The Light of the World (25 page)

Michelle looks like a real girl, in a different
sort of way. I see no trace of the boy I used to know. She looks
sweet and innocent. She looks like a nun, just a very pretty
nun.

"This is a good look for you." I say.

She laughs and has a hard time meeting my eyes,
"I feel great. The sisters are amazing and the church is full of
encouraging people and enlightenment. I never stray to the boy's
side any more. Got to keep the temptations to a minimum. I've
already had a couple issues. I mean no one knows, but him." She
points upward.

Mona laughs, "You had lesbian nun sex? Does that
even count as lesbian?"

Michelle makes a disgusted face, "No-my-god. Oh
gross. Dude. Beaver has never been my favorite mammal. No I had
alter boy sex."

I raise an eyebrow, "Aren't they minors?"

She bites her lip and nods, "Like seventeen and
shit. I'm only two years older but it still felt dirty." Her eyes
turn mischievous, "Dirty good."

I laugh. "You are here to cleanse your soul and
instead you're tempting alter boys to sin, in a church no
less."

She feigns a wounded look and nods. "I'm
ashamed." Her pretend shame lasts seconds. "What brings you two
here?"

"The priest."

"Why?"

"He has answers. We were hoping you'd be able to
lure him to the garden for us."

She swallows and nods, "Yeah probably." She
looks guilty just thinking about it. This actually makes her look
guilty. Sex with minors in the confessional makes her smirk and
this makes her feel guilty?

"Have you seen my dad?"

She gulps and trembles. She shakes her head and
I feel sick for bringing it up.

"He can't come here can he?"

She shakes her head again, "No. Are you still
mad at me?"

I shake my head and grab her. I pull her in and
hold her tightly to me. "I love you. Forever."

She sobs quietly. "I love you too."

"Have they attacked you again?"

I shake my head, "No but Wyatt can track me so
you better bring him out so we can be on our way? We'll meet you in
the garden."

She nods and leaves. We walk to the garden and I
text Constantine.

The stone bench is cold. It's December and the
weather is starting to turn. It stays like fall until almost
Christmas and then it gets cold and snowy. The weather here is like
a switch activates it.

The bench feels cold through my clothes. The
snow is coming.

The door opens and the chubby pleasant looking
priest exits the church. He looks less pleasant.

"You came back? I am surprised considering you
know which side I am on."

I grin, "Well father I'm hoping I can convince
you to at least try to see things my way."

He shakes his head, "No. Your friend is a Sin
Eater. Without her the world becomes worse than it is now. Famine,
War, Pestilence, and Decay. The revelations can start if the Sin
Eater isn’t killed with the sin of the world in her."

I frown, "Revelations?"

He nods, "Lucifer will take over the world until
the Sin Eater can be born again and raised to try again. If he
takes over, the chaos we have lived with becomes much worse. I am
sorry my child but your friend must die."

I look at Mona and shake my head, "Not if we
kill the devils and make them take the sin."

He shakes his head, "Band-Aid situation. The
only way is to kill Lucifer and the devils and Lillith. That isn’t
going to happen. Lucifer doesn’t just die because you get lucky
once and shoot him. His head must be separated from his body, same
as Lillith. The devil's is the same. You are two little girls
against all seven of them. Have you ever cut a head off? It's not
eas…." Arms reach down from the overhanging roof and snatch him
into the air. His screams replace his words.

We jump back. I laugh nervously at Mona, who is
white as a sheet. "Well, that was creepy."

She holds her hand to her chest, "Constantine
gets points for effort and creativity. I think I peed my pants.
That scared the shit out of me."

I look back at the church, "We need to tell them
it's me and not you. They're going to go all extremist religious
nuts and kill you. It's better if they try to kill me. I don’t die
as easily as you would. You're feeble."

"No, this is good. They have no idea what's
what. Let's go meet Constantine."

Michelle doesn’t say goodbye.

"She just sent a text saying she is going to be
ready to leave soon. She wants us to come before Christmas and get
her." Mona looks at her phone.

I nod, "I get that she doesn’t want to be
attached to the disappearance of the father. Honestly, I don’t
imagine he's coming back. But she could have at least said
goodbye."

Mona laughs.

The priest isn’t coming back. I plan on eating
him unless Constantine beats me to it.

We drive back to Constantine's house. The
driveway and view of the house is painful.

I remember pulling up to our home the first
time, as man and wife. We were in a carriage. He made me cover my
eyes. The house was stunning. I loved the proximity to the sea. I
could smell it on the wind. I loved the feel of his fingers on my
face and his kisses in my neck.

The house looks different now. It's modern and
beautiful. I don’t know where our house went and why he built this
one instead.

I need to see the house that's here along with
the man. Not the house I loved and the man I adored, more than
anything in the world. Neither of them exists in the real
world.

I park in the round driveway and when we walk up
to the door this time I don’t knock. I walk in and blow past the
maid, "Where is he?"

"The study. This way." She looks distraught.

She walks us to a large dark door. We enter and
I instantly feel my head swoon. The room is exactly as I recall it.
Or is it the same room? Confusion sends me spinning.

I look around at everything and blush. The same
old mahogany desk and the shelves of books. Hundreds of years old.
The hand painted globe. The hand drawn map of the new world, that's
framed in glass and hangs over his desk. The windows are large and
bright, but he has the blinds turned to dim the light.

The priest is tied in a leather chair on the
corner. One I don’t recall. It looks new.

Constantine isn’t in the room.

I turn and see smoke moving like fog from
another doorway. He materializes and Mona jumps. I've seen it
before. He smiles at me, like I am the only person in the whole
world. He sees me and his face is changed. My heart skips beats and
then races. I see the corners of his mouth turn up. He can hear my
heartbeat. He knows his effect on me.

He's commanding as always. He looks at the
priest, "You want to kill her do you?" He points to me.

The priest frowns and shakes his head, "No the
Sin Eater." His eyes dart to Mona.

Constantine looks confused. He says nothing. He
knows better.

"Tell us how to find Lillith. No more playing
around Padre."

Constantine offers the two chairs against the
massive wall of books. My legs are shaking. The room smells exactly
as it would have in his old office. My memory is playing tricks on
me.

I sit. Mona watches us all intently.

Constantine sits in his huge leather chair,
behind the old desk he has ravished me on dozens of times. I bloody
well remember that clearly.

I can't focus on the father or Mona. I can
recall the feel of his fingers sliding up my skirts, and the way he
felt between my legs. I squeeze my thighs together.

Constantine is grinning, he's not even fighting
it. He glances at me and shakes his head disapprovingly. He knows
what I'm thinking. He can sense my arousal. He brought us here on
purpose. He has dozens of rooms and yet he chose the one that would
make me remember.

I can play that game too. I remove my sweater
and hold it in my lap. I'm in a thin pale pink tank top, no bra.
The tank has the built in one. It's spaghetti strap and nearly
sheer. "My sweater is inside out." I smile.

The priest swallows hard. He works very hard at
not paying attention to all my flesh. I raise an eyebrow at
Constantine, who has 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?"

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."

"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.

"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."

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."

"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?"

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?"