The Cursed Blood

a child. Honestly at the time I’d been blissfully ignorant of how bad it could actually be. Or how ignorant, gullible, and wicked men and women of all races could be that thought they were born superior or entitled to more than others, or worse still, those dangerous ones that are convinced that good intentions justified terrible evils.
“Because they are cruel, ignorant, and blitheringly stupid,” Gramps answered bluntly. “Never trust any of them, boy. None, not a single one. As it will come to bad ends.” More than once I heard Gramps mutter how he’d rather lose his legs than have to deal with a Clampett.
Over and over like a mantra whenever we ran into them that not a single one of them was worth the air they breathed. From my experience I happily discovered his wasn’t true at all. In fact, it’s the farthest from the truth one can go (for at least one of them) without tripping over yourself. But that’s not a story to be told just yet.
After a quick lunch of cheese sandwiches, potato chips with a big fat pickle each, washed down with a surprise of bottled Cokes (Gramps was really trying to make me feel welcome, but only managed to make me feel more home sick), he marched us out to the yard, Manx barking excitedly as we approached a perfect circle of dirt where nothing grew, and a rack of wooden swords stood ready.
He smiled evilly and gestured for me to go pick one. I took one look at his face and knew this wasn’t going to be fun.
He assured me that if I managed to hit him even once with my practice sword, we would go out for ice-cream. He didn’t even have a sword. He just stood there smiling with his hands folded behind his back. I took a deep breath and charged.
Predictably, I didn’t hit a thing.
I landed face first into the dirt as he stared down at me smiling that same wicked smile as he watched me raise myself a bit sheepishly (and painfully) to my skinned knees. “Up out of the dirt boy” Gramps growled with a sadistic chuckle as his dark eyes twinkled with a cold amusement as I wearily stared up at him “Darklings don’t kneel.”
I did as I was told and tried again, swinging, and swinging (and more than once more biting the dirt hard for m troubles) until my arms ached and never once even made him move more than a few steps or even so much as break a sweat. When it was finally painfully obvious that I couldn’t so much as lift the heavy sword shaped hunk of wood anymore, he nodded, chuckled, and told me to return it to the rack.
And, while I did as he bid of me, he grimly promised that my training would not be easy, and at times would most certainly hurt. However, he sagely advised, as I mulled that happy thought over, that a bit of pain now during training was a sure sight better than dead in a fight.
He further sternly announced, as he scratched at his back with his wooden sword (that he hadn’t had reason to use the whole bout), that we would be practicing these essential skills each and every day, rain, sleet, snow, injury or otherwise.
No matter what.
And that we did, every afternoon. Each practice was just a little longer than the last as Gramps ran me mercilessly through drills and practice bouts until I felt like I’d been hit with a rather large truck. It was hard, brutal, and exhausting, but it irrefutably payed off in dividends. As it hurt a little less, I struck a little more precisely, moved a bit faster, and swung harder with each passing session.
I even managed to almost smack him in the leg once, almost. That bit of cheek earned me a doubly long drill session and run before I had to rake the yard and hit the books before supper.

Chapter Four
Revelations, the Owl, and the touch of tragedy…
On my second week at Gramps’ the old man arrived. We just woke one morning to find him sitting on our porch, sipping hot cocoa from a dented thermos cup and munching on a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit sandwich. On the table beside him at his elbow sat an old dinged up steel lunchbox like you’d see in a factory breakroom and a battered grey cowboy hat.
He sat there on one of Gramps’ green painted Adirondack chairs with a blanket over his lap. Manx rushed up to him the moment the front door opened enough for the fluffy brute of a Witchound to force his way out, rubbing against the old man’s blanketed leg and whining for a treat. He scowled and popped the rest of his sandwich into the dog’s waiting mouth and scratched under Manx’s chin vigorously as he ate.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Gramps growled as he offered the old man his hand, which was pointedly ignored as he unwrapped another sandwich from his lunchbox and started to happily munch away on it. Gramps sighed and folded his arms, patiently waiting. I wasn’t so patient.
“Who are you?”
The old man stopped chewing, swallowed, and regarded me with a cold, flat look. Shaking his regal, long, jet-black hair sadly as he licked the crumbs and such off each finger then tossing the rest to Manx who caught the half-eaten sandwich in midair.
“I’ve had many names. Not all of them kind, some deserved, more than a few I can’t pronounce and most I’ve forgotten. What…or who are you?” He finally answered unhelpfully as he fished a fried hash brown from his lunchbox and heavily salted it with one of those tiny paper fast food rip-open packets.
“I’m Ben,” I answered. “Just Ben.”
I, too, offered a hand. My answer seemed to befuddle the old man as he studied me a moment with his big, haunted looking dark brown eyes before a ghost of a smile crept