Desdemona smiled holding the newly born of light child against her bosom. It could have been mistaken as prematurely birthed for its small size, save for it's healthy complexion, and it slept soundly. Mark didn't appear to believe what she had done for him; he stared at the child with the bony protruding bumps upon its brow ridge, sharp fingernails, and wisps of dark hair as if he had never seen such a creature before.
"I…"
"When she loves you as her father you'll be immortal, if she stops loving you for whatever cause you will return to mortality. If she dies unnaturally before her time, the same will happen as well."
"You're kidding! Why do I have to do this? What is she going to do for the world?"
Dessy just shrugged her shoulders and handed the child over to him, he took it clumsily and it cried at the startling awakening. With no sympathy but compassion, she almost laughed at his panicked expression, and cluelessness.
"I can't tell you exactly what she'll do, or what she'll cause because I don't fully know. I know that it all depends on you though. She's your child though, I made her from your blood, and your soul."
He shifted the child in his arm so that it sat in the crook of his elbow, pinned slightly to his side. It still wailed from the experience of being woken up without remorse, something that he wished some days he could do when waken up at the wrong times. Truth be told, he didn't know what to do to comfort it, and was going to panic if the child didn't calm down. It appeared Des didn't look like she was going to help him either, she just continued wearing her expression of amusement.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" He groaned.
She seemed shocked, her eyebrows rose. "What do you mean? You raise it! You had a little brother, you saw how your parents cared for him, buy a book if you need to. I don't know why you expect me to know the answers, I've never had a child either before."
Desdemona smiled jokingly, true, she had never been a parent, but she had indeed parented many a person. This was the first time there had ever been a child of her own though, something had been carved from her own image and soul, and it hurt. She had full confidence in Mark, confidence he could raise the child to her full potential. After all, he had always protected that which was his very well.
"She's your redemption."
He looked at her as if he was pure of all sins, and had no penance owed. "Redemption?"
"For your parents' lives."
He swallowed, finding it impossible that he had overlooked them, the lives he had stolen to fulfill his own selfish destiny. Arms shifted the foreign weight of the child so that its head was against his chest; there was no denying this was his. There was no denying it belonged to Desdemona as well, she had the demon bone structure to her face and sharp fingernails at the tips of her doughy fingers. He could see a flaming house in the reflection of her eyes, and hear pained screams in her baby noises.
"What's her name?" Asked Mark.
"Whatever you choose, I never decided on one."
"She's your child too, Des."
"I know," she sighed regretfully at her oncoming words. "I won't be around for her much though. You know why I can't stay constantly, too many people would be aware, and she and you would be in danger. I'll return in time. You'll be fine raising her, I know, Glen will help you."
"Kane? No, I don't think he'll want a part of this. He hasn't wanted anything to do with me in a long time, you know that."
"No Mark, he'll come back, and he'll stay. You're different now, I may have given you immortality, but I had you keep your soul."
He frowned begrudgingly at her last sentence, for him the lack of emotions and pain of lacking a soul was a utopia. "When are you leaving?"
"Soon, today."
"Today?"
"I planned on leaving this morning, but you have so little hear, you're so ill prepared, Jordan and I stayed so that we could help you briefly."
The look on Jordan's face showed he obviously had no plans of staying here longer to help this man, at least without persuasion. Meanwhile Desdemona had already begun to slip on her coat and shoes. Both men gave her a look that asked, 'What are you doing?'
"I hope you don't plan on feeding her bologna and Jack Daniels as formula Mark, because you don't have anything here for her to sustain off of. I gave her that part of your mortality, she doesn't need to know how different she is from the rest of the world she'll grow up in. You go stock up on food and Jordan and I will buy whatever falls under the 'miscellaneous' category."
* * * * *
Loose sheets of his bed were pulled up and over his face to block out all the light while he slept, laid out across his bed. By the time he had returned home yesterday Dessy and Jordan were had left whatever they had bought and then left themselves. A small 'post-it' note written in the best of penmanship read:
'Mark,
Jordan and I are gone. It may be some time before I come back, but I will. It doesn't matter if you have moved by then, I'll find you, don't stay here in New York too long either, your enemies will catch wind of what's happened soon enough. I'll put in a good word with an associate of mine to get you a new line of work later in life.
-Desdemona
The note was the only thing in the apartment that showed she had ever been there, aside from the many shopping bags on the floor, and a playpen set up in the corner of the living room. He even checked the bathroom to see if she had left her clothing there but it was completely clean as if nothing had ever taken place in there.
* * * * *
Jordan sighed contentedly, his arms draped around the tiny woman who lie on his chest. A blanket was draped over her to keep away the chill of the traveling Grey Hound bus. New York was long behind them, and once again she was all his, her hand found his easier and now she needed him. Without him Desdemona was unprotected and vulnerable to the elements of the inhuman life. She needed his help to get onto the bus this morning and had trouble sitting up straight and staying awake.
Why she had done this, she wouldn't even tell him. He nudged her in the supermarket and questioned why she was giving up so much for a man who gave absolutely nothing for her. But Dessy just smiled in reply and told Jordan she had been told by someone higher to do it, and that it wasn't for Mark, it was because this child had good to do. Of course if the child were of her it would do good, but it had so much of that man in it, it seemed impossible it could have been worth such a waste.
* * * * *
The banging on his door was loud and all too constant, seemingly like that of a cranky landlord. He could picture a short, chubby man with sparse hair in a horseshoe pattern around his balding head, and a half smoked cigar in his mouth, the spitting image of Danny DeVito. He raced over the floor, feet crunching over several newly encrusted stains in the carpet to quiet the noise that rattled the whole apartment. Mark didn't even bother looking though the peephole before undoing the locks and throwing open the door.
…what was he doing here? The two didn't have a reason to talk to each other, so what was he here for?
"What are you doing here?"
Kane didn't reply.
"Why isn't Jezebelle with you?"
There was a long sigh before the single worded reply "Gone."
Gone, just like everyone else he had relied on, except Mark was still around, in a way. It didn't make sense for Kane to come back after everything, nothing ever made sense though. The noise had woken up the—no, his child and now she was crying. Glen raised an eyebrow, and cleared his throat, "Do you have someone here?"
"No, um," he almost became embarrassed. "That's…that's mine."
Inside the apartment, inside his bedroom, and lying in her crib was Jennifer Samuel Callway. Mark left the doorway and picked her up to holder against her shoulder while she cried. It had been a week since he had gotten any decent sleep, and would be a long time before he got anymore, but he didn't seem to mind anymore. When he turned to see Glen, even behind his mask, Mark could read the confusion and questioning on his face. He wasn't sure there would be answers for the questions either, finger of his grazed over his child's head, playing with her hair and his other hand patted her back while he looked back at his brother.
"Mark?" He wasn't calling his name; he was asking if it was him.
"…yeah."
* * * * *
He propped his feet up on the coffee table, stretching his toes underneath the fabric of his socks, and cracked his joints. Sitting on his thigh was a bag of popcorn, which Glen occasionally dove into, grabbing a handful before dropping it into his mouth. He ate this for dinner while watching some B-rated horror movie, 'Hotel Hell' play on TV.
"For once…this time I thought it would be different, but I guess after a while you fall into a cycle though and you just end up repeating yourself. Jezebelle said she had gotten what she came for and couldn't love with the memories of this city. She said she wouldn't mind if I came with her but that wasn't what I was looking for. You're not going to run off anytime soon though, huh?"
He looked over at Jen who was propped up with multiple pillows though still managed to slide over onto her back. He put his hand on her stomach, fingers spilling over to tickle her sides, making her giggle. She wrapped her tiny hands around his index finger, sticking the tip of it in her mouth.
"Besides, if you try to crawl away I can just pick you up," smirked Glen while she drooled on his finger. Screams came from the TV but he had long stopped paying attention to the movie, if he had ever at all. In fact, he did pick her up, and set her down on his lap. "We should get you a bath before bedtime kiddo."
Tossing half eaten bag of popcorn onto the coffee table and turning off the TV, Glen made the short trip to the kitchen with Jen under one arm. He took a large cooking crock-pot from one of the cupboards and set it in the sink, turning on the faucet to fill it up with warm water. Outside the apartment someone thudded up the building's stairs as keys jingled in the door to unlock it, it became known it was Mark returning home. He shoved his sunglasses up onto his forehead upon entering the apartment.
"What are you doing?" Asked Mark while he strolled into the kitchen, retrieving a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
"Washing off Jen," his brother replied, turning off the kitchen faucet.
"…in a crock-pot?"
Glen blinked at Mark's blank stare. "Well, … yeah. We don't have one of those plastic kiddie baths."
"Okay," he shrugged. "I'm going to change my clothes before—Hey, Hotel Hell!"
Mark plopped onto the couch while the bare child was set into the warm water. The TV's volume was turned up, hot air began to pour in from heater vents, and Jen splashed water onto her uncle's shirt. But for both men things were a lot better than they had been for them in a long time.