Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Mercy
When I wake up, I think I’m still asleep.
I’m not in bed where Cisco left me. My wrists are duct-taped to the arms of a rickety wooden chair.
I’m in the middle of a warehouse I’ve never seen before.
The air is musty, humid, and stifling. Water drips from somewhere.
From the labels on the tinned tomatoes stacked nearby, I’m still in Italy, but I have no idea how I got here.
And I’m wearing a horrid dress—something frilly with sunflowers trimming the knee-length skirt. I’d never be caught dead in an outfit like this. It chafes, and my sweat doesn’t wick away. When I look more closely, I realize it’s made of polyester. Ew.
The only plausible explanation is that I’m dreaming.
Wait. Where have I seen that sunflower pattern before? My next inhale of warm air brings an acrid scent of industrial bleach and cheap, sour perfume. Memories slam into me. The institution. The country club. My mother scolding my father.
You look utterly perverse with her head down there, clutching that sticky thing.
I shake my head, frowning at my clothes. Is that why the pattern looks familiar? Am I wearing the same dress my mother wore on that day at the country club?
This can’t be real. But it feels real.
A fly buzzes around my head, swarming irritatingly close and then away as if it’s playing with me.
Where am I? Where’s Cisco? I look around with manic eyes.
Towering canvas-covered storage crates surround me except for one wall painted with a mural.
On the ground before it, piled on top of crates are effigies and old, melted candles that have bled onto the floor.
The peeling mural shows an angel fiercely driving his sword into a serpent.
It reminds me of the one on Cisco’s chest. What’s more uncanny are the words floating in a banner at the top: “Judgment without mercy.”
I’ve read that before, haven’t I? Or something close?
A spot on my neck itches. I can’t scratch it, and it drives me up the wall.
Focus. Forget about the mural.
I close my eyes to concentrate. Cisco said he’d be right back. I didn’t dream that. He kissed me and . . . and then he left.
Fuck, that spot is itchy. I lift my shoulder and try to scratch it, but miss.
You’re a little Jezebel, Joan. A demon sent to drag him to Hell.
My pulse quickens. Sweat prickles as my body heats, and the smell of sour perfume and bleach blooms. It reminds me again of the institution . . . the things they said to me, the way I embraced the identity they gave me, just to prove them all wrong.
But what if they’re right?
Ruinous life. That’s what Asmodeus called it, and after last night, I thought it was a good thing.
But now all I’m thinking about is the ruin part of those words. The destruction. The regret.
Another fly buzzes near my head, but I can’t swat it away. Goddammit, I’m itchy again.
Maybe it was too much for Cisco last night, and I scared him off. All that bullshit I spouted about not giving fucks for people who don’t deserve it. Of course we should. If we stop caring, then what’s the point of anything? That’s not what I meant, but what if he thinks it is?
Maybe I was too confusing, too demanding, too much.
My thighs clamp instinctively together, desperate for the sharp, grounding bite of my chain cilices.
Nothing but cheap, scratchy fabric rubs my sweaty, bare skin.
That spot itches to the point of pain. My vision blurs, and sunflowers morph into blobs.
I blink rapidly until I see clearly enough to make out faint purple bruises above my knees.
My heart tugs. They’re shaped exactly like Cisco’s large, calloused fingers.
I want to make my own marks here. Make new reasons for them.
I stare at those bruises until the blood roaring in my ears slows down. He didn’t grip me like a man using a whore. He hates that word. No, he isn’t like that. When he holds me, it’s like he’s a man drowning, and I’m the only thing keeping him afloat.
I close my eyes again and try again to focus.
Breathe. Think calming thoughts. Think about how Cisco looked when we were underwater in the pool at the abbey.
I remember his eyes widening and filling with so many emotions I still can’t name them.
But they were powerful enough for me to feel them, to know he was grateful for me, to need me. Just as he needed me last night.
When I’m in the same room as you, it’s peace.
I keep my eyes closed, keep breathing slowly and deliberately while I conjure the feel of his touch against my skin, his spicy male scent, the warmth, the way he trembles when he first gets all hot and hard for me.
A small smile touches my lips. Without fail, every time he’s aroused, in the beginning he shakes.
It’s almost as if he’s overcome with how much he wants me.
Or he’s afraid I’m a bubble about to burst. My demon-cursed, ex-mafia enforcer can take a man’s life without blinking but was shaking like a leaf because he was terrified he would break me.
Cisco thinks his darkness will ruin me, but I beat his shadows back.
And when I told him I would never walk away?
The way his control shattered . . . God.
He didn’t just fuck me then. He took me like he was starving, like he’d die if anyone tried to stop him.
He trusted me enough to unleash all that pent-up longing.
When he gripped my thighs hard enough to mark me, it was because he was holding on for dear life.
I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Those bruises prove a man finally stayed.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, I hitch my shoulder and smash it against that infuriating spot on my neck. Something pops and crackles against my skin. Frowning, I open my eyes and see an overgrown fly carcass tumble down my body and land on someone’s boots.
I lift my head and lock eyes with Hannah.
Alarm bells ring in the back of my mind. That’s my first instinct. Shouldn’t it be relief?
I guess that reaction answers whether I thought she was in league with Jasmine.
“Finally,” she drones. “Sleeping Beauty is awake.”
She looks the same as always. Austere bob, black Sinner clothes—no, wait. She’s not wearing the uniform. It’s just black. There’s not even a weapon strapped to her body.
I yank on the duct tape binding my wrists. “What the fuck is this? Hannah . . . stop playing around and free me.”
She folds her arms and cocks her hips. My skin prickles with goosebumps, and then I feel it—the blessing. The sense of the divine, the Beatific Vision or whatever it is that we got from Mary’s Gospel.
Something evil lurks nearby . . . and it’s not coming from Hannah. It’s bigger, beside her, around her, in the air. Invisible. The more I focus on it, the more I feel its malevolent power.
For a moment, I think I glimpse the shape of a man beside Hannah, swarming in the shadows, but then it moves. One by one, flies start to gather on the wall behind her, coating the mural with writhing black and iridescent blobs.
This is not good.
Shit.
Fuck.
Don’t panic.
Stay calm.
Is Hannah influenced by a demon like Jasmine was? Or is Hannah the one possessed? Fuck. Is she the one behind all this?
I don’t see any sign of possession. It’s just that sense of evil around her in the air, but my sixth sense doesn’t work like Cisco’s. It usually just shows us the true face of a demon possessing a human.
“Where did you go?” I ask. “After Jasmine.”
The sound of heavy metal meeting concrete rings out behind me. Something dropped. I try to twist and see.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Hannah slaps her hands over my wrists, piercing my skin with her fingernails. She spins my chair to face the opposite direction. Wooden legs shudder across the concrete, echoing through the warehouse.
When we stop, she steps aside to reveal two men standing beside a small, portable table.
One is tall and gangly, wearing a leather jacket despite the heat.
His skin peels from either sunburn or a skin condition.
The other man is stocky, also wearing a jacket.
He has a monobrow and an overgrown mustache, and he wears no socks with his sneakers.
That’s gotta smell. Definitely untrustworthy.
I glimpse a firearm inside the gangly man’s jacket when he reaches out to straighten the single item on the table—Joan of Arc’s sword.
I glare at Hannah. “Start explaining, bitch.”
“Oh, come now,” she croons, lips twitching into a smile. “I always knew you were dumber than you looked, but you can’t be that blind.”
She sees the moment it clicks in my mind.
She’s a Sinner. For a brief time, I even trained her.
Lilith already tried infiltrating our sisterhood by having the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Leviathan, possess Prue.
Why wouldn’t she try again? Why wouldn’t she pick the two Sinners who hadn’t been at the abbey for a while, whose personality changes she could explain by the distance and passage of time?
The only problem I have with that theory is that Hannah isn’t possessed. Something still feels off, but there’s no point playing games, so I guess it’s time to go fishing.
“You were responsible for Spain,” I note, voice flat. “And Jasmine.” My gaze dips to the sword. “So this was all about the relic?” I look around for the evil presence. “Beelzebub is the third Horseman, isn’t he?”