“Yes, yes and yes. What? You knew all this.”
“I think if I’d known Cassie had paraded naked in front of Grayson I would’ve given Ira a whole lot more grief than I have already.”
“You raise a good point.” She chuckled and shifted. “What was I saying?”
“What you would’ve done differently.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I dunno. I think it’s easy to think that things could’ve been handled differently when you have all the info. I didn’t have all the info, and I’m not sure how that would’ve changed things.” Luxi hummed in thought. “Grayson didn’t know about Sins, for one. Or, you know, anything about our world or that it existed like it does. He was a preacher, so he believed, but he didn’t believe in the whole the devil walks among you stuff. Also there was that thing where I kinda caused his first marriage to hit the shitter, and he didn’t take that well.” There was some muffled movement, and a man’s voice sounded in the background. Luxi added, “Grayson wants me to say that no one would’ve taken that well.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
More muffled talking. “Also,” Luxi continued, “he says hi.”
“Okay.”
A pause. “Aren’t you going to say hi back?”
Campbell rolled his eyes. “Fine. Hi, Grayson.”
She parroted his sentiment before returning to the line. “I’m not being much help, am I?”
“Thankfully, I didn’t expect too much.” Except she’d distracted him, and that was worth more than he could say. Campbell sighed and looked again to the house. “I don’t know what to do.”
Luxi inhaled. “Where are you now?” she asked, her tone subdued.
“Outside. She kicked me out. I told her I’d go, but I refused to go far. Legion is still a threat, and I still have a job to do, and—”
“You’re in love with her.”
Campbell winced, but seeing as his pride hadn’t resurrected itself in the past two minutes, could find no reason to deny it. He wasn’t even sure why he would have denied it to his family, except that he’d always held himself as above the others. Less susceptible to the things that had made their days so chaotic over the centuries. His protests to their changing lives might not have been as vocal as some, but he’d felt the burn of resistance all the same.
He hadn’t understood then. Not like he did now.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m in love with her.”
“Does she know?”
“I kinda blurted it at her before I took off.”
Luxi snorted. “Romantic.”
“What can I say? I’m an old softie.” Campbell sighed. “I told her I’d be back. That I wasn’t going to stay away. But she… Finding out about me nearly broke her. This is the strongest woman I’ve met. I thought I’d piss her off. I didn’t think she’d cry.”
“Crying doesn’t make you weak,” Luxi said crisply. “It means you meant enough to her to hurt. She is mad, but she probably feels like an idiot. I don’t know a lot about her, aside from what Pixley told me when I was tapped to run your errand, but from what I gather, big bad demon hunter hasn’t had much of a human connection. You gave her one, and it turns out it was something not human. It was, in fact, something worse than the thing that possessed her.”
“I am not worse than a fucking Hell Demon.”
“Yeah,” Luxi agreed. “But she doesn’t know that. And why the fuck would she? Because you say so? Why should she believe you?”
Campbell squeezed his eyes shut. The dull tempo of a headache began pulsing behind his closed lids. “What do I do?”
Luxi was quiet a moment. “Keep fighting.”
“That’ll work?”
“What the hell do I know? I’ve been in exactly one successful relationship and I just recently came to your hopeless ass for advice.”
Right. He was doomed.
“How’d that turn out?” Campbell asked. “Or have you decided?”
There was another long beat. Luxi breathed hard, as though steeling herself. “I am going to fuck up this kid so much.”
His eyes flew open. “You’re doing it?”
“Yeah.” Her voice shook. “It’s easy, apparently, once you know you want to do it. Another of those gifts that keep on giving from the free-will fairy. Decide you want a child, and you shall receive one.” She scoffed. “Grayson’s over the moon, of course. Since I’m already pregnant—”
“You’re what? How long have I been in Louisiana?”
She laughed. “Like I said, once you decide you wanna do it, apparently that’s all there is to it. Lucifer made us to get what we want pretty fast. Apparently, that means we flip a switch and become insanely fertile when we decide we want to create Sin spawn. Both parties gotta want it, though, so no surprises for the unwilling. Something to keep in mind.”
Campbell shuddered. No, kids were definitely not on his to-have list. That was something that would never change. It was crazy enough to think of any of his siblings reproducing.
“Shit,” he surmised.
“Right?” she agreed. “Fuck this kid up so much. But after Rome, it’s a good kind of terrified.” Luxi fell quiet again. “I wish I could be more help for you right now. All I can say, Cam, is if you love this girl, she’s worth fighting for. ’Cause you’re pretty awesome.”
In spite of himself, Campbell felt a grin tug his lips. “That you or the hormones talking?”
“Fuck you.”
“There’s my sister.”
“Love you too, douchebag.”
Luxi disconnected the call before he could come up with a rejoinder. Campbell released a long sigh and slid the phone back into his pocket, then turned his attention to the house once more.
Fighting for Varina was a no-brainer. He hadn’t needed Luxi to tell him that. Even still, he found himself feeling less isolated than before. And while hope was in short supply for salvaging whatever he and Varina had shared, he wouldn’t bow out without a fight.
He’d give her time. But then he would go in swinging.
25
Sleep following Campbell’s exit proved difficult, but somehow, Varina managed. Exhaustion had united forces with anger and hurt, and while her brain kept kicking on to remind her of what had happened—flood her with unwanted images and nasty reminders—she eventually tuned it out long enough for fatigue to seize control.
When Varina awoke, the sunlight was cutting in harsh jags through the window. She felt hot and hungover, her temples thundered with the cadence of a brutal headache, and she was immediately aware of everything that had transpired. There was no slow awakening, no sleepy reminder. Just instant mindfulness and all the shit that came with it.
Campbell had said he loved her.
Varina yawned, her body weighted with sleep. She wanted nothing more than to turn over and ignore the world until a hundred or so years had passed, but there was work to do. And Campbell was coming back. He’d said so before he’d left.
Among other things.
Varina scolded herself and sat up. Her eyes felt dry and puffy, which was becoming an ugly habit. A layer of sleep sweat laced her skin, making her long for a shower, but then she remembered what had happened the last time she’d been in the shower and those awful tears threatened to return.
The sooner she could find out why the hell her father had wanted her to come back to Mount Zion, the sooner she could burn the place down and officially leave it behind. It and all the shitty memories it had given her.
After what felt like an hour, Varina forced herself to her feet. She wobbled for a moment, then made her way to the door. No need to get dressed since she’d fallen asleep in her work clothes.
Which might account for how hot and nasty she felt.
On top of having her heart broken.
Like a fucking idiot.
The pang came again, hard and fast. As though her mind wanted to remind her body of what it had been through. Sleep had a way of muffling emotions, even restless sleep as hers had been. Anger remained ali
ve and well, but she found, to her chagrin as she aimed her tired feet toward the stairwell, that she was mostly pissed with herself. Because truly, deception couldn’t happen unless one was willing to be deceived. She’d had no reason to trust Campbell when he’d shown up, but she’d welcomed him inside and let him make himself at home. Sure, she’d put on a good show, but after she’d started believing him, ignoring her intuition had been easy.
Campbell had slept in the room across from hers. He’d helped her search through her father’s things. He’d stopped Legion from grabbing her. He’d had every opportunity to kill her or worse, and he hadn’t.
That confused her.
Only it didn’t. It should, but it didn’t. Because at some point, despite all her anger, despite the savage sense of betrayal that had all but torn her open, she still believed him.
And that pissed her off the most. More than her own crushing stupidity or the ache in her chest—believing him was dangerous. It opened the door to things that hadn’t been possible before she’d met him. It made the goddamned world more colorful and complicated than it had any right being, and shook the foundation she stood upon.
There were things no one could fake. Campbell’s screams in the dead of night, the soul-crushing fear on his face, and the way he closed up whenever she broached the subject were all among them. Someone looking to get close to her to harm her wouldn’t have spent as much time pushing her away as he had.
Varina dragged herself up the stairs and to the room she and Campbell had upended the day before. Almost immediately, her gaze was drawn to the box where sat her father’s manuscript.
The last man who had hurt her.
Again, Varina felt her eyes well with tears, but she didn’t fight it this time. Running hadn’t stopped her from hurting, no matter how much distance or time she put between herself and her father. Knowing that he’d still thought of her toward the end of his life, that he’d reached out to her in whatever way, would probably never stop hurting. The time to mend the past had come and gone, and the most she could hope for was learning to live with her regrets. Their relationship was one she couldn’t right. And no matter how much she’d told herself over the years that it didn’t matter…well, lying to herself had been easy. She was here now because it did matter.
And perhaps that was what she could take from what had happened last night. Telling herself lies wouldn’t make the lies true. She hadn’t had to come back to Mount Zion, but she had because she’d wanted to. As much as she’d dreaded it, she’d wanted to be here. She’d wanted some proof that her father was the man she remembered before Lina, before Legion, before everything in her world had been turned on its head.
Still, facing it and everything that came with it was terrifying. Right now, what resided in that box, written in the dedication of her father’s final manuscript, was Schrödinger’s Closure. Once she looked, she could never go back, and putting the final pin in her relationship with her father…
This time, when Varina’s eyes filled with tears, she didn’t fight them. The part of her who would always be the lost child crying for her daddy had grown too loud, and she didn’t have the strength to ignore it any longer. On wobbly legs, Varina moved forward and sank beside the box. She hesitated only a moment, then clutched the bulky manuscript in both hands. Once she was positioned on the floor, the book on her lap, she released a hard breath, then turned the title page over.
To my Varina. The greatest of all my creations, but the one for which I can take the least credit. I’m sorry I didn’t do more in my life to deserve you. I’m sorrier still that I won’t see the woman you have become.
Though I would have liked to have known her, I already know enough to say with confidence that she made me proud.
The pages tumbled from her lap in a scattered mess. Something else hit the floor, but Varina didn’t see. She couldn’t. She felt for a horrid moment that she was choking on air. Her chest had drawn tight, her throat even tighter, and then everything came loose in a hard sob that had originated from somewhere south of her rib cage. The sound was raw and awful, echoing endlessly through the empty house and shouting its way back at her, but she couldn’t hear it because more kept coming. And when her brain felt up to communicating with the rest of her, it was of little help. Telling her again that the chance for amends was behind her. That she’d never get to hug him again, listen to him laugh, catch his gaze before he playfully rolled his eyes, or tell him any of the suddenly infinite list of things she found herself needing to share.
For the first time, she didn’t miss the father she remembered. That man had always lived in the past. But the potential for what their relationship could have been was gone too. And that hurt more than anything.
An indeterminate time later, a mess of tears and snot, Varina forced herself to look up again. The room tilted a bit through the fog of her blurry vision, and though another wave threatened to crash, she managed to hold back and collect herself. It felt as though every bone in her body had been removed, and the exhaustion she’d experienced upon awakening had put on weight. She thought about crawling back to her bed, but didn’t think she could summon the energy.
It had been over a decade since she’d let herself feel—really feel. Since the moment she’d laid that first mental brick, divorcing herself from her past. The only emotions she’d kept had been those attached to survival, fear and anger most keenly. Years had molded those emotions into weapons she could shelve when they weren’t required.
She hadn’t really felt human, she realized. Bouncing from location to location, killing those demons who were drawn to her, offering her body as payment to whomever was convenient and, by necessity, weaker than she. Life hadn’t been lived—at least, not the parts that made it worth living.
Varina swallowed, a familiar, burning sensation blooming in her chest. This fear was different from what had come before—the fear she associated with Legion. It was oddly charged and, after she dismissed her immediate need to suffocate it, felt tinged with something light, almost hopeful.
It was tied to Campbell, and all the wonderful things he’d made her feel. The difference between the person she’d been before she’d arrived and who she was now. There were parts she didn’t like—this, for instance. A hot, blubbering mess, throbbing like an open wound had never been an ambition, but even for as much as this hurt, there was something liberating about it all at the same time. Something about embracing the pain, letting herself experience it, that made the monstrous shape it had assumed all these years less monstrous and more manageable.
Varina sniffed and wiped at her eyes again, feeling a bit lighter. She looked to the now tear-stained dedication on her lap, and the scattered sheets of manuscript that had strewn across the wooden floorboards. Thankfully, though her father had been a technological dinosaur, he had numbered each page. Varina imagined that once she had put this business behind her, she would want to deliver the last Jenning Jefferson novel to his editor. That had to be part of the reason her father had had his attorney call her home, if not the reason in full.
Her father had wanted her to know he loved her.
Varina sucked in a deep breath and bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from losing her shit again. She worked her way to her knees started collecting the assorted pages, paying no attention to the order she stacked them in—that was a job for a different day. Her mind detached itself from the task until something heavier than paper slid from between two thick sections and landed face-up on the floor.
It was a book.
No, it was a bible. A miniature pocket bible.
Varina blinked and reached for it. The cover was a shade of gray that might have once been brown or green—she couldn’t tell. The words The New Testament were typed in proud, formerly bronze capitals across the front. In the lower right hand corner, in italics, was the name Varina Jane Jefferson.
She frowned and brought the bible closer. It didn’t surprise her that she’d had a pocket bible. Church ha
d been an institution in Lina’s household. Three times a week at least—every Wednesday and twice on Sundays. Still, Varina couldn’t recall ever having a personalized bible. That seemed like something her stepmother would have insisted upon for her own child, but overlooked where Varina was concerned.
Jenning had inserted the bible into the manuscript. He’d wanted her to find it.
That made it important.
Varina worried a lip between her teeth, then cracked the spine and pried the book open. It fell naturally to a section in the middle of 1 Corinthians in that telling manner that informed anyone that the book had been well used and these verses were of particular importance. That much made sense. Someone had found her bible and made it their own.
What didn’t make sense, though, were the symbols etched into the page in red ink. Loopy circles accompanied precise points, a few making shapes resembling a pentagram but not quite. In the margins were scribbles that might have been a different language, but she couldn’t make out the words well enough to tell.
A low burn settled in her stomach. Something here was wrong, but not in any obvious way. The bible was, well, creepy, but it looked like a prop—something thrown onto the set of a Hollywood horror film without much imagination. Ritualistic symbols and funny foreign words had, in Varina’s experience, been a lot of hoopla about nothing. She’d never witnessed a genuine summoning, and she’d sat in on enough attempts to identify the markings, mostly at the behest of concerned parents who were convinced their teenagers were in league with the devil.
Who in the world would want to summon a demon in this house?
The burn in her stomach intensified, the edges of her mind curling over as though desperate to show her what it meant.
Then a blast like a shotgun rang through the air, and something crashed on the floors below. Varina made a beeline for the stairwell, Mount Zion’s familiar walls blurring past her in a whirl of color. She paused long enough on the second floor to determine nothing was amiss, then hurried downward.
Deliverance from Sin: A Demonic Paranormal Romance (Sinners & Saints Book 5) Page 24
