The Mark of Cain (45 page)

“Olivia wasn’t the same after Lilah died. I remember
coming home one day and Olivia was in the corner, looking down at her arms
cradling something I couldn’t see as she rocked back and forth in the rocking
chair I’d made for her while she was pregnant. I asked her what she was doing.
She just shushed me, telling me that I’d wake Lilah.

“After a few months like that she got really bad.
She tried to stab herself in the stomach, saying that she was pregnant with my
child, but that it was a curse because I was Satan. That
I
was the
reason God had taken Lilah away. Because I’d raped Olivia to get her pregnant.
That that was why God had taken her from us.”

Hara took in a deep breath. Now his words made
sense. She could see why he worried. His own wife had accused him of
rape…something she could never see him doing. He was too gentle and respectful.

“It was just her sickness,” she tried to tell him.

He searched her eyes for a moment before a weariness
flashed through his and he said, “I know. But she was right in some ways. She
wrote it all in her suicide note. I came home from building a new fence all day
to find how much she truly loathed me written in her own blood all over the
walls of the house I had built for her with my own bare hands. She died to tell
me in her own blood that I was the devil….”

Hara didn’t know what horrified her more. The letter
in blood, or that Inac thought Olivia was right about him.

“And how was she right?” she demanded.

“It was my fault Lilah died. That’s how. She was
only three, but God took her to send me a message.”

“And what message is that?”

His jaw clenched so tight that he looked even more
masculine than usual as the already hard lines of his face became cement. “I’ve
hated Him almost my entire life. He was just telling me that the feeling is
mutual. You see, Lilah pulled at my heartstrings. I
loved
her in a way I
had never loved before. Because of that, my love for her, God took her away. He
doesn’t want me to be happy.”

Inac’s eyes seemed on the verge of watering, which
would be bawling for him. But, as soon as she was ready for the tears to spill,
the moisture was gone. In fact, all his emotions were.

Suddenly he smiled and handed back her paper.

“I’m done now,” he said as though the conversation
about Lilah had never happened. “You did well. There are a couple of changes
I’d make, but not many.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking it from him though she
was in shock. She was still trying to catch up on his mood change. He must have
had it tough when he was younger to be able to forget his pain so easily. But,
no matter how he acted, it was obvious that he still harbored everything. He
hadn’t ever dealt with his pain. Someday, she was sure it was all going to blow
up at once, and that scared her. She didn’t know what would happen when it did.

Just then, the phone rang, interrupting the somber
mood that she could almost taste. With it, Inac stood, kissing her quickly.

“I’ll get the dishes,” he said. “You get the phone.”

She was still gathering her bearings but did as he
said.

“Hara? It’s Father Carroll,” the voice on the other
end said. Just hearing it put her in a good mood, not to mention made her
grateful that nothing had happened last night to make her feel the need to
confess.

“Father! How are you? Did you get the package I
sent?” She always sent packages full of toys and things for each child’s birthday.
Nothing made an orphan feel more loved than being remembered.

From the sink, Inac threw her a startled look. He
probably hadn’t realized that she kept in touch with everyone back home.

“I did, thank you,” Father Carroll’s kind voice said
into her ear. “Jenny loved it. You really should have seen her face. You should
be receiving a letter from her soon.”

“I’m glad. I was hoping that she hadn’t grown out of
coloring. I was just going off how many pictures she colored for me on my last
birthday.”

“She still loves it. You should have seen how wide
her eyes got when she saw that shiny new box of crayons just for her. I don’t
think she’s seen that many colors before.”

“It was a special edition. A lot of those colors
aren’t usually in production.”

“Mm-hmm,” he replied, sounding distracted. “So the
reason I’m calling is to invite you out for Thanksgiving. I know it’s short
notice, but we missed you and your special pumpkin pie last year.”

“I would love to come! I’m pretty sure I can get the
time off, too.” Last year, Vinnie had made her work. But, now that she was
engaged to the owner—something Crystal had made sure to tell all of their
co-workers so they could all tease her about it—she knew she could get it off.

“Excellent.”

“Can I bring a friend?”

Inac looked up from the dishes he was washing,
shaking his head. He was doing everything he could to tell her that he didn’t
want to go. He was even whispering no and making movements with his soapy
hands. But she didn’t care. She would be able to talk him into it.

“Oh,” Father Carroll said. “I suppose that would be
fine. A friend of yours is a friend of ours.”

“Thanks. Have you invited Tracker yet?”

“Yes. I talked to him last night. He said that he
was pretty sure he’d be able to get off work as well.”

They only talked a few more minutes before hanging
up. As soon as they did, Inac said, “I’m not going.”

“Please?” she pouted.

“No. No way in he…eck,” he said. She knew that he
was about to say something else, but had changed it at her disapproving look.
It was still a swear word, but at least one of the minor ones.

“Why not?” she whined.

“Me? In a Catholic-run orphanage? No thanks. I hate
God and God hates me. What am I supposed to do in a place like that? The
Vatican
hates
Mokolios,” he spat. Actually
spat
! “They curse us.”

It took her a moment to get over her surprise. Once
she did enough to speak, she chose a different approach. “So, if they’ve heard
of you at
my childhood
home
, then they can meet you and fall in
love with you, too,” she finished in her best cutesy voice as she nuzzled up to
him, her chin on his chest as she looked up into his eyes. “That was the plan
if they’d heard of your family. I thought it would be good for them to meet you
now so you can stop stressing about what they’ll think about you in time for
our wedding. Besides, you’re going to have to go there eventually since we’re
getting married in the chapel there.”

“I know. I guess I’m just worried about them talking
you out of being with me,” he said, his face stoic.

She took both his hands in hers. “Inac, nobody could
ever talk me out of being with you. I love you too much.”

“But you love
everyone
too much,” he said,
rolling his eyes.

“True. But I’m only
in
love with
you
.”

“And what if you found out that I’ve done terrible
things in my life? What if you found out that Olivia was right?”

“Then I would look at the man you are now instead of
the one you were.” Feeling like she needed to help him out of this
self-loathing slump he was suddenly in, she said, “I was serious last night.”

“About what?”

“A part of me really wants to be with you, Inac. The
part of me that loves you so fully wants to get to know every part of you. It
wants to be intimate with you so that it can learn everything about you.”

“And the other parts?” he asked with a grin that
told her that he was turning back into his roguish self—her plan to cheer him
up was working.

“They want it too. They just listen to a different
voice.”

“Let me guess,” he said as he went back to the
dishes. “Father Carroll’s?”

She smiled. “How’d you guess?”

“I just know guys like him,” he joked. Then,
serious, he asked, “Did you feel guilty talking to him about what we
have
done?”

She looked down at the ground. “I haven’t confessed
about what we’ve done.” Then, with more surety, she looked into his eyes and
said, “Surprisingly, though, I don’t feel guilty about it either. On the other
hand, when I heard his voice, I was grateful that you stopped us last night.”

“See? You aren’t ready for that yet.”

“I know. I just need
you
. You were gone for
so long. And, if you aren’t going to New Hampshire, then neither am I,” she
added, hoping that would guilt him into going.

He audibly sighed, rubbing the black stubble on the
top of his head with a hand still dripping with soapy water. “Fine,” he finally
said. “I’ll go. But with one condition.”

“And what’s that?” she asked, getting excited. She
knew that she’d be able to talk him into it, and it had been a lot easier than
she’d thought it would be.

“We share a room.”

She bounced on her toes to kiss him from the
happiness that surged through her at his surrender. “Okay. I’ll sneak into your
room every night. But I have a condition myself regarding that.”

“Oh you do, do you?” he asked, a large grin on his
face. “And what, pray tell, is that?”

“You sleep here with me for the next two weeks.”

With a large smile, he bent down and kissed her.
“Now
that
I’m
more
than willing to do.”

***

Inac and Hara spent the next couple of weeks
practically living together. A very
chaste
two weeks—Hara had become a
gold medalist in stopping them before they could go too far. It made Inac wish
that he’d taken advantage of the situation his first night back from his
beloved Middle East.

He kept telling himself that he hadn’t because, if
he did so before she was ready, then she would confess before marrying herself
to God and joining the nunnery. If that happened, then he would no longer be
able to corrupt her. Somewhere deep down he knew there was more to it than
that, but he squashed those feelings deep inside where they could hide along
with all his other human emotions.

Hara was just starting to wake up from her place in
his arms. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, but she was gently playing with the
raised flesh of his knife wound. It was healing fast. In a couple of years, he
wouldn’t even have a scar.

He’d known that stabbing himself in the heart to
prove his immortality to the President of Iran would make the man too scared to
not
become an ally. That made all the pain worth it. The Iranian
president had realized that he truly was Cain the Immortal because, even though
it slowed almost to a stop to heal, his heart still beat after stabbing clean
through it.

When Inac had roused a few days later—he’d been
unconscious for a couple of days while Santoni and the team watched after him,
hooking him up to IVs and patching him up while he slept—the Middle Eastern man
had been scared into agreeing with anything Inac said. Soon, as word of mouth
made its rounds, other countries in the Middle East would join him, followed by
North Korea; then he would truly own the important part of the world once
again.

Though he didn’t yet have Palestine, so much good
had come from Aviv’s execution. Without Aviv’s death, and the ensuing battle
lust of “Islam” wishing to show support for Palestine, Iran would not be his as
it was now.

As Hara kept playing with his scar and Inac’s mind
thought about how he should be dead, his thoughts went on to some of the other
mortal wounds he had collected over the years. It was funny how he would lose
consciousness when his body had been through a major trauma—like losing most of
his blood or some sort of weapon piercing his heart—and yet, he could go
without air, drowning forever, and stay conscious.

He had often wondered how that could be, and it
wasn’t until a few decades ago that he had finally learned what he was sure was
the answer. When he was injured beyond what a mortal could handle, he basically
hibernated while his body repaired itself. However, when it came to his cells
dying off from a lack of oxygen, as long as he had blood in his body, his cells
would regenerate faster than they could suffocate. That made it so, although
going without air hurt like hell, he wouldn’t lose consciousness without other
factors contributing to his situation—like when he had jumped off a cliff into
the ocean before he knew of his immortality to end his lonely life as Aemuth.
He had spent what felt like years—and very likely could have been so—on the
bottom of the ocean, constantly drowning as he broke and re-broke his shattered
bones until they were healed correctly enough to pull the rocks that had been
pinning him away from his battered body. This, of course, was what had driven
him over the edge into insanity, his hatred for God pushing him until he was
barbaric enough to do the things he had done as Vlad the Impaler.

“What time do we have to go to the airport?” Hara
whispered, bringing him from his musings.