Monstrous (Blood of Cain Book 1)

by J. L. Murray

  “Ravens,” I said aloud. Perhaps bats as well. In the distance, I heard the mournful howl of a wolf. I looked back down at the fire. If I could summon the darkness of the world, what could I summon from Hell? What could my power really do? The closer I was to the blazing crack in the earth, the more intense the pounding within me, the more overwhelming the scratching in my head.

  I had to find Dekker. The drumming was so intense it hurt every part of me, my bones and eyes and heart and skin were in exquisite agony. I let out a cry as I tried to make my way around the fire, around the crack that was bleeding Hell, the heat of it melting the soles of my boots. It pulled at me, and I fought the urge to leap into the fire.

  “Frankie,” said a deep voice, so familiar I sobbed when I heard it. And I sobbed again when I saw him.

  “What’s the matter, Frankie?” A large hand took mine and pulled me away from the fire. He was too cold, his hands too icy to be real.

  “You’re not him,” I moaned, the pounding easing, but not abating. “Don’t do this. I can’t lose him, too.”

  “You’ve got your mother’s blood all over you.”

  I looked into his face and it hurt more than any fire, any darkness, any agony I could possibly feel. Dekker’s face smiled down at me with the same half-smile he’d given me that first night, the night, I now realized, I’d fallen in love with him. Two great horns rose up from his head.

  “Leave him alone,” I said, my lip trembling. “Just go back, you son of a bitch.”

  “That’s not very nice,” said Dekker’s mouth, Dekker’s face watching me, Dekker and not Dekker. “You know he’s not who he says he is, don’t you? There’s no saving a man like that. You know he holds secrets, but you just don’t care. Why is that?”

  I looked past him, into the slick ice, coated in water, quickly starting to melt. I saw my own face looking back, out of the ice. My real reflection, not the one that was out to get me for so long. Just a normal reflection. I saw the back of Dekker’s head, hornless and human, his hair standing on end as though he’d been pulling on it in horror.

  I remembered Bea telling me that she prayed to Lilith and touched the mirror. Everyone kept saying Lilith and I were linked. So what would happen if I did the same thing?

  I looked up at the copy of Dekker in front of me and sheathed my bloody knife. I took his hands in mine and his eyes widened in surprise.

  “You want to hurt me, don’t you?” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, smiling Dekker’s smile again. “I want to hurt you, to cut you, rip you, tear you, make you bleed.”

  I swallowed and made myself smile.

  “That’s what I want, too,” I said, pulling his hands with me as I turned. “I want you to hurt me, to show me what pain is.”

  “You do?” he said, dubiousness crossing his face. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Can’t you see in his head?” I said, keeping the smile on my face. “I like it. I’m not like the rest of them, surely you can see that? I have all this power inside of me. Can you feel it? It’s like a bomb ticking in my chest.”

  I put one of his cold hands over my heart and held it there, even as it made my skin crawl. I had one free hand now as Dekker’s eyes dilated, as he felt what was inside of me.

  “What is it?” he whispered, looking at me. The feeling of power excited him. He wanted to open me up and drink up the power. He wanted to hold it in his hands and touch the dead parts of me. I felt it all as I held his hand tight in mine. With my free hand, I reached back, toward the ice. If I could keep him from looking up, if I could keep him distracted until it was too late, it was possible to end this. I couldn’t let him die here with me.

  I couldn’t let him suffer with me. My hand hit the surface of the ice, still solid and dripping with water. It ran down over my fingers even as I felt it move under my hand. The power was pulsating and ripping me apart inside, but I kept the smile on my face.

  “Dekker,” I whispered. I felt my hand go through something colder than ice, less substantial than any matter, and sending a shiver of pain up my arm. My hand moved through, touching nothing but cold air. I knew it was touching mist, the rolling fog. I was half in the world and half in Moledet. I didn’t need a mirror here, all I needed was a reflection.

  “That’s my name,” said the man with horns that looked every bit like my Dekker. But he was cold. My eyes welled up with tears as I moved my arm back. I was pushing through, up to my elbow now. Any more and I might fall in.

  “Lilith, I could use a little help.”

  “Lilith?” he said, frowning. He seemed to notice what I was doing then, and his face filled with rage. He reached for me and I nearly let go of his hand. But I refused to give up. I would do this or I would do nothing. I would save Dekker right now, in this instant, or I would die. The world could go ahead and burn if I didn’t save him. If I couldn’t save one man, how was I supposed to stop hellfire?

  He didn’t grab me, though. He didn’t hurt me. But when he came away, he had my knife.

  “Lilith, please. I need him. Help me save him or it ends here. I end here.”

  “Who the fuck are you talking to, you crazy bitch?” said Dekker, his eyes empty. It was the emptiness that hurt the most. “Let go of my fucking hand.”

  He was trying to shake me off, but I held tight. The darkness inside me was roiling, thumping so hard it was shaking my body, growing larger and heavier and fuller with each beat.

  “It’s going to be so fun to cut you open,” said Dekker. He twirled the knife in his free hand. Desire flashed across his face and he licked his lips, then he laid the blade of the knife across my cheek and dragged it lightly across my skin, pausing at my lips, down my chin, before resting it horizontally across my throat, pressing lightly.

  “How does that feel, Frankie?” he whispered, coming closer, pressing himself against me. I nearly toppled back, into the reflection.

  Dekker twisted his wrist and I lost my grip on his hand, but he exchanged it for his own hand easily encircling my wrist. He squeezed so tightly I felt the bones creaking.

  “Would you die for him?” said the fake Dekker. I dropped the mask, the fake smile, and glared up at him. “There you are. I see you now, Frankie Mourning.”

  He pushed harder with the knife pressing on my windpipe. But I didn’t try to get away. I didn’t fight back.

  “I want to see your scar,” he said, suddenly the pressure easing on my throat he caught the bottom of my shirt with the blade and sliced it open. If he let go of my wrist, I would be gone. If he let go, I would topple back and Cain might not ever let me out again.

  He was looking down the front of me, my shirt hanging only by the collar, my stomach showing, my scar glowing white in the odd, hellish light.

  “Wouldn’t it be fun to cut you open the way you started?” he said. “The way you woke up, after you died. Wouldn’t it be fun to end your life the same way?”

  I spat in his face and he smiled.

  “Or I could just let go. You’d fall in, wouldn’t you? What would happen then? At least you could be with him, the real Dekker. Do you think he can fuck without a body?”

  “Dekker, where the fuck are you?” I whispered, grasping at air through the ice.

  “Is that what you’re doing?” he said. “You think you can just pull him out? Do you think that?”

  “It’s worked before. Lilith rules over you, didn’t you know?”

  “Lilith,” he said, his lip curling. “I’m not afraid of her.”

  “You should be.”

  He narrowed his eyes. I was wrong. He didn’t look like Dekker at all. Right now, with his face filled with hate, he looked like someone else. Someone I didn’t know at all. He traced the knife down my belly and I felt nothing but revulsion.

  “Is this what an autopsy feels like?” he said, smiling again. He barely flinched as he slid the blade, so slowly, so carefully into my gut.

  The pain was almost erotic, all-encompassing, barely at all, and then a
ll at once. The pain was a part of me now. I heard myself scream, and it was like waking up. I focused on him, still holding my wrist, but he let go of the handle of the knife. He was staring at my stomach like it was something wondrous, something terrifying. I looked down slowly, the pain part of the world now. The pain was everywhere, and I couldn’t remember ever living without it. I sucked in air when I looked down to see the knife sticking out of me, the blade pushed into my gut to the hilt. But it wasn’t blood that was pouring out.

  “What the fuck are you?” he said. He let go of my wrist, but I grabbed his arm, latching on as hard as I could. I could taste his fear, like perfume on the tip of my tongue. He was afraid of me. I looked down again. A black liquid was seeping out of the wound, vaporizing on contact with the air and curling away like smoke. But I knew it wasn’t anything so harmless.

  “Don't you know what’s inside me?” I said.

  “No! Let me go!”

  “I’m full of darkness, just like her,” I whispered. “I’m just like Lilith, and you’re terrified. I can feel your fear. You’re going to be simply blown away by me. I’m saving Dekker, or I’m taking you, along with that fucking atrocity of a monster, wherever she is. Do you understand?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t understand at all.”

  In the reflection, I felt movement. A whisper against my palm. Then something warm and large encircled my hand, grasping tight. My eyes widened and I looked around. The ice that was quickly turning to water bubbled and moved, as if something was trying to get through. I pulled the hand towards me. With a crackle of ice, the hand came through, hoarfrost crawling up the sleeve of my jacket, turning the black leather crystalline white. Snow fell onto my face.

  I looked at the horned Dekker standing in front of me, a look of resignation on his face. Resignation as he watched, with bursts of fear as his gaze flicked to my stomach. The black substance was coiling up like blood in water, curling around me. The wound in my abdomen was sending me to the edge of unconsciousness, shapes floating in my vision as I nearly blacked out. But I fought it.

  A hand. Then an arm. A shoulder, then a face. His face. My Dekker. He fell through, falling into the horned version of himself, and though I was sure I hadn’t blinked, only the real Dekker sat gasping, sobbing in front of me, my hand releasing his arm as huge, racking sobs shook his body, his knees curled to his chest. I turned to look into the ice, but there was only a reflection there. An innocent, innocuous reflection.

  “Frankie,” he gasped, getting carefully to his feet. “Jesus, Frankie, you’re hurt. Please, tell me I didn't do that. Please don’t say it was me.” His hand was shaking as he reached down to touch me, but he pulled his hand away, looking at it like it was alien to him.

  “It wasn’t you,” I said, my breath harder to pull in. The pulsing inside of me was threatening to burst me apart, I could feel the skin around the knife being stretched as the darkness looked for a place to emerge.

  “You’re lying,” he said. “Jesus Christ, I stabbed you? What the fuck is happening?”

  “It was my mother,” I said weakly. I was watching his face, trying to memorize it.

  “Your mother?” he said. “She did this?” I could tell he was trying not to look relieved. “Where is she? I’ll kill her right now.”

  “She’s dead.”

  “You’re crying,” he said.

  “What happened to Bea?” I said.

  He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know. She was there, in the bathroom. But when I went back for her, she was gone.”

  “They took her?” I said. “The reflections?”

  “No,” he said, “it was strange. No one came out of that door, I know they didn’t. She just disappeared.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He reached out to touch my face, but pulled his hand back once more, as if he were afraid.

  “Am I so horrible that you can’t touch me?” I said. “Am I really monstrous?”

  “You deserve a better man than me.”

  “I want you,” I said. “I don’t care who you are. Just one last kiss, okay? Just kiss me once more. You can do that, can’t you, Dekker? You can kiss me one last time?”

  “What’s going on?” he said. “Why are you talking like that? Why are you crying, Frankie?”

  “Kiss me, Dekker. Please.”

  He stepped forward, watching my face. “Frankie, don’t do this. It’s not your war,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Stop doing this. Stop acting like you’re the only one affected. It’s not just you. Why won’t you just let people help you?”

  “I love you.”

  He froze, staring at me. He shook his head, a tear falling down his cheek.

  “No.”

  “It’s time for you to go.”

  “I won’t. I can’t.”

  “You have to,” I said. “Do you see what’s inside of me?”

  He looked slowly down to my belly. The black substance was coming out faster now, wrapping my torso like a mummy, moving and writhing against me. The ravens above were so loud I could hardly hear Dekker when he spoke.

  “You never had a chance, did you?”

  I tried to smile at him, but I was in so much pain I could barely move.

  “Not really,” I said. “I died once already, though. So chances are, one of these twisted fucks are going to bring me back again. You have to go. Now.”

  “How?” he said. But as he said it, the ice cracked, right down the middle, a straight path to the shore. I could see the edges of the ice, dappled with black. The same black seeping out of me.

  “I think I did that,” I said. He was staring at me with a mixture of wonder and fear.

  “Monstrous,” I said. “I told you. I tried to warn you.”

  “Over and over,” he said. “Like a broken record.”

  “Time to go,” I said. “I can’t hold it in much longer.” The skin around the knife was now bulging and bubbling just as the reflection in the ice had done.

  Dekker looked to the shore, then back at me. “I’ll wait for you,” he said. “The motel. You’ll meet me there? If you...can.” He swallowed hard. His breath was ragged, like he was trying not to fall apart.

  “Frankie,” he said. “It’s not too late to run away.”

  “Yes it is,” I said, taking his hand. “I’m sorry I stole your car.”

  “I’m not,” he said, staring at me solemnly. “I never have been sorry about that.”

  “You have to go,” I said, gasping at the pain. “I can’t do this with you here.”

  “Okay,” he said, looking around him, as if he were trying to find a reason to stay. But it was just him and me on the bottom of a frozen lake. He focused on me, and suddenly closed his eyes as emotion overtook him.

  Moving slowly, I went to him and wrapped my arms around him, cautiously keeping my abdomen away from him. He bent down and finally touched my face. He cradled it in both of his hands and I let the tears fall.

  “You were the best part of living,” I said.

  He kissed me, his lips still warm and full of life. Water in his hair dripped onto my face, feeling like it was cleansing me, the kiss bringing me back from the brink. I had to force myself to pull away. He turned his face as I let him go.

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it immediately. He took a step toward the shore, then turned again.

  “Come back to me.”

  “Okay, Dekker,” I said. “I promise.”

  I watched him go, turning to look back at me every few steps. When he reached the shore, the ice crumbled, and the path closed quickly with slush. leaving no way for Dekker to return. Had I done that, too? Not that it mattered. Only one thing mattered now.

  Find the creature Lilith called a daughter. And kill her.

  chapter twenty-four

  I

  searched the cracks in the ice. I didn’t know if they would fill with water as the ice melted, or if the fiery light from the crack in the stone would hold it at bay in
definitely. The monster was nowhere to be found. I looked down at my gut, the black substance still wrapping around me, the beating inside me cracking my ribs. Every step was agony. I looked up at the screaming cloud of ravens.

  I closed my eyes and pulled the knife out of my gut.

  It was almost as if it wasn’t me, as if I could just step aside and watch this other person doing these incredible things. But there wasn’t anyone else. There was only me. The pain disappeared as I dropped the knife to the sodden ground, the ribbons of black swirling out of the hole in my belly, swirling through the air and wrapping around me, as if trying to protect me.

  Or tear me apart.

  The ravens came down first, unable to fight it any longer, feeling the pull of the darkness that drew them to my side. They dived to brush their wings against me, before flying out of the rift again. The ice was melting, my feet numb with the cold, ankle-deep in water.

  I closed my eyes and felt the power still inside me, more manageable now. I heard the bats shrieking, flying between the ravens, as if the two species belonged together. I felt the ground rumble and the worms and insects making their way up, creatures I’d never seen before, crablike creatures from deep within the earth, beetles that burrowed with huge pincers on their fronts. And then a deeper rumble shook the ground I stood on, and I heard the ice crashing, water rushing up my leg, nearly to my knees now.

  I nearly fell back as the ground shook one last time and a clawed hand rose before me. The hellfire illuminating its pale skin from behind made it seem almost transparent, its wet-slimy skin drooping. I was a child when I had seen her last. When she took my sister.

  Her head emerged, and I wasn’t afraid. I was stronger. I was more powerful. And I knew I had to die. I was not afraid and I was not angry. I felt peaceful. Absolved. Becky said I didn’t need absolving, but she was wrong. She hadn’t seen me kill the sheriff. She hadn’t felt the jubilation I felt while killing our mother. These reflections had probably killed dozens, while their real selves were lost in another world, waiting for me to save them, and I'd killed them instead.