Due

Due

Italy, 1348

Cool, wet droplets hit my skin as the sky opened itself to the world, the rain beginning to fall in a whispered hush. Her silver laughter filtered through the air, carried on the gentle breeze, as we ran, and I could not help the dimpled grin that consumed my countenance. I had never felt more free, more alive, then I did when in her presence. I had never before smiled the way I smile for her. She came to a halt, and I nearly collided with her before she took my hand in hers and took off again, pulling me towards the orchard and its shelter.

We were both laughing by the time we reached the trees.

She could barely stand straight, her hand pressed to her belly as she tried to rein herself in. The breeze had become progressively stronger with the force of the storm and a startling clap of thunder caused her to leap back, the laughter washed from her. I took a step forward, bringing our bodies close, and lifted the blanket I had salvaged from our picnic above our heads to shield us from the rain - despite the fact that we were already soaked through. The blanket did, however, provide a slight reprieve from the breeze that chilled the water against our skin. When her honey colored eyes met mine I smiled, a warm and gentle smile of reassurance, and was graced with hers in return.

Her face was mere inches from my own, her soft eyes examining every line of mine as I stood before her. I felt naked in that moment. Lain bare before her to judge me as she pleased. I could not remember the last time I had felt fear, but as the rain chilled my skin my own fear chilled me from within.

She brought her small hand up, slender fingers caressing my cheek and stealing my breath away.

I closed my eyes and leaned into her touch.

She smelled of honey.

I opened my eyes again as she brushed the pad of her thumb across my bottom lip. So intent was she on her curiosity that she did not notice me watching her. My heart lurched painfully within the depths of my breast as she leaned in, lifting herself just enough to bring her lips to within a breath of my own.

“Arianna,” her name slipped from me in a shuddering sigh.

Her curious eyes met mine and the look in them set my very soul ablaze.

Without thought I closed the distance between her mouth and mine.

The kiss was tender.

Her lips were soft and warm.

She slipped her hand to the back of my neck, fingers in my damp hair, holding me to her. The blanket, forgotten, fell to the rain-drenched earth at our feet as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her body flush with mine.

The kiss deepened as thunder roiled across the sky.

And the world smelled clean.



Laughter lifted me from my reverie.

I blinked the sting from my eyes and took in my surroundings. Warm rays of sunlight caressed my skin and dappled the quad around me, the lingering sent of freshly fallen rain still hanging on the spring air. Young college students milled about in groups, some wandering the length of the quad, unhurried, while others tread with more purpose towards their destinations.

I wiped at my tired eyes and looked down at the book in my lap.

It’s weathered leather binding and yellowed pages spoke volumes to its age. My fingers traced the engraved initials on the front, G.B., Giovanni Boccaccio. It was an original copy of The Decameron. I could still recall when I’d acquired it in 1470. It was one of only two possessions I cherished. I flipped the book back open, to the page I had marked with my finger, and read the line that had distracted me so - "I know quite well which sin it is, and I ask you about it, not to be informed myself, but to make you remember it”. It had been spoken by a pilgrim to a lady, inquiring into her sin of love. There had been no particular relevance. And yet the words had dragged my mind into the depths of my past to relive one of a hundred tragic memories.

A heavy sigh escaped me and I smiled sardonically.

It seemed that I had been doing much of that of late.

So often I found myself slipping into reminiscence, the past demanding my submission. It gnawed at me. It consumed me more each day. With each memory my heart was twisted a little bit more. My soul… my damned, forfeit soul… was scored a little bit deeper.

In the years since my time in Italy I had found a modicum of solace. Hidden away from all of the things that had made me what I was, buried within the wilds of a world that had yet to be discovered. I’d nearly fooled myself into believing that I could forget. And now, here I was, plagued relentlessly by all of those things I had run from.

Perhaps the memories had been a portent of Samael’s reappearance.

I pulled the scrap of paper from between the pages of the book, where I had banished it, and I read the name again. Elisha. Written in a spidery scrawl that I was unfamiliar with.

Elisha had been a prophet in the 800’s, back when I’d been young. He had been the son of a wealthy land owner in Northern Israel, who’d become the protégé and successor of the prophet Elijah. He’d been a man of miracles. He’d cured insanitary water in the land of Jericho. He’d brought the fear of God to Beth-el. He had turned a pot of oil into a well. The stories of his greatness were many and had traveled far. And I believed not a word of them. He had claimed himself a man of God, and I had denounced God and all of His treachery long before.

The name though, made me wonder if it was the prophet, reborn, whose soul I was after.

I refocused my attention to the environment around me, the tiny metropolis that was the college campus. Its’ people where a collage of the determined and the utterly useless, a tiny mirror of the world beyond its walls.

My awareness was solely for the young men milling about.

Their testosterone hung sickeningly on the air.

I was hyper aware of every predatory gaze that fell upon my lithe figure, stretched out as I was on a stone bench, basking in the soporific light of the sun. I graced each with a warm smile. I knew the effect it had on them. One awkward boy actually stumbled over his own feet, his books abandoning his arms for the comfort of the rain-dampened grass. It made my flirtations gratifying, which brightened my darkened mood.

Another heavy sigh escaped my lips as I checked the diamond bezeled face of my watch. 12: 17. My target was late, and I was growing more impatient by the minute.

Boredom was a source of fuel for anger.

My ire was rising when I caught the subtle hint of honey on the air, and I forgot everything. My heart stopped beating for several moments, before I was inexplicably drawn to my feet. My book forgotten as it fell to the earth. I was searching the grounds frantically for the source of the scent when my dark eyes caught sight of a smile that knocked the air from my lungs.

She was laughing.

I could hear her voice, carried on the wind, even from my place on the other side of the quad. My still heart seized and then began beating again, erratic beneath my breast, and all that I was came crashing back with a nauseating force.

I knew who my target was.

And in that moment, the world itself stood still.