T W E N T Y - F I V E

"Happy New Year," that's what Rick said on our way back to Summer's Garden when we caught sight of a few spastic fireworks going off in the pre-dawn sky. "At least I think that's what it is," he said. "It's too cold for the fourth of July."

"The King is dead," Snake said in her smooth, lifeless voice. "Rah. Rah."

I glanced at her, trying to catch the intent beneath the soot and grime. David's plantation had burned and taken a bunch of his lot with it. Mayhem had descended upon us full force with the Regent's demise and we'd had to fight our way free of that. It wasn't as if we were attacked, it was more like shoving through a crowd at a party gone terminally berserk. It was horribly obvious they were celebrating the Master's passing and looking to honor the arrival of the new, but I didn't want anything from that lot except distance. Rick, Snake and Absinthe had spent some last moments mixing it up themselves while I took David down. Snake especially, going right for twin throats. Sitting back in the car we'd commandeered, I noticed she'd brought along a souvenir – one of David's frosted glass fangs.

Snake was smiling at me, even and straight. It was not the kind of expression you'd want to see on some stranger's face after dark. Or a friend's face in the middle of the day. But this time, I got she was joking. A good sign, if that was true.

"The King is dead," she said again. "Long live the King. It's an old saying." She paused for a moment and concluded, "I like your dragon. He is very Japanese."

"Looked like a Christmas lizard to me," Rick said. "All red, white and green. Maybe we could harness you up to a sleigh or something next year."

"And we'll get you a Santa Claus suit," I croaked out. Dragon changing takes a lot out of you but I wasn't feeling too bad. Just numb.

But I liked my dragon, too. A lot.

We stationed in back at Summer's Garden that night, tapped out. Absinthe went home to what was left of the Grimoire. Things stayed quiet for a while.

Rick, Snake and me stayed tuned-out of it for the next couple of weeks. I didn't stray far off nearby paths looking to feed. (That's the biggest problem with the lifestyle. You can only be just so anti-social.) The three of us weren't uncomfortable with each other, we just didn't have anything to say. Yet. Spent a lot of time together at the house – alone. Rick was the most responsible for bringing us back to an even keel, our healer cowboy, snapping us out of heavy think-mode before it got to brooding. It was in his nature to mend so he was the first one to hurtle us past our collective, brittle self-consciousness.

Things just keep on keeping on, if you know what I mean. It was Duncan who'd thought to come down and take care of my dogs, him and Absinthe's little girls. Could see they'd all become attached to each other Mei, Nadine, Kismet and Kami. Well, dogs and kids, it was only natural. But meeting up, that had been tough. The pups had come running to me right away looking for Karma the moment we hooked up again. Had to send to them that she was gone. We mourned her loss on the beach as soon as the moon was full again. I torched up a big bonfire and we ran, up and down the sand, across the dunes. Karma would have loved it.

There's only a few more things I have to write now. Absinthe – she finally gave me permission to call her Abby – took the True-Death. She was used up, ready to go beyond. Not even her children could keep her back. We spent a lot of time together after David, Abby and I. She taught me as much as she could in those final nights, told me things she felt I needed to know.

"Expect the first deluge of sycophants within the week," she said.

"Did you see that in your cards?" I asked.

She peered at me, looking down that great hawk of a nose and said, very haughty, "Please."

Her timing was only off by a day. Tasia's Errol showed up to offer his services, accompanied by a faceless delegation from the Old Blood. Errol was fading noticeably with his Queen's passing and didn't exactly fit into the bootlicker category like the others. They'd brought appeasing offerings/gifts from across the water. Like my lost fingers from the park.

"They can be re-attached," Errol told me, trembling with fatigue. "Your Doctor Mallock should be able to perform the necessaries."

I held up my left hand, waggled all five digits – not too disrespectfully.

"No need," I said. "I've got dragon fingers now." My hand had gone okay after I'd shaped back to human form. They looked human enough and functioned just fine on my guitar. They understood that. The little delegation made impressed noises.

"The dragon is a sign of the true king," Errol told me.

"Fer sure," I said.

Standing nearby, Snake smiled again. I was getting used to it.

Talked with Errol later and suggested that he stick around although I didn't need his services. Still, I felt it was right to offer him a peaceful spot to shut down. The old ghoul opted out, kindly. Told me he was planning to head back to Winter's Garden, if that was okay. It had begun there for him. Now it would end.

As if he needed my permission. It had begun there for me, too. I loved the place but I couldn't stand the thought of seeing it again. Not now.

"I was glad to hear that you had killed him," Errol told me, very matter-of-fact. "He should have died long ago."

I nodded.

We didn't talk about Tasia.

Absinthe was next, gone by the coming of Spring, walking out to meet the dawn. She spent her last night poring over her cards, talking with her children and friends. I sat with her in the loft looking down on the dark silence of the Grimoire. Eventually, the others withdrew, leaving us to talk in hushed voices, alone. The room was a vast cave of sad, fading ghosts. I could have thought of – and wished for – a more cheerful spot to spend my final night on Earth, but it was what she wanted. It had been her last home. Mostly, she had been happy there.

"Living," Abby told me, "true living is not the process of accumulation but elimination. We all acquire the needs of others, especially when we are young. Mother wants this, Father needs that. As we mature, we must learn to let go. Expel that baggage that belongs to others. Don't let yourself be dragged down by their burdens. Most of the time, they do not know what they want anyway." She laughed, softly. "Get on with your own life. You cannot live for others, Tony."

"That sounds awfully selfish," I said.

"Be a little selfish from time to time. It will not harm you," she advised, curtly. Her eyebrow quirked up over one black eye, reminding me of someone else. "When you are the best Firehair you can possibly be, you will be better able to give your best to others."

"David was selfish. He only thought about himself and what he wanted."

"But you are not David Gemelo. Are you?"

"No!"

"Exactly." Abby's dark eyes glowed. "David manipulated, controlled and collected lives the way some collect rare books or art. He did not actually require these things to live although his illness dictated differently."

"He was a sick one all right." I frowned. "He was an evil bastard and he got what he deserved."

Abby smiled graciously. "Yes. You are learning."

I nodded. Maybe I was catching on. Still, I hadn't been fast enough, not for Tasia. Not for the others. My gaze flickered around the room, uneasy. The silence of painful secrets caught us up in its snare. Abby sensed my distress and waited, patiently, for me to speak.

"David was Tasia's father," I said at last. "Not her brother."

"Oh," Abby murmured, softly. "Oh, my dear ... and she never told you?"

"No."

"So, that would explain – so much. How terrible for her, poor child. How she must have loved you to have come here, to have faced him again."

"Yeah. I know."

"That, too, was part of Auberon's prophecy. No wonder she spent so much energy trying to avoid that inevitability. I had hoped her death would not come to pass. Tasia was a good queen."

"Auberon set that up?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Remind me to talk with him about that one day."

"It is the way of the new to replace the old, Tony. You can't change that."

"That's not what I'm talking about," I snapped. "What I mean is – Tasia had to live with that. With a curse that said no matter what she did, she would have to meet up with David again. It's a hell of a way to spend your nights."

"Do you think it would have been any different for her despite Auberon's geas?" Absinthe asked.

I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable. Thought for a long while. Then said, "No. David wouldn't have ever let her go. He would have found a way to get at her no matter what." And dropped back into quiet, brooding, thinking. Remembering.

Absinthe waited patiently.

"But – Tasia never told me, not until it was too late. Even then, not directly, I just caught what she sent to David." It was like spitting up chunks of barbed wire, getting those words out. "Why, Abby? Why couldn't she tell me? She didn't have to be ashamed, not with me. She knew that."

"You worry at how you failed her," Absinthe said. "You torment yourself unnecessarily. Tasia's silence had less to do with trust and shame and more with fear. Her father was her demon, as your brother was yours. The force was shaped so long ago it grew out of proportion to its reality."

"You're right. I didn't have to be afraid of Angelo anymore. He shouldn't have got to me like that. But...."

"But he did. You saw him and you were a child again with a child's terror, a child's pain. Could you have denied Tasia her fear? Her helplessness? Can a child be held to blame for the pain imposed on it by another? Her death was tragic but you are not to blame for it. I can't find it in my soul to condemn her either, not her fear and not her love. She simply could not send you to face David. She feared for you. She loved you too much to allow it, despite prophesies, despite the evidence of your own abilities. She locked your terrible memories and your gifts away to keep you safe – or so she believed. It destroyed her in the end. It almost destroyed you as well."

I didn't have anything to say to that. Abby's black eyes shimmered with sorrow. She took up my hand in both of hers and we sat together like that for a little while.

A little while was all the time we had. I could feel the dawn rising up on the horizon. Outside, we heard the rattle and chirp of morning birds, so much louder than the crisp and pop of the embers dying on the hearth. My mind darted around trying to think of something to say, something that would keep her. Abby smoothed my clenched hands as they lay on the table, a last caress. So I just came out with, "Don't go. Don't leave. Not now."

"My time is gone," she whispered, gently. "I feel the pull so strongly. Perhaps, one night, you will hear this song as well and know it for what it is. But I believe you will have many nights before that time comes."

"Is ... is it Archie?"

"Perhaps, in part, but that is not the whole of it." Abby sighed. "I have seen too much. A new age comes to Faery, a new world, and I am Old Blood. I don't belong here, my dear. I am too much a part of the old ways."

I shook my head, protesting. Abby would never be old to me, not like she meant – obstinate, afraid of the new, locked in the past. But the words caught in my throat and I couldn't get them out.

"You love so strongly, so cleanly," she told me. "Learn to love yourself a little more, Firehair. At least as much as others do. It is your best defense, your best weapon."

Then she was gone. She stood up and walked out to the roof to meet the sun. I linked up with her, fighting the lethargy the dawn brings to all Blood, so she wouldn't have to go alone, although there was no chance of that happening. Duncan, Snake and Rick waited on the roof with her. I just wanted to be with her, up to the last. It was so awful, so painful to let go. But, I have to confess, I wanted to see, too.

The Sun was bigger and grander than I remembered. He was male as our night lady was female, a noble warrior who arrived in the wake of firedrakes. My mortal eyes had never taken in this sight before, I think few ever have. The Sun's embrace was swift, sure and absolute. Abby went to fire and ash, quickly, and my Queen's secrets burned with her. No one else needed to know them.

Two nights later, early in the twilight, Rick and Snake finished loading the van while I made my way into the dunes, taking Abby's last advice seriously. Kami tried to follow me but I sent her back. She was feeling lonely because we'd left Kismet with Nadine and Mei and I was sorry about that. Also determined.

When I was alone, I knelt down in the sand and dug a hole. It didn't have to be very big. Then I placed my Silver Ghost and that old polaroid inside. Right. It wasn't exactly the ecologically sound thing to do and I sent my apologies to Gaea. But I needed the symbolism of it, the ritual. Something else Absinthe was keen on.

I fished the Old Blood's other gift out of my pocket, Tasia's ring. I'd been angry when Errol first handed it to me although I kept the mad to myself. It was weird enough that they'd dredged up my dead fingers from the park but it spooked me royal to think they'd gone pawing through Gemelo's remains to find this. If they were trying to make an impression, they could rest assured. They had.

It was harder to part with the ring than the other things. That was painfully ironic when I looked back on how much I had longed to be rid of it. Still, I placed the jewel carefully into the hole and covered it over along with the car and the photograph. I think of her often, my Queen, and her endless nights of longing, surrounding herself with monsters to keep another beast away. Seeking out and slaughtering love before it could tempt her, sacrificing all for a moment of peace that never came. There has to be a heaven for Tasia somewhere beause she never had a chance for it here on Earth.

I spent a few moments, sitting on the beach, watching the waves roll in and out. Some good-byes are over fast, others seem to go on forever. But it all comes to an end sometime.

What now? I wondered, What next?

Rick tells me the jungle is always out there and we are the tribe hiding in the brush. Predators stare at us from the dark with evil, glowing eyes and sharp, shiny teeth. We stare right back and rattle sabres, raise our fists. We can't afford to give up. Sometimes, the beast rushes out and takes us down. Other times, we get him. We win.

Well, that's the way Rick looks at things. I would tell him the sludge is still out there but, lately, I'd guess there's considerably less of it churning about. At least, now that David Gemelo is gone.

I began walking out towards the van. Rick had CCR on the air loud, John Fogerty raging the night. Good traveling music.

I hear another voice over the music. Gaea calls to me, Protect my children. Keep them safe. Keep me safe. I can't – and won't – argue with that. There has to be a reason I've been given this kind of power and I can't think of any better use for it than guarding the gingerbread children.

We are born from and wander in darkness, longing for light, looking for a lone candle in a midnight window. We all crawl in the dust, searching, little Queens and Kings. We look for love, for the nurturing hand, someone to hear our prayers, someone who will care enough to make the darkness bearable. Make it all right.

Some of my older memories have been coming back recently and I remember things more clearly now. Like the clown who skipped town and never made the big trial. Has he wandered back to his Coney Island den? Not that it matters how he's holed himself up, I know how to find him. There are others like him – too many – cruising the Noirlights that belong to me and mine, hunting for sport where they have no business looking.

Look there for me, monsters. Mine are the hunter's eyes glowing out of the dark. Mine are the teeth that bite, my hands the claws that rend.

Come, children, lost brothers and lonely sisters. I hold your candle high.

 
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