by G. P. Ching
She didn’t want to touch him.
She desperately wanted to touch him.
He both was and wasn’t the man who had deceived her. This situation was impossible, their relationship doomed. From where they’d begun there was nowhere to go, was there?
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. His expression was a mask of pain.
“I know,” she said.
“You’re shaking.”
“There was a time you wanted to kill me.”
“I’m not him anymore.”
“So you say, Liam not Damian.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t know you.”
He stepped closer to her but didn’t touch her. “Hello, my name is Liam.” He offered her his hand and a reassuring smile.
She looked him straight in the eye. “No. You are Damien. And if I ever forgive you, it will be because I accept you for everything you are, not for something you wish you were.”
He scowled at that, but she placed her trembling fingers in his and allowed him to wrap his arms around her. His wings, translucent, hidden, but as soft as they’d ever been, enveloped her. They broke apart and traveled on the light.
Hope rejoiced in his warmth, in the golden brightness of his soul melded with hers for a few glorious moments before coming back together in front of the bus.
“Here you are,” he said, releasing her.
Her gaze met his and the corner of her mouth turned upward. “Thanks for the ride.” She opened her mouth but her next word caught in her throat. Did she owe him anything? No. But there was something she wanted to say, for herself, for her own sanity. She tried again. “Damien, I told you, I need space and time. I can’t work out what happened or forgive you if you’re constantly hovering over me.”
“I understand.” He blended into the light and was gone.
The doors to the bus opened, and Ms. D stepped off the stairs. “Hope! I’ve been looking all over for you. We need to discuss the show tonight.”
Hope placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her back toward the bus. “We need to discuss a lot more than that.”
“Whatever he’s done to it makes my head hurt.” Hope stood at the gate to the cemetery with the rest of the Soulkeepers, watching tendrils of fog worm their way between the crypts. Fuse, Amuke, and Orelon had stayed behind on the bus as backup. It was twilight and the sky above them was clear, the weather temperate. But behind the gate, the atmosphere had gone all sorts of funky. The entire cemetery had taken on an unnatural hazy quality, and she could feel a cold wall of air extending a few inches past the metal bars of the gate. Cold air aside, the place oozed ominous energy. Her head throbbed and her skin prickled.
Ms. D reached a mottled hand toward the lock, then snatched it away with a curse. “He’s warded it off. Strong magic.”
“I can’t feel anything alive beyond this point,” Hope said. “Not a root or a vine. If there is one, I can’t connect to it.”
Ms. D frowned and turned to Damien, who despite promising to give her space, was behind her. Not his fault, she supposed. The team needed him, especially now that they were operating without a Healer. “Can you fly over and see if you can get in from above?”
He nodded and bent his knees to launch himself into the air.
“Discreetly!” Ms. D said. The angel disappeared, but Hope felt a brush of feathers as he took off on his invisible mission.
Ms. D looked over her shoulder at the traffic and people bustling in and out of shops across the street. “It seems all of us could use a little discretion. A cloaking spell should do the trick.” She circled her hands and Hope watched a shimmer of magic fall like rain around them.
Emboldened, Jayden stepped to the lock. “The air is cold here. Let’s see if a little fire has any effect.” His hands burst into flames and he thrust them at the bars. With a crackle and zap, his feet left the ground like he’d touched an electric fence and he was blown back from the gate. Only Paul’s quick thinking and even quicker movements stopped him from flying beyond the cloaking spell and into the street.
“Thanks, man,” Jayden said after Paul set him on his feet again. Hope breathed a sigh of relief.
“If Damien is going over, I’ll try to go under,” Paul said. He crouched down as Hope and the others averted their eyes. In a few heartbeats, a rat poked its head out of a pile of Paul’s clothes and scampered toward the wall where it burrowed into the ground.
Not to be outdone, Jenny stepped as close to the wall as she could bear and tapped the earpiece Hope had given her after visiting Finn. HORU’s hologram formed, flickering in the middle.
“Hello, Jenny. Please excuse my state of being. The energy field next to you is interfering with my projection.” HORU’s ears twitched and she wrinkled her nose.
“HORU, can you tell me anything about this place? We can’t get in.”
“Accessing satellite.” Her oversized eyes blinked rapidly. “This isn’t science, Jenny. It is magic. This entire cemetery is no longer visible by any networked equipment. The way the video feed bends around it, I must conclude that it exists inside a bubble.”
“A bubble?”
“A reflective bubble. From space, nothing appears to be missing. That is only possible if the light is bending around this place. A bubble.”
Paul scampered back to his clothes, his whiskers twitching as he burrowed into his shirt. The boy formed where the rat had been, quickly arranging his clothing and brushing dirt from his hair. “It’s impenetrable from below. I tried everything. The other animals have fled. There isn’t so much as a worm down there.”
A rush of air confirmed Damien’s return. He came into view beside Hope, who rolled her eyes at his persistent nearness. “There is no access from above. Even when I tried to use my power, I was thwarted.”
Ms. D sucked air through her teeth. “No choice then. We cannot retrieve the blade. Our only chance is that he does not find it.”
“There’s something else,” Damien said. “He’s erected a cabin next to the tree. Smoke is billowing from the chimney. That’s not fog you’re seeing. It’s smoke.”
Hope’s brow furrowed and she turned to Ms. D. “I thought you said he was performing tonight. Why would he leave a fire burning?”
Damien sighed. “Because it is no ordinary fire and this is no ordinary magic. Lucifer has used the power of the tree to conjure hellfire. It is the fire of Hell that burns in that cabin and fuels the magic protecting this place. Smoke like that will detect anything holy. It is the opposite of everything we are made of, everything we stand for. You might say it is a litmus test for evil. There is no way in for any of us.”
In silence, Ms. D dropped the cloaking charm, and the team started back toward the bus. Once the others had crossed the street, Ms. D grabbed Hope’s arm. “I need to talk to you.” She lowered her chin. “Alone.”
Hope nodded. “Yes. Of course.”
9
Confessions
Across the street from the cemetery, in a place called the Voodoo Café, Hope sat at a table with Ms. D, staving off the remaining chill from the cursed cemetery with a hot cup of tea. Ironically, it was a hot and humid day, but the sun’s heat couldn’t reach the place left cold by Lucifer’s actions.
“You wanted to talk to me?”
Ms. D stared out the window at the place where they’d just been, rubbing her outer arms. She peered over her glasses at a man who seemed to cross the street to avoid it. “I don’t think they can even see it,” Ms. D said. “Look how he avoids the cemetery without even realizing.” They watched a woman walk directly at the gate, only to trip, become disoriented, and veer to the right.
“Do you think Lucifer has already found the dagger?” Hope asked. It was a question she wanted to ask before but was afraid it would upset the others.
Victoria shook her head. “I sense the protective enchantment I put on it is still in place. I did not leave it unguarded.”
Hope’s head throbbed and she looked away f
rom the window, down into the swirling tea leaves in her drink. Maybe it was the newfound power within her, but she seemed connected to those leaves, as if her soul was tumbling in the belly of the teacup, the tides of change spinning her life in every direction. She needed to settle, to anchor herself to something, or she’d slip away.
“I asked you here because I wanted to speak with you privately about something.” Ms. D ran a finger around the lip of her mug.
Hope gestured for her to continue with a tilt of her head.
She cleared her throat. “How was Mr. Wager when you saw him?” Ms. D adjusted her glasses.
Hope had already shared the basics of their meeting. Jenny had HORU, and Ms. D knew about the portal. This wasn’t about any of those things. She wanted to know about Finn. How he was personally. Hope took a deep breath.
“He’s damaged, Victoria. I can smell it on him, a darkness that scares me. He’s not a Soulkeeper anymore.”
“You told him he could return if he wanted to? And Theodor.”
She nodded. “He doesn’t want to. They’ve formed a coven: Finn, Theodor, and Wendy.”
“Yes, Wendy. You mentioned her. She’s learning magic as a human.” Her lips thinned.
“Finn has this idea that the three of them will become powerful enough to stop Lucifer with magic. They want to do it their own way.”
Ms. D huffed. “Because that’s worked so well in the past.”
“At least we’re on the same side.” She gestured toward the cemetery. “We are going to need all the help we can get. Without a Healer, we have no guidance from above. We’re flying blind.”
Victoria swirled her coffee. “I don’t suppose you could ask Liam to, you know.” Her eyes flicked toward the ceiling. She lowered her voice. “Ask God directly.”
“Damien. His name is Damien,” Hope corrected. She shrugged. “Sure, I can ask him. But can we trust him? He’s an angel now, but who knows what that means. He’s Lucifer’s brother. He has free will. He fell once—he can fall again.”
“I can see why you’d be skeptical of his motivations, but have you ever thought that his past could be an asset? He has insight into Lucifer’s mind that the rest of us will never have.”
“And you think we can trust him?” The question came out more accusatory than she intended.
“I think we should hear him.”
Hope drank the last sip of her tea. “You hear him. I’m too busy staying away from him.”
Ms. D grunted and tapped the side of her mug. “There’s another, more obvious answer to our problem.” Her eyes shifted sideways toward the cemetery and her lips thinned, tiny wrinkles forming around the corners of her mouth.
Hope squinted. “What?”
“We can’t retrieve the dagger, you understand. It’s only a matter of time before Lucifer finds it.”
“That’s the fear.”
“Based on what we know from when he tried to capture you, he needs more than the dagger to complete the spell. He needs the Healer.” Ms. D lowered her chin and peered at Hope over the top of her glasses. “What if we don’t create a Healer for him to sacrifice?”
“God calls the Healer, not us. What are you suggesting?”
Victoria leaned forward. “Michael is rejecting the role. It will take time for another Healer to be called. Once we know who it is, we can force the person to stay on Veil Island. Lucifer can’t sacrifice what he can’t find.”
Hope frowned. “True, but the person also won’t be capable of acting as our Healer. Only the Healer can cross to the In-Between. That’s something I wasn’t able to do before from Revelations. We need a Healer. Without one, the Soulkeepers have no anchor or direction.”
She waved a hand in the air. “We could get by without one. We have no Healer now, and we are surviving. Slowly, we will make our way through the list of demons, isolate Lucifer, then somehow force him through that portal and let the curse do its dirty work.”
Hope shook her head. “Even if the Soulkeepers could continue to operate successfully without a Healer—and as the former Healer, I’m not convinced that’s the case—what you’re suggesting is tantamount to keeping whoever Michael’s replacement is a prisoner. It could be years before we kill all those demons. No one is going to give up their freedom to live on that island willingly.”
“There are things more important than a potential Healer’s happiness,” Ms. D said quietly, although she looked disgusted by her own words.
“We have time. Mike is with his aunt now. He told me he is going to refuse the role as soon as he can talk to Gabriel. He won’t be the potential much longer, but as I said, it will take awhile for another to be called.” And hopefully, by then, the Soulkeepers would think of another way to thwart Lucifer other than imprisoning their leader.
“Right. When will we know for sure?” Ms. D leaned back in her chair.
“We’re supposed to stop by Mike’s house tomorrow to confirm he’s rejected the role. I can’t call Gabriel anymore—that was a gift of the Healer. We will have to ask Michael if the angel gave him any guidance or direction.”
“Or you could ask Damien.”
Hope frowned. “Fine. If Michael doesn’t have a message from Gabriel, I’ll ask Damien.”
Ms. D glanced toward the window and inhaled sharply. “Look who’s leading a cemetery tour?”
Hope followed her gaze across the street to find Kirsa leading a group of ten adults through the gate. Her stomach clenched and she stood from her chair. “We have to stop her!”
“It’s too late.” They were through the gate, the fog closing in behind them.
“She’s luring them to that cabin to feed to Lucifer, isn’t she?” Hope felt sick.
Ms. D sighed. “It appears Kirsa is now doing his dirty work while he’s onstage. She’s bringing him souls so he can spend less time away.”
“How do you think she’s passing through the enchantment? How are the people? We tried everything to get inside.”
“He must have cursed her somehow. Or it’s possible the enchantment sees her specific genetic makeup as a key. It’s sophisticated magic.”
“Keeping a spell like that going has to be a drain on his resources. Juliette must be working overtime to keep him fed.”
Ms. D pursed her lips. “Only, he’s scheduled fewer concerts, not more. The portal and the hellfire must be strengthening him.”
Hope rubbed her aching head. “I wish I knew what to do.”
“Yes, hmmm.” Ms. D folded her arms over her chest. “Well, we’ve learned one thing today. Lucifer may still be performing, but he’s not living on a bus any longer. That cabin and those people are there for a reason. It appears the Devil has taken up permanent residence in New Orleans.”
10
Ultimatum
“Aunt Millie?” Michael shot Gabriel a confused look before ignoring the angel’s advice and leaving the triquetra around his neck. He didn’t know how to use it anyway. He opened the door and ran down the stairs.
His aunt’s scream came again from her bedroom. The door was open. What Mike saw inside stopped his blood cold. A man held his aunt in the corner of the room, a knife to her throat. Wait, no. That wasn’t a knife. Michael looked more closely at the sharp extension protruding from the man’s knuckle in abject horror. That was a talon.
“You’re a demon.” A chill ran the length of his spine.
“Very good, Michael.” The man’s bright red tongue licked his bottom lip, his dark eyes shifting from his aunt to him and back again. “You need to come with me. Lucifer would like a word.”
Lucifer. Mike cringed. Hope had warned him. The Devil knew where he lived and he was supposed to be in Hell. Aunt Millie’s eyes were wild. Her small, bony hands gripped the demon’s forearm helplessly.
“Michael, do you know this man?” she asked shakily.
“Let her go,” Mike said through his teeth.
The demon snorted. “This is not a negotiation, human.” The talon sliced across his aunt’s
chest, drawing blood and eliciting another scream.
“No!” Mike yelled, rushing forward. But the demon stopped him in his tracks with a talon to her throat.
“The next one slices her jugular.”
He held up both hands. “Okay, okay. What do you want me to do?” The demon reached a hand toward him, shifting his bleeding Aunt Millie to the side.
Light rushed through the room, knocking the demon against the wall and throwing his Aunt Millie toward the bed.
“Michael, now!” Gabriel yelled.
Mike fisted the triquetra and tore it from his neck, watching the arc of energy fan across his mahogany knuckles. The demon attacked. This wasn’t apples or a training ring. This was an honest-to-goodness fight. He ducked slashing talons and punched the demon in the gut with his glowing fist. The ring of energy sliced through the man’s lower abdomen, almost cutting him in half. Mike danced backward with small steps, hands raised like a boxer against the retaliatory strikes. The thing’s mouth spat black blood.
As Mike dodged, the hole in its abdomen widened. He waited for guts to pour out. Instead, a black tangle hatched from the body like an egg. The thing became a scorpion of darkness with claws and barbs.
Mike howled as one of those claws snapped toward his head. “Gabriel, a little help here!” Mike swiped with the triquetra again, sending one claw crashing to the carpet. Black blood splattered his shirt.
“You’re doing fine, Michael. I’m amazed, considering you refused my training,” Gabriel said.
Between punches and slices of his chakram, Mike saw the angel lean against the wall and inspect his fingernails.
“Aren’t you going to help me?” Mike yelled, dodging a potentially deadly sting and slicing through the side of the scorpion’s tail.
“I would, but you refused our relationship. I’m not supposed to meddle in human affairs.”
The demon charged and Mike barely escaped by dive rolling over its elbow and across the room. He whirled and took another nick out of its hide. “I don’t think I ever gave you an answer,” Mike said. “But I can’t be the Healer if I’m dead!”
