CHAPTER 38 - Bitter Medicine
I must have fallen asleep because when I woke Scott was doing something on the computer with his headphones on and the house was still quiet.
Hey?
Hi, is anyone else listening in here?
Nope only us.
I would just like to say that we have great sex in your dreams, seriously great sex.
Really? Well there you go, you don’t need me then.
Don’t need you? Hmm you have never been more wrong. Your dreams are like a movie preview, show enough to get you really interested but only hint at the ending.
Ohh, I’m not sure what to say to that...
Then don’t say anything, just kiss me.
We kissed until it got too much.
I slowly pulled away from him with an apologetic smile, “I had better go for a shower. I probably smell bad.”
“Nope, guess again.” His lips curled into a cheeky grin, “I could give you another reason for having a shower if you want?”
“I don’t doubt that!” I laughed as I headed for the shower leaving him on the bed.
I came out to find Scott in the living room. He and Adam were glaring at each other. Adam breathed a short scoff as I entered the room then turned and headed down the stairs.
Going straight for the Kitchen I avoided Scott and gave myself some time to pull myself together. Now both of his parents were against me. Fantastic.
Hey Jari?
Hi, I can see you are gaining control with these links but don’t lock me out too much, there might something I need to warn you about.
Sorry, I’m in trouble with everyone today.
Boyfriend troubles?
No, the in-laws. Adam is less than impressed with me. Apparently I am not good enough for his son.
Jari growled softly and swore loudly.
He didn’t say that Natalie, he is just concerned about us both, that’s all.
Umm, sure. So Jari did you get the iPod?
Yeah. Harold told me that my girlfriend made the recordings for me so show what I was missing out on. Did you make the recording?
What recording? It’s got Scott’s music on it.
No, it hasn’t. Well not anymore.
What?
Let’s just say the new recording isn’t easy to sing along with.
That... freak. He took my iPod and recorded over my music with ... that’s just wrong. What a sicko.
Well what did you expect? Thanks for the gesture Natalie but... I could almost hear him grimacing.
I’m sorry alright. I turned and went back to my only space I could, Scott’s room. I missed my own room and my own stuff. I flopped on the bed and turned on the TV and sulked.
I was still feeling sorry for myself when Scott came through the door backwards. He turned into the room carrying a large tray which he put down on the bed.
“Not exactly breakfast in bed, but dinner in bed!” On the tray was a selection of food and a rose. He sat on the bed next to me and handed me the rose, “I am sorry. This isn’t easy for any of us and especially for you. At least I have my Dad. I want you to know that you have me. I won’t let you down and I will always support you and I am sorry if it didn’t seem like that before. And don’t worry about your ‘in-laws’ they are collateral damage too.” He laughed. “But before you start picking out a big white dress you might want to think about a Prom Dress.”
“Prom Dress?”
“Yes, you will definitely need one of those. That’s if you want to come to the Prom with me?” He smiled at me, “Natalie will you be my Prom date?”
“Yes,” I whispered back. My first prom.
Scott placed some candles around the room lit them and we had a romantic candlelit dinner on his bed. He held me as we ate and we made plans for the future. Jari behaved and stayed silent. And Scott and I talked and laughed together.
I fell further in love with him. As we kissed I questioned my decision, maybe this was the right time? I wanted to give him my love and all of me, after all we did love each other. I knew he could hear my internal thoughts and he smiled at me.
“I adore you Natalie. I will wait until you no longer debate. When you have no doubts at all then I will, but while you are unsure I will be patient. Although, I do like the fact that you are seriously considering it, I like that a lot.”
My heart melted and all my doubts disappeared.
“That was a good answer,” I said as I kissed him enthusiastically and pushed my hands up under his shirt taking the shirt up his chest. Our bodies crushed against each other as we fought to remove clothing.
Umm. I know that this is a bad time. And by bad time, I mean really bad time.
Go away Jari, We both growled in unison.
I would if I could. Something is happening and I know you have your own things happening but... I am sorry Scott but you are going to have to deflower my daughter some other time. Get Adam and Aze, quickly.
Scott’s shoulders slumped but we pulled away from each other. His eyes were flooded with regret but Jari was serious.
We found the others downstairs in the gym and I gave Adam access to my thoughts so he could hear Jari.
They see you as a serious threat to the Hive. They don’t believe that you will honour the treaty. Aze scares them. They believe that because you have Beatrice that Harold isn’t making his decisions in the best interest of the Hive. They are in the process of overthrowing Harold as leader.
Who is contending the leadership? Adam asked.
Me. It seems. I really need you to get me out now.
As soon as Jari said ‘me’ Adam was speaking to Aze with no small amount of panic in his voice.
I don’t understand Jari? Why would they want you as their leader?
Well, they don’t want me as in ‘me’, they want me as in ‘vampire me’. They want to turn me.
NO!
We can’t let that happen, Natalie. Promise me you won’t let that happen. As soon as I have the virus in me I won’t be me anymore, you must Judge me. I will be already dead Natalie you must not hesitate to kill the aberration that will reside in my body.
No, Jari, no.
“Scott, Natalie, it is time you stepped up and took on your full Watcher abilities. I hoped to put this off but we can’t. But if they succeed in turning Jari he will be too powerful and far too dangerous. We must move while there is still infighting. Hopefully we will get to him before they infect him. Aze is pulling together the weapons while I teach you to form Judgements.” Adam looked less than impressed.
“Once you have accomplished this you will be the new Irin and Qaddis. You will be the Watchers of the Third Tower and take ownership of the Tower and the portals. I had hoped that you would have more time before having this thrust onto you. But we don’t have that luxury. So let’s get started.”
“You don’t want us to have this?” I asked.
“Not yet. You are still at school,” he looked at us then quietly added, “It is a commitment that I am not sure you are ready for.”
“Commitment, what sort of commitment?”
“A true Irin and Qaddis are totally committed to each other and their destiny. They obtained the Eyes Of Night through this joint strength. Only when synchronised can you harness its full potential.”
“Exactly what is the Eyes Of Night?”
“It is different for each pair but essential it means that you have the ability to see what is hidden. You can see the fremd and correct their crimes.”
Then he started. Scott and I faced each other and held hands. Adam had us link our thoughts but push our consciousnesses deeper into each other. Allow each other to see our true selves. We had to be trust each other and give each other access to every memory and every thought.
Adam explained that only with total unrestricted access could we truly know each other. With that trust we were joined as one. Synchronised our two minds would work together to analyse the evidence, seeing each other’s uncertainties before forming the consensus necessary to judge a fremd. Then a fair decision could be made on punishment. When nothing was hidden then our minds were free to weld the power to judge.
We were the judge, the jury and the executioner of the fremd.
It wasn’t easy to release everything to Scott. He also struggled. Seeing his full history of intimacy in vivid colour wasn’t fun. I didn’t want to see what he did with so many other girls. But every time I pulled away Adam growled at me and reminded me what was at stake. So I endured and we shared my humiliation and Scott’s shame and embarrassment.
And of course, he saw my every practical joke, every sabotage I engineered, all the pranks I played on the football team and his friends, the lengths I went to get the story for the eZine, and all my disasters with the opposite sex.
Some things were never meant to be seen, but this was what we had to do. He held me as I cried my tears and we talked our way through all the memories and experiences.
It took a while but eventually we opened up completely to each other. Soon the pain lifted. I felt the exhilaration of having no secrets from him, having nothing hidden between us. But there was also a small amount of sadness involved. Part of dating was slowly uncovering all these feelings and truths. Instead, like everything else, we got it all in one lump. The gentle romance of unravelling each other’s secrets was lost forever. We had the shotgun version.
We were now the Irin and Qaddis of the Third Tower. I could feel it. I could feel the strength and power that existed between us.
We were completely exposed to each other and that gave us the power.
I couldn’t hide my disappointment.
My past is now open to you but we still have our future to discover together.
I know it would have been nice to discover you slowly.
Yes, but we don’t know each other’s reactions yet. I want to discover those. I want to see if you will be proud when I score for the football team, what colour and style dress you will choose to wear to the prom, and how many different ways I can get you to blush. We have more to discover about each other.
We looked at each other intoxicated with our feelings.
“I can feel the Irin leaving me. It is now in your hands.” Adam brought us back to earth. We turned to him as he said one word, “Judgements.”
This was it. This was the thing I was most worried about. Jari wanted us to Judge him if necessary. So now were we going to learn how to kill my father?
“I can teach you the theory. And then it will depend on your EON as to how easy it is for you to put it into practice.”
I knew what he was saying. If we had a strong connection we would have a strong EON. We would have no doubts as to what the other was thinking. Then we could easily form a consensus of opinion.
“We can punish the Fremd in two ways, by controlling their shells or with the portals,” Adam started. “Through manipulating their shells we can easily change or alter their looks and we can limit their movement. So this is a lesser punishment – a first warning or a slap on the wrist.”
“But, if necessary, there is a more serious punishment. This relies on your control of the portals. The Fremd all came here through a portal. So the most basic application of your EON would be to send them back through the portal they came from – deport them.”
“Alternately, as you get to know the portals you will find places which will strike fear into any Fremd. So exile or banishment is another punishment.”
“However your biggest stick is the ability to add to the death lists. If necessary you can open the portal to death. It is a last resort when everything else had failed.”
Adam then laughed softly, “And then, of course, there is the clean up, the cover stories and the paperwork to be done. Nothing happens without paperwork!”
Then Adam vaguely touched on the fremd laws or rules. And by vague I mean he merely told us they centred on secrecy and protecting the balance between the hidden fremd and the humans. He did promise to go into greater depth when the threat was over. He said that these laws weren’t relevant or urgent at the moment. His contempt was clear when he told us that there was no doubt regarding the guilt of the Hive.
Then he told us how to open the portals, in particular the death portal. I was born with the portals all imprinted on my consciousness. That was my mark and why I was fated to be Qaddis.
They were like street addresses and our joint mind was like the GPS. So while I inputted the address, our joined minds would give us the directions, and when all was synronised the portal would form. With no doubts about the judgement, the EON gave us the key. Then the true physical form of the fremd would be forced through into the realm chosen. Easy.
The hard thing was forming a judgement. There had to be no doubts in either mind. Only when the mind was completely pure would it allow us to enact the punishment. So we couldn’t practice opening a portal without a judgement.
“So you both must be very sure what we are doing before we go to do this. You can’t have any doubts. You can’t hesitate. If you aren’t aligned then we can’t do this because they will kill you while you debate. Do you understand Natalie?”
“Any news from Jari?” Aze reappeared.
There is still a lot of infighting and Harold isn’t doing so well. Jari’s voice was edgy.
“What will they do to him?”
“The vampire is just a human that has been infected with a very nasty virus. There is no cure and it takes over the whole body, every cell, changing and injecting its own genetic material throughout. The host still retains some personality traits but becomes total driven by the need to sustain the virus. New blood cells are an easy food source for a replicating virus.”
“The virus is spread by blood. So they will most likely make him drink blood. Scott wasn’t infected as it ruins the blood - it makes it tainted and undrinkable. Plus they don’t want to make more than they need. It creates too much competition for food. But the virus has been known to infected some by accident, all it takes is for one vampire to have a rip in his skin and that blood to transfer to someone else. We had to evacuate the lake before the battle for that reason. Obviously UV light destroys the virus and hence the vampire.”
“I have everything packed into the van that we need. Are you two ready?”
Scott and I looked at each other and nodded.
“Great, now the plan. Firstly, no light casting. You will not have the spare lifeforce to produce the light. You must concentrate on forming judgements as that will be a far more effective use of your time than anything else. Tur and some of his boys are coming but they will only be guarding. They can’t do much down there. Tur isn’t an Archangel, so he can’t throw light. So they will be pretty useless in this situation.”
“Actually, I might have an idea which will keep Tur busy and provide a distraction.” I quickly outlined my idea and Aze nodded.
“Yeah, definitely worth trying,” Aze nodded. “So Tur’s boys will try to distract, I will do the light, Adam and Tur will get Jari, and you two will defend us all. Simple plan.”
“Would it not be better for us to throw a huge light that illuminates the whole hive and forces them into the caves, like Jari did. Then we can get Jari with no risk.”
“No risk? Don’t you remember what happened on the boat? Don’t you remember that’s why we had to leave Jari there instead of all escaping? Look Natalie we have been trying to find a non-violent way out of this but they aren’t giving us a choice. If we don’t get Jari out right now then I don’t even want to think about the repercussions. They are forcing us into this. You must understand what is at risk.”
“Ok, it’s just seems like a leap of faith – what if we can’t do this? And we are making our début as Watchers by condemning an entire Hive.”
“You will do this because you have to and you are not condemning the Hive. You are merely protecting a rescue party. If any fremd threaten the rescue of Archangel Jariel, who was taken and held against his will and tortured, you will punish them.”
“That seems reasonable.” I looked at Scott who smiled and nodded to me. I could live with that.
I hope you guys are ready. Harold is making one last stand but his supporters are waning.
We all piled into the van and Scott held me tightly as Aze gunned the engine. We hurtled through the streets which were luckily deserted.
Attacking a Brood at night, great idea, brilliant plan.
This all had a familiar feel to it. This time I had Scott giving me kisses of reassurance rather than Jari.
We made on quick stop off get some more supplies and then headed straight for Town Hall.
It was three am.
Aze explained that normally he would have left it until later so the sunrise could mask our retreat, like last time, but we couldn’t delay.
We stood at the non-descript door again. It had been repaired after our last visit. Now it didn’t quite hang perfectly, but it wasn’t crooked enough not to close.
I felt Scott whole body tense with fear. We looked into each other’s eyes and aligned our thoughts.
I won’t let anything happen to you Scott.
I won’t let anyone hurt you either. Love you.
Great lets go kick vampire butt then.
Jari we are coming now.
= OK do you all understand the EON and how Judgements work? =
Let me know if it isn't clear...
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