Sin Eaters: Devotion Book One

by Kai Leakes

  She tiredly laughed as her sister asked her what he looked like. She frankly had no idea at all. Hell, she had no idea who he was, except Calvin seemed to trust him enough to have him pick her little sister up. So she texted that bit of tidbit back. Her cell phone began to fade in and out, the words before her becoming fuzz as her body started to overheat.

  Blinking back tears of pain, Sanna stood as she looked around for somewhere private to have her spell. Kali was asking her something, but at that moment all she could hear was mumbling, her hearing fading in and out like a rush.

  The migraines were coming back to back now, and she didn’t know why. They could be coming back to back due to stress but this wasn’t the time for it. She wanted to scream, but she knew she couldn’t.

  Checking the sign, she walked toward a fancy-looking vending machine. She put a dollar fifty in and hit the bottled water option. Then she reached for it then unscrewed the plastic top and took a deep swig.

  Digging into her purse, she grabbed her orange bottle of pills, with shaky hands as she opened the childproof prescription container, white-hot pain ripping through her, making her clutch her hands as she dropped the bottle and pills. Water slowly spread over her feet like a veil, and pills floated like little lifeboats as she held onto the machine. This was horrible, like the last time she was back in St. Louis.

  Images flashed across her mind, making her eyes roll in the back of her head, her eyelashes fluttering with each image she saw.

  Hands reached for her from the dark, as she heard a clicking sound as two feminine shapes emerged from the shadows, their faces covered yet their eyes glowing red as they suddenly slashed at her.

  Sanna wanted to scream while the images repeatedly took her senses over. Each vision dug into her senses like barbwire, branding her brain in fire.

  She saw ruby red blood darken as it congealed by her feet in a flowing puddle. She saw Kyo’s skin change and harden into stone, her features frozen in fear and pain. Sanna reached out to the statue of Kyo as it turned into dust and rubble as the two shadowed women destroyed it in the sudden moonlight.

  Tears flowed down her cheeks as she watched in horror before she heard a worried drawl cut through the thick cloud of images that choked her mind. Muscled arms suddenly wrapped around her, shaking her out of her haze.

  Disoriented and exhausted, confusion washed over her face as her cheek rested against Calvin’s hard chest. She breathed in his familiar, comforting scent, its fragrance stroking her senses as her hearing returned to normal. She heard her cousin, who she felt was like a big brother for her at times, murmur to her in Creole, singing an old hymn Grammy Sera had taught them as he rocked her.

  Calvin had gone back to his car to talk to Khamun as he tried to calm down. He needed the privacy and distraction. The emotion of the family and situation was causing him to spark with magic, and he couldn’t afford them to see him in this state. So as he made sure that his young cousin was on her way, he closed his eyes and listened to Khamun’s rant.

  “Damn, man! I’m tired as hell. The transition took a lot out of me since I hadn’t fed to my fullest.”

  “I hear you, man. When I use Mystic transition, it does the same to me. Seems to unplug me, ya feel me? So will you be able to survive being around us? Because this shit got a brotha running on E, brah.” Calvin watched passing female nurses and female doctors eye him while offering a flirting smile. Out of respect he nodded and offered a slight smile as he moved to be by himself. He didn’t have the time to return the casual flirting he enjoyed doing. It was his nature to soothe the female personality and make a woman smile, but right now his mind was on his family, especially his cousins.

  “Yeah, I’ll be able to handle it, brah. Hey. I contacted the Chi-town crew as well. They have a well-placed man in the hospital taking care of Take and Dare. He put them on blackout to keep as many humans out of our business. So y’all should be able to get through without a problem unless some human doesn’t know what’s up. So is Sanna okay?”

  Calvin had to inwardly chuckle. His boy was in love. Now that he could officially cross the line from Guardian to Protector he knew that Khamun was going to turn his cousin’s already tilting world even further upside down and right again.

  “She’s handling the best she can right now. She had another migraine in the car, and my girl sat and rode through it like a warrior—”

  Before he could finish Khamun bellowed, “What! She had another migraine, and what did you do, my man?”

  “Ey, brah! It’s all good. I watched her. Trust. I didn’t enjoy watching that. I had to keep myself from pulling over and going into Mystic mode, but I did put a small calming spell on her.”

  Silence had Calvin thrusting a hand in his pocket and pacing. He heard Khamun clear his throat.

  “Okay . . . did it look bad?”

  “Yeah, man. We gotta get her through this, but right now we gotta check on Dare and Take. So with that, get my younger cousin here safely and get ya energy right. You know how you do. If you don’t feed, you get sick, so it’s good you partially got a snack, my man.”

  “Bro, shut the fuck up. Sometimes I feel like you my damn dad, man.” Khamun chuckled.

  Calvin studied his cell, smirking while he listened.

  “I got the restorative tablets. I’ll take some as soon as Amara’s plane lands, and I’ll get us to the hospital ASAP.”

  Calvin glanced to the heavens and quietly exhaled. It was true. The two of them often flipped between brother and father role, making sure each was okay in situations such as this. “A’ight. I’ll holla, brah. Take care of yaself, and I have to roll out. Something feels wrong.”

  Khamun’s voice hitched as if he was going to ask what was up, but he simply got quiet then said, “Peace.”

  As Calvin hang up and jetted back upstairs from the outside courtyard, the first thing he saw was his cousin clutching the soda machine and sliding down its slick surface. Her water bottle spilled in slow motion and blended with the scattered pills.

  His heart stopped when he saw her like that. It took everything in him not to holler as he grabbed her and held her tight against him. He could feel her body shake with each shattering spasm, her eyes suddenly glowing with quiet power in a way he had never witnessed before.

  As he held her, he whispered a healing prayer while her body shuddered in response. An epileptic shock made her body rigid as a board. Tears slid out of the corners of her eyes, and inaudible words slipped from her pink lips. This scared the hell out of him as her power took his body over, her jumbled words wrapping around him.

  Instinct had him cloaking them with an invisible spell that made it look as if she had just fainted and he was helping her.

  Yeah, she is for damn sure an Oracle, he thought as he saw her Denotation vision. The hair on his body stood strong through the exchange. He had to pull back before he drowned in it, and he gasped.

  Reality snapped back around him, and he looked down, gently pressing the back of his hand against her now cooling skin as he gently shook her awake.

  “San, I’m here,” Calvin gently whispered to her as he held her tight against him while he prayed.

  He noticed her eyelashes flutter behind their closed sleep and then slowly open. Her pupils tried to focus on him while her lips parted, and her heaving chest slowly evened.

  “I—I just want them to stop. I don’t know what to do anymore. Make it stop, cousin . . . please.”

  She was so tired and exhausted from the pain, from worrying about her brother as well, that all she could do was glance up at her cousin’s scared and worried face. Her head then turned from him to stare off in a tear-streaked glaze.

  “I will do what I can, shawty. We’re going to help you, Dare, and Truth, okay. We’re going to keep you all safe, even Kyo and Take. We got you. That’s why I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you. You are my blood. I got you always, even if I have to sacrifice myself.”

  She didn’t understand what he was
talking about, but his devotion, his love and protection made her just nod in fringed understanding as his touch made the pain subside and she fell asleep.

  Calvin kissed the top of her damp forehead while he picked her up and took her back to the waiting room. He watched his aunt’s eyes widen as her face froze in an O shape. He shook his head in a dazed state. “She’ll be okay, Auntie. She is just exhausted. Let her sleep.”

  Dr. Satou, whom he got to know as Hideo, briskly strode to Sanna’s side, his walk full of fatherly concern and stress. He looked at Calvin briefly before taking her from his arms. “Where’s her medicine?” he asked, looking her over.

  “She dropped it, but I was able to help her sleep,” Calvin cautiously said.

  Hideo looked up at him briefly.

  Calvin swore he saw his eyes flash at him, tendrils of flames, circling over gray lenses, but before he could investigate it, Tamar came up to him and clutched him by his arm, softly tugging with a purpose.

  “Come with me, son.”

  Tamar regarded him with so much determination in her light brown eyes, he felt as if he had no other choice but to let her lead him off to a private area.

  “Cousin Tamar, Momma, look, it will be okay. I helped her. Please don’t cry.” He hated seeing his family like this, hated seeing the women he cared about cry, but it was nothing he could do. He saw Kali come around the corner, her gaze searching.

  Tamar turned and briefly smiled at her with love and concern in her eyes. “Both of you come with me now.” Tamar commanded her small frame, sashaying with constraint as she walked to an empty room, her heels clicking on the floor. She waited for both of them to enter, and closed the door.

  With both arms wrapped around herself, Calvin and Kali watched her back rise up and down as she slowly turned and tilted her head to the side.

  A tear slid down her cheek before she fiercely wiped it away. “Tell me right now. Why are you both really here?” she asked in a tight, restrained voice.

  “Momma Tamar, you know why we are here. Darren and Take need us. They are our family too. You know why we are here. Ma! Please don’t cry,” Calvin said, his own voice wavering with emotion.

  Kali held herself tightly, the emotion in the room filling her with pain and sadness as she watched the woman she called a third mother fight back from breaking down.

  Tamar Steele shook her head, curls vibrating with her emotion as she stared at the two she loved as her own children. “No, let me try this again. Why are you both here? Kali, why? Tell me the truth. My child is laying in a hospital bed, as my other child is laying in the waiting room passed out from pain. Tell me right now—right now—why you both are here.”

  Kali looked confused as she studied her aunt’s posture. Something was different, very different about her, especially the way she was speaking to them. She could feel it as she stared.

  Tamar looked at Kali and bowed her head. Tears suddenly spilled down her cheeks as Kali gasped.

  Calvin looked at Kali, misunderstanding in his face.

  Tamar held up a shaking hand, “Protocol, right?” She gave a sarcastic smile as she shook her head. “Protocol is what killed my husband. Protocol is what now has my children in danger! Danger! How long will you both just stand by and not protect my children as dictates?”

  Calvin’s mouth dropped open as he looked at his aunt for the first time in a long time. He could see her aura glowing all the colors of a Disciple and a Prophet. Shaking his head, all he could do was sit down, his hands cradling his face as Kali stood by his side, her hand resting on his shoulder.

  “Momma Tamar?” Kali asked, her world now thrown for a loop over it all as she lost the words forming in her mind.

  Tamar clenched her fists, dropped her head, and scanned the room, frustration making her furious. “I’ve been waiting for a long time for you all to realize that my children needed your help. A very long time. Did you really think I didn’t know who you were to us? Everything I did to protect my children so that we can survive is because I know. You understand me, son? Kali? I know more than you!”

  Kali and Calvin became silent with budding understanding, shock rolling through their minds as they digested what was just said to them. All this time they thought they were in the shadows, protecting from afar, when in reality, their aunt, the woman they called Momma, knew everything they were doing, who they were, and what they were about.

  Calvin croaked, “I don’t understand. How are you a—”

  Tamar walked up to him and cradled his face, gently laying a kiss on his forehead. “So you both didn’t know? Here I was under the impression that you both knew, since you all started coming around us more often. Ever since I saw my daughter’s Guardian outside of our house, or around her in general, I thought you all knew. Oh, my dear babies, I am so sorry.”

  Tamar gently hugged them both then grabbed a chair and pointed to the other empty chair at its side. “Sit down, baby girl. This is going to be a long story then,” Tamar softly said as she watched Kali drop her shoulders and sit. She reached out to hold Kali and Calvin’s hands while she sighed and took a seat.

  “My babies are coming into their powers. I know, I know. You all are wondering why do I know this.” She reached into her purse and wallet and pulled out a folded picture of a younger version of herself with a tall handsome Blair Underwood-looking male.

  Calvin and Kali recognized him instantly. It was Bishop Steele, her husband.

  “Their father . . . that man made sure that with his last breath he would protect us. I wasn’t always an Immortal. I was just a Prophet, a human with the gift of sight. I was just a woman who fell in love with a Disciple with magic abilities. We met in college and knew we were soul mates. My visions of him and his visions of me sealed it. So it made sense to marry and start a life, especially since we loved each other dearly.”

  “Unc Bishop was more than a Disciple?” Calvin calmly asked as he studied Tamar’s butter-brown face as it softened with the memories.

  “Yes, my beloved was more than a Disciple. He had your gift, sweetheart, with magic. It passes through your Creole bloodline, stemming from Africa.”

  Calvin softly smiled, sitting up straight with the knowledge as he glanced at Kali. She also flashed a brief smile as she nodded to listen.

  “Very strong magic, gifted from the Ancients. My beloved was going to be your mentor and teach you about the power you have, but the Most High called him back home.” She got very quiet as her mind flashed back to her husband’s death.

  Calvin gently squeezed her hand as she exhaled slowly.

  “It’s okay. I’ve grieved. He gave me so many gifts, I have nothing to complain about.”

  “What happened? Why did he die? How did you become an Immortal? Because that’s not possible. Yet here you are.” The questions seemed to rush out of Kali as she sat on the edge of her chair.

  Tamar chuckled as she gently kissed the back of Kali’s hand, which she held with her own. “We had to move the moment I was pregnant with Sanna. The instant we conceived her, everything changed. We both had the dream of Denotation as I carried her. Me, a human Prophet having a Denotation vision. I was incredulous, and I was scared out of my mind from that power. My husband was just as worried for us all. We knew we had to go into hiding and couldn’t put our family in jeopardy.”

  Tamar glanced at Calvin as she said that. She watched him bow his head, emotion tight in his shoulders.

  “You know, my husband’s father, for the longest of times, didn’t want us to meet you all, but when the Elders of the family passed, we knew it was okay go back to where it all began. Home, as my husband’s father would say. So we all went, my husband and a pregnant me. We wanted to see if we could hide without putting you all at risk.”

  Memories of it all flashed in between the triad as they linked in mind and power. Kali and Calvin’s eyelids flickered with the movie screen projected images in their mind.

  “So your grandmother Prophetess Sera told us to hide
in plain sight, but my husband was smarter than that. He knew I needed protection, and he could feel the power our child held. So he contacted his childhood friend in St. Louis, Hideo. Hideo had just married Emi, and so they both suggested we move there, where they could watch and protect over us.”

  Calvin raised an eyebrow. “So they are Gargoyles, correct?”

  Tamar smiled brightly. “More than that. As I said, my husband was intelligent. He had plans of protection set up long before I was pregnant. As soon as I conceived, he set his plans in motions. The Satous are Dragons, the highest level of Gargoyles.”

  “Yes, next to the mythical Sphinx line, of course,” Kali interrupted in quiet glee.

  Tamar agreed as she studied her cousins, whom she called niece and nephew. “Yes, my husband knew this. He always said it was the Most High’s plan to put Hideo in his life, and at that moment he understood why. So we lived in peace in St. Louis. My husband had to fight, from time to time, to keep us off the Cursed radar, but when Sanna was born it became harder to hide her. My little girl had the gift of sight at birth. Whenever I changed her, she would touch me, and I could see what her little mind held. It frightened me sometimes to know that our child was an Oracle and a Vessel. We had heard from others, through the family, that Oracles were being killed and kidnapped by Cursed, so we had to be careful. That was why we never registered in Society. Society never would have truly accepted us anyway, due to my husband’s background, but it was for the best in the end not to register.”

  Calvin grumbled as Kali interjected.

  “Regardless, they should have accepted you all. So, she was an Oracle even at birth? That is powerful. Oracles do not come into their power until they hit maturity! And you do not know who a Vessel is until they awaken!” Kali exclaimed, confused and excited.

  “Yes, I know. This is why I think we were able to hide for so long, because they were hunting maturity-aged girls, never once thinking of an infant being born into her or his powers already.”