by Jill Cooper
Her words stung with the truth, but Jessica wasn’t ready to unburden her soul. “I’ve missed you more than I can ever say. More than I have any right to.” Jessica eyed around as another dear love was upon her heart. “Where’s Duncan? Is he still here?”
Amanda nodded. “He was my backup. He and Father Mike. They both took to the streets to drive the demons back. They’ll be back soon, I hope.”
Relieved, Jessica nodded. Father Mike harkened to a name from their distant past, didn’t mean much to her. He was a good guy that was about all that she remembered. Seeing Duncan plagued her mind. She wanted to see him, needed to, but what would she say? How would she begin to make her actions up to him?
“I have no idea what I’m going to say to him,” Jessica's voice warbled. The look in Amanda’s eyes was one of pity and Jessica snorted with disgust for herself. “Look at me. Some warrior I am. Some hero.”
Amanda placed her hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “My hero. You always have been. Nothing could ever change that.”
Her words caused Jessica’s heart a kaleidoscope of pain. She squeezed Amanda’s hand and turned away. Looking into her sister’s eyes was too painful. “Duncan made good on his promise to look out for you.”
“And then some. He got me cobbler.” Amanda’s mouth danced into a playful smile. “He helped me through it all. It wasn’t easy coming off the drugs, and that’s putting it mildly.”
So many stories they had to share. Jessica hoped they’d have time for all of them. The idea of facing demons drained what energy she had left. She had enough on her mind without a physical confrontation. “There’s so much I have to tell you…” Jessica’s chin warbled as she thought of Dad.
“You were right,” Amanda played with the ends of her hair in a fit of nerves. “I saw Dad. Saw him in the underworld when I was there. He…his eyes…didn’t look like Dad’s anymore. Not the dad I remember.”
Jessica covered her mouth to stop the flood of cries from coming. “What are we going to do?”
She was the one who usually made all the decisions, the choices, but right now, Jessica didn’t know what the answer was. How could they just let him suffer? They were alive because of what he chose to sacrifice.
Amanda’s eyebrows rose as she sighed. “I don’t know what we can do. There’s still a bounty on our heads.”
The bounty. Her stomach rumbled into knots. “Then let’s run away. Hide. Once Duncan gets back, we all go. Go to Europe. I don’t care.” Jessica’s nose flared. “Somewhere.”
Amanda’s mouth fell open. “Jess—.”
She didn’t want to hear it. Jessica shook her head and her teeth gnashed together. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. It has to be over. It just has to be—.”
The basement door rattled and Jessica’s heart sank at the interruption, but if it was Duncan…she wasn’t ready to face him or anyone else. She wanted to be alone with the one person she could always count on, but it wasn’t meant to be as someone rattled down the basement steps.
A tattered looking priest carrying Aunt Gwen. From how her limbs hung at their sides, Jessica thought she might be dead.
Another Blood gone, another life given to the mission.
Amanda jumped to her feet and greeted the priest. Stroking back Gwen’s hair, Amanda’s eyes went wide. “Father Mike, what happened?”
Mike. That was him?
Eyes bloodshot and wearing a torn shirt, Mike placed Gwen’s body down on the ground with deep care. His hand ran across Gwen’s hair as he slowly lowered her down. “I had to get the demon out.”
He rambled on in a way that sounded like an apology, so what had he done? Jessica’s eyes narrowed as she made out the red marks on Gwen’s neck. The bastard killed her, but who was she to cast stones?
Mike’s eyes met Amanda’s and didn’t deviate. “The demon worked for Lourdes. Gwen begged me to get it out. She’s been…dead only a few minutes.”
His gaze held an unasked question. Amanda shook her head. “I’ve never….”
What was he asking her to do? Jessica wanted to interrupt but didn’t feel it was her place. Who she to stand in Amanda’s way? She was the pure one. The healer.
Mike gripped Amanda’s shoulder. “Your powers are growing. You removed the mark of Lourdes, I’m presuming, from what I see. Reading minds, egging people into doing what you want, can’t you try? For your aunt, don’t you have a duty to try?”
Were his words true? Had Amanda really done all those things? Jessica couldn’t believe it, but Amanda nodded, her expression serene. She knelt down beside Gwen and turned to Jessica for a brief moment. Her face pure as rain. “I have to try.”
“No,” Jessica said forcefully and grabbed her arm. “You almost died taking the mark of Lourdes from me. And now you’re what, going to try to absorb death? Look at the marks on her neck, look at what he did.” Her eyes narrowed into condemnation. “Get the demon out of her, you damned murdered her.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed. “And what would you have had me do? Let the demon kill us all, take Amanda into the underworld?” Mike snorted. “We don’t have time to fight. The longer she’s gone…”
Amanda nodded and lifted her hand in the air. The ball of light swirling in Amanda’s hand, left Jessica bewildered. It was bigger and more glorious than any Jessica had seen before. It lit Amanda in a luminous glow and it was only outdone by her fine concentration. Her face beautiful as ever as she bit on her bottom lip and strained with might.
Red fingertip marks appeared on Amanda’s neck and she gagged for air. “Amanda,” Mike warned as she started to sway.
“She’s choking!” Jessica’s words were a guilty verdict slashed at the priest. “Amanda!” Jessica gripped her sister’s waist to pull her away, but Gwen’s eyelids were fluttering.
“Just another moment,” Mike begged. “Please.”
His words were so simple and rife with emotion. Jessica didn’t understand why he cared so much. Gwen’s back arched and she took a giant gasp of air, Jessica let Amanda go. The light faded from her hands and Amanda fell forward, catching herself on her open palms. Heaving for air, but her neck returned to its pale complexion.
The marks were gone.
Love surpassed Jessica’s awe. She never knew Amanda could be so strong. Where had that inner strength come from?
Amanda sat down beside her with rosy flushed cheeks. They both watched as Gwen sat up. Her eyes locked with the priest and something passed between them, a familiarity that Jessica knew all too well. No words were spoken, no touch was transferred, but the affection was there and it made her think of Duncan.
She was ready to see him again. She was. Couldn’t he just return so Jessica’s weary eyes could look upon him? Maybe that would restore the sad state of her soul.
Gwen turned and took in the sight of the sisters. Reaching for them with both hands, she caressed each of their cheeks. “Oh my girls, I never thought I’d see you again through my own eyes. I am so sorry.”
There was nothing to forgive; Amanda had been right about that. What Gwen had done to them, had been against her will and Jessica didn’t have the heart to hold it against her. Instead, the Blood sisters fell into Gwen’s open arms into a genuine warm hug. Love for family had brought them this far.
It would continue to sustain them when nothing else would.
23: Jessica Blood
Mike brought them hot coffee and cold breakfast pastries, but it may as well have been gourmet. Jessica’s taste buds were exploding with happiness to have food and drink. Her time in the underworld was something she might never forget, but the comforts of home? Just a few days and she had forgotten things could be so wonderful.
She wanted happy times, as a stranded man craves water. It was all her mind could think of while she sat with her family—even the strange Mike fellow, who glanced at his watch more than he should’ve. He worried about something, and Jessica thought it might have been what plagued her own mind.
Duncan. Shouldn’
t he have been back by now?
Gwen ravaged her food too, as if it had been ages since she ate. “Demons don’t need to eat like we do. Few bland meals every odd couple of days has really left me with an empty stomach. I think I could eat a dozens of these.”
Amanda held her Danish daintily and munched on the end with her eyes closed. Her tongue swept across the icing left behind on her lips. “Mmm, I could always eat a dozen of these.”
Jessica laughed and couldn’t believe something so simple could feel so good, but she knew conversation needed to be had. Mike wore a hole in the floor from the way he paced back and forth—chewing on his thumb the whole time. His mind was elsewhere. Worried and stewing about something that had nothing to do with coffee.
Or yummy pastries.
Done, Gwen wiped her hands on a napkin and dotted the corner of the mouth with the napkin. When speaking, her eyes were on Mike, like someone who was seeing the ocean for the first time. “It took a long time for me to piece together what happened, I guess we should start at the beginning.”
Mike stopped pacing and stood to face the girls. He squatted to meet their eyes and Jessica shifted under their intensity. A rough looking guy for a priest, something about him didn’t sit right with her. Not that she didn’t trust him, but she didn’t not trust him either.
“In the beginning, demons were shadows. Whispers in the ear of susceptible humans, something we couldn’t see or touch. The job of priests in the inner circle, priests such as myself, was to cleanse the towns. Exorcise the possessed. Send the demons back to the underworld.”
Amanda and Jessica exchanged a glance. Neither girl realized things had been so different. Jessica always assumed demons had always been flesh and blood, at least, the lower level ones. “Demons weren’t physical beings?” Jessica asked. “I guess the drug and human trafficking trade are new.”
“As of thirty years ago,” Gwen nodded with darting eyes. She didn’t want to look either of them head on and Jessica had to wonder why. What did she have to do with any of this?
Amanda took Gwen’s hand. “It’s okay. You can tell us.”
Gwen’s lips smacked together. “Lourdes was once an angel, one of the mighty ones. Her beauty turned to vanity and her vanity drove her mad. She didn’t fall from heaven, she was pushed. Her wings burned straight off and the angels cast her into the underworld. Long ago she was nothing more than a spirit, her beauty was stripped away because she was just mist and she became its queen. The warden of its souls and the gatekeeper of the high court of hell.”
Jessica’s brow furrowed. “Could’ve fooled me. That mist really packs a punch.”
Lips pursed, Gwen continued with a look of dread. “Before you were born, or even created, word spread that demons employed human possession to find an artifact. One that if brought to the underworld, would change everything. Allow demons to take physical shape. Grant Lourdes a body.” Gwen sighed with deep longing in her voice. “The artifact was a simple cup and if blood spilled into it and if she drank from it...”
“Then,” Mike said when Gwen couldn’t, “the Earth would form demons of twisted maggots and dirt. Lourdes would take physical shape once more. Still trapped, she’d need the blood of the cursed to leave the underworld.”
“How’d she get the blood, Aunt Gwen?” Jessica’s rough tone got a look out of Amanda, but Gwen stared straight at the ground.
“I was young. Foolish. I thought I could take on the world and rid it of demons myself. With the help of a faithful friend we rushed to the cup, but the possessed were strong. Numbers were too great. I was captured, bled, and if not for your father ambushing the demons, I would’ve been killed.”
Dad? Jessica’s eyes widened at the news. She and Amanda shared a look.
Gwen laughed with grief, tears shining in her eyes. “Your father charged the demons and nearly met defeat trying to rescue the cup. Only drops of blood remained, but that was enough. He was cursed to finish what I started. The Bloods, our bloodline is tied to Lourdes’s fate. We can set her free, or we can end her, but only together.”
Jessica’s nose flared. “The holy trinity isn’t so holy after all, is it?”
Gwen avoided her eyes. “What else should I have told you? That I cursed us? You? Any Bloods born would be…”
“Everyone always told me I was special, but I guess that’s not the full story.” Amanda’s scowl deepened. “I’m surprised our parents had any kids at all.”
“They weren’t supposed to,” Gwen’s harsh words brought frown lines to her face. “A mistake, fate that couldn’t be averted, I don’t know, but the precautions they took failed. I only know for all the trouble it brought, your parents never regretted it. I’ve learned for myself how special you both are. The power to heal, the power to destroy. Joined together, you can end Lourdes. If you’re strong enough.”
Jessica didn’t know how to process the information. She wished someone had thought to tell her all this sooner. If she knew why Lourdes wanted them, maybe it would have made a difference. As their aunt, Gwen should’ve cared about them enough to tell them, but what were they? Just a mission to her?
“I wish we had done things differently. If I could go back and do it again, so neither of you knew this kind of sorrow, I would.” Gwen glanced at Mike and he remained quiet, but he refused to meet her eyes.
Gazing between them, Jessica sensed more to the story. The look of grief on the priest’s face was too intense for that to be all there was. Temper flaring; Jessica took a deep laboring sigh. “What aren’t you telling us?”
“Your aunt is trying to protect me and my reputation.” Mike put his hands in his pockets. “I was young, easily tempted in ways I thought I’d never be. When Jacob went after Lourdes’s demons I should’ve followed. Then he would’ve had a chance, but I didn’t. Instead, I stayed with your aunt.”
“You saved her life,” Amanda said with a twist of her lips, “because you were in love with her. Because you…ohh.” Her nose scrunched up as if she tasted something nasty. “You two were sleeping together.”
Jessica’s eyebrows rose and her cheeks felt flush. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
Mike blew out a breath. “Yes. I’ve been paying for my transgression ever since. The knowledge that the demons are ravaging the planet, setting up drug shops and kidnapping girls.”
“It’s all our fault.” Gwen said and gazed away from his eyes. “Everything that happened to you girls. Your mother,” her eyebrows creased. “Jacob. That’s why I didn’t come for you girls right away when they were killed. The grief was too much. I was looking for answers. Looking for ways to fix it. To get rid of Lourdes once and for all.”
“I’m guessing you didn’t find one yet,” Jessica said dryly. “After all these years—decades—what made you think—.”
“I found more than you think. Once she had Jessica, Lourdes started to piece it together. The rip in the veil widened. Allowing more demons to pass through and even Jessica could walk through it. But she didn’t have you, Amanda. She didn’t have you both and that’s why she couldn’t step beyond the underworld. A secret long hidden from her, she needed you both.”
“Both of us?” The color went out of Amanda’s cheeks and Jessica felt faint. Hadn’t that been what just happened? When Amanda saved her from Lourdes…
“What’s the matter with you two?” Gwen’s lips pushed together into a stern look and Jessica was most familiar with it.
She cleared her throat and struggled to find the words. “For a brief time, when Amanda was removing the mark, we were both in the underworld. Lourdes had my soul and a piece of Amanda’s, at the same time.”
“Shit,” Mike muttered.
Gwen’s mouth fell open and she covered it. “For how long? How long? Did you see her?”
“Just a few minutes,” Amanda rushed on. “I didn’t see her, but she talked about the possibilities. I could hear her in my head. She said the world was open to possibilities.”
“Open,�
�� Gwen took a deep breath and her eye twitched, “we better get moving. We can check a few sources, talk to a few people. See if the signs of her return are present.”
“I’ll get the guns.” Mike rushed for the basement stairs.
The Blood women stood. Amanda tugged on her fingers, but it was Jessica’s temper that raged. “Don’t you think you could’ve told us this before? A cautionary tale?”
“I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t realize Lourdes needed you both until right before my possession. Fought as hard as I could to ward that information away. I didn’t want Lourdes to get her claws into either of you.”
Gwen’s eyes were sincere, but Jessica didn’t know if she could trust her. She wanted to, but right now she only trusted one person—her sister. Jessica’s head was twisted, confused. Nothing felt right anymore.
Her aunt reached for Jessica, but Amanda took her hand instead. “It’s just a lot to digest all at once. We didn’t know Dad fought demons. Why didn’t he ever tell us? Or you?”
“For your mother and you girls, he gave it up. They pledged their lives to keep you girls safe and to do whatever was necessary. I’m sure a father has never loved his girls as thoroughly as he loved you.”
That knowledge didn’t make Jessica feel any better. There was only horror and ever longing sadness. “Amanda saw him,” Jessica gritted her teeth to fight off her rage. “She saw him in the underworld. Where his soul has been, all this time.”
Gwen’s face grew long and her eyes distant. “He did what he did. Sacrifice is often the name of the game, girls. His body is dead. We can’t bring him back.”
“But we can stop the torture? Free him from the underworld. Send him to heaven at least?” Amanda asked, licking her lips. Jessica had seen the tortured look of sadness on her face before. Couldn’t hold it against her this time either.
Gwen either forgot the look or chose to ignore it. “We have more pressing matters, child.”
