The Old

Morgan was preparing tea, and Seth was sitting at the table saying, “We dreamed about Eve and about that Evangeline together. I mean, we saw them together.”

“But what were they talking about?” Owen asked.

“That’s what we don’t know,” Seth said. “And we haven’t really been able to get back to them. Just other dreams. About other things. Dreams where I feel like I saw Lewis, and he had the sword, the sword you have, Owen. Only in those dreams he was called—”

“Malachy,” Chris said.

“Yes!” Seth raised an eyebrow, but did not ask. “That’s exactly right.”

“Well, that bit makes sense if you link it to Eve,” Owen mused as Morgan set the tea tray down.’

“I’ll get the cakes,” Lewis said, rising.

:”Whaddo you mean?” Loreal asked.

“Eve tried to steal Owen’s sword,” Seth said.

While Loreal looked amazed, Seth said, “She came to ask for it first, which was crazy. Owen said no. So she came to the house and thought she would steal it, but Owen had put a spell on it, and it burned her hands.’

“So that’s what happened!” Loreal said, almost laughing. “She wouldn’t tell me.”

“I don’t imagine she would,” Owen said, helping himself to cake.

“But why did she do it?”

“Because your grandfather wanted it,” Lewis said.

“To do what?”

Owen said, “I didn’t ask.”

“You should have,” Loreal told the older man. “If you had you wouldn’t have to wonder and we wouldn’t be in the dark.”

Owen nodded. “You’re right.”

“Do you think,” and they were surprised to hear Laurie’s voice, “it’s some kind of… I don’t know… a great plot to… do something? You know, like the sword is a great treasure and it will change the world or … I know it's a movie plot sort of thing, but…”

“Well, Lawrence, friend,” Owen began, said. “if you’d asked me earlier, I would have told you no. That Augustus simply wanted what was not his. But now that Seth and Lewis have seen this… Evangeline, who can say?”

“Who is Evangeline,” Loreal asked as she poured tea for Chris, and pushed the cup toward him.

“She is my sister. As Eve is your sister. She… is not part of the vampire family I belong to, our House. Her house has different rules, and I think this may have something to do with her and Eve. I think… I think there is a lot to unfold. About Malachy and about Lewis. About my past. About your family’s past, lots of little things to unfold, one by one.”

“It means that you have to tell me everything you can about Malachy,” Lewis said, “and I have to remember.”

“Who is Malachy?” Loreal asked.

Lewis was about to answer when Owen said, “Malachy was the head of the clan once upon a time, and not only that, he is our ancestor, the founder of this family.”

As Loreal was cleaning out the freezer, dumping long, freezer burned articles wrapped in aluminum into the waste can beside her, Owen was saying, “We can head back in a few moments.”

“And Lewis and Seth have already left.”

“Yes,” Owen said, nodding to Chris. “They had things to discuss. About his teaching, and about the visions and all. And Morgan will stay on here for a while in this gloomy old place she likes so much.”

“I like it too.”

“Well,” Owen shrugged, “you are a vampire.”

Chris grinned, but Owen would not.

“It was good of Laurie to offer to take Loreal back.”

“Yes, and I’m surprised he brought it up,” Chris said. “Not that he isn’t a good person. He’s the best. It’s just. He really has a sympathy for her.”

“Well, you both have an abnormal, or maybe not so abnormal sensitivity for death.”

“Do you think that there is something bigger than you first believed happening between Augustus and my sister?”

“Yes,” Owen said. “Yes I do. I was thinking of all the ways to find out and finally the quickest way seemed the most straightforward. I will just have to ask Eve at the funeral. Or ask Ethan.”

“Will Augustus come?”

“Oh, no,” Owen said. “I doubt I will see my dear old uncle here at all.”

“But Susanna was his wife.”

“Was being the most important word in that sentence. They had taken their sides and were looking across them at each other from a great distance long before the other night when she died. I don’t see him coming to this house at all.”

Seth drove. Lewis never did.

“Owen said that the Devil was to be left alone,” Seth said.

“Yup,” Lewis, who was half asleep, acknowledged, “He did.”

“But what of the Great Goat? What of the Ram? What of Baphomet and Pan? What of the fact that when I was initiated the other night I saw him coming to me, not just the Green Man Pagans talk about, but the Black Man, the Witch’s Devil? What of him?”

Lewis had hoped to sleep, but now he sat up, and cleared his throat.

“The Christians made the Witch’s God into their Devil,” Lewis said. “And before them, the Jews made all others gods but theirs into demons. There is the witch’s devil, true enough. He is the Lord not only of witches but of all, and everything, which his why the Greeks called him Pan. That’s true. He is the goat footed God. He is Khnum of the Egyptians, as well as Set, and Azazel. He is the lord of desert heat and deep waters. Cornish witches call him White Bucca and Black Bucca. He is the God of the outer places, the places outside of Eden and the boundaries people made for themselves when they made a small, jealous god and called him God.”

“In our rituals, when the candle is brought in,” Seth said, “we always say, Lucifer comes from the south.”

“And he is Lucifer,” Lewis said, “And he is Prometheus, and the Trickster. He is Coyote, Fox, Wolf, Loki. Do you know the Mormons say that Jesus and the Devil are brothers?”

“What?”

“They may not remember they said it. It is in their oldest scriptures, scriptures which are laced in equal parts with accidental brilliance and profound idiocy. There they speak of the mystery of God the Mother as well. But they do not go far enough in their theology. What the Satanists do not understand, and the Christians cannot, and what the Pagans with their Horned One and Green Man, and their made up Goddess steer clear of is this: names and titles, the roles of villain and hero, we make up. But in the end, in the unity, God and the Devil are One. A demon is a fallen angel, but the Devil is the part of God men do not wish to understand.”

Seth nodded, accepting this, and Lewis wished he wouldn’t simply accept. Loreal would have questioned, but now Seth said:

“Did you explain to Chris why you sleep beside me?”

“When we dream?”

“Yes.”

“Not really,” Lewis said. “Christopher doesn’t ask many questions.”

“And you were always short on explanations.”

Lewis grinned and shrugged.

“I did the first initiation,”Seth said.

“Yes. Yes I know. Now you must prepare for the first ring.”

“But I was thinking how much stronger I was in the past. How much stronger our magic used to be.”

“When we were sleeping together?” Lewis said, baldly.

“Yes,” Seth said.

Then he said, “I miss that, Lewis. Having sex with you.”

“I miss it sometimes too.”

Then Lewis said, “I miss it more than sometimes. You’re a part of me, Seth. And you’re right. I think everything would be a lot easier if we were still… whatever we were.”

“Lovers.”

“Lovers sounds very grand for cousins who were having sex with each other on again off again.”

“Aren’t we like fourth cousins three times removed?”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Well, I feel like by the time you’re not quite first cousins we’re not quite related enough for it to matter anymore, and anyway, the more I talk about it the more I want to have sex with you right now.”

Lewis sank low in his seat.

“So don’t talk about it.”

“You want it too,” Seth said in a tone of discovery that was not gloating. “You want us to make love too, don’t you?”

“What I want and what my relationship want are two different things. But yes, Seth. I never got tired of us being lovers.”

“That’s funny,” Seth mused, smiling wistfully.

“What’s funny?”

“How you said it’s not what your relationship would want, not, it’s not what Chris would want.”

“A relationship’s a thing, like a family. It’s not just what I say is okay or what he says is okay but what makes us okay, and what makes us okay is me not sleeping with you.”

“Yes,” Seth went on dreamily, “I see that now. I think you’re right. It’s really sweet. We should drop it then. I should drop it. I will.”

Seth was odd and rambling and weird and prone to being possessed by spirits, sleep walking and being plunged into his own dreams. Lewis was not entirely sure if this is why they had ended or why he still loved him. After all, Seth was right, in any modern since of the word, they weren’t incestuous.

I wanted to, the other night. I wanted to make love to you, Lewis thought of saying. But he didn’t.