The Forsaken (28 page)

Rachel’s hand went cold all of a sudden, stiff. His wrist briefly grazed it. “What?” Jude asked.

“Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“I said nothing, all right?”

Jude bit his tongue, and since Dr. Quipley seemed to be getting excited from watching them bicker, he reasoned it was best to pick up the conversation another time.

“I’ve seen enough,” she said, wiping the rim of her lips. “Just gotta get some fresh air. Feeling a little cramped in here.”

Jude and Quipley were left alone for a moment. Quipley leaned down and sniffed the corpse slowly, whispering, “It’s like she’s never seen a stiff before. Dames. They all get queasy around this stuff.”

Jude finally exited the room as well, shutting the door behind him.

Rachel was outside near the edge of the sidewalk when he found her, hands shoved tightly in her pockets, hair tossed by the night breeze. She stared into nothingness. “I never took you for one with a weak stomach.”

“I just had to get out of there. I couldn’t really think. Get my head straight.”

He got closer to her, unsure if he should console her or give her space. Jude kept flexing his hand muscles, wondering if the snakelike intimation worming its way through him would go away. It didn’t. Still, he didn’t like the distance between them. He could tell she wanted to say something but was wondering if he was ready. He was.

“Jude, when you left, it made me think a lot about things. About everything.”

Jude noticed a siren going off several blocks down. He could hear the footsteps of people from what seemed like a hundred feet behind him. And the duplex to their left, eerily placed between a morgue and a convenience store, played loud music in one of the bedrooms. He could almost hum along.

But Rachel’s words, however faint and fragile, pierced through all of it, even the bitterness of the night closing in.

“Do you remember our first conversation? That god-awful car ride?”

“Yeah.”

“You asked me if I got my heart broken. Well…Don’t do it, Rachel. Big mistake.” Her whispering under her breath in the third person wasn’t calming him down. “Okay. Here goes. When I was seventeen, my boyfriend…” A tear slowly moved down her cheek. “He forced me to do things with him. I fought it. A lot. But I eventually stopped fighting. No matter what I did, didn’t make him stop. Guess you never forget your first love, huh?”

Her sarcasm hid her anger and fear. Jude knew how good a mask sarcasm could be.

“I can still feel his hot breath on the back of my neck. If I close my eyes, I can picture his face. I can hear him whisper, no, growl, into my ear as he finishes and leaves me cold. And my lame fiancé, he had a method or two of getting under my skin. What is it with me?” She screamed into the dark. Jude didn’t know what to do. He stood rigid, heart racing, as she birthed her anger into the city street. Her dark story collapsed there, in the road. It was like Jude could see it, rolling on the pavement, like some kind of animal twisted and mutilated by a truck’s tires. A sad, small life he couldn’t put back together. He imagined how terrible the memory must’ve been as her screams carried his mind back to several of his own.

“They told me they loved me,” Rachel said. “I was pretty stupid.”

“Why are you telling me this now? Here?” he asked.

“When you were gone, I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back. I couldn’t tell you this that day we met. I just couldn’t. Wasn’t strong enough, and you wouldn’t have listened. You were acting like a jackass. But right now, I don’t know. I just felt like I had to tell you.” She wiped her eyes then her nose. “I had to tell someone. It sounds stupid.”

Jude reached out his hand.

“No. Please don’t touch me. Not right now.” Her voice was strained and tired from screaming. “I never told anyone. Until this moment. Seeing those bodies again tonight was just another brutal reminder of how fast everything can change. Death doesn’t care that you or I are cops, or that we’ve been hurt. I was looking down at the bodies, and I couldn’t help but think about what this case means to me.”

She cried but only for a short while.

He remained silent.

“Say something. Please,” she asked.

“You’re right. I was kind of a jackass,” he offered with a slight smirk.

Rachel shoved him, ignoring the glow behind his eyes. He watched her blink again, as if to be sure there was nothing there, and the demon blood rushed back into his veins.

For the first time, Rachel wasn’t this cold fish who was hell bent on judging him. She was a girl with wounds to call her own. She was lost, like he was. Cheeks red, eyes ready to spill again, he felt a compulsion to kiss her.

A few strands of her brown hair danced in front of her eyes as he looked at her, seeing her not as his partner but as a breathtaking painting. He stepped closer, and she didn’t fight his presence. He took another step toward her. Rachel’s mouth, her sweet breath, and most of all, those young, wounded eyes, called to him. He raised his hand to her cheek and rubbed a tear away then kissed her. He tasted her anger, her brokenness, everything he knew she wanted to release.

Take her now, sonny. While she trusts you, while she’s so…fragile.

Jude pulled away from her as Azrael’s voice vibrated in his mind. His lips would remember the taste of her. They’d have to in order to war against the regret that was beginning to filter through. Perhaps he shouldn’t have acted upon his emotions. Perhaps it was far too human of him. Far too irresponsible. The demon’s grip was choking.

“I knew it. That was stupid of us, wasn’t it?” Rachel said, wiping her mouth.

Jude grinded his teeth. “No.”

Don’t be coy. Take her. Play a little with that pretty soul
.

He grabbed her and held her, at peace with her body against his chest. He liked it. Suddenly the night didn’t feel so frigid. It didn’t feel so empty or hopeless. Jude could keep the filthy thoughts at bay. His human will was strong enough, for now.

37

STANLEY’S SWEATY GRIP CHOKED
him again. Morgan had said the wrong thing.

“I swear, if you don’t learn your lesson, you pathetic little rat, I’ll tear every inch of your hide off!”

Tears soaked young Morgan’s face.
I hate you
, he thought.
I hate you!
Every inch of his body screamed in pain. He’d broken one of the steps on his tumble down the cobwebbed stairs leading into the basement. His back fractured one at the center and left his zombie t-shirt a dirty, tattered mess. He couldn’t help the wounded, trespassing notions that if he had been born as some other creature, he’d receive better treatment. But he was cursed to crawl the basement floors in fear and trembling as nothing more than a pathetic human boy.

Worse. A rat.

Fresh bruises took refuge below his cheekbones. If he got tired of using his belt, Stanley got creative. Welts one and two came from a greasy skillet. Morgan questioned if he was supposed to thank God the skillet wasn’t hot.

God.

Or the other one.

Morgan couldn’t move, and breathing became a severe chore. Stanley told him to stop wheezing, but the dust settling into his lungs didn’t help. Both middle fingers were broken, facing the wrong way; the merciless irony stung.

“I want to die,” he whispered, never meaning for Stanley to pick up his muffled, listless request.

“But life is beautiful, son,” Stanley returned. How could he do that? How could this man, who didn’t deserve to be called anything but a vile sperm donor, call him
son
as he clenched his knuckles into a fist and unleashed another blow? “I take care of you. Your mother, mouthy tramp that she is, takes care of you. Don’t be stupid, Morgan. You got the goods, dontcha know? You’re livin’ in a paradise. Be thankful.”

As Morgan coughed, Stanley tickled his cheek with an unclipped fingernail. It might as well have been a razor.

“There are tiny little babies dying all over this wretched world, AIDs-infected, hungry little vermin. But I’ll bet you not one of ’em is as sorry looking as you are right now. If you think you got it so rough…If you think life’s sooo bad, why don’t you stand up and fight back? Unleash hell. Come on, I’m waitin’, rat!”

A string of spit shot into Morgan’s eye. It was Stanley’s drunkenness, he reasoned, that fueled this relentless assault. He always wished for there to be some form of love inside such a depraved soul. If not love, perhaps mercy. Perhaps blind pity.

But Stanley didn’t stop. With the heel of his boot, he kicked in both of Morgan’s knees, dropping him quickly. Shortly after, Morgan rose and struck Stanley once before starting to claw at him, shrieking like a beast.

Curses climbed the concrete walls and wooden frames of the basement, circled the pillars then came back again.

“He’s got backbone.” Stanley laughed, thrusting his knuckles into his son’s chest and watching him smack against the cold surface. Dust fogged the air.

Stanley edged closer, his eyes intensifying the haunting mood the dragon had birthed in this dark, unholy hour. Those crooked yellow teeth executed a vile sentence all their own. Breath like sewage hovered over Morgan’s nostrils.

And then it came. Stanley’s giant grip swallowing his own. Morgan’s hand was violently guided into Stanley’s jeans. He hated how the zipper irritated the skin on his forearm. It was like ice. What he touched, however, felt warm and horrible and filthy.

“This is how we pay for our sins, rat. You don’t want to go to hell, do ya?” Stanley asked.

With dirt mocking his tears, Morgan answered only by shaking his head, the tireless dragon looming over him, his shadow enlisted to help devour a boy piece by piece.

“Make me happy, and God won’t make you suffer in the next life. We pay a toll here,” Stanley groaned with satisfaction, “but you’ll thank me. One day, you will.” And then, like clockwork, came his title: “Rat!”

It came to life a thousand and one times.

“No one’s innocent, not in this life. And not in no other life either,” Stanley convinced his son. It was a cruel form of safety. “Penance, boy. That’s what the men of the cloth call it, yes they do.”

This was how the world operated, he had been taught. From an early age, Morgan was told that all kids went through this kind of growing pain, or pain just like it. Part of shedding the adolescent skin. Morgan never wanted to go to hell, so he did as Stanley asked. Honor your father and mother, that’s what the verses spoke of.

He wished the figurines didn’t watch, though. He hated when they watched. An angel, with mighty, almost bat-like wings, sat perched on the edge of a high-rise steeple, mouth shut and silent as Sunday mass. Its white eyes made a scared, fifteen-year-old boy their target.

Morgan sought escape, but there was none.

Then another small statue found him. It was a gargoyle, or some beast he’d not learned by name. Its jagged teeth filled an open jaw. Scaly arms reached out as if seeking to claim something Morgan wasn’t at all ready to relinquish. So ghostly and haunting these figures carved by man were. He didn’t dare perceive any others. Instead, he hid, eyes tight, mind sent to a foreign place. Not here. Not now. Not with Stanley.

The revulsion became more real, the rage more potent. But Stanley knew best, didn’t he?

Well, didn’t he? Wasn’t a family supposed to be this way? Love meant doing things you didn’t always like. Love is supposed to be patient, kind, submissive, silent. And he couldn’t ever overlook that little part about forgetting the horrible flavors sinners made you drink.

But amidst the groans and the wicked smile Stanley’s vile lips created, Morgan came to realize the truth. No matter how many times he tried to believe what Stanley had fed him over these long years, love mostly played the hypocrite. Love left him alone. Scared. Crying in the dark, to no one. Maybe there was no heaven, no true angels, only the hell Stanley preached about. Only the hell he brought Morgan to each and every night while his quiet mother scratched the bedroom floors and did nothing to stop it.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

It was a long moment before Morgan could hear footsteps. When his mother finally answered the door, her faint voice seemed to resound even louder than Stanley’s greedy breaths. It displayed no sign of anguish. In fact, it was jovial in the most corrupt way, like the way normal people sounded—people with nothing to hide in their basements.

And then he heard the visitor’s voice, identified it immediately. It was one layered with low tones and indifference. A man’s voice. One who had come to meet with Morgan. A friend, supposedly. A doctor.

“All right,” Stanley said, tossing Morgan a rag for his hand and for his bruises. “Clean yourself up. Sounds like you got some company.” Smile. Hot breath. The zipping up of Stanley’s jeans. Less than a split second passed before the horrible weight of what he’d done in obedience to Stanley collapsed upon his young conscience. He removed his sweaty hand from Stanley’s boxer shorts a thousand times in a moment.

“Now, don’t be a rebellious, little runt. Be a good son. You love your daddy, don’t you?” Stanley said, letting go of some spit. He rubbed his son’s head, didn’t wait for a response.

Morgan was hushed. The filth was all consuming. The new draft was needles, injecting him with a deeper chill than usual.