Vic Owens: Paranormal Advisor

Maya’s house was dark, with the exception of one light near the backside.

“That’s weird,” Maya said. “Chelsea usually has every light on when she’s alone at night.”

“She’s probably sleeping,” Vic said.

“Something doesn’t feel right.” Maya got out of the car and stepped on the sidewalk.

It was still the middle of the night. Crickets were chirping and the first hints of dew were starting to show. Vic didn’t sense anything wrong, but he wasn’t a psychic. Maya on the other hand? She might be. Maybe she had the sixth sense. Intuition. It would make sense given her parents were both witches. Or, quite possibly, it was late and it would make all the logical sense in the world that her girlfriend might be sleeping. Either way …

“The front door is cracked open?” Maya was on the front steps. She turned to Vic, panic washing over her face.

He grabbed the door handle and jiggled it. It was loose, almost fall-off-the-door loose. Someone—or something—had twisted it with one hell of an effort. The wood around the knob was splintered and cracked. He put his arm in front of Maya and gently pushed her behind him while he eased the door open the rest of the way.

After he opened the door, he stepped back and waited for a second to see if anything jumped out. When nothing did, he crept inside, his elf eyes adjusting quickly to the dark. He took light steps to keep the floorboards from creaking, and worked his way toward the room with the light. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that Maya was following his lead and taking soft steps.

CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

Heavy, fast steps flew up behind Vic, and something rammed his side as it rushed past. He involuntarily spun around, knowing whatever was behind him had already gone by. As expected, his eyes fell on an empty kitchen.

“No. No. No,” Maya cried.

Vic followed her voice to a bedroom at the back end of the house. The room was lit by a small lamp with a crooked lampshade. Someone else was in there with Maya. Another woman was sitting on the floor and propped against the bed. Was that Chelsea? Vic had only seen her in passing, but felt that he’d be able to pick her out of a crowd, if he had to. If this was her, she was in bad shape.

One of her eyes was swollen shut, shaded with a mix of purple and black bruising. Blood dribbled out of her nose and onto her cut lips. An icepack rested on her arm that was covered with hand imprints.

“What happened, Chelsea? Who did this to you?” Maya knelt and reached a hand toward Chelsea’s face, but she shirked away from the touch.

“Don’t touch me,” Chelsea groaned. She reached up and weakly pushed Maya back. “Leave. Just go.”

Maya gasped. “Why would you say that? What happened?”

“I thought he was a cop,” Chelsea said. “Ouch.” She touched her cut lip. “But he wasn’t. He shifted into something different … some sort of winged monster.” She had to take a deep breath every few words.

“He attacked you? I’m so sorry. Let’s get you to the hospital.” Maya grabbed Chelsea’s arm, trying to help her up. But she yanked her arm away.

Chelsea turned her head away from Maya. “I said don’t touch me. Never again. That thing told me this was your fault. He said you got yourself into the wrong kind of trouble and this was the price to pay. If you continue doing what you’re doing, he said he’d come back and that I wouldn’t be so lucky to survive.”

“Did he work for The Nines?” Maya asked, in a high-pitched voice while looking back at Vic. “Did he say?”

Vic wanted to tell Maya to shut her mouth, that she was causing more harm than good right now. It was obvious to him what had happened. The Nines had sent a message. If Vic and Maya didn’t stop their crusade, then the gang would retaliate, seemingly by first harming loved ones. It wouldn't affect Vic, but Maya had someone to lose. Unfortunately she didn't understand the gravity of the situation, yet. He could pull her away, but she needed to see it for herself—to see that her loved one had already been taken from her.

“Listen to her,” Vic whispered to Maya. He nodded, to direct her attention back to Chelsea.

Maya turned back to her girlfriend. “What are you trying to tell me?” Her voice was low and concerned.

Chelsea took a deep breath before starting. “You joined up with this … this elf. He’s a monster. All those supernatural things are monsters. And you chose them over me. I wanted you, but you wanted a conspiracy. Your craziness led to this. I’m scared for my life right now, and you don’t seem to care.”

“ I do care,” Maya said. “I really do.” She reached for Chelsea’s hands, But Chelsea avoided her touch again. “I just want to know what happened to my parents. I didn’t know it would lead to you getting hurt.”

“Well it did,” Chelsea spat. “And of course you didn’t. You were too blind to see the dangers it would bring to me.”

“I’m so sorry, Chelsea,” Maya choked out. “I’ll do anything. I’ll fix it.”

“It’s too late for sorries. I won’t accept any. Now go! I don’t want to see you, or your stupid elf friend, ever again.” Chelsea looked past her now ex, boring her eyes right into Vic’s skull. She meant every word she had said.

“B-but, I-I—”

“Maya,” Vic said, calmly.

Maya turned her attention to Vic, her eyes like two saucers full of water.

Vic held out his hand and said, “Let’s go. She’s made her decision. You have to respect it, even if you think it’s a hastily-made and self-centered decision. There’s nothing you can do right now to change her mind.”

Maya took Vic’s hand and looked back to Chelsea one more time as Vic led her out of the room. But Chelsea had no interest in making eye contact.

The car ride to Vic’s house was quiet, aside from Maya’s light sobbing. Vic didn’t know what to say to her. Sure, he could go off on a tangent about how Chelsea was a good-for-nothing bitch, and how she was only thinking of herself. But what good would that do in the long run? It wasn’t like Chelsea was entirely wrong. She had just had the shit knocked out of her, and had every right to be upset and scared. She didn’t deserve to be unknowingly caught up in the middle of it all. There were risks for Maya getting involved in this sort of game. Maya had known that she might end up in danger, but hadn’t thought about someone she knew paying a price for it. Vic hadn’t thought of it beforehand, either. Especially when he had thought the whole group was nonsense to begin with.

As far as taking sides went? Well, Vic knew a little about Maya already. She wasn’t an asshole, and she wasn’t out to get innocent people hurt. She was just a good-hearted girl trying to find some answers—and her way—in this fucked up town. And he couldn’t fault her for that.

They arrived at Vic’s house a short time later.

A chilly breeze had blown in and Maya wrapped her arms around herself to keep warm when she stepped out of the car. “Oh, you live in a trailer out in the woods? Must be lonely.”

Vic grabbed the case of beer from the car and strolled toward the front door. “It’s not lonely at all. I don’t like nosy bastards poking around my place. This takes care of that.”

Once inside, Maya immediately started poking around. She had a few grimaces and head shakes as she discovered mounds of dust, and pile after pile of junk.

“Sorry about the mess,” Vic said, but not bothering to tidy up. “I don’t invite guests over, so …”

“No worries. I think it’s cozy.”

She meant tiny, cramped, a pile of shit. But she was too nice to speak her true feelings. Vic imagined that she had always been kind, to a fault, her whole life.

Maya approached the buffet and reached for one of the picture frames. Vic noticed at the last second.

“Nope. Don’t touch those. They aren’t for looking.”

Her hand froze before touching the frame. “S-sorry,” she said, backing away from the buffet.

There were times when Vic wished he wasn’t an asshole. This was one of those times.

“Have a beer,” Vic said, pulling one out of the case and handing it to Maya. She held it in her hand and perused the information on the can. She didn’t look like she was at all interested.

“You’ve had a long day,” Vic said. “Have a drink. It might help calm your nerves.” She still didn’t look too sure. “Tell you what, take a sip and if you don’t like it, you can dump the rest in the sink when I’m not looking. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, with a barely noticeable smile.

Vic took a seat on one edge of the couch and motioned for Maya to sit on the other. “Take a load off,” he said. “Relax. It’s been a crazy week full of stuff you’ve never dealt with before.”

Obliging Vic, Maya plopped on the other end of the couch. She carefully opened her beer and took a sip. Her face remained motionless, but she quietly placed the beer on the far end of the table. This gave Vic a good chuckle as he downed his second can.

It had to have been at least twenty minutes before the silence was broken by crying. Vic looked over at Maya, who had her face buried in her hands, her shoulders bouncing uncontrollably.

“Why does everyone I love have to leave me?” she sobbed. “It’s not fair.”

Vic decided not to say anything and to let Maya speak, and blow off some steam.

“Why are you the way you are, Vic?”

“Huh?” Vic hadn’t expected the steam to blow his way.

“I care so much about what people think of me. I want everyone to like me. But it’s scary, because when people do like me, they end up leaving me all alone. I wanted to please my parents, and for them to love me. Check. Then they both died. I wanted Chelsea to love me. Check. Now she hates me and never wants to see me again. But you don’t try to please anyone. You don’t seem to care what people think of you. It’s like you want to be alone and it doesn’t bother you whatsoever. Why is that?”

Vic looked into her distraught eyes and it reminded him of a different pair of distraught eyes that had once looked to him for the answers to life’s hardships. He had failed that person. What would he do for Maya? Maybe it was the beer, but Vic felt that now was the right time to return Maya’s kindness, and face some old demons at the same time.

“I used to have a wife,” Vic blurted out.

“You did?” Maya asked, wiping away tears.

“Yep. This was pre-supernatural integration. Back when I lived in the woods with groups of elves. It was probably about seventeen years ago when we got married.”

“Wow. I forget that none of you existed in our world prior to ten years ago, that you had completely different lives.” Maya curled up in a ball, laying her head against a pillow, but still paying close attention to what Vic was saying.

“It’s not like we just popped into being one day.” Vic laughed at the imagery of millions of creatures just appearing from out of nowhere and landing on every object imaginable. “The supernatural has always existed on the fringes of human society. Much closer than you think. We've watched from the shadows, always a part of your world and learning your ways.”

“What was your wedding like?” Maya asked.

“It was traditional woodland elvish. I won’t bore you with the details. I thought she was the perfect woman for me. We took the coupled name of Alvonsoroable.” Vic had another laugh. “And that was actually untraditional. Pissed my relatives off. I loved it.”

“Wait. Your last name isn’t Owens? Is your first name not real, either?”

“Completely made up. The human tongue can’t pronounce my given elvish name. Or my wife’s for that matter. I thought Vic sounded good, like an old-timey detective.”

“Where’s your wife now?” Maya grabbed her beer and took a second sip. This time she shuddered at the taste.

On to the rough parts, Vic thought. “About five years after we got married, we had a daughter. As was custom, we didn’t name her immediately, and were waiting until her fifth year. But, around a year after our daughter was born, my wife left. I have no idea where she went. She didn’t leave any messages or tell me anything.”

“That’s terrible,” Maya gasped, continuing with the small sips.

“For the longest time I convinced myself that she had been taken, or that something had happened to her. I spent a long time searching, always coming up empty. But in the back of my mind I never expected to find any signs of her. I knew she had left on her own. I assume the responsibility of being a parent scared her away. Maybe it was me. But, believe it or not, I wasn’t a dickhead back then.”

“I do find that hard to believe,” Maya said with a giggle.

“Yeah, yeah. Then the world was introduced to the supernatural. It was safe for me and my daughter to come out of the woods and join human society. It wasn’t easy. But other monsters had it rougher than us. We had the benefit of being relatively close in human appearance. Most of the elf population in our area moved into Raven’s Hope, which essentially forced us to do the same. That’s when I decided to name my daughter, and fall in line with human traditions. I named her Avaline.”

“That’s a pretty name,” Maya said.

“I thought so, too. I knew I needed to find a way to support her. The paranormal advisor job was created right around that time. And I know I was lucky as shit to get that job. You don’t have to tell me. I was able to buy a home for me and Avaline. We had enough money for food and comfort. Life was as good as it could get for two elves living in a human world. Five years ago, when Avaline was about seven, our world fell out from beneath us.”

Maya sat up. “Oh, no, Vic. What happened? Did your wife take her away?”

“No. I wish she had, though. It would’ve been a far greater fate than what did happen. Avaline got sick. An elvish disease. The human equivalent of an incurable cancer. Her porcelain skin turned blue as her little body wasted away. I tried every elven magic I knew. I took her to the elders. Nobody could fix her. As a last resort, I took her to a human hospital. Since I had insurance through the paranormal advisor job, they welcomed us with open arms. They ran tests … so many tests. They didn’t understand what was wrong with her, either. But they threw everything at the disease. Everything.

“It seemed like it was working for a bit. Though, I don’t believe that anymore. But at the time I did. I saw what I wanted to see … what I wished to see. I don’t think it was ever real. The doctors were running out of medicines to try. And then, higher ups—or corporate goons—I’m not sure what they were, stepped in. They put a kibosh on the treatments, saying a human hospital treating a supernatural patient was drawing bad press. We weren’t viewed as living human beings, just a strain on tax dollars that needed to be shooed away. Even got an armed escort out of the building, with a “no longer welcomed back” goodbye.”

“Oh my gosh!” Maya said. “That’s mortifying. What kind of monsters would do that? It’s not even legal.”

“Apparently it is.” Vic crushed a can and grabbed another. “People only want to help if they benefit financially, or it makes them look better. The second either of those things goes away, so does the friendly help. Anyway, I took Avaline home … to die.

“The disease took her fast. Days. She died in my arms, looking at me with wide, scared eyes, begging her dad to keep her alive. To save her. I was her hero. I failed my little girl.” Vic lit a cigarette and took a large swig of beer. He battled back tears and heavy emotions, stuffing and ramming them back down where they belonged.

“Don’t say that,” Maya said. “You didn’t fail her. I bet she loved you with everything she had. And I bet you did everything you could to keep her here.”

“Thanks,” Vic said. “But if that were true, then she’d be here now. I had a funeral for her. I was the only one there. It absolutely destroyed me. I shifted my focus into my job, promising myself I would make a difference, so that no other supernatural creature would have to suffer like I did. Like Avaline did. But, as the years went by, I realized I couldn’t make things better. I no longer saw the good in people. I grew to hate my job, and slowly morphed into the bitter slice of shit I am today.”

Silence fell upon the room again as they had both run out of things to say. One from not wanting to speak anymore, and one not sure how to console an inconsolable elf.

Finally, Maya offered something. “I guess we're kind of the same in some ways then, huh? People we love leave us.”

Vic didn’t answer for a moment, wagging his cigarette back and forth. It was something he hadn’t thought about. They were two completely different beings. But they did have love and death in common. Maybe they were just two lost souls that happened to cross paths. He could live with that.

“I’m done talking for tonight,” Vic said. He put his cigarette out in the ashtray and opened two more beers—for himself. “I’m going to turn on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. You’re more than welcomed to sit here and watch. Otherwise, the bed is all yours.”

Maya curled up again, resting her head on a pillow in the middle of the couch. Her blinking was slow and heavy. “Hey, I’ve seen this show before. It’s really old.” She fell asleep, right after finishing her sentence.

A half happy smile grew on Vic’s face. And a split second of a wonderful feeling coursed through his mind. He raised his hand … and nearly patted Maya on the top of the head, like he used to pat Avaline’s head when she fell asleep in the exact same spot. But he paused midway, his smile fading. He brushed the happy feelings aside and resumed drinking.

Two episodes later, Maya was still sound asleep. Vic shut the TV off, grabbed the rest of the case of beer, and took it to bed with him.