by eden Hudson
Tiffani writhed away from me. She must’ve felt it, too.
There was nothing to show for it, no charred flesh stuck to Tiffani’s forehead. Just like the carved-up feet, the shredded lungs, and the broken body, the pain was all in my soul.
“Tiff.” I swallowed. “Open. Eyes. Please.”
Her eyelids fluttered open. She screamed in pain, her back arching and the tendons in her neck standing out.
“Tiffani.”
I could barely get enough breath behind it to whisper. She shouldn’t have been able to hear me over the sound of her own screaming, but she went quiet immediately. Wild, bloodshot eyes met mine.
“Colt?” Then she shook her head. “He’s not real. I can’t do this again.”
“It’s me,” I croaked. “I’m here.”
“No,” she said. “Tattoos.”
I looked down at my chest. Nothing. No ink on my arm, either. No way to see my back, but I had a guess at what had happened.
“New body,” I said. “Heaven.”
She shook her head again. “Not real. You’re not real.”
The hell I’m not. I held my shaking arm out, putting my wrist under her nose. I didn’t know if my new body would smell like my old one, but it was worth a shot.
Tiffani inhaled.
“Colt?”
“Told you.”
She started to cry harder and reached for me. Her fingers skidded across my cheek like blacktop in a wreck, leaving my face feeling like a mass of ground beef and road rash. She winced and pulled her hand away.
I curled my arms under her legs and around the back of her neck, pulled her to my chest. Electricity fried my skin at the points of contact. The smell of ozone and burning meat filled the cell. Tiffani screamed and her muscles spasmed. I almost dropped her.
“I know,” I said, squeezing her tighter. “Know it hurts. You just have to—” My leg muscles strained and tendons seemed to rip away from my bones as I stood. “—to get through it.”
“Can’t. I can’t.”
I braced myself to take a breath and tell her that she could. Then I saw my skin against hers. That faint heavenly light was still glowing in mine, illuminating her skin where we touched.
Maybe she really couldn’t get through it. Maybe nobody could. Maybe the only reason I had made it so far was the light of Heaven in my skin, dulling the torture or fending off the majority of the pain. That would explain why none of the souls I’d come across so far had tried to leave—not even Mikal. They couldn’t.
Maybe that was the reason the Gatekeepers hadn’t finished me off. They couldn’t.
His mark was on you, their leader had said.
I swallowed back another wave of acid vomit and thanked God that I didn’t have to feel the full force of whatever Tiff was feeling. Then I gathered her up and started walking again.
Tempie
I followed Kathan as he led Ishtar and the rest of the envoys to the basement. A separate piece of his mind had already prepared answers to their inevitable questions, more of his pieces were swimming in info sheets on each of the alphas, enforcers, and foot soldiers, and still another piece was tending to me.
It’s been too long, Temperance, he whispered. If you don’t give your mind some rest, it will be destroyed.
It was true. I was so tired. I could feel it like drawing a compound bow and holding it and holding it and holding it—your arm starts to shake, the muscles under your boobs start to burn, and your fingertips go numb. I’d been in pieces too many times and for too long today. I needed to rest, but I couldn’t yet.
Just a little bit longer, I said.
Kathan didn’t argue with me. Information sheets on the Destroyer slipped through one of his consciousnesses. A broken mind, an unholy rage, a united cause, blood and bone and bane the same. Now wasn’t the time to rein me in for my own good, he decided. Now was the time to let me dictate the pace.
I heard Kathan discussing the prophecy of the Godkiller and his plans for Desty with the other alphas. It was as if he’d planned out everything with Molech in advance to get the most cinematic performance out of my twin. As soon as Kathan referred to her, she screamed.
As tired as I was, it took enormous effort to shift my focus from what the pieces of Kathan were processing to what my eyes were seeing. After a few seconds, the basement came in clearly. Desty was naked, bloody, sweaty, crying, strapped to that table Mikal used to use to play with her familiars. Desty’s dark hair—the same color as mine, but shorter and minus the tri-tone highlights—lay across her forehead in wet spikes like teeth.
I couldn’t tell if she saw me, but I didn’t think so. She was too busy trying to twist away from Molech’s hands and tools.
Kathan wasn’t trying to hide her from me. Even if I’d been able to feel anything at that point, he knew there was nothing I would do to oppose him. I had told him and the little voice inside my head that I would never betray him and I wouldn’t.
And isn’t that just like you? the little voice in my head chimed in. Let your sister suffer, then. Be with your beloved. But remember, pretty soon here Johnny’s going to go marching off to war, and there won’t be anybody left to hold his sweet Temperance together. You won’t even have separation or seeing through Kathan’s pieces to hide behind anymore. The veil will rip, the walls will come tumbling down, then it’ll be bloody Tempie, chewing on the scraps of everything she helped destroy.
I didn’t have the energy to argue. I’d been holding the bow at full draw for too long. My mind was shaking and numb at the edges. I needed to rest.
You think you’ll get to rest if you put yourself back together, bloody Tempie? the little voice taunted. The only thing that’s waiting for you back there is the full understanding of what you’re letting him do to your sister. You think your soul can survive that?
A piece of Kathan was watching me, waiting.
If I asked him to, he would block me off from all of this. The second I came back to myself, he would envelope me in those arms and fold his wings around us. We would be safe and alone there.
But I kept the bow at full draw. I had to for Desty’s sake. No one had acknowledged the things that Leif and his friends had done to me—any of the things any man had done to me—even when I tried to tell them. Even though I couldn’t stop what was happening to my sister, I had to be there, to be her witness.
Temperance? Kathan asked.
It’s almost over, I said.
Temperance, I need you to remember no matter what that I love you. I’ll always love you.
I know. It was in his nature. He loved me to the fullest extent of his ability to give love, which was more than anyone had ever loved me. Except for my twin.
Around the edges of our conversation, I could sense things happening, but I couldn’t understand them. It’d been too long. I couldn’t hold the bowstring tight anymore. I let go. Kathan caught my pieces and held me, just like I’d known he would. The world went away.
Tough
There wasn’t any fence left standing by the Dark Mansion, but I crawled over to where the fence used to be when I was a kid and watched. If I still could’ve touched a Bible without losing my shit, I would’ve sworn on a whole stack of them that that scream had belonged to Desty. It was probably my imagination playing tricks on me, though. You couldn’t know what somebody would sound like screaming if you had never heard them do it.
None of the foot soldiers patrolling the front had reacted to the scream, and I didn’t see anybody going in or out of the mansion. I crawled until I made it to the short, mowed grass of the backyard, watched for a few more seconds, then I got into a crouch and ran to the back of the mansion.
I wasn’t tall enough to see in the first floor Hell Windows without climbing on something and probably making a lot of noise, but there was light coming from the basement. The panes down there were regular colorless glass set in casements, and they were caked with dust, spider webs, and bits of cut grass. The windows looked so normal that i
t almost made my skin crawl.
I hunkered down in front of one window and wiped a spot clean enough to look through.
This was definitely where the party was happening. The basement was cracked, dirty concrete, and the window I was looking through sat right behind a set of rickety wooden stairs that looked like they’d been built out of square for sheer creepiness. Through the empty spaces between planks, I could see black wings and business suits to spare. There were so many angels and familiars down there that it took me a minute to find Kathan and Tempie. Tempie was hanging on his arm in a dress I bet Desty would’ve worn a hundred times classier than her sister.
For a second, I just stared at Tempie. That’s the crazy thing about twins. One can be hotter than the other. The sweet, innocent one, the one who kissed you like she wanted to swallow your feelings, the one you would’ve given anything to work it out with—
The one who left you and who you still don’t know what the hell she is.
My brain is the fucking worst.
In the basement, Kathan gestured at something in front of him, just behind the stairs. I shifted position and craned my neck, but I still couldn’t see. Too many angels in the way.
More screaming. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That had to be Desty.
I strained to listen harder. Laughter. Talking. Under that, I thought I could hear crying, but I couldn’t be sure.
There was another basement window about ten feet to my right. I might have a better view from there.
I looked over my shoulder. Took a second to check the rest of the backyard for foot soldiers.
Nothing.
I got up and low-ran over to the other window.
My plan was to look for Kathan and Tempie, get my bearings back, then look and see what it was they’d been pointing at. But in the middle of the room, the girl I loved was strapped to a table with a foot soldier ripping off a strip of her skin with a pair of fishing pliers.
I was about to kick the window in so I could beat that asshole to death—or as close to death as you could beat a fallen angel—but just then Desty’s head turned in my direction and I saw something that made the vamp venom in my veins freeze up.
She was crying.
Her face was flushed dark red. Tears rolled down the sides of her face and into her ears, the same way they’d done when I mesmerized her and she was fighting me.
Behind me, someone snorted.
I spun around.
Rian, wearing black riot gear like the rest of the foot soldiers on patrol. “Boy, you just will not die, will you?”
He reached for my shoulder one-handed like I was going to comply and go peacefully.
My fist shot out before I even finished thinking about how much I’d like to knock that shit-eating smirk off his face. All the pissed-off murder-rage from what they were doing to Desty was coiled up in my arm and I let it loose on Rian’s right side.
It’s hard to say what made the louder noise—my knuckles snapping or Rian’s ribs breaking. He stumbled back a couple steps, gasping for air. I didn’t give him a chance to recover. I tackled him. We hit the dirt with me on top.
It looked like Rian was going for his gun, but I didn’t give a shit. My fists kept hammering into his face. I barely had any control over them. All I could think about was getting to Desty.
But Rian didn’t pull that pussy revolver he kept on his belt or even the I’m-compensating-for-something maglite. He jerked Mikal’s flaming sword out of thin air.
The sword set off something in my vamp brain, some survival instinct that was dedicated specifically to not getting my ass sent to Hell. I rolled off him and up to my hands and feet, crouched like a sprinter ready to run.
“Fucking family—worst fucking—every damn time I turn around!” he yelled, holding his broken ribs with one hand and stabbing the sword in my direction with the other.
I skittered back a couple steps. I could still hear Mikal screaming as they dragged her to Hell. I could smell the fire and brimstone and see the sick greenish-black color everything turned, the way they clawed at her and dragged her down.
Rian lunged again, sword-first. I backpedaled some more. His broken ribs weren’t slowing him down. They must’ve already started healing. In a minute, he’d be back to one hundred percent and I wouldn’t stand a chance.
Desty needed me. She was down in that basement with those fuckers hurting her and putting their hands all over her.
But there wasn’t anything I could do. Not by myself, not against a couple hundred fallen angels inside their lair, and not against that sword. Not without dying and spending the rest of eternity in Hell.
Shit. Why didn’t I bring anything with me? A rifle, a grenade, that fucking katana—anything. Shit, shit, shit.
There really wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t help Desty. She was down there crying and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.
Rian swung the sword at me.
I turned around and ran.
“Coward,” he yelled after me.
The vamp speed kicked in and I was halfway to the road before I heard rifle fire behind me. One of the other guards must’ve spotted me hightailing it. A spray of bullets ripped into my shoulder and the meat of my arm. I pitched forward onto my hands, skidding in the loose gravel at the edge of the road. Vamp venom welled up and stuck my ripped t-shirt to the holes.
I pushed myself back up to my feet and kept running. What did bullets matter? I barely felt them, anyway. All I could think about was Desty crying and me leaving her behind. I was leaving her behind like the Goddamned coward I was.
But I was coming back. Hell yes, I was coming back, and every bit of shitstorm that I could bring down on Kathan’s head was coming with me.
Desty
I felt sick, ashamed, and so angry. The pain was more of an afterthought, something that had faded to the background of my mind, just a part of my new reality. I couldn’t stop what they were doing to me. I couldn’t do anything to end it. They were in complete control and I was nothing, just an object for them to play with.
The foot soldier who was in charge of “the entertainment” bit me. Like actually bit me. It hurt so much that I screamed. He and the fallen angels Kathan had brought downstairs laughed.
I hated them. God, I hated them so much. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to quit crying.
“Modesty, I want you to know that you can make all of this stop,” Kathan said. “I’ll give you a choice: agree to become my familiar, and I promise you, I will put an end to this.”
“Please, Desty,” Tempie said. “Just do it. Just say yes. Please?”
She sounded just like my sister. I could hear myself sobbing. Why was she with them? Why did she have to run away from home and try to kill herself like this? Why couldn’t she have done anything else? Drugs, prostitution, Ultimate Fighting, anything? Why wouldn’t she help me?
In the rational part of my mind, I knew Tempie didn’t have any more control over what she said or did than I had over the foot soldier who’d bitten me, but part of me still blamed her.
“Modesty?” Kathan prompted.
“Won’t work,” I whimpered. Blood and bruised lips and broken teeth garbled my words. “Didn’t before.”
“It will this time,” Kathan said.
So he’d found a way to make Tempie and me the same again.
He nodded at someone and stepped back. A second later, something icy and metal pinched the inside of my thigh. I screamed before it even happened, as soon as I realized that it was the pliers again. My skin made a ripping sound like tearing fabric, then there was nothing but searing cold fire down the inside of my leg.
“Now, Modesty,” Kathan said as if he were being perfectly reasonable, “Do you want him to continue or do you agree to become joint-familiar with your sister?”
When I realized what was happening, I felt this sick rolling in my stomach. Five seconds ago, hadn’t I wanted some kind of control back? Some kind of way to make the
m stop doing this to me? But now I couldn’t say yes. Kathan wasn’t giving me control. He was backing me into a corner, manipulating me into becoming his familiar just to stop the pain. Kathan was using me, just like the foot soldiers were. It was his fault I was here in the first place, and now he was asking me to choose between staying here and doing what he wanted me to. I felt like screaming again.
Before, I’d been able to agree to become joint-familiar because it was a matter of saving people—for whatever idiotic reason, I’d thought I was the one to do it. Now, though, he and the foot soldiers had turned my agreeing into a matter of admitting that I was beaten.
I had been beaten. I had been ready to do anything to stop them. If only they hadn’t changed the decision from “Help Your Fellow Man or Leave Them to Be Trampled On” to “Do What I Tell You To or Keep Being Tortured.”
Present me with facts contrary to what I believe and I will change my mind to fit the facts. But try to force me into doing what you want and I would rather die before bending to your will.
“I’m sorry, Modesty,” Kathan said. “I don’t believe I heard—”
I must’ve been thinking all that out loud. I swallowed the blood in my mouth and tried to speak up. “I said, ‘I would rather die.’”
Kathan’s chuckle was as dark as the inside of the lunatic’s cell.
“Unfortunately, that’s not one of your options.” He turned to the alphas who had followed him downstairs. “I imagine it’s been a long time since your troops have had a crack at a true Destroyer. Tell them to go nuts. We just need her breathing.”
He and Tempie started for the stairs. I had to bite my tongue so I wouldn’t beg them to come back. I was done begging. I was done crying. I might have been about to spend a lot more time screaming, but I would be damned if it was for their help.
Tough
Lonely had already boarded up the front window of the tattoo parlor by the time I got back. I slammed the door open. There were at least twice as many people crowded into the front room as there’d been when I left, most of them standing in little clusters around a crow or a coyote with a gun. I had to shove and elbow my way through to get to the back.