Reborn: Chapter Thirty Six "Lost and Found"

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Chapter Thirty Six

When they were back in the hotel room Josh tried to get her to drink from him but all she could see was the neck of the creature she had bitten and recoiled in revulsion. He settled for ordering tea from the lobby.

She let the warm liquid slide down her throat and felt the boys’ eyes on her.

"I'm not strong," she whispered in a broken voice and started to cry.

They were next to her instantly. "Like hell you're not strong," Will said firmly, cutting off Josh's more sympathetic version. "You took out a fucking demon!"

She shook her head in denial but he stopped her. "That mofo is dead, believe me, I saw the mess of it in a pool of black liquid all around you."

She looked down at herself and saw her clothing was covered in black smears and streaks and felt bile rising up in her throat. Josh picked her up and carried her to the bathroom, turning the water on in the tub. When it was full he stood there awkwardly, obviously trying to decide whether he should help her remove her clothes. She was sitting on the floor digging for the will to do it herself, then gave up and lifted her arms straight up like a little kid. He pulled off the offensive shirt, then helped her to her feet and unbuttoned her pants. He looked uncertainly at her undergarments.

"I can do it," she whispered shakily, "but don't leave me in here alone."

He turned around so she could finish undressing then turned back once she was settled in the water, the curtain partially closed. Will was hovering near the door and he grabbed a couple of chairs so they could sit with her.

She somehow managed to scrub every inch of her body and when she was finished she was exhausted. Not even when she'd been lying on the cement floor during her transition while her body was on fire and people were dying all around her had she felt this bleak.

In a way, she thought, I was in hell. Because I didn't feel anything there, only emptiness. No, that was wrong. At the end she had felt love inside of her like a great shining light, bringing her what she needed to break the spell.

She looked up at two of the faces she had seen in the darkness and smiled weakly.

"How did you find me?" she asked quietly.

"I came out of an apartment down the street and saw a group of people gathering in front of the alley. I ran up to see what was doin' and overheard someone say ‘She's unconscious, call the police.’ And someone else made mention of black inky stuff and yeah, I knew it was you, so I shoved everyone outta my way. I called Josh and when he got there he told the onlookers you slipped in some oil...Fuck, you scared the shit out of us!"

She absorbed his words slowly. "Is it still the same day?"

They looked at her strangely.

"Yes," Josh said slowly, "it's almost midnight."

She frowned. Only an hour, she had only been lying there...for less than an hour. She couldn't comprehend that and it made her feel shaky and quivery in the center of her soul.

"So can you tell us what happened?"

"Don't push her Will."

"I'm asking not pushing."

She put it in words to the best of her ability but it didn't capture the feeling of it, and that was what she was still dealing with, what she felt she would be dealing with for a long time to come.

"We told you they had psychological power," Will was frowning down at her and she nodded miserably.

"What made you try it? Was the demon cloaking someone?"

Josh sounded less admonishing, and she wished she could say that was the case, that she'd rescued someone from imminent possession. But lying didn't feel like a good idea right now. So she humbly told them what transpired prior to the demon head fuck, including her insanely foolish desire to prove something to herself.

To her immense relief neither one took the stand she would've expected, that their dad had been right and they were sending her home. Instead Will went and gathered her clothes and once she was toweled and dressed they rented a comedy to help rid her of the heebie jeebies she couldn't shake. The movie turned out to be idiotic, but the company she was in, that helped. Sandwiched between them she could feel their warmth and she knew that love was with her.

---

Although the panicky feeling had subsided within an hour, Jenna had still had a hard time sleeping that night. It was well into the wee hours of morning before she'd finally drifted off.

She was startled awake by her phone and the ring tone was.."Anna?" She answered quickly.

"Hey."

"Are you okay?"

There was a pause. "I think so. I will be."

"What happened? God I got this awful feeling about you last night, I couldn't sleep because of it!"

"I'm sorry, I....don't want to talk about it, I just wanted to hear your voice."

"Okay. I called you all day."

"You did? Oh, I didn't have my phone on me and then....but sorry about that. So, uh, what'd you need?"

Can you lend me some money? Yeah,that was what you asked a friend who sounded the way Anna did right now.

"Jenna?"

"Um, well I remembered that I had this Aunt that my whole family deemed crazy and I started thinking that maybe she's like me. So I tried to find a way to contact her, but it seems she's dropped off the face of the earth. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about it." She made a face at herself.

"Do you need money?"

"What? No, of course not, I wouldn't ask you that...

"Jenna there's an ATM card in my dresser drawer, whatever you need, please take it. Please. I know you aren't the type to ask, I know you feel funny, but you shouldn't. I'm actually kind of sick of people being weird about it, it's just money, it means nothing. Do you know what means something? Friendship. People that you love who love you back. That means everything."

Jenna shrugged, how could she argue with that? "Okay. I really appreciate it."

"I know. I love you."

"I love you too."

"Call me if you find her, let me know how it turns out, okay?"

"You know I will."

"Later 'gator."

"While 'dile."

Jenna hung up and grinned, she couldn't help it. Harriet Le'Roche I'm hunting you down.

---

Six days later Jenna found herself standing in front of a small cottage in New Jersey. Ross Cantwell, the super sleuth she'd hired, had done well. With the info he gathered there was no doubt the woman inside was her aunt.

She lived alone, well unless you counted two Great Danes, but she wasn't a hermit. In fact Cantwell had told her she was quite social. She attended a book club, spent evenings with friends at classy bars, and had casual relationships with different men. And the pictures he’d taken-she looked so much like Jenna, she could be her mother. And that was the other thing, the woman was about eighty years old and she didn't look a day over forty, and an attractive forty at that. Not Faerian my ass, she thought.

Now that she was here nervousness mingled with the excitement. She had learned over the past week that a group of her family members had ganged up on the woman almost fifteen years ago, and it was Jenna’s own father along with an uncle who had first claimed she was possessed. Before that she'd been labeled schizophrenic. Jenna's great grandparents had taken her to doctors when she was a teenager and at the time shock treatment was in fashion. Then she was put on medications like lithium, until one day, and no one seemed to know exactly why, she flushed her pills down the toilet and told her family that she wasn't crazy. This was not the reason they disowned her however, that part came later when they found that she was "dabbling" in the occult and spending time with "witches." Right. Well now she would get the real story.

She knocked on the door and held her breath. She heard movement inside and the door swung open, crazy Aunt Harri in the flesh. And she was ravishing. Wearing a red dress cut low on the bosom, accentuating a narrow waist and generous hips, she had dark hair very lightly sprinkled with silver lying in loose waves halfway down her back. Her blue violet eyes were decorated tastefully with silver shadow and dark eyeliner.

She looked Jenna up and down then broke into a wide smile.

"I've been expecting you," she said, with a smoky voice. "Come in." She turned and swept into the living room.

Jenna stared after her, dumbfounded. "Expecting me?" she managed as she followed her inside.

"Oh come now child, you have the gift, you must assume that I do as well." Harriet indicated for her to sit down and took the chair opposite, crossing her legs and lighting a cigarette. "You have questions, and I have answers," she told her wide eyed niece. "Aren't you the fortunate one, to have discovered me so young. If I had had a me, how different my life would have been. But there's no point in dwelling on what might've been, you learn from the past and live in the present, hoping the best for the future, that's a motto worth committing to memory honey."

Jenna was completely thrown. It hadn't even occurred to her that her aunt might have seen this coming. Her whole opening speech no longer necessary she couldn't figure out what to say.

Her aunt sat with a look of anticipation. "You look so much like me when I was your age. Beautiful, absolutely stunning." She drew on her cigarette and Jenna watched the smoke curl into the air. Everything about this was surreal and for a moment she worried she was dreaming. After all, her dreams could be pretty vivid.

"You're not dreaming child," Harri told her, then waved her hand at Jenna's ever widening eyes, "No, no I can't read minds, you just have that look about you where you're not sure if what you're seeing is real. I should know that look pretty damn well, I wore it most of my life." She narrowed her eyes a bit. "I hope you were wise enough to keep your abilities to yourself, I can only imagine what that father of yours would do if he knew."

Jenna found her voice. "Actually, yes and no. Out of the family only my sister knows, but all my friends are aware of it and they don't think I'm crazy."

"Well aren't you the blessed one," Harriet smiled. "So how is it that they're so open-minded?"

Jenna took a breath. "Do you want the long version or the short version?"

Her aunt’s smile widened. "Found your tongue and ready to use it, well of course I want the long version, I have all the time in the world."

So Jenna began it, telling this amazing woman all about London and the meeting that had brought her gifts out, and though she'd originally planned to leave Anna out of it, she found herself spilling the story in its entirety.

When she was finished her Aunt shook her head, her own eyes wide. "A human turned vampire. I'll be damned, that's a new one! A human Faerian vampire." She smiled that big smile again and clapped a hand on her leg. "Well, you told me something new, now it’s my turn.” She leaned back against the cushions and raised one brow, a corner of her lips curving upward. "The lines that sprung from the Faerian women of long ago are not the lines we come from. But we are Faerian."

Jenna furrowed her brow over that puzzle.

"I'm going to order us some food, and then do I have a story for you."

Generously created for me by @son-of-satire