Running With the Shadows of the Night, chapter 10

I’m glad you came early tonight.

I thought you might like it if I did.

I do. I was looking forward to you coming. Not just for the story.

That’s very sweet of you. Have the nurses been in for your nighttime check?

Yeah. They’re coming more often, though, so they might interrupt us tonight.

We can always pause.

Yeah. I told my mom about you today. I hope that’s okay.

Of course it is. What did she say?

She didn’t believe me. She said she did, but I heard her talking to my day nurse. She says I’m seeing things. Having hallucinations. The nurse said that happens with the medicine I’m on. I told my mom you’ve been coming since before the medicine.

When something’s not part of someone’s experience, they can have trouble believing it.

I’ve decided I won’t talk to my mom about you anymore. It kind of worries her.

You are always so thoughtful of others.

She comes every day now. My mom. She’s taking time off work. She tries not to look scared, but I can tell she is.

And you? How do you feel?

I’m not scared for me. I’d really like to grow up and get to do all the stuff that grownups do. But I’m not afraid if it turns out I don’t get to. I’m scared for my mom, though. What would she do? She’d be so sad.

It’s very hard for the people left behind when someone they love dies.

Does the pain turn to a bruise? Like Silas told Senka?

The memory of someone we have loved very much is both a pain and a source of blessing. Your mother will always love you. If you were to die, she would always grieve for you. And she would always feel lucky that you were her child.

I feel lucky that she’s my mom....Okay, I’m ready to hear about Silas and Luna now. I was worried about them today. Start with what Senka did when Bink told her Silas was attacked. If the story doesn’t mind starting there.

Alright. Here we go.

As soon as she heard Bink’s words, Senka leaped from the floor and out through the roof toward the cemetery, Bink close behind her. Images flashed through her mind: Silas fighting for his existence against some formless monster. Silas wracked and broken. Silas giving up, as he had at the old cabin. Luna bloodless, dead. She shoved the pictures from her mind.

When she reached the cemetery, she lingered just over the treetops, getting a sense of what was going on. From the first glance, she knew that their plans were in tatters. Silas stood among the worn and mottled graves that they had picked out as the battleground for fighting Harou. In one hand he hefted a chunk of broken concrete like a club. It wasn’t Harou facing him, though. It was a dog the size of a grizzly bear, so black it seemed to absorb the light around it. Its eyes glowed red. From where she hovered, she couldn’t see its teeth or claws, but she could hear its growls. Two glowing, ghostly figures dotted the grounds: Ms. Wang and Signore Peluso, moving this way and that, looking for a way to help Silas.

But where was Harou? She couldn’t see him anywhere. “Bink!” she cried. “Where’s the other vampire?” She looked where he pointed. “Goddamnit! What’s he doing on the golf course?” She turned back to Bink. “I have to see what he’s up to. Would you stay here and try to help Silas?”

“Sure thing!” Bink went into a dive and buzzed the hell dog. It paid him no attention, just kept its murderous gaze fixed on Silas. Bink turned and looped back for another go. This time, he hovered above the dog, then came down hard on its back. Or at least, it appeared to be what he tried to do; he went right through the beast and landed on the ground instead. Silas was on his own for now. The ghosts weren’t going to be able to help.

Wrenching herself away, Senka flew into the top of a tree that marked the boundary between the graveyard and the golf course. She peered down at the ancient vampire. He was hunting. She recognized his stealthy posture with a sense of dread. But what is he hunting? she wondered. She scanned the grassy expanse. Several yards away, an adolescent boy, feet too big for his scraggly body, was walking down the middle of the fairway, hands tucked in his pockets and shoulders hunched against the chill. His purple-dyed hair fluttered in the breeze. He was completely oblivious to his danger. As Senka watched, Harou slipped from the shadows and with alarming speed moved toward the boy. Senka tumbled from her hiding place. “No!” she screamed with all her might. Harou stopped, turning to look at her with his infuriating smile. The boy turned, too, but appeared confused. He noticed Harou near him and said, “Did you hear something just now?”

“I did,” Harou answered smoothly. “The wind in the trees, perhaps?”

“Maybe that was it. Or a gull or something.”

“Don’t you fucking touch him!” Senka shouted. “I know you can hear me. Maybe he can’t, but you sure as hell can.”

Harou looked at her and laughed. To the boy he said, “It’s a lovely night for a walk.” The teenager glanced around as if noticing his surroundings for the first time. “Yeah, I guess,” he said. He started to move on, but Harou stopped him. “Don’t go.”

“Leave him alone, Harou!”

The vampire spun to face her, his face twisted with rage. “You dare! You dare to call me by my name?”

“Holy shit!” The kid staggered back a few paces, nearly falling. “What are you talking about, mister?” He continued walking backward, keeping an eye on this mercurial stranger.

Harou turned back to the boy, burying his anger. “Quel dommage.” He stuck out his lower lip in mock sadness. “I had hoped to take my time with you, but the little hiker has spoiled my plans.”

“Look. Sir.” He held his hands defensively in front of himself. “Maybe I can help you. Where do you live? I can help you get back there. You know, to the people taking care of you.”

“Mon petit, you cannot help anyone, not even yourself.” In the blink of an eye, Harou was behind the boy, gripping him so hard he could barely struggle. Shock and fear fought each other for dominance on the boy’s face.

“Don’t. Please.” Senka moved toward Harou, toward the teenager, with no idea what she could do or say to set him free. “I’m sorry if I offended you. Just, please, let the kid go.”

“What will you give me to spare him?”

“S-spare who? What? Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The boy tried to turn his head to see his captor, but Harou gave him a shake. “Tais toi!” Harou commanded. “Shut up. I am not talking to you.” The boy’s eyes grew even wider as he tried to see who else was there.

“What do you want? I don’t have anything to give you.” Senka edged closer.

“But you do, chrie. You have Silas. If my petit monstre does not end Silas first, you can bring him to me. So simple.”

Senka flashed with rage. “I will never, never let you end Silas.”

“Ah, well, you have only yourself to blame.” Harou bared his teeth, his fangs protruded, and he twisted the boy’s head to expose his neck.

“Stop!” she screamed again. “Please, just stop.”

“Why do you care if this boy lives or dies? You do not even know his name.” The boy was shaking in terror.

“He’s just a child. A total innocent. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Sir?” The boy could barely produce a whisper. “Are you gonna kill me?”

“Ah, petit. You are going to have a very special death. You are going to be killed by a vampire. How many of your friends can claim that, hm?”

A roar of anger and pain came from the cemetery. Senka and Harou both turned toward the noise, unable to tell which of the combatants had made it. Feeling the hold on him loosen, the boy tried to pull away. Harou tightened his grip so hard that the sound of the boy’s ribs cracking reached Senka. The boy screamed in pain. Without thinking, Senka rushed Harou and drove a fist into his face. Harou’s head snapped back, but he kept hold of his victim. With a snarl of hatred, looking directly into Senka’s eyes, Harou gave the boy’s head a vicious twist, breaking his neck. Senka screamed with rage and anguish. “Et voilà,” the vampire spat. “Félicitations. Thanks to you, this child is dead.” He let the boy fall and walked away toward the cemetery. Senka bent down next to the body. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I tried.” She looked around, hoping to see the teenage ghost, but the fairway was empty.

Bink was at her shoulder. “Aw, dude. Poor kid,” he said, looking down at the body of the teen. “Yo, Senka, that Harlow guy or whatever, he’s back. I don’t think Silas can handle both of them.”

Senka stood and gripped Bink’s arm. “Can you take this boy to the cottage, Bink? I don’t want anything getting to him, you know?”

“Dude, I’ve seen raccoons rip into a deer carcass. I got your boy, here.” Senka didn’t wait to see him go. She leaped into the air and flew back to the cemetery.

The creature Silas was fighting was no longer a dog. The only part of it that remained the same was its blazing red eyes. An enormous baboon reached out a hand the size of a searchlight and swatted Silas, sending him flying through the air to smash into a tree. Bark showered around him as he fell. The baboon advanced, teeth bared, its tail lashing. Senka saw that the tail was a twisting snake, mouth open, searching for something to sink its fangs into. Broken branches, scarred trees, cracked and fallen gravestones spoke to the violence of the battle that had been raging. The glowing figures of the ghosts still moved on the edges of the battleground. Having realized they had no effect on the creature, they were doing what they could to aid Silas, shouting encouraging words or handing him stones or fallen branches to use as weapons. Now, Ms. Wang helped Silas to his feet.

Harou was closing in. Senka dove. At the last minute, she drew the shadows around herself to become as dense as she could. She slammed into Harou, tumbling and somersaulting until she came to a stop in the grass. She clambered to her feet and turned to face him. She had knocked him to the ground! She caught the look of surprise on his face just before he hid it. “Ah, la petite randonneuse has learned a trick or two since I last saw her.”

“You don’t know the half of it, asshole!”

“Très bien. You knocked me down.” He clapped, sneering, and started again towards Silas.

“Hey, Harou!” As she hoped, he turned back to her with a snarl. “How come you need your buddy there to do your fighting for you? Are you too weak and old to win your own battles?”

“Ma petite! You do not honestly think that I have existed this long by falling for schoolyard taunts? Mais, non! Watching Silas fight my friend is exciting. One can see how our indigène clings to his existence as he never did before. Is that because of you?” His eyes seemed to ravage Senka. “Mais, c’est délicieux! That will make his destruction so much more satisfying.”

“You won’t end him. I won’t let you.” An earsplitting crash caused them both to turn and look. Silas was pulling himself from the fragments of a stone ledger that, until moments before, had covered one of the oldest graves. Lights went on in the apartment building on the far edge of the cemetery. Don’t let the people come out, Senka thought. We don’t need anyone else dying tonight.

“You won’t ‘let me’ end him?” As he had just days before, he began to circle her. “Chérie, you still do not know who you are talking to. When I was first made, the Savoys were new to the Château de Chillon. I sat in a window with the little daughter of Count Humbert looking out on Lac Léman. Oh, le comte pitoyable! He always believed the little girl had fallen into the lake and drowned. Do you know how old that makes me?”

Senka glanced in Silas’ direction and saw that the creature had changed once more. A horse-sized rat lumbered among the gravestones. She looked frantically for Silas and saw him leaning against a tree, hiding from his adversary. Even at that distance, she could see he was covered in blood. She didn’t think it was rat blood. I have to help him somehow, she thought, more than just keeping this asshole distracted. A vicious blow caught her in the back of the neck. She collapsed. Harou stood over her. “I am nearly one thousand years old, putain stupide. I choose to end Silas. I will end Silas.” His booted foot smacked into her stomach, lifted her from the ground, and sent her tumbling through the air. She landed hard in the grass and slid, coming to a stop against a bush. She opened her eyes and was face-to-face with Luna, hiding deep inside the foliage, his wide, terrified eyes glistening green in the moonlight. “Just stay there!” she whispered to him.

She needed to get to the old grave where they’d practiced with the spiked vases. There was no way she could win against Harou in hand-to-hand combat. But she couldn’t just stroll over there without tipping him off that she was trying to reach something. He was far too savvy. She got to her feet again and, making sure he saw her, charged at Harou. He side-stepped her and struck her in the back. She used the force of the blow to carry her to the old graves.

The vases were gone. Could they have been broken in Silas’ fight? With rising panic, she looked from grave to grave. Everything was gone: the dead flowers, the pinwheels, even the ragged weeds and overgrown grass. Of course the groundskeepers had chosen today to clean the place up. She clutched at a headstone, dizzy with hopelessness.

Gentle hands steadied her. Signore Peluso. The kindly bear of a man was looking at her, distress written clearly in his eyes. A half-formed idea flashed through her mind. She leaned into him. “Signore, is there anything sharp in the groundskeeper’s shed?”

“Che cosa? What ees ‘sharp’?”

“Oh, god. Um…sharp…acuminatus? Acuto? Like a knife!”

“Ah! Knife. Sí. Affilato. I look.”

“Give it to Silas. You understand?”

“Silas. Sí!” He flew off. Senka glanced back at Harou. He was taking in the battle, the blood that covered Silas, the creature—now a snarling jackal—with smug pleasure. Senka walked towards Harou, her hands empty. She thought, At least I can still distract him, but how the hell am I going to stake him without a stake? To buy time, she made herself insubstantial. Harou’s next blow went through her like a missile through a cloud. He raised an eyebrow. “Très intéressante. You are very interesting. You take blows when you do not have to. This makes me wonder why. Ah, you are trying to keep me from Silas, is that not so?” Senka scanned the ground, looking for something, anything, to use as a stake.

Harou walked through her without a backward glance. The shock of it left her weak. It felt as though she had been filled with meat that crawled with maggots. The twisting, turning, writhing of them poisoned her. She struggled to focus on him. Suddenly, Ms. Wang appeared in front of him. Harou stopped, nonplussed by the petite old ghost who stood before him. Senka couldn’t hear the words that passed between them over the noise of the creature’s snarls, but she could see the perplexed expression on Harou’s face. Ms. Wang’s was alight with a wide, kindly smile. Senka thought, What the heck is she doing?

Signore Peluso was back. “I find.” He made a slashing movement. “L’ho dato a Silas.” At first, Senka couldn’t see Silas, then spotted him standing near an obelisk-like monument. As she watched, he stepped clear of the monument and stood squarely before the monstrous jackal. In his hands was a machete as long as a broadsword. The creature howled once more, its red eyes burning. It crouched, ready to spring. Before it could, Silas bolted towards it, raising the machete as he ran. With a mighty swing, he buried the blade in the monster’s neck. The jackal staggered but didn’t fall. Blood sprayed from the wound, steaming where it hit the ground. Wrenching the blade free, Silas pulled it back and swung again with all his strength. As it hit the beast’s spine, severing it, the weapon exploded into flying fragments of metal. The jackal fell at Silas’ feet, its head hanging by a shredded strip of skin. An eerie silence fell across the cemetery. The blood pooling around the dead jackal steamed, then the body itself began to boil. The skin seethed and as the bubbles burst, they let loose a noxious smell of pollution and putrefaction. The corpse liquified and oozed into the ground, and with a choking gurgle, it was gone.

“Ah, mon fils, you have fought well.” Harou calmly pushed Ms. Wang out of his way and stood facing Silas, who sagged with fatigue. “You always were un guerrier magnifique, a great warrior. You and your sister, both of you. Ah, but she was a formidable vampire. You, on the other hand, si triste. You could not conquer your compassion.”

Harou was too close to Silas, too fast. Senka would never reach him before he reached Silas, and even if she could, she had no weapon. She moved toward Silas. At least she could be near when his Maker ended him.

“She helped me, you know. Aguya.” Silas’ voice was raw, his hatred for Harou clear in every syllable. “We plotted together to save that boy. You never knew that, did you? She rescued others, too, over the years you were together. She wrote to me. She told me how you thought she loved you. She hated you as much as I. She only feared you more.”

All pretense of Harou’s urbanity, his carefree confidence vanished. He showed himself for the vicious, feral creature he was. He snarled, revealing dripping fangs, and raised his hands, now tipped with razor-sharp claws. This was the end. She was about to lose Silas. Anguish welled inside her.

At the edge of her vision, she saw an orange streak in the darkness. Before her conscious mind registered what it was, something deep within her knew. Silas must have seen it, too, because at the same moment, they both cried out, “Luna, no!” The cat didn’t pause. He reached Harou and clawed up the vampire’s leg to his back. Harou twisted and turned, trying to lay hold of his tormentor. Luna sank his teeth into his prey’s neck, aiming to sever the spinal cord. It would have worked with a rat or a vole; it doubtless had on hundreds of occasions. But the ancient vampire reached back and grabbed Luna’s head, roughly yanked his teeth and claws from the flesh, and flung him hard against a gravestone. The little cat hit with a sickening sound and lay still.

Senka howled. Pain, rage, desperation robbed her of words. With no idea of her next move, she started towards Harou. Through the haze of roiling emotions, she heard Silas call her name. “Here!” he shouted and threw a dark object toward her. It turned end over end, now glinting in the moonlight, now dark as night. She snatched it from the air, glanced at it, then ran at Harou. Harou grinned with the anticipation of ending Silas for good. As Senka neared him, the evil creature reached to grab her as he had Luna and toss her out of the way, but Senka took flight, spun over his head like an eddy of fog, landed behind him, and drove the jagged handle of the machete through his back. There was a sound like the crunching of a thousand November leaves. It was the most satisfying sound Senka had ever heard.

For a moment, everything stopped. Then, like a detonation, Harou exploded in a cloud of ashes. They hung in the air for an instant until a gust of wind picked them up and carried them away.

Senka and Silas could never remember going to Luna. They were just there, cradling his body between them. He looked up at them and began to purr. “Oh, little one, little cat,” Senka whispered. A tear fell onto his fur, and she carefully wiped it off. Silas tenderly stroked his forehead in the spot that Luna loved. “You are brave and valiant. Were it not for you, Harou—” His voice broke and he couldn’t go on. Senka finished for him: “Were it not for you, Harou, may his name be erased, would have taken Silas from us.” The vibrations of Luna’s purr rumbled through the three of them. He blinked slowly. “Yes, little one,” Senka answered. “We love you, too.” Silas leaned down and kissed his head. Senka followed suit, inhaling the smell of his fragrant fur. Luna sighed, and his deep purrs went silent. The ghost and the vampire stood for a long time, forehead to forehead, mourning their companion.

At last, Ms. Wang stood beside them, a hand on each of their backs. “I am sorry, my dears, so sorry for your loss. Weren’t you fortunate to have had all of the love he gave you!” She smiled up at them both. Silas cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, his voice thick with tears, “we were.”

“Ms. Wang?” Senka stopped and looked at Silas. “If you don’t like this, tell me. But I just thought…Ms. Wang, would you mind if we buried Luna here? With you?” She looked again at Silas who nodded his agreement.

“I would be honored.”

They borrowed tools from the groundskeeper’s shed and dug a tiny grave, placing Luna’s body into it on a bed of soft grass and fragrant pine needles. Ms. Wang, Signore Peluso, Bink, Silas, and Senka shared a moment of silence, then Silas filled in the dirt and replaced the turf, doing his best to hide the fact that the earth had been disturbed.

They were just finishing when a voice called out, “Excuse me! Sir?” They looked up to see a man picking his way toward them through the dew-damp grass, his slippers flapping and his robe sash fluttering in the breeze. “Hey, excuse me. Christ, it’s cold out here! Hey, did you hear all that racket earlier? It sounded like a tree fell or something. Maybe a whole forest of ‘em.” He tried to peer into the darkness. “Christ, I can’t see a goddamn thing out here. They really should add more lighting.”

“It was a biker gang.” Power rippled out from Silas, and the man reacted instantly.

“It was a biker gang. Did you hear them?”

“You saw the whole thing.” Another wave.

“I saw the whole thing. It was crazy.”

“Go back to bed and call the police in the morning.”

“I’m gonna go back to bed and call the police in the morning when it’s not so dark. Thanks, man. G’night!” He flapped off back to his apartment, waving over his shoulder as he went.

“A biker gang?” Senka asked.

“I’ve never been fond of them. They’re too noisy.”

They sat wearily on Ms. Wang’s wall, the old ghost next to Senka, Signore Peluso next to Silas, Bink on the grass in front. High up in a Monterey Pine, a great horned owl called, helping to restore the battlefield to a place of natural beauty. After a long period of companionable silence, Bink spoke. “You guys were hella awesome tonight. I mean, like, total samurai or some shit.” There was a murmur of agreement from Ms. Wang. “Like, Senka, dude! The way you did that flip over the bad guy’s head. That was gnarly! And Silas, holy shit, dude! You can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’!”

Silas laughed, Senka understood, in spite of his aching loss. She suddenly remembered and said, “Ms. Wang? What did you say to the ‘bad guy.’”

“Oh! I asked the same question my husband asked every man he met.”

“Which was?”

“Whether he could dance the tango.”

Senka glanced at Silas who clearly understood Ms. Wang’s response no better than she did. “Why did he ask that?”

“Well, dear, my Edgar always said that a man who could dance the tango had energy, passion, and didn’t mind looking like a dag-blasted idiot. A man who couldn’t dance the tango was not a man to be trusted.”

“And you were trying to see if Ha—if the bad guy could be trusted?”

“Oh, no! I was trying to distract him if I could.” Ms. Wang folded her hands in her lap. “It’s such a surprising question it’s hard to ignore. And it worked,” she added with a shrug.

Signore Peluso had been leaning out around Silas to see Ms. Wang as she spoke. In a heavy accent, he said, “That was a good think.” A wide smile parted his beard.

Ms. Wang smiled shyly. “I’ve been teaching Signore Peluso to speak English, you know.”

“Aw, man.” Bink shook himself like a wet dog. “That was a lot of excitement for one night. Silas, I’m hella glad you didn’t get ended. Congrats on killing the dog-thing. Senka, you rock, my dude.”

Silas stood. “Bink, thank you for your help tonight.”

“No prob!” He waved a salute to the others. “Laters, all, I’m outta here.”

Silas turned. “Ms. Wang, Signore Peluso, I would not be here still were it not for your help. Thank you. Grazie per l’aiuto.”

“Tu parli Italiano?”

“Certo!”

Signore Peluso clapped his hands in delight. He was clearly ready to launch into a prolonged conversation but stopped himself. Instead he said, “Forse possiamo parlare domani.”

“Yes,” Silas replied, “tomorrow. I’d like that.”

Signore Peluso and Ms. Wang shared a look. She patted Senka on the arm, Silas on the shoulder. The two ghosts walked off, arm in arm.

Silas and Senka were alone. He sat down next to her, and she reached for his hand, their fingers entwining. For a long while, they simply appreciated being together. They listened to the foghorn’s mournful wail across the bay. Finally, Silas spoke. “For over two hundred years, my existence has been unchanging. I have been hunted, lonely, rootless. My only true companions have been the Lunas, always gone too soon. In less than two weeks, I am free, I have a home, and I have met someone I would like to spend eternity with, if you are willing.”

“I am willing.” Senka leaned into him, enjoying the feeling of his arm pressed against hers, the pine-y smell of him, the tickle of his curls on her forehead. Eventually, she asked, “Will you tell me about your battle? I didn’t see much. I liked the last part of it, though.”

“I will, in time. Not now, if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course.” She looked at the debris around them. “Do we need to do something about all this? The broken gravestones. And the trees.”

“There is little we can do. I have no power to mend stone or wood. If any broken gravestones belong to our friends, I think they have forgiven us. The rest, I’m afraid, is up to the groundskeepers.”

“Of course they’ve forgiven us. It was the monster’s fault.”

“The monster. It was a transmogrifier.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Some cultures call it a shapeshifter.”

“Aren’t shapeshifters human?”

“It may have been, at one point. Before it met…the one whose name will be erased.”

“What an awful thought.”

“Yes. I feared that it would take on its human form when it died. The cowardly part of me didn’t want to face that.”

Senka sat up. “You are not a coward, Silas. Anything but. Your compassion doesn’t make you weak. It doesn’t make you a bad vampire any more than it made you a bad human. It’s much easier to cast judgment than to find compassion. The bad guy didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Silas smiled at her passionate tone. “I would wager all I have that you know how to dance the tango.”

“You better believe it, buddy!” She leaned in to kiss him, then stopped and pulled back to look him up and down. “Oh, wow! You’re a mess! I was only thinking that you’re still here, he didn’t end you. Are you hurt?”

“I was, but all the wounds have healed. I need to rest and eat. And bathe. And change my clothes.”

“Speaking of eating, how did he find us here so fast? You thought it would take at least a week for him to hear about the dead deer.”

“It has been a long time since I was careless enough that he found me through news stories. I neglected to calculate the speed of internet news alerts. It was nearly a fatal miscalculation.”

“But you’re here, and he’s not. The sky is lightening. Want to go back to the cottage?” A realization hit her in the pit of the stomach. “It will feel so empty without Luna.”

“Yes, it will. He was a brave cat.”

“Luna 23. As Stan would say, ‘May his memory be a blessing.’” They stood and, hand in hand, started to walk out of the cemetery.

“Now we can turn our attention to Kenny.”

Senka suddenly stopped, a horrified look on her face. “Oh, shit,” she said.

Silas was instantly on alert. “What is it?”

“Oh, Silas.” She turned to him and grasped both hands. “Something bad happened.”

“I know.”

“Something else. Har—the fucking bad guy? He…when I first got here tonight, he…he killed a young boy. A teenager. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t.” Silas looked stricken. “I asked Bink to move him somewhere safe. He’s…Silas, he’s in the cottage.”

“Oh, good heavens.” He looked towards the cottage and back at Senka in consternation.

“There isn’t a tour today, is there?”

“No. At least that’s good. But, Senka, what are we going to do with him? He can’t simply disappear. His family will be beside themselves.”

“I know. I have kind of an idea. It’s not fully formed, but let’s go back to the cottage and see if we can figure something out.”

Are you stopping there for tonight?

Yes.

I thought so. Can we talk about Luna?

Of course.

I liked him. I’m sad he got killed.

Me, too.

But his memory is a blessing. Like you said before.

Oh, yes.

I’m trying to figure something out. I’m not really sure how to explain it.

Try me.

Okay, like, I’m sad that Luna died. I really didn’t want Silas to be ended. But, and maybe this is bad to say, but I was happy when Senka staked the guy whose name we’re gonna erase.

Are you saying that death can make us sad sometimes and glad at others?

Yeah.

What makes the difference, do you think?

How they are. You know, the things they do.

I see. What the beings are like in life and after it, if they go on. How they behave to others, how they carry themselves through the world.

Yeah, like that. This whole death thing is super complicated, isn’t it?

Oh, yes. It definitely is. We’re not going to solve all of death’s questions tonight. Are you ready to get some sleep?

Yep.

Sleep well.

I think I will.

__________

Continue to chapter 11