Born in Darkness Read online

  “Couldn’t tell you what I wasn’t sure about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You passed a test, pet,” he said, then spread his hands wide. “Congratulations.”

  “A test?” I’d done little more than get myself killed. I mean, yes, the resurrection thing was rather cool, but I hadn’t exactly been in control.

  “That’s the point,” he said.

  “Stay out of my brain. And what’s the point?”

  “This is one of the signs. The signs that prove you were the girl of the prophecy.”

  “That I’d come back from the dead?”

  “That you would absorb the essence of those you killed. You’re our girl, Lily. No doubt about it.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “I thought we already knew that.”

  He pulled off a Gallic shrug. “Eh. Hard to ever be completely sure. But I’d say we are now.”

  I raked my fingers through my hair. “So let’s make sure I’ve got the full picture here, okay?” I didn’t wait for either him or Zane to nod me on. “My job is to kill demons.” I spoke carefully, as if talking to especially slow first-graders. “And demons are evil. And when I kill them, I suck that evil inside me.”

  “That’s pretty much the sum of things.”

  “But I thought I was getting a chance at redemption. A chance to make up for the things that I’ve done. A chance to kick evil’s butt in the name of all things warm and fuzzy. And now I find out I’m a huge storage bin for evil karma? What the hell have you people done to me?”

  “Do you truly think you would have been chosen if we did not believe that you could handle this?”

  “Handle? Handle what? Handle knowing that if I die, I’ll rot in hell? Or, oh, wait. Dying is the least of my problems now. You people have tainted my soul.”

  Clarence moved toward me, getting right in my face. “You think the big guy woulda picked you if you couldn’t handle it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anymore.”

  “There’s a lot of things out there to be scared of, ma fleur,” Zane said. “Don’t include yourself in that group.”

  “Easy for you to say. With each kill, I become what I beheld. How am I supposed to live with that?”

  “Because it ain’t really you.” Clarence took off his fedora and ran the rim through his fingers. “Compartmentalize, pet. Use what you need—the fury, the bloodlust—and lock the rest away.”

  “Blood.” I looked at him, the import of the blood from the demon in the alley suddenly striking me. “He bled.”

  I watched as confusion crossed Clarence’s face. “Eh? What are you—”

  “He was human. Don’t you see? The demon I killed—right before the other one killed me. He was freaking human! He was possessed,” I said, remembering Clarence’s lesson in Demonic Basics. I looked from Zane to Clarence, feeling slightly sick. “Oh, dear God, he was possessed, and I saw the demon leave. I killed him. I killed an innocent human. Killed,” I repeated. “Not only am . . .alking vacuum for demonic essence, but I’m also now a murderer.” Twice over, actually, when you counted Lucas Johnson. And considering that killing him was what started this whole thing, I definitely added him into the mix.

  Clarence looked at me calmly, his very coolness irritating. I wanted him to rage, to fly about. To exercise the same fury that burned in me. “Yeah, you killed. I get that. But check it out, pet. You killed something evil. Vile. And that, kid, is pretty much why you were made.”

  “Vile?” I repeated. “He was possessed. This big demon cloud thing came out of him.”

  “Not all possession’s by force. Most welcome it. Want the power inside them.”

  I thought of the human’s eyes and knew that he hadn’t welcomed the demon in. “Not this one,” I said.

  Clarence sighed. “What do you want me to tell you, pet? That you fucked up? You didn’t. Whether the human wanted it or not, the fact was he’d been possessed. Probably woulda stayed that way until his body wore out and the demon moved on. That wouldn’t have taken long. Humans are frail, and this human was a tool—the body was a tool—and you destroyed that tool.”

  I shook my head, understanding what he was saying, but hating it nonetheless. I wanted to protect the innocent. Not slaughter them when danger got too close.

  “In every war, there are casualties. You did exactly what you were made to do.”

  “I thought I was made to stop the demon priest from opening the Ninth Gate. I thought I wasn’t supposed to run around killing demons without your say-so,” I said, feeling more than a little surly.

  “Don’t whine, pet, and don’t play stupid. You are what you are, and what you are is a weapon against evil. They know it. They know you’re going after them; evil’s gonna fight back. When it does, you defend yourself. You damn well better do that or we really are lost.”

  I drew in a breath, deflating now because he was right. “Fuck.” I slid to my knees, suddenly exhausted, the weight of emotion and horror pressing me down. “He wanted to kill me. They all did. Demon and human. This wasn’t some random attack on a girl in an alley. This was about me.”

  I shifted my gaze from Clarence to Zane, needing both of them. “How did they know where I was?” I shook my head, remembering the shadowy figure outside the pub. And remembering Deacon inside the restaurant. I hugged myself and filled my head with children’s songs, hoping Clarence hadn’t already taken a peek inside my mind.

  “Someone set you up, pet,” Clarence said. “Let’s think on who coulda done such a thing. Who knows you’re here? Who knows what and who you are?”

  “The Grykon knew, but he’s dead.”

  “I believe we’ve already addressed the fact that you failed to kill the Grykon in the ceremonial chamber,” Zane reminded me.

  “Oh, God,” I said, finally understanding the import of that mistake. “There was plenty of time for it to have a beer with its little demonic buddies and spread the word.”

  “True enough,” Clarence said. “But we’ve still got another suspect waiting in the wings. Someone else who saw you in action.” He looked at me hard, his eyes knowing.

  “Deacon Camphire,” I said, the name coming reluctantly to my lips. “But he doesn’t know what I am.” Even as I spoke the words, I wasn’t sure. What if he’d been playing me all along?

  I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I don’t know that I can do this. Constantly on alert. Danger in every shadow. I’m not that canny. I’m not the girl you people think I am.”

  “Trust me,” he said. “You are.”

  “I killed. I killed just like you guys told me to.” I thought of the pungent scent of the human’s blood. “But now I have to live with myself—with what I’ve done and what I’m becoming—and I’m not sure I know how.”

  Zane stepped forward, then lowered himself, balancing on his heels, thighs straining against denim. “You live with yourself because you must. You sleep at night because you know that you are fighting the good fight. That, because of you, there is one less stain of evil upon the world.”

  “And if I become the stain?”

  “Do not do this to yourself, chérie. Evil is a virus. You have eradicated an infection upon the world.”

  “Eradicated?” I asked bitterly. “It’s not eradicated. It’s inside me.” I took a deep breath, tried to quell the sense of horror growing within me. “What if I can’t handle it?”

  “You will,” he said. “Because, ma petite fleur, you have no other option.”

  No other option . . .

  His words stayed with me, hanging on my shoulders like a cloak as I moved silently toward the elevator, not stopping, not looking back, even though they both called my name.

  I went first to the restaurant. To that alley where I’d died the second time. It was quiet now. Safe. The stains on the concrete were the only signs of the violence that had come before. That, and the faint scent of blood on the air. Just enough to rile me. To get that hum going in my belly.

&nbs
p; I licked my lips and rolled my shoulders, determined not to fall prey to my own damned nature. Instead, I did the one thing I’d come to do—I dropped to my knees and felt around in the grime by the door until I found my knife. Standing, I sheathed it, feeling suddenly more like myself simply because I knew it was there, its minuscule weight somehow grounding me.

  I’m not sure where I walked, or for how long, but my steps ate up the streets as the night deepened. The streets cleared, workers going home to families, until only a few cars dotted the roads, and the only pedestrians were those who called the street home.

  When I finally glanced around, trying to get my bearings, I realized that I’d walked through the night. Though the sun hadn’t yet broken the horizon, already commuters were loading up and pouring off a nearby train platform. I hesitated, then made my decision, paying the fare and stepping on the train, letting the rumble of the train hypnotize me, my mind as empty as the car and kicking back to life only when we pulled into the station. I pushed through the living wall trying to enter the car as I was trying to leave, then stumbled to the exit not entirely sure why I’d come.

  No. That’s a lie. I’d come for Rose. Or, more accurately, I’d come for me.

  I caught up with her at the high school, standing off to the side as the number twenty-eight bus pulled up. I thought of Clarence’s warning that I could be putting her in danger. But I wouldn’t speak to her. Wouldn’t single her out. I’d simply stand there and see and maybe, just maybe, feel a connection to myself again.

  I swallowed hard, seeing her descend from the yellow beast like a sleepwalker, dark circles under her eyes, looking even more harrowed than she had when she’d answered the door only yesterday. The girls she used to hang with—the ones who’d claimed to be her friends—circled past as if she weren’t even there. In a way, they were right. My sister was no longer in that shell. Johnson may have let her body live, but she was dead nonetheless.

  Just like her big sister.

  I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how. Not if sliding into her life would put her in danger. And the knowledge that I could do nothing but watch left me feeling sad and impotent.

  As I stood there, she glided toward the door, then paused, almost as if she could feel my eyes on her. She turned in my direction. I saw her forehead crinkle in recognition, and my heart skipped a beat before I remembered that it was Alice she now recognized as the woman who’d come boldly to her door. To Rose, Lily was gone forever.

  I managed to hold it together as she pulled the door open and disappeared inside. Then the tears started. Hot tears that poured down my cheeks and racked my body with sobs.

  A few stragglers from the bus looked my way, curious. But I wasn’t inclined to be inspected like a bug in a glass. Not now. Not with my heart breaking into tiny pieces. Rose existed as nothing more than a hollow shell.

  For that matter, so did Lily Carlyle.

  I wandered aimlessly, lost in a funk, letting my feet take me where they would.

  They stopped six blocks from my old house near the small Catholic Church we used to attend on Christmas Eve. My mom had never pushed us toward a particular faith, but I had believed in God. I’d had faith in the world, in the knowledge that good would win over evil, and in the certainty that God was looking out for us.

  I’d lost that faith when I’d lost my mother, and I realized now what a void that had left in my life.

  Standing here now, by the little church, I thought of my mom and the way she brought us here on Christmas. Joe never came, but my mother brought Rose and me, and we sat in the balcony. I could remember the weight of boredom as we sat there, waiting for the service to begin. And then the choir would sing, and it felt like their voices were lifting me up toward heaven.

  I needed that lift now. That spark of humanity reaching for something divine. So far, the heavenly creatures I’d met had a baser quality. A burning practicality I never would have expected, but that I had to admit I understood. Having looked into Rose’s eyes, I think I understood the spartan nature of the mission more than ever: eradicate evil. In all facets, in all forms. Take it out, no matter what the consequences, no matter whose soul was tainted in the process.

  Cut out the evil, and clear the way for good to ride back in, tall and proud and victorious.

  Without thinking, I crossed the street to the white stone church, my head tilted back as I looked at the spire that rose like an arrow pointing the way to heaven. Before I even realized I’d stepped into the street, I reached the door, my hand closing on the solid brass handle. I pulled it open and breathed deep of the scent of oil and wax, with just a hint of spice underneath.

  I stepped inside and found myself in a foyer with another door facing me. I hesitated only a moment, then closed the distance, passing through another set of double doors and into the sanctuary.

  A few people knelt in prayer, rosary beads held tight. No one turned to question me, and so I stood for a moment hugging myself, trying to get straight, to figure out what I needed and how I could find it here.

  Along one wall, I saw an altar with dozens of white candles in red votive containers. Intrigued, I walked there, then let my hand drift over the flickering flames, letting the heat dance on my palm and the warmth seep through me.

  “Are you okay?”

  I jumped, then turned to find myself facing a young man in a priest’s robes.

  “Would you like to light a candle?”

  I yanked my hand back as if the flame had burned, then shook my head, an inexplicable sense of guilt wafting over me.

  “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come.”

  “You’re very welcome here.”

  “No. I mean, I know. I—” I couldn’t get the words out, because they’d been blocked by an epiphany: I’d become the job. A killer. A tool. But it wasn’t a job Lily could do, and hanging on to her would get me killed. It was what Clarence had said: I had to let her go. She was dead already, after all. I had to let the old Lily go and find the new woman underneath. A fighter. A killer. Someone who could stand up against evil and not even flinch. Who could take it in and smother it, burying it deep inside her soul.

  A woman who understood the cost that had to be paid for the ultimate gain.

  The one, Clarence had said. She was in me somewhere.

  And now it was time for me to coax her out. To sacrifice the last remnants of Lily and welcome home the killer within. Welcome her, use her, and finish this.

  Defeat the demons, seal the gate to hell, and protect the innocent.

  Do that, and Rose really would be safe.

  Do that, and I would have finally kept my promise.

  26

  I continued to walk the streets, lost in my own head, but my senses sharp. So far, I’d felt no one watching me. Perhaps the demons thought I was dead.

  Or maybe they were regrouping, planning the attack that would finally take me out for good. I cringed, having grown rather fond of Alice’s head, not to mention the steady beat of her heart. An unpleasant direction for my thoughts, but this was my life now. I was a fighter. A shadow. And, yeah, maybe I was someone who could make a difference to the whole big-picture part of the equation. I was a weapon, Clarence had said, and the responsibility accompanying that pronouncement terrified me, especially now that I knew that the better I did the job, the more humanity I lost.

  Not an ideal situation, but what was? Not Lucas Johnson and Rose. Not my mom dying. Not getting stabbed in the gut by a sociopathic asshole. And not even being brought back to life to go chase down demons.

  Like my grandma used to say, nobody ever said life was fair. And if coping meant compartmentalizing, well, I could do that. I could shove away all the shit that washed into me after every kill. I could hide it. I could lock it up. I could ignore it. I’d focus on Lily. Not who she’d been, but who she was now. I’d focus on her, and I’d fight the rest of it.

  And I knew I could because hadn’t I been doing it my whole damn life? Living in sha
dows and loss. Scraping for a nickel. But I’d never lost sight of me. And I’d always had Rose out there, a bright light pointing the way.

  I still had her. This was about saving the world, right? The world, and everyone in it.

  The streets were bright again, the sun a violent counterpoint to the gray shadows of my thoughts. I’d left the commercial district, moving down side streets until I’d reached a section of town where even the bright rays of sun couldn’t erase the shadows. Here, the disenfranchised loitered, the humans who were ripe to be recruited by evil, just like the human I’d killed in the alley. The human who’d asked for help too late. The homeless, the lost. Men and women on whom society had given up. They loitered in liquor store doorways, skulked into porn shops, and cut business deals through half-open car windows.

  I wanted to tell them to keep themselves centered. To not take the easy route, and to trust no one who said they could help them. I didn’t, though. I didn’t say a word. Who was I, after all, to give advice to the damned?

  Storefront signage flashed by in a haze, the colored signs sending a message that I was too stupid to get right away. When I did, though, I stopped and turned around, looking for the business that had finally registered in my hazy brain.

  I found what I was looking for about twenty yards down the block. I’d passed it without noticing, and now I backtracked until I was in front of the window. Red neon announced Tattoos, and a smaller handwritten sign below informed the discriminating customer that the artist was on-site. And, as an added bonus, Madame Parrish, Psychic shared the space, presumably offering her services to anyone who wanted to know how their mother, father, lover, friend was going to react to the artistic creation our intrepid customer was bringing home.

  I spent half a minute considering the door, reminding myself about infections caused by dirty needles, the possibly poor quality of the ink, and the painful process that accompanied the removal of tattoos. I ought to know. I’d had “Jimmy” and a heart removed at the ripe old age of nineteen.