Monstrous (Blood of Cain Book 1)

by J. L. Murray

  When I felt nothing, I knew it wasn't her.

  That smile was the worst part. Worse than seeing her kill my father. Worse than realizing it was my mom and my sister against me, and I would never win. Worse than coming back home after running away and my mother hadn't cared a bit that I'd been gone. That smile at the moment of my death, when the thing who looked like my mother smiled at me, that was the worst part. It wasn't because I was afraid to die, because I wasn't. It was the thought that I would never be able to kill the monster who wore my mother like clothes.

  And then I died. You expect there to be a bright light. Or at least hellfire. But when I opened my eyes on that awful fucking Thursday, I was naked and lying in the gravel, the rocks cutting into my skin. There were ravens all around me, as if attending my funeral, silent like I'd never seen them before. Silent and watching over me. On the side of the road was a big dead tree that looked like a skeleton hand reaching out toward me. And there was something odd about the shadows that surrounded it. They were moving. I stared into those shadows until I couldn't. They kept moving, but I could make out shapes that kept changing. People, animals, places. I squeezed my eyes shut. I guess I stumbled back, because I felt a hand on my back, steadying me, but when I turned around there was no one there.

  “Stay right there, there,” said a voice. “If you leave the crossroads, you're worth even less.”

  I turned around and around looking for the voice, before I realized it had come from inside my head. I looked back to the moving shadows under the tree.

  “What is this?” I said. “Why am I here?”

  “The real question, question,” said the voice, “is why are you anywhere?”

  I felt a lump in my throat and I had the distinct urge to piss myself.

  “I'm dead,” I breathed. “I'm dead. What is this?”

  “Crossroads,” said the voice. As the words echoed in my head, the shadows moved in cadence to the voice. I squinted into the darkness.

  “Who are you?”

  “Someone who can help, help, help,” it said. “Someone who can save your soul, Frankie Mourning.”

  “Soul?” I started to step toward it, but looking down at my bare feet on the sharp gravel, my breath caught in my throat. I was standing in what looked like a circle of regular road, but beyond that, reality fell away. On first glance it looked like a regular crossroads, but it wasn't even close to ordinary. I blinked at the street outside my circle and, with a shimmering wave like pavement during a heat wave, the illusion of gravel stretching to the horizon faded. The only thing there was darkness, so deep and dark and full of movement that I sobbed with the immensity of it.

  “Watch your step,” said the voice. “It's good that you see. You shouldn't be able to, but now you see, see, see.”

  “I don't believe in souls,” I whispered. “I don't believe in damnation.”

  “You don't have to believe, believe,” said the voice. “You're ours now. Besides, you're lying. You believe with all your heart, heart, heart. Don't you?”

  “Please. I didn't do anything wrong. They were bad. Murderers, rapists, molesters. I made the world better.”

  “Yessss,” said the voice. “That's why you're up here instead of down there, there, there. Do you want redemption, Frankie? Do you want your pitiful life, life to mean anything at all? Or would you like your crowning achievement to be the fact that you burned, burned, burned your own sister alive?”

  For a moment I couldn't breathe. When I found my voice, it was weak. Small.

  “It wasn't Becky I killed. It was something else.”

  “Is that what you tell yourself? To help you sleep?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Do you want redemption?”

  “I don't know if I deserve it.”

  “It is ours to judge,” said the voice. “Do as we say and you can live forever, forever, forever. You need only destroy the bloodline of Cain.”

  “What?”

  “An answer, girl. Will you do as we command?”

  “I don't want to live forever.”

  “It's not up to you, sinner. Do as you will, but follow orders. Do you think you can manage, manage that? Do you think you're capable of it?”

  “What's the bloodline of Cain?” I said, blinking stupidly. “What are you asking me to do?”

  “Nothing you weren't doing already. Nothing, nothing, nothing but taking the wickedness from the world. Making it easier for good people, isn't that what you thought? So an answer, Frankie. Will you do as we say? Will you work towards your redemption?”

  I didn't answer for a long time, watching the darkness swirl around me on every side.

  “Yes.”

  “The deal is done,” said the voice. And then I was spinning. Spinning through the darkness, shapes flying above me, flapping wings as I hurtled through the black. The pain when I woke was worse than anything I'd ever felt. At first I tried to tear at my stitches, not understanding that they were literally holding me together. The metal slab was like ice, my naked body shivering madly, convulsively, as I rolled off and onto the floor.

  I don't know why I wasn't in a cooler. I don't know why there wasn't anyone in the morgue when I woke. I don't know why my lungs worked, why my brain hadn't been sucked out, why my kidneys and stomach and liver were (I assumed) right where they needed to be. My muscles creaked when I moved, and it was a long time before I could even force my rigid body up off the floor, out of the pool of vomit.

  But I did, despite the pain that seemed to be everywhere. It went deeper than any pain had a right to go. I clutched the sheet that had been my shroud, and followed a raven out of the morgue.

  “Is that enough truth for you?”

  Dekker stared at me for a long time before he spoke. I didn’t feel anything. It was something I’d trained myself to do years ago, when my mother and my sister would look at me with contempt, when they would disappear together for weeks on end, when my father spent more and more time at his church. I was alone. And I trained myself to feel nothing. But even I had to admit to a cold hollowness deep in my gut that had nothing to do with being tired or hungry or scared. There was an ache in my chest that I felt as a child: I wanted to have hope so badly it was physically painful.

  I closed my eyes and tried to will the feeling away.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” Dekker said in the complete silence, startling me. I looked at him.

  “Tell someone I came back to life? That seems like a ridiculous thing to take away from all this.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone about your mother and your sister? After you saw…what you saw. When they killed your dad. Why not tell the police? A friend? Anyone?”

  “You’ll understand when you go see the cops tomorrow,” I said, looking away.

  “A crossroads,” he said.

  “I don’t make the rules.”

  “Who do you think they are? Who brought you back, I mean.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I haven’t believed in a higher power for a long time. I’ve never seemed to be on God’s radar, if you know what I mean.”

  “If God does exist,” said Dekker, “I don’t think this is the way He would work. This seems…dark. Frankie. What happened to you, I’m sorry. But I’m also not sorry.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He was staring at me again. I could feel his eyes.

  “I’m glad we met, that’s all.”

  “You’re not very bright, are you?” I said, trying for a smile. “Look, I’m not good, Dekker. What I do, it’s not fun or happy or clean. It’s dark and bloody work, and it doesn’t make you feel better when it’s done. I’m tired all the time, I have to do things I don’t want to do every day. I have to drink myself to sleep, and when I do manage to sleep, my dreams are full of horrors. I don’t know what you came here hoping for, but this isn’t the end of the rainbow. This is Hell, and we are the devils.”

  “No.” He took my hand. “The devils are out there.
”

  “And in the mirror? What do you call that?”

  “I call it something for tomorrow,” he said. “You need rest right now. And I need to get rid of a body.”

  I nodded. “Okay. Come back and tell me how it went.”

  “I promise.” He pulled back the covers and watched me crawl into bed.

  After I told him how to get to Shawn’s house, I waited until the crunching of gravel died away before springing up out of bed. I grabbed my jacket and headed for the door. I froze with my hand on the doorknob, watching the fine hairs on the back of my hand rise.

  “I know you're there,” I said, turning and casting my gaze around the room. The lights were off, but the room was dimly illuminated by the moon shining through the window. I saw something shift in the shadows.

  “Frankie…” The voice echoed in my head. It was a wraith, but there was something odd about the voice.

  “It's you.” I peered into the shadows, took a small step forward. “You came here this morning. You tried to tell me about the mirrors.”

  The shadows twitched.

  “What is this? Why are you trying to help me?” I shook my head. “This is some kind of trick, right? Just tell me what the hell you want from me. I’m trying to do what I came here to do. The job you bastards told me to do.”

  I could feel it there, staring at me, watching from the darkness. I was losing patience.

  “I don't have time for this.” I turned to reach for the light switch.

  “Don't,” said the voice in my head, oddly familiar. Was it afraid? I saw motion and the shadows moved, the room shifting in the darkness, a shape taking form in front of me. It almost shone in the moonlight, like water reflecting stars deep in the night, its hooded face darker than black. Like an absence of light. An absence of anything.

  “I know where you're going,” said the wraith. “You mustn't go there, there, there.” Twitching with each repetition, it moved its arms, the shadows shifting to gather into the shape of two sleeves, holding its hands where its face should have been. It seemed agitated. I’d never seen a wraith show anything other than contempt.

  “Since when do wraiths give a shit what happens to me?”

  “I don’t want, want...” The wraith stopped, seeming upset by the repeated words.

  “Are you...a person?” I said, frowning. I peered into the hood, a weight deep in my belly. Something was wrong about the wraith. I straightened, taking a step back. The wraith was silent, unmoving as I backed slowly toward the door, reaching for the doorknob.

  “Frankie, don’t cry,” the wraith said. I stopped.

  “What did you say?” The words came out in a whisper. I could barely breathe.

  “Frankie, don’t cry,” it repeated, turning its head ever so slightly, gauging my reaction.

  “I’m not crying,” I said, but when I reached my fingers to my cheek they came away wet. “Why am I crying?” I let go of the doorknob. That voice. Where had I heard it before? Why was it familiar?

  Frankie, don’t cry.

  Who had said that to me? I stared at the wraith and swallowed hard, a salty knot in the back of my throat. I could feel a sting behind my eyes, the tears falling fast, a sob at my lips. I knew, then. I knew why I didn’t want to know, I knew why I was crying, knew why the voice was familiar.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I whispered. “This isn’t possible.”

  The wraiths couldn’t be people. They couldn’t be human or alive or familiar. I needed to keep them separate, keep them monsters. The wraith couldn’t be my sister. It couldn’t be Rebecca, so beautiful and perfect. It couldn’t be my mother’s favorite, the oldest and strongest and bravest. It couldn’t be my tormentor in all things, but loving when she forgot to be cruel. It couldn’t be the girl who stopped being my sister, becoming something else, something murderous and ugly. The wraith couldn’t be her.

  But it was.

  “Becky.”

  The wraith moved forward, but only slightly, pausing as it watched me with its dark face. It moved its arm up to the back of the hood around its face. And as it pulled, the darkness separated, splitting in two, revealing the face within. A nightmare face, puckered and scarred, blackened from fire. But it was her face. Rebecca, my sister. I put a hand tight over my mouth so she wouldn’t hear my sobs, but they came anyway, and after a moment I dropped my arms to my sides.

  “I did this.” My voice was a pitiful whisper. “I killed you. I burned you like you were one of them. One of the killers.” An image blazed in my head, Rebecca’s face, screaming with rage as I dropped the match, my mother grabbing my hair from behind.

  “I was one of them,” she said, her lips forming the words, but her voice still in my head. “You didn’t kill me, Frankie. You saved me.” She moved toward me, a flicker of shadow and burned flesh, and then she was in front of me, her blue eyes cloudy, hands of swirling shadows wrapping around mine, feeling like frigid damp air. I stared down at the darkness in the shape of hands laced through my own, then up at her pale face, no longer beautiful, no twinkle of malice in her eyes.

  “I know where you’re going,” the voice echoed, making me gasp at the closeness, the presence in my mind. “Don’t go there, Frankie, Frankie. Don’t go to the lake.”

  “Am I right?” I said, looking into Rebecca’s cloudy eyes. “Is it true what I remember? Is the lake where it started? Or is it all a dream, like they convinced me it was? Did I make it up?”

  “You know it was real, real, real,” she said. “You’ve always known. Just as you knew it wasn’t me after that, not anymore. It was her.”

  “Who?” I said. “What happened to you, Becky?”

  She flickered, moving away, her face twitching. When I looked down she wasn’t holding my hands any more.

  “I looked into the devil’s eyes,” she said, “and he looked into me.” Another flicker and Rebecca moved forward again, moving closer. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Did I do this to you?” I said. I tried to touch her, but my hand met air that made my skin tingle with the cold. “Why are you a wraith?”

  “He takes who he wants,” she said, her voice in my head, but seeming far away, as if Rebecca were seeing something I couldn’t. “He takes us and he makes us do whatever he likes, likes, likes. He took me, and then he took you, you, you.”

  “Who?” I said.

  She watched me, her scarred forehead moving down as she frowned, her mouth twisting downward. “Do you never wonder, wonder who you’re doing all this for? Who wanted you so badly that he brought you back from the dead, dead, dead?”

  “Of course I wonder. But the only ones who know won’t tell me. The wraiths. That’s your crowd.”

  “They’re keeping you safe, safe, safe.”

  “Safe?” I said, my cheeks tight where the tears dried on my skin. “They tell me how disgusting I am, how I’m never going to be good enough. They make me kill and then they call me a sinner.”

  “You are,” she said, the frown gone from her face. “You always were wicked, wicked.”

  “And you were always self-righteous.” I grabbed the counter and hauled myself to my feet. “Some things never change. I was wicked, but you were worse.”

  Rebecca turned from me, head down. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come out of the water when you told me to, to. I’m sorry I was cruel to you that day. It’s all I thought about in that place, place.”

  “What place?”

  She looked away, her filmy eyes looking far away, through the wood paneling and dollar store art.

  “You’re the only one I thought about, so scared, so small, small, small. But you walked out on the water to save me, even though you knew. You knew. You were so little, and you knew, knew, knew. And then I went away.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “What was it? In the lake, what happened?”

  She looked down at her own shadow hands. “I went under, under and she was there. I can’t forget her eyes, eyes, eyes
. Those eyes are in my nightmares.”

  “Wraiths sleep?” I said, curious.

  She looked up at me in surprise, then shrugged. Such a human gesture. “No. But you can have nightmares and stay wide awake, awake. You should know.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know all about that.”

  She came closer, twitching shadow and scarred face. “It wasn’t me, Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. You have to believe me. I wasn’t even here. I didn’t kill, kill him.”

  “Who was it? Who killed him?”

  She was taken aback by the question, though she seemed to want to tell me.

  “I don’t know if it was a place exactly, exactly.” She closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Yeah, you said that. Did you see her? Mama. I saw her in the mirror.”

  “Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors,” she said, her mouth twisting again, but this time she looked terrified. “It wasn’t a place. I couldn’t go back, couldn’t warn you. I tried to warn her, but she couldn’t see me yet, yet. Mother couldn’t see me, and when she did, it was too late, late, late. Too late, too late.” Her voice was becoming louder, the words coming faster. Her shadow body was twitching, moving her across the room.

  “You were in the mirrors,” I said. “How is any of this possible?”

  She was suddenly touching me, though I hadn’t seen her move, her empty space hands gripping my wrists, sending a shiver of cold and disgust down my spine. I tried to pull away, but she held my arms tight. She was squeezing them tighter still.

  “You shouldn’t be with him, Frankie. Stay away from the man.”

  “Who? Dekker?” I was jarred by the subject change and blinked at her. “I can handle Dekker.”

  “No,” she said, still squeezing. I pulled harder, but I couldn’t get away. “He’s one of them.”

  “One of who? Jesus, you’re hurting me.” Her hands were like a vise on my wrists. I could feel the pressure on my bones, a dangerous creaking that came just before a break.

  “The eyes, the eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes. I wasn’t in a place, Frankie. Not a place, place, place. Wasn’t a place, it was her. I was in her.”