Page 146 of White Raven
“I went to college. I joined the military. John made short work of cutting my funding, and I in turn…indulged more. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape her. Couldn’t escape the dark. Until one night…sitting in another tavern in Virginia, my mindless rambling attracted the attention of someone who was like her. I knew him only by the name ‘Reynolds’.”
Tony bristled, and Sarah glanced over at him, then at Athan, who looked like he was putting two-and-two together.
“He, like you…” Poe said, nodding his head towards Tony, who didn’t balk as he stared. “Was kind to me. Told me he believed me…believed my stories. He said that he had been searching for covens throughout the colonies. Someone to stand against what she’d bring when she finally came to our world. I was wild with joy. I found a strange peace, knowing that the sickness wasn’t in my head—but was my verylife. He warned the beings like him, with my help. Shortly after, he left on a ship. A ship that would bring her back sometime later. He promised to deliver her to the port in Jamestown. There…the covens would take her down, and any that stood with her.”
Athan dropped his stare to the floor, and Sarah couldn’t help but look at him. He knew.
Did Decclan leave to come here before Dahlia moved the coven?
Athan barely nodded. Like he didn’t want to let Poe in what he’d figured out. Poe, to his credit, had a knowing look in his eye as he continued to pace and tell his story.
Dahlia sent him ahead to prepare a homestead for the coven. He was gone for over a month before he came back.
“The covens we warned welcomed me. Welcomed my information, and what would today, be calledintel.” He strummed over the word as if it were uncomfortable to say. As if his old-world mind couldn’t like the taste of it. “They adopted me into their world. Made me a priority. I was safe and protected. Respected. A league I could relate to as my own. I kept their secrets and spun their tales. I never stopped writing about Death. I embraced the idea, as it had become a member of the family by then. Death is a charming lover. Many years went by, but Reynolds did not return. Nor did his elder witch.” He paused at the window, clasping his hands at his back, and staring out into Baltimore.
“I went on about my life, happy to be in company with the vampires. They told me that when I was ready…I could be one of them. That when Death came for her due…I could gamble again, and this time—cheat her. I learned sometime later that Dahlia finally docked in Jamestown, and the covens were prepared. So was I.” He turned his chin over his shoulder and met eyes with Athan—not Sarah. She stared after him in silence. “I had suspected Death being ever-present for some time. I felt it coming for me. I warned those close to me, but…as per usual…nobody listened. It was nothing new, of course. I had already been dismissed by that time as an imbecile.”
“What happened?” Sarah asked, feeling her arms tremble with nerves.
He turned and leaned back against the window. “The Black Bird coven was spared. But…you know that already, don’t you?” He smiled first at Athan…and then his gaze landed on Sarah, who was swept into the memory of being in Athan’s bed, thoroughly ravaged, and about to turn herself into the 12thprecinct. The morning that he told her about what transpired in Jamestown’s port.
“It was you…” Athan whispered. “You were the one that orchestrated that mob.”
Poe shook his head, smirking and returning his hands to his pockets. “No. Not I, alone. Reynolds conspired to put the execution into motion. Over the years that we waited for her to show herself…I grew fond of the others, and they of me. Reynolds, I was informed, was on that ship. As were you, Athan Kane. Your coven slaughtered my fanged comrades. The only people that had ever believed me.”
Athan leapt up from his chair and pointed a tattooed finger at him. “You’re full ofshit!I was ready to burn with that ship! I was gonna take her down with me! I hated her. I wanted to watch her die, and I wanted to dielongbefore they tried to set fire to that boat! If that was your reason for burying me in your own fucking grave, then you have a thing or two still to learn about a truestory, you motherfucker!”
Poe smiled, not at all fazed by his outburst. “You have such a fire inside you. You forget…I knew all too well your hatred for Dahlia. For your unprecedented immortal life. I’ve read your own work,Nathaniel.” Athan stiffened at the use of his real name, and Sarah recalled the leather journal she cherished so much. “But all that was much later. Many years after my betrayal, and my plans for vengeance. It was shortly after that incident in Jamestown, that Death finally came for me. I’d received a letter from Reynolds. Dahlia had set her sights on Boston and was taking her coven with her. Reynolds apologized for the assault that had ravaged our numbers. He’d said he’d made a grave mistake and was to deliver Dahlia to me personally. He had convinced her to possibly consider a placehere…in Baltimore. He’d bring her. And we’d be ready to put her down.”
“But he didn’t…” Tony spoke up. Athan turned toward his friend, and Sarah urged him to sit back down. “We left for Boston anyway. The only other place Dahlia was considering was New York.”
Poe dipped his chin, confirming it. “The meeting was to take place outside town. Midnight. There was a grove that some brave enough would use for rituals of witchcraft. It was heavily wooded, and perfect. We were to meet there. I informed the still-loyal members of our coven that I was to attend this meeting, and they would bear witness to the execution of the woman that had killed our members. Our family. They were too late.”
Athan swallowed, and Sarah bit down on her lip, trying desperately to hide any sign of sympathy from the man that had fucked up her life.
“He tricked you,” Tony stated.
“He did. I had grown tired of waiting. It was well past midnight. I had been taking drink from a flask I’d brought. Thought I was hearing things when I’d finally heard a rustling in the trees. Dismissed it, only to have my head nearly knocked from my shoulders, though I still don’t know from what. He beat me senseless. I knew my head was badly injured. It was as if I were trapped, screaming in my own mind. Imprisoned in a body that I knew would die. I was stripped naked and beaten some more. He yelled things in another language. One I know now, but didn’t then. He said he’d never give her up, no matter who she truly loved. A man on fire, that was heartsick over the Devil. If there were any true example of a mind lost…it was that man. I pitied him. He must have pitied me. My clothes were bloodied, and soiled. So, he removed his own and dressed me in them. He begged for my forgiveness and left me there to die.”
He was talking out of his mind, and was found dressed in clothes that weren’t his own…
Sarah looked at Tony, who was pale with disbelief.
“When my comrades finally showed, it was too late to save me. No one was sure if turning me then would leave my mind in the state it was trapped in. They found a man named Joseph Walker. Pleaded with him to save me, and he took me to Washington Medical College. Every so often, as the hours passed, I was able to voice the name of my attacker. But no one seemed to understand me. Death smiled and laid in wait…and I knew…my gamble was short. She’d won. I screamed his name throughout the night, and then…the next morning, before the cock had even crowed…she tried to steal my soul, even as I begged God for it.”
Every detail…it added up. Athan knew it too. They all sat in stunned silence, mulling it all over. Sarah turned her face towards him.
“But…youdiddie.”
He smiled back at her. “Did I?” The wooden chair screeched on the floor as he plopped back down into it and stretched a leg out. “My darling Virginia…she left me long before. But I had taken many lovers in my forty years. Do you remember…the things you read when you were in Virginia? About how coffins were often fitted with bells?” Sarah nodded slowly. “One of my former lovers…a woman I once pledged to marry…her name was also Sarah. She’d been turned some time before. She heard about my demise. Came to pay her respects, I suppose. She’d gotten word from some of the coven, and they sought to honor me for my service to them. For my loyalty. But after my burial…as she stood mourning at my grave…she heard it. I opened my eyes to find myself trapped, yet again…in the darkness. I rang the bell frantically. She told the coven, who then got me out. They turned me that evening. I became their elder. My mother-in-law…Maria. She sent for my body and had a casket full of rocks transported to my final resting place. She never knew that I still lived. I was forever grateful to her. Ichose to remain dead. For the world to forget Edgar Allan Poe, and instead…I became John Allan. A smart businessman, and a father to those less fortunate.”
He was doing really well. Up until the point that he called himself a father…a father he’d be to others but was never intent on being for her. Sarah shook with rage.
“Oh,fuckyou,” she growled, leaning forward, and spitting at his feet. “What is this? Some well-told story, to get me to feelsorryfor you? Topityyou? Youhada daughter, you prick! Youwerea father! Why don’t you skip to that part and give me a good reason for your fatherly fucking absence!” Athan gripped her knee, willing some sort of calm into her down their bond. Poe stared at the hand she laid over his fingers, and at the large blood ruby shining on it.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “But that was over a century later, little bird.”
“Start talking.” Sarah leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Poe looked to Athan then.
