by Misty Dietz
Katherine signaled for Stark before turning her smile back to Angus. “Are you saying you don’t, Father?”
“What, have a touch of the devil in me? Of course I do. More than a touch, I’d wager.” His smile faded slightly. “You still feeling the darkness inside? Ari mentioned it because he thought it might be important for me to know.”
She chafed at the thought that others knew of her vulnerability, but she supposed he was right. She nodded. “The sense of waiting and watching in my blood is there, but physically, I’m much better since I’m no longer exposing myself to the Nephilim toxin over and over. I’m trying not to think about it. There’s too much to be done.”
Angus put a hand on her shoulder, saying a prayer of protection in a loud voice. When he finished, he squeezed her shoulder. “Let me know if the exorcisms get to be too much.”
“I will,” she replied.
Stark’s heavy boots purposefully scuffed the dance floor as he approached with his usual swagger. Katherine lifted her brows, but didn’t say anything for once. There was a time when she’d have made him get down on his hands and knees and buff the marks out with the shirt on his back.
And he’d have sported attitude the whole time, then retaliated in a more private fashion later. Like left her to deal with one of the PMS-ing staff members instead of taking care of those little dramas like he usually did. She appreciated his irreverence and discreet rebellion. He liked that she wasn’t up in his business all the time.
They understood one another.
“Stark, bring the iron chains.” He started to turn away to ignore her when she added, “Please.”
He raised a brow, and she grinned, tickled that she’d thrown him off guard with her unexpected civility. When he returned with the chains from the storage room, he ignored her outstretched hand and presented them to Father Angus. Insurrectionist. She glowered at him.
His lips turned up in a patently fraudulent All-American-Boy smile.
Katherine raised her hand and used water from a pool on the terrace to shoot a forceful, carefully aimed water spout at the side of Stark’s head after he transferred the chains to Father Angus. “Rock, paper, water. I win.”
Stark shook his head like a lake dog, then sulked off, muttering, “I’m gonna drain those fuckin’ pools.”
The trapped fiends began wailing and tearing into each other. Father Angus lifted the chains cautiously. “These aren’t the Apostle’s now, are they?”
“No, St. Peter’s Chains are safe in the sanctorum’s reliquary. These are regular old iron chains. Stark should have made sure you had them earlier.” She threw a withering look at her head of security where he was tipping his head back to drain a shot at the bar.
“Very good. Ready then?” Father Angus asked.
“As I’ll ever be.” She nodded to Jade and Konani who’d moved onto the floor armed with holy water and chrism oil. “When the demon’s shade leaves its host, don’t let it get out of this room alive. Do you guys have the chrism oil ready?”
“We know what to do, Kat,” Jade assured her. “Holy water on the colloidal form to stun it, then a drop of chrism oil to vanquish it. No more than absolutely necessary. We’ve been over this a million times.”
“Good. Don’t muck it up.”
Jade smiled brazenly.
Father Angus transferred the iron chains to one forearm and pulled a crucifix out of his back pocket. “How you wanna work this?”
“You mind getting a little wet?”
The priest winked at her. “You’re talking to a native Dubliner, lass. Bring on the rain.”
Katherine built up her aqua element, borrowing more water from the terrace pools to spew horizontal geysers at four of the possessions. She knocked them to the opposite side of the Devil’s Trap, away from her and Father Angus’s first mark. The stocky man they planned to exorcise first bellowed and launched toward her position where she stood outside the circle.
“I’ve seen visions of your death, Guardian. Alone. Drowning. The water filling your lungs, dragging you down into the cold, murky water,” he yelled.
Katherine shuddered. Her element faltered, the water restraints suddenly failing to hold off the other possessions. They scrambled up from the floor, one of them grabbing the stocky man by the ankles.
Father Angus tossed the chains, catching their quarry on the left shoulder with the iron weights, taking him down. The crazed human screamed, the whole left side of his body smoking where the iron made contact with his skin. The priest lunged into the circle the same time as Katherine. “Stark, Maddox, get over here!”
With the two men’s help, they pulled their target out of the Devil’s Trap so they wouldn’t be accosted by the other possessions while they worked on him. The first set of chains and a second set produced by Jade were looped around both of his arms, legs, and criss-crossed over his chest and pelvis.
When she was in Purifier mode, she hated the screams of the possessed more than anything. Well, maybe not more than the ugly memories a demon shot through her consciousness as she sucked its essence into her body. But still, the wails and shrieks were dreadful.
The man’s body bucked beneath the chains. Katherine dropped to her knees beside Father Angus and used her palm to press a St. Benedict medal again the fiend’s forehead as her voice joined his, “Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde…”
The man’s body smoked, the tips of his hair catching fire so often that Katherine conjured a dense mist in the room to prevent burns for all involved. This process was very different from her regular method, requiring so much more physical strength. Her Guardian process was almost purely spiritual. And this way took much longer.
She dared not move her hands, but she glanced up at Father Angus, his brown eyes clamped shut as his lips moved with the old words, his gray priest’s shirt clinging damply to his toned shoulders. She caught movement beyond where Jade and Konani stood at the ready to touch the demon’s shade with chrism oil.
Katherine extinguished the artificial mist and squinted at the club’s entrance, where a form hovered in the shadows. She didn’t have time to re-route another wayward tourist looking for a drink. What was wrong with these humans? Couldn’t they tell something was off? Obviously most of them had no self-preservation instincts. Or they didn’t pay attention to them. Sometimes she wondered how the species made it past their elementary years.
“Go back to your hotel, we don’t open until eight!” she yelled toward the doorway. The possessed man roared, still more beast than man, his head shifting back and forth on the wooden floor, his mouth filling with foam. Almost have you, you evil bastard.
From the corner of her eye, she saw the form slip behind one of the potted ferns.
Great. She did not need a freaked out human to contend with on top of this crap. “I said we’re closed! We have to practice our skit privately, or it won’t be any good for the paying customers!” She glanced at her security head, “Stark, deal with this.” She tossed her chin the shadow’s direction. Stark nodded. He turned as the shadowy figure stepped out from behind the plant. Katherine’s gut dropped.
Leviathan.
Katherine lurched to her feet, the St. Benedict medal burning in her palm as she took in Leviathan’s new look. Shoulder length bob, subtle makeup, khaki pinstripe suit, navy designer pumps. She looked beautiful, human, and…harmless. Yeah, right. Katherine’s heart slugged at her chest. She sent a telepathic message to Ari letting him know the archdemon was here. “Everyone to the safe room!” None of her team moved. “Now!” she barked, keeping her gaze on Leviathan, praying she wasn’t wrong about the archdemon’s lack of interest in her staff.
Jade was the last to leave. “Kat—”
“Everything will be okay.” It would. She just needed to focus and keep Leviathan’s attention on her while the staff got to safety and Father Angus completed the exorcism.
As Jade made her way down the hall to the sanctorum, the possessed man screeched and head butted Father
Angus, knocking his body so hard the priest slid across the floor, slamming into the DJ stage, where he crumpled bonelessly to the floor. Katherine ran to him, using her senses to detect his heartbeat. It was stable, but he was bleeding badly. She gathered energy and pressed her fingertips to the priest’s skull to cauterize the wound.
The possessed man rattled his chains, prostate on the floor. His deep, echoing growl raised the hairs on the back of Katherine’s neck. Now that the exorcism had been interrupted, it wouldn’t be long before he was able to throw off the chains if they didn’t get him back into the Devil’s Trap in time.
Katherine stood in front of Father Angus, keeping both the possessed man and Leviathan in her line of sight. The archdemon still hadn’t spoken, her eyes filled with humor as she watched the possessed man thrash on the floor. Katherine took a deep breath. “If you really have good intentions, now is the time to prove it.”
Leviathan raised her gaze to Katherine, the emotion in her eyes shifting from amusement to warmth. It was the sort of look Jade had given her hundreds of times. Intimate and honest. What was she supposed to do with that? Believe it? Why wasn’t this black and white?
Katherine’s muscles bunched, her water element instantly stoking as Leviathan raised her right hand. The body of the possessed man on the floor began to levitate. He ceased his struggles as his body rose, the chains shifting across his frame, sliding down to crack as they hit the floor. Leviathan slowly opened her fist, the man’s mouth gaping with the motion, black mist beginning to seep from between his teeth, out his nose and ears until it coalesced above his body, seeming to tremble before the daughter of Satan. With a whisper Katherine couldn’t comprehend, Leviathan closed her fist, and the black mist was gone. No sound, no sulfur smell, no discomfort.
Katherine brought her gaze back to the exorcised man, whom Leviathan was gently lowering to the floor beside the chains. His eyes were closed, but Katherine could detect a stable resting heart rate.
When the man turned to his side and tucked his hand under his cheek with a slumbering sigh, Katherine looked at Leviathan, wanting to trust her, but not knowing how. “Thank you?”
Leviathan nodded, but remained silent.
Katherine swallowed, wondering if she should even ask. “Why have you returned?”
When the archdemon opened her mouth to speak, a cold, dry wind swept across the dance floor raising gooseflesh up and down Katherine’s arms.
“I have found your sister.”
Chapter 17
I have found your sister.
Leviathan’s words resurrected old aches and desperate desires. Wrong. She’s wrong. “My sister’s dead,” Katherine whispered.
Father Angus groaned and scooted up to a sitting position, his pupils dilated. “Don’t listen to the demon’s lies, lass. You know better.”
Leviathan’s cheeks reddened, her eyes glowing silver. Liquor bottles burst on the bar shelves. “You know nothing, priest!” Then she blinked, looked at Katherine, and the rage was gone. “Mary’s here on the island. I can take you to her, but you must come now.”
Katherine looked at her outstretched hand, feeling Jade’s presence move behind her next to Father Angus. The priest’s lips moved, but his prayers sounded like a buzzing that grew louder and louder until Katherine wanted to scream. What’s going on?
North, I’m coming!
Ari’s voice, his entire connection, communicated conflict. He was obviously in the middle of a battle of his own. We’re okay here. Come back when you’re finished at IGNIS, she projected back.
You said Leviathan was there.
She is, but we’re just talking. It’s only her, no one else.
Katherine.
She wanted to tell him about Leviathan’s claim to have found her sister. But she knew what he’d say. Don’t trust or make deals with devils. So she wouldn’t. If you don’t trust me, this will never work.
There was a pause on his end. She could almost feel the blows he was taking and delivering. Leviathan was walking around the dance floor, as though waiting for Katherine to make up her mind.
By ‘this,’ you mean, our bonding? Ari eventually asked.
I’m disconnecting so you can keep your inflated head attached. Go fight. Bye.
Katherine cut their connection before he got himself killed, her gaze following the archdemon’s leisurely pace toward the pool terrace. Like she hadn’t just dropped an emotional bomb in Katherine’s life.
The low-level buzzing renewed in her head. She rubbed her temples, trying to clear her mind. Leviathan had to be lying. Even if Mary had survived the drowning, she’d be more than one hundred sixty years old.
What game was the demon playing, and how could she counter these cat and mouse moves? In her wildest imaginings, she’d never thought an encounter with an archdemon would be like this. She’d visualized carnage and devastation, blood and pain.
Instead, this felt like a slightly off-tune lullaby.
Lulled to death by polite warfare. Her lips curled self-mockingly as she followed the archdemon outside where the sunshine glinted off Leviathan’s honey brown hair. Father Angus’ renewed prayers were close behind.
Leviathan hissed and threw a venomous look over her shoulder at the priest and sped with supernatural haste to the opposite side of the largest pool. Katherine halted with Father Angus at her side, a cold tingle spreading through her torso as the pool began to bubble and steam.
Don’t leave me heeeeeerrrrree.
A muted voice calling, as though traveling through water. Katherine’s body temperature dropped while the buzzing notched up. Teeth chattering, she crouched down to scan the water, sending her element through the hydrogen and oxygen molecules of the pool.
Nothing there.
What had she expected? She rose to her feet, her hands pressing against her temples to dull the drone and resist the darkness that seemed to be expanding inside her head. She locked eyes with the archdemon who seemed to tremble as though as cold as she. “Why are you doing this? Stop these games and get on with it!”
Find meeeee.
Father Angus put a comforting hand on Katherine’s back and pulled out his rosary, holding it in front of him toward the roiling water as his lips recited the Hail Mary, The Glory Be, then...Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell…
Leviathan screamed, her hair standing on end as she sent an electric shock across the water, headed for Father Angus. Katherine shot energy from her hands, a counter force in the water to shield the priest. When her energy met Leviathan’s darkness, searing pain poured through her, sending her to her knees.
Pleeeease, Kitty. I’m so c-c-cold!
A quiet sob wrenched from Katherine. Nausea rose up in her belly until she wanted to vomit. She rocked back and forth on bloody knees. “Mary,” she whispered. No one else had ever called her Kitty.
Father Angus crouched beside her, laying his hand on her back once again. “Stand and say the prayers with me. Say them, Guardian, and call your soul mate!”
Yes. Ar…Ari…I need—
“Katherine!” Maddox’s voice penetrated. She turned to look as he and the others poured onto the terrace, demon weaponry of all sorts clutched in their hands. She stood, her mind still fuzzy, afraid to take her gaze off the archdemon for long. Leviathan would kill them all, and there was nothing she could do about it. If only she could think. Why couldn’t she think?
She pressed her fingers into her temples harder, yelling to hear herself over the awful ringing in her head. “Make it stop!”
Maddox, Jade, Stark, Konani, and Kai launched Molotov cocktails across the pool at the archdemon. Leviathan froze all five bottles mid-air, a small stream of chrism oil from Kai’s bottle burning the flesh on her cheek before its air-borne arrest. The smell of sulfur carried across the pool on the breeze, the demon’s eyes blazing silver above her putrefied, smoking cheek. She circled her hands, launching the bottles far out into the ocean. Kai and Nani joined Father Angus in his
prayers.
“Time after time, I have come to you in peace, yet you continue to scorn and assault me!” Leviathan cried. “What do I need to do to get you to believe that I am only here for connection?”
Katherine held her hand out by her side to halt her team from making any other attacks that might further provoke the archdemon’s rage. “I want to trust you, Leviathan, but I don’t know how.”
The archdemon laid her hand on her smoking cheek, closing her eyes as her palm absorbed the fire. “Will finding Mary be enough?”
Katherine’s chest constricted. She’d never heard of a demon being able to resurrect a deceased body. They could only use a live human as a host. “You don’t have the power to do that.”
“I am more powerful than you know.”
The ground began to shake, the once-sunny sky now birthing murky, restless clouds that pulsed with lightning. Ari. Leviathan yelled something in the Enochian language as a shrill sound preceded a massive rush of wind. It sucked water out of the pool, and spat it out in a twisting cyclone aimed at the archdemon.
Ari landed as a shield in front of Katherine, crimson blood streaming from a jagged gash bisecting his entire back. Katherine moved around him in time to see Leviathan shoot up into the sky. Sensing Ari gearing up to meet her in mid-air conflict, Katherine grasped his arm. “Wait!”
He turned to her, his eyes full of war and vengeance. “No more waiting! She’s slowly killing you, lie by lie. I won’t have it!”
“She found Mary. My God, I heard my sister’s voice, Ari.”
She’s waiting for you on the beach at your house.
Katherine gasped, eyes probing the clouds, as Leviathan’s voice filtered through her mind. How? How could she do that—be in her head like that?
Ari grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Don’t be a fool, Kat! She’s manipulating your deepest vulnerability. Why can’t you see that?” He glanced up, then cursed wildly when he found the target of his fury gone. “This has to stop. She’s spoon-feeding you nothing but deception, yet you lick your lips and wait for more. Why, North?” He returned the water to the pool as a cold rain began to fall, drenching them both, creating bloody puddles on the concrete from Ari’s wounds. Her team scurried inside. “Why would you trust her more than me?”
