Gabriel's back stiffened.
“No one is killing anyone,” said Tessa as though she had any actual control over the situation. She said it with so much conviction that I almost believed her. “All we have to do is find a way to bring down the Dark Legion, and I’ll worry about the Council later, if it comes to that.”
“If?” scoffed Dominic. “If the Dark Legion's already positioned themselves, as you say, it's only a matter of time before the Council catches on. And that's if they haven't already. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if they already knew exactly what was going on.”
“You're not helping,” scolded Gabriel upon noticing my horrified expression.
“I beg to differ. I think I’m the only one helping here. She ought to know the truth and be prepared for the worse of it.” Dominic turned his attention to Tessa. “What makes you so certain they aren't already fully aware of the circumstances? That they're not conducting inquiries into her blood as we speak?”
“I would know it if they were,” insisted Tessa. “Jemma would’ve had to have given them blood. We would've heard something by now.”
“Oh, yes, because the Council is certainly known for their outstanding open-book policies,” mocked Dominic.
Tessa said something back to him, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. All of my thoughts folded inward, into my own despair, my fear, into the weighty betrayal that was dangling right in front of my eyes in plain sight.
“That's preposterous,” scoffed Dominic, glaring at Tessa.
“Uncle Karl asked for a sample.” My voice was so low, I wasn't even sure I’d said the words aloud.
“What makes you the expert?” retorted Tessa, glaring right back at him.
“Jemma?” Gabriel called my name through the back and forth bickering between my sister and Dominic. “A sample of what?”
The room fell silent.
“My blood.”
“Dammit, angel. Tell me you didn't give it to him!”
“I didn't know.”
“When? When did you give it to him?” asked Tessa and then turned to Gabriel as the two of them exchanged silent concerns.
“A few weeks ago.” I looked up and meet her eyes. “He said the tests were inconclusive because of the Cloaking spell.”
“Which is why they've been pushing for Invocation,” realized Gabriel as he folded his arms across his chest. “They need to break the spell in order to test your blood.”
“So they say,” said Dominic, clearly untrusting of everything and everyone that came out of the Order.
“I'm so completely and utterly screwed,” I realized, burying my head into my hands. “I can't fight them, I can't run from them, I can't even hide from them. The Dark Legion's already coming for me, and even if by some miracle I manage to escape them, the Order will be waiting to finish the job just as soon as they get caught up on the truth.”
Gabriel's eyes were pained. “Jemma—”
“And that's if they haven't already found out. Maybe the test is just some formality. You know, make sure they dot their i's and cross their t's. Maybe they know all about my demonic blood and are just getting ready to make their move.”
“You still have the Amulet,” reminded Dominic.
“So freaking what?” I shouted at him. “My life is officially over, Dominic. I'm an abomination! Like an actual curse destined to bring on the end of the world. That's me, Jemma Blackburn, the girl fated to bring on the freaking Apocalypse!”
“It isn't over yet,” said Gabriel, but I wasn't even listening anymore.
I could see Tessa's lips moving, spitting out words frantically, but none of them were registering. All I could think about was all the things I wanted to do. All the things I’d never get to become. And the worst part was, I wasn't giving it all up to do something bigger, something grander, like becoming a revered Slayer and saving the world. I was destined to be the end of it. How was I supposed to live with that?
I couldn't.
I wouldn't.
That wasn't who I was. I wouldn’t allow it to be. “I need to give myself up,” I decided, rising from the sofa in a haze of my own despair and twisted reasoning. “I have to tell the Council the truth. They'll know what to do from there.”
“They'll kill you, love,” said Dominic as if I hadn't already realized that.
“I'm not going to be the reason the world ends. Not again.” Trace's Alt had stopped something horrible from happening in the future, but that paled in comparison to what would happen if the Dark Legion got their hands on me. Their only earthly desire was to open the Gates of Hell and raise Lucifer from his tomb. And I was the damn key.
“Again? What are you talking about, angel?” asked Dominic before turning to Gabriel and Tess for answers. “She's obviously lost it,” he concluded.
“I haven't lost it, Dominic.”
“You don't know what you're saying, love.”
“I know exactly what I’m saying. I'm not going to sit back and wait for the Dark Legion to find me and use me as a weapon against the world. I might have been born with the wrong blood in my veins, but I'm still in charge of myself. I get to decide who I am, and what I do, not some ancient text written eons ago. And you know what?” I looked at each of them as a quiet fire burned inside my heart. “I choose to make my own destiny. I choose to make my life mean something...even if that means I have to die to do it.”
“Look,” said Tessa, cautiously moving closer to me as though I were a bomb that might go off if she got too close. “We aren't making this decision tonight. There may be a way to get you out of this without shedding your blood for either side. Dad had the right idea, with the right spell—”
“The right spell, Tess? Come on.” I shook my head, knowing where she was going with this. “You can Cloak me until there isn't anything left to Cloak, but they still know who I am. Engel knows and they won't stop until they get what they want. We both know this, and soon, so will the Order.”
Neither one said a word, their tongues unable to lift a lie heavy enough to bury the truth.
“Leave us, please,” asked Tessa, not taking her eyes off me.
“I'm not going anywhere,” said Dominic, “this is my h—”
His protest abruptly died as Gabriel snatched his elbow and yanked him off the chair.
“This is a three hundred dollar shirt,” barked Dominic, shaking his arm free from Gabriel's firm grip.
“We'll be outside,” announced Gabriel, forcing Dominic to lead the way into the hall.
Tessa stood silently for a few moments after the room cleared out, waiting for the sound of the front door opening and then closing shut before turning to me. Her eyes were glowing by the light of the fire, and if I didn't know any better, I would have thought there may have even been a tear in there.
“Tess.” I wanted to reach out to her, but I wasn't sure how to make the connection.
Squaring her shoulders, a steely look settled over her expression as she swallowed down any semblance of the sadness and fear she might have been feeling a moment ago, and then took a step towards me. I could see the determination in her eyes; the ferocity that told me she wasn't going to give up that easy.
“This isn't over, Jemma. Not by a long shot,” she said, her voice filled with firm resolution. She was, after all, the girl with no quit in her, and she was as determined as ever to bring the fighter out of me, whether I wanted it or not.
“Then I hope you have a better plan than some Cloaking spell,” I said, folding my arms.
“That's not a bad plan,” she defended.
“It's a horrible plan.” Shaking my head, I matched her advance. “I'm not going to spend the rest of my life on the run, hiding from everyone and everything I’ve ever known. It's no way to live, Tessa, and I won't live that way.”
She didn't argue the point. Probably because she didn't have one. “If hiding you isn't an option, then there's only one thing left for us to do,” she said, her eyes meeting mine in a chill
ing way. A way that let me know something big was coming; something astronomical. “We go to Hell and we kill Lucifer ourselves.”
37. THE DEVIL INSIDE
The rain fell in sheets outside Huntington Manor, pattering hard against the window as claps of thunder rattled through the glass. Each explosion getting closer and closer as though God's angels were closing in on us, ready and willing to take out Heaven's number one enemy.
“We go to Hell?” I repeated, certain that I’d heard her wrong. “Are you out of your freaking mind?”
“Hear me out, Jemma.” She put her hands on my shoulders and pulled me down to the sofa with her. “The Dark Legion wants to raise Lucifer from his tomb, and they need your blood to do it. So, it's safe to say they aren't going to stop trying, or stop coming after you, as long as the possibility still exists.”
“Right,” I said, my lids fluttering nervously as I tried to follow along with everything she was saying.
“So, the only way to stop them for good is to completely eliminate any possibility of ever freeing him.”
“By eliminating him,” I concluded.
“Exactly.” Her eyes flared with determination. “Without a devil to raise, your blood is meaningless to them.”
“Okay, but...” I shook my head, unable to work out the actual details. “How exactly are we going to do this? I mean, it sounds great in theory, but is any of this even possible?”
“Everything is possible, Jemma.”
“We can't just 'go to Hell' like it's some corner store, can we?” I didn't know much about other Realms, but I was fairly certain that Hell didn't have an open door policy.
“Well, no, not exactly.”
“And even if we did find a way to get in that didn't involve a permanent first-class ticket there, how exactly are we going to find him, kill him, and then get back out of there without getting caught and tortured for the rest of eternity?”
“I haven't worked out all the specifics yet.”
“No shit,” I said sarcastically.
“I just need a little more time to figure everything out,” she said calmly as though she were planning our spring break vacation and not a suicide trip to Hell. “It's not hopeless, Jemma. Where there's a will, there's a way. We can do this as long as we stick together.”
My heart softened at her sheer determination, at her absolute refusal to give up on me. I wasn't sure if she fully believed what she was saying was possible, but if she didn't, she wasn't letting on about it one bit.
“Are you in this with me?” she asked.
The more I thought about it, the less crazy and convoluted it sounded. She was right: where there was a will, there would surely be a way. Besides, what did I have to lose anyway? I was going down one way or another, that much was certain, but I wasn't about to make it easy on them to take me out. I wasn't about to go gently into that good ol' night.
They were going to have to take me down kicking and screaming, fists blazing until my very last breath.
“I'm in.”
Gabriel drove Tessa back shortly after our talk, leaving me behind again with spiraling thoughts of an uncertain future, and Dominic. The latter rejoined me in the den as soon as the coast was clear, and quickly fixed himself another drink. He seemed rather preoccupied with pouring and stirring and mixing, never once bothering to look up at me.
“You know it's bad when Dominic Huntington can't even face you.” There was something tragically ironic about that.
His eyes flicked to me, though the rest of his body didn't move an inch. “I can face you just fine, love. I'm thinking.”
“About what?”
“About how I'm going to get you out of this mess.”
I waited for the punchline to what was surely a joke, but it never came.
“Did Tessa have anything useful to say?” he asked as he picked up his drink and rejoined me by the fire.
“She's working on something,” I offered, aiming for vague. Tessa thought it would be best if we didn't share our plan with anyone just yet. The fewer people that knew about this, the less chance there was for someone getting in the way of it.
“Mostly, she just wanted to bore me to death with her sisterly pep-talk. You know, keep your chin up, don't give up, it could be worse. She really should stick to her day job. Or night job, I should say.” Okay, I was rambling now.
Dominic looked at me skeptically. “That's a long time to talk about perseverance.”
“Well, she's a wordy girl.”
He didn't appear to be buying my story, but he also didn't bother pressing the issue.
“Since when do you care anyway? I thought you were getting out of town the first chance you got?”
“As did I.” He unfurled his arm along the back of the sofa.
“So, what changed?”
He blinked lazily as though bored of the question. “I don't have an ulterior motive, if that's what you're thinking.”
“I didn't say you did.”
“I happen to like the world as it is. It's as simple as that.” He put his glass to his lips and took a sip of his drink, avoiding my gaze again.
“It just sounded like maybe there was more to it.”
I could have sworn I saw a slight shift in his detached countenance. Something vulnerable, almost afraid, seemed to be peeking through, and it was making me dangerously curious.
“What is it that you're expecting to hear?” he asked dryly. “That I’ve developed some very marginal feelings for you? That I care about what happens to you?”
Was he mocking me or confessing to me? I honestly couldn't tell.
“Well, no. I mean...do you?” I cleared my throat. “Care about what happens to me?”
“I doubt you want to know the answer to that.”
My heart thumped loudly, warning me that I was walking on a very dangerous, thin line. “You're probably right,” I said quietly. “I'm honestly not sure which answer would be worse.”
“That makes you nervous, doesn't it?” His gaze fell slowly, traveling down from my eyes to my chest, and then further down before turning back up the other way in a slow, even climb.
My body prickled with unwanted heat.
“Not at all,” I lied, though I’m not sure why I bothered. He could probably already hear my heart slamming against my chest.
“I think you're lying to yourself again, angel. I think I make you very nervous, and I think I know why.”
“You don't know anything,” I said defensively, refusing to take his bait.
His eyes darkened as he took me in, watching me like a hungry wolf eyeing its prey. “I must admit, though, it does make perfect sense now.”
“What does?” I was almost too afraid to ask.
“My attraction to you.” A devious smile crept across his lips. “All that darkness I sensed in you...”
The heat quickly evaporated from my blood, leaving frigid ice in its place. “Go to Hell, Dominic.” I shot up from the sofa and stormed out towards the nearest exit, desperate to get away from him and the painful reminder of what I really was.
In an instant, he was behind me, his hands gripping my shoulders as he pulled me back against his chest. I gasped. His face dipped down into my hair, his arms circling around my chest as he held me firmly against him.
“Stop running from what you are, temptress.” His voice tickled my ear and I shivered involuntarily.
“Let me go, Dominic.”
“You ought to learn to embrace it, to use it your advantage.”
“I don't want to embrace it. I don't want to have anything to do with it. It's not who I am!”
“The blood doesn't lie, angel, and I think deep down you know that as much as I do.”
Something inside me cracked, splintered.
“Perhaps, one day, you'll come to realize that—possibly even welcome that side of yourself.”
“That's never going to happen,” I promised blindly. My eyes filled up with tears, burning like acid rain drops that ached to
fall free. “I'd sooner rip my veins open and let every last drop of it pour out of me before I ever welcomed it into my life.” The admission came out of me without my permission.
“That would be a real pity, angel.”
“More like a worldwide blessing.” I pushed his arms apart and broke out of his hold, causing the tears I'd been trapping to simultaneously break free.
Remembering the last time I cried in front of him, I kept my back to him and wiped them away before he could see.
“I suppose it's a matter of perspective,” he said calmly. “It doesn't have to be a bad thing, angel. None of this does.”
I spun on him, completely horrified. “How could you see it any other way, Dominic? How could anyone? I'm as damned as the damned could get. Anyone with eyes can see that.”
Anyone decent, that is.
My thoughts immediately went to Trace. He had no idea what was going on; no clue about what I really was. What would he think when he learned the truth? That I was nothing more than the glorified spawn of Lucifer. My stomach twisted and turned with disgust, cutting through to me until I couldn't stand it anymore.
“I’m going to be sick,” I said and bolted for the bathroom.
I barely had enough time to drop onto my knees before I began heaving violently, my body spewing all the bile and truth and corruption out of me. Tears continued to spill as the already-broken pieces inside of me shattered over and over again. Shards of brokenness upon shards of brokenness, slicing and ripping at my skin and bones and heart.
Dominic appeared behind me after a few agonizing moments, his footsteps giving me no warning or heads up. I wanted to tell him to go away, to leave me in my sickness and misery, but I couldn't stop vomiting long enough to get the words out.
He crouched down beside me and pulled my hair back. He didn't move or say anything until I was done.
“Better?” he asked after the longest minute of my life.
I flushed the toilet and scooted back, propping myself against the cabinet as I tried to get my body to stop thwacking.
“He's going to leave me.” I pulled my knees up to my chest.
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