by Anthology
“Only in myself.” I could see the question in his eyes and shook my head. “Not even in you. Not yet. I’m sorry.” I was sorry, but I couldn’t truly trust him. Not yet. Not after everything that had happened to me.
There was no hurt in his eyes, only a simple understanding that made my heart ache.
I stepped back and started pacing the small room, my mind whirling. “I killed real demons when I trained. They had me kill their own kind, all for the illusion.”
“Not just the illusion,” he said, turning to face me. “For you. You absorb their essence, right? So they were trying to mold you in their image. To make you more like them. They fucked with you, Lily,” he said, and I saw the darkness stirring in his eyes. I tensed, fearful that the rage I’d seen in the church would return.
He pulled it back, though, and when he did, only warmth remained.
“Even the Grykon was real. No chance he’d gone over to the good side and they were trying to shut him down.”
“I’m guessing the Grykon willingly sacrificed himself. He said as much when you were tied up, right?”
“Right,” I said, remembering that first moment when I’d awakened and seen the monster. I rubbed my temples. “I was never in any danger at all. All along, I was supposed to win.” I smiled a little. “But I wasn’t supposed to end him, just kill him. You slammed your blade through his heart and took him out. Pissed Clarence off, too.”
“That, at least, is good to know.”
“And that girl in the cage. The Tri-Jal. Was she real?”
“I’m guessing yes, because she had the mark. Doubt she sacrificed herself, though. More likely she was considered a collateral loss.”
I shivered. The girl had been both terrifying and pitiful, but the idea that she’d been sacrificed as part of a long con seemed obscene.
“They duped me even more with Maecruth. Got me to kill a demon who was working for the side of good.” I hugged myself, remembering that vision. “Oh, God, Deacon. I saw him battling Clarence, and I went after him. Hard.” I met Deacon’s eye. “That son of a bitch would be dead—Maecruth would kill him. If not now, then soon. But I stopped that. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“It’s not your fault.”
I stood and paced. “Maybe not, but it sure feels like it is. This whole thing. It’s all twisted around. And the vampire. No wonder Clarence was pissed that I killed it. I’d just killed one from the home team.”
I ran my ringers through my hair, on a roll. “And those demons that attacked me in the alley? Who were they?” I looked at Deacon through narrowed eyes. “Was that your doing?” I held my breath waiting for his answer.
“No,” Deacon said. “I don’t know who went after you.”
I believed him. “Clarence,” I said, as the pieces fell into place.
“Why would he kill you? He needed you.”
“To make sure I fit the checklist.” He cocked his head, clearly not following, so I went on. “The prophecy said that their girl would absorb demonic essence. So Clarence sent that band of demons to test me. Was I strong enough to defeat them?”
“And more important,” Deacon added, “did you come back to life? Had you absorbed Zane’s essence?”
“Exactly. If I did, then I’m really his girl. And if I didn’t, then no great loss because I wasn’t the one he needed anyway. God damn that son of a bitch.” My breath hitched. “I’ve killed so many. And this one . . . tonight . . . the priest.” My throat filled with tears. “Oh, God, Deacon. What have I done?”
“Shhhh,” he said, pulling me into his arms.
“They used me. They tricked me. The bastards took my life and my purpose and they fucking trampled on it. And I didn’t have a clue,” I said, the anger shooting through me, priming me. “I didn’t have a fucking clue.”
“This isn’t your fault.”
I forced a smile. “Yes,” I said. “It is. I killed him. I killed the one man who could have closed the door forever.”
“Lily—”
“No.” I looked at him, sure my eyes were burning. “I’m going to fix this. They gave me this power? Fine. I’m going to throw it back in their faces.” I drew in a breath, rage burning through me. “I’m going to figure out how to fix what I messed up. I’m going to close that gate. And I’m going to use these powers to kill every last one of them.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Lily.” My name emerged from his lips whispered, a soft oath.
“I mean it,” I said. “Cross my heart and hope to die. I’m taking those bastards out. Pulling the plug. They messed with me. They messed with Rose. And they are seriously toast.”
He looked at me, his eyes dark. “I’ll help you,” he finally said.
I met his gaze. Nodded. “I know,” I said, and reached for his hand, feeling the shock of connection tear through me.
“So are they done with me?” I asked, when I could no longer hold the question in. “Now that I’ve single-handedly destroyed the best chance of closing the Ninth Gate to Hell, are they going to try to take me out? Decide they can’t run the risk of me finding out the truth?”
“I doubt it,” he said darkly.
“Why?”
“Because they need you. Why stop with one gate? They’re going to try to find the key to open the other eight.”
I’d told him about my arm, and now I thrust it out staring at the currently unmarked skin. “You think Clarence has an incantation for that, too?”
“If he doesn’t, I bet he’s working on it.”
“And the key? The legend you mentioned about a key that would seal tight all of the nine gates? Do you think he knows that incantation, too?”
Deacon looked at me, his head cocked, his expression as devious as I felt. “He just might.”
“I can get it out of his head.”
“No,” Deacon said. “That’s too dangerous. He’ll see you coming. He’ll hear you coming,” he added, tapping his head for emphasis. “You said he picks up your thoughts, right?”
I nodded, realizing with a growing sense of nausea that my juvenile efforts to keep him out might not have worked as well as I’d believed. Clarence had seen my thoughts about Deacon—that was obvious to me now. But instead of attacking them directly, he’d thrown little bombs in my path. Deacon was a demon. Deacon killed Alice.
I didn’t think Clarence knew about the visions, but he definitely knew more than he let on. And if I went back now, with my mind wide open, I was surely dead.
“He didn’t want you dead at first,” I said to Deacon. “Why?”
“I don’t know. What did he tell you?”
“That you’re strong.”
“Well, I am.”
“But later he told me that you killed Alice. What changed?”
A shadow passed over Deacon’s face. “He must have figured out that I was fighting him. That I was working to close the gate, and that I’d stop you if I could.”
I nodded. That made sense. “He knew,” I said. “He knew how I felt about you, and he played me.”
“Which is why he’s going to see you coming,” Deacon said. “And why you have to be prepared to kill him after you get into his head.”
“Oh, I can kill him,” I said. “No problem there.” I frowned. “As for keeping him out of my head, you can probably help with that. I need to find the Secret Keeper. An Alash-tijard. Do you know how I do that?”
Deacon looked at me, his expression unreadable. “You understand what you’re asking?”
I nodded.
“The Alash-tijard sits and meditates. He does nothing except hold the secrets brought to him by other demons. He is passive. And he never leaves his lair.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t hurt. He doesn’t kill. Not unless he’s attacked. And then, Lily, he will defend himself.”
I stood, started pacing. I didn’t know that, and the knowledge made my stomach twist. “I have to,” I said. “If I don’t kill him—if I don’t close my mind
to Clarence the only way I can—then we’re shut down before we even begin.”
“Lily—”
“No. I’ve racked up a shitload of sins, Deacon. And when I kill this creature, then yeah, there will be one more. But I have to do this. I have to kill Johnson. I have to save Rose. I have to figure out who did this to Alice. And most of all, I have to close the gate. All of it, Deacon. I have to undo all of the bad that I did, fix everything I fucked up. And if I have to kill a demon’s tool to do that, then believe me when I say I’m not even going to hesitate.” I drew in a breath. “I’ll find it. With or without you, I will find it. But it will be faster with you.”
He was silent for a moment, and then he stood and held out a hand to help me to my feet. “All right. Let’s go.”
“You can just tell me where.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, and I understood what he did not say: He would take the stain upon his soul, too. We were partners now. For better or for worse, we were in this together.
“What about Alice?” I asked, as he led me out of the decrepit building. “Do you think she realized it wasn’t her in the vision? That someone was going to take her body?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s what scared her.”
I made a small noise, guilt rising. “She had a file on her computer,” I said. “A photograph, and the file was passworded with your name. And it referenced Saturday. The day she didn’t show up to meet you.”
His brows rose. “Really?”
“You’ll take a look? Maybe you’ll know who’s in it. What it means.”
“Of course.”
I mentally tried to focus on the man whose face was in the frame. The pockmarked skin. Those drooping eyes. I’d seen him somewhere, and it was right on the tip—
“Tank,” I said, the memory finally bursting through. “He’s the guy in that photograph. I knew he looked familiar. It was because I’d seen him a few days before in the picture.”
“Tank,” he repeated thoughtfully.
“You know him?”
“I’ve seen him at the pub, heard about him on the street.”
“Can’t say my first impression was warm and fuzzy.”
“No,” Deacon agreed. “He’s no good. Got his hands in every scam, from spell casting to drugs. An all-around bad dude.”
“I think he’s got Egan involved in something bad. Drugs were my first guess, actually.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I overheard them arguing. Like Egan owes him and all hell’s going to break loose if Egan doesn’t fork over quality goods.”
“Not drugs,” Deacon said, “though that’s a good guess. Herbs.”
“What? Like oregano and basil?”
“More specialized,” Deacon said. “For ceremonial use.”
I frowned. “I thought Egan didn’t hold with the dark arts. I thought that’s what he fought with Alice’s mom about.”
“I believe they did, actually. I also think that Egan is an opportunistic fellow, and the pub is often in need of cash. He’s not above catering to a demonic crowd, and he’s not above importing certain herbs and selling them under the table to his clients for ritualistic use.”
I glanced at him sideways. “You ever bought any?”
“No. But I keep my ear to the ground.”
“Why do you think Alice wanted to talk to you about Tank?”
Deacon shook his head. “Haven’t a clue, but after we take care of Clarence, we can go find Tank ourselves and ask him.”
I nodded, then exhaled, feeling ripped to shreds. “That poor girl.” I pressed the bridge of my nose, trying to hold back the sadness. “She was trying to do exactly what I’m doing—stop the bad guys, end this, close the freaking gate. And she died for it. She died so that they could make me, and now the gate’s stuck open and it’s all my goddamned fault.”
The tears were back, and Deacon hooked his arm around my waist as we walked, making me feel safe, wanted. I held on, fighting through the horror of what I’d become and how. And who’d been sacrificed so that I could live.
“Those slimy, hell-bound, fucked-up bastards.” Honestly, there weren’t curses strong enough to express just how vile I thought my tormentors were. “She was only twenty-two. She’d been accepted to Harvard. Did you know that?”
He shook his head, his expression helpless.
“Her whole life ahead, and they took it from her.”
“That’s what they do. Even when they don’t kill, that’s what they do.”
“I’m going to make them pay. I’m going to find out exactly who killed her, and I am so going to make them pay.”
We wandered for an hour, finally catching the T and taking it to a section of Boston I didn’t recognize. We got off, ignoring the stares of people who saw us, both filthy from battle, our clothes ripped and our faces haggard.
We crossed city streets to an urban park, then passed through, ignoring the couples out for a walk and the joggers out doing their thing.
The path led to an overpass, the walking trail going under as the cars rumbled by overhead. We stepped out of the bright day and into the shadowy darkness. I expected that we’d continue on, but Deacon stopped halfway under the bridge. “There,” he said, nodding to the sloping concrete that supported the road above us.
I looked, but saw no demon.
“Where?”
“Access panel,” he said, this time pointing. I followed the angle of his arm to the top, and this time saw a rectangular metal door, about one-quarter the size of a normal door. Even from this distance, I could see the warning label, prohibiting admission to all except authorized personnel.
“In there?” I asked, dubious.
“It’s an equipment room for the streetlights. It opens onto the sewer system. Between the two, there’s a niche. We’ll find the Secret Keeper there.”
I nodded, then started to climb the steep hill to the top. I reached the metal door and discovered it had no handle. A crowbar, however, had been conveniently left nearby, and I pried the door open, cringing as the metal released an angry screech.
I bent down and started to climb inside, then looked back at Deacon. “Are we doing the right thing?” I asked.
“Right or wrong,” he said, “If you want revenge, it’s the only thing you can do.”
CHAPTER FORTY
We found the Secret Keeper sitting passively in the dark, and when we approached, he looked up at me with knowing eyes. He didn’t speak, but somehow I knew his thoughts: Attack, and I will defend. And beware.
I hesitated, not wanting to do this but knowing I had no choice. Not if I wanted any chance at all of closing the gate. Did the end justify the means? I didn’t know, but I thought so. I was trying to do good. By killing, I was hoping to save the world.
Ironic that that was what I’d thought I’d been doing all along.
The creature had no mouth and stringy gray hair, with skin that seemed like tissue stretched over bones and a sickly green tinge about him. “Don’t help,” I told Deacon. “It has to be me for this to work.”
“I know,” he said, then squeezed my hand and stepped back. I drew a breath, then another. And then I lunged, leading with my blade and finding that he’d pulled out a sword to match me with. He knocked my blade from my hand, his speed exceptional considering the beast rarely fought.
I grabbed a pipe in the roof and kicked, sending his sword clattering out of his hands, then dropped down and immediately and went for my blade, but he turned on me, screaming, which is quite a feat for a creature with no mouth.
But I could feel it, burning inside my brain, hideous and so unexpected that I wasn’t at the top of my game. He didn’t hesitate, but jumped immediately on me, his hands at my throat. I felt him there, not at my neck, but poking about inside my mind, the two of us connected. I didn’t want to be in his head, seeing the horrors that demons had hidden there, but I couldn’t help it, and the thoughts, vile and painful, flashed like a slideshow. Glimpses an
d snatches. Horrid and unclear. Plans and alliances.
And blood. So much blood.
My body trembled. Pain racked through me, drawing my limbs tight, shooting fire through them until I was certain I would burn up from within. I didn’t burn, though, but sank into a scorched blackness, falling deeper and deeper into the pain. Deeper and deeper into the Secret Keeper’s vault.
A body. Must have the body.
The prophecy. The prophecy awaits.
Such import. The job. Heavy responsibility to bear.
Must find the vessel. Little Alice.
Important job for a little girl.
Find, find, find.
Get her from the man, the E man.
So they can kill the vessel. So that they can bring forth the One. The Champion.
She will serve the Dark. She will serve.
She will serve.
The pendulum will swing toward the Dark, and she will serve.
I saw the speaker in his mind. Tank. Tank had planned the kill. Had sought out Alice. The vessel. The champion.
And the prophecy.
I needed to know the prophecy. Needed to know if it had been fulfilled in me or if there was more.
And the only way to know was to go back in. I didn’t want to—the pain, it exhausted as much as it hurt, draining me so much I wasn’t certain I could break the connection. Wasn’t certain that I wouldn’t lose my mind inside the Secret Keeper’s thoughts. And that wasn’t the place I ever wanted to be.
But again, I had no choice. He wanted in my head, too, and his control over the visions was stronger than mine. Like a whirlpool, I was sucked back, my skin flayed from my flesh as I was pulled under and deeper, faster and faster, until my throat was raw from the screaming and my heart threatened to burst inside my chest.
Darkness.
A circle.
And Tank standing across from Egan. Friday. Sunrise. The girl. The little one. For the glory. For the cause.
And then Egan was leaving, and Tank was smiling.
For the glory. For the ruse. It goes on.
Tank.
And Egan.
Not herbs. Girls. One girl. A sacrifice. Tank and Egan working together.