Committed Chapter 25

Ariadne sat at the desk, waiting.  She had changed into a blue sun-dress which hugged her frame nicely.  She adjusted the straps for the fourteenth time, wanting to ensure that the dress always cupped her breasts so that they would always been a visual pleasure for Janus.  She knew he would want to enjoy her while she was still in this young body.  She almost shook with anticipation of their first night together.

            She realized that in this life she was a virgin.  That would make Janus extremely happy.

            She heard the window open behind her and stiffened slightly.  Her hands began to sweat.  She bit her bottom lip but didn’t turn around.  She felt so uncomfortable.  She adjusted the folds of her sundress and took in a slow breath.  She could do this.  Her love for Janus was strong enough to get her through this part.

            “Ariadne…?”

            Ariadne stood and turned to face Paris Montague.  He had climbed through the window into Janus’ study, a twenty-by-twenty room with the same red and gold colour scheme to the walls that had been present in the entrance hall.  A desk of dark mahogany, pristinely maintained by Janus’ servants, lay between them.  The walls on either side of them were lined with shelves of rare books, their cold brown and black spines lined up like soldiers.

            “Hello, Paris,” Ariadne said, smiling sadly.  “You shouldn’t have come.”

            “Okay, okay,” Paris nodded, glancing down at her hand.  “So, this is all going as part of the plan, right?”

            “Paris, you need to listen to me…” Ariadne began.  Paris started to walk around the desk and she stumbled back in fear. She caught herself and forced herself to stand still.  She needed to do this.  For Janus.

            “Paris, listen.”

            “I’m supposed to smash the ring,” Paris said, his eyes still locked on her ring hand.  “This isn’t you.”

            “You’re not smashing anything,” Ariadne insisted.  Hearing the words from Paris’ mouth, knowing that he had every intention of following through with this sick, demented plan, was more than Ariadne could bear.  “You won’t do it!  I won’t let you!  I love Janus too much!”

            “No, Ariadne, you don’t,” Paris said, looking up at her now.  He was begging, Ariadne realized.  How pathetic.

            “I do, Paris.  That’s what you need to understand.  I love him completely.”

            “I can’t do this,” Paris said, turning around, forming a tepee with his fingers in front of his mouth as he began to pace.  “I can’t smash the ring.  Not when you’re like this.”

            “Exactly,” Ariadne sighed, feeling that the worst was over now.  “Paris, I understand that you are upset, but what we had was a lie-“

            “You have to smash the ring yourself.”

            Ariadne blinked in surprise.  “That’s never going to happen, Paris.”

            “It has to happen,” Paris said, suddenly rushing forward and grabbing her hands.  How had he made it so close to her?  “Ariadne, you don’t love him.  A few hours ago we were running from him!  You hated him!  You have to remember that!”

            “I wasn’t in my right mind!” Ariadne cried, yanking her hands away from him.  “I was sick!  I love Janus!”

            “No!  Ariadne, no! No, no, no!  You love me!”

            For a moment, Ariadne said nothing.  Then she started to laugh.  She laughed so hard her sides felt like they were splitting.  She felt forward, bracing her hands against her knees, and laughed.  Paris just stood in front of her.  Somehow, the sight of tears rolling down his face only made everything funnier.

            “Why would I ever smash the ring?” Ariadne giggled.  “Why?  It’s the reason I remember every time.  It’s the reason that Janus is able to find me every time and make me remember.  We belong together.”

            “No,” Paris whispered.  “He stole you.  Not from me but from yourself.  You deserve to choose for yourself and he has taken that away from you.  He has used this magic to steal you from me, every time.  He has tricked you into thinking you love him.  But you love me.”

            “I don’t love you,” Ariadne shook her head, wanting to laugh again at his arrogance.  “I don’t understand how you could possibly think that I love you.”

            “Because you told me.”

            “I never said anything like that,” Ariadne said, thinking of Paris’ pathetic declaration of love beneath the city.  How had she ever allowed herself to go down into that filth with him?  It boggled the mind.

            “No, not this time,” Paris shook his head.  “But before.  The other times.  Before he made you forget what your heart really wanted with that ring.  With that stupid, evil, cursed ring!”

            “What are you…” and then Ariadne remembered.  Her eyes widened as the memories came back into focus.  It was tough sometimes, having the memories of thousands of lives in her head.  She found it really hard to deal with them all.  Thus far, she hadn’t.  She did remember that she usually avoided thinking about her past lives.  Why think about those when she had her current one to make new happy memories with Janus?  But now, she remembered what Paris was talking about.

            Names flashed through her mind.  Theseus, Paris, Romeo, Eros, and countless more.

            “You’re…”

            “My brother,” Janus said, stepping into the room, suppressed pistol pointed at Paris.  “Well, not in this life of course.  But back when I was Cain…”

            “I was Abel,” Paris nodded.  He lifted up his left hand so that the light flickered off of the ring there.  Ariadne looked at it as he twisted it around so that the Mark of Cain, the same one on Ariadne’s ring and on Janus’ ring, was pointing upwards.

            “I haven’t really had a chance to tell you how impressed I am,” Janus said.  “I thought I’d gotten rid of you for good in 1945.  Used all of my the money I’d acquired through…what’s the word for it now?  War profiteering?  Anyway, I thought I’d made it so that you’d never find Ariadne.  Moved her to Canada, made sure that nobody in your family knew that her family had moved there.”

            “I tracked down the records when my platoon was storming one of the concentration camps in the Fatherland,” Paris replied.  “I survived, so the ring passed on, and I had the memories of where you’d sent her.”

            “As I said, impressed,” Janus grinned, still pointing the silenced pistol at Paris.  “I also thought you’d die in that war and some eager German officer would pilfer that ring off your corpse and save a lot of trouble.”

            “You wouldn’t have really wanted that.  The whole point of this ring was for me to suffer throughout eternity knowing that you’d enslaved Ariadne, the woman I loved.”

            “She has always deserved to be with me!  Not a weakling like you!” Janus roared.  The pistol shook in his hand.  “Get out here!”

            Paris stepped forward calmly, filing past Janus into the entrance hall.  As he passed, Janus pistol-whipped him over the head.  Ariadne flinched as Paris cried out, falling to the ground.

            Paris kept moving forward into the hall and Janus followed.  Ariadne continued after them, feeling too confused to say anything.  Memories of past lives came to her.  Her life as Juliet, in Italy, with Romeo, now Paris.  She remembered keenly the realization that they’d never be able to escape from Janus, then, in some bizarre irony, known as Count Paris.  She remembered their joint suicide, the only escape they saw from him.  The only chance to avoid the nightmare of another lifetime with him.

            But why had she thought that way?  She loved Janus.  She loved him completely and utterly just like he loved her.

            The man whom Janus had hired to find her, Achilles, was still in the entrance hall.  There was nothing to read on his face as he watched Janus pistol-whip Paris again so that he fell on his knees in the center of the hall.  Also present were the police Officers Seth and Antenor.  Antenor watched the scene with a wicked grin on his face.  Ariadne didn’t like him.

            “You thought you could get her to choose you instead of me!” Janus screamed at Paris.  He pistol-whipped Paris across the jaw and blood flew out, blending into the floor as Paris collapsed onto his hands.  “She’s mine!  She belongs to me!  She has always belonged to me!”

            “She never belonged to you, Cain,” Paris whispered, pulling himself back up onto his knees.  “She never belonged to me either.  You tried to buy her, to own her, and that drove her further and further away.  I loved her, and she returned my love in kind, of her own free-will.”

            “No!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris in the side of the head this time.  Blood was now running down the side of his face.  Paris groaned, and took longer to pull himself back up, but he managed it.

            “You couldn’t stand it.  Couldn’t stand knowing that Ariadne, the woman you, in your own demented way, loved had chosen me over you.  You had woman falling over each other to be owned by you but of course you wanted the one who refused to be owned.  Refused to give herself to you.”

            “You stole her from me!” Janus screamed.  He struck Paris across the face again.  And again.  Ariadne felt herself flinch with every blow.

            “She loves me, Cain!” Paris roared, forcing himself back up.  One of his eyes was beginning to swell shut and his lip was fat and bleeding.  But he kept talking.  “She loves me, every time.  Thousands of tries, and no matter how hard you try you can’t make her love you for real.  So you slip that ring on her and you make her become this puppet that you can own.  You killed me back then, thinking it would make her love you but she still didn’t.  She hated you even more.  So you cursed us.  You possess her every time Cain, but you know it’s not real.  You feel it in your heart and that’s what kills you.  Because you know that no matter how many times you slip that ring on her finger, if it were up to her, she would reject you.  And she would choose the person she really loves.  Me!”

            Janus roared with rage and began striking.  He landed blow after blow after blow.  Ariadne saw Achilles begin to move but Antenor already has his weapon out and pointed at him, forcing him to stop.  Seth cried out, trying to get Antenor to drop his weapon, but he wouldn’t.  He started yelling at Seth.  Then Seth’s weapon was out, pointed at Antenor.

            Through-out it all Janus just kept hitting Paris.  Blood was coating the butt of the pistol.  He was going to kill Paris at this rate.

            Just like he had killed her mother.

            No, he did that because her mother wasn’t strong enough to get her to him.  He did it because he loved her.  Loved her completely.

            “Janus, please, stop.”

            She wasn’t sure why she said anything.  Maybe just because she couldn’t stand to see Janus kill someone.  That wasn’t necessary.  He had her.  Did Paris really have to die too?

            “You have me, you don’t need to kill him.”

            Janus crossed the room in two strides and struck her across the jaw with the pistol.

            She fell.  She hit the floor.  Her mouth was agape and her eyes were wide.  Achilles began to move towards her but Antenor was yelling again for him to stop.  Everything was fuzzy and the sound seemed to be drowning out of the room.

            Ariadne reached up and wiped her hand across her cheek.  It came away with blood.  But it wasn’t her blood.  It was Paris’.

            “Don’t ever speak to me like that.”

            Janus’ voice came through to her crystal clear.  She turned and looked at him.  She didn’t see Janus though.  She saw a monster.

            He loves me, she told herself as he turned and walked back over to Paris.  He does it because he loves me.

            But then another voice struggle into her mind.  Another voice whispered to her.

            Does he really love you?  He had you kill yourself as Dido rather than leave you for Paris to try and steal from him.

            He loves me.  He loves me.  I love him.

            No, you don’t.  You love Paris.  You love that goofy smile that lights up a room and you love the way his hair falls across his face.  You love looking at him and you love it when he looks at you because you know when his eyes are on you they see you, the real you, and nothing more.  You love him because he asks for nothing and he gives everything.  Love is something you give, not take, and Paris gives all your love to you.  And you want to give all your love back to him, the ring just makes you forget how.

            Janus loves me.  Janus loves me.  I love Janus.  I LOVE JANUS.

            No, Ariadne.  You don’t.

“Make one false move there and I’ll blow your brains out.”

            Officer Antenor continues to point his pistol at Achilles.  Seth, seems uncertain what to do, but still has his gun pointed at his partner and not at Achilles.  That was a good sign.

            “Put it down Han.”

            “You know what, I am sick and tired of this bullshit!” Antenor roars.  He pivots and shoots Seth in the leg.  Seth cries out in agony and falls to the ground. This distracts Janus from Paris, who is now down and not moving.  But only for a moment.

            Achilles takes a few more steps towards Ariadne, who is down on the ground, looking at her hand with the blood on it.  Achilles doesn’t understand what is going on.  All this talk of Cain and a curse and past lives is nonsense to him.  What he does know is that the moment that Janus slipped that ring onto Ariadne’s finger she became someone else.  She stopped being the woman he had chased.  She became someone who was owned.

            “I said stop moving!” Antenor roared.

            Achilles could feel the gun back on him and he stopped.  He was looking down at Ariadne now.  She looked up at him and held his gaze for a moment.

            “Don’t be owned,” Achilles said to her.  He didn’t know what else to say.

            His words seemed to reach Ariadne because a lot of things happened very fast.  First, her eyes solidified into the gaze he had met beneath New Carthage, the gaze that belonged to a woman who belonged to no one.  Then, she lifted her hands and she pulled the ring off of her finger.

            In that moment, Achilles ducked and pivoted, drawing his pistol from its shoulder holster as he did.  Antenor fired, the bullet cutting through the air where Achilles head had been a moment earlier.

            Achilles aimed and fired in one swift movement.  Antenor was rocked off his feet by the force of the bullet hitting him square in the chest.  He hit the floor and did not move.

            “What are you doing!!”

            Janus’ eyes were nearly red with bloodlust as he turned on Achilles.  He raised his pistol and Achilles realized that he wouldn’t be able to avoid the bullet.

            But, in what must have been an incredible feat of strength, Paris hurled himself off the ground and tackled Janus.  The pistol shot went wide, firing over Achilles head.

            Then, without warning, the pistol was gone from his hand.  Ariadne had it.  She flipped it in her hand so she was holding it by the still smoking barrel and slammed the butt of it down on the ring, which she had placed on the floor.

            “NO!!”

            Janus screamed pierced the air as the butt of the pistol hit the ring.  There was a loud crack, like thunder booming in the entrance hall, and the ring shattered, bits of metal flying across the floor.

            Achilles and Ariadne were now moving together, racing towards Janus.  Paris’ body was on top of him, limp, holding Janus down with nothing  but the weight of his body.

            Janus shoved Paris off, trying to get his gun hand around.  But Achilles slammed his foot down, shattering Janus’ hand and causing him to drop the gun.  He roared in pain as Ariadne leapt over him.  His other hand was splayed out on the floor, at a right angle to his body.

            Without hesitation she slammed the pistol home, striking the butt of the pistol against the ring on his finger.

            With another unnaturally loud crack, the ring shattered.  Janus whipped his hand to his chest, crying out in rage and sorrow.  He gaped at the finger, now broken, that had once had the ring on it.

            “No!  No, no, nonononononononono!”

            Janus crawled across the floor, desperately trying to grab the pieces of the ring that had scattered across the ground.  He held bits of them together, trying to put the ring back together.

            “Try some super glue,” Ariadne said, a cold, hard edge to her voice letting Achilles know that the woman he had seen was back.  “Maybe that’ll fix it.”