Necromancer Legacy - 3. Through a stranger's eyes

“Seriously, what happened? What did you do? Who was that guy?”

Everything was kind of blurry now, but Nick still remembered everything that went down. He had never felt so vulnerable before. And Sasha was still a complete stranger.

He stood now facing Nick, on the other side of the kitchen island. Sasha had made coffee. Nick wasn’t drinking his—who drank coffee this late at night? He just clutched the mug between his hands for warmth.

“What about those… visions? Or nightmares, or hallucinations—whatever the hell they were. What was that about? Was any of it real? And if it wasn’t, then… then I don’t get it, because why would my brain decide to hallucinate some British… reaper.”

Sasha started to laugh, then he seemed to think better of it. He cleared his throat.

“No, he was definitely real. He’s probably still around. Hiding himself. Waiting for me to do all the explaining.”

“Well you better start. I have to work in the morning.”

“You probably shouldn’t go to work. Not after all this.”

“Why not?”

Sasha studied his face for a moment. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m… I’m okay.”

“Really?” He sounded skeptical.

“Better than before,” Nick said defensively.

That coldness he’d felt before was slowly fading now. With every passing second he felt a bit stronger, like his body was finally recovering from something—he just didn’t know what that something was.

“So what do you want to know?” Sasha sighed. He drank his coffee like it was the only thing keeping him from collapsing and falling asleep this instant. Maybe it was.

Nick shifted uneasily in his stool chair—it wasn’t that comfortable, really.

“Who’s that other guy?”

“Gabriel’s my brother. Adopted,” he quickly added. “And he’s your biological brother.”

Nick’s heart started to beat faster.

“Well… why didn’t we grow up together then? What happened to our biological parents?”

“They’re dead,” Sasha said. He turned to the coffee machine and poured more of the dark substance inside his cup.

“Wow. Don’t sugarcoat it.”

Sasha looked at him, spoon in his hand. “What? I always put a lot of sugar in my coffee.”

“No, it was sarcasm. I meant… Anyway, never mind. Can we please go back to the part where you explain what the hell is going on?”

“I saved you,” he said. “Remember that.”

“So what, I’m supposed to be grateful? You didn’t even know I’d make it out alive.” If he understood correctly… Apparently he did. Sasha’s expression changed.

“I had to save my brother,” he replied.

“How’s he doing?” Nick’s voice was softer.

“Sleeping. He should be okay. Anyway, look. Here’s what we’ll do.”

Sasha quickly went to another room, and Nick heard some rummaging around. Then Sasha trotted back to the kitchen with a heavy looking book. Well it was more like a journal really. As he opened it up in front of Nick, he saw that it was all handwritten, with papers and photos sticking out. He looked up.

“This was my mother’s journal. I read all of it,” Sasha explained, “and so should you. It explains everything.”

Sasha had to be joking. This thing was massive. Nick started reading the first entry.

‘July 1^st, 1985. My name is Lilya Koval. I start this journal now, because I think it is important to chronicle my family life, love life—all of the happy days, but also all the challenges I’ll need to overcome…’

Was Sasha insane? Nick wasn’t going to read about his mother’s love life.

He closed the journal so abruptly that Sasha started and spilled some of his coffee.

“What are you doing?”

“Sasha… I haven’t got fifty freaking hours of free time to sit through this pile of crap.”

“Hey,” he said angrily, pointing a finger, “don’t insult my mom.”

“Well I haven’t got one, as you seem very aware of yourself, so I can insult other people’s mothers if I want to.”

“You’re being immature.”

“And you’re giving yourself excuses. You’re going to sit the fuck down and give me a nice little summary of whatever’s relevant in this huge—in this journal.”

Sasha grabbed a stool chair and slid it to the other side of the kitchen island quietly, and sat down as he was asked. He let out an exaggerated sigh, raking his fingers through his dark blonde locks.

“My mom, and your mom… they were friends. They were kind of like… witches. It was nothing crazy. They mostly did healing stuff. And minor little spells. Making flowers bloom before their time. Cute spells. They never used any supernatural powers for, um, evil or anything like that. Your parents already had a kid. Gabriel.” Sasha’s gaze flicked toward the bedroom where Gabriel was still asleep. “Gabriel was five years old when it happened. I wasn’t even born yet. They just explained everything to me later.”

“When what happened?”

“Your father had been possessed by a demon, and—”

“No.”

“What?”

“No… please, don’t… Fuck.” Nick pushed away his cup of coffee and folded his arms on the cool granite counter top, before pressing his face in his arms. He just couldn’t look at Sasha right now. “Please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.”

“What do you think I’m going to say?”

“That I’m half-demon, or something? Because it sounds like the plot to some crappy anime series.”

Sasha didn’t deny it. He was gazing down at the journal. “My parents did a spell to help your mother. They managed to banish the demon from your father’s body. Like an exorcism. But he didn’t survive it. It was hard on your mother, because she was pregnant. But she had faith that you would be just a normal kid. And you were… a normal kid. But…”

Nick looked up.

“But what?”

“There was this dark sort of… aura. Energy. And it was going to kill you. As a little child, your body just couldn’t… Well,” Sasha waved a hand toward him, “clearly your body can handle it now, even though at first you… I think you died for a moment, and then came back—”

“Can we please not reminisce on that part?”

“Gabriel wanted to help,” Sasha said, crossing his arms. “He was really mature for his age. He understood everything, even though no one told him, to spare him. But he understood anyway. And he wanted to save you. He wanted you to be able to grow up and have a normal life.”

“I wouldn’t call foster care a normal life…”

“At least you had one,” Sasha countered.

Nick’s chest tightened, and he looked away. He couldn’t believe some complete stranger was telling him his life story.

“Gabriel asked my parents to transfer the dark energy to him. He told them he could contain it in order to save you. Somehow he knew he could. Of course, my parents said no. No matter how grown up he sounded, Gabriel was still just a little kid. They tried everything they could. They tried to banish it like they did your demon father. Nothing worked.”

“What about my mother? What did she want to do?”

“She, um…” Sasha scratched his hair. “She didn’t survive childbirth, so… My parents had to take all the decisions.”

Nick took the blow. Swallowed. “What was her name? My mother.” He felt like he should know.

Sasha was looking at the journal again. “Her name was Jade.”

Nick said nothing.

“They decided to do it,” Sasha continued. “To transfer it to Gabriel—at least part of it. And they hoped that would be enough to save your life.”

“Couldn’t I survive on my own?”

“No,” Sasha said flatly, “you were constantly crying, and you wouldn’t eat anything, and you couldn’t sleep, so you were almost dead.”

Nick frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, even if I decide to believe your crazy story. Recently I’ve been having those same problems—except for the crying part. I mean, no appetite, bad sleep; and from what I understand that was because I didn’t have that dark energy thing. Until now. And now I feel fine.”

“Well clearly your body doesn’t know what the hell it wants,” Sasha said.

“Right.” Nick cleared his throat and settled back in his seat. “So that’s what happened then? They transferred it to Gabriel to save me?”

“Yeah. He ended up taking all of it. Clearly he has some supernatural skill of his own, or just some high tolerance to those kinds of powers. He lived a normal life until recently. He started feeling really sick—it was like his body finally rejected it, after all those years.”

“I started feeling sick recently, too.”

“Are you sure that wasn’t just the drugs and alcohol?”

“You’re kind of a jerk, you know that?”

“Only to people I don’t like.”

Nick stared. “So is that why your parents adopted Gabriel but gave me up to some orphanage with no explanation whatsoever, then? Because they didn’t like me?”

“Gee, how insecure are you?”

“Can you blame me?”

Sasha scratched his hair again. Its blonde shade looked paler in the kitchen’s whitish, artificial light. Nick closed his eyes for a moment. They burned—lack of sleep, he supposed.

“They couldn’t keep you around. I’m just quoting what I read in the journal that you’re too busy to read. I wasn’t even born, remember? So don’t blame me, either. This dark aura that had been so carefully confined within Gabriel… They didn’t want to risk it coming out and clinging back to you. It could’ve happened. Your body could’ve started craving it a lot sooner. And it would’ve either killed you, or made you really evil, or something. Gabriel had it so well contained, by some miracle. And it was his wish that you would be allowed a normal childhood, away from all that stuff. So they thought it was for the best. You can’t blame any of us. I grew up loving Gabriel as my own brother. I knew he was adopted, but I didn’t care. I didn’t even want to know the details. I just loved him. And eventually they told me everything, because Gabriel started to get sicker and sicker, and they couldn’t hide it from me anymore.”

Nick almost didn’t want to ask. “Where are your parents now?”

Sasha didn’t look at him. “When Gabriel got sick, a few months ago, they tried one final spell. It backfired. The demon was able to possess Gabriel for a brief moment and… My parents didn’t make it.” He said that really quickly, then cleared his throat. “That thing that’s in you now. It belongs to you. So unfortunately you’re stuck with it.”

And it killed my parents. The unspoken words were written all over Sasha’s eyes.

This wasn’t fair. None of this was Nick’s fault. Not really. He didn’t even know about any of it until now.

Nick said, “You could’ve just told me.”

“What? No. You wouldn’t have believed me.”

“Of course I would’ve believed you! I was seeing blood everywhere and black shadows and that reaper guy and there was a voice in my head… I thought I was going insane! What choice would I have but to believe you? You could have told me sooner. Spared Gabriel some pain.”

Spared your parents.

Sasha made to wipe the corner of his eye, then rested his hand at the back of his neck instead.

He said, “It’s too late now.”

“Instead you stalked me.” Nick’s eyes narrowed. “How did you even find me?”

“My parents always kept track of where you were staying at.”

“So I’ve been spied on by strangers my whole life. Great.” Nick sighed. “But you’re the worst, Sasha. You followed me to that club. And you pretended to be into me. So I would follow you home. That is messed up.”

“You’re the one who’s messed up. You were all over me.”

Nick sprung from his chair. “Are you homophobic or something?”

“I’m not,” Sasha said defensively.

Nick headed toward the door. “You should have just told me you needed my help. I would’ve come with you. Would’ve saved us both the embarrassment.”

“You’re the only one embarrassed!”

“What are you talking about? The way you acted, it just isn’t right.”

He was almost out of that stupid apartment, when Sasha caught up to him and stopped him.

“Wait,” he said, holding out his phone. “I need your number. For Gabriel,” he added quickly, “he’ll want to contact you when he feels better.”

“He sounds nice,” Nick said. Unlike you.

Nick gave him the number. He saw what Sasha had written instead of his name in the contact info.

“Gay douchebag. Nice. I like it,” he said with a serious face, and their eyes met.

“It suits you,” Sasha replied evenly.

“Uh-huh.”

All in one movement, Nick leaned closer, cupped a hand around Sasha’s neck, and kissed him. Not just a little kiss. It was deep and hard but soft all at once, and it was over too quickly, leaving one wanting for more—if they did want it, of course—the way a first kiss should be.

Sasha was too shocked to say anything. His green eyes were ridiculously wide, and he glared at Nick, like he really wanted to either hit him or say something, anything—probably something mean, too—but he didn’t. Nick smiled and tapped Sasha’s cheek, before walking away.

“The homophobic ones are usually just a little too deep in the closet, you know.”

And with that said he shut the door in Sasha’s face and went to rush down the five flights of stairs so he could leave the building and hopefully never come back.

Oh, that explanation was nowhere near good enough. But he didn’t want to stick around and chat with Sasha, for obvious reasons. If he could just speak with Gabriel instead, Nick thought, he would ask him if any of it was true, or if Sasha was a mentally ill patient who had escaped from a psych ward.