by Amity Hope
“When you hear the gunshot, be ready. I plan on going in through the woods. I think that’s the best way to stay undetected. I’ll come out with Molly at the entrance to the church.”
“Okay,” she said, trying not to let her emotions get in the way of making a plan.
He studied her for a moment. “Are you okay with this? I mean, Rafe’s not going to stop coming after us. Not unless we take care of him for good.”
She nodded resolutely. “He contributed to the death of my birthmother and I know he’s killed others. It may have been at Azael’s request but he still followed through with it. He put you through unspeakable torture and he enjoyed it. He’s evil. He needs to be stopped. I’m not willing to risk your life, or Molly’s or Julia’s hoping that he’ll just leave us alone. Because we both know he won’t. So yes, I’m okay with it.”
“Good. I want to get you and Molly somewhere safe and then I’ll figure out how to deal with Cam. As for Rafe…I disappeared and no one seemed to question it. I was thinking maybe I can take over at the radio station. I could say that I left to take care of some family business but that I missed the station. I could say Rafe decided he’d rather move on to bigger things. We can figure out the details later.”
“That’ll probably work. I can’t imagine anyone would miss him,” she said with more confidence than she felt. There were all sorts of ways that plan could go wrong.
They were almost to the church. She had a feeling Gabe was trying to keep her talking in an effort to keep her mind too preoccupied to worry.
“I’m going to park back here,” Gabe said as he pulled over a good distance from the church’s driveway. His brother’s hearing was as good as his and he didn’t want to risk alerting him to their arrival. “I want you to keep the doors locked. And Ava, please, don’t get out of the car.”
She nodded. “I know. I’d just slow you down. And I’d be a distraction but Gabe…” she tried to steady her quivering voice, “I don’t know if I can do this! I don’t know if I can just let you walk in there. I just got you back. I can’t lose you again.”
“You can do this,” he assured her. “You can do it for Molly. We have an advantage right now. They don’t know that we know Rafe is here. But we need to stop wasting time because it won’t be long before they start to wonder why we’re not showing up at the house.”
He leaned in and gave her a quick, hard hug, not wanting to prolong things or make them more difficult than they had to be. “I’ll be right back,” he said with a great amount of assurance.
“I know,” Ava said as she forced a weak smile.
He bolted out of the car, raced through the overgrown ditch and disappeared into the tree line leaving Ava with nothing but her terror.
She knew why he hadn’t kissed her, or told her that he loved her. It would’ve sounded too final. Like a goodbye. Yet her body ached for that kiss and her heart ached for that proclamation. She forcefully nudged the feeling aside. They would have time for plenty of kisses later, she told herself.
She had her window rolled down just a crack because it helped her to feel a little less cut off. If it had been rolled up, she may not have heard the soft rumble of a car in the distance. A flash of silver caught her eye as it reflected the sunshine in the rearview mirror. Her instinct kicked in full-force. She didn’t know what kind of car Cam had but Gabe’s car had been silver. The area they were in was desolate. The likelihood of someone driving by was small. It seemed to be too much of a coincidence to ignore.
She instantly went into motion, putting complete faith in her intuition. She slid over to the passenger door, cracked it open and slipped out as she kept her body tight to the side of the car. She shut it and was grateful for the long grass in the ditch as she crouched down and rushed through it. The car was almost upon her as she crept into the tree line. It slowed as she dodged behind an enormous white pine.
It was Gabe’s car. There was no doubt. Nor was there any doubt that Cam was behind the wheel. They must’ve taken too long or done something to arouse his suspicion. She had her phone in her pocket but she didn’t dare use it to contact Gabe. She had no idea if he had his ringer on or off. She wouldn’t be to blame for giving his location away to Rafe because of her carelessness.
Cam stopped at the side of the road and her heart nearly exploded. She clutched the tree for support, willing her body to blend with it. She didn’t dare peek around it so she listened, waiting for the sound of the car door opening. It didn’t come. A few moments later the gravel began crunching under the tires once more. Her fingers flew to her pendant, her only source of comfort. It was still there and though she knew it wouldn’t protect her completely against Cam or Rafe, it would give her an edge.
She debated for just a moment. Gabe would hopefully hear the car approach. But what if he didn’t? She’d barely finished the thought when she realized the crunching of gravel had stopped again. She heard a car door swing open. She dropped down, below the grass line and began to edge further into the woods. She paused behind a fallen mess of pines and listened.
Had Cam seen the empty car and assumed that they’d crept up to the church the way he’d told Julia to creep up to the cabin? Had he stopped, knowing they were there, and was he now planning on doing the same so as not to alert Gabe? That was her initial thought. But then she started to wonder if he had seen her, or if he had sensed her somehow. Had he heard her thoughts? How close did he need to be? She had no idea. She knew Rafe had to make eye contact to make his compulsion work but whether Cam needed that same type of contact, she wasn’t sure.
Was he heading to the church on foot? Or was he making his way toward her in the woods at this very second?
A trickle of sweat raced down her back. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear approaching footsteps over her own heartbeat. She also realized with sickening terror that she had not heard a gunshot yet. Surely Gabe had to be to the church by now. What was taking him so long? What if he ran into Cam on the way back? He would be totally unsuspecting and most likely completely preoccupied by Molly.
She debated going back to the car because Gabe was expecting her to be there. But the fear that Cam was there, watching and waiting, sent her crawling forward along the damp forest floor. The tangy smell of rot clogged her nose and branches scratched at her legs and caught at her hair as she carefully and quickly hurried herself along.
***
Molly watched in resolute, yet calm horror as the blood continued to flow from her arm. She was lying in the middle of a circle of flames that danced around her. They were an icy blue, almost silver at times. They were unlike any flames she’d ever seen before. Instead of giving off heat, it seemed as if they were freezing her down to her very core. Her teeth chattered. It was the only part of her that moved.
Never mind that every cell of her body was screaming at her to get up and run straight through the fire. She was frozen in place and that had nothing to do with the mystical and terrifying frigidity of the blue conflagration. It was Rafe. That asshat. He’d told her to lay still and to her dismay, that was exactly what she was doing.
Ava had warned her about him. She would’ve listened to that warning if she’d had a chance. But she hadn’t. Everything had happened so fast.
She had been on her way back to her house when she’d spotted Julia’s car parked down the block. She could see the silhouette of someone inside. Of course she’d gotten out to see if it was Julia but within a few steps, she realized the person behind the wheel was a male. She’d known immediately that it was Cam. She’d marched up to the car, assuming that Julia was in the passenger seat. She wasn’t. The moment she’d realized this, she’d turned to flee but she’d found herself caged in by strong arms and staring right into the eyes of Rafe. She’d known it was him by the description Ava had given her. No one else could possibly have hair that red. He’d told her to get in the car and to not argue or fight with him. To her complete disbelief, she did exactly as she was told.
Cam
had silently driven her to Rafe’s house. She recognized it only because she’d driven Ava there once, to leave her with Gabe. Cam had pulled into Rafe’s driveway and Rafe had pulled in behind them. She wanted to demand to know where Julia was but to her bewilderment, she couldn’t utter a sound.
Rafe had come around to her side of the car and requested that she get into his. Her feet, to her horrific dismay, had followed his instructions.
Molly had never been to Ava’s grandfather’s church before. She knew that it was in a rural area and it had been abandoned. Common sense told her that this was the church he had brought her to.
He continued to give her simple commands. While her mind was raging against them, a smaller, much stronger part remained traitorous and disobeyed her. It followed through with every request he’d made.
That was what led her to where she was now. Lying on the cold church floor, watching with odd, bleary detachment as her blood—her life—flowed out of her. Her conscious thoughts had long since become hazy and discombobulated.
Ava and Gabe may be on their way.
Or they may not.
She wasn’t entirely sure she cared anymore.
She just wanted the terror of this situation to stop.
She wanted the searing pain in her arm to go away.
She wanted to stop being so damn cold.
Rafe had carefully explained to her what he planned to do. She knew this wasn’t to ease her mind. Quite the opposite. She could tell he enjoyed seeing the terror on her face. Quite possibly, he also just enjoyed the sound of his own voice.
He had found a ritual that would free his father. It required the blood of an innocent as well as the blood of the one who had trapped him; an antidote to the blood of the angel and the blood of the demon that had sealed the cage.
She, unfortunately, was chosen as the innocent. When he’d told her this, she’d wanted to argue but of course, her lips were sealed shut.
If she could’ve opened her mouth to argue with Rafe, she would’ve told him that she wasn’t innocent at all. She’d cheated in calculus. More than once. And she had been highly covetous of Gabe and Ava’s relationship when they’d first met. Obeying one’s parents was clearly in The Ten Commandments but she was rebellious quite a lot. And the worst thing? When she was twelve she’d stolen a candy bar from the mini-mart. Her guilty conscious had always begged her to go back and pay for it, but she’d never listened. And of course there was her most recent transgression. She’d lied to Oliver. She’d told him that she couldn’t deal with the texts from Serena and now…now she would never have the chance to fix it. She couldn’t apologize for telling a lie that had hurt him.
Instead of being able to say any of this, she’d been forced to listen to Rafe drone on. He’d hoped to use Ava’s blood. That would’ve been ideal. Someone good and pure enough, he’d pointed out with contempt, that she’d changed the heart of a Nephilim. She would’ve been an ideal candidate. But since Ava was being completely uncooperative, he’d decided Molly would have to suffice.
He’d ordered her to the center of the church. It looked as though he was searching the floor for something. At first, Molly couldn’t imagine what he was looking for. Then she remembered what Ava had told her about the carving of the demon’s snare. She began futilely searching the floor as well but decided if it was there, she was not going to be able to see it.
Finally, Rafe told her to lie down and while her mind was shouting at her that she had better not, she couldn’t stop herself. She found herself flat on her back. Rafe had reached out and taken hold of her hand, stretching her arm out along side of her. Internally, she flinched at the sight of the dagger. Outwardly, she stayed perfectly still per Rafe’s instructions.
A silent scream tore through her body as he slit her from elbow to wrist. He gingerly placed her arm on the floor, and then leapt back so that he stood against the outer wall of the church. He pulled a silver flask from his pocket and drank languorously from it. To Molly, it appeared that he drank until it was empty. Then he raised his hands and began chanting words in a language that she did not understand.
The floor of the church rumbled and shook as she watched, transfixed, as the thick, dark liquid poured from her. It seemed to find its home in grooves in the floor, spreading, circling and finally igniting, called to life by Rafe’s rhythmic cadence.
As the flames leapt to life, Rafe’s chanting ceased. Her eyes found him through the blaze. To her relief, he looked somewhat drained. His shoulders slumped and he did not appear to retain the same superior air that had been so evident before. His hand seemed to shake as he wiped a stream of sweat from his brow.
She couldn’t see the outline from her position but she was quite certain that she was in the center of a hexagram. A hexagram enclosed in a circle. It was the very design that had once been carved by an angel.
Her mind hysterically grasped the realization that she was likely lying in the exact spot where Gabe had died.
“Now all that we need,” Rafe calmly told her, though his voice quaked with exertion, “is the blood of my brother. And you see, I believe he is kind enough to be on his way to deliver it to us as I speak. Julia was supposed to lead him to Cam but Cam has just informed me that Julia did not check in as she was supposed to do. That leads us to believe that perhaps they were able to help Julia overcome my little mind game. There is a possibility that one of your friends is safe and sound. For now. If that’s the case, we will surely deal with her later.”
Molly simultaneously wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at hearing that Julia was safe and scream out at Rafe to shut the hell up because she loathed the sound of his voice. As if he knew this, he continued on.
“As always, I had a backup plan. I was willing to wait out the week but as your mind clearly confirmed to Cam, it would have been a futile promise to keep. Gabriel would’ve simply betrayed our family yet again. So I had to improvise. I was sure that Julia would be able to lure them to Cam while I dealt with you. But since she failed, she has inadvertently lured them here,” he shrugged. “Since this is ultimately where I need my brother to be, I am quite okay with this.
“Oh, here’s an update,” he said as he held up his phone, as if she could read the message that was displayed at such a distance and through such a barrier. “Cam has just informed me that your friends are, indeed, here.”
If Molly had been able to sob, she would have.
Gabe and Ava were walking right into his trap.
“Thank you, Molly,” Rafe solemnly said. “You’ve been a darling. Your blood has created the entrance; Gabriel’s blood shall unlock it. Now, since you’re lying there so nicely, cooperating so well, I think I’ll step out for just a bit.”
She watched his retreating back. He didn’t go through the double doors at the back of the church. Instead, he walked up toward the altar and disappeared through a side door. An office perhaps? A storage room? A back door?
It didn’t matter, she realized. They wouldn’t know he was there, regardless of where he’d disappeared to.
She strained one last time to scream. To yell out a warning. It was a fruitless attempt because while she felt the eerie effects of Rafe’s compulsion fading, slithering away, in fact, her life, her energy, was also fading.
She closed her eyes for just a moment and when she opened them, she saw Gabe’s horrified face through the flames. She wanted so desperately to warn him. It was too late for her, she could feel it. The flow of blood had slowed but she knew that was only because her body was nearly emptied of it. It had little more to offer. But since she could not speak, she did the only thing she was capable of doing.
She closed her eyes again.
She couldn’t stop herself from meandering down the path to her own death but she could close her eyes so she would not have to watch Gabe walk into his.
Chapter 25
Gabe had worked his way through the woods without incident, despite the distance he had to cover. It had been necessary to park f
ar enough away so as not to alert Rafe to their arrival. Yet leaving Ava that far behind, alone, made him tense, almost nauseated with worry. He needed to get in, get Molly, and get them all out of there.
He had stood at the edge of the forest, noticing immediately the sleek black car that was parked in the front of the church. It was surrounded by the overgrown grass but he’d recognized it as the same black car that had been in the driveway the day he’d gone to talk to Rafe. He’d waited a moment, listening. He’d heard the faint, unmistakable sound of Rafe’s voice coming from within the church. Even with his exceptional hearing, he hadn’t been able to make out the words from where he’d stood.
He had noted that he did not hear anyone’s voice in response to his brother’s. He’d hoped it was safe to assume that Cam was not with him. As for Molly, he’d hoped she was. He’d darted from the safety of the tree cover, through the tall weeds, and landed against the side of the church. The lilting sound of a chant had stopped. He’d crept along the outer wall, gun raised and ready as he rounded the front of the church. He hadn’t been surprised to see that the outer doors had been left open. With no other choice, he’d made his way inside.
His body had bristled, screaming at him to get out of there. The feel of danger in the air was cloying, palpable as it coiled around him. While he certainly did not have a death wish, he was not as afraid for himself necessarily as he was for Ava. He did not want to have to put her through the torment she’d just been through. Because of this, he’d utilized every one of his senses to their fullest extent.
He’d slid in among the side wall of the church that was now oddly familiar to him. He’d listened for even the slightest sound. What he’d heard was an unusual crackling melded with a hiss. A flickering from within had caught his eye and he’d known immediately that it was a blaze of some sort. His heart had pounded wildly as he’d wondered if he was too late. Wondered if his brother had managed to set Azael free. If that were the case, it wouldn’t matter how careful he was. They were all doomed, damned, really.
