The Mark of Cain (4 page)

“That’s a good question. The difference is that they
are so ultra-exclusive and secretive, nobody knows much about them other than
the fact that their symbol appears long before any other society,” he said as
the picture on the screen at the front of the room changed to show the sect’s
symbol: a mostly naked, well-built warrior with a bloody sword in one hand
connected to what looked like a heavily tattooed arm, and then one of his feet
perched on the chest of a disemboweled man. All around him were both alive and
dead men—all obviously kings from the various crowns they wore—the living ones
supplicating themselves in worship of him as though he was a god, offering their
crowns to him. It was quite disturbing.

Before she could concentrate on it for long, her
professor continued, saying, “What
is
known is that they have been in
the background of many historically significant events, from the argued death
of Jesus of Nazareth to World War II. They are so powerful, in fact, that it’s
said that the most important world leaders of both yesterday and today must be
a part of it. Some figures I know you’ve heard of are said to have even once
been in charge. People like Alexander the Great, Vlad the Impaler, and Genghis
Khan are a few of them,” he said, looking Hara directly in the eye. He seemed
to be warning her with his gaze. Of what, though, she didn’t know. “And those
great conquerors who
weren’t
leaders of the Mokolios were said to answer
to them….”

The society must have been evil if Vlad the Impaler
had been in charge once. Him, she’d studied a little bit. She’d even written a
paper on him for last semester’s history class.

When the bell rang a few minutes later, interrupting
the lecture, she still couldn’t get it out of her head that her professor was
somehow warning her. As she stood to gather her things, contemplating it, she
once again felt eyes on her. The professor was busy shuffling papers on his
desk, so it wasn’t coming from him….

She glanced around until she noticed a familiar face
in the crowd. Out of nervousness upon seeing it, she looked down at her
lavender book bag. When she looked back up, the face was gone. She was certain
where she’d seen that face before. It just didn’t make sense
here
, for
it belonged to Mr. Adamson from the club. What on Earth was the rock star doing
here? And, more importantly than that, why had seeing him loosed nauseous
little butterflies in her stomach?

***

Inac peeked around the corner, watching for
her
.
He didn’t have to wait long before he saw a head of hair in that impossible
color of hers. It was magnificent…and entirely natural. It looked like silver
and gold spun together to make a mass of thick, loose waves more beautiful than
anything he’d ever seen. Really, he had to admit that
she
was more
beautiful than anything he had ever seen. Not that he’d
do
anything
about that, though.

“Hara! Wait up!” a young kid with ordinary
sun-highlighted blonde spikes called. Really he wasn’t that young—he was about
Hara’s age—but both were infants compared to him. Inac might appear around
thirty, but he was much older than that.

Hara turned, her face lighting up from her laughter
when the slightly scrawny boy tripped over his own feet—it probably didn’t help
that his pants were too baggy for him. From the googly smile on his face, and
the way he flushed when he tripped, it was obvious that the kid was smitten
with her. Like that little punk had a chance with her. In fact, why was she
even friends with someone so below her…? With her looks, she could be Hollywood
royalty, yet here she was slumming with this kid….

Inac got behind them, far enough away that she
wouldn’t realize he was tailing them though, with her innocence, she probably
wouldn’t notice if he was holding onto the straps of her backpack, yanking and
pulling her back. Still, he wouldn’t take any chances that anybody
else
might be watching and notice him before he got a chance to rip the life from
her.
They
had to be here
somewhere
….

He watched as the girl hugged the boy when she got
to her cheap, rusted navy coupe that Inac had made sure to park his black and
silver bullet bike near this morning. Then, just as she had done yesterday, she
drove to her dumpy apartment building and climbed the stairs to the top floor.
He didn’t follow her up. Because she was already predictable after watching her
for a couple of days, instead he drove back home. Tomorrow, when she got home
from school, he’d strike. He’d wait in the shadows upstairs in her apartment.
He’d then kill her and trash the place to make it look like she’d walked in to
find herself being robbed. And, with her last breath, all of his problems would
melt away.

***

Inac opened Hara’s rickety apartment door. Pocketing
the tools he’d used to pick the lock, he crept inside, closing and relocking it
behind him. He didn’t think Hara’s roommate was home, but he wanted to make
sure first. If she was, then he’d just have to kill her too. And quick; before
she could notice him and call the police.

It wouldn’t matter if he went to jail—he owned the
government higher than the city and county police departments—but one bad thing
about the twenty-first century was the readily-available publicity. And he
really didn’t want to have to explain to the world why he never aged. He’d done
so well at this by faking history and having other people painted and described
in his stead for each life he’d lived since the one of his youth, and he didn’t
want to ruin that now.

He tiptoed down the short hall and slowly opened the
first door he came to. This bedroom was empty of people…and
messy
,
smelling thickly of some overly musky perfume that screamed of sex. Nothing in
here spoke of Hara; it must be the other girl’s. The girl who didn’t seem to
come home that often. And, from the looks of the thick layer of dust on her
laptop perched precariously on her cluttered desk, she probably didn’t go to
class that often either.

Now certain that the apartment was indeed empty, he
confidently strode into the other bedroom. This room was
all
Hara. A
pastel purple comforter with matching decorative pillows in a plum shade rested
on the immaculately made twin bed that consisted of only a frame. She also had
a second-hand dresser painted white with glass unicorn figurines resting on its
top next to a pristine white desk with everything placed neatly into
organizers.

On a bookshelf, also painted white with the edges
sponge-painted purple, she had a bevy of books in alphabetical order by
author—mostly school books or ones that, upon reading the backs, he found to be
chaste Christian novels that he’d never heard of—he didn’t read that
propaganda-laden garbage. On the next shelf, between four scrapbooks full of
pictures and a stuffed unicorn collection that must be overflow from the
jam-packed shelf below, was a lavender-framed picture of a large group in front
of a Christian orphanage—he knew this because of the nuns and priests in the
picture. This must be where she had grown up after her family had been
murdered. Desirous to learn more about her, he thumbed through the scrapbooks,
bored to death at them. Everything was so innocent—even down to the light scent
of vanilla and jasmine that clung to each and every part of the room. The room
itself was so orderly that he felt like, had it been nicer, it could pass as a
magazine spread for a little girl’s room.

There was a point to all of his snooping. He’d
wanted to see exactly why God had chosen
her
to fulfill the prophecy of
centuries ago. And now he could. The girl was an absolute saint. He didn’t even
need more evidence, though he got it when he found a cedar chest in the closet
filled with thank you cards and letters. Apparently, she was already charitable
enough to be considered for sainthood. And she hadn’t even fulfilled the prophecy
yet.

Done with the chest, he turned toward the rest of
the closet’s contents. With everything looking the way it did, he had honestly
expected it to be full of clothes fit for an Amish woman—despite the fact that
he’d seen her wearing tank tops to school, not to mention the almost
microscopic dress she wore to work. However, in it he found normal clothes. All
dresses and skirts to go with her blouses, tanks, and tees—she didn’t seem to
own any jeans or shorts—but normal. She definitely dressed feminine, though.
She seemed to be particular to flowers, ruffles, silk, satin, and lace.

Her perfection was making him nauseous. He’d met
saints before, but none had seemed as pure as her. She didn’t seem to have a
bad bone in her body. Not like him. He was nothing
but
bad.

The thought made him laugh aloud, putting him back
on more familiar ground.

As he searched through her things, he came upon a
diary with a purple velvet cover the same color as her decorative pillows.
Eager to familiarize himself with her thought process, he flipped through it.
It was pretty dull reading; too much perfection was irritating. Even her most
private thoughts were G-rated. She talked about dates, never having kissed any
of them, but mostly she talked about how amazing other people she met were, and
what she had learned from each and every one of them.

It didn’t get interesting until it came to last Monday’s
entry.

“
Dear Diary
,” it read, “
I’m almost at a
loss for words. I’m so confused right now. I’ve worked at the club long enough
to know that people will say and do some pretty inappropriate things. Usually I
try so hard to ignore them and not to let them bother me, but I can’t pretend
like last night didn’t happen.

“
Vinnie wanted me to go upstairs to the VIP
section because he thought some guy up there would fancy me, I guess. I’d
noticed the guy the moment he came into the club. There was just something so
different about him. He was so handsome and tall and just really, really
bad
.
But I thought that was an act. That maybe he was just a rock star and that was
part of his image. But now I don’t think it was. I walked upstairs, where
Vinnie was sucking up to him so much more than I’ve ever seen him do. I liked
that I got to see him up close, this rock star, but when Vinnie said my name,
the guy, Mr. Adamson, turned on me and…I…it was
scary
. He
loathed
me! I’ve never even met him before and yet he already hates me more than I
thought a person could even hate. Needless to say, he stood up and walked out
of the club, giving some lame excuse about ‘Having to take care of a problem he
thought was taken care of but just realized wasn’t,’ or something like that.

“
I’m so bothered by it. I don’t know why. I
just…what could I have done to make someone hate me so much? Why would he treat
me like that? What if he decides to buy the club like Vinnie’s trying to get
him to do? Will I be out of a job? Surely he won’t want me working there when
he despises me. I don’t even care about the money, though I’ll be sad I won’t
be able to buy the kids at the orphanage toys and clothes. I just…I don’t
understand
….”

Inac smiled at how upset his treatment of her made
her. It was like she’d never before met anyone who didn’t like her. If
that
was good, then it was yesterday’s entry that brought a large grin to his face.

“
What is
wrong
with me? Why can’t I get
him out of my head? All I can think about is Mr. Adamson. I’ve dated so much.
Yes, I may have never actually liked a guy enough to kiss him, but I’ll give
anyone a date. So what is it about him that’s so different from every other guy
I’ve ever met? Is it because he doesn’t like me? Or is it something else?

“
I was in class a couple days ago, getting ready
to leave, when I felt eyes on me. I looked over and saw him, though there’s no
way he was actually there. And it wasn’t just the hallucination that worries
me, but also the way it made me feel. My heart sped up and my stomach didn’t
just have butterflies in it, it had creatures much larger and more violent
flapping around. I’ve
never
had that kind of reaction about a man
before.
Never
. So why is it that
he
gives them to me? What is it
about him that has me feeling that way? And I wasn’t scared so it wasn’t that.
It was something else. It was something that makes me wonder if that’s what
true attraction is.
”

He let out a chuckle and kept reading. This was
getting
good
.

“
All I can think about is what his lips would
feel like on mine. Are they soft? Would he taste good? I’ve never kissed a man
on the lips before, but I would very much like to do so with him
….”

He snorted as he kept reading, somehow not even
surprised that kissing him was the crudest her thoughts seemed to get. When
he
thought of a beautiful woman, kissing was the
furthest
thing from his
mind….

Reading her private thoughts answered his silent
question of how, in this day and age, a girl as beautiful as she could be so
naïve and clueless, much like he imagined his parents had been in the Garden
before partaking of the apple. One would think that, working in a club full of
sex and drugs, an innocent girl would realize the truth of the world. But it
was as though, to preserve her innocence so that she could fulfill the
prophecy, God had shut her eyes to the degradation of this particular
generation. He could, too. God could do whatever He wanted to do, even if that
was to keep one girl pure and unblemished no matter where her life choices took
her.