Ronen
Chapter
Twenty
After Sam healed and stitched me up, I sat on the healer’s bed and dropped the block on the hellion’s emotions, tuning in.
A soft, painless, sleepy hum wrapped around her consciousness.
It gave me enough peace of mind not to check on her.
As much as I wanted to, I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea.
Not when every inch of me vibrated with pent-up wrath.
I wanted to punish her for being so careless with her life. A-fucking-gain.
When would she learn?
My shadows wrapped around my palms, squeezing with my ire. Rune sat up from the hardwood floors, bumping my hand with her chilly, wet nose.
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
She chuffed in disbelief. Then a muffled cry cut through the walls, tearing my thoughts from Lucille. That sounded like Alexei.
I quickly redressed in my dirty uniform and left the room with Rune. We found MJ standing outside a door with a glowing yellow handle—Sam had locked it.
Alexei cried out again, the loud, pained sound coming from the other side of the wood.
“He didn’t look good, Ro,” MJ said. The worry in her tone, the way she stared at the door like she was losing her best friend, and Alexei’s next cry were too much.
I moved down the hall without a word. Rune started to follow me. “Stay with Lucille and Alexei. I need eyes here.”
She stopped, and I continued.
“Ronen!” MJ called. “Where are you going?”
“To find Cecilee. I can’t stay here and listen to that. I’ll check on him tonight.”
The one thing I despised more than feeling helpless was sitting around and waiting.
MJ strode up beside me. “I’m coming with.”
“I expected nothing else.”
Melting snow dripped off the evergreens, and the road we followed puddled with water and mud.
We didn’t see a single person once we left the castle, and based on the whispers we heard on the way out, I wasn’t surprised.
Half the staff and our military thought the Redemption Circle was ending.
When we entered the city, I wondered the same thing.
The upper city of Hoar Hollow usually pulsed with life—angels, whether blood-banded or souls, flying overhead.
Hellcats blipping their owners’ sleighs into existence.
People walking the streets, laughing, cursing, and yelling.
I remembered ordering Alexei to take the hellion to the upper city, to see the beauty of it all.
To show her the part of Hell that managed to take my breath away, with its icy, vine-covered walls, sparkling snow, quaint cobbled streets, and the blood-banded and souls living somewhat normal lives.
Now, I didn’t recognize it. Where there used to be snow lay mud. Where there used to be frosted walls was brick. No one strolled through the streets. What sleighs remained looked abandoned. And a warm, whistling wind rustled the papers posted to lampposts lining the empty streets.
“Where are all the people?” MJ asked.
I walked up to a lamppost, ripped down the fluttering paper, and read the blocky black words. “I imagine hiding.” I held out the flyer for her to see.
Warning!
Deadly demon infection spreading.
One bite and prepare to melt into liquefied flesh.
Watch out… the infection could be in anyone.
Your only chance at survival… offer up the souls you harbor.
“Someone sure twisted your words.”
“More than twisted. Someone is pitting our blood-banded against Hell’s souls.” I pointed at the third sentence. “And look at the vocabulary they used. They didn’t get that from my missive this morning.”
“It’s the words you use with our military. But why would one of them make this?”
“Better question—who would benefit the most from creating dissent in our kingdom?”
“Whoever’s leading the infected Damned.”
“Now ask yourself why,” I continued, already knowing the answer.
MJ gazed at the empty, lifeless streets. “A divided kingdom is easier to take over and destroy.”
“Exactly. And it would seem someone in our military has turned sides.”
Her attention shifted to the flyer again. “But they’re not just creating division. They want souls. They’re trying to build an army.”
Her words struck a chord, pulling forth the memory of the Immolation Circle. Dread wrapped around my throat and squeezed.
“They’ve already started.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We didn’t see or hear a single burning soul or Hellhound in the Immolation Circle. It’s supposed to contain tens of thousands. And the majority of the infected attacking have—”
“Molting, charred skin,” MJ finished.
I nodded and peered around the lifeless streets. “If we don’t figure out where they’re entering our circle, we could be fighting a war we’re not equipped for.”
“If they have those kinds of numbers, why aren’t we already?”
The warm breeze brushed the collar of my uniform as the hair on my nape rose.
“Maybe there are issues with how they’re getting in or…
” I remembered the glazed eyes of the infected Damned we fought at Saraqael’s funeral.
“Maybe there are limits to controlling souls that are practically insane, and they need souls who aren’t. ”
“Like the soul of a Dread?” MJ glanced up from the paper, an unspoken meaning behind her words.
“At this point, I hope she deserted,” I said grimly, continuing down the street.
Minutes later, we arrived at Cecilee’s secluded home. Brown vines clung to the red brick, spotted with black as if molding. Her snowy roof dripped onto the evergreen bushes bordering the front steps. The once-frosted green leaves were in a similar state of decay.
Hell’s foliage was no longer preserved in the Redemption Circle’s permanent frost. The knowledge tightened my shoulders.
“Why is this happening, Ronen?” MJ breathed, surveying the property with a similarly distressed look.
“I don’t know.”
We followed the muddy boot prints to the front door, most likely left over from Xavier’s visit.
“Ronen.” MJ pointed at the door handle.
Dark red blood wrapped around the tarnished brass.
Seven Hells.
“Step back.”
I wouldn’t let either of us touch it.
She moved down a step, and fire flashed in my peripherals.
I kicked in the door, the wood splintering and crashing open with a bang. Immediately, a sweet, sickening scent of rot and feces hit my nose.
Death.
My shadows pooled from my hands, and my visions switched to infrared.
The rooms lit up with heat signatures wherever the shadows entered.
Most appeared in shades of purple and blue, furniture and objects devoid of heat or life.
But my shadows found one room containing two forms pulsing with white-hot signatures touched with red.
One lay on a bed, while the other sat beside it.
Based on their signatures, they seemed alive, but why white?
Archangels and Seraphim had white heat signatures when they used their Glory. But Cecilee was a soul. Her signature should register as purple, like most of the dead. And her daughter was a Nephilim, like she had once been, with at most an orange signature.
“What do you see?” MJ whispered, covering her nose.
“I’m not sure. Possibly two living.”
I motioned for her to follow me. We crept into the kitchen, where a half-eaten sandwich sat on the table, then toward the bedroom. The deathly smell shoved more forcefully into my nostrils when we reached the door. It became so potent I forced myself to breathe through my mouth.
“You’re sure they’re living?” MJ pressed.
I flipped back to my normal vision, reining in my shadows. The girly door covered in pink butterflies filled me with a chilling dread. “I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
Blood smeared the handle. The latch sat halfway over the opening, as if someone had been too rushed to shut it fully.
“Ready?” I already knew in my gut that whatever we found wouldn’t be good.
She nodded, and I nudged the door open.
Fuck.
It was the nanny and the kid. Both their body cavities had caved inward. Liquids glistened and hissed grotesquely in their stomachs as the infection ate them from the inside out. The heat wasn’t a sign of life, but melting flesh.
“Look at the kid’s neck.” MJ pointed toward the once purple bed.
Like the nanny’s, it had a chunk ripped out. Unlike the nanny’s, there were red handprints on the kid’s skin, as if someone had tried to hold pressure against the wound. Someone had even placed a stuffed butterfly in the crook of the child’s arm.
“Did Cecilee do this to them?” she asked, sounding unable to believe it.
The front door had been easy to kick in, meaning it wasn’t locked. There were no signs of a struggle. And the dainty handprint on the kid’s neck was damning.
“If I had to guess.”
“What are we going to do?”
I cracked my knuckles. “You’re going to burn their remains. Then you’re going to check on Alexei while I find Ridigar.”
But this time, I planned to rip through his memories. I should’ve done it the first time, but I tended to trust my hand-selected Dreads until they gave me reason not to.
I searched the arena, finding no sign of Ridigar. He should’ve been there, surveying and directing the other squads. But when I asked Ian where he was, he said Ridigar left that morning and never returned. How fucking convenient.
Just like the fact that he was a soul, and for whatever reason, my shadows couldn’t track the dead through their blood the way I could the living.
After checking the barracks and castle grounds and receiving the same story from other trustworthy sources, my suspicion hardened.
Ridigar had something to do with Cecilee’s disappearance. He might’ve even been the one making the flyers. But why would he turn on us?