Reborn

by Lisa Collicutt

  “It wasn’t really a bug. I didn’t know what it was, just some weird shadowy thing. And there was a feeling that came from it, like I suddenly felt ashamed about us being together… in front of it, like it watched us. I thought if I told you, you would think I was crazy.”

  I grinned down at her, then sheltered her in my arms and captured her parted lips with mine. The reward was sweeter than I imagined. In the heated moment, she managed to get backed up against the kitchen table, where the glow of the entry light barely reached. In a smooth motion, she hoisted herself onto the table’s surface, holding me inside the grip of her thighs. Passion flowed from her kisses to the deepest part of my being.

  When I felt her fingers tug at the still-damp T-shirt I wore and push it up my chest, I aided her by lifting my arms. Our bodies came together again, this time just the thin fabric of her top between us.

  She smoothed her hands over my ribs, and up the sides of my chest, kissing the spot right below my neck, spreading insane amounts of heat across my skin. Then she did something that turned the internal furnace up even further. She undid the first button on her top, then the second, exposing a little white bow in the center of her bra and two round bits of fawn flesh peeking over top of the lace.

  As much as I wanted her to continue, I heard Melba’s voice in the back of my head, telling me to take care of her niece—not take advantage of her. At least I didn’t feel three pairs of ghostly eyes watching us.

  Desiree’s fingers worked at the next silver button when I grabbed her hands and held them between us. I was about to tell her to stop, to not go any further. But the two passion-filled, glossy pools that stared up at me urged me onward. Clearly, she wanted this thing between us to happen as much as I did.

  I let go of her hands and brought my fingers to the next button, unfastening it for her. She rested the palms of her hands on the table and arched her back. The motion popped her shirt opened further, exposing the white, lace garment that covered a little more than half of her breasts. I took the invitation eagerly and lowered my face to the mounds, touching them with my lips, brushing them along her flesh to the spot in between. At my leisure, I explored that spot, then worked my way up the front of her neck, holding the back of her head in one hand and the bottom of one breast in the other. Each little moan caressing the back of her throat made me hungrier than I already was.

  And when I thought I would end up on the table, on top of her, the doorbell rang.

  “Darn,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. “The pizza is here.”

  After one more, soft moan she sat up and fastened one button.

  Reluctantly, I took a step back and tried to steady my breathing. Desiree jumped down off the table and with the back of her hand, wiped moisture off her mouth. Then she straightened out the twist in her top and went to answer the door.

  Although the moment was lost, I took some pleasure from the pink flush on her cheeks, and the mess of curls on one side of her head from my hand, and let her answer the door that way. When she spoke to the man at the door, her voice seemed softer than before, more relaxed than I’d ever heard it. She pulled money out of her purse. I clued in and intercepted the transaction with my own cash that I kept in a pocket.

  A flush of red burned on the young man’s face as I stepped into view, half-naked. He glared from Desiree’s half-exposed chest to mine. She told him to keep the change and closed the door softly in his face.

  “Poor guy.” Her laughter sent shimmers of joy surging through me. “He probably wished we had invited him in.”

  “Never in a thousand years,” I said, pulling her back into my arms.

  “We really should eat while the pizza is still semi-hot.” She teased my sides with her fingers. The muscles contracted beneath her ticklish touch. Then she left me to go to the cupboard and bring down two glasses, which she filled with clear soda.

  We ate at the same table we’d nearly desecrated. Gray smoke from a candle flame, sitting on the table beside the rose, danced between us. The flame itself set Desiree’s skin aglow. I’d fallen for her to the point that she meant more to me than anyone or anything I’d ever known, even my own life. So deep were my feelings for her, I almost hoped I didn’t have a recent past, that I did appear out of the ground suddenly and had no ties, no one searching for me.

  After the two of us devoured three-quarters of the pizza, I cleared the table while Desiree went to change out of her jeans. Her plan was to snuggle on the sofa together and watch a movie. I looked forward to the snuggling.

  I turned the TV on low and waited for Desiree to emerge from the bedroom. An uneasy feeling grew in the moments of her absence. From one corner of the sofa, I took in as much of the apartment I could see. No spirits. I couldn’t feel them. All was quiet—except for the gnawing buzz in my head, an omen of something yet to happen. The sliding doors leading to the balcony were right in front of me. All was clear out there. But something brought a sudden chill to the surface of my skin, on this balmy evening. As I was about to knock on the bedroom door, it opened, and Desiree, wearing a skimpy peach nightshirt that looked poured over her curves, flashed me a smile that took my breath away… but the chill remained.

  She had added a little makeup and smoothed out the messy parts of her hair since I’d seen her last. But it was hard to keep focused on her face with so much going on below it.

  As Desiree opened her mouth to speak, the storm returned with a vengeance. A loud boom, sounding more like an explosion than thunder, made us both jump.

  Before I could catch my breath, the patio doors shattered, scattering shards of glass all over the floor. In that same instant a white stallion carrying a ghostly rider burst into the living room.

  “Solomon”! Desiree screamed and latched on to my arm.

  With no time to think up a plan, I pushed her against the door casing and spread my body in front of her, staring breathlessly at the apparition of my evil twin on top of Excalibur.

  With each passing second, my heart beat faster and faster, filling my chest with searing pain, and with each beat, the evil Solomon appeared more whole.

  The Priestesses had failed.

  “Jesus,” Desiree whimpered.

  Without lifting my gaze from the fire-eyed demon, I shoved Desiree into the bedroom doorway. “Get inside and close the door. Don’t come out no matter what you hear.”

  I heard the door slam shut behind me, but I knew a simple wooden barrier wouldn’t keep this inhuman beast out if he wanted her.

  With the evil Solomon fully materialized now, I took the opportunity and lunged at him, sinking my fingers into his leg and pulling him off the horse. The coffee table smashed to pieces beneath his weight when he landed on top of it. But he quickly regained composure, quicker than any human could. He kicked broken boards out of the way, and cocked his head to one side.

  “So, you want to battle for the prize? How gallant of you.”

  Before I could take the next breath, he thrust himself at me, knocking me to the floor with such force, the two of us slid into the foyer. My head slammed into the closet door, sending a shooting pain down the back on my neck.

  The demon’s eyes burned down on me; his breath hit my face like a hot poker. After a struggle, I was able to get to my feet. My enemy, looking robust as all hell, brandished a bowie knife.

  He lunged at me again, knocking me against a wall. The tip of the knife stuck into the first layer of skin over my heart.

  With my hands gripping his, I struggled to push his arms back, but he didn’t budge.

  A look of disappointment flitted across his face, and he backed the knife away, leaving a trickle of blood to run down and pool at the waist of my jeans. In that moment, I realized something vital—he needed me alive. That if I died, he died, too. A selfish grin of triumph lifted my cheeks. Selfish, in that I spared the moment to gloat.

  “Go ahead; plunge the blade into my beating heart, something you’ll never feel again in your decayed cavity of a body.”
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br />   Blue irises replaced the fire burning in his eye sockets, followed by a flash of worry. It was enough of a distraction for me to grab the knife out of his hand and manoeuver away from him.

  But now what? I glanced at the shiny blade and realized also that this material possession was useless against the undead. Although I had felt his hot flesh as we fought, somehow, I knew no heart beat inside that chest.

  But another idea came to mind.

  I backed away farther, until I hit the kitchen cupboard, then turned the knife on myself. His mark was there, directly over my heart. I had to be quick. I would get only one chance. Gripping the ivory hilt with both hands, I punctured the first layer of skin with the point, holding back the grimace that begged to follow the pain.

  If I died, he died, too.

  My darker half made a move to stop me. Desiree’s anguished cries filled the room.

  “No! Don’t! Please.”

  Excalibur, who I’d almost forgotten about, let loose a furious string of neighs and snorts.

  Through my own misery burning my eyes, I glanced over at Desiree standing beside Excalibur.

  “Desiree, go. Leave the apartment.” With a grunt, I shoved the knife in farther, tearing through muscle.

  “Solomon… I love you!”

  Every fiber of my being caught those three words and held on to them. How could I do this to her, in front of her? But wouldn’t she be better off if I didn’t exist? As I was about to plunge the knife in to the hilt, ending my life for good, my twin threw himself at me. The knife fell to the floor, just before his body merged with mine.

  I lost all control of movement, except for my mind, which was only partly mine.

  “Desiree, run… run, because… I’m going to cut you to pieces—” No. Don’t listen, run, Desiree. I couldn’t get the words out I wanted to say. “Then I’m going to suck the blood from your flesh.”

  His thoughts turned into my words, as his hot poison bleed into my veins, and his sinful desires spread into my loins. My evil self quickly took hold of my brain, all except the part that allowed me to know who I was, and that I loved Desiree with my whole heart. He afforded me just enough self to suffer from what I was about to do. The vile bastard would make me kill her.

  “Go!” I screamed with the last breath in me.

  His evil grin spread across my face. Desiree came out of her shock and fled the apartment. I used the last bit of humanity I had left and fought back with willpower. To anyone watching, I would have looked insane, thrashing myself against the counter, walls, furniture. Anything to keep him occupied so Desiree would have enough time to flee our wrath. An inner struggle between two strengths, one bad, one good, carried on for an immeasurable amount of time. When exhaustion conquering my human body, I screamed in my mind, until the words burst out of my mouth.

  “Leave my body! Go back to your fucking hell!”

  The love I felt for Desiree grew inside me, filling me, pushing the evil Solomon out. It was easy then to bring her image into my mind. Her green eyes sparkled in a beam of sunlight at the park. The passion in her kiss, even now, sent a pleasurable shiver through me. In the next instant, the beast was sucked out of me. I just hoped I gave her enough time to escape.

  Fire raged in the demon’s eyes, and steam lifted off his skin. Other than fiercely enraged, he looked no worse for wear, while I struggled to stay standing, feeling almost as dead as when I’d first burst from the ground.

  Sirens wailed in the distance, all the while growing closer.

  The enraged demon jumped on a saddened Excalibur.

  “I’ll find the bitch. And when I get finished with her, you won’t recognize what I leave behind as even being her.” He pulled the reins, pointing Excalibur toward the space where the patio doors had been. “And you will have yourself to blame!”

  He threw his head back in a guttural laugh, then he and the horse disappeared over the railing.

  lashes of blue and red streaked the apartment walls. The sharp wail I’d come to fear and hate stopped abruptly. I’d barely made it to the phone when my knees gave out and I collapsed to the floor. A heavy weight pressed down on me, as if someone had replaced my blood with lead and encased me in cement. Ripples of nausea flowed through me, awakening the pain to new heights. An invisible force overpowered my will to move. My fingertips grazed the edges of the torn piece of paper with Melba’s phone number on it I kept with me, but the toll of the recent catastrophe fought to claim my consciousness, along with my body.

  Then I felt buoyant, almost as if I didn’t exist. Pain lifted, with the weight. For a moment, I felt a sprinkling of water on my face. More sirens blared, somewhere close to my head this time, and lights flashed on the other side of my eyelids. Something cold and sharp bit into my wrists that were shoved behind me. Blurred glimpses of the city rushing by made vomit crawl up the back my throat. Someone helped me to walk, but when my knees gave out and I couldn’t stand, they dragged me.

  Chains rattled and metal clanked. Someone with a deep voice said, “Let him sleep it off. He can’t tell us anything in his drunken state.”

  Then vertigo hit right before I slammed into something hard. Sharp needles of pain radiated through my head. Holding on to the last fragment of will, I conjured Desiree’s image to the forefront of my mind. But quickly her face changed to the slave girl’s, with the same green eyes. Desiree would be dead by now, or at the very least, at the mercy of her pursuer. Her image faded as I lost consciousness…

  I woke chilled to the core, lying on something hard. A steady drip and heavy snoring somewhere nearby added to the pounding in my head. The stench of urine and body odor greeted me with every breath I took. I pried my eyes open. Directly overhead, an exposed light bulb glowed behind a small cage. With aching muscles, I pushed myself into a sitting position on the cement floor, a groan accompanying my every move.

  The source of the snoring lay on a bench at one end of the barred room, one arm dangling over the edge, a small puddle of drool accumulating on the floor below the guy’s squished face. As the previous night’s events tore through my mind, my stomach threatened to vomit again. Where was Desiree? Had she gotten away?

  “He’s awake,” someone yelled from down the hall.

  In minutes, keys clanked together as a uniformed man unlocked the barred door. “On your feet, Mr. Black.”

  It took a moment for me to realize he addressed me. I checked my pockets; they were empty.

  “Where’s my wallet?” I said with a rasp to my voice, standing on shaky legs.

  “You’ll get your things back later, Mr. Black. Now let’s go. It’s time you gave us some answers.”

  The man, wearing a police uniform, exuding an abundance of confidence, escorted me into a room not far away. Another uniformed man sat on one side of a table. With a forceful grip, my escort pushed me into the only other chair, then went to stand beside the door.

  Desperate for water, I asked for a drink.

  “Consumed too much alcohol last night, did you?” the man sitting said.

  “I didn’t have anything to drink but soda.”

  He leaned back in the chair, expanding his stomach beyond his belt. “Well, that must have been one intoxicating soda you had.”

  “I wasn’t intoxicated.”

  The fog in my head started to burn off as anger simmered.

  “That’s not what it looked like to the officers who brought you in.”

  Tired of his attitude, I leaned into the table.

  “Back away from the table,” the guy at the door barked.

  I backed away, but said my piece. “I don’t care what those guys thought; I wasn’t drunk. Now give me some water?”

  “One more demand like that and your ass will be so far in the hole, you’ll never see the sunlight again. You got that, Mr. Black?”

  I threw my back against the chair in silence, glaring at the officer in front of me, wishing there were only the two of us in the room.

  “Now, when you’ve g
iven us some satisfactory answers”—he pointed his chin at the other guy—“Officer Mike will get you all the water you can drink. Now, tell us exactly what happened at 102 Clairview Drive last night.”

  “Do you think this is funny?” the policeman said when I shook my head and let out a breathy laugh.

  Clearly, he couldn’t be pleased. He wanted straight answers that I couldn’t give him, so I thought up a story.

  “This guy.” My twin’s image came into view. “He broke the patio doors and forced himself into the apartment.”

  “Can you give us a description?”

  He looked exactly like me. “He…”

  “What race?”

  “White, tall, with blond hair.”

  “His build?”

  “Skinny.”

  “How did he break the glass?”

  I pulled up images of the encounter in my aching head. “He had a knife.” I held out two fingers. “About this long.”

  “Is that how you got the cut on your chest?” The officer gave a nod in the direction of the wound.

  I looked down at the dried blood and suddenly felt the sting. “Yes.”

  “Do you know what he wanted?”

  “Desiree… he said.”

  “The woman who lives in the apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is her full name?”

  “Desiree McClinton.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I held the guy down and told her to run. I haven’t seen her since.” A weak spell hit me, and I teetered in the chair, but caught myself. “After a few minutes’ struggle, the guy jumped off the balcony and disappeared.”

  “A two-story jump?” He exchanged a cynical look with the other officer.

  I shrugged, tired of the interrogation.

  “Do you have a picture of the girl?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know her?”

  “We’re friends.”

  The only other item in the room, a phone hanging from the wall, rang. After the other officer had a quick conversation with someone on the other end, he hung up and said, “He’s been cleared. And someone is here to pick him up.”