Chapter 40
Forty
Mercy
“Hannah, what are you doing?”
She has me pinned against her chest, her dagger at my throat.
“It’s better this way,” she replies quietly, walking us toward Cisco. “Better me than him.”
I stumble forward with her, glancing down at the sword as we pass.
I thought I could reason with Hannah, or at least get through to Cisco and diffuse this volatile situation the same way I did with his shadow ribbons in the osteria.
Putting the sword down worked.
Until it didn’t.
“How is this going to help?” I ask, fingers flexing at my sides.
“Simple math,” she murmurs. “What’s two foes minus one?”
“Hannah . . .”
“I’m the marked one, Mercy. The true devil.” She tightens her grip. “Who would you rather kill, him or me?”
I have no answer.
“Exactly,” she clips. “Now shut up.”
It’s taking all my willpower not to deploy my self-defense tactics. I can’t explain it, but I think I trust her. Or at least, I believe she’s trying to do the right thing in her fucked up way.
She wants me to use the sword on her—to eradicate the entire Mark of Cain in one fell swoop. Better her dead than the man I love.
I’d thought that too, but now that it’s a real possibility, I can’t let her do it. What kind of person would that make me? There has to be a way out of this for both of them.
Cisco stands five feet away, as still as a statue except for his ribbons of shadow undulating, shredding any light they come into contact with.
His eyes are wholly black. Only moments ago—just before he doubled over clutching his middle—I glimpsed his gorgeous human eyes.
They spoke a mountain of words I couldn’t hear, but I felt them in my heart.
He was terrified.
But now there’s nothing but darkness again, and wind carrying the scent of sweet decay.
“I’ll kill her!” Hannah’s shouted warning rises above the buzzing roar. “Return your half of the curse to me now, or this is the end for the woman you love.”
Cisco’s mouth opens, and dark smoke pours out as he laughs. It reminds me too much of Beelzebub and chills my soul. Hannah tenses behind me. Her breath hitches and holds.
She sees it too.
“Come on,” she mutters. “Come on, come on.”
She’s tense, but I’m petrified. I thought I could make this work.
I thought I could save them both, but I might be out of my league.
I’m playing with powers I’ve only just begun learning.
If this goes sideways, and Cisco kills his sister, taking her half of the curse into himself, I’ll have no choice but to kill him.
Or die trying.
Perhaps if I’d taken the time to get to know Hannah better, we’d be in a different situation. She’d have trusted me with her secrets long ago.
My eyes sting with unshed tears.
Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe if I trust Hannah now and help her with her plan, it will work. For that to happen, Cisco needs to believe I’m truly in peril.
Acceptance settles in my stomach like a stone. I exhale, relax into Hannah, and whisper, “Left side subclavian area.”
I’ll bleed a lot, but I’ll still be able to use my right arm to use the sword.
At first, I don’t think she heard me. Or maybe I’m wrong about all of this. She does nothing. The blade rests at my throat, and Cisco’s thorny shadows deepen with each step he takes closer.
Then Hannah’s arm banding around my front tightens, the air around us blurs, and we sidestep out of Cisco’s trajectory.
It’s as though we’re walking through water and he doesn’t notice us move.
He keeps approaching the spot we vacated until he suddenly stops and looks around.
His gaze passes right through us as if we’re not there.
He cocks his head as if listening for signs of our presence.
Ribbons of shadow lash out like tentacles, searching for us.
But we’re invisible to him and just out of reach. I don’t think he can hear us either.
Hannah keeps moving us, slowly and surely toward where I left the sword. My hope soars as we stop within reach.
“You’re right.” Her breath puffs warm air on my ear. “This needs to look convincing.”
“As long as I can use my sword arm, I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Because when it’s my turn, forget about the subclavian area. You’ll need to stab me in the heart.”
An ache in my throat tightens. “Are you sure?”
Her hand squeezes my shoulder. “Not getting soft on me now, are you?”
“No, but . . .” Nerves skitter in my belly. “You sure that’s how the sword works?”
She hesitates. “No.”
“Then maybe—”
“Mercy,” she clips.
“Fuck.” My mind whirls. “I don’t know how the sword works either. So how can we be sure this is the right way?”
“It’s the only way. His recovery time is negligible now, so if he takes my half, you’ll have no opportunity to stop him. But if I take his half, then I’ll need a moment to process the curse. I’ll get sleepy—that’s when you strike.”
When she kidnapped me and held me in that room, gloating about how everything turned out, she was putting on a show for Beelzebub.
Now I see that every time she capitulated to one of his desires, she secretly found a way to do something for herself.
For us. Whether it was salvaging a couple of orphans under the guise of needing them to persuade Jasmine to murder, or whether it was sending Jasmine to her death at the church, but using it to test Cisco’s recovery, she did what she could.
She’s even the one who alerted Wesley about Mary’s Gospel, and she had the relic sent to the abbey along with it and pretended it was broken.
And when I think about it, her absence at the abbey all these years was probably her keeping the evil away.
Under the circumstances, could I have done the same? Or would I have given up completely and handed myself over to the dark forces?
“You’ve been planning this for a long time, haven’t you?” I say. “All the times you spied on us, manipulated us, or killed . . . you found a way to use it.”
Everything in her tenses, her arm around me, her body behind me, her lungs.
She holds her breath for a few long moments, and then stilted, sobbing gasps escape, puffing against my ear.
The blurry air immediately surrounding us flickers and wobbles.
Her fingers flex around the dagger at my throat, and for a moment, I think she’s going to lose it—to lose hold on the invisible power cloaking us.
But then she releases a long, measured breath, using a calming technique I know well.
The blurry air returns to a consistent form.
“Turns out,” she mutters dryly, “you of all people, get it after all.”
“Thank you,” I murmur.
“For what?”
“For your service. Your sacrifice. Your pain.” I hook my fingers around her forearm at my chest and squeeze. “I’m sorry it’s come to this.”
“I’m not doing this for you,” she chokes out, shuddering behind me with a racked breath.
“I know,” I whisper.
Wind blows around us. Cisco’s shadow ribbons whip perilously close but miss.
“Promise me one thing,” Hannah says.
“Anything.”
“Don’t let them take this from us too.”
Us, not me.
Them, not him.
It’s as if every Sinner who existed spoke from her lips. Every nameless, faceless woman whose legacy I helped preserve at the abbey. At some point, even with Beelzebub whispering in Hannah’s ears, she started believing in the Hildegard Sisterhood’s purpose.
Those who don’t know us think our mission is about putting men down, but it’s never been like that.
It’s about raising women up, protecting the vulnerable.
All those missions Hannah went on, all those times she met vulnerable girls—like the orphans—made a part of her realize they were all her once.
A part of her never stopped fighting for change.
My throat clogs as my gaze settles on Cisco.
“You’re not doing it for him either, are you?”
Her breath hisses out through her teeth. “I know that makes me a bitch.”
The bitterness in her tone is familiar. I’ve heard it through every scorned woman’s lips .
. . even my own. Not all orphans brought to the Sisterhood make it through training as a Sinner.
We don’t talk about the ones that failed.
Sometimes the trauma is too much to overcome and the Sinner in training folds.
She gives in because she can’t see a path to healing.
Hannah is the name of every woman we couldn’t save.
“I get it, babe.” I squeeze her forearm again. “I’ll make sure our history books know your name.”
She takes a beat, then says, “Write it as Hannah. Not Babe. Not Maria.”
My eyes squeeze shut at the thought of another clue I failed to see. Not all do, but we can choose our Sinner name. I was shit at Bible studies, but I’ll bet the Hannah written about there was an awesome woman.
“Hannah it is,” I say.
She exhales sharply. “Ready to play the damsel?”
I nod, and she flips the dagger deftly in her fingers to aim the tip left of my heart.
Her arm relaxes around my middle but remains locked, and the warbling vision around us crystallizes into sharp focus.
I guess that means the invisibility cloak she cast on us has dropped, because when she shouts, “You can’t beat me the way you beat the others,” Cisco’s head whips our way.
Shadow tentacles retreat toward his body but don’t disappear completely. Part of me feels horrible about this deception, but I know it’s the right plan. Hannah, having never hosted the stronger half of the curse, will be weakened enough for me to use the sword.
“Just do it, Cisco,” I cry out. “Do it for us! Give it to your sister. Please!”
I see the calculation in his black eyes, the weighing of his odds against the speed of Hannah’s hand. She’s not like the others he feasts on. She has a supernatural power, just like him. Ribbons lash agitatedly around him.
What if it’s too late?
What if he’s too far gone?
“I won’t ask again!” Hannah punctures my flesh deep enough to release a crimson bloom that stains the ivory dress.
I exaggerate my cry of pain and lift my pleading gaze to Cisco. “Padre, please!”
His black eyes widen and flicker to brown.
“It’s okay, piccola,” he says to me, voice rough. “I have you.”
Agonized eyes shift to his sister’s face behind me. A litany of silent history and regret passes between them. His shoulders drop.
“Okay, Maria,” he says. “If this is your choice, then . . . I can no longer shelter you from your sins. I will give them back to you.”
He drops to his knees as ribbons of shadow peel away from his body, bleeding from beneath his collar, between his buttons, and from the untucked hem at his hips. Fear skips in my belly as they fly toward us. This looks like an attack.
But the first spiked ribbon completely eludes me and latches onto the one behind me. Then the second. The third. A choking sound of pain emits from Hannah’s throat. Her arm around my middle loosens, then falls. Next is the dagger arm, and then she slumps against my back, sliding down to her knees.
Alarmed, I instinctively try to stop her from falling, but then I see the shadows are helping her too.
The sword.
Get the sword.
I scramble backward on my ass, eyes darting between the two siblings attached by ribbons of spiked shadow. I think it’s working. It’s hard to tell with both their heads bowed, their faces hidden by hair or shadows, but neither is drying up like a corpse.
“Mercy!” Cisco’s voice is breathless. “Are . . . you—”
“I’m safe! I’m here, and I’m safe!”
He slumps a little more.
Something doesn’t feel right about this. I don’t know if I’m just nervous or we’re wrong. Where is Beelzebub? Why isn’t he gloating through this?
A quick check of my wounded shoulder reveals the bleeding has stopped. Relief and pride flood me at the thought that Hannah is trained well.
I grab the sword and stand, ready to do my part in this plan.
Flames erupt along the blade, burning with a ferocity I’ve never felt before.
The metal turns red, then heats until it glows and turns white through the flames.
A buzzing, holy power fills me from head to toe, protecting me from the burn.
It’s then that Beelzebub decides to play his hand. He appears beside Cisco, whispers in his ear, and smirks at me with that stupid waxen, youthful face.
Whatever he says causes Cisco’s body to tense and straighten. Cisco looks my way but doesn’t see my face. He only has eyes for the sword. Blackness swallows the brown of his eyes, and he snarls, “You would deceive me?”
“W-What?” I blurt, eyes wide.
“You think you can weaken me just to kill me?” he roars, and the world roars with him.
All around me, the swarm intensifies. It darkens, swells, and speeds up.
I raise the sword before me to shield myself from the pests, but he sees it as a threat.
And then I feel a shift in the atmosphere beyond what eyes can see.
Whatever was passing between Hannah and Cisco reverses. The swarm changes directions.
“No!” Hannah shrieks. “Cesco, no!”
She tries to crawl to him, but he’s already staggering to his feet. The ribbons of shadow pulse and undulate, just like they did that night with Jasmine in the crypt. He’s feeding from Hannah—taking the entirety of the curse into himself.
Fool, girl.
Beelzebub’s voice whirls around me, trapped in the storm.
You were never going to win.
My grip tightens on the sword with my resolve, and I feel it hum in response.
Even if I use the sword on Hannah, Cisco’s already taken too much.
It will achieve nothing. And since he’ll have no recovery time, the window of opportunity closes with every second he grows stronger, sucking Hannah’s life force, her sins, and the curse.
Eyes locked on Cisco’s heart—my target—I take a step toward him. Then another. And a third. I raise my sword a little with each step, inching closer to that safety spot to the side of his heart. If he’s too busy and overcome during his feed to notice me, I’ll have enough time to aim true.
But my luck runs out. Cisco’s eyes unnervingly slide my way, even as his face remains pointed in Hannah’s direction.
Caught.
“Forgive me, Father,” I whisper, and then throw my full body into the lunge.