Tradition Be Damned (Last Hope Book 1)

by Rebecca Royce

  But what surprised me in the circle was Sister Daniella. She stood like a statue of power. Her arms up, she addressed the fates as though she knew them.

  “This is too soon.” She yelled to the skies. “She’s too young.”

  As were you.

  “It was different. I understood. My men knew who they were to me, what we would be together. They’d said yes. They’re too new. Later.”

  Later will be too late. We gifted her tonight, and she rejected the power. We introduced these souls. We knew they would work. They all said yes. It is love.

  “She doesn’t understand.”

  Then perhaps she will die.

  I was flung back into my body. The guys still slept peacefully around my room. What had happened? What was going on?

  The train jerked to a stop, and since I was the only one standing, I was the only one who went flying into a wall. I saw stars, but it was my arm that mostly hurt. I’d jammed it, badly. The guys didn’t move.

  “Hey,” I called out. Not one of my guys moved. I got to my feet, grabbing onto Bryant’s and Mason’s feet. I shook them. Not a budge.

  I tried each of them, holding my arm. No one seemed to hear me at all.

  That was when the screams started. I gasped as my powers turned on. In the same way I’d seen the woman on the last train, I could see what happened now, and I wasn’t asleep. The train had stopped because a horde of possessed blocked the track. There were hundreds of them. And waiting behind them, a demon.

  My arm would have to wait to be fixed. “Please guys, I have to do this.” I’d never fought without my guards. How would I keep the possessed off me? Maybe I wouldn’t. Oh by the Divinity, what would I do?

  “If you couldn’t do it, you wouldn’t be you.” Sister Daniella’s voice filled the room. She wasn’t there, and yet … I heard her.

  The train shook violently. The possessed were shaking it from side-to-side. Sometimes they got unbelievably strong, which wasn’t a good thing. It meant they could jump bodies. Well, someone had to get in their way. Someone had to save them, and it looked like it would be me.

  I stood closest to Milo and bent down to kiss him on the cheek. “Be safe.”

  Making my way around to all of them, I actually felt relief. As quickly as I could with my one good arm, I wrote a letter absolving them of my death. Bryant would hate it, but I wouldn’t have them blamed for something they couldn’t control since some otherworldly flying creatures who had matched us in some way kept them knocked out. I hoped the masks were metaphors. I didn’t want to think of them really trapped.

  I didn’t even know where my hood was. No matter. I didn’t need it. The symbols washed off on my back were another problem. I couldn’t paint them myself. We’d have to see once and for all if I was strong, if I was brave.

  If I could face my death—because, really, what else was this—with grace and dignity. Well, I’d know, either way. I missed them. Their steady presence had taken me through so many tough battles. Had I done something wrong by not embracing the so-called offering while they were asleep? No, I’d made the right decision. I knew it in my gut. I might not win, but maybe it wasn’t about that. I was one woman in a big war. I’d make my stand. Here on the train tracks.

  On the border of the Deadlands.

  The possessed roared the sounds of the damned. The woman on the train had been sad; she’d needed me to free her. This was anger, not sadness, and it was all directed at me. I stared from the back of the train into the distance. The passengers were scattered everywhere. The fools had rushed to see what was happening. The back door to the train was open, and the possessed had started tearing inside.

  They would have to be dealt with. But first the demon who had brought them here.

  “Hello, Anne. Or perhaps I should call you Celine.” Why would he call me that? I wasn’t going to dwell on the demon’s strange speech. He was the strongest I’d ever faced. He was an original, a demon responsible for making other demons. He was in charge, if such a thing was possible.

  The demon in front of me was old. He was powerful. He had always been and always would be. I could not kill him. I could send him away, maybe. I swallowed. He was why the world was ending and, conversely, he was why I had powers to begin with. If not for he, there would be no need for me.

  “You don’t belong this far north. Turn around and I’ll let you live.”

  I stepped down from the train, and the possessed parted ways to let me through. “What’s your name, demon?”

  I doubted he would tell me. One of the first things we learned when we were trained as Sisters was that names had power. A demon would never willingly tell you theirs. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask. He might get cocky and tell me.

  He laughed. He was an ugly creature, the stuff of legends. Most demons looked like monsters, but this was the kind that paintings were made about. Horns, red skin, beady black eyes, and a forked tail. He was eight feet tall and even the slightest touch of his skin on mine would end my life.

  I walked toward him like he was a stray dog. He couldn’t know how afraid I was.

  “Sister Anne, you killed an Incubus, but you can’t kill me, not like that. Fall to your knees. I’ll let you worship me.”

  My powers surged. Even if my mind understood the futility of this, my body didn’t. I was going to fight.

  I pushed my light at him. I’d been chosen for this, either to die in this moment or to live, it mattered not anymore.

  “Be gone with you, evil creature.” Around me the possessed hollered with delight to see the large demon battle, while the humans remaining in the crowd chanted the word “Sister” over and over again. Death didn’t come as I’d expected it. I’d anticipated a fast one, considering the monster I battled. Yet it did seem I had some strength. More than I’d believed.

  Somewhere it dawned on me that I didn’t have my markings on. Maybe Daniella had known what she was talking about. Maybe they didn’t help.

  He drooled, coming toward me until I could smell the stink of his sulfur breath on my face. Still, he didn’t touch me. I pushed back, light to his darkness. My life flashed before my eyes, and what was funny was I didn’t recognize all of it.

  A woman whose face I didn’t know passed before my vision. She was angry. A man with red hair. Children I didn’t know. Then Sister Katrina. She hadn’t always been as she was now. Young, beautiful, and powerful, she took the reins as Sister Superior. I must have seen it, although I hadn’t remembered that I had. All of my teachers, some kind, some not. The kitchen staff who snuck me candy and my fellow Initiate, Dawn, who had died during training. She hadn’t been fit to handle even the smallest demon.

  I’d watched in horror and cried for weeks. When I was done, I’d come out changed. Resigned. The first time I met my guards. My first number One. He wasn’t kind, but he was strong. Bryant, who had held my handshake slightly too long to be proper. Mason, who smiled with his eyes even if he shouldn’t have with his face. Garrett’s silence I now knew was because he had too much to say. Kieran who saw and understood more than he’d ever say. And finally Milo, he had no filter. He either told me exactly what I wanted to hear or exactly what I didn’t. I could count on his truth.

  Their laughter. The months that turned into years and the few days we’d really known … what? That I loved them. I loved them.

  I did. It was strong, so huge I didn’t need them with me to feel it. The gift they gave me with their presence in my life travelled with me wherever I went and always would.

  The demon screamed. Oh, he didn’t like that. The demon didn’t want to feel how I felt about waking up knowing my day would be full of conversation and tender moments. He roared, and so did I. If this was the end, I’d have them in my mind when I went. I couldn’t think of a more wonderful thing … I was never alone, not when I had them in my heart.

  The demon bellowed before he vanished in a cyclone. I’d done it. I’d sent him off. I’d … I hit t
he ground hard. The possessed were all over me, pawing, needing. I’d used so much energy. I didn’t know if I could help them. I didn’t know if I could bring them back.

  They didn’t care. Sadness overwhelmed me, and I cried out. How many hands touched my body? How many souls did I save? I didn’t know.

  I woke up in a cage. My head spun, my mouth was thick with dryness. I couldn’t swallow. I was burning up.

  “Hello?” I tried to sit up. Where was I? The last thing I remembered was the possessed. They’d needed me. The demon was gone, and they’d begged, their souls to mine, for help. I’d tried. It had been too much. And then what?

  “Do you know how long I’ve waited for someone like you?” A man wearing black approached me. He was dressed in black from head to toe. A large bowler hat covering his head was also black. He had brown hair and one eye visible. The other had been covered with a patch.

  “You shouldn’t have come to the north, Sister. But you did. That was some impressive display. When I pulled you from the possessed, I knew that fate was finally on my side. You are going to make me so much money. People will pay a fortune to have you get the possessed out of their loved ones. My own personal gold mine.”

  I touched the cold bars. “I won’t do it.”

  “You will. You can’t help yourself. It’s how you’re built.”

  Unfortunately, he was right.

  Thirteen

  Pain and terror didn’t always go hand-in-hand for me, yet this time they did. I’d been a prisoner for a week. I had to get away. I had to try. And I’d gotten caught.

  Pain and terror. I didn’t know which one I hated more. If I wasn’t careful, this man was going to break me from the inside out.

  “So you think you can try to run? Think you can try to ask for help?” Doctor Cooperman, my captor and tormentor, had caught me trying to sneak out of the kitchen when he’d let me upstairs to eat something for the first time in three days. His son had fallen asleep on the job of watching me, and I’d taken my chance. I had to get away.

  I wasn’t sure what he was doing. From my vantage point, strapped to a chair, I couldn’t see anything. “You belong to me now. You will never escape me. And just to make that clear, I’m going to see to it that you never, ever forget me.”

  My eyes widened. What was that? What did he have in his hand? He was practically on top of me when I realized what he had. Sometimes the men who worked the farms for the Sisterhood branded the cattle. He had a brand in his hand, a giant “C” and he was going to …

  I’d barely registered the idea when he pressed it into the skin on my hand. I’d thought I knew pain when Sister Superior struck me.

  I hadn’t.

  I must have blacked out. Or maybe I didn’t. Time slowed to nothing but the scorching smell of my flesh burning.

  Sister Daniella’s face passed before me. “We choose our pain. We agree to it. And from it comes enlightenment. It doesn’t help in the moment. But it helps eventually. You will survive this, Anne, if you are strong. If you are the girl they must think you to be.”

  The possessed were everywhere. They never left me alone. The second I made one better, my captors brought me another. I screamed at night, hoping beyond reason that my guards would come; they would take me away. Eventually, I had to give in to what was reality. I was trapped. Maybe there would come a day when I would prefer death to captivity. I wasn’t there yet. But as my fifth possessed of the day came, I somehow could imagine I might someday be.

  I lost track of my days. Months? Years? Doctor Cooperman, even though I doubted he was truly a doctor of anything, was making a lot of money off me. My days ran into one another. He’d bring me the possessed whose family paid him for help, and I would pull their demons out of them. Sometimes I did it sitting in a chair; sometimes I’d be brought to the person’s house to preform my service.

  I stared at the little boy in front of me. There was never anything worse than small children who had been taken over by demons.

  “Well, there could be something worse.” The demon I had gotten rid of at the train spoke to me from the corner of the room. I’d taken to thinking of him as Frank. He was my constant companion, although I doubted he was real. He didn’t make my powers turn on, and no one else could see him except me. Or at least I didn’t think they could. I didn’t have anyone to ask, per se. If I’d told the Doctor I was seeing things, he’d have his sons beat me.

  But none of the people I helped or their families ever noted the big demon in the corner, which led me to believe he wasn’t really there. Frank was so strong even humans without powers could see him, and no seemed to notice him at all.

  He was a figment of my destroyed mind. Each day I spent in captivity made it worse. I couldn’t remember the faces of the people I helped anymore. They’d blended into one giant ball of misery.

  My hair had grown. It hit my shoulders. My only understanding of the passage of time came from the length of my locks, which was so bizarre because the Sisterhood had been shaving off my hair since I was a little girl. I didn’t actually know how long it took to grow.

  I didn’t want to speak to Frank in front of the boy I was trying to help, so I didn’t ask him what could possibly be worse than being a little boy possessed. Instead, I leaned forward, my powers turning on to help the little boy who rocked on the floor. His room was quite nice. I’d never seen a nursery that didn’t have dozens of children in it, so the quiet feeling of security for just one being moved me almost to tears.

  I pushed away the feeling. He’d go back to playing with his small trains and teddy bears as soon as I returned him to being a regular four-year-old boy.

  The Doctor’s sons waited outside of the room. They’d grab me as soon as this was over, put me back in my cage, and that would be that for the day.

  “Hello, Samuel. Your mother tells me you are brave.” I’d actually not met the woman. The Doctor didn’t like me communicating with people. But little ones liked to hear about their moms and dads. I was a stranger, and this was scary enough. “I know that there is someone inside of you, someone who is hurting you and making you sad. We’re going to put an end to that. I promise.”

  Tears streaked down his face. Demons overwhelmed adults. How was this guy still even alive? He wouldn’t be brought to the Holes or the Deadlands. I’d see to it he went to having whatever life he could in these end times.

  It didn’t take much for me to yank the demon out of him. For a person who had once not thought she could do it at all, I’d become quite adept at managing to save the possessed. The child cried out, and the overwhelming sadness of the demon moved through me. The cold never went away. I felt it every second of every day I lived. Too many demons had touched my soul. I wouldn’t be warm ever again.

  Samuel stopped crying and stared up at me with big brown eyes. I tried to smile through my chattering teeth but didn’t manage. He reached his small hand to touch my face. “Your eyes are white. Are you a witch?”

  “Not a witch. Something else.” If I was a different kind of a person, I could take Samuel and kidnap him until I could get away from Cooperman. But I wasn’t that person. I was a Sister, and some things went against my nature. I could never not help, and I couldn’t cause anyone pain.

  I walked to the window and looked down. His family lived pretty high up on a cliff. Maybe I could jump …

  The door flung open, and the Doctor’s sons were there. Hands hauled me backwards. I wouldn’t be jumping today.

  I sat in my cage listening to the water drop from somewhere else in the basement. Drip, drop. Drip, drop. It was a rhythm I’d come to be familiar with. I let my mind drift into the routine I used every night.

  Where were the guys right now? This wasn’t a new mental distraction for me. I knew even before I thought things what the answers I’d make up would be. Still, they drifted me into sleep, and I did them like a bedtime story I could take into my dreams.

  They all had to think I was d
ead, and that was best. I’d managed to write that note that would tell the Sisterhood I’d known I was going to my death. They’d get their reward. They’d been kind to me, loved me a little maybe, but they’d be glad to be done with the crazy that followed me around.

  Bryant wanted to be a doctor. With the money he’d gotten, he’d enrolled in school.

  Mason had gone back home, rescuing his mothers and sisters. They all lived near Garrett, who had his own house that he took care of. Maybe they had jobs in their neighborhood where they could help people. They’d liked taking care of me. I’d never asked Kieran and Milo what they wanted. But, thanks to the drink Kieran had brought me the night in the engine room, I pictured him opening a bar, in the same area of course, where Bryant went to school and Mason and Garrett lived. Milo lived there too, but his investment in the railroads took him away a lot.

  I pictured their faces. It was getting harder and harder to see them. Rooms and faces were becoming blurs. Only the power mattered and the people I could save. I was a tool, and I’d do what I could to help until it killed me.

  In the beginning, I’d tried to escape. I looked at the burn mark on my left hand. That hadn’t gone well. Next time he might actually burn one of my fingers off.

  With that dark thought, I fell asleep.

  My dreams had become pretty standard. The flames around the circle where I’d once stood, staring at my masked men, were gone. The men were gone too, although their masks remained, each discarded on the ground in the place where they’d once stood.

  In the distance, I heard someone crying. A young woman. I’d tried and failed to get to her on many occasions. She was alone, and so was I. Why couldn’t we be together? But I couldn’t find her. The white birds, fates, whatever, circled above. They weren’t currently speaking to me.

  Daniella appeared before me bathed in white light. I had to hold my hand up to stop the glare in order to look at her. She sometimes visited me in sleep, and I looked forward to the nights when I conjured her up.