by A. Giacomi
“Why don’t we make a deal with him? See what he wants in return for peace,” I say shrugging. It seemed logical enough to me.
He continues to shake his head. “You’re not getting it. He cannot be trusted!”
“From what I’ve understood so far…he usually becomes active when he wants something. We can’t do much unless we find out what he wants. Does this not make sense?”
“Dear god you are so much like your mother,” Lessard says as he paces back and forth. “You’re also a lot like Walther. I hear him when you speak, but it’s your mother’s sarcasm that comes out with it.”
“Sir, I’m not being at all sarcastic, I am quite serious,” I say slightly offended.
“Fine, I get it, you’re completely right, we need to find out what he wants, but how do you propose we do that?”
He stares at me while I ponder the options. I know exactly what the answer is, but he isn’t going to like it.
“Hear me out a moment…The last time the devil was an active adversary it took my mother and father to take him down. I am of their blood…perhaps I am to continue in that tradition? Not that I’m looking forward to it. In fact, I’m quite terrified, but if I can help, I will try.”
“No, absolutely not!” Lessard yells, looking the least calm I’ve ever seen him. “I promised Walther I would take care of you, this wouldn’t be what he wanted for you.”
“Yes, I understand that, sir…but didn’t you say that you would do anything to keep your people safe, that it was your priority? If this is true, then I guess you owe it to all the people of this planet to try something, no matter how insane it sounds.”
I could tell it bothered him, hearing all this from a sixteen-year-old, but I had always been beyond my years and I couldn’t help it if I was able to see things clearly without emotions getting in the way of my decisions or doing what was logical.
He doesn’t try to dissuade me again, so I take this as a victory. “Great, when do we attempt to contact him?”
Lessard responds heavily, “Tonight.”
***
Back in my room, Lessard tells me to relax and nod off to sleep, the best place to catch the devil himself was through dreams apparently. He lurked there waiting to frighten people. Perhaps he had been into my dreams last night; they had surely been horrific enough. It seemed awful that anyone would take great pleasure in terrifying people while they innocently slept, but I guess he wasn’t anyone, he was a bitter fallen angel from what I had read on my bookshelf.
“Now Abeni, we’ll be here the entire time, call out to us if anything goes awry.”
I nod and attempt to get comfortable, slowly I begin to give into the softness of the bed and forget the people that wait around me. Soon I am sleeping soundly and try to channel my energy to my thoughts. There I was in a dark room; I ask for him to show himself, but instead of a person I hear a voice. It is the kind of voice that would make your skin crawl, but being asleep I could feel my body twitch slightly at the sound of him.
“What do you want?” it hisses at me.
“It’s not what I want, it’s what you want.”
“Go on…” the voice hisses again.
“You seem to want to start another war, I want to know why…”
“I’m hungry…” the voice says with a laugh.
“For what exactly?” I say truly confused, what could a demon wish to eat?
“I’ve been waiting for you, my dear…” the voice says coldly. “You have something that belongs to me, and I have been waiting a long, long time to retrieve it.” He shows me a red stone with a piece missing. “Look inside yourself and you’ll see what I want.”
I understood now, my heart was abnormal for a reason, it must have held a piece of the stone, but how was it possible that it would be embedded in my chest? Who had done this and to what end? Simply to sacrifice me?
“What if I refuse?” I say with as much bravery as I can muster.
“Then everyone will die…”
I decide to add another element to the game he was playing. “Now I thought you were here to make a deal. That’s not a deal. You get my heart and what do I get?”
He laughs that wicked laugh again. “Clever girl…what do you want?”
I ponder this for a moment, and I suppose I wanted the only thing a girl my age could need. “My mother.”
The deal confounds him, I can tell because he remains silent a long while.
“So I get your heart, and you mother returns to this Earth alive and well? This is the deal you wish to strike?” I can almost hear his smirk.
“Not so fast,” I say, content with my own cleverness. “You don’t get to just take it with me only getting to spend five minutes with her. I want a decade. You’ve waited centuries for the stone, what’s another ten years?” I say with a shrug. “So do we have a deal?”
“Hmmm,” he groans as he contemplates my deal. “Ten years until your death, and in that time you want your mother?”
“Yes, precisely,” I say trying not to seem too excited about clinching the deal.
A dark figure then appears in front of me, I could not make out features, but a bony hand does protrude toward me. “You have a deal, Abeni, now let’s shake on that.”
A chill fills the air as I take his hand and seal the deal. I prayed this would work, that he wouldn’t double cross me. I wanted to meet my mother so terribly that this deal seemed worth it, but if he changed the deal and I never got to see her, then I would be truly devastated.
***
Bolting upright in my bed I see the men, including Lessard that had been waiting impatiently for my return.
“Well, what did he say?” Lessard asks biting off one of his nails.
“I’m very sorry, sir…you will have to break your promise to my father. What he wants is here.” I unzip my top slightly to reveal the glow in my chest. “What lies inside of me is what he’s wanted for centuries, it’s part of the Eye of Ra, sir. It belongs to him.”
He hangs his head shamefully. “Did you shake on this? You will give him your heart and you will die in order to save us all?”
“Not exactly, that simple,” I say slightly amused. “I made a deal which means I get something in return. I said that I wish to live another ten years and in that time I wanted my mother back. He promised to return her to me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Lessard rises from his chair. “You did what?” he says with his eyes growing wide.
“I thought you would be happy. She was an asset to you, wasn’t she? She will be useful to you once more! And I will get to meet her before I die, it’s all I wanted.” I realize my selfishness now, but I refused to apologize for it. Wasn’t I owed a small moment of happiness?
“Beni, you have no idea what you’ve done…he may not send her back the same. She might not be who you hope. I warned you of his tricks. I shouldn’t have let you do this.”
“What’s done is done…” I say in a near whisper. “The deal is sealed and your people will be safe now. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
He looks about ready to slap me when one of the guards enters the room and asks him to look at something on one of his handheld monitors. I follow Lessard into the hall curious to know what all the commotion could be about.
Lessard holds the monitor, his mouth agape as the guard begins to explain. “They appeared out of nowhere, sir. And they’re just waiting at the front gate.”
I lean in to take a look at the screen Lessard holds. There appears to be a cloaked figure waiting outside the high-security gate. They don’t attempt to knock or move, they just stand there like some sort of statue. “Mother?” I say as I look at the screen a little longer. Before Lessard and his men can think up a plan, I begin sprinting toward the doors. I was determined to open them, to jump into her arms. Lessard’s soldiers try to chase me, but I’m faster th
an they can imagine and I’m at the door ready to pry it open.
I hear Lessard screaming behind me, “You don’t know it’s her, stop!”
However, I had already made up my mind, that door was going to open and no one was going to stop me.
With one hard tug, the door flies open and the robed stranger is standing right in front of me. “Mother?” I call out once more. The stranger’s hands come out of the robe to lift its hood. Standing before me is a woman who looks much like myself, but her skin is free from the purple twinge that the dead wore. She examines herself and then examines my face for a long time before embracing me.
“Beni? What have you done?” the woman says through her tears.
I let her embrace engulf me. “I did what I had to do, Mother. I did what you would have done.”
She takes a step back to view me once more and smiles. “I never thought I would see you again, Beni.” She gives a brief smile, but it soon fades when her eyes catch something behind me.
When I turn I can see she is glaring at Lessard. “You son of a bitch!” she yells. “You let my daughter make a deal with him, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” she screams again as she begins to approach him rapidly. Two guards stop her in her place when they aim guns at her. “How dare you!” she says and then spits in his face.
“Eve, so good to see you again,” he says while wiping the spit from his face.
“Wish I could say the same,” she says angrily.
“Now, now, Eve, Dr. August and I came to an understanding many years ago, I’m sure if you gave me a moment you’d see that I had the best intentions.”
She looks ready to hit him, so I decide to intervene. “Mom! It’s okay, it was all me. It was my choice. I wanted to help, but I also wanted something in return. I just wanted to see you so badly.”
She embraces me once more. “It’s okay, baby, I know you wanted to help. It’s in your blood, we can fix this. I’ll find a way. I always do,” she says as she smiles at me once more. ”Now tell me, baby, what was the deal you made?”
Never leaving her embrace I tell her, “I promised him I would give over my heart in ten years, but that I wanted you with me for that time, and in that time there would be a truce. No more zombies, just peace. And if I give over my heart after that there will be peace for good. Didn’t I make a great deal? I think it’s fair.”
“Fair? Oh honey, no, no, no…he doesn’t do fair. There is bound to be some bumps in the road and besides he’s the reason your father’s dead, and I’ll be damned if I let him take you too. He’s going to have to die hungry,” my mother spits out courageously.
“So what now?” Lessard says impatiently.
“Right now, we rest. Tomorrow we talk, and in ten years, we fight! Do you really think he’ll stop after he takes back the stone? He will never stop. All this means is we have ten years to figure out how to stop him forever. So become busy with that,” she snaps before leading me away from the crowd.
My mother was exactly as I expected her to be…one not to be messed with…apparently, I had made a good deal indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
EVE
Ten years later…
It was time now. The dead had begun to walk the Earth once more after a decade of silence. Satan had kept his word and I would keep mine. He would not have my daughter’s heart, he would perish. Weapons were being readied; newly developed ones could take out twenty zombies at a time. I had confidence that this second war against the dead would bring us another victory.
In the years spent with Abeni I realized that she was very much like myself in many ways, but she held a maturity I never had. She had been made the leader of her unit in a short time. Her fighting skills were exceptional which had a lot to do with what lived inside of her. The piece of red stone lodged inside of her heart had made her a force to reckon with, and she would not be defeated easily. Her anger only made her stronger. She had learned to control it and use it on the enemy, but I still worried that such great power might not be easily contained, especially after long periods of time. The longer she remained angry, the harder it was to bring her out of that afterward.
I felt a bit inadequate next to her, here I was Eve Brenner, brought back from the dead, but with none of what made me powerful and feared. I was clean, no virus detected in my blood, which also meant no power. After being a monster for so long, I had forgotten how to be human. I had to train harder, become stronger on my own. My trigger skills improved, making me the deadliest shot in the facility, but it still wouldn’t be enough to protect my baby. I had spoken to Lessard about possibly finding a way to infect me “safely” but he refused, saying the risk of turning me into a full zombie was too high and not worth the loss of my skills and confidence I brought to the squad. Even being a mere symbol made everyone better, with the great Eve by their side, they felt they couldn’t lose, and I felt the same way, but about Beni. We couldn’t lose with her on our side, she was invincible.
Yes, Cameron and I had created quite the immaculate human being, it’s a shame he couldn’t see her now, but sometimes I could almost feel him near. Feel the warmth of his love and I would be comforted. It didn’t make me miss him any less, my whole body ached to return to the afterlife and be with him once more, but I had unfinished business here and it would be a long time before the battle was over.
Suiting up for battle I find myself fighting back tears. Not because I feared a loss, but because I had no idea when this battle would end, it could be tomorrow or it could be another decade before Beni could enjoy a normal life. I feel a twinge of discomfort in my chest as I think of what she has endured, she had never known normal and perhaps she never will. The twinge in my chest makes it grow tighter and it’s harder to breathe, I felt like a failure as a mother, I couldn’t protect her from this fate. I couldn’t protect her from destiny. If you would have asked the nineteen-year-old version of myself if destiny was a real thing, I would have said bullshit, but clearly, humans didn’t know half of what was going on. We walked around with our eyes shut, believing and hearing what we wanted to and ignoring all the signs that there might just be something more out there, and some of it quite dangerous to ignore.
Just then Beni bursts in full fatigues, looking ever the soldier, but even more beautiful somehow. Angelic even. Theo, her second in command follows closely as he always did. I wonder if Beni understood just how much he loved her. Everyone could see it, but she always spent more time focusing on the mission to even give Theo a moment of her time. I suppose this is why Theo decided to train harder and become an asset to her. It was the only way he could be near her. I hang my head as I smile slightly, knowing what I knew, while others were oblivious of my knowledge made it particularly hard to pretend and play stupid, but now wasn’t the time for honesty or elbowing Theo and telling him to “Do something about it already”. She really wouldn’t get the hint if he never even made a move.
“Mother, are you ready?” Beni says almost glowing.
You could tell the girl liked to kick some ass, it brought her great pleasure in life.
“Always, my dear,” I say rising to greet her with a hug. “Hi Theo,” I say with a grin.
He knew what my grin meant, but refused to let on. Instead, he says, “Ma’am,” and bows slightly. So cordial, I wasn’t used to that at all.
“Great!” Beni says clapping her hands together. “We’ll be meeting Lessard downstairs in five minutes for a brief meeting before heading out.”
And with that, she turns to leave, ever the professional.
“Bye Theo,” I say again with a flirtatious wave that makes me giggle to myself. The poor guy, he didn’t need me making fun of him.
Grabbing the rest of my gear I’m about to leave the room when a chill comes over me and a voice enters my head, a very familiar voice that hisses slightly.
Eve…it’s so nice to see you so…well.
I shiver as the voice continues to speak.
You need to have a little chat with your daughter, Eve…she doesn’t understand that no one breaks a deal with me and gets away with it. Look at history, everyone suffers, or one suffers. Think about it…isn’t it better to sacrifice one to save the rest?
“Not when it’s my daughter!” I say bitterly.
Since when are you so selfish, Eve? Your daughter’s sacrifice could save so many…and besides I thought it a fair deal when I made it, ten years together, how lovely, how generous of me.
I snort at his words, “Generous? Why do you need this stone anyway? What are you up to?”
He grows angrier now and his hiss becomes a near growl, I want what’s mine! That is all, Eve!
“Then why did you loan it out in the first place? Do you expect me to believe the Eye of Ra was a generous gift without any attachments? Everyone knows you don’t work that way. You have ulterior motives. You wouldn’t be the devil if you didn’t,” I say with a smirk.
Fine, have it your way, I can see that you won’t listen to reason; in that case, I wish you much luck. You will need it. I’m raising all my dead today at once, the Earth will be festering with them, and they’ll be stronger than you can even imagine…
“Bring it on!” I say as I grit my teeth. “I will hunt them all down with everything I have until my final moments. You’re not winning this time. You’re not winning ever again!” I say spitting out my final words like venom.
The devil doesn’t speak again, instead, his laughter fills my head and soon fades out as if he was never there.
“Bastard,” I whisper as I make my way out of the room down to Lessard’s office.
When I get there, Lessard eyes me impatiently. “You’re late,” he says with a scowl.
“You’ll have to excuse me, but I had an unexpected visit from the dark one himself.”
Everyone in the room stops what they’re doing and eyes me with renewed interest.
Beni comes up to me first. “What do you mean? What did he do to you?”
