by Lily White
“I need to talk to you about Eve. It seems she’s ready to stop consuming the teas I left for you to give her, and I want you to watch her closely when I’m not around. She’s close to death, Richard, and I don’t want anything happening to my blushing bride.”
Nodding his head, he kicked at the dirt again. “I would have told you that, but watching the compound and traveling out to the parish to talk is hard. Nobody answers the damn phone over there.”
I was never in the office to answer the phone, my priestly duties taking up much of my time. It was a good excuse I could use to explain to the Diocese why I was never available to take their calls.
“Stop giving Eve the tea. Start making sure she’s eating and regaining her strength. It was never my intention to kill her. I want her kept safe.”
Nodding his head one more time, Richard stuffed his thick hands into the pockets of his pants. “No problem.”
“I also came out to tell you that we’ll have some special guests tonight. You remember Gentry. He brought his brother by the parish today and the overly excited sheriff decided it would be in our best interests if we remove the demons from the criminals he arrests.”
Richard’s head snapped up, a slimy smile stretching his face. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Laughter shook my shoulders. “I believe so. It seems the sheriff wants to eradicate the evil that is infecting this town, and based on his brother’s account of the possessed man we showed him a week ago, he wants to destroy other demons he believes are in our midst.” More laughter fell over my lips. “For fucks sake, it’s better than I could have imagined. I was hoping to get the sheriff to turn a blind eye, but instead the son of a bitch wants to lead the condemned bastards to our door.”
Richard’s laughter joined with mine, the deep reverberation echoing through the woods. A flock of birds scattered from the branches above our heads, the leaves rustling in response to their hasty departure.
Fucking birds. If they’re not shitting on your head, they’re finding another way to annoy the fuck out of you.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Richard spoke around his continued laughter. “This will be more fun that I thought. Once we have this entire town in a state of chaos, we can do whatever the fuck we want.”
Inclining my head in agreement, I mentioned, “Yes. I’m sure there will be fun to be had. You can gorge yourself on all the fucking and violence you want. In the meantime, I have a show to put on and will be playing the part of the priest. Do you think you can handle keeping the more sensitive members of the family away from the sanctuary this evening?”
“That won’t be a problem,” he promised, his smile growing wider until he resembled a cat peering down at its next frightened meal.
“That’s good to hear, Richard. Once you have them settled in for the night, you can join us in the sanctuary later. Sheriff Holmes told me he’d be by around ten tonight. That gives us plenty of time to prepare for the festivities.”
“You got it, Boss,” Richard called out as he moved around me in the direction of the cabin.
Turning as he passed, I shook my head knowing that before he went to tend to the flock, he would let the girl know the good news that he would be keeping her for a while longer.
Before he could shut the door, however, I felt it necessary to warn him. “Oh, and Richard, I’m sure this goes without saying, but don’t trust the little bitch you have in there. I want her bound and chained when you’re not around to keep an eye on her. She’s planning on escaping.”
He laughed. “Don’t you think I already know that? It’s more fun when they think they have a chance.”
With that, he opened the door and stepped through, closing it again until I was staring at the scarred wood.
I simply turned around to return to the compound and feed the dying girl in my bed.
JACOB
After leaving the parish, I paced the city streets, weaving and winding down the numbered avenues, avoiding the people that walked beside me. While they rushed off to whatever job, doctor appointment, lunch meeting or other obligation they were headed to, I found myself stuck inside my own thoughts, growing angrier with each hour that passed.
I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, wanting on one hand to feel sorry for my brother, while on the other I wanted nothing more than to stop the bastard in his tracks, to expose him and destroy him much like he’d attempted to do to me.
Guilt flooded me for not protecting him more when we’d been children, but I eased the pain of it by reminding myself I hadn’t known what the priest and music director had done. Never as faithful as my brother had been, I avoided the choir and the Christmas plays the parish put on. I never had much of an opportunity to know the music director, and I’d hated the priest. He was an old man with slimy eyes, the type that made my skin crawl every time he came near. When I was young, I’d believed it was because I was angry with God, and thus angry with what the priest represented. But now, thinking about it as I continued walking at a clipped pace, I realized that I’d somehow instinctively known that the man was a monster hidden behind his black clothes and crisp white clerical collar.
How I had picked up on that and Jericho hadn’t, I wasn’t sure. Perhaps darkness calls to darkness, and thus I’d recognized it instantly in the priest. As children, Jericho had wanted to believe good existed in the world. He’d wanted to worship God and be a good boy just so he could earn our abusive father’s love. That desperation to please was what trapped him in its iron grip, it’s what destroyed him as all the people he’d wanted to love him had let him down, one by one.
I was just another name on that list and perhaps he’d played his games against me to get even. But now that I knew he was now pretending to be me, I understood that his games had a deeper purpose.
What could be gained from pretending to be a priest? The question hadn’t bounced around in my head for longer than a second before the answer shot up to slap me in the face.
Was Jericho getting even for the abuse he suffered? Was he preying on the faithful to cope with having been preyed on himself?
The thought terrified me as the faces of my former parishioners flashed in my head. The adults would be fine, I was sure about that, but what would Jericho do to the children?
With that concern in mind, I quickened my pace and didn’t understand where I was headed until the bold lettering of the company’s name was staring me in the face.
Like all the buildings in the city, the glass doors were freshly scrubbed, the company name positioned with pride. I hated these bastards, and hated having to talk to them, but if I had any hope of stopping Jericho, I needed money.
Slamming my hand down on the metal rail that cut the center of the door, I pushed the glass partition open and stepped inside.
The receptionist was a friendly thing with big brown eyes, blond hair and tits filling out her sweater. Not exactly my type, but I didn’t mind the view as I told her who I’d come to meet.
“I’d like to cash out my inheritance held by my father’s estate. I need to speak to Eric Cotter. He’s managing it.”
Her fingernails clicked over the keys of her computer, her hips wiggling over her seat. Even without looking at me with desire behind her eyes, she managed to flirt without saying a thing. Body language is always the most telling, and it was a good thing most people didn’t know how to read it. If everybody in the world paid attention to their surroundings and other people as much as I did, there would no longer be any such thing as surprises or secrets.
“Mr. Cotter,” the receptionist spoke into the little microphone sticking down from her headpiece. “A gentleman is here to see you regarding cashing out his estate.”
Her cheeks tinted with a faint pink in response to what Eric had said, her lips parting on a soft giggle.
“Of course, how stupid of me. Give me one second to find out his name.”
She must have been new on the job. Most seasoned receptionists knew t
hat the first thing you did was find out who was standing in front of you.
Peeking up at me with shy eyes, she parted those pretty pink lips to ask, “What is your name, Sir?”
I loved the way the word Sir rolled off her lips, but I didn’t have time to show her just how much I appreciated it. “Jacob Hayle.”
“Thank you,” she whispered before repeating my name to Eric Cotter. The receptionist glanced up at me a second later. “He says you can meet him in his office. It’s room 203 on the second floor.” Pointing to the right, she directed me to the elevators.
Thanking her, I didn’t bother telling her I’d been here before and knew exactly where to find the office of the estate managers. It didn’t take long for the elevator to climb to their floor and ding as it opened the doors.
The hall was well lit, the lights a bit too harsh and glaring. But once I’d stepped inside the office of Cotter and Baxter, I found the lighting much softer and more to my liking. Another pretty woman sat at a desk, but rather than asking my name, she simply pointed down a hallway I knew led to Eric’s office.
He lifted his face when I stepped inside, and as I closed the door behind me, he pushed to his feet. His hair was silver in areas, turning to white in others, which gave away his advanced age. But even older than me by several decades, his sharp brown gaze was focused and attentive, his body several inches shorter than me, and his belly more soft and rotund than mine. Money had the ability to overfeed a man, usually leaving him as soft and round as an overweight baby when he died. It was obvious Eric Cotter had lived a life of luxury and ease in this large city.
“Jacob,” he greeted me with a deep, friendly voice that was smooth and cultured. “I’m surprised to see you again. You were adamant the last time we spoke that you wanted nothing to do with the inheritance.”
“Circumstances have changed,” I explained as I shook his hand. He squeezed my fingers a little too hard, but I ignored the attempt to size me up as a man. Pulling my hand away, I wiped my palm down my pants. It felt slimy and sleazy to be here accepting the blood money my father had left behind in his death.
Motioning toward the chairs positioned in front of his large glass desk, he suggested, “Why don’t you take a seat so we can get you what you need? All it will take is for you to give me your bank account information so that I can transfer the money.”
My brows shot up in surprise. “It won’t take longer? I thought this would take several days.”
Shaking his head, he rounded his desk and dropped his weight into the overpriced executive chair. “That’s it. A click of a few buttons and the money is yours. Technically, it’s been yours since the day the estate was closed, but you never gave me a way to send the money over. Neither you nor your brother seemed interested in it. The only reason I was able to find you through the years was due to your affiliation with the Catholic Church. Your brother, however, has been more difficult to find. It’s like he dropped off the face of the planet. You wouldn’t know where I could find him, would you?”
“Nope,” I lied. “I have no idea at all. I haven’t spoken to Jericho in years.”
I had to admit it was much easier to lie now that I wasn’t strangled by my old clerical collar.
Nodding his head until the triple chin beneath his face shook with the movement, Eric slipped me a piece of paper and a pen. “Just give me your routing and account numbers and I’ll see that the money is in your account within the next hour.”
It took a full thirty minutes for the transfer to go through, and I left without bothering to thank the man for his effort. My head was swimming with all the conflicting emotions I had for my twin.
The last thing I wanted to do was return to that town, but I knew those parishioners were in trouble. With the amount of months that had already passed since I ran from the parish, I wondered how many of the young, faithful women in town had already fallen prey to Jericho’s attention.
Gritting my teeth, I ran out of the building and paused as my feet hit the sidewalk. Like a statue standing in the middle of a throng of rushing bodies, I remained motionless as I forced myself to stop and give myself time to think.
Getting to Jericho wouldn’t be easy, and entering the compound would be damn near impossible. If he had people watching the parish, I was sure I’d have a gun pointed in my face before I could cross the large lawn.
No. I had to think like Jericho if I wanted to discover what he was doing, and I needed a way to protect myself from his family.
I needed guns, and I needed stealth, and if I hoped to do anything to end Jericho’s games, I knew I needed to take my time, rather than rushing in there with guns blazing.
It would take a few days to put a decent plan together, possible a few weeks. But I knew when the time came to travel to that small, rural town, it would take everything I had inside of me to decide whether to let my brother live, or whether to kill him as soon as I saw him.
EVE
Elijah stared at me the entire time he fed me, taking his time to spoon the warm soup into my mouth. He never got impatient with me when the liquid dribbled out from between my lips. Much like a parent would do for an infant, he used the spoon to scrape up the spilled food from my chin and guide it back between my lips.
For the past few days that he hadn’t bothered to come see me, I’d wished for the demon to end my life. Wasn’t that what all evil wanted? The destruction of the good? To rip our souls from our bodies and drag us screaming into Hell?
I’d felt guilty to wish for it to end, felt like my faith in God had failed me. Was wishing for death the same thing as suicide? Was simply giving up considered a comparable sin?
Those questions had circled in my head when I hadn’t been sleeping or too agitated to think. Up and down, left and right, over and under, my mind had been scattered in so many places that, at times, I’d forgotten who I was or where I’d been.
But now that Elijah was back beside me, I could think clearer. The pain in my stomach eased with every spoonful of food he fed me, and when the last drop had been scraped from the bowl and fed to me with gentle care, I wanted to ask for another bowl, wanted to beg that he keeping feeding me, just so I could keep him here.
Using a napkin he’d kept tucked in his lap, Elijah wiped the moisture from around my mouth after placing the empty bowl on a bedside table. I was thankful for the way my throat was no longer sore, thankful that I could breathe easier beside him.
“I’d give you more, but I’m afraid it would make you sick. Richard told me you refused to eat since I left for the parish several days ago. Are you angry I didn’t take you with me?”
Shaking my head, I resettled myself against the soft pillows of our bed. “No. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the past few days. Only that I missed you terribly.”
Saying those words had been a lie – at least one made indirectly. It was a lie of omission, the confession of what I’d really been thinking tucked away because I couldn’t bring myself to admit that I’d almost given up to the demon inside me, I’d almost believed the whispered thoughts that this life wasn’t worth living.
“I’ll stay here for as long as you need, Eve. I’ll be here tonight, and in the morning, after we eat breakfast and take a walk through the gardens, we’ll see if you’re well enough to go back to the parish with me. Would you like that?”
Nodding, I admitted, “I don’t like being apart from you. I don’t like spending so much time by myself.”
His eyes softened at the admission, the corners of his lips tilting up into a gentle smile. Brushing his palm down my cheek, he rested his hand on my shoulder. “I’ve missed you, too. And you’ll be happy to know that everything we’ve worked for is coming to fruition. Soon, we’ll have all the demons plaguing our lives running back to where they came from. We’ll be free, my beautiful Eve, and we’ll live in peace and prosperity. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
I knew Elijah truly believed he needed me to walk with him toward the light. It
didn’t make sense to me that he’d accepted me back after I’d run from the ceremony that night.
Leaning forward, he kissed my forehead, the smell of laundry detergent and cologne wafting beneath my nose. I always loved the smell of him, always loved the earthy notes. When I’d first arrived to the parish after running that night, I’d remembered wondering about the lack of his scent when he’d picked me up from the lawn and carried me inside. I was too frightened to give it much thought, too lost and twisted up in the games he was playing.
There was no doubt inside me that I deserved the games he’d played, that he’d been right to push and test me to ensure my faith in him was supreme.
His gentleness with me now reminded me of how gentle he’d been in the parish after I’d first arrived. It was stupid of me to think he was two separate people, to believe that something wasn’t right.
He was only two sides of the same person, the man who had to be strong in order to battle evil, and the other gentle one, who loved me like a husband should a wife.
“I love you,” I whispered when he pulled his lips from my forehead and planted another soft kiss on my cheek. His fingers tightened over my shoulder, not enough to hurt, but just a firm squeeze.
Pulling away even further, he stared at me for several seconds. “I love you, too.”
I couldn’t question that he meant what he said. I could question if I really deserved him.
ELIJAH
After leaving Eve in the bedroom to get some restful sleep for once, I weaved my way through the compound and scanned the windows to see that night had fallen, the moon having taken its place in the sky surrounded by a myriad of stars that could only be viewed in rural places.
Stepping into the sanctuary, I cast my gaze up at the altar, my body positioned between the two larges crosses from which Sisters Eunice and Joyce had once hanged. At the time, I didn’t assume the crosses would be used again, at least for a long time, but it seemed they would find purpose with the criminals that Sheriff Holmes had promised to bring me.