“I ain’t touching her.” Peter shakes his head.
Jake spits again. “I’m good.”
Mickle marches off his little stage he was standing on and heads straight for Peter. He raises his hand and I see the sharp jagged claws his fingernails have grown into. “You WILL have sex with that woman and consummate the marriage, or I’ll strike you out!”
“Not so fast.” Everyone turns to see Ivan standing there, looking down at the spell book on the podium. He points his finger at the page to where it lies open. “It says here that the first act of sexual intercourse must be completed on the altar by man and wife and only by man and wife.” He looks up at Mickle and says, “What the fuck are you trying to do here?”
In my mind I hear Cash say, ‘Get off the altar and follow my lead... whatever you do, don’t let go...’ He grabs my hand in his as I slide down off the stone slab, and I feel an icy, electrifying jolt hum between our joined skin. “Yeah Mickle, what the hell are you trying to do here?” he asks, as he raises our joined hands and his other palm up.
I quickly raise my free hand, palm up just like he is doing and feel it go from warm to freezing in less than a heartbeat. Startled, I look at it and see it’s frosty blue as icicles start to form upwards out of my palm. I’m feeling a little panicked at this point, so I lean forward and look at Cash’s free hand to see mini bolts of lightning licking along it’s surface.
I sigh in relief. “Okay, it’s supposed to do that,” I whisper to myself as everyone waits for Mickle’s answer.
He raises a shaky finger at Cash and me. “Put your hands down!”
A dark look settles on Cash’s face. “Answer the fucking question Mickle,” he orders.
Mickle shakes his head, his once smooth hair, now astray. “Nothing I swear! Just fulfilling the prophecy!”
“Liar! ” Cash shouts as the energy builds around us. “You were wanting Cassidy to get pregnant before the night of the blood moon and resurrect Lilith! You even sent the imp that attacked Cassidy. Just to bend her to your will, but it backfired on you when it pumped her full of venom, didn’t it? That’s okay though because now I have a little surprise for you...”
Cash looks straight up at the ceiling of the chapel and begins to chant. The same chant I’ve heard in my mind all these years. I join him and the ceiling opens to reveal the night sky soaring past in a blur.
I don’t know how we did it, but we fast-forwarded through time. I know because the full moon, glorious and white begins to turn a pinkish hue and before we know it it’s blood red. And it begins to emit a black mist that travels down into the chapel and hovers over the altar.
“What are you doing?!” Mickle cries out. “Stop!”
As the mist begins to take the shape of a woman, Cash says, “The one who calls upon me in the light of the blood moon shall reign over me.... That’s what the prophecy truly says, for CASSIDY, not you, isn’t it, Mickle? You wanted her powers so you can take over that child’s body because your days on earth are numbered. It wasn’t good enough that you were the one who turned yourself into a vampire in the first place, then blamed her. But now, you want the powers to wreak havoc on earth. Am I right?”
I gawked at Cash, as this was news to me then looked at Mickle who was cowering away. “How... how did you know?”
Before Cash could respond, Lilith in full form, steps down off the altar and moved to stand before us. She raises her arm and places her hand upon mine. I stagger under her touch. Her powers so heavy, that I lock my knees, and stand there tall and proud. This woman was my kin, and she was giving all her magic abilities to me.
Turning, she looks at Mickle and says in a ghostly voice, “We shall be one again... today, the day you die...”
With one last look to me, she spins into a misty whirlwind high into the air, then dives into my palm. My head flies back from the force of her entering my body and exiting out of our joined hands. I force my head upright in time to see a lightning bolt encased in ice, smack right into the middle of Mickle’s chest. Agonizing screams tear from his mouth, seconds before he explodes into a shimmery cloud of dust that settles on the cobblestone floor.
Hoots and hollers echo out from the podium as Cash raises my hand to his lips.
I look at him in wonderment. “How did you know about the true prophecy?”
He looks at me with a sly grin. “You want the truth?”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “Uh, yeah!”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I just guessed.”
––––––––
6 MONTHS LATER
A knock at the door has me waddling my fat ass to answer it. Placing a hand on the swell of my belly I open it and am welcomed into a furry of hugs.
“Look at you!” Peter says, gawking at my rounded belly with a grin. “Can I touch it?”
“No, you can’t touch it!” Jake laughs, knocking Peter upside the head, as he steps over the threshold. I smile at him as I take Peter’s hand and place it on my belly. It was that moment that little Miss Lilith Alexandria Blake McGuire the Third, decided to kick. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, only men have generational name titles, but this little one is so special in so many ways that I don’t care what anyone thinks.
Peter jumps back. “It kicked me! Is that normal?”