his eyes had seen Adele’s twirling carcass, what a mortal’s death meant. An end. A silenced voice. A stolen laugh. An emptied brain. Forever gone.
His own lynching had been sweet relief, for a precious moment. He swung beside Adele for a full day, moaning and sobbing, the rope slicing into his neck, always seeking to make him quiet. Three times, he gave the rope its victory; when his breath stopped, when he felt his cervical vertebra about to snap beneath his flesh, he did not fight. He let death come. And when he awakened, each time gasping to breathe, new tears waiting, he let death come again. And again. His last sight, always, was Adele.
Why must he always reawaken? Why couldn’t the Living Blood inside of him ever rest?
At last, when it was nearly dawn, he’d given up and found the strength to grip the rope above his head, hoisting himself up by his arms until the deadly coil released him. He was free.
Free? Yes, he remembered, enslaved no more. Free with no reason to celebrate his freedom.
“Was this what you wanted, Adele?” he’d sobbed to her corpse, which remained frozen as though it still hung in the air even after he’d cut her down and rocked her in his arms. “Was this the freedom you followed me to find? I can’t follow you where you’ve gone.”
He’d become a killer, once again, to blot out his loss. When the Union regiment disturbed his hermit’s camp after Adele died, Dawit’s prayer for vengeance was answered. He was armed for battle with a striped flag, a ragged uniform of blue, and a bayonet, the wicked firearm that doubled as a spear’s tip. He used his weapon well. He watered fields with blood.
And it was not enough. Never enough.
This new century, that much closer to the new millennium, had brought him hope. No more killing, he’d told himself. He earnestly tried to preserve his humanity; first through disciplined meditation and study under Khaldun, then by escaping to the mortal pleasures most of his Life Brothers did not care to know.
But his century of peace, clearly, was over.
Rosalie had shown him his own frailty. He could no longer navigate his path, imprisoned as he was by his emotions and an immortal’s haughty whims.
One killing, one loss. One loss, one killing. Maybe loss was his price for Life.
Dawit smothered a hot sob in his throat, afraid to make a sound. He was not alone, and he could not explain his tears to this woman. That pact was his curse.
No, Dawit decided, he was not worthy of Ogun’s name.
Prometheus was a better mythological soul mate. He was in chains, his innards picked at by an eagle, watching with disdain as his flesh, again and again, grew back to be freshly destroyed. Always. Loss had found him again, its talons and beak riving his liver, his heart, his soul. He would be forever stripped, reborn, stripped.
But reborn, Dawit wondered, as what?
5
David’s burn mark had vanished by Sunday, less than a week later. Jessica noticed his bare arms as he slung his starched dress shirt across a chair and went outside in his undershirt, insisting on tuning up her mother’s car after church. No sense paying a mechanic to rip you off, he told her. Searching for a scar—she couldn’t remember if he’d burned his right or left arm—she tried to recall the last time she’d seen the bandage at all.
“What are you doing, baby?” he asked while she ran her fingertips across his unblemished skin. The day was unseasonably sunny, nearly eighty degrees, so David was clammy with a film of perspiration as he worked beneath the Honda Accord’s hood in the unshaded driveway. Bright sunlight made his skin look brick-red.
“Your burn is gone.”
“Maybe it’s a miracle,” he said. “Can you hand me that ratchet wrench on top of the toolbox?”
The miracle remark stung Jessica. Sunday was church day, and every other Sunday the family met at Bea Jacobs’s house for an early dinner after the eleven o’clock service at New Life Bethel Baptist
His own lynching had been sweet relief, for a precious moment. He swung beside Adele for a full day, moaning and sobbing, the rope slicing into his neck, always seeking to make him quiet. Three times, he gave the rope its victory; when his breath stopped, when he felt his cervical vertebra about to snap beneath his flesh, he did not fight. He let death come. And when he awakened, each time gasping to breathe, new tears waiting, he let death come again. And again. His last sight, always, was Adele.
Why must he always reawaken? Why couldn’t the Living Blood inside of him ever rest?
At last, when it was nearly dawn, he’d given up and found the strength to grip the rope above his head, hoisting himself up by his arms until the deadly coil released him. He was free.
Free? Yes, he remembered, enslaved no more. Free with no reason to celebrate his freedom.
“Was this what you wanted, Adele?” he’d sobbed to her corpse, which remained frozen as though it still hung in the air even after he’d cut her down and rocked her in his arms. “Was this the freedom you followed me to find? I can’t follow you where you’ve gone.”
He’d become a killer, once again, to blot out his loss. When the Union regiment disturbed his hermit’s camp after Adele died, Dawit’s prayer for vengeance was answered. He was armed for battle with a striped flag, a ragged uniform of blue, and a bayonet, the wicked firearm that doubled as a spear’s tip. He used his weapon well. He watered fields with blood.
And it was not enough. Never enough.
This new century, that much closer to the new millennium, had brought him hope. No more killing, he’d told himself. He earnestly tried to preserve his humanity; first through disciplined meditation and study under Khaldun, then by escaping to the mortal pleasures most of his Life Brothers did not care to know.
But his century of peace, clearly, was over.
Rosalie had shown him his own frailty. He could no longer navigate his path, imprisoned as he was by his emotions and an immortal’s haughty whims.
One killing, one loss. One loss, one killing. Maybe loss was his price for Life.
Dawit smothered a hot sob in his throat, afraid to make a sound. He was not alone, and he could not explain his tears to this woman. That pact was his curse.
No, Dawit decided, he was not worthy of Ogun’s name.
Prometheus was a better mythological soul mate. He was in chains, his innards picked at by an eagle, watching with disdain as his flesh, again and again, grew back to be freshly destroyed. Always. Loss had found him again, its talons and beak riving his liver, his heart, his soul. He would be forever stripped, reborn, stripped.
But reborn, Dawit wondered, as what?
5
David’s burn mark had vanished by Sunday, less than a week later. Jessica noticed his bare arms as he slung his starched dress shirt across a chair and went outside in his undershirt, insisting on tuning up her mother’s car after church. No sense paying a mechanic to rip you off, he told her. Searching for a scar—she couldn’t remember if he’d burned his right or left arm—she tried to recall the last time she’d seen the bandage at all.
“What are you doing, baby?” he asked while she ran her fingertips across his unblemished skin. The day was unseasonably sunny, nearly eighty degrees, so David was clammy with a film of perspiration as he worked beneath the Honda Accord’s hood in the unshaded driveway. Bright sunlight made his skin look brick-red.
“Your burn is gone.”
“Maybe it’s a miracle,” he said. “Can you hand me that ratchet wrench on top of the toolbox?”
The miracle remark stung Jessica. Sunday was church day, and every other Sunday the family met at Bea Jacobs’s house for an early dinner after the eleven o’clock service at New Life Bethel Baptist
Similar Books
