Chapter 27
COMET
Bronte
“Interesting tale,” I say, lighting the last rusted sconce inside the mausoleum as Poppy perches on St. Aurelius’s massive sarcophagus.
Jezebel remains by the door, already snoring.
“I’m confused, though, as to why the coordinates were meant to lead Nikolai here if there’s nothing waiting but bones. Where is Leviathan’s welcome wagon?”
Poppy puffs on her vape and flicks her knife back and forth in thought, the silence filled by the sleet slamming outside. “Delay in arrival due to inclement weather?”
I chuckle, stubbing my cigar on a shelved Aurelius skull crowned with rotted flowers. “I suppose we waited too long to scope this place out. The invitation most likely came with an unspoken expiration date.”
“Mhm. Speaking of the invitation that was in my possession and not yours, how did you know where this place is?”
“Nikolai mentioned an old cemetery outside the city. It didn't take many brain cells to find it on a map.”
Her baby blues taper on me like she thinks I’m full of shit.
As she should. I’m lying through my fucking teeth.
In all honesty, I already told her what brought me here: her.
When we were at Morgenstern Manor, I planted a tracker on her.
I’d been so enraptured by her undiluted desire to kiss me, I nearly forgot to drop the tiny device in her jacket pocket.
Since then, I’ve been obsessively monitoring her location.
When I saw she was here, I left work early and blew through every red light to shave the hour-long ride in half.
Haunted the whole time by the entwined memories of her being choked to death and getting her skull slammed into a wall.
But she doesn’t need to know any of that.
Shrugging off her suspicion, I step closer and steal her vape to break her concentration.
A decadent crimson flushes her cheeks as she watches me drag deep and breathe lavender smoke in her face.
Satisfied to have dodged her interrogation, I pass the vape back and lean against a casket across from her.
“So, what now?”
“I don’t know.” Poppy plucks a skull from the shelf beside her and drags her knife through the layers of dirt crusted on the bone. “The way I see it, we’re at another dead end.”
I nod, having no words of comfort to offer. She knows she’s on the wrong side of a losing battle. Nothing will change that except the death of her invisible foe.
“What are those symbols?” She taps her own knuckles, where ink is mirrored on mine. “Are they runes? Nordic?”
“…You’re asking me about my tattoos?”
“I’m sorry, is that not allowed? Are we limited to talking only about my life deteriorating into an absolute shitshow? Or can we take a mental break for one fucking moment while we’re cramped in with the dead and talk about something mundane?”
I smear a palm over my smile, amused by her fire that never banks. “Put the teeth away, Petit Diable. They’re Gothic, not Nordic.”
“Do they mean something? A prayer for heavenly protection? A secret phrase to a holy ritual?”
“Why the hell would they be either of those things?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She drops to her feet and hooks a finger beneath the sleeve of my jacket, tugging it up to reveal the weeping angel surrounded by laughing demons. “You’re covered in biblical beings. No one does that to themselves without a reason.”
“People get full bodysuits with no meaning all the time.”
She drums her knife on the skull with an expectant pout.
I sigh through my nose. “The right spells wrath. The left, pride.”
“Two of the seven deadly sins. Sounds like there’s a story behind them.”
“Oui: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“I see.” Poppy sets the skull aside and lifts a hand between us, skimming her palm over my chest. I don’t make a move to stop her, letting her touch me as my heart thunders in my throat. Her hand halts just atop that raging beast, her skin as warm as hot coals. “What about the angels and demons?”
“An ode to my mother’s passion for the ethereal and the everlasting juxtaposition between heaven and hell. Two sides of the same coin.”
“Good and evil?”
“Paradise and punishment.”
Poppy nods, tracing the designs with a fingernail.
She could so easily fist my shirt and yank me down to her.
I could frame her face with my hands and kiss her like I’ve wanted for too damn long.
Apologize for saying what I have to the contrary, show her how much I regret knifing her with my words over and over again.
I wouldn’t push her away this time. Not after these months of stumbling through the dark and finding my way only when she’s near.
As I watch her peruse my ink with innocent curiosity, I slowly realize that I’d risk it.
I’d risk becoming the person I used to be.
She’s worth every last drop of that danger.
A tightening knot of want writhes in my core, urging me to take the plunge.
“When did you get them?” Poppy glances up at me from beneath long lashes. “Before or after Salem?”
Suspicion curls its claws into my skull. I know she craves the pieces of my past that I have yet to give. But there’s a reason I haven’t indulged; Dante wasn’t lying when he said Margot was frightened by our history in this world’s underbelly.
“I applaud your attempt at seduction, but you’re sorely mistaken if you think I’m dumb enough to fall for it.”
She scoffs, confirming my hunch. “You haven’t once attempted to hide your familiarity with Leviathan. Now would be a good time to share with the class.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option anymore.” Her knife is at my throat faster than I can blink. “I have no other leads but the mysterious coroner who keeps dodging my questions about his sketchy past with the cult destroying my life. Either you spill the tea, or I spill your blood. Your choice.”
“Go on, then.” My chin tips up in invitation. “Draw the line.”
As expected, Poppy doesn’t take the bait. “If I recall correctly, you have a brother and half-sister who will surely let me in on your little secret if I ask as nicely as I’m asking you.”
Rage floods my nervous system. “They’d kill you before you’d even lay your eyes on them.”
“Is that what the three of you were? Killers? Which Master did you work for?”
My canines grind. “We didn’t work for anyone.”
“No? Murderers-for-hire, then?”
“Poppy, st—”
“Tell me, Bronte!” Tears wet her lashes, the whites bloodshot as she seethes, “Or so help me, I will tie your twin up and cut every fucking tattoo from his skin while you watch.”
I don’t see red. I see black.
I hear the screams of the dying. I taste iron in the air. I feel blood sticking to my flesh. I see the fear and agony in my siblings’ eyes as they—
“We were slaves!” I bat away the memories, sucking in a ragged breath when Poppy stumbles backward into the opposing wall. “Je suis désolé, Petit Diable. Forgive me, I-I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She waves off my concern, patting the dirt from her shoulders. “What do you mean you were slaves?”
I drag a hand through my hair, willing my lungs to slow. “Do you remember how my story in Texas ended?”
“With your father’s brains blown to bits. You and your siblings left his corpse in the dust where it belonged.”
“Oui. Weeks later, we were hitchhiking through Sleepy Hollow and trusted people we shouldn’t have. We were drugged and woke up in holding cells built underground. The guards bore the Leviathan brand and wore those demon masks. We were…”
Poppy looks at me expectantly, her foot tapping with inflating impatience.
Just rip it off like a Band-Aid, you fool. “We…”
My vision swims. I close my eyes, clearing my throat as my chin falls to my chest. I don’t know which is shaking more: my fists or my heart.
Coffee and cotton candy perfumes the air a moment before I feel Poppy’s arms circle my neck, her cheek pressing to mine. “You’re safe with me, mon ange. I’m not going anywhere, I swear it.”
“We were executioners,” I confess in a whisper.
“We were trained in surgical operation and torture by a psychotic doctor. I was known as Scythe. I skinned people alive. Dante, Reaper. He broke bones and tore out hearts. Virgil, Nightshade. She brewed poisons. We killed who we were told to kill. The only reason we made it out is because a shadow organization who was hunting them launched an attack and won. We didn’t know anything about our saviors, and we didn’t stick around to find out.
My siblings and I ran in fear of being captured again, but as far as I know, our slavers were killed and their underground hive was destroyed.
Upon my mother’s grave, I vow this to be the full truth. ”
Sleet crashes in the silence. I brace myself for her inevitable reaction to tuck tail and run.
But she doesn’t.
Instead, Poppy inches back and palms my jaw. “Look at me.”
I obey. Her eyes are glossed, her expression agonized.
“Is this why you turn criminals into books? As a sort of…penance?”
“Oui. As a sort. Though, it’s not a burden. It’s a passion.”
A small smile graces her lips. “We have that in common, you and I.” She rises to the tips of her toes, pressing a firm kiss to my scarred cheek. “Merci.”
I nod, and she breaks her hold on me to give me space.
But I don’t want space from her ever again.
I snatch her by the throat like she’s a comet I’m tearing from the sky. My entire hand covers her slim neck like a collar. She looks at me not with fear, but with a simmering wrath.
I could fall to my knees and fucking weep from the sight of that raging inferno.
“Bronte,” she warns, flashing her teeth. “I’m not playing cat-and-mouse with you anymore. Let go before I make you left-handed.”
Finger by finger, muscle by muscle, I release her throat.
Hurt flashes behind the steel wall she thinks I can’t see behind.
Then I slide my palm over her smooth, soft sternum.
Her flesh is hot, borderline feverish with her fury rushing through her veins.
Her eyes shackle to mine as I slip my hand beneath her jacket to rest it over her heart.
It slams against my touch, fretful as a caged beast desperate to escape its prison.
A beast that looks and feels so much like my own.
“After,” I murmur, gently palming her hips and walking her backward. “I got the tattoos after finding myself in Salem.”
Then I fist her waistband, lift her onto the sarcophagus of a dead legend, and dive straight for her lips.