Chapter Thirty

CAMERON

 

Following the man’s lead, the six members at his side also thanked them and bowed their heads in respect. The fae below them mirrored the action, and it spread like a wave through the crowd. The man continued after the crowd quieted. “All three were tempted and resisted. A well-earned respite is in order. We invite you to a feast in your honor for proving your fortitude of will. Please be merry and break bread with us. You can eat and drink to your heart’s content without stopping. Walk among the tables, where you will find food and drink from around the world, past, present, and future. Enjoy!” The disc lowered to the ground, fitting perfectly into the floor again.

Cameron shook his head in horror, stumbling away from the disc, from the madness. His mind was still clear. He knew he wasn’t being affected by Nathen and August’s blood but still had their power within him, which allowed him to open a channel between the three of them. “What is this?” He asked aloud, his eyes opened wide in shock and grief as he looked around at the revelers; horrific beings enjoying their suffering.

August rose, his head bowed in seemingly quiet contemplation.

Nathen’s hand slipped into his and he asked, “Are you okay? What happened?”

The sea of monstrous faces began to blur as Cameron turned in a circle, seeking escape. Images of Frank came unbidden to his mind. “Out,” he muttered, insanely looking for an exit sign and of course not finding one. He staggered to his right to come up against two identical women dressed in matching outfits, their beauty annoyingly frustrating. He trembled when they held their glasses out to him in toast.

“Out,” he said a little louder, turning and almost running into a horse-headed creature staring at him curiously.

He reached out with his mind, only able to read Nathen and August, but being too tormented to think coherently. “Out!” he shouted, sending the command throughout the area so all of the creatures knew his desire.

As the shout echoed through the space, everything shifted and blurred as though water had been thrown on a watercolor drawing. Cameron was on his knees, his eyes closed, and his mind swimming in a sense of euphoria that had no cause. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by a verdant forest. The hooded man in white sat on a log a distance away, by a stream, and was stoking a small campfire. He gestured to him, pointing to an empty space by the fire.

Near the man, sat a white cat with piercing blue eyes, licking and cleaning itself. Interrupted mid-lick, the cat’s tongue stuck out for a moment. It let out a small mewl causing a wave to wash over Cameron, and he shuddered, falling back on his haunches and taking a deep steadying breath. It was as if he had just kissed Nathen. All fear, frustration, and agony had shifted away, and though he knew he was being affected by magic, part of him wanted to surrender to it. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to take in the surroundings. The soothing quiet of the tranquil forest lulled him.

The man reached to his side and retrieved a large scroll which he unfurled and read silently. Cameron perked up when the man’s quality of mind shifted: now less alien, more open. He reached out and was welcomed, mentally hugged, causing Cameron’s breath to hitch. Cameron swiped his arm across his face to dry the tears. Frank… He had damned Frank to an eternity of hell? Until the fae had intervened? The tendrils of guilt began to weave into Cameron’s gut again. How much more is there? What other horrors were these monsters going to subject him to? Cameron wondered if this was going to be a pattern: being plucked from his existence to this hell, and then plopped back into home, only to be brought back for more psychological torture? The first time was Sanctuary itself: a beautiful, but alien, place with wonders. Except he couldn’t read anyone. He didn’t realize how that could make him so utterly alone, even with August and Nathen there. And then Frank? What next?

His gaze flicked back to the hooded man. “I can’t do this.” He gulped at the emotion that flowed from him. “Please…I know I’m in hell. I know why. What can I do to get out?” He fell forward, his forehead coming to rest on the soft, green moss. “Please…” He let out an agonized whisper, then inhaled the sweet and fertile scents around him. Something soft and furry rubbed against him. As it continued to rub, the intensity of his negative emotions slowly dissipated until he was once again calm, clear, and collected. He looked up in time to be gently head-butted by the white cat that started to purr and licked his nose.

A reluctant half smile tugged at Cameron’s mouth as he observed the animal, though in his heart he didn’t trust it. Cameron hauled himself up and walked over to the clearing, sitting and pulling his knees to where he could wrap his arms around them. “Fine,” he said, defeated. “What now?”

“Before I try to explain what is going on, I feel I should set the theme for this exchange. There is a start of a poem I hope will try to convey where you are. Auguries of Innocence is by a human poet, William Blake.” From inside the hood, Cameron heard the man clear his throat. “He wrote, ‘To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.’” He paused for a few fleeting moments before he continued. “You are not in hell. There is no hell besides the one beings put themselves through. Neither is there a heaven, save for the one that exists in a sage’s mind.”

Weary, Cameron shook his head. “Being in a place I’m exposed to the greatest failure of my life, and learning Frank has been tortured because of me is my idea of hell. How much more? How many more failings am I to be exposed to? How many more times will you tear me from my home to thank me for my service? What kind of games are you all playing?”

“Measuring yourself only by failure is not looking at the totality of your life. We have all failed an immeasurable number of times, missed the mark in catastrophic ways, destroyed lives, worlds, galaxies, and universes. Frank, you, everyone has, in grief, shed more tears than the waters in the four great oceans of your world. You see yourself as this single life, but you and everything in existence is much more. You can view yourself as a speck, the flotsam and jetsam in the great sea of the cosmos, or you can acknowledge you are a part of a whole, carrying on with the unfolding. The eternal process of existence and nonexistence.”

“I get it. I’m part of the whole, and things I do have rippling effects. So, I can cease to be, and therefore no longer hurt anyone? Is that even an option now I’ve sold my soul to you all?” Not giving the man a chance to answer, he went on. “Yeah, I didn’t think so. So what? Now I’m a knight? Someone that if I don’t get with the program, like any peon, you all have the right to torture? Cool, got that now too. Just tell me what you want.” Cameron let out the last as a groan, resting his head again on his knees, which he hugged close for some semblance of self-soothing.

The cat jumped on the lap of the man and started to purr. He gave it a few full body strokes.

“You are assuming things of us and your current situation that are not true or twisted beyond recognition. You have not sold your soul. Your soul is your own. Even if you were not a scion, you would still be bound to the unfolding, just on a slightly different path. What you went through is not torture; you are still part of the recognition process, and one of the steps is to transcend an unconscious impediment. In your case, the block you have against accepting yourself and forgiving your imperfections, and in so doing, by being unconscious of them, you are pushing people close to you away. An old sage once said, ‘Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.’ You can blindly suffer, or you can realize that suffering is a choice…a choice you keep repeating.”

Cameron thought for a moment. He understood cognitive behavioral therapy. Hell, he had used it with many clients. He deserved pain for what he had made Frank go through. But he also knew psychological pain was sometimes a choice, and if he thought about it differently, acknowledging he had made an error that he now knew about—one he wouldn’t be repeating, he would start to be able to be set free.

“Then I ask, what is it that I need to know? Who else have I unwittingly damned?” He didn’t mean the men who had harmed others. Those he had set on a path to destruction. But who else existed that needed saving from him?

The man didn’t immediately respond, instead quietly petted the cat. After a few moments he said, “Frank is free now. He is no longer bound to twilight by your force of will. He will rest, forget, and return. You may, and likely will, cross paths with him again. I hope it will be under better circumstances, and from the looks of it, he learned a few good lessons from this life.” He let out a pained laugh, lightly tinged with humor. “As for who you have damned… No one. Not even Frank. He would have been freed when you forgave or forgot him, or when the body you inhabit died. The only constant is change.”

Cameron took a deep stilted breath and blew it out in a long cleansing exhale. “Thank you.”

He bowed his head, plagued by a dozen thoughts. He hated the idea of anyone being angry with him or hating him and had gone to great lengths throughout his life to make sure people were at least neutral with him. At work, he was always congenial and professional. But the man was right. His only friend was Syn. Cameron stayed to himself and didn’t venture out emotionally: safer that way. And Frank had been safe because he had no desire for closeness. A classic narcissist, Frank showed interest only in himself and having Cameron be a reflection of his status. It had been a way for Cameron to feed his own need to punish himself. Because of his…mother.

“Mom.” How could he have forgotten?! He looked up, wide-eyed. “I need to get back to my mom! She’s being attacked.”

The hooded man nodded. “Yes, I know, but when you are in this place, time, for the most part, stands still in the material. I believe your mother will be safe, but you will need help from the other two. Together you are stronger than you are by yourself, and from what I understand, they were not there for the attack. That will need to be rectified. All three of you need time to rest, and I have a feeling you will do better away from the nexus of Sanctuary, please turn around.”

Confused, Cameron turned to confront a blur and a bleed of color; then he found himself standing in a field of bluebonnets very close to the place he remembered being with his mom. An unfamiliar farmhouse was the only structure in the field, and the man stood in the doorway waiting for him.

He frowned, glancing back to find the forest had been replaced by a field extending to the horizon. Cameron walked carefully through the flowers, mirroring what he had done as a child, careful not to crush any of them. The sweet scent permeated his memories bringing him back to when he was young with the safety of his mother. Time stopped? He was grateful for that. It would allow him time to figure out what to do. Exhaustion hung about his neck like an albatross. He couldn’t recall the last time he had actually slept. Days ago? A few hours?

“Nathen and August left. They’re gone,” he said softly, approaching the farmhouse.

Victorian-style furniture greeted him: a writing desk, tufted sofas, ornately carved tables, and floral-patterned tapestry hanging opposite the doorway, depicting a young man in a blue robe holding a golden cup. The rest of the walls had decorative sconces and paintings of various types. The cat was curled up on a finely upholstered red chair.

The man followed Cameron in and bid him to sit down in the living room. “I will have to go get them. Please make yourself comfortable. I will be back in a moment.”

Cameron was about to protest when the man blinked out of existence. As in the last place, he reached out mentally to see if he could make contact with any other minds. For the first time in his life, he was utterly alone. At first, shock thrilled through him, followed by relief there were no longer alien minds around him. Though the cat seemed to be intelligent beyond any animal he knew, for all intents and purposes, it was still just a cat. Cameron studied the doors leading out of the room and decided against exploring, partially out of fear. He settled into the armchair, keeping his eyes on the cat that didn’t seem to be taking much notice of him.

Before Cameron had a chance to study the living room in depth, the door opened, and the man entered with Nathen and August behind him. Past them, the assaultive smells, sounds, and sights of the bacchanalia raged on. Dara stood silently behind them but did not enter as the man closed the door.

Nathen ran to Cameron. “Babe! Are you okay? You yelled, then disappeared, and this guy appeared in your place.”

Cameron collapsed into Nathen’s arms, tears threatening. “I can’t stay here. Gorgeous, I’m sorry. I know you want to stay with these monsters. But I—I can’t. And I know that means we need to break up.” He flooded Nathen with images of what had happened in the last piece of eternity: his curse of Frank, Frank’s absolution, Cameron’s all-consuming guilt, his terror of a possible future wrought with being tortured by the fae with more and more “trials.” “Nathen, it’ll never end. The first time they dragged us here was in the middle of sex? The next time, just before we were going to be attacked? I can’t live in constant fear of when they’re going to arbitrarily decide to pluck me out of existence to play their games.”

Cameron pulled away, his breath coming quickly again. He searched Nathen’s eyes and shook his head.

Nathen projected to him, “I’m not going to stay here. I belong here, but I’m not needed here. I’m needed, however, where I am now, with you. I had something happen to me before I was brought back and have a few things we should talk about later. I’m sorry for what happened to you. But it looked like you saved Frank. How long have you been here?”

“I damned Frank. And saved him, yes. But that’s not the point. Why wouldn’t they have had me save him the first time we were on the disc? Why make us believe we were allowed to go home only to play the game of bringing us back to do this? How much more? I can’t… Nathen, I need to go home.” He rubbed his temples, trying to stave off the migraine that threatened.

The man lounged on the chair, petting the cat who had curled up in his lap.

Nathen listened, responding aloud, “Time works differently here. We may have never left from their perspective, or we left but that thread of probabilities was woven back to the disc? I’m not sure, to be honest. Did you want to go home now or rest here before we’re sent back?”

“My mom was under attack. There were arachnoids there. The guy said I need rest…but how can I?”

August asked, “What? You mean after Nathen left and I went after him?”

The cat jumped from the man’s lap and walked to Cameron, rubbing against his leg. Cameron started to calm again, and though he didn’t know why, he was now suspicious the cat had something to do with it. The cat paused and sat, staring up at Cameron, then meowed.

Nathen tried to soothe him by saying, “I…we will do everything we can to help you once we get back. But are you sure you want to go back in this state?”

Cameron took a few steps away from the cat. Eyeing it suspiciously, he asked, “How can I stay here? I don’t see how I can, in good conscience, party it up while my mother is about to be slaughtered by this man’s kind.” He shot an accusatory finger the man’s way. “Yes, I’m exhausted. But why is that? Maybe because these monsters get off by screwing with me. I was seconds away from jumping into a battle, and I had to be pulled in here to be put on a mental and emotional roller-coaster ride for one of their little tests?”

He turned to the man. “I ask again. How much more? How many more little tests do you have? How many more life interruptions so you all can be entertained?”

The man answered without emotion in his voice. “We are not doing this to entertain ourselves. You were brought back because your mother and friend would have surely died without the three of you there. The interruptions, as you perceive them, do not happen often, and normally you will get a messenger announcing it before they happen. Usually in a dream, though not always.” The man shifted. “As for your broader question, not until you become the man you spoke with. Not until you realize what you are. Not until you become the monster you think us to be. Many of us have saved countless lives, sacrificed our own, to keep the unfolding from straying too far to one side. We are not what you think we are.”

Cameron flinched. What did the man mean by him and the others becoming the monsters? He thought back— Wasn’t there something about becoming more like the fae themselves? Something about his soul no longer moving on like it would? All of it sent his thoughts scattering through a tornado of overwhelm. “I just really want to go help my mom,” he said wearily, looking to Nathen for support.

“We will definitely help Maria,” August said, stepping up to them and rubbing Cameron’s shoulders. “But I have to agree with Nathen—you’re too exhausted to really be at your full strength. Are we actually out of time?” he asked the man. “Can we return later without repercussions?”

The man nodded. “Time works differently here, so, yes, as you open up your perspective you can go into the future or the past depending on a few things we can touch on later. But for the most part, when you are here you can go directly to where you were taken from, or in your current state as scions, a few minutes into the past or the future. The material will not let you appear in the same place if your physical bodies are in separate places in space time, however.”

Cameron sat down heavily. “Then how will they get back in time? A few minutes won’t save us. We were surrounded. Nathen left at least fifteen minutes ago. August and I talked, and then he went after him, but that was what? Ten minutes ago? I don’t know how long I was in the bathroom.” He bent forward and began rubbing his head, exhaustion from the emotional upheaval of the day catching up with him.

August settled into a chair next to him and put a hand on his knee. “Hey, a few minutes buys us a lot of time. You can warn everyone of the incoming attack, and they can move to the most defensible space, yeah? And remember, they all have powers too. Wasn’t one of them a fire mage? And your mom’s a healer. Between them, and you, you can hold them off till we get there to help. What did Serge and Alfonso do? And Beth, wasn’t it?”

Cameron took a deep breath, feeling a bit steadier. “Serge is a physical mage, kind of like you,” he offered a half smile. “He can channel his abilities into his body for regeneration, strength, movement. Alfonso is strange. I picked up he can use his abilities for math and usually just makes a lot of money on the stock market, but he was also looking at the financials that the spiders had accrued and found patterns. He’s also apparently really good with a gun, using math for accurate shooting. I meant to ask him more about it today. Beth is a plant mage. So, yeah, they can all help. But there’s only six of us and eight or ten spiders. And mom’s a healer, not a fighter. In fact, from when I was a kid, when something would be hurt, she would actually get sick unless she started working to fix it, so she’s going to be pretty useless in a fight.”

Nathen chimed in, “I think August is right. Turn off the lights when you get back and get everyone into a defensive position; your mom and Syn in the back, the other mages and Paige in the front to defend as best they can. When I return I’ll race back. I wasn’t that far away. Mostly, I was actually sitting and thinking.”

“Cameron, if we’re safe here, then you should sleep. Rest. I can tell how fatigued you are, and I’m sure Nathen can as well. You’re going to need to be at your best for this. I can’t even begin to understand why the fae chose to reveal to us our link in the way they did, but I do appreciate they stopped Nathen and me from running away. We need to take care of you. Of your mom.” August looked to Nathen for support.

Nathen added. “I agree; you’re tired, and I think it would be better if we rested here. Maybe sleeping will give us a different understanding in what happened. And I think all three of us need to work together instead of running away. I am sorry about that. I was confused.” He wrapped Cameron in a tight embrace.

Cameron rested his head on Nathen’s shoulder. “Why did you go? Was it to return here?”

“No, I was just confused. I think the way you feel here is usually how I feel back home, though I’ve gotten used to it. Everyone’s mind to me seems alien. I don’t understand why people do the things they do, or for that matter why I do some of the things I do. Here, I feel different, I feel like there’s no script I have to keep in mind or watch what I say, or how I act, because these beings have seen it all already. It’s liberating. But I wasn’t going to leave. I was just trying to figure out what it all meant. Should I stay? Or should I go?”

Cameron understood exactly what Nathen felt. He wanted more than anything for Nathen to stay with him but having now been in a place where he had no ability to read people around him, no understanding what was going on, he couldn’t condemn Nathen to a lifetime of hell. “I think you should stay,” he said softly, pulling away from Nathen. “There’s no reason for you to come back. August and I can figure out this thing with the spiders. This was never your fight to begin with.”

Nathen looked down. “No, you don’t understand. First, I love you and want to be with you. Second, I may long to be here, but any real change only happens back in the real world. That’s my understanding. It’s either feel like I don’t belong but be helpful in ways other people may not be able to help, or stay here out of pure selfishness because it feels better. Sometimes things that feel good aren’t good for you, and sometimes things feel bad but are good for your personal and communal growth.”

Cameron chewed on his lip thoughtfully with so much he wanted to say to protest and convince Nathen to stay. But it seemed like he had already thought about the decision to leave Sanctuary and Cameron knew Nathen’s level of stubbornness. He finally sighed, gratefully saying, “I want to be with you too.”

The man broke the silence. “There is food in the kitchen, which is through this hallway, and a bathroom on the right. Feel free to eat or drink anything you find. The bedrooms are upstairs. There is also a bathroom there if you want to bathe. You will find all amenities here. When you are ready to leave, let me know. I will be down here.”

Cameron shot the man a suspicious glance. August rose and held his hands out for Nathen and Cameron. “Come on, let’s go.”

Cameron reluctantly accepted August’s hand and stood, surveying the man. “I don’t trust him,” he told August and Nathen as August ushered the three of them down the hall toward the stairs.

“I’m not sure what to think about any of this. I’m a pretty simple person and have to admit this is very confusing. But so far, they haven’t done anything malevolent. They seem to have just wanted to help, and now they are asking our help in return,” August thought, gently guiding Nathen and Cameron up the stairs with his hand on their lower backs.

Cameron glanced into the first room they came to. The furniture and color scheme were simple and elegant. A black, low-to-the-ground, king-sized bed with a gray-and-white bedspread and a telescope pointing out a large, seamless window overlooking a cityscape that did not belong there, considering what he had seen when outside. The floor lights gave off an inviting glow. The room looked bigger than what one would be expecting in this type of house, as though the doorway connected two different spaces.

Cameron frowned, turning away from the view. “I hate this place,” he muttered, pulling off his shirt.

August marveled at the skyline. “Why? It’s as if we’re in a penthouse apartment overlooking some city. It’s really quite beautiful.”

Moodily kicking off his shoes and shimmying out of his pants, Cameron grumbled, “Because it’s all an illusion.” He fell onto the plush comfortable bed.

Nathen said, “Isn’t there a song that ends with ‘Life is but a dream’? It’s all as real as your mind perceives it to be. Even a dream is very real to the person that’s having it. What this place is, is not very probable. But in a beautiful way…”

Cameron looked up expectantly, waiting for Nathen to finish his thought. When it was obvious he was lost in his own process, Cameron fell back and stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah. I’m more than aware of how you can create reality in someone’s mind that doesn’t actually exist and also how we make our own realities. This place exists outside of our world and is inhabited by creatures of dreams and nightmares. You’ve only seen the beautiful side of it. Only what they’ve shown you to get you on board. They’re not going to scare us too much right away with the reality of what all this place holds.” He didn’t rehash how much he hated being in Sanctuary. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Nathen was a convert, and it wasn’t up to him to change his mind.

August settled next to Cameron and pulled off his shoes. “We need to get that mind of yours to rest,” he said softly, leaning down to press lips and flick his tongue lightly against Cameron’s.

Cameron’s shoulders slumped with a jolt of relaxation and looked up into August’s kind eyes, his own blurring with tears. “I hate it here,” he disclosed in a silent cry.

“I know,” August said, pulling his shirt off before he pushed the bedding down. “But we’re all here together. And we’ll protect each other.”

“How? How, when they, with a thought, can do whatever they like. For some stupid trials so they can–?”

August slipped an arm under Cameron and kissed him deeper. “Rest.” His mental croon soothed. “We’re not going anywhere. We’ll be right here. You’re safe. I swear.”

Cameron swooned again caught between exhaustion and arousal.