The Lariat (Finding Justus Series) (19 page)

26

“He can come to you. I am not about to let you traipse though Hell.”

“You can come with me.” I tried to reason with Cyrus, “You could both come and protect me.”

“You already said yourself, it has to be you who does the protecting. So let me say this- You are not going to Hell with or without me.”

“I agree,” My father interjected. “And I’m sorry Kevin, but you know as a father, if I had known of the plan to save Daisy years ago, I would have said the same thing. Neither of us want out daughter in harm’s way.”

“No, I understand.” He told his old friend. “But I will always be thankful she did bring her back. Her soul is safe because of it.”

“What if Orias was to come here?”

“You think a Vile would answer the summons of a Vulgar?” My mother asked.

“Mom, don’t be such a snob. I’m the Vulgar that you helped create. And Orias has helped me a few times before this. I’m not stupid enough to think he doesn’t have a hidden agenda, but I don’t think he wants to harm me. He’ll talk to me. I’m sure of it.”

“It’s just not something daemons normally do, Layla.” Her lack of humanity made her seem almost cold-hearted.

“Oh, I think he’d come if I called. I have something he wants.”

“What?” Ava asked.

“His son.” I smiled deviously. “Don’t worry. I won’t leave the church. I’ll be safe as long as I’m sleeping…”

“You mean
gleaning
? You plan on dream walking again?” That face. My father looked like he wanted to ground me for the first time ever.

“Well, yeah.”

“
No!”
All six of them yelled in a scary unison.

“Layla, the last time you tried that you set our apartment, yourself, and half the town on fire.” Ben explained.

“It wasn’t that bad, was it?” I wasn’t sure.

“Yes, it was.” Cyrus continued, “Your daemon woke while you were still gleaning. Orias pulled you in and kept you focused on him and not returning to your body. That left your daemon completely free to burn everything to the ground. I had to knock you out cold. We didn’t know what to do. You were out of it, cut off from us. Gone. And you want to do it again? You want to trust the Vile daemon that orchestrated all that destruction? Again?”

“You hit me?” My hand flew to my face. That fact was the only thing my mind latched onto.

“No, I don’t think I could ever do that. That I held you down and your father and Kevin performed a ceremony, like an exorcism, that subdued your daemon.”

“A ceremony? Exorcism? Can you do that? Can you exorcize my daemon?” I looked to my dad.

“We can only subdue it, not get rid of it. Not if you wanted to live anyway.” Dad stopped his words and changed direction, “Your daemon soul is a part of who you are. To separate the pieces of your soul would kill you. You are by no means immortal”

“Oh, well never mind. It was just a thought.”

“Believe me, I’ve already had those thoughts,” He looked to Kevin, “That’s where most of our research has been focused.”

“Look, instead of fighting me on this, why can’t ya’ll try helping me?” I looked into everyone’s eyes until they all nodded. My mother remained stoic, hardly blinking, just taking in the conversation, and probably waiting for us to arrive at the outcome she already foresaw.

“Let’s all think what you would need to keep me- and the world, safe, if I make the choice to glean again. It’s the safest way to seek out Orias.

“I am going with you then.” Cyrus said.

I opened my mouth to complain but my mother spoke first, “No, I will. The three of you need to remain behind to help subdue Layla’s daemon if needed.”

“We’ll tie her down before she falls asleep,” Kevin stated.

“Kinky,” Ben added.

“Not now,” Ava jabbed her in the ribs.

“I’ll have the holy water and the ritual ready to go just in case.” My father added.

A door below the balcony groaned announcing that our conversation was no longer private. Kevin advanced first, “Kenneth,” He called the man by name and they began to speak in hushed tones. I could smell the bags of food he carried.

Kevin made his way with Kenneth, probably a minister, who carried three white plastic bags filled with food hopefully for us. I didn’t realize how hungry I was until he entered the room. Usually my daemon cried for blood whenever I met a new person, sinking its teeth into my insides when I denied it, which happened on a daily basis when it wasn’t plied with alcohol. Seeing the pastor, a new person, within the protection of the sanctuary’s walls, I felt nothing.

My angry soul was quiet.

“Everyone,” Kevin began, “This is Kenneth Shannon. He’s the senior pastor here at Travis Park Methodist Church.”

He began going in a circle shaking hands with everyone in our group. My father took the plastic bags and looked inside. I didn’t need to look to smell the turkey sandwiches, potato chips, and chocolate brownies. My stomach grumbled- or was it my daemon.

Kenneth Shannon smiled as he reached for everyone’s hands, he smiled graciously, like a good pastor should. He couldn’t meet my mother’s eyes and he blushed wildly while taking her hand. When he came around to me he hesitated, looking at me as if I was some strange piece of art to be studied. I said nothing in return and after an awkward moment he stepped backward and away from me.

We ate hungrily, mouths moving not speaking. While we ate, I felt compelled to ask them all the same question I had asked Orrin. “What did each of you see when you looked at Samael?”

The three men shared a look, and my mother answered, “Layla, think about what you are asking.”

“What? I just want to know if what ya’ll saw was different from what I saw. Maybe we all saw the same thing.”

“Maybe,” she answered. “And maybe you are asking them to share their deepest fears that they might not understand themselves.”

I hadn’t thought about that, “Oh. I didn’t realize. How about this then. I’ll tell you what I saw and you tell me if it matches.”

Cyrus’ laughter rumbled lightly. I gave them my own account and Cyrus confirmed that was what he saw as well. It had been the same for him when they fought the first time around and Cyrus narrowly escaped with his life. My father said he saw the face of his own father. Kevin said Samael looked and sounded like Daisy before her trip through Hell. Ava shuddered as she described Samael as a horribly grotesque Vagabonds that attacked Balmorhea three years ago, an experience that haunted her still. In their true form, Vagabonds resembled large, ashen, humanoid insects with no eyes and wicked teeth. Bennet didn’t want to share. She just shook her head and kept eating her chips.

When our bellies were full we listened to Cyrus play guitar. He was amazing. We began a game- stump the Angel. The only problem was, he was the oldest person in the room, next to my mother who had very little knowledge of current or classic music. Cyrus knew every song we could possibly throw at him. My father tried Simon and Garfunkel, Kevin tried Brahms and John Wesley, Ava tried for Green Day, and Ben asked for Carly Simon.

I sat and listened, just enjoying being surrounded by the people I loved. It was funny, I hadn’t thought about Orrin all night. Cyrus had that effect on me, but so too did everyone sitting with us.

“You’ve been silent.” Cyrus held the strings still and looked directly at me. I hadn’t fallen under his gaze since our kiss earlier in the day, but now he had found me.

“Try me.” He goaded.

My mouth went dry at his blatant insinuation. His eyes alone sent my heart to racing and he knew it. Rather than burn the sanctuary down, I took a deep stabilizing breath and looked down at my hands. Everyone was enjoying my discomfort. The tension created between Cyrus and me was palpable to everyone in the balcony.

His fingers began to pluck random chords slowly at first, then faster. But then a familiar melody began to emerge from it. It was my song, the one he played for me before we walked along the river, the one I heard and fell head long in love with him. But I didn’t want him to play it now. I didn’t want anyone to have that memory, especially my mother. Cyrus wasn’t ashamed of his love for me, but maybe I was, and that shamed me more.

We all listened, but I was spellbound, his melody stealing me away, lifting off and taking me high into the air whether I wanted it to or not. Everything within me froze and the melody wrapped itself around my heart, like its own kind of soul-tie. Each chord tripped lightly to the next, higher and higher. Hearing his song felt like flying. My soul had only been this free when my wings were out and I was soaring above the green Earth. His song made me feel like my wings had just kissed the sky. It was binding me to Cyrus like I bound myself to Orrin.

I sat up straight as he still played. His head was down concentrating on his hands moving effortlessly over the guitar strings. He finally glanced sideways and met my eyes with his own intense blue ones. He knew what he was doing, but I didn’t.

It was an offering. He was offering me his song, his life and his love. Right there in front of everyone.

And suddenly I was free falling.

What are you doing?

Why are you doing this here?

I wanted to yell at him, but my thoughts would serve just as well. The only problem was my mother now knew everything.

“I give up,” Bennet said breaking through my jumbled thoughts, “I can’t for the life of me think of what that song is.” Her face was lit by the screen of her Android as she searched for something.

Kevin laughed, “It’s okay, Ben. He’s cheating. That is probably something Cyrus wrote.”

Does he know too?

Mind-reader or no, Cyrus shook his head and kept playing. He glanced sideways at Ben, “Kevin’s, right.”

My eyes searched any sign of condemnation on Kevin’s face, but he was lying on his back, staring at the tiles on the ceiling. No one but Cyrus, my mother, and me understood the true meaning of the song Cyrus just played for all to hear.

“So let’s see,” Ben began holding out her fingers and counting as she said, “Cyrus Williams is half angel, a college professor, a doctor, a minister, smokin’ hot…”

“He was also a funambulist,” my mother added quickly.

“A rainmaker. Remember when he told us that one, Kev?” my father laughed at his old friend.

Cyrus didn’t crack a smile. It wasn’t just daemons who were solitary and private souls. Angels didn’t like the spotlight either. But he did start this game. He did play that song. What did he think was going to happen?

“A student of Herodotus,” I smiled trying to think of anything but the sound of his strings or his disapproving frown.

A mind-reader, a babe, and the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.

“The King of Persia,” Ava’s words sounded more like a question. She was looking at her own phone screen now.

Cyrus quit playing and put the guitar down. My father and Kevin shared a look with my mother. All three looked toward Ava as if she was an errant child.

Kevin sighed, “That was bound to come out eventually, Cy.”

“Wikipedia says they used to call you Cyrus the Great, conqueror of Babylon, Lydia, and other Greek cities.”

“The internet does not have all the answers,” He said curtly.

“Whoa, you had a wife too?” She continued.

“A wife?” I was dismayed. “A wife and a king? The King of
what?
Repeat what you just said, Ava. Better yet, just give me your phone.”

“I would rather you didn’t do this right now,” Cyrus cut me off. “And I did warn you I had a past.” He stood and put the guitar back in its case.

“Aww, come on, big boy. You don’t have to get upset. Keep playing.” Ben begged sarcastically. She could be a real ass when she wanted to be.

Ava continued to scroll through her phone. She met my eyes, eyebrows as high as they would go, and pointed at her phone. She wasn’t aware of his telepathic abilities, or she wouldn’t have been screaming her own thoughts- not that Cyrus could hear them while we were inside a sanctuary. He walked down the balcony steps and sat in a pew next to the pulpit. I followed behind him. He pat the cushion next to him and I sat down.

The King of Persia? A wife?

“Is this the something you wanted me to research on my own?” Everyone in the balcony was badly pretending to do anything besides watching us.

“Kevin was right. It was bound to come out eventually. And I wasn’t
the
king of Persia, I was one of many,” He sighed. “It was a period in my life when I was a little lost.” He was careful with his words, and didn’t elaborate beyond that.

“Still. Wow,” I was trying to think of something else to say, “But I don’t care. Well, maybe I care a little bit about the wife part. And the king part? You were a king and you just gave it all up?”

“It’s not like I could have ruled over my country for all eternity. I faked my own death when I just couldn’t live like that anymore. I couldn’t kill innocent people. I gave it up and followed Layla. I had to know more about my birthright, not just exploit it any longer.”