Page 91 of Absolution

A bustle of activity came from the front of the house, and I heard Sam’s voice echo through the hallway. “Leave it to the witches to make things cliché.”

“Bastard,” I grumbled.

Sam entered the dining room followed by Constantine and Luca, looking like the street thug he pretended to be in tight jeans and leather. “Heard that, Ronnie,” He said. He set a stack of gifts on the counter. “Harvest stuff from us and Max. Seeds for the garden and toys for the twins. Gift cards for expensive shit for everyone else, ‘cause you know Max is an old rich white dude.”

Luca snorted.

“We chose the gift cards,” Constantine said. “So they are to places you all like.”

“Thank you,” I told them sincerely.

Mizu was nestled in my mother’s arms, and Ally was cleaning up Kura with a damp rag. Sam reached for Mizu who immediately cooed and wiggled himself into Sam’s grip. Sam took my boy and bounced him a little before settling him back to rest. The small smile on Sam’s face belied his tough exterior. He adored those kids and they adored him. He could spend hours lying on the floor, with them curled around him babbling incoherently, and he wasn’t at all bothered by their spit-up or dirty diapers. Part of the baby-gig, he told me often. But being with the guys had mellowed him a little.

“We’re walking with Hanna for the trick or treating,” Luca said. He was dressed in leather too, like a street fighter from an old video game. Con was much the same, though he’d put on a suit of fake muscles over his lean tattooed frame. “Think of us as security.”

I breathed hard, the anxiety of the reminder that I would be letting them out of my sight almost sending me into a panic attack. I missed the way Gabe had been able to soothe the attacks, but had spent enough time practicing my breathing to ease them myself now. The kids were safe. Even if the vampire and a room full of witches wasn’t enough, I knew my mother had guards watching the house and that they would follow Hanna and the kids at a distance just in case.

“We’ve got the babies, Sei,” Hanna told me. “If you need to go for a little while, it’ll be fine.” Everyone was nodding in agreement. My whole world was unraveling, had been for months, but here they all were, united, wanting to help. It just made me want to cry again. I’d lived alone a long time. Denied needing anyone, and then put all my desire, hopes, and dreams on Gabe. It had been unfair I realized, to put so much pressure on him. I was working on that. Finding my feet again.

“How about I drive? You look a little shaky. Maybe talking to Gabe will help,” Kelly offered.

I hesitated because it had been a long time since I’d spoken to Gabe. Was that what I needed? “But the twins…”

“Are fine. They have plenty of family to take care of them. I bet you have nooks in that fancy pocket on your kilt. You’ll have to tell me where you got that, by the way, ‘cause I want one.” Kelly pointed to the kilt.

I dug out the nooks, and wanted to protest, after all it was Samhain. I wanted to be with my kids on their first Halloween, even if they couldn’t really understand it, but my head was still swimming with the craziness of too much change at once. How did anyone become equipped to deal with this sort of thing on their own? Or were we born with the ability, only to lose it when we found someone to depend on?

“You’ll take lots of pictures?” I asked Hanna.

“Of course. And we won’t be out long. Just down the block and back.”

I kissed my babies, holding each one for a few moments before breaking away to breathe. I headed for the door, thinking maybe it was okay to talk to Gabe tonight, avoiding him for months meant I’d earned it, right? It was okay if he didn’t respond. Sometimes therapy was what I let go of rather than what I held on to.

Kelly’s new car was much smaller than the minivan. I knew it was big enough to hold the kids, but I’d never been a passenger in it before myself. The car steered nice, and didn’t smell like babies, which just made me sad.

It was a long drive back to our house, which was dark and silent, a mausoleum really. Technically we should have been going to the big vampire graveyard on the opposite side of the city. Gabe had an official tomb there in which we let the government think he’d gone to ground, even if the truth was more complicated than that.

Once at the house we headed inside and toward the back. Kelly gave me a tight smile. “I’ll wait here. Take as long as you need.”

The arboretum in the back of the house had been restored, fully expanded, and bloomed like an entire forest of magic plants. The fairies had taken over. Fruit trees decorated every few feet while flowers and ivy covered the walls and climbed up to cause nets of green. The flickering orbs of lights weren’t bugs, even if sometimes they felt that way.

Near the entry, down the stairs and off to the left was a patch of roses. They still bloomed, months after first appearing. At first they’d been red like blood, but after a few days had turned black and had been black ever since. It worried me, though the earth felt no different.

Gabe wasn’t technically there beneath the soil. Part of the truth that vampires hid from humanity is that truly going to ground meant being reabsorbed by the earth only to regenerate later. It was a power that would have terrified mankind. Godlike, and immortal. Only vampires weren’t really immortal.

Sam spoke about breaking up the energy of a vampire. True death, he called it. I read books Max had provided, most of which was philosophy that I needed to ask questions to understand. I could have asked Max. He offered. But I avoided him. That last day still fresh in my mind. Max was Titus. Gabe’s Titus. The man Gabe had died for all those years ago. The reason Gabe had become a vampire. Had Gabe known?

More questions I wanted to ask Max. Yet feared the truth. If Gabe hadn’t known, but came back, would it be to me or to Max? We were polar opposites, Max and I. Him sophisticated, tall, dark, and muscular. Me, small, delicate, and broken.

“Hey, Gabe,” I whispered to him opening the bond between us. As always I felt nothing, just that endless void that couldn’t tell me whether he was still there at all or not. “I miss you.”

I drew in the dirt, tracing my name and his together in a heart. Then I added Mizuki and Sakura to the list. “Your babies need you. I need you. But I suppose you know that.”

Gabe was a vampire with more than two millennium of life lived. He’d warned me when we first met that sometimes things happened. Sometimes the pressure and memories became too much. I’d known only vaguely about redouts, and what they were. I knew vampires could go to ground, sometimes for years, even centuries.

I suppose I never thought that Gabe, who had always been a rock of strength and stability, would have to take a time out. He’d been prepared, as he was for most things. Accountants and lawyers came to me for decisions, all while I juggled two brand new babies, a fairly stressful job, and the responsibilities that came with being the Pillar of earth. Max had taken control of a lot of the business things, managing the mad tangle I hadn’t even really known existed before. More than just the bar, Gabe had a dozen businesses and over a hundred properties, a lot of which generated income, but I had no idea how to run. Max’s company specialized in management. So I’d hired him to figure it all out. So far the accountants gave me glowing reports, and Sam insisted he was keeping an eye on things as well. Mike took over the bar, but more than that was beyond him as he now had six newer vampires to watch after as well. It was a lot for anyone and I was grateful for the help. Even if I still didn’t trust Max.

“It was really crappy timing you know,” I told him and sat down on my ass in the dirt, and folded my legs beneath me. “You could have waited for the twins to be a few years old. Or maybe even out of college. Or maybe after we were married? What a way to get out of that.” I laughed tightly at the thought. We’d put it off originally, planning to do it after the twins were born, but then everything had gone to hell.