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| Jackson |
As Brando, Tokala, Ezhno, and Lalo lowered Alastor's body into the ground, Jackson tried his best to keep it together. His heart was aching with guilt, but he attempted to focus on what Damon told him. This wasn't his fault...and no one blamed him.
He blamed him, though, just like he blamed himself for everyone else who died because he didn't know how to use or control his power. But he wouldn't be a burden anymore. He was going to be the pack member that Damon told him he was—he was going to be an asset.
Jackson took a deep breath and listened to the pack speak.
Everyone simultaneously said, "As we commit our fallen packmate to the ground, we plead to the Moon Goddess: take Alastor of the Grey Blood Pack into your eternal night. Let him join his ancestors, let his ethos be returned to the world it was born from, and let him live on in your embrace." Then, they all began howling.
"Is this a like...born wolves only thing?" Wilson whispered from beside Jackson.
Jackson, Wilson, Sebastien, and Julian were all sitting on the same log pile in their human forms, watching the burial.
"From what I know, there are several original wolf walker tribes out here," Sebastien said. "They're typically all born into the pack and come from the older bloodlines, so...yeah. They have different traditions and practices than other packs might, but like his ancestor, your Alpha is changing things up—for the better, I might add. I might not be a wolf walker, but I always hated seeing how Omegas were treated."
"Tell me about it," Julian grumbled.
The pack stopped howling. Then, they shifted into their human forms and began taking the scissors from the small medical kits in each of their bags.
"What are they doing now?" Wilson questioned.
Jackson frowned curiously when he saw Damon begin cutting his hair, and everyone else quickly did the same.
"I've seen Kane do this," Julian said quietly. "It's like...their hair is a physical manifestation of their spirit. Cutting it and stuff has a very strong meaning, and they bury it with their fallen loved ones."
That made Jackson's despondency grow. The fact that no one had hair longer than a few inches—even when he first arrived—proved that they were always losing their packmates. And now was evidently the first time in a while that they got to spend mourning. Every other time someone died, they had to run.
Once everyone finished cutting their hair, they placed it into Alastor's grave. Then, they backed off, giving Wesley space to approach his friend.
As Wesley placed his severed hair into the grave, he sniffled sullenly and scowled in dismay. "You were my best friend," he uttered, his voice breaking. "You were like a brother to me, and I'll never forget you or everything we did. I wouldn't be here without you, and now...now I don't really know what I'm supposed to do," he said with a painful laugh, listing his teary face towards the sky. "I don't know what to do."
"It's okay, Wesley," Rachel said softly, moving closer to him. "We're all here for you."
Wesley inhaled through his stuffy nose and wiped the tears from his face as he looked back down at Alastor. "I'm gonna miss you so much, man. I know we argued and didn't see eye to eye on everything, but at the end of every day, we could still laugh and make each other forget for a little while that we weren't in the middle of a shitstorm."
Everyone laughed with Wesley but fell silent when he did.
"I love you, man," Wesley said through his tears.
"May the Moon Goddess embrace him," Damon said.
And the pack replied, "May the Moon Goddess embrace him."
The pack began returning the earth to Alastor's grave, burying him.
"Can we help?" Jackson asked, looking at Julian.
"I don't know," they answered. "When Kane buried people, the only ones he allowed to take part were those from his original pack...or tribe. Everyone else that he recruited or turned couldn't even be within a hundred feet of the ceremony."
Jackson wasn't going to intrude or do something to offend the pack, so he stayed where he was. He wanted to help, but if he wasn't supposed to, then he wouldn't.
"I feel so bad for Wesley," Julian mumbled. "Those two were super close, from what I could tell."
"Yeah," Jackson replied despondently.
"At least he has the pack, though...right?" Wilson said, looking at them both. "If I lost someone that close to me and I was all alone, I'd go crazy."
Sebastien grunted quietly. "Been in his position. It fucking sucks."
Jackson knew how it felt to lose someone he loved, and he wasn't about to let the memory of that pain consume him. "Do demons have burial traditions?" he asked Sebastien.
The white-haired man nodded. "Yeah, uh...a lot. Different kinds for different demons. Though the saddest is probably a mate burial."
"What happens?" Julian asked.
Sebastien took a deep breath. "Well, in most cases where a demon has lived with their mate for a long time, losing them is like losing a huge part of themselves. Demons have this like...internal instinct to search for their mate the moment they reach maturity, and they don't stop until they find them. That's when their real life begins. So...it's like dying, and they treat it as such. They'll kill themselves so that they can join their mate in whatever waits for demons after death."
"Sounds a little cultish," Wilson muttered.
"I think it's...romantic in a way," Julian said. "I mean...a part of them is literally dying when their mate dies. Living without them would be like living without half of their body and being, right?"
"Precisely," Sebastien said with a nod. "The only reason I didn't kill myself when my mate died was because I knew I could get him back. And I did."
Wilson then turned to face him. "So, like...this whole whatever we want thing from Caedis is legit? He'll literally give us whatever the hell we want once we get this mission done with?"
Jackson felt both curious and skeptical. What could Wilson want that was only obtainable through a god?
"Yup," Sebastien confirmed. "I admit, I was a little suspicious at first; the guy pulled a bunch of loopholes from our contract, but that was mostly my fault for not reading it. He lived up to his end of the deal, so." He then adorned an intrigued expression. "Why? What are you thinking?"
"My parents," Wilson answered with a shrug. He dragged his hand through his light brown hair and mumbled, "They were taken from me. I don't know if they're dead or alive, but I know that El'Vorian took them. A part of me was hoping I'd find something out at this lab; that was part of the reason I was looking into this stuff in the first place."
Jackson's expression grew despondent. He felt awful about the fact that he already knew what Wilson was sharing, but he'd do his best to act like this was all new information. He moved his arm around his friend to try and comfort him.
"And if they're not at the lab?" Sebastien asked.
"Then maybe I can ask Caedis to find them or something."
"I was kinda thinking of asking for the same thing," Jackson mumbled. "I wanna know the truth about what happened to my parents."
"Yeah, I always thought it was bullshit about the car crash," Wilson said. "Why is it always a car crash? Like...even in the movies and shit the stepparents or guardians or whatever always say their parents died in a car crash when it was actually some huge conspiracy or something."
Sebastien laughed quietly. "You're not wrong. Maybe because it's easier to say they got drunk and lost control of a vehicle."
"Yeah, but what if they don't drink?" Julian questioned.
"I don't know," Wilson said with a sigh. "Blame it on some other drunk driver."
"You wanna know what the Nosferatu said happened to my family when they shut down Aldergrove Academy?" Sebastien asked everyone with an amused tone.
They all looked at him and waited.
"Gas leak."
"Gas leak?" Jackson scoffed.
"Come on, man," Wilson snickered.
Jackson then slapped his friend's arm. Sebastien might be smiling about it, but that could mean he was trying to hide his pain. That was his family.
"Nah, it's all right," Sebastien said to Jackson. "My family were a literal cult. Yeah, it sucks being the last of my kind, but I'd rather that than sit around knowing the rest of my kind are feeding teens to a hungry spirit."
Julian then asked, "So...they set the place on fire?"
"Only way to banish a phantom like that for good," the white-haired demon said with a nod. "I didn't even know it was possible until Lord Caedis proved me wrong. It was this super long, super draining ritual, but it was pretty cool to watch. Lord Caedis can do a whole bunch of cool shit, ain't gonna lie. Bringing back dead people isn't even the half of it."
"You're always talking about him, but what about the Zenith?" Julian asked quizzically. "He comes up in wolf walker stories sometimes—he's even in some of the old paintings and books with Caedis—but we haven't met him or seen him or anything."
Sebastien laughed nervously and scratched the side of his face. "Honestly, you should be glad that you got to the Venaticus when Lord Caedis was there. If the Zenith was there...well, let's just say things would have gone a whole different way."
"Why?" Wilson questioned.
"The Zenith is just less understanding...or tolerable of certain behaviour, I guess. A lot of people see Lord Caedis as the nicer one of the two," Sebastien explained, resting his arms on his knees.
Was this a good time for Jackson to ask his questions? They were already on the subject of the Zenith, Lord Caedis, and the Nosferatu. "So, when I was with Doctor Everston, he said that asmodi would like...need blood two or three times a week," he started, looking at Sebastien.
"Uh-huh," the white-haired demon mumbled.
"So...what happens if I don't get blood?"
Sebastien exhaled and shook his head. "Not pretty," he drawled. "If you don't feed, your body will kinda like...let instinct take over to keep you alive. And if you're starving because you're too weak or something, your body does this kind of last-stand thing. I've...seen it happen. A lot of demons have little ethos reserves for when they direly need it, such as if they're starving. That reserve will activate and give you a sort of burst of energy, enough to find something to feed on."
"Kinda like vampires?" Julian asked.
"Yeah, the older ones," Sebastien confirmed.
Wilson chuckled nervously. "Well, uh...we better make sure you get your blood, then."
"Can it be any blood?" Jackson asked.
Sebastien nodded. "As long as it's from something that's alive, yeah."
Jackson's next question came before he had time to process the answer to the first. "So...since I'm a wolf walker and a demon, does that mean I heal faster than both? I have a tolerance for silver because of the demon in me, right?"
"I don't think so, no," Sebastien said, tapping his chin. "Being a hybrid doesn't add one species' power on top of the other. Hell, in some cases, a hybrid can be weaker than the two species it's a part of."
"So...Jackson's weaker or what?" Wilson urged.
"From what I've seen, no. See, Lord Caedis and the Zenith designed asmodi demons to be without their flaws. Wolf walkers and vampires are deadly to one another—"
"Vampires?" Julian interjected.
"Yeah. Lord Caedis is the creator of vampires. Keep up," Sebastien muttered. "Uh...yeah, deadly. So, they made asmodi without that weakness. Therefore, you don't get any weaknesses from that combo. As for healing faster and stuff, that's where things get a little more scientific."
Jackson frowned curiously.
"Someone can't...increase their total ethos capacity," Sebastien started, glancing at each of them. "It's, uh...." He sighed frustratedly and groaned. "Clem is so much better at explaining this kinda shit." He held out his hands and said, "Okay, so, as a demon, let's say you have forty copias—that's the unit of measurement for ethos—and the average wolf walker has thirty. When you became a hybrid, your copias didn't jump to seventy. You still have forty demon copias, but you also have thirty wolf walker copias."
Wilson hummed curiously. "So, he's got two different types of ethos, and he...what? Can't use both at the same time?"
"Exactly," Sebastien said. "So, your healing abilities won't increase. Your body will automatically select which ethos to use to heal a wound. Demons can regenerate limbs, wolf walkers cannot. So, if you lost an arm or something, your demon ethos would kick in and heal it. What's also really cool is that demons heal a lot slower from wounds inflicted by other demons, but if you were beaten up by another demon, your wolf walker ethos could heal it like that," he said, clicking his fingers.
"Huh...pretty cool," Julian said.
"Well, if I plan on getting beaten up by demons, at least I know I'll heal," Jackson uttered. "How long is it gonna take me to learn to control my demon stuff?" he then asked. "Am I always gonna need the inimă?"
"The inimă is just a tool, Jackson," Sebastien told him. "You don't need it to use your demon ethos. And as for how long it's gonna take, I can't really say. Demon children usually begin learning to use their ethos once they're three, which is like...a year and a half in human years. Demons grow twice as fast when they're young. Once they're four or five, though, they start ageing like humans."
"So, what you're saying is that Jackson's fucked because he didn't learn when he was a toddler?" Wilson questioned.
Sebastien shrugged and answered, "Truthfully, it isn't going to be easy. The idea is to start learning when your proselytes grows beyond a form of protection. It's why demon babies grow faster; survival and all that. Their ethos essentially has a mind of its own for the first year and a half so that it can protect the baby, and once the ethos settles and becomes part of the demon, they can start learning to control and use it."
Jackson felt himself sinking into despair.
"But from what I've seen, you've been picking shit up real fast," Sebastien assured him. "And the inimă is definitely going to help you learn quicker. Once you've got a grip on your own power, though, the inimă can go back to being a tool."
"Right," Jackson mumbled.
"Your Alpha said something about getting a few hours of training in before we leave," the white-haired demon then said. "Once the funeral is over, we can get started on a few basics, if you want. Fire, speed, and strength. That sorta thing."
"Fire?" Julian squealed. "That's so cool!"
"Just don't set the forest on fire, huh?" Wilson said with a smirk, nudging Jackson's arm.
Jackson smiled amusedly in response, but he was quickly becoming overwhelmed with excitement and relief. He was going to begin learning soon, and he was eager to get started. The quicker he learned to use his demon ethos, then the quicker he'd be more of an asset to the pack. He wanted to be able to prevent anyone else from getting hurt, and he'd do whatever he had to.
"It's gonna be tough, though," Sebastien said, patting Jackson's shoulder. "Might even hurt a little."
"That's fine," Jackson said confidently. "I'll do whatever it takes."
"Good," he replied. "Keep hold of that positive attitude. You're gonna need it." He got up and said, "I'm gonna go let Clem know I'm safe, and then we can get started."
"All right," Jackson said, watching him head back into the burrow. Then, he set his eyes back on the pack. They were almost done burying Alastor.
He felt himself becoming more and more nervous, though. What if he couldn't do it? What if he failed or did something wrong? What if he lost control?
No...he had to focus on the fact that Lord Caedis wouldn't have made Sebastien his teacher if he didn't think he could handle it if he did lose control. He had to trust Sebastian, and he had to trust himself. He was going to learn to use and control his demon ethos, and he was going to use it to make sure that Alastor was the last person they lost.
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