by Stacey Jay
“Leave. Now.” My every muscle is tensed and ready. What is he planning to do with that quarter? Hurl it at my face and hope to put an eye out? With Romeo anything can become a weapon—love, trust … loose change.
“And then what?” he asks. “You’ll come give me a proper whipping? You know I enjoy your hands on me, Jules, no matter what they’re doing there.” He rolls the coin across his knuckles and back again while I try to keep my temper. “And knowing how close these bodies came to intimacy before we entered them, I’ve been dying to—”
Temper lost.
I reach for the closest weapon at hand, snatching the base of the lamp, yanking its cord free of the wall as I toss the shade to the ground. “Get out, or I will beat you. And I won’t use my hands.”
“Wait!” Romeo drops the coin, his smile slipping. “Please … hear me out. I haven’t lied about anything that’s mattered. I’ve always played fair. More than fair. In your heart you know that.”
I roll my eyes.
“Please, I just want this to be over,” he says. “We can put an end to it, without the sacrifice of a soul. But only here, only now. This is our one chance to take back what we lost.”
“What you stole.”
He sighs again. “You still believe it was all my doing?”
“You locked me in a tomb and left me to die.”
“The past.” He starts toward me but stops when I lift the lamp over my head. “The past can’t be changed, but the future … the future can be yours. Life, love, everything you’ve longed for. You don’t have to return to the mist. You can stay here. I can stay here with you.”
I laugh. He’s so absurd I can’t help myself. “I don’t want you with me. I want you to go to hell, where you belong.”
“There is no hell,” he says, lips tightening. “There is only the earth and the mist and the places where the high ones go, where they will never allow us to enter.”
“Perhaps you haven’t encountered hell yet, but your punishment is coming. Someday, you will suffer.”
Fear flashes in Romeo’s eyes, making me wonder if he’s actually telling the truth. Maybe we are at the end of our long journey and he’s genuinely afraid of what will come next.
“You want me to be punished. I understand that,” he says. “But you don’t have to wait for someday. I’ve already suffered. Every minute I’ve spent with you as my enemy has been an eternity of torment. Pretending to hate you, being forced to turn and kill innocent people, it is—”
“Enough.” I shake my head, scattering his lies into the air. I’ve seen him revel in a kill. He’s an abomination and takes pride in the fact. The only question is why he’s suddenly working so hard to convince me otherwise. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want your love.”
“You will never have it,” I say, exasperation thinning my voice. “Never.”
“Hm.” He has the nerve to look disappointed. In me. It’s nearly enough to make me slam the lamp down on his skull. “Give me a chance to explain. It might make you rethink everything you—”
“I don’t care what you—”
“I’ll tell you the truth this time, everything about the world of the Mercenaries. There is nothing to prevent me,” Romeo says, flicking on the companion to the lamp in my hand. Light blushes into the room, illuminating his features, revealing a look of such sincerity that something inside me demands that I listen. “For me, hell is a place on earth. I inhabit the mortal realm but enjoy none of the comforts of humanity. I wear any corpse I choose but am never a part of the world.”
“I weep for you.”
“Perhaps you would, if you understood.” He falls onto the couch, his handsome face suddenly haggard. “I can no longer experience physical sensation. Nothing. Not ever. Not in these bodies we inhabit when we are called, not in the bodies I steal when I am alone. No taste, no smell, no touch. I believe the high Mercenaries allow me to see and hear only because I require those senses to function.”
“No scent? None at all?”
“None,” he says.
“Not even my sweet breath?” I ask, sarcasm ripening each word. “So you lied about that, as well?”
“A white lie.” He shrugs. “As is the case with many compliments men give their women.”
“I am not your woman, and I couldn’t care less if—”
“Listen to me. Hear me.” He jumps back to his feet. “I can feel no pleasure. Very little pain. No hunger, no thirst, not the sun or the rain on my skin, not the shiver of touch, not the pressure of a kiss. Wine passes through me without effect, not even to make me sleep. I can’t sleep, not ever,” he whispers, the madness in his eyes almost enough to make me believe him. Imagining an existence such as he describes makes my soul scream. “There is nothing but a deep, aching emptiness that I would do anything to escape.”
“Then escape. Put an end to yourself.” I refuse to pity him, not when he’s brought it all upon himself. “I’ll fetch you a knife from the kitchen. If you cut out your heart, that should—”
“I can’t. The Mercenaries don’t hesitate to punish their converts. The high ones will torture me if I try. They will trap me in a corpse but deny me the release of death, returning my senses only so that I might know what it feels like for a human body to rot all around me. I’ve seen it happen to others. They make us watch such things … as cautionary displays.”
I fight to keep my face blank, to force the image of Romeo’s real body—already rife with decay—from my mind. I can’t think about what that vision might mean right now. I can’t risk letting Romeo know my secrets.
“The only happiness I will ever have is what I steal. Now is the time to steal it, the time to take back what we lost.” He steps closer, and this time, I let him. “I could have killed you a hundred times. If I had, I would have been granted a higher position in the order, but I couldn’t end your life.”
“Because I didn’t let you.”
“Because the part of me that remembers what it was like all those lifetimes ago still cares for you … loves you.”
I choke on my next breath.
“I know you think you can’t love me. But you must know how sorry I am. So sorry,” he says, his voice thick, a shine in his stolen eyes.
Rage surges beneath my skin, so hot it feels as if it will burn me from the inside out. “Don’t you dare cry for me. Don’t you dare,” I warn in a tight whisper.
“We must love each other again. Now.” He continues as if he hasn’t heard me. I shiver. Love now. I heard the same words earlier today, from my own lips. But surely she … I … couldn’t mean that I’m supposed to love Romeo. It’s … impossible. “I found the spell years ago—the one that will free us—but I had to wait until a sign came that it was time. I believe I’ve seen such a sign.”
I bite my lip. The temptation to speak, to tell him the things I saw nearly rips me in two. But I can’t. He is the enemy. He is my murderer, a monster, and a liar of unparalleled skill.
“For the first time in all my centuries,” he says, “I’m certain they aren’t listening. There isn’t a single Mercenary wandering these streets. There should be a dozen or more in a town this size.”
“Really? And how would you know?”
“Mercenary converts can see the auras of all transformed people. Black for our kind, gold for yours, pink and red for our darling lovers,” he says, obviously pleased to share that he has some powers I do not. “But there are none of them here. This is our time. I can tell you the secrets I’ve learned. I can tell you how to reclaim a human life.”
“And why would you do that?” I will my heart not to beat any faster, refuse to indulge the hope he’s sparked inside me.
“You deserve it. You deserve an eternity of pleasure. And you can have it. All you have to do is trust me, and love me … just a little.”
“Never. I will never, ever love you,” I whisper, shocked that even a madman could believe such a thing possible.
“Y
ou could. I know it. I can see it in your eyes,” he says, determination twitching in his jaw. “And if you can, we can be human again. With bodies that live and breathe, and the freedom to do as we please. Forever.”
Forever. It’s what he made me promise on our wedding night, the lie he begged me to tell. He’s still so unchanged, despite his diseased mind and his hundreds of years of life. But I am not. Now the thought of forever makes me tired. Frightened. Sad. What is forever worth? When love is so fragile and even one human life so long?
“I don’t want to live forever.”
“You would,” he says as I take a step back, closer to the kitchen, where the knives wait in the drawer next to the sink. “If you weren’t a slave, you would.”
“I’m no one’s—”
“They aren’t what they’ve told you they are. They aren’t angels sent from heaven.”
“They never said they were.”
“They aren’t the good ones either. Did they tell you that? They’re just the losing team, the people who picked the wrong side of the coin.” Another step and another, until he stands in the doorway to the kitchen and my back is pressed against the counter. I could have a knife in my hand in seconds. A part of me screams to arm myself before it’s too late. The other part knows Romeo isn’t here to attack me. He really has come to talk, to tell me this crazy story I shouldn’t believe.
Shouldn’t. Not … couldn’t.
There are so many things Nurse hasn’t told me. Why has she kept me in the dark? Why, if not to hide the fact that the Ambassadors aren’t as pure and wonderful as I’ve been led to believe? What if Romeo is telling the truth? What if …
“They’re using you,” he says, playing to my secret fears. “And lying to you, and you will never, ever be free of them if you don’t listen. This is a chance that comes but once in an afterlife. I can see that you’re curious.” He shakes his head sadly. “It makes me wonder what they’ve told you. Probably that they’re protecting you with your ignorance. Saving you from the big bad wolves.”
He knows. Somehow he knows what the Ambassadors tell their converts and is using that knowledge to manipulate me.
“Get out.” The fact that he’s tempted me—even for a moment—is terrifying.
“Don’t believe their lies. If you make the wrong choice, your next trip to the mist will be your last. You will be trapped there forever, never human again, a prisoner of your own—”
“Get out of my house!”
“This isn’t your house,” he says. “No more than anything has been yours in hundreds of years. It may seem like a passing instant, but I know how the centuries stretch on, wrapping around you like a snake that refuses to squeeze the life out of you, no matter how you beg.”
I keep my face still, trying not to give any sign that I know exactly what he’s talking about, that the years I’ve spent as an Ambassador haven’t passed as easily as he assumes.
“I know you think I’m a liar, but I promise you: this is our one—”
“Why?” I break. I can’t help myself. I need to know what he knows. “Why now? Why is everything different? Why can’t I contact Nurse in the mirror? Why am I so weak?”
He takes a deep breath and lets out a satisfied sigh. “So your powers are fading too. I thought maybe … But if it’s the same for both of us, this must be the end.” He jumps into the air, landing with a loud clap of his hands. “And to think a part of me still doubted.”
He laughs his usual devilish laugh. I drop the lamp and reach for a knife. The butcher knife with the serrated edge, the one I can imagine swiping through the air to cut the grin from his wretched face.
“Out!” I brace myself, expecting him to come for me. But he doesn’t. He turns and ambles to the front door, a swing in his step I don’t care for. At all.
“We’ll talk again soon. We have some time.” He glances over his shoulder. “But think about what I’ve said, and don’t be surprised if you have an unexpected visitor.”
“You’re not a visitor. You’re a menace.”
“I wasn’t talking about me,” Romeo says, a haunted note in his voice that makes the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.
Is he having visions too? Of his corpse? Mine? Both? When I saw myself I wasn’t rotted, but maybe he’s seen something different. I’m dying to ask, but I bite my lip. I can’t trust him. The past few minutes have made that clear. He’s been pumping me for information, prepared to tell whatever lies it takes to get what he needs.
“If you have any questions, you can shoot me an email,” he continues. “My contact information is on the cast sheet.”
I shake my head numbly. He has to be joking. He can’t really expect me to send him an email. About whether or not I can love him again, or am interested in an eternity apart from the Ambassadors. You don’t email someone about something like that. You don’t email a fiend who promised to love you, then locked you away in the dark and murdered you in cold blood.
But he doesn’t understand. And he’s not joking.
The hand holding the knife falls to my side. “You’re insane. I won’t work with you. Ever.”
“Oh, I think you will. If you don’t”—Romeo’s eyebrows arch—“then I’ll have to do what I’ve been sent here to do. If I’m not free by the end of this shift, I’ll be renegotiating another term of service with the Mercenaries. I’m certain they’ll be more generous if I bring a soul to our side while I’m here. It shouldn’t be difficult. The girl is a train wreck. I’ll have her turned against Ben before the week is out.”
My hand clenches around the handle of the knife.
“Eternity, spent away from all those people she hates …” Romeo lingers, his fingers thrumming on the door. “It’s not the worst carrot to dangle.”
“Eternity in a prison of dead flesh,” I say. “Doesn’t sound that tempting.”
“But she won’t know the truth. She’ll believe what I tell her. They always do, especially the young ones.” He’s calm, stating the facts, and I know Gemma well enough to worry he might be right. She loathes Dylan, but Romeo might be able to reach her if he tells the right lies, plays to the right fears.
“Take care, sweet.” Romeo opens the door just as a bolt of lightning rips across the sky. The storm has progressed from threatening to raging, complete with thunder that booms out a warning for all living things to remain hidden away. I wince but don’t close my eyes. I’ve learned the hard way not to take my attention off my former love. Not for a second. “Let me know when you’re ready to move forward. I swear to you, we can have that happiness you’ve given so many lucky people.”
“I’d rather die than make you happy.”
Romeo stills, and an emotion remarkably like grief flits across his face. “I hope you’ll change your mind. Soon.” He inclines his head. “Good-bye, Juliet.”
I grit my teeth and watch him go, refusing to wish him a good anything, even something as small as a farewell.
ELEVEN
Thirty minutes later—after failing to reach Nurse in the mirror yet again—I’m back in the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk. Melanie went to the store while I was at school, and the refrigerator is filled with more vaguely edible food. Just looking at the piles of slimy gray lunch meat wrapped in plastic makes me ill, but at least there is milk and fresh bread.
Milk. Bread. Peanut butter.
I chew, examining each taste as it evolves in my mouth. It’s hardly a lavish dinner, but at least I can taste it. What would it be like to have that taken away? What would it be like not to feel the chill of the glass in my hand, or smell the wheat and roasted nuts? What would it be like not to have felt another person’s touch in over seven hundred years?
It is … unimaginable, almost enough to summon a spark of pity.
“He could be lying,” I remind myself, voice soft beneath the patter of the rain.
He could be, but he isn’t. Not about that.
Maybe not about any of it. The more
I turn things over in my head, the more I wonder things that are dangerous to wonder. What does Romeo know? Is there really some magic that can give me back my life? Do I dare to hear him out? Do I dare to consider—
The phone rings, making me jump guiltily. I push my chair back and hurry to grab the phone from the counter. “Hello?”
“Are you alone in the house?” an artificially deep voice asks.
My forehead wrinkles. “Who is this?”
“Are you alone … in the house?”
The voice isn’t Romeo’s, but I don’t have the patience for prank calls. I’m not in the mood for torment from Romeo or anyone else. “I’m hanging up.”
“No! Wait!” Gemma’s tone rises to her normal register. “I’m sorry. I was just joking. I’m on my way to your place. Is your mom there?”
“No, she’s working the night shift,” I say, relief spreading through my chest. Perfect. I need to talk to Gemma, to focus on doing my job, even if I can’t reach Nurse or the other Ambassadors. Gemma’s visit is a sign that it’s time to stop thinking about Romeo.
No good ever came from listening to the snake in the garden.
“Cool,” Gemma says. “You want me to grab some burgers or something? I’d get pizza, but I don’t want to get out of the car. This rain is dampening my will to live.”
I glance at my half-eaten sandwich. I’m still starving. “A cheeseburger would be great. With fries, and a chocolate milk shake. Malted if they have it.”
“Hungry, are we?” Gemma laughs. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Pour me a glass of whatever cheap hooch your mom’s got in the fridge. Chardonnay, not the pinot grigio crap.”
I hang up. Fifteen minutes. It’s just enough time to grab a shower and change out of my wet clothes. If I hurry. I run for the bathroom, gathering a pair of blue flannel pajamas with sheep on them while the water warms. It’s a cool night and likely to get cooler if the rain doesn’t stop.
I rush through my shower, concentrating on the shampoo, conditioner, and soap, clearing my mind, focusing on my job. By the time Gemma pulls into the carport and bursts into the kitchen, I’m calmer than I’ve been all day.
