I found a passage at the back of one of Papas’ diaries, which were words she’d said one of those nights. She told him: ‘No one is evil by default. Everyone has choices. The choices you make are what define you. You can be whoever you want to be, whoever you are.’
That night, Papa didn’t sleep on the couch. That evening when she came to the bar after her shift, he was sober. He never said it, but it was obvious that he had found something to live for.
It had been two weeks since Lorena had fed. She refused to allow herself to feed on Antonio. Aside from the fact that he would remember, she cared for him too much. Succubi need to feed on average at least once a week, or they start to degenerate. But something strange was happening to Mamma. Her looks weren’t declining. If anything, she was becoming even more beautiful. She didn’t know what it meant, but she didn’t care — she was happy.
After a while, Papa moved in with Mamma. He got himself a job at the same bar he’d visited so many times. It was another month before the HASEA came to him. They caught up with him as he was walking home and told him what he really was. He had to believe them, they knew too much about what he was going through to be lying. He went with them to Castello, where they filled in the blanks.
They also told him what Lorena was.
As soon as they did, he ran from the base and went straight home. He confronted Mamma about it, demanding the truth. She broke down and told him. He was horrified and left her sobbing her heart out. I know this makes him seem like a horrible person Alex, but he was just really scared. Don’t forget how he was raised. It was almost impossible for him not to apply religion to what he’d learned. But religion has so much wrong. It refers to most Umbra species as demons. And demons within that context are completely evil. And Succubi are supposedly demons. So he believed my mother was evil and had been sent by the Devil to help corrupt his soul.
He was followed by the Alliance and brought back in. Over the next few days, without my father around, my mother began to decay rapidly. At first she thought that it was because she’d subconsciously been draining him without either of them realising. But when she drained a random person and it made no difference, it was like she was dying of sadness.
Papa was hurting too and despite his beliefs, he snuck over to Mamma’s house and peered in through the window. Apparently she was slumped against the lounge wall, looking at least sixty years old. Instead of being repulsed, he panicked. Broke the door down and went to her. Told her that he didn’t care what she was. That someone had told him that no one is evil by default. Within hours she began to heal. By the morning she was back to the beautiful woman he knew and loved. He vowed that he’d never leave her again and she forgave him, because she knew both figuratively and literally that she couldn’t live without him.
They joined the HASEA together and were honest about their relationship. There were no laws forbidding relationships between Pandemonians and Chosen, but it was frowned upon back then. But they were in love and didn’t care either way. The longer they spent together, the more human my mother became. She didn’t need to feed any more. Somehow Papa kept her healthy. So when she started being sick in the mornings, they both knew it was for another reason entirely.
A union between an Umbra and a Chosen was bad enough, but neither of my parents knew what the consequences of a resulting child would be. You already know that witches and shaman are the result of Pandemonians breeding with humans, but it was believed that a Chosen and Pandemonian couldn’t produce a child. In the history of the Alliance, not a single case was reported where it had happened — I guess it essentially goes against nature. I know this sounds really cheesy, but I was a miracle. Because my parents simply didn’t know what would happen to me if the HASEA found out, they kept me hidden away for fear of me being taken away. Don’t get me wrong; even though I was a ‘secret’, I was loved unconditionally. I had an amazing life and was spoiled by both Mamma and Papa.
Then it all went wrong.
I was seven years old when the SOS found out about my parent’s relationship. The information made it all the way back to Hades. He was furious and took what he saw as one of his own joining with a Chosen as a personal insult against himself and the Umbra. So he gave the Sorrow its first mission on this side of the Veil. Kill my parents.
For the week before the thing came, Papa began to have the worst nightmares. He’d wake in the middle of the night screaming. Hearing him sound so frightened made me cry. Then a few days later, the storms started. I remember it was the worst weather I’d ever seen. Skies the colour of blood. Thunder so loud you thought your eardrums would burst. Constant rain. The lighting was relentless and so destructive. I remember that Mamma had to keep comforting me, because I genuinely thought that the sky was going to collapse and kill us all.
The final night, we were huddled in the living room. The power had gone out. I was wrapped in a blanket which I carried everywhere with me. I loved it, because it smelled of them. I was sitting on the edge of the couch, stroking Papa’s hair. He was laying on it, writing in one of his journals that he’d converted into his own version of a HASEA handbook — the one you now own. He’d barely been getting any sleep at all. More bad dreams he’d told me, but he never told me what about.
I remember Mamma was sitting on the floor holding Papa’s free hand. None of us were talking, we were just happy in each other’s company.
Papa heard it first. Or sensed it, I’ll never know which. He jerked up almost knocking me off the armrest. He looked down at my Mother, who seemed confused for a moment and then…scared. The atmosphere frightened me. I asked what was wrong, but they wouldn’t answer me. I followed, dragging my blanket as they ran into the hallway. I watched my Papa open the small metal vent above the stairway. He pulled out a bag and ran back into the lounge with it. I followed him back in. He placed it on the table and pulled out all sorts of things I’d never seen. I know now that they were Alliance weapons. Mamma pulled away a small rug, which exposed a trapdoor I’d never even known existed.
They were acting frantically and it was scaring me so much I could barely breathe. I started to cry. Papa stopped and looked at me. I’ll never forget that face as long as I live.
He looked so sad.
Mamma…sorry this is so hard. No…it’s ok, I’m ok. Mama knelt down and hugged me so tightly it hurt. Father did the same. They both held me as if it were the last thing they would ever do. I was sniffing and hiccupping from being so scared and confused. Mamma shushed me and smoothed the back of my hair, the way she always did when I was upset.
I remember, she pointed at the trapdoor and said, ‘listen carefully mia bambina, you need to go down here and keep very, very quiet okay?’ I told them I didn’t want to. I–I didn’t want to be away from them. Then Papa said ‘please.’ Maybe it was the way he said it, or because of the look he’d given me before, but I agreed. They both hugged me one more time. Then they said their last words they would ever say to me. Mamma said ‘We love you with all our hearts.’ And Papa said ‘Always.’