by Tara Brown
I nod. “I think so, but I feel exposed. I feel like his family could take me anytime. Like the crowds and hordes of kids on campus can't keep me safe.”
She smiles. “Maybe that’s how they want you to feel.”
I shrug. “Maybe. Maybe that’s why Wyatt came here. He wanted to make sure I knew I was being watched. Then, when the next devil is ready, they will just take me and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”
Mona shakes her head. “It feels so hopeless. I feel hopeless.”
The outcome is inevitable. I look at her and feel the fear and pain in the thing I'm about to ask, “Promise me something.”
She nods. “Anything. Except leaving you. I won't do that.”
I give her a desperate look. “Kill me before they get a chance to do that to me again. Don’t let me live through that. Please.”
Her eyes widen but she knows. She remembers what she saw. She knows how bad it was. She stares blankly and nods her head, as if automatically. “I swear.”
“You have to swear that you will kill me.”
Confusion mixes with the empty pain. “I swear, but how?”
I shake my head. “Not sure. I think we need to visit Michelle and see what's shaking. They should know. That priest knew more than he let on.”
Her face brightens. “Okay . . . sweet. This weekend?”
I nod. “Yup. We can leave tomorrow.” I grin. “I'll call my hubby and arrange some cash.”
She rolls her eyes. “You're so mean. He likes you, and you're tormenting and extorting him.”
“He deserves everything he gets. He friggen betrayed me.” The pain and anger and hatred aren't mine, but I feel them, nonetheless.
“Whatevs. I gotta go to class. Be safe. Stay here. If you need something, text me.” She leaves.
I look at my phone and smirk. I like talking to Constantine and hearing his voice. I pick it up and leave the room. I should be staying in, but I need some air. His voice makes me warm and the memories make me something else altogether. But it usually involves a cheesy grin and clenching my thighs together.
Walking down the stairs, I smell something. It's familiar and makes my stomach twist. I lean against the wall and watch as two men come up the stairs. The older one looks exactly like the man in the boat, the day I met the nixie. The other one is the man who was at the church with Wyatt. I press my back against the wall and watch them walk the stairs. The older man has a bouquet of flowers. I panic, even though they can't see me.
I know they're here for me. I turn and run, texting Mona. CAR NOW
I have my phone and my keys. I rack my brain to remember if I left anything in the room that I might need.
I race across the greens to the student parking. The car makes me smile most days. I stole it from a vampire; it's pretty much the coolest thing I've ever done. I don’t smile when I see it this time. I panic, pushing the buttons. I can't help but feel them behind me, breathing down my neck the way Wyatt does when he chases me.
I get into the car and wait. The parking lot is packed. My phone vibrates and scares the crap out of me.
COMING
My foot is tapping and my palms are sweating. They're coming for me. The other devils must be full. It hasn’t been a month.
They need to starve you, my brain whispers.
I bite my lip and my whole leg shakes from the tapping of my foot. I see her at the same moment I see him. She sees him and runs for the car. I see her mouth open and words leave it.
The guys in the parking lot hear what she's screaming and gather. They grab Wyatt. He struggles but one of them pins his arms. Three of them hold him. He stops fighting. His dark-blue eyes meet mine. He doesn’t smile his cocky smile.
He was the bait. I fell for the trap. I kissed him and talked to him. I flaunted the fact I was here.
She's huffing and puffing when she gets into the car. I slam the car in reverse. I watch his eyes as I pull away. He looks relieved. I swear he does. Maybe it's what I want to see.
“Holy friggen hell. What was that all about?” she asks, out of breath.
I point. “They came for me. Wyatt's friend from the church came to our dorm with the old guy from the boat. They came for me.”
She's struggling to get her breath. “I'm going to fail this class for sure. My prof looked at me like I was crazy.”
I give her a look. “What were you shouting to get those guys to grab Wyatt?”
She grins. “I said he was stalking me. I had a restraining order against him. He beat me up two weeks ago.”
I sigh. “He is going to get beat up.”
She speaks through bared teeth, “Good. Jerk. I needed to be at that class.”
“I'm sorry, Mona. I'm sorry I ever got you into this.” I can never apologize enough.
She touches my hand and grips. “No. They were coming to take you back to that tower. I know it. It's time to start starving you again. They don’t care about you. They care about their job. You have the same rights as any other human, Rayne. So your parents suck. Lots of people have sucky parents. Yours made a deal that they should have to honor. Not you. You were a baby. They aren’t even your parents this time. You're born of that virgin.”
I drive to the priest at the cathedral. I know he has answers he isn’t telling me.
I press the Bluetooth button and say, “Willow.”
The robot voice says, “Calling Willow.” I snicker at Mona who rolls her eyes.
“What? I grew up poor.”
Willow answers, “Rayne?”
“Hey, they came for me. I left the dorm. I'm on the road to get the priest, but I don’t think he'll tell me anything.”
She sighs. “Constantine.”
I frown. “You just said . . .”
She cuts me off. “Forget what I said. He's the only one who can help you. NO SEX, RAYNE!”
I shake my head. “Mom, I'm not gonna have sex. For God's sake. He's like eight hundred or some crazy age. Give me a little credit.”
She laughs a little. “I love you.”
“Love you too.”
I look at Mona who is holding her mouth. “Don’t even think about laughing.”
She bursts, “Oh my God—she's the best.”
I press the button again. “Constantine,” I say.
The robot voice says, “Dialing Constantine.”
He picks up on the second ring, and a wave of heat hits me when I heard his voice. “My love. To what do I owe the honor of this phone call?” He sounds sarcastic.
I laugh. “I need you.”
He chuckles. “My favorite words. Give me just the smallest of hints as to why, so I can imagine it's for something only infinitesimally related to being naked.”
I look at Mona and roll my eyes. “No, ewww. Meet me at the church I told you about.”
His sarcastic tone gets thicker, “You know I can't attend church, my love. Perhaps I can give you what you need in the parking lot, in MY car perhaps.”
His tone makes me smile. “You sound snarky, Constantine.”
“You sound less afraid of me than you should be, Rayne. You're extorting money from me, using my pain and guilt. I will eventually get what is rightfully mine in return for all of these favors.” He says favors with distaste and annoyance.
I scowl. “I need your help with a priest. How can I get you and him to meet?”
He sighs. “Bring him outside. I'll snag him there.”
I don’t know how that’s going to help. I know he can't walk on holy land, but I don’t ask any questions. I drive. I can count on him to help me. I know that.
I nod and look at Mona who nods. “We'll text you when I get there. There is a garden. We'll meet you there.”
“And I will wait on your beckon call, my dears.” He hangs up on us.
Mona looks worried. “He sounds pissed, and I can't even blame him for it. He might be evil, but you're being cruel to him.”
My anger flashes. “He betrayed me, before. I was tortured and fe
d the evil of the world and then murdered because he let them take me. Trust me . . . my attitude toward him is justified.”
She glances at me. “Well, what's with the flirting and leading him on?”
I shake my head. “I still love him. Me, from before. Her memories are merging with mine, and I remember the way I loved him. I also remember the way my heart broke when they dragged me away and he watched. His dark eyes looked broken, but he never fought them. He could have killed them all.”
She crosses her arms. “It still feels wrong to take money from him.”
I nod. “I know, but we're broke and I have no one else. Willow is so busy looking for the devils. I don’t want to burden her with my worries. I don’t want her to leave the coven. She'll die.”
Mona looks confused. “I don’t get that? She could live with you all those years and not die.”
I laugh. “We were with them all the time. I just never knew. We traveled with psychics and stayed with other spiritual people and went to vegan retreats. All witches. She made me take my entire spring break, summer vacay, and Christmas break, to be with them. Not to mention, the other holidays and vacation time. God, then there were the ones that stayed with us. No, they were there. Always. I was just gullible and dumb. I watched a lot of movies while they chanted and lit candles and planted crap.”
She frowns. “Why did they let you grow up like that? Why did the witches protect you?”
I shake my head again. “I don’t know. She hasn’t answered that. She says they're friends of my mom’s. She's scared of my parents though. When Wyatt came there, she was ready to die rather than betray my mother or be taken by the Van Helsings. If the Van Helsings caught her now, they would torture her and kill her. Or use her as bait for me. She's safer with the other witches.”
“Was she ever going to tell you? It seems like she was going to wait for you to just become what you are.”
I shake my head again. “I don’t know. She doesn’t answer those questions. She says weird things like that’s not information for right now. That’s only going to complicate things more. Nonsense. I need the answers to all those questions. I'm short on answers. From everyone.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Michelle looks like a real girl, in a different sort of way. I see no trace of the boy I used to know. She looks sweet and innocent. She looks like a nun, just a very pretty nun.
“This is a good look for you,” I say.
She laughs and has a hard time meeting my eyes. “I feel great. The sisters are amazing, and the church is full of encouraging people and enlightenment. I never stray to the boy's side anymore. Got to keep the temptations to a minimum. I've already had a couple issues. I mean no one knows, but him.” She points upward.
Mona laughs. “You had lesbian-nun sex? Does that even count as lesbian?”
Michelle makes a disgusted face. “No-my-God. Oh gross. Dude. Beaver has never been my favorite mammal. No, I had altar-boy sex.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Aren't they minors?”
She bites her lip and nods. “Like seventeen. I'm only two years older, but it still felt dirty.” Her eyes turn mischievous. “Dirty good.”
I laugh. “You are here to cleanse your soul, and instead, you're tempting altar boys to sin, in a church no less.”
She feigns a wounded look and nods. “I'm ashamed.” Her pretend shame lasts seconds. “What brings you two here?”
“The priest,” Mona says.
“Why?” Michelle looks confused.
I give her a look. “He has answers. We were hoping you'd be able to lure him to the garden for us.”
She swallows and nods. “Yeah, probably.” She looks guilty just thinking about it. This actually makes her look guilty. Sex with minors in the confessional makes her smirk, and this makes her feel guilty?
“Have you seen my dad?” I ask.
She gulps and trembles. She shakes her head, and I feel sick for bringing it up, but I need answers.
Mona asks, “He can't come here, can he?”
She shakes her head again. “No. Are you guys still mad at me?”
I shake my head and grab her. I pull her in and hold her tightly to me. “I love you. Forever.”
She sobs quietly. “I love you too.”
“Have they attacked you again?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, but Wyatt can track me, so you better bring him out. Then we can be on our way. We'll meet you in the garden.”
She nods and leaves. We walk to the garden, and I text Constantine.
The stone bench is cold. It's December and the weather is starting to turn. It stays like fall until almost Christmas, and then it gets cold and snowy. The weather here is like a switch activates it.
The bench feels cold through my clothes. The snow is coming.
The door opens and the chubby, pleasant-looking priest exits the church. He looks less pleasant. “You came back? I am surprised, considering you know which side I am on.”
I grin. “Well, Father, I'm hoping I can convince you to at least try to see things my way.”
He shakes his head. “No. Your friend is a sin eater. Without her the world becomes worse than it is now. Famine, war, pestilence, and decay. The Revelations can start if the sin eater isn’t killed with the sin of the world in her.”
I frown. “Revelations?”
He nods. “Lucifer will take over the world until the sin eater can be born again and raised to try again. If he takes over, the chaos we have lived with becomes much worse. I am sorry, my child, but your friend must die.”
I look at Mona and shake my head. “Not if we kill the devils and make them take the sin.”
He shakes his head. “Band-Aid situation. The only way is to kill Lucifer, the devils, and Lillith. That isn’t going to happen. Lucifer doesn’t just die because you get lucky once and shoot him. His head must be separated from his body, same as Lillith. The devils are the same. You are two little girls against all seven of them. Have you ever cut a head off? It's not eas—” Arms reach down from the overhanging roof and snatch him into the air. His screams replace his words.
We jump back. I laugh nervously at Mona who is white as a sheet. “Well, that was creepy.”
She holds her hand to her chest. “Constantine gets points for effort and creativity. I think I peed my pants. That scared the hell out of me.”
I look back at the church. “We need to tell them it's me and not you. They're going to go all extremist-religious nuts and kill you. It's better if they try to kill me. I don’t die as easily as you would. You're feeble.”
She laughs. “No, this is good. They have no idea what's what. Let's go meet Constantine.”
Michelle doesn’t say goodbye.
“She just sent a text saying she is going to be ready to leave soon. She wants us to come before Christmas and get her.” Mona looks at her phone.
I nod. “I get that she doesn’t want to be attached to the disappearance of the father. Honestly, I don’t imagine he's coming back. But she could have at least said goodbye.”
Mona laughs.
The priest isn’t coming back. I plan on eating him unless Constantine beats me to it.
We drive back to Constantine's house. The driveway and view of the house is painful.
I remember pulling up to our home the first time as man and wife. We were in a carriage. He made me cover my eyes. The house was stunning. I loved the proximity to the sea. I could smell it on the wind. I loved the feel of his fingers on my face and his kisses on my neck.
The house looks different now. It's modern and beautiful. I don’t know where our house went and why he built this one instead.
I need to see the house that's here along with the man. Not the house I loved and the man I adored more than anything in the world. Neither of them exists in the real world.
I park in the round driveway, and when we walk up to the door this time I don’t knock. I walk in and blow past the maid. “Where is he?”
“T
he study. This way.” She looks distraught.
She walks us to a large dark door. We enter, and I immediately feel my head swoon. The room is exactly as I recall it. Or is it the same room? Confusion sends me spinning.
I look around at everything and blush. The same old mahogany desk and the shelves of books. Hundreds of years old. The hand-painted globe. The hand-drawn map of the new world that's framed in glass and hangs over his desk. The windows are large and bright, but he has the blinds turned to dim the light.
The priest is tied in a leather chair in the corner. One I don’t recall. It looks new.
Constantine isn’t in the room.
I turn and see smoke moving like fog from another doorway. He materializes and Mona jumps. I've seen it before. He smiles at me, like I am the only person in the whole world. He sees me, and his face changes. My heart skips beats and then races. I see the corners of his mouth turn up. He can hear my heartbeat. He knows his effect on me.
He's commanding as always. He looks at the priest. “You want to kill her, do you?” He points to me.
The priest frowns and shakes his head. “No, the sin eater.” His eyes dart to Mona.
Constantine looks confused. He says nothing. He knows better. He moves on. “Tell us how to find Lillith. No more playing around, padre.”
Constantine offers the two chairs against the massive wall of books. My legs are shaking. The room smells exactly as it would have in his old office. My memory is playing tricks on me.
I sit. Mona watches us all intently.
Constantine sits in his huge leather chair behind the old desk he has ravished me on dozens of times. I bloody well remember that clearly.
I can't focus on the father or Mona. I can recall the feel of his fingers sliding up my skirts, and the way he felt between my legs. I squeeze my thighs together.
Constantine is grinning. He's not even fighting it. He glances at me and shakes his head disapprovingly. He knows what I'm thinking. He can sense my arousal. He brought us here on purpose. He has dozens of rooms, and yet, he chose the one that would make me remember.
I can play that game too. I remove my sweater and hold it in my lap. I'm in a thin pale-pink tank top, no bra. The tank has the built in one. It has spaghetti straps and is nearly sheer. “My sweater is inside out.” I smile.