A Child's Dream

Chapter 3 The Final Judgment

He looked up at what use to be one of America\'s greatest marvels that now lay in ruins. The faces of four of America\'s leaders lay weathered and beaten at his feet, and if you didn\'t know your history, which none had, no one would have ever guessed that the giant chunks of rock that lay around were once the monument known as Mount Rushmore. Thou over time, the rocks had weathered so badly, he couldn\'t tell which face it was. The mountain itself was no more. Evidence of an impact crater took out the monument swiftly, and only bits and pieces of the other faces lay around.

He took refuge under the great stone, where the cracks had made a cave, most suitable for shelter from the winter\'s rage. A storm, a bad one, swept through the area about a week ago. Maybe two he wasn\'t sure. He\'d had little choice then to seek shelter. But even now his wonderings were still as pointlend and aimless as before. He found himself wishing to die in that storm, thou he didn\'t voice it. He woke to find his horse had found shelter in a barn, and had samariusly dumped him in a straw pile. A woman had found him the next day and provided him tea and a hot meal. Though he could tell she wanted more, he thanked her and moved on. Noticing once more the tall dark shadow in the distance that followed him.

\"You know who it is,\" the sym chided. \"Why not...?\"

\"Shut up!!\"

The tiny creature slinked back into his hand. D wasn\'t the only one hurting. The symbiote had gotten use to Kale too, if it didn\'t know better, it would have said it loved her too in a way, even if she didn\'t know it was there. Before her, D was alone, and miserable, though he\'d never admit that. His dreams at night had become stagnant, and sometimes it shared his pain when he saw lovers and family together. D could say all he liked, that it didn\'t matter, that he was all right. But the sym knew. It was part of him. It knew all too well.

Even before D would admit it to himself, the sym felt D falling for Kale, the moment he first held her in his arms. Which was why it teased him so. To get him thinking that way. It didn\'t want to be alone anymore either, and had silently cheered when Kale agreed to sail away with D. And no matter what had happened after that, D loved her even more. But now D was trying to undo all that. True they found the woman with his brother, but there had to be more to it than that. Why would she do it? Why even consider it? And most importantly, why call out for D?

The sym spat fire onto the gathered frozen sticks. The fire was small, but as the flames performed their hungry dance, D remembered when the nightmare began. In his memory he saw his love, her arms wrapped around his brother, the two of them naked, his body heaving with its pleasure. Then he dropped her, as if she were nothing at all. Her neck bitten and torn, her blood nearly gone. Gone, consumed by him, his brother.

D lowered his eyes, covering them with his right hand, fiercely trying to berry the ache that threatened to scream out in the night. If he\'d let it go, every farmer, wolf, vampire; in fact every living thing for miles, would hear his mournful cry. Determinedly he choked it back, wrapping it in the darkness that had become his past life, sealing it off once more, till pondering set it loose again.

\"He\'s still back there D,\" the sym said quietly. \"He\'s got to be there for a reason.\"

\"Father,\" he began through clenched cold teeth. \"Has probably sent him for me to kill. But he knows I wont do it.\"

\"Well that\'s a relief.\"

\"I can\'t kill father, I can\'t kill him. They\'re family. There\'s a connection there. No vampire can understand. Only...Dhampires know this feeling. And they can\'t break it. Believe me, I\'ve tried.\"

\"Then why not hear him out?\"

\"Why!!!?\" he asked rising and striking his left hand into the wall, hard enough to draw blood from his knuckles. \"So he can lie his way out of it!!\"

\"When have you ever known Adrian to lie to you?\" it asked softly, wincing from the pain of the impact. As D turned, he saw a tall figure eclipse the entrance to his shelter. Their eyes met in the fire\'s glow and at once D drew his sword. He couldn\'t kill his brother, but he could hurt him. Wanted to hurt him, as much as he\'d been hurt.

D practically flew out of the cave, tackling the man down the gentle slope. \"D!\" he cried, pushing away. \"D! Please! Listen to me!\"

\"Father sent you to me to die, brother. I may not be able to kill you. But I can make you suffer!!!\" With lightning speed, the two went at it, D thrusting his sword, trying to wound the younger Dhampire. Adrian knew this would happen, but he never drew his blade. Running, leaping, ducking, and dodging each thrust of his brother\'s sword. D needed to work through his rage before they could talk. And if screaming and fighting Adrian was what he needed, he was more than willing to be the target. \"SHE WAS MY WIFE!!!\"

\"She still is! Always was!\"

\"LIER!!\" he screamed, thrashing his blade towards his midsection. Adrian backed away, losing a button in the process. \"I SAW YOU!\"

\"I never loved her the way that you think!\"

\"You had Castle, you had Donna. You had practically every woman on the PLANET!! Why!!?\" D\'s speed waned slightly, his sword dipped towards the ground. \"Why brother? Why her?\" Slowly D sank to his knees. It was over. His rage was out. All that remained was pain, and emptiness.

\"D, come on, lets get out of the cold.\" Adrian draped his grieving brother\'s arm around his shoulders, and took him back to his shelter. Once inside Adrian used his cloak to block the cold wind from getting in, and tossed a dry stick on the fire, he carried in his saddlebag. \"Why Adrian?\" D asked quietly. \"Why did you do it?\"

\"Its complicated, and I can\'t expect you to understand. Only to ask that you listen.\"

\"Father sent you to me for punishment?\"

\"No. Father\'s judgment has already passed. I\'ll get to that.\" He produced a pot and bottle of water, two cups and teabags. It was going to be a long night. \"I was hit with holly water before Kale and I got to the bridge. I remember she carried me quite a ways, before I felt the cold of the water. I don\'t remember much before I\'d come to my senses, what I do remember are shadows, thoughts, and feelings.

\"I was very cold, and I\'d felt something warm. When I went closer I could smell blood. A woman\'s blood. I\'d taken many that way, and had fed from them as well, it never occurred to me who it was. I may have said something, I don\'t know, but as the blood revived me, I thought at once of Castle, but something wasn\'t right.

\"That\'s when I knew. It was Kale. I couldn\'t believe what I\'d done, and I prayed she\'d live. And then you found us like that. I wanted to explain then, but her blood...her blood is poison to us.\"

\"I\'ve had her blood before.\"

\"In small amounts yes. But you are older than I; also the symbiote, and may be able to handle it better. But I took more...much more.\"

\"You nearly killed her!!\"

\"I know. And I thank all our makers every moment that she lived. In my trial, father ripped through my memories to find the truth, and only then he\'d believe me. But by then it was too late.\"

\"What do you mean?\"

\"Edward told me, father had forbade Kale from returning to his home. That the only reason he didn\'t kill her, was a promise he\'d made to you.\"

\"I remember.\"

\"Edward went on to say, that if she dared to return, father would kill her. But after he judged me, he lifted his banishment of Kale. Castle went to tell her, only to find she was sleeping. But by morning we learned she\'d slipped out some time in the night. She\'s out there alone. Hurting even worse than you. She\'s lost you, her family, promises mean nothing to her once more, she hary lry little money if any at all. And she has no where to go.\"

\"She didn\'t say anything?\"

\"The mutant Hadwin gave some kind of cryptic message, but I got the feeling he knew more, and that he\'d only tell it to you.\"

D turned back to the fire, after taking the offered tea. \"You told her about...\"

\"Yes. Like I believed she were someone else, she thought I were you...\"

\"That explains why she called out your name, D!\" screached the sym.

\"Be still!\"

\"NO I WONT!!!\" Quickly the sym punched D\'s chin, catching the teacup at the same time, knocking half its contents to the ground. \"She called for you, yes. But she said it to urge YOU to take what you wished of her. NOT ADRIAN!! I knew there had to be a reason for that!\"

D dabbed the last of the tea from his clothes, his chin a bit red from where it had splashed. Adrian refilled his cup. \"If that\'s true...\"

\"Than you\'ve got to find her!\" shouted the sym.

\"She wont want me.\"

\"WHAT!!!???\" two voices echoed.

\"I sore to her forever a few years ago. Now forever has come, and we are no more. I broke us...I...I destroyed our tie.\"

\"D! No! I had wondered why she wasn\'t wearing the cross...It\'s all right. She still loves you. There was never anyone else. There was just no room. D, find her, face her. Let her decide.\"

\"But...our tie?\"

\"She may still have it. It can be fixed. Nothing can keep you two apart.\"

\"She...she doesn\'t know about this,\" he pointed to his left hand.

\"She still doesn\'t? I thought you\'d tell her by now.\"

D shook his head. \"If she knew, she\'d see it as sharing herself with two. What then?\"

\"Well, when you\'re with her, what does it do?\"

\"I don\'t know.\"

\"No one has ever asked that,\" said the sym. \"If you must know, I go to sleep. Believe it or not, but human, or vampire, testosterone, in combination with female estrogen, in the air, makes one powerful sedative to me. I have little choice but to go to sleep.\"

\"Is that true demon?\" D asked, facing his palm.

\"What do you think?\" For a moment D was quiet. He really didn\'t want to know, as long as it never interfered with them. With them, he was thinking that way again. As though he and Kale never parted. He had to find her. He wouldn\'t rest till he had her in hims..ms...in his bed...once more.

\"I\'ll believe you.\"

\"Thank you.\"

\"One more thing.\"

\"Yes?\" Adrian asked, almost dreading the coming question.

\"What do you remember of being with her?\"

\"What? I don’t understand?\"

\"You seduced her, what do you remember!\"

\"D…?\"

\"TELL ME!!!\"

\"I don’t, that is I don’t remember. I know I did, but I don’t remember anything about it. I swear!\"

\"Good, be sure to keep it that way.\"

\"Ok, so...how do we find Kale? Do you sense her out as father does with us?\"

\"No...we start with Hadwin.\"

\"But that means...\"

\"...We return to Barbarois.\"

\"Oh no,\" cringed the sym.

It had taken them several days to get back, they would have made better time, had they not been delayed by storms and hindered by the deepening snow. But as they got further south, the snow was less and less deep. When they arrived at Barbarois, the gates were wide open, but not without signs of complaint. The two Dhampires were on their guard as they entered the beaten gates, the bodies of several mutants lay around the ground, many scurrying away on the upper levels to hide or inform the remainder of their defenders of the new comers. They left their horses in the courtyard and acended the stairs to where Ben had taken D when he\'d recovered on his last visit. Inside, Tamika turned on them, her hands glowing white, her power raging through her body. But once she saw the two, she at once calmed herself, and returned to her care of their leader. \"If you\'ve come to hire us, we\'re a little busy,\" she said, laying a cloth across Ben\'s forehead.

\"What happened here?\" D asked, sheathing his sword.

\"Humans are what happened,\" she scoffed. \"There was a vampire that attacked a small village not to far from here. The hunters that came after it, believed it came here, so rather than wait to see if that were true, they attacked. The bombardment lasted three days, may died. Ben was the first to fall. Though he still lives, he has not woken. Then on the third day, they attacked the gates with a horrible weapon. The gates in seconds went bright red with the heat, and they just blew open, as they did the day your father arrived. I\'d never seen anything like it. The gates hadn\'t cooled till two days ago, now they are fused into place. Our main defense gone, the humans advanced. Haneck had taken over when Ben fell, he ordered all the younger and less powerful of us into the lower tunnels, where he locked us. We listened as our people died above our heads. Then when we came out, the humans were gone. And so were all our defensemen. We\'ve been hiding in our own home sense. Ben is still hanging on. I know he\'ll make it. He just has to.\" The woman leaned in, and kissed his green forehead, a single crystal tear rolling off her cheek to his. \"Why have you returned?\"

\"I seek information.\"

\"About your woman? We don\'t know where she is.\"

\"Where is the one called Hadwin?\"

\"Down in the kitchens. He\'s the only one left who has the strength to cook for all of us. He hasn\'t slept in four days. Don\'t hassle him too much. He views Ben as his brother.\" D stepped forward and pressed his left hand to Ben\'s brow. The sym nodded its face within his palm, letting him know what it sensed. \"Ben will recover,\" D said softly, turning to her, noticing for the first time the ge rou rounding of her stomach. He suspected Ben the father, which gave her good reason to worry over him so. \"He\'ll have a hell of a head ache, but he\'ll live.\"

\"Thank the masters.\"

D walked from the room, drawing his brother with him.

The kitchens were more than the eating-place. Now they had also become the hospital. Many of the people lay side by side on the tables, legs and arms splinted and bandaged, many missing one or the other, or one of each, some even blind for life. As a rule, hunters never attacked Barbarois itself. As long as the mutants remained in the confines of the great fortress, and harmed no one, the mutants were safe, but if a vampire took refuge there, and hunters knew it, then the Barbarois risked their lives by keeping the vampire within their gates. That was proven many years ago, when he hunted a vampire into their midst. The Barbarois were skillful warriors yes, but by the amount of destruction and devastation that lay around them now, he wondered why the humans bothered at all. No vampire was here, they knew that. Then it occurred to him. They did it for the hell of it. There was no other explanation.

Near the back wall of the kitchen, little Hadwin scurried from stove to stove, mixing medicines, preparing food, and readying soup for those who couldn\'t chew. Then he turned and saw D and Adrian watching him. He couldn\'t leave his pots, so he waved them over. Cautiously they crossed the room. Being lineage of both vampire and human, the Barbarois may view them as partly to blame for the attack. So best to complete their business and be on their way. \"Good to see you haven\'t torn your brother apart, master D,\" said Hadwin. The tiny voice of the nt snt sounded tired, and strained. It\'s small green colored eyes, were a bit red from lack of sleep. \"Your father left before all of this began,\" he continued. \"All the vampires and the purists, got away safely. The vampires are pleased that they will once again be able to prosper in The City of the Night, though it will take several generations for the purists to be re-educated, they believe they can prosper.\"

\"Good. Kale? What do you know of her? Where did she go?\"

\"She only told me that she would go to the only place left to her. But she did ask a favor of me before she left. She asked me, that when next I saw you, I was to give you this.\" Hadwin pulled a folded paper from beneath his shirt. There was evidence it had been sealed with wax, all around its open edges, but now all that was cracked and falling away. \"No eyes have seen it,\" he continued as D opened the letter. \"She said only you could read it.\"

\"That\'s true. It\'s in old English. The way it was written, a millennia ago.\" Silently D read her words, not being able to help but hear her voice in his mind, echo each word, as though she were reading it to him.


My D,

Adrian just told me what had happened that night. All I can say is I am so sorry. I can\'t ask
you to understand, I can barely understand it myself. I honestly thought he was you. I can\'t
believe I was so wrong.

Dracula has forbade me to return to his home, which I totally understand. Adrian told me
that I would normally be dead, had it not been an oath he made to you. I think I\'d be
better off dead. It would serve me right for what I did, regardless of the circumstances. I
swear, I never wanted to hurt you. But I did, and now, we\'re gone.

I can\'t stay in Barbarois, Ben has given me to a day after I ride through the gates to get
away. After that, well. I\'m not sure what to do. I can\'t follow you, I\'d only drive you further
away. I can\'t go back, there\'s no way I\'d make it over there alone. I think I\'ll do something
I should have done years ago.

There\'s one place I can go. The only place left to me. We talked about it once. Remember?
I\'ll go there. I can only hope that the Barbarois will deliver this to you. I haven\'t asked any
of the yet. But I have to try.

Adrian paid for Max\'s repairs in Airomat. I\'ve kept a little of the money you\'d found in my
saddlebags. The rest I gave to him. I\'ve no idea how or when I\'ll pay back the rest. I just
hope he\'s patient.

I know that time really has no meaning to us. But when I said I\'d rather die than go on
without you, I meant it. But I must give you the chance to...I don\'t know. I will do this
instead. I will go on, alone, for 6 years. The same number of yeas we\'d been together. If at
the end of that time, you have not returned. I will end.

I hope then you will forget me, but I will never forget you. Always remember, please, I loved
you. Only you.

Your Kale

D flipped the paper over several times, not believing that was all she\'d written. The writing was neat, and level, she never wrote like that before. She must have taken great care in carefully writing this note to him. But it didn\'t say anything about where she\'d gone. \"What does it say?\" Adrian asked.

\"Nothing as to where she\'s gone. But if I don\'t find her soon, she\'ll kill herself.\"

\"What? Let me see that.\"

\"I have six years to find her. After that, I will join her.\"

\"Only place left to her. That was the message she\'d left with Hadwin. Says here that you and she spoke about it. When was that?\"

\"I don\'t know.\"

\"Think man! If you don\'t figure it out, she\'ll die!!\"

\"I\'m trying!!\" He stepped away from the stoves as Hadwin bustled by, carrying a tray of soup bowls. \"We\'d spoke of many places we\'d been.\"

\"This place in the southern lands, after you rescued her from the desert slavers? Would she go there?\"

\"No, and she won\'t cross the sea again. The last time nearly drove her mad.\"

\"Well I\'m sure she\'d find a way. It\'s not like she\'d go home and not tell you.\"

\"Home?\" The simple word struck a note in his memory. A time when he and his love hid within the library of books in his father\'s house. They poured over the old atlases, with clear plastic overlays his father had made to show how the land had changed over time. Most of the west coast of California was gone, and Little Prince Edward Island was gone, totally blown away in the war. Much of the east coast of Canada had changed as well. Of note, the harbor at the end of Cape Breton had been sealed, and the water drained, replaced with fresh water from the rain, all to protect the inner part of the island.

\"D? What is it?\" asked the sym.

\"That\'s it. She\'d go home!\"

\"But I thought you said she wouldn\'t...\"

\"Not our home, her home! She\'d go back...Dear GOD - NO!!\"

\"Where are you going!?\" Adrian raced after his brother as he charged out and leaped to his saddle.

\"She\'s going back to her home! In Canada! She has no idea! If she tries to cross the border! They\'ll kill her!!!\"

\"I\'ll come with you!\"

\"NO!!! This I do alone! You return to father, tell him where she\'s going, tell him I may need his help to get her out. If she makes it across and manages to dodge the military up there, we\'ll need to get out fast!\"

\"There\'s a military in Canada!?\"

\"Long story. GO! NOW!!\"