The Mephisto Kiss (The Redemption Of Kyros)

  As many times as she’d thought of how they might have gotten away, he must have done so endlessly. “That night, I never had the chance to tell you that I love you.”

  He closed his eyes and laid his head back against the pillow. “You sure have a funny way of showing it. Courtney told me about the new guy.”

  She’d given a lot of thought to how she’d confront this if he said anything, but she still wished he hadn’t. “When I was … away, some things happened to me. I feel weird and different. He’s new, so he has no expectations, and he made a point of meeting me because he’s had some bad things in his own life. I can be with him, and I don’t have to pretend.”

  “Or feel guilty?”

  She hated hurting him when he was already in so much pain. But they’d been friends for way too long, and she loved him too much to lie about it. “Guilt has nothing to do with why we’re not together, Matthew.”

  “Of course it doesn’t. I broke up with you, and that’s why we’re not together.”

  “When you get out of here and put your life back together, I don’t want you to feel any regret or guilt for pushing me away.”

  He opened his eyes and gave her an angry look. “What are you saying? That if I hadn’t broken up, you would have?”

  “I’m not the same person, Matthew.”

  All the anger went away, and he looked like he might cry. “Me, neither.” He swallowed hard and looked up at the TV hanging in the corner. “I miss you, Jo. Since the day we met, not one single day has gone by that we didn’t talk to each other. I can’t … it’s never going to be how it was.”

  She wasn’t going to cry. Matthew hated it when she cried, and no matter what, she was going to hold it together. But God it was hard. “If you want me to go away, if it’s better for you not to see me or talk to me, I’ll do that. But we’ve been like best friends for a long time, and it seems to me that now, more than any other time, is when that friendship means the most.”

  He swallowed again. “I’m just so … humiliated.”

  “With me, Matthew? I’m the one who knows you, who loves you. You’re paralyzed because you tried to save me. Do you seriously believe I’d ever, in a billion years, think less of you because you can’t walk?”

  “That’s not all I can’t do, Jordan.”

  “And you feel like less of a human being because of it? The world doesn’t start and stop because of sex. You are an amazing person, with so much to give.”

  “It’s going to be a while before I can get there.”

  “I know.”

  He bent his head and stared at his hands, resting on the blanket. “So this new guy. Courtney says he’s a creeper. She hates him.”

  “Is that the reason she came to see you? To tell you I’ve become friends with the new guy?” She hoped he’d say yes. She hoped Courtney hadn’t asked him to pledge his soul to Eryx.

  He looked up and shook his head. “I thought about having the nurse throw her out, because I figured she was here to preach at me. She drives me crazy anyway, but no way could I take that right now.” His soft brown eyes reflected confusion. “But she never mentioned Jesus. First, she went off about you and the new guy, then she asked me what I was willing to do to be healed. I was imagining she was about to lay hands on me and speak in tongues or something. I had my finger on the nurse call button. But she said she’d found a new way of thinking, that she was no longer a Christian. My mind was blown.”

  Jordan didn’t say so, but she had to agree. Of all the people who might have pledged, she thought Courtney would have been way at the bottom of the list.

  “You know me and God. We’re tight, so I told her whatever she was selling, I wasn’t interested.”

  “Did she really say she could heal you?”

  “She said she knows someone who could. And get this—he’s started some kind of alternative religion and goes around looking for people to pledge to follow him. I told Courtney, I think I saw that episode of Twilight Zone, and it didn’t end well for anybody. She got all mad and said this was serious, that this guy has powers I can’t imagine.” He shook his head. “It’s like she traded one kind of crazy for another.”

  “What if it was real? What if someone really could heal you? Would you give up God, if that’s what it took?”

  He stared up at her for a long time before he answered. “No, never. I’d like to be normal again, but that’s too high—” Matthew stopped talking in the middle of his sentence and went inhumanly still.

  Jordan blinked. For a nanosecond, she thought he’d died, and her heart skipped several beats.

  Then the bathroom door opened, and Eryx stepped into the room. No wonder Matthew was still as a statue. Eryx had frozen him. “I suppose you’re very happy that he refused Courtney’s offer.”

  So angry, she forgot to be afraid, she glared at him. “Tracking my cell phone again? How long have you been in there?”

  “Long enough.” He looked down at Matthew. “It’d mean a lot to you if he could get up out of this bed, wouldn’t it?”

  “A lot, but not enough to go with you.”

  “No, I didn’t think so.” He leaned across the bed rails and slid his hands behind Matthew’s back. “But I’m going to fix him anyway. For you.”

  “Why? Do you think I’ll feel like I owe you? Because I won’t. He’s in that bed because of you.”

  “Yes, I know. So think of this as my way of apologizing.”

  “You haven’t apologized for anything in over a thousand years.”

  He was quiet for a while, focused on Matthew’s still form, then he withdrew his hands and stood straight. “Remorse is pretty essential in an apology, and since I never regret anything I do, I never ask anyone to forgive me.”

  “If you want me to believe you feel bad for what happened to Matthew—”

  “I’d never insult your intelligence like that. Of course I don’t feel bad, but I don’t want you to live with guilt and regret for the rest of eternity.”

  “Why would you care?”

  He stared at her with those dead, flat eyes. “When you come to be with me, and you will, I want your conscience clear.”

  “So all of my misery can be because of you?”

  “I don’t want you to be miserable. I want you to have my sons.”

  She could almost laugh, he was so clueless. “Yeah, because giving birth to your children would never make me miserable.”

  “They’ll be your children, too. I think you’ll love them, no matter who their father is.” His gaze was intense, and she could swear she saw something in his eyes, something behind the deadness. “I want a son, Jordan, and I want you to be the one to give him to me.”

  Intensely uncomfortable with both the subject and his nearness, she dropped her gaze to Matthew. “For your own purposes. You’re incapable of love. It’s all about you, and no kid should have a parent like that.”

  “Lots of kids have parents like that.”

  She jerked her gaze back to him.

  “They write to famous strangers, like you, looking for what their parents can’t or won’t give them. Maybe I’m incapable of love, and what I’d feel for my own offspring would be narcissistic obsession instead of self-sacrificing adoration, but I want a child. I want something that belongs to me.”

  Jordan slowly shook her head. “People don’t belong to people, even if they’re your children. And a child of yours would also be mine. Even if you locked me away and never let me see him, he’d still have a part of me in him, and that would make all the difference.”

  “I’m aware. It’s the Anabo in you that will make him great.”

  “I’m also Mephisto, or had you forgotten? Suppose my son is born with Mephisto, and his DNA ensures he hates you? What if he grows up and turns on you?”

  “How did you become Mephisto?”

  “Key kissed me.”

  He looked surprised. “That’s all?” He saw her nod, then shrugged. “It may be that the Mephisto in you won’t always
pass down. I’ll take my chances that one of my sons will be like me. He’ll see the possibilities in ruling Hell the way I envision.”

  She looked away from him again. “I’m seventeen, Eryx. I don’t want to have babies. Not for a long time.”

  “I can wait.”

  She was astonished. “Did I just hear you being considerate?”

  “I’m a son of Hell, and some would call me a monster, but I’m not an animal. Our mother was very big on manners.”

  “What is it that you think you can do to me that’ll convince me to give you what you want?”

  “Not what I can do to you, Jordan, but what I can do for you.”

  “Like healing Matthew?”

  Eryx shook his head. “He’s not the most important thing in your life, is he?”

  “He’s one of them.”

  “But he’s not Kyros.”

  She took a step back from the bed. “Lame threat, Eryx. You can’t do anything to Key.”

  “No one knows my brother like I do.” He moved around the bed and stopped when he was still several feet away. “All of my brothers are way closer to the barren wasteland that’s my soul than they’ll ever be to the Eden that’s yours, but Key’s different than the others. For whatever reason, he never had as much of our mother’s light as the rest of us. There’s a certain kind of darkness in him that was there even before he jumped. He hides it well, and it might be that you’ll never see it, even in an eternity with him, but never doubt that it’s there. Has he told you about Kyanos? What it was like when we were boys?”

  She was afraid to hear what he would say. She told herself over and over that he was a liar, that he’d do anything to get what he wanted. So why was it that she was listening to him? Why did she have the terrifying feeling that he wasn’t lying? Slowly, she nodded.

  “Our mother loved each of us, but it was a little different with me. I was her firstborn, and since Mephistopheles couldn’t be there all the time, she leaned on me. Key was always insanely jealous of how it was between our mother and me. I was never sure if his jealousy was toward me, or our mother, because as much as he loved her, he loved me. He’d act out sometimes and say cruel things to her. He’d turn on me when I least expected it—so vicious, he almost killed me, twice.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care. Maybe you want to think he’s different now that you’re with him, but that dark side of him will never go away.”

  “I could never be afraid of Key.”

  “No, you’re strong enough to withstand whatever he does, and the Anabo in you will always forgive him.”

  “Then I don’t understand why you’re telling me all of this.”

  “Because he’s closer to what I am than any of them, Jordan. He doesn’t hate me like they do.” He took a step closer. “If you refuse me, I’ll convince him to give up what small glimmer of light is still in his soul and pledge to join me. We’ll be like Lucifer and Mephistopheles, working together for one common purpose. Key will be just like me.”

  The horror of that was too huge to imagine. He’d have no chance of Heaven. His brothers would hate him. She would hate him, because she was Mephisto, now hardwired to despise Eryx and his followers. “He would never join you.”

  “Are you absolutely sure? He still loves me, and he feels just as guilty now for what happened to me as he did a thousand years ago. I know. I see it in his eyes, every time we meet. You’ve seen it, too. You know.”

  “If Key hasn’t felt guilty enough to join you in over a thousand years, why would he now?”

  His smile was diabolical. “I’ve never asked. If I do, I’ll remind him what I did for the rest of them, and what I lost. I’ll tell him I can’t stand the loneliness, and he’ll know exactly what I mean, because it’s the same for him.”

  “Not anymore. Now he has me, and he’ll never leave me.” She said it, but inside she was screaming, What if he did? She’d never known just how strong guilt could be until she found out about Mariah. How far would she go to help her sister? She honestly didn’t know.

  “See if you can convince yourself that he’ll tell me no. And if you have the smallest doubt, agree to be with me at Erinýes and give me the sons I want, and I’ll leave Key alone.”

  He looked toward Matthew. “When he unfreezes, he’ll know immediately that he’s well because he’ll feel his legs. He’ll think it’s a miracle, and everyone will give thanks to God, but you and I will always know the truth.” He looked at her again. “Won’t we?”

  He disappeared, and Matthew blinked.

  EIGHTEEN

  SATURDAY NIGHT, WHEN KEY POPPED FROM HIS CLOSET IN Colorado to the D.C. town house, Mirabelle and Brody were watching Dr. Who. Brody paused it when Key came in, and whistled. “Nice tux.”

  “Thanks. Why aren’t you going to this hoedown?”

  “Not much for dancing.”

  That was bullshit. Key knew he was still hung up on Jenny Brown, the girl he’d met at Telluride High last year, when he was going to school with Jax. He had fallen hard and couldn’t get past it. Key had gone into town to check her out, hoping she’d have some qualities that would qualify her as a Lumina. She was a nice, sweet, quiet kind of nerdy girl—a perfect fit for Brody—but she would never be a Lumina. Her dark side was too strong.

  So Brody was stuck pining for a girl he could never have. He’d shown zero interest in any of the girls at Oates, despite their obvious interest in him, further indication of just how gone he was on Jenny.

  “Kyros,” Mirabelle said in her heavy British accent, “you look positively dashing!”

  “Thank you.” The doorbell rang, and he was unaccountably nervous when he opened the door, relieved when it was Gunther in his dark suit.

  “Who is this, Key?” Mirabelle asked from behind him. “Oh, hello! Are you Jordan’s Secret Man?”

  Gunther stared and didn’t bother correcting her. “Uhm, yeah. Uh … yes. Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mirabelle is my aunt, Gunther,” Key said.

  “Yes, I see.” Gunther seemed to appreciate Mirabelle, and she was all kinds of fascinated by Gunther. Key expected a lightning bolt to land right between them. Then Gunther smiled, which was highly unusual, and Key blinked. The big man had Lumina written all over him. At the first possible opportunity, he’d ask his brothers to come to see him.

  For now, Gunther needed to drive. “Ready?” Key asked, hoping to break the spell.

  Gunther stepped back. “Yeah … yes, ready. Jordan’s in the Suburban, waiting.” He smiled again at Mirabelle. “Very pleasant to see you.”

  “Yes, lovely! Do come in when you return Kyros home, and we’ll have a bit of tea. I’d offer you my finest Irish whiskey, but you’re on duty and all that.” She beamed up at him, and he almost tripped over the potted plant on the top step outside the town house.

  Key went around him and down to the back door of the SUV. When he opened it, he had a hard time taking his next breath. Jordan was dressed all in white, in a long velvet dress that had crystals sprinkled all over. Her arms were bare, but partially covered by a flimsy-looking scarf. Her hair was up, and she wore dangly diamond earrings. With all that, and the glow of Anabo, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Ever.

  He climbed in to sit beside her and immediately reached for her hand because he had to touch her. Her bluebell scent mingled with her perfume and he felt light-headed, it was so provocative.

  “You look amazing in a tux,” she murmured.

  He squeezed her hand and said, “Not as amazing as you look in that dress. I didn’t think you could get more beautiful.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, but it was kind of sad.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine.”

  He hadn’t seen her since Thursday night because she hadn’t come to school yesterday. While she was at the hospital, Matthew had made a miraculous recovery, and she wound up staying with him the rest of the day, to help get him settled back
home. She swore she’d had nothing to do with his healing, and he had to believe her, because if she’d fixed him, she wouldn’t be here. Lucifer would have taken her out immediately. Still, it seemed extremely strange.

  Last night, she’d said she wasn’t coming to visit because she was emotionally exhausted, and she’d promised to tell him tonight how it had gone with Matthew. But that would be later, after the dance.

  Hank turned around from the shotgun position and eyed Key. “You clean up nice.”

  “Thanks. Hey, why are you guys on duty? Don’t you always have the day shift?”

  “We switched out with the night guys because Miss Princess wanted it that way.”

  Jordan explained, “Hank and Gunther know you better. The night guys would hover too much. And Hank and Gunther … wait, where is Gunther?” She leaned forward to look past Key to the front door of the town house. “Key, he’s totes flirting with your aunt.”

  “Who could blame him?” Hank asked. “The woman is beautiful.” He rolled down the window. “Hey, Casanova, there’s this thing called your job.”

  A minute later, they were on their way to the school, and when they arrived, Hank and Gunther were all business. Hank said to Jordan, “We’ll try not to be too intrusive, but we need to stay closer to you than we do at school. It’s bound to be crowded, so don’t stray too far. Keep one if us in sight at all times.” He looked at Key. “You’re taller than most, so help out Shorty here, will you?”

  “If you’ll look the other way when I kiss her.”

  “Done.” He got out of the Suburban and ten minutes later gave the go-ahead to Gunther for them to come inside.

  Key was actually vaguely interested, and as they went through the front doors of the school, then the security gates just inside, he noticed the lighting had been dimmed in the hallways. Everyone was dressed to kill, and some kids he hadn’t thought particularly attractive looked damn good tonight.