A FAREWELL TO LOVE_Friday's Romantic Challenge

It is July 3rd in the year of our Lord, 1826.

And I am dying.

The question is "Do I wish to be re-born?"

At my bedroom door, the young man, wide-brimmed hat in gloved hands, has the answer.

But I fear I already know it.

The young man is a conundrum.

He looks at me with the eyes of a sad poet. Yet, he is a walking arsenal : two shoulder-harnesses of pistols, another pistol on his hip, still another in a strange stomach rigging

"Come in, Sergeant McCord," I speak in a once strong voice now grown frail.

"An honor, President Adams."

"Former President, young man."

He flashes a smile much like a wolf's. "Like with Texas Rangers, sir, once a president, always a president."

He sits down in the plush leather chair close to my bedside, and I frown. "Odd. Your face is perhaps 25. Yet your hair is moon-white."

His lean face goes somber. "There was a time when my hair was darker, my heart lighter."

My voice thickens. "As with myself, McCord. As with myself."

I pat his arm and frown again at how my hand shakes. "I met your father at my Alma Mater. He was a great patriot."

McCord nods sadly. "Father said history bleeds on every page because of patriots. But he liked teaching at Harvard, and he liked you."

"And my wife?"

The light dies in his eyes. "He thought of her as a wise and good friend ... once."

"Before she became a ...."

I find it difficult to say the word, "... revenant."

"Yes, sir."

"I need to ask a favor of you, young man."

His lips shape an uneasy smile. "I'm not going to kill Mr. Jefferson for you, sir, if that's the question."

I slap his arm at his rough jest. "Time will soon have her way with us both I'm afraid."

I tap his buckskin-covered knee. "No. I need to ask you ... w-what do you think of revenants."

McCord sucks in his upper lip, then says low, "Mighty broad question, sir. Might as well ask me what I think of humanity."

"Then, you believe revenants are no longer human?"

He rubs his face with a hand strangely gloved in this heat. "With each passing year, they lose more and more of their humanity, sir, until they forget what it means to be human."

He leans forward. "Surely, sir, you have noticed that in your ... wife."

I clutch his arm feebly. "Yes. Yes, I have."

I close my eyes. "And now, she demands I allow her to ... to ...."

I find I cannot put it into words, and McCord just pats my hand. "You would gain immortal youth at the cost of your humanity, sir."

I look at this strange man with the saddest eyes I have ever seen in a youth. "I know you are aware she rules a confederacy of shadow states all across this country."

I manage to make my lips speak the words. "Abigail says that together, we could do much good for this country."

His face twitches, then he speaks softly. "On a cattle ranch, the ranchers live mighty fine. The same cannot be said for the cattle."

I nod gravely and sigh, "I had come to a similar thought, McCord."

The decision I always knew I would make settles firm within my heart. "I -- I will refuse. Abigail will take this badly."

McCord smiles as if it were a wound. "Even so, sir, you have made a hard but wise decision."

"And in doing so, I have doomed you."

"How so?"

My mind fills with mocking echoes of shared laughter with Abigail, and I sigh, "She knows of this meeting. Once there was a wellspring of forgiveness in Abigail's heart ...."

I could not meet McCord's eyes. "Now, she will believe, despite my protests, that it was you that has robbed her of my being at her side. She will not rest until her revenge is complete against you, sir."

McCord smiles sadly. "That's all right, Mr. President. It'll mean one less monster in this sorry old world."

My blood chills, for I see he wants to die. No. I will not be the cause of the death of my friend's son. But how can I save him from the grave, from himself?

I look up at the portrait of my wife when she was still my Abigail. A plan comes to me. I whisper to McCord.

"When you think 'beautiful but diseased,' what city comes to mind, McCord? Quick. No moment for reflection. What city?"

He laughs like a wolf. "Don't need any time to reflect, sir. New Orleans is the prettiest city with the blackest heart I've ever seen."

"Then, New Orleans is the city I, as former President, charge you to save from the revenants."

"What?"

"I cannot ask you the impossible task of saving my nation from the evil that has consumed my wife. But one city, McCord, one city. Pledge to save it from the curse of the revenants, and I will die at peace."

"But, sir, I took an oath to Texas."

"Do not speak to me of oaths, young man. I, Jefferson, Washington, even your father bled for this nation. If not for me, save New Orleans for them ... for your father."

I was fighting unfairly I knew. But my friend, his father, would have me do no less to save his son from self-destruction.

McCord runs gloved fingers through his silver hair and sighs, "All right, Mr. President. You have my word."

His poet eyes flick to the portrait of my wife, and he murmurs, "Beautiful but diseased is it?"

He turns to me. "Another pledge, sir. Strange as it sounds, sometimes enemies become as close as lovers. If I can, I will save your Abigail, too."

"You are a romantic, McCord. It will be the death of you."

"Something will. Might as well be that."

When he leaves, and the shadows of the night and death grow closer and closer, it is his second pledge that comforts me.
***

A FAREWELL TO LOVE

It is July 3rd in the year of our Lord, 1826.

And I am dying.

The question is "Do I wish to be re-born?"

At my bedroom door, the young man, wide-brimmed hat in gloved hands, has the answer.

But I fear I already know it.

The young man is a conundrum.

He looks at me with the eyes of a sad poet. Yet, he is a walking arsenal : two shoulder-harnesses of pistols, another pistol on his hip, still another in a strange stomach rigging.

"Come in, Sergeant McCord," I speak in a once strong voice now grown frail.

"An honor, President Adams."

"Former President, young man."

He flashes a smile much like a wolf's. "Like with Texas Rangers, sir, once a president, always a president."

He sits down in the plush leather chair close to my bedside, and I frown. "Odd. Your face is perhaps 25. Yet your hair is moon-white."

His lean face goes somber. "There was a time when my hair was darker, my heart lighter."

My voice thickens. "As with myself, McCord. As with myself."

I pat his arm and frown again at how my hand shakes. "I met your father at my Alma Mater. He was a great patriot."

McCord nods sadly. "Father said history bleeds on every page because of patriots. But he liked teaching at Harvard, and he liked you."

"And my wife?"

The light dies in his eyes. "He thought of her as a wise and good friend ... once."

"Before she became a ...."

I find it difficult to say the word, "... revenant."

"Yes, sir."

"I need to ask a favor of you, young man."

His lips shape an uneasy smile. "I'm not going to kill Mr. Jefferson for you, sir, if that's the question."

I slap his arm at his rough jest. "Time will soon have her way with us both I'm afraid."

I tap his buckskin-covered knee. "No. I need to ask you ... w-what do you think of revenants."

McCord sucks in his upper lip, then says low, "Mighty broad question, sir. Might as well ask me what I think of humanity."

"Then, you believe revenants are no longer human?"

He rubs his face with a hand strangely gloved in this heat. "With each passing year, they lose more and more of their humanity, sir, until they forget what it means to be human."

He leans forward. "Surely, sir, you have noticed that in your ... wife."

I clutch his arm feebly. "Yes. Yes, I have."

I close my eyes. "And now, she demands I allow her to ... to ...."

I find I cannot put it into words, and McCord just pats my hand. "You would gain immortal youth at the cost of your humanity, sir."

I look at this strange man with the saddest eyes I have ever seen in a youth. "I know you are aware she rules a confederacy of shadow states all across this country."

I manage to make my lips speak the words. "Abigail says that together, we could do much good for this country."

His face twitches, then he speaks softly. "On a cattle ranch, the ranchers live mighty fine. The same cannot be said for the cattle."

I nod gravely and sigh, "I had come to a similar thought, McCord."

The decision I always knew I would make settles firm within my heart. "I -- I will refuse. Abigail will take this badly."

McCord smiles as if it were a wound. "Even so, sir, you have made a hard but wise decision."

"And in doing so, I have doomed you."

"How so?"

My mind fills with mocking echoes of shared laughter with Abigail, and I sigh, "She knows of this meeting. Once there was a wellspring of forgiveness in Abigail's heart ...."

I could not meet McCord's eyes. "Now, she will believe, despite my protests, that it was you that has robbed her of my being at her side. She will not rest until her revenge is complete against you, sir."

McCord smiles sadly. "That's all right, Mr. President. It'll mean one less monster in this sorry old world."

My blood chills, for I see he wants to die. No. I will not be the cause of the death of my friend's son. But how can I save him from the grave, from himself?

I look up at the portrait of my wife when she was still my Abigail. A plan comes to me. I whisper to McCord.

"When you think 'beautiful but diseased,' what city comes to mind, McCord? Quick. No moment for reflection. What city?"

He laughs like a wolf. "Don't need any time to reflect, sir. New Orleans is the prettiest city with the blackest heart I've ever seen."

"Then, New Orleans is the city I, as former President, charge you to save from the revenants."

"What?"

"I cannot ask you the impossible task of saving my nation from the evil that has consumed my wife. But one city, McCord, one city. Pledge to save it from the curse of the revenants, and I will die at peace."

"But, sir, I took an oath to Texas."

"Do not speak to me of oaths, young man. I, Jefferson, Washington, even your father bled for this nation. If not for me, save New Orleans for them ... for your father."

I was fighting unfairly I knew. But my friend, his father, would have me do no less to save his son from self-destruction.

McCord runs gloved fingers through his silver hair and sighs, "All right, Mr. President. You have my word."

His poet eyes flick to the portrait of my wife, and he murmurs, "Beautiful but diseased is it?"

He turns to me. "Another pledge, sir. Strange as it sounds, sometimes enemies become as close as lovers. If I can, I will save your Abigail, too."

"You are a romantic, McCord. It will be the death of you."

"Something will. Might as well be that."

When he leaves, and the shadows of the night and death grow closer and closer, it is his second pledge that comforts me.
***

A FROST IN THE BLOOD

A frost in the blood.

Message novels are that ... and more.

Yesterday's post might have given some the idea that I thought good novels had to say something meaningful.

No.

As at the end, I will say again : the best novels are the ones that ignore overt messages and simply tell a very good story : one that touches the heart and haunts the soul.

You live your whole life, your face set on the course of a destiny you think you know. Then, fate smiles sadly and draws back the curtain on a reality that spins you around 180 degrees.

Life. Ever changing. Never static ... even when it appears so.

Vampires. They appear static. Never aging. Never leaving the public's fascination either. ECLIPSE is coming out this upcoming week.

As a nod of acknowledgement to the TWILIGHT phenomenon, I present McCord's first meeting with Prince Strasser, the revenant (vampire), who will hound the Ranger all his days. I find sparkly good-hearted vampires a bit hard to swallow so I made mine the predators that I thought they would naturally be.

The meeting is from RITES OF PASSAGE. McCord has just met the Sidhe wearing the face of a murdered girl. But he has found she is as much a victim as Rachel. Perhaps more so, since she is still alive to suffer.

He is awaiting Meilori for breakfast. Fallen, the Sidhe wearing Rachel's face, has joined McCord at his table. Sitting at the other tables in the ship's dining room are revenants, confident that they can easily kill a white-haired human :
*********************

Fallen whispered, "All is Tohu and Bohu, void and without form, a cry of a dying child signifying nothing."

"Thanks for sharing that with me."

She looked at me as if wanting to cry. "Must you learn life like a foreign language?"

I tried for a smile; it came out crooked. "You must be related to Elu."

Her lower lip quivered for a brief moment. "I am related to the worst person you could possibly imagine."

"Relations don't matter. What you do long enough becomes who you are."

She sat back. "Most people think from word to word. No wonder Rachel felt about you as she did. You think from word to fact. A rare gift."

I saw the aristocratic fop at the next table throw his napkin down in disgust. He rose as if a spotlight were on him. He strutted his way to our table.

He sneered, "So The Gray Man's bitch makes her entrance?"

I picked up a knife from the setting before me. "You'll not talk that way about a lady."

"Indeed?," he smirked.

With a wide showing of teeth, he said, "Mind if I sit down?"

"Would it matter if I said 'Yes'?"

"Certainly not."

"Then, go right on ahead. This way, I have the illusion of free will."

As the fop sat down, Fallen smiled her first warm smile at me. "How utterly quaint. To deceive by misplaced abstraction."

I smiled back, not knowing what the devil she meant, but glad to have taken some of the pain away from her eyes. Odd. She wore Rachel's face, and I should have hated her. Yet, somehow, I felt she was as much, if not more, a victim as Rachel.

She turned to the fop. "Strasser, --"

"Prince Strasser."

"Strasser, I have traveled the American West many times. And Captain McCord is much like the weather-beaten sign I read at the 3 R Ranch : 'Welcome, stranger. If you're peaceable, I'll take care of you. If you are not, I'll take care of you, too.'"

Prince Strasser sneered, "Is that supposed to fill me with fear?"

Fallen's smile was that of a shark's. "Only if you were intelligent."

She rose graceful as a swan and turned to me. "I had not expected to leave this table feeling for you as I do. How utterly quaint."

She spun elegantly, her full gown filling out around her. I watched her leave with sadness. Somehow, I felt our next meeting wouldn't end so well. I sighed. Sometimes, life twisted back on you like a rattler.

Fallen stopped at the bottom of the grand staircase, and with her rippling brook voice, said, "Samuel McCord, I have noticed that victory can be secured even in the darkest moment with slow decisions, gentle wisdom, and restrained passion."

And with that, she climbed the velvet stairs with a melancholy air as Strasser snorted, "Advise from a Sidhe? As false as their gold coins."

His right eyebrow arched with contempt. "By the way, McCord, do you know what the learned men of today's world say marks humans from the rest of the animals?"

"Not that I recall."

He pulled his lips wide. "The ability to recognize themselves in the mirror. What do you see when you look in the mirror, Ranger?"

He obviously couldn't find any flies to pull wings from, so he was needling me. Let him. Better men than him had gone at it.

I smiled back, "A friend."

I nodded to him. "What do you see? Oh, that's right, judging from that uneven tie of yours, I reckon you can't see much of anything, can you?"

Srasser's eyes became slits. Right then, the nervous waiter, Timmons, walked up to the table, shakily carrying a silver tray with a full pitcher of iced orange juice and an empty wine glass. He hesitantly put them down beside me. Then, he hurried away. I didn't blame him. The company at the table was certainly lacking.

The light of the rising sun from the central well above us flickered hungry fires in Strasser's eyes as he said, "You are outnumbered. You would do well to keep a civil tongue in your head lest you lose it."

I nodded. "Sounds like good advice. Were I a man that took good advice I might even take it. But I never met a Ranger yet that took advice, good or otherwise."

I poured a small amount of the orange juice in the glass. Strasser's eyes followed my hand as I brought up the goblet to my lips. For once, I did it just right : letting the juice flow for the briefest of moments across my tongue before swallowing. I sighed. It tasted wonderful. Strasser was glaring at me.

"Everything you drink tastes like pus, doesn't it? Not exactly how the dime novels tell it, is it? But then, you know all too well that being undead is all sham. The ligaments shrivel; the cartilage wears paper thin. Each move is agony. Your withered organs begin to smell so that even your over-powering cologne won't cover it up."

"Mock the fire, and it will burn you, cowboy."

Timmons came up to the table again, looking even more uncomfortable. He held a tray with a wine goblet, filled with red liquid. My nose picked up the copper scent of blood. Timmons placed it down before Strasser.

The revenant licked his lips. "Ah, my Haima. A most wonderful blend."

Timmons said, "I-It looks like blood."

Strasser smiled wide. "Indeed, it is."

He took a deep sip and smiled wider, his sharp teeth red-smeared. Timmons looked in horror, first at the revenant, then at me. He started backing up.

"Do not leave just yet, little man. Do you not want your tip?"

Timmons stopped, and Strasser chuckled, "Here it is, churl. Do not ever let me find you alone in the hallways."

Timmons nearly ran backwards from our table, as Strasser laughing, drank deep again. "Ah, an acquired taste but addictive, nonetheless. The blood of a twelve year old virgin girl. Oh, McCord, you should have heard her mewings."

I just sat there, forcing all emotion from my face. Strasser chuckled. He looked over his shoulder at his companions from the table he had left. His sneering body said it all : 'See how I have frightened the savage?'

He turned back to me, putting down the blood goblet. He smoothed his hand across the soft linen of the tablecloth, his palm flat against it. He sneered his contempt of me. Moving as fast as I could, I stabbed his right hand with the knife I still held, right beside and below his thumb. The fabled, lost 355th acupuncture point. Strasser screamed shrill ...

just like a little twelve year old girl.

It was a long wail of a scream. I twisted the knife to make it last longer. I smiled like a wolf.

I nudged it just to the right a bit. His scream cut off suddenly. Intense agony will do that to a man, rob him of the breath necessary to raw out his throat with the wail he was dying to scream but couldn't. I looked without mercy at him.

"You know, it's amazing how many people live their whole lives without paying attention."

I nodded down to his writhing hand. "Take the number five, for instance. Five fingers. Five notes in the musical scale. Five tastes for food. Five basic elements. Ever thought about that?"

I wiggled the knife a bit, and Strasser made little girl mewing sounds. "No, of course not. How many centuries have you wasted just existing, not thinking beneath the surface?"

I gave him a Fallen smile. "I'll tell how many. Too many. You talk educated, but it's all an empty show. Your lungs don't draw in oxygen. Even if they did, your heart no longer pumps blood to bring oxygen to your brain. How, then, does your brain keep on working?"

I sighed, "Do you know what animates your body that science would say is dead? Hell, do you know what even animates a living human body? No. You just accepted the fact that you existed and that you could prey on those weaker than you."

I heard low roaring in my ears. "You've preyed on little girls for so long you felt vicious and strong by comparison. You just think you're bad, Strasser. Now, me? I ... am ... bad."

I nudged the knife to give him the worst pain yet. "I could kill you right here, right now. But ... that ... would ... be ... mercy."

I tore out the knife in a splatter of thick, black blood. "And you don't deserve mercy."

He staggered up from his chair, hugging his limp hand to his chest. He looked down in horror. His right hand refused to move, hanging oddly limp at the wrist.

I shook my head. "It won't work anymore, Strasser. But if you're a good little boy all trip, I'll set it right for you. If I'm still alive, that is."

He flicked horrified eyes back to his slowly grinning companions. "Yeah, that's right. You're a maimed wolf now. And you know what the pack does to a maimed wolf, don't you?"

I almost felt sorry for him. "I think you better take up the art of learning. And the first thing I'd learn were I you would be diplomacy. Or running."

I gestured to his goblet. "Now, take your blood and get back to your ... friends."

He snatched the goblet, splattering drops of blood on the white tablecloth. "I will have my revenge for this."

I hefted the knife and caught it by the blade. "You want me to nail the other hand?"

He almost fell as he staggered backwards. I took no pleasure in the cruel grins his companions gave his back as he made his way to them. I caught their eyes and motioned to them with the knife. They stopped smiling.

**********************Word of warning to the Volturi : enter Samuel's universe at your peril. He shows mercy but seldom. Ask the Aztec dead of Meilori's. And no one plays with DayStar's toys.
{Something I read on http://jasouders.blogspot.com/ got my attention : You can check it out at hashtag #agentpay. It started off with a simple question posed by Uber Agent Colleen Lindsay. She asked, "How would publishing change if agenting moved from commission-based payment to billable hours?" What do you think about that, guys?}