Monthly Bonus Content #3—'Through Fog and Smoke...' (Mason Version) (Patreon)

Wayhaven’s lighthouse stands sentinel at the edge of town. It shines its beam across the midnight depths of the lake before turning its eye on the town with a softer watch. Nothing stirs that night except the usual patrol that also keeps guard over the town.

The lighthouse seems to slow, allowing the team of two more light for a moment to maze their way through the thicket of trees at the edge of town.

“I didn’t think lighthouses turned their light on the actual houses. Don’t they just swing back and forth across the water?” Mason asks as he walks with agile ease along the shadowed path that rings around Wayhaven proper.

I look at him before returning my focus to the trail, thankful for the lighthouse’s continued gentle light as it reveals a safe route. “They do normally, as far as I know. But this one broke a long time ago, and the people back then apparently liked it because there wasn’t much other illumination for the town, so they left it.”

Mason glances to the towering building on the far cliff as it sweeps its beam back towards the lake, as though sensing his enquiring glance. “Sounds to me like they just wanted an excuse not to bother fixing it.”

I chuckle and shrug. “That does seem likely.”

-

The lighthouse casts its bright eye once more over the cliffs and lake, no wind or activity stirring the depths.

But even the brightest light can’t always see through the darkest shadows.

Below the cliff edge, deep within the caverns that carve through the rock, echoes a voice. It has a sing-song melody that would normally lift the hearts of those who might hear it…but the words it chants are anything but cheerful.

“Web and string, web and string, time is such a fragile thing. Cut the thread and loop the rope, take away those shreds of hope.”

Over and over the words echo and twist in the air as a hunched, gangly figure weaves his gnarled fingers through the air, pinching and grasping at invisible threads. He yanks on an unseen filament and draws it close, watching it shine with the thinnest iridescent splendor.

A grin spreads across his face. “Make a cut and change the past. His most treasured memory gone at last.”

His finger slices through the air, and a pulse of energy bursts out from the cavern. It travels beneath the ground, rippling out beneath the grass and mud, searching like a radar for its target.

And finally…it finds it.

-

Mason and I continue our patrol. It’s as quiet as most nights, which is a relief from all that’s been happening lately. He walks beside me with an easy gait, matching my own steps with precision, not seeming to notice how close he’s gotten to my side. Our arms brush as we go, and I can’t help the intense awareness throughout my body at the simple touch.

I’m about to open my mouth to say something when Mason gasps for a breath.

“Mason?” I call as he slumps against a nearby tree and clutches at the crystal hanging at his chest. Smoke sizzles from his tight fist. “What the—”

He hisses in pain with his fingers still clenched with a vice-like grip around his pendant. I can see the red-hot glow of heat from within his palm.

“Let it go!” I yell, but he doesn’t seem to hear me as he grits his teeth, sweat staining his forehead as he almost crumples onto the ground. I lurch forwards, uncurling his solid fingers from around the object until it falls against his chest. It glows with vicious brightness before dying back to its usual clear glimmer.

Mason slides down to the ground, stretching his legs out, his palm resting in his lap. The scorched imprint of the crystal is scarred into his skin, but the edges are already beginning to stitch and heal back to their original smoothness.

I fall to my knees and stare wide-eyed at him. “What was that?!”

“I…I have no idea.” He blinks at me, narrowing his eyes to take me in. “Who the hell are you?”

“You are joking, right?” But all I get in reply is an angered scowl. “It’s taken me over half a year to get you to even acknowledge me and now you’re joking about even knowing me?” My laughter edges on panic.

He springs onto his feet, pushing away from me with a frown. “Half a year?” He shakes his head, holding his palm to his temples as pain creases his features. “You’re lying. You…are you?”

My throat thickens with fear, and I reach out my hand to rest on his arm. “Mason. You’re scaring me a little bit….”

His eyes drop to the touch, where the confusion clouding his gaze suddenly seems to lift. His shoulders drop back down from around his ears as his breath flows easily once more.

“Sweetheart/Handsome…” My pet name leaves him in a shudder, but I’ve never been more relieved to hear it.

I make to draw my fingers away, but his hand whips out to fall over mine and keep it in place. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, pain streaking a cracked line across his features. “But I have a serious headache.”

I hook a brow upwards. “Can vampires get headaches?”

“Apparently I can now,” he growls, squeezing his eyes shut as he fists the fingers of his free hand tightly into his hair.

“We need to get you home.” I step to his side, wrapping an arm around his middle in order to offer whatever support I can as he stumbles along beside me. I can hear his teeth grinding together as we go.

-

Back at the Warehouse. In the Living Room

“You said it came on suddenly?” Nat asks with a tilt of her head as she steps away from examining Mason, who I barely just managed to get into an armchair before he collapsed. She was careful not to touch him as she looked him over, something he seemed to be appreciative of as the headache continues to drag his whole body down.

I nod. “He just suddenly grasped his crystal and…forgot about me.”

Ava sighs and rubs at the arched bridge of her nose. “Then it’s true.”

“What’s true?” Mason and I ask in unison.

“There’s a Weaver in town,” Felix announces with an excited gleam before offering a sympathetic frown to Mason. “But it looks like you’re his target.”

“We knew one of us was the target,” Ava explains. “Do you remember Freej-da?”

Mason slumps even further forward, rubbing at his face with his hands. “Him again?”

“I’m guessing he’s someone you know?” I ask when this conversation loses its meaning for me.

Mason reaches out for me, so I shift closer until he can wrap his arm around my hips and rest his head against my waist. He eases out a breath and relaxes further into the position instantly. “He’s a Weaver we stopped from ruining a timeline a few years ago. But I thought he signed an agreement?”

My eyes snap open, and I shake my hands in front of me. “Wait—ruining a timeline? That’s not…actually possible, is it?”

The group eye each other with wary glances, as though unsure if they should actually answer that and destroy what little understanding of this confusing world I have left.

I roll my eyes at their continued silence. “Of course it is.”

“It’s not easy,” Nat adds, shoving her hands into her pockets. “It’s requires such power that even Weavers, who have an affinity with those magics, rarely actually pull off anything major.”

“So what is he trying to do with Mason?” I ask, not realizing as I let my fingers stroke through his hair and rub soothingly at the back of his neck.

Felix glances between us. “Make him forget about you.”

“Why?”

“Because he was creepily obsessed with this human, but she was already in love with someone else,” Felix begins.

“And he was trying to make them forget each other in the hopes the human would fall for him instead,” Nat continues the story with a disgusted grimace.

I join in with the expression. “Oh, that’s just all kinds of wrong.”

“Which is why we stopped it,” Mason states, his voice regaining some of its strength.

I look down to him. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah. But I’m seriously pissed off,” he snaps, standing up with a determination flashing like lightning in his stormy eyes. “Nobody messes with my memories.”

“Eh…” Felix lets out with a slow tilt of his head.

Mason purses his lips. “Not without my say so.”

“The Agency has tracked his magic to the lake, though we can’t pinpoint it further than that without getting close,” Ava explains, leaning against the fireplace mantle and rubbing at her lips. “But we can’t all go because he’s too sensitive to our presence.”

“Then I’ll go,” I offer, stepping forward and feeling Mason’s arm fall away. Something deep in me longs for his touch the second it’s gone, but I try to ignore the strange sensation. “He won’t be able to sense me or won’t be on the lookout for it, at least.”

Ava frowns and shakes her head. “I don’t like how much we’re growing to rely on you to fight our battles.”

“I have skills and assets you don’t, and you have ones I don’t,” I reply with a shrug. “That’s the point of a balanced team, isn’t it?”

“I’ll be going with them anyway,” Mason announces, stepping closer once again.

Nat and Ava exchange yet another silent glance.

“All right,” Nat agrees with a nod. “Then you’ll need the cuffs that can block his magic. Get them on him, and you won’t have any more problems.”

I let out a short chuckle. “Oh, so an easy task then.”

“It should be,” Felix adds. “He’s not exactly a fighter and using his magic drains him like you wouldn’t believe.”

My brows rise as I allow a smile. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”

-

At the Caverns beneath the Lighthouse

The tide laps at the pebble-strewn shore, seeming to follow us inside as we make our way into one of the open caves hollowed into the cliff’s front. Water sloshes around our ankles, seaweed making the walk treacherous, but we push onwards.

It doesn’t take long to find the right path as seriously creepy mutterings echo down one of the tunnels. Dribbles of water cascade down the back of my jacket, making me shiver, and the chill dampness continues to invade every sense until they’re dulled with the musty scent of time and disuse.

“There he is,” Mason whispers, crouching and shuffling closer to my side.

Ahead of us is a small rocky room illuminated in an eerie purple light with flames of orange spewing upwards in the centre. Thick grey smoke curls around the stony roof, probing at the unyielding surface until it finds a small shaft to escape from.

The figure is cloaked and indistinguishable, especially as he has his back to us, arms circling over something and looking very much like a villain out of a children’s storybook. The comparison doesn’t help with calming my nerves.

“Ok, you go—” My plan is halted as Mason lunges out of the safety of our shadowed tunnel towards the Weaver. I blow out a breath and follow behind.

“You [lots of censored cursing]!”

The Weaver spins at the sound of Mason’s angered yelling but doesn’t seem as surprised as I’d expected. In fact, he smiles.

“Mason, get back!” But my warning comes too late as the Weaver snaps out a wiry arm. His fingers curl in the air like a cage around Mason, who drops to his knees as the crystal burns with glowing fury.

“What once was, now be lost. Take from him the earthly cost.” The man chants out the words which pop and hiss in the air around Mason.

The deep red material of his t-shirt scorches bright and a hole begins to burn away beneath the pendant.

My breath stops.

“What are you doing?!” I cry, letting the cuffs drop with a dull clank to the ground as I make to rush for Mason.

The Weaver whips up a hand to halt me. “I wouldn’t dare if I were you.”

I swallow hard and stop. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because he took away the one I love, so it’s only fair I do the same,” he hisses, crooked teeth poking out from yellowed lips. He doesn’t look human, almost more birdlike with wide round eyes and taloned feet.

I scoff. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but Mason doesn’t love me.”

He cocks his head and glances back to the vampire writhing a few feet away. “Are you so sure about that? No one clings to memories as desperately as he is unless there’s true feeling behind them.”

My heart both wants to shatter and beat harder at those words. “I… I don’t—”

“You don’t believe me?” He lifts his scrawny shoulders, revealing a matted plume of feathers across his chest beneath his cloak. “I don’t care. What I do care about is making him feel ten times the pain that I do.”

His attention returns to Mason, flicking his other hand out and seeming to manipulate some kind of invisible web that only he can see. His fingertips slide down threads, plucking at strings with vile intent.

I blink when I realise my gaze has become watery, ignoring the sting of cold dampness against my hot cheeks.

In one sweeping motion, I stoop down and retrieve the cuffs and make a grab at the Weaver.

The cuffs slip around his scaley wrists before he can even process what’s happening. Light shoots out of the cuffs, burning in the air before sinking back down into the metal with a soft glow.

Silence plummets down onto the cavern.

After a few moments, I dare to let out a breath, followed by Mason’s rasped inhales.

I rush to him, ignoring the slumped Weaver staring wide eyed at his cuffed hands, and drop to Mason’s side.

“Hey?” I mumble as I reach for him. “Are you all right?”

“That’s the second time you’ve had to ask me that today,” he groans, pushing himself up onto his feet. He only wobbles slightly before regaining his balance.

I smirk at him. “Maybe you’re losing your touch.”

“Or maybe all these assholes could stop coming after us long enough for me to recover,” he suggests with an angered flash of his fangs at the Weaver.

A flicker of a frown catches my brows, but I try to hide it. It’s rare Mason admits his vulnerabilities—and even less so in front of me—but that was such a casual admission of it.

The Weaver’s words spin webs in my heart, but I try to brush them off and not let them linger.

Love is far from what Mason feels for me.

…Right?

“I’ll call Unit Bravo and tell them the good news,” I say in order to distract myself.

As I make to move away, Mason grasps my arm lightly. I turn back, finding him suddenly only an inch from me. His hand slides up my arm, tracing the curve of my neck before wrapping around the back of it to bring our foreheads together.

He sighs against me, and I shiver beneath the warmth of his breath.

“Don’t ever let me forget you,” he pleads as his eyes fall closed with exhaustion.

My breath hitches. “Isn’t the point of forgetting so you wouldn’t know if you had?”

His eyes flutter open to find mine with an intensity that shocks my system. “I’d know.”

---

So this wasn't exactly about a time-travelling object, but I had this character from Unit Bravo's past missions, and it seemed too good of an opportunity to bring them back! So it's sort of time related instead :D

Also suuuuppppeeerrrr long, I'm so sorry!...I got seriously carried away with writing the Weaver again, hehe! (I know most people don't mind really long, but I totally understand it's really difficult for those who read on phones to scroll so much! I will definitely contain my imagination for next month's scenarios!)