gave me an encouraging smile, and I smiled back. “Anyway, I’m sorry that tonight ended so poorly.”
I shrugged. “I’m in pretty deep into this world of shadows, aren’t I? Nights like this are pretty much becoming the norm.”
He nodded. “I’d prefer them not to be, but I’m afraid you’re probably right.”
“Anyway, thanks for dinner. I had fun, vampire attacks aside.” I gave him a quick hug and turned to open the door. Jack also turned around and started walking down the pathway back to his car.
Just as I finished unlocking the door and had my hand on the door handle, I realized something that made some of the feelings I’d been having make sense now. I felt my heart growing lighter and butterflies in my stomach, and knew I had to act before I chickened out and let Jack leave. I ran down the walkway to catch up with him He turned around when he heard me coming up behind him and gave me a quizzical look. “Did you leave something in the car?”
“No, you doofus. Actually, sorry
about that, I’m the doofus. Being with you makes me so happy in ways that I’ve never felt before, and in the car I was telling you about the kind of person I want to fall in love with, and that person is you, isn’t it? You’re my best friend, and you know everything about me, and I feel most myself when I’m around you!” I grinned at him, feeling the burden of having my feelings sorted out and making them known be lifted from me. When he didn’t say anything immediately, I threw my arms around his neck and pulled myself close to him. He hesitated for a moment, then put his hands on my waist. I leaned back just enough so that I could look at his face, and he closed the gap between our lips.
He was so sweet, so tender… and after only a moment he gently but firmly pushed me away.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, confused at why we were no longer holding each other.
He rubbed his face and looked flustered. “I’m sorry… this is a bad idea. I shouldn’t have let you do that. I shouldn’t have been so forward with you. It’s just that… when I’m around you I forget who I am, which isn’t good.”
“I don’t understand,” I replied when he took a moment to draw a breath. “If I make you happy, and if you make me happy… and back at the park, I thought I heard you say…” I trailed off, unable to continue when I saw how sad it made him.
He leaned against the car. “I’m a half vampire. Because of that I have many enemies, and you being close to me – especially like that – would only put you in danger. I don’t age at the same rate you do, and because I spend so much time putting myself in danger, I could die tomorrow, or I could live for hundreds of years after you’ve died. Either way, one of us would experience a pain too deep to bear.”
“Listen, because of who my parents are, and now because of who I am, I’m in a lot of danger anyway. And I can deal with you aging at a different rate…”
“Could you? Think of any story you’ve read or seen in the movies about an immortal falling in love with a mortal. They have to keep moving so they don’t arouse suspicion when the immortal doesn’t age, and after a certain point the mortal has to claim to be the immortal’s parent, then grandparent, and their relationship has to be a secret. You may think you can deal with that, but it would become increasingly difficult to do so over time.” He waited for me to reply, but I couldn’t. If I said anything I wouldn’t be able to keep the tears at bay. He stepped back towards me and held me close, which only made it worse.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But I want you to have the chance to fall in love with someone that you can live a fulfilling life with. I’d still like to be your best friend, though, and continue to have the close friendship we’ve built up.”
“I’m always going to want more, though,” I finally choked out.
“I know, and I’m sorry. If it’s going to be too difficult to bear, I can leave Colorado and you can forget about me. Mina was the reason I came to Colorado in the first place, and now that she’s gone…”
“No!” I exclaimed. “I’d rather have you here as my friend than not here at all.”
He nodded and let go of me, stepping back again. “I am glad you feel that way. I do not want to lose your friendship, either. The offer stands, though – if it becomes too much to bear, I will leave. Do you understand? Will you promise that you’ll ask me to leave if my staying will only cause you pain?”
It took a long time for me to agree, but I finally nodded my head.
“Good. It’s been a long and tiring night, so I’ll leave you to get some rest. Good night, Kenna.”
“Good night, Jack. Will we be able to keep spending time together? Maybe sometime again soon?”
“Of course. I promised I’d help you out with your powers, right? Better to start sooner than wait for the last possible moment to practice. I’ll see you later.” He got in his car, started it, and left.
I watched as he drove off down the street, then turned the corner and out of sight. I got to the house and jumped in surprise when I opened the front door to see a figure sitting on the stairs there in the dark.
“That looked really, really rough. Are you okay?” My older brother asked.
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