You will not marry Jonathan O'Sullivan, Larissa! That's my final word concerning the matter!"

Standing nose to nose with his recalcitrant teenage daughter, Damien couldn't help but wondering whose genes had been passed on to his offspring. As far as he knew, none of his own blood relatives had ever boasted a mane of golden curls - or any curls, for that matter. His ex-wife's hair, on the other hand, was straight and black as true night, just like Gerald's had been after the transformation deep in the bowels of the Hunter's keep.

Not wanting to pursue this line of thought any further, Damien swallowed convulsively. Years and years of experience had taught him that there was no escape from the memories that would haunt him all night, but right now he needed a clear head.

"Why not?" his daughter pushed on, her voice shaking with emotion. "Just tell me one single reason why you don't want me to marry Jon!"

The Prophet himself had seen to it that the dangerous belief in a Messiah and myriads of God's heavenly messengers had sunk into oblivion a millenium ago. It hadn't kept Damien from calling Larissa his 'little angel' when he'd sung her to sleep, a big, calloused hand petting her hair. Now she looked like the angel of wrath in the flesh, ready to let fire and brimstone rain upon the wicked.

Damien suppressed a proud grin. Seventeen years old, and what a woman his daughter promised to be. Pretty, intelligent, determined and blessed with quite a temper, the latter doubtlessly inherited from her father; no wonder the boy had fallen in love with her. He should have seen it coming, should have moved Larissa to Ganji years ago, far away from the hero of her childhood, but he had let things slide, waisting his time with aimless drifting and boozing himself out of his mind. He had failed both children, had failed them just the way he had failed Gerald. Oh God, Gerald! Picturing the adept's reaction to this mess, Damien felt himself break out into a cold sweat.

"Dad! You're not even listening! Could you please spare some of your precious attention for me? Just this once?"

Snapped out of his frantic mental ramblings, Damien could have kicked himself. Larissa was right. He wasn't able to change what had happened in times long gone by, but it was his goddamn fatherly duty to prevent her from making a horrendous mistake, even if it was the last thing he ever did in his wretched life. "Lari, please," he said soothingly, trying to keep the growing despair out of his voice. "Please believe me that I've only got your best interests at heart. I love you, and..."

"You love me?" The disbelieving snort cut through his peace-offering like a finely honed blade, reminding him of his sword with the flame patterned hilt which had been rusting in the ground for twenty years now. Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, dust to dust.

"You don't love anybody," his daughter continued acidly, and the venom in her voice reminded Vryce of another acerbic tongue which had been stilled much too soon. "You can't love. You can't even smile like a normal human being. You..."

Only when the girl blanched, her eyes wide with fear, Damien realized that he had stepped menacingly closer, his hands balled into fists. "Don't you dare to say that, Larissa," he forced out through gritted teeth. "I damn well know what love is. You've got no idea..."

Words failing him, Vryce's fingers involuntarily crept towards the angry red scar at the left side of his neck. Sapphire blue eyes followed his every motion, and for a short moment he wondered what Larissa thought of him. Only fifty-eight, he looked at least ten years older, an untidy mop of hair that had gone completely white before he had even celebrated his fortieth birthday framing a face whose rugged attractiveness was marred by deeply engraved lines of sorrow and bitterness.

"There's one thing I'd really like to know then. Did you ever love my mother?"

There it was, the question Damien had been dreading for years. Since his wife had run off with a travelling musician shortly after Larissa's fourth birthday, her existence had been tacitly declared a taboo issue, and he had no intention whatsoever to change this anytime soon. Surprisingly, he didn't hold a grudge against her for her pursuit of happiness. Preferring a dandified ladykiller to her husband's gloomy presence was somewhat understandable with regard to the fact that his heart would always belong to someone else and he'd only married her out of a misguided sense of honour. That she had left her small daughter behind like a broken toy and had never bothered to write a single letter or send a birthday present for her own flesh and blood was an altogether different kettle of fish. Try as he might, he just couldn't forgive her for this unspeakable act of neglect.

Damien considered a merciful lie, but decided against it in the end. Larissa wasn't a child any longer. He owed her the truth, or at least the morsels of truth which could be told without bringing down the entire house of cards his life had become. "No, I didn't," he answered brutally honest. "Marrying your mother was a mistake, Lari. A grievous mistake without a doubt, but I'm only a fallible human being. I thought it might work out, might fill the... the terrible emptiness in my life, but as so often I was wrong. I simply couldn't give her what she was looking for, and as a result she eloped with a smug fiddler, never to be seen again."

"I thought as much. Thanks for telling me the truth." The girl cocked her head, a hint of curiosity brightening her finely chiselled features. "Mind telling me who she was, the woman who managed to win your heart?"

His nerves close to breaking point, Vryce very nearly succumbed to a fit of hysterical laughter. Growing up in a metropolis like Jaggonath, a melting pot teeming with subcultures, strange customs and beliefs and even stranger people, left no room for naivety, but he didn't even dare to imagine his daughter's face should he ever be foolish enough to let the uncat out of the bag. "What's in a name, Lari?" he muttered uncomfortably. "Suffice to say that on the day I lost... her, I thought the world had stopped turning and the sun would never rise again. It still hurts, and I'd appreciate it very much if you could let the matter rest. It doesn't concern you, anyway."

Vulking hell, Vryce, what has become of you? Damien chastised himself. You're a liar and a coward on top of it! 'It doesn't concern you?' Like hell it does! If you hadn't managed to muck up everything as usual, your child wouldn't be in for losing a loved one for the second time in her young life. This miserable charade is a travesty, an abominable sin in the eyes of the merciless God who turned his back on you a long time ago.

"But it's simply not fair to take whatever that woman did to you out on Jon," Larissa pouted. "He's a good man, kind, gentle and caring. And he adores you, Dad! Sometimes I think Jon feels closer to you than to his own father."

The former priest couldn't take it any longer. Trembling in every limb, he collapsed onto a nearby chair and closed his eyes, wishing himself a thousand miles away. Couldn't those hormone-driven children have waited just one more year? Twelve months from now on, and a certain letter for the youth known as Jonathan Carwyn O'Sullivan would have put an end to their ridiculous marriage plans, anyway.

Not for the first time Damien considered delivering the document a year early, but couldn't bring himself to do it. What a birthday present for a young man looking forward to marrying his first love! Once again, he cursed himself for causing the two people meaning so much to him heartbreak and pain, but it had to end here before even more harm would come out of their love. The mere idea of a grandchild born from this union threatened to freeze the marrow in his bones. Lord, I know I haven't set foot in a church for a long time, Vryce prayed silently, but please have mercy on me, just this once! I don't beseech you for egoistical reasons but for the sake of innocents who shouldn't be made to pay for my sins.

The worsening tremors and a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that the first stiff drink of the evening was long overdue. Many more would follow, as every year on All Hallows Eve, but first he had to settle this matter once and for all. "Listen to me, Larissa," he said sternly. "This has nothing to do with my love-life or Jonathan's character. I know he's a good boy, I really do, but even if you hate me for the rest of your life, you can't marry him. It's vulking impossible, so let's not talk about it again."

For a long time his daughter just stared at him in utter disbelief, her blue eyes filling with tears. Then she stormed out of the room without a further word.

When the door had closed behind her, Damien felt like crying himself, but even this well-trodden road to relief was closed to him. He hadn't shed any tears for two decades, not since his entire world had gone to pieces, just to be replaced by a nightmare from which there was no waking up. On that accursed day the stout, valiant warrior knight Damien Kilcannon Vryce had ceased to exist for good. What had remained on Erna in his guise was an empty husk, a dead man walking who had tried to fill the gaping hole where once his soul had been with meaningless activities and galleons of booze. In a desperate attempt to pick up the pieces, he'd even founded a family again, obviously with less than stellar results.

Wearily, Damien got up and walked over to the small window. Winter had come early this year, powdering the sea of houses called Jaggonath with a blanket of snow until it rather resembled a confectioner's dream than a thriving, bustling city. As it had been customary on their mother planet Earth, the following days were reserved for solemn festivities in honour of the deceased, but ere long Yuletide decorations would replace the wilting wreaths and the inns and taverns would be filled to the brim with punters in a festive mood.

Damien let his gaze wander over the snow-covered streets without perceiving anything but his bleak inner vista. Very much against his will, memories of the one Yule that had been different from all the others welled up from a place deep inside him he usually kept strictly under lock and key.

All at once, the stale air in his office was heavy with the delicious smells of gingerbread and Yule pudding, and he thought he could hear the big bells of Jaggonath's famous cathedral calling the faithful to midnight mass. Their solemn tolling mingled with the heartwarming sounds of Karril's booming laughter, Lucy O'Sullivan's light tenor telling a tale about an old miser being reformed on Yule Eve and the slightly husky voice he longed to hear more than anything else. How beautiful Gerald had been that night, the smooth waterfall of black silk reaching all the way down to the small of this back shimmering in the candle-light and the sparkle in his dark eyes easily outshining the Yule baubles adorning the evergreen garlands.

When his world had come crashing down all around him, he had burned those silly, cheap trinkets in his backyard, along with the rest of his worldly possessions except the priceless library. Robbing humanity of the knowledge contained in the irreplacable volumes had been unthinkable, and so he'd bestowed them upon the renowned book department of the Museum of Mankind. Gerald's beloved rose garden had survived as well, a memorial wrought in soft petals and scent, but everything else had been obliterated in a veritable orgy of destruction born from sheer despair. Still much too sick for heavy physical work himself, he'd hired a crew of sturdy removers, and after the furniture had been hacked to splinters and gone up in smoke, he'd ordered them to tear down the mansion stone by stone. Nothing remained of the only true home he had ever known in his adult life save his memories.

Heaving a sigh from the bottom of his soul, Damien returned to his secretary and reached for the whisky decanter. It was already half-empty, but a fresh bottle was waiting for him to get him through the following hours. All Hallows Eve, the night when the dead visited the living. If there had been any traces of humour left inside him, he might have laughed at the utter absurdity of it all. Gerald was gone never to return, and maybe it was time to follow suit. He'd gladly leave this vale of tears if he could see his husband's face once again, hold him in his arms and tell him how much he missed him.

His bones creaking protestingly, Damien sat down and opened a secret compartment in his secretary desk. The object he pulled from its hiding place was the portrait of a young man, evidently once part of a bigger picture. It seemed to have been slashed with a knife sometime in the past, but he paid no attention to the cuts. Ever so gently, he smoothed out the unframed piece of canvas, each motion a tender caress. Then, his eyes filled with desperate yearning, he reached for the decanter and poured himself a triple.