What was I going to do about Lilith? I had no clue how I was supposed to kill her. I didn’t even know how to hurt her as thoroughly as possible without draining myself of energy just to do it. It had taken almost all I had to barely injure her. We were outgunned and outnumbered. I knew she had worshippers in her vampire children, and there were a countless number of them just roaming the streets and alleyways, picking off victims in dance clubs and underground raves. As far as being outgunned, I was sure of that. There was no way I was more powerful than she was. Not by a long shot. How was I going to beat someone who seemed to be undefeatable? I honestly had no idea. I wasn’t going to pretend like I did. As far as I could tell, all of us were clueless.
I heard the familiar snap of the knob on the stove as Gordon turned it off. He put a plate in front of me piled high with pancakes covered in syrup, with bacon on the side. He was good to me. I wasn’t sure exactly what I had done to deserve it. Oh yeah, that was it. I was his light in the darkness, just like he had said. When I noticed there wasn’t a fork in sight one appeared in my vision held by his long and perfect fingers. When I looked up he was bent over the counter with a grin on his face, fork in hand. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than the vision of the man in front of me. I smiled back.
I wrapped my fingers partially around his hand and partially around the fork. I gave it a slight tug, but he refused to loosen his grip on the stainless steel utensil until I leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on his lips. Once our lips separated he let the fork go, and I couldn’t keep the smile off of my face. I cut into the pancake. It was as fluffy as a cloud.
There was a knock on the front door that startled me away from the perfect bite of food on the end of my fork. I was so scared to answer, I was petrified on the spot. There was no telling who it was at this point. Gordon stood there and stared at me, wondering what I was going to do. I had a feeling he thought it would be rude to answer my door so I would have to do it myself. Wasn’t that just great?
I shuffled lazily and cautiously to the door. I knew there had to have been a terrified expression on my face from the way it felt. We didn’t get many visitors so when we got one there was no way for us to know who it was. We didn’t have people who were normally here. People these days don’t call before they show up, they just do. The metal of the doorknob felt cool in my palm, and I gave it a slow turn.
As the door swung open I stood there in shock as I saw the cold and familiar face of my father.
Chapter 14: A Father’s Undying Love
My first instinct was to run away and hide from the cold stare that haunted my memories since I was a child. I wanted so much to slam the door, but there was no running from him. Not now, and not ever. He was an unstoppable force, and there was no way around him. There was no way through him. No matter how much I tried, there was no way to stop him when it came to something he really wanted. Apparently, what he wanted today was to speak with me. That was the most terrifying thought on the face of the planet.
“Dad!” I said, letting the shock at his visit seep through my voice so he could definitely hear it. I wanted him to know this was unexpected.
At that moment I realized I was still in my bath robe. I pulled the parts covering my chest together after making sure I wasn’t inadvertently flashing my father. I should have thought the whole bath robe thing out more. His stare quickly changed from the cold and calculated glare that haunted my childhood, to a soft and gentle gaze that you would normally see a father give his daughter. I hadn’t seen it until this moment. His voice also underwent a change. I thought I would never hear his voice sound like that. The shock that overtook my whole body doubled.
In a concerned and gentle voice he said, “Honey, I need to speak with you.” The look in his eyes was all fatherly love. I finally remembered the only thing I inherited from my father were the green eyes. They were as green as the neatly manicured grass on my front lawn. I had never once let that cold exterior take over like he had. That coldness had turned those eyes soulless.
Did he just call me honey? I felt the need to swallow, but my mouth was so dry. Producing anything at all was going to be a miracle. I tried anyway though, and this bore no results. A heavy pit of anxiety formed in my stomach. Butterflies had also taken up residence there. Just like when you had your first kiss. This felt exactly the same way except I was more anxious than excited or nervous. Anxiety was killer. I could hear my heart thumping in my ears like I was about to have a heart attack.
I nodded and said, “Okay,” while backing away from the door with an outstretched arm to welcome my father into my home. Technically, it was his, but he was never here. Not until today.
Sweat was literally pouring off of me, and I was thinking that it was a good thing my hair was still wet from the shower, or else he’d be able to see the anxiety he had caused me. If he wasn’t aware of the apprehension before, he definitely was now. I didn’t want the first time I ever saw him without that cold stare on his face to be soured by my unease at his presence.
When I closed the door I leaned against it as it met its frame. I put my forehead to the cool square of colored glass that was in the center of it. That took a little bit of the heat away from my face. A few deep breaths and I was ready to go into the living room and speak to him. Thank goodness he was already in there, so he didn’t have to see this at all, because my reaction would have warranted even more questions. Those were answers I wasn’t prepared to give.
I couldn’t help but wonder what he wanted and why. After all this time, I was finally seeing an emotional side to him that didn’t involve anger or judgment. He had always seemed so agitated about everything that nothing I did mattered much at all. Right now it looked as if he was ready to beg, and for what I wasn’t entirely sure. As I neared him he began to pace back and forth like he had something on his mind that he couldn’t shake loose. If he kept going I was scared he was going to wear a trench into my beautifully polished dark wood floors.
This was even more emotion than I had seen on his face when my mother died. Even when he was receiving condolences from people we hardly knew at her funeral. There was a flat affect even then, so this was all too new to me. It made me kind of uncomfortable to watch.
I stopped dead in my tracks and watched him pace back and forth for a minute before I finally felt comfortable enough to speak up. Also, before that trench he was busy making in my floor got any deeper.
“Dad?” He turned around and looked at me and there was more anguish there than I had ever seen on anyone’s face before, especially my father’s. So much so I wanted to run to him and wrap my arms around him until it all went away. Up to this point I had never felt the need to do this for my father, but a surprise visit has a way of making things change. At the same time I wanted to crawl into a deep dark hole and never come out, not to be seen again. I resisted the urge. “Are you alright?”
He shook his head rapidly like he had something on his head he quickly wanted to shake off. Or was it something in his mind he wanted to rid himself of? If only it were that easy to figure out. The only one who knew was him, but I had a feeling I was about to find out for myself. The suspense was killing me; I would force it out of him if I had to before those seconds were up.
Then he looked at me with intensity that I had never seen on his face before and said, “Robin, I’m worried about you.”
Worried? There was an emotion I wasn’t aware he could feel at all. He was worried about me. I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know at all. I had a feeling I needed to know. If worry could penetrate that hard exterior I wanted to know about it.
I stood there for a minute just looking at him. I wasn’t sure what to say or when to say it. I was in complete and utter shock. Him worried about me? This was news to me. I was never aware he could be worried about me until that moment. “You’re worried about me? Why?” Questions were beginning to flood my mind. There was no way to stop it.
He shook his head again
and began to pace for another few seconds before answering me. It felt like an eternity, and all I could do was watch him in horror. I felt like I was going to lose my mind while watching him lose his. Gordon walked in and stopped in his tracks. The look in his eyes was hard to decipher, but I felt he was feeling the exact same thing I was. It was anxiety and lots of it. What had my father so terrified he could barely tell me what was going on?
“I had a dream last night. About you.” He stopped and looked me in the eyes, which he had never done before. This was all almost too much for me to handle. Now my brain was screaming at me to know the rest. “You were alone and you had blood all over your face and you looked terrified.” He broke down right there and tears started streaming from his eyes in small rivers that refused to stop flowing. Yet another thing I had never seen him do. “You looked so scared. My first instinct was to save you, but I couldn’t. All I could do was watch as whatever it was tore you apart, and it barely had to try. All I saw was a woman standing in front of you, and she tore you apart like it was nothing.”
I was stunned into complete and utter silence by this surprise. My heart was on the verge of breaking at the sight of my father in tears and scared for my life. My soul was shattered by the realization I would soon die by Lilith’s hands no matter how hard I fought against it. Nausea almost took over my senses, but I held it back with a swallow. Some slow and even breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth also helped. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Just like my mother had told me to do.
Then my father saw Gordon standing behind me and pointed directly at him, shock and hate written all over his face. Gordon wasn’t a terrifying man. Not even a little bit. So why was my father pointing at him like he was the one to blame?
“And him, he wasn’t there to save you. He’s a demon! He’s an evil creature, and an abomination!” The faithful Catholic in him was finally making an appearance after all these years.
At this point I couldn’t see him like that. He meant too much to me for me to think like that. He had shown me nothing but love and kindness. Nothing I had seen in his actions and emotions even hinted at it. Maybe that familiar buzz that told me from the beginning he wasn’t human. I had chosen to ignore it.
I glanced back at Gordon, and almost couldn’t believe my ears. I knew that would explain the color of his eyes, and the vibrations his body gave off that I felt when he was there. It explained everything, and the fact that I was in love with him didn’t help matters. It was blinding me to what he really was, but nothing about him screamed evil. I was in love with a demon, but I didn’t sense any ounce of evil in him, not one little bit, yet the look on my father’s face told me he was one hundred percent sure about his accusation. He wasn’t going to take it back no matter how much I begged for him to be wrong.
I knew though, deep within me, he was right. There was no doubt about that. At the time I didn’t think I was ready to face it. All the evidence pointed to him being right. That’s when I realized my father was sweating profusely and looked as if he would fall over any second. Anxiety was taking him over just like it had me when he first showed up at my front door. I walked over to him slowly, touching his arm as gingerly as possible so I didn’t scare him.
“Dad?” He looked up at me in complete disbelief at the things he had dreamt. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. I had dreams like this from time to time myself, but nothing that would result in my near and imminent death. I was pretty sure he had never believed in this kind of thing till now, even when he knew I had been dealing with this for a very long time. “Why don’t you sit down?”
He shook his head vigorously, but still let me lead him by the arm to the couch in front of the fireplace. A fire was roaring away. I sat him down and looked him in the eyes as best I could, which took a lot of work. Eye contact was something hard for me to do when it came to him. His eyes were wide with fear, but I needed to ask a very important question. The answer would determine whether I could avoid my death or not. I was really hoping I could.
“Dad, I need you to tell me exactly what you saw. Every last detail.” This was the only way we were going to be able to avoid my demise. I had to know exactly what he dreamt, and I needed to know it now. Before Lilith decided to make an appearance.
He explained his dream to me and had me speechless and shaken as the words spewed from between his lips. He saw me on the ground, blood running down my cheeks from my eyes and some from my nose, staining my teeth like I had been punched in the mouth. I was on my knees and in obvious pain and very weak. He could feel all of my pain as if it were his own. He could feel my frailty like he was sharing my body.
Lilith walked up to me, all sleekness and power. She literally tore me apart just like my father said, limb from limb. All I wanted was for the image to be gone from my mind. This was more detail than you read in most books. It was startling, and would have had me weak in the knees if I weren’t already sitting down.
After he was finished I sat there, hands clammy in my lap. I wasn’t able to think or say anything. I was going to die if I went up against Lilith again, and this I was sure of. There was no way I could survive her torture, no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t going to completely give up at this point and let her get to me. I was going to fight back even if it meant losing my life in the process, as long as the people I loved were safe. As long as Beth, my father, and - most of all – Gordon, were safe.
I felt a single tear roll down my flushed cheek. My father wiped it away with a handkerchief that I didn’t even realize he had removed from his jacket pocket. It was the ivory cotton one he always kept on hand. He had held it until his knuckles were white during my mother’s funeral. The silence was overwhelming the both of us and was threatening to drag us under its unrelenting current. No mercy would be given. I knew there was no way I was going to let my father’s premonition come to life. It wasn’t in my nature to give in to fate. I was always known to fight it as hard as possible and sometimes I even came out on top.
I had other plans and turning Lilith into a smoldering pile of black ash was one of them. I wanted to see it smoking as it lay on the ground. Armed with this information, there was no way I was going to be the one to fall into darkness. If it was going to be by anyone’s hand it would be my own before I let those hands be Lilith’s. Lilith would be making her way back to Hell.
Chapter 15: Skeletons
After a few hours of reassuring my father I’d be alright and nothing bad was going to happen to me, I walked into the foyer. I leaned against the door frame that led into the living room. My father had lulled himself into an uneasy sleep right on my couch, but I was okay with that. Better he be asleep on my couch then to be running all over Los Angeles looking for the woman of his dreams who kills his one and only daughter. It seemed like he had just come to realize he loves this daughter more than life itself. It’s sad how it takes some parents that long to figure it out. That it takes the threat of death to make them realize how important you really are to them.
The only thing I knew for sure at this point was that I needed to confront Gordon about my father’s accusation. I was certain, at this point, that it was entirely true. If he being a demon was true, then he was the least evil of all the ones I had seen in my life as an Executioner.
The only thing that had gotten to me more than my father’s premonition of my untimely demise was the fact that he was completely unnerved. He had become completely unglued. I definitely wasn’t used to seeing him in such a state. He had completely come apart at the seams. He didn’t shed a tear after my mother had passed away, as far as I was allowed to see, but the thought of him losing me was too much for him to bear.
Gordon walked into the foyer and watched me as my face went from expression to expression. I was thinking about exactly what to say to him so I wouldn’t sound like I was scolding him for not letting me in on the truth. The only thing that was running through my mind was one question, and I was about to ask it as soon as
I could open my mouth and form words. If that was even possible at this point.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. I was terrified of the answer, but I was sure it wouldn’t be the worst of what I had expected.
His expression froze into one of regret, but he had to have had a good reason why he didn’t reveal his secret to me. There was usually a good reason for hiding something this huge. Especially from someone you supposedly had fallen in love with in such a short period of time.
“I didn’t want to lose you. The woman in my dream didn’t tell me I would feel this way. All she told me was that it was fate that I would come into your life, and that I would help you,” he said as he moved closer to me, putting his hand on my hip and the other around to the nape of my neck. His hands still held the same warmth and gentleness that I had come to expect. He had been this way as long as I had known him, which I’ll admit wasn’t very long.
“But I didn’t think I’d feel anything like this. I knew from the first time I saw you I would love you. That there was nothing I wouldn’t do to make you mine.” He put his forehead to mine and inhaled deeply. It was like he was trying to memorize my scent, and as I felt his chest expand against mine I knew he was telling me the truth. I wrapped my arms around his waist and sighed. “And I know even more now that I am never letting you go. Not without a fight. ”
Follow the Ashes: Book 1 of the Executioner Trilogy Page 8