Putting ghosts to rest…(WoD)

The dreamscape is as familiar now as it was when she lived it. Iron pots and pans, worn and well-broken in, hang from rusted hooks screwed into the wall above the wood burning stove. The ancient spit-dog rests panting in its hutch, the wheel in which it spends its life still. A fire is burning in the great fireplace, but all that is heating on its multitude of hooks is a pot of hot water.
Her mother is seated at the long table, her work-roughened hands clasped together and her heavy chestnut hair bound up in a twist of cloth. Her eyes are a faded blue, almost gray, and wreathed in deep shadows, but there is a contentment there that was long missing. Apparently unaware of her guest she rubs a dull gold ring on her left hand as if in thought, a tiny smile on her lips as she stares into the flames.
Dawn smiles to herself. There was a homey feeling here, one she barely remembered. A feeling of safety, quiet. Without disturbing the woman from her reverie, she pulls up a chair and sits across from her, elbows resting on the splintered surface of the rickety table. They sit together in silence, the younger woman’s face a mask of calm and the older woman a study in serenity.
They wait.

A man enters the room. Tall, dark haired. Grey eyes flashing in his lean face, he sweeps into the kitchen with the grace of a dancer and the energy of a lightning strike. The older woman at the table barely looks up from her thoughts as he enters, but Dawn looks up at him, suppressing an instinctual flinch, fright flickering for a second in her dove-grey eyes.
He notices her momentary cringe and a strangely foreign expression drifts onto his angular features; remorse. He reaches one hand towards his daughter but, awkward, lets it fall as the older woman speaks.

"We’ve been waiting, Elias." She finally turns her attention to where he is standing, amusement evident in her voice. "Still unable to keep a date?" She raises an eyebrow. "I always said I would get you a watch."
He grins, a devil-may-care shit-eating grin that makes Dawn smile. It was his good smile. "I never was good with time. I always get the job done though, don’t I, love?"
The woman smiles back, her blue eyes lighting in a way that Dawn has never seen, and her heart lifts at the sight. This was why her mother had tolerated his erratic and violent behavior, why she married him despite it, why she put herself and her daughter through the horror that was living in the Hell’s Hand Hive. Beneath all the filth and corruption, she loved him.
"Yes, Elias, you do." Sasha sighs, her hands still clasped on the tabletop. "This most recent job has been keeping your attention long." Still smiling faintly, he pulls a chair out and sits down, removing a pair of canine teeth from the inside pocket of his suitcoat and nimbly running them across the backs of his fingers. "And I’m sure you have much to tell her."
He nods, the smile lessening. "Yes, I do. We have much to talk of. There are some changes in the wind, some boding good, some ill."
Dawn glances over at her father with a worried look. "Has he begin his move?"
Elias shakes his head. "No, the little bastard is nothing if not thorough. So far he hasn’t noticed me watching, but he may yet, and we would lose our advantage." He sighs. "Come on, girl, lets walk. I can’t think sitting here like a lump." He turns his grin on Sasha, mischief bright in dark-hollowed eyes as he stands. "May we have your leave, Miss? I’m afraid the subjects of our conversation would not be to your liking." Sasha waves a hand at him and chuckles. "Go on with you, man. Go have your talk with the girl. You can come back and tell me all your secrets later."
He leans down and kisses her cheek almost reverently. "Yes, ma’am." He gives her his gamin grin again and turns to Dawn. "Ready, girl?" She nods, her heart in her throat. "Then lets be off. And lets have a little change in scenery, shall we?"

They are standing on a beach at sunset, gulls squawking as they fly overhead, their wings glowing pink in the fading light. He starts walking, his step long and loose. There had been a time in her life where she had been hard-pressed to match her father’s stride but she meets him easily now, her hair bobbing along her cheek as she walks next to him. There had been a time as well when she would have been terrified to stand at his side, preferring to walk just behind him, but that time is no more. She is the sun now.
They walk in silence for what feels like and eternity before he speaks, and his voice is rough and low when he does.
"I never gave you a real name, did I?"
She thinks for a few moments before answering. "No, you didn’t."
"I should have. Your Marcus gave you your name, didn’t he?"
She nods. "Yes. He did."
"He chose well." Elias sighs. "You did too, girl."
She stops. "Dad…. Father… I don’t know what to call you…." She throws her hands up and glares at him as he turns to face her. "I don’t know what you are anymore. I don’t know who I am to you, or why you’ve come to help me, or if you’re even helping me at all. I don’t know anymore…." Tears begin to well up and she dashes them away angrily.
He sighs, pain raw in his deep sunken eyes. "You can call me Elias. That’s my given name and a more appropriate name for you to call me by. I’ve never been much of a father to you, girl." She stares at him.  "As for helping you, yes, I am. You are my daughter, and one to whom I owe a great debt. I am helping you because I choose to." He smiles, "And because it makes your mother happy. That’s all I ever wanted."
He looks away, embarrassed, begins to walk again. She follows him, now curious, suddenly no longer afraid of this tall man with the icy eyes and the quicksilver grin. She remembers how he looked at her mother and she stands a little straighter, walking more briskly to catch up. He does not speak again until they have walked for what could have only been feet, might have been miles, the seafront unchanging and the gulls in constant motion overhead. When the tall ragabash speaks, his voice is thick, rough. Little more than a whisper. "I have wronged you, girl. In more ways that this poor man can ever repay. I have wronged your mother, and, again, I can never compensate her for her suffering, not in a manner that would lessen the impact of my actions."
Dawn stares at him, feeling the beginning of something she never thought she would for the man. She wants to reach out to him but holds it in check, not quite trusting herself. She is silent as he continues.
"All I can do is know who and what I am, who and what I was, and try to make sure that the world my grandson grows up in is free of monsters such as myself. As much as the world can be, that is." He stuffs his hands into his pants pockets as he walks and chuckles wryly, a humorless grin on his thin lips. "Don’t worry, girl, I discovered the meaning of Hell the moment your dearest love fired that .45 into my skull. Hell is knowing. And not being able to do a damn thing about it."
She remains silent. He glancesover at her and sighs. "So, my girl, you’re stuck with me. You were stuck with me the moment you followed a dream, along the shores of death and into the light of the Helios. You were stuck with me the moment your body accepted a beginnings of a child and you will continue to be stuck with me long past his death. This is my punishment, and my promise to you. I have much to atone for."
She looks up at him. "As does your other son." He nods. "Yes, I unfortunately left my stamp on that one, as little as I had to do with his upbringing. Still, he was my creation and one I am responsible for. I will deal with him." He grins down at her, his teeth flashing in wicked humor. "Please let me correct that last statement. WE will deal with him."
There was a time when a smile like that would have sent her running. She grins up at him and gives him an impish look from grey eyes so very like his own. "Yes, we will. Preferably with something heavy, something hot, or something explosive. Or maybe all three."
Elias throws his head back and laughs. "Yes, my girl, we will. I think seeing his guts strewn across a few city blocks might improve my mood considerably. And would definately improve the atmosphere of Milwaukee."
She nods and taps one slim finger against her lips as she walks. "You said he wasn’t ready to make his move yet. What else did you need to tell me?"
The tall man stops abruptly. Dawn walks a few steps before noticing and turns to face him. There is worry in his deep eyes, worry and something terrible, something that should never have risen in the eyes of Elias Walker.
Fear.
She feels her breath catch in her throat. Whatever he was going to tell her was going to be awful, was going to hurt, was going to make want to pull her guts out and dance on them, scream until her vocal cords snapped. She walks up to her father and in a low voice asks, "What is it?" He looks down at her, silent. She reaches out, takes him by the upper arms and almost screams.
"What is it?"
He bends down, kneels on one knee in front of her, and whispers. "Your Hand is not the only one who has a traitor. Lucas’ reach is much wider that I thought. And I now know who his moles are and what they want."
Comprehension slowly dawns on her heart-shaped face. She shakes him, not ungently, and looks him in the eye, a task that once would have taken a force of will to do. "Who are they, Elias? Who are they and where are they?"
He smiles at her; she is able now to see the smile reach his eyes and turn them into something  brighter, something that would make a girl’s knees loosen more than a little. No wonder her mother was in love with him, with eyes like that. She sees pride in those eyes, pride in her, in his unwanted daughter. She shakes him again. "Who?
He leans in close and tells her, whispers in her ear like a lover, and in those words are everything terrible she feared, everything that made her gut roll and her throat constrict. She stands unmoving in the gentle grasp of his voice, not noticing the tears streaming down her cheeks or the way her fingers have tightened on his arms. When he has finished speaking he looks at her, fear and sorrow etched in the lines of his face and depths of his eyes. Without a sound she collapses into his arms like a building falling, weeping as if her heart would break, as though everything that had held her up had snapped like the cut strings of a marionette.
Elias holds his crying daughter as the gulls sweep overhead. He does not notice the tears in his own eyes, indeed would have been surprised by them. The sun slowly sets as he holds her, sets in golds and scarlets, turning the sea the color of blood.