Chapter 41
Forty-One
Mercy
Isprint from the church, bare feet smacking cold stone, lungs burning. The midnight wind grabs at my coat and whips it around my bare legs. I reach the main building and slow to a jog, lungs heaving.
The grounds are empty. All the windows are dead except maybe a faint gold glow from the nuns’ floor. Not even a ghost, not even a creeper or little Jinx dashing about. Just the wind, the pitter-patter of rain, and my heaving breaths as I bolt for the abbey’s porch steps.
My coat catches on the door when I shoulder through. Instead of setting it free, I shrug out of it, leaving it on the floor. Goosebumps prick my skin, but I ignore them. I ignore everything except the banshee heartbeat in my chest.
God, the things I did in there. The things I want to do again.
Fuck shame.
Fuck being me.
I hit the steps hard—one, two, three at a time, staggering and nearly face-planting at the first landing. But I keep going until I arrive at the third floor.
The corridor is quiet. Each door is closed but mine. Cisco’s old room. It’s propped open because his scent is still in there. Incense, sweat, and something the opposite of priestly. It drove me insane earlier. It’s why I whipped out the old battery-operated friend and went to town.
My steps slow as I arrive at the door, but then I stop and spin to face my old room. Jasmine’s now.
I should talk to her. Maybe get ahead of this thing I’ve done. She’s been quick to anger since she returned from Spain, and for good reason. She doesn’t deserve to be betrayed. I step toward her door.
“She’s sleeping.”
I spin so fast that my hand hits the wall.
Hannah is behind me, hands in hoodie pockets.
“Jesus—fuck!” I press a hand over my heart. “Where did you come from?”
“The archives,” she intones, as if it’s obvious.
She drifts past my shoulder, and by the time I’ve recovered enough from the surprise to turn, she’s standing in front of Jasmine’s door. Still as a mouse. Her eyes narrow on my T-shirt, then drag down my body slowly and snag on something in the vicinity of my knees, where I feel sticky. Shit.
She tilts her head. “Where were you?”
I open my mouth. Close it.
“Figured,” she scoffs. “Two years and you haven’t changed a fucking bit. Still sneaking in after midnight, still thinking no one notices the cum dripping down your legs.” She pauses. “They always notice.”
“Move,” I growl.
“No.”
“Hannah, move.”
“Haven’t you done enough?” Her harsh whisper cuts me like a knife.
“I just got her to sleep ten minutes ago. She cried for an hour. About you. About what it means that the sword picked her, and you can’t stand it, so you shipped her off to the worst place she could visit right now.
” When I don’t answer, she mutters, “God, you can be so clueless sometimes, or maybe you’re just a selfish cunt.
You’re not the only person who gets hurt. ”
“The Vatican.” The realization burns me.
“Jaz just watched a team of their holy best massacre our sisters.” Grief crumples Hannah’s face, but she takes a deep breath and smooths her expression. The glimpse of vulnerability is the first I’ve seen on her since she returned. She grew up in the Spain chapter.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I just wanted to tell her the same thing.”
“No,” she chokes out. “You don’t get to wake Jaz up just to make yourself feel better.”
“It was insensitive of me. I didn’t think—”
“Didn’t think?” Hannah’s hoarse voice echoes. “Just like you didn’t think to tell us about you squirreling away important Sinner artifacts?”
My cheeks burn. “That was on a need-to-know basis.”
“Bullshit. The sword rejected you, and so you didn’t want anyone else getting the attention.” She sneers. “I can’t believe I used to look up to you. Can’t believe Jaz still does.”
“She stole my room!” I blurt out, temper flaring. “My clothes, my shit!”
Hannah’s expression goes passive, in that deadly way we all get. “Did it ever occur to you that she just wanted to be close to you? That she wanted something of yours, some place of yours, because you make her feel safe?” She sucks in a breath and whispers, “She’s just too broken to admit it.”
She steps toward her room but then stops. Her fingers curl into fists, and she grinds out, “If you wake her, at least have the decency to wash the priest off your legs first.”
I squeeze my eyes shut to stop the tears.
When I open them, Hannah is gone. All the emotion I’ve held back rushes out, and I clutch the wall to avoid collapsing.
The movement tugs at the stain on my legs.
Itches. Begs for attention. I bend down and vigorously rub it off, but the rosemary balm Cisco used is still greasy, and now I’ve smeared it everywhere. It smells like him.
Heart in my throat, I rush to the bathroom and pull out the first aid kit.
I grab a towel, wet it, wash myself, and then bandage my wounds.
Each wrap around my thigh erases Cisco’s kindness, his compassion, his words …
and it feels wrong. Like I’m erasing him too.
Like my feelings don’t have a say. Like they never did.
By the time both legs are done, I grip the porcelain sink and stare at the drain. But my mind is racing. It’s not as though Cisco and I planned to feel this way about each other. It’s not like we didn’t try everything we could think of to avoid it.
The sound of voices filters through the wall.
The orphans are next door. God, I hope they didn’t hear Hannah.
I clench the sink harder until it creaks, but then I hear giggles and relax.
A pause extends. And then someone starts singing Tomorrow from Annie.
It’s nowhere near the right words, but the tune is distinctive. I grab my T-shirt, right over my heart.
Defiance surges through me.
No.
Fuck that.
I’m not selfish. I’m the furthest thing from it.
But for once, with Cisco, I want to be selfish. I don’t want to give him up. With the dawn of every realization, determination solidifies within me. I’m done. So, fucking done running triage on the entire world while mine turns to rot.
I want what I want, and I want Cisco’s eyes on me, not her.
Something like laughter bubbles up in my throat, giddy and mean.
I burst out of the bathroom and run up the stairs to the archives. When I get there, I march right in. The open-plan room is dark except for a thin slice of moonlight falling over the tables and stacks.
It’s quiet and smells like something I’m convinced is just paper and ink. But also, it feels cozy. It calms me down a little. Makes this feel right.
The canvas-wrapped bundle is on the war table where we left it. Forgotten. Joan’s diary is cracked open beside it.
Last time, it didn’t work. Last time, I touched the hilt and received nothing but a chill and more goddamn doubt. But it called to me once, I’m sure of it.
I rip the canvas back without ceremony. The blade is still missing a hilt, ugly as hell, and notched with the scars of a hundred lost battles. My fingers close around the cool handle, and for one breathless heartbeat, nothing happens.
Then, the heat sears up my arm. The sword smolders and pops, shooting electricity into me. I gasp, almost drop the thing, but grip harder instead. I feel it in my teeth, my toes, my clit. Goddamn it’s everywhere and furious.
It wants me to let go. Wants me to be scared.
Fuck that.
Gritting my teeth, I brace it with two hands.
My vision tunnels, zeroing in on the blade.
I should have turned the damn light on, but I’m sure that’s smoke coiling from the tip, thin wisps at first, then more.
The metal goes from cold to burning in an instant.
It’s so hot that it lights up the edges of the blade in a dull, hellish glow.
A feral grin stretches my cheeks.
“Yeah, bitch.”
I’m not a backup Sinner, a stand-in. I am not Jasmine. I don’t need to grow the fuck up. This is what I was born for.
Just as quickly as it began, the heat stutters. Smoke gutters out. My palm tingles, nerves spasming, but the fire doesn’t catch. No holy inferno, no angelic voice, no world-ending sword of justice about to cut through all the bullshit.
Just a smoking hot mess aching to be whole.
“Sassy, slutty, and playing hard to get…” I run my thumb across the battered fleur-de-lis. “Of course you’re mine.”
The sword vibrates, not much, but enough that I feel it in my bones. Laughter bursts out of me, loud and cathartic.
She’s fucking mine.
I sit with that for a moment, let the fizz in my blood settle.
My fingers ache from the heat, nerves still tingling, but it’s the good kind of pain, the kind I live for.
It’s almost as if it’s still testing me.
Maybe it never stops. Joan’s diary said something about failing it, and the flames flickering.
I flip it open and hunt for the words I know are made for me. But no matter how hard I look, how many times I re-read the lines, it’s not here.
God’s own soul, I swear it was written in here: The relic demands perfect mercy.
That’s what it said.
Then I see it—a tear line. Someone’s ripped out an entire page.
My grip tightens on the sword. A primal instinct I’ve spent years developing switches on, and suddenly I’m moving. Out of the archives, down the stairs.
I’m coming, Hannah.
And I’m bringing the fucking sword.
I reach the dormitory landing and freeze. Jasmine’s door is wide, flung open like someone ran out in a panic or was dragged by the hair. The closer I get, the worse it feels.
The sword warms in my hand. Smoke curls from the blade again. I shift my grip, ready for a fight, but the threat feels wrong. There’s no monster beyond the threshold, no one hiding in the shadows.
But I hear buzzing within the darkness.
It starts soft and then ramps up.
I take another step. And another. And another until I’m right there at the open door and an acrid, sweet odor crawls up my nose. Every Sinner sense I own screams: Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
“Fucking do this,” I grind out, and edge inside, careful not to breathe too deeply. Something crunches under my foot. Squelches between my toes.
Gross.
I brave a look down. Something sticky and dark is oozing under my foot. The smell is overpowering, like a locker room left to die. I flick the light switch on and see why.
Flies are everywhere. The walls, the clothes, the ceiling. They coat every surface, swarming like living shadows. The bed is the worst. It’s like they’re nesting on it.
Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it down.
Someone has ransacked Jasmine’s dresser. The drawers are yanked open, spilling their contents. A pile of books and trinkets smashed to the floor. I spy more of my things. Slippers. A shirt. The pink ribbon tie from my silk robe.
I don’t think there was a struggle, though. It’s more like someone emptied the place looking for something they lost. That’s when I realize a bulky shape on the bed looks familiar. The flies are crawling over something long and lumpy, like a figure.
We never got around to discussing Beelzebub. What if this is him?
Before I lose my nerve, I plunge the sword into the mass. The bugs don’t even care. They topple to the side like scattered pebbles, vibrating a moment longer, and then stopping.
I swipe the sword up and down the nest, but there’s no body. It was all flies. The bedsheet’s yanked off, and the pillow is dented with the imprint of a skull.
No Jasmine.
My knees wobble, but I grip the sword tighter and listen to the instinct Mary’s Gospel gifted me.
Quietening my soul, I open my awareness to the buzz.
I let it wash over me, feel the grime and the rot, and know it’s demonic.
But it’s in pieces. It changes. An individual fly is nothing alone, but together, when they amass to something bigger, they’re a giant link to the underworld.
Wind brushes my face. My eyes snap open. The window is open. Cold air blows in, but the flies don’t care. If anything, there are more on the sill, crowding the frame, happy to wait. And watch.
Out in the dark, the abbey’s grounds are a black ocean. The only thing bright in the midnight gloom is the church. Lights burn through the stained-glass windows like a beacon.
Cisco’s voice in the confessional comes back to me.
The curse reacts around her.
Heart in my throat, I bolt outside, not even caring about the bugs squashing beneath my feet.
I am a Fury, a Banshee come to life.
“AIR RAID, BITCHES.” Using the sword, I pound on each door. “Wake the fuck up!”
The orphans’ door opens. A pale face appears in the gloom.
“You all in there?” I ask, jogging up.
“Oui,” Mathilde says.
“Good. Stay. Don’t open this door for anyone else, you understand?” I pause. “Keep singing.”
She nods. I close the door just as the first Sinner stumbles out of her room. Leila, blinking away sleep. In her shorts and cami.
“What the fuck?” I hear the faint metallic click of her Smith & Wesson pistol.
“The other one.”
Her eyes widen. Someone out of view hands her the spiked Helwing Gun. Zeke appears behind her, strapping on his holster. Then it’s Raven and Tawny. A shirtless Dominic, wide-eyed and ready. Wesley and Thea. And then, finally, Hannah stumbles out of her room, rubbing her eyes.
“What the fuck?” she groans. “I just got to sleep.”
Dread seizes my stomach. I thought Hannah was the problem. But it’s Jasmine, after all.
Ignoring her, I point the sword at Thea. “Get your relic.”
She looks down at the sword. They all do. Thank fuck it’s smoldering with a hellish red because I don’t have time to explain other than to swing the sword toward Jasmine’s room and say, “It’s filled with demonic flies. Jasmine’s gone after Cisco.”
Then I run, praying to God, begging him.
Cisco better be breathing when I get there. Because if he’s not, I’ll burn the fucking church down myself.