Page 41 of Touched By Death

“No?” He sounds so uncertain; it would be humorous under different circumstances.

“But the flame is the same, right?”

“What’s your point?”

“Aurelia is the same flame as Genesis.”

“Who the hell is Genesis?”

I wave a hand dismissively, eager to move on. “The female angel Lucifer killed to escape Eden. First, there was Genesis. When she died, the same flame sprang up inside Aurelia.”

“That makes no sense,” Dmitriy mutters, scrubbing his face. “There wouldn’t be two of her then.”

“Yes, there would. While I haven’t been able to prove it yet, they’re like a coin. Genesis is the dark, and Aurelia is the light. Two dualities of the same flame, born from different experiences. When Lucifer killed Genesis, he slaughtered the Light inside her in order to open the gates. Do you get it? The world had not experienced darkness until that very moment. In other words, Genesis birthed Hell. What flamed to life in her soul, what survived, was pure evil. When that same flame sprang back up inside another ‘host,’ if you will, it had to coexist with the Light inside of Aurelia.”

Dmitriy stays silent, staring at me as if he’s trying to wrap his head around my words. It’s a lot to take in. I know; I can barely make sense of it myself.

“It bided its time. Waiting for the opportune moment to make itself known. It explains why Aurelia felt so drawn to the gates. Why she heard the whispers of the woods outside. The darkness inside her called her home.”

“This is crazy,” he says, jiggling his knee. “Is this why you let her get lost in darkness?”

“It’s not that straight forward. She came to me begging to learn fire magic and, as you know, that requires you to indulge in darkness. To welcome it. My suspicions stirred the first time I witnessed the aftermath of her killing. In all my years, I’ve never witnessed such evil. It’s beyond the borders of Hell. From then on, my curiosity grew.”

“Is this why she feeds on fear and chaos instead of blood?”

His response takes me aback, and he chuckles when he flicks his gaze up to see the shocked expression on my face. “Yes, I’ve noticed how she tortures and maims for hours on end, breathing in their screams and bathing in their terror, before finally going in for the kill. By which point, a lot of her victims have bled out. She picks them apart like a curious child with a stereo and a screwdriver.”

The visual sends shivers skittering down my spine. “I wasn’t certain until recently.”

“But now you are?”

Nodding, I breathe out a “Yep” and drag a hand down my face.

“And where’s Aurelia in all of this? Surely she can’t fight this Genesis?”

“She did fight. But now she’s trapped inside the darkness.”

“Trapped?” Alarm bleeds into his voice, and he straightens in his seat. “What do you mean, trapped?”

“I mean, when you see her next time, make no mistake. It’s Genesis. Aurelia is trapped somewhere inside the shadows swirling in those brown eyes, but we can’t reach her.”

“Fuck…” he breathes out, eyes wide. “What the fuck do we do?”

Reaching into my desk drawer, I root through it, on the hunt for a cigar. I require something to calm down this raging storm inside me. “I need you to pretend that you don’t know about this, while I figure out how to kill Genesis once and for all.”

Dmitriy’s wide eyes track me as I stand up and cross the room to the liquor cabinet. “If you kill Genesis… won’t you kill Aurelia, too?”

“Hence why you must pretend you don’t know the truth yet. Not until I have it figured out.”

“I won’t let you hurt Aurelia.”

Reaching for a tumbler and a decanter of whiskey, I avoid his gaze. The liquid sloshes against the sides as I kick it back. If only he knew how closely wound I am around her little finger, he’d soon challenge me with spread wings and aching fangs.

Fuck, what a mess my life has become.

Genesis has spun a nice little web.

The words taste sour on my tongue as I force myself to bite out, “I need you to warn Daemon and the others.”

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