Diana Crescent official

Thirteen

            My mother coughed up dirt. She got up out of the unmarked grave, coughed up dirt, then looked around. Her black eyes landed on me. She smiled. “Iris—is that you?”

            I nodded, slowly. “Yes. I’m…mom, it’s me. Are you okay?”

            My mom walked over to me. “I’m so glad I got to see you one last time, honey. That was why I needed Calix to turn me. I knew I was going to die.”

            I walked over to her. I knew I shouldn’t have, considering she was newly turned. I had thought she was gone. I thought I’d lost her. I had to be close to her again. “Mom, why are you talking like that? I’m here. I’m going to give you my blood. Cal is going to turn you. You’ll be fine.”

            Mom shook her head. “No, honey. I don’t want to be a vampire. I only wanted to live long enough to tell you something. The humans that took Nina, they work for your father.”

            I furrowed my brows together. “What?”

            “Your father is part of a group that wants to destroy the secret cities. He’s been trying to get back in here for years to kidnap you girls so he can use you to get into Moon City. He wants to use you as bargaining chips to start a war with the immortals. That was part of why I had Desmond’s father banish him from our home.”

            “But—but—” I stammered. I couldn’t think. “I thought…I thought he’d vanished, or died, or…I didn’t think he was still alive.”

            She shook her head. “No, he’s not dead. I wish he were. He’s exactly why I was hoping that you and your sister would find mates before he managed to find you again. I didn’t want him to try and take you from me.”

            “Why does he want to destroy the secret cities so badly? He lived here. This was his home.”

            “He doesn’t think of immortals as beings’ worth being treated decently. He thinks of them as creatures that need to be controlled. He wants to be the one that controls of them. He was involved in a company that was doing shady things. He’d gotten a job in a lab…. I can’t…” red veins started to pop in her black eyes.

            Her fangs started to push out from her mouth. She paused to sniff the air. “Oh, Iris. Iris, your blood smells so good…so sweet…”

            Calix pulled me away from her. “Come on, Iris. I know you don’t want to see her like this.”

            My mom pulled away. She looked at Desmond. “Don’t make her pay for the sins of her father. Don’t let me hurt her, Desmond.”

            “Mom!” I shouted. “Mom, no!”

            Calix gripped me tightly. I watched as Desmond through his head back, howling, his body morphing from an immortal into a wolf. A wolf that was twice the size of a normal wolf. “Close your eyes, Iris.”

            I closed them. I could hear Desmond’s growl. It filled my ears. There was growling, hissing, and tearing. “No!” I called out. “No, no, no! Mom!”

            Desmond was doing what werewolves were made to do. He was tearing her apart, limb from limb. After, when she was nothing but pieces, Desmond would have to burn her body to make certain that she didn’t try to reanimate.

            The noises stopped. “M-m-mom?” I stammered.

            I felt a hand underneath my chin. “Look at me, Iris. Open your eyes.”

            I opened them. Desmond’s face was covered in blood. Blood that was my mothers. I almost looked behind him where her remains were, torn apart into pieces, but he held on firmly to my chin.

 “Look at me, Iris,” he ordered, “that wasn’t your mother that died. She was already dead. Her soul was no longer in there. Now, I want you to go with Cal back to his apartment. I’ll take care of this.”

I nodded. Dead.

My mother was dead.

My last memory of her was after she had been turned. She hadn’t been human toward the end. It wasn’t a real goodbye. It wasn’t fair. I was shaking, trying to keep myself from crying even more than I already had. My throat was raw from screaming as Desmond had ripped my mother to pieces.

Calix held onto me tightly. “Come on, Iris. I’ll take you home.”

He picked me up, carried me bridal style, and took me to his car, the one we had driven in to get to the cemetery. He slipped me into the front seat. I should have been doing something, I thought. But I had given all that I could give. My mother was gone.

My mother was gone.

My sister was missing.

My father…. I didn’t even want to think about my father. It had only been a day since Desmond came back. A night and a day. He still didn’t know who had tried to kill him. What had I agreed to? I shouldn’t have agreed to anything.

            I should have stayed in my small little world dreaming about making it better.

            Calix was quiet until we got back to the Grey coven loft building. He pulled the car in front of it, then parked. He looked over at me. His expression was as lifeless as mine. “They shot her, Iris. We came out of The Werewolf Center; they’d attacked the whole building. The blood on me—it was from her nearly dying. I knew you’d never look at me again if I didn’t save her. She also begged me to. I saw it on her face. She knew who was attacking.”

            “But someone let them in.” I looked up at him. “Someone knew Desmond had come back. They used it as a chance to let my father’s group in…who would do that? Did you know? About Desmond?”

            Calix shook his head. “I was as shocked as you were. I’d been friends with Desmond because of the close work I’d done with his father in creating the secret cities. When his father died, I continued that work with him. Desmond saved my life and the life of my coven more times than he should have. You, more than anyone, know how complicated things between immortals are.”

            “But you knew my father too.”

            He nodded. “There was a vampire…. we still don’t know who. It was right when your mom was pregnant with you. You had an aunt. Your Dad’s sister. She fell helplessly for this gut. I…I warned her multiple times. She didn’t listen. He had no respect for human life. He didn’t follow The Immortal Accords. But watching those two…it was like the gods were pushing them together. It ended terribly. She died. I think it broke something in your father. He became a recluse, then this group started attacking the official immortal headquarters for the different factions.”

            I squinted. “You can’t possibly mean that terrorist organization they’re always talking about in history class?  Morningstar?”

            Calix hissed. “Be careful saying that name. It tends to summon them.”

            “My father…my father is the founder of Morningstar?”

            Calix was silent for far too long as he struggled to answer my question. That was all of the answer that I needed. “Let’s get you inside. You’ve been in the same dress for nearly two days.”