The Unforgiven Sin

by R. Twine

  I dashed to Karl’s bedroom, stumbling on the stairs and nearly falling. My son sat upright in his crib looking at me with a serious expression on his face. I ran up to him, scooped him up and pressed him against my chest. I was at a complete loss, not knowing what to do.

  There was a sound of thunder again. An underground shock rocked the house; I heard the sound of something cracking. I felt the earth split: first the noise was concentrated below, then it began moving and finally rolled away in an unknown direction.

  Several minutes later everything became quiet.

  Karl fell asleep again while I went back to the Book. It was lying on the table waiting patiently.

  Hardly had I extended my hand towards it, when the Secret Annals sighed. The All-Seeing Eye woke up and started scrutinizing me. Black diamonds began shining brightly and then started changing their color. The Book opened up noisily and I saw the following inscription on its flyleaf: "This belongs to Eve, the first-ever woman and the foremother of mankind who – despite the Creator’s ban – dared to taste the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge in order to become like one of us, knowing Good and Evil. This Book belongs to the one who’ll be seeking answers that will eventually lead her to the Truth"

  The pages began turning slowly, and in a spreading haze which was coming out of the Book I saw images appearing right before my eyes.

  I saw my great-grandmother; the little angel took off from Laura’s painting and said to her: ‘Do you know that your ancestors belonged to The Star of Baphomet? And that some women of your family were the wives of Satanail himself? Give your consent to the initiation and you’ll come to know – within your lifetime – what’s hidden from others; you’ll gain immeasurable wealth and power over all living beings,’ the little angel offered.

  ‘I reject your offer!’ she said with determination.

  ‘This is your choice and I accept it,’ he said. ‘I wanted to keep the connection of your family with our world unbroken. You’ve rejected my offer, therefore you’ll have to leave the earthly world.’

  The Angel tossed her a bunch of black roses and flew away…

  A huge male figure clad in a hooded black cloak appeared in the room. Shimmering on his chest was a pendant – an inverted pentagram with a ruby heart in its middle. He walked over to the bed, pulled the pillow out from under my granny’s head and threw aside the knife which had been lying there. Katrine woke up. I saw her become paralyzed with fear. Several moments later the murderer pressed the pillow against her face and held it down... The murderer disappeared, leaving the lifeless body on the bed.’

  The clandestine society the Star of Baphomet was a well-organized structure which kept many spheres of the shadow economy under its control. Headed secretly by a powerful demon, this sect exerted an influence on entire countries and controlled global trends by acting through its “subjects” scattered all across the planet, thus intending – sooner or later – to subjugate the whole world. This society would get rid of not only the people it didn’t need anymore but also of those who refused to undergo ‘initiation’, more specifically – the obstinate descendants of the Star members, who it constantly kept under close watch.

  The Dark World felt jittery. My last earthly incarnation was to determine whether the Prince of Darkness’s long-cherished desire would come true, whether a new civilization, new world and new laws would be created. The Fallen Angel wanted to get the priceless vial at all costs – the vial containing my blood mixed with his seed as a prerequisite for the creation of the new civilization.

  Satanail punished my parents while clearing the way for me; he acted through Michael, who was the devil’s eyes and tool. Deprived of my loved ones and their love for me, I became vulnerable and therefore more accessible to the Dark World because the gaping void in my soul had been filled with its secrets and mysteries. My meetings with the devil were not without consequence: he helped me punish a lot of bad people, including those thugs who killed Tony, but in exchange for this the Prince of Darkness took the souls not only of those who traveled on that unfortunate yacht but also the souls of other innocent people who had died because of my reckless wishes. Natalie’s death had some connection with me, too: she pointed out a lot of weird irregularities and suspected that Michael was behind many ‘accidents’ which had resulted in the loss of life. In cold blood, Michael would take out those who stood in his way.

  Satanail’s jealous wife Agella also set herself a definite goal: she wanted to get rid of me right after the birth of my son, because my continued presence could have frustrated all her plans. All those potentially capable of disrupting demonic plans were taken out, mercilessly.

  Agella’s wish was to become the absolute empress in the Kingdom of the Fallen Angels; she believed that the Book of Shadows could only belong to her. She always acted alone; even Satanail sometimes couldn’t make out what this cunning devil of a woman was up to. Agella knew little about me: the Book had been her only source of information and it gave her none. Meanwhile, Satanail kept his demons in the dark about the nature of our relationship.

  Agella nudged Samuel towards me, and Samuel eventually led me to Michael. Michael had also been looking for the people responsible for those deaths around me in which he hadn’t been complicit. He knew that, apart from him, there had been somebody seeking his or her own goals. This ‘somebody’ turned out to be Agella who had been acting wisely through her agents; she’d covered her tracks very skillfully…

  Samuel, motivated by his own agenda, tried to frustrate his mother’s initial plans by variously disrupting their implementation. By doing so, he always stayed in the background pretending to be helping her, but in actual fact he’d been firmly trying to have it his own way.

  During the succession of multiple incarnations, it only happened twice that the Book of Shadows had managed to find its ‘chosen one’. And now it was the third – and the last – time that the Prince of Darkness was releasing the Book from his Kingdom into the earthly world. He knew that, at the same time, my last incarnation was to take place followed by the final evaluation of mankind’s earthly existence.

  Agella knew that the long-sought-for annals were about to appear, thus creating a last opportunity for her to take hold of them. She’d been sure Michael was the mysterious earthly owner of the Book.

  Agella planned that by taking possession of the third Book of Shadows, which would give her unlimited authority and power to change the fundamentals of the universe, she’d be able – at last – to change the past. Thus, by creating an altered present and future Agella intended to subjugate completely not only the entire Dark World but the devil himself, then supplant him on his throne and become the fully legitimate Queen of the Kingdom of Darkness. Thanks to the all-powerful annals Agella could gain access to the two initial vials and then take hold of the third vial – the last one. She could use these vials to generate ‘new people’. By doing so, she planned to punish Satanail himself for his having preferred Eve to her. But there was one more goal Agella had planned to achieve by destroying present-day mankind and erasing the memory of it from the face of the earth: she had intended to avenge herself on the Creator for her expulsion.

  Agella came dangerously close to the completion of her sly plan; she took out Phil who she needed no more and then she killed those of his companions who she’d succeeded in exposing. The throne had been freed for the owner of the third Book of Shadows (which she erroneously considered to be the original one), but the obstinate Michael wouldn’t rush to take it. And suddenly she realized that Michael wasn’t the mysterious owner of the Book at all.

  If she’d gotten rid of the brand new owner – Michael – that devil of a woman would have removed the last barrier between Samuel and the throne. But Agella knew nothing about Michael; she didn’t have even the slightest suspicion that he was the very same self-appointed master everybody was so afraid of. Even more so, she didn’t have the slightest idea of Michael being, in fact, Satanail himself.

>   After Michael’s death Samuel was to inherit Phil’s Book by right. But the cunning woman was already planning to dispatch her son to the world of shadows, who she’d come to consider spineless and thus useless; she thought his continued presence could thwart the implementation of her future plans. But Agella suddenly faced so many obstacles that she failed to carry out her plans.

  When Phil realized that he stood in Agella’s way while Michael was about to expose him, he made up his mind to meet with his half-brother. He handed Michael’s file over to Samuel and said. ‘Sam, here’s something to which I’ve devoted many years of my life. Keep this material - it may help provide Miriam with a glimpse of true reality. You may use it as you wish according to the situation but you have to make absolutely sure neither Agella nor Michael see this file before Miriam does.

  Samuel, when I die you’ll be the one facing the greatest danger. Beware of Michael: he’s not going to let go of you. Be careful: Agella’s very dangerous. Don’t take hasty steps and take good care of the first-ever woman – this is the main thing! And don’t forget that running in our veins is the one and the same blood – the blood of our ancestors, the blood of the Keepers of Secrets.’

  ‘I won’t let you down, Phil,’ said Samuel in the way of goodbye, and gave him a hug.

  That was their last meeting.

  The Book slowly turned its pages, filling in blank spaces…

  I saw right in front of my eyes the Christmas night when I became a woman. I saw Samuel who’d been playing his game with me while knowing its rules from the very beginning…

  Then I saw another night of love – the one when I came to Michael’s bedroom of my own volition, the night when I sank into the devilish world which rejoiced at our copulation. My mind was kind of hypnotized; I wasn’t aware of the fact that Satanail in Michael’s guise had carried me to the place where he was the absolute master. My mind and soul had been blinded by this Angel’s magnificence.

  The Book of Shadows was forthcoming, giving answers to any question. Mysteries were being disclosed one by one…

  The course of events made Samuel - who was deeply in love with me – reconsider his life values, which he had deemed unshakable. There was only one wish he cherished deep inside his heart: to change reality. He came to hate his mother, Agella, who’d been exerting unbearable pressure on him all the time, he came to hate the entire world of deviltry responsible for the continuous bloodshed on our planet, he came to hate a lot of people who were in cahoots with the devil himself. Samuel decided to get involved in a dangerous game with the World of Darkness without disclosing his true intensions.

  He realized that it was me that the secret annals had been looking for – they’d been looking for the reincarnated Eve, their true owner. This was why Samuel, who trusted no one, had been keeping this circumstance secret while cherishing the hope of taking hold of the Book of Shadows right after I got my hands on it. He knew that the Book of Shadows could obey someone who would touch it but only on one condition: it would have to go back to the Kingdom of Darkness directly after the death of its earthly master and after the fulfillment of the suppliant’s wish.

  After I got caught up in Michael’s web, Samuel realized that he wasn’t strong enough to break up our relationship, so he turned a blind eye to this dangerous connection and started looking for alternative ways of dealing with the problem. Agella, being a powerful she-devil, cherished the dream of a wedding destined to bring into existence her ‘pure-blood’ grandson. In some magical way, she had been keeping Sam constantly by my side in such a way that even Satanail proved unable to separate us. Marrying me would get Samuel closer to his own goal, too: by doing so, he’d get closer to the Book of Shadows more than ever before.

  By using the Book, he wanted to go back to the times when Adam and Eve first set foot on Earth, to the times when the Book of Shadow had just begun to be filled with the information on the lives of the first-ever people. He wanted to return to the times when the Book didn’t yet contain the pages describing the sins humans had committed on Earth. Those were the times before Cain was conceived. By going back to the distant past, Samuel wanted to prevent Satanail from seducing me so that only Adam’s children continued to be born. This would pave the way for a totally different people, a different life and different laws.

  Samuel publicly accused Michael – and opened my eyes to reality. He unmasked him – and many others. It turned out that Michael and Satanail were one. The she-devil decided to pursue her goal to the end; she abandoned Agella’s body for good, changed her guise and started hovering constantly around us.

  When Agella died, Samuel inherited the Book of Shadows; however it failed to help him, driving him into a corner instead. But he made up his mind to go all the way to the end.

  The earth shook. Many secrets were exposed now. The annals made it clear that my time had come. So I got down to giving the last instructions…

  What Satanail had been longing for came true: Michael fathered my child, my beloved Karl who was to become the cornerstone of a new civilization. And the precious vial containing the mix needed for creating the ‘new people’ had eventually been given to him by…me. What he’d been striving for came true: I proved unable to wash away my original sin. But I succeeded in fulfilling what I’d been predestined to do…

  I faced the choice. There was almost no time left for deliberation. My time had come, and I wanted my son Karl to survive.

  I closed the almighty annals. The images which had been surrounding me vanished into thin air. The All-seeing Eye was watching me without emotion.

  Tears blurred my vision; I took a pen and started to write a last message to my husband.

  ‘‘My dear Samuel, please forgive me for the pain I’ve caused you. Alas, I’d been blinded by Michael and refused to accept the reality. You, the son of Satanail and the she-devil, proved to be brave enough to stand up to your horrible parents! Having refused to follow in the footsteps of your ‘brothers and sisters’, you’ve chosen another path: the path that leads to the salvation of the soul! You were the only one among the children of the Kingdom of Darkness who dared to oppose the devil himself and proved that even a small portion of God-given divinity can overwhelm the gene of destruction.

  Now that I’ve come to know the truth (this is what you’ve clearly been waiting for) I have to make a choice: to promote what you’ve planned to achieve or to reserve the right for humanity to fight on their own against the demons who corrode the souls of human beings. I’ve chosen the latter. Thus, my son Karl – as the representative of the new civilization born with the consent of Heaven – is entitled to accomplish the following mission he’s been assigned to by Heaven: to conquer his own inner essence of Michael-Satanail so that he can help mankind gone astray to find its true path – the path of total and final liberation from the Black Angel’s influence in order to prevent one more sin from being committed: the sin of enslaving all of humanity, by the world of deviltry. But…Even if you’d succeeded in getting rid of me, you wouldn’t have had enough time to take hold of the Book because it would have ended up in the hands of the she-devil who never sleeps. And now she’s about to start hunting for Karl!

  I shall be fighting for your soul, Samuel, and after it leaves the earthly world I’ll try to make sure the angels of light will pry it out of the clutches of the Kingdom of Darkness and move it to a decent place in Heaven while I, living in my heavenly abode, will pray for my son and for my unforgiven sin to be eventually redeemed. By the time you read this message the Book of Shadows will be far away…

  Miriam.’’

  I folded the letter; it was with great difficulty that I lifted the almighty annals and put them back into the box along with my message. Then I went downstairs to the strong box in the basement. I knew that Samuel would be looking for the Book in this very place; therefore I decided to play up to him.

  I took the family ring out of the chest and found out that the emerald had become scarlet. Blood was spilt in
side it…

  I phoned Elian and asked her to come round; she came to me right away.

  ‘Elian, there’s something I want to ask you about. But please, let everything remain strictly between us,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll be glad to land you a helping hand, Miriam,’ Elian replied readily.

  Karl threw his little hands around my neck and went silent as if aware of the importance of the moment. My tears were dropping onto his tiny pajamas…

  I was sitting in the kitchen of my Paris home drinking coffee when I suddenly saw a shadow flit through the doorway. I entered the sitting-room: the newly appeared little angel was flying in circles, scattering black roses about the room. On seeing me, he hovered in the air and gave me a pitying look. There were tears in his eyes. The floor of the room turned into a carpet made of black rose petals. The little angel waved me farewell and disappeared. No sooner had he disappeared than I heard a slight rustle behind me.

  ‘Is it you, Satanail?’ I said in bewilderment as I turned to face him.

  ‘Hello, Miriam. I’ve come to collect you,’ he replied.

  ‘To collect me?’ I repeated.

  ‘The time has come for you to leave this world. You will never return to Earth, and I want you to leave for my place, for the Kingdom of Darkness.’