The Celestial Kiss (8 page)

“Since the day of that accord, we have been bound by similar conventions. We do not live together happily, but we do coexist for the sake of the humans.  We remain their vigilant guardians, protecting them from the devils children.  Peace exists only because the humans do not believe in us.  The cave paintings, the stories passed from ear to ear, the things that humans dismiss as legend...the fancies of a fool with far too much time on his hands.  The ignorance of the humans is their shield.

“Your being in town that day that I bit you threatened all of that security, all of their hard-won peace. You put lives in danger.  I struck to defend the humans because I thought you were striking to destroy them.  Your mere presence could have unveiled the truth and caused irrevocable damage.”

Understanding dawned on me as I took in the picture again.  The first panel was before the vampires came, when it was just the humans on Earth and God in Heaven with his angels.  The second panel was life as it was today, with humans ignorant of the existence of werewolves and vampires.  The third panel was what would happen if the humans found out the truth.  But something to do with the last panel struck me as wrong.

“And where are the wolves then?”  I gestured to the panel in question.  “In the human’s time of need, the wolves are nowhere to be seen.” 

“The wolves have been hunted.”  James’ face was perhaps more grim than his voice.  “Humans and vampires alike have pursued them, killed them, and chased them away.  With the wolves gone, the humans will fall prey to the vampires and the Creator will have been failed by his children, while Satan’s spawn are left to take the world as their own.”

I re-crossed my arms, trying not to feel so defensive despite the contradicting meaning of my body language.  I felt suddenly like he wasn’t warning me so much as foreshadowing something dark…an apocalypse of sorts.  “I know that since we are born enemies you feel very strongly about your level of hatred for me, but I think ‘spawn of Satan’ might be just a tad melodramatic.”

James shook his head.  “Do you know nothing of your own history?”  When I transfixed him with a blank look, he continued.  “The creator made humans, and he so loved them that he gave his only begotten son to die upon the cross for them.”  It was a quote I’d heard somewhere before, though I couldn’t have possibly figured out where from.  “The angels did not appreciate the favoritism he bestowed upon the humans, who were not to the angels but weak, insipid things.  Lucifer, one of the most prestigious of arch angels, led the revolt that ensued.  For that, he was cast from Paradise.”

“I’ve heard this story before.” 

James continued without sparing me a second glance.  “With his pride injured, alone, full of hate and rage he kidnapped Lilith, the first wife of Adam.  He fed her the blood of babies, until she was twisted, a creature surviving only on blood, helpless against him. The union of Lilith and Lucifer gave life to creatures of the night.  Her beauty spread among her offspring, camouflaging their ugly nature from the humans.”  James looked at me sharply, like he meant to cut glass with that stare.  “Unfortunately, they also inherited Lilith’s desire for blood and Lucifer’s hunger for violence.  They thirst for it, for it provides the vengeance Lucifer has sought for thousands of years.”

By the time he fell silent my stomach was in knots. I tried to grasp hold of any of it, but it didn’t make sense.  I didn’t believe in God, or as James called Him, a Creator.  I also had never really considered the devil.  Perhaps James was lying, or maybe he was only telling me what had been told to him, but it couldn’t be true.  Because if it was, then I was one step closer to figuring out who I was.  Unfortunately, it would also bring me one step further from the person that I wanted to be…little more than a half-baked notion of decency.

              I didn’t want to believe it, but a part of me did.  Either it was truth or a very well-constructed story.  Regardless, I couldn’t deny one thing—it made sense.  It explained the gravitational pull I’d always felt toward them, the reason I’d never been able to leave my father or Xian despite their flaws.  It explained why, despite my best intentions, I couldn’t help the occasionally vengeful thought.  It explained the voice that seemed to invade my brain sometimes with thoughts so sinister I’d never lay claim to them.  It explained why even though I’d always tried to be different from them, good, I’d always known there was something instinctual within me that couldn’t be fought.  Something evil.

It was a bitter pill to swallow.  It caught in my throat ‘til my face was red with the effort to breathe normally.

“
Everything
depends on their blissful ignorance.”  James said, though he’d already made his point.

I turned away from him, not wanting to allow him to see the horror undoubtedly haunting my eyes, dancing across my face.  “Lilith?”  James’ voice stopped me before I could get far.  I paused, bracing myself for whatever else he could throw at me.  After that, not much could have phased me, but that didn’t stop him from trying.  “Next time you want to challenge my intentions…don’t.”

I’d always felt like I was moderately intelligent, particularly for someone who had taught herself basically everything she knew.  But as I walked through the halls and my footsteps echoed around me, I felt not only alone and lost, but also like I’d done something very foolish.   

Trying to run might not have been stupid if it had worked, but seeing as it hadn’t, I’d only made matters worse.  Now James knew to watch me more closely.  Now he knew that he couldn’t trust me.

I couldn’t try to run again while the failure of that attempt was fresh.  I had to wait for exactly the right moment to strike. The idea didn’t appeal to me in the slightest, but it was my only chance… my only choice.  Besides, James was no fool.  He’d meant to prove a point and he had.  I don’t think even he had expected his story to affect me on such a deep level, but it had and I imagined it only made him all the more pleased with himself.  Not only had he proven to me that he knew more than I knew about myself—not as a person, but as a whole—but he’d also managed to crush whatever hope I’d had of being something more. 

Those thoughts consumed me so that I didn’t realize I was no longer alone in the hall.  Julius caught up to me in a few powerful strides and used his shoulder to lead me into the wall.  Caught off guard, I turned and he stepped close to me, his dark eyes inquisitive.  He didn’t say anything, just studied me for a few long seconds.  I was so caught off guard that I didn’t immediately shake him loose.  “What is it about you?”  He muttered. His words brought me back to reality, and I pulled out of his reach, rubbing my shoulder absently.

I glared at him.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re immune...”  His voice was nothing but raw curiosity; His eyes roved over me as if my demeanor might offer him some sort of clue.  “How do you do it?”

“I don’t
do
anything.” 

Julius laughed, but it sounded contrived.  His eyes lingered on mine for a minute, and then they dropped to my collarbone.  “You’ve been bitten countless times, and yet you’ve never transformed…not really.  It’s like something
stopped
it.”

My mouth went dry; this wasn’t a discussion I wanted to have, particularly with him.  I didn’t even understand it myself—it wasn’t as though hashing it out with an arrogant stranger would make it seem any less of a curse.  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Don’t lie to me!”  He pressed closer and wrapped a hand around the top of my arm.  It was firm, but not painfully so.  Desperation danced in his eyes, made all the more wild by the torches that danced in their sconces every couple of paces.  “What did you do to stop it?”

I set my jaw, refusing to offer him anything.  He appeared to be searching my soul for whatever it was that he wanted. 

“Julius.”  James’ voice broke the tension, though he spoke it as a warning. 

Julius gritted his teeth, but took a step back without turning his head from me.  “You aren’t the least bit curious to know how she’s doing it?”

James looked genuinely confused.  “What exactly is she doing?”

“It’s what she isn’t doing,” Julius glanced at me.  “She was bitten and she isn’t even changing.”

“It’s too early to know that,” James dismissed.  “Let it go, Julius.”

“Let it go?  No, I don’t think I will.  She could change
everything
, and you want me to sit on my hands and do nothing about it?”

“I’m sorry.”  At first I thought he was talking to me, trying to excuse his brother’s errant behavior, and then I realized he was apologizing to Julius.  He looked at me and nodded.  I didn’t want to walk with him, but I was still lost and wanted to put as much distance as possible between Julius and I. 

“I will figure it out you know,” Julius called after me, his voice echoing in the barren corridor.  “Whatever it takes.”

Knowledge was power.  And Julius thought I had a power that I did not…something told me he really would do whatever he could to expose that.  “What was he talking about?”  I asked.

James didn’t offer me a glance.  Instead, he looked straight ahead like he hadn’t heard.  So I asked again.  “It’s nothing that concerns you.”  He said.

“It doesn’t concern me?” I laughed.  “Really?  Cause it sounded like it was all about me.”

He was silent until we got to my door and I went inside.  I made to slam it in his face, but he reacted quickly, sliding his foot between the doorjamb and stepping inside.  As assertive as that action was, he stood in the doorway still, looking around with a tentative, almost fearful hesitance.  He seemed to realize I wasn’t going to be inviting him in, so he took a small step forward.  “Are you alright?”  He asked, after a few moments of my glaring silence.

I might have laughed, but instead I muttered, “Just peachy.” 

James seemed unperturbed by my sarcasm.  “I’ve been thinking about what you said…how I don’t know you.  I’d like to know how to help you, though.”  His words made me suspicious, but he spoke calmly.  “You said that nothing could be worse than what you came from.  I assumed you’d chosen that lifestyle, as most do, but I need to know…were you turned against your will or did you want to become a vampire?”

I appraised him stonily.  His dark hair fell in soft-looking little waves, like it were just tousled from the beach.  His eyes, despite looking tired, were level.  Everything about him was calm, at ease.  I didn’t have a mirror to glance at, but I suspected I looked like the total opposite.  I
was
the total opposite, the very antithesis of everything he stood for.  But I wasn’t above giving him a taste of his own medication.

I sat on the bed and crossed my arms, pointedly looking away from him.

“Lilith, just tell me.”  His voice bordered on a plea.  It was only a small satisfaction. 

“Oh, now you want to talk?  You expect me to tell you every little thing that you want to know and then refuse to tell me anything?”

“Please,” He sounded exhausted.  “I know you don’t understand but I need to know if that was the life you asked for?”

“I don’t know if your sense of entitlement comes from the fact that your father is the King or the fact that you’re just selfish, but I assure you, the world isn’t yours for the taking.  I am not yours for the taking.”  Defiance made my words sound bitter and juvenile, particularly considering that I was kind of still at his whim. 

  James didn’t so much as blink.  He exercised careful keep of his emotions, which I found all the more infuriating.  I couldn’t tell if my words were having the effect I sought.   “If you were forced into that life, it changes things.”

  “Oh,” I laughed.  “Does it?  Does it change the fact that I’ll never get that time back, never be able to forget what it was like?”

“So you wanted to be turned.”  James concluded.  The insinuation disgusted me, which is why I was provoked enough to even answer him.

“I didn’t
choose
anything.  I was never offered a choice, not about what I am or what I hope to be.”  I looked away, because finally, I got a reaction from him.  But it wasn’t one I liked.  It was something unreadable with maybe a touch of pity.  “Children don’t understand that they’re different until everyone tries to make them the same.  I can’t be turned, for reasons that I may never know. Be sure and tell that to your brother.”

“You can tell me,” James said, coming to sit on the bed by me.  He kept his distance, whether because he was scared of me or repulsed by me.  “Lilith, if they held you there against your will, just say it and I will make them pay.”

“Pay?”  I raised an eyebrow.  “For what, not suffocating me when I was a baby?  I was born this way.”

That, at least, stunned him to silence—a brief but beautiful silence, in which he looked the way I must have earlier, trying to understand the depth of this information.  “You were born…to a vampire?”  I continued to glare at him.  “That’s impossible.”

“Tell that to my father.”  I snapped.  “By the way, he’s the King over there, so if you want to play that card, I will too.”  James blinked a few times while he considered it and then nodded.  He stood to go, but then seemed to remember something.  I tensed when he reached into the pocket of his dark jeans.  A small white pill was pinched between his fingers.  “I noticed earlier that you were holding your shoulder.  This should help with the pain.”

I didn’t take it.  I didn’t want to get close enough to him to take it.  So he set it on the dresser and left in the next instant. 

I stared at it for a while, wondering just what it was and if it would really get rid of the pain.  It might, true to his word, but it might also kill me.  It was a gamble.  The pain was intermittent, sometimes non-existent and then excruciating the next minute.  I decided not to take it—until I woke in the middle of the night and had to crawl to the dresser because I was so far doubled over.  I didn’t understand what was happening, why the pain still curdled my blood.  I didn’t contemplate it long.  As soon as I popped the pill in my mouth, there was the promise of relief, though however fleeting I didn’t know.