AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We were all alive. My god, how had this happened? And we were ordering food. I frowned at my thoughts. Everything was feeling wrong.
“Charity is awake, Inigo. A cocktail please, three of, to celebrate. And bring her a cooked breakfast! You’re going to be extra hungry, soon,” Cassius said that down to me before climbing into bed.
We were ordering food, blithely, after all that talk about death. What did one call that? Sacrilegious maybe, except everyone ate, even after they crashed planes, mowed down hundreds of soldiers with a machine gun, or gave birth to a baby. Life went on.
I looked at the men, to either side, then decided to hold in my maudlin thoughts. It would only make the doctor feel awful.
I sat up against the pillows. “This is decadent. A bed here, outside.”
“My idea.” Cassius patted my thigh. “After we gave you that extra dose, I told him we should put you somewhere more alive than the bedroom.”
“Well, thank you then.” I looked above. “Those trees and the sky woke me.”
“He does have good ideas, occasionally.”
“Yes. I think I should know more about everything. The ritual seemed out of a horror movie.”
He put his hand over mine and played with my fingers. “I can tell you more. If today is too soon, tell me. If you want to walk away from all of this, you can. Except…there is a penalty for using the ritual. If you decide to walk away from me over this, I’ll have to say what that is.”
“Walking away is never going to be for me. Not when I have you two. You should both know that,” I said quietly. I slipped downward and lay with my arm over his chest, felt Cassius move in to mold his body to mine. “Plus, you know my curiosity. Tell me what began this for you. Leave out the gore, please.”
“Insatiable Charity, yes.” He stirred my hair. “Rome used to sacrifice Gauls, during the time of the Roman Republic. I saw some dark reasons given for those. Once, just once, the priests happened upon a sequence that was both bloodier and more consequential. Three of us were regenerated, for no reason other than we were vicious bastards mocking a brave enemy. This, I remember well. That was the beginning. I’m not sure any of the others survived to repeat the rite.”
I partly raised my head. “You’ve seen nothing of them in all those thousands of years?”
“No. If they had lived, I fear the rite would have leaked out by now. Even if not common knowledge, I’d have seen echoes of its use.”
“Hmph.” I thought some more. Echoes of use sounded so normal yet also creepy. “I’m not sure I could have kept living if you two weren’t here when I woke up. You know…” I touched my chest. “In here seems different. Me. We cheated death. I stuck a knife inside myself. I remember the pain and seeing Cassius dying too. The rape almost shattered me.” Frowning, I shook my head and tried to voice this weird shift in attitude that had happened. “This is different, though. It’s bad but not the same.”
“It’s not your fault, any of this,” he said.
Cassius ran his hand over my shoulder. “That night was bad. Most people would find it hard to shake off. Even me, but I’ve had time and found my peace with this. It’s not your fault.”
“It didn’t do anything to you? You’re the same as always?”
He kissed my shoulder. “No one could be the same. I’m just fucking glad we all came out of that. I’ve seen soldiers fall apart after violence and killing. I feel justified, and at peace with this, and if this means we get to take out a confirmed serial killer, why not?”
I sat up on my elbow. “Doctor, what is the penalty?”
“Every twenty years or so your body will show signs of needing what I call a recharge. Or I call it that now. Modern times.” He flashed a half-smile. “We will need to kill someone. Three someones.”
“Oh. Fuck. That’s a lot.” I poked at his chest. “I see why you said I could walk away, but there’s a price. I won’t be leaving.” I looked at them both. “Jeez, though. This is fucked up.”
“The plus is…” He trapped my hand against his chest. “I’m rich. I have control of the board of the CNC Fraternity and many other resources around the world. This is how I removed Jacob. We can go anywhere, do almost anything you wish to do over those twenty years.”
“Oh.” I thought fast. “And you, when is your twenty up?”
“Very soon. I was searching because that whole unsullied thing was making the rite fail.”
I raised my eyebrows. So he’d tried and some victim or other had failed him. A bloody murder like Estelle, but with a bad man under the knife…like Jacob. Was I okay enough with this to continue?
“You never told me that, doc.”
He shrugged. “I was getting to it.”
“So, we can visit Paris, go to the North Pole, help the poor, and all we have to do is kill, now and then.” So fucking fucked up.
Could I find peace in this, like Cassius? I guess I felt a new sort of power. I had a control over my life that I’d never had before. Jacob had intended to kill me, and I had survived and lived. I had consumed my enemy and defeated him. And I had my two men, whom I loved dearly and would kill for, if I had to.
