The Sinner

My face went hot all over. “You know what I mean.”

“Many times, over the centuries.”

“Why? What for?”

“Personal business,” he said stiffly.

“Have you been to New York City before?”

“I have. Many of my kind are drawn to cities; they’re riper for corruption. It helps that in New York everyone’s already in a bad mood.” He noticed my dubious smirk. “You don’t believe me?”

“I don’t know what to believe. I’m still half-sure I’m dreaming. Speaking of which, have you ever been to Japan or Russia on your journeys to This Side?”

He kept his eyes on the street. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing, I’m sure. It’s just that I’ve had very lucid dreams that feel like…”

“Like what?”

“Real. In one dream, I was in Japan, hundreds of years ago. There was a young woman pulling a heavy wheelbarrow of supplies through the woods toward her village. I watched her from afar, but she was me. Like an out-of-body experience. I’d been warned the way was dangerous and the woods filled with bandits, but I didn’t have a choice. My family needed the supplies to make it through the winter. I was nearly home when three bandits attacked me. They were going to hurt me…if you know what I mean.”

Casziel nodded grimly. “I do.”

“But a warrior came out of nowhere, wearing a mask over his face. A samurai, I think. He slaughtered the bandits, cutting them down with his sword, then pulled my cart to the village for me. He never said a word—I think there were rules about men being around unwed women back then. But I felt so safe. When we got to my village, the samurai set down the cart, bowed, and left.”

“Ronin,” Casziel said.

“What?”

“A wandering samurai with no lord or master is a ronin.”

“Oh. Okay. How do you know that’s what he was?”

Casziel shrugged. “A guess. And the other dream?”

“Okay…well, I lived in a city by the ocean during World War II. Saint Petersburg, Russia, but it had a different name back then.”

“Leningrad.”

“Right, Leningrad.” I smiled. “You’re like a walking history book.”

He smiled thinly and waited for me to continue.

“I was about the same age I am now, and the bombs were dropping. So many bombs, I could feel the earth shake. Grit and smoke burned my eyes and everywhere there were explosions and people screaming. I ran through streets strewn with rubble, not knowing where I was going. Then a Russian soldier grabbed me and hurried me into a burned-out building just as another explosion rocked the street where I’d been standing a second before. The soldier saved my life. I didn’t even know his name, but I clung to him, and he pressed me against the wall, shielding me from the blasts. As if whatever was about to happen, he wanted it to happen to him instead of me.”

Casziel nodded, his face expressionless.

“The bombing seemed to go on forever and I was so scared,” I continued. “But in that soldier’s embrace, I knew I was going to be okay. When the attack was over, he asked if I were hurt—I wasn’t, thanks to him—and then he just…left. Ran back into the smoke and disappeared.”

“What do you think the dreams mean?”

“I don’t know. Romance novels playing out in my subconscious, maybe. The Russian dream for sure. I must’ve read The Bronze Horseman one too many times.” I grinned sheepishly. “I even think of the soldier as my Shura.”

Casziel wasn’t smiling.

“Or maybe they do mean something,” I said, slowly. “My romantic heart is yearning for something real and every time I meet that man, he’s always just out of reach. He never stays.”

The demon inhaled through his nose. “As fascinating as your subconscious emanations are, this is no dream, and I’m still awaiting your plan for my redemption. One that you won’t let Deb and K sabotage.”