Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (27 page)

Max had always looked young, but right then he resembled a lost child. It was the same look he’d had when he saw a specter of his father, only to realize that it was a cruel magic trick. He wasn’t looking at us, but I could tell he was on the verge of tears.

“She didn’t even see me, she…”

Max looked up, the pain in his glistening eyes breaking my heart.

“She’s not coming back, is she?”

Hearing the hope in his voice was the worst part. He could see flickers of the future, but he wanted me to lie for him. He wanted to know that Dro would come back, and that we’d find a way to repair everything we’d damaged.

But I couldn’t do that to him. Not when I knew the truth as well as he did.

Warrick left my side and put his hands on Max’s shoulders.

“We’ll find her, Max,” he told the boy, repeating words I’d once said with sureness. “Lucifer is confusing her, that’s all. We can get through this.”

He looked at me as he said the last part, trying to get me to believe him. It didn’t work.

“Look, there’s nothing more we can do tonight. We need to wait until Michael wakes up before we can make a plan. We should find some food and get some rest. Start over with clear minds.”

Max nodded gloomily, drawing back from Warrick’s hands. He trudged past the curtains and out of sight.

“Lucifer’s hold on Andromeda is strong,” Sephiel said once Max was out of hearing range. “It will not be easy to retrieve her from under his spell.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” Warrick insisted. “Just like you told the angels. You aren’t wrong, Seph. They just chose to ignore you.”

Sephiel set his jaw and nodded grimly. He glanced at me, but I was more interested in the floor.

“Would you like me to take first watch?” Sephiel asked, glancing at us.

“No, I’ll do it,” Warrick answered. “I’m still pretty wired.”

The ex-angel nodded, then slid past me. Once his footsteps turned soft and distant, Warrick put his arms around me and pulled me to his chest. I was too drained to resist, and even under the sour odors of blood, sulfur, and sweat, he smelled safe and comfortable. He smelled like the home I was giving up.

I put my arms around his waist, hugging him tight to me. I wanted to be near him for as long as I could. I was going to lose him soon.

Warrick didn’t ask me if I was okay. He didn’t try to offer advice or hope or even kiss me. He just stood there, making me feel warm and loved. He started moving his hands through my hair, nearly bringing me to tears.

“I’m sorry about Carver,” I got out through a choked voice.

Warrick’s motions slowed. He sighed heavily over top of my head.

“Me too,” he admitted. “But he made his choice. Nobody could have talked him out of what he thought was right, no matter how big a mistake he was making.” He stifled a laugh. “You know, I argued with him more often than not, never really saw things the way he did, but I kind of miss the bastard. Even when he was being a hard-ass, I knew I could always come to him for advice or knowledge or whatever. It’s going to be strange, being the last demon slayer in the country.”

I had completely forgotten that all of the demonic assaults and possessions were now on Warrick’s shoulders. If we succeeded in closing the Hell Gate, he was the one who’d have to clean up the mess. And it was going to be a
huge
mess.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into his chest, closing my eyes.

Warrick’s hand rested on the back of my neck. “Don’t be. I was kind of hoping to get a new partner.”

I opened my eyes and pulled back to look at him. Warrick gazed down at me with hope and a small smile on his lips, truly believing that we’d survive and I would fight off the remaining demons with him.

I was a terrible influence.

“I don’t know what to do,” I breathed shakily.

Warrick’s hands cupped the sides of my face. “Who the hell does? But you’ll figure it out. You always do. It’s part of the reason I love you so damn much.”

He said the right thing, the most perfect thing, and I wanted him to take it back. I didn’t want him to love me, because it would hurt him so much more when I was gone.

There was nothing I could say to make him think any different. If I told him not to, he wouldn’t listen. If I ran, he would find me. If I told him he meant nothing to me, he wouldn’t believe me.

So I didn’t say anything. I stood there breathlessly while he leaned down to kiss me. As soon as his lips molded onto mine, I clung to him tighter.

I wasn’t just a bad influence and a liar. I was an utterly selfish bitch.

Warrick drew back and pressed his forehead against mine. “Do you want to get some sleep, or stay on watch with me?”

“With you,” I whispered back. At least that part wasn’t a lie.

Warrick nodded and took my hand, leading me to the middle of store. We stood on either side of the front door, peeking through the curtains to make sure they stayed empty. More than once, I saw Warrick glancing my way and offering me a smile. I did the same, but it didn’t reach my heart.

I wasn’t sure anything would ever again.

Chapter 22

Sephiel arrived for his watch early, telling Warrick and me to get some sleep. We returned to the storeroom and laid together, me using his chest as a pillow while he used my body as a blanket. He was overly exhausted, and it wasn’t long before he fell asleep.

I tried, but couldn’t catch more than a couple solid hours. I would nod off, then snap back awake. Eventually I couldn’t lie there anymore, no matter how comfortable I was. I eased off Warrick’s chest and shrugged out of my jacket, draping it over his chest as a makeshift blanket. As I stood up, he shifted and rolled onto his side, clutching my jacket to his chest before falling back to deep sleep.

So much for promising never to fall in love again. Dro was right about me.

I shook off the painful memory of her and my feelings for Warrick, opening the door and silently closing it behind me. I turned around and jumped near out of my skin when I saw Michael standing in front of me.

I pressed a hand to my chest to slow my racing heartbeat, then glared at the archangel. “You scared the shit out of me,” I hissed.

Michael looked at me blankly. “It was not my intent.”

It wasn’t a full-fledged apology, but it was the most I’d get from him.

Then he surprised me.

“I want to thank you for saving my life,” said Michael.

I stared at him, stupefied by what he said. I hadn’t expected an apology, let alone him thanking me. Since I was too stunned to speak, Michael took that as an invitation to keep talking.

“I am fully aware that I have been disrespectful and insulting toward you and your followers.”

“I think you mean friends,” I corrected. “There’s a difference, but keep talking.”

Michael’s upper lip stiffened, but to my utter amazement, he didn’t scold me or strike me down. “It appears that my fellow angels have abandoned our cause. I am unfamiliar with the consequences of this.”

I shrugged, crossing my arms under my breasts. “Might as well get used to the feeling. It sucks, but it’s part of life. Nobody can stay on top forever.”

“Not even Lucifer.”

My arms tightened around my chest. I wasn’t sure he was saying that in hope of me backing him up, or if he was confident in the statement, so I played it smart and didn’t answer. Michael stared at me without blinking for what seemed like an eternity. I don’t know if he was trying to read my mind or wait for me to speak, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to say to him. I would have gone into the backroom and slept beside Warrick again if I thought for one second that I would get some rest.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Won’t be much longer now.

Michael took my silence as an opportunity to speak again.

“I feel the need to be forthcoming with you.”

I sighed.
Great.

“Your sister was more of the timid sort before aligning herself with Lucifer.”

I slid my hand down to my hatchet as a silent warning. Michael refused to acknowledge it.

“As difficult as this shall be for you to hear, it must be said.”

“Then get on with it,” I told him impatiently.

Michael took another breath, ready to monologue. “The fragments distort the mind, turning innocent eyes to bloodshed, fuelling sin and ultimately powering the Hell Gate. It is a weapon aimed at humans, but can have a devastating effect in supernaturals.” Michael’s eyes were so intense it almost hurt to look into them.

“It is my belief that your sister has a fragment inside of her.”

It made sense, in its own way. Dro was acting the complete opposite of herself, and Lucifer was the worst catalyst I could imagine. Who knew what he’d done to her in the three days she’d been under his sway? Though at the same time, it seemed more complicated than that.

“Dro’s smarter than that. She wouldn’t have accepted it. She saw what it did to me.”

“And yet, I recognized its power coming from her,” Michael insisted. He took a slow step toward me, looking almost sympathetic. “She has become more powerful than I could have perceived. If is has fused with her bloodstream, I fear there is only one way to remove the fragment’s influence from her.”

My blood turned cold. I gripped my hatchet in a white-knuckle grip, but I was incredibly tempted to draw it and slap Michael across the face with it.

“You have a lot of fucking nerve,” I whispered gravely.

“This is not what you wish to hear, but you must understand–”

“No,” I interrupted. “This is what
you
need to understand.”

For once, Michael didn’t try to talk over me.

“Dro is my sister, no matter what she’s turned in to. I had a fragment inside of me, and she took it out. I can do the same for her. It will be fucking torture, but I’ll do it. So if you get in my way or try to kill her when I’m not around, there is
nothing
, natural or supernatural, that will protect you from me.”

I took a step forward this time, looking up into Michael’s face even though I had to tilt my head back as far as I could to do it.

“You’re human now, Michael. That means anyone can kill you. So don’t fucking push me.”

If he’d been his old self, he probably would have obliterated me with a stylish snap of his fingers. But just as he’d given me a cold, hard truth, I gave him one right back. Kill Dro, get killed by me. It was the only simple truth that remained in my life.

“I know what drives these fragments,” Michael said. “But I do not understand how they could be removed short of death. Unless yours was a false one.”

The idea had never occurred to me. Maybe it should have. Then I remembered the blazing agony, the warped mindset I’d been trapped in, the blood on my hands from the deranged yet innocent people I’d killed. The ash that had dissolved in the vial Maria has shown me.

“It wasn’t fake,” I told him confidently. “Nothing fake would be that goddamn painful.”

Michael opened is mouth to say something else, but turned around as the curtains behind him were drawn apart. Sephiel appeared in the doorway, looking between Michael and me. He seemed amazed that we weren’t trying to stab each other. Frankly, so was I.

“It is time for a new watch.”

“No,” I countered. “It’s time to wake everyone up. We’re ending this now.”

Sephiel hesitated. “Constance, I realize that being without Dro is agonizing to you, but–”

“This isn’t about Dro,” I cut in. “This isn’t about getting revenge or running or waiting for Lucifer’s next move. This is about doing what we should have been doing in the first place. Closing the Hell Gate.”

I heard Max creaking the floorboards on his way down the stairs. Warrick opened the storeroom door behind me a second later. I looked at Michael, but spoke for all of them.

“You can confirm that Mateo and Drake will have the fragments?”

Michael was practically grinding his teeth when he nodded.

“Then we need to draw them out. If we can lead them out of the city, we can kill them and remove the last two fragments, and close the Hell Gate.”

Michael started to protest that we didn’t know which of them might have the fragment inside of the, or that Dro might contain one inside of her, but I wasn’t going to entertain that idea for myself until I saw her and had more proof.

“If nothing else, we can get them out of the city for a few hours. People might come to their senses and leave. Even if we save one person’s life, it will be worth it.”

Michael narrowed his eyes defiantly, but I was beyond caring. I’d given him the most important warning I could. He was difficult to read, but I would go with my gut in thinking he would let me handle Dro.

“Lucifer will likely be coming with them,” Warrick said. “Dro too.”

It hurt to hear him speak her name so grimly. “Focus on destroying the fragments. If we need to escape, we can use the
movens caeli.
Right, Max?”

“Yeah,” he confirmed hesitantly. “I guess. But where are we going to go to draw their attention? Mateo and Drake are Lucifer’s pet pit-bulls.”

“There’s one thing we can do that I know will get their attention.” I turned to look directly at Max. “Do you trust me?”

He grimaced. “Yeah, but when you say that I wonder if I should.”

I grinned for the first time in days. Too bad it was the grin I’d used as an enforcer to terrify my targets. Warrick, Sephiel, and Michael tensed uncomfortably, and Max actually shrank back a little. Good to know I hadn’t lost my charm.

“Pack up your stuff, boys. It’s time I took you to my place.”

***

Mateo hadn’t changed anything about the Rocha hacienda since the death of his father. It was still a beautiful, two-story plantation house made of dark brown sandstone. Tall palm trees were behind the perfectly trimmed hedges that lined the cobblestone driveway. The road circled near the front of the house, a huge white marble fountain in the middle of the circle. Dim, gold light shone through the curved arches of the windows. On the left of the main house was a narrow apartment building where the housekeepers, cooks, groundskeepers, and security lived. Where Dro and I used to live.

It was hard not to think about the memories I had attached to this place. Granted, most of them were tainted by Emilio’s omnipotence, Mateo’s betrayal, or the physical and emotional tortures I’d suffered here, but not every memory was a bad one. Dro and I had been safe from the demons. She’d been loved and accepted by the staff. I learned how to fight and grew stronger. I’d fallen in love. It had been a fucked up life, but it had been a stable one.

I might miss this place one day. But not tonight.

We hid in the trees behind the staff apartment, away from the gates and any guards who might have been walking the grounds. I looked at Max.

“You see anybody inside?” I whispered.

He closed his eyes and sighed. As he concentrated, I looked at the rest of the group. We’d had to raid an auto-repair shop to get dark coveralls for Sephiel and Michael to wear, Max and Warrick had donned darker clothes, and I had raided Maria’s closest until I found another plain black shirt to replace the one that had been soaked in blood.

I wondered if I would ever have a time in my life where I could wear a new color and not worry about it getting covered in grime and gore.

Michael was holding one can of gas, and Warrick had the other. Given how many fires were burning in Juárez, you’d think that everyone would be hogging petrol, but that turned out not to be the case. We were lucky, in a brutally ironic way.

Max exhaled and opened his eyes. “You’ll get in fine,” he said. “The big players aren’t inside, but there are guards. You’ll have to be careful and sneak around them, because they all have Mateo on speed dial. We light our fire as soon as you get back out here, and then we’re gone.”

I nodded. When he could see them, Max’s visions were usually solid, but that wasn’t to say that things couldn’t go wrong. We’d play it just as safe as if he hadn’t made any confirmation.

“All right,” I breathed, rolling my shoulders. “Let’s start the barbecue.”

I slipped out of the cover of the trees and jogged toward the back of the apartment. Warrick and Sephiel followed me, Sephiel covering the rear while Warrick did his best to keep the sloshing gasoline quiet in its can. I pressed myself to the wall, looking around the corner to make sure the coast was clear. When I didn’t see any Blood Thorns coming or going, I sprinted out and ran for the side of the hacienda.