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  CAIN

  The Seventh Day Series Book Four

  By Leslie Swartz

  Copyright 2020, Leslie Swartz

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020909997

  ISBN: 9798649425551

  He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

  Friedrich Nietzche

  Prologue

  “I will call her Thaddea because she is my heart,” Allydia said, her voice barely above a whisper as the light in her eyes began to fade. She looked down at her newest daughter and smiled.

  “You are pale,” Lilith fussed. “There is too much blood. Your father will not forgive me if I let you die.”

  “But I am dying. There is nothing you can do. He will understand.”

  “He will leave me.”

  “Perhaps he can ask his God, this Elohim he claims to worship, to save me,” she smirked.

  “I wouldn’t mock such things if I were you, girl.”

  “Tell Farhan I am sorry. I failed to give him a son…again. You will help him, won’t you? Help care for my daughters?”

  “I will not have to,” Lilith insisted.

  “I can feel death’s grip tight around my throat. The dark fog of him shrouds the room. I am leaving this world.”

  “You are not.” But as she said the words, her step-daughter’s eyes rolled back and closed. Her chest, once heaving as she labored to breathe, fell and went still. She was gone.

  Lilith gathered the baby in her arms, left the birthing tent, and presented her husband with his grandchild.

  “A girl,” she told him. “To be called Thaddea.”

  Cain took the infant, gave her an approving nod, and handed her back.

  “Forgive me, husband, but your daughter…”

  “My daughter what?” he snapped.

  She took a step back. “She is gone.”

  Cain’s eyes flashed and his jaw tightened. He turned toward his son-in-law sleeping next to the fire and pounced. He pulled him up by the hair and began punching him. The startled man backed away and put his hand to his jaw, the look of confusion on his face driving Cain further into madness.

  “You knew this would happen!” he spat. “You knew a woman in her thirty-first year can not withstand childbirth, yet you insisted. You forced her to endure this again because you wanted a son. Now, you still have no son and I have no daughter. You took her from me and I will make you suffer for it.” He grasped Farhan’s throat and squeezed until his hand cramped. His heart pounded in his ears as he allowed the rage to overtake him. The man tried to fight back, but as he struggled, he caught a glimpse inside the tent where his wife’s body lay. As his heart broke, he accepted his punishment, the thought of living without her too much to bear.

  Cain pulled a knife from his belt. “I will ensure you never get what you want.” With three quick strokes, he cut through the man’s genitals, mutilating them beyond use and causing him to bleed out. “I only wish your death to be slower and more painful than hers.” He dropped Farhan to the sandy ground and kicked him in the ribs before entering the tent. There, he saw his daughter, ashen and lifeless, and fell to his knees.

  “My sons have all left me,” he sobbed as Lilith followed him inside. “She followed me here to Eridu so I wouldn’t be alone. She gave me grandchildren. She befriended you the moment I announced our marriage. She was kind, even when I showed her no mercy. She is the only one of my children that doesn’t despise me. She deserves better than this.” He looked up at his wife, tears streaming down his face. “Is this another one of His punishments? Banishing me from my home, compelling me to wander, never able to settle…is that not enough? Does He hate me this much?”

  “It’s unlikely my Father has thought of you in years.” She placed the baby again in his arms. “He tends to put a plan in motion and move on, having His minions do His work for Him.” She knelt next to him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I could bring her back if you like.”

  “With your magic?” he sneered, rocking the quiet baby as she slept.

  “Yes. Powerful blood magic. It would have to be done quickly, before her soul reaches Heaven.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly. But,” she pushed the blanket away from Thaddea’s face. “It would require a sacrifice.”

  Cain’s expression turned dark as he realized what she was getting at. “Farhan is near death already. He will--”

  “It must be a blood relative.”

  “Then take my life. It’s not as though I won’t return.”

  “That is precisely why it can not be you. It is no sacrifice if a life is not extinguished…permanently.”

  Tears again filled his eyes as his pain clouded his judgement. “She will hate me.”

  “She never has to know. We’ll tell her the child died. It happens all the time. Two of her own children were stillborn. One died in her crib. It won’t be a terrible shock.” She stood and looked the body over, seeing the soul start to slip away. “It is up to you, my love, but it is the only way and if I am to save her, I must do it now.”

  He stood, looking from the baby to his daughter. “If you do this, how long will she live? Twenty years? Thirty? Or will she succumb to sickness in a few months and this was all for nothing?”

  “Forever,” she promised. “I’ll take not just the life force of the child, but of all future generations that would have been. An infinite number of souls will fuel her existence. She will never have to leave us.”

  “Forever? Are you sure?”

  “Only an act of God will be able to snuff her out.”

  He looked down one more time at the child in his arms before handing her over. “All right,” he agreed, wiping the tears from his face. “Do what you must. Just bring my daughter back to me.”

  He left the tent, unable to watch what came next. He looked in on his three granddaughters sleeping soundly in their own tent a few yards away. Allydia would survive the loss of the child for the sake of the others. Most importantly, she would survive. He walked back, warming himself by the fire, glaring at his son-in-law who was still somehow not quite dead. He paced, hands on his hips as he waited. Finally, Lilith stepped out of the tent.

  “It worked. Just, not exactly how I intended.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “As I was doing the spell, I discovered that the child would only have three generations after her. Our Allydia would die in seventy years. That was not what I promised you, so I improvised.” She held a cup next to Farhan’s neck and slit his throat, blood filling the chalice, the man already so close to death that he could not object. “This,” she explained. “Will be what sustains her. The blood of others will replace food and drink. Life in liquid form. There will be side effects, but--”

  “What kind of side effects?”

  “Aversion to sunlight, firstly. It will tire her, make her weak. But, she’ll be strong in the night. Almost as strong as me, and fast. Men will fall at her feet, catering to her every desire, of which there will be many. The hardest thing will be controlling her blood-lust. She will crave it like air and will do anything to get it.”

  He felt nauseous.

  “Don’t worry,” she tried to reassure him. “I will guide her, show her how to use her new abilities and how to stifle herself when needed. She is back with us and that is all that matters, yes?”

  He stared as she reentered the tent, watching in horror as his wife held the cup to his daughter’s lips. She drank hungrily, her pupils dilating until the entirety of the irises had gone black.

  He gasped and backed away. “Dear God, what have I done?” he whispered, crumpling to the ground and gazing into the fire. “Forgive me, Grandfather. My grief has made me a fool and a contributor to evil. I have made her a killer, just as I am, but worse
. I am unforgiving and brutal but she will be a rabid animal, unable to be contained. She’ll be something dark, born of the witch’s black magic. I should have known better, Grandfather. I should have--” He stopped, the rustling from the children’s tent snapping him to attention. He jumped up and ran to them, his still innocent granddaughters. They slept, unaware of what had befallen their family that night. “They won’t be safe,” he muttered to himself. His heart raced and his breathing quickened as he took them from their beds, gently as not to wake them. He piled them in the cart and made sure it was fixed tight to the donkey’s harness. He led them away, fleeing the city, never to return.

  Allydia pulled her sword from the fallen Nephilim and turned to face another as he barreled toward her. Stone-faced and with an exasperated sigh, she lifted her weapon and swung, slicing off her would-be attacker’s head with minimal effort. She trekked up the hill to get a better vantage point and assessed the situation. The battle raged on, her vampires making quick work of taking down the Nephilim menace. As the torrent of rain poured, ankle-deep water mixed with blood caused a sea of red to rise over her enemies’ bodies. She smirked as she began her descent. She’d won. But as she reveled in her presumptive victory, the dead began to wake. She looked on in horror as they stood, again reaching for their weapons and attempting their assault. She cracked her neck, raised her sword, and raced to the field. Just as she skidded to a stop in front of a seven-foot-tall Nephilim holding the severed head of her general, the rain stopped. The monster was gone. Her army had disappeared. The muddied battlefield was replaced by a rocky landscape with grass so green, she could see its brilliant color even in the moonlight. Before her was a lake mirroring the starry sky and in the distance she could see a snow-capped mountain.

  “What trickery is this?” she wondered aloud, taking in her new surroundings.

  “Not trickery,” a voice from behind her spoke. “I simply moved you, for your own safety.”

  She spun around to look her kidnapper in the eye. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Gabriel. I’m an angel of the Lord your God. I apologize if I frightened you. That was not my intention.”

  “An angel? Like Lilith?”

  “Not like Lilith.”

  “Why have you brought me to this place? Where are we?”

  Gabriel appeared to take a deep breath as she looked around, though Allydia heard no sounds of life come from her. No heartbeat, no air moving through her lungs. It was as if the woman before her was made of pure light. The angel smiled. “They call it, ‘Tarshish’. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I demand you take me back. The Nephilim--”

  “Are being handled.”

  “Handled?”

  “It is not your fight,” Gabriel insisted.

  “It most certainly is my fight. Do you know what they have done? They consume everything they come across. They starve the humans, that is when they’re not slaughtering them en masse. Those people are my people’s food. Without them, we will die. That is why I declared war on the Nephilim scourge. I must defeat them.”

  “Worry not. My Father is purging them from the Earth as we speak.”

  She cast her a quizzical glare. “The rain?”

  “The rain.”

  “But, everyone else. My people. The humans.”

  “A temporary loss. The souls will all be reborn, over time.”

  “Why spare me, then?”

  “My Father commanded it. Your assistance will be required in a future altercation. Your stepmother will escape from her prison and He’ll need you and an army of your kind to fight against her and those that follow her.”

  Allydia scoffed. “Why would I help Elohim in a fight against Lilith? He didn’t save me from death, she did. He cursed my father. He let four of my children die.”

  “Three,” the angel corrected. “He allowed three of your children to die. The fourth was not His doing.”

  “Thaddea--”

  “Would have lived a long and healthy life. She would have had children and grandchildren. She didn’t die. Lilith killed her.”

  She took a step back. “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not. She would have done anything to prevent Cain from leaving her. She has a fear of being alone. Men give her a sense of stability. So, she brought you back as a gift to him, knowing that he wouldn’t forgive her for allowing you to perish. She sacrificed the child in the spell that forced your soul back in your body.”

  “How could you know this?”

  “I know anything God wants me to know. I’m His Messenger.”

  “So, does He want me to know this? So I’ll help Him?”

  “He wants you to know the truth. What you do with it is up to you, but there is an incentive.”

  Allydia folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

  “Your father took your daughters. He married them off and they were lost to you. Generations have passed and you have no way of tracking their descendants. But, God does. He knows where they are and if you help Him--”

  “He will tell me.” Her features softened and tears began to form in her eyes.

  “In a few thousand years, I will come to you again. I’ll look different and my speech will be riddled with expletives as I’ll be born as a human, but my knowledge will remain. I’ll tell you then that the time has come for you to do your part. When Lilith and her soldiers have all been defeated, I will give you the location of your remaining descendants. I won’t know until the war is over, but as soon as I do, I will tell you.”

  She wiped away a stray tear and looked the angel over, her oddly pale skin seeming to glow and her fiery hair somehow still in the cool breeze. “I accept Elohim’s terms. I will help Him.”

  “In that case, I look forward to our next meeting.”

  “Dia,” a voice whispered in the dark. “Dia, wake up.” The light came on, jolting the vampire from her sleep. She knew without opening the curtains that it was still day.

  “Who dare--”

  “It’s me, Gabriel,” the woman said, sitting next to her in her bed. “It’s time to get this party started.”

  “Messenger?” Allydia asked, looking the woman over. “You do look different.”

  “I know, right? I was going for a whole ethereal, otherworldly thing back in the day. Thought it would drive home the point, you know? Me angel, you Jane. Sorry to wake you up and everything, but if I tried to sneak in here at night, somebody would definitely try to eat me, and not in the fun way.” She handed her a piece of paper. “This is my number. Lilith hasn’t Shawshanked it just yet, but when she does, she’ll be bringing a bunch of demons with her, so keep an eye out and call me if you see any. Nice club. Reminds me of high school, all goth and shit. I was more of a hippy myself, you know, hemp necklaces, flannel. Now, though, I alternate between classy and sophisticated and tight jeans and band T-shirts. Depends on my mood. Anyway, it’s a nice little empire you’ve built for yourself. I’m gonna skedaddle. The sun’ll be down in about five minutes and I don’t want to be here when the creepy-crawlies wake up. Have some fun tonight. Relax. Pretty soon, things are gonna get bloody and not in the way you like.”

  She watched Gabriel leave the room, scowling as she set the paper on the nightstand. She’d had almost five thousand years to rethink the decision to aid God in his battle against her stepmother. She’d gone over it again and again and the more she’d thought about it, the angrier she became. Lilith murdered her youngest daughter and her father had stolen the rest. They should both be in the ground as far as she was concerned. Now, finally, her chance at revenge on her stepmother was soon at hand. She leaned back into her pillows, a wicked grin creeping across her face. She took the brush from the drawer and ran it through her hair as she said to herself, “Not long now.”

  Chapter 1

  The bullets whizzing by as she crouched behind a display of snack cakes didn’t faze Yara, a decade on the force having given her nerves of steel. Her partner had the lookout cuffed and was using him
as a shield as he barked orders at the two gunmen, one shooting at the officers from the center of the store and the other with a gun to the clerk’s head, demanding to be let go.

  “Drop your weapons!”

  “Suck my dick, pig!” the first gunman shouted, again shooting in his general direction.

  “Drop your weapons, now!”

  “We just wanna get out of here,” the second man said. “We don’t wanna hurt nobody.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Officer Jackson said, his eyes plastered to the first shooter.

  “That’s just Popcorn,” the lookout told him. “He ain’t been right since cops killed his daddy.”

  “Why you sayin’ my name, bro?”

  “Why you shootin’ at cops?”

  “You on their side?”

  “Yo, I didn’t sign up for this. Y’all told me this was ‘bout to be easy money. You said there wasn’t even bullets in your guns.”

  “You bought that?” the officer chortled.

  “Hey! No one’s talking to you!” Shots rang out again, bullets bursting bottles of wiper fluid and bags of chips as the clerk squeezed his eyes shut in fear. The gunman had had enough. He only had a few bullets left and he wanted to make them count. He strode out of his hiding spot and raised his weapon, shooting Officer Jackson in the shoulder and busting out the glass of the door behind him. The officer dropped his gun and fell back, losing his grip on the lookout.

  “Fuck this,” he said, running from the building, hands still cuffed behind him.

  “Not so talkative now, are you pig?” Popcorn stood over the policeman, gun cocked, but before he could pull the trigger, a shot rang out from behind. He went to turn around, but realized he couldn’t. He’d been hit. He fell, blood soaking through the back of his white tee-shirt, the gun clanking on the floor.

  “Jackson, you all right?” Yara asked as she edged toward the counter, her eyes fixed on the remaining gunmen.