Reborn (25 page)

A flush of red burned on the young man’s face as I stepped into view, half-naked. He glared from Desiree’s half-exposed chest to mine. She told him to keep the change and closed the door softly in his face.

“Poor guy.” Her laughter sent shimmers of joy surging through me. “He probably wished we had invited him in.”

“Never in a thousand years,” I said, pulling her back into my arms.

“We really should eat while the pizza is still semi-hot.” She teased my sides with her fingers. The muscles contracted beneath her ticklish touch. Then she left me to go to the cupboard and bring down two glasses, which she filled with clear soda.

We ate at the same table we’d nearly desecrated. Gray smoke from a candle flame, sitting on the table beside the rose, danced between us. The flame itself set Desiree’s skin aglow. I’d fallen for her to the point that she meant more to me than anyone or anything I’d ever known, even my own life. So deep were my feelings for her, I almost hoped I didn’t have a recent past, that I did appear out of the ground suddenly and had no ties, no one searching for me.

After the two of us devoured three-quarters of the pizza, I cleared the table while Desiree went to change out of her jeans. Her plan was to snuggle on the sofa together and watch a movie. I looked forward to the snuggling.

I turned the TV on low and waited for Desiree to emerge from the bedroom. An uneasy feeling grew in the moments of her absence. From one corner of the sofa, I took in as much of the apartment I could see. No spirits. I couldn’t feel them. All was quiet—except for the gnawing buzz in my head, an omen of something yet to happen. The sliding doors leading to the balcony were right in front of me. All was clear out there. But something brought a sudden chill to the surface of my skin, on this balmy evening. As I was about to knock on the bedroom door, it opened, and Desiree, wearing a skimpy peach nightshirt that looked poured over her curves, flashed me a smile that took my breath away… but the chill remained.

She had added a little makeup and smoothed out the messy parts of her hair since I’d seen her last. But it was hard to keep focused on her face with so much going on below it.

As Desiree opened her mouth to speak, the storm returned with a vengeance. A loud boom, sounding more like an explosion than thunder, made us both jump.

Before I could catch my breath, the patio doors shattered, scattering shards of glass all over the floor. In that same instant a white stallion carrying a ghostly rider burst into the living room.

“Solomon”! Desiree screamed and latched on to my arm.

With no time to think up a plan, I pushed her against the door casing and spread my body in front of her, staring breathlessly at the apparition of my evil twin on top of Excalibur.

With each passing second, my heart beat faster and faster, filling my chest with searing pain, and with each beat, the evil Solomon appeared more whole.

The Priestesses had failed.

“Jesus,” Desiree whimpered.

Without lifting my gaze from the fire-eyed demon, I shoved Desiree into the bedroom doorway. “Get inside and close the door. Don’t come out no matter what you hear.”

I heard the door slam shut behind me, but I knew a simple wooden barrier wouldn’t keep this inhuman beast out if he wanted her.

With the evil Solomon fully materialized now, I took the opportunity and lunged at him, sinking my fingers into his leg and pulling him off the horse. The coffee table smashed to pieces beneath his weight when he landed on top of it. But he quickly regained composure, quicker than any human could. He kicked broken boards out of the way, and cocked his head to one side.

“So, you want to battle for the prize? How gallant of you.”

Before I could take the next breath, he thrust himself at me, knocking me to the floor with such force, the two of us slid into the foyer. My head slammed into the closet door, sending a shooting pain down the back on my neck.

The demon’s eyes burned down on me; his breath hit my face like a hot poker. After a struggle, I was able to get to my feet. My enemy, looking robust as all hell, brandished a bowie knife.

He lunged at me again, knocking me against a wall. The tip of the knife stuck into the first layer of skin over my heart.

With my hands gripping his, I struggled to push his arms back, but he didn’t budge.

A look of disappointment flitted across his face, and he backed the knife away, leaving a trickle of blood to run down and pool at the waist of my jeans. In that moment, I realized something vital—he needed me alive. That if I died, he died, too. A selfish grin of triumph lifted my cheeks. Selfish, in that I spared the moment to gloat.

“Go ahead; plunge the blade into my beating heart, something you’ll never feel again in your decayed cavity of a body.”

Blue irises replaced the fire burning in his eye sockets, followed by a flash of worry. It was enough of a distraction for me to grab the knife out of his hand and manoeuver away from him.

But now what? I glanced at the shiny blade and realized also that this material possession was useless against the undead. Although I had felt his hot flesh as we fought, somehow, I knew no heart beat inside that chest.

But another idea came to mind.

I backed away farther, until I hit the kitchen cupboard, then turned the knife on myself. His mark was there, directly over my heart. I had to be quick. I would get only one chance. Gripping the ivory hilt with both hands, I punctured the first layer of skin with the point, holding back the grimace that begged to follow the pain.

If I died, he died, too.

My darker half made a move to stop me. Desiree’s anguished cries filled the room.

“No! Don’t! Please.”

Excalibur, who I’d almost forgotten about, let loose a furious string of neighs and snorts.

Through my own misery burning my eyes, I glanced over at Desiree standing beside Excalibur.

“Desiree, go. Leave the apartment.” With a grunt, I shoved the knife in farther, tearing through muscle.

“Solomon… I love you!”

Every fiber of my being caught those three words and held on to them. How could I do this to her, in front of her? But wouldn’t she be better off if I didn’t exist? As I was about to plunge the knife in to the hilt, ending my life for good, my twin threw himself at me. The knife fell to the floor, just before his body merged with mine.

I lost all control of movement, except for my mind, which was only partly mine.

“Desiree, run… run, because… I’m going to cut you to pieces—”
No. Don’t listen, run, Desiree.
I couldn’t get the words out I wanted to say. “Then I’m going to suck the blood from your flesh.”

His thoughts turned into my words, as his hot poison bleed into my veins, and his sinful desires spread into my loins. My evil self quickly took hold of my brain, all except the part that allowed me to know who I was, and that I loved Desiree with my whole heart. He afforded me just enough self to suffer from what I was about to do. The vile bastard would make
me
kill her.

“Go!” I screamed with the last breath in me.

His evil grin spread across my face. Desiree came out of her shock and fled the apartment. I used the last bit of humanity I had left and fought back with willpower. To anyone watching, I would have looked insane, thrashing myself against the counter, walls, furniture. Anything to keep him occupied so Desiree would have enough time to flee our wrath. An inner struggle between two strengths, one bad, one good, carried on for an immeasurable amount of time. When exhaustion conquering my human body, I screamed in my mind, until the words burst out of my mouth.

“Leave my body! Go back to your fucking hell!”

The love I felt for Desiree grew inside me, filling me, pushing the evil Solomon out. It was easy then to bring her image into my mind. Her green eyes sparkled in a beam of sunlight at the park. The passion in her kiss, even now, sent a pleasurable shiver through me. In the next instant, the beast was sucked out of me. I just hoped I gave her enough time to escape.

Fire raged in the demon’s eyes, and steam lifted off his skin. Other than fiercely enraged, he looked no worse for wear, while I struggled to stay standing, feeling almost as dead as when I’d first burst from the ground.

Sirens wailed in the distance, all the while growing closer.

The enraged demon jumped on a saddened Excalibur.

“I’ll find the bitch. And when I get finished with her, you won’t recognize what I leave behind as even being her.” He pulled the reins, pointing Excalibur toward the space where the patio doors had been. “And you will have yourself to blame!”

He threw his head back in a guttural laugh, then he and the horse disappeared over the railing.

lashes of blue and red streaked the apartment walls. The sharp wail I’d come to fear and hate stopped abruptly. I’d barely made it to the phone when my knees gave out and I collapsed to the floor. A heavy weight pressed down on me, as if someone had replaced my blood with lead and encased me in cement. Ripples of nausea flowed through me, awakening the pain to new heights. An invisible force overpowered my will to move. My fingertips grazed the edges of the torn piece of paper with Melba’s phone number on it I kept with me, but the toll of the recent catastrophe fought to claim my consciousness, along with my body.

Then I felt buoyant, almost as if I didn’t exist. Pain lifted, with the weight. For a moment, I felt a sprinkling of water on my face. More sirens blared, somewhere close to my head this time, and lights flashed on the other side of my eyelids. Something cold and sharp bit into my wrists that were shoved behind me. Blurred glimpses of the city rushing by made vomit crawl up the back my throat. Someone helped me to walk, but when my knees gave out and I couldn’t stand, they dragged me.

Chains rattled and metal clanked. Someone with a deep voice said, “Let him sleep it off. He can’t tell us anything in his drunken state.”

Then vertigo hit right before I slammed into something hard. Sharp needles of pain radiated through my head. Holding on to the last fragment of will, I conjured Desiree’s image to the forefront of my mind. But quickly her face changed to the slave girl’s, with the same green eyes. Desiree would be dead by now, or at the very least, at the mercy of her pursuer. Her image faded as I lost consciousness…