Blood Ties (NaNoWriMo 2015)

Sixty-Five

Damon's arrival in my room was announced by the tap of his cane on the floor."Ready?" he asked. I didn't reply right away and finished tying the satin ribbon around my hair. I'd been trying to practice doing my hair and makeup without having the ability to look it while I worked. It had been far harder than I'd ever given Ife credit for.

"Not at all," I told him, deciding there was no use fussing with it anymore. It would have to do as it was. I took some level of comfort in the fact that Damon would tell me if I'd done something to screw it up.

"I know," he told me, wrapping one arm around me and pulling me close. I felt the thick scars on the side of his jaw brush against my forehead as he gave me a kiss. "I'm not either."

Today was a double funeral, Doc's and mine. I wasn't ready to bury either of us. The news had blown up two days ago as my plan had come together. They'd found my remains and were now holding funeral and memorial services all over Sunview. I'd even see my mom come on the news at one point, red face and crying as she said her thanks to the police and volunteers who'd been searching for me. I'd been able to stomach it for five seconds before I had to shut it off and cry.

Doc was another layer of pain on top of it. I knew his body had been prepared and was waiting this evening on a pyre, ready for the living to send him onto the next world. I wasn't ready for that either, I wasn't ready to say goodbye to him.

"Come," Damon said as he grabbed my hand. His plain grey suit well tailored and would have looked quite fashionable if his crazy tie (covered in Loony Toons) hadn't been apart of the ensemble. Apparently Doc had a thing for strange neckwear and to honor that, every male in attendance had purchased or borrowed one for today. "We're going to be late."

I checked the pocket of my suit jacket and made sure I had tissues present. "Okay." We walked out onto the lawn, the pace painfully slow and I found my gaze wandering to Damon's right leg. Sadly, that was the side of him that had gotten the brunt of the injuries from Keith and Richard's plot. Though it had healed fairly well the nerve damage had been terrible. According to the doctors he'd need that cane was likely to experience chronic pain in that leg for the rest of his life.

Bitter feelings surged through me almost every time we walked together now, seeing that prominent limp as he moved about. Those occasional moments of wincing as pain flared up and his efforts to try and hide it from me. It shouldn't have happened, the only person who should have had to deal with permeant injury in my mind was Keith, he was the bastard that threw Damon out the window and caused it anyway.

Keith. It was another painful memory and one I tried not to think about. He was still locked up, awaiting trial but I never brought him up around Damon. I knew it still pained him to loose his brother the way he had.

Finally, we were out on the lawn and I spotted Doc on the pyre. Rather than being dressed in a scrubs or jeans as I'd been used to seeing, he was in a suit and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. Doc didn't look like Doc when he was dressed like that.

"Here," Archie handed me Doc's black case. As he did not have any family in the coven, friends had come forward to send him off and were to bring him things that he would need in the afterlife. A walking stick to help make the journey easier, a coin to give to those less lucky he found along the way and an item of value to him. For Johnathan, it had been his pocket watch with a portrait of his wife and family inside. For Doc it had been his house call bag, for that had been his greatest passion in life, helping people little by little and one person at a time.

My throat tightened as my hand curled around the worn handles and I felt tears in my eyes. I reached into my pocket and pulled out tissues, dabbing at my eyes. Through blurred vision I watched as the priests lined up at the four points; north, south, east and west. Then they began to chant, a language I still couldn't name, maybe it was Sanskrit Ife (Zalam, whatever she was called) was certainly old enough for that. When they reached the final bars of their farewell,  I released Damon's  hand and stepped forward. Taking deep breaths, I wanted as Jasper placed the walking stick across his body, Caiyun placed the coin in his mouth and then it was my turn. Tears streaming down my face, I laid the case next to him and curled his hand around the handles. His hand was stiff and the serious look on his face didn't match up with his character at all. Doc had never looked so serious in all the time that I knew him and according to what I'd been told while we'd been planning the funeral, it held true for almost everyone that had been lucky enough to know him.