The House At The End Of The Road

Dinner

Jane sat at the dinner table, her two bow-backed parents to either side, facing each other. Dinner conversation was usually quite stunted, the only thing worth talking about being a breakthrough in the antidote that Jane was trying to brew for her parents. But tonight, they seemed particularly vibrant. ‘Did you see the opera today, Jane?’ said Jane’s mother, Carol. 

‘No, I didn’t get a chance. Was it good?’ Jane asked, preparing herself for the tirade of handsome man that and beautiful woman this, but it really was just Phantom Of The Opera, which Jane had left in the dvd player. Carol watched it everyday, and usually dragged Desmond into it to. 

‘Oh, it was amazing. There was a man with a mask, an he was soooo handsome, and then there was the singer... umm umm... what was her name dear?’ she asked Desmond, who had retained a bit more of his intelligence. 

‘I don’t think Jane needs to hear about the opera, Dear. How was your day Jane?’ Desmond asked. 

‘I got a job offer.’ said she. Her two parents had retained there knowledge of their lower-class living through the course of their sickness, and they both snapped from their quarrel about whether Jane wanted to now the name of the main female character in Phantom of the Opera. 

‘A job offer? How’s the pay?’ asked Desmond, ever the practical one. 

‘Six hundred pounds a week.’ that drew inhales of surprise. 

‘What’s the job?’ asked Desmond. 

‘I have to... housekeep.’ lied Jane, knowing her parents would be apprehensive of someone who pays people to live with them. 

‘You have to be a maid?’ asked Carol, indignantly.

‘No, the owner is going on holidays and I’m just gonna air it out and stuff.’

‘Is he hot? The owner?’ asked Carol, ever on the playing field, at sixty-two-and-married. 

‘Sort of. I didn’t really think about it.’ said Jane. After a pause she continued. ‘Do you think I should take it? 

‘Yes.’ said both her parents at the same time, their tones implying that she’d be crazy not to. 

Not to far from the Nogueira residence, in a house fit for a king, sat two men. One a giant, one wanted for treason, assaulting officers and resisting arrest in all of Europe. And yet, there they were, having lamb that Bellerophon had cooked to perfection, just outside London. ‘Well, you saw her, what d’you think?‘ asked Ferric. 

‘Late twenties, very intelligent. Caring and capable. She’d be formidable if she completed a Full-Moon cycle. She was quite intimate with Gums in the lab, and might be good enough. What do you think?’  

‘She’s no Luna, but she’ll do.’ said Ferric. Bellerophon filled the pause with a massive bite of his lamb. ‘D’you think she’ll take the job?’ asked Ferric, after a bite of his own delicious lamb. 

‘Are you serious? That girl wouldn’t have been paid more than two hundred a month, and you come and offer six hundred a week? Tomorrow morning She’ll be at the door and I’ll have to be there. You get to go off and kill the Intruder. How come you get to go? I’m better than you anyway.’

‘Oh really?’ asked Ferric, sarcasm written all over his eyebrows. 

‘Lance, you haven’t drawn Tamerleine in a decade. Something I’m sure he isn’t happy about. I, however, went to see my father and your father not long ago, and they were fighting the Flayers at the time.’

‘Were they now?’ Ferric asked. 

‘Yes. They miss you at the front lines. They sent you their love, as always, as well as a plea for your return.’

‘Bellerophon, I have told you my feelings on that matter. I’m not going back.’ 

‘Lance-

‘Leave it. I’m not going.’ snapped Ferric, this conversation as old and dusty as time itself. Another pause. ‘You think she’ll turn up then?’ asked Ferric. 

‘Yeah, she’ll turn up and you’ll be off hitting Intruders while I get to baby sit the newbie. Hmph.’ said Bellerophon, feigning annoyance. H wasn’t as annoyed as as he made out, but he did want to kill some Intruders. 

‘You’ll survive.’ said Ferric with a grin. ‘This Lamb is beautiful by the way. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘You’d be on the streets, in nothing but a tattered cloak, begging people to live with you. Is human company so important to you? Are you so sure that you want to become one of them? It’s not like you can go back.’

‘Bellerophon, I can’t even turn anymore. But I can feel the moonrays, beating down upon my skin, angry that I don’t transform into a furry whirlwind of claws and destruction. I want to be free of the sensation that there is something broken, something missing.’ 

‘She’ll come.’ said Bellerophon. He knew what Ferric was talking about, the sensation of being broken, directionless. It was horrible. 

He hoped that Jane did in fact work for Ferric, and snap him from his mad hate for his father and Bellerophon’s own father. He didn’t judge Ferric for hating his family, he knew the anger was well placed. But he also knew that the hate was killing who Ferric was. Forty years ago He was a vibrant young warrior, as skilled int the blade as the turn, at both of which he was unrivaled, except for his brother Chris. Bellerophon was always surprised at Ferric’s hate for Chris. He hadn’t killed Luna. Bellerophon knew that Ferric hated Chris’s wife, Helaena, and that hate had rolled to Chris, a sort of collateral damage. 

Bellerophon was no where near as old as Ferric, himself only being a bijou one-fifty. He never had caught Ferric’s age. Somewhere between two and four hundred, Bellerophon guessed. He knew that Ferric had been infuriated by his family, excluding Chris, by a reason big enough to separate a son and his parents for fifty years. 

An age old debt ran from Bellerophon’s heritage to Ferric’s, the generations aligning enough for Bellerophon’s father to serve Ferric’s and Bellerophon to serve Ferric. 

‘She’ll come’