Jerking awake. Hands tangling in sheets as they struggled to protect his face. Alarm blaring. Gasping for air. Confusion. Hector turned off his alarm and collapsed back onto his bed, trying to calm his panic. He had to make himself believe that no one had attacked him. That was Volithur’s life. Though the moment he returned to sleep, he would get to feel the aftermath of that incoming fist.
He sighed as he stared at his ceiling. Sometimes it felt like only bad things came Volithur’s way.
The door to his room banged open to admit a four-legged intruder who jumped onto the bed and began to lick Hector’s face. “Bad things happen to me, too, come to think of it.”
“What are you talking about?” Jennifer and the other two dogs entered his room.
“I thought you were going to stay out of my way,” Hector said.
Jennifer gestured to the door. “I’m not blocking your path.”
“Well, I’ve got things to do….”
“No you don’t. Sunday is when you do laundry and prep meals. A Jinn personality like you doesn’t deviate from your schedule.”
Hector pushed the dog away from his face. “My father’s in the hospital, so that’s happening.”
Jennifer winced. “How is he doing?”
“He’s dying.”
“I dropped by to see him last month. He was polite about it, but I got the impression he didn’t want me there. I bet you told him I cheated on you, like you told all my friends.”
“We’re still technically married, Jen, so anyone you slept with was infidelity. Having a different mailing address doesn’t change facts.”
“You’re just trying to be difficult,” Jennifer said.
Hector swung his feet over the side of the bed, which brought the retriever mix over to stand directly in his way in a bid for attention. He patted the guy’s head. “This one is Buster?”
“Hey, you remembered!”
“He’s my favorite,” Hector said.
“Hector Thoreaux, you cannot play favorites with your children.”
He nodded to the slobbery pit bull his bed currently alternating between sniffing and licking the back of his head. “Jasmine does too much kissing. And I’m pretty sure Maggie is blind.”
“She’s only partially blind. And how could someone abandon a dog at the end of its life like that? She lives with people her whole life, then they get rid of her when she becomes a burden.”
Hector changed into his street clothes in the bathroom, then emerged to find Jennifer hauling the laundry basket down the hall. “What are you doing?”
“It’s laundry day,” she replied.
“I can do my own laundry.”
“I’ve got it.”
Hector’s brow drew down. “Doing domestic work isn’t going to change my mind about us.”
“I’m living here again, so I’m going to help out.”
“Do not cook any of the food I bought.”
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“I can make spaghetti, Hector.”
“You burn everything, Jen. Don’t touch my food.”
“Go see your dad. Tell him I said hi.”
“Don’t touch my food, Jen.”
“See you in a bit, Hector.”
“I’m serious.”
Jen continued her trip with the laundry basket, so Hector detoured to the fridge, where he hid the ground beef and chicken planks in a plastic bag. Necessary defensive moves taken, Hector drove to the hospital.
He discovered his father in the midst of being checked over by nurses when he pushed open the closed door. Terry Thoreaux waved to him as he entered. “Come on in, make it a party. These ladies like to check out every inch of my body.”
The nurse snorted. “Only cause they pay me, Terry.”
“I take back everything bad I ever said about American healthcare.”
She pulled his covers back over him. “Want more apple juice sent up?”
“Please.”
As the nurse left, Hector took his usual seat. “How are the dreams lately?”
“Deronto became an Alfar. He’s not with Lina any more, but life goes on.”
“What happened to Lina?”
His dad scratched his head. “Well, it’s not something I approve of. Deronto isn’t me, right? He lost interest in his lady after she put on some weight. She had an injured shoulder and limited her activity for a while in the village. Ate a bit more than normal. Deronto started noticing how Lina’s cousin Ira was the more attractive of the two. So he bungled up the whole situation and neither of the women care for him anymore.”
“He sure lost interest fast. It’s only been a few days since we last spoke. How long was that in dream time? A few weeks?”
“Three years,” Terry said. “Feels like I lived them years, too. Deronto is tending a sacred grove with some religious order. He hasn’t caught the faith, but he is gaining insights being around the trees. They came from the Alfar home world. They are changing the energy of the planet to be more in line with life. Some sort of Arahant project, spreading the Alfar around to new universes. No one really understands what the great races get up to, other than fighting each other.”
“The great races?”
“Arahant and Jinn and Xian. Your Xian are the worst of the bunch. They war for the fun of it.”
“Yeah, my dream guy isn’t doing so well among the Xian. They won’t give him any resources to cultivate, so he is basically doomed to become a groundskeeper. I don’t even think he can call himself a Xian until his soul attunes to cosmic energy. Which might be never.”
His dad nodded along, obviously not paying any attention. “I think I can do what Deronto is doing, Hector. The insights he gained… they passed straight on to me. Our world doesn’t have a lot of life energy, but I can feel a bit of it on the air. Even my body, such as it is, has some life energy. I want to try getting my hands on a plant and doing an aura extraction on it. Would you buy me some flowers from the gift store? Don’t care what they look like, just make sure they are the freshest they have.”
Hector stood and took a single step towards the door before glancing back. “This aura extraction method. Does it only work on plants?”
“It works on anything living.”
He came back to the side of the bed and held out his hand. “Then take some of mine.”
Terry stared up at him. “That’s how an Alfar becomes a Strigoi, boy. Draining the life of other humans is dangerous.”
“Anything you pull out, I’ll replace from my soul. I’m sure I can do that much. Maybe I can even refill my soul through mental cultivation. Volithur figured out how to do that much.”
“It’s dangerous to have life energy drawn out of you.”
“I can handle it, dad.”
“Also dangerous to attune to human life energy. I’d rather steal from gift shop flowers.”
Hector nodded. “I’ll be back in two minutes.” He was gone closer to fifteen, but it hardly mattered because his father was once more asleep when he returned. Hector placed the flowers within arms reach and settled in to wait.
He had claimed that he could use the mental cultivation method that Volithur had learned. Was that actually true? Did those detailed memories actually provide the skill he would need?
Hector, for the first time ever in his life, felt for his soul. There were differences to what he recalled from his dreams, but they weren’t significant enough to impact the outcome. Hector squeezed out a stream of energy into his mind, felt his mental faculties sharpen in response, and then locked a concept into place of the symmetrically complete cosmic energy, wedging that concept firmly into place at the point where his mind met the aperture of his soul.
The empty feeling came and –