“I got you a gift,” Destiny reaches behind her couch.

“You don’t usually buy me gifts unless I’m about to do something dangerous.”

“Well, we’re trying to be better right?”

She hands me a leather bag, that feels heavy, yet light at the same time. Inside the bag I hear metal pieces rubbing together, so there’s multiple parts. I weigh the thoughts of what might be inside but with Destiny watching me like an eager child I cut the guessing short. I pull the drawstrings opening the bag. Inside is a pair blades, similar to the hachoir de guerre I’ve been using, but different. Slightly more curved, the metal is dark with various etchings of shapes. The handles are much more decorative with a blue crystal at the bottom of each. Staring at the crystal gives me a sickly feeling, as if I’m holding something really powerful.

“These are beautiful,” is all I can say.

“I thought you should have some blades of your own. I’ve watched your style, and these seemed like they’d fit it better. You’re more of a speed guy than a power guy. The ones you’re using are more for deep cuts, breaking bone, like a butcher’s knife. These are more slashing and dashing,” she put a lot of thought into this.

“What about these strange markings and engravings?”

“Well, the official name of these is Terror’s Echo. I think it’s silly, but you know blacksmiths and naming weapons. You see these here,” she runs a finger over the etchings, “these are runes, which give the weapon a little something extra. The sapphires at the bottom store magic energy from the user, taking a little at a time. I already gave you some to start with,” she smiles. “But, you won’t even notice it’s borrowing your magic energy. A little goes a long way with these and since you’re starting on full, you’ll probably never go empty.”

“Why Terror’s Echo? That sounds, grim.”

“Well, the runes for this one means that occasionally people cut by one of them will have a vision of a past nightmare. Only for a few seconds, and not all the time, but enough to swing a fight in your favor. The creator says if you work hard enough you can even manage to lock people in nightmares without cutting them. But, you have to get really good at magic. You’ve got a long way to go for that.”

“This is one of the best gifts I’ve ever gotten.”

I lean over for a kiss, not too long ago she would have looked at me like I was crazy. I suppose we are making progress after all. There’s still a lot I don’t know about her, but she’ll open up eventually. She’s harder to crack than a coconut. I can’t even ask her friends about her, because as far as I know, she doesn’t have any. Then again, Elias seems to be my only friend, and we’re related.

“I need to tell you something,” Destiny scoots further down the couch.

“You were buttering me up?”

“Kind of, I had the echoes ready to go a while ago. I figured now was a good time.”

“Alright, what big secret do you have?”

“I just need you to know some background. Not everything but enough.”

“Spill.”

“I wasn’t always like this.”

“Vampire or mean?”

“Both,” we share a laugh. “But, in all seriousness. Hurricane Katrina changed me, and everything that happened afterwards.”

“I didn’t know you survived Katrina. That must have been terrible. All those people stranded on rooftops, dead bodies in the street.”

“The starvation, people doing anything for food. That’s what happened to me. I needed help and I was reaching the boundaries of what I would do for help. That’s when I met Granny. She took me in. She saved my life,” she pauses for a moment and looks at the ceiling.

“Take your time,” I don’t want to force her to keep going, but I need more after all this time.

“She saved me, but in return she took my life from me. She made me Adze,” she balls her fist tight as she speaks the words. “She took options off the table for me. Made me a monster.”

“You’re not a monster,” I place my hand over her fist.

“Maybe not now, but I was. When Granny and I started clashing I had to go. That’s when the city was recovering. That’s when I met Chloe and got involved with the Marson house. At the time they were small, but using the hurricane as a way to quickly expand and take control from houses that abandoned Louisiana.”

Destiny takes a moment to walk over to the kitchen and pour herself a glass of blood wine. She quickly drinks it down and takes a deep breath. She begins to pour another glass before taking a few big gulps from the bottle. I pretend I’m looking out the window and don’t notice. She returns the bottle to its place and finishes the glass. She returns to the couch, this time a little closer.

“Chloe, that bitch. She led me on, I thought we were friends. I thought we were more than friends. Eternal partners in the night. She completed what Granny started, made me a real deal monster. I had stolen before, I had sold illegal things. Never from anyone who didn’t deserve it, but that was just survival. I never killed a person until I met Chloe. To her, killing was as easy as 1,2,3. She didn’t think about it all. She couldn’t drink from a person with out draining them of every last drop. She didn’t have a problem wiping out the whole staff to rob a jewelry store. The first time I killed was to protect her. I’ve killed since then, but I still think of every face. It doesn’t get easier, you just get better at dealing with it. It’s natural for humans to feel something after killing another person. But she had already bought into that bullshit about superior creatures eating the weak. I could never join the Marson house because I was Adze; A vampire, but not one of their kind. As she slept her way up, she left me behind. I would have been fine if she said she didn’t want me around. I would have been fine if she had tried to kill me. But no, she set me up to get killed by another vampire house. Why? Because the old decrepit vamp she was fucking at the time thought it would be hilarious,” she’s getting fired up again.

“Stop,” I grab her hands. “Just stop. This is painful. I don’t need any more details right now. I’ve got enough. If you never tell me more, I’m okay. But for now, that’s enough.”

“Thank you,” she turns from me.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Destiny cry. I’m sure she’s seen me cry plenty before. I’m sensitive like that, but she’s never cried in front of me. I don’t know how to deal with this, so I do what I would want. I just hug her, and don’t let go.