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Souls of the Night – Vol 3.
68.
- straight into the darkness. Although I blinked, it hardly made it any better. I groaned, seized by a daze that had to be nothing more than phantom sensations spilled over from young Nathaniel. The air was irritatingly heavy with dust and blood and incredibly stuffy and hot. I wasn't really here - but I felt like I'd been run over by a train, dirty, sticky and sweaty. An ambulance siren - muffled yet close - made me flinch.
"Nate?" I croaked into the silence.
"I'm here," my beloved whispered, breathy and sniffling.
"Uncle?" the same voice asked at the same moment. Only younger, so much younger. No longer godlike and aloof but lost and frightened like the child this Nathaniel had been back then.
"Uncle?" just a whimper this time. The fact that there was no answer at first made Nathaniel - my Nathaniel - sob. He continued to sob unabated when Murshid's voice finally came, rumbling and croaking.
"I'm here, little Djinn."
"What happened?"
"We've lost our way. Turbulence. Imponderables. Not your fault."
"My dad?"
"Buried under rubble - just somewhere else than us. He slipped out of my arm. But he was in the sphere, it will have protected him. The humans will surely rescue him and you."
"My arm hurts so much. Everything hurts, I can't breathe. I'm scared," the child sputtered, and it was only a child but his voice sounded so similar to my friend's that I started to cry silent tears myself.
"Injuries can heal. I know you're scared. But it ... happens as it has to happen. Breathe ... gather the remaining energy inside you. Breathe," Murshid pressed gently.
The child had begun to breathe heavily. As I quickly realized, probably not primarily out of fear or burgeoning panic. But rather out of an effort to light up their little chamber. Slowly, orange light illuminated the cracked artificial tomb of rubble and debris of what used to be the second tallest building in the city. When there was finally enough glow for gargoyle eyes, I looked to the side. Nathaniel was lying on the ground - as was I. We were all lying down. But where Nate and I - as mere avatars - were sweaty but clean, the younger Nathaniel looked like... well - like he'd fit right in. Only one of his hands lifted and felt first Murshid's face next to him, then the " ceiling" that hung menacingly, even life-threateningly close above their heads. His hand clumsily and shakily smeared gruesome cave paintings of blood over every surface. The teenager squeezed his eyes shut, moaned and groaned in an effort. The light that the veins under his now gray skin gave off was getting weaker. Before he came to the devastating conclusion;
"I can - I can`t jump out of here. They - they don't stir in me-me anymore."
"Your strength is exhausted. As is mine," the adult in the memory returned, sounding matter-of-fact but at the same time so tired and ... defeated. "You have no choice but to wait until they find you. And they will find you. You are too important. Fate will not let you die. But ... I probably can't accompany you any further."
My heart sank at the last sentence and the younger Nathaniel fell silent for a moment. He wasn't stupid. But he was too young - too young and scared to process what had been said.
"What do you mean?"
Murshid pulled a leather strap out of his collar. More beady eyes. And a tiny golden key. I gasped as he turned with a groan to pull the strap over the boy's head. In the glow of the child's veins, you could see that his whole back was torn open. Right down to the bone. There was a gaping hole in the back of his head from which a dark mass was oozing. And now I knew what Murshid's voice sounded like. It sounded like dying. Like final and definitive, inevitable death.
"Take this here. I'm afraid it's all I can give you."
"What does that mean?" the child asked again, clutching Murshid's T-shirt between bloody fingers.
"You know what that means. It's too soon. You're not ready yet. I wanted to stay longer, get you ready. Mold you into the man you must be. But in the last few years ... I seem to have lost focus. I wanted you to become the man you can and want to be - not just the man you must be."
The younger Nathaniel's sobs merged with those of my friend who clung trembling to my chest. He didn't need to see it. Remembering was bad enough. I would be witness to this.
"No. Uncle. You are-you can't die. Y-you are immortal. You-you are our apostle."
" Immortal I was until your awakening broke the spell. Aging means being mortal. And how gladly I have aged the last few years. The best years of the last centuries. I have no regrets. I am proud of you - and I wish you would remember that - always. Everything is predestined as this was predestined. But fate has probably planned something different for me."
"We'll- we'll get out of here. Everything will be fine, I can-"
"You're not strong enough. And it's okay. Don't feel bad, you've used up a lot of energy."
Murshid pulled the whimpering child close, pressing his nose into his bloody, dusty hair as he spoke.
"Listen to me carefully my little, big djinn. You have great tasks ahead of you. But you can't face them yet. You can't let THEM attack you. You're not ready yet. That's why ... I will block your memories and powers."
"What?"
"Your memories. Ever since you met me - nearly everything I taught you. If you don't remember your purpose, your powers, then you won't find them again without a kickstarter. Better that those within you rest and travel on unrecognized after your death than that the usurpers find you in your immature state and erase everything within you. They would leave behind a breathing shell - a human shadow. I love them and you ... no, YOU too much to let that happen."
"What will happen to you? Will you wander on?"
"Perhaps. Rebirth - why not. People don't always poke around in the dark with their beliefs."
"How will we find you again?"
"When you see me, you will recognize me. If you touch me, you will feel it. Our souls are connected. But don't expect me to be your muddarris again. Maybe ... you will become mine. I would like that!" Murshid laughed with a rattle.
The child panicked. "No. No-no-no. Murshid. I can do this - I can get us out of here. I`m not weak. I can- ". His next words were lost in the crunch of concrete, in tremors, in a flicker of memory. Then the scene we were locked in was stable again.
The dying former immortal croaked cheerfully, stroking the child's back comfortingly.
"That power and the ruthlessness to use it was the reason they banished those within you in the first place, separating them, erasing their names and heritage almost beyond recognition. And you are worlds away from mastering them. You could shred all the planes of time with it. Make the rivers of all time streams dry up and seep away."
"It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter! Please don't leave me. You're the only one - the only one I have."
"You'll always have them inside you. They will be at rest - maybe you will see shadows like before, but they won't hurt you. And you are precious and wonderful even without their powers. You will eventually find people who love you for who you are and who will bring out the best in you - maybe even so much that you can fight the battle that is their destiny. Don't be afraid, it won't hurt. Maybe you will feel a little empty and numb - but that will pass. I'll leave you with a little memory. I will not take everything from you. Only what has to do with magic and gods. It has to happen this way. It will be my last gift to you. I'm giving you a chance at a normal human life."
"I don't want a gift!" the youth whimpered shrilly, almost choking in Murshid's chest. "I only want you! Only you. I-I-I jumped! You o-owe me a motorcycle- you can't leave me. I'm sorry I wanted to come here. I'm sorry I didn't listen."
"I only ever wanted to keep you safe and sound. For the boy's protection and welfare. Remember, you are not theirs for the taking! THEY are not theirs for the taking! Only with them is there balance - something Oberon never understood," the dying man explained, quieter and weaker, while I already felt energy once more - faint as the heartbeat of a dying bird tingling my skin. In his last seconds, Murshid did as he had explained. The thing that finally revealed why Nathaniel - my Nathaniel - could hardly remember anything. Murshid buried the beings inside him. His powers, his potential, but also the danger that all this represented for him. Just as they had been buried here under concrete. It was both a mercy and a crime. The child was so distraught, or so exhausted himself, that his warm light flickered along with his pulse, constantly losing its radiance.
"Murshid? Uncle Murshid?" The boy tried to shake the already limp adult, to disentangle himself from him. The old man's voice was barely a whisper.
"You are the thistle, Nathaniel. You can be everything at the same time. Gentle and ... soft, strong and defensive. It is your birthright. Because you are more than just their human shell. Your humanity ... can be your sharpest sword."
The last glow faded - leaving us all blind. No one more than the child in whose head had probably just been swept through.
The child's breathless sobs died away with the next sensation of time and space changing.
.
When I snapped out of it, I felt tired - like an eternity had passed. And I was SO thirsty.
My hand was holding something - cold, damp and dusty at the same time, like floured dough. A hand. Inhuman claws. Nathaniel's hand. I squeezed but got no reaction, yet felt the heartbeat on his wrist. A racing pulse.
I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. All I had was a rotting smell and the taste of blood and ash on my tongue and it itched like the devil. By now I was heartily sick of these fucking jumps. This was worse than under the rubble of "The Granary"! I opened my mouth, startled by the volume at which my tongue formed the only word that mattered.
"Nate?"
As if my voice had broken the spell, the previously lifeless fingers gripped painfully hard, just a fraction of an inch away from crushing my hand. Then sounds peeled out of the black cramped nirvana and a sudden light made me squint. It was deafeningly loud as steel and concrete scraped over each other. The lid of our sarcophagus lifted. An angel - bulking, his tattered wings towering behind him - lifted another slab of concrete, groaning and muttering breathless Scottish curses. More light, more air. And although the air outside must also be dust-filled, the memory of that 'fresh air' was glorious. But the light hurt and I turned my head to the side only to see my Nathaniel looking wide- and teary-eyed at the figure who was saving his younger self. I blinked hard as the angel leaned down into the chamber where Nathaniel and Murshid had been buried. Four-limbed dusty gray hands, claws broken off and skin scraped open, made me flinch. My subconscious already recognizing what my clever mind had yet to comprehend.
"It's okay, Laddie, I've got you," the angel said and leaned down, darkening the blue sky. And at the very first notes of that voice, I felt the tears running down my cheeks. I reached out my hands which went straight through a SO infinitely tired and old looking Hudson. But when he stood up again- lifting young Nathaniel from the rubble, he smiled. Hudson. Hudson, HUDSON! I couldn't speak out of shock to see him here. But what was I surprised about? Nate had told me that it was Hudson who had pulled him out of the rubble. The tired smile slipped just for a moment from my former mentor as he looked down into the chamber where there was now only a stinking corpse of an adult.
The kid in his arms, though one limb hung down bloody, maybe broken, gasping for air, clumsily digging a hand into Hudson's crusty beard. He looked ragged, emaciated and dehydrated despite his corpulence, but still found enough strength to plead, no matter to whom or what, as long as someone would listen.
"My dad. My dad, please," he wheezed, pulling from God knows where the crumpled family photo he'd previously used to search for his father. Hudson took it and clutched him tighter. Giving comfort without really trying and patting his back. "I'll go find him. Let's get you to the paramedics first, Laddie." Then he stumbled over mountains of rubble, his strength already visibly sapped by the last few days. I wanted to jump up after him, but then me and Nathaniel were dragged further.
.
We both fell to the bare earth, mentally and physically exhausted. After the memory of the dusty heat before, the coolness here was like a slap in the face. Long trampled grass didn't break our fall and neither Nate nor I bothered to try and cushion it. We just lay there - both of us crying. Crushed by old grief and new truths. And automatically we bridged our distance, crawling towards and clinging to each other. I had no idea how much time we spent with our arms, legs and wings intertwined. Finally we took deep breaths and wiped away each other's tears. Our kisses had never been more expressions of solace, understanding, forgiveness. Neither he nor I could speak much, nor did we feel the need to.
Only after a small eternity, when our tears had dried salty on our cheeks, pain and horror had turned into a dull pressure in our heads and chests, did we break away from each other, reassuring us with exhausted smiles and nods that we could go on.
We were in a huge white tent that seemed to go on forever. The most noticeable sounds in this memory were from the numerous machines parked at regular intervals around the edge of the tent, cooling the air. This made it really chilly in here. People walked around, some purposefully, some shuffling and lost in themselves. But many were anxiously searching. Tired-looking officials with clipboards were surrounded by groups of people, their quiet voices begging for answers from those same clipboards, but there was no harsh chaos demanding clarification. Everyone seemed too much in a state of shock. It was a strange atmosphere. Sacred and defiled at the same time. Devout but soaked in so much sorrow that it caused anguish.
What did people call the intermediate station between heaven and hell? The in-between realm? The Limbo? Nathaniel and I knew where we had to go. At that point, my memory was similar to his - at least as far as the location was concerned. The long, long row of body bags or sheets over lifeless bodies lying on the dirt floor somehow gave it away. Everything was too white for the death of hundreds to have been given a structure here. It was nightmarish neatness, but it was necessary here. When someone shuffled through us, one ghost among a hundred others, we both knew we had to follow. I stood up - now even my slight frame a weight I'd never known. My outstretched hands and a single nod of my head in question and invitation was all Nathaniel needed.
He wiped away immaterial snot and allowed himself to be helped up.
It was such a long way. Maybe it wasn't that far, but the line of sheets and bags with numbers on them and a perimeter so uniform and devoid of boundary markers that it might as well have been miles. Every 20 yards or so there was an exit in the tent cosmos through which grieving overwhelmed relatives could escape outside if they felt like it and there were folding chairs stacked against the walls for people to help themselves to if they needed to sit down but otherwise it was all monotony. Not that the authorities and helpers, strained to the breaking point, should have made this place cozy - it was basically a gigantic morgue, after all. Set up out of necessity because all the morgues, crematoriums and morticians in New York couldn't keep up and hundreds of unidentifiable remains simply had to be parked somewhere until ... until they could be buried in whatever form, presumably cremated in mass graves.
The younger Nathaniel bore the marks of his ordeal on his face and body. It must have been several days since he had been rescued. The wounds had been dressed and bandaged, he was clean but the circles under his eyes were deep and dark, his gait that of a trauma victim wading through the imaginary mud of his mind. He didn't really stand out here. And yet it was more and different from the other seekers, finders, mourners here. His gaze tired and empty in a way that made my exhausted heart contract painfully again because those eyes reminded me of the state I had found Nathaniel in back in the hospital after his suicide attempt.
He carried a small bouquet of flowers in the crook of his plastered arm. Blue thistles and white roses, all of which were already hanging their heads, so they fitted in perfectly here. In his other hand, he had a piece of paper with a number scribbled on it, which he held in tense fingers as if it were infinitely valuable. The boy's gaze lifted again and again, trying not to look any further than to the numbers at the bottom of the body bags or the cloths. And finally, finally he found "his" number.
The neighbor had probably just been identified and either claimed by his relatives or abandoned and taken away for final processing. Nathaniel was able to turn one of the brown, rickety plastic chairs around and sit down at the side of the body. The child just sat there, for a small eternity. And perhaps his mind-numb stillness was interpreted as anxiety and insecurity, because he was joined by a woman with a name tag that read Withby. She had her dark hair tied back in a ponytail, and though she looked exhausted - exhausted had been the term for pretty much every New York resident at the time - she forced a sympathetic smile that jogged my own memory, because I knew this woman. What an eerily small world we had lived in and probably still did.
She also carried a clipboard, but this far into the belly of the makeshift identification and storage center for deceased victims of the terrorist attacks, no one was in need of directions, so she probably felt called upon to assist the lonely teenager.
"Hello, my name is Mrs. Withby. You can call me Francine. Are you alone here?"
The younger Nathaniel looked up at her before staring back down at the top of the shroud.
"My- my mom's in the hospital with my dad. One-one of my aunts brought me here. But now ... I'm not even sure ... why I wanted to come."
Francine- the former crazy Quarrymen supporter took the note from the boy's fingers, read the number, flipped through the pile of papers jammed on her clipboard and read something there. Her expression darkened briefly, slid back to the boy, then to the name on the clipboard. Of course, shortly after the attacks, Al-Qaeda had already taken credit for them - it was a time that was too early for reason to prevail over first impulses, and the resentment that replaced the shock and grief had yet to form but was already in the making. Not all people at that time - guided by their patriotic feelings and the urge to lash out so that something like this would never happen to America again - had managed to make a distinction between the 0.001 per mille terrorists and the rest of all other Muslims. Still, perhaps due to her earlier mistakes regarding an entirely different minority, Francine sighed and lost her brief expression of anger and distrust. Before she turned around one of the other folding chairs and sat down next to Nathaniel.
"Many relatives and friends don't have the courage to take a last look at their loved ones. There's no shame in that. You are not alone. There are support services and support groups forming all over the city. You don't have to go through this alone."
"I'm fine," the child mumbled mechanically. It sounded exactly the opposite, although there were no tears or even a desperate expression on his face. Just void.
"The important thing is that someone cares. He was very important to you," Francine said, and although it could be assumed that she had said the same line a hundred times in the last few days (perhaps the grief counselors and officials had even been given a script) it didn't sound rushed or patronizing.
The child shook his head slowly.
"He was ... important to me, I guess? I think. I just feel so ... empty when I think about him. I mean ... I can't even cry. I'm sad- but I can't even...I don't even know what I was doing there. Why was I there? Why was he there? It all makes no sense. The hospital said it was the concussion and the shock. But - my mom gave me money for flowers and I have no idea why I took not only white roses but also thistles. It's disrespectful - I mean - only white flowers are funeral flowers in our community. Nevertheless, I bought them as well. I know, I know that means something but I just ... don't remember. Is that normal?" asked the child, looking for the first time at the adult with a look of deep despair and uncertainty. She gazed sadly at the dying bunch of flowers in the crook of his arm. I remembered vaguely the sea of flowers in New York after the days of the attack. On the periphery of the sites of the attacks, in every cemetery, in every church. It was hard to come by beautiful flowers in New York State in those post-terror days. Florists were probably doing the business of a lifetime, as were funeral card makers, morticians, carpenters making coffins.
Francine put a hand on his knee, said what she thought the boy needed to hear.
"You survived. There's nothing wrong with you. This is more than normal. PTSD. The shock. Everything feels too strange, far away and at the same time far too overwhelming. When people leave us, especially when it happens so abruptly, it tears a hole in us. It feels like a black abyss is opening up inside us."
The child closed his eyes and nodded slowly. That moment it got louder outside. Francine frowned at the disturbance in her section of the gruesome sanctuary of death, apologized to the teenager and went outside. Nathaniel sat frozen, the fingers of his uninjured arm clutched in the fabric of his jeans, while half a dozen people came through one of the side entrances. Six strong men, groaning as they pushed an extra-wide, extra-sturdy stretcher for heavy-duty transportation. A large body lay on it under a white sheet. Francine - looking much paler and more distraught than before - delegated them to the deserted spot. The men worked behind the motionless boy, seemingly lost in his grief, who remained sitting on his folding chair. They lowered the stretcher as far as they could, then wiped away their sweat, as it must still be very hot outside.
I took a deep breath, my grief painfully constricting my throat. The shape under the large cloth was too misshapen and too big to be human - of course it was not human. I had suspected that I too would suffer in these memories. That I too could see ghosts of the past, that I would have to deal with pain that had not been dealt with enough in previous decades. Torn open scar tissue from a wound that had never really healed. But that it felt like this - so very close, so raw, so devastating - I had no idea. Or didn't want to admit it to myself. Of course - the world was not only small but the sheer contingency of many events was laughable. Only Nathaniel's arm around my waist kept me from sobbing as he had done before, while the people of 2001 went about their business with a stoic lack of emotion that must have been a protective mechanism in itself.
"We can't get him off the stretcher. He's getting heavier and stiffer by the minute," said one.
"We'll leave him on it, no one will miss it," said another.
"I didn't even know they could die. I mean- just like that. Just ... man, it was scary to see them working in the daylight - but this, just like that. Smashed by concrete - like a human being. I guess they really are just like you and me - despite magic and wings and shit."
Francine took a deep breath, obviously frustrated by the stupid chatter, nodded taciturnly, wrote something on her clipboard, tore it off and handed it to one of the men as an unspoken request that the guys were done here and she was done with them. He raised a dust-gray eyebrow. "Seriously? I don't think he needs a number. His relatives will recognize him when they flutter over."
"Everyone gets a number. He's more than earned it," Francine said coolly, and that was both a terrible and decent thing to say. When the guys were gone, Francine got a can of spray paint, shook it and sprayed a number on the bottom of the cloth. Then she stood next to the covered corpse. She took another breath as if all the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. Then she bent down and lifted the cloth. Nathaniel's grip on my shoulder tightened automatically, almost painfully, and that was good and comforting and real (I understood for the first time Nathaniel's past impulse to hurt himself so that something, anything, felt real), because there lay Hudson. My Hudson, our Hudson, Rhydderch since long before I was born, mentor, guardian, father, grandfather, uncle, and he was gray and lifeless and I wanted to howl and at the same time I forced myself not to because I didn't want to, couldn't, break here and now over an ancient memory.
Francine stared for a small eternity, then folded her hands and said a silent prayer. Her eyes, eyelashes a little clogged with unshed tears, on the deceased Gargoyle's face, which showed only the remnants of its normal brown hue but was already gray, stony and slack at the same time. His face really did look as if he had fallen asleep without the belligerent gargoyle pose of bared teeth and fierce eyes. He looked genuinely peaceful and that, I remembered, was something that had fucked me up back then. That of course and -
Francine glanced to the side as Nathaniel - the younger Nathaniel - suddenly stood beside her. His dull eyes were glued to Hudson. And wordlessly, he bent down and placed a single white rose from his bouquet on Hudson's chest. And in that moment, something broke inside me and I slapped my hands over my mouth to stop myself from sobbing. I barely noticed Francine start talking to Nathaniel again, having to force myself to pull myself together at the seams.
"Today we are all heroes and victims at the same time. No one can escape death, so it's important that we try every day to be guided by love and understanding, not fear and despair," she said, her voice laced with emotion.
"He pulled me out of the rubble. He was so ... warm and big and strong - and yet he's no more. Just like my uncle. What are our lives worth if they can be erased so easily? I ... have lost something and I don't even know what."
Francine took the lethargic child, who was incapable of shedding tears, in her arms, rubbed his back, mindful of his injuries. And interpreted his silence as an incentive to continue speaking.
"Our lives are precious because they have an end. How you feel - how everyone feels, even the Gargoyles - it will get better. We keep scars, inside and out, but eventually the emptiness fills with the cherished memories we keep of our loved ones. They will always be in our hearts. No one can take that away from us."
Francine broke away from him, spread the shroud reverently over Hudson's face again, wished Nathaniel all the best and much strength and then walked away, intent on devoting herself to her assigned duty for many more long hours. She did not see the child staring after her in agony. She didn't know what an incredible kick in the stomach her last sentences had been. They had been perfect and beautiful and true. True for everyone except this one boy. And again he didn't cry although his expression showed pure pain. He looked forlornly at the shrouds again, both the one with the single rose and the one next to it with the bouquet of roses and thistles.
Then, his lower lip trembling, he closed his eyes. At first I thought I was imagining it. An illusion because of my own stress and the chaos in my own head. But darkness seeped out of his body, through his clothes and from every pore of his body. Black billowing mass that formed into a small creature of black ash. The child's shoulders sagged under an immaterial weight that was more than grief, more than despair. Until he had assumed the maltreated pose I had known from the erstwhile Nathaniel. With this shadow of a once aspiring demon in his neck, with this Huckup* visible to no one but us and perhaps him, the child shuffled away through a world in white, robbed of his memories and thus his emotional and magical strength. In the shadow of no towers, fallen gods, shattered destinies. Towards a future for which he was too alone, too hollowed out, too feeble and vulnerable to defend himself against the human wolves around him.
With tears streaming down my face, I was hardly shocked that the boy who would one day become my mate was almost run over by the younger versions of my clan, including myself, who were being led to Hudson's body by another official. My 2001 me didn't walk a yard past the boy he could have saved long before his martyrdom with his family without giving him a single glance. Just like the boy wasn't giving the colorful bunch a glance.
.
And with a jolt so unequal and rougher than the previous jumps between memories, Nathaniel and I were flung out of his head and into our real world. We both fell panting to the carpet-cushioned floor, both breathless as if someone of Goliath's caliber had punched us against our respective chests, sweaty from a heat beneath the rubble that hadn't been real, shaken by traumatizing shock that was basically 23 years delayed and thoroughly disoriented.
That our whole clan was immediately around us was comforting but too much, far too much. Their mixed voices were too much, their gentle hands on us as they lifted us up. Several of those hands maneuvered us onto a couch, others cushioned our surroundings with pillows on all sides, spread blankets around us, both of us were poured sweet lukewarm tea. We didn't talk the whole time. If Nate felt half as sick and awful as I did, he was too chafed from what he had witnessed.
We just let our relatives nurse on us and around us and after a short time they stopped gently pressing for answers. Even the children realized that neither Nathaniel nor I could talk about it. Not tonight. Maybe not in a few weeks either. Someday we would work through everything with Davis. But for now, those memories were still ours. Not just Nathaniel's. He had shared them with me, and though it was a clarification as much as a burden (just like Brooklyn had said) I was also shaken by our shared experience. Nathaniel had shared a part of his life, his very core, with me. A part he hadn't even remembered before that night, and now we knew why.
Murshid had meant well. Still - even if it had been for his protection; take away a person's memories and you take away who they are. And so his uncle had done something to him that he had actually wanted to prevent with all his might.
Now that Nathaniel had it back - that part of himself - and I didn't doubt that now that his memories were unlocked, so to speak, other fragments would come up and slowly complete him again - it wasn't really clear what it would do to him. How he would grow from it or let it weigh him down. I couldn't say how I felt about it. Of these uncertain prospects. I loved the man that Nathaniel was but at the same time I wanted him to be confident, resilient, free. At the same time, I wanted to wrap him in absorbent cotton, to shelter him.
In a twisted way, our journey through his mind was like a willful rape of his spirit - he tore himself bloody on the sharp-toothed splinters of his memories. He had infiltrated his own head and taken me with him, encountering my own ghosts. That was creepy but I didn't feel sullied any more than I thought that Nathaniel had been sullied in any way. On the contrary. He was more pure and real to me than ever before and I hoped that if he found the strength to reflect on what he had seen, he felt the same. My beloved laid his head in the crook of my neck and sighed wearily. Too exhausted to shed any more tears. We probably both had a case of PTSD.
But I realized with his warm body leaning against mine- no matter what Nathaniel would do with these memories- I would stand by him. I loved him no matter which way he moved, whether he took one step forward or two steps back. I would be there. And so would the clan. Because Nate had been Clan long before he met me.
I lifted my gaze from my cup, speaking for the first and last time tonight something the others needed to know. The smallest detail of the whole epic and yet the most important for us.
"The rose was from Nathaniel. The white rose when Hudson fell," I whispered, feeling a bittersweet smile take over my face. Everyone lost their respective colors in their faces along with their respective expressions. Elisa had tears in her eyes where Broadway held a trembling hand over his mouth. They all stared at each other and Nathaniel in turn and everyone was so shaken by what had to be the truth that no one could react.
Tachi and Heather, one too young, the other not even hatched yet, were the first to snap out of it. Too young but not clueless. Growing up with affectionate, painful, exciting, quirky stories that were too recent to be spun into legends, Hudson was as close to them as a grandfather. Never really known but a part of them. Knowing, too, from stories and lessons, of those terrible days of the fallen towers, of the gargoyle that everyone - including them - had lost, of the true start of positive gargoyle-human relations in New York, and of the tiny token of sentiment - the white rose from a previously nameless donor that had meant so much, so much. And that this had come from Nathaniel, more human than any other and yet not human, broken and now growing together, part of our clan - that didn't diminish the importance of this token, it multiplied it. The children came to Nate and me, hugging and kissing him, and the rest of the clan followed.
"Thank you, my sliochd," Goliath whispered, voice thick with emotion and gratitude in Nathaniel's ear as he embraced him. The latter - though he had cried so much and he must have been dehydrated from sweating as well - began to cry again, clinging to Goliath so desperately that his muscles began to tremble - as he had never been able to do with his uncle. Goliath grabbed me with one of his huge paws and pulled me into his grip as well. My happiness tugged spasmodically at the already strained muscles in my body, weakened by immaterial ordeal. But it was pure joy. Because even though Nathaniel didn't know it, with that one last word he had become completely our kin and brother, as if he had hatched with us. Inseparable, unbreakable, irrevocable.
I looked at Alexander, his mates and parents. My favorite plan-smithing quarter fey smiled gently. I smiled back. Everything happened the way it had to happen. But fey knew their way around laws. Or at least kept trying to. Never mind. Not tonight. Not this week. The other shoe would drop soon enough. Until then, we mortals would worry about more mortal problems.
BOOM! - Could have made a separate short story out of all the fallen tower chapters. And of course, the title of the chapters wasn't just on-the-nose for the World Trade Center towers- but Hudson was also a tower for his clan. Seemingly unshakeable, irrevocably and unconquerable. And yet he fell. Wow - a tough piece of work. Now I finally got to show what happened to Nathaniel, Murshid, Hudson - addressed in the first chapter of the first book of Souls of the Night. Only those who stuck with the story from the beginning understood everything. That's why it's called an epic or a saga.
SO! And now let's finally deal with this fucker Jussuf!
P.S. *Huckup meaning:
The legendary figure of the Aufhocker/Huckup
In earlier times, German people believed that ghostly beings leapt upon the backs of nocturnal wanderers. That way, they made people's lives burdensome until the first sunlight. This belief originated from the fear of revenants among the dead.
Thanks for reading Q.T.