The Mark of Cain

by A D Seeley

  “Give me your wallet!” a giant of a man with a full-face ski mask demanded as he emerged from the shadows next to the car.

  “Be cool,” Eric said, putting a hand in his pants pocket, the other up in a stop motion. She didn’t understand exactly why Eric was moving in such controlled movements until she saw the glint of light reflecting off something metal in the man’s hands so large they resembled the buildings around them. He had a gun.

  Eric handed his wallet over, repeating over and over again, “Be cool, man. Just be cool.”

  Once he had the wallet, the man raised the gun and swung it, hitting Eric across the temple with the brunt of it.

  “Eric!” she screamed, springing forward to catch his unconscious form. She didn’t make it, though. When she was almost to him, something hard hit her across the cheek, the force throwing her down to the rough ground.

  Trying to right the world from its spinning, she looked up at the figure between the stars in her head. He was bringing back the hand that had hit her; the hand that held Eric’s wallet. At least she hadn’t been hit with the gun.

  “Don’t move!” the man yelled, pointing the gun at her.

  “I…I won’t,” she stammered, shrinking away from him. Her cheek was killing her.

  Just as she began to think that she was going to die, a dark figure suddenly ran across her point of view, its arm grabbing for the gun. She was too scared and disoriented to follow the action, but a few moments into the struggle, the sound of a gunshot ripped through the otherwise silent summer evening. The masked figure then turned and ran, each foot as loud as the throbbing in her face.

  “Hara? Are you okay?” Inac’s deep voice rang out, calming her.

  Looking up at his figure in the dark she nodded, one hand to her burning cheek. “But Eric….”

  “He’s okay. He’s breathing,” he said.

  Relief flooded her veins.

  “Here, I’ll help you up,” Inac said, offering her his hands after he wiped them on his pants. As he pulled her to a standing position, he faltered slightly. Odd. He seemed so muscular. Picking up too-skinny her shouldn’t be a problem.

  “Inac?” she questioned, feeling that she was missing something. Her brain was just too slow right now.

  “I’m fine.”

  That was when she realized that something was wrong. Why would he even say that? Especially in a voice getting weaker by the moment?

  “Where are you hurt?”

  He looked her over like he was surprised she’d picked up on that. He probably thought her to be a dumb blonde. Most people did before they got to know her.

  “Like I said, I’m fine.” He then turned to check on Eric again.

  She grabbed his shoulder as he bent over, wanting to turn him back facing her so she could get the truth. That was when everything once again began to make sense.

  As she touched him, he called out in pain. Surprised, she pulled her hand back only to find it covered in gore. But how? The answer popped into her mind as though it had always been there, waiting for her to connect the dots. The gun had gone off, which had scared the robber away, but the bullet hadn’t hit anything around them. Some part of her had always known that it had hit Inac.

  Unable to pretend like he was fine any longer, Inac fell to his knees. From the dim light of a street lamp, she could see that he was getting paler by the minute. She could also now see that part of his black suit jacket was shiny; wet looking.

  She dropped to the ground, putting her hands under his jacket and over the river flowing from him, some part of her registering sirens in the background. Wanting to comfort him as he collapsed fully to his back, she lied for the first time in her short life.

  “You’ll be okay. Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine,” she told him, hoping to soothe him, as well as herself, with the lie.

  But he really wasn’t going to be fine because she wasn’t even sure whether she was putting pressure on the wound or not. There was just so much blood. Blood everywhere. All over her white dress and clumping the hair that had fallen out of the silver sticks when she’d been hit.

  The truth was, Inac was going to die before those sirens could arrive.

  “You’ll be okay,” she lied again, unsure if he could even hear her now. His eyes had rolled up until she only saw the whites, and his breaths were coming in shallow gasps.

  “You’re okay. You have to be okay,” she repeated over and over again into the night.

  Chapter Four

  ***

  “You’re okay. You’ll be okay,” a voice kept repeating in Inac’s mind, superimposed with another voice from a long time ago that had said similar words.

  “You good. You be good. Sleep,” it had said in its native tongue.

  His mind was hopping between the two, trying to figure out which one was real. The latter one won.

  “You good. Sleep,” the voice commanded again when he tried to move. Even the small movement he made caused unthinkable pain to surge through his body. “No move.”

  “Where…?” was all he managed through his throbbing throat before he lost consciousness.

  He wasn’t sure how long he slipped between consciousness and unconsciousness—time really had no meaning to him—but he knew that it was many days.

  “How he live?” he heard that familiar voice ask. Now that he was feeling a little better, he could pay attention enough to comprehend that it was a female.

  “No know,” a deep masculine voice boomed.

  It took him a while to save up enough energy to croak out, “Where am I?” Though he already had a clue from the crude dialect the two were using. He knew he must be far beyond any civilization. Probably near, or in, one of the many lush jungles across the land.

  It was interesting how that worked. All humans had originated from the same village but, when some had left with him, and others had later moved away to begin their own villages, their languages had evolved until they only had small bits of the original language left. He hadn’t met anyone who spoke the original language in many, many moons. Mostly, he came upon people like this; people who spoke so simply, the beauty of words no longer present.

  “Spike Rock,” the man answered.

  He’d known that he was in the middle of nowhere, but Spike Rock? That was a village so isolated deep in the jungle that they likely had never met anyone who hadn’t been born there. In all actuality, they probably didn’t even know there was a world outside of it.

  “You know Spike Rock?” the man asked.

  Instead of answering, he asked, “What happened?” It was only when they didn’t answer that he realized that he was speaking in his native tongue. “How me hurt?” he amended.

  “Black jungle beast eat,” the man answered. It seemed the girl wasn’t going to speak now that he was doing better. He still hurt, but he felt much better than before.

  He opened his eyes. Above him was craggy, damp, storm-colored rock. Now that he was paying attention, he could feel the cool air blowing through the cave, bringing with it the fragrance of the jungle: the thick leaves and the rich soil, the oversized flora and fauna, as well as a slight feral scent that spoke of the black jungle beast. Underneath him was a bed of the same lush jungle leaves that he could smell so perfectly. That explained why he was so comfortable. He was used to sleeping on the hard jungle floor, so this was wonderfully cozy.

  He took stock of his body, making sure that the great animal hadn’t eaten any of his limbs. He was lucky; however, when he turned his head to look at those helping him, pain once again shot through his body.

  “No move!” the girl said as she flung herself forward to make him stay still.

  He cupped a hand around his neck, feeling wetness there. When he pulled it away to determine why it was wet, his fingers had a semi-liquid green substance on them. Medicine. It must be covering his wounds.

  Suddenly he recalled what had happened. He had been traveling through the jungle to no place in particular when a giant black a
nimal had pounced on him from its hiding place in the trees. Like most great animals killed their prey, it went straight for his throat and spine with its sharp teeth. Thinking about it now, the thoughts he had in the moment surfaced. When most people would be too focused on their struggles to pry a strong mouth from their neck—and about how the animal gleefully lapped up their blood; about it digging its claws deep into the flesh of their shoulders and limbs so that it could clench around their bones to steady itself—all he had thought about was how he hadn’t aged in who knew how long, and now he would finally die the horrendous death people believed he deserved.

  He shouldn’t be alive now. No matter what medicine the villagers had used, he should be dead.

  He watched the girl as she added more of the green mixture to his throat, then to deep gashes along the rest of his body. She was a pretty girl with darker skin than he had ever seen in his travels. It was like the soil he had once planted his family’s crops in back when he had been a farmer. That was so long ago….

  “Me Niku,” she said, giving him a small smile that was blinding against her dark skin.

  He smiled back; she could distract him from the pain with her different features.

  “Me Aemuth,” he replied, giving her the name he’d gone by for the past six hundred and forty-three moons.

  Niku stayed by his side for days before he was strong enough to leave. But he didn’t leave. Niku had fallen for him and wanted him as her mate. She was pretty so he took her as such, much to the excitement of her father. Aemuth spent thirty-nine content full moon cycles there before Niku noticed that all the marks from the attack had disappeared from his neck and body.

  The tribe already thought him different because of his lighter skin, as well as the fact that he was twice the size as most of them. And then there were the black designs that covered his right arm, the right side of his chest, abdomen, and back. Tattooing was in other parts of the world, but not here. Not in a place where it wouldn’t even be visible on the skin.

  Those things had all made them fear him, but now that his marks from the great beast had disappeared, they thought that he must be a demon here for their blood.

  One night as he and Niku, round with his child, were taking an evening stroll along the river, the hunters all charged toward them, trying to kill both of them to rid their village of him and his spawn. He tried to jump in front of Niku to protect her, but they came from all directions, making protecting her impossible.

  They jabbed him with their spears, the sharp stone tips cutting deep into his flesh. When that didn’t work, they tried to burn him with their torches. They didn’t succeed before he killed most of them to get away, leaving his dead mate behind. He then ran through the jungle, losing them before passing out somewhere in its foliage. It was when he woke and found himself healing that he realized that maybe he couldn’t die. He knew that he didn’t age, but those spears had cut through into places that would kill anyone else. Like the spear they’d buried in Niku’s swollen stomach….

  He felt a twinge of sadness. He hadn’t been in love with her, but she’d always been a good mate. She had always treated him with a respect he wasn’t used to, because he was a wanderer with no home and no people.

  It was that event that made him realize that he would always be different. He would always be alone. When God had first cursed him and told him that he would never age, he had been ecstatic. He could own the world. But now that he knew that he could never die, eternity seemed to stretch before him like an unfathomable crevice devoid of even the barest trace of light.

  That was the beginning of his depression. He spent countless moons trying to kill himself, becoming more animalistic the more he failed. Soon he no longer resembled a man as he fell further and further into his hatred and pain. His black hair had grown long into thick, circular snarls caked with mud, as was the rest of him. And his beard was denser than any forest known to him. With it all, he knew that he was no longer human.

  He tried everything he could think of to end his life until he had only one more way that he could think of to try. He looked down from the cliff at the water far below, where it violently crashed upon the jagged rocks. There was no way he could survive this. If the fall didn’t kill him, then surely he would drown.

  Taking a deep breath, more for courage than for anything else, he jumped….

  ***

  Inac’s eyes sprang open the same moment Aemuth collided with the ocean floor. He hadn’t thought about that life for thousands of years. His depression and the time that followed on the ocean floor had made him become someone so unholy that he just didn’t want to think about it. If he did, then he was worried that the same animalistic rage would overtake him once again.

  “Inac?” a feminine voice asked.

  He turned his head to the side, his throat no longer feeling as though it had just been ripped out by a panther. When he saw Hara sitting there, looking down at him, he smiled.

  “Hey,” he said through his gravelly throat. She was so beautiful with her perfectly arched golden eyebrows drawn together in worry. “How are you?”

  “How am I? You’re the one who got shot.”

  He shrugged, sending a sharp pain following his tattoo down his right arm as well as into his back and chest.

  “I’ve had worse,” he said truthfully.

  “But you could have died.”

  “So could you if I hadn’t jumped in when I did,” he said, lightly touching the vivid red and purple bruise on her cheek. He was happy things had happened the way they had. He had to get Hara into his life, as well as she had to trust him so he could ruin her. If getting shot for her didn’t give her unwavering trust, then nothing would.

  She leaned forward in her chair to grasp one of his hands with both of hers, doing her best to keep from touching the IV there. “We were really worried about you.”

  For the first time he noticed the arresting shade of her lavender eyes. They were natural, too. Just like the impossible color of her hair. In all his years, he’d never seen something as unique as her.

  “Oh we were, were we?” he joked to clear the air of the magic she’d unknowingly cast. He wasn’t used to being so attracted to a woman before. He would enjoy playing with her before he killed her. Really, it was a pity she had to die. The world would be a much colder place without her beauty.

  She gave a nervous giggle before looking down at her hands. She was obviously as shy as a unicorn. Her affinity for them now made sense. She herself had the innocence of one, as well as she was as rare.

  “Well,” she said, glancing up at him before glancing back down as her already rosy cheeks deepened in color. “I was worried about you.”

  He couldn’t contain his grin. He had her right where he wanted her. Before, she’d only been fantasizing about him. Now she was in love. Soon, she’d have her first kiss, followed closely by her losing everything else she held precious….

  “Well, as deeply as I am touched at your concern, as you can see, I’m fine.”

  She blushed again.

  “At least you’re no longer speaking in tongues,” she said to her lap.

  “Tongues?”

  “Yeah. You kept talking in some weird language. The doctors thought maybe you had an infection that was making you delirious or something.”

  “Did I?” He already knew the answer. He had never been sick a day in his life. God had kept him and his family safe from disease while they were single-handedly procreating the Earth. And then, by the time God had given birth to disease, he was immortal. He could get hurt, but his cells were resilient and recycled themselves too often for any illness to have enough time to infect him. It probably didn’t hurt that his blood was coursing with pluripotents—the kind of stem cells usually only found in fresh embryos that could become any type of cell in the body. They’d notice the stem cells in the blood they’d taken here at the hospital—or at least they would have if Santoni hadn’t switched the blood, like he knew the man would
do; it was standing orders to always switch Inac’s blood with a healthy mortal’s if he was injured.

  “Nope,” she said as the corners of her full mouth twitched upward as though she was trying to smile. “They had no idea what was up.”

  “It was probably just a dream.”

  “Then it was a nightmare. You were acting like someone was trying to kill you. They had to tie you down so you wouldn’t hurt yourself…or someone else.”

  So he’d gone crazy for a little while. Wasn’t the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  “How long have I been here?”

  Only now did he stop paying attention to Hara long enough to notice the institutional white paint and sterilized smell of the room. Around him were few monitors, even less that he was actually hooked up to. He’d gone to school a few times to be a doctor so he knew what each and every piece of equipment was for. Not that he was going to actually work as one because he didn’t do anything for anybody but him, but he liked to know everything about the world that he could so as to better rule it—

  “Two days,” Hara said, interrupting his thoughts. “You were in surgery all night the first day because the bullet pierced an artery. They thought you were going to bleed to death. That’s one thing they’re guessing. Maybe you were in shock and that’s why you were speaking in a made up language. Plus, you didn’t seem to know who anyone was, let alone yourself. You were really gone….”

  “Well, like I said, I’m good now.”

  She smiled then and, when she did, a wondrous light entered her eyes.

  “For that, I’m thankful,” she said.

  He ignored that, instead asking, “Speaking of wounds, how’s your boyfriend?”

  Straightening up as though she was more comfortable with this subject than she was with his gift of tongues, she said, “Eric’s fine. He had to stay overnight for observation because he had a nasty concussion, but he’ll be okay.”