Page 36 of Sin of the Saints

“She mustn’t!” My command thunders, and she shuts her eyes tight, stopping herself from answering me. Stubborn as Lilith, yet still she knows her place.

She opens her dark brown eyes. “I apologize,” she says with difficulty, and her nostrils flare.

“Good girl,” I caress her head. “My Naama, my lovely child.”

Chapter Twenty

Bellcolor

The shower water is cold as ice, and I luxuriate in it, but my pleasure is only temporary.

Hillel claimed that Bar is within him, but even when his eyes flashed momentarily they were so different I could barely recognize a trace of his presence. I know Lilith has awoken in me, but her incarnation into the realms of Man is unlike what I’ve known before, when the marked ones become vessels for demons who incarnate into them. My father didn’t give me the complete picture about our status in the lands of Adam, and I wonder how much he actually revealed to me.

Libretto used him so I’d remove my defenses. I thought my father was on my side, but he chose to stand on Libretto’s instead. Why had he done that? And why had Lilith chosen not to take control of my being?

“Tell me what to do,” I say, resting my hand on my chest and feeling my heart galloping uncontrollably. Lilith is ill at ease, I feel her tempestuous emotions and fear losing myself in them.She doesn’t answer, and I try again. “Tell me what you want from me.”

“What I’ve lost, and can never regain.”

I’m stunned by her answer. “What the hell do I have to offer you?”

“Innocence.”

“After everything that’s happened, I doubt I have any innocence left. The murders I’ve witnessed, Libretto’s gluttony, the lust I myself have felt… good God, everything that happened in that cabin with that stranger.” I think of my wanton behavior and I’m filled with shame. That’s not me.

“It’s still within you,” she says. “I feel it.”

“Then what do you need it for?” I can’t figure her out.

“You accused Ashmedai of the same thing I blame myself for, and Hillel. Could it be that it’s not love I feel, but nothing more than lust? Is that what he feels for me?” I feel a sharp pang in my heart and wince at the pain. Lilith…“God cursed me, you know.”

“I saw your memories.Hegave you the curse of blood. You coveted Hillel’s blood, soHecursed you to depend upon it.”

“No!” Her voice is thunderous, and I slam my back against the shower tiles. “No,”she repeats, her voice softening. “I think He has made me unlovable. Love can only exist when a person still has innocence. Hillel and I? I wanted to believe it still existed in us, but our souls have become damned, just as God sees us.”

“So everything I felt for Bar was nothing more than the lust you feel for Hillel?” She falls silent. “Lilith?”

“Don’t let anyone take your innocence.” And thus she concludes our conversation. I feel her raise her impenetrable wall within me.

I shut off the water faucet and put on a summer dress I found in the closet. She was bigger than me, the heavyset womanwhose life Hillel took. But I don’t care. Clothes feel foreign on my skin since the transformation anyway.

As I head to the bedroom, I find Valentina lying on the double bed, twirling a gun around her finger. She smiles at me, but I’m startled; Her eyes are strange and her smile is false.

“I must admit, Bellcolor, this isn’t simple for me,” my mother combs my long black hair.

“It’s because of me, isn’t it?” I ask, even though I’m afraid to know the answer. She’s not like any of the other kindergarten mothers.

“It’s a terrible thing to admit.” She won’t return my gaze in the mirror as we sit before it.

“To admit it out loud, you mean.” I’m old enough to understand her. It’s me, I know that. I’m the source of my mother’s sadness.

She doesn’t answer. She stops brushing my hair, and I think she hasn’t breathed since sitting down to comb it. Maybe she’s already dead. Because of me.

“I don’t want to be a mom,” I admit. “It must be so terrible.”

She shrinks back and her hand tightens on my hair. It hurts. She’s hurting me just as my existence must be hurting her.

“It’s late,” she hisses, and rises to leave my room.

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