James Hackett

It felt like a lifetime. It was exactly one month. One solitary month to the day I last tried to end my life. Who would have thought my life would still be mine and that it would have taken such a path.

One month.

My grandmother, Maman had died in that month, but this was the second time I was here at her grave since then. The first time was to mourn in disbelief this time it was for something completely different.

This time, this day, it would be purpose fulfilled.

Today would be Destiny.

Today was also my birthday. I turn 28 today. By the world’s standards I am supposed to be planning a wedding or preparing for a birth. Of course in my perfect bungalow with the man of my dreams and my green picket fence (hey here in the Caribbean we like color…white was not going to cut it).

Well I was never one to follow predetermined ideals; it just wasn’t ingrained in my system. So for this birthday I am here at my beloved Maman’s grave waiting for a man of my dreams at least, not the one you would think though.

I can feel Maman here with me, looking after me as she always did while I place her favorite triple pink hibiscus flowers on her little plaque.

Hmmm when the mealy bug hit the island years ago only Maman managed to keep her hibiscus flowers going in her neighborhood, everyone else lost their flowers. Not her. I thought she kept them alive and flourishing with her stubbornness and well those ladybugs she introduced to her yard helped, a bit.

Just thinking of her and her “adventures” still makes me smile. That, together with the smell of the flowers and the knowledge that I was doing exactly what she would want me to do, made this a very special birthday indeed.

And there was the most important part of my day slowly making his way towards me. I probably made a very vulnerable picture. A young woman in a wheelchair hunched over the grey marble plaque. It must look like I was overcome with grief and so alone in the world.

Truth is I will always miss having Maman around, I was sitting here alone but the only emotion flowing through me was a cool deep calculated river of justice and revenge. The last month had taught me that allowing what you cannot change to overcome you was stupid and I no longer had room in my life to be stupid.

The clueless male approaching me, was slowly filling his lifetime stupid quota with every step he took in my direction. Little did he know. Heh.

He had a very ordinary face, closely clipped white hair with deeply veined hands that showed his age to be a lot older than his face and well toned body might have impressed upon the average person. He walked with an air of confidence that seemed to exude from his translucent milk colored skin, which told me he was unaware that I was watching him, observing his every move and reading the tale his features and gait told.

Mmmm, and there is the needle he would inject me with. I had to admit that was very clever, who would stop a man from wheeling a young woman, who had collapsed while mourning out of a cemetery. Knowing Trinidadians everyone would smile and ask if he needed help.

Given that it was my birthday and he had gone through all this trouble there was only one thing for me to really do now.

Keep my body relaxed and let him take me. It would be my best birthday yet.

An hour and a half later the setting sun gave a beautiful orangey pink back drop as the car he put me in drove through a pair of huge black gates, built to keep people out and secrets in. The creepiest and most evil of people always live in houses that look like they belonged on the cover of Architectural Digest. Maman always used to say though, “You can’t cover ugly…no matter how much you try.”

This freak must be hella ugly on the inside.

Thankfully though, he was thorough. They would be no sign of me ever being here when this was over. He really should be congratulated for the good job he was doing, and how much easier he was going to make my job.

SHIT!

I spoke way too soon.

The bastard is dismantling my chair and giving it away to charity! Da Hell!

There he is smiling and being gracious, talking about an old aunt who passed away, while the Rotary Club guy is just swallowing his story whole.

My ass was grass.

Ok so now I am pissed and without an inconspicuous way to leave. Sigh, somehow I do not think anyone is ready to see me cross my legs lift them up in the air with one hand and walk on my fingers down a street with the other hand. Besides that would be a lousy way to keep one of my new abilities quiet.

The strength of the Titans bestowed on me, in the most unimaginable way possible. During one of my journeys which was initiated by a quite severe shock to my senses…literally.

“She’s unconscious Doctors.”

“Thank you orderly Jenson, just take her back to her room. Dr Rorke you need not look like that, this is a perfectly normal reaction”

“I am sorry Dr. Legalle, it goes against my better instincts to subject my patient to such a brutal form of treatment”

“Brutal? I am not sure I would call it that, but it is definitely effective.”

“Shocking her brain while she bites into a strap, is not brutal?”

“Sometimes in medicine the methods may be harsh but you cannot complain about the results…and studies show…”

“Dr. Legalle please spare me your speech, I have thoroughly researched this form of treatment, I would NEVER subject any patient of mine to any type of cure I was not well versed in. However, I swore an oath to heal, care for and ensure the wellness of those who entrust themselves to me, shoving volts of electricity from one side of the brain to the other is very difficult for me to accept as the best care possible, but…sigh”

“She left us no choice…”

As the unconscious Layla is rolled away to her room via gurney, both doctors stop and look at her flushed skin, pity fills Dr. Legalle’s eyes while Andrew’s tightly controlled mask of a face attempted to hide the frustration and guilt pouring out of his.

“No…she didn’t.”

Before she had opened her eyes Layla knew something was not quite right. It didn’t feel wrong just different enough to alert her senses. Every single sense was hyper but her eyes, she kept them close because if what her other senses were communicating was even slightly accurate things had gone horribly awry with her final reward.

Firstly she felt grass below her. Grass she instinctively knew would be greener than any other she had seen before, the kind of green found in…Ireland.

Why do I know that?

Then the smells that surrounded her seemed too clean, too pure and too wholesome to be from the twenty-first century.

How did I change time zones? Wait how do I know I changed time zones?

“Are you going to lie around all day? What is wrong with your skin it is an odd color?”

That loud scary voice couldn’t be talking to me, right? And he isn’t speaking English, that’s Gaelic.

Ok this is too much.

According to my senses I am lying in a field in Ireland, centuries away from my own and being spoken to in Gaelic which I can understand perfectly.

Layla opened her mouth to pull in a deep breath and immediately everything her nose had told her was reinforced in triplicate.

With her heart beating staccato, slowly she separated her eyelids to peer out at what lay before her.

Not everyone believes in love at first sight, that is just how cynical the world has become. However there isn’t a person alive in whatever century or universe you choose who does not believe in fear at first sight.

And this man in front of me, there is no question he was going around making believers and faithful followers of that ideal every where he went.

Strangely enough he was the kind of handsome that made you think of hot, wet, forbidden sex somewhere out in the open where you could get caught. I knew that but did not feel it. Weirdly, the more I looked at him the more connected to him I felt, not in a heated horny way but in one that was a lot more unnerving.

I was of him.

He knew it and he really didn’t like it.

At six foot seven inches tall, shoulders as wide and broad as a mountain and two Giant Sequoias for legs, he was physically intimidating. That was not made you afraid though, the fear came when you looked into that face.

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The icy green eyes that gored you in place drew your attention at first, and then after you defecated where you stood, the sharp and unforgiving nose lead your eyes to a mouth that twisted and sneered with inconsumable cruelty. There was no romance novel flowing black or chestnut hair on him either; he was completely bald.

To ensure that all your bowels were empty after first glance an aura of hate and destruction rolled off of him in stifling waves.

And all of that was currently directed towards me.

“You, they send me you? That witch, she knew how I would hate this task! She knew!”

There we go with the Gaelic again.

“What am I doing here?”

Now I was speaking it. Hell why not. Everything was crazy and after all what else would I be speaking in Ireland B.C.

“Do not speak to me. You are not worthy to be acknowledged by me.”

“Why not?”

“You are not of me. I refuse to believe you are, I will not train you!”

“Train me? What are you yelling about? What is going on? And more importantly, why are you lying to me?”

He narrowed his glare on me even more as I spoke to him. Both of us felt the truth of my words as clearly as we felt the weight of his lies.

With my mind whirring and my senses on max, I sat up. If I was going to be bullied and insulted I was going to face it as head on as I could get.

Wait.

Why do I feel so different? Scary guy made me forget how strong I felt when I woke up. It feels like I could lift a full grown horse with no effort. Oh please let it be true, because if scary guy came after me amazing strength would be desperately needed.

Being able to move away from him would also be a wonderful thing.

How the hell was I going to do that? My legs still didn’t work, dragging my body across the grass would be humiliating but I would be moving away from dangerous mountain man.

I tried a tentative slide away and ended up sprawled 20 feet away in a tangled mess.

Holy Mother of…that much strength? If I could do that then maybe if I cross my right leg over my left like this. Then I can lift my legs, hips and some of my torso up off the ground with my left hand underneath…wow I can. Ok if I can do that then putting my body weight on my right arm my entire body would be elevated off the grass…Ha!…completely easy!

Ok, I can support all of me like this, now to move.

Hop along on one hand?

That shot me another twenty feet, this time vertically. And of course I landed hard on my ass. OW!

Nothing seemed broken though. Out of the corner of my eye I saw scary guy coming towards me with what looked like a maniacal gleam in his eye.

Crap…think…think…think! I mounted my body up on one hand again, then out of nowhere I got an image of “Thing” from “The Addams Family”.

Why not?

Hysterical giggles just bubbled up uncontrollable, I was walking again.

There I was laughing like an idiot while the Irish version of Attila the Hun stared at me in what I hoped was disbelief.

I managed to hold myself up in the air and actually be able to walk, I guess you would call it, on two fingers just like “Thing”. This was incredible. I hadn’t walked in so long. I was able to move freely about of my own volition.

Mid laughter I looked up, remembering the giant man who was clearly contemplating my death.

“You are the one I am meant to train.”

“How do you know?”

“You have the gift.

“What gift?”

“Strength of the Titans. If need be you can lift the earth on your shoulders, by the end of this journey you’re on, you may have to.”

“How do you say fuck me in this language?”

His annoyed look told me he didn’t know the word.

“Nevermind.”

“Are you going to explain what is going on to me?”

“I can only explain my part in this nothing else.”

“Well…?”

“Follow me. There is much we must do in very little time.”

There was nothing else for me to do but get up on my fingers again and follow scary guy.

Sile Una was what Enos aka scary guy called me. It meant blind lamb. Flattering isn’t he?

He was as cruel as he seemed but with good reason.

Enos was named for his unique strength and for the outstanding role he was born to play in the wars his tribe, well my tribe too apparently, were to face in his lifetime. Their existence and hence mine was dependant on him.

In between grunts and commands he told me the story of his life and purpose. A local witch (complete with bubbling pot and hacking laugh) predicted his birth and purpose. His price for the gift bestowed on him was to train the descendant the gods would send to him, if he refused to do so he would lose his strength and be unable to defend those he was born to protect.

The more time I spent with him the more I understood how like Atlas he was. The weight of his world was also on his shoulders, not in punishment but in purpose. Enos never let it overwhelm or stifle him. He just kept doing what he was meant to do. Part of which included transforming my raw inherited power into a well controlled arsenal of forces that would be at my disposal.

He taught me how to use my strength and my body to my advantage.

Lifting stones, wrestling drills and most importantly learning the limits of my own power, were all part of the training Enos gave me.

For weeks we worked tirelessly, rising with the sun and sleeping when it set.

“You still cannot beat me. You must be able to beat me before this is done.”

“This is unfair.”

“Do you think your enemies will be fair?”

“What enemies?”

Attacking me while he spoke, his relentless body and strength kept pounding at me no matter how tired I felt or for how long we spent doing other drills this exercise was always the last thing we did before we slept EVERY night.

Tonight I was tired, grumpy, and hungry and the Sun refused to set, there was only one way out of this night’s attack.

His leg struck out towards my head. Just before contact I grabbed his calf and yanked him forward using his momentum against him. Falling forward his hands tried to snatch my torso.

Not this time.

Grabbing his thighs I hefted him up into the air, pitching him as far as I could.

The ground vibrated with a muffled crunch as his back slammed into turf.

Sweat beaded our faces as he came at me again.

Steely arms enclosed as I feinted then clutched his waist and slammed his upper body to the ground WWF style.

I had a milli second to savor that move.

By now we were both panting and determined not to lose.

He came at me again this time from close range making the point that I had to pin him to stop the exercise.

So be it.

Clasping his outstretched hand in mine I twisted my wrist rotating his arm as I reached for his opposite ankle locking it with his captured wrist behind his back and between our bodies as I screamed and slammed both (of us) bodies to the earth.

“I name you Mairsile. Flesh of my flesh, blood descendant of mine, rightful vengeance seeker of those who have fallen.”

There is a heavily guarded secret in my family and it has to do with when I was born. My birth date is listed as November 7th, 7:50 am. Twelve hours off from the actual time I took my first breathe.

And until this day I never understood the why of this lie.

The ceiling was high and wooden, the room a clutter of smells, art and death. He laid me out on a gurney and stroked his fingers down to the pulse in my neck.

Something was wrong, it was too strong. The first trickles of worry and fear traced across his face, lifting my eyes I let him see the full awareness mirrored in them.

“No!…You should be unconscious!”

“My apologies for the inconvenience, but how could I miss the opportunity to share my birthday Baiser de Mort with you.”

His eyes bulged in alarm as the words birthday and Baiser de Mort left my lips. My arms slinked around his neck in a deadly embrace, his frantic struggles felt like nothing more than mere shivers against my chest.

“That’s right, it is my birthday. Which means I am La Femme de Mort.”

As my lips brushed his and death began to consume him, I gave him a message to pass along.

“Tell the devil I am sending his prodigal children back home.”