Seven Deadly Sins

Chapter Three
Whispers in the Darkness of Memory Lane

Sarge, Duke, and Chaos walked the corridors to the Weapons Research Facility, all on their guard, all scanning for hostile activity. Sarge glanced at Chaos, who glanced back at him with her eyebrows quirked. He shook his head and looked away, disgusted with himself. He was a hard man, not much got to him, but having the twins on this mission freaked him out. He'd been protective of them since his brother, Cyprus, had died, but the need to protect them both had gotten even stronger after the attack on them when they returned to Olduvai, back when they were nine. He'd kept them sheltered for the next nine years after that, unable to do anything else.

Sinj had helped him, he remembered. Because face it, what did a Sergeant Major in the Marine Corp. know about raising kids? Especially one that was borderline clinically insane? But Sinj had helped him, with his brother's daughters, and his own. Sinj had helped him with so much... and now he struggled to keep his life and his sanity together without her, had struggled with it since '44, when she'd disappeared.

Sinj, where are you? How many times had he asked the darkness that question? How was he gonna find her again? Would he ever? Sinj.

Asher... A soft, velvet voice brushing his mind, his body, like the touch of a light summer breeze through his head, around his brain. Asher... Mourning and grief and longing in that voice. It wrapped around him, cocooning his body in pure, intangible feeling. Asher...

Sinj?

There was nothing there but the dark.

--

"They leave shit like this lying around? I'd hate to see what they lock up," Duke said jokingly, looking around the weapons room. There were regular ammunition guns, hard laser guns, soft-nose laser pistols, semi-automatics, regular automatics, swords, knives, daggers, everything. Chaos and Death would probably have a field day in here.

"So, Sarge, what's with the sister?" Duke asked, thinking about Samantha Grimm. Her blond hair pulled up out of her face, her cheeks rosy with the blush of embarrassment when he spoke to her, her bright eyes the color of the shifting sea. Her lips looked very kissable, too.

"What do you wanna know?" Sarge demanded, looking at a weapon schematic on the computer.

"Reaper and Sam's parents were killed on Olduvai when Reaper and Sam were both about thirteen, just before they graduated high school. Some kind of accident. They hooked up with Death and me about then, 'cause we had a lot in common,” Chaos said, voice bland. “When they were in college, Reaper decided to join the RRTS, and Sam decided to become a forensic archaeologist. She was pissed that both Death and me became Marines, too, but she still talks to us more than she does John," Chaos said, picking up a few of the blades and caressing them with loving fingers.

"No, what I meant was, is she single?"

Duke noticed Sarge's look and dropped his gaze back to the computer he was screwing with.

--

Chaos watched Duke for a moment more, smiling to herself. He was a sweet guy, like a little kid after ice cream. Very one track minded. Apocalypse could've had a happy and very amusing time with Duke, back before she'd gotten together with the stud yuppie. He seemed like the kind of man who knew how to give a girl a good time, and enjoy himself while he was at it.

Please stop thinking about me like I can't read your mind. And what's the deal with Asher? He seems depressed. More so than usual, I mean. He's starting to wilt. Chaos made a face at her friend's psychic observation. She did not need to know that status of her uncle’s ding-a-ling. Just saying, jeez. Do you feel that weird presence around him?

Yeah.

Feels familiar. What d'ya think it is?

Dunno. Figure it out later.

--

Sarge slipped his fingers into the print slots on the identification device. He wanted to get in that room and see the Bio Force Gun.

Same old Asher... That soft, caressing voice again, in his head. What the hell? Where was it coming from?

Sinj? It sounded so much like her. Could it be her, after all this time? Sinj?

There was nothing, nothing but the soft scent of strawberries and his memory.

--

He catches a fistful of her hair like spun gold, bringing the wealth of it to his nose, inhaling the sweet fragrance of strawberries. Her shampoo. He lets go of her golden curls, lets her get the phone. All the while, her feral eyes like a Bengal tiger's are locked with his, bright with sweet affection and bestial desire.

--

He remembered her eyes. She had beautiful eyes, like the ocean, swirling misty green and soft blue and pale gray, like the sea after the storm. He remembered her. He remembered the soft, blue silk scarf that swirled like the colors in her eyes. He liked that scarf.

--

Her eyes are bright with expectation as he lays her down on their bed, as he smiles down at her. He covers her eyes with the silken scarf as their blindfold, ties it tight and kisses her hands, slips away from her.

"Find me," he whispers. "Come find me, Sinj, if you can."

"I can always find you," she whispers, her hands caressing his face when she finds him again. Sinj has never needed to be able to see Asher to find him, never. "Always." Her voice so soft and low.

--

She had the most beautiful voice, like rich, burgundy velvet over steel. He remembered that, how sweet her voice was. He remembered her tears, too, and the way they roughened her voice. He'd adored making love to her after she'd been crying, because when she called out his name as he pistoned into her, her voice was husky and thick with tears and desire. He remembered the crystalline tears that clung to her lashes when she cried.

--

Her voice whispering his name as she sobs against his shoulder, clutching him to her in the wake of her father's death. Holding her to him, rubbing her back, kissing the top of her head.

"I've got you, babe," he whispers. "I've got you." Collapsing into his arms, sobbing her heart out.

--

The tears weren't always bad, though. He remembered swing dancing with her at a club, swinging her around so that she laughed till she cried. He remembered dancing with her so many nights, their bodies slick with sweat, her slim body warm against his as they moved to the music. He remembered dancing with her.

--

Tears falling from Sinj's beautiful eyes as he swings her around, dancing with her, because she's laughing so hard. The music changing from swing to a techno bass beat pulsing along their bodies, matching the rhythm of their hearts beating against each other. His hands on her swaying hips, his mouth over the pulse in her throat, kissing the soft skin there, inhaling the sweet smell of her shampoo, the strawberry scent of her soft, silken hair washing over his shoulders and chest.

"I like this song better," she says over the pounding music.

"Me, too, babe."

--

He remembered a different kind of dancing. He remembered how it felt to love her, to slide balls deep inside her slick heat and lose himself in her. She was so beautiful, so perfect. He remembered how perfect she was.

--

Moving inside her, listening to her purr with pleasure. Her legs in their white silk stockings are around his waist, her breasts crushed against his sweat slicked chest, her head thrown back so he can plant little kisses on her pale throat. She's moaning and clenching her body around him, and he's overcome with how perfectly heavenly she is.

"Sinj!"

"Oh, Asher!"

--

Asher... He heard the voice again, swirling on the wind that doesn't blow, and he shivered. Where was that voice coming from? Asher...

Sinj?

Still, there was nothing. Sarge felt his heart constrict in his chest, but he shoved the feeling from his mind and snarled, because he couldn't get to the BFG because of the goddamn security codes. Didn't fucking matter. He was gonna get that gun.

Same old Asher...

Sinj.

--

He remembered the violence that followed her disappearance, the blood that still soaked his hands. He remembered the vicious hatred in him for all the world, for everyone except his little girls, not so little anymore, and his brother’s twin daughters, even older than the girls. He remembered the murderous rage, held so long at bay, as it came roaring awake.

--

The enemy soldier is no longer moving, no longer conscious, no longer breathing, no longer living. Sarge has beat him to death, smashing his head open like a ripe pumpkin so that his brains and fragments of his skull and viscous blood now leak out onto the dust. Sinj likes pumpkins, likes to carve Jack-O-Lanterns with the girls out of them. But there are no more Jack-O-Lanterns because Sinj is gone.

Kill it, kill it, kill it.

And still Sarge is stabbing him with his hunting knife, arms too tired to lift the dead weight of his victim anymore, listening to the sick wet sound of the blade penetrating dead flesh.

Kill it, kill it, kill it.

Blood soaking everything, the ground, his pants, his shirt, his hands. Blood everywhere, in his eyes, in his mouth, in his nose.

Kill it, kill it, kill it.

Too tired to stab, now, he slashes at the dead man’s face, cutting features already too bruised and broken to be recognized, turning the man’s face to blood scarlet ribbons. Like the ribbons Sinj wears in her hair to church. But there are no more red ribbons in a wealth of long, blond curls like silk and gold. Sinj is gone.

Kill it, kill it, kill it.

It takes him a long time to realize that the broken, bloody bodies with the slashed faces and the holes in their skulls where thick fluids leak out all have long, blond hair and blue eyes. But the hair is not the right golden richness, the eyes not the right piercing blue. He has been slaughtering women, beating them and stabbing them and slashing them to death, because they were not her. They will never be her.

Sarge sinks to his knees and howls her name into the blood soaked earth.

--

He remembered the way he’d eventually pushed his daughters away, his sweet little Sarra-Sofia and his brave, strong Natalie. How he’d driven them both to turn to each other and the other men of the RRTS for their companionship and fatherly love. He remembered how, one night, when the girls had been over at a friend’s, he’d smashed the house apart, knowing he’d be able to clean it up before they got home and saw the mess. He’d ripped apart the curtains and smashed a fist into the television set. He’d thrown dishes and howled with grief and fury like a wild animal before falling to the floor, knife in hand.

--

The thin, scarlet ribbon of blood against his flesh is very pretty in the stark light of the kitchen. It reminds him of her ribbons, and of her lips, of the cherry red lipstick she wears because he likes the taste of it, that often ends up smeared on both of their mouths as they try to devour each others’ souls with burning kisses.

The knife cuts a little deeper in his arm, and the pain flashes once before it is extinguished, a fetal flame of pain aborted by a mother called obsession and a father called despair. What pain of the body can compare to the pain of losing the one you love?

The knife slices deeper, so that the blood wells and flows and drips and pools. The tile is cool against his flaming cheek. He wishes he were resting his cheek against the coolness of her belly now, and not the floor.

“I need you, Sinj. I’m losin’ it, here.”

His fingers spasm as he cuts through something important with the kitchen knife. He doesn’t feel, doesn’t care. He only wants to feel her arms around him again, her mouth pressing a soft kiss over his heart. But she is not here, and unfortunately, neither is his sanity.

“I’ll find you,” his whispers, feeling suddenly cold. “I’ll find you.”

The point of the knife presses deeper into the flesh of his arm.

--

He lets his head fall back in the bathtub, as his blood streams out of his body from the cuts at his wrists. He misses her, so much, so very much. His heart and sanity are shredded, his tears are falling slowly down his cheeks. His wrists throb, his heart stuttered, his mind screams for her, for her to come back, to hold him again, to save him. Sinj, where was Sinj, he needs her, he needs her and misses her so much, and then the bathtub is full of blood and and water, and he slides back into darkness and oblivion, and doesn't hear the frightened cries of his nieces and daughters.

--

Throwing himself into the water, sliding down, down into the darkness, he lets the waters of the lake take his tears away, as he swims down and down, letting the water shove him deep and deeper and deepest. The murky waters of the lake are pressing in around him, and he prays for the pressure to shove his memories of her away, far away, where he'll never find them again. He sees her in his mind, her beautiful golden hair and tiger blue eyes, her cherry lips and ivory skin, but then it is blasted from his mind by the terrible pain in his head. There is blood in his mouth, darkness in his eyes, and perhaps now, now, he can destroy himself and his everlasting agony.

There are hands, small hands, slender arms around his body, dragging him back up through the water, and a cloud of dark hair like liquid ebony flows around him. No, he wants to die, she stopped him before, his littlest one, his sweetest little one, and he doesn't want her to see him die, but why must she stop him, always stop him? He wants to die, let him die, please, he can't live without her.

His soul is left behind when the little one who is no longer so little pulls him from the lake and pushes the water from his lungs and gives him life again. Who knew that his sweet Sarra-Sofia, his little girl, would give life to a monster? A mad man?

Where is Sinj to save his soul and pull it back to the surface?

He has wondered this for a very, very long time.

--

Natalie had come to him after that and other nights and told him that if he didn’t stop, she and Sarra-Sofia were moving in with Reaper down the street, and they wouldn’t speak to him again unless he got professional help. She’d been serious, and he’d believed her. He’d done as she’d asked. Both sets of twins, his and his brother’s, had been relieved when he’d gone into therapy.

But Sinj was still gone.

Asher…The voice of Satan, of temptation, of hell. Where did it come from? Why did it caress his body so his flesh tingled as if stuck with a billion pins?

Oh, Sinj…