by Anthology
The small cluster of mourners at the grave site was already breaking up when I arrived. I hung back, out of place despite being the one person who truly belonged there. At first, I could only see Rose’s back. But then she turned, and I saw the way the skin clung to her bones like a wraith, and I knew she wasn’t eating. My death and her memories were sucking the life from her. Her hair hung limp, and even at this distance, I could see that her once-beautiful eyes were flat and dull.
I told myself that it had been less than a week since I’d died, and that time would surely heal her. But I knew that was a lie. I wanted to help. Wanted to do something more tangible than saving the whole world.
I wanted to go to my sister, but at the same time I knew that I shouldn’t. And right then, responsibility was warring with desire. I held back, waiting to see which aspect of me won the battle.
From across the manicured lawn, I watched as Rose looked blankly at the few people who came up to offer condolences. Jeremy from the video store was there, too, and that tiny connection almost made me smile. Or it did until my stepfather stumbled next to Rose, useless with grief and alcohol.
My stomach clenched, my blood cold. I’d promised I’d take care of her, but now, standing in a cemetery in the Flats, that promise seemed cold and hollow. How could I have been so egotistical to swear to deliver something that could never be? I couldn’t take care of her. I’d tried. I’d done my damnedest.
And in the end, that was what it had made us both: damned. Me with the stain of sin, and Rose with the fears that kept her locked inside after dark, a prisoner in her own home, tormented by her memories, her fears, and her sister’s unkept promises.
“Rose.” The word came out a whisper, forced past my lips by the tears that filled my throat. There was no way she could have heard me, but still she turned, and I saw her eyes widen. I froze, staying right there as she leaned over and whispered something to Joe, then marched to me.
I stayed put, despite Clarence’s warning echoing in my ear.
“Why have you been following me?”
The question, so unexpected, brought me up short. “I haven’t. I mean, I waited for you that one time at school. But—”
“But nothing. You stood there. And you watched. I saw you. And just because I haven’t seen you the rest of the times doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re there. I can feel your eyes. I can see you in the shadows. You think I don’t know. You think I’m stupid, but I’m not.”
“I’m not following you,” I said, fear wriggling up my spine. “I swear it.” Someone was, though. Someone was stalking my sister, and the thought of that made me go weak in the knees. I needed to be here, protecting my sister, not off fighting amorphous evil with a capital E.
She was still eyeing me warily, and I sighed, the sudden burst of exasperation with my little sister so familiar it warmed me. “If I were sneaking around following you, would I be standing out in the open at your sister’s funeral?”
She thought about that, pouted a little, then shook her head. “Guess not,” she said, rubbing the toe of her polished black shoe into the damp grass. “So why are you here?”
“To tell you that I meant it. What I said before. Lily was my friend, and I know she’d never have left you on purpose.”
She nodded, eyes brimming with tears as she looked at me. Then her gaze dipped down and she frowned, her eyes narrowing as she reached toward me. I lifted my hand, unconsciously feeling for the locket I’d tucked inside my shirt. But it wasn’t inside. It was hanging out. Right where Rose could see it.
I forced myself not to jump when her fingers touched it. And when she opened it I heard a little gasp.
“She gave it to me,” I said. “The night she—well, she gave it to me for safekeeping.”
Rose simply stood there, and I couldn’t tell if she’d bought my line of bullshit.
I reached up for the clasp. “Do you want it?”
She shook her head. “No. She wanted you to have it.” Her head tilted to the side, as if she were trying to figure me out. “You really are her friend.”
“Yeah. I told you so. And I meant what I said. If you need something—anything—you can call me. Here. I’ve got a cell phone now.” I still wore black jeans and a black T-shirt under the red leather coat. Probably not the most respectful of outfits, but I hadn’t had time to change. Plus, I didn’t figure a skirt would ride well on the bike.
I rummaged through all my pockets, but couldn’t come up with paper or a pen. Rose hesitated a moment, then opened a small black purse that I recognized as once belonging to our mother. She passed me a pad of paper and a ballpoint, and I jotted down the name of the pub along with my number and my name, remembering to write “Alice” rather than “Lily.” It was, I realized, getting easier and easier to think of myself as Alice.
“I mean it,” I said, passing the paper back. “You need anything at all, you call.” Clarence wouldn’t be happy about that, but I didn’t give a flip. If someone was following Rose, I figured she might already be in danger. No way was I staying away knowing someone was watching her.
She hesitated, then managed the briefest of smiles, the first one I’d seen touch her face in a long, long time. “All right,” she said, tucking my number back into her purse. “Thanks.” She looked back over her shoulder at Joe. “I gotta go.”
She turned without another word and left me standing there, alone at my own funeral.
Honestly, now that I thought about it, the whole thing was more than a little creepy.
I shook the thought out of my head as I started to head in the opposite direction, my mind mulling over the question of who was following her. Clarence? To make sure I wasn’t sneaking over to the Flats to visit? But that possibility didn’t ring true, a fact that disappointed me. If it were him, at least I would have an answer. And an answer was better than this cold, vague fear that Rose was still in danger.
“Sad day for that girl.”
I spun around and found myself looking into Deacon’s black eyes.
My hand went to the inside pocket of my coat, where I’d stashed my knife. “Stay the fuck away from her.”
His head tilted to the side. “She’s important to you.”
“Yes,” I said. I couldn’t bear to deny it out loud. And the truth was, he already knew it. I thought about what Rose had said, then remembered how I’d seen Deacon in the distance when I’d been walking the dogs. “You’ve been following me.”
“Yes,” he said simply. No excuses. Just confidence. And a hint of danger. Yeah, well, I could be dangerous, too.
“And the girl? You following her, too?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You tell me.”
He came another step closer, and I felt that catch in my gut. A keening, visceral need that unnerved me. She’s mine, he’d told the boy on the dance floor. And damned if right then I didn’t think it was true.
Was that why I was so hesitant to believe the worst of him? I told myself it wasn’t; I wasn’t so shallow as to be controlled by lust. At least, I didn’t want to think of myself that way.
No, I was hesitant because I feared that Clarence was being fed bad information and that either intentionally or foolishly someone was trying to set Deacon up to take the fall for Alice.
I couldn’t be sure, though. Not about that.
But I did know that he was dangerous.
About that, I had no doubts.
“Why are you here?” I asked, walking away from the grave toward the far parking lot where I’d left my bike.
“Apparently I’m following you,” he said easily. “So perhaps the real question is, why are you here?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“And I don’t need one. It’s clear enough, Lily, why you came.”
He never raised his voice. Never let victory flash in his eyes. But he’d won, and I staggered back before I caught myself. Only an instant. One small misstep. But he would have noticed. I had a feeli
ng Deacon noticed pretty much everything.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to salvage something.
“Don’t play games,” he said, his voice taking on a harsh edge. “At least do us both that favor.”
I weighed my options and ruled out killing him. I could run. I could lie. But in the end, he knew who I was. Body and soul. And there was no point holding on to my secret. Not if I could use disclosure as a bargaining chip.
We were near a marble mausoleum, now burnished in the orange light of the setting sun. I stopped, then turned to face him. “How did you learn my name?”
Something dark burned in his eyes, like faith dying. “You’re mine, remember?” His words were bitter. “We both saw it. Saw the lilies in the blood. Entwined there, you and I.”
I shook my head. “Tidy story, but it’s not true. Nobody would pull a name from that.”
“Maybe not. But add in the tattoo on your back—the artist was happy to discuss it that afternoon, especially when I slipped him a fifty, by the way. Can I see it? By his description it must be quite a treasure.”
“Bite me.”
“I’d be happy to.”
God, he was smooth. So smooth I wasn’t sure if I wanted to jump him or kick him.
What I did know was that I wasn’t afraid of him. And that in and of itself scared me a little. Because he was dangerous, right? And that’s how dangerous things get close to you. They put you at ease. They sneak in.
I knew all that and Deacon was creeping closer and closer.
“A tattoo’s hardly proof of anything,” I whispered, desperate to keep control.
He pressed his hand to my waist and, though I flinched, I didn’t push it away. Neither, however, did I look in his eyes. I didn’t want a reminder of the evil inside him. Not now. Not when the danger already arcing between us was sending up enough sparks to light Boston for a week.
He drew closer, the hand easing under my coat to the small of my back. He pressed against it, but the tattoo had healed, and I felt no pain, nothing except the warmth of his hand. “A white lily,” he said, “with droplets of blood. And underneath, in a delicate hand, a name written out—Lily.”
We were hip to hip now, and my body sang with arousal. He was hard against me, and though I knew I shouldn’t, I wanted him desperately.
“Not hard to figure out the rest. To search death records. To find a young woman dead, her body being buried today.”
I felt the tears sting my eyes, foolish because I wasn’t really dead. Or maybe I was.
“Lily.” The whisper of his breath against my ear sent sparks ricocheting through me, and I had to force myself to keep my hand tight around my knife. I could play dangerous games, but I couldn’t lose control.
“Big jump from a tattoo to a funeral,” I whispered, glancing up at his face. My gaze skimmed over his eyes, and I felt the jolt of the vision. I forced myself to look away, to break that connection. I didn’t want to go there. Not now. Not with him.
“Not really,” he said, and if he had felt the vision coming on, he didn’t show it. “I knew something had changed, after all. You’re not the Alice I used to know. Alice didn’t heat my blood the way you do. I didn’t want to slam Alice against a wall and thrust myself deep inside her.” His voice was rough with need as he slid his hand between my thighs. I trembled, as much from his words as his touch. “And I didn’t want to toss her down on a bed and pleasure every inch of her until she came for me.”
“Don’t,” I said, as his finger teased the skin above the waistband of my jeans. “Don’t play me like this. It won’t work.”
“What won’t work?” He took my hand, brought one finger to his lips, and suckled the tip.
“You’re not going to distract me,” I said, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary.
“Is that so? It seems to be working so far.”
It was the confidence in his voice that jerked me out of the haze of lust. I pulled away, feeling the hard wall of the mausoleum behind me. “Word on the street is you killed Alice,” I said, then watched his face for the shock of accusation or the acceptance of truth.
I saw neither. Instead, he looked pensive. He took a step back, increasing the distance between us. “I suppose that’s fair,” he said. “After all, her blood is on my hands.”
A lick of fear flicked through me. “What do you mean? You killed her?”
“Did I take her life?” I saw the restrained anger at the accusation, held back by the tightest control. “Of course not. But you should know that better than anyone, shouldn’t you?”
I blinked, confused. “What do you mean?”
“You tell me, Lily,” he said. “You’re the one in her body.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“You think I killed her? Are you crazy?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“I didn’t want this,” I said, smacking him back with the palms of my hands so that I could get by. I spun around, fueled by fury. “I died, you son of a bitch, and then I wake up in some other girl’s body and I learn that she was murdered. She’s gone and I’m here, and there’s not a minute goes by that I don’t feel pretty goddamned guilty about that. But it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my idea. And when I find out who killed her, I swear to you I will rip their heart out and shove it down their throat.”
I drew in a breath, staggered by my own wrath. And, yes, I knew it was fueled in part by the demons within me surfacing, their inherent rage egging me on. I could feel the beasts within crying to get out. To take their rage out on Deacon, and damn the truth to hell.
But it wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t killed Alice—I was certain of that now.
“I wouldn’t have hurt her,” I said. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not. But I wouldn’t have hurt that girl.”
“I do believe you,” he said, and I could hear the relief in his voice. “I thought I was wrong. That they were tricking me again. That somehow I’d lost my grip and sunk back into—” He cut himself off with a shake of his head. His eyes had hardened with the memory, but when they looked at me again, they were soft. “My Lily.”
He took my hand, pulling me close, bringing my insides alive with need. I clung to him, the sharp edge of my earlier rage replaced by a knife-edge of lust. I needed him. Craved him.
“What is this?” I whispered. “What is this between us?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, stroking my hair, my face. As if he couldn’t get enough of me. As if breaking the connection between us would break him, too. “I only know that I saw you, Lily. I saw you, and I knew that you were the key to my redemption.”
I eased back, searching his face, not certain that was a responsibility I wanted to shoulder. “Saw?”
“A vision,” he said. “Months ago. I thought it was Alice I saw, but I understand now that it was you. We were fighting, side by side, and I knew that we would win, because we had to. I had to. If we failed, we would both be damned, and the world as well.”
“I don’t understand.”
He turned away, not looking at me. “There are things I’ve done. Things I’m not proud of. Unforgivable things.” The pain in his voice raked over me like sandpaper, and I wanted to cry. He drew in a breath and turned back. “But this—if I can do this—then I will have my redemption.”
“But do what?”
“Seal shut the Ninth Gate to Hell.”
I gasped, and as I did, he searched my face.
“That’s why you’re here, too, isn’t it? Why you’re in her body. You’re here to seal that gate.”
I nodded. “I don’t know why it’s her body I got thrown into. I swear I don’t. But, yeah. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“Let me help you, Lily. It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
I took his hand, the idea of fighting with someone at my side exciting me, especially after being told I was destined to fight alone. And yet how could he help? Clarence would never trust him. And li
ke it or not, there was that whole prophecy thing. I was a solo act.
Even so, I couldn’t deny that it was nice to have someone who knew my secret. Nice to have a bit of the loneliness lift.
I licked my lips, trying to get my head around this new development. Finally, I cupped my palm against his cheek and met his eyes. “Let me see,” I said. “Let me see what you saw.”
But before I could slide into the vision, he jerked free. “No.”
“Deacon.”
“No.” Rage colored his voice, cold and dark. “I told you I seek redemption,” he growled. “I have done things—horrible things. Things I won’t share.” He stepped back so that there was no contact between us and met my eyes. “You’ve seen part, but you’ve hardly seen the worst. I won’t take you there now. And I sure as hell won’t go there with you.”
I wanted to cry for the pain I saw in his eyes. I understood the desire to escape your past and I knew more than I wanted about doing things you regretted. But I still needed to know. “I have to know you’re telling me the truth.”
“You’re going to have to take me on faith, Lily,” he said. He moved toward me again and pressed his hand over my heart. “You’re mine,” he said. “And you know it.”
“Deacon.” He befuddled me, and that was not a good place to be. But underneath the confusion and the questions, I knew that he was right. We were linked, he and I. And right then, with him standing so close, I wanted that link to be more than metaphorical.
“I can feel the quickening of your pulse,” he said. “And I can see the flush on your skin.” He moved closer, his lips grazing my hair as he spoke. “You want me,” he said. “And if that’s the first step toward trust, then so be it. I’ll take what I can now, but in the end I will have all of you.”
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry and my mind searching for a response. The sharp ring of my cell phone saved me from replying. Thinking of Rose, I grabbed for it, disappointed when I heard Clarence’s voice. “Zane’s. Now.” And then he was gone.
I frowned at the phone, then frowned at Deacon beside me. I wanted to take him with me—wanted him to fight at my side—and the fact that that was forbidden frustrated me.