He vanished.
Like, literally vanished. Well, as close to literally as one got without hedging into demon territory. She hadn’t even heard the door open. One second he’d been there, zipping himself up and sending her intense, smoldering looks, and the next she was alone.
Alone in the devastating loudness that was the all-too-quiet bathroom, the sounds of business as usual in the bar filtering through the door like some bad joke. And she was the punch-line.
Varina met her reflection’s gaze. Or she thought it was her reflection. She wasn’t used to seeing flushed cheeks and tussled hair on herself, at least not without a few scratches, bruises, bloodstains and mud splotches to go with it.
Good god. Carl was never going to let her live this down.
There wasn’t much she could do to fix herself up. After all, she hadn’t come into the bathroom thinking the big brooding hottie would follow, though given how things had progressed outside, maybe that much was her fault. She still had no idea how accusing him of being a beast of Hell had resulted in…well, that.
Varina drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The longer she hid, the more awkward this would be. And she’d promised herself in coming home that she wouldn’t be making any apologies. She wasn’t about to break that promise before she even set foot on the property.
Leaving the bathroom went about as well as she could have asked. Whistles, catcalls, and even a modest round of applause. Varina felt the sting of heat in her cheeks and directed her gaze to the ground as she negotiated the steps back to her barstool. Her new friend, she noticed, was nowhere to be found. He’d probably lit out the second she’d turned away, which, while disappointing, was also for the best.
That was what she told herself at least.
Once she was back on her seat, she felt the measure of control she’d been missing wash over her again. The world could change, but this barstool never would.
Varina straightened and raised her head, meeting Carl’s expectant stare. “Rum and coke, please.”
Carl huffed, but set about filling the order. “You okay, Vee?”
“I’d say I’m better than okay.”
He grunted a response, slid the glass across the bar. “That ain’t you, yunno.”
“Well, it was today.”
“Don’t be makin’ it a habit. This here’s a family place.”
Varina arched an eyebrow. Carl grinned.
“Okay,” he conceded. “So it be a true Rat Trap. Still, can’t happen again. Ya hear? Don’t care who your family is.”
She bit back a bitter smile, raising the glass to her lips. “That makes two of us.”
Varina had made a promise to herself on her fourteenth birthday, and she’d honored it every day thereafter, no matter how hard or how painful. Some people were doomed to repeat their mistakes, but she was not among them. Forgiveness was for the weak. After she’d left that house, she had vowed not to return.
Until today. Today was the day she’d break that promise.
The formerly majestic oak-lined entrance, envy of every Scarlett O’Hara wannabe, seemed as haunted as she felt. The trees, with their wild, gnarled branches and seemingly sentient roots, had been neglected too long. Kudzu vines had spread along the power lines and were beginning to creep along the home’s roof. At least she thought they were. It was difficult to tell at a distance.
The home itself nearly broke her heart.
In its heyday, Mount Zion had been the premier antebellum-era plantation in Warren Parish. Everything, from the twenty-six free-standing Corinthian columns that encircled the mansion to the rolling grounds, had ensured its place as one of the most lucrative tourist attractions on this side of Louisiana. Both the home’s interior and the exterior had been used in film, and since Mount Zion had been—until Varina’s mother had passed—a private home as well as a working plantation, there existed a sort of authenticity here that couldn’t be captured by some of their more outspoken competitors.
At least, that was what her mother had always said, with her mischievous grin and wink.
Varina bit her lip, curling a hand around one of the wrought-iron bars that comprised the outer fence.
Home sweet home.
She couldn’t think of anywhere she’d rather be less.
She swallowed the dry mass in her throat, reached into her pocket and procured the key ring her father’s estate attorney had discreetly slid across her desk. Twelve years had passed since she’d possessed a key to Mount Zion. The simple weight, texture and shape of the keys made her feel both bitterly nostalgic and just plain bitter.
No time like the present to face the past.
Varina jerked the padlock toward her, then the familiar whine of the old gate consumed the heady silence. She pushed the bars until she had just enough room to squeeze through. Too soon, she was mounting the worn steps to the home’s front entrance, trying and failing to keep her body’s tremors under control.
Goddammit.
This was not going as planned.
She’d had so many dreams about the old home it was difficult to separate her current reality from the one she visited in sleep. As in her dreams, Mount Zion appeared distorted, not quite the picture she remembered. The columns were cracking plaster. The outer blinds were peeling paint. Termites had spoiled at least a board and a half of porch wood, and other spots looked rotted through. Gone were the lazy rockers that had once dominated the veranda, replaced with potted plants and flower arrangements long dead.
This wasn’t the Mount Zion she remembered. Not even after Lina had moved in and started changing things.
This Mount Zion looked haunted.
And it was easier focusing on that than considering what might await her inside. The house was something that could be fixed, restored, if she so chose. It would take a shit ton of work and a generous loan from the bank, but she was a Jefferson, and Jeffersons got their way in Warren Parish. One way or another, the home could be saved. It didn’t seem to be in such a state that the effort would be overwhelming.
Not nearly as overwhelming as walking in the front door.
Varina drew in a deep breath, inserting the next key on her ring into the lock. Her temples pulsed and her heart thundered. The air was heavy with silence, occasionally breaking for a chirping bird or stir of wind. She was intensely aware of the sweat gathered at her brow and neck—a cold sweat that squeezed and clung.
This would be so much easier if she wasn’t alone. But alone was all Varina had ever been, and wishing had never made any difference. All she had were her nerves, and they had already done a bang-up job. First in convincing her to stall in the trip home, then in directing her to Rat Trap for some good ole liquid courage. At least that hadn’t been a complete waste. What alcohol couldn’t do, sex could.
Only the high had worn off. It hadn’t even had the courtesy to accompany her to the front door.
But stalling would only succeed in making this harder.
Varina turned the key, then pushed the door open. Stale air hit her nostrils with competing scents of mold and neglect. She steeled herself before stepping over the threshold.
A fine layer of dust covered every foreseeable surface. That much didn’t surprise her. What did was how, even at a glance, Varina knew her imagination hadn’t distorted her memory of the place at all.
It was the same. Everything was the same.
Varina swallowed hard. This wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t meant to be. Still, it was necessary. And maybe afterward, she’d be able to at last put the past behind her and say goodbye.
There weren’t many safe corners in Mount Zion. Varina found the parlor the least offensive—its threadbare carpet, dangling cobwebs and neglected antiques had not been present in many of her earliest, and worst, memories.
She deposited her duffle on the settee, which launched a cloud of dust into the stale air. After coughing her lungs clear, she decided to get through the unpleasant task of patrolling the corridors. There were
two parts to coming home. One was addressing the ghosts of the demons her old life had left behind.
The second was addressing the actual demons.
Varina wasn’t sure what it said about her that this seemed easier. Granted, wading through her family hang-ups and facing the reality of her demonic past was more or less one in the same. Her life since leaving Mount Zion had been in service of protecting herself from the things threatening to crush her—the things that had done their best to ruin her when she hadn’t known to be on guard. She knew now, though. She knew what lurked in the shadows better than just about anyone.
Mount Zion was her personal Ground Zero. It was where she had been catapulted from child to adult before being written out of the family history. It was where she had stopped being fully human.
Varina had no idea how much of her reticence at being home again was her own ingrained bitterness and how much was good old-fashioned fear. No matter how much she’d learned, after all, or how much distance she’d put between herself and the scared child she’d once been, she couldn’t help but regress.
She saw not the front parlor, but the place where her stepmother had held her at gunpoint. She saw not the study, but the walls she had clawed when her body hadn’t belonged to her. She saw not the stairs, but the place from where she’d launched herself in the first of four failed suicide attempts. She saw not the kitchen, but the bloodstained floors and the discarded knife beside her half-brother’s cold, pale body. She saw not the dining room, but what was supposed to have been her final death stage. The chandelier she had determined to hang from.
Each corner of the home was stained with the fingerprints of the thing that had lived inside her.
Twelve years had passed, at least ten of those having been dedicated to the study and elimination of demons. Varina had molded herself into a living, breathing weapon. It helped, of course, that demons seemed to find her wherever she went, and that none of those demons were as hard to kill as her first had been. When she’d vowed never to return home, she’d also vowed never to let herself be a victim again. The demon that had claimed her body and nearly her life had succeeded because she hadn’t known how to fight. She hadn’t known inner will was something that needed a work out. She hadn’t known her own strength.
Now she did.
Varina set up camp in the ladies’ parlor, which, aside from some dust and a few blemishes from the war of old, held the least amount of bad memories. Eventually, she would have to trek the stairs to her old room. The scene of the crime, as it were. The place where she’d first been hijacked. She knew no one would be around to impart judgment should she decide to select a guest room instead, but as long as she had to be here, she’d sworn to not cower. To not let fear rule her decisions. And facing fear was as much a part of her end goal as settling her father’s estate, finding the thing his lawyer had insisted she come find. If she had to break the promise she’d made to her teenage self, she’d do so on her own goddamn terms.
She could make the home hers again. Every other part of her life was hers. This was the last hurdle.
And that alone was the main reason she hadn’t hung up on her father’s lawyer. The reason she’d agreed to come back to Warren Parish in the first place. As long as Mount Zion and what had happened here had any power over her, she would always be its prisoner.
After she’d faced her fears, after she’d won, Varina could set the place—and her past—on fire.
She was looking forward to that part.
In the meantime, there was a job to be done. A large one. And she couldn’t get started until the space around her felt safe. Well, as safe as she could get it.
After surveying the property, Varina had steered her ’87 pickup to the front door. She’d tested the engine half a dozen times before vacating the vehicle, and had thus far managed to ignore the urge to make sure it was still running. This far out, it was easy to feel isolated. She might not be hours from help, but the nearest neighbor was at least fifteen miles in any direction, which, on foot and afraid, might as well be fifteen million.
Funny how quickly a person could relapse. Put her anywhere else, and Varina wouldn’t have flinched. The old walls of Mount Zion had her jumping at her own shadow. And she hadn’t even ventured upstairs yet.
She wouldn’t let her memories best her. No matter how difficult it was, she would triumph.
Maybe then she could truly move on.
3
The thing about breaks was they never lasted. The second Campbell switched back to on-duty, the sinking feeling he’d been trying to dodge had become solid. Gone was the quiet that came with drowning his sorrows at Rat Trap—back was the sad face of his current reality. And what it had been for the past freaking half month.
Two fucking weeks. Two fucking weeks of standing on a fucking curb looking at a fucking house and waiting for fucking nothing.
Two fucking weeks.
And he’d asked for this. Practically begged for it.
If Campbell became any more pathetic, he’d have to kick his own ass.
This was what he called a low point. Because the thought of leaving this fucking curb by this fucking house to go anywhere outside of his bar was nothing short of terrifying.
He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets, rolling his head back. A lingering hint of woman remained on his lips. There was that too—what had happened at Rat Trap had helped him feel more alive than he had since before Rome. And maybe that was part of his problem. Maybe he just needed to get laid more often.
Granted, his cock hadn’t exactly been a team player in that regard. The redhead, with her wide, haunted eyes, had been the only woman to show up on his sex drive’s radar in an embarrassingly long time.
Campbell sighed and kicked at the curb, doing his best to shake off the restless itch that had invaded his skin.
“You’re jumpy.”
He jerked and looked up. Gula, his brother and co-assignee, had been shooting him puzzled glances since the moment he’d returned. Granted, these looks had become common since Rome. Since Campbell had asked, or rather insisted, that Gula let him tag along on this assignment. Campbell wasn’t famous for wanting company—there was a good chance Gula had agreed to split the duties here out of shock.
“I am not jumpy,” he replied.
“Yeah, you are.”
“Am not.”
Gula snickered and arched an eyebrow. “Are we really doing this? ‘Cause I can sit here and say are so all night.”
Campbell scowled. “Fuck off.”
Gula scrubbed a hand across his head—his mostly bald head. That apocalypse survival look allowed for a moderate amount of Velcro-like scruff, which stretched down to cover his chin.
Campbell was still trying to get used to it. For centuries, Gula had been completely bald. Now he looked more like, well, Campbell. Were Campbell to get a buzz-cut. Which, no, wasn’t at all annoying.
“I’d love to,” Gula said at last. “Fuck off, that is. But unlike a certain someone who will go unnamed for now, I was given this job, and it doesn’t come with those kinda breaks.”
“It doesn’t come with anything,” Campbell replied, gesturing to the house. “We’re glorified babysitters.”
Gula shrugged. “No one’s keeping you here.”
Campbell flipped him the bird, but didn’t retort. It was true—and that was truly tragic. He could leave whenever he wanted—he had no reason or call to come back here every night, but the thought of going anywhere else was…
Hell was out of the question. Too much energy, too much heat. His only other single brother, Ace, was on assignment in Rome, and there was no goddamn way Campbell was setting foot there anytime soon. The others were all on the job as well—Ira in Washington DC with his Virtue, following up on the job he’d cut short before the apocalypse. Luxi was working with Grayson, mentoring him, on his first solo job in Russia. Invi and Roman were somewhere in the Middle East, and Ava had gone back to enjoying retirement with her va
mpire lover.
Campbell was the only Sin who had yet to be assigned. And Gula was the only sibling whose assignment met Campbell’s two-prong criteria—out of Hell and out of danger.
Except it was boring as fuck, which meant Campbell often found reason to take long breaks.
Breaks like the one today.
Breaks like the redhead, and the hot, wet fist of her cunt. Her tongue in his mouth, her legs around his waist…
Campbell tried to kill that line of thought, but his treacherous mind took him instead to the moment when their eyes had connected in the mirror. How he’d needed her mouth on his. How that need had transcended any sense of self-preservation, leaving him bare and vulnerable.
Yeah, he had no idea what that had been, but he hadn’t liked it.
“Dude,” Gula drawled, “did you get laid or something?”
Campbell jerked again. “What?” he asked much too quickly.
A slow grin drew across Gula’s mouth. “You totally got laid. Thank fuck. Took you long enough.”
“Fuck off.”
“I’m serious. You needed that…” He frowned and ran his hands over his buzzed head. “Or maybe you didn’t. You might be the only guy in history to be even more tense after…” He gestured. “Letting loose.”
“That’s a dumb euphemism.”
“You’re a dumb euphemism.”
Campbell rolled his eyes. This was another reason he’d chosen Gula. Of all his brothers, Gula was the most jovial. He knew when to be serious, and when the time was right, he was a fucking force to be reckoned with, but once the danger passed, he was back to grins and bad jokes.
Even after the world had almost ended. Even after almost losing their sister. Even after Rome.
Campbell hated to admit it, but he envied that. Especially now—on days like today where he felt torn down the middle. Where the storm in his head raged so loud he could barely hear a thing. The only reprieve he’d had was over, and as pleasant as fucking the redhead had been, it had left him skittish and confused, which combined for a cocktail of pissed right the fuck off.
Deliverance from Sin: A Demonic Paranormal Romance (Sinners & Saints Book 5) Page 3
