11 8| Clare

For the second time in as many hours, I woke up in a different place than I remembered falling asleep in. Unlike last time, though, I woke up to a God-awful pain in my skull that, as soon as my eyes opened, shot to the front of my skull with a vengeance.

I would've preferred waking up thinking about the nightmare.

With the pain came words and images, flashes of conversations with Luca I didn't remember having, seeing ….. horns?

I felt myself screaming rather than heard it over the fire in my head.

Someone had poured gas over my memories and set them on fire. The more images came to me, the worse it got. I could see Luca standing across from me in his club, everybody minding their business, as he told me, Don't remember, followed by me carrying like nothing had happened. Mother is, well, she's real, Clare, and she really wants you dead, he told me, taking a sip of his wine. He looked too nonchalant, too calm, but his eyes—if only I could focus on small details. Whatever I saw in them, I couldn't focus as the pain zipped along my head, causing me to fall to my knees in agony.

"Clare, drink," Luca commanded, but I refused whatever was in his cup. I trusted that, whatever was in there, helped me, but I was pissed. The more my memories returned, the more I remembered he had erased them.

And whatever this concoction was, I remembered drinking it—a tangy and sweet drink that burned my chest but also put out the fire in my skull. It controls your thoughts in a way I can't. The pain is from the onslaught of memories, he told me last time. Or maybe the time before that.

"No," I growled through clenched teeth. The floor sent slivers of coolness through me, offering small milliseconds of relief. My hands pulled at my hair against my will. I couldn't think, couldn't do anything but scream. I'd rip out every strand one-by-one if the pain became worse. I'd do whatever it took to make it stop.

"I'm sure 'whatever it takes' means drinking what's in the cup, Clare," Luca said, sounding frustrated.

Oh yeah, he could read minds as well as erase my fucking memories.

"I can. I also know you're in extreme amounts of pain, Clare." He placed a hand on my forehead. "Please, let me help. This could kill you."

Death. I didn't like the sound of that at all. From previous experiences, however, I knew I could wait at least another thirty seconds before succumbing to issues.

Luca betrayed me. I didn't care about him being a demon—well, I did, but that wasn't why i was angry with him. I understood keeping that a secret until he was sure I was the one. But he wiped my memories. He erased them and subsequently caused me pain when I remembered. He let me think I was going insane, and that Mother was a figment of my imagination. More than once. He goaded me into that talk about demons, knowing what it meant to him. And why? What was the purpose?

"Clare, you're being stubborn."

I was being dangerously stubborn, but I could only hold out another minute at best before survival instincts kicked in. Tears were wetting my face, and I knew if I opened my eyes, the world would be upside down and Luca would be staring down at me as if I was the most beautiful thing in the world.

"And you are, Clare," he pleaded. "Just drink."

The cool glass touched my lips. Don't fight it anymore, Clare, I told myself because nothing would change. In a few minutes, he'd wipe my memories again. I was so stupid. To think that someone like Luca would like me, would listen to me, would even trust me to know about his family, small glimpses into his life. Very small glimpses.

Releasing my hair, I opened my mouth and drank. I took a long sip, and it tasted like I remembered it to taste. Sweet like candy, but tangy like oranges or lemons. It also had a strong, burning taste like alcohol was in.

"Vodka. It numbs the—the rest of the ingredients," Luca explained, and it hit me���again—that he could read my mind, and that he was. "I try to not read minds as much as possible, it's just that I want to make sure you're okay right now."

Okay? The guy I liked was a demon and repeatedly erased my memories. Another demon, one even more powerful than him, haunted my dreams and wanted me dead. I was nowhere near okay.

"I'm fine." I coughed as the alcohol burned through my throat and to my chest. The last of the pain receded, and I opened my eyes to a still world and Luca squatting in front of me, concerned. I wanted to slap him, no matter how bad of an idea that would be.

The images no longer pelted me so much as they flickered through my head like a quickly-moving slideshow. Different places, different outfits, same sentence, I'm a demon, Clare, one of the most important. A sin personified. Luca recited this information in a disinterested voice, as if teaching a lesson he had been over hundreds of times.

"You know," Luca stated, pulling my attention to him, "this is the first time you've been anything other than scared of me." He stood, dusting his hands off and handing me his hand. "You're always afraid."

Well no shit, Sherlock, I thought.

"Maybe I'm afraid you'll erase all my memories and not just the ones of…. this," I snapped, waving my arms in the arm to encompass the "this." Hurt flickered in his eyes. Too bad. Luca could've killed me a long time ago. Besides being pissed, I was neither harmed nor hurt. Each returning memory showed him telling me in the most helpful way, answering my questions and making sure I understood.

Sitting down, I took a second to gather myself. My mind tried to process the information thrown at me, along with the memories.

Luca stood awkwardly behind the opposite chair as if awaiting my permission to sit. "What do you remember?" he asked.

I gave him a dirty look. "Everything."

The idea of him erasing my memories disgusted me. He had no right. He had no right to erase himself. Only I could choose if I still wanted to be around after receiving information like that. Except, he had told me everything except why he did it.

Luca had the decency to look guilty. "Do I start from the beginning?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You tell me every time. I have over twenty different memories of the 'beginning.'" I took a deep breath. "But whatever. From the beginning."

"I'll have to take it away from you. Again."

I lifted a shoulder. Oh well. "Let's keep the tradition alive then." I buried my face into my hands, wanting to hear from him, and not rely on my memories. I wanted to see him tell me—again—for whatever reason. Maybe to confirm he told me the truth. That these weren't dreams I had somehow collected and forgotten. Although, there was much more evidence than his words that pointed to all this being truth. Like the gut-wrenching feeling in my stomach that my worst nightmares were yet to come.

He sat down in front of me, looking defeated—tired. "Before Adam and Eve, there were angels, and none more popular than Lucifer, Son of Morning. Also known as Satan, the devil, etc. etc." Luca waved his hand in the air, as if dismissing his name. I felt something weird in the air, something that settled on my skin. Could Luca summon him as his son? Was he his son? How did this work?

"Well," Luca continued, giving me a pointed look, "if you would listen to the rest of the story, you would have the answers. Also, the devil won't come because I call. He has other things to worry about."

Oh. Good. I wasn't quite prepared to see the actual devil. If he appeared, no amount of erasure would take away that memory.

"Long story short, Satan had issues with bowing down to God, so he gathered together an army of angels and led a rebellion against God in Heaven. Obviously, God won because humans live somewhat peacefully without being tortured or forced to sin in disturbing manners. God cast Satan out of Heaven, along with his army, and they were deemed fallen angels."

I nodded. I knew this story. Everybody with access to the Christian (and some other religions) bible knew this story. Still, I never thought I'd see it used in, like, my life. I believed in God, of course, and Heaven and Hell, but to see it played out in my life like this… gave me chills, to say the least.

"When I was younger, we were forced to study religion and demonology, angelology, the like. While you were studying geography, we were learning about the location of Jesus' tomb, and where the Garden of Eden is located—unfortunately, global warming destroyed it." He sighed, taking a moment to reflect on the Garden of Eden.

I tilted my head to the side. "Have you ever been?"

"Once," he answered. "The forbidden fruit—which wasn't an apple but a passion fruit, believe it or not, which is insane because they're such ugly fruit, I don't understand why they were tempted to take a bite out of that twisted—"

"Luca," I snapped. "Focus."

Something was nagging at me to ask more questions, different questions. There was something I needed to know; I just wasn't quite sure what it was.

"Fine, I'll tell you all the details later," he grumbled, sounding disappointed I didn't care about his commentary on passion fruit. I couldn't lie, though, I was very excited to hear more about the Garden of Eden and everything else. "Anyway, we had to read all religious texts, even the nonaccurate, fiction ones, like Dante's Divine Comedy—which didn't so much as make me giggle."

He paused, waiting for me to laugh, but I didn't even smirk. I couldn't enjoy him or the story when I knew it would become lost in my mind as soon as it was over.

Luca's smile dropped. "One thing Dante had right was that the casting of Satan and his followers out of Heaven created this giant hole—hell. It took him and his followers some time to build hell; in the meantime, I assume he tortured his followers with gas-soaked butt plugs and poisonous spears through the chest. Or maybe he was loyal to his followers since he had no one else but the stupid few.

"God created Adam and Eve. Eve was taken from Adam's bone, and Satan tempts her with the disgustingly twisted, gnarly, but brightly colored passion fruit. Then we have Cain and Abel, and once Abel was killed, he went straight to hell, making him the first person to get there."

My jaw dropped. Abel? If I remembered the story correctly, which I did because my parents always quoted it when I and Chloe fought, then Abel was the innocent one. Cain was a farmer who became angry when God chose Abel, the shepherd's, offering over his. So Cain killed Abel. But why did Abel go to hell?

"Abel was a pretentious asshole," Luca explained. "I'll have to show you the journals one day that Cain kept."

I could've laughed. This was so surreal. He had inside information on Cain and Abel. This was life now. Utterly unbelievable and surreal. Plain old Clare, dating a demon, one who had a front-row seat to hell.

And, yet, I had heard this story before. I wondered how I reacted the other times.

Luca gave me an affectionate smile. "You find something different to question each time I tell it." He looked like he wanted to say more about me but instead continued with his story. "They found ways to torture poor Abel, then Cain. Having people to torture was a lot more fun than just wreaking havoc in their lives.

"As the world became more populated, Satan realized how tiring lording over hell and influencing humans to stray from the path of goodness. So he sent his followers to do it. His followers went into the world and started a party filled with drugs, alcohol, sex, and rock and roll." He took a long gulp from his bottle. "Which brings me to the Nephilim, which are the offspring of angels and humans.

"Nephilim are stronger, faster, and sometimes they have special abilities—seeing the future, being able to create things from thin air, stuff like that. They're not necessarily evil, though, even if one-half of their parents are. Like everything God designed, they have free will to be either-or."

Nephilim. I tried the word around in my head. Thought about it. Found I had questioned it further in three other memories. Yes, Luca knew one personally. She was a psychic, but he didn't know her name. How have you not learned her name? I had asked. Well, it's not really important, just the future. I thought he was self-centered then.

I also learned that the Nephilim were world-wide. They could reproduce with each other, but usually, they reproduced with other humans, which didn't dilute the angel blood.

They also had their own school. Once they turned eighteen, dormant powers began to show and they needed training. Apparently, they made great demon food.

Did Luca eat them? I had never asked that before.

His face screwed up. "I have never eaten a Nephilim or a human. Killed yes, but to drink their blood like a vampire or bite into them like some werewolf is low class." Before I could ask, he added, "Yes, vampires and werewolves exist, too."

I swallowed. Had I come across some? How close to danger was I in this world? I decided not to ask, though.

"The fallen angels didn't really care about the Nephilim, though, unless they could use them for their own bidding—which most of them couldn't," Luca continued. "That, and the vast majority of them go unknown. It's too many to keep control over. So then they created us. The Sins."

I tried to gauge his emotion, but he spoke matter-of-factly as if discussing someone or something else. "This brings me to the second thing Dante had right: the seven deadly sins. We were not created at the beginning of time, such as everything else. We came much later, after Dante. He decided which sins were the worst. Being a human, the fallen angels assumed he knew better than they did on what were the worst things to commit.

"The fallen angels, Satan, Nephilim, humans… they all worked together to bring us to life. Satan stole the idea from God to make us with mud. We were then infused with angel blood, and the blood of some of the worst humans to commit sins. When we were ready, the Nephilim carried us and birthed us."

I took my own deep breath, holding up a hand to stop him. I needed clarification. "So the devil is your daddy?" I asked

"In the way that God is yours, yes." Luca took a moment. "See, the story of our creation isn't detailed. Humans don't know us from regular demons—unfortunately, because we're way more powerful, a lot harder to kill—so no one has studied us yet. This also means that we don't know much about us except what I told you."

My eyebrows furrowed. "So you're over hundreds of years old?" The Divine Comedy was in the 14th century, and we were now in the 21st, which meant he would've been—

"The oldest of my siblings and I is Wrath—and she's one hundred twenty-three years old. Very young considering those who came before us lived to be in their six hundreds." He smiled merrily. "Technically we're immortal, but, we can be killed by demons as strong as us or stronger. Only Mother and Satan are stronger than us, and not many demons are as strong as us."

I paused, thought about it. "Which means you, well, the others I guess, killed each other?"

He nodded. "We annoy each other to no means, and sometimes we simply get enough." He shrugged, taking another sip. "Usually it's Wrath, no matter what gender it comes in. Each of us have journals that we write down things we learn in, inherited from our predecessors. It teaches us things we learn about ourselves, our powers, how to keep them in check. A guide to life as a personified sin."

No matter what gender it comes in. Had a female Lust existed?

"Yes, there was a female lust. We don't talk about her much. She got around." He winked. "Personally, I'm the best looking Lust there has been."

I ignored him.

"Now that, dear Clare, is the end all the information I know," he finished. "Everything else, I'm as in the dark as you were with your memories wiped."

I sat back in the chair and stared at him. It was good to learn—again—all this information. When I finally retrieved all my memories, I could probably help figure out this Mother thing. Plug in the information somewhere. "Will you ever give me my memories back permanently?" I asked, dreading the answer.

He nodded.

Thank God.

"You know, Clare, if anybody has a chance of figuring this out, it's you," he said quietly. His touch, warm and light, appeared on my hand, forcing me to acknowledge I wasn't really angry anymore, just hanging on to it. "You're smart. Intuitive. You believe you're crazy, but you know right from wrong. Real from fake. Demons from angels.��

<i> Did I?</i>

"Oh, you do," he continued. "My apologies for reading our mind the entire time. I've never erased memories so frequently. I've just been afraid that you'll actually go crazy. After I erase your memory, I'll stop unless I see you're in distress."

Oh, God. Had he been reading my mind before? I instantly started thinking about the little fantasies I had had around him—his hands wrapped around my waist, holding me tight as he kissed me. Fingers trailing down my back. His lips on my neck. My lips on his neck. How he would sound moaning my name underneath his breath. His hands lifting my shirt up.

Luca chuckled, standing. "No, I haven't read your mind before, especially not when you were thinking of that. Things between us would've turned out much….." He kneeled in front of me. "More…" He reached forward and grabbed my face between his hands, leaning closer. "Differently." He tilted his head forward, lips brushing against mine.

At first, nothing. Then a second later, pure electricity shot through my blood. The hairs on my arm stood straight up, and my skin burned like I stood too close to a fire. His lips, warm and soft, pulled me in and somehow pushed me out at the same damn time. <i>Clare, you're supposed to be angry,</i> I thought, but the electricity had swept the anger away.

"Don't be," Luca murmured against my lips, sliding a hand underneath my shirt. "I'm quite skilled in your little fantasies, but I'm so much better than that."

Better? I couldn't answer him back. I couldn't even form a coherent thought. Everything was slipping away, and not like he had decided to erase my memories again, but like I was being kissed by an extremely attractive, extremely sexually talented guy. I moved my hand down his chest. He was solid underneath my touch. If he kisses this well, you know what else he does well?

Luca chuckled, pulling away from me. He crouched inches away from my face. "You'll find out one day, Clare," he told me. "The thing is, you always find out, despite my best efforts. It's like the world conspires against me when it comes to you."

I believed him. I felt the world conspired against me and happiness sometimes. Sure, I was generally happy and life didn't suck, but as soon as I found something that seemed perfect, the world reminded me that it was too good to be true, and I found out that my crush was a mind-reading demon created to be personified sin of Lust. Or that some insane psycho demon named Mother was at my throat.

Not that those things happened often.

"So what's it like being Lust?" I asked, eying him. He was so handsome, so beautiful. A demon, I reflected, leaving the pity party I wouldn't remember in a few moments. That was why he had always seemed so otherworldly. He was. "And have you ever been to hell?"

His blue eyes clouded. "No, I've never been to hell. Hell is for Satan, and it's for people who die. I come from the Underworld, which is a place you can visit if you, for whatever reason, got really curious about demons and decided to go."

The Underworld? "Is that like purgatory?" I asked. All this information. Everything I believed in was real, but all the legends and folklore were real, too. Knowing something, having faith in something, and then having that confirmed while being alive was insane. <i>No</i>, something whispered, not insane. <i>Something you've always known.</i>

"Purgatory, if I am to remember correctly, is for souls who love God but also need some soul-cleansing, so no, it's not like that." He stood, stretching. "The Underworld is what it sounds like—no sun, just a blood-red moon that's always up. Bones and skulls, demons, but a black market. It's hell without the smell or torture. Sometimes a human soul will get enamored by a demon, or tricked to fall in love with one and wind up there for all eternity."

I bit down on my bottom lip, thinking. Well, that definitely didn't sound fun. I also really didn't like the idea of ending up in the Underworld, especially not for all eternity.

Luca waved off my mental concern. "I would never let that happen to you. I'm somewhat of a legend there. You don't have to worry about the Underworld at all." He grinned at me. "As far as being Lust, it's the only thing I know. What is it like being Clare Walker?"

I snorted. I was always in someone's shadow, never standing on my own. I lived a plain, boring life up until the past two weeks. "Well, I dunno, I'm just a regular human."

He was quiet, just eying me. "You know, Clare, I really don't think you're just a regular human."

I laughed at him.

"You know, a lot of people associate lust with sexual longings, but that's not all it is. Sometimes I have a lust for life. For food. For drinks," he explained. "Power. It's not always sex, but, usually, it is. I'm charming, sexy, everybody's physical dream guy. I get what I want and things come easy to me. That's what it's like. I'd say it's a pretty damn good life."

I wondered what that would be like for me. Sometimes I got extra fries from cute guys. Or they discounted my food. Most of the time it was just cat-calling and fun dates. "That's cool, I guess." I had more questions, but I felt that something had changed. Luca looked more agitated, and he was looking out of the window. "Is it about that time?"

He nodded. "Forget."