Through Love, Burning Fire is Pleasing Light

Every night at midnight, the purple clouds came out to dance with the blushing sky.

The warmth pulsates from the cornucopia of colors above, offering the most perfect of weather year-round. The slight breeze that wafted across the city was scented of lavender though deeper, more maudlin scent clings to the calm.

It is my favorite time of night.

Ten miles to the south, lightning rains down on fields of gems and relics, powering contraptions of science and magick that fostered their growth for the sister cities straddling the river. Like so much of the world, those storms were corralled and I would only be able to appreciate them from afar. Pity, since they’d be perfect for me now.

I stand atop the Regal Hotel, the highest point of Covington proper, with the 108 cards of my King’s Cross deck splayed around me like flower petals. Each card thrums with its own power, taking in the invisible energy that spatter the clouds with its purple light. It will take another ten minutes for the entire deck to recharge, hence I stand in place, admiring the brilliant lights of the city and its sister on the other side of the river—Cincinnati—pulsating with their own unique energies.

“Thought I’d find ye here,” a familiar voice croons. My answering sigh is more out of reflex than exasperation or disappointment. I pull a cigar from my duster pocket and slid it between my lips.

“What do you want, Gillian?” My once lover, sometimes partner, and everything in between, stops just far enough away from the cards not to interfere with their absorption of energies. It has been more than a year since we’ve spoken, at least twice as long since I’ve seen her and I can’t help the quickening of my heart at her presence. Not wanting to give her the satisfaction, I sneak a peek at her. She’s dressed in her usual attire—black leather jacket with matte black boots and dark camouflage BDUs. A black beanie that hides most of her auburn mane completes the ensemble. Patches of dirt seemed to be everywhere which, is a surprise considering how elegant she tends to be. More curious than that is her vibe. Gillian has always been bigger-than-life, a force-of-nature that has nothing to do with her being an Elemental. But tonight, something is off. She seems…deflated.

“You look like you’re ready to rob a bank,” I mutter and light the cigar with a tap of my index finger. “Remember that the jewels are always your best bet.”

“Too true,” she says and crosses her arms. “Specially since these dopes think virtual currency is the way to go. So glad our little corner of the world knows better than that.”

I take a deep drag of the cigar and puff out a cloud of smoke. Throwing a bit of will into the smoke, I transform it into a most indecent shape to describe my feelings for much of the human world. Gillian laughs.

“They are that, boyo.” Pulling the cigar from my lips, I float it over to her. She snatches it out of the air with a heavily taped hand and takes several puffs. It gives me the chance to really look at her. She’s more than just a bit disheveled. Her face is covered with bruises and patches of dried blood spattered across her outfit. Not sure how I didn’t smell that until now; of course, I didn’t sense Gillian until she spoke.

She makes a disgusted sound and drops the remnants of the cigar, smashing it under her heal. “It’s not that serious, Morgan,” she started and coughed into her hand. She glanced at her palm for a second before wiping it on her pants.

“Gill…”

“No need for you to be a Mother Hen, dear boy,” she mutters and blows a stray hair out of her eyes. “Had a little disagreement with a Jotun and his Einherjar cronies. It’ll burn away soon enough.”

I let the matter drop and instead ask, “So what made you decide to pay me a visit after all these years?”

Gillian is rather well known for her glare and she gives it her best. Eyes the color of summer grass burn into me but I don’t look away. Gillian drops the gaze first and it’s then I know something is truly wrong.

"Gill,” I say and she wipes something from her eyes. I refuse to believe it’s what I think. I want to move but glance down at my cards. The deck is nearly charged. Another few minutes.

“Can you meet me somewhere?”

“Where?”

She glances up at the sky. A sickly greenish glow flashes behind the engorged purple clouds. The hairs on my neck stand up but I focus on Gillian.

“I love nights like this. That lavender breeze is so comforting. I just wish we’d get a Fae Rain. The way they feel across your skin. Like silk rain…”

“Gillian.” I am forceful this time and her glazed eyes refocus on me. “Where?”

She tells me and a shard of ice forms in my belly.

“I don’t have a way there.”

She cocks her head and gestures to the river. I follow her gaze. A half dozen people sit atop the waters and are carried forward by evenly arced waves. My face must say everything as she guffaws. For one short moment, I think everything is going to be okay.

“I’m not taking a damn river horse, Gill.”

She rolls her eyes before digging in her pocket and flicking a platinum coin at me. I catch it and slide it between my fingers. Its magick pulsates against my fingers.

“Where’d you get one of these?”

She offers me a Gallic shrug. “I know a guy who knows a guy. Join me when you can.”

Without waiting for me, my friend disappears into a torrent of flame. Reds and oranges lick at one another though it’s that angry blue in the center that draws my attention. I’ve never seen it before and I’m instantly wary…before I can ask, she lifts from the roof, and scorch in the concrete marking where she’d been. Without warning, she shoots into the air, a comet of living flame.

When my cards finish charging, I hold out a hand and whisper in a long dead language. They gather in my hands as if on a string. I split the deck into quarters, placing them in four different pockets before tossing the coin on the ground. Another whispered word and it expands into a discus wide enough for me to sit or stand in relative comfort. I choose to stand.

Closing my eyes, my mind connects with this wondrous design of magic and technology. It lifts higher and higher and when it rises fifty feet above the building, I find Gillian’s trail and the discus shoots off towards her.

++

By the time I set down on the grassy hill, Gillian has already made herself comfortable. Her beanie jacket and boots lay in a pile with her pants nearly rolled up to her ankles. Out here the clouds are more violet than purple, and the yellowed glow of the moon shines through patches in the night sky. A basil of drakes soar through the air, their massive size making them seem closer to us than they are.

I step off the discus, picking it up when it morphs back into its coin-size. I make my way up the hill and frown. Gillian’s black tank shows of her sculpted arms and other—assets. But it’s the cracks in her skin, cracks that bleed blue like that draw my concern.

I stop an arm’s length away and take a knee. It’s not but a few seconds before I’m sweating from the heat. It beats off her like an oven. Her usually pale skin is an angry red; something I would have called an impossibility if it wasn’t right in front of me.

“Gill…”

“Did I ever tell you the first time I Enveloped?” She takes my silence for a no and continues. “I was nine, maybe ten. As the youngest, I had already seen my brothers and sisters Envelop and all I wanted to do was to join them; to be able to fly like the birds and fairies and dragons. Every day I was out there, watching the other Elementals of fire embrace their heritage. There were even a few kids, not many mind you, younger than me that had been graced the ability. Having to wait was so frustrating.”

She looks over at me and smiles. Despite reverting back to human form, her eyes had not. There it was, that angry blue color, dancing in her eye sockets like a devil that knows it’s won.

“It’s not the same for Aberrants, is it?”

I sigh, trying to hold it the dread that threatens to constrict my throat. “No.” The word comes out in a croak and a clear my throat. “No,” I repeat. “As an Elemental, you know what you will become. An Aberrant? It can be like hair color in some families: sometimes every gets something, sometimes only one person gets something. And the manifestation varies wildly. I was twelve when my Aberrance manifested. I’ve known people who were six or seven when it happened. Others were in their thirties.”

Gillian turns her gaze back to the night sky, nodding my confirmation. “I was never the most patient of souls…” She cuts a look at me and stabs a finger in my face in warning. I hold up my hand and mimic zipping my lips shut. That elicits a true smile from her. “And the more I tried, the more of a pain I became to everyone.

“One day, my father sat me down and explained how, in life, the earlier the manifestation—not just with Elementals or Aberrants, but even with creation—the more apt something is to flame out early.”

“’Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse’”. On her questioning look, I say, “It’s a quote from a famous actor a few centuries ago.”

“And what happened to him?” I give her a level look. “So my dad was right.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes before I gather the courage to ask. “What is this about, Gill?”

“Once we reach maturity, Elementals don’t age—”

“I know,” I say, “It’s why you look like a perpetual 25-year-old.”

“—but,” she continues as if I hadn’t spoken, “there are rare occasions where the energy buildup within us mutates. In the short-term, we become more powerful, more durable. But long-term? Our bodies break down and are unable to contain the massing energy.”

I had read stories about this. How some of the greatest disasters in human history were caused by this rare occurrence. The eruption of Krakatoa in the late 1800s had been one such occurrence. I look over at Gillian and my heart breaks. She has been in my life for nearly three decades. The thought of living the next hundred years or so without someone I knew would outlive me is soul crushing.

My particular talent of Aberrance—channeling the mystical energies that flow between all living things—requires a mastery of control, particularly the emotional. The life I chose, to resist those that would turn this beautiful world into a hell, has had me watch dozens of close friends die, some in the most horrible of ways. I shed tears for them but always when that release of energy could be bottled up, captured and put into something that would further help me in my fight. It seems callous, cold, calculating, but all necessary.

Now, as I sit next to a woman that has been so much to me for the better part of my life in a place sacred to us for many reasons, I feel that proper mask of control fraying at the edges. Gillian brings a finger to my face and I wince when it touches my skin. A tear I didn’t know I shed evaporates with the heat. My body wars between burning from without and freezing from within.

“How long?” I finally ask and curse the break in my voice.

“Days. Maybe less.”

Something wet slides along my palms and I look down at the blood that slips between my balled fists, a product of digging my nails into my flesh.

I try to calm myself but find it difficult to breathe. “So…this is goodbye.”

Perhaps not trusting her own voice, she nods. After a few minutes, she says, “After tonight, I’m going to return home, back to the islands. My parents are still there, and they await to put their daughter to rest.”

That last part is said with such matter-of-factness that I want to scream. I want to rage, to let loose all the pain and anger inside, everything I’ve kept under control for these thirty plus year into a cascade of raw emotion. It’s overwhelming…

Gillian lays a gentle hand on my forearm. Even through the leather duster, I feel the heat. As the leather melts, I know my skin will bear the mark just as I know I will always keep it as a reminder.

“My parents always taught me to live with no regrets and I must say that I’ve done my best to do just that.” She expels a heated breath and I watch as tears of blue flame crawl down her cheeks. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three years searching for a way—any way—to reverse this. I wanted to live as all life does, to experience the centuries as my parents have, as my ancestors have. But fate has deemed these 83 years as enough. 83! That is paltry even by human standards. I want to say it’s not fair. That, with this power coursing through me, I could do so much good, I could help so many people…

“I could help you.”

I can’t look at her. My control is holding on by mere fingertips now.

“I don’t regret trying to find the answers but…what I do regret is not asking you to be by my side these last few years.” She whispers my name several times before I finally look at her. My pain is mirrored on her face and, by her gaze, hers on mine.

“I have never loved anyone as completely and as fully as I have you, Morgan. Even when we were fighting against each other, I knew something was between us. It’s in everything that we’ve ever done together. Been to one another. You’re more than a friend or lover, Morgan. You’re my other half and…and it breaks my heart that I’m leaving you to continue the fight and not be by your side.”

Gillian’s control breaks first and her tears are followed by wracking sobs of despair. Without thinking, I pull her into my arms. I grunt in pain and she tries to pull away but I hold her fast. We stay like that for hours, the love we share communicated by breath, by tears, by an unyielding embrace. The physical part of me wants to kiss her, to love her one last time, damn the pain, but that deeper part of me understands that this is far more than a physical union. It’s one of the spirit. Of the soul. Of the energies that have always been and will always be.

She pulls away from me just enough to look me in the eyes. We spend another hour like that, not looking away as the crackling green energies of a new day race across the sky. When she finally pulls me up to stand with her, my body groans at the lost contact. This is goodbye. Neither of us speak as words would only taint the moment. Instead, she presses her lips to mine oh so gently, never breaking eye contact. I don’t even feel the heat as our lips touch but an avalanche of frost descends when she steps away from me. Her smile, though pained, encompasses everything we ever meant together.

When the flames envelop her this time, they are almost all blue. She rises up again, her arms outstretched in the way of the Nazarene, and shoots off into the air.

I watch for a long time as she disappears over the horizon.

And even then, when all traces of her are gone, I still watch.