CHAPTER 10
A/N – Hello my dear readers! Guess what, I'm back with an unexpected update (since I find myself momentarily unable to work on anything else… pfffft). So enjoy!
Alice ushered them in without a second thought and Amelia felt a cold shudder upon stepping into the dark hallway that was otherwise so familiar. It was as if a darkness of some sort had descended upon the house, dimming the lights and making the air foul. Just what the hell could have Arthur possibly done this time?! She didn't know what the hell was up with Alastair Grey either, but kept her mouth shut just in case, wondering what it was that Alin knew and if he wasn't bluffing by any chance.
"You know, when I was twelve at some point I thought… that it would be nice if I married Arthur some day," the blonde whispered close to Alin's ear, as soon as her friend rushed to lead the way to the upper floor and was out of earshot. "Like, what the hell was I thinking?!" she added with a light snort.
The vampire chuckled. "You dreamed of him taking you on a date on his broomstick?"
In reply Amelia elbowed him swiftly in the side. "Shut up, you! I didn't know about 'broomsticks' and stuff back then!"
"Oh my God, you have such a dirty mind!" Alin hissed, looking shocked. "Witches fly on a broomstick, you know? Much cooler than a regular ride, I was about to say, but you twisted my words in the foulest way possible!"
Yeah, I'm sure that was it….
He tsked and shook his head.
Alice led them straight to her brother's bedroom, which was a dismal sight. Everything had been turned upside down and in the middle of the mess, sitting cross-legged on the wooden floor which had been stripped of its carpet and had been instead covered in innumerable designs drawn in black chalk was Arthur, pale like a ghost and staring numbly at the ground in front of him, hands stained with black dust resting limply onto his bony knees. He was barefoot and obviously dirty and battered, his clothes reduced to torn rags, as if his own room had been mysteriously turned into a dungeon.
"How long has he been like this?" Alin asked calmly while Amelia fought back a shocked gasp.
"Almost a week now…" Alice was still sobbing and wiped her eyes behind her glasses with a trembling hand as her thin shoulders shook uncontrollably. "I was hoping… I thought that… he'd come around b-before… I would have t-to ask for the C-Council's help…"
The vampire kneeled in front of the numb boy on the floor and glanced into his eyes intently. He stared for a while, in complete silence, a puzzled scowl growing on his face as he did. Then, brusquely, he turned his head away and pointed to something lying under a random pile of books and notebooks on the floor.
"What's that, there?" he asked quickly. "There's a book there, something with brown leather covers, what is it?"
The question set Alice in motion automatically and in the next second she was down on her knees, rummaging in the indicated spot. She found the book and hastily adjusted her glasses upon turning the first few pages. "Oh, this is… uh… a copy or a transcript of Alaistair's personal journal, Arthur ordered it from an online antique shop a couple of weeks back… I didn't-"
"You have to destroy it," Alin stated bluntly.
"What?!"
"Arthur used it to get in touch with Alastair's memories," the vampire explained, turning back to the Englishman and cupping the side of his face with his hand with a gesture of odd affection of sorts. "But they took over his mind. Now he doesn't know which is which."
"Wait, wait, what?!" Amelia cut in. "What do you mean 'he doesn't know which is which'? Which is what?!"
Alin scowled openly. "He no longer knows which are his own memories and which are Alaistair's, for fuck's sake! Look at him, he thinks he murdered his own child!" His features softened somewhat upon noticing the American's pure shock. "Black magic can be extremely powerful, but it always comes at a cost, always. Alaistair Grey became a great sorcerer, but he sacrificed the life of his four-year old daughter for it. It wasn't a quick death either…"
Amelia swallowed hard, tears glistening in her bright blue eyes. "Oh my God! He was a monster! He was monstrous and you-…" Her pained gaze trailed rapidly from Arthur to Alice, who sat slumped on the floor in a corner, staring in her lap, "You two were proud of being of his bloodline! I can't fucking believe it! I can't fucking believe it!"
"Amelia, they didn't know until now," Alin said softly. "It's not public information, it's not even in the diary. Arthur found out the hard way. The problem now is that he thinks he's done it."
The blonde observed Alice in silence, there was a mute despair in the smaller girl's countenance and in the way her thin fingers were clenched helplessly in the fabric of her checkered skirt and it was obvious that her friend's outburst of undeserved judgment had only hurt her further.
You mean… there's a danger that Alastair Grey might end up possessing him or something?
The Romanian shook his head inconspicuously. Not possessing, the man is long dead, but Arthur might just go mad with a guilt that was never his… So let's fix it, shall we? For a start, I will need you to slap him. Hard.
Why can't you slap him?!
Because I will probably break his jaw… I have no experience with hitting someone 'gently'.
Amelia shuffled forward, quickly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, and promptly delivered a hearty slap across the Englishman's face, with a strength which – she realized afterwards – had probably relieved all past frustrations related to their potential relationship.
"Idiot, you never had any children! Get a fucking grip on yourself!" she shouted. Yep, Amelia Jones was good at giving tough love, if anything.
But then Arthur looked up at her slowly – his only visible reaction in fact – and sported a rather uncertain expression.
"He doesn't, does he?" the American asked, turning to his sister, but Alice just shrugged. "OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU GUYS!"
Behind her Alin snorted, seemingly on the verge of bursting into laughter. "Oh goodness, relax, he doesn't have any kids," he said amused. "Alice, I'm afraid that the book must be destroyed immediately. Arthur has placed a spell on it to have access to your ancestor's memories and the only way to break it and make him snap out of it is to destroy it. Burn it, preferably."
The bespectacled girl snatched the volume and scrambled to her feet, dusting her skirt quickly. "Okay! In the living room, I'll throw it in the fireplace right now!" With that she scurried away and Amelia sighed, feeling suddenly tired and defeated. Once again, everything had turned out to be much, much too weird for her to handle.
Downstairs, Alice was standing with her arms crossed in front of the blazing fireplace, watching the remnants of Alastair Grey's diary being consumed by the flames. Despite obvious relief, there was still chagrin etched on her delicate, freckled porcelain features and for the first time Amelia had a glimpse of realization of how much a burden (more than anything else) their family legacy was for the Kirkland siblings.
"I think we should let Arthur rest for tonight, he won't be of much help, yeah?" the vampire suggested, loud enough to make the younger sister turn and offer them a wry smile.
His coworker sighed again. "I guess… No point in talking more shit about alchemy and the Philosopher's Stone now on top of everything else…"
Alice blinked, looking puzzled. "Why would you want to talk about alchemy and stuff?"
It was only then that the American realized there was no way in hell she could tell her friend the truth. Not about the vampire siblings or her uncle sleeping with-… Just no.
"Uh… my uncle is researching it," she replied hesitantly."And of course, he's keeping me out of it as usual, so I thought… But Alin here says it's all bullshit. I was curious, that's all."
"It is bullshit," Alice confirmed. "Alchemists could not perform any actual magic, or 'make' gold. They only produced a similar alloy which could go mostly undetected and pass as gold, but the scam was discovered eventually. It is beyond me why your uncle would choose to waste his time with this old shit."
Clearly. "What about the Philosopher's Stone? The one which can make you immortal without any… encumbrance?"
"Yeah… Harry Potter has it," Alice said and rolled her eyes. "That one is even more ridiculous than the gold. There is no such thing as 'without encumbrance' when it comes to obtaining anything… unnatural. You can ask him," she added and pointed to Alin.
"Okay, so the Zwingli siblings have my uncle set upon some wild goose chase, that's just fan-fucking-tastic," the blonde concluded once they were back out in the street and she shrugged in the leather jacket, feeling the night chill seeping through it. "Perhaps I should just go to him and call out on his bullsh-"
"Amelia, I think you should just give up."
The American turned around and gave Alin a long, hard stare, but there was no trace of smile or casualness on his face, he looked dead serious. As she'd learned, that didn't happen often with him, but when it did he usually meant every word he was saying. And now, more than ever, there was something final in the way he'd spoken, as if an invisible door which had started to crack open more and more was now suddenly being slammed shut in her face.
"Yeah?"
"Yes. You should forget this whole thing, quit this stupid job and just go back to living your life, maybe even… somewhere away from this shitty little town." He paused, drawing a long, unnecessary breath. "Somewhere you can be happy."
"Where I can be happy?! As if you'd care about that!"
Okay, why had she snapped like that, again?!
Alin's eyes dulled into a bored expression and he shrugged, sweeping his bangs aside with a lazy gesture. "I don't really, it's just a friendly piece of advice. Besides, you'd be helping me out tremendously if you walked away from this feud which doesn't concern you. I will be brutally honest here – I simply can't afford the Zwinglis to find out that I care about humans or, as you've already had it spelled out for you quite clearly last night, the corpses will start piling up and it will only be my fault. I can't let you and Lukas and any of my other friends become leverage for them to negotiate my help, do you understand?"
She did, of course. How could she not? His words were nothing but sound, hard and cold logic. He meant well. He meant to keep her safe, out of harm's way, her and all other humans that he did care about. And this was much more than it could have been said about her uncle, as sad a conclusion as it was.
Amelia nodded slowly, feeling terribly tired all the sudden.
"So you've got it all figured out, huh? I mean, yeah, I'm sure you're right, even if what you say doesn't really match what you do and shit…"
Alin shrugged again, although some of the indifferent façade had melted away into sadness. "There isn't much to figure out, Amelia, I'm dead. That fact limits my options considerably. "He sighed, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "But you do have options… And please, don't think of trying to dig your uncle out of whatever shit he's gotten himself into. You can't! He's a grown man and he's made his own choices, for fuck's sake!"
The blonde nodded again, mustering a small, wry smile as she took a few steps forward and leaned in to kiss Alin square on the mouth.
If only things could be different…
To be continued
A/N – wow, wasn't this a short, uneventful chap… BUT. Next time… shit really goes downhill so brace yourselves!
