Anna (Book 2, The Redemption Series)

by S. J. West

  “This is where I decided to come,” Malcolm tells me. “This part of the world would later be known as the north-western region of France. The humans were entering the Neolithic period and beginning to use large stones to build various structures.”

  “What are you building here?” I ask.

  “It’s a dolmen. Basically, it’s a burial chamber made of free standing stones and covered with a capstone. But, that’s not why I brought you here,” Malcolm says, pointing to something in front of us.

  I look to see what he’s pointing at and find that it isn’t a thing at all but a woman.

  She is petite in stature with beautiful long blonde hair which reaches down to her waist. Her skin is pale with just a hint of pink. Her face is beautiful with its delicate bone structure, but it’s her eyes which draw me completely in. They’re an amazing cornflower blue, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen eyes like hers before in my life. Just by watching her facial expressions and the way she carries herself, I can tell she has a sweet temper and probably never even thought to raise her voice to anyone in her life.

  “Who is she?” I ask, staring at the woman as she lugs a wooden bucket full of water up the hill beside the men.

  “Her name was Mina, and she was my first wife.”

  I watch Malcolm’s memory and notice the past him openly staring at Mina, not seeming to care if anyone else takes notice of his diverted attention. By the small stretch of Mina’s pink lips, it’s obvious she knows he’s watching her and enjoys being able to hold his interest.

  “What made you fall in love with her?” I ask, noting what a stark contrast Malcolm’s first wife is to me. It wasn’t just the physical disparities that made us distinctive from one another either. Mina’s demeanor gave the impression that she had a sweet and calm personality. How could Malcolm love someone as brash and temperamental as me when he chose a woman like her to be his first wife?

  “Mina emanated a natural serenity around her that almost everyone she came into contact with felt,” Malcolm reminisces, his voice taking on a far off quality as he answers my question. “The war with Lucifer and his followers in Heaven was hard on all of us who had to fight in it. It took a lot of time for some of us to recover and even longer for others to come to terms with what happened. For me, Mina was like a healing balm on my soul. She was so caring and nurturing to not only me but also to all those around her. I was immediately drawn to her and her to me. At the time, I didn’t care that God ordered us to refrain from becoming emotionally and physically involved with humans. All I could think about was the way Mina made me feel, and I didn’t see why it would be wrong to love her as long as she felt the same way about me. So, I asked her to marry me, and we were wed the next day.”

  Malcolm’s memory changes location to the interior of a small one room cottage. I see Malcolm sitting naked on the side of a small bed crying like he had lost all hope. Mina is lying underneath the covers of the bed and simply looks like she’s in a deep sleep.

  “That next morning after the wedding, I couldn’t wake her up. I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t know exactly what was happening at the time. I had a feeling then that my father was punishing me for going against his orders. It wasn’t until the hunger for blood hit that I understood the full strength of his wrath. My father has never been one to take disobedience lightly, and his punishment for us was fitting to our crime. Those of us who married were rewarded with the death of our wives by the birth of children cursed because of our sin.”

  Time rapidly passes within the little cottage, and I watch as Mina’s body withers away but not from decay. It’s almost like something is slowly eating her from the inside out and only leaving behind an empty husk of skin and bones.

  The memories finally stop and I stand to see past Malcolm holding a small bloody creature in his arms. What’s left of Mina is still lying on the bed, but her belly looks like it exploded from the inside out.

  “Our children took what nutrients they needed from the body of their mothers and then clawed their way out of the wombs once they were ready to be born,” Malcolm tells me in a detached voice. “The instant my son was born I knew I couldn’t live among humans anymore and still take care of him. So, I phased us to a remote cave in the Himalayan Mountains.”

  Our surroundings change to a cave where a single fire is burning at its center. There are a few furnishings around such as a cot and a table, but little else is present to provide for a comfortable life. A small wooden cradle is set beside the cot, and I see past Malcolm reach into it and pull out what appears to be a healthy looking baby.

  “I was relieved when the sun rose and the thing that clawed its way out of Mina transformed itself into something that looked human,” Malcolm tells me. “But every night I had to endure his cries when he transformed back into the creature I had doomed him to become. Every time I had to watch Sebastian suffer through the change, my rage towards my father grew just as my hunger for human blood did. I hated Him for a long time. And, I finally decided I’d had enough. If He wanted me to become a monster, so be it.”

  We’re soon standing in what looks like an Egyptian bazaar from a time in Earth’s history I’ve only read about. Vendors are vigorously hawking their merchandise to passersby, desperately trying to make a sale. I see past Malcolm leaning up against a wall near a stall where colorful fabrics are being sold. He’s shirtless and only wearing a white cloth skirt around his hips with a blue and gold silk sash tied around his waist. His skin looks paler than those of the people milling around the bazaar, causing him to stand out to my eyes. The expression on his face is a mask of complete control as he watches a group of women browsing the fabrics of the nearby merchant. If it wasn’t for the predatory glint in his eyes, I would have thought he was completely bored with the goings on around him.

  “I attempted to live among humans without eating them,” Malcolm tells me. “I initially came here to just help build the pyramids at Giza, but the longer I stayed around humans the more intense my hunger for their blood became. It finally got to a point where I didn’t care about my soul anymore. All I wanted to do was hurt my father for what He had turned me into and for the curse he placed on Sebastian for a sin I had committed.”

  I watch as past Malcolm pushes away from the wall he was leaning against and approaches one of the women he’s been watching. It doesn’t take him long before he has her separated from her friends and walking away with him willingly.

  In an instant, we’re standing on top of a pyramid. Past Malcolm is holding the woman against him with his face buried in the side of her neck. The woman is completely limp in his arms, and I hear a rhythmic sucking sound as Malcolm drinks her blood.

  “This was the first time I fed on a human,” Malcolm tells me, his voice filled with disgust as he watches himself become a monster he would later come to hate.

  “Why are you showing me this?” I ask, averting my eyes away from past Malcolm to the man I love standing beside me.

  Malcolm tears his eyes away from his memory self and looks down at me. The pain of watching himself murder a helpless woman is written clearly on his face. I squeeze the hand I hold tighter trying to reassure him that he isn’t that man anymore.

  “You don’t have to relive these moments,” I tell him. “You don’t have to show me this.”

  “Yes,” Malcolm says with a small nod of his head, “I do. I need you to understand who I was because that person is still inside me, Anna. He’ll never completely go away, but I’ve learned how to forgive him for what he did. I can’t erase the pain I caused others, but I can strive to be a better man and continue to rise above who I was so that part of me is only a distant memory.”

  I glance back at past Malcolm.

  “What did it feel like to kill her?” I ask.

  Malcolm sighs heavily. “Her blood tasted like the sweetest nectar. It made me feel invincible and fed the monster growing inside me, making him think he could kill at will and not have to pay a price for
it later on. I went on a killing spree after this moment that didn’t stop for many years.”

  “And where was Sebastian during this murderous rampage of yours?”

  “I kept him safe,” Malcolm says. “It was my only redeemable quality during that dark period of my life. I made sure he never killed anyone because I didn’t want his soul to be damned because of me. I had already ruined his life enough. I wasn’t about to be the reason his afterlife was doomed as well.”

  Malcolm takes me to a moment in his past that I’ve already seen. It’s the night he first met Lilly.

  “Why are we here?” I ask him as I watch past Malcolm study Lilly as she crosses the street in front of him. “I’ve already seen this.”

  “I want to show you the memories that changed who I was,” Malcolm tells me. “This is a moment that changed my life forever.”

  “Yes,” I say, “I know. I felt what it did to you the last time I saw it.”

  “I didn’t know it then,” Malcolm tells me as he watches his past self take hold of Lilly’s arm, “but I would come to realize this was the moment my real life on Earth began. If it hadn’t been for Lilly, I never would have been able to experience the happiest years of my life.”

  The scene quickly changes, and I find us standing inside a home with a Christmas tree in the corner. Malcolm is knelt down in front of it.

  “Are you sure you have a gift for me under here, dearest?” Malcolm asks, while he scans the presents. “I still don’t see it.”

  “It’s there, Malcolm,” a very pregnant Lilly says to him with Brand standing by her side as she watches him with amusement. “But you can’t open it until tomorrow morning. That’s the rule.”

  Past Malcolm sighs heavily and stands up. He turns to face them both.

  “All I seem to be able to find are gifts for Caylin,” he halfheartedly complains.

  “I’ve been a good girl, Uncle Malcolm.”

  I see a little girl with brown hair and grey eyes walk from the back of the house into the living room with a half-eaten cookie in her hand.

  Malcolm changes the scene, and I literally begin to see years of his life flash by.

  “It was the first time I felt the power of family,” Malcolm tells me as his life with Lilly and Sebastian’s families fade in and out. “We were all so happy during the years that followed. I didn’t even mind the occasional brawl with Lucifer, at least until I was bit by his hellhound.”

  Malcolm only briefly shows me a glimpse of that fight and the moment he was bit.

  “I asked Lucifer to take his curse off of you when he came to see me,” I tell Malcolm. “But he won’t.”

  “He never will,” Malcolm tells me with certainty, freezing the moment his physical torture began. “He’s been trying to make me beg him to take my soul for years. I think it frustrates him that I’ve never given in. If it wasn’t for my promise to Lilly to stay alive until you were born and help you retrieve the seals, I might have given him my soul to end the pain by now. But with you in my life,” Malcolm says, turning to fully face me, “I have a whole new reason to endure it.”

  My vision grows blurry as I try to hold in my sorrow over the pain Malcolm has to live with.

  “I would give anything to help you,” I tell him.

  Malcolm shakes his head. “You’ve already given me everything, Anna. Don’t you realize that? I’ve lived with this pain for a thousand years. But your love for me is something I never expected to be gifted with. It overshadows everything else. The pain is still there, but it’s finally been made bearable because my love for you pushes it so far back in my mind I can almost forget about it.”

  Malcolm lifts our joined hands to his heart.

  “You live here now,” he says, emphasizing his words by lightly tapping our hands against his chest. “And you always will.”

  I feel a tear slide down my cheek at the sweetness of his words because I know they are the truth. Malcolm leans in to kiss the tear’s wet trail away.

  “I didn’t say that to make you cry,” he tells me, pulling back.

  Before he can, I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him deeply. It may only be a dream world kiss, but I want him to know how much I love the fact he’s sharing his life with me so unreservedly.

  “Thank you for not giving up,” I whisper against his lips as I end the kiss. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to experience happiness like this.”

  “You’re welcome,” Malcolm grins. It’s not a cocky smile, but one telling me he’s glad he didn’t give in to his pain too.

  Malcolm kisses me on the forehead and turns his body away from mine to show me more of his memories.

  We’re back in the desert once more. The Watchers are again dressed in their formal wear and kneeling with one knee on the sand. I watch as Caylin walks among the watchers and see her come to stand in front of my papa and Daniel.

  “This is the moment when Caylin chose those of us who would watch over the princes and wait for you to be born,” Malcolm tells me. “I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I knew I was one of her chosen even though she refused to tell me.”

  “Thank you for staying here so long and waiting for me,” I tell him, unable to imagine my life without him in it.

  “It hasn’t been easy,” Malcolm admits. “Especially when we lost so many that we loved.”

  We leave the desert.

  I see an old man sitting in a rocking chair on a front porch of a nice looking two story home. The man looks to be in his eighties with more wrinkles on his face than I care to count, but the ones around his mouth and the corners of his eyes seem to be more prominent than the rest. They hint at a life spent in laughter and true happiness.

  I see past Malcolm walk out of the front door of the home carrying two cups in his hands. He hands one of the cups to the man in the chair.

  “Thanks, Dad,” the old man says, making me gasp because I realize this is an older version of Malcolm’s son.

  “Anytime,” Malcolm says, sitting down in a matching rocking chair angled toward Sebastian’s.

  “Malcolm,” I say, looking over at him, “you don’t have to show this to me.”

  I can only imagine the pain this memory must be causing him.

  Malcolm nods his head. “Yes, I do.”

  I look back and watch.

  “Dad,” Sebastian says, his voice raspy from age, “can you do something for me?”

  “You know I would do anything for you, Sebastian. I love you.”

  “Then, I want you to have more children one day.”

  Past Malcolm keeps his expression blank as he replies, “I don’t see that happening.”

  “But you’re such a great father,” Sebastian argues. “Even when you were at your worst, you always made me feel loved. With the curse lifted, you can have normal children with a woman now.”

  Malcolm shakes his head. “I would have to be in love with a woman to have children with her, Sebastian. I fear my chance at happiness like that has long since passed.”

  Sebastian leans in toward his father and places his age spotted hand on Malcolm’s arm.

  “Don’t close your heart off to others,” Sebastian almost begs. “There’s so much good inside you, Dad. It would be a sin for you not to share yourself with someone. I know you always loved Lilly, but she wasn’t the one you were meant to be with. I think you know that. Just promise me that you won’t stop trying to live after we’re all gone. I know you’ll want to shut people out to spare yourself the heartache over losing them. But, you should know better than anyone that this life isn’t the end. We’ll all be together again one day in Heaven.”

  “That knowledge doesn’t make losing you in this life any easier,” Malcolm tells his son. “I have no way of knowing when I’ll be able to see you again.”

  “I know, Dad,” Sebastian says letting go of Malcolm’s arm to lean back in his chair. “But if and when the time comes that you find someone to love, don’t push her away. I want you to experi
ence the joy of being a father the way it was meant to be. You sort of got cheated out of that with me.”

  “I regret what happened to you because of me,” Malcolm says, almost like a confession. “You never should have been put through all those years of pain.”

  “It was all worth it in the end, Dad,” Sebastian says with a content look on his face. “I’ve had a wonderful life, and even if I were given the chance to change what happened, I wouldn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if I changed one single moment, the life I’ve had might not have ever happened. I wouldn’t have met Abby at just the right time, and without her, I wouldn’t have had my children. Having them and you in my life makes it all worth it to me, Dad. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  My Malcolm faces me again. “I tried to keep Sebastian’s words in mind, but after a few hundred years, I gave up hope of meeting anyone. All I wanted to do was finish our mission and finally find release in death. Then, something unexpected happened and changed the way I started to feel about my life.”

  Our location morphs into one I recognize, Malcolm’s study in his New Orleans home. Past Malcolm is sitting behind his desk staring out the window at nothing in particular. I can tell he has something else on his mind besides the activity happening outside his home on the busy street below.

  There’s an insistent knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Malcolm calls out to the visitor, turning around in his chair to face the new arrival.

  Jered opens the door and walks in. He’s carrying a baby swaddled in a blue blanket on one arm.

  “He’s here,” Jered says to Malcolm.

  “Have you made arrangements with Daniel and Linn for them to take him in?”

  Jered closes the door behind him and walks over to Malcolm’s desk.

  “Yes,” Jered says hesitantly. “Though I disagree with your decision.”

  “It’s better for him in the long run,” Malcolm tells Jered.