by Thomas, Ally
He snapped his fingers at me.
I returned to the living room and poured him another glass of wine.
Finally, I asked him, “Why should I get married? I don’t need a man to define me.”
The man’s faced reddened. He shifted his legs back and forth. Then he tightened his fists. Quickly he placed the now empty glass he had been holding on the table. Surprisingly, it did not break into a million pieces.
“I’ve explained this to my father many times before,” I began. “If he were here, he’d tell you, G. I’m the loner, the rebel, the defiant one. Granted I’ve learned a great deal from both these gentlemen.” Pausing for a moment, I strolled over to where J and Blick stood, holding positions of frozen fortitude much like statues made of stone. “They have been mentors to me, my teachers, if you will, far more than what my father could ever be. I’d give my life for either of them, but that doesn’t mean I want to sacrifice my independence and be tied down. Marriage is an institution. I see now it would have been a mistake. Blick told me he did not want me. He made that perfectly clear. And J and I are just friends. There’s not going to be a wedding, not today or ever.”
“This is not some game, Rayea. You will wed. You will have children and I will see my descendants prosper.”
Those were not G’s words. They were the words of my father, Satan coming out of G’s mouth. The man who forever thought I was under his control simply because he willed it to be so. My father who had rarely, if ever, called me by my name.
As the charade started to fall apart, I continued to play the game. “I am not a newly made vampire anymore, G. You forget the things you have seen me do. I am no longer weak or afraid of the world around me. I am no longer afraid of what stunt my family may pull next just to get a rise out of me.”
Chapter 13
End Game (Rayea)
***
“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” ~ Albert Einstein
***
The rage in G’s face was evident. I saw it and I knew my father, Satan was hiding in G’s body. He had learned a valuable skill of shapeshifting and now he thought he could defeat me with it. I hoped G was okay. Glancing over at Blick and J, I reached out telepathically to read their thoughts. Utter silence. It was as if their minds had been erased. I gritted my teeth and prayed this was not the case. I had to push my father into revealing himself before the damage was irreversible.
“Yes,” I continued. Walking over to the coffee table again, I filled all four glasses to the tiptop edge. “I think the best choice is no choice. I don’t want to be with either of them.” I pointed to J and Blick. At the same time, both closed their eyes and lowered their heads. That’s when I realized I had fucked up with my declaration of independence.
“Then that is your promise?” G asked. “You will forsake your friends and return to your family, to your father and sister and leave all this?”
Blick jerked his head up and yelled at me. “Rayea, no, it’s a trap! I don’t want to lose you!”
Satan roared and Blick doubled over in pain. His knee smashed into the floor as he clung to the side of the couch. “Stop this,” Blick growled.
“She’ll remain with me and you will do what you promised. You will give her up or she dies.”
The second I caught Blick’s horrific expression on his face, I knew he had made a deal with my father, for my survival at the cost of our engagement. My father’s skill set after death had improved and I knew we were all in great danger. Blick had not called me and canceled the wedding. My father, pretending to be Blick, had done it. In hopes of getting his family back together and keeping me forever linked to his world of drama, Satan had played his move well. I had to go in for the attack before he melted their brains and mine. I had no idea how strong Satan had become, after returning from the dead. I did not want to find out, but I knew I had to. I had to figure out another way to defeat him, not with flames, but with words. Then a little idea filtered into my head.
“Oh,” I blurted out. “I am forgetting someone. We must have a toast. My younger sister has returned to me. We are friends and she is back too and looking so lovely. Let us drink to her. Stephanie, where are you? Join us please.”
As I reached out mentally to Stephanie, I asked her to meet us in the living room. Stand by me and show our father what his evil nature has done to his family. Defy him with me. We shall cast him out together.
I summoned her with my mind and a blinding flash of white light whirled around us. When Stephanie, in human form, materialized in front of us, Blick and J nearly jumped out of their skins. “Drink,” I whispered to them. “Drink now.”
They did as I asked. I hoped the blood laced in the wine would be enough to immediately restore their minds.
“I destroyed my father once, G and I now have a friendship with my sister. It’s wonderful. I only wish he was here to see it. But alas, he’s dead. Daddy Dearest no longer rules me or my sister.” I paused for a moment, seeing demonic facial features surface on G’s face. Satan was there all right. He would not give up very easily. A few more lashes of my verbal assault and I’d have him. His spell over Blick and J had been broken. Now I needed to seal the deal with the knowledge that his beloved Stephanie wanted nothing to do with him.
Quickly, I went in for the kill. Grabbing Stephanie’s hand in mine in a gesture of unity, I flipped my fangs out. I saw the fear behind G’s eyes and I knew whose face that truly was. I spoke to Satan. “Reveal yourself. Come forth and face us in your true form. I command you. Now!”
The very room shook as the earth beneath our feet rumbled and shifted. Red smoke filled my living room. I concentrated on preparing myself for what form our father would take. Would it be his snake-demon appearance or worse? I had no idea what his true self looked like because he had never shown us before. I knew him as a green demon covered with snakeskin patterns carved into his flesh and dressed in suits or western attire. Ridiculous outfits for a ridiculous creature who lacked honor and courage, who bullied his daughters, and who used fear as his ultimate weapon.
Stephanie squeezed my hand. I refused to let her leave my side. “We stand together,” I whispered to her. “Yes?”
“Yes, this ends now,” Stephanie replied.
The ghastly monster I think we all expected to see did not show. Instead, a tall skinny man with leathery tanned skin, vivid brown eyes, and wavy brown hair, slicked back over his head with styling gel stood in front of us. He wore a white t-shirt and faded black jeans, and of course black cowboy boots. It was a letdown to say the least. I wondered if the man before us, our father, Satan had a Texas accent because he looked like he had just walked in off the range from a day of herding cattle or stepped out of an automotive repair shop.
I let go of Stephanie’s hand when I heard Blick finally speak. The spell had been broken. He and J joined us. “This is the Lucifer we know, from long ago,” Blick offered.
“What have you done to me, you bitch?!” Satan screamed as he looked at his reflection in one of my French doors.
Blick rushed at him, and grabbing him by the throat, yanked him several feet off the floor. “Threaten her again and I’ll obliterate you from the solar system. A few moments ago, you drank the blood of the gods, the nourishment your daughter rightfully deserves and you do not. It healed you, Satan. You are merely a man again. Lucifer or do you prefer Luc?”
“I recognize you,” Stephanie yelled. “You saw me at Nathan’s. You were Luc, the guy always delivering wine. You knew they held me captivate and yet you did nothing?”
My proof was there. Satan had been behind the poisoned wine. Gently placing my hand on Blick’s elbow, I said, “Put him down. There’s more he has to hear before we deal with him.”
As Satan coughed and gagged, he fought to find his voice again. Blick had almost crushed his windpipe. “Why would you be given blood wine? You’re merely a vampire.”
“Before the evil and before t
he bloodletting, your father had a chance to be a decent man.” J walked over to our father and glared at him. “Have you harmed my father?”
“I merely took a form of his body. He’s fine.”
“He had better be or Heaven help you,” J replied.
An avalanche of emotion hit Stephanie and she screamed at Satan in his dilapidated human form. Instantly, I could tell where Stephanie had gotten her human features. She too had his brown eyes and wavy brown hair. She raced over to him and slapped our father hard across the face. “When I desperately needed you, you were nowhere to be found. Rayea saved me from my tormentors. I called for you and you did not answer. You were happy to let me rot there! Where were you, Father?”
“Who hurt you, sweetheart? What are you talking about? You called me? I never heard you…” He rubbed the side of his jaw. His words spilled out of his mouth with insecurity and confusion.
“Nathan and T and others. They raped me over and over and over…” Stephanie’s words died away and she convulsed into grief.
I could not believe she was crying. I had never seen her cry. I had never seen such family drama as what was unraveling before us. Walking over to her, I pulled her into my arms and led her away. I saw J and Blick’s shocked expression as Stephanie conceded to rest her head on my shoulder. She continued to sob.
J took the opportunity to pour salt on Satan’s mental wounds. He approached us. “It seems while you were so busy figuring out a way to stop your oldest daughter’s wedding, some human perverts were violating your youngest child. From what I’ve heard, no one should be allowed to suffer that.”
“No!” Satan roared. “You lie. All of you are lying. Nathan never touched you in a way you did not enjoy. I know that!”
Before he had a chance to move, I rushed up to him and slammed my fist in my father’s face. “You saw what he did to her? You were there?”
“No, Father,” Stephanie screamed. “No! How could you?”
“You needed them to sell your wine, didn’t you?” Easily his thoughts flowed into my consciousness. “You knew she was safe so you just left her there. You left her there to be abused over and over. You fucking son-of-a…”
Before I lost control and let my anger take charge, I put some more distance between Father and us. “Stephanie, now is not the time. He’ll get his.”
She erupted again. “They had their way with me for a year! Why didn’t you rescue me, Father? I hoped you would find me, but you never answered me. You never came. Finally, I did the one thing I thought I’d never do. I asked Rayea for her forgiveness and I asked her to save me.”
“No, baby girl. You did not. You did not pray to her, did you?”
This time Blick intervened. Seeing Satan totally at his wits’ end was a small victory in itself. “You’ve always proclaimed to be such a wonderful father,” Blick said. “But look what you’ve done to your family. You’ve lost them, Lucifer. The two souls who mean the world to you. You’ve lost them.”
“You’re wrong. This is not over. I will have my girls back. I will have my family again. Stephanie, darling, come here. Let us leave this place.”
“No,” she yelled at him. “I owe my sister here my freedom. I owe her everything!” Stephanie grabbed my hand again, squeezing it tight. “From the very beginning, you put us at odds and I’m sick of it. She could have ignored my pleas, like you did. She could have. After everything I did to her, she had every right to do nothing and walk away. But she did not.”
“Don’t pick her over me, my sweet. Don’t secure your fate and disappoint me. We can start again. In time, I will forgive you for this insanity. In time, you will understand what you have done. You and I are leaving. Now!”
When Satan lunged for Stephanie’s hand, I shoved her behind me. My protective nature lashed out at our father. The anger of many, many years grabbed my father. I could not stop it as memories of his loving acts he put us through surfaced before my eyes. The things he made both of us do to him together. I had blocked it all out for a very long time, but it had never left it. The blood wine Max had given me earlier, the bottle my mother had collected from her goddess friends, had unlocked those horrific memories. I felt like I could mentally relive the humiliation at his hands all over again if I allowed myself to recall what he had done. I wanted to spew bile all over him and rip him apart, limb by limb. And too, had I not seen the state of defeat Stephanie had endured at the hands of Nathan and his friends, I would not have reconsidered my history with my evil sister. But now? I was willing to give her a chance. She deserved that. If she was willing to be friends, then I would try too. She deserved a second chance at a normal life. She and I both deserved happiness without our father consistently fucking it up. We deserved more than what he wanted for us. We deserved a life without him.
“I won’t let you hurt either of us anymore,” I replied as I spread my hand across his face. My long nails sunk into his flesh and I was ready to rupture his brain with every ounce of flammable power I had coursing through my veins. I visualized the first wave traveling through my fingertips past his skull.
“It’s her decision,” he roared at me as he broke away from me. He pushed himself at me, knocking me to the ground.
This time, I calmly stood up and waved my hand at him. My father stopped moving as he realized his feet were frozen to the ground. A new form of fire, blinding hot, so hot it could freeze any target I focused on. I could not believe it.
J and Blick took Satan by the arms. Blick’s golden eyes blazed as J flashed his fangs out. The blood wine had been strong enough to give them immeasurable strength and restore their minds.
“Rayea, we could kill him now. He deserves it. We need to stop this now.” Blick’s words rang true, but I knew I did not want to feel the guilt again. I had killed him once. That was enough.
Chapter 14
Be Gone (Rayea)
***
“Dad, wherever you are, you are gone but you will never be forgotten.” ~Conrad Hall
***
“No, Blick, I don’t want him dead.” Glaring at my hands and the power I realized they held, I willed myself to let the anger go. I closed my eyes and inhaled, letting the breath escape my lips a few moments later. A blaze of white smoke left my lips. I groaned inwardly as I realized I had a new power to deal with when I became insanely angry.
“I want him gone,” I said. I thought about pointing my hand at him again, but did not. My arm fell to my side. “Father, I cast you out. I don’t want to know you anymore.” I stood before him, confidently as my hands rested on my hips.
Satan slumped over. His head dropped in his hands. “No, don’t. Don’t do this.”
“Stephanie, what do you think?” I asked her.
“You’re asking me what I want to do with him?” She blurted out, sounding stunned by my offer.
“I am asking you. You can decide his eternity if you want to or you can simply cast him out, so he won’t bother you anymore. It’s up to you. As for me, I’m done with our father here. I’m willing to begin a new friendship with you because I don’t think we ever got the chance. Do you? He always stopped any chance we had at being sisters.”
Satan let out a wicked chuckle. “She’s asking you to pick your favorite, baby girl,” he hissed. “Me or her. It doesn’t sound like you can have us both. You really want to be friends with this cunt? Really?”
I saw J and Blick violently shake my father like he was a ragdoll with his cowboy boots glued to my living room floor. I wondered if they would rip his arms from his body. Before I could stop her, Stephanie flew at Satan.
“Cunt? I’ll show you cunt! How dare you call me that? They called me that. How dare you! You never loved me, did you? You’ve never loved either of us. Fuck you, Father. You’re dead to me. Fuck YOU!”
As I pulled Stephanie off of Satan, I saw the scratch marks she had carved into his tanned face. Each cut brimmed with black blood. He appeared to be human, but his black blood told a different story. A demon th
rough and through. Too dark to turn to the light ever again. Lucifer, the light-bearing angel certainly had fallen.
We remained in silence for several long minutes. Blick and J helped Father to the couch because Stephanie’s lunge had broken his legs and tore the lower extremities from his body. As he whimpered in submission on the couch, holding his stumps in his hands, Stephanie clenched her fists and gritted her teeth. She returned to stand by me as she glared at our broken father. As a human, she looked quite fetching. But because of the circumstances, I did not focus on admiring her new beauty.
Instead, I merely pushed several strands of her long, wavy brown hair over her shoulders. “You okay?” I asked.
She nodded and patted my fingers as my hand remained on her shoulder. “No,” she whispered. “I am not okay. But I am going to be. I don’t care what you do with him. I don’t want to know him anymore. It’s over for me too. I want a normal life without him in it.”
Satan’s cries of anguish startled us all. “No, you don’t mean that. I won’t allow you to leave me!”
Stephanie’s voice rose in pitch, the familiar squeal of its deafening screeching scream I recalled. “Get behind me, Satan! Be gone! I cast you out! Now and forever!”
“No, Stephanie! No! Grab him.” I yelled at J and Blick as we all leapt toward the couch.
Satan vanished in a burgundy blood red puff of smoke, disappearing and leaving behind pools of blood soaking into the white rug underneath my coffee table.
“Let’s go after him, Rayea. Now before it’s too late!” Stephanie stood next to me, flexing her fingers out long and wide, and then contracting them in. Blood stained the palms of her hands as she repeatedly sunk her fingernails into her flesh.
“You’re hurting yourself, Steph. Stopping stabbing yourself. Calm down now.” I wrapped my arm around her. “We’ll get him. He won’t let us rest until we do.”
