Chapter 49 - Congratulations, Bo: Part I

9:00 pm - Tamsin and Bo's Apartment

With her eyes closed, Bo lazily lay in her bed, purring softly while enjoying Tamsin's firm rub along the sore muscles on her legs.

"You do know that there is another way to fix your sore muscles, right?" Tamsin teased as she pressed her thumb on the side of Bo's shin and moved it down along the length of it.

"Well, can't I just enjoy some good massage from my Valkyrie?" Bo said softly.

Tamsin chuckled and pressed a light kiss on the brunette's knee. "Sure you can..." she whispered. While giving Bo the massage, she worshiped every inch of her fiancé's body.

Another purr slipped out from Bo's lips. With her face half buried in the pillow, she slurred, "we need a guest list."

"Hmmm…?" Tamsin hummed while tracing her fingertips down along the back of Bo's legs.

"Guest list," Bo raised her voice a little and enunciated it. "A list of guests we want to invite to our wedding. We need to send the invitations soon."

"Oh...well mine would be super short. Those who hang out with us all the damn time, those wusses from my precinct, and any Valkyrie who'd want to come to a wedding where no liquor is served due to whatever stupid Fae marriage laws that came out last year. What about you?"

"Besides those you and I both know? I don't know...I can't invite any of my childhood human friends because well, they can't know about my true identity or our colony….Then, my adopted parents...my dad died a few years ago and my mom...well she doesn't even remember me so I don't know if she'd come. I don't want to freak her out by putting her among those monsters like me."

Tamsin sighed and gave Bo a kiss on the back of her shoulder. "What about your birth parents?"

Bo huffed. "It's really not whether I'd want to invite them or not. It's more like...where the hell am I gonna send the invitation? I don't even know where they are, and I really don't want to go through another car crash just so I could tell my father the date of my wedding. And for Aife...I guess the only person that might know where she is, is Trick."

"Well, talk to him. Maybe he can find her, and then she can find your father," Tamsin said. "We'll save them two seats, and if neither of them show up, Dyson and Kenzi will be your parents on our wedding day."

Bo chuckled. "So...the invitations...you need to write them, stamp them and put them in the mailbox before the end of this week."

Tamsin raised one of her eyebrows. "Why the hell do I have to do all that?"

"Because your handwriting is so much better and because you love me so much that you wouldn't want me to go through that tedious task?" Bo grinned.

Tamsin rolled her eyes. "Or, how about we do it together this Saturday? I'll writing them, and you'll do the rest."

"Oh, I think that's a really great idea, Tamsin, except that we can barely sit there for 5 minutes before we start to make out and then do it on the table," Bo told her in chuckles.

Tamsin smirked. "Then I'm afraid that I'll have to tell you to keep that hungry Succubus of yours at bay until after we finish the job."

"Really? So you are not gonna rub my thigh and tease the hell out of me, while you write?" Bo asked.

Tamsin sighed. "Fine, here's the deal. We are gonna take all those damn cards to the shack this Saturday and we are gonna finish them there. Your pet and her mini pet are gonna be there to help us."

"Okay," Bo nodded. She lazily rolled on her side and took Tamsin's hand in hers. Clasping their fingers together, she rubbed the side of the Valkyrie's thumb with her own. Both of them revelled in the moment.

After giving Tamsin a gentle, long kiss, Bo pulled back and frowned, "right, I almost forget...remember that Hell Salamander locket we recovered from one of the arson scenes? The one that Trick said it might be a family heirloom?"

"Yeah, of course, why?"

"He said that he had found the jeweler who made it. He tried to arrange a meeting but the jeweler refused."

"Why?"

"Well Trick said that he no longer wants to get involved with any Clere family business, and he doesn't want to meet anyone who is from that family either, so...he told Trick whatever he knew. When Trick is back in town, we'll talk to him and see what he has found out."

Tamsin nodded. She lay behind Bo and held her waist, before she gave the brunette a kiss on the back of her neck. "How's your wedding dress? Has it been tailored already?"

"Mhm," Bo answered. "Kenzi has it for now."

"Okay," Tamsin said softly. She traced her index finger down along Bo's back and tickled the brunette. Bo nudged her in chuckles.

After taking a deep breath, Tamsin murmured, "we are gonna be married before the end of this summer, wow."

"Yeah we are," Bo said. "It's...sometimes it doesn't even feel real...but sometimes it just…."

"It just what?"

"It just feel so real," Bo said. "Like...I never thought I'd marry someone. I've always thought that I'd have a bunch of dates that don't last long and some long relationships that won't end well. Then, I'd eventually end up alone, but this is...this is all real."

"Oh believe me, this shit is real," Tamsin chuckled. "We are inviting a lot of people to a very expensive dinner, and we are gonna have our names printed side by side on a certificate. It's real, sweetheart."

"Trick said he has gotten the approval from the Fae Elders and some other...important Fae people. He's now qualified as a...a..." Bo stuttered, unable to remember the name of the Fae who could solemnize a marriage.

"A solemnizer," Tamsin reminded her, and Bo nodded.

After glancing at the clock on the nightstand, she said to the brunette, "shouldn't you be leaving now? I thought you were meeting some nocturnal bloodsuckers tonight?"

"Yes I am. Just five more minutes of Valkyrie love," Bo giggled and nested in Tamsin's arms.

- Two Days Later -

8:45 am - Dal Riata

Bo gave Trick a hug and helped him put down his luggages. Then she sat down beside the bar with Tamsin.

"Sooo...should we do some small talks, which I hate, or should we just talk about those family secrets you've learned?" Tamsin asked Trick and earned a soft nudge from Bo.

"Believe me I don't have time for small talks today. I have a lot of things to do," Trick said while moving his thumb along his eyebrows. "Let's just talk about the family secrets."

"Alright then," Bo smiled.

"According to the jeweller, people in the Clere family believe that the family is haunted by a demon, an evil spirit, or a curse if you will," Trick explained.

"Someone mentioned about the being cursed part before," Bo said. "What is it about really?"

"They believe that whenever twins are born to the Clere family, the demon will take one of them as its offspring. As a result, these children are able to use their Fae power at a very young age, some even experience their powers as infants. They call it Demon Touch, because they believe that those kids have been touched by the demon and that is the reason they are able to use their Fae power as kids."

"Okay…?"

"Almost all of the children with Demon Touch show signs of being a psychopath. Death, blood and horror has rendered the family miserable for ages. In the old days, the family consider these kids abominations. They either abandon them or kill them."

"Really? Every twins?" Bo frowned.

Trick nodded. "As far as he knows, every pair of twins in the family has gone through that. For a while, they even had this rule, that if twins were born, one of them must be killed immediately to avoid being touched by the demon. Of course, they don't do things like that anymore. Most of the cursed kids were sent to orphanages or to adoption agencies. Your parents, for example, sent your brother to Lab 539."

"Mhm..." Bo murmured. After pondering for a long time, she asked, "is he aware of the arsons and the abductions? Is that related to...this demon?"

"Well, he said he had heard similar rumors. Some people in the family believe that the demon is always looking for its offsprings. When it finds them, it would take them back to its lair and make them the true evil."

"That's...kind of constant with what we've seen in those cases. The victims of the abductions eventually became the one who would abduct the next kid...Bo's uncle was probably Bible John and her brother is beyond sick," Tamsin said, frowning, "but...a demon, really?"

"Well, you know the old days. Whenever something bad happened, one of the explanations would always be a demon, something evil or a curse," Trick shrugged. "If you ask me, I'd say it's probably just bad luck, or maybe they shared some psychopath gene or something-"

"Hey...gene..." Bo murmured, frowning. "That was what Lauren said to me when I asked her opinion on how my brother was able to use his Fae power as a kid. She told me that the reason we can't use our Fae powers until after a certain age, is because when we are younger, our bodies produce some sort of...inhibitor. As we grow older, we develop an inhibitor resistance and eventually we sort of grow out of it. She said that her best guess would be that my brother somehow does not produce that type of inhibitor at all due to a genetic mutation-"

"-which could be passed down through your family," Tamsin murmured. "Maybe every one of them has the same mutation, and who knows, maybe that's the reason they are psychopaths too."

"You think so?" Bo raised her eyebrows.

Tamsin shrugged lazily. "I don't really care why at this point. It's not like we really need to know why they become this way. We just need to find your brother, and kick his ass into jail."

Bo nodded. "We need to find other...other mutants too, if any of them are still alive...maybe my brother's journal will have some clue…."

"Yeah, if we can decode all the crazy codes in it, sure," Tamsin rolled her eyes. She gave Trick a nod and said, "thanks, Bloodking, even though your info won't really help us catch any of them."

"No, but this might," Trick said as he handed them a piece of paper with an address and a name on it.

"And who the hell is Lillian Smith?" Tamsin frowned at the name.

"Her maiden name is Lillian Clere," Trick told her. "She's like Bo father's great great great aunt."

"She knows something about my brother?" Bo asked.

"She may not know anything about your brother, but she gave birth to a pair of twins. She abandoned one afterwards, and I think he might be the one who took your uncle away from his family," Trick told her.

3:05 pm - Nursing Home

When Bo and Tamsin entered Lillian's room, she was sitting in a wheelchair staring at the floor. Drools came out from the corner of her half opened mouth and dribbled down along her chin.

When she heard the door open, she lifted her drooping eyelids and moved her lips slightly. It seemed as if she tried to turn to take a look at the visitors but couldn't turn her head.

The nurse, who was preparing Lillian's food, raised her head and looked at Bo and Tamsin curiously. "Are you here visiting someone? Do you need any help?" She asked politely.

"No help needed. We are visiting this lovely lady," Tamsin pointed at the old lady.

"You are…?" The nurse frowned.

"We are her...family," Bo quickly explained. Well I wasn't really lying. She thought.

"Umm...I wasn't aware that Mrs. Smith has any family," the nurse said as she looked at Bo closely.

"I'm like...from her extended family," Bo explained. "I just umm...thought I could come and visit her while I am in town."

"Oh," the nurse nodded.

"Would you mind if we talk to her for a couple of minutes maybe?" Bo asked.

The nurse sighed. "Well...she hasn't talked for days. In fact, she barely responds to anything. I'd be very surprised if you could get her talk to you."

"Did she have a stroke or something? Dementia?" Tamsin asked.

"I don't know," the nurse said hesitantly as she took a glance at the old lady. "I mean...her doctor thinks that it's a rare case of dementia but...people don't just get dementia over night, do they?"

"She became like this over one night?" Tamsin asked after she studied the old lady carefully. Then she exchanged a look with the equally concerned Bo.

"Yeah, it was something like that," the nurse said. Before she spilled all the truth, she smiled at Bo and Tamsin again, and said, "I...I really should feed her first."

Bo nodded and took a seat with Tamsin beside the bed. They watched the nurse feeding some pureed food to Lillian. The old lady would slowly swallow anything the nurse put in her mouth.

"What happened to her?" Bo asked.

"I don't know. I wasn't here that morning. I came in late in the afternoon. I was supposed to take her out for a walk. When I came into her room, she was sitting on the chair, like...she just sat there and stared at the wall. She stopped talking to anyone. She stopped responding. She stopped moving like...she was there but she wasn't there.

"What did the doctors say? They did examine her, right?"

"They did, but they couldn't explain why she suddenly became like this. They scanned her brain and did all sort of things, but...they found nothing. Something must have happened to her that day."

"You think so?" Bo asked.

"Yeah," the nurse nodded, "I mean, she was perfectly fine the day before. I imagine something happened to her that morning or maybe the night before, but I wouldn't know because I wasn't here."

"Did you notice anything unusual when you came into her room that day?" Tamsin asked.

"No, I don't think so," the nurse shook her head. "I mean, I really don't remember."

"Alright, just...relax and go back to that afternoon," Bo told her as she gently held her hand. She glowed the nurse with her charms and continued, "tell me what it was like. I want every detail of it."

The nurse let out a blank smile and murmured, "it was raining hard outside. A thunderstorm...I ran into the building, got my shoes wet and my jacket soaked. I changed in the locker room and came to Mrs. Smith's room. I saw her sitting in the chair-" she raised her hand and pointed at a chair by the bedside.

"And what else did you see?"

"I saw her face. It looked...blank. Her eyes...they were half closed. I thought she was dozing off or something, and so I called her. Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith….She didn't respond. I ran to her side and I checked her. She seemed perfectly fine, but she just wouldn't respond."

"Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?"

The nurse frowned hard. "Something was a bit weird, I guess."

"What is it?"

"There...there was a disposable cup in the trash can."

"And that's weird because…?"

"Mrs. Smith never uses disposable cups. She has her own cup and she loves it," the nurse explained.

"So someone else was here."

"Yeah, I figured that it would be whoever taking care of her that morning, since she didn't have any visitors listed on log that day."

Bo nodded and exchanged a frown with Tamsin. Then she told the nurse to leave and close the door behind her.

Frowning at Lillian, Tamsin asked, "you think you could make her talk by glowing her?"

"I don't know, but I can always try," Bo said. She kneeled beside Lillian and held her hand. Giving her a smile, she glowed her gently.

The old lady squirmed in her wheelchair. Slowly, she turned her head to Bo. Her lifeless eyes suddenly gained their color back.

She opened her mouth, and tears fell down along her cheeks. As she gave Bo's hand a weak squeeze, a few syllables slipped out from her throat .

Bo leaned in and listened carefully, but she couldn't understand the old woman. She sighed and looked into Lillian's eyes. While increasing the amount of charm she pushed through her skin, she introduced herself, "hi, Lillian, I'm Bo."

When Lillian heard her name, her eyes suddenly shot wide open. Something exploded in her eyes as a few loud gasps came from her.

She inhale hard and squirmed again, almost falling off her wheelchair. Her hand, which had been languishly holding Bo's, suddenly clamped Bo's hand tight.

She squeezed Bo's hand hard, so hard that the brunette cried out in pain. Then, she opened her mouth, her eyes lighting up like two green torches.

Sharp, needle-like teeth extended out from her gum. She inhaled at Bo as she pulled her in.

Bo gagged, feeling everything inside her being sucked out. She wanted to call for help but it was as if Lillian had sucked her voice away too.

The next thing she knew, was she went into a kaleidoscope-like tunnel. Everything around her was colorful and bright but completely meaningless.

A while later, she found herself stumbling in cold drizzle. It made her shiver.

She gasped and looked around. She found herself in the corner of some dark street. Everything around her was shrouded in dusk. There was a road lamp beside her, and it kept flickering like the rain was killing it.

Where the hell am I? Bo wondered. She frowned at a few passersby, who dressed in old fashioned clothes. They all looked at her weirdly before they quickly walked away. They all had a solemn look on their faces, like they had something heavy on their mind.

Where is everybody? Bo asked herself in panic. There was no Tamsin. There was no Lillian. There was no nursing home nor nurses. She could recognize nothing that was around her. It was just her alone, in a dark street that was completely strange to her.

3:45 pm - Nursing Home

Tamsin frowned when Lillian tightened the grip on Bo's hand. When she saw those needle-like teeth, she cursed and grabbed Bo.

She couldn't pull Bo away from the lady, but she was relieved that Lillian closed her mouth immediately and went back to her blank face.

She frowned again when she noticed that Bo's eyes had lost their focus, and that the look on her face suddenly became numb.

Tamsin gently shoved Bo on her shoulder. "Hey," she called. "What's wrong?"

Bo didn't answer her. In fact the brunette didn't even look at her. It was like she had never heard her talking, or felt her touch. She remained numb, looking blankly into Lillian's face, the same way the old lady was looking back at her.

"Hey, Bo," Tamsin raised her voice a little as she cupped Bo's face and forced the Succubus to turn to her. Terror squeezed her heart when she found that Bo's eyes, which had always been warm and lovely, had turned dull. They looked like two lifeless marble orbs.

"Hey, Bo, can you hear me?!" Tamsin yelled, and Bo just sat there while holding Lillian's hand, as if to her Tamsin didn't exist.

Tamsin started to panic. She grabbed Bo's wrist with her left hand and Lillian's with her right. She pulled hard, trying to break their handhold, but there seemed to be a great force that glued their hands together.

Tamsin took a deep breath and checked Bo's pulse. Everything seemed to be normal, except that Bo wasn't responding at all.

"What the fuck?" Tamsin murmured. She combed her hair with her fingers anxiously, before she tried to "wake up" Bo again. After failing again, she took her phone out.

She dialed Trick's number. "Hey, Trick," she said while holding Bo's empty hand in hers. "We are at Lillian Clere's. Something...something happened."

"What do you mean? Something happened to Bo? Is she hurt? Did someone capture her?"

"No, she's fine. She's just-" Tamsin choked, since she couldn't come up with a proper word to describe Bo. "I...I don't know, Trick. She was talking to this Lillian lady a minute ago, but suddenly she was gone."

"She vanished?" Trick's voice raised.

"No, she didn't. Well I mean at least her physical body didn't, but...it was like her mind was gone or something. Shit, what should I do?"

"Don't do anything and lock the door and the windows. I am on my way," Trick told her before he hung up.

4:50pm - Nursing Home

Tamsin let out a deep breath when Trick stormed in. "Finally," she exclaimed. "What's wrong with her?"

Trick clenched his lips as he examined Bo thoroughly. "When did this happen?" He asked.

"I don't know, half an hour ago?" Tamsin replied. "What exactly happened to her."

Trick straightened his body. "Do you know what type of Fae Lillian is?"

"Do I look like I care?" Tamsin shrugged. "Is it relevant?"

"It is" Trick told her. "She's a Yama-uba."

"She's a Yama-uba?" Tamsin frowned at the old lady. "Like...the Yama-uba who sucks their preys' mind out before eating them."

"Well, I guess that's one way to describe the Yama-ubas, but...they don't exactly suck their preys' mind out. It's more like...they suck their minds in," Trick explained.

"They suck their minds in? In where?" Tamsin frowned.

"Into their mind. A Yama-uba's mind is like a universe that's parallel to ours, and all the minds that they had sucked in exist in that universe."

"And Bo is now in her mind? She's in a parallel universe?"

"Yeah, sort of," Trick said as he looked at Bo concerned. "Normally, a Yama-uba will eat her victim after the mind sucking thing, but in this case, well, I guess it's a good thing that she seems to have forgotten how to eat her prey."

"Wow, I find it as an extremely great relief that my fiancé has lost her mind to an old lady and now she's in a parallel universe but hey she's still alive."

"Sarcasm won't get you anywhere, Tamsin," Trick told her.

"Don't you think I know that?" Tamsin grunted in great frustration. She tossed her hands into the air and let out a heavy sigh, before she continued, "how do we get the Yama-uba to spit out her soul?"

"I really wish I know that answer," Trick told her.

"Great," Tamsin growled. "At least tell me what I can do to help?"

"Ask around to see if there's any Yama-uba around. Maybe one of them is willing to tell us how they spit a mind out," Trick said. "I'll be looking into all those old books."

"Okay," Tamsin nodded. She glanced at Bo, before she hesitantly asked, "so...what's happening to her right now?"

"She's...experiencing a parallel universe, I assume."

"And what would happen to her if...I mean hypothetically if...what would happen to her if we can't get her mind out of there?"

"Then she'll be like this forever," Trick told her. "Her mind will remain in that parallel universe of Lillian's, even after her physical form perishes. And you know what the worst case scenario is?"

"Wow, there's a worst case scenario?" Tamsin faked a surprised look.

"Tamsin, what did I just say about sarcasm?"

Tamsin rolled her eyes and growled. "Sorry, what's the worst case scenario?"

"The worst part is that she encounters some life threatening danger in that parallel universe, and it kills her mind. If that happens, Tamsin, she'll never come back."

TO BE CONTINUED...


A/N: this story might be a bit long. It could run 3 chapters I guess. It's somewhat important to the main plot.

Sooo...Bo is in a parallel universe right now, and Tamsin is not, hmmm...