The Sibyl (18 page)

But I know. My demons attacked months ago.
They stole my life from me. My passion. They had fought along side
my enemy, so I learned real quick to rely on the one hero who had
been here all along. The one person I'd always been afraid to
believe in.

Myself.

I was going to create my own happily ever
after. Knights and demons be damned.

I lit the final candle before I stepped back
to inspect my deathbed. I had set everything up in the center of my
living room. Three red candles flickered on the headboard. Two
black ones gleamed at the foot. The sheets had been soaked with as
much kerosene as I could legally buy here in Los Angeles. Perhaps
it was the fumes affecting me. Or maybe the whispers about me had
been correct. Maybe I really had gone over the proverbial edge, but
I smiled.

Within the hour, all of my problems would
disappear. If my work here was successful, the one person
responsible for my life falling apart would be damned along with
me.

I wanted to die. I wasn’t afraid. I knew too
much about the afterlife to be afraid. When I was little, my momma
tried to replace my obsession with the grandeur of heaven. If only
I would give my soul to Jesus, then I would be alright. Instead, I
shunned her religion. I had spent my life trying to discover all I
could about what lay on the other side of the Veil. Death became my
business. Spirits were my passion. I’d been obsessed with the grave
for as long as I could remember.

Besides, Heaven wasn’t meant for the likes of
me. I was going to hell.

And I was going to make damn sure my enemy
joined me there.

No, I wasn’t alright. I never would be again.
My work - my very purpose here on Earth - had been stolen from me.
No longer would the world learn about the afterlife in a sensible
way. No longer would science and reason be used as a weapon against
our ignorance towards death. There was nothing else I could do. I
had fought to keep my work in the limelight. I begged for them not
to take my audience away from me. They said my time had run out. My
work had faltered. And the world I tried to teach had rejected
me.

Yes, tonight was my night. I had been
preparing for this moment since I had been fired three months
earlier. See, I had been one of the lucky ones. I was once a
presenter on the highest rated show on television. I traveled the
world, studying the paranormal with a passion unmatched by anyone
else. I had money. Fame. Fans.

Until the ratings started to fall. I glared
at the photographs scattered among past due notices and the
eviction letter received just this afternoon on the floor around my
bed. Once again, I muttered curses at the face staring back up at
me. I had been replaced by a stupid girl who claimed to have
abilities no one could actually possess. Eva McRayne's
Grave
Messages
hit the airwaves and shoved me out of the job which
had been my calling. Now my show was nothing more than a DVD box
set. All of my hard work forgotten thanks to a blonde idiot who
would prance around, call out to Apollo, and then pretend to pass
on the last words of the dead.

I hated her. I hated everything about
her.

It was true that
Grave Messages
hadn't
been her idea. In the interviews I had seen, she would laugh at the
idea of being on television. McRayne would give the credit to her
co-host, Elliot Lancaster, but he was nothing. He was
worthless.

Nothing more than a stand in. A male presence
to protect his girlfriend from the boogiemen they searched for.

I had studied the tabloids which carried the
pictures of them together. There were headlines boasting the two of
them were still in love despite breaking up within a month of
filming their show. It was unprofessional and sickening. The
knowledge I had gained from those articles amounted to nothing.
They were fluff pieces. Empty words meant to connect the common man
to the celebrities he adored.

Eva McRayne should never have been a star.
She should have stayed in Georgia where she belonged. Hidden away
in somebody's attic like the circus freak she was. Instead, she was
out in the limelight, dancing to appease her adoring public.

No, my adoring public. The one she stole from
me.

See, McRayne and Lancaster had met at the
University of Georgia some five years before. When Lancaster had
graduated, his daddy gave him a television show and of course, the
blonde tagged along after him. The facts got hazy from there.
McRayne's bio online said she had been forced into her role as the
Sibyl during a conference. It was a good story, but I had once been
a headliner for those events. Her lies didn't fool me.

No one in their right mind with any sort of
power would give it all up to a stranger. Not when there was money
to be made. Why give up your livelihood to a stranger who didn't
appreciate it? No, her story didn't make any sense.
She
was
the lie.
She
was the fraud.

But I wasn't. And I would make damned sure
she knew it.

I watched as the shadows cast across the
floor by the street lamps outside shift and knew it was time. I
suppose I should have been more sentimental. Someone with more
sense than me would have taken one last look at the world they were
leaving behind. I tried to think of my mother. I wanted to shed a
tear or two over what might have been if Eva McRayne had never
surfaced. It was far too late for such thoughts.

I was ready. More than ready. I picked up one
of the photographs and clutched it to my chest as I laid down.

The kerosene fumes were overwhelming. I
coughed, relishing in the lightheadedness I felt.

"Erinyes of old, Blessed Judges of Fate," I
called out to my empty apartment between gasps of breath. "Athena's
own mistresses of justice, come to me. Take my spirit as your own.
Take my soul as payment for the deed you will do for me."

I felt the air growing colder despite the
flames I had surrounded myself with. I wiped away the tears from my
eyes as I continued.

"I seek justice. I crave vengeance against
the one who stole my life away from me."

The flames above me flared. I wondered if I
would be able to finish the spell before I was consumed by the
fires I had set. So I closed my eyes to the fumes and focused on
the darkness in my heart. I held up the picture as I hurried to
continue.

"Eva McRayne, Sibyl to Apollo will fall. She,
and she alone, is responsible for stealing my audience. Before she
came along, I was cherished. Now, I am forgotten just as you have
been. Unknown to her and a world that craves knowledge of the
afterlife. No longer. After tonight, Eva McRayne will know who I
am. She will suffer for the crimes she committed against me. Great
Erinyes, aid me. Give me the vengeance I seek."

The bed began to shake as I touched a single
corner of the photograph to the tip of the candle flame. It ignited
with a flash. I screamed as the flames traveled downward to the
sheets I had prepared. I had only a moment left; a single breath to
curse the bitch who caused my downfall.

"Eva McRayne will suffer."

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Cynthia D. Witherspoon
is
an award winning writer of Southern Gothic, Paranormal Romance, and
Urban Fantasy. She currently resides in South Carolina, but spent
three years in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Always an avid reader, she
began writing short stories in college. She graduated with a
Bachelor's Degree in History from Converse College, and earned a
Masters in Forensic Science at Oklahoma State University Center for
Health Sciences.