84. Veni, Vidi, Vici

Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I wanna take ya

🎶

Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama

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Key Largo, Montego

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Baby why don’t we go

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Jamaica

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Off the Florida Keys

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There’s a place called Kokomo

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That’s where you wanna go

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To get away from it all…

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“Yeah? […] Yes, I’m realizing we were sent here for a reason, god. We we just about ready to… […] Two weeks, two months, who cares?! […] Yeah, fine. Fine.”

As soon as he’d hung up he turned to Cai. “Gotta get to work,” he spoke apologetically.

***

“Are you ready to gasp in wonder at what you’re about to see?” Mateo asked Morgyn, inching closer to him. They were standing near the secret base, inside the crater… Morgyn just looked at him.

“I highly doubt I’ll be gasping with wonder, but sure. Surprise me.”

“Eh?!” He said a little bit later, once they’d gotten to the laboratory.

Morgyn had to admit: it looked pretty cool. It definitely wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before—which was becoming more of a rarity with every decade he gained. And so, partially also to satisfy an increasingly enthusiastic Mateo, he cracked a smile and gazed at him. “It’s pretty impressive,” he conceded.

“Right!” Mateo called back immediately. “Try super impressive! It’s cool, isn’t it?”

“Very cool,” Morgyn answered dryly.

“And we haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!”

“Wow.” This time, Morgyn wasn’t just trying to please Mateo: he was actually impressed. In all the centuries he’d been alive, he’d never quite seen anything like… this. “Now there’s a sight you don’t see every day.”

“Right!” Mateo echoed. Stared up at the Mother with a look that could almost be described as love… almost. He still hadn’t forgotten about the Infection Incident he’d had with her.

“You know… we could bring down the weirdness I notch…” Mateo started. The reluctance was more than visible in his voice.

Morgyn considered his words. “I guess so. Or…”

They both smiled mischievously.

When the phone rang a few hours later, Mateo grudgingly answered it. “Minerva! Yeah, we’re doing just fine here. Got Her all under control, we do… […] Sure, we’re ready. Where do you need us?”

***

“So… how long have you been on Earth?” Tika asked the woman next to him, whom he hadn’t seen since he was just a boy, at the very least.

The woman shrugged. “Ah, you know. It’s more of a holiday spot, really. It’s nice for vacations.”

She laughed—they joined in.

“Earth been any good on you two?”

Cortez and Tika looked at each other… and shrugged. “Can’t really complain,” Tika finally uttered, and Cortez agreed.

“Sure been better than Sixam of late.”

The woman sighed. “Yeah… that’s for sure.”

They were totally going to tell her all about their mission… but, come on, Minerva couldn’t expect them to not catch up after years of no contact at all.

Three weeks later it was Minerva herself who had finally resigned to the fact that they were not going to call her and that it was on her… again. By this time, she was getting frustrated alright.

***

It was at least another week later that they finally managed to get together, with all of them. Finally, their ‘hard’ work had paid off, and it was time. James, Minerva told them, had last been spotted in Forgotten Hollow—based on the last lightning channel indications. It was the first time they’d spotted him in weeks, she added, and so they couldn’t really pass up on this chance.

Mateo groaned. “Forgotten Hollow… really? Of all places…”

Angelico shot him a look. “He’s a fucking vampire. Where else did you think it’d be?”

“There’s a good chance he knows we’re onto him,” Minerva felt the need to add—looking them over pointedly. “So be on your guard… and, most importantly, do not underestimate him. Don’t fight him alone—none of you would win.”

She curled her lips into a smile, then, after the warnings were all over with. “Now, are we ready?”

Her enthusiasm was met with three grudging, grumbling noises.

“Good.”

Minerva turned around and walked off. The others followed her, their strides not nearly as confident as hers was—instead, they more or less slugged behind her, hazarding the occasional glance at their phones to calculate how long this might take… and whether they could perhaps still hope to be home in time for dinner.

***

Some two hours had passed—and Minerva, who had claimed she would be able to sense James’ energy in no-time, was still searching. Her confident smile had long since left her face, with an increasingly frustrated grimace replacing it. They looked…

And looked…

And still looked…

Still looking…

Watching Minerva’s anger grow, the rest of the gang wisely decided not to comment on the amount of time that had passed versus what they had been promised.

Minerva was just about ready to give up when finally, one of the vampires, whose speed had been benefiting them in their search, found something.

---

Maricela heard the gentle kneading of untouched snow as she moved her feet over the path in front of her. Apart from the occasional crow, the town was silent. Keeping her attention focused on the path before her, she walked on, tired but determined.

Finally, when she felt certain of the presence she felt around her, she stopped. She stood and stared for a moment, until she made up her mind and broke the silence by calling out. A few offended birds in nearby trees flew away immediately as she did.

“I know you’re here, James.”

When the fluttering of wings ceased, the silence returned. For a good long while nothing happened. Maricela looked around her, but she couldn’t see anything.

Then, finally, he made his presence known.

Maricela had to be honest: at first, she couldn’t quite hide her shock. Or, well… was it really shock? She preferred to call it startle. She’d known to prepare for the worst, based on Minerva’s descriptions, but even so, it was one thing imagining the worst, and a whole ‘nother to actually be confronted with it.

Still, Maricela managed to keep her composure. Even when the lightning struck mere inches away from here she stayed on her spot, her scowl unwavering. If anything, it only intensified—the look in her eyes most certainly did.

James noticed. He walked closer to her, lips curved into a haughty but seemingly impressed smile.

His glowing blue eyes masked whatever look would’ve shone in his.

Maricela approached him as he did her, refusing to give him that little victory of being the one to come up to her. Her face was still rigid, betraying no emotion whatsoever.

His impressed smile wavered the closer she got; instead, it was replaced by more of a haughty scowl. He briefly closed his eyes. When he opened them, he opened his mouth to speak just as well.

“They sent you to fight me? That desperate, huh?”

“Oh, no James. I came here out of my own free will—because I know something they don’t.”

James still looked as unimpressed as he could muster. “And that is?” He pretended not to be interested in hearing the answer, but she saw his mouth twitch.

“That I can stop you—and that I will.”

For a brief moment, James was silent. She liked to believe she saw him swallow visibly. Then he composed himself, and if she’d thought he were cocky before, it was nothing compared to the way he was now. Sounding an evil laugh such as you really only see in comic supervillains, he raised his hands into the sky.

“No one can stop me, Maricela. No one.”

Maricela looked at him, and couldn’t quite help herself. Unable to believe that the man before her was the same man she used to be so in love with, for whom she had almost given up her life to be with, she wanted to know for sure before she would ready herself to fight him. “Is there really nothing left of the James you used to be? Is this all you are now?”

James’ expression didn’t change as Maricela had secretly hoped it might. “The James you used to know was a weakling who allowed his emotions to get the better of him. Me, I’m strong. I have no weaknesses.”

Maricela’s sorrow lasted for no more than a few seconds…

When her eyes narrowed and a determined scowl replaced it.

Balling her hands into fists, Maricela signaled that she was ready.

James saw, and readied himself to attack too. Couldn’t quite stop himself from uttering one last remark before he did, though. “Can’t believe they’d stoop so low to send some weak old lady to fight me.”

“Oh, James… I am much, much more than that.”

---

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Angelico walked over to the gravestone his eye had fallen on, his eyebrows furrowed.

“Uh…” he started. Finally, he’d reached the stone. Wiped away some of the snow to properly see its epitaph. “Why is there a spellcaster grave here in Forgotten Holl…” It had taken him some time, but finally, as he looked at the initially unfamiliar name, something clicked. Reese.

The others were gathering around them, now.

Slowly, with an obvious reluctance she seemed to try to hide behind nonchalance, Minerva approached him. Her heart had already sank before she’d even gotten to the gravestone, seemingly settling itself in her feet and placing a load on them so heavy she could barely still lift them. Still, she made it, and when she looked down, her suspicions were confirmed immediately.

Morgyn, in the meantime, had made his way over to another gravestone near it.

“At least she brought him with her,” he uttered.

Minerva brought a hand up to hide her face. As she did, she couldn’t stop her mind from continuously echoing an “at what cost?”, as much as she tried to. This was the work she had to do. Not saving the world, none of that. No, in the end, what it was all about was maintaining balance. The balance of power that realpolitik relied on existed on a much larger scale than any human could possibly fathom. And although the power that came with being a mediator should be desirable, it was on moments like these that Minerva would want nothing more than to be anything else—to be far, far away from maintaining that balance and just letting it balance itself, even if it would go at the cost of the world if not the entire universe. Well, that last part was an exaggeration, she guessed. She didn’t nearly have power to maintain balance over an entire universe. The thing was, the same balance of power most certainly did rule it—the universe in its entirety. Humans were stating that there was no place for idealism in global politics; that there was no place for morality in it… and unfortunately for them all, this applied to everything. There is no place for morality in any real battle. In the end, it’s all about power—and so any peace that we might achieve can only come forth out of balance rather than the sham that is the concept of good and evil.

“Well,” Cortez couldn’t stop himself from commenting. “That was easy. Does this mean we get to go home now? Desperate Housewives comes on in a few hours and I don’t really want to miss it.”

---

“Well… that went horribly out of hand, didn’t it?”

They were looking at the gravestones before them, frowning. There was no sadness in either of them. If anything, they simply looked at their own gravestones with a sense of wonder… amazement, even.

Maricela shrugged. “Not sure if there was any other outcome possible, really.”

James considered her words. For a while, they looked on in silence.

Slowly, James turned to her. Even though he still had the glowing eyes, Maricela knew he had gone back to ‘normal.’ She could sense it. “Hey, sorry I killed you.” It came out awkward; couldn’t really have been anything other than awkward. How was one to apologize for killing someone? James had figured that there wasn’t really any alternative so a quasi-casual kind of approach.

Maricela didn’t seem to mind. She just shrugged. Was wearing a smile, even. “Eh. It wouldn’t have been long, anyway.” She paused for a bit, before she went on. “Sorry I killed you too.”

She had spoken with the same apologetic casualness, and he responded in kind, shrugging nonchalantly. “Eh. I lived a long and… well, very long life.” He chuckled, and so she did too.

They looked at each other for a while… and as they did, the awkwardness went. It wasn’t like there was any use for it anyway, now, after everything that had happened already.

A long while had passed when finally, James started to move forward. As he did, he stopped to turn to Maricela, his lips curling into a smile when he saw her following him. It was like he had intended.

“So… are you ready?” he asked. He could’ve just as well have asked her about her day, the nonchalance still dominating between them.

Maricela returned his smile, and shrugged. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

James sounded a chuckle. “Can’t believe that after everything, we still managed to die together.”

Maricela responded in kind. “We may have missed the ‘growing old’ part… but somehow, we still got everything else, didn’t we?”

“We did.”

“I mean, we’ll have to leave out the part where we kind of, well, murdered each other…”

James waved dismissively. “Ah. Details.”

Before they left, though, James turned around one last time. With the last bit of energy traveling through him, channeling him to escape, he raised his arms one last time—and as he did, they finally left.

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