“That’s it?” I answered, turning to look at him. “No fortune cookie pep talk this time? No deep conversation meant to make me feel something?”
“Not this time,” he answered. As I stared at him, I noticed something strange. Abe looked different. Dressed in contemporary clothes, my slain brother looked as though he could have been dropped into this time period and got along just fine. Which, I suppose, gave him one over me.
“Why are you wearing that?” I asked.
“I want you to be able to tell the difference,” he said, looking forward solemnly.
“The difference between what?” I balked, narrowing my eyes at him.
The look he gave me sent ice running through my blood. I knew my brother, and though I hadn’t seen it since right after the dawn of time, I knew what he looked like when things got really bad.
He looked like he did right now.
“They want you to watch it happen, Brother,” he said, motioning forward. “You’re still in the maze. This is the maze. They just want you to see.”
“To see what, Abe?” I asked, swallowing hard.
As the words left my mouth, I saw them rounding up the hill into view. Or, more aptly, I saw us.
Abel and I were walking toward us, talking and laughing. But it wasn’t to be. I knew this day. I remembered it, and I had been remembering it for as many days as the earth had been spinning. Even before my brother responded, I knew the answer. I knew what these witches wanted. They wanted to break me, and they knew just what wound to press down on.
“They want you to watch me die.”
31
I watched as the scene began to unfold in front of me. That day — the day I killed my brother — was as clear to me as the water in the lake we had been walking towards. And it should have been. Hell, it had been replaying in my mind on a near constant loop since the moment I did it.
But seeing it now, watching the overture that I knew would soon lead up to the bloody and violent main event, sparked something deep inside of me.
“Why are they doing this?” I asked, unable to tear my eyes away from what I was seeing. I — the old me — was walking with a makeshift basket slung over my left shoulder. My red hair was longer back then, and I remembered how excited I was to finally see some matching stubble appear on my face.
Now that I think of it, I probably should have waited longer. If the Big Guy would have cursed me with immortality a few years later, I probably wouldn’t have spent the oncoming eternity unable to grow a proper beard.
Abel was beside me, both then and now. Just like me, he hadn’t changed. Where I was frozen in life, he was frozen in death; both of us cursed to remain these versions of ourselves for the rest of time.
The old Abel was telling the old me something; a conversation about the weather that I had forgotten in the millennia since it had happened.
Neither of us were used to the earth growing colder, to what people now refer to as winter in the Northern Hemisphere. He thought it was all coming to an end, that the Big Guy had grown tired of us, and he was going to put us and the Earth as a whole out of its misery.
He also thought we should give Him another sacrifice.
Looking back now, that might have been what pushed me over the edge.
“They think it was about the sacrifice, you know,” I muttered to my Abe, the dead Abe, without turning to look at him. “They think I killed you because God liked your offering better than mine.”
“Didn’t you?” he asked from beside me, and for the first time in a long time, he sounded like a little brother again, like he needed my guidance.
“Is that what you think?” I asked, finally looking over at him. God, he looked just like Mother in this light.
“I didn’t have much time to consider your motives, Brother,” he answered solemnly. “Why don’t you tell me now?”
For whatever reason, my entire body shook. The idea of laying all of this out in front of Abe, of finally coming clean about everything and examining what happened to me that day, was as daunting a task as I had even been faced with. But, I knew I had to do it. If not now, then when? And besides, after everything I’d put him through, I couldn’t deny him this too.
“It wasn’t the sacrifice. I mean, it was but it wasn’t,” I answered, pressing my lips together. “It was everything; it was all of it. He was all we had, Abe. He was the entire world and all that was in it. And He liked you better. You gave him damn weeds! You gave nothing and He liked you better. I thought if I could just show Him. I thought if I could just be the kind of person I needed to-”
Surprisingly, the words failed me. I had been thinking about this one act for so long. I had dissected it in my mind over and over again. And now that I found myself talking about it, I was still lacking. That’s the world for you.
“I didn’t think you would die,” I said, the first time I had ever admitted that maybe. “I mean, I knew the animals did, but I thought we were different. I didn’t know you would stop moving. I didn’t know you would never move again. I didn’t know things ended, Abe! I swear I didn’t!”
He stared at me, his silence cutting me deeper than the rock I had used to crush his skull had.
Looking over at the old versions of us, I saw that it was happening. While I had been explaining myself, the other me had went to work. He had pushed his Abel to the ground and was over him now, the stone in his hands.
The look on old Abel’s face broke my heart all over again. There was confusion, but not fear. Even then, in the end, he never thought I would ever do anything to hurt him.
God, he was stupid.
“Stop it!” I screamed at myself, useless tears streaming down my face. “Just stop it already!”
I rushed toward myself, ready to throw myself to the ground and put an end to all of this.
But it didn’t matter.
I passed right through, unseen and unheard like the ghost that I was, like the ghost I had been everyday since that one.
“It’s already happened, Brother,” Abe said from the other side of the field. Looking over at him, I saw fresh blood dripping down his face and into his eyes. “It’s too late. It was always too late.”
Collapsing to my knees, I did something I hadn’t done in hundreds and hundreds of years. I allowed myself to completely and totally break down.
Tears streamed hot and heavy down my face as the truth of what I had done — the truth of who I was and who I had always been — came crashing onto me anew.
Everyone was right about me. All the awful things they’d said, all the horrible stuff history called me, it was all accurate. No, It wasn’t accurate. It didn’t go far enough. It gave me too much credit. Not only was I a monster, I was the monster that all monsters that came after me were molded from. I was the OG murderer, and I deserved everything I was about to get.
“Brother,” Abel’s voice came to me loud and clear, like a hand reaching out and pulling me out from under the waves.
“I’m sorry, Abel,” I said, crying so hard that I was retching. “I know you probably hate me. You have every right to, but I want you to know that I’m sorry.”
“Does your brother strike you as a hateful person, Cain?” Abel asked, kneeling next to me. “Do you believe me to be vengeful? You were young. The world was young. I need you to look at me, Brother. I need you to look at me now and believe that what I say to you is true and genuine.” He took my face into his hands, lifting it so that we were eye to eye. “I forgive you, Brother. I forgive you for all of it.” His grip tightened against my cheeks. “So allow yourself to be forgiven, Cain. Allow it, and then do what needs to be done.”
The bright white light reappeared, ripping everything away again. When it subsided, I found myself standing in the great maze. Huge grassy walls zigzagged in every direction. It was massive. It was a labyrinth, complete with a million possibilities that even I would never have enough time to explore.
Still, I would have to try. I owed it to Merry. I owed it to Abel. And I o
wed it to myself.
“I’m coming for you!” I screamed as loud as I could, hoping that my voice would carry as far as it needed to. These witches could be just over the next wall or they could be miles away, tucked inside some far corner of this maze. Still, I’d search until I found them, until I found Merry. Or I’d drop over trying.
At least, that’s what I thought.
“Then come,” a low and familiar voice forced its way inside of my mind. “Come and save her if that’s what you wish to do.”
The female voice, smooth like a hiss, seemed to pull at me. It broke right through my defenses and bore its way deep down into my soul. Then, without having to say the words, it asked me to come forward.
The maze began to shimmer, fire catching along the giant, grass walls. The fire spread quickly, heat rushing up through me. The flames became focused, burning a hole through the first wall, then the second, then the third and the fourth.
It was a path; a path I was meant to follow. My ancient mind told me that it was a trap. Of course it was. This entire thing was one giant trap. The fact that they were now tearing through it for me meant that they were either running out of time, or that they needed me there without the help of those they had to know I’d bring with me.
Either way, I had no choice but to follow.
My feet made the decision before my brain did, and by the time I made the decision to follow the path of flames, I was already through the second wall.
I marched through all of them, not even bothering to look around at the place.
From what I could tell, each wall separated a distinctly different sort of room. One was frozen solid, the sort of vast winter that was deadly to most before the advent of artificial heating and shelter. One was complete darkness, lit only by the ambient light of the flames that had moved on by the time I got into it.
The last room I went through, the worst of them, was a tomb of whispers. I heard all the words of the people I had left behind thought the centuries. I listened as they told me how I’d broken their hearts and tried to block out the screams of those I’d killed or let die. And then I heard the worst voice of all; the voice of true evil.
“It’s time, Murderer,” it told me, hissing like a snake, like a serpent. “It’s my time.”
Shaking my head, I rushed through the last hole. The flames had burned out, leading me to an open courtyard in what looked to be the center of the maze.
Crawling through it, I found myself pushed out by some great force.
I went flying through the air and hit the ground hard, sliding to a stop at a flurry of high heeled feet.
Looking up, I saw the entire lunar coven standing over me; save for the white haired witch who I’d put an end to before coming here.
Behind them, strapped to a table and lying flat on her back was Merry. And behind her, shrouded in darkness, was the visage of a woman.
It had to be ‘her’; the ‘her’ who this coven was working for; the her who had been waiting a quarter century to steal my curse, the ‘her’ who brought all of this into fruition.
“Come now,” the woman shrouded in darkness said, the same familiar voice that had drilled its way into my head. “It’s over now.”
This didn’t make any sense. This blackened bitch had just called me by my name; my real name. And nothing happened. No earth shattering quake, no rumble from the bowels of the ground, not even a tree falling in the distance. Was it possible that this coven and the woman they were working for had found a way to circumvent even the Big Guy’s power?
It didn’t seem likely, but none of this did.
“Let him stand,” the shaded woman said, and just like that, the living members of the lunar coven stepped back. I pushed myself up, wobbling as I stood. There was some magic here, right in the air.
I wonder what that was for.
“You need to let this woman go,” I said, staring at Merry. Her face was wet and her eyes were red and puffy. She looked at me with absolute terror plastered across her face.
“Just protect my daughter,” she said, swallowing hard. God, she had already given up.
“Let her go,” I repeated. “You’ve got me here.”
“It’s not you that I want,” the shaded woman said. “It’s what He gave you, Cain.”
The voice was so intensely familiar, that I couldn’t believe I wasn’t able to place it.
Still, I had bigger problems.
“You want a curse?” I asked, throwing my hands out into the air. “You do understand the purpose of a curse, right? It’s meant to punish.”
“Punish?” she balked, and I could feel the energy coming off her in waves. “What do you know about punishment? You’ve spent your entire existence on this plane. You’ve never seen what it’s like on the other side. You don’t know what it’s like to have to claw your way out of hell, to use up every bit of magic and energy you can find, elongating your lifespan enough to keep from having to go back there. You’ve never been tricked, Cain! You don’t know what it means to be used up and spit out!”
It was then, with panic and trouble lighting up her voice, that I finally recognized it. The truth came onto me like an eighteen wheeler pounding down the highway. But it didn’t make any sense. This woman was dead. She had been dead for centuries and centuries. She couldn’t still be here. She just couldn’t. I would have known somehow. I would have felt it.
“So yes, Cain. I do want that curse, as you call it.”
And there was all the proof I needed. It hadn’t made sense to me how she was able to say my name without the consequences. The Big Guy’s power was absolute. It couldn’t be dodged or overcome. But what if it didn’t apply to her?
The Big Guy cursed my name, said that all people who came after me wouldn’t be able to address me by my name without suffering for it.
But what if she didn’t come after me? What if I was now talking to the one woman who actually predated me?
“Mother?” I said, swallowing hard. “Mother, is that you?”
She stepped from the shadows, and looking every bit like my long departed little brother, Eve was now before me.
32
I hadn’t seen my mother in a longer time than I cared to admit right now. She was a ghost, and she had been for millennia atop millennia. The Big Guy sent me away, set me to wandering.
I went to them, I went to her, begging for her forgiveness and asking for them to come with me. But they wouldn’t. The last time I set eyes on my mother, she was turning away from me, telling me that I was no longer her son. I was no one’s son.
So, how the hell was she here now?
“This is impossible,” I said, my eyes narrowing, looking for some sort of illusionary magic, but not finding any. “You can’t be here. You’re dead. You’re all long dead.”
“Both things can be true, my son,” she said, moving toward me. My body tensed as she neared a still constrained Merry. But she passed her by unflinchingly, and set her sights on me. The look in her eyes cut through me, like I had been hiding for all this time — since I was a little boy — and now I had been found. Now she was going to drag me out into the light and make me pay for what I did.
But that wasn’t what she wanted to do at all. Not even close.
“I used to think that you were an anomaly,” she said, settling in front of Merry as the lunar coven spilled in behind her. “I used to think that God made a mistake by giving you to me; like you were the punishment I deserved for doing what I did. For dooming us all to this place. But now I know better.” She smiled and it curdled me. “You weren’t my punishment. You were my legacy. We both doomed ourselves, Cain. Me with the serpent. You with your brother. I said you were no one’s son once, but I was wrong. More than any of the rest of them, more than the billions and billions of people who have sprouted from the seeds we planted way back when, you are my true son. And now, you’re going to be my savior too.”
“What do you want, Mother?” I asked, finding myself inching up towa
rd Merry. The poor things eyes were wide with fear and her chest was moving up and down in frantic pants. “Why go through all of this?”
“Because, I have to finish it,” Mother answered. “Because something is coming, and I am the only one who can put an end to it.” Tears formed in her familiar eyes, and for the first time, it occurred to me that my mother had gone completely insane. “Because I started it, Cain. I brought this about, and I have to put it down. You see, you won’t have the strength. You’re too much like your father. But I do. I’ve seen the other side, and I can’t bear for that to touch this place, to touch my children.”
“So stop it,” I answered flatly, throwing my hands out. “Save whoever you want. I won’t stop you, but let this woman go. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Wrong has nothing to do with it, Cain!” she answered, shaking her head furiously. “We’re all right, and we’re all wrong. And we’re all somewhere in the middle. This is about responsibility. I tore my children out of Eden. So, it’s my responsibility to protect them. And this girl, she was born under a harvest moon that I brought forth to set this spell into motion. So, it’s her responsibility to bring it to a close.”
“What spell?” I asked, eyeing the parade of witches that flanked my mother and wondering if I could take them all out before they killed Merry, if it came down to it. “What is this spell about? You want my curse?”
“I want to live,” she answered. “I have to be here in order to stop what’s coming. And all the magic I can find isn’t enough. I came too early, Cain. I clawed my way back out here too soon, and the magic doesn’t work for me anymore. The serpent wants me back. It wants to pull me under the earth and finish what we started in Eden. But, I have to do what needs to be done. And I need what God gave you to finish it.”
“What God gave me was torment, Mother,” I spit back, narrowing my eyes at her. “You don’t want it.”
“I need it,” she answered. “And you’re going to give it to me.”
“If I could have given it away, I’d have done it eons ago,” I answered. “It’s like a Spring Break tattoo, this curse. You kind of hate it, but there’s nothing you can do about it now.”
Mark of Cain (Immortal Mercenary Book 1) Page 21