Every Last Breath

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Nitro looked like a panther, if panthers were white.

  Goodness.

  “Nitro will let you know if things get out of control,” Roth explained. “It will be obvious.”

  I couldn’t stop staring at the cat. It plopped its butt down, its pink tongue moving over its teeth. It looked hungry, and the Wardens looked very, very unhappy, especially when it coughed out what sounded suspiciously like a laugh.

  Roth turned to me. “Ready?”

  “Yep.” The blade was tucked into my boot, just like Roth had his. We walked to the ledge overlooking the alley below. The fastest way down was to jump. Roth shifted quickly, tucking his wings back so he didn’t knock me off the edge with them.

  Knowing that all eyes were on us, I allowed my own shift to take place. My skin buzzed with the change, and it was like finally waking up after being asleep for days when it happened. My wings unfurled, arcing high above me, the feathers tickled by the wind.

  Someone murmured an expletive behind us, and it sounded a lot like Abbot. I glanced at Roth and grinned.

  “Meet you down there,” he said, and jumped.

  “Show-off,” I muttered.

  Instead of jumping, I sort of walked off the ledge and empty space immediately reached up to grab me. Gravity was a beast. The alley raced toward me, and I let my wings spread out, slowing the descent.

  I landed in a crouch, propping up to find myself at eye level with an old man with a dirty, unshaven face.

  “Holy mother,” he gasped, stumbling back against the wall and then sliding down it, clutching his brown bag to his chest.

  I winced as my wings folded in, disappearing. “Whoops?”

  Roth chuckled, back to his human form, as he reached down, taking my hand. I sent the poor man an apologetic look, and then we hurried around the side of the building to the main street. My heart was thumping as we joined the thin crowd on the sidewalks.

  “I hope that doesn’t count as exposure,” I said as we crossed the street.

  He squeezed my hand. “I really think the Alphas have bigger problems to deal with right now.” Then he shrugged. “And seriously, you should’ve seen the look on the man’s face when he saw me. That was kind of funny.”

  I shook my head, but a little grin peeked through. Roth was in a far better mood than he had been immediately after the witches had left with Bambi. Distracting himself with what lay ahead was working for him and it was a strange thing to be grateful for, but I was.

  “There it is,” I said, two buildings down from the building housing the Church.

  He arched a dark brow as he studied the four-story structure. “Have the windows always been like that?”

  I nodded as a door to the building we stood in front of opened. A blast of music and laughter followed the young man out. His aura was a sea-moss green, swirling smoothly as he hunkered down in his jacket, heading in the opposite direction. “Yeah,” I answered. “They’ve always had the windows covered from the inside so you couldn’t see anything. It just adds to the shadiness, doesn’t it?”

  He snorted. “Remember the guy who threw holy water on you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not something I’d forget.”

  “I really hope he’s in there.”

  “Oh dear,” I murmured.

  “You know what I just thought of?”

  I looked at him. “What?”

  Some of the mischievous sparkle was back in his amber gaze. “I didn’t get to deflower you in my Porsche.”

  “Oh my God.” I gaped at him. “What in the world made you think of that right now?”

  “It’s called multitasking.” He winked. “And I still plan on breaking that baby in, just so you know.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” Slipping my hand free, I started toward the building and the grin I was rocking faded like an old memory as soon as we neared the door. “Do you feel that?”

  “Feels like home.”

  I ignored that, because I’d been to Hell, and Hell didn’t even feel like this—like a gallon of oil had been dumped over our heads. Walking was like pushing through slime. It was thick in the air, a heavy evil that had to be what the witches had been talking about, and never in my life had I felt anything like this.

  Roth edged around me, reaching the handle of the door. “Locked.” He twisted sharply, like he’d done in the basement of the school when we’d been hunting down the source of a very rotten, demonic smell, snapping the lock while hitting it with a dose of not so heavenly heat. “And unlocked.”

  The moment he opened the door, the smell about knocked us back a good three feet.

  “Oh my God.” I smacked my hand over my mouth, clamping down on my gag reflex as I glanced around the dimly lit lobby.

  “Jesus,” muttered Roth, his lips peeling back in a grimace.

  The scent was that of meat left out too long mixed with something I couldn’t quite place. Worse than sulfur or a dirty back alley in the city. Carefully, I lowered my hand, trying to not breathe through my nose. If the smell was any indication, things were really, really bad here.

  Behind the vacant receptionist desk, there was a huge banner hanging. Crudely drawn Wardens, who looked more like overgrown bats than gargoyles, were on either side of the words THE END IS NIGH.

  “So cliché.” Roth started around the desk, toward double, windowless doors. “You’d think they’d come up with something new.”

  I followed, disappointed that the smell was getting worse. “But the end is nigh.”

  “You—” he glanced over his shoulder at me as he reached the double doors “—are adorable.”

  I would’ve smiled at that, but the doors had opened, and all I could do was press my lips together to keep from hurling all over Roth’s back.

  Candles were everywhere, casting a flickering, soft light throughout a large atrium-style room that had been converted into a place where sermons would be held, complete with pews and the chancel, a raised platform.

  The pews weren’t empty.

  They were also the source of the wretched smell.

  They were full of bodies.

  twenty-two

  I DREW IN a deep breath, and while I immediately regretted it, the stench was overshadowed by the horror of what we were staring upon.

  Dozens and dozens of bodies were scattered throughout the pews, some slumped over while others were still sitting up, their heads fallen back, jaws slacked open. They were in various states of decomposition. For as much as I’d experienced in recent months, never in my life had I seen anything like this.

  “Good God,” I said, horrified.

  Roth stiffened as movement near the chancel drew our attention. It had been vacant moments before, but now a figure stood in front of the altar. I winced. It was the Lilin—and he’d taken the form of Sam once more.

  “I think this is appropriate,” the Lilin said, spreading its arms up at his sides. “I have a congregation of the dead.”

  “Most people would aim higher,” Roth said, eyeing the carnage with distaste.

  “I am not most beings, now, am I?” It grinned slightly from its elevated perch. “I’ve been waiting for you to come, sister.”

  “I am not your sister,” I gritted out.

  “Acceptance is the first step of recovery, or so they say.” The Lilin walked to the edge of the chancel and crouched. “You’re here to help me.”

  That wasn’t so much a question, but I answered anyway. “No. I’m here to stop you.”

  The thing chuckled smoothly. “You cannot stop me. Neither can the Prince.”

  “I wouldn’t put money on that,” Roth retorted.

  Milky white eyes drifted to Roth as the Lilin smiled mysteriously. “I guess we will see about that, won’t we?” The Lilin’s gaze found mine. “We need to free our mother. It is a travesty that a force such as she should remain chained. We are in this together and—”

  “You can stop the sales pitch right there,” I interrupted. “There is nothing that you can
say that will sway me. You won’t be able to free Lilith. Don’t you understand that? Nothing will free her. After Paimon attempted to do so, extraordinary measures were put in place to prevent her from getting out.”

  “True,” remarked Roth, rather smugly. “The Boss has her on lockdown. It’s not going to happen.”

  “That is where you are wrong,” the Lilin responded from its perch. “If I succeed in raising Hell to Earth, no one down there will be paying attention to Lilith. She will be the least of their worries.”

  Muscles locked up all along my back. “If you bring Hell to Earth, the Alphas will step in. They will wipe us all out, including you.”

  “It’s not like they can throw a magic switch and then we’re gone.”

  Roth sighed. “It has a point there.”

  “That’s not helping,” I said under my breath.

  “The Alphas will fight us and we will fight back, even those who do not want to see Lilith free or for Hell to open its gates. They will fight,” the Lilin continued. “As I will, and while we all are fighting to survive, the world will fall apart. If I cannot free our mother, then I truly have nothing to lose.”

  What Grim had warned me about was coming true, but it really wasn’t a surprise. The Lilin really had no thoughts of its own. All it was concerned with was freeing Lilith, and if it couldn’t have that, then it would settle for chaos and absolute destruction.

  The Lilin rose fluidly. “You will see. In the end, you will have no choice but to help me.”

  The darkness along the wall, which had been still and unnoticeable at this point, suddenly moved. Thick shadows shifted and grew, slipping up and over the ceiling like a muddy oil slick. The stench of the room rose, but the evil in it became suffocating. There was the source of the darkness and we’d been standing in the middle of it the entire time.

  “Wraiths,” I gasped, stepping back.

  They swarmed across the ceiling, like something straight out of a horror movie, and then dropped to the floor, among the benches.

  But that wasn’t all.

  We could see the wall now, could see that there were several statues lined up. They looked like the stone gargoyles perched atop so many of the city’s buildings, but cruder, more grotesque than the real thing. Some looked like goblins. Others were part lion and a few looked like birds. Not the happy, dove kind. More like pterodactyls. There were about twenty of the statues.

  “They created them out of stone.” The Lilin gestured at the bodies in the pews. “So bizarre. They used them as a reminder of the evil they so badly wanted to fight. Ironic.”

  A heartbeat passed.

  The first row of pews shot up straight in the air, shattering apart and sending bodies in every direction. The second row followed and then the third, the fourth...

  Boards were flying, along with pieces of those left behind. Each burst of pews was a crack of thunder.

  “Somebody better call the Ghostbusters,” Roth muttered. “Because we don’t have time for this.”

  I would’ve laughed, wanted to, but a piece of wood winged its way in my direction. I dipped down, narrowly avoiding getting plowed over. The board smashed into the wall behind us.

  I shifted immediately, welcoming the change. Roth did the same as he jumped, snatching a rather large piece of board out of the air. Snapping it in half, he tossed it down.

  Sparks flew and flames rose from the farthest corner as the knocked-over candles started a fire among the debris.

  Reaching down, I withdrew the dagger from my boot, and then started down the center aisle, toward the chancel. The wraiths didn’t like that. They came at me. Shaped like humans, but no more substantial than smoke, they were tricky beasts to fight. One managed to get a hold of my hair, yanking my head back. I hissed as I twisted out of the wraith’s grip.

  The Lilin shouted something in an ancient, guttural-sounding language that meant nothing to me, but the wraiths responded. They pulled back, and then darted to the walls.

  “Oh crap,” Roth said. “It’s about to get ugly.”

  I didn’t have to wait long to see what he meant. The wraiths hit the statues, draping themselves over them like a blanket. I didn’t know what they were doing, but every instinct told me I wasn’t going to like it.

  The shadows pulsed, and then they disappeared, seeping into the statues, wiggling their way through the cracks and openings. Some wraiths remained near the ceilings, their forms twisting and trembling.

  A great and terrible shudder worked its way through the building, scattering the broken boards and bodies, and the shudder turned into a groan cut off by the sound of stone grinding against stone.

  Then the statues moved.

  “What in the...?” I said.

  Roth growled low in his throat as the things straightened and stretched, as if waking up from a slumber. The lion-shaped gargoyle threw its head back, letting out a deafening roar that was so realistic.

  A goblin-like gargoyle pushed away from the wall. Only about five feet tall, its footsteps thundered as it raced toward Roth, cackling in a low-pitched voice.

  Roth stepped to the side, spinning around. He grabbed the goblin’s arm, and then shot to the ceiling. Arcing swiftly, Roth flew back down at a harrowing rate, slamming the goblin into the floor.

  The floor dented as the stone creature shattered into large chunks, releasing the wraith. The black shadow poured out of the remains, knocking Roth back several feet.

  My familiar shifted on my stomach, peeling itself off before I could stop it. Robin appeared, at first the size of a fox and then he grew, taking on the size of a Doberman, and boy, that was freaky.

  Robin darted up the aisle, his overly large but sleek body moving incredibly fast. He jumped, snatching the tail end of the wraith, dragging it back down. My mouth dropped open. I had no idea that familiars could touch wraiths, but Robin wasn’t just touching. He was shaking his head like a pit bull with an evening snack, whirling the wraith from side to side.

  The other statues converged on us, and in a minute, I lost sight of Roth. Knowing that the blade would do nothing against these things, I sheathed it back in my boot.

  Shrieking from the ceiling, the pterodactyl-type gargoyle dive-bombed me, its beak opening as if it planned on swallowing me whole. I jumped to the side, but the bird twisted, and that’s when I saw its tail. It caught me in the hip, knocking me over.

  I hit the ground, my hands landing in something wet and sticky. I so didn’t want to think about that as I pushed myself off the floor and stared through the curtain of my hair. The creature dived at me again, and I rolled onto my back. Using my legs, I pulled them up, and then swung them back down, popping up in a crouch.

  The bird came at me again, but this time I was better prepared—I launched up and caught one of its wings. Tapping into the strength I’d always had in me, but never really used, never truly understood, I broke the wing near the small horn.

  Screeching, the bird spiraled down to the floor, crashing into the destroyed pews. Picking up a board, I followed it to where it rolled to a stop, at the foot of the chancel. I raised the board and as the stone creature rose to its hind legs, I smacked the board into its head. Wood broke and stone shattered from the neck up. The rest of the statue toppled over as black smoke poured toward the ceiling, reminding me of that TV show Sam had gotten me addicted to.

  Spinning around, I caught sight of Roth kicking one of the statues into the wall, and then twisting to catch the one behind him. He moved with brutal grace, destroying everything that came within touching distance of him.

  Robin had cornered another wraith, so I turned to the raised platform, where the Lilin stood surveying the carnage. He smiled down at me, so much like Sam that I wanted to get up there and beat the ever-loving—

  A statue slammed into me, throwing me several feet into the air. My wings expanded, stopping me from being thrown against the wall like one of Roth’s statues. I hovered for a moment, spying the lion creature.

  It
was massive, its powerful muscles coiling and tensing as it stalked toward me, mouth open to reveal stone fangs.

  That was one creature I did not want to get a hold of me.

  Turning toward the Lilin, I landed on the chancel, and as I