The Light of the World (26 page)

I watch the sleeping priest. "I want that answer
and then I want to eat him."

He nods, "I was afraid you would say that. Even
after you depleted my resources here. I will say though, he
probably doesn’t have many sins. You'll be even hungrier after you
eat him. Whereas I know he has loads of blood in that chubby body.
I will be sated. I think we'll have to wrestle for this one." He
walks from the room and I sit back.

"You're going to kill him? He's a priest." Mona
looks sick.

I nod. I don’t want to explain to her that I am
seconds away from eating her.

She gets up and leaves.

She doesn’t want to face the fact I am the
monster everyone keeps telling her that I am.

I look up at the ceiling. My other lives are
coming back. I remember things. I remember my mother. I remember my
father walking me up a hill. He held my hand and spoke to me of
love and responsibility. I never saw the flash of steal or felt a
thing. He ensured I went peacefully but that changes nothing. He
has cut my head off twice. A shiver runs up my spine. I see his
face. I look a lot like him.

The priest rolls his head and mutters. His face
drains of color. He struggles to lift his head. His lips seem fat
and thick.

"My child." He mutters.

I lean in. His hands latch around my throat, "MY
CHILD!" His eyes are completely black. He is spitting when he
speaks. "You must honor the agreement. You must. YOU MUST!" He
screams in my face. I can't breathe. I try to claw at his hands but
the strength in them is unnatural.

He is leaning in breathing his hot breath on my
face. "YOU MUST HONOR THE AGREEMENT! SOUL FOR SOUL!"

My eyes are getting dark from the lack of
oxygen. I panic and push at him.

I feel something sharp grab at my arm and
suddenly the room spins. I land against something hard. Blackness
fills my eyes. I hear hissing. The last thing I see is Constantine
consuming the priest.

I am surrounded by warmth. It’s a familiar
feeling. I pull the arms around me tighter. I moan a little and
wiggle into the embrace. I hear a chuckle and look up. Constantine
is across the small dark room, "You wish it were me do you?"

I frown and look behind me. A face I do not know
lies next to me. His expression is slack.

"Murdered his mother and her cat. Stole her car
and crashed it. Took his clothes off and ran down the road naked.
Got taken to a mental hospital. Never got tried for the death of
his mother. I really don’t feel like it's fair, you know. He should
pay for the death of the cat at the very least. Anyway he received
a clean bill of health two weeks ago. Ten years of intense therapy
has determined he is sound as a pound."

I squirm away from him. "Why is he next to me?"
I look around. I am in a cell. "Why am I in a cell?"

His eyes gleam, "You let yourself get hungry my
love. That has always a problem with you. I couldn’t let you kill
Mona."

Jealousy pangs flutter inside of me. I recall
the way they looked at each other when they met. The way he called
her pure. It was an insult directed at me.

"Yes, god forbid anything happens to the love of
your life at the hands of another. I know how you like to be the
one to ruin them."

He is beside me in a flash. His face is so
close, his words are a part of my breath. "I don’t want you to feel
guilty for killing her. It would ruin you. Unlike you I've only had
one life, one love." His black eyes scare me for the seconds they
remain. Then he is gone and I am full of sadness again.

I look back at the young man on the crappy
little bed. He is handsome. I reach a finger and trail it along his
arm. He is sweet. Probably the sweetest thing I've tasted since the
madness in the stalls here last time. My mouth waters when I taste
the evil lurking inside of him. His skin is warm and soft. I knead
him like a cat and let the suck start. I'm starving. I pull hard
and fast. He screams as I pull it from him roughly.

I sigh and shudder. Sweat drips along my face. I
squeeze my thighs together and try to catch my breath.

He murdered another woman last week. "So much
for therapy." I mutter to myself.

I stand and press on the cell door. It's stuck.
I push harder but it's locked. I look at the dead kid on the bed
and slump against the bars.

"Constantine, please." I call out. "Let me out.
I'm sorry I said that. You know how sometimes I talk out of
hunger." It too has always been a problem.

He doesn’t come. I watch the shadows move along
the floor of the only window down here. The shadow moves with the
passing hours. Panic starts to build inside of me. The dead kid
stinks. His skin is sweating. He's making a wet mark on the bed. I
am in the far corner, plotting my escape. The worst scenario I can
imagine is playing around in my mind.

'He has betrayed us again.'

I feel sick at the thought of it.

I fall asleep against the bars. The dead take
me.

When I wake Mona is hugging me and sobbing. I
wake calmly as always but start to panic.

"Mona, what's wrong?"

She is holding me and crying, "I couldn’t find
you. He wouldn’t show me where you were. He said you needed time to
cool off. You were a danger to me."

"Did he touch you?"

She shakes her head, "No. No of course not. He
asked me a million questions about you and about Wyatt and about
school."

"What did you tell him?"

She shakes her head, "I'm not sure."

I put my face in my hands, "Fuck." He's made her
tell him everything about me. He's jealous on a bad day. Now he
knows I've had sex with other men. Lots of other men.

I look around me. She has dragged me from the
cell. The bars are open. I look back at the open door. "There's a
dead guy in there. Don’t go in there."

She cries harder, "I know. I know I saw him. He
stinks."

I can smell him on me. I grimace, "I need a
shower. I'm gonna kill Constantine."

She looks horrified.

I get up off the floor and try to stretch my
aching body. I climb the stairs and notice the kinks
everywhere.

"Son of a bitch. How long was I in there?"

She heaves behind me, trying to get a grip on
her tears, "Three days. He's been acting crazed. I didn’t know what
to do. He wouldn’t let me leave and he wouldn’t let me call anyone.
I felt like Jonathan Harker."

I laugh wearily. At least I'm not the only one
who speaks in movie talk.

She leads me to our room. I don’t smell him in
the house. Our room has a huge walk-in shower. It has showerheads
pointing all around. It's like standing out in the rain. Rayne in
the rain.

"Try to relax." She whispers and leaves. The
trauma of it all is starting to wear on her. Death is a hard thing
to take for an innocent person.

I turn on the shower and step in. The hot water
is gross at first. The stench of the dead man has permeated my
pores and the steam releases it into the air.

After the third time soaping up, I slip down the
side of the tiled wall and let the water pour down on me.

I cover my eyes and wait for the dirty feeling
of sleeping next to a dead man to sink in, or just vanish
altogether. I don’t understand my own detachment from it all. I'm
not angry or disturbed or anything. I am grossed out a little at
the thought of him lying there, but I am completely detached from
it. I fed on him, killed him, and lay next to him. Very serial
killer-ish.

I hear footsteps and look up, expecting to see
Mona with towels or a drink. Instead Constantine walks into my
shower. He's completely naked. I jump up and avert my eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?" I stare into the
beige tiles.

He wraps his arms around me and nuzzles into my
neck. "I've missed you my love."

I squirm out of his grip. I try to ignore the
massive thing between his legs or the ridiculous fire burning in my
face and neck. I think my entire body is on fire.

"What are you doing in my shower? This seemed
like the right way to approach the fact you betrayed me and let
them kill me?"

His eyes burn. He pulls me into him and kisses
my cheek softly, "You don’t want to discuss this right now." He
looks into my eye. I pull away. I know what his eyes can do. What
they can convince me of.

I shove him off, "You left me in a cell, a
locked cell, like an animal. I was next to a dead man for three
days. Open your mouth and taste him in the air. Then go fuck
yourself."

His eyes widen, "Don’t speak to me like that
Rayne. I'll only warn you once." The muscles in his fierce body
flex from his anger. His dark eyes are wild, "I realize you're
young in this body but I do not tolerate that from anyone. Be a
lady for god's sake. It's bad enough you've soiled your virginity
already." My hand flies out and slaps him hard. Instantly I regret
it. I recoil. His dark eyes fill with anger. He grabs my arm and
drags me from the shower.

I scream for help, but he laughs and drags my
soaking wet naked body to my bed. He throws me on the bed and
tosses a huge blanket at me. He wraps me in the blanket and curls
me into a ball. No one comes. My screams go unheard. He pulls a
towel around his waist and sits on the edge of the bed, holding the
blankets around me.

"Where is Mona? What did you do to her?"

He frowns, "Mona? She's fine. She went back to
school for a few days. I told her you would be fine."

I struggle from the blankets that are soaking
wet now. I point at him, "Screw you. You told her to go back to
school and forget about me. God damned, Constantine."

He raises an eyebrow. "I would stay in those
blankets if I were you. Unless you have intentions of us doing
things beyond talking."

I wrap the soaking wet blankets around myself
and shiver.

"I hate you sometimes." I mutter and climb off
the bed. I drag the blankets to the fire across the room. I kneel
in front of it.

He laughs, "I have missed you."

I look back at him with contempt, "You are an
asshole."

He points, "Last warning Rayne. I'll turn you
over my knee if you keep acting like a child." His smile turns
dangerous, "If I recall you liked it. A lot."

I remember it and blush. My skin is in flames. I
sputter and turn away from him. I did like it. A lot.

"You left me for dead. You let them kill
me."

His voice is in my ear, "You made me do it."

I turn and his lips press against mine. His
tongue parts my lips. His arms lift me up into him. His hands
separate the skin and the wet blankets. He lays me down on the
blanket and kisses me. His towel is pressed against my hipbone. He
kneels beneath my legs and I feel something I've never felt before,
reluctance. I don’t want him. Not that way. The old me wants him.
The new me doesn’t know him and I'm way too sober to do this. I
push him off and shake my head, "No please."

He pulls back, confused. "What are these games
you're playing with me? Hot and cold and then repeat."

I pull the blankets and try to cover myself. "No
games Constantine. I don’t know you. Not in this body. My soul
recognizes you but my heart and body don’t."

He bends and kisses my lips, "My sweet wife. I
loved you the minute I saw you. I have loved you in this life and
the last and the one before that."

His words bring a chill to my spine, "You have
known me three times?"

He looks like he might deny it but doesn’t,
"Yes."

I frown, "How?"

His dark eyes burn, "You were mine then. You are
mine now. You'll always be mine."

He gets up and leaves the room. He does that
when he's done answering questions. I hate that. Always have.
Apparently for all three of my last lives. I storm to the closet
and find it full of clothes I would wear, in my size.

"This is creepy." I whisper. This is twice now.
Wyatt's and here. Only here looks like my own closet. I can't help
but wonder if Constantine has been spying on me and buying things
based on my own purchases. I wouldn’t put it past him. At all.

I throw on underwear and a sports bra. Easier to
outrun Wyatt if I wear a sports bra and harder for Constantine to
get into. I pull on a t-shirt, a sweater and some jeans. I feel
like I'm dressing like a homeless person. Technically I am
homeless, so layers are important.

I put on two pairs of socks and a thick jacket.
I grab the handle but the door is locked.

"Asshole."

I close my eyes and listen. The dead aren’t
there. "Are you here? Can you help me?" Nothing. He must have some
kind of enchantment on my room. Which makes sense. The dead never
called to me in my bed when we slept here before. They called to me
when I got to the hallway. They wanted me to sleep in the hall with
them.

I turn and look at the windows. It wouldn’t be
the first time and I have a sinking feeling it won't be the
last.

I put the window up and try not to let the
frigid air off the ocean scare me off. I climb out onto the window
ledge. If he catches me he can drag me back without any fight.

A huge gust of wind blows past me. I grip the
ledge of the house with my nails. The trembling in my hands isn’t
helping my balance. I slide along the ledge to the roof of the
conservatory. Taking breathes and attempting to muster courage, I
jump. My fingers desperately try to grip the shingles as I slide
down the roof. I'm not sure but I think I hear myself screaming.
Pain is everywhere. My fingers are scraping against the singles and
my face is scratching as I slide. I push my legs in and as I hit
the rain gutter, I stop. The metal makes a snapping noise and a
groan. I start breathing again. My heart is attempting to pound its
way out of my chest. I take a deep breath and wait for my entire
body to stop shaking.

The cold wind is stinging my chin. My fingers
are bleeding and stinging too. I lay my huffing and puffing face
against the cold rough shingles and close my eyes for a moment. I'm
not sure how to die, but falling off a roof and landing in some
psycho's rock garden seems like a bad plan.