The Mephisto Mark: The Redemption of Phoenix (5 page)

“Why are you here? What happened to make you mad at God?”

Moving to the chair by the fire, she sat and arranged her skirts before she said quietly, “In eighteen-fifty-two, I was housekeeper to an aristocrat at a manor house in Surrey. I had a daughter, a bright, happy girl I named Prudence – Pru for short – and she lived with my sister, but I always brought her to be with me for the week of Christmas. When Pru was twelve, she came to visit and all was fine and good, except she’d learned to read and I couldn’t keep her out of his lordship’s library. One night, I woke up and she wasn’t in bed with me, so I went to find her.”

Mathilda paused
, and I stiffened. I knew what was coming. I wanted to stop her, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’d asked, and if she was brave enough to tell me, I had to be brave enough to listen. I hadn’t seen it going this way, but I was in it now.

“I found her in the library
with his lordship. She were on the floor and he . . . even after more than a century, I remember just the way she sounded, breathless and scared. She kept whispering, ‘Mum,’ and he said if she screamed, he’d sack me and I’d never work again. He never knew I was there, he was so busy violating my girl. I grabbed the fireplace poker and whacked him on the head. Killed him. Pru didn’t last the night before she passed on. She bled and didn’t stop. The constable came and I was arrested. They said at the trial that I hit him fourteen times. I don’t reckon I remember, but I suppose they were right, and the day after they found me guilty, I was executed for killing a titled gentleman, but he weren’t no gentleman, Miss Mariah. He was an animal and if I had it to do over, I’d kill him just the same.”

I swallowed again and again and barely managed to
whisper, “Why do you blame God? You should be angry at the devil.”

“For taking my
baby. He could have let her live. She would have healed.”

I stared up at the ceiling and mentally stood on
that
box. I would
not
let the lid come off. “Her body would have healed, but not her mind. I think God was merciful, taking her to Heaven so she didn’t have to finish growing up with . . .”

Mathilda came to the side of the bed, bent and smoothed the hair from my brow. “Ye’
re a gentle soul and my heart hurts for you, same as it did for my sweet Pru.”

“You don’t think I mean—”

“Shhh, I know, love. I know. Close yer eyes now and sleep and I’ll be right here when you wake up. Nobody will pester ye.”

For the first time since I’d rescued her from the street when I was thirteen, I fell asleep without Olga.

~~ Phoenix ~~

I knew Jax would call a war room meeting. I considered leaving before he did, so I’d have an excuse for not attending, but I was never one to hide from my screw-ups. In my bathroom, changing out of bloody clothes, I heard Jax’s voice on the intercom and faced what was sure to happen. He would call a council. We’d convene on Kyanos; my brothers and Sasha would debate whether I was deserving of punishment – and there was no doubt I deserved it – then mete it out. I’d probably pull a month of solitary on Kyanos. Maybe that’d be for the best. By the time I returned to Colorado, Mariah would be gone.

I didn’t think it was possible to loathe myself more than I had when Mariah
first appeared, but not so. I’d lost my grip and the darkest side of me took over. I thought that battle won years ago, thought I had perfect control over the Mephisto in me. Far from having won, I was worse than before Jane. I imagined Mariah lying naked with another guy, and over one hundred years of hard won self-control flew right out the window. I became a caricature of myself; a ravening beast. I shouted at her and called her a whore.

Nothing had ever made me more glad than when Zee knocked me down and made me stop.
Since Jane, I’d tried to be more of what she wanted me to be – a gentleman. I tried to be considerate of women. It was part of the reason I never accompanied my brothers when they went looking for sex. Jane had shown me what lies within a woman’s soul and no matter how much I craved the feel of a woman’s body, I could never step over that line again. Not when I knew it was nothing but sex. And it could only ever be about sex. Because of their fear, no human woman could stay with one of us. Only an Anabo. I had self-righteous disdain for my brothers’ never-ending hunt for meaningless one-night stands, but I was infinitely worse. I’d verbally attacked an Anabo.

I’d be lucky if I pulled less than six months on Kyanos.

Taking a deep breath, I popped down to the basement, to the war room in the center of a maze of offices and computer banks where the Luminas worked, ready to face the music. Everyone but Key was there, Jax standing next to Sasha at one end of the large oval table that dominated the flagstone floor, Ty in his chair with the thirty-third version of Gretchen, his favorite mastiff, right beside him, Zee leaning against the wall with the world map and white board, and Denys in front of the huge flat screen on the opposite wall.

“Where is Kyros?” I asked. It was highly unusual to have a war room meeting without our leader. I hated his guts at the moment, but that was beside the point.

They all looked solemnly at me while Jax said, “He’s in Bucharest, doing some investigative work to learn more about Mariah. Later, he’s going to Washington to tell Jordan she has a sister.” He looked conflicted. “She’ll be in the gym at ten for a training session. I don’t like knowing this when she doesn’t, but Key said to go along, business as usual and let him tell her. There’s something . . .” Jax stopped and sighed. “He looked like he might cry. Whatever he already learned about Mariah, it’s bad.”

I hadn’t imagined that Key was close to tears.
Jesus.
What was so bad that it would make Kyros cry? Maybe Mariah
did
take guys home with her. For money. Was she so destitute, she’d turned to whoring herself?

That overwhelming feeling of helpless rage
washed over me and I focused on the world map hoping to make it subside. My eyes were drawn to Romania. Where Mariah was from; where Eryx lived. It was a strange coincidence, and not a happy one.

He was extremely active at the moment. He’d convinced a lot of big dogs in Washington to trade their souls to him, and
unless my takedown plan was a success, control of the United States was within his reach. Except he was tripping himself up like he always did, a victim of his own dark soul. He still had some human tendencies, just as we did, but he was missing a key ingredient all humanity needed to achieve success in anything – hope. What made people, including us, keep going, even in the face of defeat, was a deep-seated need to maintain self-respect. We were all sons of Hell, but all of us except Eryx kept the part of our mother that was hope and dignity.

Eryx lost that when he died and crossed into immortality
, extinguishing all light in his soul. It was why I didn’t believe he would ever succeed in his grand plan to take out Lucifer and rule Hell.

It was why, after h
is scheme to convert the president through coercion by kidnapping Jordan backfired on him, he hadn’t stayed the course and gone after other powerful people in Washington. Instead, once he realized she was Anabo and had become immortal, he became less interested in controlling the U.S. and more obsessed with Jordan. Unlike Jane, who he’d murdered so she could never become immortal or Mephisto, who he’d never once considered keeping, he wanted Jordan to live with him, do what he did, and bear his sons.

But, then, Jordan was
the complete opposite of Jane. Self-assured, assertive, and outspoken, she was the product of her background. Growing up as the only child of the man who became president of the U.S. gave her an edge on leadership abilities. And the wherewithal to stand up to Kyros.

Jane had grown up
extremely sheltered, in a different era, where women were much less forthright. But all that aside, if they switched places, Jane would always be quiet and reserved and Jordan couldn’t not be a natural leader. It was the strength in her that attracted Eryx. He knew she was now immortal and becoming Mephisto, but he was fanatical and wouldn’t give up trying to figure out a way to get her away from Kyros.

He wouldn’t want Mariah to stay with him. She wasn’t like Jordan. She wasn’t like Jane, either, but she wouldn’t appeal to him as Jordan did. He would see her as leverage to get at Jordan, then
. . .

My mind went straight down the rabbit hole, despite all my attempts to stop it. Thoughts of Eryx and Jane and Jordan and Mariah led to
one final, horrible conclusion: he’d kill her. He’d wait until I arrived to rescue her, then slit her throat. It would be exactly as it had been with Jane.

Mariah’s only hope was if I stayed away from her.
If she wasn’t marked, Eryx couldn’t sense her existence, couldn’t find her, would never know she was Anabo. She’d live the rest of her life until she was very old and die like all humans and go to Heaven because she was Anabo. And I’d lose all hope of ever waking up with someone beside me in my bed, of having someone to talk to, a woman whose body and soul could bring me any measure of peace, because this was the way it had to be. This was what I deserved. This was my penance for Jane.

Sweet, gentle Jane
. Her death was a vulgar horror. And it was my fault. Like a movie on repeat, I relived her death in my head yet again, remembered the look of desperation in her perfect blue eyes as she begged me to bring her back – and her heartbreak when she understood I couldn’t.

E
ryx had laughed.

He watched me try, watched Jane bleed out in my arms while I forced every ounce of energy in my body into hers, and when it was clear she was gone forever, he laughed.

Sometimes I woke to the sound of his laughter, ringing through the years.

I hated
him with every immortal cell in my body.

I kept my eyes on Romania and barely hea
rd Jax when he said, “Key will tell us more as soon as he can. I called this meeting in the meantime because we need to all be on the same page about Mariah.” From my peripheral vision, I saw him sweep his gaze around the room. “You all got that she’s Anabo, right?”

Everyone nodd
ed. Zee said, “She has no glow.”

“Yes, she does,” Sasha said
. “It’s just very dim.”

“
What’s wrong with her?” Ty asked.

“I don’t know,” Jax said
, “but she’s definitely Anabo, and Jordan’s sister. We owe her every courtesy and all due respect.” He looked at me then. “Phoenix, we get it, but we can’t stand aside and allow you to abuse her. For one thing, it’s cruel, but there’s also the future to consider. If she’s miserable, there’s no way she’ll ever agree to stay, as a Lumina or as Mephisto. She’ll leave because of your behavior, and that’s not fair to her, or to us. If you can’t control yourself around her, I think it’s best if you leave and stay away until she’s had time to learn and understand who we are and what we do, and decide, on its own merit, if she wants to join us.”

I looked away from Romania
and met the gaze of my closest brother. Jax and I had always understood one another, so I was well aware of the subtext in his speech:
Get the fuck over it.
Whatever understanding he’d had of how it was for me had dissolved the instant he met Mariah and knew she was Anabo. I wanted to leap across the distance between us and pound him until he begged for mercy. “Is this a rhetorical question, brother?”

Ajax drew himself up. “I’m dead-ass serious. You went off the rails tonight. Either you’ve got the ability to not do that again, or you don’t. Decide. Now.”

I took a quick assessment of their expectant faces before I refocused on Jax. “Fuck you.”

“Not rising
to the bait. Answer the goddamn question.”

I looked at Zee, who shook his head. “Already beat the shit out of you. Not gonna happen again.”

Ty shrugged. “I’d enjoy getting into it with you, Phoenix, but it won’t help. You need to figure out how to deal, or leave.”

Sasha simply cocked one delicate brow.

Denys glared at me and said in a low voice, “It’s not fair, and I’m man enough to say what everyone’s thinking. Because you’re all fucked up, you think you don’t deserve her, but at the same time, because she’s not pure and perfect like Jane, you’d rather throw her away like yesterday’s leftovers than even
try
. I’d take her in a heartbeat if I could. I wouldn’t give a damn if she had sex for money, or if she’d fucked every guy in Romania for free. She’d be
mine
. What, you think you’re some kind of special case because of Jane? No, Phoenix, all you are is a sanctimonious, self-righteous asswipe on a perpetual guilt trip. Fuck
you
.”

Never in
our lives had I heard Denys say something like that. I was so stunned, I had no reply.

I was still taking it in when he added, “
Next time . . . there’d better not be a next time. We’ll send your ass to Kyanos for the next century. We spent the last century tiptoeing around any mention of Jane, always trying to protect you. I’ll be damned if we’ll spend the rest of eternity handling you with kid gloves because you can’t handle that you
have another Anabo!
” He slammed his fist on the table and it cracked, right down the middle. A thousand years old, made from a Kyanos hickory, and my baby brother, the joker, the perennial party guy, the one who was rarely serious about anything at all, broke it in a passionate rage.