The Edge of the World

Chapter Thirty-Six

"You already know, don't you, Eve," Tatum went on, holding her stare. "You know why you can do the things you do. Why you can manipulate minds, like you did Doc's and mine, planting false memories into our brains in our death state? He died the night the truck hit him, yet you did a little ditty and filled him up with memories that weren't real. Just as you did me. There was no Australia. No running from that house, and no airplane crash. It was you, fucking us up, keeping us disconnected from one another as you have always done!"

Even sneered. "Well, of course I did! How else could I win? That is what this is all about, is it not? Winning the heart of the firstborn? The first blessed son of the Father?"

Tatum cast a dubious glance towards the limp and bound Ian.

"You have to placate him with spells to keep him hogtied to you. That winning? No matter how tightly you bind him, or how empty you keep him, you will always be number two, Eve. He never let me go and you hate him for it."

The smaller woman shook her head wildly, clutching the crimson velvet of her worn skirt in her fists.

"I love him! I have done nothing but love him. You fought to prove your place was equal to a man, while I did nothing but try to prove my obedience to him. Everything I am, everything I have ever done, has been for the love of Adam and the Father. But how could one like you understand? Nothing matters to you. Not the word of the Father, or the devotion a wife must have for her husband. He never loved you, Lilith! How could he? You were deceitful and cruel to him, always making him chase you. Your relationship with Adam was carnal and nothing more. The depravity of you lust led to the fall of you and your children."

Tatum's surprised huff transformed into soft laughter as she gazed into Eve's wide, angry eyes.

"Carnal? Yeah, I suppose that much is true. He enjoyed chasing me, Eve. It was sort of our thing, and fueled our lust, I will admit."

Eve gave her a look of disgust as Tatum went on, uncaring of her silent, but apparent, opinion of their sex-life. "But lusty or not, nothing I did warranted the murder of my children. The Father is cruel, and you are not what you seem, making you both lie. You claim you love Adam, yet you hurt him with your obsession. You claim your devotion to the Father, yet you and your offspring have destroyed everything He gave you. Look at the realm they rule, Eve, and tell me I'm wrong. Pollution, greed, bigotry, hate, madness, racism, murder, rape, and deceitfulness. That is what your children bring to the table. You're delusional, as are your descendants."

At Eve's glare, Tatum shrugged, her voice calming. "Still, I can't blame you entirely, now, can I? You and your children aren't at fault. You're half demon, and that darkness has been passed down through the ages and as long as your offspring live, demons will rule the Earth. Everything you all are, is damned."

Eve reared back as if struck, her lips parted in shock even as she shook her head in denial.

"You're lying!"

But even as Eve stepped away from the angry Tatum, the taller, broader woman followed her, stalking her like a wolf would its prey. She wasn't done hurting Eve with the truth! She needed her to feel the agony Tatum and all of her aspects had felt because of her obsession.

"You aren't fooling anyone," Tatum snapped. "You have never died, Eve. Only in Edan do we stay immortal, yet you traveled the world, even after Adam died, and your heart never stopped beating. You understood the serpents. Their language is of the demonic, yet you were seduced by its urgings, betraying the very Father you claim to obey. Only a demon can understand that language. The moment the Father sent me away from Edan, Adam had to be subdued as she demanded I be returned to him. In his sleep, Michael removed his rib to create another wife, but this time the Father wanted to do it differently."