I flipped around and snapped the scepter in and out like a snake several more times, then stood calmly with my feet apart and the point of the scepter barely touching the earth. My blue essence swirled in and out of the scepter and my skin.
He spat black goop on the ground, doubled over but still smiling. Each area I’d stabbed had considerably fewer scars now, which meant he was considerably weaker. That’s where Morales said they got their power.
“You were meant to find this artifact and all the others. You were meant to join me to find the answers you’ve been searching for your whole life.” He stood, one hand behind his back still.
I almost laughed. “I wasn’t searching for anything. I was going through a normal life like anyone else when you showed up and took my family from me.”
I looked to the side. Ria’s tree was still smoking. Josh’s crumpled body still hadn’t moved. Only the hell mouth’s unrelenting inhale drew air, never satisfied with who it had already taken.
Procel circled around me, inching closer, his face handsomer than I expected.
“Haven’t you ever wondered about your mother? Her past? About my big brother Uriel’s role in all this?” He grinned when my mouth gaped open. “The questions go on and on, darling, and I can help you with the answers.”
I lunged forward and punched him in the stomach with enough force to break a boulder. He keeled over without putting up his arms, and my other fist collided with the bottom of his chin, launching him into the air.
“Fight!” I yelled, rushing forward to where he landed to beat him with the scepter, breaking his limbs only to watch them heal as the scars disappeared.
The cold iron felt good in my hands.
I could kill him. I should kill him.
I raised the scepter above my head, but then Grandpa and Nate and Ria and Josh and Freddy and Miranda and Duke’s faces flashed through my mind, this time pleading with me not to do it.
My grip loosed and retightened. I could at least get him to the hell mouth. He’d be trapped down there…with Nate.
“There’s no escaping who you are, Eve.”
I stepped around to the side. We were only five large steps from the hell mouth.
Procel staggered up, his arms now completely free from scars, though the darkness inside of him was having trouble staying in—black flares peeked out whenever he moved. His skin was a fragmented vase with weakening superglue.
“You could use the other artifacts to get your Guardian back.”
I looked up and clenched my jaw. He was lying.
But what if he wasn’t?
“Come with me, help me to find the others, and I’ll tell you all you’d ever want to know.”
“You killed my grandfather, my mother, my—” I pictured Nate’s face, Ria’s. The feeling of Josh’s lips on mine.
Procel stepped forward, his yellow eyes wider and more fanatical with each passing second. “I didn’t kill your mother, love.” He sighed and darted his eyes to the hell mouth. “You can’t keep me down there forever. I’ll come back, and it’ll happen all over again.”
My neck tensed, my skin prickling.
“Any person, Patron or human, who you get close to, will be snatched away by my hand when I get back. This first offer is a courtesy. Next time I won’t be so nice.”
I silenced the voices in my head and raised the scepter one final time. “No, you won’t.”
I spun the scepter around and shoved the point toward his chest like a stake, focusing every bit of strength and thought into this one moment, unable to see anything else.
“Eve, no!” A deep voice called from my left and tackled me to the ground with a blast of red essence just before the metal pierced Procel’s shell. The scepter slipped out of my hand.
I landed on my side and cried out in pain as one of my ribs cracked. “Josh?”
“I’m here.” He kneeled down with a grimace and stroked my hair. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t let you do it.”
My mouth opened and closed without words as tears welled into my eyes. “How?” I reached up and pulled him closer. “I thought you were—”
He wrapped his hands around my back and pulled me to my feet. “I couldn’t leave you,” he whispered, his lips next to my ear.
Warmth spread down my neck and into my chest. I pressed my hands into his strong back, feeling him breathe in and out, almost not believing it. I’d heard it snap.
He let go, and I pressed my lips to his, not caring what was going on, if we would die in the next moment or not. His hand cupped the side of my face. Everything else ceased to exist and all I felt were his lips, his hands, his chest pressing against me.
Then he pulled back. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I said, my eyes still closed.
“You’re not a murderer, Eve.”
I parted my eyelids painfully. “He’ll never stop.” I shook my head, reality seeping back in, as much an enemy as Procel now. Grandpa was gone. Nate was God knew where and Ria…? Everyone else? They couldn’t all miraculously be fine like Josh.
I shook my head more violently because I couldn’t accept it. “If we throw him in that hell mouth, he’ll just crawl back out and keep coming after everyone.”
“I know.” He nodded and looked back at Procel standing several yards away, still injured, but waiting with a curious smile on his face. “But if you kill him, that’s it. There’s no coming back from that blood on your hands.”
“Why are you saying all this?” I closed my eyes and reached for his hand. It slipped away, and all I felt was cold metal.
A lump caught in my throat as Josh turned and walked toward Procel, the scepter in his hand.
“So you are alive.” Procel squinted at Josh like he was only seeing a part of him, a glimpse of an old friend who he almost didn’t recognize.
“More than you.” Josh smirked, the same smirk I’d seen so many times, but this time much more pronounced. Procel chuckled and put his hand on Josh’s shoulder.
Every ounce of feeling drained from my bones. What was this? What was he doing?
“I thought you had died, or given up,” Procel said cryptically, looking stronger by the minute with his hand on Josh for support.
“You always were a glutton for punishment. Why’d you let her hit you so much?” Josh jerked his head toward me.
Procel looked at me and smiled. “Girl only seems to show any real talents when she’s got someone to hate. Figured I would help her. What happened to your face?” Procel reached his dirty, scarred hand toward Josh’s clear skin.
“Like you.” Josh swiped the scepter across his jaw. “Let ’em beat me and leave me for dead before the scars cleared up. It was the only way to get close to her. In the end, it shielded my essence so well her Guardian couldn’t even tell.”
“I couldn’t even tell,” Procel laughed.
My jaw hung agape, and the air went stale. This isn’t happening. No. This isn’t real.
“Who else knows of the quest? How many are under your command?” said Josh.
Procel dropped his head in shame. “No one, Sir. You and I, the true believers, are the only ones who remain to fulfill our master’s work.” He looked over at me. “But don’t worry. She’s almost broken, and once that happens, she won’t be stopped.”
My eyes were dry, and my mind worked harder than ever to reason through what I was seeing. I could see beyond what Procel projected in his human form. I saw his black essence, his powerful wings and black scars against a shadow of a body. Yellow eyes peered out of both forms.
And then there was Josh—red essence coursing through him like always.
“You’ve done well, Commander.” Josh held the scepter in front of Procel’s eyes so his pupils could feast on every inch.
I took a step forward, my hand stretched out. All this time? Procel orchestrating, but Josh silently guiding? All for a scepter?
No, there was more. There had to be.
Josh turned his back to me and put h
is hand on Procel’s shoulder. Procel continued to stare at the iron object. Then Josh, quicker than anything I’d ever seen, twirled the scepter around and plunged the point up and under Procel’s ribs.
Procel gurgled roughly and grabbed Josh’s throat, his yellow eyes bloodshot and his skin chipping away like cheap plastic. Josh lifted him off his feet with one hand and twisted the needle deeper. Thunder rumbled from the cloud as Procel opened his mouth in agony and, all at once, exploded in a shockwave of shadow that leveled me and all of the trees in the grove.
My ears rang, and I coughed dust out of my lungs. Josh knelt down and scooped me up. I knew it was him the moment his skin touched mine. I recoiled with the little strength I had left, but he stayed firm. He walked me to the end of the clearing and set me at the base of the oak tree with the hole in the center—the only thing still standing.
“I’m sorry,” he said when his skin wasn’t touching mine anymore. “There was no other way.”
I licked my lips and opened my eyes. What was probably a concussion wasn’t helping things. Had Josh just saved me? Was he actually helping me? Only pretending to know Procel in order to get close enough to kill him? But how could he pull that off? Procel knew him.
“It’s better to put this on my soul,” Josh said hollowly.
My mouth formed dry, raspy words. “Why? How?” I strained to see his face, but he backed away so my blurry vision could only see his dark silhouette. The cloud had dissipated in the blast and the rising sun was behind his head.
“Give me the scepter.” I swallowed painfully.
He knelt down and reached out his hand to caress my cheek again, the sun shifting so I could finally see his face.
“Oh my—” I choked, my eyes wide.
Dark red essence steamed out of his cracked shell, and I saw him truly for the first time. A jagged scar ripped through his left eye and cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his face unreadable.
Dark essence unfurled from his back into wings, and he rose into the air, the scepter clutched in his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
In the evening, I walked down the aisles of the infirmary. It normally only had two rows of beds—now there were five.
Over a hundred steel gurneys had been pulled up from storage for all the injured—human and Patron alike.
I slid my hands across the painted white bars of each bed I passed, trying to memorize the name on the chart with the face on the pillow. Most of them were unconscious. Others could only look up at the ceiling, so my presence went unnoticed.
It was better that way. No one wanted to look at me. The ones sitting beside beds were too consumed with grief, and the teachers were too busy with important matters they’d begun the moment I finished telling them everything that happened. I assumed they were in the chapel now, talking about Josh and the artifact and the Blood Nephilim. It turned out that Morales’ research revealed little more than Meg’s vision had. Aside from the fact that there were five of them and that the Blood Nephilim referred to them as the “Keys to Creation,” we knew nothing. I tried to tell them what we believed about the vision was probably wrong too, but considering everything else, they weren’t inclined to believe anything I had to say.
Israel Mendi. He was a third year with long scratches down his face and neck. The gauze was new but slowly turning red. Nurse Wright stood over him with her eyes closed in concentration as she extended her hands.
Rachel Gura. She was asleep, but her breathing was labored. Half her right arm was raw with fresh skin that fire had painfully exposed.
Donnie and Ashley. Each were part of Cheryl’s unit. They stared up at the ceiling in a trance. Damian sat between them as Freddy worked.
My chest was empty, unable to feel much anymore. “How’re they doing?” I asked Freddy as he hummed softly and waved his fingers in the complicated sign language I would never know.
“The dark essence is like the one that hit Nate, so we should be ok…thanks to Ria,” he said, his voice still rising and falling in a soft melody.
I nodded and smiled, my eyes watering. Damian reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. He was bigger and more muscular than Freddy, and yet, right now he looked as if he could slide between prison bars. He’d done this before—taken my hand. Each time he looked as if he was going to say something, but he never did.
I squeezed back and walked on. Miranda was just ahead, dancing around Jody’s bed like a gypsy. Jody had taken the brunt of the attack to save her brothers. Her leather armor was burned into her skin.
Miranda squeaked and gave me a hug as I passed. She and Freddy made it out unscathed by rolling down the mountain in continuous cartwheels, somehow escaping any collisions or hits from the demons. Ria hadn’t been with them.
I walked toward the bed at the far end. Orange light from the setting sun filtered in through the lead glass windows and stretched across her bed. Her chest was completely still.
“I told you at least twenty minutes.” Ria popped her eyes open when I sat down.
“Were you holding your breath?” I nudged a juice box into her hand.
Leo—Ria’s unfortunately named brown and white beagle—got up, circled around, and lay down in the same spot at Ria’s feet. He hadn’t left her side for more than a minute since they’d brought her in here.
Ria grinned slightly. “Someone’s got to lighten the mood around here,” she said and carefully lifted the straw to her lips. Even that was a strain.
The pit of emptiness in my chest filled with guilt. “Here.” I reached out and guided her hand the last eight inches.
“I got it.” She pulled her hand back and narrowed her eyes.
I kept my eyes on her hand. The only visible bruise she suffered was on her left hand—a patch of brand new skin with a black tinge to it. A small speck of dark essence had dropped onto her hand during the fight. Luckily, she thought quickly and sliced it off with a considerable amount of her own skin before it could get into her bloodstream. “Being a Patron’s sure made you one tough badass.”
She finished drinking and plopped her head back onto the pillow with a grin. “That’s right. All badasses sip their juice boxes by themselves.” She smiled again.
I looked down at my own hands, completely clean. Not even gunk under my fingernails. My body had just pushed all the tar-like essence out as if nothing happened. I should be the one in that bed, the one who’d almost died.
“When do you think Charming and Sleeping Beauty will wake up?” Ria nodded to Duke and Cheryl, each sleeping peacefully in beds next to hers. Cheryl’s bleach blond hair fanned out over her pillow, red lips pushed up in a continual kiss as her chest rose and fell. Duke’s lips pursed as he took deep breaths through his nose, his unconscious body admitting even now that he was in pain. They hadn’t been able to reattach his leg.
I shook my head as a voice inside forced me to look at them longer. I was responsible for this. I was the reason he lost his leg. I was the reason Ria was lying here. I was the reason Nate was in hell.
“Hey.” Ria reached out and squeezed my hand. “Remember when we’d go down to that cavern as kids? We’d climb down and have to squeeze through those really tight holes.”
I nodded, my eyes rolling around and around to keep tears from falling out. “My hyperventilating stage.”
“Yeah, Grampy learned to carry a paper bag pretty quick.” She chuckled. “We’d get down to the bottom—it felt like a thousand feet down—and then he’d tell us to look up.”
I closed my eyes and remembered. The air was chilled down there, and we could barely see the rocks except for the goofy yellow headlamps he made us wear.
“We’d turn off our lights, and up above was the hole we’d come down through. It was like a star, and he’d always say—”
I mouthed the words as she said them.
“See, light always shines through the darkness.” Ria squeezed lightly, though the strain on her face said she was trying to squeeze hard. “Whateve
r that scepter thing was, the artifacts and power and whatever else he told you—”
Procel’s face flashed through my mind.
“The light will always shine through.” She released my hand and made a half-hearted attempt to punch my leg. “And I know you don’t like getting all emotional, so there.”
I smiled and pushed the juice box to her mouth again, a small exhale taking some of the infinite weight off my shoulders.
She sipped and leaned back again.“Do you think Nate’s seeing the same thing right now? Even just a little light from way down there?” Tears threatened to spill over her lashes.
My voice found its sound even as the rest of me wanted to fall into nothingness. “We’ll find him, Ria. I promise.”
She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “I know, and then we’ll figure out why you find metal sticks in trees.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes roughly. “While we’re at it, let’s find out how the archangel Uriel’s actually my dad, how a Fallen wanted me to join him or kill him in order to release all my supposed power, and how Josh duped me this whole time.”
“Duped us.” Ria nodded. “But yeah, maybe we should just take this one step at a time.”
Every moment I’d spent with Josh bounced around my mind with no relief. The subway platform. The liquor store. The Babylonian headquarters. The diner. The rooftop. There was no meaning to anything he’d said, just like there was no meaning to what he’d done, to what he was.
I looked around the infirmary and saw all the good Freddy and Miranda were doing. Their essence was beaming off of them so even I could see it now that my lack of sight had returned.
In the subway, Josh had us buy tickets for strangers to build up our strength, to build up our essence. That was actually something Patrons did. What other truths had he interspersed with the lies?
I closed my eyes and could still feel his lips against mine. Just before we kissed the first time, his hand had glanced off mine and I’d seen him in a uniform. My visions were becoming clearer now—at least the ones I’d already seen. A woman had thrown a blue dagger of essence at him. It was a memory just like Nate’s.
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