Summer of the Lake House

Summer of the Lake House


Chapter 9: The Trouble with Tea Time


A/N: Alrighty, hopefully many questions have been answered in this chapter. I did my best to reveal this slowly and not just pour everything out all at once but I'm pretty sure I did the exact opposite so I hope your all not horribly confused by the end.

~And as always, thanks to everyone who reviewed. *glomps reviewers* ~ Enjoy ^____^

Dion's POV:


“Amenci,” I choked out, not believing my eyes.

With a quick, jerking motion I reached out and yanked Jamie away from it, scuttling backwards as best I could while dragging Jamie's struggling body. He didn't want to be parted from the creature but I'd be damned if I would let him anywhere near the thing that started this whole nightmare.

I got us a fair distance away and pinned Jamie down. The creature watched us the entire time and I have to say, there was something profoundly disturbing about the way it moved it's head so easily with those enormous antlers. It didn't even move it's body, just sort of turned it's neck slowly to face us and then froze. We stared into each others eyes.

After a long, uncomfortable time it became obvious that I was going to have to make the first move.

“I know it's you, Amenci.” I began slowly, waiting to see his reaction but instead I got nothing. “Your one of them, one of those...those god things. You did all of this, y'know, you made Raven come here and ruined everything!” He didn't respond. “It's your fault all of this happened, we would have been fine if you had never come! Tyler's dead and Jamie, look at Jamie you fucking bastard, look at what you've done!” The creature blinked slowly, uncaring. “ANSWER ME,” I screamed, digging my nails into my palm and feeling so useless.

The creature blinked again and I though my eye's were going weird for a minute as it began to blur and waver in front of me. Suddenly I realized what Tyler had been talking about when he said it was like looking at someone through a reflection in the water. The form of the deer creature rippled slightly like a rock being dropped into a still pool and I could see Amenci underneath for a split second. The ripples grew stronger I was able to see Amenci's form longer until the deer creature simply melted away like mist, leaving the strange looking boy in it's place.

I was almost relieved...for, like, a second, but it didn't take me long to clue into the fact that something was up. It was a subtle thing, his stance, the tilt of his head, a glint in his eye's, like his personality had completely changed. He stood as if he owned the world, he was the greatest and screw everybody else. I was strongly reminded of Darren and his cocky attitude with a little bit of Jamie's spitefulness thrown in. That, combined with his strange clothes, and I wasn't even sure this was Amenci.

The clothes were something strange. It was even stranger because most of the time I had seen Amenci he wasn't wearing any...but I guess that wasn't his fault. But these didn't look anything like what I thought he would wear. Firstly, was a strange, black robe-like thing. It was woolly looking, as if it were made for warmer climates, with a high collar and long fitted sleeves. It only had one button at the collar and fell open from his chest to the ground, revealing another thick, woolly robe in a pale lavender-gray underneath it.

He looked like some sort of priest wearing it, except for the second thing he was wearing...a long, billowing black cloak. It was a monster mass of material that didn't seem quite right. Maybe it was the fact that he wore it so easily despite it being enormous in proportion to him, or maybe that it was moving, constantly shifting and waving, regardless of the fact that there was not so much as a summer breeze in the air. Whatever it was, both the cloak and the boy creeped me out.

He looked at me, expressionless, for a long time with his wide deer-like eyes. I glared back.

I was scared shitless but no way I was going to show it, not unless he started pulling some of that apocalyptic storm crap like Raven had.

After an uncomfortably long time, Amenci's mouth twitched into a smile. “No, “ he answered finally, “I'm afraid you have the wrong person.”

“W-what?”

He chuckled. “What you just said. You called me Amenci and I'm afraid you have me mistaken for someone else. I am not Amenci...he's gone to sleep for a little while. Poor boy, he's simply exhausted,” he smirked unpleasantly, “but you'd know all about that. Wouldn't you?”

“Who are you?” I asked uneasily, not liking these new changes one bit. “Where's Amenci? What the hell is going on here?”

His mouth twitched into a frown, “Not to bright, are you? Unfortunately I have no cure for stupidity but you can at least try to seem intelligent, can't you?” I didn't dignify that with a response but he didn't seem offended, instead waving me over to him. “Come sit beside me, boy, we have much to discuss.”

“I don't think so. I want some answers first.”

He had an infinitely patient look on his face that bugged the crap out of me. There's nothing worse than a person who takes everything in stride, it's like trying to argue with a brick wall. “Answers will come in due time, I promise, but priorities come first. Sit by me and we will discuss everything over a cup of tea.”

“I hate tea,” I muttered weakly.

“You will like this tea. Now no more excuses, I will answer your questions so be polite and sit by me. That boy looks like he could do with a good cup himself.”

I looked down at Jamie and felt my stomach clench. He looked bad, there was no more life in him, he just lay against me, sweating and shaking, murmuring to himself as he looked around with blind eyes. I didn't think he had more than an hour left. He was going to die just like everything else in this godforsaken hell hole.

“Jamie,” I whispered, gently patting his face, “can you hear me?”

“He can't hear you, he's to far gone.” I looked up and was surprised to see the boy sitting at a short table and pulling a full tea set out of his robes. He looked at me, eyebrow raised, and gestured to a large cushion on the other side of the table.

There didn't seem to be any point in arguing anymore, it's not like I was in a hurry to go anywhere and since he was the only other living thing in the area it seemed like a reasonable choice. I gingerly lifted Jamie's limp body and walked him over to the cushion where I sat, arranging him so he was leaning up against me in a position where I could easily watch him. The boy who wasn't Amenci set about making tea without a word. It was all kind of girly for me but, I had to admit, after a while that tea started smelling really good. Like peppermint and spice.

When it was all ready he pulled three cups out of his robes, all of them small, dainty looking things, and poured the tea, pushing them at me and gesturing to Jamie, indicating I should serve him first. I stared suspiciously at the tea but it didn't look like anything special, just a pale brown/green color with no sugar or milk added. I figured Jamie had nothing left to lose so I grabbed the cup and began carefully pouring the liquid into his slack mouth.

As messed up as he was he didn't have trouble swallowing once it hit his tongue and he seemed so thirsty I gave him my own cup as well. Once he was done he settled down with a contented sigh, nuzzling childishly into me and I couldn't help but sigh with relief as the color slowly came back to him. He by no means looked well but at least he didn't look next door to death and that was something to be thankful for.

“Are you ready to talk now?” The boy asked.

“Yeah, I wanna know who and what you are. And what happened to Amenci?”

“I told you but you persist with this stupidity. Amenci is sleeping so I have taken over, I'm sure even you can comprehend that. We share the same body, when Amenci is no longer able to function, I come out. Understand?”

Not really. “So...Amenci's a schizo? Your, like, one of his personalities?” I asked hesitantly.

A look crossed the small face, a mixture of exasperation and disgust. “We are really going to have to work on this. I refuse to have a buffoon representing my work and my craft. If your working for me we must correct this behavior. You can't seem to control your mouth, just spouting out any idiocy that pops into your head without any thought whatsoever. Your behavior reflects directly on to me, do you realize that, so if your a fool than I'm a fool and I am most certainly not a fool.” He frown intensely at me. “Do I look like a fool to you?”

“What?”

“Oh bother, what does it matter anyways?” He sighed, shaking his head in defeated and filling my teacup again. “Drink your tea unless you want to end up like your little friend.”

I just blinked at him, not touching the damn tea. “I want answers. Now,” I snarled quietly. “One of my friends are dead, two are missing and Jamie is sick and I think you have something to do with it. I want to know who or what you are. I...I want to know something. Anything. Just tell me why all this happened.”

The person in Amenci's body sipped his tea slowly, blinking at me over the cup with deep brown eyes. When he put it down I was suddenly faced with a far more serious and intense look that didn't suit his face at all and gave me a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Your right, I did have something to do with it. You could say it's entirely my fault, or entirely Amenci's fault, whichever way you look at it.” He chuckled joyfully, stretching his arms over his head and throwing his head back. “But it feels so good to be free. You have no idea how it felt being trapped in that horrid old locket.” He dropped his arms to his sides and grinned cheerfully at me. “You can't honestly blame me if I get a bit out of control, right?”

“The locket,” I asked, looking at the shiny gold oval resting against his chest, “I though he said it was his mothers, or something like that.”

He shrugged. “True enough. The old bitch was one of the people who sealed me in it, I assume she was also helping to guard it. But what does it say about the higher powers when they can't even protect a simple locket, I ask you? The fact that such a young one could snatch it from underneath their noses is absolutely appalling and only further reveals the rot that has been taking place within Olympus since their decision to do away with the so-called 'Black Order'.”

“I have no idea what that means. Will you please just give me a straight answer,” I practically begged him. I had had enough of his talking away and not making any sense. He had been speaking for a while (it felt like hours) and I hadn't gotten a single answer to any of my questions, if anything he had just made it worse. I had a feeling that this shit went WAY deeper than what had just happened at the lake house and me and the guys had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, getting ourselves caught right in the middle of it.

But what was really making me nervous was the way he kept talking, like he wasn't planning on leaving me any time soon...but first things first.

“Alright, you hasty boy, alright,” he said, shaking his hair out of his face, “though in the future you must control that troublesome curiosity. Anyhow, before I tell you who I am you must know how and why this happened to you and your friends.” It seemed reasonable, I actually wanted to know about that even more than his identity so I stayed quiet as he began to speak. “ I am one of the, shall we say, less popular gods. We do the dirty work for Olympus, regulating the underbelly of human nature, everything from hate, to murder, to obsessive lust, and so on and so forth. Among our own we are called the Dark Balance, dealing with the dark side of things while the others are allowed to wallow in their own righteousness, sitting atop the Great Mountain while we were forced into the dark caves, crawling around like moles underground.” His face became shadowed. “But we existed peacefully enough. Enough as our natures would allow, you understand, we aren't exactly the...the most controlled people. But for the sake of keeping this story short I'll just say that some of the people up top thought we were a danger, both to them and humanity, they thought they could do our jobs and add some...control and lightness, I suppose, to the underbelly.”

He snorted in disgust and poured himself some more tea. “They targeted the more extreme of our kind, Chaos, Psychosis, Greed, War, Jealousy, and many others, including myself. They sealed many of us but they killed even more. I was one of the ones sealed, in that godforsaken locket, no less, I don't even know how long ago it was but if your any indication I have been gone many many years. The humans I remembered would never have had the audacity to question a God. But I escaped, as you no doubt guessed and managed to convince that child, Amenci, to take me and run away. Thankfully, I don't believe they've noticed my absence, or if they did they don't think I can do any damage while sealed, but they have always underestimated me and it will be their downfall.” He smiled at me. “So now you know how I came to be here. It was just your own stupidity that made you pick up Amenci but it turned out to be infinitely beneficial to me.”

The last part threw me. “Why? What do we have to do with you?”

“Why, everything, my dear boy. It's actually quite funny if you think about it. You just couldn't keep it in your pants and now your going to pay the price. You and all your stupid little friends violated, not one, but two of the most powerful gods. I was astonished myself to see this happen but your redheaded friend is all the proof I need. Just look”

I looked down at Jamie and almost screamed.

His wide, foggy eyes were staring unblinkingly into my own and his face was now the color of milk, and while that may sound beautiful and attractive in romance novels and whatnot, in real life it's not at all pretty. It's a color of death. Even his lips were a sickly white and his tongue, what I could see of it, was also pale white. The only color on him was two strips of a feverish red on his cheeks and his violently red hair that had matted to his face with sweat. He didn't even look like Jamie anymore and I swear the closer I looked at him the more I could see a shadow of something else underneath his skin.

“Jamie,” I croaked out.

“Dion,” he murmured back, “I think I'm getting better.”

The person in Amenci's body laughed. “And so you are, boy. Your more than better, your one of us now.” My eyes shot up to the boy who was leaning casually over to stare at Jamie and he nodded. “You heard me right.”

“What...,” I swallowed hard, “what do you mean. Who ARE you?”

“Oh, my dear boy, haven't you figured it out yet,” he asked, gesturing around us to where all the dead animals lay spread around us like a grim wildlife exhibit. “I'm Death.”





A/N: Yeah, that's right...DEATH! I'm not sure this is actually so shocking, I mean, I've been pretty obvious with the clues, right? All manner of fuzzy dead wildlife and whatnot. But if your eager to find out what happens next I'm afraid your gonna have to wait because next chapter is gonna be all about Tyler. MWA ha ha ha!!! Oh the evilness of me. ~Runs away~