Chapter 10: Mark of the Beast

I listened to rain fall out the window, tossing and turning as Samael snored. It was a soft slumber he had, his chest rising and falling in his human form. He would shudder at times, his fingers flexing as if encapsulating a plucked rose, and half his face would turn bone.

"Come home, little soul," he would sometimes murmur kindly, as if gathering a bouquet of the deceased to carry them on to Heaven – or, in his case, Gan Eden. I did not know where dhamphirs went after death. Were we destined for Lucifer's Hell? Was there any way into Heaven for one half-vampire? It was said we had no souls, after all. Just crumbling to dust, I supposed.

There was a girl at the window. I startled, recognizing the pitch-black eyes and lank white hair as my doppelganger. She was finely dressed, made of mist, and smiled mischievously, full of innocence, as if she had never known pain.

I donned my slippers and gently lifted my nightshift out of the lovely blue comforter Samael had quilted, and I hastened to the window. She looked back at me, expectant, like I used to gaze at the sill of the pence candy shop papa had always taken me to on Sunday after church. Old Man Withers would give me a lolly and some chocolate, saying I needed to put some weight on my bones. Sure enough, the phantasm of my soul had a lollipop pulled from her pocket.

"I've been waiting for you, my body," she said, her voice ethereal and happy, as I opened the window.

I stared at her in bemusement. "Last time we parted ways, dearest soul, you promised to be good."

"Samael has spoiled me. He lets me roam Sheol and Gehenna, Gan Eden and Briah. I am treated like a princess in the afterlife, in return for reaping souls." She twirled some white hair around her gaunt fingers.

"So, you walk the ley lines?" I asked gently. "Does it not scare you? What does one eat when they are a soul?"

She smiled. "Manna. It tastes like the lion's mane mushrooms mama used to take us hunting for, but as sweet as spun sugar candy. 'Tis difficult to describe. Tell me, my body, is Invermoore Manor and the Sedgewood doing well? Samael tells me you have defeated our wicked family and now reign as Lady Invermoore."

"Yes, all is well." I took her hand, but it glistened like mist as it touched me, then dissipated in a sprout of fresh rain on my flesh, only to disappear and reform once leaving my outstretched, pale hand. "Tell me, are you making yourself of good use to the one who saved our life on the sacrificial bier long ago?"

She winked. "Samael is a kind master, though whenever I have tried to hug him, I cannot touch him. It is quite lonely, being a soul, you know."

"I suppose you may follow him places I cannot go, though," I admitted, a tad bit jealous. "In fact, I wonder what he is doing now."

"I can take you there." My soul suddenly summoned a shepherd's crook carved of birch, with a bright silver bell wrapped in a pink chiffon ribbon and lacings of Proto-Hebrew sigils on the bark.

"You – you think that this is okay?" I blushed.

My soul twirled, her pink dress belling out. "If I may go, one thinks thou mayst too. All one must do is step out the door. Come, fair body. You have not aged a day since seventeen."

I did, making my way on rabbit toes out the window – dhampirs were given to creeping – and entered my soul's summoning circle. It sounded like a mixture of Aramaic and Enochian, this angelic language Samael had taught her.

Suddenly, a great wind puffed my nightshift up, and I gathered the chill skirts around my waist to cover my modesty. My long white hair, waterfalling down my back, spun like a spindrift of arboreal snow.

We came to a fair, gay manor in a dark city. Elegant gardens 'neath a blood wine sky, with volcanic soil, stretched out as beautiful, intricate carvings dotted the topiary – nymphs, dakinis, nagas. I followed my flickering, laughing shepherdess of a soul down the main pathway. Only birds flew past, and the streets beyond the manor were shadowed in tall, silent buildings. Gray figures shuffled past, all indiscriminate, as if drudging on their way to work.

My soul opened the great mahogany doors with a lion knocker. I hesitated.

"You are sure it is alright to go in?" I asked her.

She giggled. "Of course, this is my home."

I followed. Palatial suites were arranged in old English sensibilities – wingback leather chairs, great tomes and globes, an astrolabe, science labs, a pool room. All black, mahogany, and dark red velvet or teakwood. I heard the strain of a violin and followed it as my soul lazed on a couch by the entrance. The invisible servants that occupied Wolf's Glen Manor swept and carried food to shadowy guests, moving like the dead for forgotten alms.

"How strange and fantastic," I murmured.

There was a great foyer, leading into a spacious main hall. I saw treasures spanning Egypt to Mesopotamia to the Aztecs, reliquaries and impossible artworks by long dead masters. Orpheus carved out of adamant by Michelangelo in particular drew me – the mason's identity was undeniable. Many of it reminded me of the Freemason Temples father had belonged to, some of the old illustrations of caliph palaces, others bits and bobs of Solomon's temple, as if Samael had gathered them as spoils of war.

I came to a courtyard that was laced with roses. Inside were heated voices – Samael's bass and a baritone that sounded like honey.

"I cannot believe you have taken a bride, brother! What tomfoolery. You know your seed would spell doom for us all," came the baritone.

I blushed, realizing I was witness to a private conversation. Still, it concerned me – so I hid behind a magnolia tree in full blush of bloom.

"You know those are Protestant rumors people thousands of years later have created, dear Michael," Samael sighed. They were pressing flower oil. So, this was the prayer garden he had told me about. I must be in Briah. Roses bloomed like hearts, and they washed and massaged and squeezed the petals. It reminded me of Mary Magdalene anointing Yeshua's feet with spikenard and myrrh.

"Still, rumors create belief, and you remember what monstrous creations our brothers Semyaza and Azazel and their brethren created before the Flood. Nephilim must never walk the Earth again. Though Father is long gone, one wonders if he would come back just to smite this particular vain folly of yours, because you have let the yetzer ha ra that corrupts the poison of Da'ath in your veins let you fall for a half-human girl."

"And half vampire. She is of the line of Cain."

Michael dropped his bucket and gasped, his white wings outspread. He had cinnamon red hair, tan skin, and emerald eyes, looking to all the world like the picture of Da Vinci's masterworks. "The Line of Cain? But Samael, that is impossible. Cain's scions were wiped out in Nod."

"It seems her mother was the last descendant, cloaked by the protection of the Threefold Curse," Samael admitted. "I'll say, curiousity at first made me spare her, but there were always strange things around the Sedgewood. The Crom Cruach, or what we know as Leviathan, to whom the Tuatha pay a tithe to Hell every seven years, and the potent darkness the Line of Cain brings. It is no wonder my dear Abigail Virginia MacKay is cursed. I tried my best to protect her for seventeen years from the shadows, but the darkness grew too much. For the past 300 years, I have been the guardian of Sedgewood, catching what beasts that arise from the Leviathan that I may, trying to find his Ayin – the Crown Jewel of his dragonic skull that our brother Lucifer forged into the Lapis Exilis, that the Hellfire Club is now after, and went missing centuries ago with the Cathars. You know the prophecy Raziel gave before Father left – whosoever protects the Line of Cain shall be rewarded with the All-Seeing Eye. That is why I must protect the MacKays, and the Sedgewood, at all cost... no matter that I have fallen in love not only with her body, but her soul, over these past twelve years."

I vomited. The sound and smell were too much. I gasped. "Oh, oh no!" Up went the duck confit.

It was Samael's turn to drop the evening's pressings of holy flower power. "Someone is there, Michael."

He drew his scythe, and Michael drew a flaming sword.

"It is only me!" I said, in deep shit. "I – I am sorry for listening, my betrothed! A pesky soul of mine led me here."

Samael looked relieved. Handsome Michael looked curious.

"You are right, she is beautiful. Well worth a Nephil brat indeed," Michael laughed. "Whatsoever, elder brother, will you do with this firecracker of a dhamphir? You know how it went when I tried to make dear Joan my bride. Ended in flames."

Samael lifted me up and hugged me hard, using a handkerchief I had embroidered for him with a stag beetle like he had placed fighting bets on in the Edo period, and wiped my mouth. "My sweet, there are some conversations that are private. But yes, you are the Line of Cain. It is why I took such a special interest in you."

I polished myself up, biting my lip. "Is that the only reason you like me?"

"I love you for your fiery spirit, Abby, and the lonely road I walk on being so much like your own. But like you, I have those that help me – Michael and Dumah, Annis and Peter. We are very similar."

Michael laughed. "I assigned Samael as your guardian angel, my dear. It is not his fault. I always sensed he had an attachment to the Sedgewood, it only made sense – though this Line of Cain that should have been wiped out is news to me."

I blushed to high hell. "I did not know guardian angels were real. And such a sinful forefather."

"Could be worse. Could be Napoleon," Samael teased.

"Blasted French!" I spat.

Samael and Michael shared a fond look.

"I'll finish up the anointing for tonight, dear brother," Michael said. "Abigail Virginia MacKay, it was a pleasure to meet you. You must have had quite the fright, and much to process."

"Yes, indeed," I admitted, leaning on Samael, who was in his bony Reaper form. It soothed me, the dark, peaceful aura that radiated from him.

"Let me take you to the kitchen and fix you a midnight snack. Tis exactly midnight, after all," Samael said kindly, guiding me away. I waved at Michael.

"You did not need to keep it a secret from me."

"I did not know you were the Line of Cain until I saw how Long Lankin was drawn to you. Tis the Threefold Curse indeed. Lankin wouldn't harm a fly unless drunk, and even then, never be fatal, ballads aside. There is a darkness after you, Abigail. Thank Father we are to wed."

I swallowed a peach pit in my throat, but twas stuck.

Cursed, indeed.