MARK OF CAIN

The dark slayer will come soon for me, I know. I have no blood and I have no bones. My heart pumps only anxiety through my veins and fear gives shape to my shaking skin. I can only think of the book I hold in my arms. I've only this one thing to protect. If he finds this, he will understand the steps to raise the Temen-Ni-Gru. And that is only one step back towards the Netherworld for me. I can't allow that. Not after I've already escaped Mundus once. If I return, he will kill me slowly . . . painfully.

Oh, damn these trembling hands! The book falls to my lap and I stare down at the open page. I shudder, and realize that it references the foolish son of Adam. Cain, who had killed his brother, Abel, was sent to the mortal world as punishment. But he confessed his worry to God about being murdered himself, so God graced him with a mark on his flesh to prohibit others from killing him.

Only a devil would kill, isn't that right? I hear his footsteps outside the door now and I grow desperate, taking the letter opener beside the desk I hid beneath. I carve the same mark into both of my arms, blood sliding in grotesque streams down my pale arms. He won't dare . . . not with these symbols. He is still too young to reject this gesture, isn't he? Barely twenty years old, they had said.

I hear the door open now. His boots take slow steps into the collapsed library. Terror once again settles in my heart and leaks into my veins, numbing my bones whilst it burned my face and chilled my fingertips. Burn . . .

Burn . . .

I must burn the book. I must – that was what I was meant to do! This should not even exist in the human world! I wait for the footsteps to head in another direction before I break off two piece of rotten wood from the table I hid under. I rub the two pieces together furiously, scarring my fingers terribly. A spark isn't lighting . . . light . . . light, damn you!

"Wood that old won't incite a flame."

My breath has stopped in my throat and I find a release on my actions. I drop the wood and grip the book tightly in my arms, reddening the open pages. I stare at his dark boots and watch as he holds out his hand.

"I will need that book now."

I keep it away from him and squirm back against the back of the undercroft of the desk. I say nothing because I don't remember if I have a mouth to speak, nor a nose to breath, nor eyes to see, even though I am so capable. I feel warm tears hit the leathery flesh of my cheeks. I watch him still, and he crouches down to bar any chance of my exit. He is as handsome as his father before him, but the eyes I see are only identical to the hellish, compassionless devils I've already dealt with in the netherworld.

I still say nothing, and he exhales slowly through his nose. "Pity." He leans forward conspiratorially and sets a partially gloved hand atop the side of my neck. I cannot breathe. His skin is cold to my boiling flesh. I gasp and shy away. But he remarks while looking to the markings on my drained arms, "They would have helped you if you had given me what I needed immediately," before I felt the bones and muscle in my neck separate morbidly beneath his hand.

My head lulls to the side and I can no longer feel my own body. I watch him as I slump haphazardly against the wood. I see he takes the book and grasps my hand to smear off the blood I have stained upon it. He then drops my wrist and stands again.

Not another word sounds as I hear his boots leave the library and the door closes behind him. I cannot breathe. And after a moment, I felt so much better.

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