Page 125 of Anathema Codex

That name is like a rope around my ankle, dragging me down into the darkness under the greenhouse. Pulling me further and further away from the Light, and I have to fight it. I have a purpose, a mission.

“Jesus fucking Christ, are you really so high you can’t even talk?” Lakyn blows out a cloud of smoke as he shakes his head. “Not worth the goddamn trouble. I just need to put you out of your misery.”

“Wait!” I shout, feeling my muscles tremble as he tugs at the handle of the hatchet. The memories are still a jumbled, fuzzy mess, but I know with absolute certainty that he’ll kill me if I let him—and then everything will be lost. The Children of the Light are scattered or dead, but I still carry the future inside me.

I just have to make him believe me.

“I remember the van. You, and me, and the boy—”

“Ichabod,” he growls, narrowing his eyes at me as he flicks his cigarette, letting the ashes fall onto Aftyn’s blood-soaked shirt.

“Yes, yes. Ichabod. We traveled together for a time, but we were trapped in darkness. Darkness and blood and… wait!” I jerk back as Lakyn suddenly moves toward me, finding myself backed against the doorway into the bedroom. “Please, Lakyn, if you’ll just let the Light in you’ll see.”

“I’m not listening to your hippie light bullshit anymore, Trixie. Time to meet your goat, or your fucking sun bitch, or whatever you’re sacrificing to these days.” With one more yank of the hatchet, he pulls it free of Aftyn’s once-beautiful face and I feel my stomach roll. He was my One True Soul Lover of Light, the father of the child that Iknowis growing inside me, and the most important thing is that I protect that Light. Our future.

Our calling.

It’s all on my shoulders now, as The Daughter of the Light I have to rebuild from the ashes, and the only way to protect the Light now is to let my darkness out once more. For so long she’s wanted to be free again, to roam the Earth as she once did, and with Lakyn’s blood-spattered smirk in front of me I know now is the time all my visits below the greenhouse have prepared me for.

I must walk through the darkness once more in order to prevail in the Light.

“You want me to be Trixie again, Lakyn?” I ask, and the way he swings the hatchet up onto his shoulder tells me all I need to know.

He’s still in the mood to play with his food, which means I still have time to slit his fucking throat for ruining everything I’ve built.

“You want me to prove to you that I remember you and Ichabod?” I let out a little laugh as I glance down at the flowy dress I’ve got on. It’s pretty much the opposite of the shit I used to wear, but it served me well here. This place that he hates so much because it’smine. “What do you think ofmycult, Lakyn? You always wanted something like this. A bunch of people bowing to your every whim, hanging on your every word… but you never actually had the balls to do it, did you?”

“Trixie,” he says in a voice low with warning, but I scoop up the knife I would use on our ceremonial altar with fruit instead of lives. I flip it through my fingers, remembering how I used to use things like this before the Light. Before I created ‘The Daughter.’ Before I turned a bunch of mewling hippies in the desert into a fucking army ready to act on my word.BeforeLakyn showed up and ruined everything.

“Tut, tut, tut… You wanted to talk to Trixie, and now that I’ve come out to play, you want me to stop talking?”

“I never liked listening to you, Trixie. What the fuck makes you think I want to listen to you now?” he asks before taking a long drag on his cigarette.

“Well, it has been a while. Don’t you want to catch up? I mean… what the fuck have you been doing all these years, Lakyn?” Waving a hand at Aftyn’s corpse, another laugh bubbles past my lips. “Otherthan apparently leaving one of your playthings alive. When did that happen exactly?”

“Remember Vegas?” he asks, and I’m irritated that he still seems to be enjoying himself. This piece of shit never did understand his place in my life, and all he’s ever done is fuck things up for me—just like he did today. This wasmycult.Myworshippers.Myfuture.

“Vegas?” I tap my bottom lip with the point of the knife as another movie reel of flickering images pass behind my eyes. That big fucker with his Frankenstein tendencies, the drugs, all of the goddamn problems Lakyn caused even back then.

Damn. Was that really twenty years ago?

“Wow, Lakyn. You started slipping up way back then?” Trailing the knife down the front of my dress, I can’t help but smile at how fucking predictable Lakyn still is as his eyes follow the path. Always thinking with his dick. No real plan, no concept of artistry or theater. He’s always been an overgrown man-child with a hatchet. “Such a disappointment.”

“I’m a disappointment?” he asks, then sucks his teeth, giving me that look I’ve seen a hundred times before. It’s what death looks like. Sure, he’s older, but even I have to admit he still looks good even while uselessly planning my death.

I’m not worried though.

He never was able to kill me no matter how much he threatened. He always wanted me just a little more than he wanted me dead.

“Well, yeah, Lakyn. Though I guess, really, you’re more a disappointment to yourself, right?” Spreading my arms, I smile at him. “As you know, I haven’t thought about you in years. You’ve been thinking about me though, haven’t you? About everything you wanted in life, but were never quite able to obtain?”

“Such as?” he hisses, and I pluck at the dress, swaying my hips back and forth.

“Aww, Lakyn. You’re smarter than that.” Reaching up, I pull the golden crown free and look at the beautiful, shiny points. “This is just one thing you wanted. To be worshipped, like I have.”

I wave my arm toward the doorway, where I know so many of my followers are dead at his hands.

“To have acolytes, ready and willing to act upon your word. Like Manson did… like I did… until your latest temper tantrum anyway.”

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