The weather proved to be quite finicky as things grew a little brisk during our workday. I know I mentioned earlier that I enjoyed cooler weather, and I honestly felt that it made physical activity outdoors much easier. However, I was a little worried about Lilith since she insisted on wearing nothing more than her overalls in order to carry out her tasks. How the young woman managed to stay warm, I’ll never know. Maybe she was more like me than I realized and preferred the cooler weather as well.

Once the work was wrapped up for another day, it was time for dinner. Antenora had a warm meal waiting for us on the table when we entered the house, and I certainly couldn’t deny how hungry I was. I had a seat across from Lilith in what had become “my spot,” and I ravenously started to dig in as I piled extra mashed potatoes and corn onto my plate. I think I had the chicken breast in front of me gone within mere seconds.

I did my best to slow down on my second piece since I didn’t want to come off as an animal. As we sat at that table situated in the kitchen, I wondered why we never consumed our meals in the fancy dining room in the next chamber over. I reminded myself that even though I could plainly see it from where I sat, I hadn’t officially been given a tour of the house. Perhaps my “gracious” hostess left the room for special occasions. As inquisitive as I was, I knew it wasn’t my place to ask questions. Besides, if I was going to inquire about anything, I had a ton of doozies I would’ve preferred having answers to.

The first and foremost one on my mind was just how long Antenora had planned on letting me crash in her home. I was on my third day of being stranded on her property, and if she truly didn’t have a working telephone, I wondered how she planned on getting me back on the road. At the same time, I was beginning to wonder if she maybe liked having a man around the house again to help with some of the workload. Perhaps I also provided a bit of a “middleman” between her and Lilith. I thought of what it would be like to be a fly on the wall when the two of them were alone…

I also had distinct questions that I couldn’t actually ask my hostess for fear of any kind of reprisal. Again, I wasn’t afraid of anything the old woman could do to me: I was a strong, competent young man of twenty-seven. I guess the only thing that frightened me about the place was what the old crone was capable of doing to Lilith if I wasn’t around to protect her.

Which was why I had decided that I wasn’t leaving this place without her.

“Did you gather more firewood and store it away on the side of the guesthouse like I asked you?” Antenora’s query broke into my thoughts.

I glanced over at the old bat who had on a pair of those gaudy earrings that I’d seen every grandmother in existence wearing at some point in time. I’m sure I don’t have to explain them: The overly ornate pieces of jewelry that are clearly found in the cheap section of any supermarket and clip on to the earlobe while usually being a horrendous shade of any color under the rainbow? Yeah, I’m not sure who Antenora was trying to impress, but such fashion was out of style when she was my age.

“Well?”

I swallowed the food I had in my mouth since I didn’t want to sound like a barbarian when I answered. After getting the potatoes and chicken down, I finally responded, “I actually gathered a bit more because the pile ended up being a lot larger than you wanted.” I figured she’d approve of my answer.

The elderly woman grunted like an old man. “That won’t do. Now I won’t be able to reach the top of the stack when I need it!”

I should’ve known she wouldn’t be pleased no matter what I did. I wondered why it even mattered to her since she would more than likely have Lilith fetching the wood, to begin with. It wasn’t like the grouchy hag was going to do anything on her own. I should’ve known it was because she was the kind of person who just wanted to bitch for the sake of bitching.

“And you,” Antenora squawked as she turned her attention to the blue-skinned angel sitting across from me. “Did you gather the eggs I asked for from the chickens?”

Lilith answered by simply nodding.

“Good. It’s about time you do something.”

Getting a little fed up with the old bat’s treatment of the woman I had grown so attached to in my short time on her property, I couldn’t help but set my fork down on the table as I turned my eyes to her and lowered my voice while saying, “She does a hell of a lot more around here than you do, you know.”

“Excuse me?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lilith tense up and actually shake her head. The fear in her gentle spheres became readily apparent, but I wasn’t about to back down to some old biddy who didn’t know a good thing when she had one. The fact that she treated Lilith like crap pissed me off to no end, and as far as I was concerned, it was going to end—now.

I felt one of Lilith’s feet under the table as she gently kicked me and tried to shut me up before my mouth managed to get me in any additional trouble. Of course, I wasn’t about to give in. I wasn’t trying to come off as a tough guy who picked on old ladies by any means, but over the last few days, I had put up with the nagging crone belittling my raven-tressed compeer on far too many occasions, and I had had enough.

“Do you realize how much work this wonderful woman accomplishes on a daily basis for you?” I asked as Antenora and I engaged in a retinal battle. “I’ve seen my share of hard workers in my time, and I’ve been to places that most people can’t even imagine, and in all those adventures I’ve had, I’ve never seen anyone who breaks her back for someone else as much as Lilith does for you. Maybe you ought to show her a little respect unless you’d like to go out to that barn and do the work by yourself tomorrow.”

I’m not lying when I say that I’ve never seen such hatred behind a pair of eyes in my entire life, and that’s coming from a guy who’s seen the underbelly of the world and then some. The animosity behind the aged orbs glaring back at me might’ve been enough to make a normal man crack under pressure, but I’ll be the first to admit that I’m anything but normal.

I knew the elderly woman regretted inviting me into her home more than anything at that moment, but she took the high road and said nothing in response. With her jaw hanging open, she simply stood up with her plate of food in her right hand. She then walked over to her trash receptacle and dumped what remained before placing the dirty dish in the sink. Her mouth was still agape as she made her way past us and toward the staircase. Without uttering a single word in retaliation, she disappeared up the stairs.

I turned to face Lilith with a bit of shock etched on my countenance. I hadn’t been expecting the old crone to concede so easily. I was awaiting the blue-skinned beauty to maybe laugh or thank me for defending her, but I was instead surprised by the response I received.

Lilith set her fork down and lowered her head so I couldn’t see her eyes. “Bad,” she mumbled as she shook her head.

I had no idea what to say. I wasn’t sure if she had muttered the word because she thought Antenora was bad, or if she was referring to me for being such a loudmouth. I would’ve hoped by this time that she would’ve known I was only being a jerk on her behalf. I had been defending her. I didn’t want the lovely young woman to live under Antenora’s iron fist any longer.

Lilith finally looked up at me and had a frown spread across her face. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

I didn’t think I had to explain myself, but I did so anyway when I said, “But Lilith, I don’t like the way that old hag treats you! You do all the work…”

“Bad,” Lilith repeated the same word she had just said and had also used back in the dell the night before. She continued to shake her head as she abruptly stood up with her plate of food and also walked over to the trash receptacle and dumped what was left. She then made her way to the sink and washed her dish and utensils along with the ones Antenora had placed in the small washing basin. Once they were cleaned to her liking, she grabbed a towel to dry them with and put them away before doing just as the old woman had done: She walked past me toward the staircase.

“Lilith?” I asked as she stopped for only a second.

The blue-skinned woman glanced in my direction and still looked sad as she mumbled, “I love you, Marcus.” She then disappeared up the stairs and left me alone in the kitchen.

It should come as no surprise that I was more confused than I had ever been. There wasn’t a single problem on any test I had ever taken in all my years of schooling or even during the single year I spent in college that could’ve had me more perplexed than I was in that moment as I sat by myself at the small table. I understood Antenora’s resentment toward me, but what had I done to upset Lilith?

I tried telling myself that the raven-tressed beauty wasn’t really mad at me. Maybe she was just disappointed in the way I had addressed the situation. I knew she didn’t actually like Antenora, but maybe she thought I could’ve handled our plight with a little more tact. After all, Lilith was a kindhearted woman with far better manners than anyone – myself included – gave her credit for.

It may have seemed a little tacky on my part, but I remained alone in the kitchen so I could finish my meal since I was absolutely famished. I know it may have seemed a little insensitive on my part since poor Lilith had discarded her dinner after my outburst, but I had a man-sized hunger that needed to be sated, and I wasn’t leaving my spot until it was.

I must’ve devoured four or five pieces of chicken and enough potatoes, green beans, and corn to feed a small family. I had been starving when we reentered the house, but after stuffing myself to the brim, I knew I was going to sleep well, unless I had Lilith on my mind for the rest of the evening. I was hoping to see her before lying down for the night, but I wasn’t sure if she’d even want to see me. She had been pretty disappointed in my behavior.

When I was finally full, I stood up and took my plate over to the sink on the other side of the kitchen behind where Lilith normally sat. I scraped the food residue off the plate and washed it along with my utensils. After drying everything off and looking for the right cupboards to put the dishes away in, I decided it would be in my best interest to clean off the rest of the dishes so Lilith didn’t catch flak for not doing so.

I walked over to the table and gathered anything that didn’t have food in or on it so I could collect them and take them back to the sink. Since there were obviously some leftovers, I took those bowls over to the refrigerator. I was just about to open the door when something caught my attention and made me almost drop everything I had in my hands.

On the door of the fridge, there were all sorts of old magnets in the shape of farm animals holding up old photos and newspaper clippings. Most of what I saw was nothing out of the ordinary, but somehow, my eyes caught a piece of paper no bigger than a business card that had nothing more than a name and phone number scrawled across it in black ink.

The name on the card was “Kaede Lara Storm.”

Perhaps a little context is in order. Kaede was a girl I had known years earlier when I was in my final year of schooling. At that time, she was a hot-ass nineteen-year-old with a smokin’ body and a tan complexion. She had black hair and dark eyes, and she looked like she could have been on the cover of any fitness magazine due to her toned abs and trim physique. Any guy would feel blessed to have a roll in the hay with her, and to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure if many guys would be able to keep up with her. Sure, I had never gone all the way with her, but it was safe to assume that from a sexual standpoint, Kaede would go the distance and then some.

Oh, and if I didn’t mention it, I received my first-ever blowjob from Kaede.

It went without saying that seeing the stunning woman’s handwritten name and a number to contact her at hanging on a refrigerator out in the middle of nowhere sent a chill down my very spine. I’m pretty sure I stood as still as a statue for a good minute until finally backing toward the table so I could set everything in my hands down before walking back over and pulling the card out from under the cow-head magnet holding it to the refrigerator door. I’m sure I stared at it for another minute before moving again as my mind tried to register everything going on.

I walked back over to where I always sat when I ate at the table in the kitchen. I seated myself and continued to stare at the card in my right hand as my mouth hung open in awe. The last time I had seen the brown-eyed babe with a body to kill for, we had gone on a little “ghost hunt” at an abandoned cabin she knew about. Kaede had always been into the paranormal, and she desired to prove that what some people found to be nothing more than ambiguous superstition was in fact real in some way. In fact, she had disappeared from my life seven years earlier to do just that.

“Kaede,” I whispered her name as I stared at the card and memorized the numbers before me. “Where the hell are you…and how the hell have you been?” As I pictured the limber woman in my mind’s eye, I found myself wondering what she possibly looked like nearly a decade later. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would still be strikingly gorgeous, but more important than that, I wondered if she was still leading a life on the edge while searching for proof of life after death.

After reminiscing for a few minutes, my eyes went right back to the card in my hand as I wondered why her full name was written down. I was actually kind of grateful that it was because I knew that I could be positively certain that it was her and not a woman with the same first name. I had always thought that her full name was so damn awesome: Kaede Lara Storm. A badass name for a badass woman. She had always been something else. There could be no one else like her.

The significance of her phone number being on the card suddenly hit me.

I stood up with the digits racing through my mind as I asked myself, Why would Antenora have a card with a phone number on it if she didn’t have a phone somewhere in the house? I paced back and forth while trying to piece things together. A second thought hit me almost as hastily as the first when I remembered, She never said she didn’t have one…she just said it wasn’t working! At that moment, I firmly believed that the old bat was lying to me, and that if I searched a little harder, I would find a telephone somewhere in the dwelling that was in working order. At this point, I couldn’t believe any of the bullshit escaping her old, crusted lips.

As I continued to meander through the kitchen while wrestling with my thoughts, I wondered why Antenora of all people would have Kaede’s phone number. What had become of the raven-haired hottie who had at one time sucked me off in the basement of an actual haunted house? As I thought about her, I walked over to the sink and leaned against the countertop space next to it while reliving my past.

Believe it or not, I had always been skeptical about ghosts and such, but my little adventure with Kaede actually turned up substantial evidence. As long as I live, I’ll never forget that night when she was giving me the most amazing head until I looked up and suddenly spotted a shadow figure…

And that was when a shadow actually fell over me while I was lost in thought. Since my back was to it, I would’ve never known it was there, except for the animalistic screech that accompanied it and alerted me to its presence.

I spun around and saw a deranged woman only feet away from me with an axe clutched in her right hand and held above her head. She looked like death warmed over, and her target was obviously me. Her eyes were red with rage and her varicose veins pulsed in her arms and legs. I was about to meet my maker and would never understand everything that had befallen me in the last few days.

Even though I had been warned that the crazed old woman was coming right at me with her deadly weapon raised, I had no time to react since I was so flabbergasted by what was about to happen. Antenora was going to end me and more than likely hack me to pieces for the fun of it. What bitter irony…

A sickening thud suddenly sounded throughout the room.

I watched in awe as the old crone collapsed to the kitchen floor only about three feet away from me. The back of her skull had been bludgeoned by a lead pipe, and my blue-skinned angel stood tall directly behind her as my savior.

“Li…Lilith?!” I called out after finding my voice and trying to register everything I had just seen.

A look of dread overtook the dark-haired woman’s face as she realized what she had just done. She hadn’t wanted to kill the old bat, but she had done so in order to save me.

Even after everything I had just witnessed, I somehow managed to make my way across the kitchen and over the body in front of me as I grabbed onto Lilith before she could fall over. I was positive that my blue-skinned compeer was on the verge of fainting after realizing she had just taken a life, but I wouldn’t allow her to fall. I hugged my arms around her and kept her upright as I took the pipe away from her and set it on the table.

I walked Lilith over to the chair I had been sitting on and placed her on it. She was trembling uncontrollably, but I told her to look into my eyes and focus completely on me. I wanted to slow her breathing down to normal before she hyperventilated.

“Everything’s all right, Lilith! You’re going to be okay! You didn’t do anything wrong!”

“I…I murdered her!”

“No! No, you didn’t!” I grabbed the young woman by her upper arms and forced her to look at me and not the body of the deceased female on the floor. “You only did what you had to in order to save me! Had you not acted, she would’ve hacked me to ribbons!”

Tears flowed down the blue-skinned beauty’s face. She wasn’t convinced that she hadn’t committed the heinous crime of homicide.

I leaned in close to Lilith as I tried to soothingly rub her arms. I made her look into my eyes again as I told her, “You didn’t murder Antenora: People who murder others have a choice in the matter, and you didn’t have a choice! You didn’t want Antenora to murder me, so you had to do something to stop her! What you did wasn’t murder because you were defending me!”

I could tell that Lilith wasn’t convinced, but she was at least calming down and thinking about my words.

My mind went back to when I had first met the old bat and she had referred to Lilith as a “spawn of the underworld.” I couldn’t help but inwardly laugh at how ironic that was since my poor angel was so concerned about being labeled a murderer. I don’t know of too many spawns of the underworld who would be so remorseful.

The blue-skinned beauty sniveled a little more before trying to look past me and at the old woman lying dead on the floor. I wouldn’t let her do so.

“I think you should maybe go up to your room, Lilith,” I told the spiritual young woman. “Let me take care of things down here.”

The blue-skinned female shook her head. She wanted to stay with me.

I pulled Lilith in close and ran a hand through her dark locks. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do next. It wasn’t like I could just wrap Antenora up in a bedsheet and bury her out by the chicken coop. I had to notify the authorities on the phone I believed was hidden somewhere in the house so they could take care of things professionally.

But that would mean reporting Lilith, and I couldn’t do that.

As I held the whimpering woman close, I thought about taking the fall and saying that I had killed Antenora. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of scenario to weave; perhaps something along the lines of the old crone was about to strike Lilith with the axe when I clubbed her from behind to stop her. It seemed pretty believable since I was a stranger in her house. If it meant protecting my little blue angel…

But what would become of Lilith, then?

With her obvious differences from most run-of-the-mill folks, I was afraid that if I involved the authorities and even made up some kind of wild confession, they would cart Lilith off to some laboratory and run bizarre experiments on her while trying to figure out what exactly she was. They would probably think she was some kind of genetic mutation, and more likely than not, they would strap her down to a steel surface and poke and prod her with needles. The very thought of the disgusting atrocities they would carry out on her had my skin crawling.

And that was only if I could persuade Lilith to go along with my plan.

I had only known the kindhearted female for a few days, but I was pretty sure that there was no way I would be able to convince her to go along with letting me shoulder the blame for what had happened. I’ve referred to Lilith as an angel on multiple occasions throughout my tale, and part of that reason is because, to me, she truly played the part. She may not have looked like one of the conventional seraphim, but she surely had the heart of one.

Since Lilith wasn’t going anywhere, I gave her one last hug before pulling away and looking into her tear-filled eyes. I tried to make my voice sound comforting as I sternly told her, “Lilith, we need to get Antenora’s body out of here and clean this place up. Will you help me do that?”

Reluctantly, my chartreuse-eyed savior nodded once and slowly stood up. She then suddenly bolted out of the house and took off across the property. I debated whether or not to go after her because I thought she may have had a change of heart, but it didn’t take her long to return. I’m assuming she went to the barn because when she returned, she had a black tarp with her.

I didn’t have to say anything to tell Lilith that I approved. In my heart, I knew we shouldn’t have moved the body, but at the same time, we had no way of contacting the authorities even if we wanted to. We obviously couldn’t leave Antenora in the kitchen.

After my partner in crime – and I suppose that sounds a little ironic to say it that way now – handed me the grimy material we’d use to move the deceased homeowner, I looked at her as I shook the tarpaulin out and set it down next to the corpse. I told her she didn’t have to be in the room as I rolled the body up.

Lilith was a strong woman. She informed me that she would be fine, and I think she even considered giving me a hand, until I rolled Antenora over and she caught a glimpse of the old woman’s eyes rolled back in her skull. My blue-skinned compeer threw her hands over her mouth and stepped away as I placed my right hand over the upper face of the elderly female and closed her lids. I then did what I could to quickly roll her body up in the tarp.

It finally dawned on me that I didn’t have a plan for where to store the body. I knew we couldn’t keep Antenora in the house, and I certainly wasn’t going to put her in the guesthouse. The chicken coop and the barn seemed like bad options as well, and simply placing her outside could’ve resulted in any number of animals coming out of the woods in order to discover what we had thrown out. I may not have had any love for the woman, but she certainly didn’t deserve to be picked apart by scavengers.

For the briefest of moments, I thought about dragging her all the way out to the lonely dell and dumping her body down the well I had seen next to the shed. Again, I didn’t think such a fate was befitting to the old bat no matter how much I disliked her, but I didn’t know what else to do with her, nor did I have any idea how long Lilith and I would be trapped in the house. Winter was still a couple of months away, but I wasn’t even sure where the nearest town was located. I didn’t know how far we could get walking, and unless we were able to move my pickup and use Antenora’s automobile…

First and foremost, I had to find something to do with the body. Even in death, the old biddy was still finding a way to make our lives miserable. To be perfectly honest, I was somewhat expecting her to sit up in the tarp like something out of a cheesy horror movie. Thankfully, she was dead as a doornail, and I apologize since that does sound like a disrespectful thing to say given the circumstances.

I scooped the dead body up and carried it toward the front doorway. Lilith knew that taking Antenora outside was preferable to leaving her in the house with us, so she pulled the wooden portal open and held it for me while trying to do the same with the storm door. I thanked her as I passed through the exit and carefully lugged the remains down the rickety front steps.

My heart raced as I thought about everything that had happened in the last few days. Less than two weeks earlier, I had been back with Eve living a somewhat normal life. Sure, things had started going downhill due to the nightmares locked in my mind from what I had learned during my time with the trio of operatives a few years earlier, but when compared to the fact that I was now transporting a corpse wrapped in a tarp…

I didn’t want to come off as a complainer or a crybaby. Fate had decided to deliver me to this mysterious location off the beaten path and I was up to my neck in all the weird goings-on. I may not have understood everything that was transpiring, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening regardless. As the old saying went, I had to take the ball and run with it.

I carried Antenora’s corpse over to where I had piled firewood earlier in the day. I knew it wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but I set her down near it before grabbing a few pieces to set around her. I then started placing a few on top of her because I thought if any animals did in fact come scrounging, they would leave her alone if I had her buried beneath the wood. I’m not sure if there was any logic to what I was doing, but at the same time, I had never needed to hide a dead body before. This wasn’t something I was familiar with.

When I finally turned around, I could see Lilith standing a few yards away from me. The sun may have been getting ready to descend for the day, but it was still doing a tremendous job of showing me the sorrow on my blue-skinned angel’s face. It was obvious that she was repentant for what she had done even though she had always had a strained relationship with the deceased woman.

I walked up to Lilith and took one of her arms. I then led her back to the main house and guided her up the crooked steps. It was my turn to hold the doors for her as we went back inside and both stood for countless minutes just staring at the spot where Antenora had been lying minutes earlier. Since I knew the dark-haired beauty was still torn up inside, I gave her a loving pat on the back and told her she could go upstairs and wait for me as I ran a wet rag over the floor.

There wasn’t really a mess since there had barely been any blood, but it still felt right to clean things up. I’m sure most people would think the kitchen had been a bloody mess, but this was real life: Antenora had been cracked in the back of the head by a lead pipe. It wasn’t as if she had been dismembered by a chainsaw like in a cheap slasher flick.

Lilith didn’t want to leave my side. She started fetching me rags and dish towels from a few different drawers, and then she took them to the sink in order to wet them and retrieve some soap. As expected, the wonderful woman dropped down and started scrubbing the floor with me even though I hadn’t asked for her help.

The two of us sterilized that floor to the best of our ability. We wiped up everything we could, and we didn’t stop at the floor: We cleaned the nearby cabinets and even the table legs and chairs as well. We wanted to be sure that every inch of that kitchen was unsoiled.

As we scrubbed away, I couldn’t help but look over and notice the way Lilith’s beautiful breasts dangled below her as she moved about on all fours. I knew it was a horrible time to be checking her out, but she was wearing nothing other than her normal overalls, and I could pretty much see everything from my angle. I did my best to look away since this certainly wasn’t the time for such dirty thoughts.

Once we had everything cleaned up, I remembered what I had been doing before all the craziness transpired. I climbed to my feet and made my way over to the sink where I retrieved the white card with my old friend’s name and number on it. I then showed it to my black-haired compeer and asked her, “Lilith, do you know the woman who’s listed on this card?”

The blue-skinned beauty looked at the name and frowned. She didn’t speak in words since she didn’t have to. I could tell that she wanted nothing to do with Kaede.

I ran a hand over my chin as I wondered why Lilith would fear my old friend. I may not have known Kaede as well as some of the other women in my life, but the few times I had spent with her back in my younger days had always been fun. She had always been a spirited and kind person, so if Lilith did in fact know her somehow, I wanted to know why she didn’t seem to care for her. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

I placed the card in my left pocket with Eve’s earrings that I had remembered to grab earlier. While doing so, I suddenly recalled the film reels under my bed upstairs. I took Lilith’s right hand and guided her toward the staircase so we could ascend the steps. Once we were at the top, we took a left and made our way to the guest room I had been crashing in. I finally released my hold on her so I could drop down and fish the reels out.

Lilith hugged her arms around her chest and shivered. I could tell that she wanted nothing to do with what I’d find on those homemade movies. It broke my heart to carry out what I had to do next.

“Lilith, you mentioned knowing where we could find a projector. Could you take me to it?”

The blue-skinned beauty was hesitant, but she knew I had to see whatever it was that was on those reels. Against her better judgment, she eventually led me to the lowest level of the house that I hadn’t been in yet. As we made our way into the dank basement, I felt that same vibe from when we had been in the forest the night before. I’ve probably used the analogy one too many times, but I felt like I was entering the set where a horror movie was being shot, only this was very real. I was in the belly of the beast.

We walked down some decaying, wooden steps and ducked under some cobwebs that hung from the slanted stairwell. When we reached the concrete floor below, Lilith located a string hanging from the ceiling in order to pull it down and click on a single bulb. It certainly wasn’t enough to illuminate the entire area, but it appeared that it would be enough.

I looked around as Lilith made her way to a dark corner. I could see an old workbench that was a good fifteen to twenty feet in length lining one of the walls, and a bunch of tools hung above it from a pegboard. I also noticed an old safe at one end tucked under the bench, and scattered throughout the vast room appeared to be various objects sitting in random piles. I identified everything from a bike to antique lamps, and there was plenty in between.

I quickly relocated Lilith since I didn’t want to lose her to the darkness. With everything that had gone down in the last hour, I wasn’t about to let her out of my sight. I would never be able to forgive myself if something happened to her.

When the blue-skinned beauty finally reappeared, she motioned to where she stood in the corner. I made my way toward her and saw a projector stand that was about three feet in height. I also took note of how it had four wheels on the bottom, so I wheeled it out into the light so I could have a better look at it.

Personally, I was more accustomed to videocassettes and VCRs, so as I tried to figure out what I was doing, it became obvious to Lilith that I was struggling a bit. Since she knew how to operate the “ancient” technology, she took over and asked which reel I wanted to see first, so I thought it would be best to start at the beginning. She nodded her understanding and attached the oldest one, and then aimed the lens at one of the stone walls so we could view the movie.

What I saw next was a blast from Lilith’s past that I hadn’t been expecting.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Lilith was probably about six or seven years old. She was sitting at the dining room table in the very house we stood in, and there was a jolly man with whitish hair and a matching beard sitting across from her. He looked overjoyed as the blue-skinned girl cheered due to a cake sitting between them.

I watched through “cigarette burns” and other blips as little Lilith ran a finger through the frosting in order to steal a small taste. The man across from her laughed as she did so, but a harsh voice from behind the camera admonished her behavior. I never thought I would hear Antenora’s voice again, but I quickly realized she was indeed the person filming the scene I was witnessing. She sounded just as “delightful” as she had when I had known her.

The man in the video turned to face the camera and urged the camerawoman to calm down. He told her it was a big day for their little Lilith, and he wanted his wife to let their little girl enjoy her moment. It was obvious that I was watching a birthday celebration, and it was even more obvious that the dark-haired girl loved the man seated across from her.

The film wasn’t very long. It was nice to see little Lilith enjoying herself, but when I looked at the grown woman beside me, a large frown was spread across her face. I felt horrible since I realized she missed the man who had been a father to her, and I was having her relive memories of him by watching the short movie with me.

That didn’t stop her from getting the next reel ready for me.

The second movie was nearly a decade later. Lilith looked to be about sixteen or seventeen years old, and the homemade film was being shot out in front of the barn as the blue-skinned girl and the old man tossed around a ball. Even though ten years had passed, they looked just as happy as they had in the previous video. Ironically enough, the woman filming sounded just as irritable as before.

The aging man eventually jogged – or what passed for it – up toward the camera and started offering to take over the filming. The shot of him became a little obscured since there was obviously a lot of movement going on, and he could be heard telling his wife that he would record for a while if she wanted to go throw the ball around with Lilith.

Antenora gave an obvious answer that she didn’t want to mess around or even film for that matter. She told her husband that she thought the whole thing was a “silly waste of time,” and in the background, I could hear Lilith’s angelic voice call out, “Come on, Dad! Let’s play some more!” After hearing her, the aging man jogged back out across the dirt so they could continue throwing the ball around. They did so for a few more minutes until the homemade flick stuttered and came to an abrupt end.

It was evident that Lilith had had a happy childhood with her old man. Even though she referred to the man as her father, I recalled some of Antenora’s first words during our initial conversation when she told me that Lilith was no actual relation to her. I was fairly certain that the two weren’t connected by blood, but if that was the case, then where did the blue-skinned beauty come from? How did she end up on this secluded farmland out in the middle of nowhere?

Something else that suddenly occurred to me was Lilith’s behavior during the second movie. Apart from her obvious physical differences, she sounded like any typical teenager who was the same age. She spoke in complete and articulate sentences. She sounded confident in herself and appeared to be well-educated.

So why did the Lilith next to me seem like she had regressed?

That wasn’t meant to be a knock toward my blue-hued angel in any way. I knew she was an intelligent, capable woman, but I could also plainly see that the Lilith of now was nothing like the Lilith of then. She seemed so talkative and full of life in the homemade movies, and even though she was still energetic, she had become withdrawn and soft-spoken. She was a different person.

As the questions ran laps through my head, Lilith changed the reel out one final time to the one that had the most recent date on it. According to what was written on it, it had taken place roughly three years earlier. There were numerous possibilities as to what we’d see on this final reel. Well, at least numerous possibilities for me to see.

After getting everything set up, Lilith looked at me and asked if she could head back upstairs. The look on her face told me that she didn’t want to view what was on that final reel at all. Her eyes practically begged me to dismiss her from the vicinity.

I certainly wasn’t about to force the young woman to remain in the basement with me if she didn’t want to. The fact that she had come with me to begin with was a testament to her courage since it was obvious from the get-go that she wanted nothing to do with the old movies. I did my best to smile when I told my dark-haired friend that I would be up shortly.

After Lilith disappeared up the steps, I turned my attention to the projector and started it up. I had been half-expecting something similar to what I had seen on the last two and thought that the memories of the man I recalled being name Albert were possibly getting to Lilith, but I was terribly wrong.

What met my eyes was unspeakably bloodcurdling and repulsive.

When the movie started, a man with a small potato sack secured over his head sat on a chair in the middle of a shed. His hands were tied behind his back and there was a splotch of fresh blood on his shirt. The person filming seemed to be trembling, and she was quickly chided for her fear by a gruff voice.

Antenora walked into frame and held a knife in one hand as she eyed the defeated man seated before her. She then started pointing toward the person recording and brusquely ordered her to settle down unless she wanted to be next. There was unadulterated evil in her eyes as she commanded the young woman to keep filming.

“It’s…okay…little one,” the man with his face covered told the terrified girl. “You’re going to be…all right.”

“Daddy,” I heard Lilith cry since she was obviously the one filming. “Daddy, please…”

“This wouldn’t be happening if not for you, demon-seed!” Antenora harshly growled as she waved the knife in Lilith’s direction. “If you hadn’t stolen my husband’s love from me twenty years ago, none of this would be necessary!”

“Ante…nora,” the man wheezed as he struggled to survive. “I have enough love for both you and Lilith. I don’t understand—why you blame her?”

“You give that little demon spawn all of your attention!” The old bat accused her husband. “Ever since she came into the picture, you never have time for me! You don’t care about me…” Antenora trailed off when she noticed that Lilith was crying. She again pointed the knife at the camera and told her, “You stop your blubbering this instant!”

Lilith continued to sob as the dying man begged for his daughter’s safety. He told his wife that if she was going to kill him, he could accept it, as long as she left Lilith alone.

“Oh, I’ll leave her alone. She’ll have nowhere to go. If she even tries to leave, I’ll tell everyone that she was the one who killed you! Besides, who’s going to believe a blue-skinned fiend like her? She’s such a freak, everyone out there will want to cage her based on her appearance alone! She won’t be able to glamour them the same way she did you!”

“Just…leave her be,” Albert begged his demented wife. “You can take my life, but just leave Lilith alone.”

Like a true psycho, Antenora responded by sticking the knife in her husband’s breadbasket. His body responded with a violent jerk as the young woman recording the film let out a terrified scream. When the deranged killer thought her “daughter” was about to stop filming, she quickly ordered her to remain focused if she didn’t want to get hurt. She then disappeared from the shot momentarily by walking off to the side.

Albert gasped for breath under the potato sack covering his head as Lilith screeched her love for him. Even though the man could hardly speak, he tried to tell his dark-haired daughter to remain calm and to do what Antenora said so she wouldn’t hurt her. He told her to follow her mother’s orders, and he reminded her just how much he loved her as the psychotic old woman suddenly returned, brandishing an axe in her hands.

I stopped the film. I had seen death before, but when the person being killed was a loved one or related to someone I cared about, such a heinous action couldn't be stomached.

“What the fuck?” I cursed as I started to shake. I had seen some gruesome things in my time, and I was still mentally blocking out events I had witnessed when traveling the globe with the enigmatic trio who had shown me some of the seediest parts of the world I never would’ve imagined existed. I knew there were a lot of sick people out there, but just knowing that Antenora had basically been holding Lilith hostage for the last three years…

Under the single bulb lighting the basement, I did my best to put everything together. While I still had no idea where Lilith had come from, I now knew that when my least favorite crone had still been alive, she had essentially been blackmailing my blue-skinned angel. Lilith had basically been a slave for the last three years and Antenora had been making her do all of the dirty work around the house, just like she had forced her to film the death of her old man.

From what I could see from the homemade movies, Lilith had genuinely loved her father figure, and he loved her as well. The happiness exuding from both of them in the movies had been palpable, and it was quite obvious that Antenora’s jealousy had driven her over the edge. She truly believed that the blue-skinned beauty was a demon, which was ironic considering what the old bat had done to her husband.

I quickly realized that if Lilith and I could somehow contact the authorities, we had proof of her innocence currently sitting right in front of me. The law would have to side with the young woman if I told them that Antenora had come at me with an axe when Lilith clubbed her from behind to save me. After seeing what the crazed woman had done to her husband…

Regret suddenly swelled in my body as I thought about my poor angel who was waiting for me upstairs. I lamented how I had asked Lilith to guide me through the woods to the location I had found on the buckskin map, and I deplored the fact that I had asked for her help with the film projector, to begin with. Knowing what I now did, I felt like the biggest heel in the history of the world. How could I ever begin to apologize for my indiscretion?

With a heavy heart, I walked over and pulled the string to click the light off. I then started slowly making my way up the stairs as I wondered what I would possibly say to the young woman who had changed my life for the better in the last few days. Somehow, Lilith had made me forget so many things I had recently been dealing with.

Something Antenora said in the last film suddenly came back to me and made me stop halfway up the stairwell. I remembered her saying something to her husband about Lilith “glamouring” him.

I placed a hand on my forehead and thought about things. I thought back to the first day when I had met Lilith and fell head over heels for her almost instantly. I had just come off a relationship with a wonderful woman in Eve, and even if our love for each other had ended on a sour note – which it actually hadn’t since I was bailing on her due to the night terrors and my fear of hurting her – I would’ve given the connection we had together a respectable amount of time before moving on.

Yet, Lilith and I had immediately jumped in the sack that very night after sharing an intimate moment down at the brook.

Holy shit, I thought as I shook my head back and forth. There was no doubt in my mind that Lilith was a beautiful woman and I absolutely adored being around her. She was a beacon of light when I needed it most, and when I was with her, I felt that she genuinely cared about me. She had taken another person’s life in order to defend me, and deep in my heart, I knew that I loved her.

I remembered telling Lilith that I loved her.

Again, I shook my head as I thought about things. Love was a pretty powerful emotion, and the fact that I had fallen for a stranger so damn quickly.

It wouldn’t have been the first time. Back in college, I had met and fallen for a sweet girl in a relatively short span of time. I thought back to my time spent with the sexy coed and how we had rocked each other’s worlds on several different occasions during my time there. While we may have never spoken the actual words to one another, there was no question in my mind that we did in fact feel that potent emotion for each other. As I thought about her and other past loves, I suddenly missed each and every one of them as I wondered if I would ever see any of them again.

I started back up the staircase as I told myself that I did love Lilith. I wouldn’t have had intercourse with her if I didn’t. She didn’t “glamour” me or anything of the like. I had entered her of my own free will. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.

I reached the top of the staircase and made my way into the kitchen. When I didn’t spot my blue-haired angel in the immediate vicinity, I compassionately called out, “Lilith? Are you here?”

“Up here,” a soothing voice responded from up the staircase.

I made my way up the stairs and took a left toward the guest room I had been crashing in. Through the open doorway, I saw the raven-tressed beauty sitting on my bed. I did the first thing I could think to do, and made my way toward her so I could wrap my arms around her. I felt so bad for what she had been through. She had horrifically lost one of the only people in the entire world who actually loved her, and was forced to record the whole thing for another’s sick pleasures.

I squeezed the young woman and whispered how sorry I was over and over again into one of her pointy ears. I cradled her and let her cry her eyes out since she had lived through an act more depraved than anything I had ever read in books or seen in the cinema. The poor female was an outcast due to how different she looked, and she was all alone in the world.

With the exception of me.

Lilith wasn’t alone. The blue-skinned woman had me. I would always be there for her. I would somehow take her away from this place and attempt to give her a semblance of a normal life. I wanted her to know that not everyone outside of her own little world was as horrible as the elderly woman who had taken everything away from her. There were good people out there.

And there was love.

I wanted Lilith to know that the man who had taken her in as his own and looked after and provided for her was not the only person who felt so strongly for her. I had only known the blue-skinned angel for a short period of time, but I had grown to love her and wanted to take care of her. I wasn’t sure how we would go about our lives, but I was going to do everything I could to keep her safe, while displaying my love for her at the same time.

END OF PART FIVE OF SIX