“Perhaps we will just wait you out while you expend all your energy occupying Kat,” Kayla retorts, bending forward, hands on knees to address her more directly.
“Ah, you think you have the upper hand,” she laughs devilishly, throwing her head back, exposing Kat’s slender neck. “How very arrogant of you.”
“If we don’t then how is that you aren’t busting out of that cell and taking us all down?” Kayla taunts, slapping the blunt side of the knife against her thigh rhythmically.
The lighting in the cellar is old, faulty and sparse and I try to ignore it as it blinks off and on, thankful for the camping lanterns I’d set up as I watch Mary flicker in the cell, her eyes boring into me.
“Erik, why don’t you come in here and overpower me?” she gibes with a throaty chuckle. “It could be over so quickly while I’m bound in this earthly form.”
I look over at Kayla who shakes her head almost imperceptibly. It feels like a trap, so I look directly at her, interested in perhaps filling in more information.
“Why have you done this? What do you want?” I ask, narrowing my eyes as the lights continue to flicker unnervingly.
“I suppose at this point there is no advantage in keeping agendas a secret, is there?” she sighs as she places her back up against the back of the cell. “I want to live. I want to live a carefree life as mine was stolen from me.”
“Why didn’t you just possess Kat and leave then?” Kayla shoots back, grabbing a flashlight and placing it on the floor as a spotlight in the unsure lighting.
“Oh Kayla,” she smiles. “You remind me of someone I once knew. Someone I loved but that I’d rather forget.”
“You’re welcome,” Kayla answers.
“You have obviously gleaned that my possession is incomplete,” Mary says with a shrug. “I’d hoped to obtain what I need via artifice, but clearly that will no longer be possible. I must replace the life I am taking.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I ask, throwing my hands up, hoping that Ian is watching and forming a quick plan.
“I must produce a life to take Kat’s and I must atone for George. You are the key to that,” she says simply, winking at him perversely. “I knew when you were a child that you were the one. I’d waited so very long and there you were. Towheaded, gentle, kind and beautiful. The conditions were correct. Juniper, the milk sop conduit, so easily influenced and beautiful Kat, my descendant. Effervescent, fetching and sure to love you.”
She shook out her hair, letting it fall through her fingers. “I could love you too. You remind me so much of him. It’s as though he’s whispering through you down the centuries. He did love me, you know.”
“Didn’t you murder him?” I ask incredulously.
“Not intentionally, but it set all of this into motion,” she is sincere and far off looking as she says it, clawing at the cold ground. “You will never love me now, Erik, and I am saddened by it.”
“Does this mean we are at an impasse?” I question, trying to make sense of what she wants.
“No, you will still impregnate me,” she says decisively. “You must.”
“No,” I say, taken aback. “I won’t touch you.”
“I will repay the life I took and then I will possess Kat completely,” her voice is grimly immutable.
“You want me to have sex with you so that you can kill my intended girlfriend and take over her life and body. Do you hear yourself?” The gall of it makes me want to double over, but she just laughs softly before her face gets deadly serious.
“Ask the question, Erik,” she says suddenly, eyes narrowing.
“What question?” Kayla asks, looking from me to Mary.
“He knows what question,” Mary says knowingly, still scratching at the floor, her nails digging slowly and deliberately as she stares at me intently.
I look at her as my heart pounds, cold sweat prickles at my hairline. “Did you kill my parents?”
“You know I did,” she says blankly. “They drove Kat from town and were complicating factors. She could never re-enter your life with them alive.”
I bend at the waist and place my hands on my knees, breathing heavily at the revelation. The confirmation stabbed at me, broke open the grief.
“YOU started it when you attacked Juniper,” Kayla yells, her face flooded with more emotion than I’d ever seen from her.
“Juniper not only betrayed me, but I could not allow her to be possessed by others. It does not matter why or who, but it had to be done,” she looks at Juniper with a measured glance. “It is not in my nature to apologize, so I will not, but outside of a human form my feelings are...baser, animalistic.”
“You are less of a devil in Kat’s body?” Kayla clarifies.
“I am limited and am in a sort of mammalian construct, I am bound by things that make you human. Things that aren't present outside of the living,” she laughs. “Do not mistake this for weakness or conscience, however. Erik, ask the real question.”
“No,” I say stalwartly, feeling Juniper’s hand encircle my forearm gently.
“Don’t, Erik. She wants you to open the cell to attack her,” Juniper whispers.
“Do, Erik. Ask me. I will not lie,” Mary tempts, rubbing her hands together in the frosty air, the dirt on them sprinkling back down to the floor.
“Did you kill Monica and our baby?” The inquiry is thick in my throat, coated with misery and fear. For years all I had wanted was the answer to what happened but on the precipice of knowing, my resolve falters. I am bound to ask, but loath to hear the answer.
“Yes,” her response is cold and stolid as she holds my eyes in her steely gaze. “I took no pleasure in it, but had she lived you never would have found your way back to Kat. I appeared
