Here's a new bit:
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"Well. Then you will learn the hard way, will you not? I will tell you one thing more, petite, and then no more. There will come a time when you will choose. Are you slayer, or are you sorceress? And trust no one to defend you. Trust yourself. Goodbye to you, Amadee."
A shimmer, the circle breaking. I was alone in the darkness, weeping with my loss, as though my heart would never again be whole.
On the day before my eighteenth birthday, Rupert and I packed a lunch, took his newly purchased Martin guitar, and went off to spend the day in the Chilswell Valley.
The months since the fire had been odd ones. I was still living in the single room in Turl Street, paying for my room and my life's necessities with the small allowance I had demanded and now received from the Council. Richard had found and puchased a small building in the Woodstock Road, one undersized shopfront and two rooms behind. He lived in the two rooms with Rupert, and had opened another bookshop in the commercial space. There was obviously no room for me under his roof, and we were all just as pleased to have it that way. I had not spoken a single unnecessary word to my Watcher, nor he to me, since the night he had found me in Rupert's arms, and been unable to mask his hate. And all the time, alone in my bed, I would call out in my spirit for my father. He never came; he never answered.
I had taken his last words to me to heart, though. All my spare time - except for those hours with Rupert - were spent in studying myself, understanding my power, deepening and quickening it. I weeded through my heart, my mind, and came to know myself. It was astonishing, that a tiny extra bit of self-knowledge could exponentially increase what I could do with the witchcraft that was my sorcerer's birthright.
And Rupert - I had come to understand that I honestly loved him. I had no friends of my own circle or my own age. All those I knew were friends of Rupert. I never came to know them well, although I saw a lot of them - Simon, and Robson, a deliberately mysterious girl called Dierdre, and a boy named Ethan who set my warnings bells jangling wildly. But all of them had this in common, that they were young, young in every way. I came to know that I had never been young, I had been born old. These people, these friends of Rupert, used the word "love" as if it was something easy, and light, with no more meaning than the fortune in one of the cookies that came, along with packets of soy sauce and hot sweet mustard, in tiny plastic bags from the Chinese carryout in the Iffley Road.
Following a long period of calm, the week leading up to my birthday had been weirdly busy. For ten weeks or so after the destruction of the Carolan, things had been very quiet; I had gathered from things Rupert let slip that something about that night seemed to have quieted the demons and vampires alike, in places as far away as New York City and Prague and even California. Then, suddenly, a rampaging gang of demons dressed like American bikers, setting fire to parked cars. Vampires, five attacks in one night, then the next night, nine of them. I had had a very tiring week.
Dana, I'm late (stupid fargin' computer) but it's lovely, even without knowing who the he and she are.
Deb, another several dozen paving stones in the way along this story. I wonder if Olivia was a contemporary. I had the impression in "Hush" that she is at least a decade younger than Giles. I love the precise location of the Chinese takeaway!
Actually, I think you're right; Olivia was younger, wasn't she? Damn. What was the name of the girl killed in the Eyegon episode?
Sheryl, thanks. Off to fix.
I had comments, but then sick people came in and now I can't remember any of them. General good work to all, because I do remember that it's all good.
More:
My birthday fell on a Sunday that year. On Friday night, Rupert showed up from behind Wolvercote Church just as I was about to lose my temper with the remnants of a group of six vampires who'd been amusing themselves with one of the local derelicts. I had no idea what the poor sod had been drinking, but whatever it was had been thoroughly spiked with something that left the lot of them as shirty as hell. I'd staked the first two, and the remaining four were so completely snockered they couldn't seem to understand who I was. I had no notion whether Darwinism also worked among the undead, but after one of them jumped up, reached for me and then proceeded to toss on my shoes, I abruptly decided that witchcraft would be my best course here.
"Hullo." I'd been aware of Rupert's presence before he spoke; my vision was acute but even so, I could smell him, the Tommy Bolan T Rex teeshirt he liked to wear when he hunted at my side, his particular taste, moving through the air to settle on my skin like a personalised pheromone.
"Hullo back. Half a tick ." I glanced down at the shoes - I'd bought them for myself as an eighteenth birthday present, since it seemed doubtful I'd get so much as a card from anyone else, except possibly Rupert. I'd snuck off to London for the day and prowled the shoe shops in the Kings Road. Ruined. Bloody wanker vampire, I thought, that's all for you, mate. "Quatre, poussiere!"
Once said, twice thought. All four screamed, the thin high wailing scream of dissolution. Then they were gone, and the Wolvercote churchyard was silent under the knife-edge of the quarter-moon.
"Oh, beloved, your shoes! What a mess." Rupert was staring down at the splotches of vomit and blood. "Well, you killed the bugger, anyway."
He wrapped both arms around me and kissed me, long and deep. Surprised, I touched his soft palate with the tip of my tongue, and rested one hand on the nape of his neck.
"Ummmm," I said, when I got my mouth and desire to speak back. "You've gone all sexed up tonight. You do know Mrs. Gollie is home tonight, yes? So we can't sneak off to my room for a cuddle?"
He grinned at the mention of my landlady. "Ah, but we can go to my room. My less than adored dad has gone off to London on some urgent Council business, and won't be home until Monday, late in the day. So I was thinking of offering the birthday girl a nice long slap and tickle. Or I could simply worship at your feet, if you'd rather. But honestly, I thought about sending a card, signed "KORWIGH."
"Rude Rupert, that's what you are." The reference to KORWIGH - "knickers off ready when I get home" - had me reluctantly grinning. But something was setting off my internal alarm system. What in hell was wrong? Every nerve ending I had was suddenly beating a war drum, and I couldn't imagine why. "Slap and tickle sounds lovely, ta."
had no notion whether Darwinism also worked among the undead, but after one of them jumped up, reached for me and then proceeded to toss on my shoes,
BWAH! Shempires!
Ooh, 18! She's 18! The Cruscam Cruscimentium
Helpless
thingie.
The Cruscam Cruscimentium Helpless thingie.
Not for Amanda. If you read "Pensioner", you already know it's way worse.
Shempires?
hehehehehehehBWAH!
