The Black Herring

Death Comes In Droves - Cameron

There’s so much tension in the room it’s almost palpable. As long as he could remember, it had always been tense in his family. Everyone knew he was his grandfather’s favorite, and that made it difficult for him to get along with his siblings, except his twin sister. They were the only ones who loved their grandfather for who he was and not for what he could give them. Many of their family members didn’t understand that or didn’t want to.

Cameron stared at his grandfather lying so still on the bed. The doctor came and checked the pulse. The room was still in anticipation. Everyone knew what the events that would come after. The old man would pass away. Broken pieces will be left. Remnants of a family that stood strong. Now its shattered. Feuds ripped the family apart at the seams.

An endless nightmare of seeing lawyer after lawyer and finding out how much the old man left to his family. His father and mother were leaning against the wall, watching and waiting like hawks circling in the sky. Cameron’s older brother, Theo, takes out his phone and spends a good twenty minutes staring at the screen. Theodore is in his second year of university, as is expected with the family line.

Grandfather had built an empire and a legacy. He had sought to make the world a better place. He had followed in his father’s footsteps and his father followed his father’s footsteps. Many people saw them as hunters, but they were more than just that. The name throughout history has changed, but it was always the same. They protected the world from unnaturals, as many people called them.

Everyone was there in the room except Blythe. He had refused to come, saying that grandfather had done nothing for him in his life. There’s some truth to the statement. Blythe, when he was younger, was impetuous and stubborn. The old man paid no attention to him, thinking it was better to ignore him than to train. His grandfather trained them to master the arts, except Blythe. He spent most of his time finding something else to do, then picking up the family mantle.

Celeste walks out of the room. Their parents look at the shut door and say something. Cameron adjusts his tie and follows her outside. She leans on the banister, looking down. There was a time when she was suicidal. Their parents wanted to lock her away, but their grandfather knew the perfect place for her to go and she went there. He never visited even when he wanted to, He called often, but it was never enough. She came back differently, as most people do when their family abandons them in a foreign place, thinking it will cure them. She drifted in and out of her head in space, and when she came back, their relationship was fragile.

“What are you doing here?”

She turns around. “As if waiting for someone to die is normal.”

“It is what is expected.”

She harrumphs. She fiddles with the ring on her finger. The same ring that everyone in their family had. He stares at the glyph of the firebird on the ring. He remembers the day when grandfather gave them each an heirloom of the family trade. It was their thirteenth birthday and what a glorious day it was. The sun was shining like a million tiny suns and when it rains; he could smell the dampness in the air. Their father released the dogs and Cameron ran with his first gun. They went on a hunting trip. Celeste stayed at home while the males of the family went hunting for a criminal mastermind.

He should feel guilty about that. His grandfather told him often detectable emotions were useless. It was better to hide how you felt. Hide it away so no one will see it. Grief was threatening to pull him apart. To tear him limb from limb if he allowed it at his door. Yet, he couldn’t help it. The patriarch of the family is dead and he feels dread about him. Who will take up the mantle to control the family? The twins’ father was too much of a manic to take full control of the situation. He would just push them off the edge to where the house crumbles into a pile of rubber. Their uncles were not any better, but it limited the choice of who would take the mantle.

“It’s being rapacious and vile. We do it without a second thought. I wish I could swap families and go somewhere far away.”

“If we did that, then who would keep people from killing each other?” He smiles. “We are like personal bodyguards or something like that. I kind of like the idea of that.” Cameron shrugs.

She suppresses a smile. “Body guards don’t go hunting down for people.”

“In a perfect world, probably, but this isn’t a perfect world. We deal with what we have.”

“You make it sound as though we’ve no choice.” She glances at the ring on her finger. “I like to believe that we’ve got choices. Grandfather is dead. What will happen now? He said that I could go back to Acheson. He said everything would be okay,” she trails off, her voice full of a mixture of emotions that Cameron can’t trace.

There was a time when Cameron knew what his sister was feeling and she understood what he was going through. These days it was almost like they were strangers: the kind that meet at the same place at different points in their lives. He knew she would take their grandfather’s death hard, just as he was taking it. He didn’t expect it to make her re-evaluate life. It was as if she was staring at crossroads. A no return road. All this came with the job description. They all knew that grandfather’s internal clock was spinning out of control and it would come to a halting stop.

They were ready for it; the man was seventy-seven and he could barely keep up with the proceedings, but they were hoping he chose a successor before he died and now everything would spin out of control.

Cameron takes a deep breath. He listens to the pounding of his heart and the thump of ear drums makes him well aware of the doors opening. The voices of men and women blend, forming into a cacophony and excitement all masked in the allure of a dead man’s legacy. The familiar tones of his family keep him on his feet and stop him from saying something that can compromise him or his sister. He waits for the dying sound of footsteps descending.

Celeste glances around. She fiddles with her ring again, as if by just touching it she will be closer to grandfather and less alone. He made empty promises he couldn’t keep. They all did, hoping that the past would forever remain hidden in the cadavers of their misfortune. No one dared tell them it’s easy to dig up the corpses of the past and mistake them for something else.

“That is a risk father will never take. You know that, don’t you?”

She smiles, but it’s a wintry smile that makes him stop in his tracks. Time often played mind games with him and when he closed his eyes, it was as if nothing had changed. He knew better. Time was only changing the situation. One day, the sun will shine like gold in the dust. On the other days, the moon blocks the rays of the sun. On days like that, he wakes up and stares at the photos of a family that is more of a business arrangement. The one person who pulled them together was gone. Celeste will slip away again, just like she did a few months ago.

“I know that,” she looks. Her eyes have a glazed look. “I expect it.” She walks away from him without saying another word.

He walks back into his grandfather’s room when Celeste leaves. He doesn’t know why he’s back in this room. Nothing has changed. His grandfather was still dead. A man who braced for the toughest storms is gone. The doctor said he died in his sleep. He can’t understand how a man who killed over fifty men and almost died five times could slip away at night. The old man was in good health. His sons and grandsons went to the gym with him.

He didn’t smoke as he said that he didn’t want to die from cancer. He joked about his demise. He’d rather go out with a bang than a fizzle. Though that is exactly what happened. The memories refused to leave him. Every time he blinks, he can see a younger version of his grandfather picking him up and throwing him into the air. Today, they will remember him and celebrate his legacy by going back into the past and thinking of who he was. His grandfather was a genial man, but he could be truculent. It all depended on his mood and who he was dealing with. He believed in nepotism and dividing the family by comparing everyone’s traits to each other.

“Your grandfather was a man like no other.” Cameron turn to stare at his father.

His father looks a lot like his grandfather. They both have the same broad shoulders, chocolate eyes, and they are both stoic. Grandfather was stoic. Cameron’s father, for a man of his age and position, looks like he’s spent most of his time wandering the desert of his life and was not sure how to return to civilization.

“Yeah, he certainly was.”

“We should leave. We’ve got work to do. Where’s your sister?”

“This is difficult for her.”

“It’s difficult for all of us. We need to move on. It’s what he would have wanted. He would be disappointed at you wasting your tears on him. He lived his life. That is all that matters.”

The Herrings were not a sentimental bunch. When someone died, they held vigils and moved on. Crying was dishonorable and not part of the Herring way and grandfather instilled those values in them about what it meant to be part of the Herring clan. Whoever took over the mantle would do the same and there’s a possibility they might be worse than grandfather ever was.

Cameron follows his father. It’s in his genes to do so. When he was ten, his father got into his blue Cadillac and they went into town. His father had always been a reticent man compared to his voracious uncles who always seem to have words spilling out of their mouth like a burst pipe. His father sat in the car with a timid, scrawny Cameron and they watched an old man get into the car. Cameron’s father started the engine, and they followed the man. The old man stopped outside a house with a broken fence. A young girl stepped outside and was picking up toys that were lying on the ground. The old man got out of his car and approached the girl. The girl backed up, but the man kept walking towards her. He took out a gun and shot her without even flinching.

The next day, they spoke about the girl and how she had died in a fire. Cameron’s father had driven off after watching the man kill the girl. The next weeks, they kept following the man until the Herring family killed him. Cameron stayed at home, but he kept thinking about how ruthless and uncouth the man was. That girl had a family and a life. She was too young to die that way, but she did, and the other women around the same age died in the same way. They called the killer the Wanderer. His memos were all different, and he always used a suppressor.

He learned at a young age what it meant to be a Herring. It wasn’t about morale or even justifying if what they were doing was the right thing. He knows that killing is a crime, regardless of if they are hunting down unscrupulous people and giving people a sense of hope. Being a Herring is more than just hunting down criminals and putting the nails in the coffins duty, honor and keeping up the legacy that has been in place since the 1900s.

They walk into a spacious office with photos hanging on the wall like a gallery. There is also a library full of books written by their ancestors on a variety of topics. He remembers how Celeste would sneak in there when the grownups were asleep and read the books. She finished reading all the books there by the time she was fifteen. She enjoys telling him that story because it shows how she had an interest in the various facets of the family business. He had never been a studious person and was more interested in the personal side of the business rather than understanding the history of it all.

His father walks to the library and takes out a dusty book. Vargas Herring blows on top of the book and dust motes float around and drift towards Cameron. He coughs as a few dust motes creep down his throat and the taste of dirt makes him cough more. Vargas opens the book and flips through the pages of an archaic book that has no relevance to this day’s age.

Cameron had broached the subject with his grandfather that it was time to leave the old behind and bring in technology as a way of researching the material. His grandfather laughed and told him the Herring clan was all about tradition and if they left that, they’d forget their lineage. To this day, he doesn’t understand what his grandfather meant. It’s possible Cameron won’t ever know. He just wanted to run away from old books.

He couldn’t exactly go against the whole family, even if he wanted to. There were a lot of clans around who wanted to take out the Herring clan. Some were bigger and more united than they were. There was always some threat around that made it difficult to do their job, but if there wasn’t, then it would mean the world had come to a halting knock at death’s door.

“Come here, Cam.” He walks up to his father. “Look at that. What do you think of this?”

He stares at the slanted handwriting, then at the picture on the next page. It’s of a man with runes all over his body, and he’s wearing an ancient medallion around his neck. He never knew why everything mystical had to involve medallions and dusty books. It was as though life was mocking. Pocking and prodding at his sensibilities; he wished sometimes that they were matters that weren’t complicated, but he knew wishes often had disastrous side effects.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“The Marcuse. Your grandfather always spoke about them and their power. He hated them. Most of the clans call their existence a myth, but this is where they are wrong. I believe it’s these people who killed your grandfather.”

“Father.” He looks at the picture, then at his father, who is focusing on the picture.

The man looks like a normal man with tattoos on his body, but what Cameron has realized in this line of business is there’s no such thing as normal. It depends on one’s perception of the strange. The Marcuse is a myth that everyone of the five clans knows. The story of their power changes from one clan to the next and it all started with one man. Theodore Benedict was the first person who laid his eyes on the Marcuse. He wrote about it in his journal and as time passed on, the Benedict clan gave the other four clans a copy. They always enjoy throwing that discovery by their ancestor in the faces of the other clans.

“Grandfather died in his sleep,” he finally says.

“Your grandfather was a strong man. He was healthy. People like us don’t just die in our sleep. We have to go through the storm before we’re ready to die.”

Cameron almost rolls his eyes. He resists, though.

“The Marcuse is a legend.”

His brows knit together. “I’m afraid not. Before your grandfather died, he was researching a string of deaths. It had something to do with this medallion, and now he’s dead. It can’t be a coincidence. I refuse to believe it's nature’s cruel joke. I’ve to go out of town for a few days, but I’m leaving you to keep this between us. Someone here wanted him dead and contacted a powerful Marcuse. Don’t tell anyone about this. I’m afraid the family is about to be ripped to shreds and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Cameron stood there looking at his father. Who kept staring at nothing as though there was something he saw. Cameron was too blind to see. He didn’t believe any of this was possible. How could he? Marcuse was a myth, just like fairies and werewolves. They were stories mothers would tell their rambunctious disobedient children so that they wouldn’t try to be a nuisance. Yet some stories he thought were a myth seemed to be true.

Their entire purpose was to protect the world from those who would destroy it because of their disregard for mankind.