The Mark of Cain (54 page)

“I love you, Inac,” she said, unsure if she’d said
his name out loud.

His eyes changed suddenly. The fear and hatred was
replaced by love. The pure love that she felt for him. She could see it. He
loved her. He really
loved
her.

But he couldn’t. He didn’t even love himself. Maybe
he was acting again. Trying to make her happy in her last moments….

She was glad when he bent to kiss her softly. When
he pulled away just barely, she heard him say, “Hara…I love you, too. For real.
I’m not pretending.”

Even though she could feel her heart already
skipping beats, she knew that one of them was because of his words. He really
seemed to mean it. For the first time in his life, he loved somebody more than
he loved himself. She saw it in the tears he was spilling. He’d never cried
before, but now he was, and they were for her. For their love.

She lifted a hand to his cheek above the beard and
lightly rubbed it, trying to wipe a tear away with her weak and feeble fingers.
When she did, he closed his eyes as though he was concentrating on the feel of
her bloody hand as she left a crimson streak of it along his cheek.

“Don’t cry,” she said.

He shook his head as though about to tell her that
he didn’t cry. But when her hand became too heavy to hold up any longer and it
fell away, he caught it, looking at the tears on her fingers in shock. It was
as though he had no idea that he even
was
crying.

He gently held her wrist, lightly caressing it so
that she barely felt it through the haze of fire trying to pull her into the
blackness creeping into the corners of her vision. She was falling into it when
his voice brought her back.

“About your family…” he said as he put a comforting
hand to her cheek.

She shook her head…or at least she thought she did.
But she couldn’t be certain through the tightness in her chest that was making
it difficult to take in a breath.

“Forgive and forget,” she managed before a rasping
cough began deep in her chest. As she coughed up fire, she felt Inac pull her
closer to him as though protecting her from the pain she was feeling. She was
having a difficult time getting in the breaths and, once she did, they had a
weird rattle that a part of her barely noticed.

“Pro…omise…me?”
she said between gasping breaths.

“What? I’ll promise anything,” he said as he stroked
her face.

“No…more…bad.
O…only…good,”
she managed to
get out in whispers she hoped he could hear. Black spots were blocking her view
of him so that she could only see pieces of him as she began to feel extremely
dizzy and languid, like she’d had too much of Inac’s wine.

Her vision was almost all black now but she heard
him say, “I promise, Hara. I’ll only do good. And I’ll atone for everything I’ve
done wrong.”

She smiled as she felt herself slipping away.

“Then my death is wor…orth—”

“No!” he said, shaking her until she felt roused
just a bit. “Your death won’t ever be worth it. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It
should be me.”

“No. Just use…
immor…ortality
…for good…do
good…” she managed before more coughs came over her. She felt fluid from her
lungs escape, giving her a moment longer with him. She was gasping, doing
everything in her power to get a breath into her lungs, but she couldn’t. It
hurt so bad. Everything hurt so bad. She needed air.

She started panicking, but Inac’s words gave her
comfort.

“I’ll be a saint,” he promised.

She smiled again as the coughs ceased. She no longer
hurt. Now everything was peaceful and she began to fall asleep. She couldn’t
feel Inac, but she knew he was still there.

“Remember…?” she said without feeling her mouth
move, so she wasn’t sure whether or not she’d really said it.

“What? What do you want me to remember?”

“I love…” she said as everything faded away except
for a bright light.

***

“I love…” Hara began. But she didn’t finish. Her
breathing spluttered for a moment before it stopped and Inac watched the last
glimmer of her leave. Soon her eyes were mostly closed and her body relaxed,
her heart and breathing no more. She was dead.

“Hara?” he cried, looking at the blood from his
fingers and her mouth that were marring her perfect face, looking brighter on
her skin devoid of color. “Hara?”

When he realized that she was really gone, he let a
wail escape along with all his tears. Thousands of years’ worth of them. He
cried for Hara. He cried for himself. But mostly, he cried for the newfound
love he’d ruined by being the man that he was.

Every wrong he’d ever done, every crime against God
he’d committed, came back to him in his equally newfound heart. He wished that
he could take them all away. He was sorry, truly sorry, for all the pain he’d
caused.

“Why God? I know that I’ve made myself Your greatest
enemy, but why? This isn’t fair. I’m sorry. I’m…I’m so sorry. She didn’t
deserve this. Not Hara…. Not when it’s only because of
my
manipulations
that she’s no longer Your Chosen One. Please? I’ll do anything; I’ll give You
anything
.
Take my life, my immortality, and give it to her. Let me die and give her my
life…. Please God?”
He
was rocking back and forth, holding her body in his arms. He’d already closed
her empty eyes the rest of the way.

“Please God. Take me. Take me instead. Even if it’s
only to send me to Hell. Just take me instead of her. Please?” he cried.

“Please…” was all he could manage as he cradled and
rocked Hara’s lifeless body back and forth, his sobs slowly becoming
hysterical. He didn’t care about anything in this moment other than her: the
love of his life. Was there nothing he could do? Nothing to bring her back? He
was willing to do anything; sacrifice
anything
. If only He would answer
his mournful cries….

Just as his despair was overtaking him, a light
appeared, burning bright in this miserable parking lot.

“Ka-in, my son.”

Inac looked up, beholding God for the first time
since his punishment had been decreed.

“Please?” Inac squeaked. He felt such shame in God’s
presence. Where before he had been arrogant and unabashed, now being in His
presence made Inac wish that he could shrivel up until he was no more.

“Thou comest to me with a humble and contrite
spirit?” God asked him, looking stern.

“I’ll come to you with whatever you want me to if it
will save her. Please? She needs to do her work. And if you need someone’s life
to keep the balance, then take mine.”

“Thou knowest what that would entail?”

“Yes,” Inac sobbed. “I’ll suffer in the worst pits
of Hell for all eternity. It will be worse than any torture I’ve felt here. It
will be worse than what the Christians say Christ suffered in Gethsemane. I’m
willing to live that life. Just save her.
Please
?!” he howled.

God nodded. “Then it shall be done.”

Inac cried out in joy. Hara would be okay. God kept
his promises just as Inac did.

He looked down at Hara, barely noticing when the
light of God disappeared because he was so focused on watching for any minute
movement from her still and bloody form. It seemed an eternity before he saw a
diminutive ripple in her chest. Soon after, a white light as bright as the
midday sun accompanied it, spreading through her limbs and up her throat,
disintegrating the blood that touched her until any evidence of her death was
burned off of her skin, though her clothes were left tattered and sticky. He
watched as the light bubbled out of her mouth, opening it with its force. When
it did, she took a quick intake of breath.

Inac cried out in his joy.

“Hara? Can you hear me?” he said in a gentle voice
that spoke volumes of his newfound love for her.

Her eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings and
parted until her incandescent crystallized violet eyes were gazing up at him.

“Hi,” she whispered with a smile.

He let out a sob and brought her face to his chest.

“I’m sorry, Hara,” he said, unable to keep himself
from weeping from the joy he felt at her being alive and okay.

She pulled back to look him in the eye. She didn’t
seem to be in any pain. In fact, she wasn’t even weak.

“I know, Inac,” she said, her face radiant as though
that light was still inside of her. “I watched. God let me watch.”

“Then you know—?”

She was looking at him with the same joy he felt at
her being allowed to live.

“How much you really do love me? Yes,” she said as
she began crying, though hers were full of elation and love.

He smiled as he stroked her hair, tears still
falling unheeded down his face. “Good. I’m glad He let you see so you won’t
wonder once I’m gone.”

Her brow furrowed momentarily. “Where are you
going?”

“Didn’t you hear? I traded me for you. I’m going to
the deepest fires of Hell, which is actually a lot harder to get into than you
people think. I bet Hitler won’t even be there…” he said, rambling on because
he didn’t know what to do; he’d never cried before.

“I heard that, but…
you
didn’t hear?” she
asked, her innocent eyes wide with surprise. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Didn’t tell me what?”

“You
asked
, Inac. You asked for forgiveness.
Maybe not in so many words, but your heart and soul were begging for it. You
were truly sorry….”

“So?” he asked when she didn’t go on.

“So that’s all God has been waiting for,” she said
with the broadest smile he’d ever seen cross her face. It was as though her
very love was pouring from it. “He was just waiting for you to feel shame and
to
ask
. He’s forgiven you. You’re no longer Cain. You truly have become
Inac.”

“But I don’t understand…?”

“He said that the key was in my name. Does that mean
anything to you?”

“Well, in the language of my father, Anahara means
for the purpose of deliverance from a curse….”

“So she’s fulfilled the prophecy,” a new voice said.

Inac and Hara both turned to Tracker in surprise.
Behind him was Crystal, Vinnie, and a few other workers. All of them looked
ruffled, so Inac was pretty sure that they’d probably seen a good portion of
things. Inac had been too consumed with Hara and God that he hadn’t paid
attention at all to the world outside of their little bubble.

“What do you mean? How?” Inac asked as he took a rag
Tracker offered him to wipe Hara’s blood off him before he painted her with it
again—other than her clothes, she might no longer have blood all over her, but
both him and the pavement were saturated with it.

“That’s in the prophecy,” Tracker told him. “That
her name is the key. So it was about you all along. They tried to keep her from
you, but it
was
you.
You
were her work.”

Inac laughed as he stood up, pulling her up with
him. “And here I thought I was working
her
the whole time.”

She giggled at his corny line and leapt into him,
kissing him as she said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” And this time, he meant it.

“So you’re the Bible Cain?” a wide-eyed Crystal
asked, walking up to the three of them.

“How long were you guys standing there?” he asked,
looking at the group behind her instead of answering her question.

“About the time you got to Hara. We saw everything.
Like…was that God?”

He nodded. “And yes, I’m that Cain, as well as the
one in the Qur’an
and Torah. I’m the first murderer on Earth.” And, for
the first time in his life, that admission made him bow his head in shame.

“No you’re not,” Hara said, taking his hand. “Today
you became a new person. You became Inac. You’re the man I fell in love with.”

He smiled, unable to contain the love and happiness
trying to burst forth from him.

“Your eyes,” Hara said as they began walking inside
to explain everything to Crystal and the others.

“What about them?” he asked as he took the jacket
the bouncer from the club was offering her and exchanged it with her cardigan
thick with gore.

“They’re blue,” she said as he wrapped it tight
around her shoulders.

So he really
wasn’t
Cain any longer. For his
crime, his eyes had been as black as his hate. Now, they would be as clear as
his love. He didn’t know if everything tying him to Cain was gone—he could
still see the tattoo on his arm, as dark as it had been the day it had been
burned into him—but mortal or immortal, he would love Hara until the end of his
days.

Coming
2013

Redemption: The Cain Chronicles
Book Two