Hey, everyone! Hope y'all enjoyed me bringing Malcolm into this (god, I've missed writing him). We're back with Harry for now, and you'll see who's POV we get next at the end of this chapter.

And now, onto the fic!

? ? ? , Present Day II

I gasp as I come out of the memory. It's like pulling myself out of a deep pool, where my head's been submerged until my ears are about to pop. Like with the last memory I saw, it takes me a minute to catch my breath, but when I do, I stare down at the photograph in my hand.

When I had grabbed it, I'd seen an image of the nursing home. Now that the memory has ended, the photo shows me the open car door, and a rope leading into thick woods.

"No," I said to myself. A strange laugh wormed its way out of my throat. "No goddamn way. Ebenezar's gotta be pulling my leg. There's—hah—there's no way Dad could've known a vampire."

I kept laughing, and the sound got louder and more ludicrous the longer it went on.

Stepson?

Dad?!

"There's something wrong with this." I shook the picture, hoping that, I don't know, it'd show me something that actually happened. "Sir! Can you hear me? I think something went wrong with your spell! I mean, come on! A vampire? Where the hell would Dad even find this guy? And really, six years ago? Dad's been dead for—"

My throat twisted itself into a knot. The words suddenly hurt too much to even whisper.

I pulled out the other photograph from my pocket. The first memory I'd seen started and ended in a nightclub—Zero, or whatever—and I'd shoved the picture into my jeans. I stared at it again, but I didn't feel myself getting sucked into the memory. Whatever these pictures were, they were a one-time viewing pleasure.

"Did DuMorne's spell affect this, too?" I asked. Maybe its effects were so intense they altered the 'real' memories Ebenezar's sending into my head.

I mean, the facts didn't even line up between the two memories. In the first one, this 'Thomas' playboy said his family was the Raiths. That he had vampire sisters, spends his days living off of people, and somehow looks like the kind of guy that would not only get slapped onto billboards, but would need a 24/7 bodyguard detail to just keep his crazed fans at bay. He had a calm confidence to him, even with the hissing… thing in his head. His eyes were silver.

In the second memory, the guy was different. That Thomas was Thomas Fairchild, and though I guess he was kinda good looking, he wasn't drop-dead you-will-want-me or you-will-want-to-be-me gorgeous. He was less sure of himself. His eyes were blue. Hell, he even had washed-out jeans and a cheap digital watch! How is that guy the same one who strolled around with a hand-me-down Rolex? Who could easily jump into a threesome with a random girl and his sister?

Besides, if he was really Dad's stepson, his last name wouldn't be Fairchild. And in the first memory, he said his dad had no limits. That he crossed lines that are despicable even for fellow monsters. And… Thomas was afraid of him.

Dad wasn't a vampire. I know that much. He did do magic, but that's because he was a party magician, not a supernatural creature. But in the Zero memory, Thomas thought about his family. His vampire family. That included a man who couldn't have been Dad, and a bunch of sisters who were something far from human. He never even mentioned a stepdad.

Was it the 'Turn'? The change from human to vampire that changed Thomas that much? That made him beautiful and deadly and forget about Dad. The guy who was willing to lose most of his paycheck because someone needed him.

"That's the one thing I can believe." I traced by thumb over the second picture. "Dad… he was a good guy. I'm just surprised he agreed to any payment at all."

Just as a smile spread across my face, tears started falling down my cheeks.

Dad.

That… that was Dad's voice. I haven't heard it in 10 years, but it's just as I remember it.

I know that, after someone dies, the first thing you forget about them is their voice. But I can never forget Dad's. I can never forget how he'd boom it across the room when he was performing, or how he'd soothe me to sleep when I woke up from nightmares. And now… I'd heard it again.

I heard my dad.

I stood there, crying, for who knows how long. When I finally dried my eyes, I realized that I was still standing in the middle of a suburban road.

I turned around. I'd almost forgotten that I was in this 'neighborhood'. The personification of my mind. When I was looking at the previous memories, there was hardly any down time before a new picture floated toward me. I'd gotten one, maybe two minutes to recover before the next memory. But when I looked up, I saw the rest of the pictures, still swirling in a cone of wind, several feet above me.

I reached out my hand, ready for the new memory, when the pictures began moving. They fluttered down the street, turning a corner at the end.

"Hey!" I pounded down the street, taking full advantage of my long legs to rush around the corner. "You can't just show me all that and then make me do cardio!"

Unfortunately, it did.

The pictures made me run for a fair few blocks. Aside from walking around the neighborhood, I hadn't been moving much, so the run was annoying. I was sweating—seriously, I was sweating in my mind?—until the wind guided me up a set of stairs.

I slowed at the top. I was at a station platform. The floors, while not old, definitely weren't new. There were a couple of benches and a long awning, but those were the only fixtures on the platform. I looked up, and saw a banner painted onto one of the walls. This was a stop of the Green Line. Whatever that meant.

I turned at the sound of a train chugging down the line. It was silver, with a fair few cars attached to it. When it stopped, the doors opened. Wind pushed at my back.

"All aboard!" I announced to the empty station. "All aboard the mindfuckery Express!"

Predictably, the train was empty. Like everything else in the neighborhood, it was strangely clean, even though the blue seats had been worn with time. I shook my head. If the train had been brand new, at least that would've made sense. I know I've never lived in a city, but even I know that public transport is only ever this spotless when it's day one and no one's decided to chuck their empty coffee cup into the corner.

I sunk into a seat. So many things didn't make sense. For one, that last memory I saw couldn't have been from six years ago. Secondly, aside from Mom, Dad never had any contact with the supernatural world. Not to the point where he'd need emergency silver knuckles and handcuffs. Thirdly… if it had been Dad, then where was I in the picture? He—He couldn't have forgotten about me, right? Not for a random vampire who wasn't even his kid.

The doors closed, and the train jostled forward.

I looked at the photos in my hands again. Did DuMorne know this Thomas guy? He's the only point of connection between the two pictures, and it'd make sense for DuMorne to put a random guy into my subconscious. He was always doing weird stuff like that. Tests—or, as he sometimes called them, trials—that made my head spin. It was to see if I could really focus. Could actually pull off the magic he taught me.

Maybe Ebenezar's magic isn't as strong as I thought. These 'real' memories, from 'real' people who were supposedly in my life, have to be affected by DuMorne's spell somehow. They have to.

I turned back to the first picture. Something at the end of it stood out to me. When the vampire was leaving the club, he said he was on his way to see a mercenary.

The magician mercenary.

If these memories have something to do with my life, then the only magician that was in it was Dad. But in the second memory, Dad called himself a 'bodyguard'. And from what little I remember of him, I know he'd never call himself a mercenary. Even with the 'magician' title in front of it. Which means that whoever this Thomas guy is going to see is someone else. It has to be.

Because Dad's dead. He's been dead for almost ten years.

But… if that's the case, why did I get one of his memories? It's not like Ebenezar exhumed his body or something.

Right?

I leaned back in my seat, taking in the sight of the houses coming and going in the window. The day was nice, with a bright blue sky and just a couple of clouds. The sun was shining, and—was that my imagination, or had it gotten lower in the sky since the last time I paid attention to it?

A gust of wind rushed through the train car. One of the windows was open, just a tad, and it was enough for a pair of pictures to sneak onto the train. They flew toward me. They were spinning too fast for me to take in, but it looked like one of the photos had trees.

"Don't know why Ebenezar thinks I'd stop looking at these," I said. "But even if they've been messed up by DuMorne's magic… it'd be really nice to get more of Dad's memories."

It reached out for the photo of the woods, but it shot out of my fingers at the last second. I tried to snatch it again, but I missed, and I accidentally grabbed the other one.

Unlike the woods picture, the other photo was bright, like someone had overdeveloped it. It took me a second for my eyes to focus, but I could soon make out a glass chandelier, stained glass windows, and marble statues that lined long corridors. The luxury practically exuded out of the glossy photo paper, to the point where I could almost hear the tip-tapping of expensive shoes on the hardwood floors.

I suddenly realized that I was hearing the clacking of heels. The memory had started, and as it did, the details in the photo got more pronounced. Shadows began to darken the hallway. The scent of lacquer filled my nose. Sentences echoed in my head, and I recognized a guy's voice. But it wasn't low or gruff enough to be my dad's.

Dad's voice was warm. This one wasn't.

The voice had more of a lazy drawl to it, but not like a Southern accent. If anything, the accent was standard American, to the point where I couldn't pinpoint where the guy might've been from. And the tone—he drew out his words, like he didn't mind taking his time and was being nonchalant about it all. Or at least pretending to be nonchalant. That wasn't like Dad at all, but I had heard that voice. In fact, I've already heard it twice.

I groaned. "Goddami—"

The memory pulled me in, and I was stuck in the damn vampire's head again.