Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Mercy
Hannah bursts out laughing. She laughs so long and hard that I start to worry for her mental sanity.
Maybe it’s too late for her, like it was for Jasmine.
That fly I squished was like the one on Jasmine and on Lucia.
I couldn’t have had it on me for long, but I felt my mind unraveling by the second.
If Hannah has one of those flies attached to her, it would explain the insanity.
“To think I almost thought I was wrong about you.” She wipes tears from her eyes and then trails her finger over the sword’s length.
It leaves a trail of smoke in its wake. With a heavy sigh, she mumbles, “It’s sad, really, how easy this was.
” Her brown eyes meet mine, and she scoffs.
“I can’t believe for a moment there in the States, I was afraid you two would figure it out and ruin everything.
” She rolls her eyes and gestures to no one at her left.
“He wanted to play games with a holy man’s lust. Said it would help our cause, not break it.
” Her eyes grow distant. “I didn’t believe him.
The prophecy seems to have found a way of coming true, regardless of what they’ve done.
” A shiver racks her body, and she snaps out of it, turning to me with a victorious smile.
“Clearly I needn’t have been so worried. You still have no clue.”
Something cold and hard settles in my stomach.
“What have you done with him?” I growl, yank at my bindings. The chair judders at the force, deceptively drawing their attention to the sound rather than the tape, how I managed to twist my wrists because of my sweaty skin.
It’s so hot in here; the plastic tape has virtually melted. I’ll get out of this in no time. Hannah should know better . . . unless she actually believes I’m stupid and has underestimated me.
Nah.
“Where’s Cisco?” I ask.
“Who?” She mocks me with confusion. “Oh, you mean Cesco. Fran-cesco, my brother?”
Silence settles between us, along with her smug stare.
What the ever-loving shit is this?
Is Hannah Maria? She’s not dead. How? Why didn’t Cisco recognize her?
It takes every ounce of self-control not to show my surprise. A wave of invisible buzzing washes over me, and it feels as if the demonic entity is also gloating.
If that’s Beelzebub touching me with his filthy invisible hands, I swear to God I’ll cut them off.
But the sense disappears, and I almost think I imagined it.
Hannah’s watching me curiously.
Fuck.
She’s Cisco’s dead sister.
I can’t believe we’ve not thought to look into Cisco’s past more thoroughly, or Dominic’s for that matter.
We should’ve investigated what he alluded to in the interrogation.
Wesley was taunted by a demon in his youth, and so were Leila and Zeke.
Now this . . . Cisco’s been manipulated since his childhood .
. . shit, no, it’s worse. His family curse is blood-deep.
Mark of Cain deep. That’s what his family called it at dinner.
Random thoughts bubble up from the past—the letter from Spain, the Rev’s confusion about the manifest, Hannah never staying long at the abbey, the fact she got away with it when most other Sinners would have been ordered home.
Cisco’s mother insisted her daughter would return any day. Maybe she wasn’t going insane. Maybe she knew all along that Maria was alive.
We assumed Cisco was the recipient of his family’s curse, but what did his nonna say? It had two sides, an angel and a devil. Marco also mentioned that his great-grandfather, Rocco, had a worse version of the curse—something about forcing people to do what he wanted.
I’ve never seen Cisco force his will on anyone, but if Hannah is Maria, and she’s somehow convinced everyone that she’s dead, then maybe . . . maybe the angel and the devil somehow got mixed up. Maybe they share the powers.
She watches my face as it dawns on me.
It is about the divine relic, but only because of what Cisco told me at the Vatican. The sword can purge the curse from their system, to fix them.
Hannah doesn’t want that. She’s not repentant in the least. My gaze darts to the sword then back to her. She must still think it’s broken. Otherwise, why would she look so triumphant?
“Go on,” she drawls. “Ask me how I did it.”
Okay. Not where my mind was at, but I think I can take a stab at what she means.
“Why’d you have to kill everyone in Spain?” I ask.
Disdain curls her lip. “I meant about faking my death. God, you really are a dumb bitch.”
“You faked your death?” I gasp.
Her expression deadpans. “And you’re shit at acting.”
Oops. “Too much?”
“Whatever.” She rolls her eyes. “You want to know why I had to kill everyone in Spain? Simple. Too many witnesses.”
“Yet you let the orphans live. Why?”
Annoyance flashes in her eyes. “The thing with persuasion.” She gestures to her head. “This dark spark of mine, the one my brother failed to steal from me, is that it works best when there’s little resistance. Aren’t you the one who taught me that the best lies hold a sliver of truth?”
The two thugs are getting bored. Their gazes wander, and the gangly one starts picking at dry skin on his nose.
But Hannah is just getting started. In my experience, the biggest criminal masterminds are dying to tell everyone how clever they are.
They spill more of their secrets the dumber you pretend to be.
“Not quite catching your drift.” I let my gaze shift to the flies on the canvas crates behind her. Weren’t they on the mural behind me before?
“Jasmine, the poor fool.” Hannah raises her voice to get my attention.
When I drag my attention back to her, she’s leaning her hips on the rickety sword table.
“The woman had a righteous stick up her arse, so of course I needed to give her something real to protect, an anchor for murder. Once she did, every other perception was easy to nudge.”
An anchor.
“The rosary beads,” I mutter. Cisco never goes anywhere without those beads.
A serpentine smile curves her lips. “Perhaps if you stopped wasting time pretending to be a dumb slut, you would have come to this realization sooner.”
“I only pretend about one of those things.”
I part my thighs and give the men a saucy wink. The gangly one gets a lascivious look in his eye. The other blushes and tugs at his collar.
Hannah slams her palm on the table, rattling the sword. “This isn’t a game! It’s not a mission. You can’t fuck your way out of this. You’re going to die. Don’t you get that?”
“Fine,” I admit. “You’re right. I think with my cunt instead of my head.
Otherwise, I’d have noticed you directing the briefing in the archives after Spain.
I’d have noticed you testing the sword’s efficacy.
I’d have avoided coming to Rome because it was obviously going to fail.
The sword doesn’t work for me. I’m a dud. Happy now?”
“Not even close,” she sneers.
I stare at her, nostrils flaring, eyes stinging. Everything I said was true. That’s the fucked up part. The sword still isn’t working for me. I don’t know how I keep thinking otherwise, why I keep pushing, keep fighting.
But I can’t stop.
I lift my chin and meet her eyes. “You could have taken the sword after Jasmine died, but you disappeared and let us come to Rome anyway. Why?”
“I wanted to know what the Vatican knew.” She shrugs. “It’s hard enough getting in unnoticed, but manipulating minds into not seeing me and also giving up their secrets is even harder. Much easier to watch other people do it.”
Lies.
She’s still working Cisco for something.
One by one, the flies lift off the crate and buzz around nearby. I look at Hannah, then at them. The food began to rot only when Hannah returned to the abbey. It rotted on the plane. And then in the secret Vatican apartments, the food hadn’t been rotten before I went into the steam room.
But afterward, when we came out . . .
“You were there with us in the Vatican apartments, weren’t you?” I accuse, then immediately feel sick at the memory of what Cisco and I did after the steam room. Disgust covers my face. “Does Cisco know his sister is a pervert?”