Temptation [A Young Writer's Prize Submission]

Antitheus

Chapter Fifty Five

Such madness possessed him, I felt instantly afraid, but I still could not back away from him as he came towards me, capturing my face between his hands, just as he ensnared my eyes with his own.

"You want me to tell you everything," he spoke carefully, wary that I might run.

I nodded, more afraid of him than I ever had been. "I don't want to stay in the dark."

He pursed his lips as he considered what to say. "Remember what you just saw, Mercy, and separate Azrael and Denny into the part that was light."

"But Azrael and Denny tried to kill me," I protested. The light had felt good, wholesome, while the emotions that welled up inside me at the mention of their names, was anything but.

Lucien shook his head. "I'll get to that in a moment," he replied. "That's when it gets rather complicated."

I waited, watching his Adam's apple jump up and down in his throat. "The men who attempted to kill you would call me 'antitheus'. He spoke the word with disdain, and I searched in vain to locate the meaning behind the word. It sounded Latin: anti meant against, but theus... I was drawing a blank there.

"Arielle and Nate are called gregales," he continued quickly, ignoring my confused expression.

"You've lost me." His eyes flicked quickly upward to my face as I shook my head. "What does antitheus mean?"

He looked away, impatient and looking slightly worried: "Antitheus means anti-god. But the easier way to translate it is 'devil'."

Though part of me wondered whether he was spouting nonsense, the other part - the part convinced there was some truth in his words - was frozen in shock. My limbs locked into place, and I stared at him with wide eyes.

I didn't want to believe it. Though my education had divulged some of the facts about God and the angels, and even to an extent the devil, none of it had suggested that they were physical beings, able to manifest as they wished on earth. Nor did the teachings say the devil was as attractive as the boy sitting at my side.

Yet at the same time, everything about it made sense. He had said himself that he wasn't a good person; that he was dark. Arielle had gone on and on about 'pity for the devil'... I quickly realised that it was preparation, not a test.

Then I remembered what I'd heard from Azrael; 'we will be there on the other side, to take you to heaven'. Lucien had called him the light, did that make him an angel? Why then would angels be trying to kill me?

"You're the devil," I whispered. He was silent in response. Fear and desperation raced through my mind and I longed for there to have been some kind of miscommunication. "Please tell me that's a metaphor for something else."

Lucien didn't reply, and it fully dawned on me that he wasn't lying to me. This was probably the most honest he had ever been in the whole course of us knowing one another.

He had convinced me that he was sweet, good and kind, day after day, and I, like a blind lamb, had believed it, following down the path that would lead to my inevitable feelings for him - the edge of the cliff, so to speak.

One hand flew to my mouth, while fizzing emotions through my bones rendered me numb. He was the devil; I had kissed the devil - I had been held by the master of all evil; saved, by a creature that tormented the earth. A being of legend and folklore, a creature that haunted dreams and led people astray, I had been steadily falling in love with.

"Mercy, you said you would let me finish," Lucien said quietly as I fought my shocked brain for control and got to my feet, desperate to put as much distance between us as possible.