Sleeping with Death: Tears, Blood, Sin

Tears, Blood, Sin


I sighed as I kissed Amy goodnight. Her warm lips met my cool ones as I pulled away from her. It shook me deeply to simply leave her that way. With tears running down her face, unable to comprehend that my secret was more than she’d ever be able to keep. That the Balance couldn’t know whether she knew… that she may already be in danger for the mere fact that I kept her company… as I lived a life different from the rest. That all her presumptions of my kind were wrong, that myth was just that even though I was not. She simply couldn’t understand. But, oh, how I wanted to show her that side of life. I knew that even though I wished it the most as I’d ever wished for anything, that I could not wish that upon her. So I left her there in the cold rain to spill her tears into the gutter. No wonder we get the reputation that we have. We simply detach ourselves from all things human… well, most do. I hold onto my one precious thing… my memories. My memories are the way that I hold myself in. The way that I keep in touch with my former self and the self I have become. The changes were inevitable as time passed, but a part of me longs more then ever to have done as I wished back then, instead of regretting it now. Knowing that if I had, this wouldn’t have happened. That my life wouldn’t have fallen apart… that I wouldn’t have ruined thousands of lives along the way. If I only had one chance to make everything better that I could. But the world doesn’t accept my kind. We’re the things of their worst nightmares. We are as they fear. They do not see the way we do. We follow our each individual nature. But as far as I know… I’m the only one of my kind to live the way I do. The others would call me filth for my existence, but I know better. So I sat down on my bed and stared at the ceiling… lost in thoughts ‘til sleep overcame.
~~~~~~
I walked into the room and smiled at the women that passed me as I wormed my way through the crowd. Thick air surrounded me, filling the room with a hazy fog. It smelled like wild flowers in a meadow on a warm summer day. It surrounded me, enveloped me. A crystal sounding laugh chimed above the light music. I searched the room for the source of the laugh and the scent.
Miss Mercy Charlotte Bliss. As always, her hair was pinned back into a loose disarray of auburn curls that fell in ringlets to frame her face. She caught sight of me, staring out through amber colored eyes. Those eyes were her fire, I remember that. They were where you could see her spirit, her soul, her temper at times. The first sight of her in six months hit me harder than it should have. A delicate pink dress fit her well, though I knew it was a color she would never pick. It complimented the pale flush that was ever present on her cheeks, fading away into the creamy ivory colored porcelain of her skin. The thin smile that had been pressed on her face faded as she pushed through the room. She threw her arms around me, pressing to me with her entire weight behind her. “Sod dignity!” as she always said.
When she pulled away, she looked up at me, grinning widely. “Why, if it isn’t Mr. Avery Cromwell!” I laughed and offered her my own sort of welcome. “More of a shock ‘tis it for those of us in this town to see our Mercy Miss.” She rolled her eyes, batting at me with her hand. “Don’t start up with that nonsense, Avery.” Once, when we were children, she’d been quite the little tomboy. She broke a poor bugger’s arm for calling her a lady. Terrified of her, he screamed out “Mercy, miss!” A rather suiting name, more so than he knew. It stuck with her.
“So, Mercy, how’ve you been on your leave of our fine town?” I grinned, not bothering to move my arm from her waist. Formalities between us were always something of a joke, a game to be played. Her eyes got a misty glowing look that meant she’d finally found home. And that she’d not stop talking of it for several hours. She talked about the gypsies she’d run away with: the rituals they did, the way they lived their lives, the fact that her mother called her home to put an end to it. We both knew that her mother wouldn’t be able to control her for forever. She’d gotten away once; it couldn’t be too terribly hard for her to do it again. She’d found a way of life among the gypsies. But even I will admit the way she spoke of them frightened me.
That night was the last time I saw her. The last words I’d ever spoken to her were spoken out of anger and resentment. What made this upsetting to me was that she died that night. She was found in an alley near her home. The details of what happened in that alley I never care to know. That was 1863. Over a century before now.
~~~~~~
I snapped up in my bed. I’d dreamt of her, that hadn’t happened in over a century. That was the night before my own change. I knew what had killed her after that. They never denied it was one of them, and I was afraid to ask until it didn’t matter anymore. I wiped the sweat off with my arm and clambered out of bed. I grabbed my black jacket, shoving my arms into it, walking out the door. Tonight was more than coincidence- Amy showing up, dreaming of Mercy. We don’t dream. We sleep, but we don’t dream. Dreams only happen when something has a message for you. I didn’t know what the message was, or who sent it.
~~~~~~
The bar was oddly quiet. I guess that happens at four in the morning. I didn’t worry; it meant that it’d be easier to talk with Sam. Samuel Becker was one of the few people who knew my fate that was alive and human. As a former hunter of my kind, he understood my want for peace. He gave me sanctuary when I needed it and would give it again with pleasure. Now I went to him with a bloody passion filling my gaze. I don’t enjoy being toyed with. I’m not a puppet. There are no strings on me to pull.
He’d aged in the six years that I’d known him. He’d gone from a rebel teen with a vendetta to pay to a twenty-three year old that tended the bar he’d inherited when his uncle died. I looked to the door that led to the back as Sammy’s clumsy form fumbled through it. Floppy brown hair fell into his eyes, causing him to shake his head every so often just so he could see. The entirely human things that he did were what I admired most about him. I never fumble, or trip. I am as grace’s most beautiful son. I, however, find more beauty in imperfection than the uneasy elegance that I hold. In hearing my chuckle and sensing my gaze, I found him pinning me to the bar, a stake inches from my still heart. You can take the boy out of the hunt, but you can’t take the hunter out of the boy.
“Watch it, Becker.” I grunted. He let me go and ran his hand through his hair sheepishly. “Sorry, didn’t see it was you. The wench here?” A warning growl arose in my throat at the mention of my sweet Amy in his oh-so-crude a manner. Sammy raised his eyebrow at me. As the years wore on he’d fallen into a more brotherly role. I survived a century without his help, but help can never hurt. Being eternally seventeen, however, has its drawbacks. So I let Sammy-boy do as he liked. That night, however, I needed no coddling.
“I need some advice, Sammy.” I told him, looking at my hands, folded up in my lap. He stared at me, his nerves showing through his eyes. I’m not so easily scared, neither is Sammy. He sighed, signaling me to follow him. As I stepped into the backroom I found a bottle pressed in my hand. I gulped its contents down in seconds. “Thanks.” I told Sammy. He goggled at me, mouth opened nearly as wide as his eyes. I knew then that he’d tricked me. I almost never drank. It led to a general badness, what with the blood and the horror. He pulled his jaw back up without too much of an effort and gulped for air through his shock. “What is it, Avery?” I dropped the bottle to the floor where it shattered. He gulped again, pulling at the collar of his tee-shirt. “Is it bad?” he asked. I shrugged, blinking and leaning against a wall. “What have you done, Avery?” I laughed, somewhat hysterically, but it was just too funny! “Avery!” he growled angrily. “Take this seriously.” I stopped laughing and shook my head. He really had no clue, did he? What we were up against? “Not what I’ve done, but what’s been done to me.” Sam shook his head, rubbing his temple. “Goddamn it, Avery, would you just tell me?” I puzzled it, staring at him. I didn’t have to blink, that’s part of what makes people so uncomfortable. Sometimes I forget, and then I stare at them and I don’t blink and they know I’m not like them. They know I’m not human. It must be irking to have someone sit there and stare at you without blinking.
I shuffled my feet on the floor, not making eye contact. “You know most of my story, from the fight in 01?” Sammy nodded, half smiling at the memory. “Wild times.” “You almost died,” I reminded him. “You know things about us. Things that most hunters never live long enough to find out.” He shrugged. “Most of that’s due to you.” I nodded. “You remember when I told you about the Balance?” He frowned in concentration. “Yeah. They were that Order. They protected the secrets of your kind. They work for that First Circle thing, right?” I shook my head. “They’re messengers, minions. Neither good nor bad. They are the Balance. They can work for the First Circle or the Powers. They really aren’t all that testy on who’s who in the grand scheme of things.” He blinked at me. “What about them?”
“They’re here. I’ve no clue who they’re working for this time, but they’re making right quick to find me. I owed it to you to tell you that they might poke around here. Whatever you do… you bloody well better not tell them that you have any connection to me. The moment they think you’re more than an innocent bystander, they won’t hesitate to kill you.” He shifted. “I can handle them. But there’s something else, isn’t there. Avery, you wouldn’t be here like this if that was it. You would have called. What else?” I ran my hand through my hair. “There’s a lot I didn’t tell you. A lot I probably never will. I had a dream tonight.”
Sammy stiffened. He knew what that meant. He knew its significance. He knew that we don’t dream without purpose, a message behind it. I continued, “It was about someone I knew a long time ago. From when I was human. A girl… my kind killed her the day before they killed me. We were… close. What surprises me is how much I can remember about her. I can still smell her. I remember every strand of hair and every look she could give you. I remember every feature in her face, everything about her. I dreamt of her…right after Amy visited.” I bit my lip, holding back the pain that remained from watching her heart shatter due to me. “Amy’s gone now. I can’t stand to think of what they’d do if they found her. I couldn’t tell her. How do you tell someone they’re sleeping with Death?” I paused, my breath caught in my throat. I don’t need to breathe; it’s just force of habit. “I need to know what this all means. Why on God’s green earth is this all happening? All together it’s more than a bit suspicious. So I just need to disappear again.” Sammy was frowning. “I guess I’ll call you when you’re in the clear. My connections will know when they’ve split.” I sighed in relief. “I’d appreciate that.” I headed to the door, but paused as Sammy spoke, “And Avery?” I turned. “Try to figure the rest of this out. It’s not healthy.”
~~~~~~
I couldn’t stop thinking of it. Not after talking to Sammy, not even after drowning my sorrows in wine. Not the cheap stuff you can pick up at any corner store, the kind that you have to get imported from France. I just sat in the dark. Blood red curtains hung over the window I sat next to in a big black chair. I held the bottle in my hand and stared through the glass top of my coffee table. In my early years of creation she had filled my every thought, she’d haunted me. I thought I’d finally gotten past all that. Why couldn’t I let go of her, as I had all the others that I’d ever loved? I never meant to love her, but I couldn’t help it. She was a friend, and then she was more, and now an obsession.
I stood up and walked to the room that had become my studio. I hadn’t meant to become an artist, especially a famous one. I had, though. It had started out as a quick way to get cash. I had thousands of memories, a lifetime of practice and forever to devote to it. I sat down at my desk. Light was barely streaming in from the hallway. I opened a drawer on my right and pulled out an assortment of pencils. I pulled a sketchpad off of a shelf and flipped past pages and pages. I stopped, and pencil met paper as the magic began all over again…
~~~~~~
“Hold still, Avery!” Mercy chided me, laughter lightening her voice. As part of her station, her mother was making her learn to paint and draw. That was why I’d been standing there giving her that solemn face, fidgeting over and over. I was only fifteen. I didn’t have the patience for that. “I canna ‘elp it!” I fussed with my collar, undoing the buttons so I could breathe. She was frustrated enough to put down her charcoal and come over to me. With a gentle shove I was pushed back into the couch. “Try to look natural, Avery,” She pleaded, her amber eyes round as saucers and sparkling like honey.
I crossed my eyes and scrunched up my face before relaxing. It was just Mercy, no need to be stiff and formal. Mercy began to scratch at the paper furiously with the charcoal. I watched her as she furrowed her brow in concentration and bit her lip. Every now and then she’d look up at me, smile, then return to her work. After several hours she sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Done.” I pushed up and strode over to her. Peering over her shoulder, I looked at the picture she’d drawn.
My mouth must have dropped in shock. It was nearly as if she had frozen me on the page. As if I was trapped in that piece of paper. It was also unfamiliar. I didn’t recognize the firm jaw that appeared in the portrait, nor the subtle grin that was moments from bursting through. How did she do that? Make me look stern, and yet free? The picture made the sternness more like a façade than the person you saw hiding behind it. Did she think I hid myself? Too many questions, not enough answers. It looked real enough, but the most alien thing to him was the look in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what I’d meant with them, if I’d indeed looked that way. I did, however, know what I read in them. Staring out at us wasn’t the boy that I was, but that man that I had the potential to be. It was almost as if she was telling me “this could be you… this is you.” Was this how she saw me?
“It’s not finished yet,” I heard her say softly. Unlike her crystal laugh, her voice was dark and rich, a little husky. Not masculine, just… there. “It looks finished ‘t me.” I felt stupid telling her that as simply as I did. It was plain, it was boring, and it was the only thing that I could put into words. And it did. Look finished, that is. She waved her hand and pointed out pieces of it. “I need to fine tune it here. And I think I should go with a rougher draw. It looks better that way. So, the sofa will need to be redone to match the rest of it.” She stopped and I turned to her, grinning from ear to ear. The shock was over, now it was “My turn?”
Mercy laughed playfully. “Bloody well not! You get your turn after I’m done with this.” She stuck her tongue out at me, smiling smugly, as was part of her charm. In return I ruffled her hair, which she returned with an elbow in my gut and a teasing whack on my shoulder.
~~~~~~
I sat back and rubbed my eyes. I let out a long breath and reached for the wine bottle. I tipped it back. When I found it empty I glared down its neck. I stared at the bottom, as if to say “How dare you be empty. You’re not the boss of me. I order you to be bottomless!” The bottom of a glass or a bottle or a cave or anything is what makes them simply stop. So if it was bottomless, there would still be something to drink because there would be no bottom and it could, therefore, not stop. That or it would have never been in there in the first place, which would be a sad thing. Us without our bottoms and without our drinks and without an end to anything, which would lead to massive over population issues and not having enough air to breathe or enough room to walk. Granted that without that room there would be no way to reproduce, but still. We’d have to live through the horrors of not being able to breathe. But I don’t breathe anyway, so I’d be quite comfortable. And so on and so forth. It would all be exceedingly dull and everyone would be bored to tears and it would be, overall, a perfectly horrid way of life. So, as you see, there simply must be bottoms to things.
“S’not bloody right,” I muttered, standing and falling in the general direction of the door. I caught myself in the frame and moved out into the hallway, still muttering under my breath. “Sodden bitch better get ‘is buggard arse away from the bleedin’ fuck of a mothership. Good-bye, kiddies! Kiss your mum on th’way out ‘n come follow me! Not gonna hurt yah, luv. It doesn’t hurt to die, I should know.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “Frogs are too slippery. I tried to bring one home for Mum, but I couldn’t find my head.” I choked on a sob. “Couldn’t find my head.” HA! I’d made it to the kitchen! Oh, wait… nope, that was the living room. After that I made it to the kitchen.
I only fell a dozen times, or so. I consider that an accomplishment. I raided the fridge; nothing. I opened a cupboard; nothing. I frantically started pulling at the cabinet doors harder and harder; nothing, nothing, NOTHING! I pulled at one so hard that it flew off its hinges and smashed into the opposite wall, splintering it into tiny shards. Ah, there it was!
After this bottle, I’d have to go to the basement. I didn’t fancy falling down the stairs to get there. A broken neck hurts like a bitch. “Run n’ catch, run n’ catch. Never gonna get it. Lost, poor little thing. Always runnin’ ‘round n’ circles tryin’ t’ catch it. But it never will, no, it never will.” I rambled on and on. “What’s ‘appenin’ t’ me? Bloody ‘ell…” I popped the cork off the bottle. It ricocheted off of the counter top, the wall, and the cabinet. It went right into my wine glass, shattering it in the process. I laughed at it hysterically. “Forget the bloody green pastures, boys! Just ship ‘em on off t’ good ol’ Avery, he’ll done set ‘em right! Set ‘em right n’ proper. Right n’ dead. Better be good or he’ll be after you.” My grip on the bottle’s neck tightened and my rambling turned into shrieks and screams. “Won’t sodden well forget me now, will yah, yah BASTARD! Won’t let me goddamn FORGET about ‘er n’ ‘ow yer all innit aren’t you?!” I hurled the bottle at the wall.
The glass broke around its blood red sin. But sin was no good. Not like the real thing. Need to hunt. Want to wring they’re bleedin’ necks 'til the pop off and bleed ‘em dry. No, not going there again. The glass shards embedded in the wall gave it an ugly beauty. Fragments among the red stain on my white walls glittered green. By then I was crying bitterly, angrily. Frustration and fury. I stared down my invisible ghost, my metaphor, my enemy. “Just leave me alone!” I sobbed, “Why canna you let me forget?” I fell to my knees with my face in my hands. Ignoring the glass cutting into my flesh, the liquid absorbing into my pants. It didn’t matter so much anymore. Any feeling was feeling, and it was all the same. “Just let me rest. I need to rest… and forget.”
I sat there and cried for what I did not know, and for what I did. They were gone, and I was alone, something I’d fought against my entire existence. It doesn’t matter now. None of it ever mattered to begin with, so why should it now? I just sat, moonlight surrounding me, separating me from the ever growing darkness as deadly sin wept into the human sin. In the end, sin is sin. It doesn’t matter what kind you make, only that you’ve made it. For without sin, there is no salvation, there is no repentance. Without these things we have no mercy, no forgiveness. My eyes drooped and I sank to the floor. Sobbing from sin, and from desperation.