by Cole, Tillie
“The Brethren again?” Uriel asked, studying Diel with narrowed eyes. Diel met his pale gray gaze.
His blood heated as he remembered the dream. He nodded. “We were all there.” A slow grin formed on his lips, his monster curling affectionately around the fucked-up memory. “And they were all screaming at us to stop. Begging.”
“Fuck, brother. You’re going to make me hard,” Bara joked, but his green eyes were shining as he hung on Diel’s every word, needing more and more. Needing to hear—in close detail—about the violence, the revenge … the death.
“What else?” Raphael asked, wrapping his piece of string around his finger tighter and tighter, until the skin turned blue and his pupils dilated. His strained muscles jerked as his breathing became labored. “What else did we do to them?”
Even Michael’s usually disinterested ice-blue eyes drifted to Diel then, his tongue licking along teeth that had been cosmetically lengthened and sharpened into fangs.
“Pain …” Diel rasped. The collar buzzed at the quickening of his pulse. “Lots and lots of pain.” His brothers shifted on their feet, their slow breaths turning into heavy pants. “Agonized screams. And blood. Lots of spilled blood dripping from their chests, their throats and their eyes.” Diel’s eyes whipped to Michael’s as the youngest brother lifted his hand and bit down on the flesh of his palm beneath his thumb. Blood spilled into Michael’s mouth, crimson streams running down his chin and onto his bare chest. Michael pulled his hand away from his lips and smothered the blood onto his torso, over the Fallen brand that they all wore with pride.
Electric shocks snapped at the ruined skin underneath Diel’s collar in warning.
“Breathe.” Diel turned toward the sound of Gabriel coming up behind him. “Control it. Steady your breathing.” The monster inside him hissed at Gabriel, the one who held it back. Diel had never been able to control himself, ever. But he closed his eyes and did as Gabriel said. The crackling of the collar decreased to a low, steady hum. Eventually, Diel opened his eyes. Sela stayed beside him until he was steady, then Diel tossed off his shirt, preparing to train. Gabriel’s priest’s uniform had gone and he was dressed in sweatpants, his torso bare but for the Fallen brand that marred his skin.
Gabriel nodded at Diel in reassurance, but Diel’s eyes fell to the small remote in Gabriel’s palm, fixated on it. Gabriel always reduced its power when they trained, took away the pulse-trigger function.
“Let’s go,” Gabriel said to his brothers, and took off running around the perimeter of the huge gym.
Diel cracked his hands and neck and fell into step. He felt the moment Gabriel lowered the charge on the collar. In a flash, the monster inside shifted from its containment and began to seep its darkness into Diel’s bloodstream, his muscles, his damaged soul. The twitch of his head stopped, and the world around him sharpened into focus. He felt the presence of his brothers around him, heard their breaths, smelled the sweat on their skin. He felt the calling of the blades and other practice weapons that hung from the walls.
The monster wanted him to escape, to use this opportunity to run. But it was the one need Diel always fought back. Despite the evil inside him, despite his monster’s ever-growing need to be untethered from the collar and set free to kill whoever and whenever he wanted, these men were Diel’s family. These men were his brothers. They were all he had—that was what kept Diel willing to take the frequent electric shocks. He didn’t know who the hell he was without them. He never planned to find out.
When Gabriel had freed them from Purgatory years ago, when he had brought them home, baptized them “the Fallen,” implemented their rules and purpose, he had also made sure they all knew how to fight. He had brought in experts to teach them. The Fallen had stealth. They could fight. They could exist in darkness and rid the world of people it was better off without. They were as trained as any military unit would ever be. But where others killed to keep people safe, the Fallen killed because, for them, there was simply no other choice.
“Diel,” Gabriel said after an hour of pushing through moves. Diel looked at Gabe. He was drenched in sweat—they all were, but Diel’s blood was still rushing through his veins, adrenaline still coursing through him at a blistering speed.
Gabriel nodded at the rest of the brothers. They all turned to the wall, taking practice weapons in their hands. One by one they surrounded Diel. Diel’s blue eyes locked on each of them in confusion.
Gabriel held up the remote. Diel stopped breathing. “I know you’re finding things hard right now.” Gabriel sighed, and Diel saw what looked like sympathy, and maybe guilt, flash across his face. Diel’s attention snagged on the collar’s remote again. “I know the darkness inside of you is stronger, more persistent than ever before. Since Purgatory …” On cue, the monster prowled inside Diel, waiting for whatever was about to happen with teeth bared.
Gabriel stepped back, and Diel’s gaze fixed once again on his brothers. “We want to help you.” Diel’s head twitched as he took in Bara’s sadistic smile and the chain he held in his hands, Uriel’s tattooed neck cracking and the metal pole in his grip. Raphael’s golden eyes and the rope he repeatedly made into a noose, then unraveled it only to start again. Michael, who wore metal claws, blunted for training, on each of his fingertips. Then Sela, his best friend, holding a wooden katana and nodding encouragingly at Diel.
“I’m going to turn off the collar. Completely,” Gabriel said, and Diel froze. Gabriel moved in front of him until Diel was forced to meet his older brother’s eyes. “Get it all out,” Gabriel instructed. “Here, with your family, exorcise the darkness inside. The rage that has been building too high of late. You can’t go on like this.”
Diel scanned his waiting brothers. He was being cleaved in two. His monster roared in victory, counting down the seconds to his bout of freedom. But Diel’s skin grew ice cold as a slither of fear crawled over his body. This wasn’t like normal, like when he had been given a Revelation in the Tomb, to carry out a kill on some fucked-up person outside of the manor. Since Purgatory, something had changed between Diel and his monster. It was stronger, more insistent. It was getting too hard for Diel to fight back.
Diel wanted this exorcism, this reprieve. Needed his monster to release some of his pent-up rage. But he knew what happened when that collar was switched off. He knew what he became. What he would need—death. Death and blood and his brothers’ screams of pain.
His monster wrapped its hand around his throat to try to stop him speaking, to make this happen. But Diel forced it back to hiss out, “No.” His hands balled into fists as he fought against the need to accept Gabe’s offer. “I’ll kill them.” He took a step back from Gabriel as his collar started to crackle and he could feel his resolve against his monster waning. “I’ll kill you.”
“Aw, it’s cute that he thinks he can take us,” Bara said to the others. The taunt instantly boiled Diel’s blood.
Uriel looked at Bara, his pierced and tattooed muscles twitching with the need to fight, then met Diel’s eyes. “Collar off, blue eyes. Let’s go.” He smirked. “Unleash the fucking beast.”
Diel vibrated with irritation. He tried to fight back the fury, the rage the monster was conjuring, but it was a losing battle. Rolling his neck, he closed his eyes and gave himself over to the bloodthirsty monster inside. “Gabe,” he growled without looking at his leader. “Turn the collar off.”
Diel heard a click, then the blissful sound of the collar losing its hum entirely. It was dead, just like the monster wanted his smirking brothers before him to be. Like a deadly plague, the monster spread through his body at breakneck speed, possessing him, taking full control, and Diel melded into the pitch black that came with his complete surrender to evil.
As if his body had been commandeered by a sadistic puppet master, Diel lifted his head and smiled coldly at his brothers. It was euphoric, the surrender. The freedom of dropping his continuous fight, to become one with the evil inside. A roar ripped from his throat, and he
charged.
He ran for Uriel first, swiping the attractive blond’s legs from underneath him. Uriel crashed to the ground, a blur of dark tattoos and metal piercings, but he thrashed out and cracked the metal pole against Diel’s back as he jumped back to his feet. Diel charged again. Because this was what got him hard—the fight, the spree. The need to take not just one life, but many, one after the other, the greed, the binge of pure murder. Uriel swung the pole; Diel caught the end and yanked the blond to him. Diel crashed his head against Uriel’s. Blood burst on Uriel’s face, but the blond just smiled and let the blood pour down the perfect face that Uriel himself detested.
Diel lashed out and cracked Uriel across the jaw, then a flash of red appeared in front him. Before Diel had even realized Bara had come for him, a chain wrapped around his torso, yanking him to the side. The heavy metal bit into his waist, threatening to crack his ribs. Bara’s sadistic smile came into focus, and pure rage ignited inside Diel. He spun, unraveling himself from Bara’s hold. Gripping the end of the chain, Diel brought it down on Bara’s back. The redhead buckled to his knees.
Uriel grabbed Bara’s hand and launched him back to his feet. Bara’s smile widened, showing pure white teeth. “My dear Jegudiel, don’t you know that kind of rough play just excites me?”
Bara cracked the chain over Diel’s chest. The pain was like a bolt of lightning to his flesh. Diel snarled and went to retaliate, but Sela’s katana plowed straight into his stomach. Red-hot fury blazed through him. His hands rolled into fists, and blackness descended. His sharp gaze roved over his best friend, and all his brothers around him. Raphael’s golden eyes met his and he lashed out with his rope, hooking a noose around Diel’s throat. Michael bared his metal-tipped claws and attacked.
With a manic laugh, Diel fought back. The monster was unrelenting—slicing, punching, striking. It was a fucked-up melee of violence, blood and pain. But Diel reveled in it. All the brothers bar one basked in its rapture.
But with every strike, every flash of his brothers’ weapons or fists, he was transported from the gym and thrust back there. Back to the underground hell that was Holy Innocents’ Purgatory. The torture room that the Brethren would lead Diel into by the chain they kept him affixed to. The racks, the strappado, the hot irons they pressed onto his skin as they exorcised the demons from his soul, the evil that never went away.
The memories penetrated the monster too as Diel was mentally taken back to the stairs that led to the hallway in Purgatory. Both monster and Diel heard the echo of his brothers’ footsteps behind him. Smelled the damp and mold of the old bricks that kept the Brethren’s depravity sealed away from the wider Catholic Church, from anyone who could help. Felt the hard stone of the floor as the Fallen were forced to their knees. And he felt the chain weighing heavy around his neck as he was forced to take a Brethren priest into his mouth, only to be pushed to the ground afterward and taken from behind.
Diel felt his fingernails snapping on the ancient stone as he tried to find purchase against the pain. But the worst memory … the worst memory was the sound of the Brethren “exorcising” the evil inside of him and his brothers, their grunts and growls as they released inside them.
Diel was no longer present in the gym. He was fully back in Purgatory, only this time he was older, stronger, and he was driven by hatred and the need for revenge.
His collar was off.
Diel broke their necks; he drove his twin blades into their hearts, kidneys, lungs, meeting their terrified stares as the blood and life drained away from them.
“Diel!” A voice called his name in the distance, but Diel was trapped in Purgatory, surrounded by the cult of priests who had hurt and tortured him for too many years, who had kept him chained to a bed like a motherfucking dog.
“Diel!” Hands tried to grab him, but Diel saw Father Brady before him, that ugly face he would never forget taunting him to come closer. Snarling, Diel charged. The priest stood his ground as Diel wrapped his hands around his throat and slammed him against the wall. Diel hissed in his face, his monster salivating at finally having one of them in his hold.
Diel didn’t hear the other men behind him, coming to the priest’s defense. He didn’t hear anything until electricity wrapped around his neck like a charged noose and pierced his skin with hundreds of volts. He squeezed Brady’s neck harder, trying to hold on, to fulfill this kill, but the volts increased and brought Diel, screaming, to his knees.
Diel wouldn’t let go.
“Diel!”
He blinked, his gaze coming back into focus. His monster had no choice but to retreat, leaving Diel—panting, bruised and bloodied—behind. He blinked again, clearing his eyes of the rest of their red mist, and a head of golden hair came into view. Blue eyes were fixed on his. But these eyes were nothing like Father Brady’s. These ones were watching him with something that Diel thought could be kindness … no, sorrow.
It was a trick. This was a motherfucking Brethren trick.
With a savage roar, Diel shot to his feet, slamming the blond Brethren imposter back against the wall. The ring of electricity around Diel’s neck burned so fiercely that Diel smelled the singeing of skin, of body hairs burning. His teeth ground together so hard at the pain that they threatened to crack. “Di …el …” the priest pleaded under Diel’s hold. His voice was broken. The haunting timbre circled Diel’s fogged-up mind. The voice … Diel knew that voice. He recognized that voice.
But before he could think harder on whose it was, he heard a bellow of “Michael!” from behind him. Suddenly hands were wrapped around his throat from behind, and sharp points pierced his throat above his collar. The pain was too much to withstand. Diel screamed as his hand slipped from the Brethren priest’s neck and he was slammed to the ground. As he looked up, ice-blue eyes stared down at him from above, lips covered in blood … blood that was slowly dripping down crimson-coated fangs.
The collar crackled as it eased its attack.
“Michael. Stop.”
Diel’s eyes darted around him. The sight of familiar walls cut through his brain. The smell of sweat and wooden floors sailed into his nostrils, grounding him, hurtling him back home. The man who hovered above him had porcelain skin, and a tattoo of a sword and wings that moved up and down with his rapid breaths.
Jet-black hair. Ice-blue eyes rimmed with dark liner. Long fingernails that were painted black.
Then, “Michael. I’m okay. Listen, I’m okay. Step back. Please.”
Diel knew that gentle voice. A new face suddenly looked down on him. Blond curls fell around his eyes, and he had the same tattoo—a sword and wings.
“Diel. Are you back with us?” the blond asked.
Other faces came into view, all of them familiar. None of them belonging to the Brethren. No Father Brady. No Father Quinn. No torture room or burning pillar candles. Diel’s hand twitched. The one with black hair stepped in front of the blond, teeth bared, ready to bite.
“Michael,” the blond said, carefully placing a hand on the dark-haired man’s arm. “It’s okay. Let me talk to him.” The dark one’s ice-blue eyes narrowed on Diel, but he moved to let the blond back through, although he stayed close to his side.
Michael. The one with fangs was called Michael.
Diel looked at the blond again. Gabriel.
Diel looked at the others who were now coming closer. Red hair—Bara. Tattoos—Uriel. Golden eyes—Raphael. And long dark hair—Sela. Sela, his closest friend.
“You back, brother?” Sela leaned down a little, meeting Diel’s gaze.
Diel closed his eyes and breathed. These men weren’t the Brethren. They were his family. Diel felt his monster pacing, wanting to keep up the fight, continue the spree. Wanting to punish Michael for even fucking daring to touch him, wanting to rip out his fangs and pierce his throat. But when Diel opened his eyes, Gabriel was crouching beside him, studying him. Gabriel’s face was pale, and there were bright red marks on his neck—finger marks. Diel’s finger marks.
Eventually, Sela reached down and offered Diel his hand. Michael hovered behind Gabriel, his gaze never leaving Diel, tracking his every move. Diel took Sela’s hand, and Sela helped him into a sitting position. “I want the fucking Brethren,” Diel said again, and Gabriel took a deep, frustrated breath.
“Diel, we can’t, we must—”
“I don’t want the others! I don’t give a fuck about the other ones we’ve been killing, the ones who ‘deserve it.’ I want the Brethren.” Diel’s pulse started to race and the collar hissed in warning. “I need to kill the fucking Brethren.”
“I second that.” Raphael was staring at the string around his finger. He looked up and addressed Gabriel. “I need their necks under my hands.”
“Raphe—”
“I agree,” Bara said, interrupting Gabriel. The redhead crossed his arms over his chest. His skin was scratched, torn and bleeding from the fight with Diel.
“Me too.” Uriel nudged his chin in Diel’s direction in support.
“And me,” Sela said, his jaw tight.
Gabriel stared at the artist. “You would want that? Even knowing who you might face?”
Sela’s lip hooked up in dark amusement. “Let’s just say there’s no love lost between him and me, if that’s what you’re getting at. I’ll face him one day. It will happen eventually. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I want them too.” Gabriel’s head snapped up when Michael, his true, blood-related brother, spoke. Gabriel watched as Michael stared at the vial around his neck, a flush coating his pale cheeks.
“I know it’s what you all want.” Gabriel ran his hand down his face. “But that’s a Pandora’s Box I’m not sure we should open. Ever open.” Diel’s head twitched in annoyance, but he got to his feet, only catching the carnage around the gym in his peripheral. Carnage he had caused. “I don’t even know where they all are, who they all are. I’ve spent years learning how to avoid them, not to walk right into their path.”