The Innocents

by Riley LaShea

  “So, what happens?” Delaney’s hand clutched the wall for support as she moved around it to watch Haydn swing her legs off the edge of the table.

  “First, you turn into dross, with lowered capabilities for high-level thought, powers weakened. If you still fail to eat, intelligence and traits further deteriorate, until you are capable of only the most rudimentary of thought - namely to feed. Fail to feed, you degenerate from this form into something lower, as long as it takes. If nature retrogresses you far enough, you will eventually consume. It is biologically unavoidable.”

  “So, basically…” The words refused to reconcile in Delaney’s head. “If you don’t feed, you become a junkie, then a zombie, then an insect, then an amoeba?”

  “I told you immortality isn’t a gift,” Haydn said, not nearly as bothered by the trajectory as she should be.

  “And were you just going to let yourself turn into that?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “So, what were you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Haydn answered. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  Watching her slide down from the x-ray table, it looked, for a moment, as if Haydn was trying to flee, and it rushed Delaney to her side.

  “What is wrong with you?” Caught by Haydn’s restored reflexes, they fell into the table’s edge. “You are a deraph, right? You drink human blood. For a thousand years, you have, and it is perfectly normal for you. Why do you care what I think? Did it ever occur to you I might be wrong?”

  “You’ve been so righteous about every goddamned thing since you got here, Delaney, I can’t imagine it’s ever occurred to you,” Haydn returned, but, where she should have been insulted, Delaney just felt desperate.

  Lips converging on Haydn’s, she was relieved when Haydn capitulated to the ceasefire.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Pulling away, her hand on Haydn’s chest reminded Haydn she had to breathe when she didn’t want to let up. “You know how to take care of yourself. You know what you are, and what you need.” They both did. They knew what, and who, Haydn was, and that those things were neither mutually exclusive, nor completely dependent of each other. “I am a bloody mess, believe me. Don’t worry what I think.”

  “It wasn’t just that.” Soft utterance halting Delaney’s torrent of apology, she pulled back to meet dark eyes that held her captive without any need of mystic power. “I still had your blood inside of me. You can’t understand what that felt like. It was like having my own soul back.”

  Fairly certain it wasn’t meant to seduce her, Delaney just had to accept that she was inherently seduced by everything Haydn said. Falling into her, she remembered Haydn was in a somewhat delicate state when her back rammed the table once again, but she still proved stronger than Delaney when the arms that closed around her kept her standing.

  “Take more.” Words rasped against Haydn’s jawline, Delaney tilted her head to provide her access. “All you had to do was ask.”

  “No,” Haydn said.

  “It’s okay.” Palms sliding up Haydn’s back, Delaney’s fingers dug into tense muscles, encouraging her closer. “I want you to.”

  “It will hurt you.”

  “I can handle it.” Anticipation rippling through her when Haydn’s lips brushed her neck, she could tell Haydn was at least tempted. “Just take enough. Please.”

  “It won’t hurt long,” Haydn gave in, and Delaney felt the sharp points of Haydn’s fangs scrape her skin.

  Suddenly piercing, she jerked at the intensity of the pain, though it was almost as if her brain didn’t have time to fully process the sensation before the anesthetic flowed, like a river of pleasure, through her. Tongue tingling, breasts aching, impossibly aroused impossibly fast, it was like it always was with Haydn, only more so, and amplified with each second Haydn drank.

  “That’s enough.” Haydn yanked away, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Entire body vibrating, frustrated and unfulfilled, it was frantic to know what it felt like to finish.

  Haydn’s hand slipping between them, Delaney could barely cling to reality as one arm beneath her hips lifted her off the floor, and her knees slid past either side of Haydn’s waist to rest on the edge of the x-ray table.

  Thrusting so deep into her it was almost compensation, Haydn carried through with the promise made from first bite. Never more aware of herself as she was as an extension of Haydn’s insistent thrusts, when Delaney came, it wasn’t at all poetic or celestial. It was utterly of the Earth. Less rising above, and more being buried beneath, everything piling atop her so she couldn’t help but feel the parts of her body that typically went dormant during climax.

  Arms wrapped around Haydn’s shoulders in a death grip, she felt Haydn’s hair brush her neck as she tried to regain her breath, to repossess her body, to remember who she was without Haydn inside of her. Drained from head to foot when she was finally released from the onslaught of merciless carnality, Delaney didn’t know if it was seconds or hours later that she sagged in Haydn’s embrace.

  “Are you okay?” Haydn asked, and Delaney realized how thankful she was to be alive, that Haydn was alive, that they had survived together.

  Gratitude segueing into guilt when she remembered why they were both alive, the cost of their survival, Delaney’s attempt at recovery turned into a pained exhalation as sobs erupted from her chest.

  “I’m sorry.” Haydn’s arms tightening around her, she forgot she shouldn’t feel the kind of comfort she did with Haydn.

  “Could you have someone take her body back?” she asked. “So her parents will know?”

  “I’ll take her myself,” Haydn said.

  Carrying onto the third floor, Delaney watched Haydn change into real clothes, putting on enough additional clothing herself to be more acceptable in the company of others.

  “Where’s Kiara?” she asked as they entered the kitchen to find the humans in the house all gathered around the servants’ table.

  “I put her in the bedroom,” Vicar Bryce said, and, with just a nod, Delaney turned to lead Haydn back down the hall.

  As they walked through the bedroom door, the puppy jumped up from where he lay at Kiara’s side. Stopping by the edge of the bed to bark, it looked as if he wanted to come to their feet, but, still so small, wasn’t ready for such a bold leap. Gathering him up as Haydn lifted Kiara’s small body off the bed, Delaney reached out to stop Haydn’s retreat. Not entirely aware of her intention, she found it when Haydn’s gaze met hers, and, stepping closer, she pushed up to press a kiss to Haydn’s lips.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  “Where are you taking her?” The immediacy of Vicar Bryce’s question indicated he hadn’t just gotten there, but Delaney could find no shame as she looked to him in the doorway.

  “She’s taking her home.”

  “I won’t be long,” Haydn assured her, and Delaney turned from the sight of Haydn taking Kiara away, putting her cheek to the puppy’s head as he whined for his loss. Room, otherwise, eerily silent, Kiara’s ghost already seemed to haunt it.

  “This didn’t have to happen,” Vicar Bryce declared.

  In full agreement, Delaney considered the ways in which it could have been avoided - if the deraphs hadn’t been away from the castle, if Gijon hadn’t talked to Brooks, if Brooks had chosen to simply walk away. When she turned to Vicar Bryce, though, she realized she should have waited for the rest of his opinion before concurring.

  “So, is this it then?” he uttered. “Have you chosen a side?”

  “What?” Delaney was so surprised by the question, she could barely comprehend it.

  “Are you with them, or are you with us?”

  “There is no them and us,” she said on instinct.

  “You have been spending a lot of time on the third floor,” Vicar Bryce accused. “Leaving Kiara.”

  “You said she wasn’t my responsibility.”

  “She wasn’t just yours, but maybe if you had been down here, instead of up there -
”

  “Then Brooks would have killed Haydn,” Delaney could state with utter certainty, because she had seen, and knew, Haydn couldn’t fight back on her own. Because of her, Haydn was weak and defenseless and in the castle when she should have been out with her clan. “And me as a consequence,” she reminded Vicar Bryce when he looked indifferent to Haydn’s outcome, and, to her pained surprise, it did little to change his obvious opinion. “I guess you think that’s what should have happened. Maybe it should have. But this did not happen because I was upstairs. It happened because Haydn sent Brooks away to protect Kiara from what I think you would agree were inappropriate affections. Maybe that was wrong too. Maybe Haydn should have just let the cards fall where they may. At least, Kiara would be alive. Scarred for life, sure, but alive.”

  Something she said finally appearing to have some impact, Delaney watched Vicar Bryce’s gaze shift away.

  “What do you think Brooks was going to do once Haydn and I were dead? Why do you think Kiara was on the stairs? Don’t you think she was waiting there for him? That he would have taken her with him? I am sorry Kiara is dead.” God knew that she was, and the tears that flung against her cheeks didn’t come close to expressing how sorry. “I am sorry that I couldn’t keep her safe. I am sorry I didn’t die to make up for my unseemly affiliation. But I am not sorry that Brooks doesn’t have Kiara now. And I am not sorry for saving Haydn’s life.”

  “I… Perhaps, I…” Reality of the situation put into perspective, Vicar Bryce seemed to lose some of his conviction.

  “You have been a very good friend to me, Vicar.” The last thing Delaney wanted, though, was to hear an apology that she couldn’t believe would be any more than half sincere. “But I think this friendship has reached its expiration.”

  Not expecting to lose anyone else that night, it was an unexpected punch to Delaney’s already volatile gut as she walked past him from the room.

  Whispering reassurances to the puppy, who picked up on the tension between them like an infant, she wandered down the hall, realizing she couldn’t go to the kitchen, where there were so many others who likely shared Vicar Bryce’s mindset, or into the parlor, where any one of them could wander in at any time.

  Going up the stairs to the third floor, the last place she ever expected to take refuge, Delaney remembered what was on the other side only as she reached Haydn’s bedroom door, and realized she couldn’t go there either. Backtracking to the library, she took a book down from the shelf, sitting in a chair that faced the door, fingers moving over soft fur, the windows at her back a constant reminder that those like Brooks didn’t have to come in through a regular entrance where she would see them coming. They could come from anywhere.

  Exhaustion overwhelming her by the time Haydn got back, Delaney was sunken in the chair, puppy long asleep on her lap.

  “You need sleep.” Haydn retrieved her from her stupor. “Come on.”

  Puppy nuzzled against her chest, Delaney clutched Haydn’s arm, pausing again at the bedroom door when Haydn tried to take her inside.

  “He’s gone,” Haydn assured her. “Everything’s gone.”

  Doubting there was a chemical strong enough to get that much blood out that quickly, Delaney was proven wrong when she couldn’t help but glance to the spot where Brooks had fallen, finding no signs of blood or struggle. Then, the deraphs would have some experience in getting out blood stains.

  Night settling over them as she put the puppy at the foot of the bed and lay down next to Haydn, Delaney struggled to draw breath, tears pressing against her stoicism, the beat of the heart beneath her hand the only thing that felt familiar.

  Hand rising to her cheek, Haydn’s fingers slid softly downward, onto Delaney’s neck, soft pads gently caressing her skin, and the weight of sorrow began to lift. Replaced with a kind of buoyant ease, it was as if she herself had been rendered weightless.

  Delaney knew it wasn’t real, that it was Haydn altering her thoughts, conducting her emotions, that it was a demonic power, designed to bend humanity to deraph will, but, given how she had been feeling a moment before, it felt like the most humane thing Haydn could do.

  SACRIFICE

  31

  For the first time in her immortal life, Haydn woke older. She would have known even without the small start Delaney gave when she turned in the bed to look at her, or the inspection in the mirror that revealed her hair had lost some of its luster, gaining intermittent streaks of gray, and that crow’s feet had formed around her eyes.

  Though it wasn’t an impeding modification, Haydn could feel it, the minor creak in her bones, the slight dulling of her senses, and it reminded her what havoc even a relatively short life wreaked on the human body.

  “Are you going to be okay?” Delaney had questioned.

  “It won’t last,” Haydn responded, though the stress of the previous days alone could have been enough to turn her gray. Delaney was smart. She didn’t need help summing up the state of things. Deraphs were what they ate, which was why Haydn ate wholesome and usually young.

  She didn’t discover the only truly hampering glitch of the fishermen’s blood until she tried to return to her research. Staring down at the page, she thought, at first, the book itself had smeared, until she tried a few more and found they all blurred equally. Forced to find a way to compensate, she at last retrieved Samuel’s glasses from his desk where Auris had stored them, and, though not quite exact, they proved close enough to allow Haydn to read.

  “What is Lilith?” Delaney asked as they sat one day, books piled on the table between them, and Haydn slid the glasses from her face to look at her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what are you really?” Delaney questioned. “I saw this a few days ago.” Taking a wide step to avoid the puppy, who was certain she’d gotten up to play, she brought the book to Haydn. “The two beings, the one who fled, the three angels who went to bring her back. It all seems very familiar, but I’m going to assume Lilith was not the first wife of Adam.”

  “No,” Haydn returned. “Religions have bastardized many events to their own ends.”

  “So, what is she?” Delaney asked again. “Really?”

  Taking the book from her hands, Haydn tried to ignore the brush of Delaney against her as she fumbled once again with Samuel’s glasses. Nothing good could come from getting too used to her. Soon, Delaney would be gone. That was, after all, why they were doing this. Given events, and the tension that seemed to escalate in the house since Kiara’s death, the necessity of finding a way to release the innocents on their own recognizance had become much more pronounced.

  “Lilith always claimed there was truth to the story. She was created of the earth, though it took many thousands of years to evolve into a rational being. As evolution continued, humans took on different natural traits, based on the needs of the species. These were the first stirrings of gender, and they were meant to work together. As you know, though, some characteristics provide a distinct physical advantage. If this were a world of non-violence, men and women would be equals. In a world of brutality, men rule.

  “Lilith was the first to experience a cognizant thought that men were using their abilities, not to further the interest of the tribe, but to further their own interests. Traits meant to protect them all from attack by other species were turned within, forcing half the population into submission.

  “Lilith did flee.”

  Gazing down at the picture that depicted Lilith on the bank, the celestial bodies hovering above her, Haydn realized there had to be some truth in what Cain said too, when he said that Lilith was searching. In all the years they were together, Lilith was such a tyrannical force, it was difficult to imagine she could ever be anything else. At once time, though, she had to have been scared, at least for a fleeting moment, leaving everything she knew to find the power usurped from her.

  “She was followed by the angels into the Red Sea. When they tried to pull her back to shore, it was an attempt
to rescue her, but she told them she would rather die than return to that life. It was then the angels understood the divergence of the species had unintended consequences.”

  “So, they chose to punish her?” The incensed look on Delaney’s face was enough to make Haydn smile.

  “It wasn’t punishment,” Haydn explained it as Lilith had once explained it to her. “At least, it wasn’t intended to be. It was a spring forward in evolution. What was done couldn’t be undone, but the gods realized they could alter the behavior of man in the same way man altered the behavior of woman - through fear. They created something stronger than humanity.”

  “Daemonry,” Delaney stated, and Haydn nodded.

  “Lilith was nothing more or less than the first of our kind, a being created to walk forever amongst men, to reign above them on Earth.”

  “Is that true?”

  Book closing in her lap, Haydn pulled the glasses once again from her face.

  “Hard to know,” she said. “It’s all just mythos in the end. All I have is Lilith’s word, but that has proven untrustworthy on plenty of occasions. You can believe Lilith was not the first wife of man, and there was not a second made to fulfill her proper place in the world.”

  “So, if Lilith wasn’t being punished,” Delaney asked after a moment, “why was she damned to eternity in darkness?”

  “Are raccoons damned?” Haydn returned. “Are bats? There are plenty of nocturnal species.”

  “You said it’s a curse,” Delaney reminded her.

  “Not for everyone. Immortality, being nocturnal, they’re just other states. If demons roamed in daylight, humanity would never have survived. For the continued development of their species, people needed time in which to do those things necessary for their evolution. So, daemonry was relegated to the time of day when man most needed to stay locked inside their houses, when the temptation to do evil things was at its peak. Some say infallible God. I say gods who quickly correct their mistakes.”

  “But you don’t like the darkness,” Delaney uttered.