Hey people! Just FYI I will be updating less frequently now that I am going to college. I am a Chem major and my schedule is going to be hell. Bleh, but I get to see my friends again so that's awesome. Anyways as fascinated with my life as I'm sure you all are lets get to the story. It has some pretty heavy content again and it is written a bit like the last chapter. A little less craziness because... well, Cal is a little less crazy in this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
P.S.: Thanks for the nice reviews, it means a lot to me to hear what you guys think. It lets me know that someone out there is reading this :) yay.
P.S.S.: Points to you if you know which book in the series the last line is paraphrased from!
Disclaimer: I do not own the Cal Leandros series, it is property of Rob Thurman.
It had been a week, I think, since I had returned from hell. At least I thought so, time was still difficult for me. It sometimes passed in leaps and sometimes crawled on and on until it felt like eternity.
I didn't feel any better. There was an emptiness inside of me, black and hungry. It had consumed all of my memories of… of that place. But I didn't mind, I was glad even, because part of me did know, part of me was all too aware. All I knew was that whatever hid behind that impenetrable black wall was better off behind it.
With all my memories locked up denial came easy. It was almost like it never even happened… except for the word looping, the black outs, the memory gaps, the patchwork of scars that covered my body, and the way that things that were once familiar to me seemed foreign.
Yeah… except for all that.
I felt my face contort into something like a smile, but there was no happiness in it. There was no happiness in me either. Mostly just emptiness, fear, and hate. There were other things though too, better things. They were slow in returning but the were coming back all the same. The contentedness, the love, the determination, they didn't get swallowed up in the black pit like everything else. Something of them still lingered inside me and I was eternally grateful for that. The Grendels hadn't destroyed me. They twisted and contorted me and had broken me into pieces, but I wasn't all gone.
These pieces were all that was left of me and I had done my best to duck tape it together into an almost coherent whole. Mostly I had Nik to thank for that.
This past week, at least from what I could remember, had been hell, except for time spent with Niko. It shouldn't surprise me. Nik was always the exception.
I glanced down at my shoes as we walked down the slushy streets, we were job hunting. Now that we were officially on the run we needed to find a way to get money for a few creature comforts… like food. Food was generally a good thing.
I flexed my toes again in the uncomfortable confines of my shoes. Another strange side affect of my… missing time, I wasn't used to the feel of clothes anymore. I was always aware that I was wearing clothes. The awareness brought with it knowledge that I hadn't been before. It made me feel like I had put on a costume and a mask and I was hoping that no one would notice that it wasn't quite right. That I didn't really fit perfectly.
"Cal?" I glanced up at Nik's voice and realized I had been out of it for longer than I thought, we were there.
There was a small dojo were Nik was going to start teaching… and where I could hopefully get a job cleaning. I felt my palm start to sweat with nervousness and I curl them into fists. My now short nails dig into my palms. When I had first returned they had been long and jagged. Almost like claws.
Claws, claws, claws. They were black, but tipped with a bright scarlet red. The red of blood. I ran with it. It flowed in rivulets down my arms and wended briskly down my stomach. I didn't know where I was hurt, there was too much blood to see the source and I was in so much pain that I didn't know where it was coming from. I was pain. It throbbed in my veins and pounded in my skull and ripped its way from my aching throat. I had tried so hard not to scream… but I couldn't remember why anymore. I couldn't remember anything anymore. All that was left was will, and I could not give in. It wasn't about me. There was a little boy with black hair and a dinosaur T-shirt. Kill him, they said, kill him and there will be no pain. But I couldn't, because then he would be dead and I would be lost. Gone forever. And I couldn't lose whatever this was, because it was all that was left of me. All that was left of what the only person who ever loved me had made me.
It was hard to hold onto when I became pain and my body turned red. But I did, even as everything else that held me together was being torn apart fiber by fiber.
"Cal!" Niko was in front of me gripping my shoulders so tightly it almost hurt. Touching was for hurting. I closed my eyes tightly for a moment and then opened them again.
Where were we? The emptiness in my head had grown, swallowing everything. But I felt it recede as the world came back to me.
Whatever the memory was it was gone and I was back. Nik studied me closely for a moment before letting me go and guiding me into the dojo.
I didn't say anything. I didn't have to, he understood when I was here and when I was… gone. Nik used to know everything about me, but not anymore. I don't know all of me anymore either though, so it makes sense.
I didn't know how we got there but we were suddenly in an office. We sat down in two grey chairs that looked a lot more comfortable then they actually were (which was saying something because they looked about as fun to sit on as a pile of rocks) and waited for the boss man to come interview me.
Interview me, I scoffed internally, how qualified did I have to be to mop floors?
I took a deep breath and glanced around the room. It smelled… strange. It smelled faintly metallic and… something else that I couldn't put a name to. It was difficult to tell because it was covered up with copious amounts of cologne. Whatever it was it wasn't human.
I touched Nik's arm and tried to make the muscles in my throat work.
"A vampire." He said under his breath. I wasn't surprised that he already knew, both what I was going to say and the fact that his employer was a non-human. "They don't have an acute sense of smell." He added after a moments hesitation. He didn't need to elaborate on that. He knew I was worried about being recognized, not many people, for lack of a better word, would hire a Grendel if they knew it was a Grendel.
The door creaked open and male vampire who appeared to be about forty stepped in and shut the door with a quiet click behind him.
"Hello, I am Gregory Philips. It's a pleasure to meet you…" He said in a pleasant voice as he stared expectantly at me. I didn't know what to do and my palms were sweating again. I tried to wipe them on my jeans subtly but it didn't work and he noticed the movement. His gaze turned curious and I sunk lower in my chair.
"This is Cal, my brother. He…" Nik trailed off for a moment trying to find the right words to explain my… situation. "He has had some family issues as of late, but he is willing to work and work hard."
Family issues. If I could smile I would have. That was unquestionably the biggest understatement that he had ever made in his entire life. It was like calling World War I a slight scuffle or saying the sun is hot. Complete absurdity. And he did it with a completely straight face… impressive.
"Ah I see." Gregory said with a bullshit sympathetic face on. "Well I'm sure that we can-"
He suddenly cut himself off and blanched bone white. His eyes were wide in his pale face as he stared at me with fear rolling off him in sickening waves. His lips moved but he got no air behind the word. It didn't matter I knew what he was saying.
"Auphe." He finally gasped after the third try. I tried to feel myself from the inside out, so that I could know what he was seeing.
How can he tell?
"No, he is not." Niko said sharply. He stood and his anger was obvious, which was unusual for him. I distantly wondered why it still bothered him so much. I would think that no one could deny what I am now, but Nik is stubborn. He always accuses me of being unrelentingly pig headed but he is the one who refuses to see the truth when it hits him on the head… or comes falling out of a grey hole in the sky to land at his feet snarling and hissing.
Gregory didn't even glance at Nik. He kept his eyes trained on me like I was about to turn rabid any second. Not really such a crazy assumption to make.
Crazy, crazy, crazy. My mind stuttered.
"Just leave. Please just leave." Gregory said in a shaky voice, with an equally shaky hand held out in front of him.
As fun as this all was, I decided to head out before Gregory here pissed his pants. Not that I could blame him, I wouldn't want to hang around a Grendel either.
Nik followed me out. My head felt strange. I brought a hand up to my forehead.
They brought creatures back with them sometimes. So that they could enjoy their suffering before they ate them. They wanted to draw it out as long as they could. The fear and pain of the victims were just as much food to the Grendels as the flesh that they consumed from their still thrashing bodies. I tried not to watch, not to hear. I huddled in the farthest corner of the cave and tried to block out as much as I could. But it didn't really work, it didn't dull the horror.
I sat in my corner and I did nothing. The creatures never recognized me from the other Grendels. They never noticed that I wasn't one of them. As I stared down at my jagged dirty claws and did nothing to help them I realized that maybe they didn't notice because there was no real difference.
I stumbled as I half fell over the curb. How had we ended up out here already? Had I been daydreaming? I felt Nik grab my arm and brace me as we walked briskly back to the apartment we couldn't afford. Couldn't afford because of me. The weight around Nik's neck, his blind spot, his weakness, his demonic little brother… just like old times. I thought bitterly.
It was difficult to do, but I had to do it. I had to let Nik know that I was sorry.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
My throat muscles convulsed as I tried to make them work.
"I'm sorry Nik." I managed in a voice that sounded almost normal.
He glanced down at me and put a hand on the back of my neck.
"This is in no way your fault Cal." Nik said firmly. "That man is a fool who has obviously never met a real Grendel ever in his life." There was the echo of his anger in his voice. He had it under control, this was Nik he never lost control, but it was still there. "There are always more jobs. There is another martial art studio a ways from us. I'll drop you off at the apartment and then go and pick up an application."
I had already filled my talking quota for the day so I just nodded and let him pull me along. We reached the apartment quickly and he walked me all the way to the room.
"I'll be back quickly. You can boil some ramen for when I return. Make sure you lock the door." And with that he was gone. I shut and locked the door and made my way over to the kitchen area which consisted of a microwave, a sink, a stove, and a mini fridge. I got out a pan and dug through the cabinets looking for some ramen packages.
I set them down on the counter and went to the bathroom to wash my hands before I started the ramen. They felt filthy for some reason. Contaminated.
Covered in blood.
I glanced down at my fingers as ice cold water ran over them. My fingers were long and spidery and my skin was almost transparent it was so pale. It looked even worse in the dark of the bathroom, the stark contrast making my skin look like a sickly shade… or maybe that was just how it always looked.
Though the sun had set I hadn't turned any lights on. It didn't matter, I could still see my reflection in the meager light.
I was white as paper, as pale as a ghost… Grendel skin.
As I stared at myself in the cracked mirror I realized how ridiculous I looked. I was wearing oversized clothes that hung off my body and my hair hung down to the tops of my shoulders in an awful tangled mess. I looked just how I was, like a Grendel trying to be a human, and failing miserably. I was like a kid on Halloween who threw on a bed sheet and thought people would mistake them for a ghost.
Something like a laugh forced its way out of my throat. But it was twisted. Wrong
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Just like me.
Suddenly my clothes were like a lie, a bad lie that I felt stupid for trying to tell. Did I think I was fooling anyone with my human act? Did I think that if I put on people clothes I was suddenly 'a real boy'? I sneered at my reflection and pressed a pallid hand with too long spidery fingers against the mirror.
A Grendel hand. My costume was so obviously fake that it would have been comical if the revulsion hadn't been so strong. I felt bile in the back of my throat.
I reached down and ripped my shirt off. I wanted to see what I really looked like, without my awful attempt at a human costume.
The shirt hit the floor with a muffled sound and I stared at it for a moment before I got the courage to look up at myself in the mirror. I couldn't see my pants because the counter came up to my waist. I looked like I was wearing no clothes. Grendels never did.
I looked just like a Grendel. I was pale, too pale to be human, like I had never seen the sun. Like I lived my whole life in the rotting black of a sewer... or a cave. My arms were too long, just like my spider fingers, and they were thin. My whole body was thin, disgustingly emaciated, just like a Grendel's. There was hardly any smooth skin on me. I was covered in a patchwork of scars in every shape and size. My body was mutilated and repulsive, and if you knew just where to look you could see claw patterns.
I caught my eyes in the mirror and for a second they looked scarlet red.
Red, red, red.
I stumbled backwards unable to look at the Grendel in the mirror… at my own reflection. I fell to my knees by the toilet as my body tried its hardest to expel everything I had eaten that day. Luckily it wasn't much.
I flushed the toilet and cleaned up quickly without checking my reflection. I went to go boil the water for the ramen before Nik got home.
Even though my costume was obviously a fake and no one else but Nik believed it I would still wear it. It made him happy to think that I was human. Nik deserved to be happy even if it was a lie.
So I put my human suit back on and did my best to pretend that I wasn't a monster… wasn't a Grendel. And I could almost hear the world laughing at me, because I wasn't fooling anyone else.
They looked at me and they knew. They all knew.