Lilith (15 page)

The moo
n does shine as bright as day;

Come with
his son, and come in a crawl,

Come do my will or not at all.

You’ll lose your supper, and lose your sleep,

Then find your p
layfellows dead in the street;

Up
the ladder and down the wall.

A half
dozen more will serve my call.

And you
know why I must do what I do!

Those who defy me must die - 'tis true.
’”

Whatever her little game was, she wouldn’t stop until sh
e killed everyone I cared about, and running wasn’t going to save anyone. We had to go back. And I had to find a way to save my friends.

The whole drive back I felt like a zombie. My body and heart were so overwhelmed with loss and pain I finally felt nothing. Every belief I had in the good over
coming evil was dead inside me.

How could I fight a being that had no heart, no sense of remorse, and never slept. I wiped a stray tear from my cheek and tried to formulate a plan. Dean had begged me not to go
back; he’d raged and screamed at me in anger.

I knew she was winning when she could
make a guy like him scream like that. We were losing the battle, my mom, my friends, and now my cat were dead. How in the world do you fight something invisible, something you’ve convinced yourself can’t even exist.

Dean hadn’t spoken a word to me during the whole drive. He stared through the window in silence, his hands tightening so intensely I was sure the wheel would break in protest.

“Dean?”

He grunted in response.

“I know you’re pissed at me, but this silence is killing me.”

He jerked the truck when he turned his head in surprise.

“You think I’m pissed at you? Pacey this isn’t your fault it’s mine. I don’t want to take you back to be slaughtered. To watch your friends die, to watch your father turn from you. If I were any kind of man, I’d leave you somewhere safe and never contact you again. I’d let her have me, because at least then you might be safe.”

My body started shaking in fear. Could he leave me like that, just walk away in the hopes that it was the best for me. To be her slave, her
plaything and whatever that all entailed. I choked back the nausea that rose in my throat and started crying.

“You can’t leave me Dean, you can’t. What would I do without you, what if it didn’t work and I was alone. She’d just come kill
me and you’d never even know.”

He pulled the truck to the side of the road and pulled me into his arms. For a
moment, we just sat there clinging to each other. I buried my face in his chest and cried, I cried for all of the things I couldn’t change and for the horrors that awaited me.

Lilith was pl
aying a game that had no rules.

Chapter Fifteen

Un-Welcome Home

Dean drove the rest of the way in silence. He didn’t agree with my need to go home to my father. He wanted me to stay with him at his house where he could keep a vigilant eye on me. But the truth was Lilith could find me where ever we went. There was no escaping or hiding out. Not when the people I cared about were in danger.

So the first line of defense was getting back my father. I was still
angry; he’d broken a part of my heart I didn’t realize was even there. You never expect your parents to betray you. He’d signed the papers and locked the doors that kept me in a mental prison.

The man before my mother died, would never have been capable of such a horrible act. My mother was probably cussing her heart out at him in heaven. My mother...Her loss was the one I felt the most.

The one good part about my return to Culliver City was that Wes had finally made a breakthrough. I guess his roommate back at Cal Poly had a girlfriend that was majoring in religion and mythology. He put out a feeler for information on the demoness Lilith and hit gold.

Tomorrow we were all going to meet this new expert at the University library. It was one more person I didn’t want to know my crazy secrets, but Wes insisted it was necessary. Female meant moveable but her possible help made it necessary.

I needed to find out how to get to Lilith’s Hall of Mirrors so I could entrap her. Before she had a chance to hurt me or anymore of my friends. The dream about her taking me over haunted me while Dean and I stayed away.

It didn’t seem to ma
tter that we emptied the room of mirrors. I still saw myself sucked inside the cave while I watched my body through a reflective doorway. Lilith mocked me by taking on the shape of dead friends, and sometimes even my mother.

My dad was waiting on the front porch when we arrived. A thin woman with shoulder length
strawberry blonde hair stood beside him. My heart raced inside my chest and I glanced over at Dean for confidence.

“She seems normal to me.” He said.

The sunlight hit my eyes and I held my hand up to block the bright blinding rays. I couldn’t tell if her skin squirmed with black writhing ribbons of evil. I was too far away. I had a feeling it wouldn’t really matter even if she did. I needed to fight for the family I had left, for my dad.

Dean parked the truck and ran around to open my door. He smiled when he opened it and took my outstretched hand.
My dad’s eyes hardened when he caught sight of our intertwined fingers. Dean would always be the boy who stabbed my mother, no matter how much time went by.

“Mr.
O’Brien.” Dean said.

He held out a hand. Neither my dad no
r the dark eyed female took it.

Dean dropped it and le
aned over to whisper in my ear. “I’ll get your things.”

“Dad.” I said between clenched teeth.

He put an arm around the unknown female and she curled into him like she was afraid of me and I smiled. She should be, if Lilith was using her then I wasn’t her ally or her friend. If it came down to protecting my father or her…well she was as good as dead.

“Pacey, I’d like you to meet Bridget York. She has been helping me cope with losing your mother.” He smiled down at her, and I felt something inside my chest break.
Bitch.

I held out my hand despite my reservatio
ns. “It’s um…nice to meet you.”

Bridget turned to meet my gaze and frowned. She stared at my hand for a moment before taking it. My father beamed at me. I squeezed her hand a little harder than necessary.

“Ouch.” She squeaked.

My father’s face fell. Bridget’s eyes were empty of blackness but I felt a shiver of evil under her skin.

Her inner voice said,
“Could she be more rude?”

As
he tried to pull her fingers from my grip, I kept holding on searching her arms and face for black ribbons of evil. Nothing stirred. My father made an annoyed noise and pried her hand from mine.

“Jesus Pacey.” He barked.

I shrugged. I had to wonder how long he’d known Bridget, especially if she was already comforting him. Were things between my parents worst then I thought. Could my father have been cheating on my mom without my knowing? An uncomfortable wave of nausea twisted in my stomach.

Dean appeared at my side with my suitcase and reached out a hand to touch my face.

“Are you okay Pacey?”

I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat. “Not really.”

My father led Bridget back into the house. He held her like she was some precious fragile thing. I hated him. I hated her. My mom had only been dead for a few weeks. Twenty years of marriage tossed aside at the nearest floozy. I wanted to scratch her eyes out.

Dean pulled me to the side and turned me so that my eyes were torn away from my retreating betraying father and his whore.

“Pacey, calm down.”

Tears filled my eyes and a sob tore
from my chest. He dropped my bag and pulled me into his arms. I buried my face in the familiar curve of his shoulder. I breathed in his warm honey scent. I couldn’t do this.

“You can always come home with me.” He said.

I laughed into his shirt. “No I have to be stronger than that, my mom deserves it. Not this, and definitely not that whore. What kind of woman jumps into bed with a man who just lost his wife?”

Dean
leaned back to meet my gaze. “What do you mean what kind of woman, isn’t it just Lilith?”

I shook my head no. “I don’t think so, when I touched her hand I sensed evil beneath her skin, but I didn’t see the black eyes or ribbons of Lilith inhabiting her body. I honestly think the woman herself is evil enough to want my mother dead and me in an asylum. I
think.” I took a deep breath. “I think my dad has been cheating with her for a while.”

Dean took a step back and his mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

I gave him a half smile and looked back at my house. The front blinds parted, and an unfamiliar face stood staring out at me. I didn’t know Bridget yet, but I was determined to change that. If she was seeing my father, possessed by Lilith or not, I needed to know if she was really evil.

“If you need me…” He said smoothing the hair from my face.

The idea of being away from him felt strange. He was so much a part of my life it was like he was an extension of my own body. A rugged, tall, and more muscled body, but all mine just the same.

He kissed my mouth. His tongue exploring the crevices of my mouth. It was the first time I’d really let him kiss me in over a week. God I missed him. My body fought against my brains control until the snap echoed in my brain. My fingers ran up his shirt and across his stomach. He shivered when my fingers dipped below his jeans.

He jumped back and held my hands away from him.

“Pacey…what in the world are you doing?”

A devilish smiled tugged at my mouth. “Nothing.”

Dean shook his head and pulled me tight against him. “I love you. If you need me…call. I can be here in five minutes. I hate leaving you here.”

He glanced back at the house, but I shook my head no.

“I’ll be okay.”

“I could sleep out here in my truck?” He offered.

I laughed. “No I’m sure your mom has been missing you. Go home, I’ll call if I need you.” And I did need him, every moment of every day for the rest of my life. But saying that would just make him sleep on my front porch and that would only piss off my dad.

“I love you. Now go home.” I said.

He smiled kissed me once more and rushed to his truck. I grabbed my bag and turned to stare up at the house where my mother had died. The same house I grew up in, where I myself almost died. I took a deep breath for courage and walked inside.

Dinner that night was bizarre. Bridget looked at home in my mother’s kitchen and I had to fight nausea while I watched her navigate through the cupboards and drawers like she owned the place. She made spaghetti. I picked at my food but refused to actually eat it. I wouldn’t put it past her to poison me. She was after all the one who talked my father into signing my commitment papers.

“Pacey dear don’t you like your linguine?”
Bridget’s shrill voice made my eardrums hurt.

“It’s fine.” I said flatly.

My father spent the remainder of dinner ignoring me or staring with disdain. Dean’s house was looking better and better every minute.

“I’m going to bed.” I shoved my plate away from me and rose from the dinner table.

Bridget’s breath caught. “At least clean your plate.”

I snorted and walked away from the dining room without responding. She was sure as hell not my mother.

I could hear my dad making excuses for me when Bridget’s high voice barked in anger. The woman was awful. Fake. I could see behind her acrylic nails and blond highlights. She wanted to paint the picture of class and beauty, but inside she was decay. Selfish and rotten to the core. Only a woman like that would go after another woman’s husband.

The next morning Wes showed up bright and early. Rhi was with him. They rolled in cheerfully and I envied them their light mood. I was still carrying the anger from the night before.

“Hey P.” Rhi said when she strolled through my door.

Her eyes weren’t nearly as heavy with eyeliner, and her nose ring was missing. She looked different…happier.
It was as if my week away hadn’t even happened. Wes smiled when he saw me.

“Hey you, did Dean tell you the good news?”

“Yep.” I said a little too sharply. Bitsy’s soft face rose in my mind. Did Rhi really do that to my poor kitten?

“Did you kill my cat?” I said between clenched teeth.

Rhiannon frowned, the worry pulling at her eyes. “Hell no, why would you even ask me that?”

I dug through my jeans pocket for my phone. I scrolled through my incoming messages for the text. I shoved the phone into Rhi’s hand. Wes hissed when he saw it. Rhi gagged and threw the phone into Wes’s outstretched hands.

“I swear to God Pacey I didn’t do that. My phone was stolen…ask Wes he knows.”

Wes nodded and handed me back the phone. The anger I’d being carrying around towards Rhiannon evaporated.

“Thank God.” I said.

Rhi held out a hand in truce and I pushed it away and threw my arms around her. Tears sprung to my eyes.

“I’m sorry I doubted you.”

Rhi laughed. “I’m a total bitch most of the time so I can’t even blame you. I didn’t shoot our friends or hurt your cat. I was really angry when Wes told me what you thought but…I guess I’m over it. You’re my best friend.”

We held onto each other for a while longer. Wes finally pulled us free.

“As hot as this is, we do have shit to do today.” He said.

I laughed and then frowned when I saw Bridget hiding in the shadows of the kitchen watching us.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

I glanced farther inside and noticed my dad making breakfast. It was obvious Bridget had stayed over, which only added to my bad mood.

“Come to my room.” I whispered.

Wes’s eyes went wide as he tilted to see into the kitchen. I wacked his arm and pointed towards the stairs. Dean texted to let me know he was on his way. When we were finally alone in my room with the door shut I let my voice rise in anger.

“I can’t stand that bitch.”

Rhi snorted. “You mean daddy’s new plaything.”

I groaned and threw myself down on my bed. Wes laid beside me and reached for my hand.

“It can’t be that bad.” He said.

Rhi laid down on my other side and laughed. “You’re kidding right, she looks like a troller.”

“Troller?” I asked.

Rhi sat up and glanced down at us. “Yea you know one of those woman who trolls for married men because the single ones are too easy. She likes the challenge, it makes her feel better about herself. Twisted right?”

Wes and I laughed and then I said. “Where do you get this stuff?”

Rhi smiled. “Jerry Springer of course.”

She laid back down and I resumed staring at the ceiling. A dark water stain was near the right corner near the window. Last fall we’d gotten heavy rains and the roof leaked. My mom had bought the paint only a few months ago to paint over it.

My heart clenched. I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain.

“You know.” Wes said clearing his throat. “Your dad could just be lonely…they were married for what…twenty years. Longer. That has to be hard.”

I swallowed and opened my eyes. He was sitting up and staring down at me and Rhi.

“I’m sorry Pace, people do stupid stuff sometimes.”

I smiled wearily and nodded. He blushed and looked away. Probably remembering our own stupid
past.

Someone knocked softly on the bedroom door before opening it. Dean peaked in and grinned.