She leaned into Louise, placed her lips close to the old woman’s ear.
“We made love many times. He loves me. Not you.” She pulled the plunger.
Louise’s zoe line shriveled. Her skin turned powdery gray. The zoe line snapped off and fell to the ground in pieces. Her dusty form remained with an expression of horror and surprise locked on its face. Then it crumbled into a pile of ash.
Maggie screamed. Bram wrestled against the ropes binding his wrists. Ann ran into the room with her gun drawn.
“Teresa, freeze!” Ann shouted.
“Seven,” Teresa said.
Chapter 63
Ann aimed the gun at Teresa and shifted her eyes to see if Maggie was okay. A bound man knelt next to her. He lifted his head and met her eyes.
Ann’s world broke and crumbled into pieces. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, it was all she could do to remain standing.
Her dad struggled against ropes tying his hands. Ann ran to him and began to loosen them. The ground tilted. Ann threw her hands out to the side for balance. The sound of stone grating on stone filled the air. The plaster walls shifted, warped, and transformed into brown, sandy rock.
A pool of water stood to her left. A man with a wild mane of hair gazed into it. Teresa approached him. He turned.
His face was a grotesque combination of man and beast. He took a step toward Teresa. No, not a step. He had no feet. To Ann’s horror, from the waist down he was a serpent.
Yaldabaoth.
Chills broke out on her arms and sent an involuntary shudder through her body.
He took something from Teresa’s hand—a large syringe by the look of it—and kissed her.
“Fr–freeze,” Ann said again. The tremor in her hands coursed up to her elbows.
Yaldabaoth jammed the needle into his arm and injected it. Ann could only surmise it was the seventh soul.
The cave shook. Stones crumbled from the ceiling. The pool rippled and churned.
Ann ran to Teresa, who stood transfixed, staring at Yaldabaoth as the power of the seventh soul coursed through him. She pulled Teresa away.
“He needs to be harnessed,” Ann shouted over the churn of water and rumble of earth. “Didn’t you read the book?”
Teresa’s eyes were wide. The woman didn’t have a fucking clue. Ann ran to her father and worked on his ropes.
“What do I do?” she cried.
Yaldabaoth’s booming voice said, “Sons and daughters, rise.”
Ann looked over her shoulder. Yaldabaoth held his hand over the pool. The water boiled, thick now, like hot tar.
“Get Maggie out of here.” Bram rubbed his wrists and stared over her shoulder at Yaldabaoth.
“How? There’s no way out,” Ann said. “We need to harness him. We don’t have a vessel!”
She looked again. Seven figures rose from the pool. The seven bloods, the seven souls. All but one Ann knew. The seventh must have been a manifestation of Marcie’s unborn child.
Bram turned to Maggie and untied her ropes. They left her wrists raw and bloody. He placed a hand on Ann’s shoulder. “We have Teresa,” Bram whispered. “You can be with Derrick again, like I wanted.”
Ann flung a thumb over her shoulder toward the seven. “Derrick’s dead.” She searched her father’s eyes. “We can’t use Teresa—she’s crazy. Having that woman carrying this evil around in her—no. It can’t be her.”
Bram pulled Ann into an embrace. “It has to be me then,” he whispered.
“No, dad. You can’t. Not after all this time. Please. It’s supposed to be me. I’m the one. I’m the Protector.”
“You keep Maggie safe. That is your duty.” His voice held a commanding tone.
The ground bucked underneath them. More rocks fell from the ceiling. Ann lurched forward to protect Maggie from the debris.
Yaldabaoth’s laughter rose above all other noise. “Poor simple mortals.” He lifted his hands. “I bind thee.”
Fleshy red ropes flew toward them. Bram slammed backward as the ropes made of umbilical cord, or something like it, bound him to the cave wall. Ann held on tight to Maggie and glanced toward a dark passage to the left of the pool.
No, she couldn’t abandon her father. She could save them both. She stood and put herself between Maggie and the monster.
“You can’t have her,” she said.
Yaldabaoth laughed. “I don’t want her,” he said, slithering closer to them. “I want to kill her.”
Another set of umbilici flew from his hands.
They pinned Ann, like her dad, against the wall. She struggled against them, repulsed by their living warmth.
Teresa stepped in front of Yaldabaoth, stopping him in his tracks.
“Where are they?” she asked. “Where is my Tiffany? Where is my husband?”
Yaldabaoth lifted Teresa by the arms. Her shoulders shot up to her ears, and she let out a surprised gasp. He pulled her close.
“There is no Tiffany.” He leaned back as if to enjoy whatever look might be on her face.
“I saw her. I held her. She came to me.” Teresa’s voice climbed higher and higher with each phrase.
“There never was a Tiffany. It was always. Just. Me.” He licked the side of her face with his forked tongue.
A high-pitched keen issued from Teresa’s throat. She pounded his chest with her fists.
Yaldabaoth scoffed and tossed her to the side. She hit the wall and landed in a limp heap. He continued to slither toward Maggie, taking his sweet time. Drawing out the inevitable.
Maggie backed up against the wall between Ann and Bram.
“Don’t touch her!” Ann cried. She struggled again. Maggie looked up at her. Her eyes glowed. She stepped away from the wall and from whatever protection being near Ann and Bram might give her.
Chapter 64
Yaldabaoth seized Maggie by the hair. Maggie cried out. The mark on Ann’s chest flared. Yaldabaoth dragged Maggie toward the pool. At the edge, he released her and slithered back and forth. The seven figures clawed at the air toward him, releasing muted, anguished screams.
Maggie got to her feet and looked at Ann. Transposed over the child’s body was a strong, powerful woman. Wind whipped her hair about her head. Her eyes glowed. The image shrank down until she was the size of Maggie. Ann’s mark stopped hurting. Maggie held her head high, shoulders back. Maggie wasn’t only Maggie now. She was Sophia.
She looked directly at Ann with glowing eyes.
I summon thee, Angel.
Ann heard her voice in her mind. Sophia’s voice, the voice from the clearing days ago.
“I don’t know what to do.” Ann twisted in the flesh ropes. “He’s going to kill her.”
“Listen to me, Ann,” her dad said. She locked onto his eyes. “You know what to do.”
She tore her eyes from him and looked at Maggie, who stood with her chin raised, defiant.
“Believe, Ann. Believe in yourself. The power is within you.”
Ann squeezed her eyes shut, but they wouldn’t stay closed. Not with Maggie in danger. She struggled against the living ropes. Desperation replaced the frustration.
Yaldabaoth’s laugh echoed around the cave. His voice slithered through her ears.
“Afraid, are we?” Yaldabaoth chuckled again. “I guess you’ll just. Be. Too. Late.” His face morphed into The Stabber’s devilish visage.
Ann closed her eyes again, but Yaldabaoth’s horrible laugh filled her head.
Your fear weakens you, he said in her mind.
Ann opened her eyes. Yaldabaoth’s snake tail coiled around Maggie’s throat. He lifted her. Her little feet kicked. The seven figures left the pool and lurched, lumbered, and crawled toward Ann and her dad.
Angel...
Sophia’s voice held a note of desperation. Maggie’s eyes shifted to Ann, her eyebrows angled with worry. Ann couldn’t fail. Not again. She closed her eyes.
“Sophia called forth the angel to bind Yaldabaoth,” Maggie’s half-choked v
oice, rich with Sophia, said.
Who and where was the angel?
I am the Protector. I am the angel.
Stillness came over her—her mind hyper-focused. The cave’s rumbling, Yaldabaoth’s progeny, his cruel voice—all fell silent.
A tingling sensation began in her chest, softer than the pain associated with Maggie’s distress. Suddenly, Ann stood outside herself and watched her own transformation. Blue light followed the trail of through her veins. It coursed up her feet, her legs, spread up her torso, and down each arm. It pulsed with each beat of her heart. When the light reached her center, it burst out of her. Pain erupted in Ann’s shoulder blades, and great wings of blue light unfurled from her back, towering above her figure against the wall. The angel of light stood before her, and when Ann met the angel’s eyes she wanted to weep. Ann stepped forward. The angel held up her hands. Ann did the same, and they pressed their palms together. Searing blue light flashed as their two bodies merged. Ann opened her eyes with a gasp that tensed her entire body. She and the angel were one.
The sounds of the cave rushed back with near-deafening force. The umbilical ropes shriveled into the crispy substance wherever they touched her glowing skin.
Blue light laced the edges of her vision. Her shoulder blades still ached.
Ann broke free of her bindings. She ripped the living ropes binding her dad.
“You did it,” Bram whispered.
“Distract them. I’ll get Maggie,” Ann said. She drew her weapon and dashed away before Bram could stop her.
Ann pointed the gun at Yaldabaoth. “Let her go.”
Yaldabaoth lifted his hand and swiped it to the side without even looking at her. Propelled by an unseen force, Ann flew and hit the ground a few feet away from the dazed Teresa. Stars flashed in her eyes. Her vision blurred. She shook her head and tried to focus.
The seven souls circled her dad, who gripped his ribs and fought to stay upright. Maggie screamed.
Yaldabaoth’s tail coiled tighter, cutting off her cry. Her face turned red, and she gasped for air. He held his hands over her chest. Blue light pulsed out toward him. Ann cried out with pain from the mark as black veins crackled across Maggie’s skin. Ann got to her feet, stumbled toward Yaldabaoth and raised her weapon again. Ethereal light from her hands encompassed the gun in its glow.
“I said, let her go,” Ann said.
Yaldabaoth’s hands coiled the air in front of Maggie, pulling her light from her heart. Tendrils of it wrapped around his fingers.
“You’re too late. You can’t save her.” His face changed to the Stabber’s again. “Look how your hand shakes.” He said that to her that night in the old house outside of Salida.
Ann pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand. The bullet sailed toward Yaldabaoth with a trail of red fire, like a tracer round. It struck him in the heart. He lurched backward with the impact. The light sucked back inside Maggie, but she was so still.
When Yaldabaoth raised his head, his beast-face had returned.
“Mortal weapons cannot harm—” He made a choked noise in his throat and cried out in surprised agony.
“It’s not a mortal weapon.” Ann advanced. The angel fire from the bullet spread through his veins. Ann raised the gun again and blasted his tail below Maggie’s feet, severing it in a gruesome splatter. Maggie tumbled to the ground.
“That’s for Ruthie,” Ann said. She shot him in the stomach. “That’s for Sheriff McMichael.” She shot him again and again, naming each of his victims. “And this,” she said meeting his yellow, fear-filled eyes, “this is for Sophia.” She shot him between the eyes.
Yaldabaoth’s head rocked back, but he didn’t fall. His gaze shifted over Ann’s shoulder, and his eyes widened.
Ann turned around, took in the sight of the seven. The one representing Sheriff McMichael released his grip on Bram’s neck. All of them turned and faced Yaldabaoth.
“No,” Yaldabaoth whispered. He held up his hands. “I command you—”
Ann dove out of the way as the souls charged toward him and tackled him into the pool with a gooey splash. They all sank below the surface.
The cave was calm for a second, then Yaldabaoth burst from the depths with his arms raised like in Maggie’s pictures. Two of the seven dangled from each arm. He let out a roar as his limbs were ripped from their sockets with the sound of rending leather. The rest of the souls rose from the water and tore his flesh, stripped his skin, and broke his bones until there was nothing left.
After Yaldabaoth’s cries stopped, the seven turned and faced Ann. She held up the gun, but they stayed still. The mud recoiled from their bodies, leaving behind translucent representations of each victim.
Ann dropped the gun as if it had burned her palm, and looked from face to face. She let out a sob when Derrick smiled at her. He waved a silent goodbye. They slipped beneath the surface. The mud cleared. The water stilled.
Ann crawled over to Maggie’s too-still form and rolled the child onto her back. No pulse. No breath.
“Please, no,” she cried. She started chest compressions. Nothing worked. Then, the mark pulsed. Ann looked at her hands. Her palms glowed. She held them over Maggie’s heart and willed the remaining angel light into the Child of Humanity.
The light left Ann’s palms and surged into the mark over Maggie’s heart. The mark lit briefly, then dissolved away, leaving behind only the faintest discoloration.
Maggie gasped. Her eyes still glowed but quickly dimmed and returned to normal.
Ann pulled her into a hug. “Are you okay?” She pulled back. Maggie nodded and pointed over Ann’s shoulder. Ann turned.
Bram lay where the seven had left him. His chest shuddered with shallow breaths. Ann ran to his side, Maggie followed and lay a hand on his cheek. He held her tiny hand in his, but his eyes found Ann.
“Annie,” he gasped. “I held them off for you, but they were strong.” A tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “They tossed me around like a goddamn rag doll until you started shooting.” He panted for a second. “I think they remembered who they were—who the real bad guy was.” His lips smiled, then contorted in pain.
Ann looked around. “How do we get out of here?”
Movement caught Ann’s eye. Teresa sat up.
“We just walk out the front door.” She pointed to the cave wall. “Through the woods to the road. Don’t mind the lost souls.” She tipped over and closed her eyes.
There was no door.
“Tartaros won’t let us leave unless we replace Yaldabaoth,” Bram said. “Soul exchange.” Ann nodded over to Teresa’s form. “Not her. She’s still alive.” He took a ragged breath. “It’s gonna be me after all, my girl. I can feel it coming.”
“It can’t be. I have so many questions. I thought you were dead. Why didn’t you tell me about all this? Where have you been?”
He shushed her. “I was supposed to board a plane to Egypt, to finish taking out the Messengers there. Louise got me first. One hundred CCs of sedative to the neck. I’ve been in her basement for I don’t even know how long. She used sensory deprivation, beat me, starved me.” He held up his bandaged hand and let out a pained laugh. “She cut off my fingers.”
Grief and sadness and happiness mingled together. Ann couldn’t tell if she should laugh or cry or both.
“Mr. Bram?” Maggie said.
“Yes, little love?”
“I don’t want you to stay here.”
“I’ll be fine, sweets.” His eyes found Ann’s again. “I’m so proud of you.”
Maggie lay her head on his chest, and Ann followed her lead. His arm wrapped around her. She listened to her father’s heartbeat. She listened to his breaths gurgling in his punctured lung.
The time between the sounds lengthened, then stopped. The touch of his hand disappeared.
The air around them transformed. The sounds shifted from the echoing expanse of the cave to the muted sounds of the abandoned house. Sirens blared in the distance.
/> Something cold and wet snuffled against Ann’s ear, followed by a warm tongue and a sad whimper. She sat up and fell against Pinky. Maggie joined them, sobbing against the dog’s tawny fur.
Bram’s body was gone.
Chapter 65
Three months after The Night
Ann and Maggie knelt at Bram’s grave. Maggie placed a bunch of flowers at the foot of the headstone. They went to each victim in turn, leaving Derrick for last. It had become a monthly ritual.
With Teresa tucked away at Mountain View and Derrick gone, the state found some additional paperwork that named Ann as Maggie’s legal guardian in the event of Derrick and Teresa’s untimely death, or—in Teresa’s case—parental unfitness. The papers were signed by Gail Park.
Maggie still carried Sophia within her. Every once in a while, she said something wise, older than her age.
When commercials begging for funds to help wounded warriors or starving children or anything of the like came on TV, Ann had to change the channel. If she didn’t, it would send Maggie into a fit. She would swear Yaldabaoth was still out there doing things to cause these people suffering. She would be inconsolable.
Ann learned to give her time in these situations. And to monitor the television a little closer.
Maggie knelt at Derrick’s grave when Ann’s radio crackled.
“Sheriff Logan,” a young man’s voice said. He was her new deputy, a kid who reminded her of George in every way except his knack for law enforcement.
Ann stepped a few paces away from Maggie to give her the peace she needed.
“Go ahead, Deputy.”
“The last of Louise’s cats have been rehomed.”
“That’s great.”
“Oh, and Rachel is complaining about the dog’s gassiness.”
“Did Pinky get in the trash again?”
“No . . . well . . . no. But I might have shared my sandwich with her.”
Ann rolled her eyes. Being sheriff of her tiny town was what her father always wanted, and it was what she needed in her life right now.
“You know I have to live with that gas later tonight,” Ann said. “Can you please follow the rules?”
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