Redemption (23 page)
“Can the pity stare!” I said forcefully.
He didn’t blink or remove his gaze.
“Don’t mistake disgust for pity,” Marcas said as he moved slightly away from me. It made me relax.
“I need—” Marcas began as a loud gasp interrupted us both.
I cringed and Marcas moved even further away.
“What the hell!” Monroe cried out sleepily from the side of the bed, and I let my gaze drift from Marcas’ only long enough to give Monroe a long, hard stare. And the longer I stared, the more she got the unspoken message my eyes revealed. Words weren’t needed. She knew enough about the situation to put two and two together.
She rubbed sleep out of her eyes and shook her head, her blonde hair almost white in the dim light as she moved.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Monroe moaned before making her way slowly up onto the mattress, giving Marcas a wide berth as she settled next to me. I could feel her trembling slightly.
“What’s going on?” Monroe whispered urgently. I shrugged.
“What do you need?” I asked, my question directed at Marcas as I placed a placating hand on Monroe’s flannel covered leg. Marcas watched us both, his eyes full of feral heat.
“I need you to go somewhere with me,” he said.
I froze. Monroe’s nails suddenly dug into my arm.
“No way!” she hissed into my ear, but I found myself regarding Marcas thoughtfully. The strain around his eyes and the white that spread through his clenched knuckles was proof enough that he was not happy about needing anything from me. It made me oddly triumphant.
“No fucking way!” Monroe reiterated.
I looked over at her a second pleadingly. As soon as my gaze met hers, I saw her blink before throwing her hands up in exasperation.
“You’re crazy!” she whispered.
I turned away.
“What could you possibly need
me
for?” I asked Marcas pointedly.
Monroe’s nails dug deeper into my arm as Marcas and I regarded each other carefully. We were both holding back. I was still smarting from the betrayal of all that I’d ever known, and he had to deal with me. This was war, and I was somehow a liability. I could see it in his gaze.
“You need me too, Blainey,” Marcas muttered, and I narrowed my eyes. This whole thing was becoming more than I could take.
“You’re not telling me something,
Craig,
” I stated matter-of-factly, using the last name Damon had given me at our "recruiter" dinner. I knew now I'd dined with a Demon. Marcas didn’t argue. Monroe sat up straighter.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” Monroe ground out.
Her protectiveness filled me with warmth. True family came in odd places sometimes. And Monroe was definitely my family. Marcas regarded her calmly.
“I wouldn’t be here if there was any other choice."
He turned back to me, his eyes blazing and heat coming off of him in waves
“But there isn’t. I’m not keeping anything from you, Blainey.
They
have. I am not your enemy. It wasn’t me that took away this choice for you,” Marcas said before pulling out a small blade hidden within the inner folds of his jacket. My eyes widened and Monroe yelped.
“Day—” Monroe croaked as she backed away from the bed, pulling me with her forcefully as she moved.
I was dead weight, too engrossed by the glint of moonlight on metal. Danger can be like that. So mesmerizing it takes away free will. Marcas lifted the blade so fast neither of us predicted the blood we suddenly saw gushing from the palm of his hand, the crimson fluid appearing black in the feeble light. We both gasped. He had cut himself, slashing shallowly into the meat of his palm. And not once did he flinch. Pain burned along my skin and I froze.
“Marcas—" I began.
Monroe suddenly yelped again before grabbing my wrist crushingly in her hand. It made me cry out.
“Oh my God, Dayton!” Monroe said disbelievingly, and I finally looked down at the hand she clutched so dramatically.
It all happened in slow motion, my eyes riveted to each new detail as if I was stuck holding a portable time machine set on repeat. My vision blurred, and I blinked hard as I fought to focus on the sight before me. My hand. My blood. My blood beading slowly up across my palm before dripping thickly onto my wrist. My eyes followed the trail to my elbow.
What the hell?
My gaze swept between Marcas and me, first perusing the palm of his hand and then examining mine. They were identical.
NO!
“What did you do?” I asked in horror.
Marcas shook his head as he watched the same scene in silence, moving only enough to staunch his bleeding. The blood flowing from my palm slowed.
“
I
didn’t do anything,” he said quietly. I was having a hard time believing him.
“You are a part of me now, an extension. I bleed, you bleed. I tire, you tire. I didn’t do this to you.
They
did,” Marcas said.
I felt the blood rushing through my head, and I grew dizzy.
They did
. I didn’t want to believe him.
“How?” I whispered hoarsely.
He leaned toward me and Monroe sat up straighter. The beast versus the friend. I was placing bets on the beast, and I didn’t like the odds.
“You drank from the Chalice. It was filled with my blood,” Marcas explained.
I looked down at my hand. The ritual. The Chalice. The thick fluid that’d burned when my aunt forced it down my throat. A lot of things started to make a lot of scary sense. My shoulders slumped, and I felt Monroe tense behind me.
“Where are we going?” I asked Marcas wearily.
Monroe cried out. But what choice did I have? I wasn’t just tied to the beast, we were somehow part of the same person. The freakishly opposite sides of the same fucking coin.
When Cain kills Abel in the Bible, God curses Cain. The ground no longer yields crops for him. He is cursed to wander the earth restlessly. Cain tells the Lord his punishment is more than he can bear, that whoever finds him will kill him. But the Lord says to him in Genesis 4:15“Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him.”
~Bezaliel~
“If you think you’re going anywhere without me, you really are crazy,” Monroe hissed as she followed us out of the house, while pulling an
Elvis is alive
sweatshirt on over her hastily thrown-on clothes.
Marcas’ figure loomed in front of me. I wondered absently if he was taller than Conor or if they were the same height. Either way, they both towered over me.
“This isn’t some simple day trip,” Marcas said brusquely, his stride lengthening.
I cursed him in my head. Didn’t tall people realize walking faster meant short people had to jog to keep up? Monroe moved past me and tugged on Marcas’ jacket. Talk about bravado. He stopped abruptly and spun around, his face almost feral, his eyes tinted red. Monroe took several steps back.
“I don’t care how long it takes,” she said confidently.
I stared at her in awe. Marcas glanced between us.
“And she’s worth that much loyalty?” Marcas asked, inclining his head in my direction. I scowled at him.
“Bastard,” I muttered.
He looked at Monroe. She edged closer to me.
“Yes,” she answered. No other explanation needed. It was all wrapped up in that one word. We had a long history together. I touched her arm gently.
“What about your mom?”
Monroe looked at me, her face determined. I knew then no one would win this battle. Monroe was in.
“I’ll call her later. But I’m going and that’s that."
I shrugged. Okay by me. Marcas shook his head and looked Heavenward.
“Is this part of my curse now too?” he asked the night sky.
I looked at him silently, my gaze tracing his strong jaw before working its way down the line of his neck. He had muscles everywhere. And what did he mean curse? A thought hit me.
“Do you have a car?” I asked reasonably.
His head dropped, his eyes finding mine before inclining his head slightly to the left. Why couldn’t he just point? I looked in that direction and almost yelped. Monroe whistled.
“Damn, it’s Eleanor,”
she muttered, quoting the
Gone in Sixty Seconds
movie as we both perused the sleek black 1967 Shelby Mustang GT 500
that sat at the end of the drive.
Marcas didn’t reply, he just moved on, almost gliding as he came up on the car and entered the driver’s side. He seemed more like a motorcycle guy. Something told me he was making a lot of adjustments for me. Like he needed any more reasons to loathe me.
“Don’t offer to open the door or anything,” Monroe mumbled as she climbed into the back. The snide remarks were usually my forte, but I was still reeling over the whole he-bled-I-bled thing. Kinda spins a person for a loop.
Marcas glanced at me as I slid in next to him. I thought for a moment he was going to ask me if I was okay then thought better of it. He shifted gears. I looked over at his profile.
“Who are you?” I asked.
He backed out of the drive and sped into the night. His gaze didn’t meet mine again.
“You know what I am."
I hated vague answers.
“That’s not what I asked,” I said shortly.
He did glance at me then but briefly.
“I’m going to make one thing clear. I’m not here to get to know you. I could give a damn how you feel, and I’m not here to explain myself to anyone. I’m here because my brother has wild ideas that are going to get a lot of people killed. And because he didn’t give me a choice,” Marcas fumed. I just stared at him.
“That was helpful,” I remarked sarcastically. “If you’re done with the whole Demon tirade, can you tell me what I have to do with any of this?”
Marcas stiffened. If he thought his verbal montage affected me any, he was wrong. I had spent seven years in a home where my feelings weren’t spared. Why start now?
“They haven’t told you anything, have they?” he asked me quietly. I shrugged.
“The most I’ve gotten out of all this is that my aunt is the head of some Sethian sect hell-bent on destroying Demons. Somehow she has allied herself with one, drugged me on my birthday, forced me to drink your foul blood, then left me disoriented in a bar. Now I find out I’m somehow tied to you. That’s about the extent of it. Any further explanations are welcome."
The car slowed.
“It shouldn’t surprise me that they’d do this. But it does surprise me that they’d involve you this unwillingly. I thought you at least knew what you were,” Marcas said.
Monroe leaned forward in the back seat.
“And that would be what exactly?” she asked.
I just kept staring at him.
“I’m a descendant of Seth right?”
My thoughts were suddenly on Amber. I saw Marcas’ jaw tighten.
“You are a descendant of the Biblical Seth through your mother’s bloodline. Not your father’s."
“So?” I asked, confused. Did it matter?
Marcas sighed. Maybe he thought I was slow. I sure felt that way lately.
“Your aunt runs a Sethian Sect. This, I’m assuming, you know. There are groups out there, other Sethian groups who prefer a pure Sethian bloodline. Both parents are descended from Seth. But it isn’t a prerequisite. They are quiet, good Christian followers who believe their calling is leading through example. They do not care if your heritage is Sethian although their leaders are. They do not discriminate. But as with any religion, no matter the denomination, there are extremist groups. Your aunt’s group is one of them. They marry only within the Sethian bloodline. The Sisters are an exception only because they’ve chosen not to marry at all. There are Brothers who make that same choice,” Marcas explained. The car was quiet.
“And this makes Dayton and her sister an anomaly?” Monroe asked from the backseat.
I stared out the window in front of me. I got one thing out of that whole explanation. If my mother was Sethian, but my father wasn't . . .
“My father is the key isn’t he?”
Marcas didn’t answer. I looked over at him.
“What was my father?”
Dad’s voice rang through my head, "
Look to the light, Day."
Marcas glanced at me sharply. The car swerved. Had he heard that?
“There’s a road, you know,” Monroe complained from the backseat.
Marcas straightened the car. I kept watching him.
“What
was
my father?” I asked again.
Marcas looked over at me briefly. Our eyes met.
“He’s a Watcher. They are Angels."
He looked away. My heart sped up. What did he say? My father? An Angel? As in the Heavenly, I can fly kind of Angels? Monroe sat up abruptly.
