Chapter 1

• The young man climbed up out of the bed, leaving the naked woman to silently cry. He looked out the window at the rainy city, chuckling to himself in both satisfaction and anticipation.
• "What in God's name are you?" the woman hissed as she curled up in the fetal position.
• She was beautiful in body but broken in spirit, her inner thighs red from the blood of her torn hymen. Her virginity had been taken from her to the sound of her twisted cries of pain and lust, caught in both sexual humiliation and fulfillment. The young man's smirk gained a bloodthirsty curl and he flicked his finger as if to tell her that there was something he needed to show her. The woman was dragged out of the bed as if an invisible hand had grabbed her by the throat. She hit the wall beside the man and crumpled to the floor, gasping for air with a welt worn into her neck from an unseen force. He grabbed her chin as if to steal a kiss, forcing her to look up at him.
• She had spoken to him in German, so he answered in kind. "In God's name you ask? In this room, I am God. To you, I am God. As of now, you are a broken toy. I'm leaving tomorrow, and while you'll never see me again, you'll never be free of me. You will spend the rest of your life with a heart filled with both fear and love, terrified of my touch but also longing for it. What man could ever want this impure body of yours after the things I have done to it? What man could ever fall in love with your soul after I've bent it to my will? Once I'm gone, you'll think you are free, but the cage I've put you in will never disappear. Until the day you die, you are my property."
• His voice was deep and commanding, undeserving of someone so young, yet the power he wielded and the twisted depths of his soul were unlike any other human. "But now it's time for me to find something new to play with. I've become bored with you and this city and it's time for me to move on once again. I need some new feeding grounds."
• Rome, Italy:
• The book bag hit the delinquent's head like a flail, knocking him to the ground while his friends watched in shock. Standing over him was a seventeen-year-old girl, her face flushed with rage in a red as bright as her hair, the skirt of her school uniform gently swaying in the breeze, and the crucifix hanging around her neck gleaming in the morning sunlight.
• "Wretched punks! You do not deserve the mercy of God!" she shouted, pointing to the graffiti being spray-painted onto the alley wall.
• The boy got to his feet with blood pouring from his nose. "You damn bitch!"
• He charged towards her with his fist rocketing towards her face, but she caught his arm and twisted it, forcing him to bend back and letting her knock him in the Adam's Apple. As he fell back to the ground, one of his friends lunged with a knife in his hand. Forsaking her pride and hoping nobody would see under her skirt, she spun around and delivered a kick to his temple, knocking him out into the street like he was a soccer ball. The last delinquent stood, shaking like a leaf and holding out two cans of spray paint like they were mace.
• The girl shot him a dirty look. "If you even think of getting a single drop of pain on my uniform, I swear in the name of Heaven that not even God will be able to find your remains."
• His small flicker of courage extinguished like a candle, he turned around and ran away.
• "Oh no you don't!"
• Tossing her book bag aside, she sprinted after him. Down the winding streets of Rome, she chased him while trying to ignore the building pain in her ankles from the uneven cobblestone ground. It didn't help that her school shoes weren't meant for running. Regardless of this, she zeroed in on him like a missile, following him around every turn and across every open street. She saw him swerve into an alley and skidded past it, grabbing a piece of a brick jutting out of the ground. Getting back to her feat, she took careful aim and hurled the square stone at the fleeing vandal, striking him in the back of the head and sending him tumbling.
• "Just goes to show that you can't escape your sins. You'd better pray for your immortal soul when you wake up..."
• Catching her breath, she looked at her watch and swore. She had gone out to get breakfast off campus but she had wasted what little time she had and her first class would be starting in a few minutes.
• "Helena, have you been fighting again?"
• The redhead looked up at her blonde roommate, Sophie, standing by her desk. The classroom was filled with students all the same age, male and female. The girls were all dressed in plaid skirts with white blouses and knee socks, the boys wearing black pants and white clergy shirts with student clerical collars. Everyone carried a cross with them, either around their necks or on rosary chains. Helena had just managed to get back to school before class started and now all the students were waiting for the teacher to arrive.
• "How can you tell?"
• "Because you're wearing that unmistakable face of self-righteousness."
• "I was just putting some sinners in their place."
• "Ephesians 4:32, you must remember to forgive."
• "And I did forgive them, after I gave them a taste of the torment that awaits them in Hell if they do not open themselves up to Jesus Christ and renounce their sinful ways," she shot back.