Bitter Sweet (34 page)

              “The sentiment of a coward,” said Aaliyah.

              “The cold words of a bitch,” Eden retorted, his broken and pained emotion covered in an icy coldness.

              “Sticks and stones, love. Well, I guess that was a long time ago, but some habits are hard to break, Eden.” Was there something that I was missing? Aaliyah smiled into Eden’s face and his stricken expression made his moment of cold vanish and it seemed like her words stabbed him. Lucifer watched Aaliyah and his face mirrored Eden’s. What had she done to them or they do to her to make her act this way? Aaliyah waved her hand and it was like hands grabbed us and we were pinned against a high wall. “You kept me waiting quite awhile.”

              Eden closed his eyes and we dropped; June caught me just before I hit the ground and Nela came over worried. “Stop with the games, Aaliyah.”

              “You mean life?”

              “Life isn’t a game,” I said.

              “Yes, it is. We are all dealt a hand, and depending on how you play it, you’re better or worse than the person across from you. Now, please sit down; we are waiting for one more, before we discuss the destruction of the planet,” she said, pointing to four chairs that sat across from her. One chair on her left sat empty. Lucifer and Eden both took seats and June and I followed. Nela sat on the ground next to me, her head in my lap. “This is pleasant, isn’t it?”

Vanessa Stanton

Chapter 46.0

              Aaliyah just smiled, her eyes moving across all of our faces slowly. She then leaned back in her chair and looked up. I followed her gaze; the only light in the room was coming from a few thousand tiny lights of various sizes slowly drifting in a clockwise circle. The table we sat at was rectangular and had a chart inlaid on it; I guessed it was a cipher for the star thing above us. Then I looked back at Aaliyah, who was now humming to herself, and I wondered why none of them took this time to attack her. Lucifer was sitting there trying to seem relaxed with his eyes focused on Aaliyah while Eden seemed tenser, as if he was ready to strike. She was alone and judging from their last battle, it looked like they could have easily taken her if Alik had not shown up. Something had to be going on that I coiuldn’t see.

              “Aaliyah,” came Alik’s voice.

             
"Alik, love, you’re back,"  Aaliyah said as she smiled.

              "Sorry I kept you waiting so long; how is everything here?"

              "Just that awkward silence you get at the best of dinner parties I hear. Maybe we should have fed on Vanessa," she suggested. I didn

t know if she was watching me as I was focused only on Alik.

              I stared, unable to speak again; Alik would not look at me as he sat down next to her. Behind him was a young girl I had never seen before. her eyes were blue but they glowed like Aaliyah’s, as well as her skin was the same beautiful golden brown. She caught my eyes for a moment and a smile flickered and died on her face as she quickly looked away. Alik’s eyes were trained on Eden and Lucifer, more focused than i had ever seen him. It started to hurt to look at him, so I watched the young girl who was carrying a sword almost her height. Nela nudged me as she purred and I scratched her ears for something to do. Why wouldn’t Alik look at me? Was he scared to see some pain in my eyes that he may have caused? No, now that he had Aaliyah, it couldn’t have been that. She was beautiful for a vampire; she was more powerful than any vampire, and she wanted him so completely. What more could he ask for? These were things that I could never give him. I was lucky to have him for the brief time that I did, and I was stupid for keeping him away for so long. So much time wasted that I could never get back…

              "June," Alik’s voice interrupted my thoughts..

              "Yes," she replied, looking at Alik.

              "Thank you for this," he said, holding up the sword. "It’s beautiful."

              "Lilith always had great taste."

              "Yes, she did." When he said that, I caught the use of past tense.

              "You know," I couldn’t help myself from saying.

              "Do I know what?" he asked, still not looking at me, he had removed the sword from its sheath to examine the blade instead.

              "That Lilith is gone!" I finished even louder.

              "Yes, of course he knows. Did you think I would keep that hidden from him, little girl?" Aaliyah questioned, tauntingly.

              "Shut up; I wasn’t talking to you, was I?" I yelled, flashing an

angry look in her direction. "Alik, please tell me you had nothing to do with your mother’s death."

              "Vampire do not have mothers; she was no more than a stepping stone into a life he was

made for," Aaliyah stated.

             
"Why do you continue to talk when no one is speaking to you?" The anger grew in my voice to new levels. "Alik, answer me!"

              "Yes, I did know." He was hiding the sadness in his tone, but it was clear to me. I was to angry to care what that meant.

              "And you let that," I pointed at Aaliyah, “live afterwards?” I finished.

              "Yes I did." He finally looked me in the eye, he was telling the truth and that pissed me off more.

              "How could you?" I screamed, getting up and walking around to him, forcing him to look into my eyes again. "Tell me you didn’t agree to let Aaliyah kill your mother."

              "I killed Lilith because she betrayed me by forgetting her place, she instead sided with them.” She pointed to Lucifer and Eden. “Once Alik knew, he agreed it was a necessary step."

              I reached down and pulled Alik’s sword out of its sheath. I swung at Aaliyah who grabbed my wrist, stopping me. She then flung me across the room like a toy she got fed up with; Nela just managed to help break my fall. "Maybe I should have killed you instead, girl." She moved to attack me and a lot happened at once. Eden and Lucifer saw it as a chance to attack Aaliyah; Ceil and Alik stopped that both with blades at Eden and Lucifer’s necks. Aaliyah

held June’s sword between her fingertips, i hadn;t even noticed Ceil enter the room.

             
Aaliyah laughed. “Can you feel the tension in the air? You could cut it with a knife.”

              “Yes, you could,” Alik agreed.

              Alik then took his sword from Lucifer’s neck and with a twist of his wrist, plunged it into where Aaliyah’s heart would have been. She released June’s sword and Lucifer twitched toward Alik. The young girl caught him off guard splitting the hand he twitched down the middle, Lucifer screamed. June twisted her sword around and plunged her blade into Lucifer’s back and he fell to his knees clutching his hand.

              “What is this, Alik love?” coughed Aaliyah in a nervous and shaky voice..

              “Enough time has passed; all three of you have played this little game long enough,” Alik replied.

              “I loved you,”she sobbed.

              “Did you love me, or my power? In this life I doubt you ever knew what that word even meant. You say you loved Lucifer once Eden had casted you out, but you betrayed him. As Eve, you claimed to have loved Eden. However, for your own ends, you betrayed him for Lucifer. You have no more than a taste for power, something you infected the rest of the vampire with. It was only a matter of time before you would try to betray me.” Alik looked at Eden, whose face was torn with pain. “Your Eve died a long time ago, whatever you wish you brought back, she is not it.”

              “How do you know that?” whispered Eden.

              “People are not pawns for you to play with. This is for my mother,” said Alik, twisting the sword in Aaliyah’s chest and she fell to her knees screaming.

              Lucifer tried to move again, his eyes blazed with hate for Alik. June then took that opening to take off his head. Ceil’s blade was already at Eden’s neck; Eden didn’t care though, his pain was replaced with anger. He also twitched toward Alik, and Ceil twisted around at the same time as June and lopped off Eden’s head as well. Aaliyah screamed as Lucifer and Eden’s bodies dropped to the ground and lay motionless, .             

             
“Even you lost yourself in the start of all this,” Alik said to Aaliyah. “You no longer know where the lies end and the truth begins.”

              “I know the truth!” she yelled.

              “You only know the lies. Lies that were repeated until you told yourself that they were true to keep that smile on your face and the guilt at bay for what you did.”

              Alik pulled the blade out of Aaliyah and she tried to use that as an opening. She failed in her attempt and Alik dodged her grab and got around behind her to place a hand around her throat with his free hand. She tried to break his grip, but he matched her movements. It was the first time I had ever seen any fear in her eyes as she coughed up more blood and fell to her knees. Slowly, a black smoke rose from her eyes and mouth and formed the same ball I had seen three times in my life already; her soul was leaving her body. Alik released her and her body fell limp to the stone ground. He then closed his fist around the dim sphere that was her soul and the sound of the crack bounced around the room. Aaliyah was more than dead now.

              Alik then ran to where I sat shielded by Nela and she let me up at his touch. He held out a hand and he got me to my feet. His touch was something I missed more than I had realized and it was far better than I remembered. My eyes filled with tears as I hugged him and he placed his arms around me. Then, I remembered what he had done to me and my anger boiled, getting the better of me, and I pushed away from him.

              “What’s wrong?” he asked with concern in his voice.

              “Nothing,” I said, walking away from him.

“Vanessa, you’re a horrible liar,” he said, looking into my eyes. I turned for the entrance to the room and he followed me out. He kept back, letting me cool for a moment until we reached the light of the steps outer steps.

“I’m sorry, Vanessa. Really, I am.

             
“You think sorry will make me forgive you for what I have been put through in the last week?”

             
“Of course not. I wish I would have been able to keep you from seeing any of that, but I couldn’t.”

              “And Lilith?”

              “I swear to you that I did not know anything about it until Aaliyah told me the moment she got back,” he sighed and placed his arms around me again.

              “Why did you leave us? Why did you leave me?!” I yelled, crying in anger.

             
“It was the only way to keep you alive; if I had fought Aaliyah, she would have killed you seeing how your life was the reason that was keeping me from her. You see how she was; it’s all I could do. I didn’t expect her to find us that night.”

              “What do you mean?”

              “Lilith knew Aaliyah had been in New York for awhile and was a

voiding us. She was looking for something; well, looking for you. She couldn’t find you until she gave up and went to Lilith herself to ask; that’s why I got you and Sam away from your house.”

             
“Why didn’t you tell me?”

              “I didn’t want to frighten you. I hoped that if she saw us together, she would make it one of her playful visits and leave. But she didn’t; she sent Ceil ahead and got us apart and I saw that leaving with her was the only way to keep you alive. Ceil wouldn’t hurt you as she was really just there to fight me.”

“Go on...

“You have no idea how hard it was to leave you there hurt. I was hoping to get a message to Lilith and have her pick you up, but Lucifer turning up complicated things.”

              “Why did you kill him and Eden?”

              “Actually, I killed Eden,” Ceil corrected.

              “And I killed Lucifer,” June chimed in. “We had to; they were going to kill Alik.”

              “What?!”

              “Vanessa, Eden and Lucifer both loved Aaliyah and in Aaliyah’s mind, she loved both of them back. Both found her in her time of need and both saved her; how could she not fall in love with them?”

Alyon Alik

Chapter 47.0

              I was just glad Vanessa had stopped yelling, i could see she was angry at me still. I couldn’t blame her for that I would be angry at me too. I hoped that the reasons behind all of this would at least let her start to forgive me.

              “How do you know that?” I Vanessa asked, looking into my eyes.

              “Eden and Lucifer both kept journals that were lost long ago, but recorded in the archive; that model of the galaxy in the room we just left  keeps track of everything that happens within Heaven, Hell and Earth and records it with in the garden.”