by Tara Brown
The priest swallows hard. He works very hard at not paying attention to all my flesh. I raise an eyebrow at Constantine who is frozen. He is watching my pulse and my neck. It's his favorite.
Mona, who is oblivious to my tank top, leans into the priest and sneers at him. “You need to help us. We will end the Hell on earth if we get rid of Lucifer for good. Or we just say frig it and let Lucifer take over.”
I glance at Constantine, ignoring the laughing priest, and finger the neck of my tank. I watch his eyes. I tug at my shirt slowly, revealing almost all of my cleavage. I bend forward and pretend to tie my laces on my boots. “My boot's untied too. I'm a mess.”
I smolder my eyes at him. He knows I'm begging for him to rip my clothes from my body. I make sure he notices the way I lick my lips and bite the bottom one.
I smirk when his fingernails cut into his desk. I pull my sweater back on.
Mona gives me a weird look.
Constantine takes a breath and glances down at his desk. He makes a face and cusses quietly. He has treasured the desk for hundreds of years. It was virtually unmarked, until now.
I look over at the priest and snarl, “Father, spare us the nonsense and tell us where to look.”
The father watches Constantine. “What are you, my son?”
Constantine smiles his fangs at him. “Your worst nightmare. Let's chat, shall we?” His fangs almost make me moan. The feeling of them dragging down my skin and biting in, rolls through my mind.
He walks to the father and squats between his legs. He looks into his eyes. “Where is Lillith?”
The priest fights it but relents after a few moments of attempting to close his eyes. “Ireland. The fae keep her safe.”
“How do we get to her?” Constantine asks.
He smiles. “You can't. You are unholy. Only a person with a pure heart can find the fae.”
I glance at him. “How did this happen? How did my father and mother come to this?”
He presses his lips together and looks down. Constantine touches his cheeks and brings his focus back. “Answer the questions she asks you, Father.”
His mouth opens and he speaks like he is in a trance. “Our father cursed them for their betrayal of his love. They made their love more important than his. When they chose to fall and touch the earth, they tainted it with a stain. An evil made from their defiance of God. They had a child and lived happily. The child grew sickly in her late teens. They panicked and came to God for help. He offered them redemption. He said that if they wanted so badly to stay upon the earth, he would forgive them—if they sacrificed their only child. She could carry the sin they created by defying God and take it with her. Lillith disagreed. She ran with the child and refused. The child grew sicker. Lucifer saw this as an opportunity. He went after Lillith and abducted the girl. He was certain they could conceive again. This child was nothing to him, in comparison to his love for Lillith. He took the child and sacrificed her on her twenty-first birthday. Lillith was heartbroken. She was devastated. He found her and convinced her that they could try again. They did. They conceived once more. The child remembered them. She remembered the life she had had with them. Again, they had given birth to the sin eater. Lillith was crushed. She refused to love the child. She ran from Lucifer again and entered the sacred garden of the fae. The earth's people. Not God's creations, but Mother Earth's creations. Lucifer again sacrificed the child.” He takes a deep breath and continues with hollow eyes and detachment in his voice. “God created Adam and Eve. Lillith had learned tricks from the fae. Shape shifting was one of the things she learned. In anger and madness, she snuck into the Garden of Eden and disguised herself as a snake. She tempted Eve with the poisoned apple. Eve ate and cursed God's creations. God was furious. The evil stain became too great for one girl to collect. He allowed five angels to fall and become the sin gatherers who would feed the evil they collected to the sin eater. They could live upon the earth as immortals, so long as they gathered the sin.”
I frown. “Wait, so Lillith birthed me twice? But then, in the Dark Ages and the Age of Enlightenment, I was born as well?” I don’t even think about the fact he thinks Mona is the sin eater.
He nods blankly. “A virgin birthed you the other times. Lillith refused to allow Lucifer near her. She refused to allow him to create another sin eater. God put the baby in the belly of the virgins. You have been born four times.”
“You lied to me.” I point.
He nods. “I did. I didn’t want you to think this was your last chance as a human. We need you to do the final cleansing of the earth. Not desperately scrambling to save yourself. You're a martyr, child. Don’t be so selfish.”
I gasp. “Why did God create his son to die for our sins, if he was using me the entire time?” I am angry; it's deep and desperate. I am running out of time.
He shakes his head. His lips press together. He's fighting telling us. His eyes flutter and he passes out.
Constantine looks back at me and frowns. “Well, that was interesting. Much more than we got out of the damned witches.”
I sigh. My palms are sweating, and I'm exhausted. I need to feed.
Mona looks deep in thought. “So, this is the last time you can be born? What does that mean?”
Constantine looks dismally at me. “It means we kill them or she dies forever.”
“Can you make her a vampire?” Mona asks.
He smiles bitterly. “We tried that last time. Didn’t we, love?”
It flashes into my brain. The pain and agony was intense. My brain refuses to let me see it all. “I remember throwing up blood.”
He winces. “So much blood. I didn't know people held so much.” He stands. “What would you like me to do with him?”
I watch the sleeping priest. “I want that answer, and then I want to eat him.”
He nods. “I was afraid you would say that. Even after you depleted my resources here. I will say though, he probably doesn’t have many sins. You'll be even hungrier after you eat him. Whereas, I know he has loads of blood in that chubby body. I will be sated. I think we'll have to wrestle for this one.” He walks from the room and I sit back.
“You're going to kill him? He's a priest.” Mona looks sick.
I nod. I don’t want to explain to her that I am seconds away from eating her.
She gets up and leaves.
She doesn’t want to face the fact that I am the monster everyone keeps telling her that I am.
I look up at the ceiling. My other lives are coming back. I remember things. I remember my mother. I remember my father walking me up a hill. He held my hand and spoke to me of love and responsibility. I never saw the flash of steal or felt a thing. He ensured I went peacefully, but that changes nothing. He has cut my head off twice. A shiver runs up my spine. I see his face. I look a lot like him.
The priest rolls his head and mutters. His face drains of color. He struggles to lift his head. His lips seem fat and thick.
“My child,” he mutters.
I lean in. His hands latch around my throat. “MY CHILD!” His eyes are completely black. He is spitting when he speaks, “You must honor the agreement. You must. YOU MUST!” he screams in my face. I can't breathe. I try to claw at his hands, but the strength in them is unnatural.
He is leaning in breathing his hot breath on my face. “YOU MUST HONOR THE AGREEMENT! SOUL FOR SOUL!”
My eyes are getting dark from the lack of oxygen. I panic and push at him.
Something sharp grabs at my arm and suddenly the room spins. I land against something hard. Blackness fills my eyes. I hear hissing. The last thing I see is Constantine consuming the priest.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I am surrounded by warmth. It’s a familiar feeling. I pull the arms around me tighter. I moan a little and wiggle into the embrace. I hear a chuckle and look up. Constantine is across the small dark room. “You wish it were me, do you?”
I frown and look behind me. A face I do not know lies next to me.
His expression is slack.
Constantine mutters like he's giving a tour, “Murdered his mother and her cat. Stole her car and crashed it. Took his clothes off and ran down the road naked. Got taken to a mental hospital. Never got tried for the death of his mother. I really don’t feel like it's fair, ya know. He should pay for the death of the cat, at the very least. Anyway, he received a clean bill of health two weeks ago. Ten years of intense therapy has determined he is sound as a pound.”
I squirm away from the sleeping guy. “Why is he next to me?” I look around. I am in a cell. “Why am I in a cell?”
His eyes gleam. “You let yourself get hungry, my love. That has always been a problem with you. I couldn’t let you kill Mona.”
Jealousy pangs flutter inside of me. I recall the way they looked at each other when they met. The way he called her pure. It was an insult directed at me.
Something bursts from my mouth, but it's like the words are not my own, “Yes, God forbid anything happens to the love of your life, at the hands of another. I know how you like to be the one to ruin them.”
He is beside me in a flash. His face is so close, his words are a part of my breath. “I don’t want you to feel guilty for killing her. It would ruin you. Unlike you, I've only had one life, one love.” His black eyes scare me for the seconds they remain. Then he is gone and I am full of sadness again. I would never want anything to happen to Mona.
I look back at the young man on the crappy little bed. He is handsome. I reach a finger and trail it along his arm. He is sweet. Probably the sweetest thing I've tasted since the madness in the stalls here last time. My mouth waters when I taste the evil lurking inside of him. His skin is warm and soft. I knead him like a cat and let the suck start. I'm starving. I pull hard and fast. He screams as I pull it from him roughly.
I sigh and shudder. Sweat drips along my face. I squeeze my thighs together and try to catch my breath.
He murdered another woman last week. “So much for therapy,” I mutter to myself.
I stand and press on the cell door. It's stuck. I push harder but it's locked. I look at the dead kid on the bed and slump against the bars.
“Constantine, please,” I call out. “Let me out. I'm sorry I said that. You know how sometimes I talk out of hunger.” It too has always been a problem.
He doesn’t come. I watch the shadows move along the floor below the only window down here. The shadow moves with the passing hours. Panic starts to build inside of me. The dead kid stinks. His skin is sweating. He's making a wet mark on the bed. I am in the far corner, plotting my escape. The worst scenario I can imagine is playing around in my mind.
He has betrayed us again.
I am sick at the thought of it.
I fall asleep against the bars. The dead take me.
When I wake, Mona is hugging me and sobbing. I wake calmly as always, but start to panic.
“Mona, what's wrong?”
She is holding me and crying. “I couldn’t find you. He wouldn’t show me where you were. He said you needed time to cool off. You were a danger to me.”
“Did he touch you?” I growl.
She shakes her head. “No. No, of course not. He asked me a million questions about you, Wyatt, and school.”
“What did you tell him?” Panic starts forming.
She shakes her head. “I'm not sure.”
I put my face in my hands. “Damn.” He's made her tell him everything about me. He's jealous on a bad day and now he knows I've had sex with other men.
I look around me. She has dragged me from the cell. The bars are open. I look back at the open door. “There's a dead guy in there. Don’t go in there.”
She cries harder. “I know. I know, I saw him. He stinks.”
I can smell him on me. I grimace. “I need a shower. I'm gonna kill Constantine.”
She looks horrified.
I get up off the floor and try to stretch my aching body. I climb the stairs and notice the kinks everywhere.
“Son of a—how long was I in there?” I storm up the stairs.
She heaves behind me, trying to get a grip on her tears. “Three days. He's been acting crazed. I didn’t know what to do. He wouldn’t let me leave and he wouldn’t let me call anyone. I felt like Jonathan Harker.”
I laugh wearily. At least I'm not the only one who speaks in movie talk.
She leads me to our room. I don’t smell him in the house. Our room has a huge walk-in shower. It has showerheads pointing all around. It's like standing out in the rain. Rayne in the rain.
“Try to relax,” she whispers and leaves. The trauma of it all is starting to wear on her. Death is a hard thing to take for an innocent person.
I turn on the shower and step in. The hot water is gross at first. The stench of the dead man has permeated my pores, and the steam releases it into the air.
After the third time soaping up, I slip down the side of the tiled wall and let the water pour down on me.
I cover my eyes and wait for the dirty feeling of sleeping next to a dead man to sink in, or just vanish altogether. I don’t understand my own detachment from it all. I'm not angry or disturbed or anything. I am grossed out a little at the thought of him lying there, but I am completely detached from it. I fed on him, killed him, and lay next to him. Very serial killer-ish.
I hear footsteps and look up, expecting to see Mona with towels or a drink. Instead, Constantine walks into my shower. He's completely naked. I jump up and avert my eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?” I stare into the beige tiles.
He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles into my neck. “I've missed you, my love.”
I squirm out of his grip. I try to ignore the massive thing between his legs or the ridiculous fire burning in my face and neck. I think my entire body is on fire.
I shudder from the desire and growl at him, “What are you doing in my shower? This seemed like the right way to approach the fact you betrayed me and let them kill me?”
His eyes burn. He pulls me into him and kisses my cheek softly. “You don’t want to discuss this right now.” He looks into my eyes. I pull away. I know what his eyes can do. What they can convince me of.
I shove him off. “You left me in a cell, a locked cell, like an animal. I was next to a dead man for three days. Open your mouth and taste him in the air. Then go screw yourself.”
His eyes widen. “Don’t speak to me like that, Rayne. I'll only warn you once.” The muscles in his fierce body flex from his anger. His dark eyes are wild. “I realize you're young in this body, but I do not tolerate that from anyone. Be a lady, for God's sake. It's bad enough you've soiled your virginity already.” My hand flies out and slaps him hard. Instantly, I regret it. I recoil. His dark eyes fill with anger. He grabs my arm and drags me from the shower.
I scream for help, but he laughs and drags my soaking-wet naked body to my bed. He throws me on the bed and tosses a huge blanket at me. He wraps me in the blanket and curls me into a ball. No one comes. My screams go unheard. He pulls a towel around his waist and sits on the edge of the bed, holding the blankets around me.
“Where is Mona? What did you do to her?” I ask, trying desperately to remain calm.
He frowns. “Mona? She's fine. She went back to school for a few days. I told her you would be fine.”
I struggle from the blankets that are soaking wet now. I point at him. “Screw you. You told her to go back to school and forget about me. Goddamn, Constantine.”
He raises an eyebrow. “I would stay in those blankets, if I were you. Unless you have intentions of us doing things beyond talking.”
I wrap the soaking-wet blankets around myself and shiver.
“I hate you sometimes,” I mutter and climb off the bed. I drag the blankets to the fire across the room. I kneel in front of it.
He laughs. “I have missed you.”
I look back at him with contempt. “You are an asshole.”
He points. “Last warning, Rayne. I'll t
urn you over my knee if you keep acting like a child.” His smile turns dangerous. “If I recall you liked it. A lot.”
I remember it and blush. My skin is in flames. I sputter and turn away from him. I did like it. A lot.
I shake my head. “You left me for dead. You let them kill me.”
His voice is in my ear. “You made me do it.”
I turn and his lips press against mine. His tongue parts my lips. His arms lift me up into him. His hands separate the skin and the wet blankets. He lays me down on the blanket and kisses me. His towel is pressed against my hipbone. He kneels beneath my legs and I feel something I've never felt before, reluctance. I don’t want him. Not that way. The old me wants him. The new me doesn’t know him, and I'm way too sober to do this. I push him off and shake my head. “No, please.”
He pulls back, confused. “What are these games you're playing with me? Hot and cold and then repeat.”
I pull the blankets and try to cover myself. “No games, Constantine. I don’t know you. Not in this body. My soul recognizes you, but my heart and body don’t.”
He bends and kisses my lips. “My sweet wife. I loved you the minute I saw you. I have loved you in this life and the last and the one before that.”
His words bring a chill to my spine. “You have known me three times?”
He looks like he might deny it but doesn’t. “Yes.”
I frown. “How?”
His dark eyes burn. “You were mine then. You are mine now. You'll always be mine.”
He gets up and leaves the room. He does that when he's done answering questions. I hate that. Always have. Apparently, for all three of my last lives. I storm to the closet and find it full of clothes I would wear, in my size.
“This is creepy,” I whisper. This is twice now. Wyatt's and here. Only here, it looks like my own closet. I can't help but wonder if Constantine has been spying on me and buying things based on my own purchases. I wouldn’t put it past him. At all.