The Sinner Read online

  The Sinner

  ©2021 Emma Scott Books, LLC

  Cover Art by Lori Jackson Designs

  Proofing and Formatting by R. Anderson

  Portrait Art by Mary Ann Martinez

  No part of this eBook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any names or characters, events or incidents, businesses or places are fictitious or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons or demons, living or dead or somewhere in between, is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  Books by Emma Scott

  Playlist

  Author’s Note

  Content Warning

  Glossary

  Part I

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Part II

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Part III

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  I

  II

  III

  Bonus Material

  Author’s Note II

  Acknowledgments

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Books by Emma Scott

  (Free through Kindle Unlimited)

  Duets

  Full Tilt

  All In

  Bring Down the Stars (Beautiful Hearts #1)

  Long Live the Beautiful Hearts (Beautiful Hearts #2)

  Series

  How to Save a Life (Dreamcatcher #1)

  Sugar & Gold (Dreamcatcher #2)

  The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)

  When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys #2)

  The Last Piece of His Heart (Lost Boys #3)

  RUSH (RUSH #1)

  Endless Possibility (RUSH #1.5)

  Standalones

  Love Beyond Words

  Unbreakable

  The Butterfly Project

  Forever Right Now

  In Harmony

  A Five-Minute Life

  Someday, Someday

  MM Romance

  Someday, Someday

  When You Come Back to Me (Lost Boys #2)

  Novellas

  One Good Man

  Love Game

  Playlist

  Voodoo // Godsmack (opening credits)

  Scared to Live // The Weeknd

  Devil Inside // INXS

  Lady in Red // Chris de Burgh

  Follow You // Imagine Dragons

  Underneath It All // No Doubt (feat. Lady Saw)

  Sympathy for the Devil // The Rolling Stones

  exile // Taylor Swift (feat. Bon Iver)

  all the good girls go to hell // Billie Eilish

  Thistles & Weeds // Mumford & Sons

  Thinking Out Loud // Ed Sheeran (closing credits)

  Author’s Note

  The concepts of life, death, and what happens in between, which are described in this novel, are purely my imagination and not intended to be interpreted as advocating for or disproving any existing religion. I don’t have that sort of authority anyway; the mysteries of the universe will remain mysteries until the moment we each take our turn stepping into the unknown. This novel is my way of exploring those mysteries to better understand certain events in my life and for the pure pleasure of letting my imagination run wild. This book is also my heartfelt ode to the romance novel and to the dreamers and romantics (romance readers) who understand the value and power of love stories.

  Content Warning

  Please note that this book contains content that may be triggering for some sensitive readers such as the death of a family member, graphic violence, and mention of miscarriage (off the page). It is my sincerest hope I have treated these issues with the care they deserve. Intended for readers 18 and up.

  Glossary

  (Fictional and Nonfictional)

  Angel: A soul who manifests benevolent energy

  Anicorpus: The animal form a demon takes to move more freely on This Side. Not to be confused with Familiar. (see: Familiar)

  Archduke of Hell: High-ranking demon

  Babylonian Empire: An empire that dominated the Mesopotamia region between the 19th and 15th centuries BCE and again between the 7th and 6th centuries BCE

  Before Common Era (BCE): Recorded history leading up to Year 0

  Brethren, The: Twelve high-ranking demons who serve directly under Archduke Casziel and command his legions

  Common Era (CE): Year 0 to present

  Crossing Over: Moving between This Side and the Other, usually by dying. Only powerful demons can move back and forth at will, while others will Cross Over when summoned.

  Demon: A soul who manifests malevolent energy

  Djinn: (Genie) A demon bound in servitude to a certain location, human, or another demon for a set amount of time or until certain criteria are met

  Familiar: A demon’s animal companion, e.g. fly, snake, goat. Not every demon has a familiar.

  Forgetting: The wiping of all memory of the Other Side and all previous lifetimes prior to beginning another cycle on This Side (life) in order to facilitate learning. Memory is restored upon Crossing Over (death).

  God: The Benevolent Unknown

  Grimoire: A book of spells that may also contain incantations for summoning spirits or demons

  Hammurabi: A king of the First Babylonian dynasty, reigning from approximately 1792 BCE to

  1750 BCE

  Heaven: The collective term for all angels on the Other Side. Not an actual place.

  Hell: The collective term for all demons on the Other Side. Not an actual place.

  Innana: Sumerian goddess of war

  Larsa: Sumerian city-state conquered by the Babylonian king Hammurabi in 1699 BCE

  Lesser servitor: The lowest, most base demons, mindless in their hunger for human pain. They serve in the legions of more powerful demons as foot soldiers and resemble starved, stray dogs or hairless rats. Also known as imps.

  Mesopotamia: The region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, home to ancient civilizations such as the Sumerians and the Babylonians, now modern-day Iraq

  Oblivion: Ceasing to exist completely. Ultimate and permanent nonexistence. “Death for the dead.” Only very powerful demons can send another to Oblivion and only when that demon is in his/her human form.

  Other Side: The realm a soul returns to after death, between lifetimes. The realm of angels and demons. The human mind cannot fully comprehend the Other Side and knowledge or memory of it would defeat the purpose of living. (see: Forgetting)

  Rim-Sin I: King of Larsa, reigned from approximately 1758-1699 BCE

  Servitor: Any demon in service to a more powerful demon. High-ranking demons might have legions of servitors.

  Sumer: Ancient civilization that existed in the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers called Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq

  This Side: Life on Earth

  Veil, The: A crude and overly simplistic explanation of the barrier between This Side and the Other Side

  Utu: Sumerian god of light

  Ziggurat: Mesopotamian temple, architectural precursor to the pyramids

  Zu: The “storm-bird.�
�� A demon of Sumerian lore.

  For Dad, who I like to think is just in the next room.

  And for Izzy, my brave girl, who stepped into the unknown first.

  All my love to you both.

  Part I

  My Lucifer is lonely. —Billie Eilish

  One

  I didn’t think my day could get any worse and then I found the dead body.

  Work had been terrible for a Friday. The E train was late, which made me late, which set my whole day off-balance. At our morning meeting, Guy Baker mistook me for the intern who brings the coffee, despite us working together for nearly two years. Which meant he still didn’t know I existed. On the way home, the train was crammed, bodies pressed to bodies. A few feet down from me, a young couple was taking advantage. She clung to him, he held on to her, and they gazed at each other as if there was no one else in the world. Their happiness was beautiful to see but made my loneliness feel sharp by contrast.

  To top it off, there was the aforementioned dead body in the empty lot behind my apartment.

  Technically, the lot was more like my front walk. My building in Hell’s Kitchen had been chopped up in the 1970s to make the most of the New York City real estate boom. My tiny studio was hardly a functioning apartment, but more of an appendage—an elbow chopped off from the body. It stuck out at the edge of the second floor, and the only way in was by walking to the rear of the building, through the trash-littered lot, and climbing a rickety set of stairs. The interior wasn’t much more than a shoebox, but it had one large window. Even if the view was mostly the next building, the light was lovely in the morning.

  And it was all mine. In Manhattan.

  Every time I locked my three deadbolts and looped my three chains in at night, I reminded myself I didn’t have any roommates keeping me up, or eating my food, or hogging the tiny bathroom…or to chat with in the morning over coffee. Or to huddle with on the tiny couch and watch Netflix while we talked about our hopes and dreams. Like my hope that Guy Baker would finally notice me and take me around the world with him on his fifty-foot sailboat as we continue our work at Ocean Alliance, the nonprofit where we’re both employed. We’d fall deeply in love, the kind of love you find in the romance novels I read every night. The kind of love that felt like a promise that’s never been fulfilled.

  Which was kind of dramatic, I know. I was only twenty-three; I had my whole life to fall in love. But the loneliness that wracked me felt a lot older than twenty-three years.

  That late afternoon in April, on my walk from the subway, I tried to erase my crappy day with my favorite daydream. The one where Guy and I are sailing around the Rock of Gibraltar or the coast at Cape Town…doesn’t matter where. We’re on a mission through Ocean Alliance, both of us passionate and tireless in our work. In this particular fantasy, Guy and I return to his boat after a grueling day on the trawlers and garbage scows, hauling tons of plastic trash from the water. He looks at me across the tiny cabin, tired but happy, and we fall into each other. He kisses me desperately, then holds my face in his huge, rough hands. His light blue eyes are intent on mine, as if it’s impossible to look away.

  “Lucy,” he says gruffly. “I never want to do this without you.”

  I swallow hard, choked with emotion. “You’ll never have to.”

  My favorite exchange. We’d made it a thousand times in my pathetic imaginings. Lines I could’ve pulled from one of the hundreds of romance novels that crammed my studio. They took up most of one wall where I didn’t have room for one thing to take up anything.

  I rounded the corner to my studio. In my mind’s eye, Guy and I were falling onto the bed that was just big enough for the two of us, the sea cradling us in a soft sway, when I stopped short, a gasp catching in my throat.

  He’s dead.

  The words popped into my head before my eyes registered what I was seeing—a man’s legs, long and lean and sculpted with muscle. Naked of clothing and alabaster white. The white of porcelain or marble. As if Michelangelo’s David had tipped over on the asphalt.

  I glanced around in the dim twilight. All was quiet but for Mrs. Rodriguez on the third floor watching Telemundo with the window open.

  I took one step. Then another. My phone was in my hand, ready to call 911. But my fingers wouldn’t cooperate, my gaze locked on those legs that were too perfect to be real. Surreal.

  Maybe it’s a mannequin. Don’t go calling the police because a department store dumped their trash in your backyard.

  If that got out at work, I’d never hear the end of it. Silly Lucy, Abby Taylor would say, shaking her head, her camera’s video eye recording everything. Not that word would get out. I barely talked to anyone at Ocean Alliance unless it was during meetings, and then it was to agree with what everyone else agreed on. Even if I didn’t actually agree. Even if I had ideas of my own.

  Now I was close enough to see that it was definitely not a mannequin but a man, his body just as flawless as his legs. Unblemished. No scars, no freckles, no hair except for the thick mop of black curls on his head. Hair as black as his skin was white. He lay on his stomach (I averted my gaze from the perfect, tight roundness of his butt), eyes shut, his head pillowed on one muscular forearm. The other arm—his right—was stretched out on the ground as if he’d been reaching for something when he…

  Fell?

  I stepped over one of his wings—Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God—and stood as near the man as I dared. His face was mesmerizing. Like a Renaissance sculpture with full lips, angular cheekbones, and thick brows as black as ink. He had a Grecian nose and a jawline that was so straight and perfect, it wasn’t quite human.

  ‘Not quite human’? Silly Lucy, how about those wings?

  I forced my eyes to accept what they were seeing.

  The man wasn’t partially wrapped in a blanket.

  The twilight shadows weren’t playing tricks on my eyes.

  Two huge wings, covered in long, glossy black feathers, sprouted from between the man’s perfect shoulder blades. Each was easily as long as his body—their tips likely brushed his ankles when he walked. By my calculations, that would give him a wingspan of more than twelve feet.

  He has a wingspan.

  A little cry escaped me as the man’s full lips parted and then he made a sudden, torturous gasp for air, as if he’d been holding his breath for a long time. He moaned on the exhale, a sound that sent a shiver dancing down my spine, equal parts dread and a strange, tantalizing thrill.

  Whatever this creature was, he was alive. I fumbled for my phone.

  Who are you going to call, 911 or Animal Control?

  A crazed laugh tried to burst out of me when the man opened his eyes. My laugh morphed into a strangled scream and the phone fell from my shaking hands.

  His eyes were pure black. No irises, no whites. The pupils—if he had any—were lost in the inky black spheres. In those few seconds that felt like an eternity, I had the fevered notion that his eyes weren’t black at all but an absence. An absence of color. Light. Heat. Warmth.

  Everything good in the world…

  It was impossible to tell if he were looking at me, except I could feel that he was. He saw me. Those onyx orbs seared through me like an icy blade. I shivered and swayed, feeling myself pulled into that endless black. An abyss from which there was no return.

  The man’s outstretched hand lifted off the ground, his long fingers reaching. His breath cut a harsh whisper, “Help me…”

  I staggered back. The back of my head hit a brick wall and the blackness swallowed me whole.

  Two

  The torch’s flame flickers, sending shadows dancing across the walls. Bloodstained walls. The stones are slick with it. The floor too, and it’s so dark. Screams echo through the narrow corridor. His screams, rising from the very bowels of the temple.

  The corridor widens to a chamber. Bodies—four of them—lie on the stony floor, pools of blood beneath their heads, matting their black hair. The fifth of their number, a woman
, is still alive. She is bound and gagged and on her knees. She faces the man who’s been screaming. He’s bound too, his hard, muscled flesh slashed open in a dozen places, his body broken by torture.

  Their eyes meet across the blood-soaked stones, the air thick with death and pain. He shakes his head, agony bright and sharp in his dark eyes. A blade glints in the torchlight and is laid to her throat. His screams begin again, hoarse and ragged; he writhes against his bonds like a man possessed. A quick motion and blood flows in torrent, and the woman falls to the stones. They are made of shadow. She falls in, falls away, and the man’s screams—tinged with rage now—chase her down.

  The screams become a raven’s cry, black wings outstretched…

  Then a plea, choked with grief.

  “Forgive me…”

  My eyes flew open with a gasp. I jerked up against the wall in the empty lot. The twilight’s shadows had thickened as the sun sank. I’d lost at least an hour to…what?

  A dream. It was all a dream…

  Whatever it was, it was quickly slipping away from me—I couldn’t hold on to it. A temple? And so much blood…

  “About time,” a deep voice muttered tiredly. “I was about to give up and find someone else.”

  Another little cry tore out of me, and I pushed myself tighter to the wall. The man was still there, slumped against a wooden moving pallet, his legs drawn up to hide his nakedness.

  At least, I thought it was the same man.

  He wasn’t as tall but built more solidly and packed with lean muscle. The wings were gone, and the black-on-black eyes were now deep amber, watching me. Intense. His skin wasn’t a bloodless white but a healthy olive tone…except for the scars that scored his body. So many scars. Slashes across his torso. A gash on one bicep. Another at his neck. And a circle the size of a silver dollar square over the left side of his chest. Over his heart.