Succubus Tear (Triune promise) (21 page)

“What’s the matter? Is the dumbass missing his smart-ass girlfriend?” the cop breathed in his ear, placing all of his weight upon his back as he uncuffed and re-cuffed Cain with his hands behind his back.

Cain said nothing; he knew better.

With more force than necessary, he was taken to a holding cell. “Nighty-night, dumbass,” the cop said once his cuffs were undone through the bars

Cain looked around; his cell was occupied by two others. One was a vagrant sleeping off his most recent drinking binge. The smell coming from him was nearly unbearable. He must have had dirt caked on his clothes and body for months. The other was a DUI offender who just sat comatose in the corner, looking at the floor.

He would occasionally see his face on the TV that was tucked away in the precinct. Apparently he was big news. He had to be, considering that they found several hundred kilos of cocaine. There were plenty of offers from lawyers to represent him in court, but Cain had no interest to speak to any of them. The cops took advantage of that opportunity as much as they could, trying to wring a confession out of him, using every cheap trick he had ever heard of or read about.

The fact that he wouldn’t talk beyond satisfying legal boundaries convinced them all the more that he was guilty. It didn’t help that he knew that all their tactics were to place him behind bars for decades. Though Cain felt certain that he was going to walk, it gave him no relief as his thoughts turned to Al’bah. He had a growing sense of unease about what the implications of Al’bah’s presence in his life had. Especially considering that she so easily recognized God. And if that weren’t enough, there were Taint, Purity, and Law to consider. 

Something among the usual debris of a jail cell caught Cain’s eye. There, among the cigarette butts and old pornos, were a few of those Jesus pamphlets. He was reminded of that smug Christian the day he cut his hand. Reminded of the events he approached with such carelessness—events that changed his life in such a short manner of time. The memories of the past three days swirled around his consciousness.

“I’d rather screw around with a Demon from hell…”

“Then I will pray that God allows…”

“See me, be with me…”

“It will submit!”

“Faith, Love, and Hope…”

“Consequences of choice…”

For the longest time, Cain cared little for what “Christians” had to say to him about God, Jesus, and salvation. His own past—shit, his own father—gave him the worst example Christianity could ever offer. Hypocrites, all of them—they blamed him for a crime he was innocent of when he was only twelve years old!

They placed their judgment and punished him,
laughing
when he was found at last to be innocent. Cain had demanded they give the same punishment to the guilty, to the pastor’s daughter, as it would be
just
. And they
laughed
at him, stating God would punish. That was the day Cain’s hate of Christians, of God, and most especially of Jesus began.

Cain picked up one of the pamphlets that caught his eye the most.
Every Christian is a sinner! Every Christian is a hypocrite!
He read it and tossed it aside. Usually things like this had no effect on him. But now he was troubled by what all this might mean for him. And what would happen if he wound up dead before all this ended.

Taint, Purity, Law, and Al’bah. They exist. They are real,
 
he thought to himself.

And since they exist, that would mean God exists. And since God must exist, that would mean…what, exactly?

That he was a sinner?

That he was going to hell?

Just for “not believing” Jesus died on a cross for his sins?

What did that mean, anyway? Being a “sinner”? And what does someone dying on a cross have anything to do with that? No one, not even the pamphlet, could articulate a satisfactory answer.

And yet.

Al’bah had told him that “sin” was the act of rebellion against God. So, being a “sinner” would mean that he is a rebel against God? What sort of sense did that make? And just who or what was God, anyway? In his mind, Cain could see Al’bah’s face, her lips forming the word over and over again.
 
The Creator.

Is that it? God is
 
the Creator
?

Well then, what created God?
 he thought bitterly. From this thought, Cain was reminded of a hot debate between himself and his Bible-thumping ex-girlfriend, Cynthia.

Nothing creates the Creator,
 Cynthia had said.

At Cain’s sneering scoff, she went off on one of her many sermons.

God is not subject to the rules of the universe that He created! Time and space have no hold on the one who created these concepts. If the big bang theory is true, then the universe is more impossible than a God ever could be! The universe would have to be infinitely old, have infinite energy infinite mass, and be infinitely expanding!

Was it true? Was it that simple? If time and space was truly a created thing, could it apply to whatever created it in the first place?
 
Al’bah,
 Cain thought longingly, 
I’ve been asking you the wrong questions
. He flopped down on one of the hard bunks as far away from the reek of his cell mate as he could, but he couldn’t sleep.

“Now you look like someone who got the shit knocked out of ya,” a voice slurred out. It was the drunk.

The DUI offender deigned to glance at the drunk and scoffed. “Look who’s talking, shit-bag.”

The drunk sat up and continued to look at Cain. “I saw you read one of my pamphlets. Seems like your favorite one is my favorite one, too.”

Cain shrugged. “I wouldn’t call it my favorite.”

The drunk got up and stretched. “Now tell me, boy, what’s God done to you that got you all bitter?”

“I know what’s got me bitter. Did you have to wake him up? Now the place is gonna smell even worse now that he’s getting up,” the other man said, waving his hand in front of his face.

Cain glanced to the DUI offender and back to the drunk. “Look, I don’t want a sermon.”

The drunk shrugged. “What do you want, then? Do you want to be free? To get out of here?”

The DUI offender was now holding his shirt over his nose and mouth. “Shit, I do. God, how can you bear that fucking smell?”

Cain shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing makes sense anymore.”

The drunk nodded and stood, clanging his finger against the bars that had a ring on it. “Hey, Joe, thanks for the accommodations, but I would like to post my bail and the other gentleman’s who keeps whining about my hygiene.”

Cain at first thought he was joking, but soon enough a cop came and unlocked the door. “Until next time,” he said, obviously familiar with the drunk.

“Me too?” the DUI offender said, standing up.

“Your bail is paid up.”

Without another word or glance, he bolted out and was gone.

Cain felt a momentary rise of hope, which crashed along with the doors of the cell. He turned to look at the drunk and got up to face him between the bars.

“Why didn’t—”

“I pay your bail?” The drunk shook his head as if he was sad. “You didn’t ask. You said you didn’t know what you wanted.” He shrugged. “I would never force my will upon another. I would have gladly paid your bail if you asked.”

 
”Well, what about now? Why can’t you get me out now?” Cain said.

The drunken man’s eyes seemed to lose their haze as he stared deeply into Cain’s eyes. “Is it what you
really
want? Because you have been given what you wanted before and it did nothing for you!”

“What?”

Cain turned around, surrounded by his three horrors.

“
No!
” Cain yelped and sat upright in the jail cell. A cramp in his right hand forced the last of sleep from his awareness. He had been holding onto the pamphlet with a death grip. The old man and the younger man was gone. He was alone. He glanced up; the cops all seemed to be in a frantic hustle and bustle. He noticed his phone video on the television and grinned; Charlie came through for him.

I Am in the Pain of Loneliness

“You will fail, Cain is my Bond. He will find me.”

—Al’bah

“Aijik-Kraa!” Al’bah called softly, looking upon her desolate surroundings.

She was back in a cage; she had spent centuries in cages. But this time her captivity was different: no slaves of Taint to jeer, taunt, insult, or torture her. In fact, she had not been touched at all once she was brought here. Al’bah sighed as her eyes wandered around her surroundings.

Al’bah knew she was still on a physical realm. Her new body would not survive in any spiritual realm that Taint had access to. It was a cold and dark place. It had the look of a cave, but it was certainly manmade. The air had a stinging odor to it that
reminded her of what Cain identified as “vehicle exhaust”.

She ran her hand over the metal bars
, and snatched her hand back and hissed as her skin burned; they were made of fresh iron, bereft of the touch of rust, of corruption. However, the door of the cage was secured by a malevolent chain. The links were shaped and twisted into the ancient words of corruption and enslavement. They were rusted but vastly stronger than steel, perhaps not physically, but there was no way she could overcome their strength.

Al’bah stifled a shaking sob. The loneliness she felt was almost unbearable. Oh, how she wished Cain could hear her cries. “Aijik-Kraa!” she called out again. She sensed the faintest whisper of his presence, but he was only aware of her cry in the smallest of ways. “Oh, Cain, I am so lonely! Please! Hear my cry! Feel my soul and my presence, for I am in the pain of loneliness! Aijik-Kraa!” His presence felt stronger. Perhaps speaking her tongue and its
crude translation produced a stronger effect? The sounds of footsteps drew her attention away from her observations.

The human male that took her here rounded the corner and into view; he was tall and powerfully built. He looked over Al’bah with a slight curiosity and crossed his arms. “Missing your precious Bond?” he said dryly.

Al’bah turned her head away. “I am.”

Al’bah never did have much to say to Taint’s slaves, but this individual was different. He had the stench of Taint upon him, and yet his soul spoke of a man who would give allegiance only to a superior.
This human is so different; there is no lust, no weakness within him. He is filled with a dark purpose, and yet it does not come from Taint. No, it comes from himself.

The man passed a bucket through the bars. “For the inevitable waste your flesh will produce.”

Al’bah accepted the bucket. It was filled with several packages, including food, drink, and even small comforts, like sanitary paper, a washcloth, and a warm blanket.

Al’bah put the bucket down and began to look up. A flash of motion caught her off guard, and the man now had seized her face and pulled her closer.

Al’bah snarled, opening her fang-filled maw, ready to rend, tear, and savage the man’s arm when his other hand grabbed her hair.

“Be still, or I will snap your neck.”

The man’s statement chilled her to the bone. He spoke with a resolve that gave an unmistakable impression that he was not someone to be trifled with. “Let go of me!” she cried.

“You change with your emotions just as readily as any Succubi. But you are different. Your transformations can be done in parts. You are more powerful than I dared to imagine.”

Al’bah opened her eyes and locked her gaze with the strange man. His eyes were a glittering pale gray pane of ice, reflecting a soul who had seen its own destiny and was unafraid.

“Let go of me!” Al’bah said again, pouring her strength and her will
 into her words. She focused on his soul; there had to be a weakness she could exploit.

The man grinned and deliberately forced Al’bah’s face painfully against the bars. The cold iron began to burn her skin, causing her to cry out.