But then the pain began, and Six forgot serenity.
Joseph's mother had always impressed upon her son the importance of telling the truth, but of course, his mother had never been able to keep any friends past the shelf life of an honest answer, and so Joseph had learned through example that the occasional white lie was sometimes appropriate—and indeed, necessary—to keeping the people he cared about happy.
In Six's case, it involved a particular omission on the subject of pain. As in, vast unending quantities of pain, most definitely (as he had been told) on the level of giving birth to a baby the size of a large watermelon. And then discovering that you were having twins.
Joseph saw no need to add to Six's burdens.
Unfortunately, he forgot to take into account the fact that she was an incredibly strong woman prone to committing violent acts, and that as the person she would blame for causing her pain, he might just be be in for a little of it himself.
"What are you doing to me?" she gasped.
"This is part of the process," he said. "Now, try to relax."
Six glared at him and grabbed his hand. She was not a screamer. She was a squeezer. And she refused to let go.
It was difficult for Joseph to focus past the pain. He was quite certain she was crushing bones. He managed, however, by sinking deep enough into Six's mind that the discomfort became a distant thing, less nagging than a mosquito bite.
And there, held in the darkness, he began to heal her.
The process was different for everyone, or so he had been told. In his experience, he had brought back only two from the brink—another omission he did not think Six needed to know about—and on both those occasions the trigger had been unique. For one woman, it was the remembrance of her child's birth that made her fight the hardest—and for the man, it was nothing more than a random sunset recalled from memory. Visceral reactions—reactions beyond mere fear or desire—infusing bodies with the mental strength necessary to fight off the infection caused by vampire contact.
The mind was more important than the body. It was always more important. Especially when dealing with vampires, whose only weakness was the mind, a lack of spirit. Bolster that, strengthen the roots of the soul, and nothing could take hold.
But Joseph immediately ran into a problem; specifically, with himself. He could not hide from her. His thoughts were open. His memories, fair game. And though she did not search his mind, as he sank deeper he felt her presence on the periphery of his most private mental spaces, and it was an unexpected intimacy that he could not shut off.
You are afraid, Six whispered. You are afraid of me.
No, he told her. I'm afraid of myself. What you see, I see. And there are things I have done that I don't want to relive.
Like the bones, she murmured, and Joseph remembered that hot flash of her touch in the massage parlor, the memory it had called—a fluke, he thought—but now it happened again, a strike of deep connection, and he felt her gaze once more upon the worst of his memories, years past, twenty-five and on the go, this time to Africa. The Red Cross, because he wanted to help and they needed people. Sierra Leone, because that was where the need was the greatest.
But all I found was death and rape and atrocity, he told Six. There was no end to it. And one day, when we were taken to a mass grave to bear witness, I started talking to the dead. I asked them, who. I asked them, where. And when I knew these things I found the men responsible, and I made them—
Joseph stopped. He tried to suppress the memory, but Six would not let him. He felt her warmth surround his thoughts, unrelenting, and after a moment he yielded to her. He let her see. Allowed her to watch how he had possessed the bodies of murderers and torturers and brought them to the graves of their victims, forcing the men to rest amongst the decay and filth of the dead. And when they were truly buried, he showed Six how he had summoned the memories of the dead, spirits who still wanted vengeance—and shown them what lay in their midst, and that it was their chance to take a pound of flesh.
And they did, Joseph told her. Not literally, but enough. Those men died. Died of fright, maybe. Or suffocation from the bodies I made them rest under. Either way, I was the one who killed them.
Are you sorry? Six's question was a gesture of politeness; he knew she was already aware of how he felt. But he said it anyway, because she asked, and it was something he had wanted to speak of for a long time.
No, he said, grim. I am not sorry at all.
He sensed her satisfaction with his response. Six was a practical woman. Why would you try to suppress that memory, then? It bothers you. I see that much.
Joseph felt a hard cold knot inside his heart; the place where the bones and the death resided. But it was also a place of bitter satisfaction, and there was power in that feeling. Too much power.