by Anthology
I licked my lips, suddenly very parched. “That can’t be. I was sent. They sent me to keep the gate from opening. To prevent the fucking Apocalypse.” Even as I spoke, though, I knew there was nothing behind my words. They were as hollow as the lies Clarence had fed me. Lies. All of it lies. I knew it. Could feel it flowing inside me, the truth of Deacon’s words, hidden there in the essence of the dead priest.
Without Deacon, I never would have felt it. Would have assumed the warm glow of faith was merely the glow of a job well done. But now, knowing, I could dig deeper. And I could see it, could feel it.
“They played me,” I whispered. “Said I was doing God’s work. Saving the world.” I didn’t look up at Deacon. I couldn’t face him.
“You’re not working for heaven, Lily,” Deacon said. “You’re a hit man for hell.”
He bent down, touched me, and I whipped my arms back, flailing wildly to get away, beating and pounding on him to no effect even as tears streamed down my face. “Oh God, oh God, oh God.” I clung to him, silently begging for comfort.
He answered the call, pulling me close and holding me tight. And right there, with the priest dead on the floor beside us, I broke down and sobbed in Deacon’s arms.
He let me go on for a moment his strong hands stroking my hair, caressing my back. But all too soon, he pulled away, taking the illusion of safety with him. “We need to leave. There’s no guarantee they won’t come looking for you. Leave now, they’ll see the result. They’ll be happy. Job well done, and Lily’s probably celebrating in a bar somewhere. Stay, and—”
“I’ll fucking kill them.”
“Or they’ll kill you,” he said, his dark eyes intense.
He stepped back and held out his hand for me. I didn’t take it though. I desperately wanted to lose myself in his arms again. I couldn’t though. I had to be smart now. I had to be careful. “You’re a Tri-Jal demon,” I said. “Why the hell should I trust you?”
I could see the fight for control in the way his eyes flashed and his jaw tightened. “Right now, I’m the only one you’ve got.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said. I stood up, ignoring his hand. “You’re a demon, Deacon. Just like the ones who’ve pulled a hell of a con on me. They gotta know I’ll be pissed if I find out. And now that they’re done with me, I figure my days are numbered. Kill me off when I’m done, and keep their secret safe. And, hey, isn’t it convenient that a Tri-Jal demon, the baddest of the bad, shows up to take me for a little stroll?” I shook my head. “Don’t think so.”
I started to walk away, and he grabbed my elbow, tugged me back.
“Take your hands off me,” I said. “Or else I’m looking inside. You want me to stay? Let me see what you’ve got locked up in there.”
He let go of me. “No.”
“Bye-bye.” I took another step.
“Lily.”
It was the pain in his voice that made me stop.
“That’s not for you to see,” he said. “What’s inside me. What I’ve done. What I’m still capable of doing. That’s off-limits. Always.”
“So you say.”
“But I am not here to harm you. I swear to you. And you’ve already been inside my head once. You know the path I’m on.”
“Redemption,” I whispered, before I could help myself.
“We need to get out of here,” he said.
I hesitated, certain the smart thing to do was run from him. But I couldn’t. Right or wrong, in the end, I trusted him. More or less, anyway.
“I saw some apartments a few blocks east,” he said. “We can go there. Find a vacant one. Hole up. Talk.”
I saw the relief in his face when I nodded agreement, and I gathered up my blades and followed him out. I retrieved my coat by the angel, and we left the abandoned church, leaving the carnage behind. “Turn off your cell phone,” he said, after we’d traveled a block. “If it’s on, they can find you.”
I nodded, then clicked it off. “You said you tried to kill me. After I killed the Caller. Who, by the way, was a demon. Explain that one to me. If I’ve been working for demons, why did they have me killing them?”
“We can talk inside.”
“We can talk now,” I countered. I was still iffy on the trust thing, and I wanted more before I went into a closed room with this man.
He glanced sideways at me once, then nodded. “You’re right that he was a demon,” he said, “but Maecruth sought redemption.”
“Maecruth?”
“The Caller.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure I liked knowing that he had a name. “He wanted heaven?”
Deacon shrugged and kept walking. “The concept of heaven and hell is a mortal one. Let’s just say that he was drawn to the light. He wanted the chance to take it in. To fill the shadows within himself. But the dark in him was too thick. Like oil. Like what you see when a demon is slain. And the task for redemption was great.”
“He had to get the Box of Shankara to the priest,” I guessed.
“Right. The Box has been missing for centuries. But Father Carlton needed it for the ceremony. Maecruth managed to steal it from a demonic vault.”
“Father Carlton,” I repeated. “That was his name?”
“Yes.”
I said a silent apology to Father Carlton. “So what I’ve done . . . I can make it better by finding a way to close the gate again. Or even by finding a way to destroy all the keys? Changing the locks on the door?”
“The Box of Shankara was the only key that would lock the Ninth Gate.”
“Oh, God.”
He looked at me sideways. “There are legends, though. Stories of a key that will lock all nine gates.”
A bit of hope fluttered within me. “Where is this key?”
“No one knows.”
I nodded, determined now. “Well, I’m damn sure going to find out.”
I watched his face, saw his approval, and smiled.
“Here?” he asked, nodding at an apartment complex that looked to be in imminent danger of condemnation.
“Luxury living. Let’s go.” I led the way, but stopped on a set of cement stairs. “We’ll go in, but you need to finish telling me your story. I don’t like it, I leave. And I get any hint that you’re scamming me, I will take you down so fast you’ll be a puddle of black goo before you have time to form a cohesive thought. Got me?”
He pushed past me up the stairs. “I mean you no harm, Lily. I know it, and you know it. So don’t threaten me. It isn’t becoming.”
I could hear the knife in his voice and swallowed. He was right. I did know it. And right then, I was glad that Deacon was on my side.
We found an empty apartment on the third floor and settled in on the floor of the empty living room. The place smelled like cigarettes and urine, and the gray carpet was probably supposed to be beige. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it would do.
“Maecruth,” I pressed. “How did you come to be there?”
“I believe it’s my turn to ask questions.”
I shook my head. “Sorry. No. I want to hear about the night you killed me. Trust me when I say I’m really interested in that. And yesterday you told me that Alice’s blood was on your hands. I’m a little curious about that, too. So tell.”
“I think not,” he said. “I seem to be doing all the talking, which I find ironic under the circumstances. I think it’s time to hear your story.”
“Circumstances?” I countered. “I’m not a demon. And I’m sure as hell not a demon from the darkest depths of hell.”
“But you are the one who ensured that the gate stays open, for which all the demons say a hearty thank-you.”
I scowled, because he had me there, but my mind was still on what I’d said, and my eyes were on the man. This normal-looking, albeit gorgeous, man. I’d seen the temper in him, the tight control. And in his mind, I’d seen darker things still. And yet I’d seen nothing feral. Nothing wild. Nothing that had been broken down by evil and left to rot. Zane had
said most Tri-Jals lost their minds and never got them back. Deacon, I realized, was even stronger than he looked.
It made him more dangerous. And it made him one hell of a strong ally.
“I died,” I said, making a decision even without realizing I’d made one. “I went out to kill a son of a bitch named Lucas Johnson, and I died.”
“Lucas Johnson?” he repeated, and I saw the shadow of recognition in his eyes.
“Yes.” I spoke warily, afraid of what Deacon would say. Afraid I knew it even before he said it. “Oh, God. He’s a demon, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” A muscle twitched in Deacon’s jaw as he held back temper. I empathized, as I was holding back a bit of temper, too. Because I understood the truth now: I hadn’t killed Johnson with an owned blade. Which meant he hadn’t stayed dead.
His essence had come back. It had found a new body. And Johnson was the one stalking Rose. The one she’d told me she’d seen. Eyes on her, watching her. Following her.
Fuck. I started to climb to my feet, but Deacon took my hand and tugged me back down. “No. Tell me the rest.”
“I have to go.”
“Tell me,” he said.
I wanted to scream and kick and punch him in the face. I wanted to run to Rose and steal her back to safety. I wanted to find Lucas Johnson and slide my blade into his heart. And I couldn’t do any of it. Not right then. I had to think. I had to plan. I had to do it right if I was going to get my revenge.
And I was going to get revenge. All this time, I’d thought Rose was safe because they’d told me a lie. They’d told me he was dead. They’d betrayed me in so many ways, but this one was the worst of all. They’d pay. That was a promise I wouldn’t fail to keep.
Somehow, I’d get my revenge.
I turned and met Deacon’s eyes. “They can never pay enough for this. Never suffer enough. Never hurt enough. But I’m going to make them try.”
“I’ll help you. I promise. But first you need to tell me the rest of it.”
I drew in a breath, closed my eyes, and told him everything, laying it out in painstaking detail. Rose. Lucas Johnson. The angel. The Grykon. Clarence and Zane and the training. Even the prophecy.
“A prophecy,” he said, looking puzzled. “What did it say?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Clarence never told me the specific wording. Just that I was the one. The one that would close the gate. Obviously that was a big fat lie.”
“But it’s interesting that in my vision you were the one who would close the gate.”
“Considering I didn’t close the damn thing, that’s not only useless information, it’s depressing.” I sighed. “You saw us closing the gate, right? You and Alice. What exactly did you see? And why did you say you had her blood on your hands?”
He stood then, his expression flat and his eyes cold as he walked to the grimy window and looked out over the night. For a moment, I feared he wouldn’t tell me anything, and then he spoke, still not facing me. “There are many torments for a Tri-Jal,” he said, and I could hear the pain in his voice. “And I tried as best I could to hold on to my sanity. I clung to it like a life raft, and when I slipped, I searched for some piece of humanity within me. Anything that might have grown in me when I’d been in the shell of human form. I found a kernel and I clung to it.” He turned and looked at me. “That kernel kept me whole, and when the pain was too great, I could lose myself in it. I could be something I wasn’t. Something—someone—with the potential for good.
“You can’t imagine the torment. It is . . . eternal. Deep and raw and unrelenting. But I found a hiding place within, and my mind would go there. One day I saw. Not in my imagination, but something outside me. A vision, laid out and clear. And in it, I was closing the Ninth Gate, and I knew that if I could do that—if I could lock the gate before the convergence—then the evil I had done would be redeemed. Not forgiven, but I would have made sufficient payment for my sins.”
I watched him, the tight control that seemed to envelop his whole body. I wanted to go to him, wanted to touch and soothe him, but I feared that if I did, he would shatter into a million pieces.
“I wasn’t alone. There was a girl with me. We fought. We almost died. But we did it. We closed the gate. And seeing that gave me hope.” His eyes met mine. “It was that hope that kept me sane. That allowed me to survive the torment and escape the pit.”
“What did you do when you were out?”
“I came to Boston. Drawn here, really. And I didn’t know why until I came one day to the Bloody Tongue. I saw Alice, and I knew that she was the one. So I watched her. And I learned about her family. And I learned that she wanted out. Didn’t want anything to do with the dark arts. And that fit.”
“A girl like that would want the gate closed.”
“So I believed. I went to her. She didn’t work at the pub then. I went and I told her what I’d seen. She was terrified. Completely freaked, and she ran. Stayed away for months. I kept an eye on her, wanting to give her space, trying to figure out what to do, because the vision was so clear. I needed her. I knew it.”
“But you never got her.”
“No,” he said. “I did. She came back one day, completely broken up. Said she’d had a vision. Told me she used to have them when she was a kid, but they’d stopped. But this one was clear. And like me, she’d seen us closing the gate.” He drew in a breath. “Because of that, she went back to work at the pub. She got drawn back to that place because I told her what I saw.”
“She’d seen it, too,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Maybe,” he said, but there was sadness in his voice. “At any rate, I had my ally. But there was no connection between us. She was a girl that I was doing a job with, and that was fine. But it felt off. Even more so when I realized she had a thing for me.”
“Imagine that,” I said, with a small smile.
“She came to me one night after work. Flirted with me. Touched me.” He tensed, his hands curving into fists as he fought for control.
“And she saw,” I said.
“Fucking terrified her,” he said. “She ran. Said she didn’t know what to trust. We hadn’t gotten far searching for a way to close the gate, but she was out of it now. I was on my own, and I wasn’t thrilled about it.”
“And then?”
“Then she came back to me. Told me she was scared. She needed to talk to me, but in secret. I was supposed to meet her after work.”
“Saturday,” I said, knowing where this was going.
“She didn’t show. And then you were at the pub. And I knew you weren’t her. I knew that right off.”
“How?”
“I already told you. I wanted you,” he said, and from the heat in his eyes, I knew he still did. “I wanted you the moment I saw you, and I never wanted Alice.”
I swallowed, forced myself not to remember the way his body had felt against mine, the way his arms around me had made me feel both alive and whole. Had made me feel like me. “Why didn’t you tell me? About us. About the gates?”
“Because I still believed it was Alice in my vision. And I knew you weren’t Alice. I thought you’d killed her. Taken her place for some dark purpose of your own. I didn’t know, but I intended to find out. And so I waited, and I watched.”
“And you got close to me.”
“Yes,” he said, without remorse.
I drew in a breath, certain I would have done that very thing. Had, actually, when I’d let myself get close to him. “And Maecruth? You poisoned me in front of his house, remember?”
“I didn’t know it was you. Primarily because you were covered head-to-toe in black, but also because I didn’t make the connection that Alice—the new Alice—might be the rumored warrior. And I certainly didn’t make the connection that the new Alice might be the woman from my vision. I saw you only as a usurper. A dabbler in magic. A body thief.”
“What rumors of a warrior?”
“Whispers in the demon underground t
hat a priest was seeking to force the gate closed, and that the demonic higher powers had delivered a warrior to make sure that didn’t happen.”
“You would have wanted to help the priest,” I said.
“Wanted to, yes. But I was not welcome.”
I frowned. “You spoke to the priest?”
“I contacted an angel.”
I drew in a breath. “So there really are angels?”
“Not like what you saw the night Lily died,” he said. I’d told him what I’d seen and heard. A white light. The beating of wings. And a sensation of utter beauty. “All that’s a mortal affectation. But they showed you that image because they knew you needed to see it.”
“In order to believe.”
He nodded. “I arranged a meeting with an angel. I said I wanted to help. That I sought the light. I was spurned,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “Perhaps the creature believed a Tri-Jal could never have regrets. Perhaps it believed I was a spy. Perhaps it believed that there was no amount of light that could drown out the darkness within me. Whatever the reason, I was kicked to the curb, and soundly.”
“Deacon.” My voice was a whisper. “You didn’t give up, though. They’ll see. In the end, they’ll see.”
His eyes flashed with anger. “I no longer do what I do to seek entrance to the light. I do it for me, and for me alone. And, yes, I did not give up. I inquired and I searched and I killed my kind in order to find out what I need.”
“You learned about Maecruth and Father Carlton.”
“I did. And the rest you know.”
“I do,” I said. I held out my hand. “Come here.” When he didn’t, I stood and went to him. He kept his back to me, his eyes on the window. I put my hands on his shoulder and pressed myself against his back, wishing I could take in some of his pain. “It’s better to do it for yourself, anyway. In the end, you’re the only thing you can rely on. I know that now.”
He met my reflection in the glass. “No faith, Lily? No blind trust?”