writing_shadows

My father scares me like nothing else in the world.

Going down into the darkness, week after week, with only a manky ninja and an increasingly pissed off translator between me and a former goddess of the dark whose godliness was rescinded in part because I nicked her last worshipper and brought her to the attention of the deity patrol that is Uratha society? That’s pretty scary.

Nine hundred pounds of wolfman with a spirit of terror bound into the scars on his throat? I will admit, that gave me a turn.

Almost being talked into a yummy meal of people parts and wolf bits by the Spartan crazies? Distinctly unsettling.

A brace of Predator Kings deciding to use me as a punchbag? Nerve-wracking, to say the least.

Biodiesel zombie attack? Not the best moment of my life.

Realising that I’d just thought of Mal Richards and used the phrase ‘brother-in-law’? Certainly a shock.

But him; Henry Marcus, or whatever his name is? I’ve never even met him and he scares the living shit out of me. Seeing him in the restaurant with Isabelle... I couldn’t see him clearly, but I knew it was him. There was a sense of loathing in me; nothing definite, just a merest frisson, but I knew, and a part of me wanted to run away screaming into the night while a part of me wanted to rush out, beat his head into a bloody mess with the pepper mill and to hell with the consequences.

I didn’t do either, largely because Iz was there. I wasn’t about to leave her alone with him, but seeing her also brought me to my senses. It made me stop and think; to consider the two other werewolves; to think what would happen to her if I started anything; and to remind me that however much I hate Marcus, I have things to live for that matter more to me than revenge.

And no; it wasn’t fear that kept me from attacking him. I know I said he scares me more than anything, but it’s not that kind of fear. What will stop me next time and all the times after is wariness and common sense; the fear is something different. He scares me because I’m afraid that a part of me is like him; that there’s some spark of darkness inside me, just waiting for the right fuel to catch and flare up in an inferno of suave malevolence (and I could probably stand it more if I thought I’d become a frother; it’s the prospect of becoming a smug, controlling git that really terrifies me).

Apparently he came to warn me off. Perhaps he thinks he’s doing me a favour. I’m sure if he were to confront me directly he’d start off by assuring me we have no quarrel.

He’s wrong, of course. Even if I could forget what he did to my mother – and I can’t, and I won’t, and if that means that Tears of Heart’s Love Forsaken will live as long as I do then so be it – or even if he could convince me that I’m wrong about what happened – which he won’t – it wouldn’t make a difference.

Three times now he’s come to Iz and tried to lean on her. Three times he’s put the frighteners on my girl, put her in fear, made her feel small, and I will not forget that, not ever. If I become the meanest, blackest villain in all creation, or if he converts to Buddhism tomorrow and becomes the most saintly creature on the face of the Earth, I will not forgive him for that.

Because I know that I can’t protect her; not like that, not from him. And I think that she probably feels the same about me. He’s made us both feel powerless, the way he made my mother feel powerless and small, and so afraid that she has never, ever recovered. It’s how the meanest and the shabbiest of the Uratha behave around the wolf-blooded all the time, and I can not forgive him for that.

In the end, I’m just a man, and what man can forgive his father for being poor in spirit?

I really hope I never meet him, because I do badly in the face of arrogance and I don’t imagine I’d come off well. And then again, a part of me would like that one chance to put a silver bullet between his eyes. Or would that just be a step along the road to becoming him?

Perhaps it’s for the best that all these vengeance fantasies remain fantasy. Maybe the weakness of my body will be the salvation of my soul. Like the man says; a weak man knows the value of strength; the value of power. So long as I am what I am, maybe that can keep me from becoming the kind of monster I’m afraid of being.

Oh, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let this go.

You see, as much as I am afraid of him, and of becoming him, I’m that much more afraid of what it would mean to stand by and watch him hurt anyone else. I can’t fight him; I can’t kill him; but I think I can hurt him, if I help the Uratha to do what they need to do. He’s come back to Beckslett for a reason, and if I can work out what it is, if I can do anything to help the Forsaken attack him, then that’s going to feel good.

And maybe one day I will get to face him, and I can say to him, “I’m not going to shoot you. I’m not going to fight you. I’m not even going to lose my temper and shout and rage while you look smooth and in control.

“I can’t fight you; I don’t have the strength. But I’ve used what you did give me, father. I’ve used my brain, and I’ve used my senses and we will destroy your precious Beckslett because of that.”

I guess that’s what I really want. No fury, no posturing; no huff and no puff.

I just want to reach out my hand and blow his house down.