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“Everything, actually. But it’s a rather long story.”

“We seem to have a bit of time.”

“Very well.” Both hands gripping tight to the wheel, she stares through the windshield as if gathering her thoughts. “Do you believe in the devil?”

“Red, horned man with a pointed tail? No. I don’t.”

She sighs. “That’s too bad. You’d probably appreciate the story a bit more, if you did.”

“Pretend I do, then.”

“Okay. I was sixteen when I was first seduced by the devil. He was my father.” Throat bobbing with a hard swallow, she doesn’t bother to look at me. “He would come to me every night, on cloven hooves that clicked against the wooden floors. One night, he asked me what I wished for, and I told him I wished to be more clever than he was. He laughed.” Smiling, she shakes her head. “Three years later, he died of long-term arsenic poisoning.” The snorted chuckle she gives fails to breach her tight lips. “When I met my husband, I was innocent as the winter lamb, with hopes of the kind of happiness that I never knew. But alas, it seemed my husband only ever enjoyed the company of winter lambs. And as I aged, he sought out a flock.” With a sigh, she shakes her head again. “I was given the best of him in our son. Even if he didn’t see it that way. He insisted our child was useless and grotesque, based on a small, rather minor spinal defect. You know what my husband’s kin do with useless babies? Cut their tongues out. But I wasn’t having that.” A strange jerked movement of her head tightens my muscles around the grip of the gun, and I realize it’s a tic of some sort. One I’ve never seen before in Jude. “I knew the devil was angry with me. And that, one day, he’d come back to stake his claim. See, he doesn’t like to be outsmarted. Sometimes, I think he disguises himself to fool us. The nanny I hired was as sweet as sugar on the outside, but inside, her soul was as black as the darkest depths of the sea. She seduced my sweet boy when he was hardly a teenager. Swept him up into a world of carnality I was all too familiar with.” A pause follows, and still, she doesn’t bother to look at me as she goes on with her story in a cold and detached tone. “So I did away with her. And in return, my son retaliated.” Knuckles white, she rolls her tight grip over the steering wheel. “It began as small sacrifices. Rodents I’d find mutilated around the house. Bones in the pockets of his trousers. I tried to save him by having him poked and prodded, studied. When they finally released him back to me, he was not the same, sweet boy. He was colder. Much colder. And I knew then, the devil had his hooks in him, too. And, well, after a lifetime of running, I decided perhaps it was time I surrendered. I gave him my soul. The very thing he’d been chasing this whole time. In return, he took my pig of a husband. And I was finally free. Free of the men who sought to rule over me.”

“But you’re not. You’re ruled by yet another man in your life.”

“I may have little in common with the righteous, but I share the same burden as Mary did when she bore Jesus. What pressure to be the only son chosen.”

“Please tell me you’re not comparing your son to Jesus.”

Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she tries to hide a smile. “Adolph bears the mark.”

“What mark?”

“There’s a long-standing prophesy in our beliefs, that the infernal father would choose a mortal son, who would serve as the eyes of the underworld. A spy. An innocent child chosen not for his faith, but his loyalty. In exchange, he would grant the boy whatever he desired most in the world.”

“This sounds like bullshit to me.”

Ignoring me, she keeps on with her story. “The poor soul was burdened by the darkness bestowed upon him. He was, after all, mortal to the core. But it’s said he gained favor of his father, when he bore witness to a false god and burned down the temple with the fires of hell.”

“You think Adolph is the devil’s son.”

“I know he is. He was sent here to test our faith in Antitheus.”

This woman is nuttier than an almond tree. “What makes you so sure?

“He wears his father’s sigil. A tattoo on the inside of his wrist.”

“You think a tattoo marks him as some prophet of Satan? I’m sorry, Antitheus. A second ago, you told me an innocent child was chosen. Your son doesn’t sound so innocent to me.”

“Adolph was a difficult child, no doubt, but he wasn’t inherently evil. And so long as he remains true to his Father, he will be rewarded with whatever he desires most. Whether it’s power, wealth, perhaps even love.”

“Newsflash: psychopaths don’t fall in love.”

“They must. I’m fairly certain my father fell in love with me. As did my husband. Once.”

Gun still trained on her, I shake my head, chuckling. “Do you have any fucking idea how crazy you sound right now?”

“Do you have any fucking idea how boring you sound right now? Our kind have existed for centuries, persecuted by the same religious dogma that has you questioning my sanity. It isn’t about good, or evil. It’s enjoying life without hypocrisy. I spent the better portion of my childhood being made to feel guilty that I was a sinner, all while my self-righteous prick of a father was raping me two rooms down from my mother. You tell me who’s crazy.”

“So, Adolph … he’s the famous Le Bouc Noir.”

“He’s made quite a name for himself over the years.”

“And you think I’m going to let him live after tonight? Kiss your dreams of grandchildren goodbye.”

“Or not. He did bear one child. Your half sister.”

Her words take a second to sink in as I sit staring at her, trying to straighten their meaning in my head. “What did you just say?”