I was shocked into my thoughts. No, never. My mother had been a drunk, my father had enough and left. He was a businessman. I had a brother. Both of us were as normal as can be.
And then I remembered one thing my mom said right before she died, something I thought about from time to time, when I felt like wallowing in self-loathing. You are not my son, you are not my son, I was not me when I had you. I was not me when I had you. Then she died, in front of my face. I had never figured out what that meant and now I was too scared to.
“Dex?” Maryse asked. She was studying me.
“What does this have to do with Perry?” My voice felt laced with acid, her name on my lips was burning me.
“Like a mortal with a Jacob,” she said with deliberation, watching Maximus now, “two people with abilities shouldn’t get together. The energies shared and exchanged can cause ripples, holes in the fabric of the Veil, and where there are holes, bad things can get out. And they should definitely not have children. The children would have twice the amount of power that the parents have. The world is not cut out for people like us, people on the fringe, not anymore. Science and technology and fear have replaced the open mind that’s needed to embrace people like us. As you know, Dex, from what you suffered, people are far too quick to label you as mentally ill, to try and fix you with pills, when in reality there is nothing wrong with you. You can just see and do things that others can’t. It can be a beautiful gift, but unfortunately the world does not see that beauty. It fears what it doesn’t understand. You and Perry would produce a child that would end up going mad. And that’s if you were lucky.”
My heart was hammering hard in my chest, hard enough to hurt. There was truth in her words, I could feel it in my bones, and the truth would kill me if I let it.
“What do you mean, if we’re lucky?”
Her face grew very grave, very solemn. Maximus straightened up beside me, clearing his throat.
“Dex,” he said carefully, licking his lips. “Because we don’t know what makes you…you…we don’t know what would happen if Perry got pregnant again. We don’t know if the child would be a child at all. We already know that it would have enough power on its own to attract hosts that don’t want to leave. It wasn’t an accident that Perry got possessed. The pregnancy, the combination of you and her together, it was bound to happen. If there was a next time, I don’t think Perry would survive it. The next entity would stay in her, forever, and take the child too. I’m sorry.”
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe. Suddenly I couldn’t even see. The world in front of me clouded over and inside I was drowning in my sorrow and sadness. Because I believed what they were saying, even though every part of me was begging for me to ignore them, to discount them, to tell them they were liars and that they were wrong. But I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew in the deep-seat of my soul that everything they had told me, from what Maximus really was, to the fact that I had a little something extra in my blood, to the fact that Perry would probably not survive another pregnancy, at least not by me, was the absolute truth. I’d never been handed so many soul-crushing, reality-bending, life-altering bombs before in all my years.
But what killed me more than anything was knowing that Perry and I could never start a family together. I could never put my seed in her and watch it grow, never be a happy, expectant couple. It wasn’t like this was something I’d even discussed with her, for obvious reasons, but it was my dream that I secretly held on to and held on to tight. Now I’d have to let it go.
I’d have to let her go.
Maximus put his large freckled hand on my shoulder. “It’s for the best, you know it is. It’s for her best.”
Maryse got out of her chair and went to rummage through a shelf, while I sat there absolutely dumbfounded.
I looked at Maximus, for once wanting his advice. “What do I do? How should I tell her?”
He shook his head and gave me a gentle smile. “You can’t tell her. You know you can’t. Perry is stubborn as anything and the moment you tell her something can’t happen, she’ll try and make it happen. To tell her this, to tell her that this part of her future is over, it would kill her. Crush her.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” I repeated, feeling crushed myself, my internal organs being put through a vice.
“You’ll figure it out,” he said.
Maryse came back, placing a small vial of oil on the table and a Ziploc bag full of hand-rolled cigarettes. “The oil is Van Van oil—lemon verbena—it will help protect you, whether now from zombies and black magic or from dark forces in the future. The cigarettes are to get through it all. There’s some special herbs in there too, ones that might help clear your mind a bit.” I took the oil and the cigarettes, folding up the bag and sticking it in the pocket of my jeans.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice failing me as I got out of my seat.
“You’re welcome. Now I hope you take some time over the next few days and be kind to yourself, Dex. These are some large but important truths and your mind needs a way to work around them, to fit them into the life you thought you knew. Don’t rush anything or make any rash decisions. Just be and feel and ask for help when you need it.”
I tried to smile but failed. “It’s kind of hard to take some time for myself when we’re trying to film ghosts and zombies.”
“Ignore the ghosts and the zombies. Just go home.” She gestured to the top of the stairs. “Please show yourselves out and tell Rose and Perry that I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.”
We nodded and climbed the stairs out of her Voodoo cellar. An hour ago, zombies were the biggest concern in my life. Now my biggest concern put that one to shame.