Romeo Redeemed

by Stacey Jay

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2012 by Stacey Jay

  Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth May/Trigger Image

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Visit us on the Web! randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Jay, Stacey.

  Romeo redeemed / Stacey Jay. – 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In modern-day California Romeo is offered one last chance to redeem himself by switching sides and becoming an Ambassador—if he can prove himself worthy by making Juliet, as Ariel, love him in a reality with a different past than his own.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89894-5

  [1. Characters in literature–Fiction. 2. Love–Fiction.

  3. Good and evil–Fiction. 4. Revenge–Fiction. 5. Supernatural–Fiction.

  6. California, Southern—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J344Rom 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011044333

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  For Carol.

  All my love.

  MY ONLY LOVE SPRUNG FROM MY ONLY HATE!

  TOO EARLY SEEN UNKNOWN, AND KNOWN TOO LATE!

  PRODIGIOUS BIRTH OF LOVE IT IS TO ME,

  THAT I MUST LOVE A LOATHÈD ENEMY.

  —SHAKESPEARE, ROMEO AND JULIET

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Intermezzo One

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Intermezzo Two

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Intermezzo Three

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  ONE

  VERONA, ITALY, 1304

  Romeo

  We reach the lonely hilltop just as the sun sets over Verona. Golden light bleeds to a crimson stain that spreads across the city, dipping into every secret place, marking every shadow. Just as her blood seeped from her chest … spread out to coat the stones of the tomb. Cold, mute stones. They will keep my terrible secret.

  Juliet is dead, and her blood is on my hands.

  I hide them beneath my cloak, but I can feel her death clinging to my skin. Warm, sticky, and slick, making it hard to hold the knife Friar Lawrence insisted I carry. This mess is all I have left of the girl I loved. The girl I destroyed. My heart writhes inside me, but I don’t make a sound. I don’t deserve to mourn her. I deserve this misery and more. I deserve to suffer for all eternity.

  And so I follow the friar across the windswept hill, to the place where the poor and ungodly bury their dead. I follow, though I am certain now that the man I trusted with my love’s life is a liar and a fiend.

  Perhaps even worse. Perhaps I’ve struck a bargain with Lucifer himself.

  “Move the stones. There is a body here that will suit your purpose.” The friar grunts as he sinks into the damp grass by the grave. It’s a peasant’s grave, marked only by a pile of rocks that the dead man’s family mounded atop his corpse to keep the animals away. “In the beginning, it’s easier if the body is fresh.”

  I set the knife by his feet and begin shifting the stones, keeping my eyes on my stained hands as I work. Blood. Juliet’s blood, drying to a dull brown that cracks and flakes as my fingers flex and release. The wind rushes across the hill, blowing a piece of her away, and the horror hits me anew.

  How could I have done this? How could I have been such a fool?

  The friar swore my betrayal would be a blessing. He promised Juliet would dance with the angels. She would see the gates of heaven open, and know my sacrifice had delivered her to that land of eternal spring. She would weep to go, but love me all the more for paying her passage.

  I thought I was making a noble choice. Juliet and I were penniless, friendless. Death was waiting for us. If not on the road to Mantua, then in the paupers’ slum in that unfamiliar city. We were born noble and knew nothing of how to make our own way. I’ve never filled my own bath, let alone earned a living. I have no skills, no guild, not even a goat or a plot of land to work. Death was a certainty. We would have starved to death, or been murdered in our sleep. The friar agreed that the greatest kindness I could show my wife was to end her suffering before it began, and leave her here to be buried with her family.

  But I should have doubted, feared.

  I didn’t, not until I held her as she drew her last breaths. There was no bliss in her eyes, only agony, the sting of betrayal, and an ominous spark as hatred caught fire and began to burn within her.

  Juliet died hating me, and only God himself knows where she is now. Since I was a small boy, I have been taught that suicide is a sin, and that those who take their own lives are damned. I should have listened to the teachings of the Church, not one mad friar who spoke openly of black magic and the end of times. How could I have taken such a risk with my love’s soul? How could I have deceived her into thinking I was dead, into believing that driving a knife through her own heart was her only hope of joining me in the world beyond?

  A part of me prays it will make a difference that Juliet was tricked into taking her own life. The rest of me knows praying is pointless. I am beyond the reach of anything holy, my lot firmly thrown in with the Mercenaries of the Apocalypse, the dark magicians sworn to bring chaos to the world.

  I have made the blood sacrifice and taken the life of the one I cherished most. Now only the vows remain.

  “Hurry,” the friar says. “The prince’s guard will pass through here after nightfall. We must be finished before then.”

  I reach for another stone. I am ready. I will become the immortal abomination he’s tricked me into becoming, and perhaps, in some small way, I will be able to make reparations for what I’ve done. It is what Juliet would want. She would want me to fight the darkness Friar Lawrence has awoken within me, and bring some small honor back to my life.

  Or my death. I’m next to die. I will take the vows, make the mortal marks, and send my soul into another’s dead body. It is the Mercenary way—to inhabit the dead—and one more thing the friar failed to mention until Juliet was gone and there was no turning back.

  No turning back …

  One, two, three, four … the pile of stones grows at the side of the grave as I uncover my destiny with shaking hands. The first layer is gone now, and the smell is horrific. The sickening sweetness of decay mingles with pungent burial oil and the stink of a long-unwashed man, driving me to the brink of sickness even before I lift the large,
flat rock covering the head.

  I gasp and pull my hands away.

  The face is black with rot. Bloated, monstrous, and infested with insects. A beetle scuttles from what’s left of the man’s nose, and I stumble backward, bile burning a trail from my core to my lips.

  The friar chuckles. “Come now, Romeo. It isn’t as bad as all that. Once you’ve taken the vows, you’ll have the power to return that body to its former glory.” He leans over to peer into the man’s face, nods. “Yes. That’s the one. I vow the boy was handsome in life.”

  I swallow my sickness but can’t take a step closer to the horror I’ve uncovered. “Did you … know him?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He smiles. “I killed him.” His tone is easy, amiable, as if he’s discussing what we’ll have for supper when this errand is done.

  My lips part, but no words come. I am dumbstruck, though I know I shouldn’t be. He revealed his true nature in the tomb. How he delighted in Juliet’s suffering, laughing as he pulled me from her dying body. Her pain was a pleasure to him, her blood a treat more tempting than wine. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him fall to his knees and lap her essence from the floor.

  “I slit his throat five days past,” he continues. “To be certain you had a suitable host.”

  Five days past. “That long? Even then, you knew that I …”

  That I would betray the only beautiful thing I’ve ever known, that I would risk her eternal soul for a handful of promises.

  “I knew the moment you came to my cell with the fever of yet another new passion burning in your breast.” He meets my gaze, and I see myself through his eyes. I see what an easy mark I was, what a lovesick, lust-filled, selfish, gullible child.

  He smiles again, confirming my damning vision, and motions me away from the newly opened grave. “That will do. You’ll be able to cast off the last of the stones once you are inhabiting the body.” He rises and comes to stand by my side, clapping me on the back with a familiarity that makes me cringe. “As a Mercenary you will be stronger than any mortal man who walks the earth. You will have the power to make the dead appear to live so long as your soul inhabits their flesh, and the power to mend all but the most grievous damage to your borrowed form.”

  I clear my throat, trying to remain calm as he bends and takes up the knife. “So I will be able to die, then? I won’t be truly immortal?”

  He draws the sleeve of his robe up to reveal his darkly veined arm. “You will be as immortal as is required to perform your duties for the cause.”

  “And what duties are those?” The friar said that the Mercenaries bring pain and suffering to the wicked, paving the way for the final destruction of life as man knows it.

  Life as man knows it seemed cruel and pointless to me once, but now …

  I keep seeing Friar Lawrence’s face as he watched Juliet bleed. She was not wicked, and yet how he relished her anguish. What if he has lied about my duties as well? If I’m to be given the task of murdering innocents, then the sacrifice of my soul will be for nothing.

  “You’ll have a special place in our ranks.” The friar draws the point of the knife down his inner arm, and fluid closer to black than red swells to the surface of his skin. My own blood screams for me to run, to race for the city gates and throw myself upon the prince’s mercy. Even if he kills me for violating the terms of my banishment, it will be a better end than this.

  “Special in what way?”

  “All in good time.” The friar presses the knife into my hand. “Speak the vows, make the mortal marks, and all will be made clear.”

  My fingers are cold, numb. The knife falls back to the ground. “No,” I whisper.

  “No?”

  “No.” My voice is stronger, but I don’t dare look at him.

  “Need I remind you that your wife is dead?” he asks. “You betrayed and murdered an innocent young girl whose only flaw was that she loved too greatly. You spilled her blood for the chance to join us, and now you have second thoughts? Now that she is dead and gone and no act of gods or men can undo what you have done?”

  “I did this for her.” I choke on the sob rising in my throat. “I am banished and she would have been ruined. I … I wanted her to be safe.”

  “And she is safe.” He sounds so caring, so wise, the way he has these past weeks. I lift my eyes and find his earnest face inches from mine. “Or she will be, so long as you honor your promise. If you turn back now … well, I fear what will happen to Juliet without our magic to help her reach paradise. I fear her soul will be lost, and she will never understand the great sacrifice you have made for her happiness.”

  He’s lying. There’s nothing he can do to or for Juliet now. I feel that truth in my gut, deep down in my core, where regret rips me apart. I feel his lie, and I try to tell him so, but I can’t move my lips, can’t turn my eyes away from his. I am transfixed, mesmerized by the solace he offers. I want to trust in his gentle words, but there’s a reason I shouldn’t.

  Some reason …

  I close my eyes and see Juliet’s hands on the hilt of the knife, driving it into her chest. I see her minutes later, after I’ve risen from the ground, proving I deceived her. I see her struggling to pull the weapon from her flesh with trembling hands. If she’d had the strength, she would have torn it from her heart and plunged it into my own. “But Juliet … she didn’t …”

  “Yes, my son?”

  “She hated me,” I say. “I could see it. And there was no light in the tomb, no song as the angels welcomed her into heaven.”

  “Ah. I see.” He nods sagely. “You have doubts.”

  I sigh. He understands. How could I have thought otherwise?

  “Thomas had doubts. As did Job. Great men have always been tormented by doubt.” The knife is back in my hand. I don’t remember the friar stooping to pluck it from the ground, but he must have. Now the heavy handle warms my fingers, filling me with hope, purpose. “But there is no need to fear. Take the vows and fulfill the promise you made to your Juliet. And to me, the one who would be your brother.”

  “I had a brother.” My voice is strangely distant, as if a part of me has already left my body behind. “He died when we were boys. My father was never the same.”

  “I understand.” The friar rolls up the sleeve of my cloak with patient hands. “He was cruel to you.”

  “He will kill me if I return. He blames me for my mother’s death two days past. He says my banishment stole her will to live, but it was him,” I say, arms trembling. “He took it from her. Long ago. It wasn’t my fault!”

  “Shh.” The friar’s hand comes to rest on my shoulder, giving me strength. “Soon you will be beyond pain or regret.”

  I nod, and watch my right hand lift the knife. It’s almost as if someone else is controlling my arm, but it doesn’t trouble me.

  “Soon you will feel nothing at all.” The friar’s voice washes over me, a warm, comforting wave.

  Nothing at all. It sounds … wonderful. No pain, no shame. Not the ache deep in my soul in the place where Juliet was a part of me, the place that is dark and haunted now that she is gone.

  Now that I have killed her, tricked her into taking her own life. I did this, and I will never be beyond the reach of that horrible truth.

  The fog created by the friar’s magic clears, and my mind is my own once more. My hand tightens on the hilt of the knife. This Mercenary is mistaken about me, and it will be his ruin. I will become one of them, learn their secrets, and find a way to use my new power for good.

  And I will do it all for her.

  Juliet. Her name echoes through my being as I draw the blade down my arm. Her face hovers in the air before me as I speak the vows. Her voice whispers words of strength into my ear as my soul is ripped from my body.

  And then—suddenly—I am somewhere else.

  Someplace dark and quiet that I swell to fill like poison gas, pushing at the edges of my new flesh, finding the boundaries that separate me from the worl
d. But it is different. I am aware of arms and legs and belly and heart and all the other pieces that make up a man, but I can feel … nothing. Not heat or cold or the stones that lie heavy on my chest or the wind that blows across the hill. I pull in a breath, but it is empty too. The smell of the corpse is gone.

  I open my eyes, blinking as the sky above Verona comes into view. It is purple, the red and blue merged together to create one last glorious burst of color before night takes hold. But even that is flatter than it should be, as if I’m staring at a poorly rendered painting instead of a vast canopy that covers the earth.

  The friar appears above me, surrounded by a black cloud that hovers in the air around him. With my new eyes, I can see how dark and evil his soul truly is, and I am afraid, but it isn’t fear as I’ve known it before. It is something bigger and smaller at the same time, a death cry encased in stone that no ear will ever hear.

  “I can’t … I can’t feel.…”

  “Of course you can’t.” With dispassionate eyes he watches me struggle to free myself from the last of the stones. “Didn’t I tell you that soon you’d feel nothing?”

  His meaning hits, and I’m certain my new heart skips a beat, but I can’t feel that, either. I cry out and claw my way from the grave, but my true prison is inescapable. I am trapped in the body of a dead man. No matter how whole and alive the arm I hold in front of my face appears, it is still dead. Wrong. Rotten from the inside out. The magnitude of my folly settles around my shoulders, and I know my soul is doomed, but still I feel … nothing.

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  For decades, nothing, only ghosts of fear and pain and two-dimensional cutouts of the love I once felt. By the time I encountered Juliet’s soul in another girl’s body—fifty years later, when my mission for the Mercenaries was finally revealed and I was told I would fight my former wife for the souls of true lovers—the nothing had grown so big that I relished the chance to fight her. Hurt her. Make her weep when I convinced a man to slit his lover’s throat and join the Mercenaries.

  Her pain still touched something inside of me, made me remember the boy I was before I developed a passion for bloodshed.