Page 280 of Sinister

He takes a deep breath.

“I suppose I should start with the beginning. You might want to sit down for this.”

Against my better judgment, I allow him to take me back to the living room, make me some food and a cup of tea. Perhaps I should be more wary now knowing he fed me some magical potion so I would recover my past life memories.

But no matter how much I want to rage at him, to hate him, there is a part of me that just wants to understand.

“Tell me,” I say.

And so, he does.

77

PETRA

“For the most part, my childhood was exactly as I told you. I was an orphan, and they named me Sin because they thought I came from sin—and my entire existence was a sin. But they also named me Kimaris, which I later found out means one without a home.

“So I was technically the Sin without a home. When I was fourteen and decided to jump from that window, it was because I didn’t think there was anything left for me in this world. I didn’t think I would ever find peace, that I would ever find someone to accept me for who I was.

“And as I lay dying on the ground, that entity came to me. You asked me numerous times if I sold my soul, and it was the truth—I told you then, and I’ll tell you now: I did not sell my soul. But I did sell something.

“As I was waiting for death to claim me, he asked me what I wanted most in the world. Do you know what my answer was?”

I shake my head.

“I wanted a home. Sin. Kimaris. The one without a home wanted somewhere to belong. Someone to belong to. And then he gave me a choice. I could continue living, or I could die. But I would die knowing that there is a home out there for me. That there is someone I could call home.

“You. He showed me a vision of you. You were out there in the world. The Fates had decided you were to be the only one for me—in this lifetime, the next, forever. When I saw those images, I couldn’t believe it. I was still so deep in denial that I couldn’t possibly deserve anything better. I thought it must be a trick. That perhaps he was playing with my mind. Or perhaps, because death was so close, I was hallucinating.

“But then he told me: If I chose to die, he could do nothing about it. I would die. And at some point, I might get reincarnated. But because of my—ironically—sin of taking my own life, my time in the afterlife would not be short. It could be centuries before I gained a new incarnation. Centuries in which not only would I have lost you, but there was no certainty I would meet you again in the next life. No guarantee our incarnations would align.

“But if I chose to live, he would make a deal with me. He would ensure I get what I want most: a home. A person to belong to. In exchange for serving him.”

“Serving him? What do you mean?” I ask.

“He wanted me to find evil people and kill them—in his name, for him. It’s still not clear to me exactly why he required those services. I later thought that, perhaps, while I did not personally sell my soul to him, I was selling other people’s souls.”

“That’s how you started it? St. Anselm Hall University?” I ask.

“That came later.”

My eyes widen. “What do you mean, later?”

“As you know, he healed me with his blood. And afterward, for a short time, he took me under his wing. I was still young, and although I’d worked since childhood, I didn’t have the skills to make it out into the world. Or at least, I didn’t have the skills to do what he asked of me. So, he taught me.

“He taught me everything I know. It was through his guidance that I got accepted into Harvard College, that I completed my studies. It was his teachings that showed me how to identify the people who deserved to die—and those who didn’t.

“It was also around this time that I started having more questions. Although we had entered a contract, it had never been specific enough. To be honest, at that young age, I didn’t think to ask for more information. I didn’t know how many souls I was supposed to supply him with. I didn’t know whether my mission was indefinite, or if there was an expiration date.

“And it’s only because I met Arnoult that I started questioning those things. As you already know, Arnoult was interested in the occult, in what separates this world from others—those things we cannot see with the naked eye. And it was through him that I started to realize souls are actually a source of energy. I was effectively giving this entity the energy of the souls I was harvesting in his name.

“After I finished my degree, I had already found ten people whom I led to their deaths as part of our agreement. And that’s when I asked him: How many more?”

“What did he say?”

“Fifty in total. I had done ten, so I had forty left.”

I mentally go over the sheet I’d made with the murders. There had been the twenty-five people in the square and the fifteen at the mausoleum. Forty.