To Love A Myth - Book 1: Mr. Higgs and the Maid🎩✔️

33

Higgs opened his eyes and immediately hissed in pain. It felt like his was burning all over, like ants were attached to every facet of his skin and were biting in unison. He tried to move but found that it was very hard and he was super stiff.
"You are a lucky boy, boy."
Higgs tried to find who was talking but he could barely see anything, almost as if he were blind.
"Can you hear me and smell me?" Higgs sniffed a little and then nodded, realizing it was his father. "Good; again, you're lucky. To help you understand what's happened and what's going on, I will explain as clearly and in as much detail as possible. You let yourself get caught up in your instincts and almost killed Edgar by sucking nearly all the blood out of him and then you tried to do the same to Merida. You made it where she had to take harsh action against you and she opened up the window to a full sunny day directly onto your skin and you without your ring. The feeling you're going through is your burnt skin reconstructing itself. Believe me, your burnt eyeballs don't want to see what's became of Merida's quick (although dangerous) action." Higgs flinched at the gruesome news. "Yes, I said that correctly: your eyeballs practically melted out of your head from the direct hit from the sunlight so you're blind for now. As for talking, moving, or anything else, I'm afraid that's going to be a chore and damn near impossible for a good while. Your tongue was incinerated, so you cannot speak. Your throat and face were the first to catch the direct sunlight before you could comprehend what was happening and put your hands over your face to shield it, so they are the worse as of now. The back of your hands are horribly burnt as well as your back. Your bottom half is fine but you look like one of those undead monsters that would be featured in the Penny Dreadfuls. I will say this once and only once: because of your idiotic inability to control yourself, you've landed yourself in the most horrible of predicaments."
Higgs made a noise and Jamison chuckled dryly.
"Sorry, son, but you won't be able to communicate for good bit. Good thing this happened at the beginning of the month. You might get a good amount of yourself fixed before the next month. Things like these can sometimes carry over into the next so..."
"Ughn!" Higgs tried, panicking and scared.
"I regret to say that I don't feel sorry for what's happened to you. You're almost twenty winters and you acted as if it was the first time you'd ever changed. You brought this one yourself and you're again, damned lucky to have someone like Merida, who still isn't going to leave your side. You should count the bloody stars for her generous love."
Jamison got up and left as Higgs felt trapped within his own body, unable to even express his fear and his confusion. He understood the tongue-lashing but not the coldness.

***********************************

Lucas finished patching up Edgar's neck and stopping the bleeding. Edgar's pallor was even worse that before and his breathing was labored, but Lucas said the boy would be fine. Merida waited silently in the corner of the room, looking unusually nervous.
"He'll be fine, Merida, honest."
"Ye keep saying that and he only gets worse and worse. I ken ye may not like it, but I'm going to make an herbal tonic I learned when I was with my brothers romping the highlands. It's not exactly yer type of medicine."
"At this rate, something less advanced might do the trick. I have no qualms about it."
"How's Mr. Higgs?"
"He'll be alright... eventually. That was some quick thinking on your part."
"I could have killed him..."
"You were only doing it in self-defense. If you hadn't, you would be in the same predicament as Edgar."
"I ken that but... I mean... Laird's beard, I could have reduced him to ashes!" she sobbed, putting her hands over her face and sliding down the wall. "I could have killed him and he'd never come back again!"
She felt Lucas' hand on her shoulder and she looked up.
"Merida, you are not to blame for any of this. Higgs was going rampant and if you hadn't stopped him, he would have killed you, Edgar, and Kannaset alike."
"Why would he have gone after Kans?"
"The challenge as well as the fact that he took Edgar away from him and he didn't finish the 'meal' , so to speak."
"I see."
"Seriously, Merida, no one is blaming you."
"I blame myself..."
"Please don't. This had nothing to do with you. It was Higgs' fault for not wearing his ring and it's his fault for not reigning himself in better."
"Ring?"
"Yes, there is a ring we possess that allows us to go in the sunlight briefly as the vampire." Jami said, walking into the room. "It's an obnoxious garnet ring that has our blood burned into it and then cleaned in holy water. It will keep us from at least bursting into flames upon direct contact with the sun but we'll still get damaged. We couldn't go on a long journey during the day or something."
"How's Mr. Higgs?"
"He woke up, so he's cognizant. He looks like hell but he'll recover... slowly..."
"I'm about to go look for herbs to make a tonic for Edgar, is there anything I can do to help speed Higgs' recovery along?"
Jami lifted an eyebrow. "You are the strangest woman I've ever met."
"Hey now, coming from ye!" she growled, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.
"That wasn't what I meant. He tried to kill you, drink you dry and almost did to Edgar, and yet here you are, trying to help Edgar was well as him."
"Well an it not for the curse he wouldnae have wanted to do that at all. I dinnae blame him for what he did; it's the curse's fault. I blame him for his own lack of self-control, but that's a different story. Right now, I want to see him well. So, is there anything I can do to try and help?"
"Well... if you could find something to help make taking off the dead skin a little easier, that would be helpful. I have yet to find anything that can make that process go smoothly." Lucas said, looking at Jami.
"It's the worst part."
"Ye've been burnt like that too?"
"Uh, no... um, Kans was. My um... my mother kicked him out of the house right before dawn and we didn't know he was going to turn into the vampire that month. It was pretty bad."
"Remember how I said I dinnae want to meet yer mother because I hated her? Now I do want to meet her."
"...Why?"
"So I can accidentally lose control of my horse and run that bitch over, of course." Jamison chuckled a little. "Either way, I'll go and find something. I'll ask Kans an he kens anything he's found."
She left the room and Jami looked at Lucas.
"Do you think she was kidding? About the horse thing?"
"I'll leave that up to your own interpretation. Your mother has, so far, ended up on Merida's shit list and from what I've seen, you don't want to be there."