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Phillip.”
    My mother sits back, satisfied. “Yes. She married a Phillip. Her uncle Phillip.”
    I’m astounded and my pain ebbs and I can think for a moment.
    “Not my Phillip,” I tell her. “That’s impossible.”
    “Is it?” she asks. “Sons must pay for the sins of their fathers.”
    The pain returns and I can’t think anymore, and all thoughts drift away. Phillip comes back, and he murmurs in my ear.
    “My love, my Salome. It will be over soon.”
    “I’m not Salome,” I tell him, and his eyes glimmer and shine. “I’m not Salome.”
    “Aren’t you?” he asks simply and I clutch my stomach and it’s time, it’s time, it’s time. The pressure is too much to bear and my legs part and my stomach contracts contracts contracts.
    I scream
    And scream, and push
    And push.
    I feel my baby coming
    Coming
    Coming.
    It claws its way into the world, sliding into the light, and I push it push it push it.
    He cries a great sob when he enters this life, and I cry because he’s here, because I did it, because I don’t know what will happen now.
    He lays on my breast and he looks up at me, and he’s bloody and red and his eyes are black black black as night.
    Black as Phillip’s.
    Phillip looks up at me, his hand on his baby’s breast, and he smiles.
    “My Salome,” he croons, and the world goes black,
    because the pain
    the pain
    the pain broke me.

Chapter Nine
    O nce in a far away land and time, a man, Judas Iscariot, a betrayer of all men, dwelled. Judas had a friend, the savior of the world, and he betrayed the Savior with a kiss for a mere handful of silver. Thirty simple pieces was all it took for him to betray mankind. Guilt overcame Judas, and he killed himself, but not before his infamous betrayal.
    Salome located one of the silver pieces and had it made into a ring, to symbolize her power to sway men, her power to do whatever she pleased, her power to even control death. She wore that ring until she died, and then it was passed to her son, and his son, and his son, and so on.
    She called herself the daughter of death, and she wore her ring proudly.
    That ring is mine now,
    And my son,
    And his son,
    And so on.

    I t is in the middle of the night when I open my eyes, and Richard is not in my room. The fireplace flickers and the flames lap at the stone, and I feel like I’ve been here before. My mother sits next to me and she rocks and rocks, her hands full of two bundles.
    Two.
    My eyes widen but my vision is blurry and I feel like I’m slip slip slipping.
    “You must choose, Olivia,” she says, and her words twist and turn. “You must give something to get something.”
    “I don’t understand,” I say woozily, and I think I’ve been drugged, or I’m crazy. The bundles in her lap squirm and cry, and tiny fists raise in the air.
    “You do,” my mother says and she’s right, I think I do.
    There are two, and I can’t keep them both. I’ve known that since I was small. I would dance the dance of Salome, and I would choose.
    So it has been written,
    So it shall be.
    I close my eyes and open them, and then I point.
    I choose.
    My mother hands me one bundle, and takes the one I pointed at away, disappearing into the shadows. I think she hands it to Phillip, but I can’t make it out through the haze.
    My heart rips into two and I can’t breathe, so I do the only thing I can do to survive. I put it out of my head, out of my mind, and I don’t focus on what will happen to it, or even wonder if it is a boy or a girl. I can’t think on it. I can’t I can’t I can’t.
    Instead, I focus on the dark eyes staring up at me,
    The dark
    Dark eyes
    That are blacker than night.
    “Your name is Adair,” I croon to him. “Adair DuBray. And you will avenge me, and you will be your father’s son.”
    From the shadows, with his arms full of death, Phillip smiles.

----
    T he days pass and I waste away.
    I dream of horrible things, terrible things, nightmarish things.
    My mother comes to me often,