The Sinner

by Emma Scott

  I scrambled to my feet. “What’s happening?”

  “What is happening is the beginning.” The man squinted into the sky, toward the setting sun. “And an end.”

  “I don’t understand. How long have I been…?”

  “Unconscious? About an hour.”

  I shuddered at the idea that I’d been passed out for that long with a naked man sitting across from me. He seemed to read my thoughts and put his hand over that terrible scar on his chest.

  “Gek pro’ma-ra-kuungd-eh. A sacred vow. I will not harm you. Not in this life or any other.”

  I had no idea what he’d said—or even what language he’d said it in—but the conviction in his deep voice calmed me a little.

  I eased a breath. “Who are you?”

  “I am Casziel.”

  Like Caz-EE-ell but with a hiss in the middle. The sound sent half-frightening, half-electric tingles down my spine. I wanted to say it. I wanted to taste it on my tongue…

  “What kind of name is…that?”

  “An old one,” he said. “And what do they call you?”

  “Lucy.”

  “Lucy is from the Latin, meaning ‘born of light.’” Casziel smirked. “How fitting.”

  He looked to be about twenty-five or so but spoke as if he were older. A jaded, sarcastic tint colored his every word, and I couldn’t place his faint accent.

  “How did you get here?” I asked. “Were you mugged?”

  I hoped that was all it was and not what it looked like—that he’d been stripped naked, assaulted, and left for dead.

  Casziel cocked his head. “Are you concerned about my welfare already? That bodes well. But save your pity; no one hurt me. Crossing Over is always difficult.”

  I nodded as if that made sense and inched for the wooden stairs that led to my place. “Okay…well, then I’ll just call the police—”

  “No police.”

  “But you’ve been robbed…haven’t you?”

  “I have been robbed, yes. But what was taken no longer belongs to me.”

  “Um, okay.” He spoke in riddles, but the pain in his voice was real. “Is there someone else I can call for you? Family—?”

  “You’re not afraid of me?”

  I swallowed. “Should I be?”

  “Most humans are.”

  “Okaaaay,” I took a step back. “I really think I should call someone.”

  The police or maybe mental health services.

  Casziel pinned me with his amber gaze. “Do you believe in second chances, Lucy Dennings? For even the worst sinners? For unthinkable crimes?”

  The yawning chasm of bloody death and grief from the vision or dream or whatever it was fell on me like a shadow. I went cold all over and nearly missed that he knew my full name.

  “I-I never told you—”

  Casziel muttered in a language I didn’t recognize—something exotic and old.

  “Forgive me, Lucy Dennings. It’s not my intention to frighten you, though I know it can’t be helped. But if you insist on calling the authorities, perhaps something to cover me first?”

  “You need clothes,” I said stupidly. “Right. Okay. Sure. I’ll…be right back.”

  I took the rickety stairs up to my studio and unlocked my door with trembling fingers, nearly dropping the keys twice. Once inside, I shut the door behind me and threw every lock, barricading myself within.

  Everything looked the same as when I’d left for work. This morning’s coffee cup on the counter. My bed neatly made. My houseplant—Edgar—in the window. All the strangeness of the situation with Casziel seemed more unreal against the ordinary realness of my place.

  There was a naked man in my back lot. That’s all.

  And the wings? And black eyes? And bloodless white skin?

  “There’s a plausible explanation for all of this,” I murmured, taking a steadying breath. I hit my head on the wall harder than I thought.”

  Except I’d discovered Casziel before I hit my head. Did a version of him have wings…?

  Not going there.

  I raised the phone, my finger poised to dial 911. The police would show up and this man would be out of my life. Everything would go back to normal. I could take a hot bath, heat up some ramen, and curl up in bed with my books until the weekend was over and I had someplace to be again.

  Same as last weekend. Same as the weekend to come.

  Would it be so terrible if I brought Casziel some clothes first?

  Yes. Yes, it would.

  I dialed nine and stopped again.

  The heroines in my favorite romantic fantasies were always finding themselves in dangerous situations. They faced them bravely and wound up learning they had special abilities, or they became queens of fantastical lands. Bringing clothes to a naked man—a beautiful naked man—with scars and exotic eyes wasn’t the same as saving a kingdom or stepping into Narnia, but it was something.

  Ridiculous, scoffed the sneering voice that always seemed to pop up when I wanted to stand up for myself or try something new. This isn’t a book, it’s real and you’re not special. You’re Silly Lucy, living her silly little life.

  I tilted my chin. “Not today.”

  My nerves didn’t magically turn to steel with that declaration, but bravery, I’d read, wasn’t doing something because you were unafraid. It was being afraid and doing it anyway.

  At my closet, I scanned the simple blouses, sweaters, and dresses for something that would fit Casziel. I was almost 5’5”. He was easily six feet and broad in the shoulders…

  With or without wings?

  “Stop it.”

  I pushed aside hangers and then grief punched me in the stomach, hard and fast, knocking everything else out.

  Dad’s trench coat.

  He liked to say the coat was a little old school but that it made him feel like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. He’d always wear it when we went to the Old Vic movie house to watch a classic matinee on Sundays, back in Milford.

  I laid the cuff to my cheek and inhaled. He’d been gone for six months but his scent—Old Spice cologne and pipe smoke—was still strong.

  This would fit Casziel.

  The thought was satisfying and horrifying at the same time.

  “No way,” I said through gritted teeth. “Absolutely not.”

  I imagined I heard Dad’s voice in my head.

  I don’t need it anymore, pumpkin. And neither do you. You’ll always have me.

  “You’ll always have me” was one of the last things Dad said to me before the cancer took him.

  I had obeyed his last wish and sold most of his things and our house in Connecticut to give me a nest egg after graduating NYU with a bachelor’s in bioengineering. But instead of joining a lab or research project for removing plastic particles from the ocean, I took an entry-level job with a nonprofit where no one expected much from the shy girl in the corner who was good with spreadsheets.

  “I can’t, Daddy,” I murmured into the sleeve. “I can’t give your coat to some stranger.”

  But I was doing it again. Playing it safe. Doing what was expected of me: nothing.

  I took the coat down from the hanger, buried my face in it one last time, and went back out.

  Casziel was where I’d left him, looking weak and helpless.

  He’s neither weak nor helpless…and you know it.

  Except I didn’t know what he was. I wouldn’t let my imagination go there. I inhaled, ready to scream bloody murder if Casziel planned…well…my bloody murder.

  “That should do,” he said, eyeing the coat bunched in my hand.

  He climbed to his feet, moving stiffly and stumbling. Keeping my eyes averted, I handed over my father’s coat, then quickly stepped away. Casziel turned, and I caught a glimpse of more scars slashed across his back. He pulled the coat over his shoulders. It was a tad too tight but covered him well enough.

  “Okay, so…I guess that’s it. Good luck—”

  “Lucy, wait…” />
  Casziel swayed, his hand outstretched, grabbing at air. Instinctively—and like a crazy person—I rushed toward him instead of away. I gave him my arm to prop him up and almost buckled at his heaviness. Hints of smoke and heated metal filled my nose and a strange scent I couldn’t place.

  I looked up at Casziel and he looked down at me. His eyes appeared as if a fire burned behind them. Thousands of sunrises and sunsets, rising and falling over thousands of years. They drew me in until I could hear screams…

  “What is happening?” I breathed.

  “My time grows short, Lucy Dennings,” Casziel said, his voice like smoke. “I need your help. In eleven days, it’s all over. For better or for worse. Improbable as it seems, I’m aiming for better.”

  “Better?”

  “It might be too late; my sins are many. Countless. But I want to try. I need you to show me how.”

  My heart was bursting out of my chest, and I should’ve run but I didn’t. “S-show you how to do what?”

  “Find my way back into the light.”

  Because he’s been cast out.

  A chill came over me as the truth of who—what—Casziel was began to solidify from impossible suspicion into reality.

  “No. I…I can’t.” I let go of him and backed away. “I can’t do…whatever this is.”

  “Lucy…”

  “No. I’m not like the girls in the stories. I want to be, but I’m just not. I can’t help you. I’m so sorry…”

  I was up three stairs to my place when Casziel’s deep voice arrested me.

  “This coat belonged to your father.”

  I turned, my pulse pounding slow and hard. “What did you say?”

  “It’s his. You kept it and gave the rest away.” Casziel frowned, perplexed. “What is a Hum-free Bo-gart?”

  The blood drained from my face. “Who told you…?”

  “He told me.”

  “You’re talking to my father? Right now?”

  “He says you should let me explain.” He frowned again, listening. “Not sure what pumpkins have to do with anything…”

  “You’re lying,” I said through trembling lips, even as I desperately scanned the area for my dad. “You’re a liar and you’re cruel—”

  “I am both.” Casziel’s lips twisted. “But not today.”

  I breathed hard, the tears in my throat trying to choke me. “I don’t know who you are or how you know about us, but to have some stranger toy with my grief is wrong. And terrifying.”

  “I beg to differ,” Casziel snapped. “Terrifying is placing the fate of your eternal soul in the hands of a human girl who clearly doesn’t have the guts for it.”

  I shook my head. “You’re not well. You need help.”

  “Have I not been saying so since the beginning?” Casziel scrubbed a hand through his loose, dark curls. “Gods, woman, I don’t have time—”

  “I don’t care,” I cried, backing away and hitting my hip on the stair rail. The pain was sharp but didn’t wake me from this insanity. “You have my dad’s coat. That’s already too much, but that’s all you’ll get from me. Now leave me alone or I will call the police.”

  Casziel muttered a curse, then said louder, “He says to tell you that you’ll always have him.”

  I froze, turned.

  “He says it may seem crazy, but I need your help. And you’ve never been one to—”

  “Turn my back on someone who needs help,” I finished. “My God.” I took another step closer, squaring my shoulders and meeting Casziel’s eyes. “Is this real?”

  “It is real.”

  “Why me?”

  “Lucy born of light, you can help me be something other than…what I am.”

  Black wings and black eyes and visions of death swirled all around me. “What you are…”

  “Born into darkness.”

  Reality warped in those short moments. I was stepping into the wardrobe after all, and there was no going back. And I didn’t want to. A strange energy radiated off Casziel that was waking up something deep inside me. Some courage I didn’t know I had. Turning him away now would put it back to sleep.

  I’ve been sleeping through my own life long enough.

  “My father is here? With me?”

  “Always.”

  “He’s an angel?”

  “In a matter of speaking.”

  “But you’re not.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “No,” Casziel said. “I am not.”

  “What would they call you?”

  His amber gaze seemed to pour into mine. “Can’t you guess, Lucy Dennings?”

  “Tell me.”

  I need to hear it.

  “We have many names,” Casziel said. “Hyang. Fravashi. Kami. Djinn. Yaksha. Sylph. Kakodaimon. Daimon…”

  The sun had sunk beneath the tall towers, draping the city in long shadows. Casziel looked at me expectantly.

  I inhaled, then exhaled the word.

  “Demon.”

  Three

  Night had fallen and there was a demon in my kitchen eating cereal.

  I sat at the window at my tiny desk, crammed full of second thoughts. I hugged my elbows, not moving or daring to take my eyes off Casziel. He sat slumped at the island that served as my dining table, scarfing down spoonful after spoonful of cornflakes. A light breeze could shove him over, but sooner or later, he was going to regain his full strength. His powers, whatever those might be.

  Be brave. This is your house.

  I uncurled from the chair and forced myself into the kitchen to pour a glass of water. I leaned against the counter, facing my houseguest. Even unceremoniously shoving cereal in his mouth, he was ungodly beautiful.

  Ungodly being the operative word.

  “How long’s it been since you’ve eaten?” I asked, watching Casziel pile cornflakes on his spoon, spilling milk on the sleeve of Dad’s coat.

  “Fifty years,” he said. “Give or take ten minutes.”

  “What does that mean?”

  No answer. I cleared my throat.

  “You must be hungry if it’s been fifty years.”

  “I don’t need to eat.” Casziel scoffed as if the idea were beneath him. “I don’t need to drink. I don’t need to sleep. There is nothing on This Side that I need.” He raised his eyes to mine. “Except you.”

  A shiver danced down my spine and it wasn’t unpleasant. No one had ever needed me before. Certainly not a man who looked like Casziel…

  A few moments passed where the only sounds were the demon noisily finishing off his bowl of cornflakes and pouring another, his third.

  “I feel you watching me, Lucy Dennings,” he said, not looking up.

  “Well, gee, I only have about a million questions.”

  Like what had I gotten myself into or if I were being epically duped.

  Of course, you are, piped up that sneering voice. Silly Lucy, you think you’re special? Do you actually believe this strange man, who you let into your home, is a penitent demon trying to save his soul?

  Casziel lifted his head, eyes narrowing. “Be silent, Deb.”

  “Deb?”

  “One of your demons,” Casziel said, going back to his food. “Nasty one, too.”

  A wave of goosebumps washed over my arms and down my back. “One of my demons? How many do I have?”

  “Just two.”

  “Just?”

  “Two is nothing. Had you more, I might not have found you.”

  He found me.

  Somehow, the idea didn’t scare me as much as I thought it should. Not as much as having two demons.

  “The demon’s name is Deb?”

  “And the other is K,” Casziel said. “Best to leave it at that. Demons love hearing their true names in the mouths of humans and will often come when called.”

  “Jesus,” I shivered. “What do they do to me? I mean…why are they mine?”

  “Not yours alone,” Casziel said. “They’re two of the most powerfu
l in our ranks. Deb is Pestilence. Like an infectious disease. She contaminates humans and keeps them from fulfilling their true potential. K, the Smiter, wracks them with fear if they try anyway.”

  “That’s…horrible.”

  Casziel shrugged. “That’s their job. Sin. Vice. Immorality. Laziness. What you call ‘deadly sins’ are our stocks-in-trade.”

  “What is your stock-in-trade?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.

  “Wrath.”

  He said it flatly, with no pride or arrogance but no remorse either. My gaze traced his scars that peeked above the collar of the trench coat. The dream whispered of bloody stones and screams, then faded again.

  “Have you ever…killed anyone?”

  “In life, yes,” Casziel said. “I was a warrior.”

  “You were human? With the feathered wings, I thought maybe you were a…fallen angel.”

  It sounded just as crazy to say it out loud as it did in my mind.

  He shook his head, his eyes darkening. “No, I had a life, once. A long time ago. I was a commander of armies. Now, my armies do not wield swords; we incite battle among humans. We fuel the rage in men’s hearts. The wrath.”

  “You don’t sound very sad about it.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” he said and went back to his cereal, leaving me to glance over my shoulders for “Deb” and “K.”

  How many times had I heard their whispers? The ones that told me to keep my ideas for removing plastic out of our oceans to myself because surely someone smarter and cleverer than me was already on it. Or how, when Jana Gill asked me to go out with the gang after work, I always declined for fear of embarrassing myself. Or how, when I worked up the courage to talk to Guy Baker, the whispers would start that there was nothing Silly Lucy could say he’d want to hear.

  “That’s what demons do?” I asked after a minute, anger tightening my voice. “Keep humans down? Send us to war or make us feel crappy about ourselves?”

  “Demons can’t make you do anything,” Casziel said. “We insinuate. Influence. Cajole. We stoke the fires of your sloth, or wrath, or jealousy, then feed off it. Whether or not you act on our insinuations is entirely up to you, though you rarely believe that. Our greatest victory was convincing humans they have no control over their reaction to adversity.” He tapped his chin. “Asmodeus earned himself a promotion for that one.”