“My name is Mariah, and I’m alive right now because I learned early in life not to trust anybody.”
“What about your sister? Do you trust her? Because she’s the reason you’re blown. Taking you to Bucharest was worse than foolish. It was a disaster.”
“She’s a victim. I don’t blame her for what happened.”
I noticed she didn’t argue that she did trust Jordan.
She went to her chair, moved the King book, and sat down. “Thank you for telling me everything.”
“Will you think about staying?”
For the first time since I’d arrived in her room, I saw something besides a false smile. She was bitter. “What’s to think about? If I lose Anabo, if you ask Lucifer to take away whatever’s left of the light in my soul, I’m for sure going to Hell. If I keep my birthmark, there’s a chance this isn’t all a grand joke and maybe I can redeem myself by staying here on Hell Mountain and killing more people. I can also be with my sister, something I’d assumed was impossible.”
“You understand if you stay, you can’t remain human. You have to become a Lumina. And incidentally, they never kill people. They help us find the lost souls, and take care of records and false identities when we need them, and provide other kinds of assistance, but they almost never go with us on takedowns. It’s traumatizing and takes weeks for them to recover. And they don’t take the lost to the gates of Hell on Earth. Only the Mephisto do that.”
“I’ve worked since I was six. So I’ll be a Lumina and work here. Same difference.”
So bitter, so angry, and so alone. I reminded myself of what I’d just spent all day reading. Somewhere in all that mistrust and anger was a little girl who smiled joyfully when her parents took her picture, who loved unconditionally and trusted God and humanity, who was lost in a spiral of cruelty. She was still in there, and maybe it’d take the next century to coax her out, but I wouldn’t give up. I wouldn’t allow her to hide behind sarcasm. “What did you plan to do with your life, Mariah?”
“I was going to become a pop star and live in Hollywood.”
Her life had just done a one-eighty. She wasn’t a crier, or one to bemoan cruel fate. Mariah wouldn’t do anything that might reveal what she was really feeling. Paradoxically, the rage she’d never been allowed to feel was the reason she couldn’t admit out loud how badly this hurt. All she could do was be flippant and sarcastic. “What were you really going to do?”
Her gaze dropped to Olga. “Be a pediatrician. When I was younger, there was a doctor. She tried to help me.”
“You wanted to help other kids.”
She looked up and lost her sad eyes. “No, I wanted to make a lot of money.”
More sarcasm. “It’s like you’re spoiling for a fight.”
“Maybe I am.”
I stood, and Olga ran under the bed. “I’m game. Give me your best shot.”
She sprang to her feet and stood two feet away, all pretense gone. She was furious. “I saw that look on your face. You tried to hide it before I saw, but you were too late.”
I knew, but said anyway, “What look?”
“Pity! You feel sorry for me! I hate that, and I hate you for feeling it. I’m poor and an orphan and the man who was supposed to take care of me was pure evil, but I’m not some pathetic loser who deserves your pity, you arrogant, self-satisfied goat. Hand it to somebody who feeds and thrives on being a victim. Don’t ever come in here again and look at me like I’m a sad case.”
“Am I supposed to ignore your past? Because you sure as shit didn’t ignore mine.”
“Oh, sad puppy because I pointed out that it was your fault the other girl died. I see what’s up with you, Phoenix. You’re carrying a suitcase full of guilt around your neck so everyone can see it, so they’ll all know how sorry you are that she died and it was all your fault, and oh, woe to you because you have to live with losing your Anabo.”
“You’ve gotta be joking. If I have a suitcase full of guilt, you’re hauling around a metric ton of it. You’re so guilty, you’re sure Lucifer is getting your room ready. What difference does it make if he is or he isn’t? You’re either sorry you didn’t save the evil son of a bitch, or you’re not. Own it, Mariah.”
Somehow, there was now less than a foot of distance between us. The scent of heather was incredible. And I could see her glow. Slightly. Or maybe she was just so pissed off, her body was generating heat.
“I already said I’m not sorry.”
“I already heard you, but maybe I don’t believe you.”
“Why do I smell oranges? Oh, my God, it’s driving me crazy.”
“The same reason I smell heather.”
She glared up at me. “It is never happening.”
“I never asked.”
“You don’t have to. I can see it in your eyes.”
We were closer, and she was the one moving. Two more inches and we’d be touching, and she didn’t like being touched. If she touched me, it would be huge. An hour ago, she’d been afraid of me. That she was this close now was extreme progress. “Well, what do you expect? I’m eternally an eighteen year old guy and I haven’t touched a girl in over a hundred years. You land on my doorstep with your dark hair and pretty face and sexy body. If I didn’t want you, I’d be dead. But wanting something and having it are two very different things.”
“You love that you’re a paragon of self-control, don’t you? I bet Denys and the others go out all the time and you stay here and congratulate yourself for your superior morality.” Contact. She moved so close, her breasts were against my chest. I wondered if she was even aware. “But there’s a side to you that’s far removed from all the guilt and martyrdom.”
“There’s no such side. What you see is what there is.” She was blowing my mind. I wanted to tell her to stop talking. I’d die if she stopped talking.
“Oh, there’s a side, and it’s wild and scary and if you let it loose, you don’t really know if you can control it.”
“And you would know this, how?”
“I saw it at dinner last night. That’s who you are. I get it now, why you were so upset when I arrived, why you were so mad about how I earn a living, what you imagined and how it made you feel. You went with it, which isn’t something you do, ever.”
I hadn’t felt this alive in a century. Maybe ever. I wanted to slip my fingers into her long hair and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe. Her lips parted and she looked anxious and anticipatory. “I won’t,” I whispered.
“I haven’t ever,” she replied, now staring at my mouth. “I never wanted to.”
“Until now?”
“Until now.” She frowned and shook her head. “No, not now. I’m not interested at all.”
“If I ever kiss you—”
“I’ll begin turning to Mephisto. You said that already.”
“Then maybe it’d be better if you didn’t stand this close. I might get the wrong idea.”
She didn’t budge.
“Are you testing me, Mariah?”
“No, I just happen to like standing here next to you. Must be the oranges.”
“Are we done fighting?”
“For now.”
“Who won?”
Her smoky blue eyes met mine. “Draw.”
I swallowed and didn’t trust myself to move an inch. I breathed in the scent of her shampoo, all mixed up with the heather. She was so small and wounded, and I was overwhelmed with hardcore, down-and-dirty brute protectiveness. I wanted to hold her near and keep anything from hurting her ever again. I wanted to buy her beautiful things and take her all over the world and feed her delicious food and ask her a million questions. I wanted to kiss her on her mouth, and all over her soft body. I wanted to make love to her and show her it wasn’t painful and horrible and wrong.
All these things I wanted, and could never have because I could never love her. More than anything in the universe, Mariah needed love. She deserved a guy who was capable of giving her that. And that guy w
asn’t me.
She stepped back before she blinked up at me. “You’re very sad now. Why?”
Her intuition was more precise than a laser. I reached out to stroke her hair. “I just wish . . .”
“What do you wish?”
“For you to have a happy life.”
She pushed my hand away from her head. “Oh, please. You wish you had a happy life. You wish things hadn’t gone so wrong with the other girl. Maybe you even wish, if it had to happen, that it hadn’t been your fault. And right now you wish I were something different. Something better.”
“Careful, Mariah. That chip on your shoulder is showing.”
“Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not even going to give it enough credence to deny it. Haven’t you been listening? You’re it, my one and only, and for me, it’s got nothing to with a ticket to Heaven. It’s about a thousand years of fucking loneliness. Jane was in my life less than three months and yeah, I’m guilty and angry at myself, but that is nothing to do with you or how I feel about you.”
“If I’m all you’ve got, why aren’t you trying? Obviously, it’s because you’d rather have no one than me.”
Damn. Hadn’t seen that coming. God, why were girls like this? Why did they have to needle into things that were simple and turn them into a complicated minefield? “Let’s not forget what I am. All my instincts want me to take you right off this rug, carry you away somewhere, and keep you all to myself until they make me come back. I’m selfish enough to do that, and egotistical enough to think you’d be okay with it. But as much as I have those instincts, I’m smart enough to know it’d never last. You’d resent me. You’ve spent your whole life answering to someone else, and I want you to be in control of what happens to you.”
“Ah, I see. So you’re making this great sacrifice for my sake. I think I’ll talk to Kyros about giving you a medal.”
“I have no idea why we’re talking about it. You don’t want me.”
“True, but it’s not you in particular. I don’t want anybody.”
“Someday, you might. It just can’t be me.”
“Yes, we covered that. You’d rather be alone than with me.”
Frustrated and angry, I held her face in my hands and said, “I’d rather be alone than fuck up your life.”
She blinked. “Too late.”
Her hair was silky soft on my fingertips and her skin was warm and inviting. I stared down into her wide eyes and almost kissed her. I wanted it so much. “I can’t love you. Even if a miracle happened and you loved me, I couldn’t love you back. You deserve love, Mariah. Hold out for it and never settle.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You’re harsh.”
“You’re such a guy. In a whole houseful of guys. So you had this horrible terrible thing happen over a hundred years ago, and in all that time you’ve never talked to anyone about it.”
She didn’t understand, and I wanted her to. “Jane was perfect. Beautiful, graceful, compassionate, smart, and she loved me. But I—”
“Didn’t love her, so now you think that if you couldn’t love Miss Perfect, you must be too damaged, too screwed up to be capable of love. Is that it?”
When I made no reply, because I was trying to process that she’d just summed up over a century of misery in one sentence, she said, “She was perfect for someone else. That’s why you feel guilty. She loved you and you didn’t love her. God sent her to you and you accepted it, but way deep down in a place you never acknowledge, you wondered, why her?”
I knew I should let go of her, stop stroking the smooth curve of her cheeks, drowning in the scent of heather, wishing I could kiss her. “I did love her, in my way.”
“Now who’s lying? You said we had a bargain.”
“Not lying.” I travelled back in time and remembered the look in her eyes, her complete heartbreak. No one knew, no one saw. Just me. “I did love her. I did.”
“I’m sure you felt affection, and that other thing guys feel, but it obviously wasn’t enough, because here you are, unredeemed. Now you have another Anabo, and this time, God sent me.” She gave me a sad smile. “Poor Phoenix. You just can’t catch a break.”
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m not being self-deprecating, if that’s what you think. It’s just that I can see who you are and what you’d need to be mad about someone, and I don’t have it.”
I slid my hands further back, into her hair to hold her head. “You don’t know me at all, so how could you have a clue what I need? It doesn’t matter anyway. This isn’t about me. It’s about you, and what’s ahead, and I’m going to help you through all of this so you can be happy.”
“I’m not a weekend project, Phoenix. You can’t fix me and lay out a golden path of perfect happiness for me and redeem yourself for whatever you did wrong with her. It doesn’t work like that.”
“How does it work?”
She grasped my shirt in her hands while she looked up into my eyes. “Don’t try so hard. Don’t push. Let’s just agree that we’re going to be friends.”
“I don’t have any friends except my brothers, and Sasha and Jordan. If I did, I suspect I wouldn’t want to kiss them the way I want to kiss you.”
Her gaze went to my mouth again. “I’ve never done it, and you’re so out of practice, it’s certain we’d both be bad at it and disappointed.”
“Guess it’s a good thing we can’t.”
“Yeah,” she murmured, “I guess.”
I dropped my hands and turned toward the door but stopped when there was a knock. Quickly turning back, I saw something in her eyes before she could hide it. I wasn’t absolutely sure, but I thought it might have been desire.
This was going to kill me.
Chapter 7
~~ Mariah ~~
Viorica loved the photos. She teared up several times, her small fingers tracing the outline of one picture in particular. We’d fallen asleep on the braided rug, her clutching her bunny, me clutching her. I suppose our mother thought it was cute, and so she snapped a picture.
I told her all I could remember about them, and I know she wanted to feel some connection, but she’d been barely four when they died. They were strangers to her.
Just before she left, she hugged me close and whispered, “I love you, Mariah. I wish we’d . . . thank you for what you did.”
“There’s no call for gratitude, Viorica. I did what I did and now we’re together again. Let’s look forward.” I knew I wasn’t leaving and so did she, but she didn’t know that I was aware. I wished she’d tell me the truth.
She smoothed my hair, probably because Phoenix had mussed it – he had a thing for my hair, it seemed. “You’ve known me all your life as Viorica, but it sounds strange to me. Would it bother you an awful lot to call me Jordan?”
If I didn’t know I was staying, this would have been a clue. Why did it matter what I called her if I was gone in a week, never to see her again? I nodded and smiled at her. “Of course I’ll call you whatever you like. Jordan, it is.”
She left then, on her way to the second floor to see Key. I wondered what they did when they were alone. Was she marked? I had an instant reaction to the thought. I wanted to go downstairs and punch Kyros in the nose.
I was alone again, but everything was changed. I tried to read more of the King book, but my mind wandered away from the words on the page. Uneasy and restless, I wasn’t ready to turn in. I needed to let go. I hadn’t done it in a very long time. There hadn’t been the need.
Sliding into my coat, I took a candle from the candelabra, left my room and went to the stairs, climbing to the fourth floor. Inside the attic, I flipped the light switch and blew out the candle, then walked behind the rows of shelves with boxes to a door I’d noticed earlier. It opened onto a tiny terrace, covered in snow. It took me a while to shove all the snow through the stone posts beneath the railing, and dragging an antique French chair through the shelves and the door wasn’t easy, but I final
ly had a place where I wouldn’t be disturbed.
I sat for a long time and stared out at the moonlit, snow-covered mountains without really seeing them, my breath visible in the frigid night air. Hands clenched into fists inside my coat pockets, I whispered, “Not fair, not fair, not fair.” All my hopes and dreams – gone. Everything I’d thought to be – gone. My hard won independence – gone. Bending forward, I buried my face against my thigh and screamed until my throat was raw, and repeated in my head, over and over, Not fair.
Viorica who wasn’t Viorica; my baby sister who I didn’t really know at all, a girl named Jordan who was strong, sure of herself, and capable, and she’d chosen to be here with these ghosts of humanity. I didn’t choose this, yet here I was. I never chose to take Nadia’s place in Emilian’s twisted world of pain and cruelty, but for two years of my life, that’s exactly what I was. I didn’t choose to cook and clean for Marta and Gustav, but the alternative was to be on the streets, to starve and sell myself.
Not fair!
I screamed harder and my hands bled from my nails digging into my palms.
Why did my parents have to die? Why did Emilian have to be an evil bastard? Why couldn’t Nadia have been kind? She was my family, and she treated me like dirt, like I was less than dirt, and never once tried to stop Emilian.
Then she died and left me alone with him.
I stopped screaming and sat up quickly, sucking in deep breaths, forcing my mind to stop. I had to stop. I couldn’t think about it. I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined the shelves and the boxes, all of them neatly stacked, all of them holding those memories I couldn’t remember without losing myself completely.
The past six months had been hard, so hard, but they’d been mine. I’d had my own space, my own money, my own plans. University would never happen. I’d not be a doctor. I’d be a drudge and work for the Mephisto. And Phoenix would feel sorry for me, and I’d hate it every day of my life. Which would now last forever.
I slumped over and stared at the flagstones of the terrace, at the snow caught in all the cracks. I was enraged at God, at Lucifer, at Mephistopheles, at Kyros and every soul who lived on this mountain. How could I ever find peace of mind or a solid direction when nothing I did ever made any difference?