Dawn's Path: Completed Work

"Here drink this," Patrick said. He'd anticipated Janine would not be in good shape this morning. She was never in good shape the morning after a drinking binge. He'd never understood why she did it. Willingly put her self through this much misery. Usually, he left her to suffer through it. But, not today. Today he was going to take care of her. Thrusting a steaming mug into her hand, he watched as Janine greedily gulped down the brownish, murky, repulsive contents. The tea, Doc's special cure for everything from the common cold to the clap was nasty as hell, or so Patrick had been told. But, it usually did the trick. He patted her head like a parent would an obedient child as she gagged and struggled to keep the tea down. "You should rest. There's plenty of time until..."

"The big event," Janine groaned. It even hurt to hear the sound of her own voice echoing in her ears. She'd downed Doc's special tea in an act of desperation. Normally, she wouldn't touch the stuff. Nobody really knew exactly what he put in the tea. And she wasn't sure she really wanted to know with her stomach churning and threatening to spew its contents all over the bedroom Linda Blair style. The damn stuff had better do something. Quick. She was not going to waste the day in bed. Any other day, sure she'd be happy to play the part of the pampered princess.

"Yeah, the big event," Patrick gritted. He tucked the covers under Janine's chin and hummed softly as her eyes drifted closed. She needed every bit of her strength for the ceremony. If she were awake, she'd spend the day running around, wearing herself down to a frazzle to keep her mind occupied. She didn't want to think about tonight anymore than he did. And yet, it was the only thing on both of their minds. He squatted down on the floor beside the bed. His fingers worked through her hair, smoothing the disarray. The last thing he wanted her to do was worry. He was too preoccupied doing enough of that for the both of them.

He spent the remainder of the day, in bed, holding Janine in his arms, staring down in wonder at the life placed in his care. The red digital read out ticked the hours away with heart wrenching accuracy. Coldly, counting down the seconds in grim reminder of how little time he had left. When he could no longer steal another minute alone with her, he awakened her. "Janine. Baby, it's time."

"Huh, oh I didn't mean to fall asleep again." Janine lifted her head from the pillows and glared at the clock. Had she really slept her last day as a human away? It didn't seem possible. And it had been such a waste. "I wanted to spend my day with you."

"You did. I was right here beside you all day."

"That wasn't what I meant."

"There'll be plenty of time for us to spend together," he said. Gently cupping her face, he brushed a fast kiss against the tip of her nose. "We have all the time in the world."

"Forever."

"That's right, Janine. Forever." Patrick stole a quick kiss from her lips before pulling down the covers and pushing her out of the bed. The kiss was cool as death and tasted of the bitterness of the Shaman's tea. Outwardly, Janine appeared to be her usual frantic mess. But, he could smell the lingering taint of fear beneath the layers of femininely sweet perfume still clinging to her skin. In a couple of hours her fear wouldn't matter anymore. It'd be over and done. And either she'd live or she'd die. Either way, they still had forever. To him, it was just a matter of how. And no, it was not his choice. It was all up to her. "Go grab a shower."

Janine usually left the bathroom door wide open. Today, she wanted tightly closed behind her. She turned on the shower and waited for the water to heat. Gripping the edge of the marble vanity, she stood naked in the garish white light from the fixtures overhead. Maybe, she was wrong. Maybe, she should wait. Try to drop another five pounds. Grow her hair out a few more inches. Put it off a little while longer. What difference could a couple of months make? She could do with a mani-pedi before her voyage into the great unknown. There were so many human experiences she had yet to discover. And only one, waiting in the darkness of the bluffs, drifting in the smoke of the bonfire into the heavens. Death.

Patrick was scared too. He couldn't mask the worry etched into his expression behind a cocky smile and gentle kiss. He'd understand if she backed out. No, she wasn't going to back out. She was just going to put it off a while longer. She climbed into the shower and let the hot water pound against her skin. She'd been waiting her entire life for love. And here it was in the form of fangs, and drops of blood, and in the cloying sweetness of death, its arms open to accept her and welcome her home.

She'd known from day one that falling in love with Patrick was a danger to them both. There was only one possible outcome. She'd accepted it then and she accepted it now. Dying wasn't such a big deal not when she had so much waiting for her on the other side. Death was just a teeny tiny bump in the road on the way to happiness. What was she so afraid of? Death wasn't permanent. Not for her. She'd made her decision in those frail moments of their first kiss. And there had been no going back then. And there wasn't any going back now.

Janine stood beneath the steaming spray and lathered her body up with shower gel. Instead of selecting her usual, the light, airy, floral soap she usually used. She chose his, drawing courage and strength from the heavy, masculine, woodsy scent of the soap. She wasn't worried about the pain. Pain was soon forgotten in the presence of joy. She wasn't afraid of dying. If she did happen to die, she wouldn't know about it till after the fact. She was only afraid of leaving Patrick and her friends. What her death, if it happened, would do to them.

She suppressed a cold shiver as her mind created all sorts of scenarios about what life would be like for her once the transformation was completed. Would she be consumed with bloodlust, and go rogue? Seeing her human friends, Alex's mom, as nothing more than her next meal? Would she be the first vampire in history to explode in the sunlight? Would she cringe and shrivel at the sight of a crucifix?

Janine dismissed the thoughts with a shake of her head. Her imagination was getting the better of her. She was not going to sparkle. She was not going to evaporate into mist and prey on helpless virgins. God still loved her whether she had fangs or not. Nothing, beyond the obvious, was going to change. She was still going to be her, exactly the same as she'd always been.

Patrick tried like hell to give Janine her final moments of privacy. But, he couldn't help himself any longer. He pulled a towel off the heated rack and began patting her skin dry as she stepped out of the shower. Memorizing every curve, dimple, and soft plane of her sleek skin. Her tan was deeper on her stomach and lighter over her breasts and rear. He traced the tan line on her hip with a fingertip and pressed a gentle kiss to the paler flesh.

Out of all the things she was giving up for him. This one thing meant the most to him. His child of the sun would be a child of the sun no more. He used to hate that she'd go outside and bake herself in the sun for hours. He worried that she'd get skin cancer. He didn't have to worry about that any longer. And looking back the arguments seemed so petty and senseless. There were so many things he should apologize for. So many wrongs he'd committed against her. He didn't have words enough to beg her forgiveness.

He milked every last second that he could out of their time together. He helped Janine slip into a loose cotton shift dress. Cautiously he ran a pick through the golden tangles of her hair and gathered it up into a band at the base of her neck. She belonged in the light of the sun and to summer's never ending kiss. Not in the cool bath of the moonlight and the endless night of winters last embrace. "Janine, are you sure about this? Is this really what you want? You can change your mind. We don't have to do this. We can figure out something else. There's still time."

Janine stilled Patrick's lips with the light press of her index finger against them. "Patrick, I'm absolutely sure about this. You can't become what I am. You can't change. I can. I'm not just doing this for you. I'm doing this for us." Patrick crouched on his knees at her feet, burying his face against her stomach. Inhaling the scent of her with deep intakes of breath. "Patrick, there is no more time. We ran out of time the second we met. In that first kiss we knew then where this was going. I'm not afraid." She ran her fingers through his hair memorizing the feel of its softness. Gently, she urged him onto his feet. Holding him in a tight embrace as they kissed, tasting and savoring their last kiss with the same desperate urgency as they had their first. "I love you."

Robbie gently knocked on Janine's bedroom door. She'd given Patrick and Janine the benefit of every last second that she could. And now, it was time to go. Being a warrior was so much more than daggers and defense. That was the easy stuff. The glamorous stuff everyone always thought of when they thought of a warrior's duties. Robbie's job, the warrior's jobs, weren't always that cut and dried. The warriors bore the grim task of ushering a soul to the Shaman's quarters and then beyond to the bluffs to the hands of death.

Patrick almost refused to let Janine go. He clung to her. Holding her tightly in his trembling arms. He knew Robbie stood outside, waiting patiently for Janine to emerge from the bedroom. Couldn't she give them just another few minutes? Just a few more minutes were all he was asking. He kissed Janine's lips. Containing his sobs behind a quick smile. He held the door open wide and met her eyes, her blue as the sky human eyes, one last time before he found the courage to release her hand. "I love you too," he said as Robbie took Janine by the elbow and led her away.

Patrick rested her forehead on the cold, hard surface of the cold door. The chill permeated every inch of him down to the marrow of his bones. He prayed. He begged. And he promised that not even something as powerful as death would ever part them.

He controlled so little in the grand scheme of his life. Death, although he'd cheated it dozens of times over, was far from under his control. But, if death would grant him this small favor, this one last cheat, no matter if it was in the continuation of life or the delivery of his soul into heaven. How it ended wasn't important. Only that Janine and he could be together when it did was all that mattered.

Chapter 44

John Mark knocked lightly on Patrick's door. Dane stood beside him, his facial expression stern and hard as carved stone. There was work to be done before the grim task hanging over their heads was to begin. The wait, the preparation was perhaps the most difficult part of tonight. The mood at the compound was bleak, as if the brothers were holding a collective breath until tonight was over. Even the air outside was still and charged with energy. The darkness was palpable and alive, oppressive in its lightlessness. The temperatures had plummeted throughout the day and hovered slightly above zero. The ground was barren with the brown of winter. The brothers did their jobs, as they always did. The bonfire was lit and they had gathered around the flames to wait for tonight to begin in silent anticipation for its end.

Patrick stood absolutely still, allowing Dane to draw the ancient spiritual symbols of power on his skin. Dane's fingers were cool against Patrick's cheeks as he traced swirls of brightly pigmented paint across his face. His heart pounded in his chest, thumping against his sternum like a fist pounding desperately and deliberately against a brick wall. Energy from the symbols surged and eddied, crackling over his skin. He'd always tried so hard to be human. Even though he knew he wasn't. Tonight he needed his hunter, that ruthless part of himself that was pure instinct, raw hunger, and emotionless impartiality. Tonight he needed to be the vampire he hid beneath the façade of youth and humanity.

He'd feel it the moment Janine started to slip from his grasp. Her heart would beat faster and faster. Then the muscle would flutter. And then it would stop. The human part of him would never be able to take it that far. He wasn't capable of hurting her. And she would feel his bite. She would remain completely aware until the blood loss took her to the bliss of death. It was up to him to rip her free from that shadowy world between the fully living and the land of the true dead.

Dr. Sterling had tried to explain it dozens of times. Cold, clinical explanations as to what that shadow land place really was. He spouted off facts. That the brain didn't die with the body but lived on for minutes afterwards. And it was during that fragile space that a person could be brought back. Patrick had two minutes, maybe three, to pull Janine out of the shadow land between the living and the dead. She could be brought back after three minutes, but there were risks. And Patrick had seen the results.

The body could be reanimated. But, the soul, the biggest majority of what a person was and who they'd been was lost forever. They were animated shells, driven by instinct and hunger. They were the true undead, not living with functional minds and purpose, but not dead either, aimless, lethal, deranged beings. A soul trapped in a mind and body, suspended in a type of living hell from which there was only one escape, final death.

Thomas was going to be there tonight, on the bluffs with his equipment and gadgets for saving lives. If he failed, if the brothers failed, Thomas would attempt what they could not. He'd try to bring her back. Patrick wouldn't let it get that far. He would never allow Janine to come back as nothing more than a deadly automaton of flesh and bone. He would never be so desperate to keep her that he'd let a vampire without awareness and conscience to live. Neither would the brothers. Patrick had no doubt Thomas would keep his perfect track record of never losing a patient in tact. But, the thing that Thomas would bring back wouldn't be Janine or even a shadow of her. It'd be something foul, something dark and mindless. Something soulless that would not and could not live.

Dane finished his work and clapped Patrick on the shoulder. Patrick was physically here. But, his thoughts were fractured and in a hundred different places at once. There was no need for discussion or reassurances. This wasn't the time for psychobabble. And he was hardly qualified to be a councilor. Tonight was as much a spiritual journey for Patrick as it was a physical journey for Janine. Patrick needed to find that quiet place deep inside himself. He needed to draw on the strength of the goddess and of his brothers and let it flow through him. Bend the inexplicable magic to his will.

Thomas had been experimenting with the magic for years, until Dane caught him and promptly shut him down. Thomas was playing with fire. And although, Dane understood the reasons why, he couldn't allow Thomas to continue his work. Thomas's mother meant everything to him. She was dying. And Thomas believed the blood held some clandestine secret that would save her life. It did. But, it wasn't something that Thomas could extract and manufacture in some lab.

Magic either was or it was not. And its secrets were not for Thomas or humanity to know. People had to die. Nature required her due. To change the natural order of things was to create chaos. Thomas, in his zeal to discover a cure for his mother, had never understood the basic principles of the universe. If Dane had allowed him to continue his work, humanity would have uncovered far more than the fountain of proverbial youth. They would have discovered the truth about the world that coexisted along side theirs, the one hidden in shadows and myth. And the hunter would have become the hunted.

Dane was John Mark's role model. Even now, leading the way to the bluffs, he tried to mimic Dane's stony, emotionless expression. This was part of the job. That was all, just part of the job. His ceremonial blades bounced lightly against his hip with each step. They were well-made, perfectly balanced things of beauty. Fitted for his palm. And tonight, for all the pomp and circumstance, and the wonder of the magic, they weighted him down. If tonight went to shit and a creature awoke in Janine's skin, it was his duty to put aside his personal feelings and end the thing. If that happened, it wouldn't be Janine he was sentencing to death. And it would be what she'd want. Her right.

He tried to remind himself that he was just a hair into his mid-twenties. Way too young for such burdens. And things such as duty sometimes required of him should weigh heavily on his soul. Even by human standards, he was still just a kid. He'd stopped being a kid a long time ago. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday when he'd come to a fork in the road and he'd chosen the course the rest of his life would take. He couldn't imagine where he'd be now, if he'd chosen differently. If he'd chosen to deny the call of the brotherhood and remained exactly as he had been, just plain old grocery boy, John Mark.

He'd killed in self-defense on the battlefield. His steel had tasted blood. But, he'd never executed anyone before. He could tell himself that grim duty was just part of the job. He'd never believe it though. He'd watched the Great Father end a man's life. The Great Father had executed Roark. And John Mark wasn't certain if anyone else saw it, the toll ending someone as deserving as Roark had taken on the Great Father. John Mark had seen the weight of it in the Great Father's eyes. Taking Roark's life had taken a piece of him along with it. And John Mark was certain once that piece was gone. You didn't ever get it back.

Patrick walked beside Dane. He knew the path through the woods by heart. After all, it was his job to know every inch of the woods. It wasn't his ego talking. He was just simply that good at what he did. He was fair with a blade. Ok, with a handgun. He could handle himself quiet well in a fight. But, tracking was what he lived and breathed. The woods were alive tonight, the very air bristling with power and the presence of the goddess.

Whether she was here to take Janine away from him or give her back to him was yet to be seen. The tracker in him was arrogant, so certain in his abilities that the outcome was just a matter of circumstance. There was nowhere in this world or the next that he couldn't find Janine. Nowhere. It was just a matter of how he was going to get there if she crossed to the other side. He eyed the tattoo etched into John Mark's back. His stare wandered over the indigo scrollwork and intricate patterns the Shaman had inked into John Mark's skin.

Just as Patrick had his job to do, so did John Mark. And if he failed to carry it out, Dane would do whatever was necessary to dispense justice. Dane was a good leader. He'd developed the cold detachment so critical to his position. Dane had wanted to kill him once before. He'd demanded justice and he would have gotten it too, if Lucien hadn't stepped in and saved Patrick's life. Patrick didn't hold a grudge against Dane. What was the point? He was only trying to do his duty to the brotherhood. And how could anyone hold that against him?

Patrick wasn't sure Dane or John Mark understood the lengths he was willing to go to, to remain by Janine's side, either in life or in death. They certainly hadn't discussed it. And he hated that he had such high expectations of his brothers. Because, when it came down to it, he expected justice to be doled out. And he'd kill. Demand that the law be followed to the letter. Force John Mark to do his job and carry out his execution. Whatever it took to reunite him with Janine.