Up until this point, I hadn’t known that. I wanted to shake Cecilia, to yell and ask her why she had failed so epically to tell me about my parents, but then that would make me a hypocrite.
I’d never asked about them. Sure, I’d done searches for them, read up on their histories, memorized their faces and printed out pictures of them, which I’d shoved between pages of my textbooks. But I’d never forced Andre to tell me all he knew of Santiago—a man he’d been close friends with for half a millennia. And I’d never sought out Cecilia before this to learn more about them.
I think as much as I wanted to know, I didn’t want the what-ifs to well within me. They were gone, I’d survived, and I was forced to live out my life without the shine of their personalities.
“She did it all for you,” Cecilia said staring down at the photo.
“What do you mean?”
“The child that never should’ve existed. She was the only one who knew for certain that you were Santiago’s. Not even he could be sure—not until you grew old enough to take on his features.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’m afraid a siren’s reputation long precedes her.
I turned to more fully face Cecilia. “Vampires don’t have children—they can’t.”
“You’re right, they can’t. But you are Santiago’s daughter.”
I searched her face. “How is that possible?”
“Just as the devil tricks humans, sometimes God tricks the devil.”
I breathed in and out, letting that settle on my shoulders. “You’re saying God made me this way?”
Cecilia shrugged. “I, as you might imagine, am not well acquainted with Christian religion. That’s ultimately for you to decide.
“Most of the time the world’s religions coexist in—relative—harmony. But not always. You are one such case. The prophecy is true—you are Pluto’s Proserpine, and he will do everything in his power to take you back to the Underworld with him. But it is also true that some great being out there tweaked the rules of our world so that you could exist at all.”
She glanced at the photo I still held. “Your mother knew about the prophecy before you were ever born, and she spent the last years of her life doing everything she could to protect you from your fate.” Cecilia touched the skin just beneath my eye. “And like you, she knew when her time was coming to a close.”
My heartbeat increased. “She knew she was going to die?”
Cecilia gave a slight nod. She moved away from the framed photo and to the window. I followed her over there.
Outside Leanne and Oliver played some game that involved slapping each other’s hands. Beyond them, Andre leaned against a tree, his body tense. His entire focus seemed to be trained on this house. That man was a force of nature.
Cecilia nodded to him. “He’s impossible to be around right now, isn’t he?”
I shook my head. “You have no idea.”
“He’s only going to get more difficult, I’m afraid. Fear does that to men like him. Nothing for it.”
He hadn’t moved since we came to the window.
“He’s a good man.” She smiled. “You brought him back from the edge; he was getting tired of life.” She paused. “I don’t know everything, but I can tell you this: he loves you more than he’s ever loved anything. Losing you is going to gut him.”
So we were still talking in truths.
I placed a trembling hand on the cold windowpane and stared out at him. “I know.” It was barely a whisper.
I longed to take away his pain. Instead I’d be adding to it. “Will he survive it?”
Cecilia turned my face to her. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you ask about him rather than yourself.”
I lifted my shoulders and glanced down at my shoes. “I’m trying not to think about what’s going to happen to me.”
“Ah. That I can understand.”
She wasn’t denying that my fate would be everything my nightmares suggested it would be.
She sighed. “I can’t answer your question about the vampire. It would alter the way events must unfold.”
She twisted away from the window. “There is a very specific reason why I called you here,” Cecilia said. “As much as you do not want to dwell on your future, we must discuss it.
“There has always been a balance to things,” she said, “but the balance has been thrown off for some time. The Celestial Plane—heaven—doesn’t involve itself in earthly skirmishes, but the devil has gotten too powerful. He thinks to overreach.”
I narrowed my eyes. “And I have something to do with that?”
Cecilia drew in a deep breath. “He wants access to earth. And in order to get that, he needs a woman with the flesh of the earth and born with the blood of the tainted—he needs you. You offer him power. Lots of it.”
Her words reminded me of a long ago conversation with Andre. He had said the same thing.
I put a hand to my head. “Wait.” Her words echoed in my head. “Are you saying that because my father was a vampire, I was born … tainted?” I used the word she provided.
Cecilia nodded.
“And you’re saying that some bigger being allowed me to be born?”
“Not allowed, mi tesoro. Facilitated. Your birth was facilitated.”
Now there was some news to knock you on your ass.
“Wow.” I had to shelve that one; I had no idea what to make of it.
“Is there a way to stop the devil?” I asked.
“To stop him means stopping you.”
I rubbed my eyes, suddenly feeling a million years old—so, about the same age as Andre. “If I thought dying would help, I wouldn’t be running from certain death, Cecilia. Is there another way?”
She looked at me from the corner of her eye, a sly smile curving her mouth. I’d asked the question out of desperation, but it seemed that there was actually validity to it.
“There is, isn’t there?” I didn’t mean to sound so shocked. It was just that after visiting Hestia, I’d resigned myself to my fate.