by Gwenda Bond
“It’s you,” Luke says, half accusatory.
I sigh. “What’s me?”
“You’re why I can’t tell where it is.”
Great, yet another way I’m failing. Only why would I take his word for it? “I’m not some easily fooled security guard.”
“No,” he says. “It’s because you’re too distracting. Go stand outside.”
“Wha—” I sputter. “You go stand outside.”
He walks in close to me. So close I can see how big his pupils are in the reflection from his phone. His free hand glides forward and lightly rests on my hip. I can hardly breathe.
“I’m trying to sense good,” he says and I can’t help but watch his lips. “You are good. And unfortunately I seem a lot more interested in you than anything else in here. I don’t like that you’re upset. With me. So it’s hard for me to see past you and find what we’re looking for.”
I am struck dumb as that security guard. He removes his hand. I go to stand outside without a word and shut the door behind me.
A black cat meanders along the cemetery street outside, and I barely notice.
I’m good. I’m good and Luke is interested in me? He’s not just being a flirt? My heart beats too hard in my chest, and I will it to stop. Well, not stop. Slow down. Heart stoppage in Lisbon in the middle of the night would not be good.
Like I am apparently.
I shake my head. The cat has circled back to me and meows.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
The thing is? I wouldn’t have been surprised if the cat started to talk. Instead it rubs against my legs and then bolts into the night.
What was it Luke said earlier about having problems of his own? Suddenly I can’t help wondering what they are … Who is he, really? What were his plans for tonight before all this?
I’m completely aware of how dangerous these thoughts are. But there’s so much comfort in knowing for sure that while I may be a mess, I’m a good person. And that I’m not the only one who feels this strangely compelling attraction when we’re near each other.
The door to the mausoleum creaks open. I jump.
“Callie?” Luke asks.
“Uh, present,” I say. “You find it?”
Luke steps out and pulls me around to face him. “I did, but I knew better than to try retrieving it solo.”
I’m watching his lips again. They’re full of danger, those lips. “Would you burst into flame or something?” I ask and hear how breathless I sound.
The slightest frown, like an injury. “No. Well, maybe. Or it might be like before. But I knew you’d want to do the recovering.”
“Oh.” There he goes—being thoughtful again. Was I too harsh earlier? I can be sometimes. I know that about myself.
“We better not waste time though,” he says, and I nod and step past him. My arm brushes his chest as I pass, and there’s a catch in my breathing, an awareness of how close we are. My ears burn hot with embarrassment, and I reach up to make sure they’re safely tucked underneath my hair.
Not that he’s likely to be checking out my ears. Especially in darkness, Callie. Get it together.
“It was, in fact, buried with him,” Luke says.
I inhale deeply to reset my breathing and roll my eyes. “This guy.”
“A little much, even for my taste.”
Luke holds up his phone and I see he’s pushed aside the top of Monteiro’s sarcophagus. I hesitate. “Is it…”
For all my reading, my only experiences with things truly dark before tonight have been either in books or constructing the fake version of them for the business. I’ve been to funerals, but sterile, brightly lit ones. The people pumped full of chemicals that make them look exactly as they did alive, only more soft-focus and formal. If they really wanted to give the impression of sleeping, why dress people up?
“Callie?” Luke asks.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever get buried in pajamas? No, seriously, I can’t believe that’s never been a cultural thing. I want to be buried in pajamas.”
Luke shakes his head on a quiet laugh. “That is not what I expected you to say right now.” He moves in closer. “Which is what makes it so delightful.”
I let out a nearly hysterical laugh of my own. “Ha. Delightful.”
Luke takes my hand in his, and I think maybe he’s going to kiss me. I broke up with my last boyfriend, Jeremy, in May. We were both always awkward about this kind of thing even after we’d been together a year. He got a job in California that started right after graduation. We said good-bye over pizza. I was … relieved. Since then, I’ve been too consumed with figuring out how to get my life together to date anyone.
The thing is no matter how much I liked the guys I’ve been with, I’ve never had a true fireworks experience, the swell of phantom music, and definitely no heart-shattering emotions. My brain won’t stop observing instead of letting me be in the moment. So it hasn’t been hard to put a pin in romance.
But now, right now, all I’m thinking about is kissing Luke.
I realize how weird this is given that I vowed never to trust him. But he said I distracted him because I was good.
He reaches up with his other hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. I see him study it. Damn him, he did look at my ears.
Then again, he’s already damned.
“I thought so,” he says. “Callie, are you embarrassed? Am I missing something?”
“Yes.” Before I can talk myself out of this colossally, epically, biblically bad idea I lean in. “Kiss me.”
“What?” he asks.
My ears are on fire. “Never mind.”
“Not on your life. You asked me to kiss you.” He sounds as surprised as I feel. “I’m happy to—”
I press my lips to his.
He’s surprised, midsentence, and doesn’t react right away. I am mortified. Did I misread his consent? I start to pull back and apologize … Until he slides his hand around to touch my cheek and kisses me back so gently I think I’m hallucinating. The kiss lasts more than the ten seconds I count in my head, and then I realize I shouldn’t be counting and tell my brain to shut up and sink into the sensation.
It works.
The only thing that exists is me and Luke and the places where our bodies and our lips touch. My heart thumps hard in my chest and my skin electrifies and I want to climb inside him to get closer and closer. He deepens the kiss with a groan, and I’m pretty sure I moan, and I don’t care. His hands drop to my waist and he easily lifts me and turns to place me on the closed sarcophagus without missing a beat.
He steps between my legs and I sink into him and definitely moan again and there may not be music but there are fireworks because my entire being feels like I’m exploding. His hands roam my back and one slips under my T-shirt across my skin and then …
Then Luke ends the kiss, puts his hand back on top of my shirt, rests his forehead on mine, and sighs.
“I don’t want to stop,” I say.
I can’t believe I said that.
“Me either. But the cult could show up here. We shouldn’t linger, no matter how tempting.” He leans back enough to hold my gaze. “This night is the furthest thing from boring.”
“Understatement.” I smile at him. Heat crackles between us. It is not boring. In the least.
The temptation to keep going is there. If I move toward him even a fraction, I sense he’ll go along, despite his objections. My body is in favor of it. But my brain kicks back into its usual mode—worry that I’m messing this up. Not to mention, he’s a demon. What am I doing? And why do I like it so much?
“We should though. Stop. You’re right.” I press Luke away and reach up to put my hair back over my telltale ear. I slide off the sarcophagus. “Saving the world and all. Let’s dig around in some old bones.”
CHAPTER TEN
LUKE
Callie of Good, with eyes like a fresh green field after a storm, kissed me. I made her moan. Me, the son of Lucifer Morni
ngstar, sovereign of the kingdom of Hell. I might as well be in a boat on a sea in that storm I keep thinking about, in the flailing grasp of a kraken. I feel like the storm rages inside me.
Callie, meanwhile, is waving impatiently to get my attention. “Some light over here, please. I need to be able to see. You’re not going to make things all weird, are you?”
I take comfort in the breathlessness of her voice.
She seemed to be hesitating before … before she kissed me. I assumed because she was scared. But it was because she wanted to kiss me.
“You’re sure you want to see the bones that well?” I move to her side, doing my best to play it cool. I want to eat her overly sensible self up. “And you’re the one who made it weird.”
She stares at me in the dark. I hold up my hand to illuminate both her face and the open sarcophagus beside us.
“Good weird,” I specify. “My all-time favorite variety of weird.”
She ignores that, craning her neck to look inside the coffin. “Where is it? Did you see it?”
“Not exactly. It’s wrapped up in his hand.”
“Oh, right there,” she says.
I scoot closer so I’m seeing the same thing that she is—and because I like being near her. Below us is Monteiro, or what’s left of his bones, fairly clean, brownish, and dry, a few scraps of hair left on the skull, and those utterly creepy death’s-head teeth that all corpses have. Anatomy below is very specialized with an emphasis on torture and frights and the corpse teeth have always freaked me right out. Something about the lack of gums.
I suppress a shudder. The romantic mood has officially left the mausoleum.
Monteiro’s desiccated remains are arranged so that his hands fold over the wrapped item.
“Here I go.” She reaches in.
Callie picks at the parcel and his finger bones loosen. A knuckle tumbles down into the sarcophagus and she makes a noise that is a cousin of horrified. But she persists and lifts the wrapped item free.
For a moment, I hold my breath. What if some trickery caused me to get the identification wrong and Callie thinks I lied to her again? I’m more invested than ever in not alienating her.
Callie bends and lays the parcel on the ground to unwrap, and I join her.
I hold steady at the good it radiates.
Inside the dusty cloth is the bronze head of a spear about as long as her forearm. She picks it up, and I can see it has a substantial weight.
She looks at me and a smile with nearly as much light spreads across her face. “We got it. You weren’t lying this time. Okay,” she says and stands, “let’s go home and figure out what to do now.”
I don’t call attention to the implied us. I nod. “Your wish.”
She hesitates. “You’d better put back the top of the sarcophagus. And we should lock this up behind us. This was pretty simple compared to the chapel.”
“Only because you had the key. You are good at this.”
Callie gives me another beaming smile, and leaves me to finish the cleanup. I slide the heavy stone back into place, wishing Monteiro a good sleep, and go to follow her outside. That’s when I feel his approach.
Rofocale is here. With the worst possible timing.
I hurry outside to attempt damage control focused on Callie, and only then recognize that I’m the one in danger of being damaged. I haven’t made any progress on my task. Some might even say I’ve made negative progress.
“Is that Lucifer?” Callie asks, gaping up at the sky. She’s stashed the spearhead in her messenger bag.
“Close enough.”
At least the presence of a holy relic will protect her from any harm at seeing Rofocale in his full glory. Because I can’t fault her mistake.
Rofocale is a burning man who lands with the effortless grace of an angry spark from a fire floating to the ground. He glowers at me.
“Rofocale, I can explain,” I say, doing my best church-mouse meek.
“Wait, what?” Callie asks.
Oh, for all that’s unholy. I said his name.
I give her a look that implores her to stay quiet. You can imagine how she takes that.
“Isn’t that your name?” she persists. “Rofocale, minister of Hell?”
I wince. “I truly can explain,” I say to Rofocale. “With, ah, your leave, I’ll happily explain everything.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,” Rofocale says, pursing his lips. His eyes gleam black with pinpoint scarlet pupils that burn like the flames surrounding his stylish, unsinged suit. I can’t imagine how Callie feels, because this angry he’s terrifying even to me. He goes on. “You can explain why you’re standing on a street in Portugal with some good and pure soul while the cult whose souls you were supposed to collect rummage around still in possession of them and now the Lance of Longinus? And she’s got the other part of the Lance too, so now it’s possible for it to be reassembled? This should be good. I’m all ears.”
“Not all ears,” I quip. “There’s some evil in there too.”
The flames licking the air around Rofocale intensify. Still, I’m distracted by motion to my right. It’s Callie, not running, like a rational human would, but placing a hand on her hip.
“Who,” she asks Rofocale, “are you? The marquis or the viscount or…”
Rofocale’s dark gaze settles on Callie, and she doesn’t seem able to finish her sentence. She flinches, then gloriously pretends she didn’t. I wish I didn’t like her so much in this moment. I almost wish she hadn’t kissed me.
Almost.
“Well?” she presses, her voice only a little shaky.
“I am Lucifuge Rofocale,” he says, like he’s expecting a curtsey. Which, of course, he is.
Callie turns to me. I hope to look winning as I lift my shoulders in an apologetic shrug, crinkling my face in a wince of apology.
“Then who in the hell are you?”
The person you didn’t want to stop kissing, I want to say. But I’m not that stupid.
I look from Callie to Rofocale and I know this ruse is over. If I lie to her now, I’ll never recover. “I’m his intern. Um, Luke. That really is my name. The one I go by.”
“His intern,” she repeats as she begins to pace. “His intern. I let an intern bring me to face off against an evil cult. To recover a holy weapon. I … I let…” She’s thinking about the kiss, regretting it. The pain I feel at that is nearly physical. She continues. “Oh yes, I’m the worst at this. I should be kept in laboratory conditions at all times. Clearly. Being a guardian is so my calling. Just like getting a useless history degree.”
“A guardian?” Rofocale asks with a double take.
Callie’s pacing stops and she faces us both. “Why do you say it like that?”
“Everything’s under control,” I jump in, in an attempt to appease Rofocale and keep the situation from further deteriorating. “I still have plenty of time.”
Tendrils of actual smoke curl from Rofocale’s ears. Upset or not, Callie steps behind me.
I extend a hand to placate him. “I sense your skepticism—”
“Oh, you do?” Rofocale grits out. “How perceptive.”
“It’s entirely understandable, but I have a plan,” I say, talking fast. “A new plan. You have to believe me. I may have miscalculated, but now I’m on top of this.”
Waves of heat are wafting off Rofocale and even behind me Callie must feel toasty warm.
“Enlighten me about this plan,” Rofocale says with a faux nonchalant wave of his sharp-nailed fingers. “What are its particulars?”
The question is aimed with the precision of a knife. A rumble of thunder sounds in the distance and lightning cracks across the sky. In case it wasn’t already clear how unhappy I’ve made him.
“I’m going to retrieve the cult’s souls after I help Callisto … get rid of the lance.”
His eyes narrow. “You never were a good student. It can only be destroyed when whole.”
Damnation. “Then after we steal bac
k the shaft.”
“Why would I destroy the Holy Lance?” Callie asks. “Is that even possible?”
Rofocale nods. “It is possible, and now that the halves are no longer hidden, it is likely the only way to prevent the end times. Your father is not going to be pleased if you trigger the apocalypse.”
“He’s not going to be pleased anyway. Which is why he never needs to know about any of this. I’ll get the souls.”
“Your time draws nigh, in case you’ve forgotten. Get those souls or else.”
“I’m aware.”
“You have considered … Why would they pledge themselves to you after you take the weapon? They won’t need anything,” Rofocale says.
“They’ll want to be of service. I can promise them something else.”
“Aren’t they already bad?” Callie asks. “Why expend so much effort on the souls of bad people?”
“Bad and ‘soul owned by Hell’ are two different things.” Rofocale spits the words. “As Luke here should know and you should not. Speaking of which, I should erase—”
“Don’t hurt her.” I say it as a command, which startles me. And Rofocale. Not in a good way. I clarify. “She’s part of the new plan. You heard. I need her.”
“No,” she says, “I’m not helping you.”
Shut up, Callie. “Please?” I ask, ignoring her. “If I fail, these are my last moonrises regardless.”
Rofocale shrugs. “For now you can keep her.”
“I am not for either of you to keep or release!” Callie says.
I flinch when Rofocale rolls his neck and there’s another lightning strike. Closer this time.
He lasers back in on me. “I won’t allow your lack of commitment and performance issues to tarnish my reputation. Don’t screw this up.” He rakes his fiery gaze over me. “Any more than you already have.”
I sense he’s about to leave. “Wait! I don’t suppose you can tell me where the cultists are?”