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Maker, Child and Destiny Makes Four

Chapter 12

Scene – The Void

Godric's POV

I always believed that when I finally went into the Void to literally meet my Maker that it would also mean the end of consciousness but if that is the case, why can I still think? Why is my mind still active? I concentrate and try to take stock of my situation. I cannot see. I cannot feel. I cannot use any of my senses. Does that mean I am finally dead? - Or not?

Having nothing around me only blackness there is absolutely no way I can judge the length of the time passing. Have I been conscious seconds or minutes… minutes or hours… hours or days? Is this it? Is this how I will exist? Suspended within this Void for eternity? Before I can posit further on my future reality I see a quick blur of rainbow light. In the velvet blackness that encompasses me I have no perspective. I can't tell whether the light was near of far, big or small. I try to reach out with my mind but there is no stimulus at all.

Flash!... Another burst of coloured light… larger… closer? I feel the pressure of moving air on my body. My arm flashes out to detain whatever is omitting the light but then I realize… there is no arm. I have no body. Only my mind exists in this limbo.

Flash!... in the distance. Flash! Flash!... a tap on my shoulder. Flash!... in the distance again… giggling? Was I supposed to follow or was I just supposed to remain glued to this spot? Can I follow? I willed my essence forward – well, toward where I last saw the light. More giggles, almost like I was being encouraged to keep going.

Flash! Flash! Zip! Zip! The rainbow light playfully blurs around me and the speeds away, teasing the edges of my memories with another childish giggle. I push at my consciousness and try to pick up my momentum and close the distance between us. I see a pinpoint of blue light growing steadily bigger. I'm not sure if it's because my colorful companion and I are moving forward or the blue light itself is hurtling toward us but within seconds I understand it to be some kind of doorway or portal.

Whether the rainbow presence has slowed or my pace has quickened I can't tell but we are almost merged when we pass through the portal. I immediately feel like I've been grabbed by some kind of force field, my inertia is at full stop. In front of me is a ghostly visage almost like an ectoplasmic reconstruction. I see myself clearly in the light of a bright moon, talking to a pretty young Were of about sixteen or seventeen… I remember this… We are standing on top of a cliff face after climbing the fifteen meters up from its' base and she is holding my attention by flirting and pulling her hair up, stroking her long moist brown neck… I remember this very well… If I could speak, I would chide myself to be more alert as to what was going on down on the actual cliff face. Shifting my own attention there my 'eyes' find five year old Erin on the cliff face, her face beaming with joy. I know she could have just teleported herself up to the top of the cliff but her Mother and I wanted her to learn how to do this type of thing – one, because it was good for her fitness and two, in case there was ever a time in her future that she lost her magic, little Erin would need to know survival techniques. We wanted to know that she had at least the basic abilities to evade her enemies.

Phantom Erin was maybe a meter from the top of the cliff. Her tiny grasp sure and her footing solid. I smiled at the look of triumph on her plump face.

"Godric! Come get me I'm almost at the top." I remember hearing her call out to me but as I said, I was distracted just then. I knew she could finish the climb herself. What I didn't know, was the young male Were that had only very recently been assigned to be Erin's companion and guard would roll two large boulders over the cliff directly above where Her Highness was climbing. I looked on in shock because there was nothing I could do in this disembodied state… She saw what the boy did and what was coming but had no time to do anything about it and the large pieces of granite swept her away.

We hadn't bothered with climbing rigs. Why would we need them? I could fly and she could teleport. I'll never forget her scream. It rings in my memory as it now rings again in my ears. I was lucky that day. I am sure some instinctual response buried within my little angel came to the fore. It didn't stop her from being extremely injured but it did stop her from being killed. That was the occasion of our first blood exchange. I gave her my blood to heal her tiny frame and then I licked away her blood so I could check the worst of her wounds.

The ghostly scene froze in front of me and shifted in a blurry haze. When the mist re-defined itself again Erin was laying in her bed, Lorielle and I were sitting either side of her.

"But Ngambaa-thi (my Mother), Godric, he was not on the rock face. It was not an accident. He was at the top and pushed the rocks on to me. Yulay is a liar!" Lorielle stood up and moved toward the door.

"Erin, Akayla Yulay has been sent to us with the highest of references. He is Garruu Marayin's Thaya-di (he is uncle Marayin's Nephew). - Marayin was not really Erin's Uncle but the man who stood at her Fathers right hand. Only Duncan, Lorielle and Erin had authority over him at this Court. So to speak ill of Yulay was to speak ill of a most trusted adviser and friend –

"Until you can speak some sense, I will not sit and listen to you Gay-thi (my child). Are you coming Ricky?" She had already opened the door.

"I will join you shortly my dear. I would like to talk to Erin alone for a little while."

"Very well then, I will see you out near the pool." Lorielle leaves the room closing the door firmly. I watch myself as I convince sweet little Erin that she may have been mistaken, pushing acceptance and concern through our blood bond… Little did I know it was I who was mistaken… She trusted me and I failed her.

I listened to myself as I pledged on our fledgling bond that she could always rely on me. Oh, how empty those words sound to me now and there she sat in awe of me soaking in everything I said like I was the next coming. My dear sweet Child…

I truly must be finally dead… This most certainly feels like Hell. I never realized how wrong we had been about Yulay. Falling off the cliff face and her subsequent defiant claims that Yulay purposefully sent the large rocks down to push her off was the very incident that set the ground rules for the rest of Erin's childhood. From that day on everyone… including me believed she carried a grudge against the Were, so when she tried to get help when he tormented her, we just thought she was stirring up trouble. Not only was Akayla Yulay a bully but a sly underhanded one, Erin being the kind and gregarious child she was would not have been prepared to defend herself against someone like him.

The scene shifted again and I am now watching Erin getting ready for a party?…

"Mummy… Do you think I look pretty?" Erin is looking in her mirror swinging her skirts. "Mummy… Ricky promised me a dance. Will he think I'm pretty?" I could see the excitement in her eyes.

"How could he not my darling. He is yours as you are his. Godric may not realize it yet my darling daughter but the time is at hand for a great upheaval in the lives of all of the beings that like us, live in the shadows. The two of you are destined to walk a higher path leading the shadow dwellers to a new co-existence with Humans." I never realized Lorielle knew this. I wish she could have explained this knowledge to me but I know at the time I would not have taken that sort of news well. "Come Eriu. Let us not keep your Father waiting." Lorielle takes her daughters' hand and leads her from the room.

As they walk through the door immediately we are taken to the scene of the party… Now I remember… Duncan and Lorielle decided to hold a party for Erins' sixth birthday and my leaving. That year had just sped by. I think that Duncan was very happy to see the back of me; especially after this night.

Lorielle and Erin enter the room and are greeted enthusiastically by Duncan who had been in a serious discussion with Marayin. He sweeps Erin up and begins to dance with her in his arms as Marayin smiles fondly while Lorielle seems happy but extremely perplexed by her husbands' behavior because he was never one for public displays of affection like this. This scene here and now would be the first time I have seen him be so demonstratively affectionate with his daughter in front of persons that were not close to him. If I had only kept my word and shown up I would have witnessed this.

The phantom party plays out before me on silent fast forward. I watch as Duncan throws his daughter at Marayin's cruel and idiotic nephew and I watch as the evening wears on and the night turns into early morning as Erins' face gets longer and longer until finally she is crying. I feel a familiar jolt and suddenly I remember… and I know what is about to happen. In an instant I am standing in the corner of what had been my quarters. The dark skinned Were that had distracted me at the rock climb was lying naked on my bed, legs akimbo, howling her release as my fingers thrust into both of her nether orifices as I feed from her thigh. At the time I had felt a sharp stab through my dead heart but the jolt of pain was bound up in my orgasm. I actually concluded at the time that jab meant I had feelings for the bitch in my bed and maybe she was of some significance to me… yet another serious misjudgment on my part. Little did I know Erin was now standing at the foot of my bed and as I was waxing lyrical to the Were about her taste and her body, my sweet little Princess' heart was being cruelly cut to ribbons and by the same being that I had just heard swear to care for and protect her always.

I wonder how I am going to endure an eternity of this… this torture. I howl but no sound comes from me. I want to rip out my hair but my arms… Fuuuck!... How could I have been so blind to my surroundings and so coldly toss aside tiny Erin's pure heart. I understand why I didn't take her childish crush seriously but I could have been more aware and definitely more gentle and understanding. If her pain was anything like the tearing, ripping pain I am feeling now… How in the name of all of the Gods did she ever forgive me?

Now I really do get why neither Duncan nor Erin came to see me off the following early morning. Lorielle had come with polite farewells. I hadn't wanted to ask about Erin's heartache. I could feel it through our blood bond that things were not right with her but I had not told Lorielle that I had taken Erins' blood when I healed her after her fall from the cliff. I am a two thousand year old Vampire. I have never had to report my actions to anyone, never mind a babe in arms.

Looking back as I have many times since Erin left for the Summerland, I know that even though I already felt a real need to love and protect Erin I denied it. She was six, what on Earth could she mean to me. It was this emotional turmoil that lead me to make another of my many grievous mistakes. I was not a nursemaid. I was a very old, very selfish and very vicious Vampire and to keep that precious mask intact I made myself clamp down hard on my newfound emotions and chose a course of action I only now regret wholeheartedly. I would not attend the party, what did I, 'Death', need with a child and her parties? Bedding the Were however, had been at the time a fortuitous by product of that decision. I never did regret any of my actions of that night until years later when I no longer had My Erin and as I now witness firsthand the deep hurt I caused my little angel, as I am made to watch incapable of offering her any succor her spirit lies curled up on her ghostly bed and cries her tiny heart out while calling out to me, I regret them all the more.

The glowing blue mist roils and swirls in a non-existent breeze and before too long I am again in blackness but I can still hear Erin calling out to me begging me to come to her as I promised. This is Hell indeed.

The blackness once again enclosed a roiling mist of blue light and which coalesced into a scene of a huge tree in a forest with at its' base a group of assorted children ranging in age from small teenagers to young adults - including the female Were I bedded. The huge tree that dominated this picture, I knew to be one of Erins' favorites. She even had a name for it… Thulu. She had told me that thulu was the word for tree in her Fathers native language but she said that Thulu was 'The' tree and so named him that. I remember feeling condescension as I made it appear I listened to her talk about Thulu, I wish I had truly paid attention because seeing that tree again in all its' ghostly magnificence made me realize there was something important in that conversation that I was supposed to know.

I couldn't hear the topic of the childrens discussion but it appeared they were swapping secrets. The blurring rainbow light once again made an appearance. It seemed that the ghostly youths - some of who I recognized – could see the light as well. I heard one of them chant a spell, as soon as the spell was cast the speeding light appeared to hit an invisible barrier making it explode into a million bright pieces and then coalesce into Erin. Older than six but younger than the twelve years old that she was when I visited her again.

She was sprawled unconscious on the ground and the group around her was laughing at her. A male Were who appeared to be in his early twenties, separated himself from the laughing group walking over to Erins' still form. He reached down and grabbed a fistful of her now long, thick and wavy auburn hair, using it to shake her to see if she would wake up. He shook her so hard he ripped the hair from her head making her scalp bleed and her body fall to the ground again. When he turned to the others who were still laughing, I finally saw his face… Akayla, why was it that he had so much anger directed toward Erin.

I recognized instantly the next person to move forward… the female Were I had bedded. She handed around a small bucket to the males in the group who each in turn urinated in it. Finally Akayla took it and urinated in it.

"Watch this." he said with contempt and then he flung the fluid over my unconscious angel. Of course she woke up immediately. From her countenance I could tell this was not the first time something like this had happened to her. She didn't react at all. It was like she was resigned to the understanding that what had just happened was a normal part of life.

"What are you doing here 'Stinky'. Did you think you could come along and spy on us betters without us noticing?" He rushed forward and backhanded her across the face. Why does she not teleport away?

"No Sir…" SIR? "I… I didn't know that you and your court were meeting here today. I'm ssorry Sir, I will take better care next time so to not intrude." Erin was trying to back slowly away but she was actually backing into the trunk of the tree.

"Too late 'Stinky'." Akayla growled and went to grab Erin but she pushed back into the tree trunk and as she did there was a large snapping sound and huge branch fell from high up in the tree. Erin's antagonists had time to jump out of the way but Erin was nowhere to be seen.

I don't know how long I stood there watching as different scenes of Akayla and his pack of cowards torment Erin but it felt like an eternity. Erin had emailed and written to me over this period asking me to come but I had put her accounts down to Her uncharacteristic immediate dislike of the Were. As her Mother had said Akayla was there to protect her and unaccountably Erin's person never showed any signs of trauma. I did keep in contact with Lorielle and always asked about Erin's welfare but as the years past (and it was almost six before I returned to Australia again) Lorielle was spending more and more time in the Realm and had become disenfranchised from her daughter somewhat, leaving her day to day care up to the Prince and Duncan never once answered my correspondence. I did finally write to Marayin, Duncan's Second. He answered my letter promptly with an email requesting I urgently come to Australia. I was on a plane the next day.

I had not been happy with Erins' condition when I arrived, she looked thin and like she hadn't slept properly for I don't know how long… I now knew why but at the time I wondered if there was something psycologicaly wrong with her. Both of her parents were away in the Realm and had been for weeks when I arrived the week before Erins' twelfth birthday. Akayla had been given care of Her during this time.

I couldn't get out of her what was really going on and no wonder thinking of how I'd treated her when she had contacted me. Marayin had no luck either but between us we decided that it was time for our precious little one to begin self defense classes.

After what seems like years, the abuse on my consciousness finally stops as the torturous apparitions roil away fading until I am left alone once again with the deafening black silence and my insurmountable guilt and sadness.