PROLOGUE: A FORMER LOVE STORY: TRISH REBORN
When I was born, I thought that I would be one of Mundus's famous devils, powerful, well cared for, catered and loved. I don't know where love came into the equation. Love was the most distant thing that ever ricocheted in the depths of the underground. Only Dante was able to acquire passage by fitting together clues and creating a powerful puzzle that echoed ancient manuscripts of the book of the dead.
It was when I was reborn into a life of privilege that my story begins. When one of the twins, Dante or Virgil said that I looked like a shake rag after a full day's wash, I was again able to laugh like a human being with feelings. Knowing full well that I would get no scolding from anyone in particular. I was free to do as I please but I did not possess the powers, not yet anyway.
I had sisters in this life. They were not very pretty but they were still my siblings. If one would wager to guess that my life would parallel Cinderella then I would agree with them. Except that, I had no wicked step mother. I did however have a wicked step father. Can you guess what I look like now? Without the leather and the guns? I wore the long golden braids of a shepherd girl and the pouty lips of a movie screen actress. Except I used no lipstick, but the prick of my finger to produce blood and smear it on my lips. It was something I liked to do. I don't know why and I can't explain it. Was it the look of blood that fascinated me or the way it smelled and tasted? Like bitter iron and metal?
It may surprise you that in this life, I am an orphan at the age of six. Similar to Oliver twist I suppose but he was a rather rag tag muffin in my eyes. Do I appear to you as a well read former demon? Maybe not so well read as I am today. In my long pale gown, stained with fresh grass and those little stickies that I like to blow on. What are they called? No matter.
I lay my long golden hair on the grassy slope. They call them glens around here and sometimes I find myself staring at the sky, mesmerizing a day of bliss like this forever and the former life I had, demonic and fast, quick and sexy and all the demon boys would pant and stare. For now, only the sheep and the cattle were my only solace. They grazed peacefully as if nothing in the world would harm them. Rest assured they wouldn't be. I'm just a shepherd girl with an evil step father and harassed by two ugly step sisters. But their harassments weren't as nasty as Cinderellas. They were actually harassing me by way of being my constant followers. Annoying son of ....a bitch. I smirked and laughed out loud at my little clever description.
Before his death, my father's that is, father had been a terrible drunk. He was a wonderful father, mind you, always calling me sweetheart and touching my golden curls, setting me on his lap like Santa Claus and giving me gifts aplenty. But he was an irresponsible lout to the tee. Women were always after him. If the devil were my father, this devil was the handsomest, even when he was whiskey drowned and passed out.
So that's why I'm here. With my evil step father. You see, my father was bisexual. He loved women but he always indulged in the pleasures of his same sex. My evil step father was in love with him and he had a wonderful wife who died from being too kind, yet she was as rich as any sultan.
Where did that put my two lovely twins, the devil hunters, Virgil and Dante? Why I'll tell you where. They were looking for me. They made some deal with the devil (again) and turned the time tables around, flew around the universe in their anti gravity, phallic space ship and looked for me. So I'm lying. They're not space adventurers. But they wanted me back. So here's the former love story that I'll indulge to tell you. I'll let you decide who Dante is and who Virgil is. Enjoy my pretties.
CHAPTER ONE: A WARM JUNE DAY:
And so it had been on this warm june day that we returned home from the apple orchard. The girls and I were picking up apples for our father, and me like a good little girl had managed to capture a bundle in my skirt. Our hearts full of goodwill and our baskets brimming with green and red apple, little knowing that today something magnificent would happen to interrupt this little blissful life of mine, forever changing my present peaceful serenity.
Once through the apple orchard you can look across the now tangled jungle of a garden that my evil step father's former loving wife gardened and lavished. Such care and love she had that I often wondered what it would have been liked if she still lived. The tireless but annoying girls, Patsy and Pran, raced up the weedy path to the large cottage we owned. We didn't live there really. We actually lived in that great big mansion on the top of the hill but we liked to pretend that we're just simple girls. It was my idea anyway. The girls just followed my lead, for they were very readily idiots.
I decided to make haste to the front yard to insure that no damage was done to the sheep and chickens that clucked and baa baa-ed. Because there in the driveway of our humble large cottage, was the most magnificient Limousine I've ever seen! Shiny Ivory white, glittering like some kind of heavenly carriage come to whisk us away to the Lord's eternal grace, among the clouds of stars and suns....dear me.
Up until then, I had only the jaguar and the porsche that evil step daddy loaned me from time to time. So why was he so evil if he gave me the keys to the porsche and jag? Do you think he abused me or the other ding dongs I call my sisters? Do you think he made sexual advances towards me? Or tried in any possible way to make my life a living hell by letting sleep in the kitchen cupboard? No. and No and No. He was a corporate evil, business man so therefore, I called him the evil step dad. He knew what he was doing to the people of his company, which he didn't own in the first place because former sweet loving ex dead wife did. The rest just passed on to him. This evil Step daddy didn't know the first thing to doing business but I shant bore you with the details. Did you reall think that I'd tell you all about the corporate world while I walk around barefoot, with long golden braids on either side of me? Pouty red lips and all?
Let me describe the rest of the story and the Limousine. Or rather the contents of the automobile. Two men stepped out, chauffers I suppose they were with great bodies, dark sunglasses that you could buy for a mere 200 dollars and my sisters were giving that look where flies could fly into their mouths.
"Blimey!" Pran cried out. She was the worst one of us all. With two liposuctions and a nose surgery, she still remained ugly. Her dyed blond hair needed a new installment but she fussed and muttered that that pretty spanish singer called Shakira had the new fashion where you can have your dark roots be seen. "Who'd daddy call up this time?"
Not being one to call a pigeon a peacock, I must admit to myself that I too gaped like a monkey. Though not as similar to Patsy who scratched at her belly and ass. She wore less clothes as usual because she had the body to go with it, just not the face.
Was this I wondered, the modern day Cinderella coach? I still gaped because a young man, finely dressed, stood not two feet from me, "Goddamnit and all to hell! She looks good in this life too!" he was cursing in a very ungentlemanly way, and gaping like he was in a strip club. "Will you look at that! Trish has turned into a milkmaid and lusty shepherd girl and looking deliciously fine at it."
Would I have been surprised that the man in question was indeed strikingly similar to the man across him, who stepped out of the shadows? His half smile and sparkling pale eyes staring into mine? Startled, I looked around me for the beautiful and lusty shepherd girl and gasped innocently, and I was an innocent here in this lifetime, one must remember that! Former devil girl with leather skins and all was not in the story here. I recognized his features from a distant past, the man who said those words and he held me, pulling me close against his chest. I had not had any social intercourse with these men before. Although I felt completely compelled to hold him back. He was very handsome! I had the good virginal grace to kick him in the shins.
"OW!"
Before I had time to collect my scattered wits, the man across us, folded his arms and chuckled. I found myself mesmerized at his features, darkly swarthy against white, platinum hair and there was the most beautiful pair of lips I've ever seen. If I had taken note of the man to whom I had kicked, he had the self same pair of lips.
It was my two ugly duckling sisters who intervened, "You guys shouldn't do that to her! She's our sister!" But as they said that in my defense they were giggling and blushing at the same time. I rolled my eyes and pretended to look away.
"Are you called Trish here?" the man spoke and his dulcet voice sent my knees to butter. What was the matter with me? Is there something I should know about him that I didnt see before when all handsome came calling?
"No." I choked out. "It's Beatrice."
"Same thing." he mused and approached me slowly. The other man was soothing his bruised knee and cursed something about his powers not being able to strong enough in this world. I wondered at the strangeness of their appearance.
"No it's not the same thing. I've never been called Trish. And wouldnt that be more for Patricia?"
"Not necessarily."
If this so called modern modern carriage was Cinderella's coach, I wouldn't want these two men to be turned back into the mice and horse! There was movement behind of one of dark glassy windows and then it was all the way down to reveal a very pretty lady. The feminine occupant could easily have passed for Cinderella herself. And there was a violent reaction inside of me. A feeling I usually scoffed. Jealousy.
Her smart looks, coiffed blond hair cascaded onto a slender creamy neck which shone with jewels. Her blouse! The neckline was so low that it be better if she took off her blouse altogether.
"Your paramour?" I ventured. I didn't have time to stop myself from saying it out loud. But this violent emotion just took over me. The other man chuckled, and replied, "I see she's got a bit of a spunk even in this life."
Patsy and Pran chorused, "Are you two our daddies friends? Or business partners or something? We can go tell him you're here."
The man whom my eyes were glued to, made a dismissing hand movement towards them. "No need. We're going up to meet him soon. It concerns your sister here."
"Ohhhh you're in trouble, Beatrice!" they giggled, almost delightfully. I glared at them and they shutted up.
"Do you not recognize us, Beatrice?"
"No." I mouthed out. My eyes going back and forth from the beauty inside and the two gorgeous silver haired men.
The one in blue, piped up, "Hah! You should. You, my darling have spent an eternity with me."
"What?" Are these two mad?
"Take it easy, Virgil. She's so much into this life that she doesn't remember the one she had. Must be a psychological thing."
"Yes, dear," the lady inside replied, taking out her lipstick and applying it. She stared at herself in the small compact mirror and then looked back at me. Her teeth white with smears of the lipstick she just put on.
She continued, "These things will take awhile. In the meantime we intend to stay around here. To get you back your memory." Stepping out of the long lean white car, her high heels clicked on the gravel ground, "My name is Eva by the way." She extended her long lean arms and offered her gloved hand.