Legacy (Anathema #2)

by Nick Roberts

Beth knew she was next. She blinked away the tears and took a deep breath. She trembled, but if she was going to go out, she would be damned if she gave this bitch the satisfaction of hearing her scream. “Please, God, be with me…be with my children,” she said. The woman stopped what she was doing and opened the toolbox she had already closed. She grabbed a hammer and approached Beth quicker than the flames were. “God?” the woman said as she peered into Beth’s eyes and grinned. “No. My name is Maren.” She touched the tip of the hammer to Beth’s temple like she was marking her target and then reared back. Beth gasped as the flames crawled up her body. She looked at the woman just in time to see her bury the hammer into her skull. As her consciousness slid into eternal darkness, Maren said, “And I will be with your children.”

“Oh, shut up. I’m finished. You ready to go pack your shit?” Derrick smiled at having gotten under Mitchell’s notoriously thick skin. He put his phone away, downed the last of his coffee, and said, “I don’t get ready. I stay ready.”

Mitchell placed the stack of food on the table. Derrick helped him sort out the contents while Christine went to the cabinets to retrieve some plates. Little running footsteps echoed through the hallway just as May appeared with a stuffed panda bear in her hands.

God, grant me the serenity, To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can And wisdom to know the difference. Amen.

Be the Light. “Maren, I forgive you.” The bald creature in front of him grimaced and then picked up the scalpel from the floor. Fear not. “I forgive you for everything.” In a flash, Maren swiped the blade across Wrenley’s cheek. Derrick almost reacted but remained focused on her eyes. She turned the scalpel upside down and let it hover above Wrenley’s eye. He had to intervene. “I forgive you because I recognize you for what you are.” That caught her attention. “I don’t know if you’re human or some kind of demon, but to me you’re just a disease, passed down from generation to generation. It ends with me, though. You won’t infect May because I’m breaking the cycle.” Maren lowered the blade an inch away from Wrenley’s eyelid. She looked at him, but he didn’t flinch. “I thought I had made peace with my past because I believed you were dead. But when you came back, I felt completely powerless again. Maren, look at me. Yeah, look at me with those cold, pathetic, desperate eyes. I’ve accepted that you’ll always be a part of my story. You’ll always be a part of me, but you don’t have any power over me anymore.” Maren’s eyes widened, and for the first time, Derrick saw what he thought was fear in her eyes. She knew she wasn’t running the show. The master manipulator had been exposed. He knew the lethal blow she was about to deal as a measure of last resort to get him to break, but he’d prepared for that. “I forgive you,” he said. “But I don’t think she does.” Maren jerked her head ...