"Johnathan?!" The Count could only mutter in disbelief. But... he... he asked me to..
"I'm afraid so. Count, I am aware that you did something to my brother. I need to know what it was. He's been acting weird since he last came in here."
Claire glared at Dracula, expecting an explanation about what Daniel was talking about. His wife's inquisitive glare and Daniel's pleading look wore down his already-eroded will. With a deep sigh he sat in one of the lobby's couches, still rocking little Nate in his arms.
"I... He... He forced me to... erase his memories about Mavis and the Hotel..."
"You did what?" Claire exclaimed, a panicked look in her face. The witch was familiar with that particular vampire ability, and as such she also knew that it had adverse side-effects on the human mind. It could even... "No. No. You know what happens to the human mind when affected by the suppressive effect of the Eye Hypnosis! What were you thinking?!"
"Could somebody let me into the discussion?" Daniel interrupted, slightly irritated.
"HE knows that forcing a massive memory loss in the human mind can leave severe scars. It could even... it could even destroy that person's own self..."
"What?! Is that why he's been acting strange? YOU did that to him?"
"I had no choice. He forced me to do it..."
"You are supposed to be a responsible five-hundred-years-old vampire! YOU were supposed to make him see reason! You...Argh!" Claire left, still holding Lilith in her arms and fuming to herself, causing the baby vampire to look up at her with those big, green eyes of hers.
Both Daniel and Dracula were left alone in the lobby, Daniel wondering what to do, and Dracula remembering the day he had made one of the worst decisions in his life.
"How do we fix this? Is there any way to revert what... whatever it is that you did to my brother?" Daniel asked, stunned by the scene he had just witnessed, but still deeply concerned by what the vampire's wife had just revealed.
"I... really don't know. I guess... I could try to hypnotize him into remembering everything. That might do it, but I am not sure if it will work at all"
"Is there at least any hope it will work?" A pretty valid question, but one that had a complicated answer.
"There's... a small bit of hope, I guess. The Eye Hypnosis doesn't actually erase memories, but it rather suppresses them. They are still there, in theory. But the problem is... the strain that the suppression infuses into the brain slowly degrades it overtime. It's been over a year since that... I don't know to what extent it will work, if it works at all"
Those words weighed heavily against Daniel, who had harbored some hopes that there was an easy fix to the problem. But that would have been impossible, specially so with the luck he and his brother were having lately. Why is it so damned hard at times? Sometimes it really seemed like there was a wicked natural force doing its best to screw them over royally no matter how hard they tried to avoid it. He just sighed and sunk into an empty couch, momentarily lost in the few thoughts that crossed his mind. He had been so immersed in his thoughts that it surprised him when he finally noticed the small baby boy that the legendary vampire held in his arms. The Count looked sadly at the baby, and Daniel was able to figure things out accurately.
"Is that... Padraigh's?" he asked, holding back some sadness from creeping into his voice. While to the public eye they were only business partners (and very successful ones at that), behind the scenes they had developed something that could be easily qualified as a friendship. The man's death hadn't been insignificant to him, but rather, he hadn't had time to properly mourn the loss. The Count just nodded, sadly rocking the little vampire while little Nathan just looked up to him andbabbled quietly, then cuddling close to him.
"Just... tell me one thing" the famous vampire began to ask, expecting the answer to be up to his expectations, "was it... was it quick? Did he suffer?"
"I don't know. I don't know what happened exactly. The only thing I know comes from Johnathan himself: your daughter was there. He... he died in her arms. I'm sorry."
The silence that followed was uncomfortable, thick, and mournful. There was nothing they could do for now, and that was the worst thing about it all.
Johnathan tossed, turned, and ultimately gave up in his attempt to sleep. The fact that it was the middle of the day didn't help at all, and he instead just laid in the bed. The musty room, a cash-only rental, was a far cry from the luxurious hotel room he had been staying on just a few days ago. Accepting the fact that he wasn't going to sleep, he rose from the worn-out bed and entered the shower. Miraculously, there was running hot water, and he took advantage of that little luxury for full ten minutes before turning off the water stream and taking a towel to dry his body off. Before dressing, he stared at himself in the dirty mirror. A number of ugly scars criss-crossed his chest, silent reminders of the ambush that nearly killed him. It was... surreal, how three lives had been lost that day, and how he had been saved by someone that he had barely cared to know. It was random chance, nothing more, but it didn't escape his attention that it could have been very different, that maybe he could have been one of the other three guys that didn't make it... He shook his head sideways, trying to rid the memories of dust, blood, and brass away. And it worked. But instead, more blood and brass came to his mind again, in the form of last-week's event. He had waited seven complete days and he hadn't heard one single word from the guy he had saved from having electrodes in uncomfortable places. He had even gone so far as to bribe his way into a pub where the guy had been seen right after that night's action, staking out the place, waiting for him to show up again. But the guy hadn't shown up, and Johnathan had lost two days there already. He decided the third was a charm: if the guy didn't show up, he was going to pursue the issue on his own. He finished dressing up and exited the room, taking the few things he had brought along with him and wiping away any fingerprints he could have left. Just in case.
Mavis sat lonely in the pub, a half-drank pint of gat in front of her. Sadness was the only emotion that occupied her face, her head vowed low and her mind lost in memories. Our very first date. Our first travel together. The sunrises in every different country we were to. Our... first time... together... Our wedding. Nathan's birth. If she hadn't cried enough in the last days, she would still be doing so by now. But no, no more tears to shed, yet the sadness and heart-crushing feelings made her feel like she was being torn apart, piece by piece, from inside-out. It was unbearable for her to live this way, but even more so knowing that her Zing was close.
It was gnawing so badly at her: what was he doing there? Why was he pretending to help them? And it also made her angry, to remember the last words he ever said to her.
Well, I don't want to be with you. You are a monster, and I hate monsters!
Those words had shattered her heart then, and they still hurt, even to the present day. Whether he meant them or not wasn't really relevant. He had said them, and they had hurt her. And it didn't matter right now. She wanted to feel none of it. And for that, drinking was as good as anything else.
She didn't stay in there for long, deciding to leave as early as possible to avoid worrying her host more than necessary. She was just getting ready to find a secluded place to turn into a bat and fly away when she bumped into someone. Or at least she thought it was someone. She was scrambling to apologize to the person when she realized who it was, making her jaw drop.
He recognized her, and it surprised him how familiar her face was to him, even when he didn't remember much of it. It didn't matter, for the two of them just stared at each other for a moment, like old friends greeting each other. But they were not friends, or at least not in Mavis' perspective.
"You! What... what are you doing here?! Why are you following me? Wasn't it enough what you did to me all those years ago?" It wasn't her talking, but rather the alcohol she had just had inside the place, mixed with all the grudges she was holding against him. Johnathan barely had enough time to digest the situation and come up with a way to get out of it without major trouble.
"I... uhm, I don't know what you are talking about, lady. I'm just here for a drink" he tried to go his way, willing his ruse to have worked. But the girl wasn't dumb, just as he wasn't.
"That's the best you can do? After all that you made me suffer? After the way you ruined my life? Forcing me to start over on my own?" she was furious, her chest heaving violently at the rhythm of her irregular respiration.
"That's... that's what I did? I... I ruined your life?" The words stung like a knife for him. Worse than the gunshot wounds he had endured, worse than the third-degree burns he suffered from being trapped in a burning hulk that used to be an armored Humvee, and worst than the shower of shrapnel from the RPG that had detonated scarce three meters from him while on patrol. All those wounds seemed like paper cuts if compared with the wound he had just been inflicted. It was worse than all of them together, by far.
"Don't play games with me now! Don't you dare play dumb and pretend that you weren't there! You goddamn... BASTARD!" her eyes had turned red mid-sentence, and by the end of it she forcefully shoved Johnathan to the wall, then glaring fiercely at the man. He, on the contrary, remained silent and his head slightly vowed down, "That's it? You've got nothing to say to me? No excuses for your cowardice? No excuses for lying to ME?!"
What was there to say? Even if he wanted to say something, he didn't know what to say. He couldn't remember, he didn't know what had happened before. But if she was right, then there was a good reason for it. If she was right... then... he had no reason to be looking for her. He had no right to her...
"I... I... I don't remember... I'm sorry..." he stunned her by swiftly freeing himself from his grasp and walking into the darkness of the streets. The vampiress could not believe what she had just seen, and it threw her off balance. She broke through the shock of the encounter, looking around for him to apologize at the very least. She searched around for man, but the human had surprisingly disappeared into thin air.
Mavis finally gave up, transforming into her winged form and flapping away, her mind wondering if she actually meant any of the things she had said to him, or if it had all been her anger finally finding a way out.
"We lost a good chance. We should have attacked while she was inside the..."
"We strike when I say we do. I need the three of them out, and I also need that devil's spawn to tell me where the other monsters are. Do not question me"
I'm terribly, terribly sorry for taking so long to update again. I was not expecting any of this, in fact, I had planned to write a lot during holidays, but I was terribly busy instead. And now my PC went belly-up... the year is not starting well...
Anyways, I hope you are satisfied a bit with this and now I do PROMISE to update as usual, and hopefully my PC will be up and running soon. As usual, please take your time to review, your thoughts on my work lift my moods and inspire me to write more. See ya in the next update.