Only a sacrifice could stop Johnathan, now.
I dove deep within my void with the feather, content to do something, anything to ruin this ritual of madness. If I could kill myself, maybe that would be enough. Rituals like this were precise, and the smallest thing could ruin them. I was dying anyway, but maybe the timing of my death mattered. Because I hadn’t died with the other three. So, he still needed me alive.
I wouldn’t have time to feel guilty at suicide, but at least I could stop Johnathan. Even if it was only by dying before my appointed time. Stopping him from opening the Gates to Hell. I desperately focused on the feather in my mind. I saw Johnathan freeze, spinning to stare at Roland and then my dad. “What trickery is this?” he snarled to no one in particular.
I ignored him, closing my eyes as I fed my feather the last of my pain. The last of my self.
“No matter. I can still make this part work, at least,” I heard Johnathan say.
My feather began tugging at my soul, pulling deeper than I thought possible, drinking in a pain that I hadn’t offered to it.
My nightmare.
My feather consumed it in one metaphysical gulp.
And I realized that I had never truly known peace until that moment — utterly free of burdens.
I opened my eyes, and they burned as if doused with gasoline.
I stared at the feather before Johnathan. To represent everyone’s Father, he had said. God. A large feather. Could it be… an Angel’s feather? The quill of the feather was split open, now, and inside was a single drop of silver, like blood. Heavenly blood. Angel blood.
I focused on it, connecting it to my imagined feather without consciously deciding to do so. If that feather could fight, so could mine. Together. Free will.
The silver drop… rippled, and Johnathan froze. Then he whirled, staring at me in disbelief.
I heard laughter.
And it was my own.
The drop of silver rippled again. And again.
And again.
Faster now.
Johnathan screamed in fury, bursting into his full Demon form — a twelve-foot-tall devil with glittering, black scales that covered him from horns to navel. His suddenly long hair was living fire, and his lower body was that of a wild goat. A pool of yellow smoke eddied around his hooves, and he bleated at my laughter.
Then he raced towards me, fire splashing around his hooves like he was stomping in puddles of napalm. But I was still laughing, cackling now, each sound like the piercing ring of a trumpet into a cave, triumphant, powerful, and joyful.
The silver drop of Angel’s blood rippled one last time, and then flew from the feather and struck me, splashing over my forehead as my face shot to the sky. Light washed down on me from the heavens, my skin itching, twisting, and quivering as my wounds bound themselves back together in a heartbeat.
The world seemed to slow as I stared back down at Johnathan. He moved as if underwater. I felt a… power encase the chains still attached to my wrist. The strange power forged with the chains, strengthening them, adding onto them, creating something new. Something white and terribly breathtaking that sparked my memory. No. Not my memory. Callie Penrose’s memory, because I suddenly felt like two different people.
My shoulders suddenly ached, erupting with fire, and I yanked my hands down diagonally, crossing them before my bare breasts. I felt the chains snap free as easily as breaking a spider’s web, but I didn’t crash to the ground, and the chains had detached from the wood, not my wrists.
They slashed in front of me as the world kicked back to full speed, and they cut through the Demon like a razor blade through paper. Fire shot from his mouth, his eyes, and I finally fell to my knees.
He crashed down before me, leaving us facing each other, both kneeling. His fire washed over me, bathing me in greasy flame, but I felt no heat. I just stared into the fiery caverns of his eyes, and I saw a dark silhouette deep within.
A shadowy figure on a throne, massive wings of smoke and shards of glass flaring over his shoulders, glaring at me with a universe of hatred. Then Johnathan collapsed into a pile of burning coals that scattered on the earth before me.
I caught a figure in my peripheral vision, someone darting between the trees in the distance, but as I lifted my hand to smite them, a light winked out of me, and I collapsed.
Only silence remained, but I imagined I heard sounds of a great lumbering beast, rocking the cages of his prison deep beneath my knees — rocking me to sleep like the sweetest lullaby…
Chapter 47
A loud slamming noise in the distance woke me. I stared out at a rising sun over a sharp cliff. A bed of coals sat before me, still smoldering.
Had I been camping?
I groaned, feeling almost hungover. I shakily propped myself onto my knees, and flinched at the sound of metal clinking against metal. I glanced down to see chains on my wrists. Both of them. The metal was blackened, burned. And cracked. Like they were thousands of years old, unearthed from a dusty forgotten tomb of the damned. Kinky.
Feet raced closer, pounding the earth, breaking twigs and crackling leaves underfoot.
I waited for them, wondering who they belonged to. I felt rested, but still weak. And dazed.
How long had I slept? Not long if the sun rose before me. Hadn’t… the sun begun to rise before all else faded? Before I tried to attack the fleeing figure in the distance…
The world came crashing back to me. Someone had been watching the ritual, hiding in the shadows, and running as soon as I had killed Johnathan. A second Demon.
And now feet were almost upon me. I had only been unconscious for moments.
I was in danger.
The person running towards me cursed, but didn’t slow.
I whirled, unfolding from my crouch, swinging the blackened chains in a wide swooping arc as the figure came within striking distance, or what I hoped was striking distance.
The ground seemed to tremble and I heard someone screaming.
It was me.
No one knew I was here. No one living, anyway. Just that shadow in the distance, racing closer to steal my soul. The other Demon. Amira. Johnathan’s sister.
Not today.
The chains unfurled like living serpents, crackling with an otherworldly white light that tugged at my memory. I brought my arms above my head, tips of the chains sizzling the earth where they had rested, and then, as I faced my foe — that shadowy, sneaking creature — I brought my hands down, ready to slice through Amira as I had her Demon brother, Johnathan.
My chains screamed through the still air, hungry to taste another Demon.
And I saw a startled face.
That face…
Like a boulder at the top of a mountain, eyes like the depths of a green ocean.
Nate Temple.
His face shifted to resignation, and he brought up his own whips, crackling with similar white, destructive power, slicing up from his hips to meet mine falling down from above.
I readied myself for death, unable to stop the expected explosion. Magic didn’t mix well. This place was about to be blighted from existence as if it had never been.
Our whips and chains touched, latching together like magnets, white light building, growing, ready to destroy the world, break it, and rebuild anew in the space of time it would take to say Let there be light!
But the moment my chains and his whips crossed, latching together, he yanked me towards him, shattering the steel of my whips into an infinite explosion of steel chips, white-hot metal — or whatever the chains had been made of — buffeting the grass in a downpour of fire. His whips also extinguished.
But no shrapnel struck me as I flew towards him.
Our chests struck without pain, and we stood in a charred circle. My cuffs were gone.
I panted, but not from exhaustion, from… something else. My knees quivered, fighting against the strange sensation, and I could see in his eyes that he fought the same silent battle.
He
pinned me in place with those raptor eyes, the sunrise the only light, now, our weapons broken, or extinguished, possibly cancelling each other out. His eyes flickered to my forehead, a quizzical squint flashing across his face as if he wanted to touch that skin, but then the look disappeared. He grasped my wrists, as if fighting to restrain me, to not let me go. I realized that he had not yanked me closer to him, but that I had yanked him towards me.
The tips of my exposed breasts pressed against the muscles hidden beneath his soft, thin t-shirt, and his coat whipped back at the wind from the cliff only a pace behind me.
My lips trembled, tingled, my heart racing both in fright at the cliff behind me, and the intensity of the man before me. I felt his heartbeat hammering against my chest, even from so light a contact. He dipped his head closer, and I smelled a faint aroma of black licorice and herbs, but I recognized it. Absinthe. He had been drinking not long ago, but his eyes were clear, not inebriated.
The scent was pleasant. Like that of my dad’s aftershave. Comforting. Secure. Safe.
I suddenly wanted to taste it. Desperately so.
As if sharing the desire, his lips touched mine, but as softly as the whisper of a butterfly’s wing. A light breeze. Not a kiss, but a microscopic caress, almost unnoticeable. Even at that faint a touch, my lips erupted with inner flame, and I began to shake, wanting to devour his mouth. My tongue tingled, numbing my mouth, thirsting…
A car horn honked, and my heart exploded in panic as I jumped away, releasing his hands as my breath left me, my eyes darting wildly.
My foot fell on empty air, and I began to fall.
I saw Nate snarl as he grabbed the waist of my bloody leggings with one strong hand while his other hand flashed out with a whip of white fire to one of the wooden crosses behind him. The whip latched around it like the tentacle of an octopus, and his arm muscles flexed beneath his jacket, stressing the fabric as he used the whip to yank me back to safety. Either he pulled too hard, or the whip held too much power, because we both flew into a tangled heap on the scorched earth.
The earth smelled like flowers for some bizarre reason, even though it was burned away.
I was on top of him, staring into those green eyes that flickered faintly with white fire like distant lightning in his brain. I had never seen that before in his eyes.
Then the car horn honked again, and I jumped off of him. He cursed under his breath, climbing to his feet. “I’m going to kill her,” he muttered. “If it’s the last thing I do.”
I stared in the distance to see the Yukon XL flashing lights at us, a familiar blonde face grinning frantically as she waved to get our attention. “Claire,” I whispered in relief. I smiled, waving back, and saw my wrists for the first time. They were scarred where the manacles had been. Not fresh wounds or crusted blood, but white scars as if they had happened, and healed, years ago.
“She was very persistent. Said she got jumped on her way home, in the alley behind her house, but managed to chase them away with her mace. Has a few scratches where they tried to yank her watch off, but she’s fine. Moody as all hell when we couldn’t find you, though,” he added, chuckling. He took off his coat and wrapped it around my shoulders delicately. He held up a long white hair. One of mine. “I’ve been trying to track you for hours, but the spell wouldn’t stick. We drove all over town, searching. Even threatened the bears and vampires.” He smiled. “Then it just reacted all of a sudden.” I nodded, remembering Johnathan saying he had blocked this place. He must have blocked Nate’s spell.
Nate studied me. “Which one was the Demon?” he asked softly.
“Johnathan,” I whispered.
He blinked, having expected a woman like I had. “I’m sorry, Callie.”
I shrugged under the coat, wrapping it tighter around me. “Someone else was here, too. At the end. I think it was a girl named Amira. Johnathan said she was his sister.”
Nate scanned the surroundings, but seeing no threat, sighed. “We’ll take care of her. Later. I’m sorry about Gabriel,” he continued, glancing up at the blonde man. “Father David prayed in the hospital. Gabriel answered, scaring the hell out of him. He sent Gabriel to watch over you…” His eyes took in Gabriel on the cross again, and I saw his shoulders sag. “That’s going to hurt Claire.”
I flinched, suddenly disgusted with myself for not considering the dead men yet.
“Callie, wait!” Nate shouted as I ran to my dad, wanting to see his face one last time.
I looked up, and stopped cold.
A dead stranger stared down at me. I backed up two steps, not understanding. My eyes flicked to Roland only to see another stranger.
I spun behind me to find the Nephilim, Gabriel. He was as I remembered… I shook my head. “No, no, no…” I whispered, panicking, not understanding.
The shock took the last bit of energy from me, and I fell, spiraling into darkness, listening to Nate shout my name. It felt nice.
Chapter 48
I felt like I was floating, flying.
“She’s going to kill me. You understand that, right?” a low voice said, seeming to echo.
“Maybe,” a woman said. “But she’ll thank you afterwards.” She sounded familiar… “Why is it fading?”
The low voice grunted. “No idea.” A pause. “You okay?”
“I hardly knew him, but…”
Silence. “Sometimes that’s worse,” the low voice said gently, sounding heartfelt.
I slowly opened my eyes to see that Nate was carrying me in his arms, giving me a chance to stare at him unobserved. His eyes were hard, as if preparing to walk to the gallows. We were in a familiar elevator. The hotel. I saw Claire’s reflection in the golden wall. She looked anxious, shifting from foot to foot.
“Take me home, you… uncouth playboy. Or I will kill you.” I grumbled, throat sore.
Claire gasped, suddenly leaning over me, crying, brushing my hair back.
“Home is where the heart is, or so I’ve heard,” Nate said, grinning as he glanced down at me.
“My heart is not here, Nate. I—”
The elevator door opened, and I heard a gasp from beyond the opening. Then I was yanked from Nate’s arms to be carried by someone else. I stared up in confusion as the room spun.
And then I saw my dad smiling down on me.
I began to cry, overwhelmed. Big, heaving, ugly sobs. Tears painted my dad’s cheeks as he carried me deeper into the penthouse, and then set me down on the couch. He wiped away my tears, smiling as he shook his head. “It’s okay, Callie. Everything is fine.”
“The piano isn’t,” I heard Nate complain. I saw Claire punch him. He looked surprised, rubbing his shoulder.
“How?” I whispered, turning back to my dad. Was I dreaming right now? Or had tonight been a nightmare?
“He saved us, Callie. Both of us,” he whispered, squeezing my legs. He jerked his chin and I followed the motion.
Roland stood there, leaning on crutches, smiling at me proudly.
“The wards,” I said, feeling numb. They were both alive. That wasn’t possible. I had seen them die.
“He’s crafty, I’ll give him that,” Roland muttered, but he was smiling at… Nate, of all people. And another man I hadn’t noticed. The older gentleman I had seen on the roof. Hemingway.
I locked eyes with him, and felt an instant kinship. Maybe that was what my dad had seen in him. The man smiled back at me, eyes crinkling. “Nate had me hide them where they couldn’t be found.” The two men shivered at that for some reason, and Hemingway chuckled. “Nate knew that the wards would draw the Demon out. Why make a fortress if not to defend something valuable? Once I saw you return to the roof after the bears, I scooped them up, taking them to safety.” He glanced at Nate. “I’m still not sure how the Demon broke through the wards, or how none of you sensed him if he was so close to you, though.” Nate shrugged, looking frustrated at the questions, but having no answers. Hemingway turned back to me. “Please don’t be upset with him. Nate a
lways does the right thing. Even when you tell him not to. I hope you forgive him for his deceit, and understand his reasoning for doing so. Even though it went against your wishes.” His grin split even wider. “When you saw me talking to Nate on the roof before the bears, I thought for sure that you had found out his plan,” he chuckled.
I didn’t look at Nate. “Then… who were the men on the crosses?”
“Two thieves, ironically…” Hemingway said. I frowned. He seemed to understand the deeper significance of his answer. Two thieves crucified on either side of me. He had disguised them to look like Roland and my dad. That was why Johnathan had spun around during his ritual, glaring at them. He must not have noticed it until they died.
“Who are you?” I asked, puzzled.
“Some call me Hemingway…” He glanced at Nate, arching a brow in question. Nate shrugged in answer. “But you may call me Death.”
Roland shivered, looking extremely uncomfortable. No wonder. I just stared. My dad was simply grinning, the most comfortable man in the room at hearing the news. He leaned closer to me, whispering, and I heard Death chuckle in amusement. “He let me see mom, Callie. I got to see Sarah again.” His eyes were nostalgic, full of love. “She was so beautiful…”
I bit back a sob of envy. That… was the nicest thing I could fathom. And Death had given it to him. In order to prove he was one of the good guys.
“Thank you,” I whispered softly, unable to offer more. Death merely shrugged with a deep smile, but his eyes did dart to Nate thoughtfully. Nate shook his head once, and Death relented.
Nate had saved… my two fathers. Going against my wishes. The conversation between he and Claire in the elevator almost made me smile now that I understood it.
I turned to Claire. “I’m so sorry, sweetie…” she smiled sadly, eyes teary, idly rubbing her arms before her chest. She had lost Gabriel. A man sent to watch over me, but I believed that his interest in Claire had been more than just a job. I had no proof of this, but it felt right.
“I’ve booked the room for a week. Death and I must be leaving, though. We have… things to do. In St. Louis. We can talk about everything… later. When you are ready. I think we all have questions, but I think family is more important.” Again, his eyes shifted to Death, who nodded in answer to an unspoken question.
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