Evanescence 13

I can’t help but to wobble a bit as the effects of what just happened hit us/me Alecia stares at me her eyes sort of wide with looks so strange on a vampyre, her pupils have expanded until there’s just the pupil surrounded by a ring of the blue/grey that her eyes normally are. She get’s up from her knees and limps over to where I’m sitting on my knees beside Shaun.

“He’s hurt bad.”

She looks at me and there’s fresh tears running down her face making clean tracks in the dirt and the old tears of blood on her face. “I’ll do my best.”

I watch as she touches his skin, his heart with one hand and his throat with another. There’s a second or two where I can hear her hearing…Feeling his heartbeat and pulse, I can feel her mana slide into his bloodstream and run through him.

Minutes pass.

Alecia starts talking. “He has broken ribs and some internal bleeding, a bad concussion to go along with a fracture on his right leg.”

“Can you help him?”

“I’ll try, but you might want to call 911 just in case, he’s in shock pretty bad, his brain’s starting to swell. I’m going to try to reduce the swelling and control the interior bleeds.”

I see Mom up on her feet looking at me strangely and then at the statue of Shea and she’s on the radio calling in, calling in an ambulance. She limps over to me. I look around a little and there’s a few people coming down the bank to help us and asking if we’re okay.

Mom talks to them after shooting me another look. I can hear the sirens in the distance. I feel more tired and more hurt as everything I’ve just been through just kind of piles up and my other selves fade into the background of me.

Goddess has an ambulance ever taken so long?

There’s a sense of relief as the ambulances pull up and my Mom is telling them this story about some one panicking and us getting hit and run off the road during the blackout. Alecia is rattling off stuff to the EMT’s that are tending to Shaun and looks at me as we are or they are getting him into the ambulance. “Raine, get in the other one, you’re not in the best of shape either and get your mom in the ambulance too, she shouldn’t be doing any of what she’s doing.”

She’s still not moving from where she had put her hands on Shaun and moved in unison with them even as they got into the ambulance. She gives me this look like a promise and a tiny nod as they close the doors and pull off heading to the hospital. I feel a hand on my shoulder and there’s one of the EMT’s there and he guides me to the ambulance as the other guy is doing the same. I look over to the statue that used to be Shea and see rust on it already; it’ll be dissolved and blown away by morning. The EMT tries to take the bundle with Shea’s stone and shileigh in it and I eventually relent as the ambulance is swimming on me and I feel kind of faint.

Things pass by kind of fast and slow at the same time. How, sort of like everything in the ambulance was going really slowly and we’re oddly there in no time at all. I remember them squeezing these tubes of sweet something into my mouth. Glucose most likely…oh I must have burned through a whole bunch of physical energy during that fight.

We’re taken into the ER and SHE’s there as one of the trauma nurses. The place is busy; there was a lot of havoc from the power outage. There were several car accidents and people just being people when these kinds of things happen, like people losing their tempers with each other over the accidents that no one really remembers how they happened because of Shea trancing everyone out.

Some of the stuff isn’t good. I’m hearing stuff that might bring trouble for the mystical community and the other folk at large like…

I’m hearing some of them talking about a runaway horse that was the cause of a few accidents in town. Shea, people see him and us but didn’t get a great look because of the power being out. I guess that’s a blessing but part of me is wondering just what that’s going to mean. Worrying about it actually. If the world at large finds out about the world that’s right underneath their noses then what’ll happen then?

I’m in the same ER room as mom is and I’m getting a lot of questions about me and if I’m a diabetic and stuff like that. They’re actually pretty good about me being in transition and everything with the only comments being varying comments about how I’d have never had passed as a guy or that I made the right choice to a bit of disbelief that I’m all au naturelle without any surgery. I’m flattered by the comments and thank them but I don’t really bring up the fact that the magic and my being the Evanescence is pushing me more and more towards being female and a mix of my other selves as time goes on. Hell I even got the phone number of I’d like to be able to say pretty hot female nurse that gave off very strong lesbian vibes. I’m not into girls but it was an ego boost.

Mom was getting seen to despite her protests and once I’d been cleared and resting she was carted off to x-ray and getting her hurts seen to by a whole lot of people that seemed to care a lot about her. It was nice to see.

She was also talking to people in the town police and the sheriff’s department about what might have happened. She’s looking at the town police chief while having a tea with him and talking.

“I don’t know what happened Lewis, it might have been some freak lightning storm or something. I remember a flash of light and then there was everything going dark and then this really freaked out horse was tearing through the middle of town. My daughter’s boyfriend’s car was still going and we took off after it and the thing went wild even rammed the car and ran us off the road.”

“Yeah Donna that kinda has been like some of the reports that we were getting from the people and stuff but what gets me is how all those people up by the highway don’t seem to remember much of anything except the flash and things going dark. Hell all the vehicles there still won’t go their batteries are fried.”

“I don’t know Bryce, maybe it was like one of those eee-eem thingies you know.”

I smile at that and relax and look at the TV trying to see what the press has been saying about the whole thing when I see Shaun’s sister Jill on the news in a nice ladies suit and telling the reporter.

“We’ve had our people here as soon as we could get them here to check out the scene and to make sure that everyone in the general public was alright.”

“Colonel so why is the military here exactly and why is this a matter for the United States Air Force?”

“We were in the area running a night time test of a UAV remote when that remote was struck by an electrical storm that had descended from the upper atmosphere. That was the flash. Unfortunately there was a mild electro-magnetic surge from the storm that had hit that area in question temporarily knocking out power.”

“And the apparent time loss?”

“Well, nobody really lost anytime they were just flash stunned by the sudden flash of the UAV being destroyed followed by the sudden darkness. Really it’s sort of the whole deer in the headlights effect.”

“So you’re here to?”

“I’m here to liaise with the local authorities while the dispatched unit gathers the remains of the UAV and returns them to the care of the United States Air Force.”

“So this isn’t something like a terrorist attack that the public should be worried about.”

“No, it’s not. We’d definitely have a much larger force here than that.”

“Is there a danger of radiation from the UAV?”

“No, no, this was a large scale electrical flash, but I believe that the national weather service maybe issuing a weather alert.”
“Well thank you very much Colonel for your being able to talk to us tonight. This is Shelly Harrington, and back to you Jim.”

I frowned staring at the TV. I mean what the hell. I thought that Jill was a navy SEAL or something like that and that she was a Captain not a Colonel in the US Air force. Plus the way that she was dressed…Oh crap, Jill’s a spook of some kind, like that whole Men in Black thing. Despite this more than freaking me out I’m still punchy enough that I get a bit of the giggles as I realize if Jill was one of the Men in Black that it’d make her agent J.

Mom comes back in wheeled in by one of the doctors and she looks better but still messed up a lot. I smile at her. “So what’s the news?”

“I’ve got a bunch of mildly torn muscles and a fractured left arm and fractured left ribs plus I guess I’m recovering pretty well from shock, they’re going to be keeping me here overnight for observation.”

“Okay, I’m staying too.”

“I think that might be a good idea, Eric can you help me out with that?”

The doctor looks at mom and gives her a nice smile. He’s actually pretty cute.
“Absolutely officer, I’ll get you two a private room and have a second bed moved into it for your daughter.”

“Thanks Eric. Oh and Eric?”

“Yes?”

“It’s Donna.”

Okay part of me really needs to find out what the hell is going on but there’s another part of me kind of just girling out about the fact that my mom’s flirting with a doctor. And…he kind of looks like that McSteamy guy from Grey’s Anatomy.

I grin at her as he leaves and she’s got the good grace to blush a bit. There’s a slight smile on her face for a few minutes before she gives me this serious look. “Raine, I really need to know exactly what the hell is going on here because I’m about to freak out.”

I look at her and bite my lower lip and nod. “Okay but as to what exactly happened tonight I’m as in the dark on as you are okay?” she nods but tenitively.

“Okay you know how I’m into Wicca and all that holistic stuff since I’ve started to transition right.”

“Yes, I’m not really too happy about it but I’ve had friends in college that were into Wicca and some other things.”

“So you know a little bit about it?”

“Some, I’ll admit to looking through some of your books.”

“That’s fine, you couldn’t open anything dangerous.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind mom. Now you know in Wicca as well as other cultures there the being known as the goddess right?”

“Yes, I guess.”

“Well it’s not a guess, she’s as real as you or I am and I’m connected to her.”

“Raine.” Her voice was that disbelieving tone that some parents get when they think you’re being an idiot or something.

I reach out with my mana and manipulate force. I pull the door closed and flip the light switches off and call a ball of light over my open palm.

Mom’s response was to have her eyes widen and to very quietly say. “Holy shit…”

I drop the light and undo everything and look at her and she’s staring at me.
And she stares.
And stares.

“You’re not possessed or into the whole demon stuff right?”

“Uhm, that’s a real complicated question, but I’m one of the good guy’s mom.”

“Okay…”

“Like I said, there’s The Goddess right, patroness of women and all of that right?”

“Yes, she’s like god to the Wicca-people right.”

“Close enough, well as things turn out I’m this convergence of these very special Wicca and other woman mana user’s bloodlines. I am the sum, mixed re-incarnation of the souls and lives of these women. Every woman in our family’s bloodline no matter how distant that used the power is part of me. As my own ability to use magic grows I start to remember these past lives. Basically I’m Wiccan-Jesus.”

She’s staring at me again.
“You’re not bullshitting me are you?”

“Not a bit Mom.”

“So you being this…”

“Evanescence Mom.”

“Right, like the song right?”

“Yeah, really close. If I had theme music it’d be it.”

“Okay but this Evanescence thing it’s what made you want to be a girl?” there’s a bit of defensiveness mixed with concern and accusation in her tone. I smile and move getting out of bed to hers and hug her.

“No, not really but yes? I had no idea that’s what was going on inside of me back then. You saw how much I was floundering through life completely unhappy right? (She nods) Well it’s because when you gave birth to me the soul of the child you gave birth to was that of a little girl and not a little boy. When THE GODDESS came to me SHE showed me just something that was hidden, not transformed.”

“But…why didn’t I see it, you were hurting so bad back then?”

“Neither of us knew and honestly, I don’t think that SHE did either, they hunted down and killed the first Evanescence back during the time of the Amazons. No one’s expected me to return or even exist.”

“But everything that’s happened tonight?”

“Oh I’ve got no real ideas Mom, just that the Kelpie, that was the black guy with the stick who turned into the horse had a serious beef with Alecia. And we got caught in the middle of it because I was after Alecia too.”

“Okay…? Who’s Alecia and why would anyone be after her.”

“Alecia’s the woman who saved your life mom. She’s the tiny little svelte blonde girl from tonight. I was after her because I remembered her from one of mu past lives.”

“How? I mean how long ago did she die?”

“I…Joanna died just right around the tail end of the civil war….. I was part of de Unda ground railroad as you’d call it chere and when I was livin I was a bit darker then I be now.”

I slipped into Joanna mode and smiled at her and reached out and touched her face and tears fell down my cheeks. Mom’s eyes went huge again as she heard the deep heavy Cajun accent from the change and the shifts in my body posture and my facial expressions.

“Raine, Raine Honey what’s wrong?” she had this concerned look on her face that made things both better and worse all at the same time.

“Nothin Mama, it’s just that it be a long time since part of me has had a mother that I could love and touch.”

She hugged me tightly and quickly despite our injuries and it felt so damned good to be held. She even rocks me a little. “Raine?”

“Yes momma?”

“Can I ask? I mean how this you. How Joanna died?”

“It wuz bad Momma, I wuz helping dis bunch of slaves ta be getting free and they caught me. They beat me near um ta death and raped me b’fore they strung me up and set me afire.”

Mom’s eyes widened in horror and tears, huge fat tears fell from her face as she seen the horror of that night in my eyes. It broke another dam inside of me and I started bawling about it all over again as I relived some of the horrors that I lived through back then. I don’t remember them moving us into that other room but I remember Alecia coming in and her giving me a few pills and the rest was this blur of my other selves bubbling to the surface as each one of us of me just needed our my mother worse than anything right then.

Alecia’s Bit…..

I kept Shaun stable as we got loaded into the ambulance and went to South-End Regional Hospital and went in with them into the ER. I began to list off the injuries that I felt in him, that I was “Guessing at” because I was in the accident/incident. The ER nurses took over from there and I just leaned against one of the vending machines and panted.

So much had happened, so much was different and now I’m free. I’ve been cut loose of Michel and The Beast and I’ve got all of my soul back but I also got to see the sparks, the souls of all those people that I had fed off of and killed, taken their essence and doomed freed.

Even for someone as old as I am I’m freaked right out by the enormity of it all.

I get maybe ten minutes to myself before one of the drill sergeant nurses starts asking me if I’m an RN or an LPN. And before I even get to really answer we’re swamped by injuries and ambulances from the chaos of the night and Shea’s way too blatant attack on me and the others.

I’m busy as hell and there’s some pretty severe stuff coming in through our doors and I’m reminded of being back on the lines and being around the surgical tents during the civil war. Only there’s no booming cannon fire in the background and there’s a lot of difference between then and now in terms of the way in which we’re saving people.

I’m actually helping to save lives and not take them. I’m making a huge difference here and yes I cheat like a bitch and use my vampiric magic as I’m helping out to help control bleeding, and to reduce a lot of other related injuries.

I swear I see HER there right in the thick of things with me and there’s this strangeness in the air as I see her healing a man on a gurney as they’re wheeling him into a ER room and SHE stares at…I’m not sure what it is at first but then shadowy form that isn’t a shadowy form moves from place to place and those it touches get worse. There’s one patient that’s touch and go and SHE's there and it’s there and they seem to be staring each other down. I move in beside her and help using my bloodcraft to help this man live through and recover from the massive stroke he just had.

For one second HER and my eyes lock and I see, this man. This man being a good and decent man who might, just might die a few years from now saving a young girl from a house fire and die in the process…and this girl might, just might be inspired enough to become a firefighter and go on to save dozens of lives and the spin off from that…I have to pull my eyes away from hers the godsight is that…When I do I find myself looking DEATH itself in the eyes, well if it had eyes.

I still feel the stare.

And it knows me all too well. I cheated it out of it’s rightful due time and time again including with myself. I’m almost wetting myself I’m that scared and that face/head with no eyes in those robes but not robes stares into me and I’m frozen.

Then I hear her say. “BROTHER…she is MINE and she has a purpose, she thwarts IT’s needs by her very existence.” DEATH stares at me one last time and there’s this pressure on me, inside of me that weighs…measures and then this look to HER.

Something passes between them and SHE nods. “So Mote It Be.”

DEATH’S hand, or hand thing reaches inside of me and I feel something twist, change and alter in me…I then see DEATH turn from us and pass through the doors and fade away into nothingness.

And that’s right about when I fainted.
I woke up in one of the family rooms dry, tired achy with a headache and the sunlight blazing in my eyes.

Sunlight…

Shit!
Shit, shit, shit!!!

I roll off of the loveseat I was curled up into and into the nearest patch of shadows and start to rapidly beat away at the flames that…

Aren’t there….?

I hear this giggle from the next couch and SHE’s there laughing at me and still in HER nurses scrubs. SHE kind of looks like a twenty something Mother Teresa that had a make over that goes with today’s modern young ladies only HER scrubs are stained with blood and a few other things. SHE looks at me grinning and starts to mime me slapping away at the flames that I’d normally be roasting in and says. “Hey Macarena!” then falls back laughing some more until she gets up quickly “Damn I gotta pee!” And I watch her do the dash, potty dance all the way to the bathroom.

This is the Great and Revered Goddess?

Then again really considering all the other things that I’ve seen and encountered over the centuries. It’s not so much as striking me as strange but more like.

“More like you were expecting more?”

SHE’s leaning in the bathroom doorway as I was gingerly testing the closest beam of sunshine at first with a foot and then a finger then a hand. I kind of yanked it back when SHE spoke.

“Yeah, I ahh, uhm had you kind of pegged for someone, uhm something a bit more serious.”

“Oh I can be very serious, but I’m also very reflective of the energies that I draw on, like an empathy and I’m kind of riding that nursing staff adrenaline high right now. It kind of flavours the energy like a contact high, but if you want me to get serious…”

“No. no I mean that’s….alright it’s just I could really use some answers.”

“That’s alright so could Raine and the others.”

“Raine she’s the…”

“Shush…it’s not really out yet. We kind of want to keep it that way.”
“Yeah I can see where that’d be a problem, I’ve kind of had the same thing actually.”

“I know Alecia. I’ve been watching.”

“You have?”

“Yes, of course I have. I’ve watched you my daughter ever since you put on your first pretty dress up in the attic long before Michel had found you.”

“But…you couldn’t do anything because if you believed in The Goddess back in those days they’d have done you in as a witch. I never even heard of you until Michel had taken me from the Americas to Europe.”

“I lost sight of you when he turned you. I found you again when the torture the Templars put you through broke the vampiric bonds enough for more of the real you to surface.”

I look at her, smile and step out into the sun that’s coming through the windows. It feels nice, I feel warm. “Okay let’s find Raine and get things sorted out. I think it might be a good idea if we just get everything that’s going on out in the open.”

“I think that’d be a good idea.”

We leave and head over to where Donna and Raine had been taken to. We both heard the crying by the time that we had gotten there and I watched Donna cradling Raine who was crying her eyes out and switching from language to language and accent to accent. After everything that had happened she needed to get some rest so I got a couple of tranquilizers from the nursing station and got them down her and looked around for THE GODDESS but she wasn’t here anymore.

I looked at Donna. “I’m going to go and check on Shaun and slip out and get a few things here are you two going to be alright here?”

She smiled at me and nodded. “We’ll be fine, and…Alecia.”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for saving my life.”

“Donna, thank you for saving mine.”

I flash her a smile and head off down the halls to the room where they had Shaun. I walk into his room and there’s a young woman there in a black pantsuit. I look at her and she looks at me. Then she pulls face, I can feel the suspicion of me on her face. I step in as she gets up out of the chair she was sitting in. I’m getting sized up by a predator that’s for certain. Shaun’s awake but he looks like hammered crap. I give him a smile.

“Hey, big guy how’re you doing?”

“I feel like I picked a fight with a warhorse.”

I look at him, and then at the girl whose gaze snapped at him like…shit I think she knows about Shea. Her gaze snaps back to me and she extends her hand. She’s wearing church kid gloves, baby lambs wool that’s been sanctified. Rare and expensive and only very few people have access to them. I’m instantly on edge.

“Hi, I’m Jill I’m Shaun’s big sister. And you are?”

“I’m Alecia; I’m a friend of Shaun and Raine’s”

Her eyes narrowed, and I move over to the windows and move the curtain open a bit more to let the room get some more sunlight. That and it’s bathing me in it so that is definitely throwing this Jill off a bit. Double not good, she thinks she recognizes me somehow.

I look at him and he actually smiles at me and even under all of his bruising he’s a handsome guy. He looks to his sister.

“Alecia’s the nurse who saved my life and rode in with me on the ambulance and she saved Raine’s mom’s bacon too. She’s a good friend.”

There’s this smile there that is genuine and I almost tear up and I do feel a flush of a blush rise to my cheeks. I’m surprised too but hide it, or I try to. But I’m blushing and that means that there’s blood moving through my veins again. I pull my arms behind my back lie some girls do and grab my own wrist and…

There’s a pulse…

I’m Alive.

I’ve never fought the urge to lose it so much in my life. I want to dance, laugh, cry and a hundred other things but I don’t dare right now because. Jill is right there and Jill is dangerous. Really dangerous.

“Well I see you’re in good hands and I’ll leave you in your sister’s care. I’m heading out to run some errands do you need anything?”

“Just some of the stuff I had in my car, my cell phone and my laptop and a few clothes, Raine’s got some stuff in there too if you’re headed to the impound yard.”

“Sure I have to check on my car too it got fried too in the whatever. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I beat a hasty retreat and hear Jill asking Shaun. “So what’s Alecia’s last name?”

Oh crap I make a bee-line for the Ambulance exit instead of the main doors and hail a taxi. Sure enough there’s two guys in government issue black suits in the lobby sort of looking dark and official.

Just Who is Jill really?

***

Kurt Lang had seen the bundle that the EMT guys had dropped off just within the nurse’s station in the ER. He was here jonsing bad for a fix and he figured he could score if he acted like he was caught up in that hullabaloo that had happened out by the freeway.

It wasn’t being guarded and there was just something about it. The faded denim jacket fell away to reveal a weirdly carved club, cane thingy but there on a chain was this big honking emerald. He swore the more he looked at it the more it called to him and in looking into it’s depths he swore he could almost feel another hit of the crystal methe he was almost insanely craving for.

It wasn’t that hard to steal especially once things got busy. He slipped into the stairwell and stared at it.

And stared at it and after moments…it stared back.

There were these green eyes inside it, green eyes slitted like a snakes but only made of these different hues of green fire. Then there was this feeling, this energy and it filled him just like the intense pleasure of his very first real high of the crystal.

~Yes! ~

“Wha…what?”

~Yesss.~

“Who said that?”

~I did Kurt; I have come to you Kurt Lang, for we are kindred spirits. ~

“Yeah, like how you don’t know shit about me.”

~Oh Yesss, I know that they hates you, these so called normal people and what do they do? Does they help thee? No! no, no, no, no they don’t they look down on you and they spit on you and throw you in prison for what? For trying just to earn your daily bread, to ease your pain. You never hurt anyone with your dealing, or using did you. No they are all the same. But I…I understand…~
“You do?”

~Yesss, I too am unjustly bound, unjustly named and imprisoned, we are kin ye and I. ~

“Who are you?”

~I am Asmodeous. ~

“What do you want?”

~I want to be free, and I want to restore my chosen people to my side but I need your help for that. ~

“Yeah? What’s in it for me?”

~Power, respect, and the this feeling that you have just barely feeling my presence is nothing compared to what you would feel and enjoy by joining with me. ~

“Joining, like how?”

~Just let me in. just two small cuts on the palms of your hands and that’ll let you connect with me through the crystal. Then I merely ask you, if you would render unto me all that is. ~

“And that’s it, my life changes?”

~Oh yesss, it changes. ~

There was a flare of green light in the stairwell and then silence, silence that was broken with maniacal laughter.

Kurt zipped up the denim jacket he had stolen over his amulet and his link to his master. There was nothing like the feeling of the venomous greenish fire that ran wildly through his veins. He tossed the fairy stick in the closest trashcan and left whistling down the street his once muddy brown eyes this greenish gold.

He knew a lot of people who’d take the master’s fix over the crap that they’ve been shooting themselves up with and killing themselves with.