Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Mercy
My first thought after blacking out is that my mouth is full of fluff. I’m lying down somewhere, and it smells sweet and outdoorsy like a farm. Chaotic sounds nearby are muffled, filtering from a distance. People are arguing. An animal growls. A dolphin barks.
Nothing makes sense.
Love me anyway.
Cisco.
The sword.
The flames.
Everything rushes back. I stabbed my love. Oh, God. The fire. Heart squeezing, my eyes flip open, but all I see is shadow. It moves and tickles my face, my mouth. I try to breathe but suck in fluff and cough. Oh no, am I so burned so badly that everything feels like—what is this?
“Get that thing out of the way, or so help me God I’ll make you sorry.”
Thea’s nearby determined voice almost makes me cry. I’m not dead. Surely.
“Thea?” I shout. More fuzz. “Pfft.” It’s in my mouth. I try to spit and push it away, but my hands fly through it like clouds. What’s going on?”
“Mercy!” she cries. “Are you okay under there?”
Under there?
More loud shouts join her—my family. Sweet relief runs through me. They’re nearby and the ones I heard arguing earlier.
What is that above me? It’s not a canopy, but it must be at least twelve feet long and drops down around me like a tent. Only a glimmer of light over the grass is at either side. I gingerly raise my fingers to touch the fuzzy surface above me, but my fingertips disappear into thick, lush fluff.
The whole expanse shudders with thunderous, high-pitched “Chirp!”
“Noctis?” I gasp.
The fluffy expanse lifts from my face, and I can breathe again.
Daylight bursts in with disorienting color.
The air and fluff move at a dizzying speed.
I have but a moment to glimpse green grass and blue sky through squinting eyes, but then the space around my face is occupied by an upside down, giant white fluffball with big dark, liquid eyes.
Black curled feelers drop to the ground with a thud.
A maw opens within the white to reveal sharp piranha teeth and a pointed tongue. “Chirrrp.”
The sound vibrates through the ground and blows meat-scented breath in my face.
“Right, enough!” Asmodeus’s directive comes from somewhere nearby. “You can see she’s fine. All healed and ready for action. Off you go.”
Noctis’s head disappears. More sunlight flashes in, and in the blinding aftermath I have the impression of giant wings beating hard, children squealing and then giggling, and Jinx yapping.
Then my sisters surround me. Thea has her staff.
Leila has her pistol. But they’re not who I need to see.
I twist around, craning my neck as I search while attempting to scramble to my feet.
Asmodeus steps into view, offering me a hand. His expression is perplexing.
Is he afraid?
Oh no. No no no. Cisco can’t be dead. Emotion wells within me, too strong to contain. I fist his jacket, but before I get the words out, his big hands cover mine.
“He’s okay,” he murmurs.
“He’s—I—” A choked sob bursts out. “Is Cisco really?”
“See for yourself.” He gently plucks my clawed fingers from his jacket and gestures at the abbey porch.
All I see is a giant, fifteen-foot-wide moth. Noctis’s wings are tucked behind him, reflecting pearlescent colors in the sunlight. The long, fluffy tail splits into multiple streams. Some lash with agitation. Some wag as though happy.
“Noctis, move!” Asmodeus bellows as Thea wraps a soft blanket around my arms and body.
I look down.
“Shit,” I mutter. “Am I naked?”
Leila—one hand still pointing her pistol at Asmodeus—uses the other to help Thea with the blanket.
Jinx is growling now, circling Noctis with the predatory confidence of a mountain lion stalking a mouse.
The enormous psychopomp side-eyes Jinx, then cranes his head back toward us.
Those big liquid eyes widen, and I swear it smiles before it swings its head back in the direction of the abbey and takes a single giant step to the left.
There, Noctis sits back on four hind legs and tucks his wings.
The abbey front porch steps are revealed.
But the people sitting there confuse me.
The orphans are higher up on the steps—a few Magpies trying to usher them inside.
The Rev, Dom, Wes, Zeke, Raven, and Tawny are lower.
Some stand on the grass, others sit on the lower steps.
They’re all looking up at a bald stranger sitting on the top step, also wrapped in a gray woolen blanket.
His familiar brown eyes catch mine.
“I healed him first,” Thea starts explaining, but I’m already running, desperately clutching my blanket to stop it from falling.
Cisco’s alive.
It takes an eternity to cross a few yards, but all at once I’m there, flinging my arms around him and falling onto his lap. I don’t care that my blanket slips. I don’t give a fuck if I’m naked, hairless, or scarred and monstrous.
If it’s really him, I know he’ll love me anyway.
I have to be sure, so I cup his face between my hands and search his eyes—beautiful, big brown eyes.
“Is it really you?” I whisper.
“Sì.” His joy momentarily disappears when my blanket slips further, and he glares at anyone looking as he fixes it. His jaw flexes, and he says nothing, but I know he’s thinking something about my body being for his eyes only.
He can’t help himself.
The possessive, protective mannerism is so perfectly a part of the man I fell in love with that emotion overwhelms me. I can’t think. Can’t function.
Is he really here? Unchanged?
“Oh, my God,” I whisper. “It’s really you.”
“Not God,” he mutters, lips curving, eyes twinkling. “Just me.”
I burst out laughing. Tears fall.
“But you’re okay?” I check him for injury. “Fuck me, where are your tattoos?” All gone. “I stabbed you here.” He’s completely healed over. I don’t care. “Babe . . .” I shower him with kisses. “Can’t believe it.” More clutching, hugging, and sloppy tears. “Did it really work?”
“Mercy.” Cisco fights with my falling blanket, defending my dignity while I lay his bare.
Every touch, every word, every syllable of mine dances on the razor’s edge of an emotional breakdown. I still can’t believe that the relic worked. That against all odds he’s here and not Hell’s newest demonic addition.
“Piccola, I’m here.” He crushes me against him, pinning my arms. “It’s okay.” He whispers into my ear, “I have you. It’s okay, I’m here.”
His words, the accented timbre, the tight, indomitable embrace . . . I believe.
The riot in my body and mind stops. The world falls away and becomes this—the beat of our hearts, the warmth of his body, the comfort of his arms, and a fresh, clean male scent that’s heaven on earth.
Strong hands squeeze my shoulders. Cisco pulls me back so he can look deeply into my eyes.
Despite his outward appearance of calm, he trembles with emotion as he turns my face from side to side to inspect me.
His thumb swipes the corner of my mouth, over the beauty mark there, and his lips curve on one side.
But when he looks at my hair, his smile drops.
“Is it that bad?” Gingerly, I touch my head and feel sporadic patches of hair between baby-smooth skin.
“I’m so sorry, Mercy.” His voice breaks. “You have—”
I silence his protest with a close-mouthed kiss.
“I would happily do it again,” I declare. “And it will grow back.”
He cups the back of my neck and pulls my forehead to his. “Mercy, I . . . I—”
“You love me,” I finish for him.
“Sì. So much.”
I think he wants to speak, but then he darts a look around us, and helplessness returns to his eyes.
That’s when the world comes crashing back in. I see all the faces surrounding us pinched with tension. I gather my blanket and move to climb off Cisco’s lap. He almost doesn’t let me go, but sighs and helps me sit beside him on the step, facing the yard, tucked under his arm and safe.
Dominic and Raven glare at each other from the base of the porch, one on either side. She’s dressed in all leather, arms folded, hair braided and still damp from her morning shower. I can’t get over his tight little boxer shorts. They leave nothing to the imagination.
I suppose with a body like that, why bother to cover it up?
Muscles bulge as he crosses his arms. Paper in his fist crumples, and he doubles down on glowering at Raven. She only flattens her gaze in return.
Wesley and Zeke stand beside him on the grass, both wearing disgruntled expressions.
Thea stands at Raven’s shoulder, also looking annoyed.
Leila casually leans against her boyfriend’s body, keeping a wary eye and pistol aimed at Asmodeus, who loiters near the giant moth and ex-demon.
They’re not circling each other anymore.
Tawny picks up Jinx and starts backing up toward us, still facing the moth and demon prince.
The abbey door closes behind me, and I twist to find the Rev returning to us after seeing the other spectators back inside. I know that face she wears. She’s given it to me more than once.
Something is definitely off.
“What did I miss?” I ask her. “What’s wrong?”
Before she gets a word out, Dom releases a furious torrent of Italian—something about her stupidity—and shakes the crumpled paper at Raven.
I’ve never seen him this angry before. Veins pop in his forehead.
He’s actually cursing, saying something about her invasion of privacy one moment, then something about it not being her cross to bear.
She shouts, “What’s the big deal? I was wrong, anyway.”
“I’d like to know about these too!” Thea pulls out a folded letter and shoves it at Raven, but it flutters to the ground, ignored. “Were you really not going to tell us until it was too late?”
“He’s the one who’s been lying to us all.” Raven jabs a finger in Dominic’s direction, but glares at us all. “We gonna talk about that?”
Oh shit. Is this about what we learned in Dominic’s interrogation? My eyes swing his way. With everything going on, I’d forgotten about that.
Leila jerks her pistol in Asmodeus’s direction. “I’d like to talk about the ex-demon—”
“Still a demon.” He points at himself with his thumbs.
“—and the giant moth in the yard?” Leila finishes.
Noctis makes an agitated growl and a wing flutter, which sets Jinx off barking in Tawny’s arms. Leila swings her aim to the moth and Asmodeus jogs between them, palms raised in surrender.
“Whoa,” he says to Leila. “He’s just an annoying lintball. Trust me. He’ll run out of psychopomp juice any moment now.” He glances over his shoulder at Noctis and repeats more loudly, “Any moment now.”
Noctis harrumphs defiantly.
“Won’t you?” Asmodeus’s tone turns threatening.
But while that standoff is going on, the argument continues at the porch.
“Is she right?” Wesley snaps at the big Saint. He collects Thea’s fallen letter and waves it at him. “Have you been lying to us this whole time? Were you actually in Hell?”
Guilt plasters over Dominic’s face.
“Bro.” Zeke’s shoulders plummet. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Dominic gives him a look as if to say, look at your own behavior—bro, which turns Zeke’s dejection into chagrin.
“You guys aren’t being fair to Dom,” I point out. “We all have painful secrets we don’t like sharing.”
Thea glowers at me, opens her mouth, but I cut her off and repeat, “All of us!”
Her jaw clicks shut. But then she can’t help it and says, “This is a little more important than the average secret, don’t you think?”
I shrug and gesture at Tawny, Raven, and then myself. “We’ve known since the interrogation.”
“You knew!” Leila turns to me, agape. Her gun swings our way as she gesticulates her anger. “How could you not say something?”
Beside her, Zeke ducks to avoid the aimed weapon. She rolls her eyes and widens her eyes in a way that must mean something to them.
He scratches his head, then gasps with knowing. “Oh yeah, it’s not loaded.” To us, he jerks his thumb at Asmodeus and explains. “It’s not loaded because we were still asleep this morning when Loser-With-A-Soul turned up. Leila was cleaning the gun last night but got a little distracted—”
“It’s not loaded?” Asmodeus’s brows raise, then lower with a smirk.
“Good one.” Leila slaps Zeke over the head, uncocks the pistol now that we all know, and storms up the steps. “Now I need to go and load it.” She points a warning finger back at Asmodeus. “Don’t you go and do anything demony while I’m gone—understood?”
Asmodeus mimes zipping his lips and throwing away the key. “Scout’s honor.”
“That’s not how that goes.” Leila blinks at him, then mumbles under her breath, “Fuck it,” and heads inside.
“Anyways,” Tawny says, picking up the conversation from earlier as she approaches the porch with Jinx. “We didn’t tell everyone because we were all kind of distracted. You know, with the wellbeing of orphans, rotting food, and a looming apocalypse.”
Cisco quietly hands me Raven’s letter from Wesley. I glance at Raven as I unfold it, and she quickly looks away.
As I read it, I start to feel sick. It’s not Raven’s confession about knowing Dom’s secret. In fact, it doesn’t even mention Hell.
It’s a goodbye letter.
My heart squeezes. I now recognize the pain of loss I saw in Thea’s eyes earlier. I look at Dom and see the devastation behind his anger.
“What the fuck, Raven?” I breathe out.
She winces. “This is a pointless argument—I was wrong, anyway.”
“This is far from pointless,” I shoot back, lifting the letter.
“?Vete a la verga!” she shouts, and then spins on her heels to stalk away down the driveway, rainbow-tipped braid swinging like a cat’s agitated tail.
“Go to Hell?” I shout after her expletive. “Oh yeah, that’s real mature considering the content of this letter!”
She flips her middle finger up at me and keeps walking.
“Don’t run away angry, Raven!” Tawny diverts her trajectory and chases after her, Jinx still in tow. “It’s not good to leave grumpy. We only—Gah! Stop wriggling, Jinx.”
But the little slippery ex-demon escapes Tawny’s arms, barking like a maniac, bolting down the driveway after Raven.
Raven stops dead in her tracks, facing the wrought iron gates. It’s not until Jinx streaks straight past her that I realize Raven must have sensed danger.
I feel it now too.
Thea shares a look with me and reaches for her staff. I tense, and eyes wide, I search for the sword. The last I remember seeing it was inside Cisco.
“What is it?” He asks.
“Here.” Thea tosses me the sword—it had been resting at her feet near the wall. I breathe a sigh of relief when the cool metal hits my palm and thrums with awareness, ready for action.
Still works.
“Mercy?” Cisco prompts.
“You can’t feel that?” My gaze gravitates toward the gates as clouds block the sun.
“What?”
“Evil.”