Lilith (20 page)

I reached into my wet backpack and pulled out my
dry bag wrapped clothes. I changed my socks and tried my best to use a towel to dry out my shoes. The idea was that I wouldn’t be staying for long. I needed to get moving. I changed my shirt and shoved everything except the blood blade back inside my backpack.

The moment it touched my hand the ground beneath my feet shook.
The trees around me vibrated and the wind swirled until a siege of dirt clouded around me. I covered my eyes with my free hand but kept ahold of the heating knife. It burned red hot as the cyclone surrounded me. The forest disappeared.

The earth rumbled and I fell to my knees. Up out of the ground rocks sprouted, covered with a slimy moss. Even as the earth shifted and the ground beneath my fingers changed the cyclone kept spinning blocking my view of my surroundings. The warmth that had kept me from shivering in my wet clothes was replaced with a bone sharp cold.

The air was damp and moldy. Drops of water dripped onto my head and shoulders. I felt like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz. The twister was taking me somewhere else. If it could move me with my feet planted firmly on the ground it was no wonder no one wanted to come with me to the Otherside. At any moment, a twister could come along and take you away.

The howling wind slowed and the dirt covering my view dropped with a snap. I was standing in the center of a cave entrance. The rock walls coated
with moss and trickling water.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hall Of Mirrors

My breath came out in white puffs of air. I dug through my backpack for a dry sweater. I pulled the cold fabric over my goose-pebbled skin. My pants were wet and half-frozen. I peeled them from my skin. I should have changed earlier. I glanced around once and threw them inside the backpack before I pulled out another pair.

If I’d known, it would be so cold I would have packed warmer clothing. It was hard to pull them on when I couldn’t stop shivering. I held the knife between my teeth as I tugged them up. As soon as I finished dressing, I pulled a bottle of water out and downed it.

The light that filled the entrance was dimming. Whether the source was a sun or moon, I couldn’t tell. It looked wrong whatever it was. I tried the flashlight. It flickered and burned out.
Damn.
I’d just have to go for it. A pang of fear jolted in my belly. I tried to press it back down but it refused to obey.

I clutched the knife tightly in my fist and moved forward away from the light. I went slowly. Glowing lizards darted across the rock walls and slithered along the floor. The blade in my hand shook with every step I took. My eyes were finally adjusting to the dark.

The rocks looked like faces, their expressions frozen in pain. A chill ran down my spine when they turned to watch me pass. The rocks trembled as long grey arms reached out to grab me. I ran past them towards a glittering light.

As I rounded a corner a tall candelabra rose up from the uneven ground. Five thick white candles dripped with hot wax. Pools of it covered the ground. I took a deep breath and stopped moving. I inspected the candles. There was no way of telling how long they burned. I reached out and took one in my hand.

The flickering flame danced against the sharp walls of the cave. I walked for what felt like hours. My feet started aching, and the cold froze the fingers uncoated with wax. I leaned against a cave wall. It whispered and hissed.

“Keep moving.” I jumped and realized with horror that I’d been leaning against another stone face.

I did what it told me to and bolted forward. Music started trickling across the walls. It started softly the sharp note of a piano and the haunting strings of a violin. Beethoven I thought, his seventh symphony, the one that most people knew. I wasn’t a classical music person by any means, but those notes were awfully familiar.

“To what do I owe this honor
Patience?” Lilith said from the shadows.

I turned and watched her walk from the cave wall. Her skin changed from the rocky grey to her normal pale luminescence. She was the one that had been scaring me, I should have known.

“Lilith.” I said. I kept the knife in my hand. Her dark black eyes filled with amusement when she noticed it.

“You can’t kill me dear girl, I am immortal.” She laughed again and spun in a circle.

“Come I have wine and food.”

She looped her hand through my arm and pulled me forward. I fought the urge to jerk away. She was playing another game with me. It would be stupid to react violently until I
knew what it was, but her nearness made my skin crawl.

The cave hallway opened into a huge chamber. Large candle chandeliers and candelabra’s filled the room. The walls covered from top to bottom with mirrors. Lilith released me when we reached the center. She led the way to a large
baroquely carved wooden table. I counted eighteen chairs surrounding it, but we were the only ones present.

F
ood covered the table and my stomach grumbled. Charlie had warned me against eating or drinking anything that was
from
the Otherside. That was why she suggested I take my own food and water in case I got stuck. The folklore went that if you ate the Otherside fare you’d never be able to enjoy food in the mortal world again.

Charlie also said that the food might make it impossible to leave. There were a lot of legends that warned against eating the food of the fae. That alone made me cautious. I wouldn’t eat anything, not one bite, or drink.

Lilith sat leisurely in a chair.

“So, what are you doing here Pacey? I’ve never had an actual human travel so far to visit. I’m…intrigued, and a little surprised. I take it that by the smell of ether from your hair that you used the river to get here. It’s a clever way to travel but not the only one.” She pointed to her mirrors.

“Why should I tell you why I’m here?” I sat at a chair away from her and pulled a protein bar from my backpack. I ate it slowly and washed it down with another bottle of water.

“You don’t have to I suppose.” Lilith looked bored she took a ripe red apple from the table and took a bite.

The sight of her doing it sparked a vision. I saw a red apple held out to me by a golden hand. A man with glowing skin and gorgeous looks smiled at me. “Eat of the tree.” He said suggestively.

In a
snap, the vision was gone.

“Remind you of anyone?” Lilith said with a smile.

“Not really.” I said.

Lilith snorted and jumped to her feet. I stood and reached
for the knife I had tucked in my jeans.

“Whatever makes it easier for you to
sleep at night. I wonder if he remembers though, your Dean. It’s selfish of you to sip of the river but not let him. I wonder if he’d choose you if he knew. That you cheated when I didn’t. Apples and oranges I guess. We could all be accused of infidelity and bigotry when we’ve lived as long as we have. You have your mortality, but you’ve had other lives and men. But we never do forget our firsts, first love, first kiss, and first penetration.” She laughed.

“
First temptations and betrayals.” Her eyes narrowed and darted towards the knife in my hand. I didn’t even remember grabbing it. The amusement left her face.

“If you want to stab me go ahead. I’m not sure what you think you can find here to use against me but you’re welcome to look.”

Her ease was scary. I felt like it had all been too easy. The knife, the mirrors, the trip itself, and now here she was telling me I could stab her and take a look around. Something was off.

“Where’s the mirror?” I asked testing the waters.

Lilith’s laughter returned. “Which one my dear, there are many here to choose from.” She raised her hands and spun.

“The one carved out of a magical cypress tree, with carvings depicting your days with Adam in the Garden of Eden.”

Lilith’s smile fell and her eyes burned with heat. “What do you know of such a mirror?”

I smiled. “I know that if I destroy it you will be trapped here.”

Lilith’s mouth tightened and the side of her mouth twitched. “Isn’t that interesting.” She glanced around her hall, her eyes dancing over the mirrors. “I don’t think I have one of those.”

Her eyes didn’t betray its location, and I was growing ever more impatient.

“Well then.” I said. “I guess I’ll have to find it for myself.”

Lilith rolled her eyes and took a seat again waving me off. I walked closer and slashed at her open wrist. Lilith didn’t even flinch. The black blood welled up and dripped to the cave floor.

“Well look at that, a blood blade.” She glanced at the wound and up at me real fear shining in her face.

“You are a clever girl.”

“The mirror Lilith.” I said.

She laughed again. “My dear I have no idea what mirror you are talking about every mirror in my hall I know down to the last minute detail. I’ve had
millennia’s to study them.”

Her voice became shrill. The harsh lilt finally hitting the edge I
knew. Laughing Lilith was scarier than this one. I was used to cold Lilith.

“I guess I’ll just
take a look around.”

My eyes roamed over the mirrors. I don’t know how long I checked the walls, but many times Lilith erupted into sharp giggling batches. She was crazy. She didn’t move a muscle while I searched, her body frozen by the power in my blade. The blood at her wrist kept dripping. I glanced at the puddle, as it grew deeper and wider. I was starting to get a little worried. Could the blade kill her?

“No.” She laughed. “Nothing but the hand of God can take the life from my veins. Even if you bleed me dry.”

I froze, could she really hear my thoughts?

As I can yours sweet girl.

I heard her voice in my mind and swallowed hard. Only my father called me sweet girl. It was wrong hearing
his words in her voice.

“Tick tock. Pacey.”

Had her finger just moved? Her smile widened answering my unsaid question.
Shit.

I scanned the walls again and that’s
when I saw it in the hallway. In the same hallway we’d walked in from, the mirror hung above a bureau. I smiled when my eyes landed on it. Lilith gasped.

“I never…” Her voice trailed off in awe.

I walked towards it. I could see Lilith’s fingers dancing with anxiety. The white cypress wood was untouched by time. The carvings in it were pristine and a little pornographic. I scoffed at the thought that Dean, or Adam had ever done those things with her.

“Pleasure goes both ways…and Adam never complained.”

I fought the urge to cut her throat, it would just piss her off, not kill her…unfortunately.

“We were friends once you know.” She said sadly.

“Seriously?” I didn’t believe her.

“Believe what you want, that’s why his betrayal with you was so hard, you were like
my sister…I guess you were technically if you want to get into all that gene mumbo jumbo.”

Ick.
I did not want to be related to her. She reacted to my thoughts like I’d slapped her.

“I’m sorry that upsets you little sister. In
another time maybe we will be friends again, and then that tie to you won’t seem nearly as…repulsive.” Was that hurt I heard in her voice.

“Well I’d say it’s been nice but you’d know I was lying.” I said.

Lilith licked her lips and her eyes narrowed.

“The pleasure was all mine rest assured.” She said the words around another evil giggle. She ran on two different modes crazy and crazier.

I raised the knife and scratched at the edge of the mirror. A ripple of power glided out towards me. I smiled and glanced back at Lilith.

“See you around.” I said as I slammed the knife into the mirror.

It exploded out towards me the force throwing my back hard against the cave wall. Lilith’s laughter danced with the sound of glittering broken glass. I felt her kiss my cheek.

“Thank you dear sister,” she said, a
nd she was gone before I gave into the pounding pain that forced me to black out.

When I woke up all the mirrors around me were broken. They rained down on the center of the cave slicing everything
that they touched. Silvery shards were wedged deep inside the big wooden table. I thanked God silently for not blacking out inside the large chamber.

My arms stung with thousands of tiny cuts. I looked down at my
sweater. Tiny red spots covered it as if hundreds of pieces of sharp sand had flown through the light fabric and cut me. I stood up shakily and found my knife buried under broken wood and glass. I tucked it back inside my backpack and left.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone horribly wrong.

Epilogue

Grave Mistake

It started like most dreams. Swirls of scenes spinning past me so fast I couldn’t keep up. They were like grains of sand slipping through my mind. The moment I started to focus on one another appeared. When the tornado of images finally settled I was standing in a barren desert.

A man in long dark robes stood next to a shallow river. The sun above pierced down in hazy shades of red. The light was so bright I had to squint to see. I was across the river in front of him. Two ornate matching mirrors were at his side. He spoke in
Hebrew…words jumbled together so quickly there was no way for me to translate.

A woman lay before him on the ground. Her body wrapped in gauzy blue and black silks. Her long golden hair pulled from his face in the breeze. I knew who she was without seeing her closely. Her skin luminescent and glowing in the harsh sun. Lilith’s beauty was unmistakable. No one else on earth could ever have looked like her. She was
that unearthly.

The man held a blade in his hands, the tip covered in a thick dark sludge. Lilith’s arm dripped with the same dark liquid, too black to be normal blood. Her shrill laugh vibrated in my mind while he recited
eight names.

“Lilith, Abitu, Abizu, Hakash, Avers, Hikpodu, Ayala, Matrota…”

Lilith stopped laughing as one of the mirrors glowed bright with eye burning light. She started shaking and writhing on the ground. Her body bucking as it was dragged towards the glowing mirror. Before her beautiful face disappeared inside, she spoke one verse in Latin.

“Elijah…neutiquam erro.”
I am not lost.

A cruel smile split her face and she was gone. The man recited another chorus of words than spat on the mirror, and sealed it with his blood. He took the mirror in his hands and wadded into the water. He chanted three words. The water boiled up around him. Frothing and churning with foam. He tossed the mirror into the
water, the bubbles disappeared, and the river was again still.

He walked back to the other mirror
with a large stone in his hand. The sunlight was dimming as it dropped towards the horizon. He lifted his hand to smash the glass when a person appeared in the distance. As she drew closer, her figure was revealed. A woman, older in age like the man, walked confidently across the hard dirt and sand. Black ribbons of evil swirled across her skin.

I tried to call out in warning, but my voice was lost in the wind. He said the woman’s name in greeting. She smiled at him, and reached out one hand to soothe him while the other flashed forward holding a blade. She stabbed him twice before he fell to his knees. His face a mixture of betrayal and confusion.

“Neutiquam erro.” She said with a harsh smile. “Neutiquam erro.”

A tragic look of dawning crossed his paling face. She reached forward with her free hand and grabbed the top of his head by his hair. She jerked it back and pressed the tip of the knife to his neck. She spit in his face, the black evil writhing against her skin, and slit his throat.

I cried out in horror when his body crumbled to the ground. The woman looked up at me and smiled. She dropped the knife and grabbed the discarded mirror. She kissed her reflection and then glanced back across the river to me.

“Neutiquam erro.” She laughed and spun on her heel. Disappearing into the darkness that swallowed her.

I woke up in a start. My skin still hot from the desert sun. I glanced at the mirror on my door and I knew what I’d done. I’d unleashed a demon on the world by messing with things I didn’t understand. I’d made a deadly mistake, one that was sure to cost me more than just my life and those of my friends. I’d broken the wrong mirror…and now Lilith was free.