by Tillie Cole
The Fallen: Genesis
A Deadly Virtues Prequel
Tillie Cole
Copyright© Tillie Cole 2019 All rights reserved
Copyediting by www.KiaThomasEditing.com
Formatted by Stephen Jones
Cover Design by Hang Le
Ebook Edition
No Part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written consent from the publisher and author, except in the instance of quotes for reviews. No part of this book may be uploaded without the permission of the publisher and author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is originally published.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, actual events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters and names are products of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks and word marks mentioned in this book.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
Dedication
To those who understand my love of unconventional stories.
Chapter One
Boston, Massachusetts
The sound of muted, muffled screaming ripped Joseph from his sleep. The heavy clock that hung on the wall stuttered, its echo bouncing off the plain walls of Holy Innocents Home and School for Children. Joseph opened his eyes, a familiar blanket of darkness welcoming his rise. He blinked into the dark, allowing consciousness to prevail. His mother’s dream-face evaporated with the riddance of slumber.
The muffled noise that had awoken him sailed into his ears again. Joseph tried to sit upright, but something tugged on his arm. Tendrils of fear choked his heart when a dim lamp flicked to life across the room and his younger brother’s face rose from the shadows and turned toward the source of another wail of pain.
Panic surged through Joseph’s veins, clogging like tar. He pulled on his arm, the rope that held him in place barely budging as the rough fibers sliced into the delicate skin of his wrist. “James,” Joseph whispered, vainly trying to appeal to any good that might still live within his brother. But it was clear by the way James continued to stare across the room, head tilted to one side, that Joseph’s words had not penetrated through his brother’s mist—the red mist that held James captive. The same bloodlust that had begun as a sporadic flicker of an ember as a toddler but now resembled a constant bonfire of insanity and the turbulent need to inflict pain. The all-consuming red mist that day by day, year by year, had garnered control of James’s heart and soul, robbing him of any ability to feel, to understand empathy . . . to care for anyone or anything but the insatiable call of whatever darkness now controlled his senses.
Evil. It was evil. A kind of evil Joseph couldn’t comprehend and had no idea from where it stemmed. An evil Joseph had tried to hide from everyone else outside the room they shared. Shielding his brother from anyone who might suspect that something wasn’t quite right within James, how he thought of nothing but death and violence and blood.
It was always about blood.
Joseph had one purpose in life—to care for James. He was all Joseph had in the world, but for Jesus and God.
“James,” Joseph whispered again, harsher this time. But the plea fell on deaf ears. Joseph watched helplessly as James moved from his place against the far wall toward a boy on a chair on the opposite side of the room. A boy who had slim knives embedded in his arms and legs—a human pin cushion.
Joseph shivered as he recalled his brother’s expression a moment ago as he’d sat and stared at the knives he had sliced into the boy’s flesh. James, the sadistic voyeur of his own work. Joseph’s nervous eyes landed on his brother’s target. The boy was bound with ropes, and a washcloth was stuffed into his mouth, silencing his cries.
Luke.
Fear flooded Joseph’s body. Luke, the boy who had been intent on bullying James since the age of eight. The boy who would spit at James’s feet when they walked by. The boy who call him weird, a goth, a psychopath who rarely spoke. His taunts were endless. Joseph didn’t think the verbal bullets had ever hit their target . . . until he’d found a pad of paper hidden underneath James’s bed. A pad of paper showing in graphic detail what James wanted to do to Luke.
Tie him up.
Cut his flesh.
Exsanguinate his body.
Then drink the blood down.
“They’re just fantasy, right?” Joseph asked James when he returned from detention. Joseph held up the drawings. Page after page of pain and despair and cruelty.
James walked slowly to Joseph and ran his hand down the open page of the pad, delicately running his fingertip over the pencil image of Luke’s slit throat. “It’s a promise,” James said, with no shame in his voice. “Each page is what will happen to Luke.” James finally met his older brother’s eyes. “I’m just waiting for the perfect time.”
From that day on Joseph made sure Luke never got too close to James, for fear of what his younger brother would do. Because Joseph believed every word his brother had said.
The truth was, Joseph knew that someday, if he wasn’t stopped, James would do something so terrible he wouldn’t be able to come back from it.
And Joseph had no idea how to cure James. He didn’t know how to heal his little brother of the wretchedness that had lodged itself into his soul. He prayed for a miracle he knew would never come.
Joseph’s heart pounded as James held up another knife. His brother’s torso was bare, the scars from his frequent self-mutilation clear to see, white roads of flesh mapping the veins that ran under his skin. Veins that carried the blood James so desperately craved; nightly, once safe in their room, he would slice them open and lick the falling drops as they ran in crimson rivulets down his arms.
Joseph thrashed on the bed, fighting the binds James must have placed him in while he slept. “James, listen to me,” Joseph said as he helplessly watched his brother slowly push his blade into Luke’s shoulder. Luke’s chair almost fell as he screamed into the washcloth, the fabric absorbing his cry. But James didn’t even flinch. Joseph’s stomach clenched when the blood started to pour from Luke’s shoulder as James carefully extracted the blade.
Eleven. That’s all James was. Eleven years old, yet thought only of blood . . . worse, even . . . thought only about the consumption of blood.
James held the blade before his face, the lamp highlighting the blood that kissed the steel. Joseph stilled, knowing what would happen next. He flicked a glance to Luke, only to see the boy’s terrified brown eyes set on his brother. Luke was fixated on James as he brought the knife to his mouth and gently licked at the blood. James’s eyes closed as he savored the taste. Like the Eucharist, like red wine is the blood of Christ, his very substance, Joseph thought. Only this blood was not freely given. It was not for the salvation of mankind, but born from sin, viciously stolen from another to sate a wicked, abnormal need.
“James, put down the knife.” Joseph tried again. His voice was calm and steady but held the authority Joseph had had to administer to James since his soul began to darken years ago. This time, James turned his head in his brother’s direction. Joseph held his breath as James’s ice-blue eyes met his. “Untie me, James. Now. Untie me and we can make this go away.” But
Joseph recognized that vacant stare. He recognized the cold curl of James’s upper lip, the smirk that told him there was no appeal to be made.
When James turned back to Luke and slashed a cut across his stomach, Joseph yanked on the rope, dread and fear lancing away any shred of hope that James could be stopped by words alone. Ignoring the pain that his thrashes inflicted, Joseph pulled and pulled until the skin on his wrist was raw . . . but, miraculously, the rope slackened.
Casting his attention back to James and Luke, Joseph fought back nausea. James was lacerating Luke’s skin, slashing him so badly that barely any unmarked flesh was visible beneath the open wounds and stains of blood on his naked body.
With a final yank, the rope came loose. Joseph jumped from the bed. He didn’t spare a glance at his torn wrist, not when Luke was slumped so brokenly on the chair, James’s blade pushing into the flesh of his right bicep.
Joseph slipped. He quickly righted himself and looked down. His bare feet were coated in blood . . . Luke’s blood, which now pooled at his feet. Hands held out, Joseph faced James. “James, listen to me.” James pulled the blade from Luke’s arm, licking at the warm blood. “James,” Joseph said, more firmly. “Stop. You’ve hurt him enough. It’s time to stop. You’ve had your revenge. This level of payback goes way beyond Luke’s verbal assaults.”
James froze, then turned his eyes on his older brother. Joseph kept his hands held out, emphasizing that he meant no harm. James’s pupils were dilated, the blackness chasing the light of the ice-blue irises. The sound of rushed footsteps came barreling down the hallway. Fireworks of panic burst in Joseph’s chest. The priests were coming. They knew something was happening in this room. They must have heard Luke’s cries. “James,” he whispered urgently, seeing no sign of remorse in his brother’s eyes. In fact, the hunger that Joseph had seen earlier had only intensified. Reaching out, James ran his hand over Luke’s shredded torso and coated his hand in the other boy’s blood. James brought it to his own naked chest, smothering his skin in crimson, then to his neck and face, wearing the evidence of his revenge like a second skin. James’s eyelids fluttered in pleasure.
A pained moan slipped from Luke, and he shifted on the seat, his bound wrists and ankles staying his movements. James’s head snapped in his direction, a feral expression morphing his handsome face. Joseph had always thought it was the greatest of mockeries. Beauty disguising the evil that crawled beneath.
When Luke moaned again, James gripped his knife harder. Instinctively, Joseph stepped into James’s path. He swallowed when he saw anger flare in James’s eyes. He knew it didn’t matter that Joseph was James’s brother. He was interfering with the letting of blood. With his prey. With a fantasy he had been harboring for so long.
James launched forward and wrapped his hand around Joseph’s neck—a warning. Joseph stood his ground—a challenge. With a vicious snarl, James slammed Joseph to the hard stone ground. Cold spread across Joseph’s back, and he knew it was from the spilled blood on the floor. He didn’t fight back. As James’s iron grip cut off his breath, Joseph stared into his brother’s blue eyes and searched for any sign of humanity he could endeavor to reach. His heart broke when he found none. James’s teeth were gritted, and Joseph knew he would soon lose consciousness. Then James’s hands tightened even more, and Joseph knew what James was now looking at: the bulging veins in his neck. James’s thumbnail dug into the protruding vein. But Joseph wouldn’t look away from his brother. Like his mother had told him on her deathbed, he had to protect James. Joseph had intercepted James every time he had been close to taking someone captive, to hurting them in any way—one of their classmates, their priests, someone from the congregation at church. Joseph had always dragged James away, kept him from hurting an innocent . . . from purging the remainder of the light that lay buried somewhere, lost, inside him.
In all those years of Joseph trying to control James’s evil, James had never hurt him. Even in his bloodlust, something, some innate fraternal bond, had always ensured James never took his punishment of Joseph’s interference too far.
I have to believe that bond will stop him hurting me now.
The dorm room door flew open. Black spots began to blur Joseph’s vision as unconsciousness danced closer, and for once he entertained the harrowing idea that this time James would kill him. Before the darkness claimed him, James’s hands were ripped from Joseph’s throat. Joseph coughed, gasping for breath. But he had to get to James. He had to protect James.
Joseph rolled over, lifting his body, bracing his weight on his hands. But they slipped beneath him, and he landed heavily in the blood that had caused him to fumble. Familiar snarls and growls came from across the room, from James. When Joseph looked up, Father Brady had James in his unrelenting hold. James was fighting to get free, but Father Brady was too big and too strong for James to overcome.
Father Quinn entered the room, and Joseph froze. The priest took one look at Luke on the chair and Joseph on the ground. Joseph could only imagine what was running through his head. What he thought of seeing Luke and Joseph bloodied and hurt—both injured at James’s hands. Turning to Father Brady, Father Quinn flicked his hand—a silent instruction. Father Brady dragged James from the room. James’s was skin coated in Luke’s blood, his teeth washed in red as he snarled and kicked to be free, eyes wild.
“No,” Joseph whispered. He fought through the slippery blood to get to his feet. He tried to run to the door, but Father Quinn stopped him with a firm hand on his arm. Father Quinn nodded in the direction of the bench against the wall. Joseph looked up at the priest he held above any other at Holy Innocents. “I have to see him.” Joseph’s voice was graveled and laced with sadness. “He needs me. I need to be with him. He doesn’t know what he’s done is wrong. He won’t understand what is happening.”
“On the bench, Joseph,” Father Quinn ordered. Joseph did as he said, though every movement was a war with his legs—they urged him to chase after James. But Joseph never disobeyed the priests in charge.
Just as Joseph sat on the bench, Father McCarthy came through the door. He was about twenty years younger than Father Quinn and had fiery red hair. He had always made Joseph feel uneasy. Something dark and sinister seemed to reside in his blue eyes. Joseph didn’t know what, but his gut told him not to trust him.
At Father Quinn’s instruction, Father McCarthy made quick work of untying Luke and carrying him from the room. Father Quinn shut the door and sat beside Joseph on the bench. Silence filled the room, but Joseph tensed when he heard his brother’s rabid growls echoing from somewhere else in the home.
His hands fisted at his sides. But he wouldn’t defy Father Quinn. Joseph respected him too much for that. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Where will you take him? You . . . you won’t hurt him, will you?”
When Joseph’s eyes opened, all he could see was blood. Blood on the floor, the walls . . . He looked down. It was even on his hands. Joseph glanced up at the white wall opposite the bench. A large crucifix hung in the center, the single piece of decoration the room afforded. It had always been a beacon of peace for Joseph. A symbol of the fact that he led a pure and righteous life. But Joseph’s stomach plummeted, disgrace and horror flooding his chest, when he saw a spatter of blood running down Jesus’s bronze face. Luke’s pilfered blood, sullying the sacred.
Joseph looked at Father Quinn. The priest’s eyes were narrowed and focused on Joseph’s hands. On the crimson evidence of James’s wickedness. “Tell me, Joseph. Is your intention still to join the church? To become a priest?”
“Yes,” Joseph replied. He spoke the truth. Truth was the only absolute in his life. There wasn’t a bone in his body that didn’t want to pledge itself to his faith. Devote his life to God, Jesus, and the Catholic Church that had raised him—saved him. He had known what path lay before him from the age of six. He was fifteen now, and his conviction, along with the strength of his faith, only grew day by day.
Father Quinn nodded as though he had expect
ed the answer. Joseph rubbed his hands together. Luke’s blood was still wet on his skin. “He is a burden to you.” Joseph stilled, his eyes snapping to Father Quinn. Joseph’s heart began to beat faster, church bells tolling at high speed.
“He’s my brother.” Joseph couldn’t give any other reply. Nothing else was as important to him as his brother. James was all he had. He needed to save him.
Father Quinn gently placed his hand on Joseph’s shoulder. “And that’s why you’ll be a wonderful priest. Your compassion is what drives you. Your conviction in saving troubled souls is no doubt how you will serve the church.” The priest paused, as though considering his next words. “But it is no longer your duty to save James. Something dark breathes within him. Something that needs special care. Care that you, my boy, cannot give. You have not had the training nor the experience to deal with such forces.” Father Quinn’s hand held him tighter. “I’m relieving you of this duty you have forced upon yourself. It’s time for you to focus on your theology studies and priestly duties.”
Joseph’s ears rang, fear drowning out all noise. He couldn’t let James go. He couldn’t. “Where will you take him?” Joseph asked, panicked.
“Isolation.”
“You won’t . . .” Joseph trailed off. “You won’t involve the police? For what he’s done to Luke?”
Father Quinn’s hand fell from Joseph’s shoulder, taking the warmth of his comfort along with it. “This is a church matter, Joseph. The police do not deal with ailments of the soul.”
“How long will he be in isolation?”
Father Quinn got to his feet without answering Joseph’s question. “Come, son. You need to wash that blood off you, and you will sleep in a spare room tonight. This room needs thoroughly cleansing.”
Joseph did as he was told, but once he had showered, he ducked back into his and James’s room. He was trusted enough by Father Quinn and the others that he didn’t need to be monitored. Joseph stared at the blood that painted the room. It was a horror scene. Joseph stood still, and his mind brought him back to the first time he had seen James cut his arm. Joseph had found his brother in the bathroom. The mirror above the sink had been smashed. Joseph had followed a trickle of blood to the bath. A thin shower curtain hid James behind it, but Joseph detected his familiar silhouette. With shaking hands, Joseph had drawn back the curtain. Joseph’s stomach fell as he recalled how he had found his baby brother. Eight years old, clutching a shard of glass in one hand . . . but that wasn’t what had scared Joseph the most. That honor had belonged to the sight of James, with a slash in his forearm . . . drinking his own blood from the wound.
