Godforsaken: Book 1 (Shade of Light) (3 page)

“Mike, what are you talking about? Stop
pulling my leg. She's just a little different, that’s all. And in
that case, warn your friend to be nice to her tonight, okay?”

“Alen is always nice,” Mike protested.

“Yeah, of course he is!” Nancy teased.
“Still, you need to warn him. Let’s go,” she commanded. “And this
is the last time I’m helping your friend out with Lily. If nothing
happens tonight, then Alen has to say good-bye to her for good.
Okay?”

“Okay, come on,” Mike took her hand into his
and led her down the stairs.

* * *

Lily fell deep into studying, forgetting all
about the upcoming evening. Honestly, she liked studying, and that
liking had made her one of the best students in the college.

She didn't see Nancy and Mike the whole day,
keeping her headphones in her ears. She was heading back home when
her cell phone began to ring.

She picked up the phone, already having seen
the identity of the caller. “Hello, Aunt Agnes.”

“Lily, dear, how are you doing?” Her aunt’s
voice spoke at the other end of the line.

“Fine, Auntie, how are you? How is Bill,
too?” Bill was her aunt’s husband. They hadn’t had any children of
their own, and after the accident with Lily’s parents they had
adopted Lily, raising her like their own daughter.

“You know him,” Aunt Agnes complained. “Even
the doctors are unable to control him. I can’t either. I worry
about him, but what else can I do?”

“He still complains about his heart pain?”
Lily asked quickly.

“Yeah, of course he does,” Aunt Agnes
replied with a loud and displeased voice, sounding almost angry
underneath her worry. “He doesn’t take medicine and doesn’t listen
to what the doctors tell him. You know him, he always thinks that
he knows things better than the doctors do.”

“Yeah, that's just like him,” Lily sighed,
taking the stairs leading down the subway.

“I don’t know what to do next. If something
happens to him–” Aunt Agnes exclaimed.

“Nothing’s going to happen to him. He’s a
strong man,” Lily added with a hesitatingly voice. “Does he go to
work?”

“Yes, of course. He needs rest and medicine.
Instead he runs to the office every day like a twenty-year-old
boy.”

“His body grows old, but not his soul,” Lily
remarked, a little grin curling at her lips.

“Where are you?” Aunt Agnes asked, changing
the subject abruptly.

“In the subway. Going home.”

“Is everything okay at college? Have you
prepared for the exams?”

“Yeah, Auntie, I have, don’t worry. Just try
to take care of Bill, okay? Or better yet, get him to take care of
himself, too.” Lily stepped onto the escalator.

“Oh, Lily,” Aunt Agnes exhaled, “I’m trying.
If you have any news, call me right away, okay?”

“I’ll call.”

“Fine. Be careful, I’ll call you later.”

“Oh, no,” Lily said, suddenly remembering
Nancy’s party. “I won’t be able to answer you later.”

“Why, dear?” Aunt Agnes asked, seeming
agitated.

“It’s Nancy’s birthday. My roommate. We’ll
be out to celebrate,” Lily explained hastily.

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” Lily said uncertainly. Her
voice shook. “To a little bar, I think,” she added.

“Be careful, baby.”

“I will."

“Okay, honey. Then, 'til tomorrow.”

“'Til tomorrow, Auntie.” She hung up and put
the phone into her rucksack.

It was close to dark when Lily finally left
the house. She locked the house door and headed swiftly for Mike’s
car where it was parked opposite the street. Nancy and her
boyfriend had already been waiting for her. Nancy leaned her head
out of the car window, waving to Lily.

“Hey, hurry up,” she cried out.

“Coming,” Lily cried back, moving faster.
She wore blue jeans and a white shirt, her blonde hair dancing on
her shoulders as she rushed to the car at almost a run.

“Get in, we’re running late,” Nancy
complained and turned to face Mike. “Okay, now where are you going
to take us?”

“Patience, baby, patience,” Mike smiled
quizzically. He peered back over his shoulder as Lily closed the
car door. “Hey, baby, are we going to have some three-way fun
tonight?”

“Shut up, Mike,” Lily shook her head,
grinning despite herself. She knew Mike well enough to not get too
mad at his jokes.

“Okay, okay...but you’ll regret it one day,
mark my words,” he laughed. He turned the key and the engine roared
to life.

“Where is your friend?” Nancy asked as the
car set off.

“He’s waiting for us at the club,” Mike
glanced at Lily in the rear-view mirror. “He was in seventh heaven
when I told him you were coming, Lily.”

“Oh, please, Mike,” Lily responded sharply.
“He hasn’t got any chance with me, even if he was the last man on
the whole planet.”

“So cruel,” Nancy laughed scornfully.

“Yeah,” Mike agreed with a confused grin.
“But he's not a bad guy, Lily.”

“Maybe he isn't, but just drop it,” Lily
replied shortly and glanced out the window, ending the
conversation.

Mike didn’t speak about Alen for the rest of
the way. He and Nancy were chatting, then Nancy began to talk about
a bicycle accident from her childhood with a wealth of detail. Lily
wasn’t listening at all. She had sunk into her dreams again, the
dreams which had been dogging her since the morning. She recalled
the handsome guy in white, wondering whether she would see him at
the club tonight somehow. Maybe the dream was a sign that she was
going to meet him at last.

* * *

Mike was right. Alen was waiting for them at
the club, but Lily’s hopes were crushed – there wasn’t any guy
there that looked like the one she had seen in her dream. She
sighed in disappointment, taking a seat at the table with the
others. The music was loud, thumping in her ears, and she couldn’t
understand what her friends were talking about. Instead, she just
peered to and fro at the people on the dance floor.

“Lily, don’t you want a drink?” She turned
and there was Alen before her, his face so close that his breath
flooded her nose. She jerked backward in her chair without turning
her eyes off him. Alen was smiling at her gently, and that smile
was what Lily hated the most about him.

“Take your glass, Lily,” Nancy cried out to
her. “It’s my birthday, you have to drink for me. Just for
tonight.”

Lily glanced over at Nancy in bewilderment.
She wasn't at all interested in drinking, but she couldn’t refuse
her friend, and therefore she reluctantly picked up her glass. Her
eyes flew from Nancy to Alen in disgust. Alen was still smiling at
her.
Idiot,
she thought and gulped down the drink. It was
strong. Lily swallowed it with difficulty. She felt as though she
was going to vomit. She put her hand to her mouth, forcing the
drink down into her stomach, and her face contorted in a pucker of
disgust.

When Lily recovered she raised her glacial
blue eyes to Nancy being wrapped in Mike’s muscular arms, they were
laughing.

“Hey, don’t laugh at me,” Lily grinned
involuntarily and coughed. “I’m not used to drinking alcohol.”

“Yeah, I see. You're very sweaty,” Mike
giggled, taking the bottle of whiskey.

“I think one glass is enough for me.” She
tried to stop Mike as he was about to pour her another drink.

“Are you serious?” Mike said quizzically,
holding the bottle by Lily’s glass.

“Maybe she’s right,” Alen chipped in. “She
says she isn’t used to alcohol. Don’t get her plastered. If she's
not up for it–”

“I
can
drink, it’s not about that,”
Lily protested waspishly. She was twisted by a sudden surge of
anger at the thought that Alen supposed her a coward. She looked at
him sharply, then allowed Mike to pour her another drink.

“If you don’t want to you shouldn’t–” Alen
sounded politely.

“I will,” Lily cut him off sharply and
cringed. But the first glass had already begun to take effect, she
felt the alcohol running in her veins as an unfamiliar feeling rose
up inside her chest. Even if she didn’t like Alen, she had never
been so mean to him before. But right now, she wanted to spring
upon him and shout and slap him across the face. Her normally kind
blue eyes narrowed and filled with hatred.

“This is for my lovely Nancy,” Mike’s voice
brought Lily back to her senses, and she turned her gaze away from
Alen. “We've been together… How long has it been? Eighteen months.
During those months I never doubted my love for you, Nancy. You’re
beautiful, clever, sexy. What else could a man want? I love you,
baby.”

“I know,” Nancy said back and leaned forward
to kiss his lips.

Lily stared at them kissing and the anger
that had risen in her disappeared. She imagined the man and white,
and she imagined herself in Nancy’s place kissing that man, and her
heart trembled like a leaf in a high wind.

“You’re very brave,” Alen's voice pulled her
back from the memories. She eyed him, the glass still in her hand.
“I’m just talking about the drink. You really shouldn’t drink if
you–”

But Lily didn’t let him finish. She lifted
the glass to her thin lips and drained it, making a face. Alen
laughed soundlessly, shaking his head. He took his glass and drank
it too.

* * *

The dance floor was full of young people.
The loud music engulfed the club and worked its way up to a private
room upstairs. Behind the door four men with utterly serious faces
sat at a round table. They had business faces. The music was low in
here.

“You know there is no other way to enter
that place,” said a man with curly hair and big black eyes. His
round face and wide forehead was covered in a thin layer sweat. His
bloodshot eyes looked over the others around him before coming to a
halt on the man sitting opposite the table. “The line was broken a
long time ago, now it all depends on you.”

“And my answer hasn’t changed,” the other
said, raising his eyes up at the interlocutor. His eyes were an
unusual shade of green, and they seemed almost bottomless. Those
eyes carried his high wit, his cleverness, and a strange sort of
mystery that didn't reside in anyone else's eyes.

The man arched his eyebrows. Unearthly anger
flooded over his face, as though the anger was as tangible as puffs
of smoke.

“Samael, he helped you out when you were
exiled,” spoke another man. This one had narrow eyes and a sharp
face, and he sat on the left side of Samael. Samael locked his gaze
on the man’s in front of him in an unblinking stare. “It’s because
of you that the line is broken,” he claimed. “There is still time
to repay your debt–”

“I owe nothing to anyone,” Samael
interrupted stiffly. “I hadn’t made any deal with anybody, let
alone made one with your lord. There was no deal to not touch the
children from that line. Where did you find this prat, Beelzebub?”
Samael said to the big, black-eyed man in front of him, the one who
had been speaking before. “Shut him up, or else I’ll shut him up
myself.”

Beelzebub raised his hand. “Calm down Kali,”
he whispered to the man with sharp face, then his eyes caught
Samael. “You don’t want to cooperate with us,” he sighed, dropping
his eyes to the untouched glass of whiskey before him. “I wonder
why?”

“You know very well that there is no way
into my place for either of you. In spite of his wicked look,
Samael’s voice sounded calm. He knew how to restrain his nerves.
“But you–”

“I’m here, yes,” Beelzebub finished for him.
For some seconds silence flooded the room, until Beelzebub smiled
and went on. “You have seen what he is capable of, you have seen
what we can change, being tied up together? Why don’t you give us a
chance?”

“I am not God, to give a chance to any of
you,” Samael said tonelessly.

Beelzebub took a sip of his whiskey and,
with a malicious grin, lowered it back on the table. “Not only God
gives chances, Samael. We make them ourselves.”

“Then it’s time to make them yourselves.
Just without me,” Samael stood his ground. “I see no reason to open
the way into my territory.” His wandering eyes found Beelzebub. “I
like the life around me, I don’t want any changes in it.”

“It can’t stay like this for much longer,
you know,” Beelzebub replied, a mocking grin on his plump face.
“
He
lingered too long, my friend, and he’ll rise up soon.
You can take his side again, as you did once before.”

“Whose side I was and am going to be on –
that problem is between the two of us. And you know,” Samael rose,
bending toward Beelzebub and spoke in his ear, “I have no interest
in taking any of your sides. It’s not my fight, it’s completely
yours. Do I make myself clear?”

“I just brought you his word. The decision
is still up to you–” Though Beelzebub looked unfazed, his neck
reddened as his nerves began to act up.

“As you noted,” Samael cut him off. “It
means the discussion is over. Take him my word – I’m not going to
open the gates yet. It makes no difference who it is, Satan or God.
The gates are closed.” He spun around curtly and strode out of the
room without another look back at them.

Samael shut the door behind him and paced
ahead toward the railing before him. He appeared on the balcony
that wrapped around the dance floor and, standing by it, like a
king watching his people, he could see everyone dancing below. His
green eyes were still filled with the wrath brought on by that
undesirable conversation. Samael put his hands on the railing and
peered down somberly on the dancers, as if he was looking for
somebody.

* * *

In the meantime, Lily was already dancing
with Nancy and Mike. She’d had more drinks tonight than she had
meant to, her head was in a whirl and the world around her swirled
in front of her eyes. With every passing minute Lily felt a growing
weakness in her arms and legs. At first she liked the lightness the
alcohol had passed through her, but then, as the drinks dissolved
in her blood, Lily’s wit withdrew giving her emotions a way out of
the cage buried deep inside her. Nonetheless, she was dancing like
a crazy person, as if her body was being charged with inhuman
energy.