37 #2
I know it’s Slade even before his face is revealed.
It doesn’t stop the jolt of horror that lashes through me though.
He’s alarmingly pale. There’s a grayish tinge to his skin, and he looks even worse than he did last night before I gave him my confession.
It’s clear the cultists flanking him hold most of his weight, and he’s uncharacteristically silent.
I wonder if he was drugged with the same substance as the boy.
Still, fury emanates from him like a chill settling over the room, and his snarl is proof that he’s at least somewhat coherent.
Gabriel has him. Gabriel has Slade and apparently has no intention of killing his brother just yet. I suppose he lied to me about that too. What’s strange, though, is that he didn’t lie about how to cure the Bloodrot.
Why?
Then another realization: If Slade is here, where’s Emeric? I think of Ceri guarding the door to the Sanctum, growing more and more distressed as the minutes pass.
I can hear the smile in Gabriel’s voice. “Some of you will remember my dear brother. He was supposed to have died, but it appears hell spat him back out again. Would you believe he all but walked right into my hands tonight? And I’ve found him to be quite accommodating indeed.”
Slade’s labored inhale has my attention snapping back to him.
My way forward should be clear: set the Sanctum alight now, with Slade and Gabriel none the wiser to my presence here.
The circumstances may have changed, but my plan doesn’t have to.
Slade’s death should be enough to balance out the extra lives I’ll take.
My fingers close over the matches in my pocket. The faint scent of kerosene lingers in my nose. I know what to do. I know where to go. Now that everything has fallen apart, this is the only reasonable course of action.
Do it, I scream at myself internally. You want to live.
It’s true. I know it’s true, and yet I can’t seem to move.
I think of Slade’s voice when he told Ceri and Emeric he would deal with me.
I think of his flesh against mine, of his blood on my tongue, of his promise that he wouldn’t let me die tonight.
I remember the story he told me about his mother, about how she tried to burn him alive in his bed, and I know I can’t condemn him to go like that. Especially not like that.
Fuck.
Fuck this, and him, and everything that led to this point. Fuck my relentless human heart. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I began to genuinely care about Slade. And no matter how conflicted I am about him, no matter how much I resent what he’s done, I can’t kill him.
I could have stopped all of this. I could have, and I’m not going to, all because I can’t bring myself to end his life.
Not even to save my own.
I don’t know what to do now. I’m deliberating, panic-stricken, as Slade is forced onto the altar.
His jaw is tight, his hands fisted at his sides.
He lies in the blood of the boy who occupied the stone surface before him, and there’s something perverted about the way it spreads around his body.
I don’t understand what’s happening. If Gabriel isn’t planning to kill Slade, why position him like that?
“We all know that academic advances can be dangerous,” Gabriel says, commencing a slow walk around the altar.
“But when pursued correctly, it is possible for science to serve the Savior’s will.
Our scholars have managed to create a drug that, when administered to a diabolist, replicates the effects of starvation.
It nullifies all that demonic energy and leaves a diabolist essentially human—albeit even weaker.
” He gives a light chuckle as he indicates Slade.
“Because without sin to sustain them, that’s what they are: weak.
“Since killing one of their kind counteracts the effects of the Bloodrot, I thought it might be prudent to try and isolate that quality. If we can figure out how diabolists are immune to the Bloodrot, and why killing them acts as a cure, then soon we might be able to wield it at will. After all, nothing reignites someone’s faith in their Prophet like a miracle. ”
I release a slow breath, attempting to quell my rage. What utter nonsense. Gabriel isn’t trying to inspire faith. None of the Regiment are. What they want is to make people reliant on them. To use a cure to negotiate compliance and stoke the flames of religious fervor.
“Now,” Gabriel says pleasantly, ceasing his slow circles of the altar. “Let me give you a little demonstration.”
I furrow my brow, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. His words don’t make any sense to me. At least, not until he withdraws that knife again.
I see something in Gabriel’s face then. Something hideous and wholly unfamiliar.
It looks so natural etched across his features, I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve been present to watch the mask come off.
Because that’s what it is—the dropping of a mask.
The sanctimonious, restrained prophet I’ve come to know is gone.
The man with a distaste for witnessing violence becomes a man keen to wield it.
This is Gabriel as he truly is. A false imitation of the Savior clutching his sword, one foot upon the devil’s shoulder as he prepares to cast him into hell.
Don’t look away, girl.
For the first time, though, I do.
I shut my eyes as Gabriel drives his knife into his brother’s chest, gritting my teeth against the sound of Slade’s yell.
I hear, rather than see, the blade come down again.
Then again. The first strike must have caught him unprepared, because Slade doesn’t cry out a second time.
I can only tell he’s been struck by the way his breath escapes in a huff.
I know he’s going to heal, and I repeat it like a mantra to myself. I know that. I saw it with my own eyes, coaxed his blood to the surface with my own hand. But I also know he still suffers, and the knowledge that he’s suffering now is enough to drive me to the very edge of insanity.
“You see?” Gabriel says as he straightens, slightly winded. “He’s too weak to retaliate. With the creation of this drug, we no longer need to fear the diabolist.”
He raises the knife a third time, and all at once I can no longer bear it. Something about Slade Markovich compromises my ability to think straight. That much has been obvious from the night I first met him. There’s nothing logical about either of us.
And there’s definitely, definitely nothing logical about the way I step out from behind the archway and put a bullet in Gabriel’s head.