Page 53 of Devil Inside

It’s... her.

It’s her.

“Lilith?” I ask. The name breaks in half in my mouth. I can’t hold it up, the syllables snapping like a communion wafer.

The grin she gives, it lights up the golden flecks in her eyes. She senses it’s finally dawning on me, I can tell, all of it, sinking in once and for all. And that’s all it takes.

It’s her. It has to be.

Lilith. I don’t know how, how any of this is even fucking remotely possible, and yet...

It’sher. Reallyher.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she says. That makes two of us. I step back, putting as much distance between us as humanly possible. This woman, this—

Lilith, it’s her

—stranger doesn’t move. She remains standing exactly where she is, watching me push back through the crowd. Our eyes never break from one another, the hold between us too strong, too frightening to let go of. It can’t be her. It just can’t. Even though I know it is.

Christ, it’s her. It’s really her.Her.Lilith watches me leave. I can see the hurt within her. The pain resonates outward. She never blinks, though. Not once.

Just watching me go.

a beaming needle in a human haystack

Lilith

I just can’t shake this guy. Look at what he’s got me doing for him now...

I have to hunt down our former host.

What’s become of me? I’ve sunk so low. It will take some sifting through skin, drifting from body to body, until I pinpoint her all over again. It’s practically impossible, locating one vessel in a mass of humanity. A miracle, you might say, if we believed in the miraculous. Fantasies for man. Find one,just one, in the din. A grain of sand in an endless desert of sin.

There is such a fluidity to flesh. A tide I can ride. I swim through people’s dreams, their pent-up repressions, the desires they hide. I hear it all. Every last secret.

It’s so hard to think straight, hearing all these voices, when all I want is to hear him.Jordan.Any one of these voids would be sufficient. I could simply pick from the plethora of vessels for a night on the town. But no—it has to beher. I need to findher.

Our initial skin. The flesh we first met in.

It’s almost offensive, choosing to do this. Prove myself to Jordan. It’s a cheap parlor trick to convince disbelievers. Whysuch a vulgar display? Simply forhim? Can’t he just like us for, you know...us? Me? Why do I have to slip on some mask and pretend I’m someone else? This is who I’ve been for an eternity. The chip on my shoulder spans millennia, and he wants me to be—what, exactly? Some bubbly tattooed party girl? Why does it even matter what Jordan thinks? Why am I going to such absurd lengths, simply to gain his faith?

He tastes good, for starters. What a rare vintage he is. The salt, the sweat, the darkness—like chocolate. I find myself craving more. Others bore me. I tire too quickly of everyone else. But with Jordan... there’s more. I tasted something else. Something fresh. It was buried within, deep below the skin, practically at the core. A shadow, lingering. It overwhelmed me. Took me by such surprise.

He’s not just a doorway... He’s a floodgate. What flows within him is endless.

I could drown in him.

But first, I need to show him who I am. What I am.

It’s beneath me, this trick. Still. I’ll play along.

For now.

I search for this skin, for his sake. Simply to prove myself. My very existence.

There she is. I sense her now. This skin has a hint of familiarity. Just a glimmer of dissoluteness. I have been here before. Within her. The fissure of her own desire is thin, but it’s open enough for me to find our foothold. To crawl back into this world and inhabit her.

Let me in...