43. The Sinner
Ipush away from the wall, watching him go, and wondering if I will ever see him again. Will I live to see any of them ever again? I reload the clip of my gun and make my way down the hall, now littered with dead Brotherhood soldiers. I want to feel remorse that some husband, father, son, or brother, may never make it back home because he now lays dead on this floor, but I’m empty inside. All of these men had choices to be here today, to fight against me. The women of the world have no options; this is their rebellion. This is how they take back their power, by killing every single man who sees them as less than them.
Sammy was once a Brotherhood soldier with no options,my mind reminds me. Hold on to your humanity; you’re losing it quicker than those bodies are draining of their blood. Don’t let the Brotherhood take more from you.
It’s true. I feel myself losing grasp of my morals and even my reality. All the bloodshed, all the lives that I have taken in the name of my vengeance, has taken a toll on me. I no longer even know who I am.
Am I Dinah Camrose, or am I the Unholy Ghost? There was a time when I believed I could be both, and still keep my sanity and soul intact. I’m no longer naive enough to believe that. Both can no longer exist in the same space. One craves peace and the love of her men. The other demands the world be painted red with the blood of her enemies, and sees no end in sight to the death and destruction that she wields.
I stride forward, lost in my quicksand of thoughts, until I find myself before two sizable, mahogany wood doors that must lead into one of the larger suites. My hand rises to the door handle, but I find myself hesitating with it in my grip. Once I turn this knob, I will open Pandora’s Box, and there will be no turning back. If this was all a trap, I will have gift-wrapped myself in a pretty crimson bow to the Order, the rebels, or whoever David truly serves.
I may end up losing Sammy, Zeke, and Abe, if not my own life. Wait for Zeke and Abe, my heart begs as I continue to stand frozen on the spot outside the door. Go in and kill him. You know he’s in there. You can feel it deep in your gut. Kill him and set yourself free, the monster calls, tempting me with more destruction.
My hesitation costs me, and a soldier dressed in the uniform of the Brotherhood pops around the corner, running for his life. My arm rises unbidden and without thought, and I pull the trigger, putting a bullet into his chest as he slams against the wall, and slides down it. His young, brown eyes meet mine, filled with surprise, panic, and fear. He tries to speak, but foam tinged with blood expels from his mouth, and splatters across his lips and chin in a grotesque abstract pattern. He’s so young, barely out of his teens, and dead at my hands.
What the fuck have I done? Is this who I am now? A killer with no thought to who I’m murdering? He would have killed you, if you hadn’t shot first, the monster scolds.
Would he have? I’ll never know now. He looks like a frightened young man, barely out of his youth. Maybe he had no choice but to enter the Brotherhood army, just like my Sammy didn’t. Perhaps he was trying to run away from the fighting and not towards it. I will never know anything about him, except that the last person he saw on this earth was me, his killer. I move away from the door and crouch down in front of him, as his last breath leaves his body, and I reach forward, allowing my fingers to softly close his eyelids over his sightless brown eyes. Eyes that will haunt my nightmares, if I get to live past tonight. So much death. I have taken so many lives.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, swiping at the tear that slides from the corner of my eye. A sob rises within me, tightening my chest and lodging in my throat, as more tears make an appearance, and I’m unable to stop them.
I’m so tired, so very weary. Every part of me is exhausted from everything that I have endured. The memories of the horrors I have both witnessed and committed. Almost dying at the hands of a boy I loved, only to be brought back to life to find out the man I love, my protector and soulmate, is enduring monstrosities for my mistakes. The fighting, the lying, and the schemes. All the darkness that inhabits me like a parasite, and is devouring me from the inside out.
When will all this end? Will it ever end, or will we be fighting the same battles twenty years from now? How many lives will I have taken by then? Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands?
It feels almost hopeless that we are endeavoring to change the world. Was the world any better before the Brotherhood took over? Will the world survive after they are gone?
Questions with no answers that I’m ill-equipped to give. Who am I to be the one to demand change? I’m just some girl who loved her mom and pretty blue ribbons in her hair. A girl who hero-worshiped her older brother, and had a crush on his two friends. A daughter who lost her respect for a father she once adored, and realized that he was a monster. A woman who fell in love with a man who should have remained out of reach. I am all those things, and in the same instance, I am nothing and no one.
The rebels want a martyr, the Brotherhood wants a Sacred Wife and daughter, the populace wants a leader they can rally behind, and all I want is them: Abe, Zeke, and my Sammy. As I stand here, looking at a dead boy, far too young to have died in a war he probably didn’t understand, I’m not even convinced that I should want them. I have been the instrument of destruction for each of them. How long will it be before I’m staring into their dead faces?
The price demanded to live in this world is too steep, and I have already paid more than my fair share. I have cried, lost, suffered, and destroyed my soul, yet I stand here, looking for strength and absolution, even though I know forgiveness will not be granted for my sins.
I use the back of my hand to rub at my sore and swollen eyes, swiping angrily at the tear tracks that represent my moment of weakness. My other hand clenches the gun tightly in my grip, as it becomes an extension of my arm, an extension of me and the violence within me. This is what I must be, cold and deadly, emotionless. I came here to free Sammy, and the price of that is death. His, mine, the whole world’s, does it even matter anymore as long as he is free?
I make my way to the door again, but this time, I don’t hesitate to turn the knob and open the door. I move into the barely lit room soundlessly, my eyes and ears searching the space for danger. At first, I see nothing but huge windows allowing the night sky within, and I fear I have gone to the wrong wing. What I seek is with Abe and Zeke on the other side. Goddammit! I’ve been wallowing in self-pity all this time, and he’s not even here.
Then a shadow moves almost imperceptibly at the far side of the room, deep in the darkness. I raise the gun, pointing it in that direction, my body filling with stillness as I expel a deep breath. This is it; this is the moment that will secure Sammy’s freedom, and I must not hesitate.
Before I can pull the trigger, a sensation crawls along my skin, a slight humming penetrating my ears, and making its way into my mind, that has me taking a stumbling step forward. My mind feels like it’s being wrapped in a dense fog, one that I can’t seem to escape. I shake my head, trying to clear it, only to find my whole body trembling.
What the hell is this? What is happening to me?
The shadow moves closer and closer, until I can see its outline through the fog that’s invading my mind. “Noooo,” I mumble, my tongue feeling heavy inside of my mouth. I try to force myself to step back, away from the sense of danger that skates around my limbs like a malignant tar, but it holds me rooted in my spot. Wake up! Wake up and fight! My mind screams, but I’m trapped in a moment of horror I cannot seem to escape.
The figure moves even closer, his long dark robes sliding along the floor sinisterly, wrapped in shadows, making my heart want to jump out of my chest. No, this is not happening; this is not real. I need to wake the fuck up, stop whatever is happening here.
When he’s no more than three feet away from me, the gun slides from my hand unbidden and clacks to the hardwood floor, in a sound so loud and frightening that it feels like my mind might be fracturing. My eyes stare at the edges of the dark robe near the floor. The moonlight helps me see that the fabric is encrusted with jewels, that sparkle in the barely there light, and delicate threads depicting shapes I cannot determine. I force my eyes to rise, even though every part of me is screaming not to look, to turn away, to run as far and fast as I can.
The humming increases in my mind, until it sounds like a swarm of bees trying to drive me mad. Both my hands rise to my ears, desperately attempting to stop the sound, but it’s no use. It combines with the sound of my rapid heartbeat, until I’m almost drowning in it and can’t catch a breath. A scent reaches my nose, powerful and cloying, but I can’t find the words to describe it. It’s as if my mind is overwhelmed and shutting down. My chest tightens painfully as if a giant python was wrapping itself slowly around my body, and squeezing me inch by inch.
My eyes are forced to keep rising, past the shadow’s legs to its waist, where I get my first glimpse of flesh. Hands. Not a shadow, not a monster with claws, a human, a man. How is he doing this? Those bejeweled hands unclasp, and a fluttering happens in my chest at the movement of his fingers. My knees weaken, threatening to have me collapse as my gaze continues to rise past his abdomen to his wide chest, over the symbol of his faith and to the sliver of skin exposed by the robe’s fabric at his neck.
Darkened gold and white shine even in the moonlight, lit from within as if the darkness dares not touch it. My eyes finally rest on a mask covering the shadow man’s features. My breath hitches in my throat, and a wave of dizziness overtakes me, forcing me again to stumble. That fog keeps getting thicker and thicker, as it threatens to choke me of all my breaths.
I should have waited for Zeke and Abe. I should never have come here. This is not a man. He is the devil incarnate, and I have made my way foolishly alone into his den. I’m going to die here with no way to save myself, no way to even protect myself from the evil within this room.
Fight, break free of his hold; you are NOT weak!The monster rattles its cage desperately to free me from whatever sorcery has me trapped. It helps a little, bringing back some of my awareness. It causes my rage to rise like a volcano, threatening to erupt and lay waste to all before me. I clench one fist then the other, relieved that I can indeed move. Not a prisoner, I am not a prisoner.
The Holy Father stands before me, tall and unflinching, as if I wasn’t here to murder him in cold blood. As if I didn’t need his death as payment to save the man I love. All of the confusing and otherworldly sensations that I have felt before in his presence rise within me, and my body shakes as if I am having a seizure. My teeth rattle, and the air whooshes out of my chest as if being siphoned by forces unknown. What. The. Fuck.
An enormous, ragged gasp rents the air between us, and somehow, I feel the satisfaction that soars within him at the sound. He’s enjoying this; whatever this is, or whatever is happening here to me, it’s all his doing. Move, break free, don’t let him get his hands on us! The monster screams within me, terrified of this devil before us.
“Hello, Sacred Daughter, or should I just call you daughter, since you are my flesh and blood?” His voice is like silk sliding along all the edges of my mind, caressing it and easing my sense of panic. He steps forward and stops, the edges of his voluminous robes protruding forward like nefarious tentacles. Somehow, deep inside of me, I know I don’t want them to touch me.
This is insane. He’s just a man, and these are parlor tricks. Break free of this madness, every cell inside me screams.
His bejeweled hands, covered in moonlight, slip to the edges of his mask, and he lifts the decorative piece above his head. The ornate golden-tipped feathers sway hypnotically, making my skin crawl as his dermis reveals itself one pale inch at a time. Over the square outline of his chin, and the clean-shaven flesh of his jaw and cheeks, exposing full lips tilted up at the corners in a demonic smirk.
The mask continues on its journey upwards, revealing a Roman nose and two dark blue eyes, that sparkle with midnight fire and diabolical evil within their pools. He finally rips it over his head, and his salt and pepper hair is the final piece to be revealed.
Noooooooo, it can’t be. It. Can’t. This is not real; this is not happening. I’m trapped in a nightmare, and I will wake soon. Wake up! Wake the fuck up! I beg and plead with myself, but it’s useless; the image before me doesn’t change. My panic helps me loosen some of the malignant grip the fog has on me, and I’m able to shift all of my limbs as my head moves back and forth on my neck with terror.
My breath catches in my throat, disbelief racing through me, and my heart painfully stutters in my chest. It can’t be, it’s not fucking possible. I was there, forced to watch as they tortured him. An unwilling young captive, forced to witness horrific brutality that scarred me forever.
I was confined to a chair, unable to move as they viciously broke every one of his limbs with a bat and mallet, and tore him apart inch by inch. I observed unwillingly, and with hoarse screams escaping me until I couldn’t make another sound, as they sliced the skin from his bones. I watched with tears that raced down my swollen face, as he bled out on the floor around him, a grotesque and rancorous scene forced on a young girl. The smell of blood, urine, and fear permanently imprinted in my mind, heart, and soul in those moments. I was the teenager who would never recover from the trauma inflicted on her mind at the hands of Brotherhood men.
It was that girl who, despite all she knew about that man and his misdeeds, still loved him deep down inside her heart and soul. My eyes never left the sight of him as he took what was his last breath. The air left his lips with a ghastly shudder that wracked his whole body. That shudder became a staple in my nightmares, right along with his screams, for years to come.
This is not possible, it can’t be.He’s. Not. Here. This is some sick, depraved joke that either the Brotherhood or the rebels are playing with me. This man is wearing a ghost’s face. This is what they are going to use to break me, and it will work because I have never been as terrified as I am at this moment.
Tears slide down from the corners of my eyes, even as I beg my mind to wake from whatever horror I’m trapped in. This is so much worse than being trapped in the dark with the monster. This monster has risen from the dead, and returned to take my sanity and life from me. He’s not Lazarus; he cannot just rise from the dead. My mind tries to reason with me, but it does nothing to subdue the panic waging war inside of me.
“This is not real. You are not real.” My voice sounds unhinged and on the verge of madness.
The man before me is not just the Holy Father dressed in fine robes. He’s not my great uncle like he has professed. The man before me is a specter and a monster. He’s my father, who has returned to life. The Holy Father is wearing the face of a dead Francis Camrose.
The horror of what I’m witnessing processes through my mind rapidly, circling through every interaction that I have had with the Holy Father, since being forced back to the capital and leaving the safety of my home with Sammy. The reality that this monster was present, and watched my mother blow her brains out, and did nothing to stop it, causes me to break free from whatever mystical or psychedelic hold he has on me.
I lunge forward, all of my rage surfacing, and I slam my open palm across his face. The sound of skin making contact with skin is loud in the otherwise silent room. His head moves to the side of his neck with the impact from my hit, but he makes no attempt to stop my actions. Not a sound escapes him, as he eerily returns his cold eyes to mine. Fuck, fuck, fuck, is he really alive?
He could have saved her. He could have saved Gabriel. He could have protected his family, if he had been the Holy Father all this time, the most powerful man in our world. Instead, he let them die. He let my brother be tortured at the hands of his friend, Noah Rothesay, and my mother succumbed to her grief, after having lost both her children. One to death, and one to the sadistic laws of the Brotherhood. Until she felt she had no other option left to her, but to take her own life.
He, this monster before me, let them die one by one, until the only ones left were me and my still-unfound nephew. The last of the Camroses, or so I believed. This monster had caused so much pain. This creature, hell-bent on power, could have prevented all of it, but instead, he did nothing.
“I can see that you are upset, rightly so, daughter. This has been a shock to you, so I forgive you your sin. Fair warning, however, my child, that is the only time you will get to assail me, Dinah. Do not mistake my love for you for weakness.” His hand strikes out and wraps itself around my throat. His strong, slender fingers dig into my skin, and slowly but intently close off my airway, as I stare into his blue eyes. Eyes I should have recognized all the times I was before him, but never made the connection.
I was a fool and allowed myself to fall right into a trap, but not of the Brotherhood, or of the rebels, as I had feared. Instead, the trap and implications are so much worse. My dead father has come back to life, it seems, and needs something from me, but the question is, what? What does the most powerful man in the world need from a daughter he long ago discarded?
“Monster,”I rasp through my trapped throat.
“No, survivor is the word you’re looking for, Dinah, just like you are.” He releases his grasp and pushes me away from him.
I attempt to clear my throat, coughing and sucking in huge gasps of air until I can finally speak. “Why? Why let them die? You could have saved Gabriel and Mom? What the fuck is the matter with you?” My voice rises and rises until I am screaming the words at him. Still, I get a minimal reaction from him, just a twitch in his eye.
“Just because I could not save them, does not mean I don’t mourn them. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, daughter. I could not intervene to save your brother as much as I wanted to, and I did not know your mother would commit suicide. She was weak.”
“Sacrifice? You speak of sacrifice while living lavishly, faking your death, and letting us all suffer? I’ve lost all of my family, all of it! Where is this sacrifice that you speak of? All I see here are betrayal and lies.”
“I gave you a new family with the three of them, Dinah. I provided you with the opportunity to keep living and breathing. I even delivered you years in peace away from the Brotherhood. I hand-picked Sammy to be your guard, so you would be kept safe. You rage against my betrayal, but I have never stopped protecting you.”
No, he must be spewing more lies. There is no way that he set all of this into motion. It’s not possible that he ensured Sammy protected me. Sammy would have told me if he knew he was alive. He says he gave me peace but doesn’t realize how alone I felt. The loss suffered at being torn from my family.
He claims to have given to me with one hand, and taken from me with the other. Does he not see the damage he has caused, or is it just a matter that he has never cared?
“I have always known you were the Unholy Ghost, Dinah. At first, I was concerned that you had lost your mind, and were just a blood-thirsty psychopath. That your mother’s death triggered something in you, something filled with darkness, but then I realized how useful that could be.“ He steps towards me, his hand rising to my face, and I recoil as if it were a serpent ready to strike me.
“This world needed a cleansing, and I was no longer willing to wait for it to happen. Over the years, I have been slowly weeding out the traitors within the Brotherhood, such as Noah Rothesay, who lust for power. Those who betrayed me and had me murdered. As the Unholy Ghost, you gave me an opportunity I could not pass up, with your need for vengeance. Your killings were a blessing on this cursed world.”
Madness. He is filled with insanity. You can see it clearly in his maniacal eyes, even in the moonlight. “I allowed you to keep killing because it served my plans. You are a means to an end, daughter. An end to this world as we know it.”
Fear slithers through my mind, as I hear him speak of his plans to cause chaos, and destroy the world. The inflection and warmth in his tone suggest that it brings him tremendous joy. “Were you always the Holy Father?” My question leaves my lips, but I know it’s not possible. I faintly remember being a child, and meeting the Holy Father, with my mother and father at my side. Unless that, too, is a lie. Is my whole life just one big lie?
A chuckle escapes him, and a shiver slides down my spine. My eyes quickly search for the gun I dropped, without making it obvious what I’m doing. “No, he really was your mother’s uncle. When I went to my death, at the hands of those who betrayed me, I had David murder him and I took his place. A leader hidden behind a mask can be anyone, Dinah. You see, precious daughter, I really did die and was reborn as this.” He indicates himself with his hands, and my eyes widen fractionally.
David. Of course, it was David. He would have already been stationed within the Holy Father’s circle. He’s the one who led me here, and demanded I perform this farce to save Sammy. He had to know all along that the Holy Father was, in actuality, my father, Francis Camrose. I wonder if he truly intended for me to kill him.
“I see the question in your eyes. No, David did not actually send you here to murder me. You see, Dinah, he is mine, and has been mine since before my death. My lover, my soldier, he would do anything for me. This was a test of your loyalty to your lovers. What lengths you would go to for them, and you passed splendidly, daughter.”
“What do you want from me?” I grit my teeth and utter the words, knowing I will soon regret them. He has been playing with all of us for years, placing pieces on a chess board and moving us about, manipulating everyone around him without us even realizing it. The glint of the pistol just out of reach calls to me, and I wonder if I can get to it and shoot him, before he does some more of his parlor tricks to stop me.
“Right now, David has Ezekiel and Abraham cornered, and at his mercy. Sammy is close to death in Noah’s clutches. If you do not agree to my terms, all of them will die. I will make sure of it, but not before forcing you to watch them all take their last breaths.”
My heart pounds in my chest, and a cold sweat drenches over me, chilling me down to my bones. The images of all three of my men dying before my eyes flashes rapidly in my mind. I can’t allow that to happen. I can’t permit this demon to take them from me.
“What do you want me to do?” I know I’m making a bargain with Lucifer incarnate, but I have no choice. I cannot let the three of them go to their deaths, when I can still do something to prevent it. I have to save them.
“You will kill the Holy Father, and take his place as supreme leader. You will be the new face of a revolution, controlling both the rebels, and the Brotherhood, but I will be the power behind the throne.”
“I will be a puppet while you pull the strings.”
He turns away from me towards the window, looking over the vast acreage of land that surrounds the estate, and I quickly and quietly pick up the gun and point it at him.
“You will be what you were always meant to be, Dinah, my weapon. Pull the trigger, daughter, and let’s see if your men survive another minute on this earth, and if you can live without them.”
My finger on the trigger fires with a blast, and then the world around me goes dark as I’m hit from behind, my skull feeling like it’s splitting in half. The last thing I see before I lose all consciousness is my father stripping from his robes, his body covered in bulletproof armor.
“Kill all three of them. She will have to learn the consequences of her sins, and live without them.”
No! Fuck, what have I done? SAMMY! ZEKE! ABE! Don’t leave me.
That’s it for now. Need more? Get the final book in the series, Be My Salvation righthere!