Chapter Fifteen: Ephemeral

A/N: New chapter! I really liked writing this one. It was bloody good fun. I will update the theme song for this chapter in the next few minutes. Hope you like it!

Chapter Fifteen: Ephemeral

The dark figure’s face is standardly unrecognizable. The evanescent red orbs in the depths of Vassago’s hood glow with delight. He raises a hand to point a clawed finger at me.

“Ingénue, this one.” A dark chuckle escapes him. My eyes grow wide and my hands tremble in fear. We were so close. The spicy scent of pine trees and the soft dirt under my shoes proves it. But we didn’t make it.

You almost escaped.

“You-” Vassago shifts his point to Lucas who tenses up and clutches Sam tighter in his arms.  “Have betrayed your own kind.”

Lucas gulps audibly. His fingers tense tighter for a single moment before relaxing completely, letting Sam slide out of his grip.

“No!” I yell, and reflexively lurch for Sam, but I’m not fast enough. Sam falls to the ground with a loud thud as a pained grunt echoes from his mouth into the trees. That fall could kill him in his condition.  Now I’m on my knees, holding Sam’s head in my lap. It’s much like my nightmare, except there is no rain and Sam isn’t dying by my hands.

 Without Sam’s weight in Lucas’s arms, he lurches toward Vassago and the other dark figure beside him, aiming for their faces. The two enemies don’t move, surprised with Lucas’s actions. But as Lucas grabs hold of Vassago’s neck, the other being simply grabs hold of Lucas’s wrists and tosses him into the nearest tree, shaking thousands of needles off of the branches.

“You Blanks are difficult.” Vassago hisses and turns to me.

“What’s happening?” Sam whispers, his silver eyes sluggishly making their way to mine. I’m not sure how to respond.

You’re going to die.

“No, Vassago! I’m your enemy now, fight me!” Lucas shouts while staggering to an upright position. For a moment, Vassago is distracted. His head returns to Lucas to look at him, but the other figure has its attention on Sam and me, huddled in the dirt. I put my arms around Sam’s head in a protective gesture. The dark figure slowly ghosts over to us until it is about a meter away, and tilt’s its head.

“Shall I finish him, Vassago? He’s spoiled.” A woman’s voice emerges from the dark hole in her hood. She tilts her head marginally to the right. Sam’s eyes go wide as she says this. I clutch his hand. What can I do?

“Wait a moment.” Vassago approaches Lucas under the shade of the pine tree. Lucas defiantly spits by Vassago’s booted feet which makes him chuckle. Fast as a heartbeat, Vassago clutches his hand around Lucas’s neck. He didn’t even see it coming. Vassago squeezes as his victim gasps. The feeling of helplessness overwhelms me as I watch from the sidelines.  Sam is able to grasp my hand tighter, but it tires him, there is sweat beading on his forehead. His concentrating on something.

Lucas takes Vassago’s final embrace of his hand, and stops breathing altogether. Vassago lets him crumple to the ground, Lucas’s exposed face and neck buried in the pine needles. There isn’t even time to cry. Vassago joins the womanly cloaked figure and they stare at Sam and me. At least I think they are.

“You’ve caused us many a great trouble, Eneile.” Vassago purrs. “I can’t let you live.”

“Sam,” I frantically whisper at the broken boy in my lap. “Get us out of here, please, try.” I hold one of his hands in both of mine. “I can’t fight. I’ll be outnumbered. I can’t…”

“Although, your insolence amuses me, I cannot prolong your life. You’ve proven to be able to use your powers inside the facility, which most Blanks do not have the ability to do.” Says Vassago, earning a disinterested grunt from the feminine figure.

        “Please, let us live. I won’t tell anyone, not even my sister. You’ll keep your secrets, and I’ll keep mine. You don’t have to do this.” I whisper.

        “Impudent fool.” Vassago says, inching closer to us, his bloodstained fingers twitching slightly with anticipation. “You’re powers are far greater than they seem. You must be disposed of.”

        “Why did you keep me alive then?” I say. “Why would you keep me alive?”

        “We want Jeane!” In an unintended fit of rage, Vassago’s voice lowers to a demonic growl, and his wrist snatches out to connect with my face, sending me flying in the same direction as his blow. Sam is knocked only a few feet after he feel from my lap, and blankly stares at the sky. Too injured, tired, emotionally marred to move, or care. This all happens in the few milliseconds that it takes me to smash into the nearest evergreen, all breath escaping my lungs at once. I hear things inside my arm and hand crack, but I feel no pain.

        In no time at all, I see Vassago’s booted feet crunch in front of me. I’m going to die. In the last resort of defense, I raise my hands to cover my face, when suddenly I hear a familiar cry of a woman.  Vassago’s boots fly out of my line of sight, and I hear a crash, and a distressed moan. Then a higher, shriller woman’s scream echoes as I watch her be thrown into the cement building.

        She shouldn’t be here!

        “Go back!” I scream at her. “Go home! Leave!” I stagger to an upright position, clutching my broken arm with my good hand.

        Vassago, having pulverized four trees with his body, finally rises and faces her.

        “Run!” I stagger toward her, but she ignores me, her back is turned. A small pale hand stretches in front of her, and an invisible force knocks Vassago back into the trees. Her hand still raised, she silently twitches her barren ring finger downwards, sending the cement roof of the facility crashing down, covering us with dust and smoke.

        “Quickly, we have to go.” She grabs my uninjured hand.

        “Wait! Sam!” I shout, straining against her hand. He’s lying in the dirt, covered in dust; cold, alone. I won’t let him die here.

        “The boy? We have no time. Leave him.”

        “I can’t. Jeane, he’s important…”

        Jeane Taylor was eleven when she first found out she was different. When her mother and father left for work early in the morning, Jeane would wake up and get out of her warm pink bed to eat cereal before her sister Margot’s friend’s parent came to take her and Margot to school. While Margot dragged herself into the bathroom for a hot bath, Jeane would make cereal. She’d raise her hand, and tell the wooden stool with her mind to “come here, please”. Once the stool was in reach, Jeane picked it up and placed it under the cupboard and climbed on top of it to reach the ceramic white bowls. Barely twitching her ring finger, the Lazy Susan twirled itself to her liking until her favorite cereal, Cap’n Crunch appeared. The cardboard box floated out of the Susan with ease into Jeane’s waiting hands, where she would pour the cereal for both herself and her sister.

        Sometimes Jeane wondered why Margot didn’t make her cereal this way.

        On stormy nights, while Jeane’s mother and father tucked the girls into bed for the night, Jeane and Margot would get a special treat. Mom and Dad told wonderful stories about their grandparents, The Tidbit Taylors.

        “Would you like to hear a story tonight, Jeane? How about you Margot?” Dad tucked the blushing sheet under Jeane’s chin as Mom tucked the yellow sheet under Margot’s.

        “Yes, yes!” They would both holler excitedly, despite the late hour.

        “Okay…” Their father would begin, and the girls were entranced immediately at the sound of their father’s voice booming, the words of the riveting tale echoing in their ears. Mother silently acted out some parts in the background, using makeshift props --if they were around-- like the girls’ stuffed animals or toy squirt guns.          

        “The Tidbit Taylors were your great-grandparents.” Dad would start.  “One night, only a few days after their grand wedding had taken place, they were abducted by aliens!”

        On cue, the girls would gasp as their mother ran around the room, running from invisible aliens before finally being captured and transported to the closet. The closet doors shut.

        “Everyone in town, the very town where we live today, gossiped for days about where in the heck the two lovers ran off to. But none of them knew they had been abducted.”

        “Idiots!” Margot would scoff, closing her eyes in disappointment of the townsfolk’s insolence.

        “But, weeks later, the two lover returned, cloaked in black clothes as dark as the night they arrived.”

Mother burst out of the closet, now donning a big black sweater she found in the girls’ closet, her hair disheveled from changing so quickly.

“The town asked millions of questions: ‘Where were you?’ ‘Do your parents know your back?’ ‘We thought you left for good! What’s wrong with you?’ ‘Not even a goodbye!’, things like that.” The father paused for breath.

“The townspeople never got a full answer though, only hearing tidbits of information from the Taylors as they began to pack up their belongings from the home they just moved into a few weeks ago. That’s why they were named the Tidbit Taylors.”

Mother started lifting invisible boxes and piling them in a red toy truck.

“Tell us what happened next!” Jeane was always the first to exclaim, before Margot gave her nod of approval.

“Well, the townspeople were pretty ticked off. No one ever left the town of Juneau. Ever. And the Tidbit Taylors were gonna do it twice! So they started annoying the Tidbit Taylors, saying they needed to stay in Juneau for their old parents’ sake. They would knock on their door at midnight, while the Taylors were still packing, (they wanted to leave as soon as possible), and giving them baked goods, begging them to stay. And why wouldn’t they? The Taylors were the most respected and richest family in town. Who would take over Taylor Grocery if the young mister Taylor and his pretty new wife didn’t take his father’s place? But eventually the Tidbit Taylors had enough of the townspeople’s badgering, and aggressively fought the neighbors, hollering at them and occasionally throwing them out of the yard by force. All they wanted to do was pack and get out of there! But…” Father would always pause here to create suspense.

“Tell us how they threw them out of the yard.” Jeane said seriously.

“That’s the best part. The Tidbit Taylor’s would raise their right hands together, move their ring finger slightly down, and send the annoying townspeople straight across the street into the dirt! People left their house with broken bones and bloody noses.”

Mother raised her hand quickly and repeated the movement, attacking faceless people with her imagination. The girls always thought their mother was the most beautiful this way, her face full of passion while acting out a script.

 “Soon, the town thought the Taylor’s were practicing dark magic, and let them finish packing up their furniture, books, and other things into their truck. The Tidbit Taylors left two days after they had returned, leaving the injured and pissed townspeople behind.”

Mother pushed the toy truck with her foot, sending if flying across the room and slamming into the door.

“Does anyone know what happened to them?”

“Of course! We do.” Father chuckled and kissed both of the girls’ foreheads as Mother took off the black sweatshirt and hung it back in the closet before fixing her hair.

“The Tidbit Taylors died four years later. Some freak accident. Not even the police could explain it. Child services sent their only son, John, back to Juneau to live with the Tidbit Taylor’s parents. The town hated him because of his parent’s dark and witchy ways, and thought him a demon child. Still, after the original Taylors grew old and died too, John took over the grocery, married, and had a son. Me. Then I married your mother, and now you’re here. Taylor legacy!”

“Your confusing, Daddy.” Jeane and Margot would say at once.  Father would chuckle as he started to follow his wife out of the girls’ bedroom. Before closing the door, he would say:

“I might be, but it’s important that you learn your family history. It’s the reason you’re alive and live in this wonderful little town of Juneau.”

“Whatever Dad. I’m going to marry someone rich and handsome and move to a big city.” Margot would say before turning to face the wall and closing her eyes to gently drift to sleep.

“Goodnight, Jeane.” Father said, flicking the light off, leaving only a stream of light from the open door to fall on Jeane’s face.  He starts closing the door, even though he knows his daughter will say that one word that stops him.

“Daddy?”

Father smiles and opens the door again. “Yes, my sweet Jeane?”

“I’m different like the Tidbit Taylors.”

“I’m sure you are, honey. Now go to sleep.” He closed the door for the night.

Quietly to herself, Jeane spoke. “But I’m never going to leave Juneau like they did, Daddy. I won’t leave you.”

She never did.

Aunt Jeane looks at me with a pained expression before running over to Sam’s body and kneeling down in the dirt, her curly auburn hair swirling around her pale face.

“What are you doing?” I ask as she places her palm on his chest. “What are you doing?”

Sam’s breathing wildly, but his eyes are closed and his wounds are bleeding. He’s been hurt so much. He’s barely a ghost of his original self.

Jeane presses onto Sam’s chest with her hand, almost like some strange CPR. Sam’s back arches and a jolt runs through his body. She does this twice more, Sam thrashing more wildly each time before he snaps his eyes open and miraculously gets up on his own. He looks at Aunt Jeane, confused, for a moment, before settling his eyes on me, my broken arm, and finally Vassago, who is struggling to stand, but moving nonetheless. There is no site of the dark female figure. Sam realizes where we are and grasps Jeane’s hand, running with her toward me. He grabs my good arm and we disappear, traveling through the black tunnel of space. Pressurized air crushes my body before we all land in a clean white bathroom. Our clothes are covered in dirt, dust, and blood but-

We’re safe.

End of Chapter Fifteen.