Convergence

Dad knocked three times on a random door in the hallway before opening it. Inside was a vast array of things that should not exist. I felt small and insignificant in the space. There were creatures that reached far into the sky and some that were small as ants. Part of me wanted to squish them beneath my feet. Some of the creatures I recognized: faeries, gnomes, and the like. Of course, no fantasy world is complete without the obligatory unicorn. I wondered what color her blood was.

“This is it,” he said. “A world of beauty and love, a place where nothing changes. A person could die of boredom in this place.”

Without much thought, I had reached out and snatched a faerie from the sky. Morgan laughed as the creature struggled in my grip. I had her. She was mine. Tighter and tighter I squeezed feeling her tiny body compress under the pressure. Her eyes plead with me to release her, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was a strange sort of pleasure that rose within me.

“Sweet girl.” It sounded as if there were a bit of panic in Azazel’s voice. “Let it go.”

I scoffed. “Why concern yourself with such a creature?” I continually squeezed and released her listening to the exquisite sound of her pain.

“It’s not the creature I worry for.” He placed a hand on mine and I felt a drain in my power. My hand released and the faerie flew away.

“Why would you do that?”

“I came here not to further your demonic power but to strengthen the witch. It seems I have, to use the old adage, put the cart before the horse.”

I growled at him. “This world is in chaos. It deserves order.”

“Are you the one to give them that order?”

“Yes.”

He smiled proudly. “Not yet, my sweet girl. Not yet. Calm your mind.” He had a tight grip on my hand. It angered me, but I couldn’t pull away or resist the drain at my powers. “Focus on the witch. Look inside. Can you see your powers? One will be calm and the other more rampant.”

I tried to do as instructed. It was difficult at first not knowing what I was looking for, but soon I could see the two streams of light. One was calm like a river flowing through me. It was coming from someplace I felt as the universe. Once I made the connection, the realization that I was connected to the source of everything, I could feel the power fill into my heart. I felt more at peace in that moment than ever before in my life. I let it wash around me and vibrate through me. Without much thought, an electric shock came out of my hand stabbing Azazel. He yelled and shook his hand.

“Oh, sorry.”

I reached out for him but he refused to let me touch him again. Without his controlling touch, I noticed the erratic behavior of the demon inside. I tightly closed my eyes and almost collapsed from the surge. It bounced all around me with no real place to go and vibrated around my already filled heart. Almost on instinct my calmer magic wrapped around the demon containing it in one place holding it hostage. The witch started to absorb the demon.

I opened my eyes. Azazel seemed extremely angry. It was strange to see the emotion. His face seemed stoic as ever, but his hands twitched and balled into fists as if he were holding most of his anger back. The thought of that made him seem even scarier. If someone with his level of emotional control couldn’t hold back the entirety of his emotions… well, I didn’t even want to consider the ramifications of what this could mean.

Morgan let out a huff. “You’re strong, little sister.”

Azazel was quick to punish him for speaking by knocking him to the ground with an energy blast of some kind.

“I did not give you permission to speak!”

I took in a large breath and a step back.

Azazel turned his focus on me. As a reflex, I pushed my hands out in front of me. Azazel became frozen, unable to advance any further. I gave my hands a push and he fell back.

Morgan started laughing. “You let her access the witch too soon. I told you there was no way to steal all that power.”

“What?” I looked at Morgan. “All my power as in all of it?”

“That is what ‘all’ means. I just wanted back what was mine. He wants to consume all of you.”

“Be silent!” Azazel was back on his feet. “Quit filling her head with such nonsense.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Morgan continued. “You said it yourself. Demons desire power. I wasn’t a strong enough vessel to hold your magic and my mother’s. Two demons don’t make a more powerful demon, do they?”

“I will end you, boy.”

“But you shoving all that power into the womb of some witch, well you just lucked out didn’t you? Twice I might add.”

“Twice?” I glanced between them afraid of whatever answer I may get, but I was being ignored.

Azazel’s lips curled. “You actually love her, don’t you? You love your sister. How sweet.”

“You used to love her too, remember that?”

“Someone, please tell me about my baby brother.” I protested.

“What really confuses me,” said Morgan “was that Aubrey let you impregnate her again. That’s something that’s just too unreal. She knew what you were.”

“Maybe she liked this face,” said Azazel. “Most women do.”

“Listen to me!” The ground shook when I shouted and all the creatures that could do so left the area quickly. “What are you keeping from me?”

“Lots of things,” said Morgan. “I’m tired of pretending to be nice you. I’m tired of actually loving you. It sickens me. You need to die.”

He shot out an energy blast at my chest, but it never made a connection. Without realizing my own speed, my hand grabbed it out of the air and absorbed it as my own.

“You’re not strong enough, son,” said Azazel. “I’ve told you time and time again that you weren’t strong enough and never will be, even if you did have your powers back. And now she’ll never let you touch her again.”

“I’m so confused right now I don’t know what to do.” I sat in the grass ignoring the fact that there were two untrustworthy demon family members beside me. “Will one of you tell me about the baby, please? Tell me about the night my mother died.”

“Your jealous brother killed her,” Azazel was so calm about it telling me the way someone might tell me how to get to the bank.

“No, your power-crazed father killed her,” said Morgan more upset that he was accused than the fact that someone was dead. “I only went after the baby.”

“What happened?” I was demanding with them. They knew I could kill them both and yet didn’t seem the least bit fazed.

“Aubrey knew the baby was almost ready to appear,” said Azazel. “She changed her mind about our arrangement and hoped she could take him and disappear, so she bundled you up and drove away.”

I hadn’t remembered that part. I was only three. After he had said it, I remembered her wrapping me in a yellow blanket and putting me in the car. “Go on.”

“I sent Elaina to get you and the unborn baby. It didn’t matter if she brought back Aubrey dead or alive.”

“But Elaina died too. Someone killed her and Morgan said it was you.”

“It was me,” Azazel confessed. “Elaina would rather be loyal to Aubrey’s guardian than to me.”

“Bill?”

“William Ortega had weaseled his way so far into Elaina’s head that she truly believed I would just let them live happily ever after never doing the job she was born to do. She betrayed me. She raced out after Bill, not your mother. It was his job to protect Aubrey from me, but Elaina refused to let the man that she loved die so she took his place. She died saving Bill from me, and then that coward repaid her by begging for my mercy. He was to watch out for you with me by his side.

“I tracked Aubrey down myself and damaged the engine in the car. I ripped that baby from her body and entrusted it to Morgan before taking you for myself. Then I crashed that car so hard it was nearly impossible for them to get her out.” He smiled at the memory and his use of force.

I could feel tears coming down my face.

“Then I went after the baby, but it seemed Morgan had already killed it.” Azazel looked at Morgan. “But I have my suspicions about that.”

“You think I kept a human baby? For what purpose?”

“For what purpose indeed? Seeing you with Karissa, the way you care for her, dote on her, it makes you seem very suspicious.”

Morgan started to squirm a little. “I told you, I killed that creature.”

“Yes,” said Azazel. “So you keep saying. Did you know that I can feel when my offspring die? Whatever powers they’ve inherited come back to me and I feel a slight tug of sorrow. I’ve killed a few of them just to be sure of the feeling. I don’t recall gaining my powers back from the baby that night.”

“I killed that creature.” Morgan was stern in his convictions.

“Did you?”

I had been crying for some time while they fought over the life of an innocent baby like it was a bag of chips. Actually, people fight harder over chips. I didn’t think they knew I was still there. Human lives meant nothing to them.

Azazel extended his arm to Morgan. “Did you really?”

“What are you doing?” Morgan asked.

“Ah, there it is.” Azazel put his hand on Morgan’s chest. “That baby was full of love, wasn’t it?”

Morgan slapped away Azazel’s hand. “I told you I killed it.”

“You absorbed it, son.” Azazel sounded fatherly in that moment. “You tried to regain some of my magic, didn’t you?”

“My magic,” he corrected.

“Either way, you weren’t even strong enough to do that. That explains how you were able to go after Karissa in the first place.” Azazel chuckled. “I barely left you enough power to escape from danger let alone attack someone else. You took in all his love and hope for the world when you stole back that power.”

“I can still absorb your precious daughter.”

“No, you can’t. The idea is laughable.” Azazel’s hand shot out and grabbed Morgan by the throat. “Especially since this is your last day alive.”

Morgan turned into a mass of smoke without so much as a scream. Once Azazel started to breathe in the smoke, I took off.

The pull to my demon heritage was strong—part of me wanted to participate in Morgan’s death—but the pull of the witch had become stronger. I made up my mind that my main need was to learn control over my magic, my good magic. I regretted ever wanting my demon powers in the first place.

I wandered around. Enjoying such beauty was hard with the weight of the past in my heart. The magical world looked like a real fairy tale land with farms and rolling hills as far as the eye could see. The skies were filled with creatures I once thought only came from the imagination of others like dragons and griffins. I found a spot under a perfect weeping willow to just sit and think.

As I cried under the tree, other creatures came around to investigate. A gnome approached me. It was a strange thing to see something I thought didn’t exist, but at least I knew this one. He looked just like the garden gnome statues I had seen in many yards across town. With his red, pointed hat he was about a foot tall and had on a blue tunic, light brown pants, and little dark brown shoes that all appeared to be handmade. If it were Christmas time I could easily imagine him as Santa Claus with his round face and rosy cheeks.

“Why are you crying?” The gnome’s voice didn’t sound small. If anything I heard him quite well, as if he was my size and sitting right next to me.

“Just found out some awful stuff.”

“Are you sad to be fae?”

“What? No, why would you think that?”

“I saw you.” His voice turned slightly sinister. “I saw you with the faerie. I saw you try to kill her.”

“I didn’t… I mean I didn’t mean to.”

“We all saw you enter with the demon. You brought The Dark King, Azazel, back from the dead to kill us.”

“No way, I didn’t even know who he was until recently. He was hiding until I got older.”

The little gnome hopped closer and reached up. I heard a few gasps from the surrounding crowd of creatures. “Your hand, please.”

I placed my hand next to him and he grabbed my finger. I felt a strange tingling sensation in my hand like a numb feeling. It lasted only a few moments and then it was gone.

“You are of Howe.”

All the creatures gasped.

“Yes, I am.”

“But you are also demon from The Dark King.”

I let out a huge sigh. “You’re telling me things I already know.”

He squeezed his eyebrows together and narrowed his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m just upset right now and you aren’t helping.”

“But I can help you. We can all help our queen but we will not help our enemy.”

“Your queen?”

By now the amount of gathering creatures had turned into a downright mob gawking at me and more little gnomes, both male and female in different colors, were at his side in support.

“I will train you in the ways of Howe,” said the gnome.

“How could you possibly know I need training?”

He smiled. “Gnomes know many things. We see all sorts of things. We are everywhere, always talking, always listening. We will gladly help you if you renounce the demon path you have chosen to follow.”

I wiped my face in my hands. “I already have.”

“Then we shall begin.”

I nodded. “What should I call you?”

He looked around and talked quickly with his fellow gnome buddies until they came to a decision. “You can call me Tyler.”

I laughed to myself. “Was David taken?”

He turned his head to the side. “If it is a name you prefer….”

“No, just an inside joke. Tyler is fine. When I was younger, I wrote stories about a gnome named Tyler, but he was much smaller than you are.”

He nodded. “Yes, this is why we picked this name.”

“So you don’t have an actual name?”

“We know who we are. That’s all that is important.”

“But if you’re trying to refer to a certain gnome for some reason to someone else, how do you go about doing that?”

“If you give us a chance to show you all that you need to know, you will soon understand our ways.”

“Okay.” I took in a deep breath. “So what do I need to do?”

“I need you to calm your mind.”

“Azazel always wanted me to calm my mind. How do I know that you aren’t like him or trying to get into his good graces or something?”

Tyler shook his head. “He asked this of you because it is how to control all power. A rampant heart brings with it rampant energy. A calm heart brings with it control of the world around it. A calm heart is hard to find when the mind cannot focus. And a mind cannot focus if it is not calm.”

“Okay, okay.” I held out my hands to him. “I’ll do it if you stop talking like that.”

I closed my eyes in an attempt to quiet down my thoughts. It was hard to do at first with all the confusion and anger and sadness I was feeling. I noticed the sound of water from a nearby river and focused on its rippling. After a few moments, all that was angry inside of me had calmed down and I could feel both energies converge into each other and ripple smoothly throughout my body.

“Yes,” said Tyler. “Just like that. Now we can truly begin.”