“Then it all made sense a few months after Dean’s nineteenth birthday. My brother had been getting paler and weaker every day since the anniversary of his birth.” Jason nodded and sat back down. The tale made him anxious and restless.
Emma sat down as well and let her hand cover his.
This part of the story was the part he feared — the part that changed his perspective about good and evil and his rightful place on that scale.
“Mother sat us down on the beds in a boarding house in France and told us we weren’t just exploring the world, we were escaping our grandfather’s clutches. At first, I was excited to know we had more family, but then she explained how our grandfather was also the man who murdered our father. Our father had been a miner before he met my mother, but he didn’t die in an accident.
“Mother told us she was a half-breed minion, as was her mother before her, and on back for generations. She told us how she’d screamed in horror as Grandfather — also a half-breed — drained the life from Father right in front of her. She said he told her he’d be back for us after we turned nineteen, and she’d better train us as killers. If we weren’t, he said he’d just breed us and have us killed.”
“Breed you?” Emma gasped.
“You might not want to touch me during this next part,” Jason said. He glanced at her and bit his lip.
Emma squeezed his hand hard and shifted so she could put her arm around him as well. “I’m not scared.”
“Very well. Nineteen generations ago, a minion named Violent escaped from Hell and mated with a human. The child created from that union was a tiny, twisted half-breed — like a vampire except born that way, not created. Violent was able to feed it the blood it craved, and so generation after generation, Violent’s legacy has lived on to bring horror after horror into this world. We have no way of knowing how many descendants she has, but right now, you’re holding one of them.”
Emma touched his face and understanding filled her eyes. “But you say you had a normal childhood.”
“Oh, yes. Each new generation gets one more year to live a seemingly normal human life before their true nature overtakes them and they become parasites. I even had a few friends, back in the day. I didn’t change until I was nineteen. My childhood was actually fairly stellar, considering Mother was a vampire. The only example she had for a parent was her father, Vittorio, who sent her to boarding school until it was close to the time for her change. Then he brought her as an almost-eighteen-year-old back to his lair to introduce her to all the half-breeds he’d collected. He said he was starting an army. He wanted to dominate the humans and take over the Earth. He and his half-breeds were feeding on miners, particularly the ones that worked at night. The caves were a perfect hunting ground.
“Mother endured her eighteenth birthday and the change it brought, and she was presented with her first victim as a prize. Vittorio carried my future father’s unconscious body to her and closed her bedroom door. Despite Mother’s dark thirst, when my father opened his eyes and smiled at her, she couldn’t bring herself to feast on him. She let him escape from her window and promised to find him in the mines the following night.
“Vittorio was furious when he discovered what she’d done. He’d expected her, as his own child, to be even more ferocious than the specimens he’d collected. He also believed the twentieth generation of half-breed minions descended from Violent and her human love would be the strongest of all — the ones to lead the species to domination over humans.
“But then it was my grandfather who inadvertently made my mother realize there was another way. He tried to explain his disappointment in her by telling her half-breeds could subsist on just a little blood from a human, but if she didn’t kill her victims, the humans wouldn’t fear her species. ‘Fear wins half the battle, Rebecca!’ he told her.
“When Mother found Father the next night in the mine tunnels, she shared with him everything — everything she shouldn’t have. Lo and behold, my father had a deep interest in science, and together they figured out how much blood she needed and how to get it without killing her victim.
“One evening, they threw caution to the wind, and Mother and her red suitcase escaped with Father. She married him in a quiet chapel the next day. The poor priest had no idea the sacrilege he was performing — wedding a monster to humanity.”
Emma looked appalled. “Surely you can’t call your own mother a monster? After all she’d done?”
“All she’d done?” Jason asked, eyes wide. “Mother had not one, but three babies with my father, even though she knew the plans fate had in store for us. No matter how diluted the minion genes become, where there’s even a hint of them the outcome is always the same: vampire. She claimed my father was looking for a cure. But Dean, Seriana, and I were just babies when my grandfather and his clan caught up to my love-struck parents and killed my father — his way of proving to my mother that humans were worthless after all. So there was no cure for my brother and sister, no cure for me,” Jason said, his eyes glassy now. “Just the promise of a grisly demise if we didn’t become the worst type of evil.
“I guess Mother prepared us as best she could,” Jason said more softly after a moment. “She taught us everything she and Father had learned about feeding without killing humans, and Dean has continued their work. He’s obsessed. He’s practically put himself through medical school, one book at a time.” Jason laughed, but then fell silent.
“She also told us how to kill other half-breeds, in case Vittorio found us like he’d promised. Do you know we need to be crushed?” he said, suddenly addressing Emma directly. “How appropriate — just like a bug. And it takes a great deal of strength and weight to get the job done. But we never had to do it. Even after we’d all changed over, we followed Mother’s rules and avoided drawing attention to ourselves. And all the while — even more after we knew we weren’t human — Mother kept reminding us of humans’ value. She wanted us to interact with them as much as we could, not just use them to stay alive. She also always wanted us to stay together. Partly to help each other feed without murder and partly so we’d have enough combined strength to save our own miserable lives if Grandfather — or any other half-breeds — ever found us.”
Emma reached up and ran a hand through Jason’s hair, trying to ease the torment she now knew his mind held.
“The last night we saw Mother, she hugged us tightly and warned us to run,” Jason continued, giving her hand a quick squeeze before sinking back into himself. “She said Grandfather was closing in. She just sat in her room next to the opened red suitcase, holding a very old blade. She told us the weapon had been forged by the actual Devil in actual Hell, and it was all she’d need to protect herself. Then she told us again to go, so we left — because she begged us to.
“We finally saw what was inside that suitcase. That was my mother’s family heirloom. Nice, right? Since that night we’ve been running — surviving, but not killing. I’ve wanted to die at times. But then how would my sister and brother fare without me? I was nineteen in nineteen thirty-seven. I’m aging, but slowly. I could live forever in this limbo. Waiting for my grandfather to find us and end it all or waiting for something to make all this pain worth it.”
Jason looked at the floor for a moment, then turned to face her. “How do you feel about me now, Emma? How did you like this little story?”
Emma rubbed his back. “I hate this story. I can hear your hope dying in it, and that’s so sad. But now I understand why I’m here all the more.”
Jason scoffed. “Why you were tossed from Heaven by a psycho? You see a plan in that?”
She shook her head. “Jason, you were already going to be visited by a Christmas Angel. I just got — how do I say it? — nominated by Everett, that bastard.”
She stood and pulled Jason into a hug. Instead of words, she offered her embrace. Emma tilted her head to look in his eyes and smiled, her cheeks gold-leafed with empathy and her own pain. “Let’s show each other we’r
e worth all the time in the world, Jason. Please.”
She stood on her tiptoes to give him the sweetest kiss, asking for little and, he realized, willing to give everything.
Chapter 5
Jason couldn’t help himself. Her taste was intoxicating. He nipped at her bottom lip, and she sighed.
Are you sure? Because I want to give you pleasure, not add to your pain.
Emma took her lips just a breath away so she could talk, so she could convince him. “Jason, my next stop’s Hell. These moments might be the final ones of my choosing. Delight me.”
She tilted her face toward the endless, black faux-sky, offering him her neck.
Instead of lusting for blood, his instinct was only to kiss. He trailed his lips from her jaw to her throat, nuzzling the hollow with restrained reverence. I’ll savor the way your skin feels forever.
She lifted her hair, piling the blond curls on top of her head. The slope of her shoulders captivated him. The graceful curves of her breasts teased him — her nipples were so close to the edge of the fabric. His hands barely touched her waist, but he could feel her shaking.
Are you scared?
She lifted her face to his and outlined his lips with her tongue. Jason tried his best to say passive, but she pressed her breasts against his chest.
“Do I feel scared? Give me what I want, half-breed.” She seemed almost angry.
Their pretend hearts beat wildly and in time. The pounding filled Jason’s ears. Her desperate, massaging hands started at his chest. She boldly traced his stomach, pushing against the tuxedo’s fabric. He wanted her hot hands on him. She reached lower and grabbed a firm handful of him, and he moaned into her mouth.
She pulled away and looked at him with sultry eyes. “You’ll say my name by the time I’m done with you.”
God damn you.
“He already has.” As she reached behind her to take off her gown, Jason smirked and imagined that her had zipper disappeared.
Emma was puzzled as she felt for the zipper’s tag.
If someone takes it off, it’ll be me.
Emma clenched her fists and sighed impatiently. Jason skimmed her body lightly, ending with his hands on her face. He kissed her nose and her lips chastely.
“What do I have to do to convince you to stop being a gentleman?” Emma’s voice was raw and soft.
I’d like to see you try.
The dare brought some fun back into her posture. Jason held his arms out, throwing down the gauntlet. She squinted at him and smiled. Jason felt a chill and found himself bare-chested. Emma had left him with just his tuxedo pants, his suspenders hanging at his sides.
You think I turn myself on?
Her giggle made his beating heart cry to be next to hers again. The thought of how warm she must be inside nearly melted him.
“No, half-breed. But I figured…” She took the few steps necessary to close the distance between them. “I figured the feel of my skin…” She turned to press her back against him. “Against your skin…” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Might convince you to let me out of this pesky dress.”
Jason was speechless. Even his mind was silent as she slowly licked her shoulder.
“We’re wasting time pretending, Jason. How many ways do I have to beg you before you give it up?”
She twirled around again and ran her hands over his chiseled muscles. She opened the button on his pants before he could give her an answer.
I’m trying to think about you. And that’s not helping.
She traced his waistband while biting her bottom lip. “Think about me then, and don’t stop thinking until you’re inside me.” She hugged him closer and spoke into his chest. “Take my mind away, Jason. I don’t want to be in my head anymore.”
The starlight streaked silver through her hair. Without her wing she was so real, so human. The blood pumping swiftly through his own veins made him feel like a human man. Filling his lungs again made choices and time feel important. He wanted her. Now.
All she wanted was a moment of peace, of human joy. He could do that. She smiled, hearing his decision.
Jason pointed at the backdrop and sprinkled the air with thousands of levitating candles.
She gasped. It was romance on the grandest of scales. He reached behind his back and produced a huge bouquet of red roses. She accepted them, gave them a sniff, then chucked them over her shoulder.
A wall.
Emma looked confused, but Jason knew what he was doing as he advanced on her, grabbing her tightly and pushing her back against the newly imagined barrier. He wanted leverage as he ravished her. With his hands on either side of her head he pressed against her with his body, kissing her until she stopped shaking.
He skimmed her breasts with his fingertips, and she moaned. Jason heard his brain snap as he picked her up. All at once she could feel his need between her legs, and she drew in a breath.
“This is going to be good.” She put her arms around him and began biting his neck, then switched, tickling his ear with her tongue.
Jason pulled the wall out from behind her and carried her, kissing all the while, to the bed. He was beginning to envision exactly what lingerie he’d put her in before he ripped it off when a loud beeping invaded their starlit paradise.
Jason put Emma down on the bed and covered her while scanning the space for danger.
“Shh…” Emma touched his cheek with sad eyes. “Time’s up, handsome. Hold tight to me.” She pulled on his shoulders, and he made himself a blanket for her.
“Kiss me.” She breathed into his lips.
As he kissed her, Jason watched their paradise evaporate from the ground up. Soon he was lying on top of Emma in the middle of the clearing. He ended their kiss sweetly and took his weight off of her. His heart slowed erratically in his chest as the world caught up to them. Jason wanted to soothe her. He wanted to stay in the stars with her for hours, for days.
But as they looked to the day-lit sky, fireworks began illuminating the atmosphere, and Emma shouted in fury. “Son of a bitch! This is between you and me. You and me! Leave the rest alone. Come down here and fight me, woman to woman. Everett, you pussy!”
Then it dawned on Jason what the anomaly in the sky was. As surreal as it seemed, he watched falling star after falling star. He’s tossing angels from Heaven?
Emma was too busy launching snowballs at the sky to answer. Jason looked closer and could see glimpses of hands or a flow of beautiful hair in the stars’ trails.
Let’s go. I’ll catch that one — you run for that one.
She shook her head. “We can’t. There are too many. Crushed seraphim…” She trailed off, lost in sadness for a moment. “We can’t help them here.”
Lightning sparked across the sky. Everett was laughing. Emma turned to Jason and noticed he was wearing his casual clothes again. Everything was as it had been. Scary and threatening.
She reached for his hand. “Half-breed, I need you to man up and quick. The only hope we have is getting me to Hell. Pronto.” She took one last look at the sky. “Do you have a car? I need you to drive me. I need to recharge my power before I can transport us both again.”
Jason and Emma made excellent running time to Jason’s house. Soon they were in his hot little sports car and speeding toward town.
Can’t we just wait until your time’s up? Jason begged silently. Maybe we can think of something else.
“No. See, I figured that bastard out,” Emma said, shaking her head. “He wants me to stay here indefinitely. He was trying to send you to Hell, so he could keep me out of Heaven. When I stepped in front of the blast meant for you, I screwed him. I couldn’t go to Heaven, but if I go to Hell I could cause problems. Here, in between, I’ll be powerless. I’ll just fade into nothing, Jason.”
She looked scared again, and Jason felt the burning need to protect her.
“Make a left. Pull into this parking lot. We’re here.”
We’re here? A discount store?
Emma took some deep breaths and shook her head, as if to clear it. She seemed to be psyching herself up to go inside.
“All right. Now or never. Let’s go, cutie pie. Bring those big muscles.” She dusted invisible dirt from her gown.
Jason got out and looked up. Star after star fell, the tempo like a metronome of pain. Emma held out her hand and begged him to hurry with her eyes.
I’m not ready to let you go. And why are we here?
She hurried ahead but stopped just inside the store and joined the fairly long line for cash register nine. She surprised Jason with her vulnerability when she used the wait time to cuddle into him. He kissed the top of her head as she explained, “This is it. The gateway to Hell.”
Jason tilted her face to his with a finger under her chin, not caring that he probably looked like a crazy person to those around him who couldn’t see Emma. Pardon me?
“This place is the doorway to Hades. I thought that was obvious. Please, like anybody would pay that kind of money for the crap they sell here.” Emma stepped backward, still wrapped around Jason, as the line inched forward.
The whole day had been unexplainable, but the cashier couldn’t have looked less like Beelzebub if she tried. She was a grandmotherly woman with thick, blue eye shadow and a huge, teased beehive. Despite the fact that the register was equipped with a scanner, she moved excruciatingly slowly.
I can kind of see it now, Jason thought, deciding to play along. But is she the Devil?
Emma gave Jason the gift of her laugh. “No, she’s just got a lot of makeup on. Will you do this for me?”
They were close to the magazines and candy now, and Emma motioned to the mints on the shelf. Jason picked up the wintergreen ones and set the small item on the belt.
I have to buy these?
“You just have to buy something. Those will do.” She stroked his arm sweetly, and Jason had never wanted to be surrounded by stars so much in all his years. “When she scans them, when it beeps, that’s the moment. It’ll open the gates. Please tell me you can do this?”