Chapter 44
Forty-Four
Cisco
Ihave known only a few moments of peace my entire life. That time on the fishing boat with my uncle, falling asleep with Mercy in my arms, and everything after Thea healed me.
All the other times, I thought God had forsaken me.
That was why he never answered my prayers.
But from the moment I woke up, curse-free and at the abbey against all odds, I realized that he’d never left me.
He led me here in the first place. He blessed me with the love of a woman like Mercy and, as I sat on the porch steps, I had faith He would return her to me too.
So I waited patiently. I listened to Dominic’s fear lurking behind his fury.
I witnessed Raven’s pain behind her actions.
I cared not for the change in my body, the lack of hair on my head, the way my skin appeared as blemish-free as a newborn baby’s.
I wasn’t even concerned about Asmodeus or his big, protective fuzzy winged beast blocking Mercy from me.
They’d saved our lives, and I trusted Mercy’s opinion of them wholeheartedly.
When she joined me on the steps, even surrounded by bickering and tension, and even with her missing hair a glaring sign of my failures, I thought, life can’t get better than this.
After everything—the grief, the guilt, the horror of losing myself and being helpless to stop it—I floated in a cloud of bliss, happy to sit wrapped in a blanket, with Mercy under my arm, to listen to a flock still in need of a shepherd.
I was happy because I knew I still had a purpose in this world.
And then the sun disappeared behind clouds, a demon showed up at the gates, and I failed to sense the danger coming.
There is not a doubt in my mind now that Mercy’s sword worked its magic on me because I felt no premonition of evil tingling up my spine.
I felt nothing.
Not a single itch.
I should be ecstatic, praising the Lord for the miracle, but instead I am frozen like an ice statue.
Evil is literally at our gates, strolling down the driveway as if he owns it.
I am just a man, powerless to do anything but watch Tawny bypass Raven and close the distance between herself and Jinx.
She’s too busy chasing the recalcitrant ex-demon to notice the silent, ghostly apparitions slide through the gaps between iron bars like liquid. But Raven does. We all do.
As the shadows darken, color seeps from the lawn, from the lake, from Mercy’s face beside me until everything looks like a photograph left too long in a window. The sweet smells of the wilderness go next. Hay, cut grass, herbs and pine—all gone.
This isn’t like before.
I shield my eyes and squint to see through the distance, recognizing something familiar in the approaching figure with a jolt.
Fractured memories from the piazza pelt me—visions of a waxen-faced youth, flies crawling from his eyes and mouth, Maria’s expression just before she stepped in front of Mercy’s sword to save me.
The laughter.
“It’s Beelzebub!” Mercy shouts.
Tawny whips her gaze to us, then back to the gate and the newly appeared figure approaching. She stumbles to a stop.
“As in the Demon Prince of Hell?” Thea’s wide eyes dart our way, voice pitching higher with each word. “The one linked to Famine?”
Behind Beelzebub, long, thin shapes pour through the gaps in the gate like water, then pull themselves together again on our side.
Jinx, still free of Tawny’s arms, gets within range of Beelzebub and leaps in an attack. She sails straight through the demon as if he’s not there.
“I’m not really here,” Mercy mumbles beside me. “Not yet. And then I ride. That’s what he said.” She gasps, eyes wide. “He taunted me about winning whether I rid you of the curse or not, Cisco. I thought he was confused, that he’s Famine, but you were.”
Warmth drains from my face. “It is as I thought—we’re fulfilling the prophecy. We’re creating our doom.”
Mercy nods grimly. “And he’s Death.”
Her final word is like a bullet, spurring our team into action.
“No.” Dominic breaks into a run down the driveway. He’s fit, fast, and powerful. But he’ll never make it to them in time.
I’m not even sure they can hear us at this distance. Raven is . . . my gaze darts between her and Tawny, back to her and then toward Beelzebub as I try to work out who the target is. The demon prince isn’t looking at Tawny as he approaches them. His eyes are locked beyond her, on Raven.
The giant moth fluttering his wings won’t make it in time, and unless Asmodeus teleports himself there, he won’t either.
“Babe, get your exorcist kit.” Mercy’s hand plants against my chest and pushes me up the steps. “Move your ass, Padre!”
I turn, and Leila is there, shoving a bundle into my arms. I grab them with one hand and my blanket with the other, stopping it from falling. I glimpse Leila’s hard, determined eyes and then she’s pushing past me, already cocking her pistol and aiming.
“It won’t work!” Mercy chops down with her sword, knocking Leila’s aim to the ground. “Save your blessed bullets. My sword sailed right through him in Rome.”
“Then what the fuck do we do?” she returns, concerned eyes tracking the progress of Wesley, Zeke, and Thea as they race across the lawn to the gravel driveway.
Beelzebub strolls as if he exists in another world. Same two holes as eyes, in a pale suit cut from another time, and flies gathered on his collar.
No shadow.
He leaves no shadow on the ground behind him, and it’s not because the sun keeps hiding behind clouds. He’s not fully here yet, not corporeal.
He looks at Noctis flapping toward him, then at Asmodeus, who now thankfully stands between him and Tawny. Beelzebub slows for half a step, says something to them, and then continues to Raven.
Miraculously, Dominic is almost there, only twenty-odd feet away. His bare feet pound the gravel, leaving blood stains behind. Bellowed Italian makes it to my ears, something like, “He can’t take a living man. He can’t, he can’t.”
Raven frowns back at him, but then her eyes widen when she sees how close he is. She whirls, braid flying, and lunges toward Beelzebub’s outstretched hand.
“Raven, no—” Dominic’s broken English is so loud, so full of heartache, I hear every word. “Is only the dead! He take only—”
Her fingers close around Beelzebub’s. The sun breaks free from the clouds, almost as if to shine light on the smile curling on the demon’s lips. A shadow blooms from nothing across the gravel beneath his shoes, growing in size and darkness while Raven’s thins.
“Raven!” Mercy’s shriek snaps my attention to the fearless and naked woman running across the lawn, flames billowing from her sword as she races to meet them.
My feet are moving before I can think. Down the steps, cutting across the lawn toward the driveway, blanket clutched around my waist.
Raven turns to us, to Mercy, then to Dom a few feet away from her and closing. I swear there’s a moment when relief sags her shoulders. They lock eyes, and her lips move. She says one word—that’s all I can tell—and then she fades away.
The ghostly silent ones zoom past Asmodeus and Tawny, and spill around Beelzebub like a torrent of water. When they reform this time, they’re more solid—just like their master.
They split into factions—some head back to those they passed, others keep coming up the driveway.
Tawny goes down under something with too many joints, but Asmodeus is there. I hear an agonized sound rip from his soul. I see white—Noctis’s enormous wings folding over Dominic like a hand closing. I see the moth’s piranha teeth, and a shape going into that maw and not coming out.
And through it all, a voice slides across the yard and lands right against my ear: How generous. His was no use to me.
When I look, Beelzebub is back at the gate, one hand on the latch and the other lifting to give me a finger wave. Then he swings open wide the iron bars and waltzes through to freedom.