The Old

Kin

Continued

“What?” Chris lowered his shades as they sat inside the Ethiopian restaurant, drinking coffee. The snow fell outside as Chris negligently sprinkled salt into the black drink.

“I’m not going to say it again,” Laurie hadn’t removed the circular shades he wore.

“She’s your… But… it’s not possible.”

“It’s completely possible,” Laurie said. “And completely true.”

“But… how?”

“Very easily,” Laurie said, spreading out his hands. “As you remember. Step one: wife dies, step two: inconsolable you leave your children with her family. Step three: come back now and again. Step four: go into despair over the fact that your kids will die one day too. Step five: immerse yourself in all sorts of shit to forget they exist. Put them out of your mind and out of your heart and go on with life. You have to, after all. Or else you would think, My children, the children I loved and who called me Papa are twenty when I still look twenty, are forty, are fifty, are sixty, are seventy are… possibly dead if not dead before. Surely I have grandchildren. Surely they are dead too. And so on and so on.That’s how it happens.”

“But what are the chances?” Chris sat back, frowning, stretching his legs, crossing his arms over his chest as he shook his head.

“Does it matter?” Laurie asked, desolately. “Does it matter what the chances are? It’s… I’ve been sleeping with my … Last night, after I knew it, I… we… it happened.”

“I hate to be the person who asks that irritating old question, but…”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Laurie said.

“There was a time when you were going to tell her what you were, who you were.”

“But this complicates matters.”

“A great deal.”

Chris took off his shades and his pale eyes went from one end of the table to the other.

“What does Evangeline have to do with this, though? What is she doing at all? What is she doing with Lewis’s cousins? What is she doing with… with this business?”

“She doesn’t have to have a master plan,” Laurie said. “She could just be here to fuck with us.”

“True, but to fuck with you so expertly, to know Lynn would be there. And… She couldn’t have made you meet Lynn. I wish I knew what was going on.”

“And you don’t know where Evangeline is?”

Chris shook his head.

“What about Lewis and Seth? Weren’t they tailing her or something?”

“All of their dreams led to the past.” Chris said.

Then he said, “But of course.”

“Of course what?”

“Loreal?”

“What about her?”

“She would know where her sister Eve is. Eve would know, probably, what Evangeline was up to. She could find her.”

“That’s a lot of work.”

“Then maybe you don’t care that much,” Chris said.

“Really?” Laurie looked cross.

“If you don’t want to do anything.”

“It’s not simple like that,” Laurie said, leaning in. “Look, I kissed Loreal. And then I went back home and slept with a woman who I am in love with who turns out to be my great-great granddaughter. I kissed Loreal. It would have been more, but… we stopped it. So… things with Loreal are complicated.”

“Shit,” Chris said.

“Yeah,” Laurie said.

“I had sex with Seth last night.”

“What?”

“I had sex with Seth last night.”

“I… heard that.”

“When I got home he was in bed with Lewis.”

“What the—?”

“Lewis didn’t hide it. Neither of them apologized or anything. I didn’t ask them to. Then Seth just got up and came to me. He offered his throat. I fed on him, and then we made love in front of Lewis. Then all three of us. That happened. And then we slept together.”

“This is… witch shit.”

“I guess it is,” Chris said.

“This is… everything happening to us is odd.”

“It’s not, though,” Chris said.

Laurie looked at him.

“My sweeping up floors as a janitor is odd. You managing hedge funds and driving fast cars, going to church in the afternoon is odd. Me, over three hundred years old, you nearly a hundred and seventy, with all the sins and eccentricities of our kind trying to pretend we’re normal people is odd. But we are undead immortals who feed on human beings and are tied up with witches and witches around or not, why would anything normal ever happen to us? That’s how I felt last night. There was this brief second when I was on the side of normal life, a normal boyfriend coming home to his boyfriend—which is not that normal either, no matter how much people try to make it so. And there was Seth who lives half way in dreams anyway, and it was like, But this is your world. Your world is outside of reality. It’s outside of the normal way of things. The whole time with Seth was like the first time with Lewis. It was like, as Lewis was there with us, watching, not judging, as Seth was giving himself to me I was being taken into whatever they were, and out of the false dream of what I had pretended to be.”

Chris shook his head. “I know it makes no sense.”

“It does,” Laurie said. “All I could think of when I was kissing Loreal, when I wanted to stay in her room and stay with her was… both times I left her, I wanted her so much, and I came home and I thought I could… take it out, that’s a bad way to say it, get rid of my lust with Lynn. But lust isn’t exactly how I feel with Loreal. I feel like every woman, including Veronica, I pretended with. I had to, and with Loreal I could just finally be myself, complete, not hide, not ….”

“Be afraid,” Chris said..

“Yes,” Laurie said, his elbows on the table as he folded his hands together.

“Be at home. Be at rest. Be the monster I am and not be afraid my lover would run away.”

“It’s not about us,” Seth said.

Sunday morning, he was sitting in Lewis’s apartment looking more sane and confident than he ever had. He corrected himself.

“It is about us. About you and about me,” he said to Chris, “but, what the three of us are does not come between what you and Lewis are.”

“I think I understand what you are saying,” Chris said. “It almost makes sense.”

“Love is private,” Lewis said. “The way we think of it now. You know, you’ve seen those shows and those movies. A man tells a woman, you and me against the world, kid.Some bullshit like that. Love is you and me, and that’s important, but it’s also not as important as you think.”

“The old ways are gone,” Seth said. “The old things are passing.”

“Like monogamy?” Chris said doubtfully.

“Not what I meant,” Seth said.

“Like clans,” Lewis said. “Like families. We are forming the new house. The new family. And what are all clans and families founded in?”

“Love. Covenant?”

“Fucking,” Seth said. “Desire. The desire that welds all things together. In the Garden of Eden there was no desire, no need, nothing to be joined together. Out of it, in the world, Adam clung to Eve and so the human race was born. And then Lamech took two wives. So did Abraham. Jacob four. Desire.”

“Which of us is Abraham?” Chris wondered, “and which of us Hagar?”

“Maybe each of us at one time or another,” Seth said. “But I only say these things to explain it all. Do you mind so much sleeping with me?”

Chris looked at Lewis, but Lewis seemed almost distracted.

“No,” Chris said. “But I feel that I should.”

“But we are what we are,” Seth said. “And even at this moment we are becoming stronger with each other, not weaker. So we ought to stay together.”

“That,” Chris said, “is the strangest sexual proposition I have ever heard.”

“But it not a sexual proposition,” Seth said. “Not strictly.”

He stretched his legs before him, folding his white sleeved arms over his dress shirt. “It is something else entire.”

“I must leave,” Lewis stood up. “We all must leave.”

“What?” Chris said.

“I’ll drive,” Seth said, asking no questions.

“You drive behind us,” Lewis said. “But, Chris, you may have to take me directly.”

The third candle, the pink candle, burned in the round wreath and the vigil of candles was making its wheel to the fourth, the purple one before Christmas as the congregation sang:

Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.

Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has pow’r to save us.
Make us your living voice.

Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness….

Lawrence Malone sensed her at his side, sensed the end of his peace, the moment of escape from the questions in his mind and the lack of innocence outside this door, and he turned to see the blond woman, red lipped, white faced, her gold white hair pale as her brother’s.

Tantum ergo Sacramentum
Veneremur cernui:
Et antiquum documentum
Novo cedat ritui:
Præstet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Her voice seemed as loud as anyone else’s though no one else seemed to hear it. He was used to this vampire trick, the same he and Chris used to have open discussions in public settings.

Evangeline sang in his ear:

Genitori, Genitoque
Laus et iubilatio,
Salus, honor, virtus quoque
Sit et benedictio:
Procedenti ab utroque
Compar sit laudatio.

But now another voice on his other side sang:

Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.

He turned to see Lewis leaning across him, singing into the terrified vampire woman’s face, and as she began to rise, his hand gently closed upon her wrist and he sang:

“Rwy'n rhwymo chi
Rwy'n rhwymo chi
Rwy'n eich rhwymo â rhwym y wrach
trwy waed i rwymo
trwy fyddaf yn rhwymo
Rwy'n eich rhwymo â rhwym y wrach.”

And as Evangeline had sung and none noticed, so no one noted Lewis, and Laurie, who had never heard this tongue and did not know it, nonetheless understood Lewis’s words clearly.

I bind you
I bind you
I bind you with the witch's bind
By blood I bind
By will I bind
I bind you with the witch's binding.

All around them Mass still took place, and all around them people rose for Communion. Lewis and Laurie rose to let the other people in the pew out while above them, in the loft, the choir continued to sing.

“Why are you here?”

“Why, my lord, Aos Si, because your brought me,” Evangeline answered.

“Clever,” Lewis said, nodding his head. “But not amusing, my lady.”

Evangeline threw back her head and laughed. “I can’t see how it isn’t amusing.”

Chris rose to strike her, but Lewis said, “No. That’s not necessary. And she is your sister.”

“Yes, Christopher,” Evangeline drawled, and her accent took on a British quality that Chris’s did not have, and that Lewis realized could never have been hers in life given where she came from and when. “It isn’t kind to strike your sister, and it isn’t right to sink into barbarity.”

“Lord Aos Si, would you like to know how it was that Christopher found me? Found I was alive after long, long years of assuming, and possibly hoping everyone he had known was dead?”

“No,” Lewis said from the chair where he sat, Laurie standing beside him, “That isn’t actually why you’re here.”

“Oh, my Lord—”

“And you oughtn’t call me lord,” Lewis said, “unless you mean it.”

“Well,” Evangeline pretended to wither, “I suppose I’m not going to have any fun with you.”

“It’s doubtful.”

“Such is the way of strong witches.”

“Surely you’ve known strong witches before.”

“I have known witches. I have heard of you.”

“Heard of me?”

“Yes,” Evangeline said. “But I have never met you until recently, and I have certainly met none like you.”

“And how—please satisfy my curiosity—had you heard of me?”

“Oh, well you must understand that first time we met, I did not know who you were. I knew you were mighty in power, but who you were, I did not understand. Time taught me. Actually, listening to your kinswoman Eve, taught me. You are one of the Living Ones, one of those who come back into this world again and again. I have heard of you for centuries. You are Malachy.”

Lewis sat before her unmoved and then she said, “I had hoped that this might surprise you.”

“I see,” Lewis rose, “that though you call me lord and even mighty, you still do not really believe—”

“Oh, I do.”

“Then let us say, do not understand who I am,” Lewis said.

“I don’t have time for games and foolishness. We were going to look for you, but you brought yourself to Laurie today, and it was easy to find you then. Did you have to gloat? Did you have to let him know what you had done? Was it that… childish impulse that led you to Saint Patrick’s today?”

“My Lord—”

“Do not,” Lewis warned in a bland tone, “call me that…again.”

“It may have been that impulse,” Evangeline said.

“But what was the impulse that led you to so assist Lynn Draper in finding the archives on Lawrence and then led you to reveal to him his relationship to her. What were you hoping to achieve?”

Evangeline was quiet for a while, and she looked down at her lap from the chair where she sat, bound only by Lewis’s words. And then she looked up at Chris, and next at Laurie, biting her lips and smiling before she spoke.

“I wanted to see the look on his miserable face when he knew he’d been shooting loads into his granddaughter.”

Laurie leapt up with a growl, and his hands nearly went about her neck, but at that same time, Lewis’s palm went to her forehead and he said, simply. “I will give you a last chance to, of your own will, tell me why you have done this and what the nature of your business is with my cousin Eve.”

“Eve’s a real fun girl to hang out with, and I think she has great hair. Mainly we’re just into beauty secrets—”

“Reveal,” Lewis commanded simply, touching Evangeline between the eyes, and suddenly, her head went back and she declared in an almost staccato tone:

“The Sword is the tool of the Master, as the Bowl is the tool of the Maid. Augustus could never be Master but he knew without the Sword you could never be Master either.”

“We could make another sword,” Lewis said. “We could find another sword. It is a symbol.”

“No,” Evangeline continued. “That sword is enchanted twice over by five Masters and enchanted by Malachy. Only with that sword can you actually regain all of your memories, all of your strength and become Malachy again.”

“And how is that done?” Lewis said evenly, while Laurie and Chris looked to each other amazed, “or is that beyond your knowledge?”

“No. I learned from Augustus himself. The Sword and Crater act as a key. When the ritual of the Master is performed and the wine is poured into the bowl and when the Sword is placed into that bowl, then one becomes Master.”

“Yes, I know. That is how it has always been.”

“But Malachy always had two loves. One of our kind and one of his own. Their blood or their seed must be in that bowl with the wine, not much, less that a drop, really. And the sword must draw your own blood. When the Sword with your blood is placed in the Crater with their blood or their seed, when you consume that wine at the ritual, in that moment will you become Malachy, not simply the one long gone, but all the lives that Malachy ever possessed. All other Masters before you, even the mighty Owen himself are simply placeholders for you until Malachy returns. This is why Augustus sought to take the Sword. The Crater he knew was beyond him.”

“But what about Laurie?” Chris demanded.

Evangeline’s face changed. She smiled up at her brother spitefully, and then spat at him.

“Fuck,” Evangeline pronounced, “you.”

“She’s under my bond,” Lewis explained. “Not yours. Sorry about that. Now,” Lewis turned to her, “what about Laurie?”

“I wanted him to know that I had won.”

“Won?”

“Yes,” Evangeline said.

“Please, dear Evangeline,” Lewis asked, “explain.”

“I am new to you,” Evangeline said. “But not to your family. I met Augustus, your… uncle?”

“He is my great uncle Owen’s great uncle so, yes,” Lewis said, “an ultimate uncle.”

“It was in the time that I came back into Christopher’s life. In the first time I met Lawrence. That was also when I met Augustus, for if you know everything else you know his life is long. He told me… many things. In fact, though Chris does not know it, I came to seek him because Augustus had already told me he was the vampiric lover, the necessary blood for the enchantment which would bring Malachy back into the world. But I learned also that there is a link, a link between your kind and my kind. What that link is—is closed to me except something called the Story of Lot.”

Lewis nodded, indicating Evangeline should continue.

“It is like the story from the Bible, but it is about our kind, the Drinkers. The story says that there was once a drinker named Lot, and he had two daughters, for you know we are capable of reproducing. Men produce mortals and the female drinkers produce born Drinkers. Lot wed a mortal woman. She died, but seven daughters she left him. He did not understand that they were mortal, for this was in the early days of our kind. He wondered if their children would be mortal or if finally they would also be Drinkers. He could not tell, and the daughters did not know either. One night the oldest daughter longed to give birth to a Drinker to please her father, and so she intoxicated him and lay with her own father. So the story says, the next night the second daughter did so, and so on, all seven of them, and all seven daughters became pregnant by their father.”

While she told this story, Laurie frowned in disgust and Chris’s mouth was open a little.

Evangeline continued, “But the children born were mortal as anything. However, one by one, as time continued, these children proved to possess great powers, each child with one great power. Thus it was learned that for reasons unknown, when a vampire reproduces with one of his children, provided the link is not too distant, the union creates a witch of great power, and a witch born to darkness.”

“You rejoiced because Laurie happened to meet a distant descendant,” Chris said, looking at her in scorn.

“Not distant,” Evangeline said. “Not distant at all. And not by accident.

“Every step was hoped for,” Evangeline said, her voice now rising in rapture. “Laurie, who gave the world two daughters and one son. Lynn traced her lineage through her maternal grandmother. But had she done a little more work she would have learned that Patrick Malone had seven children, seven Laurie! You had at least seven grandchildren, and one of them, a girl by the name of Nancy, who is very much dead and doesn’t matter… Let’s get back to Nancy Malone later. Let’s go to Vanessa.”

“Keep the names of my children out of your mouth.”

“Oh, please. You turned your back on them when the oldest was ten because your poor vampire heart was broken.”

Evangeline continued. “Vanessa did well for herself in time. Married a man named Oliver Macready. She had several children, none of whom matter because of Robert Johnson. Not the Blues guitarist who sold his soul at the—”

“You need to wrap this story up,” Lewis said in the closest moment he’d had to losing his patience.

“Well, yes, you’re right,” Evangleine agreed.

“Robert Johnson had a daughter who is the paternal grandmother of your Lynn.”

“And this matters because,” Laurie said.

“Because Robert Johnson was adopted. He was the illegitimate son of the aforementioned Nancy, your granddaughter by Vanessa.”

“Oh,” Laurie said, hollowly.

“Yes,” Evangeline said, “and what is more, that baby was hidden away because Nancy had the misfortune to, from rape or genuine pleasure who can say, have a baby at the age of fifteen by her cousin, another one of Patrick’s children. So you see, Lynn is your great-great granddaughter , your three times great-grandchild twice over. In other words, her pedigree is so collapsed she is full of your DNA and now, you’ve been fucking her for months. You’ve been filling her with your seed, Lawrence.”

While Laurie glared at her, Chris said, calmly, “And so you’re here gloating about… hoping he’ll stay with her and get her pregnant.”

“Oh, you’re a fool and a slow fool at that,” Evangeline said, looking up at her brother. “But I can tell by the look on the good wizard’s face that he already understands.”

“Lynn is pregnant,” Laurie said.

“You would have known if you were paying attention. For us it’s simple. The blood changes. Had you been paying attention, you would have sensed the new life in her. The witch life.”

Chris stood beside Lewis, who was still sitting, and Laurie’s back was to them all, his hands gripping the windowsill as he stared out onto the courtyard.

“Goodbye for now,” Lewis said to Evangeline.

“Goodbye,” she said with equal courtesy, nodding, “to you and you also, Brother. And Lawrence.”

She bowed grandly and turned to leave.

“Shut the door behind you, please,” Lewis said.

She did and there was no sound of footsteps which told the vampires Evangeline did not trouble to walk once she was released.

“She’s been watching my family for a hundred years while I’ve been doing everything but.”

“It would appear so,” Lewis said.

“None of it happened by accident. She… bred Lynn into existence.”

“We don’t know that,” Chris said, but Lewis said, “It’s more probable than not that she did. And she did not need to see that it was Eve’s magic that ensured that you and Lynn would meet.”

Laurie turned around blinked at Lewis. Lewis nodded.

At last, Laurie said, “And she wanted to be found.”

“She wanted to be found by you,” Lewis said, “Not by me. That’s where she failed, and mark my word, she has failed. A hundred years of planning, and now she’s failed.”

“You think?”

“You will have a child,” Lewis said, “and it will be witch born. That means nothing. She was hoping to raise up an anti Christ or somesuch. Had she not met me, she could have found some way to steal it, raise it, do something. Now all of her scheme is lost, and presumably Eve’s and Augustus’s too, and you get to have a witch for a child. The only problem you have is Lynn. Telling her.”

“Telling her?” Laurie said, grinning, but his eyes held no joy. “You make it sound so simple.”

“You’ve done simple,” Lewis said. “Simple was getting up and leaving your children after your wife died, and never considering what could have happened to your bloodline. For someone whose whole life is blood, that was actually pretty stupid. If I’d had three children over a hundred years ago, I’d wonder what dark haired Irish Italian in Chicago wasn’t descended from me. Laurie, the time for simple is over.”