Shared Redemption

by Michel Prince

  * * * *

  Nye

  “So you’re really ready to give it all up? The chance for eternal salvation. The chance for reincarnation.”

  “Yeah, Schmitty. I am. She’s worth it all. Everything.”

  I stood there in the midst of Zarmina’s flower garden, heather surrounding my feet, and thought I had to be the luckiest man alive. Lars’ phone went off and he excused himself.

  Dread started to seep in. The dread I had when Louise didn’t come home at dusk. Where was Zarmina? Something wasn’t right. I could tell by the way Lars was standing by the greenhouse door.

  Stalking over to Lars, he quickly closed his phone and put his hands up.

  “All right, Nye, just calm down or we’ll have an early frost in here. We both know what that means.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Nye.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Not in her room. Z just needed me to give her a few ideas. She’s probably roaming the house for a few minutes.”

  “Where is she? Zarmina can read minds. Don’t tell me she has no idea where she is.”

  “Nye. Man. I, I don’t know.”

  I pushed past him and ran down the hallway. My bare feet made a slapping sound. As I reached the foyer, I came to a halt. Dilana was standing with Kiri, her eyes red with tears.

  “Kiri. Baby. What’s going on?”

  She wasn’t dressed for our wedding and her backpack was strapped on.

  “He deserves a goddamn explanation,” D growled at Kiri.

  “I can’t marry you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Kiri reached for the lock panel, but D grabbed Kiri’s hand and twisted it behind her back.

  “Stop it, D. Let her go.”

  Kiri slipped through the door.

  “Nye, what the hell? You’re just gonna let her leave without demanding to know why?”

  “D. Please, go drive her home. I don’t want her walking all that way.”

  “No. Unless she explains why the hell she left.”

  “D, last time a woman explained why she left I killed myself. Not knowing gives me solace.”

  “Last time the woman disappeared you didn’t know what happened to her. Right now I could drag her skinny ass back in here and make her explain.”

  “It’s not going to change her choice. Take her home. For me, please.”

  I headed to my room. I was so calm. Calmer than I thought I should be. I understood. Sure, I was giving up something, but she…she actually had a chance for more from life. A family, job, a nice home that wasn’t hidden from society.

  I ignored the soft knock at my door. Sympathy wasn’t high on my needs list.

  “Nye.”

  Z’s voice was softer than the knock.

  “Nye, please let me in, or at least let me know you are okay.”

  “I’m fine, Z. Just…I’ll be out for the next hunt. Let D know she won’t have to go out on her own.”

  “I don’t understand what her thoughts were. They were garbled and flashy. I called Lars as soon as Kiri kicked me out.”

  “Zarmina. Please. I don’t need you to interpret her thoughts. I’m sure she was just realizing what marrying me would mean.”

  “But her thoughts were of the future…”

  I opened the door and looked at her. “Zarmina, it was a great couple of days, but that’s not enough for a person to throw away their life.”

  “I don’t think she thought she was throwing away her life. She seemed to think she’d be throwing away…yours? It didn’t make any sense. Go to her, Nye. It’s more than cold toes.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Zarmina clutched my hand and held it to her chest.

  “She loves you.”

  “Maybe love isn’t enough.” I pulled my hand away and closed the door. What was I to do? I lay on my bed and looked at the empty pillow beside me. I could feel my throat getting sore.

  “You can’t lock me out.”

  It was Gabriel.

  I didn’t answer. What could I say? I’m sure he was only here to give me my punishment. Twenty, fifty, a hundred years. Who cares?

  “I will give you an option,” he paused, and I could hear us both breathing. If the pounding in my head would stop, maybe I could process whatever his punishment was.

  “Reassignment.”

  Another long pause.

  “I don’t want to leave.”

  “I thought you’d say that.”

  “I’d like to see this town through the closing.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “What other would there be?”

  I felt the bed shift as he sat at the end. “Nye, you have had a trauma. I shall let you stay home tonight.”

  “No.”

  “You cannot go out to hunt, but you may go see her one more time. Then you are to never see her again. Would you like to rethink reassignment?”

  “Why would I go see her?”

  “Why indeed. Why did she leave?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “She’s not like the other one.”

  “How many years?”

  He was usually so quick with punishments, tacking on the decades like tails on a donkey.

  “When you have seen her again, I will give you your sentence.”

  “I won’t see her again.”

  “It’s your choice.”

  Chapter 15

  Kiriana

  “Get in the fucking truck!”

  Dilana was shouting at me as I stumbled along the road. I looked down at my shoes and didn’t want to think about what I had given up.

  “Now,” she commanded. I continued to ignore her.

  She peeled out and my eyes filled with dust. About a quarter mile ahead of me, she parked, blocking the road. As she jumped out of the truck, I could see the snarl on her face.

  “Look, bitch, I’m not here for you. I’m here because the man you just crushed still cares enough to get you home safe. So get your ass in the truck or I’ll put it there myself whether you’re attached or not.”

  “Lie to him and say you took me home. Nothing will happen to me.”

  “How do you know? You’ve been around us long enough, you could still have our scent. Not that I care if you get eaten by a bantling.”

  She had me there. I checked at my phone and saw it was already eight.

  “Night’s comin’ and I have to fight with him. If you’re tucked in nicely, then he’ll have a better chance.”

  “He can’t go out tonight,” I said, finally looking at her. “He’ll get himself killed.”

  How could she even think of putting him in that type of danger?

  “What do you care?”

  “I love him.”

  “Yeah, I can tell.”

  “Fuck you.”

  I continued storming up the road, when my arm was wrenched back. Dilana pulled me close, her cool breath chilling my skin as she snarled in my ear, “I’d kill you right now, if it wouldn’t send me and mine to Hell.”

  She let go of my arm and shoved me to the ground.

  “You’re a useless piece of shit and you’ve hurt the only man I’ve ever cared for besides Yoshi. His heart is full of love for you. How could you throw that away?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” I pushed myself up, brushed off the pebbles that’d dug into my hand, and shook my head.

  “Try me.”

  “I’ll get in the truck if you drop it.”

  “Fine. The sooner you’re gone the better.”

  The whole ride home I tried to get the pit in my throat to move down. The pit burned and started to swell to the size of an avocado. I couldn’t let Dilana see me cry. I didn’t know what she’d tell Nye, but if she saw me tear up, it could only lead to her telling him I was hurting.

  I locked my vision on the landscape rushing by, outside the window. “Don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.” The whispers tried to protect me, but they weren’t w
orking. Dilana didn’t pull into a parking spot. She just shifted her truck into park and let it idle while I reached for the door handle.

  “Leave town. I’ll do my best to keep him from watching out for you, but the only way he can break free is if you leave.”

  “I have no place to go.”

  “You have no idea what it feels like being trapped. Even if it is in a fairytale.”

  “I’m doing this for him.”

  “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday it’ll be true.”

  * * * *

  Damarion

  I had to say beating Pivane to within an inch of his life was a stress reliever; unfortunately, it was also a drain on my system. I sat on the back deck on a built-in bench and hung my head. A half empty beer bottle was between my feet. The cold liquid felt good sliding down my throat. At least before Zuma died she had showed me her stash of salt.

  How was I supposed to do this without her in the house? She had become such a plethora of information for me. With one long swallow I finished off my beer then reached for a bag of pork rinds.

  Well, ain’t I the American dream? Sitting back with a cold one on a balmy summer’s night, looking at the stars with my fists bruised from a fight.

  Nemesio came out through the sliding glass door and stood beside me. I put my arm around her waist and pulled her to me so she was lying next to me, her head on my chest. I looked for Orion, but remembered it was the wrong season. I settled on the classic dippers. Nemi stroked my abdomen and I reached for her hand and held it tight to my body. The light stroking would’ve been too much for me. Her head nuzzled into my chest, and somehow, as if possessed by another, my fingers lovingly ran through her hair.

  Her cool blue eyes turned up to me and for the first time I saw the beauty buried underneath the vixen. A sweet, soft look of innocence emanated from her. My lips found Nemi’s. I rolled on top of her and my tongue gently stroked hers.

  Her legs spread to accommodate my hip, and I rocked my stiffened sex against her, but not too hard. The roughness of sex was gone. Instead I had found something more, something that scared me more than the Prince or any demon I’d met in Hell. Something more ominous than any member of the Frozen. Pulling back, I looked at her and began to pant.

  “Have I done something wrong?” she asked.

  Had she? Yes. She was making me question my true love, the one who I’d give everything for. The one I did give up all for.

  “I am trying, Yahweh.”

  “You’re fine, Nemi. I need to review some papers in my office.”

  “Shall I stroke you quickly to remove the pressure? It would heal you and reduce the swelling on your hands as well as another part of me, but I don’t…mean to upset you.”

  “You’re not,” I replied, stroking back her short, raven hair. “You’re…” Becoming a fucking complication in my life. “You’re fine and I shall find another to relieve my pressure.”

  “No, you will not!” she spat at me and locked her legs around my waist.

  “You don’t order me,” I warned.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been channeling Zuma.”

  I growled as I tore at her shirt.

  “You love Zuma,” she cried and pushed me away. “Do you not care for me? Has your love also gone from the Princess?”

  “No. To the lot of the venomous ramblings, you simple child,” I said, frustrated as I stood up and went to the door. “Try to locate Zuma’s soul and have her pleasure you from within. I shall lay with whom I wish and right now you are not it.”

  “Damarion,” I heard her cry as I slid the glass door closed.

  Damn it, I felt like shit now. This was why the Yahweh is supposed fuck all the women. Deumos become possessive and protective and I become fucked royally. I rummaged through the center drawer of my desk until I found the picture I had drawn of LaDressa, all from memory, but it calmed me and refocused my path.

  Two hundred days and LaDressa’s legs would be wrapped around me. Her mouth would be sucking and pulling on me like a sweet treat sent from the heavens, and I’d have her forever.

  My finger traced the lines of her face down her neck to the space between her breasts. Just the memory of her skin was enough for me. My horns emerged as I remembered the herbs flowing down my throat and her lips surrounding my hardness. Before I knew what happened my pants were wet with come and my mind slightly clearer.

  Stripping down I found a pair of discarded shorts in the corner of my office and began reviewing the map of the area on my wall. There was still time before the Closing. Still time…A knock on my door had me sighing. “Come.”

  “Yahweh,” Nemesio’s voice called from the doorway. “A message from the Prince has come.”

  Entering the office, she placed a box on my desk and sat down on the couch.

  “You are too bold,” I warned as I took my place behind my desk.

  “What?”

  “Have you ever been privy to my conversations with the Prince?”

  Nemesio got up. She looked confused, like she had woken from a dream in some strange new land.

  “Shall I wait for you in your bed chamber?”

  Running my hands over my skull, I tried to remember my long brown hair. My rage increased thinking if it wasn’t for the damn Prince, I’d still have my hair. Frustration continued as I looked at Nemesio and I realized I’d need her.

  “Don’t make me have to work for it. Be unclothed.”

  “May I have…”

  “No. Whatever it is. No.”

  “Yes, Yahweh.”

  She left and I looked at the box on my desk. Always they came to me this way. One time an iron box appeared in a fire with spikes and traps all over it. I almost lost a hand one day when he was just “checking in”.

  This time the box was probably two feet high and three feet long. The Deumos usually used long tongs to pull it out of the fireplace without getting stabbed.

  I slid a letter opener along a seam across the top of the box. The top melted away, turning into liquid as it fell to the edges, and then solidified water got caught by a sudden freeze. Inside a small fire burned. I blew lightly on the embers. The flame started to lick at my lips and I knew I’d need to back up.

  His snarling face appeared. His eyes were black as midnight. The tattoos on his bald head burned bright orange. The design looked like a claw had ripped his skull leaving torn flesh falling to the side. His deep baritone voice boomed at me.

  “Damarion, how many more must fall before you finally concede your inadequacies are only overshadowed by your lack of worthiness to breathe? Your coven is a failure, but then again do you even know how to give a woman pleasure? Or only take it from her?

  “The closing is nearing and we cannot afford to lose another Deumos,” the Prince continued. “If we do, your sentence will end with it, this I promise. I have also found a worthy mate for my sister. If you happen to return, you will not find her for she will be banished to Lacostranos Castle until I feel she is ready to emerge.”

  Lacostranos was where he had banished his father, but the King believed it was for his own good. I heard it was in the twelfth level of Hell.

  “A replacement shall arrive when an appropriate one can be found. Until then try to allow one of my bantlings to get through. You act as if you had a hard position. They are but children. You enjoy children, do you not? Maybe if they were female children, you would enjoy them more. Your reply is not required, for the stench of you is strong enough to permeate to Hell.”

  With that, an explosion sent me back against the wall and the fire burned through my shirt to my skin. On my desk lay a pile of scrap metal and black ooze. My breathing became labored. Pulling myself across the floor, I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and reached for a bag of chips. I ripped the bag open, the chips spilling to the floor, but I did not care. I scrounged like a pig at a pile of scraps thrown in a trough.

  I needed to stand. My bedroom was fewer than ten steps from my office, but even the two ste
ps to the door could kill me.

  “Yahweh? Are you in here?”

  It wasn’t Nemesio. It was Keir, my strongest. Now I had to decide—do I trust her enough to see me in this position? Taking her would strengthen me exponentially. The blood dripping from my chest would seal and I could then go to Nemesio for any additional strength I’d needed.

  “Keir, I am here.”

  Walking lightly, she stood above me and I felt I made a grave error. I had still not punished her for her prior failure. She had to have seen the punishment I had given both Kanga and Pivane. I just couldn’t bring that type of pain to her. Her knees were by my head as she stroked gently against my forehead.

  “Why have you not punished me?”

  “Is that something you wish?”

  “I like a challenge. Your hands against me. The thought of you tying me up, then whipping me…”

  She purred. Sick mother…not the point.

  “Is that why you have sought me out?”

  “Yes. I see the way the others look at me. I do not wish them to think I am in your favor, but I see right now my punishment would be too taxing.”

  A challenge. No, a threat. She saw I was in a weakened condition. I looked to the wall. The knife was but inches away. It would always appear when I needed it most. Ha!

  “I cannot grip it, unless you will me to. I assume it was her way of protecting you.”

  “Wh-what are you talking about?”

  “The knife. I am the one in charge of its care. Moving it as we move. Did she not tell you who I am to her?”

  “No,” I said, scratching at my drawer in hopes of finding another bag of salt.

  Keir was dragging this out. I needed her to stop. Either kill me or fuck me. There were no other options at this time.

  “Keir, who are you?”

  “Her mother.”

  Okay, fucking’s out of the question. Knife or not, I wondered how much of a fight I could put up. If Pivane walked in right now I’d be dust.

  “Who would you like me to bring here to heal you? Or would you like me?”

  “No, never. I hate that I’ve taken anyone but your daughter.”

  “You waited so long. Too long, but I wasn’t about to encourage you. Was she the reason?”

  “Yes.”