She shooed Gabriel, an orange tabby, away as she tried to force herself to eat. Coming back here had stolen her appetite, but she hadn’t eaten since that morning and the sun had started to set beyond the windows of the trailer. She’d just taken her first bite of extra cheese and pepperoni when her mother appeared from the bedroom.
Addison swallowed past the fist-sized lump in her throat, the slice slipping from her fingers and plopping down onto her plate. She took her time standing up, her eyes locking with a pair that had once been identical to hers. Over the years, Elizabeth Monroe’s eyes had lost their luster … as had everything else about her. She’d faded, blending into the background of her environment, as dusty and worn as the curtains.
“Addie,” she said with a sniffle, pulling a robe closed over her half-dressed body and belting it tight. “When did you get here?”
“My guess is, sometime right after you injected yourself with your favorite brand of poison.”
Elizabeth lowered her eyes, having the grace to at least look ashamed. “If I had known you were coming, I would have cleaned up a bit … went to town to get some food.”
“The house is clean, Mama,” she said, a biting edge to her voice.
Elizabeth glanced around the small space as if seeing it for the first time. “Huh,” she mumbled as she came into the kitchenette. “So it is.”
She stood on her tiptoes to retrieve a carton of cigarettes from on top of the refrigerator, and slid a new pack free. She eyed Micah and Jack as she opened it and pulled a slim, white cigarette loose. “Who’re your friends? The black one’s cute. Kind of intense and serious-looking, but still …”
“Mama!” Addison shot Jack an apologetic look, but she could see he was fighting back a laugh. “That’s Jackson, and he’s a friend of mine. This is Micah and he’s … well, he’s with Jack.”
“Of course, he is,” Elizabeth snapped, her gaze darting back and forth between her companions. Something about the way she looked at them made Addison uneasy. “They’re partners, right? Guardians always come in pairs.”
Jack wrinkled his eyebrows. “You know about Guardians?”
Elizabeth laughed as she used the gas range to light her cigarette. “Know about ’em?” She reached up to the collar of her robe with one hand. Pulling it, and the strap of her bra aside, she took a long draw on her cigarette. “I used to be one.”
Smoke curled from her nostrils as she met their shocked stares with a knowing one of her own. Just above her left breast, etched against her leathery skin in a smooth, black scar, was the symbol of the Guardians.
The sound of her heart pounding filled her ears as her mind raced.
I used to be one.
Her mother’s declaration echoed in her head like a clanging bell, causing that familiar rush of emotion to overcome her. It was all too convoluted to sort, but she registered the distinct sting of betrayal in the midst of it all. Her mother had known. All this time, Addison had been going through life feeling like a freak, and Elizabeth had known about everything. She’d had answers and hid them, allowing Addison to go on thinking that something was very wrong with her.
“What do you mean, ‘used to be’?” Jack demanded, saving Addison from having to speak. As it was, she could do nothing except stare at her mother in disbelief.
Elizabeth righted her clothes and leaned against the refrigerator, arms crossed as she took another drag on her cigarette. “Aren’t you cute? You must be new, honey.”
“I took my mark at fourteen,” he answered, his tone defensive. “And I’ve been working with Micah for the last seven years. You still haven’t answered my question. Guardians are born, and then choose to wear the mantle. As far as I know, there is no getting out of it. You are a Guardian until the day you die.”
“Unless you create a Naphil child with a demon,” Micah added from where he still sat at the table, beer in hand. “Ain’t that right, Liz?”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I can see you’re not the smart one on this team.” She flipped her tangled hair over one shoulder. “If that was all it took, I wouldn’t be the only Guardian stripped of their powers.”
“Wait.” Jack frowned. “You were stripped of your power?”
She nodded. “So fast it made my head spin, but not for the reason you might think.” Seeming to remember that her daughter was in the room, she turned to Addison. “Since you’re with these two, I assume you know.”
Addison finally found her voice. “You mean about my demon father? Yeah, I’ve heard. When I first found out, I felt sorry for you. I figured you’d been tricked by a demon in human form who’d turned your head. But coming here tonight and seeing that mark on your chest … you’re a freaking Guardian, which means you knew about all this. Maybe you didn’t know what he was at first, but at some point, you had to have figured it out. You’ve known what I was all this time and you never told me!”
“Guess you don’t feel so sorry for me anymore,” her mother mumbled, putting her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. “Can’t say I blame you, either. I thought I was doing what was best for you, but in the end, I just screwed you up more.”
Addison gestured toward the living room. “The truth, now,” she demanded, trying with everything inside of her not to lose it and start screaming and throwing things. Anger’s bitter bile rose up in the back of her throat, but she would not let the emotion overcome her. “No more lies.”
Elizabeth swept past her, heading toward the small living area and the worn recliner she always fell asleep in while watching T.V. Addison followed, plopping down onto the couch. Jack sat down beside her, his hand covering hers in gentle reassurance. She took a deep breath and squeezed his fingers, drawing on him for strength. It didn’t matter that she barely knew him; somehow, Jack’s quiet strength had struck a chord with her.
“I took my mark when I was eighteen,” Elizabeth began, fishing her cigarette pack from the pocket of her robe and firing up another with a lighter she found on the side table. Rocking back and forth in her recliner, she spoke through the bluish-gray haze of smoke surrounding her. “My mama was one, and her mama before her. The Monroe women have served as Guardians for as far back as anybody can trace. That’s how it works, the Guardian gene. It always goes from father to son, or mother to daughter. I tell you, I was proud—dang proud—to take that mark. My partner, Andre, and I were part of a group of Guardians responsible for keeping the witches and sorcerers in New Orleans in check. Sometimes, they get a little out of hand with their rituals and forget about the rules. That’s when we’d step in and remind them. If they didn’t submit, we’d dispatch their asses.”
Addison frowned. “Wait, I thought only demons could be dispatched to Hell.”
“Anyone who is possessed by a demon can also be dispatched,” Jack told her. “Witches and sorcerers sell their souls for their power, which places the mark of whichever demon they sell to on them. They can be dispatched by our weapons the same way a demon can. No one wants that, though … being dispatched sends them to Hell way faster than they’d like. Doesn’t matter, though; that fate can’t be avoided forever.”
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. “You bet your ass it can’t. Anyway, I was living in the Easy then, in a little apartment off the French quarter. It was fun for us, you know? We never took it seriously, at least not at first. Anyway, I was out walking one day and almost got run down by one of those mule-drawn carriages the tourists take. This tall, dark Creole snatched me out of the way just in time and I was smitten like a schoolgirl. Oh, he was real slick. Smooth and charming as they come. For someone who was supposed to have an instinct about things in the spirit world, I completely missed the signs. He had me wrapped around his finger in no time.”
“Did he compel you against your will?” Jack asked, his dark brow creased.
Was that pity?
She snorted in response. “I’m sure it would ease your mind to think it did, but sorry to say that wasn’t the case. I gave it up easier than a drunk sororit
y girl, and I was more than willing. Fancied myself in love with him … what an idiot. The morning after, I woke up to find Elle sitting on the edge of my bed. It wasn’t usual for an angel to concern themselves with my love life, so I knew I’d messed up.”
“They wouldn’t have punished you for making a mistake,” Jack reasoned, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees.
“No, and they didn’t. Elle told me the truth—that the man I thought I was head over heels for was a demon. Not just any demon, either, but the goddamn Great Duke of Hell. She told me I would have a child, a Naphil, and protecting her would become my new guardianship. Elle said he would try to come for her someday and that I needed to be ready. Well, me being so young and dumb and all … I decided that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t raise a child I’d made with a demon, let alone protect it for the rest of my life. Other Guardians got the hard jobs, but that wasn’t what I’d signed on for. I wanted to abort, but Elle told me that I couldn’t. She told me you were important, that from the moment of your conception, a plan had been made for your life. Well, you can’t exactly argue with an angel.”
Addison toyed with the frayed edges of the borrowed shorts she wore. “I always knew you never wanted me,” she whispered.
“It was hard to feel any maternal instinct, I’ll admit that,” Elizabeth replied. “You have to understand, your father just wouldn’t let matters lie. He tormented me from the moment I discovered I was pregnant until the day you were born.”
“Torment? How?” Jack asked.
“Visions, whisperings, temptation. You name it. Addison created a thread between us, if you want to think of it that way. He used it to torture me day in and day out. His voice was always in my mind, telling me how Addison would be his someday, and sit at his right hand in Hell. He told me that I was nothing … just a vessel he’d used to create his own personal army of Naphils. I was just one of many. Well, a person can only take so much before they crack. I wanted nothing more than his voice out of my head. I wanted to drown the pain.”
“Nana always told me that I wasn’t even a full four pounds when I was born,” Addison said, realization dawning. “You were pregnant when you started drugs.”
Elizabeth shrugged matter-of-factly, as if they were talking about Algebra, instead of the lives of two people. “I’m not proud of it, but that’s a fact. I won’t lie; I kind of thought it might kill you … a demon’s child, an abomination. If you died, then there was nothing to worry about. He wouldn’t have any hold on me anymore. But you were a fighter, even then. The doctors were baffled at how, but you flourished from birth and you beat the odds. Once you were well enough to leave the hospital, there was nothing left to do but bring you home. When I got there, Elle was waiting for me.” Her voice hitched a bit, and emotion crept in at last. A lone tear glimmered in one eye, but she blinked it away. “She said I was being stripped of my power because I’d tried to kill you before you were born … even though she’d told me explicitly that God had chosen you for some special purpose. I’d angered Him, she told me, and this was my punishment.”
“Yet, they still left Addison in your care,” Jack said, his voice laced with disbelief. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Who are you telling?” Elizabeth quipped with a dry laugh. “While I lay on the floor screaming in agony as Elle snatched my power from me, I comforted myself with the knowledge that they couldn’t mean to leave Addie with me now. I was powerless to protect her and strung out on drugs. Yet, when it was over, Elle just vanished. No word on what I was supposed to do with the baby. No further instructions. No promise to return. No one ever even sent a Guardian to protect Addie, which was odd. Naphil children are always protected by Guardians, even if it is from a distance. So far as I know, we were on our own from that day, and for the life of me, I was never able to figure out why.”
Addison ran a hand over her face with a sigh. It was all a lot to take in at once, and her head reeled, leaving her dizzy, like she might collapse onto the floor, buried under the weight of it all.
“I’ve always known God didn’t give a damn about me,” she seethed. “And why should he? My father is a demon, and my mother is a junkie ex-Guardian who turned her back on everything she was supposed to stand for out of selfishness.”
Jack reached for her hand again, but she snatched it away and stood. He stood, as well, facing her.
“That’s not true. Didn’t you hear what she said? From the beginning, He chose you. He knew what was going to happen, and that you were going to be the one to bring a stop to it. You matter, Addie … you have always mattered.”
She laughed, the sound sadistic and rough to her own ears. “Yeah, I was so important that he forgot to assign a set of guards to me. I spent my childhood getting yelled at by my strung-out mom and being abused by—” She clamped her lips closed before she said too much. She refused to put a cherry on top of the sundae that this epic day had become by breaking down in front of Jack over the past.
Jack frowned, but didn’t ask. Maybe he understood the look on her face and realized she wouldn’t have told him if he’d asked, anyway. Elizabeth stood from her chair, dropping her cigarette into the ashtray at her side.
“I was a terrible Guardian, and an even worse mother. I know that. You don’t owe me a damn thing, Addie, and you have every right to hate me. But whatever this calling is, whatever you’ve been asked to do, you can’t say no.”
“I’ve been told I have a choice,” she argued. “That free will was a gift even demon kids get. I don’t have to do anything.”
“You’re right; you don’t. But if you refuse, you’re only giving him what he needs to come after you. For real, this time.”
Addison edged closer to her, searching her mother’s face for some hint at what she didn’t say. “What do you mean, ‘for real’? When has he ever tried to come for me?”
“Not in the flesh,” Elizabeth answered. “That thread that existed between us was because of you, Addie, because you were his seed. When you were born, he stopped tormenting me, and it didn’t take me long to figure out why.”
Addison’s stomach twisted and she thought she was going to be violently sick. “Because he was too busy torturing me. I was the thread and once I was born, you were free.”
“Exactly,” her mother confirmed. “You were always such a serious and gloomy kid … always staring off into space. When you turned two years old, you would throw these epic tantrums. I’m talking beyond anything I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t normal. In time, you evened out, so I figured he got bored. But, Addie, if you refuse this, he will see it as you turning your back on God and he’ll try to tempt you to his side. If you think it’ll be easy to resist, think again. He will latch on to the weakest parts of you and exploit them.”
Addison’s hands balled into fists at her sides as she advanced on Elizabeth. The tears were coming now, and she couldn’t stop them no matter how hard she tried. She thought the rage would choke her; it grew so thick. “You figured he got bored and just moved on? You really are clueless, aren’t you? I didn’t ‘even out,’ Mama; I learned how to control it. I have spent my entire life fighting to keep it hidden, to keep anyone from knowing about the thoughts I have when I’m angry.”
Jack stood beside her again, gripping her arm and pulling her away from Elizabeth. It was a good thing, too, because right now, she was ripping her mother to pieces in her mind, the thoughts far too enticing.
“Wait a minute,” he said, turning Addison to face him. “Are you telling me that Eligos speaks to you? You hear his voice?”
Addison shook her head. “It’s never any one voice. When I get sad or feel alone, I can hear voices telling me that I’m a worthless nothing. Anytime I get angry, the rage is unreal. I feel strong enough to tear a grown man in half, and my vision gets hazy. My mind is filled with all kinds of deranged images of death and destruction. All this time, I’ve thought I was crazy, that maybe I suffered from some kind of mental disorder. I was afraid if I told
anyone, they’d commit me to the nuthouse without a second thought. Are you telling me that he could be the one causing all of this? He’s the reason I fantasize about torturing and killing people? Or why I get so depressed sometimes I just want to slit my own throat?”
Jack nodded, but his gaze no longer focused on Addison. He stared over her shoulder at Elizabeth.
“You have failed your daughter,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “Whatever she decides concerning her calling is none of your business. You lost the right to advise her about anything a long time ago. Micah, we’re leaving!”
Micah had already jumped to his feet, one box of pizza and the rest of his six-pack in hand. He’d been silent through the entire conversation, but he’d watched the entire exchange with interest.
Addison let Jack lead her to the front door by the arm, too numb to protest or make a sound. They needed to leave; she knew that. Best that they left before she snapped and killed them all. As it was, she felt very aware of everything around her, almost as if she could reach out with some unseen force and crush the trailer until it reduced to the size of a tin can.
But murdering her mother was the last thing Addison wanted to do, if for no other reason than it would mean her father had won.
Micah lumbered down the front steps, his long legs propelling him toward his truck. Its headlights illuminated the dark night as Jack and Addison followed.
“Addie, wait!” Elizabeth cried, her robe fluttering around her thighs as she chased them down the short dirt path to Micah’s waiting truck. “Please.”
She spun to face her mother, and found identical tears coursing down her cheeks. “What do you want? Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
“No, I haven’t. That’s why I need you to hear me out. Just one last thing and you can turn your back on me forever. I won’t try to contact you again, or be a part of your life. I need you to take this.”
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