Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Bartimaeus
“ H ave you completely lost your mind? You can’t fuck the damned one!” We found an abandoned farm not far from where we and Ellis pulls me into it.
“Why not? Get in, get out, taste her blood and finish the story,” I grouse.
When Belle blurted the words in my ear, I felt my erection stand tall in an instant. I thought my jeans might split apart. Fuck, it was the last thing I expected to hear. My cock almost broke into a cursed demonic dance until I remembered it was an unforgivable sin.
But if that’s what it took to banish Lilith, I’d take the corruption unto myself. I’d sacrifice my sanctity for others. Many, many others.
“How poetic,” Ellis chuckles.
“What do you want me to say? It’s sex, I don’t mean to make love to her.”
“Damn you, Bartimaeus!” It’s rare for Ellis to curse, and he’s firing off a string of the worst now. I let him get it all out. If it’s a choice between curses and fists, I’ll always choose curses.
“I can’t even keep track of the number of transgressions you’re seeking to commit! Breaking celibacy is one thing, but damn it, you’re talking about the most severe ban here! We mustn’t fraternize with the enemy! I think that applies to sex with the enemy, let alone tasting her blood.”
“We have no choice. I’ll handle whatever comes.” My anger is growing. If the solution is right in front of us, why are we even discussing it? The weight of it will be as heavy as it will be. I’m the one who’ll ultimately be judged for it, not him.
“You can’t even handle the blood of pitiful demons, but you want the blood of the most damned of them all? You won’t survive! Your body isn’t holy enough!” He grasps my shirt and tries to shake me out of my resolution.
“So what do you propose? Letting the old Pope stick it to her? His holiness is much greater, but he still wouldn’t know what to do with his limp dick!” Did those words really spill out of my mouth? It’s blasphemy, for God’s sake!
“I don’t know you anymore, brother,” Ellis exhales. “Your time in Hell has contaminated you, you need help. Urgently.”
“I’m fine.” I shove his hand away and arrange my shirt properly.
“We need to bring this before the Church. They’ll know what to do. They have ways of—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I understand where he’s going with it.
“All they’ll do is lock her up and abuse her with all the experiments I already know will fail. She’s given us the answer we’ve been seeking for thousands of years, and I don’t intend to back down now.”
“You sound like you’re worried about her.” I don’t like his insinuations, and turn my gaze from him. Maybe it’s true, I really don’t want to see her suffer. But it’s only because I know that any attempt to shed her blood will end in bitter failure. I don’t wish suffering upon her; I just want to banish her back to Oblivion from whence she came. It’s compassion towards her, not any other feeling he dares imply.
“If you mean to act before the Church makes its decision, it’ll be treason. Consider your moves carefully, Bartimaeus. I’m calling Walter now, and I intend to report everything that happened tonight. I hope you’ll be ready for whatever decision they make.”
Ellis doesn’t wait for an answer and leaves the barn. Damn it all, God is putting me to the test and I’m afraid I might not pass it. Where is His compassion? Am I not worthy of compassion? After a few moments I hear Ellis’ voice, certainly speaking with Walter: “So be it,” he says, and fires off orders to his troops to return to base. I’m surprised he didn’t say anything to me before deciding to leave.
I leave for the empty field in a hurry, afraid that Ellis may have taken Belle with him. I let out a sigh of relief as I find her sitting with her back to me on a dry haystack, her eyes turned up towards the sky, tracking Walter’s platoon as they recede into the distance.
I take a deep breath and go to her. Maybe I should just get it over with. Do what needs to be done. Go in, get out, and say goodbye. Maybe we can even skip that part. I don’t need to wait for the Pope’s decision to know what my destiny will be. I’ve been prepared for it since the day I joined the Church.
I sit next to her, but at a safe distance. It doesn’t help, her presence is so powerful that I lose my breath and force my treasonous body to relax. I shift uncomfortably, not knowing what to say. She keeps staring at the sky.
“This is my favorite time of day,” she whispers.
I want to answer that I don’t care, that we have a more important task ahead of us than small talk, but I say nothing. We’re minutes from dawn. The skies seem to be painted in blood, and I chuckle at the all-too-appropriate backdrop for what’s about to happen.
“So how do you want to do it?” I ask coolly. Better that way. Quick and easy. I mustn’t get emotionally involved. I must erase the feelings she’s been stirring in me until now.
She brings her knees up to her chin, rests her head on them and looks at me with such big, beautiful eyes. The moistness in them sends pangs to my heart.
“Just like that, huh? I guess it’s only fair. You’d think I’d get used to it by now,” she says, a tear spilling from one eye. It’s like I can hear my heart cracking.
My hand reaches out and wipes the tear that has reached the bridge of her nose. I rub the wetness between my fingers and examine it. It glimmers under the bleeding illumination of the virgin sun, and my heart skips a beat.
“You know what the most sacred thing in our world is?” I ask without looking at her, but also without waiting for her answer. “Angels’ tears.” I raise my gaze. Her eyes are so black, like the deepest abyss, and I feel myself plummeting right into them. “Demons don’t cry, Belle.”
“Lilith isn’t a demon,” she answers. “You led me to that information. She has wings too, like your friends.”
“She’s pretty far from being an angel too, Belle.”
“Then what is she?”
“She’s not you,” I say without thinking, and she raises her big eyes to me. I’m drowning, drowning, drowning in the depths of her eyes. Deep in her darkness.
“Bar…” Hearing my name slipping out from between her lips is bewitching. Damn it, I’m seriously screwed. Maybe that bastard Ellis was right after all. I’m not holy enough, I’m not strong enough. “Would it be selfish of me to ask for one day of just nothing?”
“I’m guessing it won’t be long before the Church gives the order, and Ellis and his platoon will be back, and then—”
“I get it.” She turns her gaze back to the skies.
“I can’t give you a day, but I can offer you a few hours.” I watch the sunbeams light up the sparse layer of clouds. The light gradually chases away the bloodbath between darkness and light. At this hour the light wins. In about half a day it’ll lose. And on and on it goes, in an endless circle.
“I guess I’ll have to make do with that.” She gets to her feet and brushes the hay off her dress.
“Where to?” I ask.
“I think I saw a well by the barn, I need to wash this stench off me. Wait for me here,” she says, and disappears behind the barn.
I watch the sun slowly climb, until it’s spreading its light with typical autumn gentleness. Occasionally I peek over my shoulder to see if Belle’s back yet. The more time passes, the more frequently I look, and suspicion starts to take hold of me.
“Belle?” I call out, but there’s no answer.
Am I that stupid? She’s pulled a runner on me. I leap to my feet and run in the direction she went, but as soon as I turn the corner of the barn I regret it. Belle. Naked. Standing on the tips of her toes, trying to hang her dress on a tree branch.
She turns a stunned look to me that quickly gives way to pure rage. “What are you doing?!” she shouts. “I told you to wait!”
“I-I’m sorry,” I stammer like a complete idiot, shielding my eyes with my hand.
“You thought I ran for it, didn’t you?” I hear her breathing heavily like a dragon. “Good God, what did I even ask for? A few hours of imagined freedom, to say goodbye to the possibility of some kind of normal life! Seriously, I quit!”
What can I answer? Damn, I screwed up.
The sound of an apple hitting the ground breaks the tension as it rolls to my feet. I pick it up and look right at Belle. A beautiful demoness stands in the splendor of her nakedness by an apple tree, and she’s crying. Has God decided to toy with me? The irony is clear. I remove my coat, walk to her and place it on her shoulders. She pulls it tight against her as if seeking to protect her exposed body, and I pull her into the barn.
“I’m sorry.” I accompany her to the haystack in the barn.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Bar,” she says, disappointed.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
I really have no idea. The presence of her body close to mine is clouding my thoughts. I can’t understand why I react this way every time I’m around her.
“Maybe it’s God’s way of testing me, seeing whether sanctity can exist in me even when I give myself to Hell.”
“How do you see it, Hell?” She rests her head on her knees, drawing them close to her body in an effort to hide her shame.
“A place where sinners revel without restraint, naked, sweaty from the hellfire around them.”
“That’s a bit cliché, Bar,” she giggles.
“That amuses you?” I bump into her with my shoulder and she almost trips and exposes herself to me. I quickly look away as she rearranges her position.
God, this is some torment.
“I guess I’ve discovered there’s some truth in every folklore tale, but I wonder what’s so awful about that. It feels like freedom.” I contort my face. That’s ridiculous. “Then what’s Heaven?” she asks.
“A return to blindness. The human body in its purity, without feeling lust. Enjoying the bounties of nature gifted to us by the King of Kings, living in modesty.”
“Is lust a sin?” she wrinkles her brow.
“Is lust not the source of hellfire itself?”
“Maybe, it could be… but there’s also love. When love is involved, it’s called ‘lovemaking’. Maybe that’s totally different from fucking.”
“And what do you know of fucking?” She’s only a child, for God’s sake.
“Not a thing.” She bites her lip.
I want to bite that lip. Now. “Not a thing,” I repeat after her. “Isn’t that what you wanted to experience in your last hours of life?”
“I guess that’s what we’ll have to do eventually, but I’d like to feel that someone sees me, for a change. Me, Belle. Not Lilith.”
Dozens of smutty scenarios flash through my mind and I feel my blood bubbling in my veins. Lust ignites hellfire, and the person holding the torch is Bellcolor herself – and I can’t not walk right towards it and accept it willingly.