The release he needed.
He shuddered. Looking at her, he felt a sharp lance of guilt. There was a deeper way to connect with a woman, a way for two minds and bodies to join and share physical and psychic experiences, but he'd never practiced sexual magic. The idea repulsed him. The dangers of the old sins tended to recur; and while he struggled not to commit them, he would never completely escape them, either.
With a single thought, he was drawn into the past, unwillingly thinking of another who had once practiced forbidden rites in this place of darkness. The altar revolved nauseatingly in front of his eyes, and he felt a renewed bitterness.
My father…
Morgan was a man who rarely allowed events to bother him. He did not believe in destiny, but he knew invisible strings were woven through the ages and the lives of men. They pulled at one like the memories of old lovers.
We all leave behind bits, can become entangled in them if we allow ourselves to be caught.
He didn't like the idea. He preferred to believe he could pick a path through time and follow it, by will and strength alone.
But he was wrong. His future was firmly intertwined with his past; and until he reconciled with one and accepted the other, in this present time he would know no progress. In that moment, he felt a deep, personal grief and a sense of defeat.
Memories. The graves littering the ground of his brain. Some bodies were well-covered, grown over, and barely left an impression. He'd made his peace with them and refused to look back. Others refused to rest. Buried alive, they struggled to return to the forefront of his mind, exhuming themselves to point accusing fingers.
His father's ghost was one that refused to stay buried. No matter how hard he tried, how deep he dug or how much he drank, he could not lay Celeon Ese-Yeveanston to rest. His mind was plagued with horrors of the past and the sorrow of what could not be regained.
A Spaniard of Basque lineage, there was only one word that adequately described Celeon: stunning. In his prime, he was a tall, strapping, powerful man. His crystal-blue eyes, broad shoulders and sinister smile struck fear into the people he ruled with an iron fist. Nobody could fail to be unnerved by the concentration of sheer disdain and hatred he projected. He lived by one rule: he who has the power makes the rules.
And Celeon always made sure he had that power.
Megwyn often accused her brother of lying about his heritage, of refusing to acknowledge that his father was a practitioner of the cultic arts, belonging to the Gwyd'llyr. Celeon had not long been allowed to remain a member. He sought the darkness, the forbidden. And for that he had been cast out.
Stripped of his position as a Master-adept, Celeon was determined to rectify what he perceived to be injustices against him. He was not particularly concerned with whom he destroyed in the process. Just his presence alone would make the hackles rise, the mouth go dry. He beat and belittled until he made people fear and hate him, the humiliations and physical blows he dealt out like cards simply the byproducts of the exercise of power, the one pursuit he delighted and excelled in. A sadist and a bisexual, Celeon's tastes bordered on the perverse. Though he would take women as lovers, his true desires included young boys.
Jaw tightening, Morgan fought the sick, gripping squeeze of icy fingers around his heart. Long, sharp nails dug deep and--damn, it hurt! Thinking of his father never failed to unnerve him. He had hated being a child, hated the feeling of helplessness, of being smaller and weaker than an adult.
When he was young, he had learned to keep his mouth shut and his head down. The less Celeon saw of him, the better. He didn't realize that in seeking escape for himself he was condemning his twin to a fate uglier than the verbal censure and physical beatings. His wounds had healed, and he had survived.
Make no mistake, his body and mind were both scarred. But not like Megwyn's. Not anywhere close. The things Celeon had subjected his twin to were far worse--the unholy sexual rites, attempting to use her abilities as his own by taking her body, shutting down her mind so she would be an open conduit.
When he was sixteen, he had killed his father. Of all the guilt he carried, for that act alone he felt absolutely none. His sole regret was that he had not summoned the courage to commit the act sooner.
It was inevitable that he, too, would be drawn to the evil woven into his being. In attempting to bring a sinful abuse to an end, he fell victim to the allure of murder. The blood of his father was on his hands; and with Celeon's death, he discovered the quickening thrill that could fill a heart when slaughter was successfully committed.
He laughed, but there was only self-condemnation in the sound. He took a step away from the altar. Innocence. It was a thing he did not remember ever having. There must have been a time when he didn't know these awful things, a time when he could close his eyes and not be attacked from within by the evil spirits devouring his mind. Why couldn't he forget the past and forgive himself for things he could not then control?
There are no forgivable sins, a voice in his mind whispered, just as there are no salvageable souls. The voice sounded like his father's. Indeed, the words were his…just before Morgan slit his throat.
A long shiver ripped through him, and he felt a chill creep into his bones. His heart beat heavily in his chest; he had difficulty breathing. It was as if a great vise gripped his body and was squeezing…squeezing…
Too many disquieting memories, a strange emptiness in his core. Time could never distance such abuse. His rigid self-control faltered as words from the past echoed in his mind.
"No evil can enter your heart unless you permit it," his mother had said. "Keep to the light and use wisely what you have been granted. Eshyn ghuirrys sheilley hayr yn skeilley. He who creates evil shall be overtaken by it."
But she had gone into the darkness where there was no escape, where there was no hope. The darkness had destroyed her, and she had killed herself. Now, he recognized the wisdom and wished he'd heeded it earlier. In the past, he had neither used his legacy wisely nor kept away from the darkness. Darkness ate away at the light. Disavowing her words, he could not help but be drawn into the shadows.
If he were not wise, he would fall--and take his mate with him.
I cannot fail again.
A wave of claustrophobia slipped around him, a heavy mantle of foreboding, guilt and regret. He felt a tightening in his chest, a strange emptiness in his head. Suddenly, he had to get out, get away from the place where he and his twin had been repeatedly tormented and tortured.
Unwilling to pardon the past, he turned on his heel, throwing off the black cloak and casting it to the floor. His strides swiftly carried him out of the chamber. Disgusted, disturbed, he walked away from his necropolis of memories. Thinking rarely did him any good. It only made him angry. Anger was his worst trait. When he was angry, he was the most dangerous. Inside his rational mind, he could not deal with the life he'd led. Therefore, he hid the saner part of his psyche behind walls he imagined, walls that allowed for irrational and destructive behavior.
With Julienne's entrance into his life, the walls were coming down, forcing him to bring out and deal with guilt as he never had in the past. And as much as he did not want to face these facets of himself, he knew he could not avoid them indefinitely.
It was not more than a minute or two before he reached the foyer. First bright, then dark, then bright again, the bleary luminosity of the day was depressing.
Morgan stopped dead in his tracks. Head tilting back, he studied the windows skillfully designed with the Spanish crest of the Ese-Yeveanston bloodline. He felt a tremor of self-loathing rise in his gut. He did not want to admit he belonged to them, traveling full circle and returning to the very thing he had attempted to escape. He could've sworn the vicious carnivores were alive, accusing him of denying the life they represented.
He closed his eyes, rubbing his face. Lowering his arms, he could not help but notice his hands. These were the hands of a man who knew the ways of death. He had killed a lot of
people with these hands. His gaze moved to his scarred forearms, each bearing three vertical scars running from wrist nearly to the bend of his elbow. In his blood he had the power to heal, to save lives. Walking between two worlds, he possessed within himself the touch of life and death.
The lions winked. Menacing. Mocking.
He could sense the entity inside looking out through his eyes; that thing shared his body, his soul, his mind. It was like a caged animal, large, vicious and cunningly intelligent, perched on a ledge waiting to drop down on the weaker prey.
Someday I will shatter those damned things.
He narrowed his eyes, centering his inner energies. Body stiffening, he moved his hands into position in front, palms out, curved fingers slightly spread. He gave the lions a mental nudge. Just a little.
From the center, a tiny hairline crack began to form in the thick glass.
Unconscious of his movement, he shifted and pressed the tips of his fingers together. Right behind his eyes he could feel a pressure, the reaction of action. Not bad. He pushed harder.
The single crack grew larger. He could hear the glass begin to give.
The pressure increased, bringing a twinge.
Bearable. Nothing to worry about.
He levered another mental thrust toward the windows. No more gentleness. Now he pressed--hard. The cracks multiplied, branching out in a spider's web, snaking with unnerving speed through the glass mural.
Harder. Harder. Harder.
The lions shattered. Thousands of tiny shards rained down around him. At the same instant, an electric sensation smacked him in the center of his forehead, right between the eyes. A blinding spike of pain lodged firmly in his brain when his pent-up emotions exploded into violence.
Dazed, only half-conscious of what had occurred, Morgan raised an unsteady hand to his temple, pressing his fingers against the prominent vein bulging there. Things doubled in front of his eyes then gradually resumed their normal appearance. He swayed a little but caught himself. His jaw locked. His head felt as if it were going to explode like a stick of dynamite in a bottle. The pain was no worse than he deserved.
Disgusted, he cursed his stupidity. Idiot!
Use his ability--abuse his ability--and he would burn himself out. Do it hard enough, do it long enough, and he could kill himself--mentally. Oh, his body would survive. His mind? He would be a complete vegetable.
I must take care and not let the hunger consume me.
That gift was a true curse.
Power. The lure, the siren's song. He had thought of it often during his exile. Why deny it?
Do you want to keep your wits? he asked himself. Or do you want to lose it completely? Keep away from that. Far away. It will eat you up and spit out your bones.
Morgan shook his head, swallowing against nausea. He drew a deep breath, fighting to send the headache away. Gradually, his trembling stilled, and the pain receded. A little.
Not now. Not yet. He couldn't afford the luxury.
But, later, he could. And when it came, he would give in.
It would come back. A small thing, at first no bother, rapping at his skull. When the migraine arrived, he would do as he always did: drink his way through it. The alcohol usually deadened him a bit--and made him a vicious, temperamental jerk in the process. People around him knew enough to clear out when he withdrew into silence and picked up the bottle.
Despite that effort, though, the pain would gradually increase. As it grew, it would dash madly through his head with crushing force, demonic hooves sending out crimson barbs of pure agony. Light would become unbearable, to the point it would feel as though someone were pouring molten lava into his skull through his eye sockets. Sound even more so, magnified to where he was sure every cell in his brain would implode and collapse into a black hole.
It was when he could no longer think coherently that he got the urge to go digging for the thing inside, the thing bringing the punishment. At those times, he wanted to see it. Face it. Kill it. That dark, shadowy figure shot through with crimson standing in the center of his mind, lashing its barbed cat-'o-nine-tails straight into the soft tissue of his brain.
The razor blade. Surely the finest invention of modern man. Single edged. Sleek. Silver. Perfect for cutting, gliding through and parting skin with surgical precision. Times like that, when the pain was so bad he could not see straight, the razor was an oasis. Salvation.
Blood. The tide of warm crimson over chilled skin. Losing it made the darkness come, made the pain go. Regeneration. He would live. Memory like Swiss cheese, but brain cells intact.
It wasn't only razors that attracted him. Cigarettes. For the burning. One of the reasons he'd quit smoking.
And here he was. Calling it back. Calling it like a lost child cried out for its mother, knowing it was going to punish him for going astray.
Why?
Admit it.
He liked the pain.
Enjoyed it.
Courted it.
Long ago, his destructive impulses had ceased to be about suicide, instead becoming a matter of satisfaction. Alcohol, the cutting, the burning--all eased the pressure and angst, the boredom, the apathy, the depression. But more than that, they also ushered in a powerful, almost erotic pleasure. It was all a coping mechanism. Probably the reason he had survived as long as he had. The bad part was, he sometimes transferred his need for self-torture into his sex life. It made for short, violent relationships.
Ashleigh Reynolds was a prime example.
Like many women, Ashleigh had mistaken his need for pain to mean he needed her. Quite the contrary, he'd come to despise her for indulging him. That's what made it so easy to walk away from a woman and to walk away from love. How could any woman love him when he despised himself?
Julienne loved him. If he professed any sort of affection for her, any kind of respect, he could not be dragging her into his S & M games. He believed that would crush her, utterly and completely.
I have to get out.
Feeling numb, yet wired, Morgan quickly crossed to the barred door and removed the plank from its face. He was determined not to start another long slide into despair. Being in motion helped. Pieces of glass were ground into the stone when he left the foyer.
The wind outside was cool but not unpleasant. He enjoyed the sensation as it blew across the hollows of his face and pulled at his loose hair. He began to walk, going around a corner and farther out into the bare expanse. The haze, the shock of wet on his face, the soft wind and the cliffs--the gray skies perfectly echoed his mood.
He walked until he came to the brink. No crashing of waves filled the air. There was no water below. Only rock. The abyss was a deep one, hundreds of feet down. The fall would not kill, but the landing sure as hell would. He stood, listening to the wind. It seemed to whisper in his ear, calling him. He shivered. The idea sent prickles of chill up his spine.
His mother had believed she would be better off dead. He often believed that for himself as well. A sardonic grimace crossed his countenance, wrinkled his brow. His eyebrows hit a downward slope, and a hard glint came into his obsidian eyes, matching the growing darkness of the clouds swirling in the skies. He stared into it and tried to cope with his existence.
Behind his gaze, a battle raged; it was the battle of right versus wrong, of good versus evil. He knew the side he had taken before had been the correct one. There was no other side he could take, no other choice he could consider.
But how could I not? he questioned himself. The stronger must protect the weaker to keep the balance. If the balance did, indeed, tip in Ouroborous's favor a second time, all could be lost.
He felt a twinge of culpability, one that eroded a channel through his very being. I have been a blind fool. Why did I refuse to see? His entire existence had led to this moment.
In a swift, half-conscious thought, it occurred to him that perhaps Anlese had been right, that his mother's choice had not been the wrong one.
No rest for th
e wicked. I should have expected no less. It is the only game in town. It always has been. I just haven't realized until now what I have to do.
Because of the witches' council and its alliance with Xavier, he was going to be opposing two enemies on two fronts. Sclyd had been dying for a long, long time. It was inevitable that civilizations crumbled into dust as time took its toll. The dark war had caused this one to crumble. Renewing that battle would probably be the last nail in the coffin of this world.
Bíonn driopás ar na h-amadáin nuair a bhíonn drugall ar na h-aingil, he thought. There does be a rush on the fools where there is a reluctance on the part of angels. Was he a fool himself for going back to the battle? There were others who could fight. But not as well as he could.
Assassin. His face turned impassive. Most of the time that was the only name he had.
It is what I am. I will no longer deny it. He laughed, a laugh that was not pleasant to hear. There was no mirth in his eyes, nor any joy in his voice. It was brittle, as if he'd forgotten joyful sounds. Every beat of his heart seemed to echo a fatalistic warning.
Sliding his hands into his trouser pockets, he took a step closer. The ledge was not unstable, would not crumble under his weight. It was far from dangerous. Still, he liked the idea of being on the edge. He stood, motionless, contemplating the turbulent sky. It vaguely occurred to him that in not changing into a more suitable set of clothes he'd taken the first step in defying the rules of walking between the mortal world and Sclyd. It was the first thing stripped from mortals brought over; clothing and any other possessions they'd managed to hold onto. The first thing they were deprived of was an individual identity. It was part of the breaking down process, taking away dignity by treating them as a sub-species.
The two cultures--one medieval, one modern--were never to be violated by the other. He'd just resoundingly broken that rule. And he did not care because he no longer felt he belonged within the dimensions.
So, where, exactly, did he belong?
Uncomfortable in his own skin and with the world around him, he had attempted to remake himself, distancing himself from the past. Throughout his centuries, he had reinvented his life several times. He liked the mystery he could so easily create, enjoyed hiding behind the wall of anonymity time had allowed him to build. It suited him to be able to vanish into the unknown without a trace.
Descent of Demons Page 26
