Page 27 of Will It Hurt?

Jinn

My feet moved on their own accord, guiding me through the city as fear and worry tumbled through my chest. Edinburgh had a voice, especially at this time of year, when festive tourists descended like flies.

A low hum carried in the wind, curling around chipped buildings and winding through the ribcage of an old arched close.

My ears were filled with the sound of heavy breathing from the humans that puffed up Cockburn Street, a winding road on a steep incline that was inlaid with more than a handful of tourist traps.

The winter sun had set hours ago, but I had wandered the city aimlessly, hoping to catch a whiff of Belle in the air. Or, better yet—perhaps I would get close enough to hear the soft pulse of her heartbeat in my chest.

Once or twice, I’d caught my fingers trembling on the inside of my coat pocket, clenched around the cell phone as I waited for Nat’s call. But the bloody thing remained silent when it usually never was, and I found myself caught between the liminal space between now and the moment I would know.

I should never have let Belle go. Needing space was one thing, but abandoning the only family she had… Well, that was a cruel move. One I hadn’t thought she was capable of.

Unless… she had been compelled. I wouldn’t put it past Indira. Belle was easy pickings; she still clung to her hu manity. It would take nothing at all for Indira to push my daughter into doing something she did not want to do.

The thought made rage boil in my blood.

A shadow of a chapel loomed over me as I turned a corner, its stark red doors no doubt mirroring the blood of Christ. The dark, almost-black stone walls indicated that I was looking at a rare thing that could be older than me.

Stained glass stared back, depicting a questionable scene of a broad red cross eclipsing an orange sun.

The latch gave way under my insistent fingers.

I did not pray—not any longer, and not because I didn’t want to. Prayer had been a habit drummed into me by my birth mother. If she was breathing, she was praying, calling to all the saints she knew to heal us or deliver us or forgive us. It was almost like a song, or a lullaby.

Even though the ritual of prayer brought me no comfort, the rhythm of it, the familiarity of the words settled in my chest like a soothing balm. And tonight, I very much needed to be soothed.

The doors groaned heavily as I shut them behind me, cloaking myself in darkness. Aged wood and melted wax filled my senses as I walked between the pews, letting my fingers trail over the cool, polished surface of the wooden benches.

What If she never comes back?

The disquieting thought was an iron weight pressing against my ribs.

The chapel was small, and before I knew it, I stood before the altar, craning my neck to study the figure of Christ frozen in eternal suffering. It was just me and Him, regarding each other, his carved eyes dripping with red paint.

I’d witnessed a thousand iterations of this biblical scene. The unrelenting sorrow, the weight of holy agony—all of it had lost its edge over a century ago. But now, as I teetered on the edge of losing Belle, I found myself gripping the altar, my knuckles whitening against the cold stone.

Prayer would not solve anything, but prayer was more familiar than hope.

And so, I prayed.

I wondered what Indira would say if she knew the true extent of peace I drew from being in a religious setting. She would no doubt laugh in my face. After all, which sane vamp would feel at home surrounded by intricately carved stakes and barrels of acid?

My phone buzzed just as I began to feel impatience creeping into my limbs. What was the point of praying if nothing actually changed?

“Nat,” I said after pressing accept.

“I promise I tried,” he began, the sound of his harsh breaths indicating how nervous he was. “They refused to speak to me. Refused to reply to my emails.”

My fingers tightened around the phone, and I wondered if I had the willpower not to shatter it.

“But…” he continued, hesitating as he usually did.

“But what?”

Each word was a clipped reprimand.

“I think I’ve found a solution.”

I reacted to the odd note of hope in Nat’s voice.

“And what is your solution?”

His next words almost made me stumble as I rose from the altar.

“I’ve scheduled your neutralization.”

“ Excuse me ?”

Surely I’d misheard. Nat uttered strange things all the time, and, perhaps, this was one of those Gen Z jokes I couldn’t wrap my mind around.

“It’s just a ruse, Jinn,” he explained as I frowned. “A way to get in touch with someone who might know what happened to Belle. Maybe she didn’t show up for the appointment. Maybe she’s fled to the Highlands. We don’t know for sure.”

Ah, shit.

His words made a treacherous wave of hope surge in my chest.

“I’ve requested an immediate neutralization,” Nat continued. “We should receive instructions from the High Coven very soon.”

I paused. That was quick thinking for my assistant who usually needed several prompts to remember his own name.

“Thank you,” I said. “You’ve done well.”

Nat paused. I could sense his surprise through the phone.

“You’re welcome,” he said, sounding pleased with himself.

“Nat.” I could almost feel him reacting to the note of uncertainty in my voice.

“Yes?”

“Do you think she did it?”

“Um.” I bet his heartbeat was scampering with the question. “I’m not sure, Jinn. Belle isn’t predictable when it comes to—”

“No.” I cut him off. “Not that. Do you think Indira compelled Belle?”

His sharp inhale carried through the connection. “To kill herself?”

Silence was my answer. Perhaps my bumbling little dhampir assistant wasn’t the best person to ask.

“Well,” he said. “I don’t want to presume…”

Still, I said nothing, waiting for him to get on with it. This had become a familiar routine for us .

“Indira doesn’t like Belle.” His voice dropped several decibels as he whispered into the phone. “She often says she doesn’t belong in the nest. I mean…”

He sighed. “I’m not one to talk ill of our mother, but… I wouldn’t put it past her.”

When he hung up, I glanced at the hanging statue, wondering if He had miraculously instilled some forethought into my assistant. Stranger things had happened, I supposed.

While this wasn’t the news I’d expected to hear, it was something. Nat was right—setting up this appointment gave me the opportunity to speak to someone in person when the High Coven of Wytches had made it so damn hard to get in touch with any of them.

Desperate times, I thought to myself as I offered the bleeding statue a final salute.

***

Nat sent over a text message around noon with the details of the appointment. I read it under an overcast sky as I sat on the corner of a public bench, watching a woman sell flowers out of a small, converted trailer that was attached to an electric bicycle.

It wasn’t a particularly productive way to pass the morning, but I had missed such small indulgences.

It had been a long time since I’d sat in a park—forty-four years to be exact. Not since the night I’d turned Belle in that shoddy playground. Being here without her, without anyone for that matter, felt like…

A skipping record, or a sentence unfinished .

I tried desperately to make sense of it. How could Belle look back at our life and think that eternal death was a better choice?

That thought kept clawing at me. Over and over.

I sat in the pool of disjointed feelings, trying to find just one to focus on, but the only thing that reared to the forefront was anger.

It lived under my skin, and I had no choice but to sit in it. Hell, it felt like a parasite that was too fused with my veins to cut off, infusing my blood.

I sat in silence, in stillness, not because I was calm—but because I felt… Dangerous. Feral. Volatile. Like an unlit match waiting to strike.

Belle had been born to me, made of my blood. I had devoted four decades of my life to her, forgoing lovers and friends to make sure she was a functioning creature.

She was the first being in almost a century who made me feel less alone in this haunted eternity.

And so I gave her everything. My attention. My time. My endless nights. I didn’t want distractions. I didn’t want the clumsy touch of another body, or the tired pull of romantic longing.

I had Belle. She was the great love of my long, cursed life.

Perhaps Belle hadn’t chosen death. Perhaps she had fled to the Highlands, somewhere further away where I couldn’t sense her heartbeat any longer.

Yes, the email from the High Coven indicated that she had set up the appointment with the neutralizer, but that didn’t mean she had followed through with it…

Belle had a habit of not following through with many things.

Like the time she had tried to take up the harp, or the summer she insisted on learning how to spin clay.

She had made a valiant effort… for all of two weeks.

Now, the harp lay ab andoned and the pottery studio I’d created for her in the garden was used as a storage space.

As I parsed through memories of us, memories of our little family, something inside me calcified.

Anger.

Had Belle really wanted this end? Had she even considered the ramifications? Or had someone planted the idea in her head? Someone who had hated Belle’s shortcomings from the very start?

Had someone spoken softly into her cracked-open mind and wrapped death in silk and honey? Had they leaned in and said: This is dignity. This is peace. This is mercy.

Had someone seen her as a problem to be solved, not a child to be saved?

I knew Indira all too well. And I wouldn’t put it past her to compel my daughter to do what she thought was best. She wouldn’t see anything wrong with nudging Belle toward neutralization as though it wasn’t a permanent, irreversible decision.

And someone out there, an immoral, unethical wytch, had looked at my daughter and thought she was in the perfect mental state to make such a permanent decision?

Hags , the lot of them.

I started to imagine names and faces of the High Coven as they sat around a table, calling their services an act of mercy, of dignity. Telling themselves that they were doing the right thing, the kind thing, because these undead couldn’t live with their pain forever.

I wanted to burn that table and watch the High Coven go up in flames.

My nails sharpened to claws as I pictured what I’d do if I ever got close enough to smell the stink of the cauldron on their clothes, or hear the repulsive cackle in their voice.

Perhaps they’d be confused to see me because they assumed they’d done the right thing, the good thing, for a vamp that was suffering. Well, they were wrong.

I didn’t want answers anymore.

I wanted blood.

I didn’t care if it was irrational.

I didn’t care if Belle had asked for it.

I didn’t care what was “legal” or “ethical” or “peaceful.”

If they had helped her die…

If they had taken the only family I had…

I would never forgive them.