by C. G. Blaine
“Time to wake up, princess.”
The touch on my temple is so icy that I can’t help but open my eyes. I was right about the voice being on top of me. I just never thought that would mean the speaker was as well. He’s crouching over me in a black-on-black suit with a foot on either side of my hips and a dark smirk lifting one side of his mouth.
“Bummer,” he says, dragging his frigid fingers over my skin. “I thought I’d get to tell Kasdaye I played prince and kissed you awake.”
Before I decide whether to scream or punch him in the crotch, he vanishes. I sit up from the hard bench and glance at the crumbling insides of a long-forgotten church. Plaster hangs from the ceiling, obscuring parts of a faded mural. A massive hole in the roof leaves the bare floors to rot, and only a small pane of stained glass remains. The rest of the large windows bordering the candle-lit chapel are boarded up.
“St. Olga’s.”
I still at Sean’s voice, any ease it once brought replaced with foreboding. The wooden pew behind mine creaks. He steps into my row from the aisle and slides in beside me, but I stay facing forward.
“Interesting enough,” he continues, “before she found the light, an assassin murdered Olga’s husband. She exacted her revenge by massacring his entire village. And yet, here we are, sitting in an abandoned house of worship named after her. Someone once stood right up there”—he points to what remains of the altar and pulpit at the front—“preaching about loving one another and cardinal sins and all that other bullshit.”
I’ve heard half a dozen other rants end the same way. Any question of who he is vanishes. Blond hair and blue eyes like Chaz, the opinions of Cass.
“You’re wrong,” I tell him.
“About Olga?” he asks.
I shake my head, still not looking at him. “About your brother being the dick and not you. I’ve met them all, and you are by far the worst.”
“Right.” Samy chuckles and stretches his arm across the pew back behind me. “All it took for me to out-asshole Cass was dragging you along for the ride to help destroy all of creation.”
I look over then, sure I misheard him. “You … I’m…”
The words stick in my throat, and I try to swallow them back down along with the alarm creeping up from my chest.
His eyebrows draw in, the humor gone as he leans closer. “Nephilim are the only ones left who can read from the Book of the Speech from God. And while only the words of the book possess the power to create, it’s only with the words of the book that all that’s been done can be undone.”
The pieces Cass refused to tell me fill in seamlessly.
All the demon attacks, the panic over the butterfly, and how they have their powers again after all this time.
Samy plans to end the world.
And he’s going to use me to do it.
Feeling sick, I bend forward and cover my face with my hands. I squeeze my eyes shut, ready to wake up but this time in my bed. Far away from broken churches and plots of mass destruction and rogue Guardian Angels.
“You okay?” There’s sincerity in his tone. Surprising, considering he plans to force me to kill myself along with everything else in the world. He rubs my back when I don’t answer. His fingers graze over the bare skin at the base of my neck. They feel almost cool against the balmy air. Except they shouldn’t.
I sit straight up. “We’re the same temperature?”
A rigidness returns to his expression as well as the rest of him.
The other times his skin touched mine—in class, at the library—it wasn’t warm then either. Not even earlier at the gym. Maybe it’s because Cass talks about him all the time and has never uttered a negative word, other than bitching about him being flaky, that I bring my hand to his forehead without thinking. He sets his jaw as I run it down to his cheek and then his neck, searching for the missing heat.
“I don’t understand. You should be burning up.”
Cass has been since the attack in Seattle when his powers kicked on full-time. The heat comes from the powers and the powers from the Nephilim. I check around the church again for any sign of someone else like me, but every grimy body posted by the exits looks like it crawled straight out of Hell.
“Samy…” I look back at him, almost more worried for him than myself. “Where’s your—”
“Wanna feel me up too, princess?” The demon reappears out of thin air in the pew in front of ours, turned around to face us.
I jump, jerking back from both of them.
The demon shakes his head, entertained by my reaction, and drags back the sleeve of his suit coat to check his designer watch. “Am I going to need to dangle her off the roof for Kasdaye to show up? I mean, this plan isn’t exactly going to go over well with Heaven or Hell, so tick-tick, Samyaza.”
“Back off, Donny,” Samy says, “or I’ll summon every bit of divinity I can into this place.” He reaches for a chain around his neck, and the clear stone hanging from it glows white.
Out of the angels I’ve met, none have needed anything other than their powers for light, but the way he clutches the stone, it’s clear he does. No heat, no powers, no Nephilim.
Samy’s not an angel anymore.
“See, this is the problem with these guys.” Donny rests his chin on his arms, folded over the back of the pew. “They’re all threats and no fun.” He smiles, and the curve of his lip on the right side highlights a faint scar almost invisible in the limited light. “Did he tell you the best part of all this yet?”
The way he asks turns my stomach, and I spit back, “Unless it involves Cass harpooning your ass with a lightning bolt, I doubt I’ll care.”
I’ve no more than finished when a flash of lightning illuminates the sky through the gaping hole above us. Then another and another.
Donny’s eyes narrow, the centers emitting a red glow. He scans the church, his expression hardened by the time it returns to Samy. “They’re here,” he snarls. “You hesitate, I kill you.”
With one last crack of lightning, three blinding shapes drop through the opening and land in the middle of the sanctuary. As their wings fold in behind them, the brightness dims enough that I can tell them apart. Rosdan and Chaz on each side with Cass in the center—fully lit and fully pissed. He immediately locks his gaze on me with a goddamn it, Hannah look in his furious eyes. And I’ve never been more relieved to see it. After a second, his attention shifts to the demon in front of me.
“Abaddon and I have been there, done that with the lightning bolt.” He taps his cheek where I noticed the scar on Donny, and the disdain in his tone morphs to mocking when he adds, “You show her your little reminder of me, buddy?”
In a blink, Donny’s in the aisle with a flame in his hand and unkempt demons on all sides of him. “You think it’s smart to taunt me when I have your Nephilim, Kasdaye?”
Chaz snorts. “What are you gonna do, Baddo, kill her and go fishing for another one?”
“No,” Rosdan says, “he’ll do his little swirly thing with the darkness, trying to scare us, and then run off to the pit, crying about how the big kids were mean to him on the playground.”
The flame grows in Donny’s palm the more they badger him.
Samy sighs. “This will go on for a decade,” he says, grabbing my arm.
Cass’s focus snaps back to us as I’m hauled out of my seat. He is rarely a fan of anyone touching me, and right now, he looks like he might start his own apocalypse. His nostrils flare, and sparks fly from his hands. “Let her go.”
Once in the aisle, I tug my arm away from Samy with surprising success. I race past Donny and his lackeys, and as soon as I’m out of the way, Rosdan and Chaz both unleash arcs of lightning. I don’t look to see who they aim at, only caring about getting into Cass’s arms. He flashes to meet me, but then I hit a wall—an invisible one that he reappears on the other side of.
“Cass?” It comes out as a panicked sob. I pound on the empty air in fro
nt of me, so close to him that it aches not to touch him.
“Hold on, baby.” He presses his palms against the barrier and circles me, running his hands along it in search of any opening. “Fuck you, Samy. I already planned on killing you, but now I’m going to make sure it fucking hurts.”
The other two stop their attack, so I glance behind me. The demons, protecting Donny and his flaming hand, all appear singed and at the ready with fireballs as an unharmed Samy walks toward us.
“You know, you should at least hear me out before hurling light and making death threats.” He effortlessly crosses whatever blocks Cass and stands next to me. “You’re going home, brother. All three of you. I’m finally setting everything right.”
Cass nods once, detached when he looks at him. “Yeah, Samyaza. You’re going to kill all our Nephilim, so we rot outside the gates with you. Not exactly the homecoming we were working toward.”
The confirmation that Samy’s charge is dead and he’s human sinks like a stone in my belly. Then it gains several friends when I think about the rest of the charges and Watchers suffering the same fates.
“You misunderstand,” he says. “The words from the BOSG come from God, Cass. Anytime they’re spoken, it’s an act of God! Don’t you see?” He holds his hands out and smiles. “You’ll return to the light of Heaven like none of this ever happened.”
Cass’s expression remains unchanged, if not a little more irritated. “So, should I drop to my knees and thank you for devising a plan in which you use my girlfriend to wipe out all of humanity?”
Samy drops his arms back to his sides and sighs. “Ex-girlfriend. And I believe she was about to go out on a date with me, so—”
Cass lunges at the barrier, flattening his palms against it and letting off a massive charge. Samy tenses, the shock appearing to go straight into him as he struggles to grab the stone hidden under his shirt.
The next thing I know, everything goes black. Coldness stabs at my skin, and then I’m on a deteriorating balcony that overlooks Cass and the sanctuary. Samy is propped against a pillar beside me, catching his breath, and Donny’s arm is snaked around my waist from behind. I shove him off, my body rewarming once he stops touching me.
He steps to my other side and smirks down at Cass. “While I love listening to the four of you squawk at each other, it’s time we get this show on the road, huh?”
“You expect us to believe you have the BOSG?” Chaz asks. Both him and Rosdan still hold sparks in their hands, monitoring the demons quietly spreading around them. “A book that no one has laid eyes on since the angels stashed it after the last reboot?”
“I’m the Demon of Destruction, Chazaqiel. You really think I haven’t had my finger on its whereabouts since last creation? I mean, I never expected to use it, but deals were struck, and here we are.”
“What deal?” Rosdan asks. “What are you possibly getting out of this?”
He smiles, wide and sinister. “The exact location of the Dimming Blade in the Abyss, which only opens when the book is read.”
Cass paces back and forth like a keyed-up lion in his cage, close to losing it. Rosdan takes a few hesitant steps toward him, reluctant to go much closer with him ready to snap.
“It’s not enough you’re fucking working with him, Samyaza?” Cass asks. “You gave up the only weapon he could use to kill us? What the actual fuck?”
Samy doesn’t answer, still seeming to be recovering from Cass’s attack with the stone clutched to his chest.
“Angels can die?” I whisper.
Donny leans to the side and whispers back, “He’s being dramatic. They don’t die. They’re simply drained of their light so they can either be turned or wiped from existence.” He straightens up and, with a clap, rubs his palms together. “So, let’s put our little Nephilim to work reading, shall we?”
With the snap of his fingers, a shadowy object appears on one of the few intact sections of banister in front of me. It doesn’t even look real. It’s transparent but with solid and defined edges.
“Sure,” Cass says, barely holding it together. “And when she tells you to fuck off because she’s not sacrificing every living thing for funsies, try tacking on a please.”
“Oh, she’ll read the book.” Samy pushes off the pillar and comes closer. He’s tucked the stone back in his shirt, only the chain still visible.
I want to rip it off his neck and see what happens without his magic to protect him.
“In fact, Cass, you’re going to tell her to. Otherwise…” He trails off, tilting his head toward Donny.
The muscles in Cass’s neck strain, his fists tightening. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“You wouldn’t dare to what?” My head jerks toward Samy and then to Donny on the other side. “What are you going to do to me?”
Donny shrugs and says, “The best part. Turn you into a demon.”
A cold shock slams into me, starting at the nape of my neck and tearing down my spine. I cry out, my knees folding underneath me. Donny catches me before I hit the floor, his hand still latched on to the back of my neck.
A guttural roar rips through the church. “Fucking fuck, Samyaza!”
I try to hold on to Cass’s voice, to block out the ice searing off my nerve endings, but all I can think about is the pain and how I’ll do anything to make it stop.
Then it does.
Someone says, “Enough,” and Donny lowers me to the floor.
I can barely breathe, the thought of the coming back cutting off my airway. Even when the crashes start down below, I hug my knees tight to my chest, afraid to move and feel it again. Death would be a gift.
Donny kneels beside me and lifts my head into his lap. “All right, princess, as much fun as you’d be, I need to fix you before Kasdaye brings the whole house down.”
He cradles my face in his hands. I try to push him away until I realize the memories of the pain feel further away. He strokes his thumbs over my cheeks, and they become more bearable with every pass, no longer choking me. Air returns to my starved lungs. I suck in breath after breath, and when Donny releases me, I scramble across the plaster-covered floor, away from him.
With most of the banister missing, I can see Cass in the middle of the chaos on the ground—Chaz and Ros doing all they can to restrain him, the rest of the church torn apart and covered in limp demon bodies. The torment on his face is worse than the darkness. It’s soul-crushing.
Before I can cry out for him, Donny hooks me under my arms from behind and drags me to my feet. “She’s good as new,” he calls down.
All at once, Cass stops fighting against their hold and looks up. His shoulders heave when he finds me, as if a weight leaves them. It takes some away from me too. And if, by some miracle, I survive this, I’m never leaving his side again. Not in our human lives or the forever that comes after.
Donny dusts off his pants and retrieves his suit jacket from where he draped it over the banister. “Now, if she doesn’t do as she’s told, she’ll have to go through that all over again. The beginning of the transition really is the worst part with the darkness ramping up to snuff out your soul. I do not envy her experiencing it more than once.”
He winks, adjusting his collar. I’m about to mouth off, doubting I have much to lose at this point, but Samy steps beside me.
“Game time’s over,” he says. He grasps my shoulders and moves me to the book.
The composure he’s shown since the moment I met him as Sean has worn away. He’s on edge, and I can’t help but think it has more than a little to do with Cass not even hesitating at the first chance to kill him.
“You’re really going through with it?” Rosdan asks. “After everything we’ve been through?”
Samy clenches his jaw and reaches for the shadow. It fills in where he touches it to form a black cover with a ridged design twisting across it. He slides his thumb between the pages and lifts, opening the book to the middle. I jump as a shadow sh
oots from the pages. His grip on me tightens to keep me in front of the inky-black swirls that I’ve never seen before and yet somehow understand.
This can’t be real. I even start to consider the possibility of still being in a coma from hitting my head months ago.
“Come on. Think about it.” Chaz readjusts his hold on Cass, still straining to contain him. “It’s all of humanity, Sam.”
“We disobeyed God to save them,” Rosdan adds.
They’re trying to get to him like they did Donny. Pushing and pushing for a reaction. And it’s working. Samy’s fingers dig in, the more they talk. His exhales sharper.
“You can’t eradicate mankind,” Chaz shouts. “You fucking love mankind!”
“And where has it gotten me?” Samy yells back. He rushes to the edge of the balcony, hand wrapped tightly around the glowing stone. “We gave mortals knowledge to survive, and they used it to senselessly kill. Murderers, rapists—we’ve been charged with truly cruel beings who deserved every death we’d prevented a thousand times over. Humans are hateful and unforgiving, malicious and overconfident. Profiting from others’ pain and taking advantage of those most in need. I don’t love humanity. I’ve lost everything because of them. My light, my existence, her.”
His charge. It has to be.
“Do you know how it happened?” Samy shakes his head, his tone heavy when he continues, “Someone started stabbing people in a crowd—no reason. Women, kids, anyone they could get to. And Chloe…” He stumbles over her name, his face crumpling. “There was a little girl screaming in the middle of the chaos. Just before we dropped, Chloe jerked away from me to try to help her. I caught her within seconds, but there was another guy that I’d missed. She was beyond saving by the time I dropped. Our bond broke, and I was cold. So cold and empty. Without her for eternity.”
Samy stops and looks around at the ruined church, appearing just as broken. It’s the first glimpse I’ve seen of what I imagine is the real him. Or was before he lost his light. The brother Cass wanted me to meet. The one he respected more than anyone.
