Into the Wild Dark

CHAPTER 26 - SUNNY

Ch. 26: Sunny's Reassignment

September 7 | Day

A tiny white placard titled the piece in elegant font, "Three." Beneath that, the word was replicated in flowing Perso-Arabic script. I was riveted.

In the foreground, Jack sprawled on a bed of white and red roses in all his splendor. He was nude and lascivious with a Dionysian smile upon his virile lips. Draped at his left was Mal against a backdrop of maelstromous clouds, crackling and broiling with lightning. She was one with the storm. The tempstress tipped Jack's chin toward her alluring face while his fingers reached toward me.

I was the radiant figure to the right, upholding a lantern. Though I beckoned Jack to the safety of indoors, my eyes were painted on Mal as if the allure of destruction was as promising as the idea of survival. The Ashivant house and night garden were in the background. A full moon lit the sky. The rich colors blurred together in the Impressionist style, and there was no question that the artist was a gifted practitioner.

Ava had captured the essence of our plight. The fricative scratch of yearning against self-denial. The crime of aggression confronting haplessness.

As Jack and Mal gathered beside me to look at the portrait, I could almost read their thoughts. Like me, Mal wondered if the symbolism was ham-fisted enough to reveal our types to Jack. The battle of light against darkness seemed a bit on the nose. But Jack was preoccupied with how the three of us fit together rather than what kept us apart. He smiled at the image with unconcealed adoration as he clasped my hand.

"I want a copy of this," he said.

"I'll grab us each a print. I'll be back," said Mal as she darted to a merch kiosk.

I glanced at Jack from the corner of my eye and tried to make my decision to give him up as my ward make sense again. It no longer did. With our purpose looming over us, unmistakably directing us to take down the vampire, I suddenly saw ways we might succeed. The plan we had hatched on the houseboat was our best shot. If I bowed out now, I'd be accepting defeat wrapped up tidily and self-righteously in permanent wings and a promotion to a higher rank, while Jack lost his life and Mal gained her freedom but lost her heart.

I couldn't do that.

We toured the rest of the gallery and marvelled over other examples of Ava's brilliance. The gallery owner allowed us to lock up and enjoy a private viewing. Gorged on cheese cubes and mid-tier wine (seltzer for me), we made the most of our day-trip. We shopped at the open-air market of the French Quarter. We took a carriage ride to New Orleans City Park. We visited the Museum of Modern Art, and then we ate gumbo and crawfish etouffee at a Supernatural restaurant full of character and mystique.

Jack met and chatted up Supernaturals at every stop. We later hopped a rideshare to a quaint AirBNB in the Garden District. None of us wanted to waste the evening sequestered on the boat. We entered the Creole cottage with its garish jewel-tone siding and eye-catching lime shutters.

The living room walls and ceiling were a dreamy blue. Mal deposited two shopping bags on the cherrywood dining table. I didn't snoop, but I was curious to know what she had purchased. Our three postcard prints of Ava's painting fell to the lace tablecloth, and I studied the professional-quality images.

"I'll never forget this," I murmured as I pocketed mine.

"Me, neither. We look good together." Jack yawned and stretched, his shirt inching up for a glimpse of his defined abs.

Instantly aware we were alone again, I averted my gaze, but keeping desire in check seemed harder and harder to do. The rule-bending session on the houseboat had left me with an eagerness to experience what was on the other side of my fear. I had felt every ungrounded surge of emotion Mal had felt. That she would gift me with her body had been mind-blowing.