Wicked Kiss

by Michelle Rowen

  TRAPPED

  “How many are there?” I whispered. “That are like you?”

  Jordan didn’t need to translate this to the spirit world before I had my answer.

  HUNDREDS

  Horror slid through me. Hundreds of ghosts were in this house.

  “What’s trapping you?”

  BARRIER

  “Oh, my God.” I inhaled sharply. “The barrier that’s around the city? The one that keeps supernaturals inside?”

  YES

  “What barrier?” Jordan asked, looking directly at me, her brows tight together.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about it?” Her voice turned sharp. “It’s trapping my best friend’s spirit inside so she can’t go to Heaven. I’m going to worry about it.”

  She made a good point. Besides, Jordan already knew way too much about what was going on in the city. She may as well know about the barrier, too.

  “Why did you pick this house to be in?” I asked.

  NEAR BORDER

  And then...

  THIN BARRIER HERE

  I racked my mind to figure out what Julie meant, then it suddenly came to me. This house was very close to the city limits. It was only a block away. Therefore it was close to the edge of the protective barrier that trapped all supernaturals inside. Here, the barrier must be thinner than anywhere else. The ghosts—everyone who’d died since the barrier was created—had been drawn here collectively. “What happens when you try to go through the barrier?”

  PAIN

  A violent shiver raced through me. “I’m sorry.”

  HELP US

  “I wish I could.”

  HELP US

  My chest tightened. “I don’t know how.”

  ONLY YOU CAN

  Jordan gave me another dark look. “Why aren’t you helping them? I mean, you’ve taken the crown as Miss Supernatural right now. Can’t you do anything?”

  The pointer moved again, picking out letters almost faster than I could follow.

  IT’S HERE

  Jordan looked down as Julie answered a question we hadn’t even asked.

  “What’s here?” she asked breathlessly.

  DEATH ANGEL

  “Do you mean the one that made you...” I didn’t want to say it out loud. Julie didn’t need a reminder that she’d been driven to kill herself. “Can you see it?”

  SO SAD

  That would be it. It was here. Panic gripped me. “What does it want?”

  PEACE

  “How can I stop it without hurting anyone?”

  CAN’T

  “But what if...” I’d tried to work it out in my head. If the angel was a bodiless thing that could possess people, that meant it was basically like a soul. Grays consumed souls. Could a gray, one who hadn’t gone through stasis yet, consume this angel and leave the human body it inhabited intact?

  Jordan took her hands off the pointer for a moment to adjust her black Cleopatra wig. The point began to move all by itself.

  We watched in stunned silence as it pointed to a letter at a time.

  RUN

  It was only one word spelled out on a board, but it held an urgency that couldn’t be ignored. I got to my feet so fast I got a head rush.

  Jordan grabbed my arm. “Do you feel that?”

  A familiar tingling sensation moved down my arms.

  I swallowed hard. “Yes.”

  I couldn’t feel the ghosts, the souls that were trapped here—not anymore. But I could still feel the presence of the angel.

  Jordan grabbed my arm as the door pushed open. I steeled myself for what would greet us on the other side.

  It was Bishop.

  Relief swept through me immediately at the sight of him, but Jordan’s fingers dug painfully into my skin.

  “His eyes,” she hissed.

  My gaze shot to Bishop again to realize that she was right. I didn’t automatically notice it in the shadows, but there was an opaque glaze to Bishop’s eyes.

  Terror clutched my throat. “No.”

  “He was looking for me, wasn’t he?” he said in a flat monotone. “That’s why you’re all here. You want to stop me.”

  “Don’t do this,” I managed. “Let him go right now!”

  “Fallen. Soul is jagged, pained, so very damaged. Mind filled with disappointment, sadness, endless regret. He does not make me feel better. But he holds tight onto me and I can’t be free again to feed here on all these lovely girls and boys filled with joy and light. There is very little light left within this angel.”

  Bishop’s face became strained, as if he was fighting against this possession. His teeth clenched. “Stay away, Samantha. Don’t get close to me like this.”

  With that he turned and began moving rapidly away from the room and down the stairs.

  “Stay away?” Jordan repeated. “He’s the one who came up here. I mean, was that rude or what?”

  I grabbed her arm. “Call the police. Report this party so everyone will get out of here safely. Nobody else has to get hurt tonight. And whatever you do, don’t come near us again. Okay?”

  She just stared at me, seemingly on the verge of arguing. But then she nodded. “Okay.”

  I didn’t waste another second. I followed after Bishop, terrified of what would happen next.

  This angel had driven Julie and Zach to suicide. She’d nearly done the same to Stephen. And many of the souls trapped in this house would be due to her deadly touch.

  I couldn’t let that happen to Bishop, too.

  Why was she possessing him? Out of everyone in this house she had chosen him? How was that even possible?

  It didn’t matter. This was happening. And I had to do anything I could to stop it.

  I grabbed Kraven as he passed in front of me.

  “You going to tell me what happened, or should I guess?” he asked, cocking his head. “You look like you’ve recovered nicely.”

  “Bishop’s possessed. Get the others. Meet us outside.”

  His frown deepened. “What are you—?”

  “Just do it!” I screamed at him, before pushing past him and running after Bishop.

  He walked slowly, as if his legs were fighting every step. Finally, we were a full block away from the house before he stopped and stood there, his back to me. I stuttered to a halt.

  “Bishop...” I began.

  “Damn it, Samantha, I told you not to follow me.” He sounded angry, his voice drawn tight to the point of breaking.

  A sob rose in my throat. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe you should have thought of that before you let yourself get possessed.”

  “It happens through touch. I saw a kid get possessed and I grabbed him. I was going to bring him outside to get him away from the others. But it transferred to me and now it’s trapped. Kid’s okay. The angel wasn’t in him long enough to do damage. I can hold it. Better in me than somebody else.” He hissed out a breath. “Let me figure this out.”

  “Great. You do that.” I tried not to panic more than I already was. “Okay, figured it out yet?”

  “Let me go,” he said, his voice quavering. It wasn’t him now; there was a tonal difference, one that scared me. It was the angel who was now speaking. “You can’t restrain me forever.”

  “I can damn well try,” Bishop said through clenched te
eth, as if talking to himself.

  “She gives you happiness—this girl. So many good emotions to choose from when you look at her. I can taste it—all of it. I can leave you broken and raw and begging for death. You know what it’s like to be fallen and anchored to something that mutes your ties to the celestial. To be discarded from the place you considered home. You gave them everything and they gave you nothing in return.”

  Yes, this was a fallen angel. One who’d been driven completely insane thanks to her soul. Perhaps this was all she was now—that unnatural soul given a life outside its destroyed body. An echo of pain and misery that had no choice but to loop around again and again on itself.

  My empathy for her was dampened by how many people she’d harmed since escaping from the Hollow. But maybe she could still be reasoned with. She had been an angel—that meant something to me. It represented goodness and light.

  No matter what Bishop had done in his human life, he was an angel. And no matter what this angel had done after she’d fallen, that didn’t change what she was at her heart.

  At least, I really hoped it didn’t.

  I approached slowly. “Please don’t hurt him.”

  Those glazed eyes moved to me. “I can’t help what I do. I hurt those who have what I don’t. And all I want is more.”

  “Yes, you can help it. You can stop this.”

  “I want peace. I want silence. But death is not an option for me. I tried to die before. I failed.”

  Bishop’s eyes were glazing more. It was now hard to tell what color they normally were.

  “What can I do to help you?” My voice twisted with desperation.

  “No help. Too late. This body...” He held his hands up before his face. “I could get used to this. He said I could live again if he released me.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Soon,” he whispered. “Soon you’ll know everything. But I want to live again now. I want my pain to end now. I can’t wait any longer.”

  “The only way you can live is by destroying the lives of others.” It was Kraven speaking behind me. My heart pounded so loud in my ears I could barely hear him. “You can’t do that. Not with him, anyway.”

  “Brothers,” the angel said. “You and he are brothers. You care for him.”

  He shrugged a shoulder. He still had his red cup in hand and he swirled its contents. “Wrong. Actually, I hate his guts. But if anybody’s going to destroy his angelic life, it’s going to be me, not you. So hands off.”

  “He’s mine. And you can’t stop me. Neither of you can.”

  I glared at the deadly angel who possessed Bishop, anger shoving past my fear. Nobody had any idea how to deal with this creature, apart from sticking the golden dagger through its borrowed chest. Well, this particular chest wasn’t going to be sacrificed like that since I had grown extremely fond of it. They’d have to kill me first.

  I approached, placing one foot in front of the other.

  “Gray-girl, what the hell are you doing?” Kraven growled.

  “I’m not a gray anymore,” I told him. “That part of me dropped dead earlier. The rest of me crawled back to life.”

  His brows drew together at this blunt statement. “I thought there was something different about you now.”

  No, I wasn’t a gray. But I was still a nexus. I still had the powers of Heaven and Hell that had been dormant inside me for seventeen years. And I already knew I could repel angels and demons who threatened me.

  This angel might not have a body, but I could try my best to repel it, anyway. Repel it all the way back to the Hollow.

  I grabbed hold of Bishop’s wrist.

  “Samantha, don’t!” It was the real Bishop who said this, and his voice held panic.

  I looked deep into his glazed eyes. “Let me try. Let me—”

  Snap!

  I stand on the platform, waiting for my fate. The weeks I spent in that small, stinking hole have prepared me to embrace this. Still, my legs feel weak and ready to collapse beneath me.

  I’m afraid to die. So afraid.

  Below, dozens have gathered to witness my execution. Some look up at me with grim expressions, others with pleased ones. Justice had finally been done in their eyes. Someone has put an end to this monster.

  Maybe they’re right.

  “Do you have any last words?” the priest asks me, clutching his leather-bound Bible to his chest.

  “No,” I mutter.

  “Do you wish to be absolved of your sins?”

  “No.”

  “But in God’s name—”

  “I don’t believe in God. Now go away, and leave me to die.”

  I expect outrage at my blasphemous words. But they’re true. My brother was the one who clung to religion to give him strength in times of weakness. Not me.

  I spot a man in the crowd I met two months ago—one who told me lies and made me empty promises. I hate him almost more than I hate Kara.

  “Let me ask you one more question on behalf of your father,” the priest says. My gaze snaps to him, since that’s the man I was just looking at. “You agreed to something he proposed. Do you still agree?”

  Two months ago I was out of my mind. The edges of my memories are fuzzy at best. I’d drunk bottle upon bottle of absinthe, hoping to erase those memories and ease my pain. It worked very well—at least, when it came to the memories.

  “What difference does it make anymore?”

  The executioner nudges the priest out of the way so he can loop the noose around my neck. The rough rope tightens painfully around my throat.

  “Do you still agree?” the priest asks.

  “Yeah, whatever you say. Now get lost.”

  “Your particular talents will be valued even more now that they’ve been honed to a sharp edge.”

  “Go to hell,” I mumble.

  He makes the sign of the cross to bless me and steps back.

  I refuse to close my eyes. Instead, I stare out at a crowd that hates me. That wishes me dead.

  Despite the fear that rises in my throat and chokes off my breath, I feel the exact same way. There’s no one here whom I want forgiveness from. No one here to give a damn about me or that I give a damn about in return. My choices have led me to be alone today, only three days after my eighteenth birthday.

  I wish forgiveness only from James.

  He’s the only one I miss.

  I killed him. I sent him to Hell.

  Now I’m certain, despite any foolish promises made by the man who claims to be my father, I’ll be joining him there.

  Finally, the executioner pulls the lever. The platform drops out from beneath my feet and I fall.

  My death is not fast. My neck doesn’t break.

  Instead, I slowly strangle while the crowd cheers. They rejoice in every moment of my pain and suffering until, finally, death rises up to claim me...

  Snap!

  I staggered back from Bishop so violently that I tripped over my own feet and fell to the ground hard on my butt. In the distance I heard the sound of police sirens. Jordan had made the call like I asked her to and they’d arrived to break up the party.

  I barely heard the sound. Barely saw the flashing lights to the far left.

  I just sat on the ground and stared up at Bishop.

  I’d seen his execution. I’d experienced it as if I was him.

  The hopel
essness he’d felt. The raw pain and loneliness. The shame.

  He wanted to die that day.

  But just like what happened to me earlier, he hadn’t stayed dead.

  His eyes were still glazed white. I hadn’t been able to repel the angel. All I’d done was see another piece of Bishop’s past. More pieces of his puzzle. A corner piece that snapped into place painfully and with effort.

  “I can let you go,” the angel spoke through him, squeezing Bishop’s eyes shut. “But you must let me feed.”

  “No,” Bishop gritted out in reply. “You won’t hurt anyone else. It’s over.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse. You’re mine. I will take your body over completely. Soon you will stop fighting. I can still feed through a touch. I can take the joy of others and make it my own. He promises me that I will be more powerful than ever before.”

  Cassandra and Roth finally approached, with Connor trailing after them. They each looked grim, their attention on Bishop. They knew what was going on without getting a recap.

  Bishop’s glazed eyes widened with surprise as he looked at the blonde angel. “You.”

  Cassandra came to a stop a few feet away, shaking her head sadly. “I tried to find you before this. You hide very well.”

  “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Would it have made a difference to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tears slid down Cassandra’s cheeks. “You have one chance, Marissa. Only once chance. Go back to the Hollow. Leave this city in peace. You’ve caused enough destruction.”

  Bishop shook his head. “I can’t do that. He released me. He won’t take me back so easily. I don’t want to go back.”

  “All a damn distraction,” Connor mumbled, loud enough only for me to hear. “What’s his game? Where the hell is he hiding?”

  I glanced at him. Who was he talking about?

  “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.” Cassandra’s voice broke. “You have no idea how much.”

  “You abandoned me,” the angel whispered. “My sister. You left me to fall and never tried to help me.”

  “You were damaged,” Cassandra said, wringing her hands. “I knew that. There was nothing I could do for you anymore.”