by Sara Reinke
Or then again, maybe I’ll take him myself.
“I hate him,” Jason seethed, his eyes closed, his fists balled. He could feel the Eidolon within him. It had hated Sitri too, loathed its humiliating, demeaning capture as much as Jason had, and it surged in him now, icy in his veins. “That son of a bitch. I hate him for what he’s done to me.”
“Jason, stop,” Gabriel said, trying to move quickly toward him, his voice alarmed. He caught Jason by the arm, his hand closing firmly, and Jason jerked in surprise, snapping out of his near-reverie. He felt the Eidolon almost instantly withdraw, as quickly as it had risen in him, and he blinked at Gabriel in bewildered surprise.
“The Eidolon responds to your emotions,” Gabriel warned. “Anytime you use your powers, anytime the Eidolon comes upon you, the Gader’el can sense it. Sitri can sense it, track you by it. You have to try to contain it.”
“For how long?” Jason asked, startled and alarmed by this revelation and feeling foolish for never having realized the correlation himself.
“For as long as you can. At least until I can get you to Nemamiah.”
Jason drew back, his eyes widening. “Nemamiah?”
Gabriel nodded. “He can help us. He’s been looking for you too, ever since he realized what you were, that you were unmarked. He said we need to bring you back to the Netherworlde, to the Edge.”
Jason took a hedging step away again. “I thought you said that was a bad thing, the Edge. That past it was that outer darkness place where we disappear, cease to be.”
“Nemamiah said you’re different. He’s beseeched the Ophanim. As an archangel, he can do that, and because you were wrongly taken by the Nephilim, because you’re unmarked, by delivering you to the Edge, we can undo all of this. The Ophanim have agreed to claim you and leave the Eidolon to the Outer Realm. You’ll be brought to where you belong, where you should have been all along.”
“I thought I couldn’t get rid of the Eidolon,” Jason said, frowning. “You told me it was a part of me.”
“I said you can’t live without it,” Gabriel said. “But I’m not talking about living, Jason. I’m talking about death. Yours. Because I also told you you’re not supposed to be here.” He reached out, as if he meant to pat Jason reassuringly on the shoulder. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“What?” Jason jerked back, his frown deepening. “No. Hell, no!”
“Jason…” Gabriel began.
“I’m alive,” Jason snapped. “Whatever happened to me before, that’s over and done with now, in the past. I’m back and I’m alive and I’ll be damned if I let you just chuck me off the side of some kind of brink, into God only knows what.” He shook his head. “No way.”
He stormed toward the bedroom door, meaning to grab Sam and get the hell out, but Gabriel called after him, “You won’t last two days.”
Jason froze, his hand poised against the doorknob.
“Sitri will find you,” Gabriel said. “You’ll lose your temper or you’ll get scared or you’ll find yourself worried or worked up or turned on—something. Negative emotions work the best, but the Eidolon will respond to almost any emotion from its host, and when it does, when its power comes over you again, Sitri will find you. And this time he won’t mess around here on the mortal plain. He’ll take you back to the Netherworlde.”
Gabriel limped toward Jason. “And that’s nothing compared to what he’s likely to do to Samantha while he’s at it. Hell, he’ll probably make you watch while he rapes her—right before he has one of his Wyrms hollow out your skull.”
He stood almost directly behind Jason now, his voice quiet but grave. “I’m not trying to trick you or scare you. I’m just telling you how it is, how it’s going to be. Because Sitri is strong. He’s Nemamiah strong—there’s no one else in his half of the Netherworlde stronger than him except for his spiritual counterpart, his match, Mara.
“You’re like a prize to Sitri, a righteous soul bound as a Wraith, and he’s going to hunt you down for however long it takes until he finds you, claims you again. And like I said, I give that about two days if you walk out that door. You stay here with me, you let me help you, and I guarantee you’ll be safe from him.”
Jason glanced over his shoulder. “You told me at the wax museum you couldn’t hold him off for long. He was stronger than you, you said.”
Gabriel nodded once. “But he’s not stronger than Nemamiah. And as soon as you get your hand off that doorknob and sit down again, I’ll summon him. Unless, of course, you like the idea of watching Sitri fuck your girlfriend for the rest of eternity.”
Jason’s hand fell away from the door. When Gabriel touched his shoulder, he shrugged him away but remained rooted in place, no longer trying to leave.
“The way you died was a terrible crime,” Gabriel told him. “And what happened to you after that, what’s still happening to you even now, is worse. But that doesn’t change what happened, what’s meant to be. This isn’t death. You’re already dead. You died five years ago and there’s no undoing it, no going back. This is fixing things, making them right. It’s taking you where you belong.”
Jason glanced at him. “This thing Nemamiah wants to do…it’ll work? The Eidolon will be out of me and I’ll go on to heaven? Or whatever?”
Gabriel nodded. “He gave me his word.”
I don’t want to die, he wanted to say, but then Gabriel’s words echoed kindly in his mind: This isn’t death. You’re already dead. You died five years ago and there’s no undoing it, no going back. This is fixing things, making them right. It’s taking you where you belong.
But what about Sam? Torn, Jason looked toward the bedroom door. How can I leave her?
But he knew. Gabriel’s warning of what might happen to her if Sitri caught them had been unnecessary. Because even if he didn’t, we’d still be on the run, always trying to keep three steps ahead of him and the Nephilim. It would never be over, not as long as she’s with me.
Even though she might not have loved him as much or at least in the same way as she had Jason, after his death, Sam had found comfort and company with Dean. She’d been safe with him.
And she will be again, Jason thought.
“All right,” he said at length, turning away so Gabriel wouldn’t see his tears. “Let’s do it, then. Right now, before I change my mind.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jason watched as Gabriel raised the blinds on one of the living room windows. The priest leaned forward and huffed a soft breath, frosting the glass in a narrow circumference. With his fingertip, he traced a quick series of lines in the fog, what looked like an irregularly shaped N to Jason, one with an extra hatch mark, like he’d meant to draw a W, then abruptly changed his mind.
“It’s a sigil,” Gabriel explained as the frosted place on the window, along with the strange little character, faded from view. “A special symbol you can use to summon different Celestials.”
“You mean, like magic?” Jason asked, and the look that Gabriel awarded him was something charmed and amused, akin to that of an adult who’s just been asked by a curious toddler about how Santa Claus gets into their house if there’s no chimney.
“Yeah,” he said. “Something like that.”
“So.” Jason glanced around uncertainly. “What now? Does he just appear out of nowhere? A puff of smoke? Flash of light?”
Gabriel chuckled. “No, he usually comes to the door.”
****
Jason stood at the bedroom doorway, watching Sam sleep. She was curled onto her side, facing the threshold, and a sliver of pale light cut across her cheek. Her expression was peaceful, her hands draped lightly near her face, her body rising and settling again with each soft inhalation and release.
“You can wake her if you want,” Gabriel offered gently from behind him.
“No.” Jason shook his head, even though this was what he wanted—to go to her, to lay alongside her, feel the warm, soft sweetness of her body against his one last time. “It
would be too hard,” he whispered, his voice strained. “Too painful.”
Gabriel clapped his hand kindly against Jason’s shoulder. “I understand.”
“Will you tell her for me?” Jason choked up, his eyes stinging with sudden tears, and he lowered his gaze to the floor, struggling to compose himself. “Will you tell her that I love her? That I think this is what’s best for both of us, and it’s okay for her to let go.”
He glanced over his shoulder and found Gabriel regarding him, his expression kind. “I will, Jason,” he said with a nod. “I give you my word.”
When he turned and walked back toward the couch, Jason forced himself to leave the doorway, the tempting glimpse of Sam behind and follow. “And Mei…?” he began.
Gabriel nodded. “I’ll look out for her.”
“She’s a good kid,” Jason insisted. “She doesn’t have anyone, no place to go, and I’m worried about her.”
“I know.” Gabriel’s brows lifted sympathetically. “I’ll get her the help she needs. I’ll take care of her. I promise.”
A knock fell against the door and Gabriel limped over to answer it. Jason felt nervous all of a sudden and seized with a desperate, anxious sort of sorrow.
Because this is it, he thought. It’s over now—the Eidolon inside me, Sam, Mei—everyone and everything, all of it over. I’ll be dead. Again.
Gabriel didn’t even peer through the peep hole into the corridor beyond. He simply snapped back the dead bolt and opened the apartment door. But instead of Nemamiah standing at the threshold, a woman waited. She was simply dressed in a cream-colored cowl-neck sweater that drooped on her lanky frame worn atop a pair of faded jeans and heavy boots.
“Sarea?” Gabriel said, sounding surprised as he drew back from the door. “I was expecting—”
“Nemamiah. I know. He’s indisposed. I’m here in his place.” Without waiting for further invitation, the woman, Sarea, walked into the apartment, as if she had every right or reason in the world to be there. She swept her gaze around the living room and when she caught sight of Jason, a slight crimp formed in the otherwise smooth skin at the bridge of her nose. “So you’re the one.”
There was something oddly familiar about her, and Jason frowned, struggling to remember. I fought so many Celestials when I was a Wraith. Could she have been one of them?
“Nemamiah was right,” Gabriel said as he closed and locked the door. His voice suddenly took on an excited edge. “He really is unmarked. Jason, pull your hair back. Let her see your brow.”
Jason did, feeling every bit as weird and uncomfortable as he had at Dr. Delgado’s office when she’d asked him to drop his pants so she could give him a shot in the ass. Sarea approached him now with that same sort of clinical detachment. Shorter than he was, she reached up and caught him by the chin, tilting his face down toward her, frowning as she peered closely.
“Jason, this is Sarea,” Gabriel told him by way of introduction. “It’s all right, she’s an archeia, a female archangel.”
“Uh, hi,” Jason said, feeling awkward.
“And the Wyrm?” Sarea asked Gabriel, ignoring Jason altogether, releasing her grasp on his chin.
“Gone,” Gabriel answered before Jason could get a word in edgewise. “Dead. Fell out of his skull when Nemamiah’s blade pierced him.”
“Then there’s nothing left to hold the Eidolon in check?” Sarea turned to Gabriel in wide-eyed alarm.
“No,” Gabriel said. “There’s Jason.”
“What?” Sarea turned to Jason in dubious surprise. “That’s not possible.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Apparently it is.”
Sarea studied Jason again, her brows narrowed slightly. “We should take him now,” she said. “Get this over with. I’ve sent word to the Ophanim. They’ll be waiting for us at the Edge.”
But when she reached for Jason, he drew back, that anxious fear still inside him. I’m about to die, he thought. Everything I know, everything I’ve known, everyone I’ve loved or love—everything I have—it’s all about to be gone. I’m about to be gone.
It may have been, as Gabriel had told him, the best for everyone involved, including himself, but that didn’t make it something he necessarily wanted.
“Wait,” he said, even though he didn’t know what exactly he wanted to wait for.
Sarea reached beneath the front of her sweater and pulled out a gun, a revolver that looked so ridiculously large and cumbersome in her hand, it didn’t seem possible that she’d be able to level it with the proficient ease with which she did, or that her small fingers would be able to cock back the hammer, curl against the trigger as they did.
“Come with me willingly, or I shoot you right here,” Sarea said. “Either way, that thing inside you is destroyed. What happens to your soul is ultimately irrelevant to me.”
“He’s scared,” Gabriel said to her. “He wasn’t aware of his death before. This is new to him and frightening.”
Jason met his eyes, holding Gabriel’s gaze for a long moment as they stood face-to-face, the priest’s hand still lightly against his shoulder. “No, it’s all right,” he whispered, nodding once. “It’s all right,” he said again, more loudly this time. “I’m ready.”
Sarea pushed the hammer of her pistol back up with her thumb. “Good.”
She tucked the gun back into the waistband of her jeans, then reached for Jason, closing her hand against the crook of his elbow.
“Tell Sam I love her,” Jason said, grabbing Gabriel fiercely by the hand.
His fear and sorrow must have been apparent in his face, because Gabriel smiled gently. “I will,” he said, patting his hand to comfort him. “Now close your eyes. There’ll be a bright flash of light when you cross over.”
“Thanks, Gabriel,” Jason said, trying to smile even though his heart was hammering beneath his sternum in panicked terror. “For everything.”
He didn’t know if Gabriel answered him or not. All at once, just as the priest had promised, there was a tremendous burst of light, white and searing, and Jason cried out reflexively, drawing his hand to his face, clamping his eyes shut against the brilliant, dazzling glare.
When it faded, there was nothing discernablediscernible beyond the dark shelter of his eyelids, and the air against his face felt crisp and frigid. He lowered his hand and opened his eyes slowly, hesitantly. He hadn’t known what to expect of the Elohim’s side of the Netherworlde. Gabriel had never told him. To Jason, it didn’t look a bit different than the Nephilim’s half, that same stark lunar landscape, a desolate terrain stretching out endlessly in all directions. The only difference was this time, Jason stood at the end of a cliff that overlooked nothing, a precipice that ended at an abrupt and cragged edge, with a steep, endless drop into an impenetrable darkness Jason knew now to be the Outer Realm.
The Edge, he realized, shrinking back instinctively. This is it, the Edge of the Netherworlde.
Gabriel had told him that the Ophanim would meet them here, take him past the brink of the Edge. But there was nothing out in that vast, absolute darkness he could even begin to see. Drawing his arms about himself and shivering, he turned to Sarea. “So, uh, now what?”
One of the scorpion-like Goblins crouched by her feet, its curved tail tucked nearly in an embrace around her waist. It suddenly unfurled its spindly legs, springing at Jason. He backpedaled with a sharp, frightened cry, but it plowed into him, catching him completely by surprise and off guard. He crashed to the ground with the Goblin on top of him and he had less than a second to thrash and struggle with it, screaming hoarsely, before the wicked hook of its stinger punched into his chest, just below the vertex of his ribs. There was a moment of blinding, burning pain and then nothing at all. Jason’s arms and legs drooped limply to the dirt, his cries abruptly fading. He lay motionless, paralyzed, helpless against the ground, and all at once, he knew why Sarea had seemed so familiar to him—he’d met her before, five years earlier, on the night he’d been murdered.
It
doesn’t seem fair, does it? Sitri had asked as she’d leaned over his body on the hospital gurney, her face obscured with the same golden light emanating from her now.
All at once, Sitri came into view, leaning over him, his hands on his hips and Jason could only shriek in terrified protest in his mind as he realized his betrayal—his damnation.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, God no!
“Welcome home,” Sitri told him with a smile. “You’ve been missed.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am, Sarea, bringing him back to me like this,” Sitri said in a cheerful voice as a pair of the larger, brawnier Hound varieties grasped Jason under the arms and dragged the deadweight of his immobilized form upright.
“I’ve been so worried,” Sitri said. “I haven’t been able to sleep or eat, or even fuck my sweet sister.” He said this last with a bawdy wink at Sarea, who stood nearby, her expression aloofly disgusted, as if observing the dissection of a particularly nasty bug specimen. “Speaking of Mara, I have no doubt that she’s sent her spies after me, letting her know my whereabouts and the company I’m keeping.”
“Then you’d better hurry up,” Sarea said drily. “I’m not leaving until I’m sure you do it right this time. You tricked me once, you son of a bitch, but never again.”
“Tricked you?” Sitri pretended to be wounded. “You cut me to the quick, madam. I’ve done no such thing.”
“You never said anything about making a Wraith out of him,” Sarea snapped. “I never would have agreed to your ridiculous barter if I had—”
“Now, Sarea.” Sitri walked toward her, draping his arm about her slim shoulders. “How was I to know the Eidolon would take such a fancy to him? It was fortuitous circumstances, nothing more.”
“Fortuitous for you,” Sarea growled, ducking away from his embrace and shoving him back a stumbling step. She jerked her pistol loose from her jeans and pointed the massive barrel squarely at his nose. “I want his mind gone. No chance of breaking free again. Do you understand me?”
