Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (29 page)

He tossed the machete and the remainder of his weapons into the grass on his left. He still didn’t move his eyes from mine. I sighed, and began taking off my belt and holster.

“How much do you think renovations are gonna cost you?” I asked.

Mateo clenched his fists. “Do you have any idea how long my family had that house? How hard my father fought to maintain it and keep it out of government hands?”

I threw my weapons aside and spread my legs to get balance. “Can’t have been too hard when he had everybody in his pocket, could it?”

The second my weapons were out of reach, Mateo lunged for me. His fist shot forward with alarming speed, and I barely leaned away from it in time. I grabbed his wrist and held his arm out, pulling my free hand back to break his arm. Mateo snared my elbow and dragged it down. I kicked for his knee, but he stepped back and drove his far knee into my stomach. Air left my lungs in a huff, but I stayed on my feet and tried to get my arms free. Before I could move, Mateo kicked the back of my leg and buckled me. The arm I’d been holding got free, and soon his hand clamped around my throat.

Mateo kept pushing until I was pinned on the ground, crushed under his weight. He freed his other hand and swung it for me. I tried to block him, but he batted my arm away and hit me before I could get another counter.

Pain exploded as his fist collided with my head, just above the eyebrow. The leather of his gloves scratched over my skin, splitting it open. The world spun as I turned my head straight, feeling Mateo squeeze my neck. He raised his fist again, though this time I caught it before the strike could connect. I wiggled until I knew I had room, then bucked up and pitched Mateo to my right. He fell off me and I was freed. I scrambled to my feet, bringing up my hands when he kicked for my stomach.

He was back on his feet in nanoseconds, punching and kicking furiously. I matched him strike for strike, blocking and dodging, trying to remember the way he fought in our sparring sessions. It was more or less the same style, but a lot more aggressive. He’d hit me during training, claiming that he never wanted to do it but had to make me learn. This wasn’t the same, of course. He wasn’t going to stop until he’d broken every bone in my body.

Mateo snapped a front kick toward my chest, but I caught it. While he was off balance, I planted my foot in his exposed ribs. He grunted and grimaced as I kicked him again. I dropped his leg and rushed in close, crashing my fist into his jaw. When I tried to punch him again, he grabbed my wrist and yanked it out to the side. Pain shot up my arm as he tried to pull it from its socket. I couldn’t get my defense up before he punched me in the chest.

My collarbone reverberated with pain, but I twisted to ease the pressure on my arm and stayed in front of him. I blocked another hit coming for my head, using my free arm to sweep off his hold. Mateo snarled and grabbed a handful of my hair, yanked my head so violently I stumbled.

I let him keep the grip on my hair, focusing on blocking the punch he aimed at my face. I knocked it aside and shot a jab into his nose. His head rocked back and my hair was released. Furious, I jumped onto him and wrapped my legs around his ribs. I planted one hand on the top of his head and used the other to hit him in the face. It was an awkward position, but I was getting the upper hand.

Until Mateo grabbed my waist, pulled me off him, and hurled me onto the ground.

I rolled on the dead grass, winded from slamming into it. I saw him coming behind me and started to get to my feet. He grabbed one of my ankles and wrenched me back. I flipped around as I was dragged, kicking out with my free foot to catch him in the stomach. My foot skidded against his ribs, but Mateo was on a rampage. He probably wasn’t feeling any of the pain I was sending his way.

He tried knocking my legs aside, but I pushed up and slid myself back until I was out of his reach. I shot my knee into his chin, rocking his head back. Mateo shouted, and I thought I saw blood on the insides of his lips. He must have bitten his tongue. I got to my feet and kicked at his head. He batted my leg away and stood up, firing a powerful kick into my abdomen. I stumbled back and barely kept my footing.

When I lifted my head, Mateo was there again. He punched me in the temple, rocking my head to the side, and directly into his second fist. It struck my cheek and wrenched my head again. The world was a blur when his palm slammed into my chest. I staggered for a moment until my feet were swept out from under me. I landed on my back, my head smacking against the hard soil.

I turned to get my bearings, but Mateo was standing over me. He stomped down on my exposed side. I screamed when I felt one of my ribs crack. I rolled onto my back when his foot crashed down again, sending all of the air out of my diaphragm. I coughed as his boot rose again, aiming for my chest. As it descended, I snapped my hands up and caught it. My knuckles dug into my chest, but it was better than him breaking my collarbone.

I pulled his leg forward and swept mine out to trip him. He collapsed onto his back and I tried to get up again. Mateo was faster, his leg swinging up into my chest and knocking me back down. While I was winded, he scissored his foot so his heel dug into the top of my stomach. It was like having the edge of a baseball bat driven into me.

My entire body felt like a bruised mess, and my head was ten sizes too big. I used my elbows to get leverage, but Mateo crawled over to me and drove the tip of his knee into my chest. I cried out from the massive, crushing pain, which only made him press down harder. I swung my fist into his ribs. He jerked once, but didn’t get off of me. All I did was shift his knee across my chest.

Mateo punched down, his fist catching me right between the eyes. My head bounced off the dirt, blacking me out for a second. The hits kept coming, filling my vision with darkness. I couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t fight back.

By the time he was finished, my entire face felt broken. Blood was welling into my head, and I was on the edges of a concussion. My nose was busted, but at least I still had my teeth. Mateo finally got off my chest. My lungs swelled and pushed on the bruises covering my torso. I groaned and rolled onto my stomach, feeling about as strong as a dead fish.

Mateo was walking away. The only reason he would do that was if he was getting his machete. He’d beaten me enough. He was ready to kill me.

I looked up. Some time during the fight, we’d ended up by our weapons. My hatchet was in sight. I crawled for it, forcing myself onto my hands and knees to move faster. My hand had just curled around the neck of the weapon and pulled it free when a foot slammed into my stomach. The motion flipped me through the air until I landed on the grass again.

Mateo knelt down and straddled my chest, gripping my hair with one hand and tugging my head back. The cold metal blade touched my throat, sharp enough to kill me in one swipe. My hands were free, but I didn’t dare move. Not yet.

“I would have given you everything, Constance,” Mateo said. “I loved you with all my heart.” His eyes darkened. “I never thought I would hate you with all my heart, too.”

He raised the machete. It gleamed in the moonlight. I heard Warrick screaming. My fingers snaked through the grass.

The blade began to descend, and I moved as fast as I could. I punched Mateo in the stomach. The hit forced his swing to go wide, just barely slicing along my collarbone. With my right hand, I grabbed the hilt of the hatchet and swung it into his unprotected ribs.

Mateo screamed and grabbed my wrist, ditching the machete and trying to tear the hatchet free with both of his hands. I refused to let go. While he was distracted, I grabbed the machete that had fallen next to my head. I swung it up and drove it into his ribs.

Mateo stiffened and gasped in shock as the blade slid home to his heart. He looked down at me, stunned that I had tricked him. My eyes were cold as I twisted the blade. He jerked and coughed, spraying blood onto my neck and face. Mateo’s eyes began to glaze over, and it wasn’t hard to push him off my chest.

I coughed at the release of pressure, gripping my hatchet and his machete tightly. Mateo lay on his side, staring at me with dying eyes. I rested on my hands and knees, sore and breathing heavily, watching my first love die. After a long, long time, Mateo’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. His entire body slumped with a final, sharp breath, then stopped moving all together.

Mateo looked dead to me, but after so many years of running from him, I had to be sure. I crawled closer and cut his throat with my hatchet. Blood squirted out, but he didn’t move. His skin began to fill with black veins, tiny cracks zipping over him as his body crumbled in on itself. His remains imploded inside his clothes, and suddenly he was gone.

So was the fragment lodged inside of him.

I moaned painfully, dropping Mateo’s machete and clutching my aching stomach. Warrick was still shouting for me, though I didn’t raise my head to look at him. I felt sick, but I had to stand up. I used one knee for leverage and slowly rose to my feet. I tilted once, then caught myself and straightened my back. I looked in Warrick’s direction, letting him see I was alive.

I must have looked terrible, because his eyes widened with horror and Max turned paper white. Still gripping my stomach and my hatchet, I turned around to face Lucifer. His face was as impassive as always. Beside him, Dro’s jaw had dropped. She saw me looking at her, and quickly pressed her lips together.

“That was disappointing,” Lucifer said to break the silence. “His anger was palpable. I instilled more strength into him, and yet you survived. I would set you against the bounty hunter,” he said, gesturing to Drake, who chuckled at my battered face, “but I have already promised him another’s blood.”

My own blood went cold. I knew he was talking about Warrick, but if Warrick were killed fighting Drake, the bounty hunter wouldn’t stop there. He would see Max, and tear him to pieces.

“But I cannot risk fate smiling upon you,” Lucifer said. “I must set you against someone I know you cannot defeat.”

He turned his head. Dro looked up at him, her eyes beginning to widen.

“My daughter,” Lucifer purred. “Kill her.”

Chapter 24

Dro stared at Lucifer as if she couldn’t understand what he said. I heard it clear enough, but I still couldn’t move. I felt like I would collapse if I budged an inch.

“She– Look at how weak she is,” Dro tried. “It won’t be much of a fight if I went against her now.”

Lucifer’s eyes bored into her. Dro flinched.

“I did not tell you to fight her. I told you to kill her.”

An unspoken threat hung in the air. If Dro didn’t kill me, she would be punished. I knew from experience that being punished by Lucifer could be a fate worse than death.

But the hesitance told me that my sister was still locked under the demon controlling her mind. I looked carefully at Dro’s body again, squinting to see if Michael had been right after all. If she didn’t have it, Drake did. I would have no problem killing him, though I dreaded how I would deal with my sister if she wasn’t being swayed by the supernatural shard.

“But–”

Dro gasped and winced sharply, backing away from whatever invisible pain was being inflicted on her. She slapped a hand to her stomach, right where the leather belt was.

If she has a fragment in her, then that’s where it is.

I started walking toward my sister, gripping the hatchet tightly. Not even looking at me, Lucifer flicked his hand in my direction. An invisible momentum slammed into me, knocking me back ten feet. I landed on my ass, not looking forward to more head trauma. But instead of flopping onto the ground again, someone caught me and hauled me to my feet. I swayed, but the hands kept me upright. I breathed deeply, and smelled pine. I would have smiled and thanked Warrick if my face didn’t hurt so much.

I turned my attention back to Lucifer and Dro. My sister was clutching her middle, digging her nails into her side to keep from screaming. I started walking forward again, only to have Warrick tug me back. I was ready to shout at him, when I saw Dro relax. She took one more deep breath, then drew herself up and turned in my direction.

I was about twenty feet from her, but I could still see the darkness shimmering in her bright blue eyes. Her smile was malevolent and bloodthirsty.

Michael was right. Dro had a fragment inside of her, not Drake. She wouldn’t be looking at me with a smile meant to kill if it weren’t. The fragment was dissolving. I had no way to tell if it was dissolved, or if she was holding back. I had to believe she was resisting it. The other option… I couldn’t think about it.

She stalked forward like a cat approaching a mouse it had clawed. Max whimpered nervously, and Warrick’s hold on me tightened. I didn’t move. There had to be a way to get through to her, to let her know that she could be saved if she trusted me.

But I was running out of time, unable to think through the panic taking over my mind. Then Dro froze and frowned. A moment later, the world burst into familiar golden light. We turned around and watched Michael and Sephiel return. And they weren’t alone.

A dozen angels strode confidently to our side. Each one of them holding a drawn weapon, wearing a white leather coat, and looking severe. Sephiel scowled unhappily at my injuries, turning his furious blue eyes onto Lucifer. I was still watching the angels emerge from the golden light, not expecting the next man I saw.

“Gabriel?” I choked out.

Michael’s second in command smiled a thousand watts at me. The archangel looked like a male model with flawless tanned skin, wavy, sandy blond hair, a youthful face, and glowing hazel eyes.

“You are looking a little worse for wear, Constance Ramirez,” he said playfully as he approached me.

I scowled at him, but Gabriel reached out to touch my face. I winced at the initial tingle of his healing magic, but I wasn’t about to refuse it. He repaired my nose, my cracked rib, and most of my bruises, though I could tell his magic wasn’t nearly as powerful as it should have been. But I was more than grateful to have my worst injuries healed. An extra bruise or two wasn’t going to keep me from fighting.

“I thought you were happy to sit on the sidelines until the world ended,” I said when he finished healing me.

Gabriel shrugged his broad shoulders. “I was.” His luminous eyes held mine. “But family has a way of changing your priorities.”

As if those words signaled his entrance, Michael stepped out of the light.

Michael, who still had his motherfucking wings.

Sephiel had had wings before the Heaven Gate was closed, but I never saw them. It was a way of concealing what he was from human eyes, I guess, and they were the reason he’d been able to teleport quickly and invisibly. Dro had been able to see them because she was supernatural. She said they’d been beautiful, but somehow I was willing to bet even his paled in comparison to Michael’s.

Two enormous, rounded wings sprouted from his back, beaming with intense white light. It was like he was standing in front of two blinding spotlights. When my eyes reacted to the whiteness, I was able to see the bare edges of feathers on the wings, which shone like crystals. They were so thin they were nearly transparent, veins of gold shimmering through them. Long gold bands traced the edges of the wings, making the entirety of them look like two golden windowpanes under the sun.

I never thought I would see anything that compared to the beauty of the Heaven Gate. I was wrong.

Michael looked right past me, striding forward with his broadsword in his hand. “This ends tonight, Lucifer. You have left me no choice.”

I whipped my head around to find Lucifer. The King of Hell had stripped off his jacket to reveal his own wings. They were as incredible as Michael’s, but more terrifying than beautiful. Four bat-like wings tipped with horns protruded from his back, the two larger ones edging along his shoulder blades while the two smaller ones stuck out from his lower ribs. He took the claymore from his back and held it loosely in his left hand. His eyes fixed on Michael, and for the first time, I saw an emotion in them.

Too bad that emotion was complete, utter hatred.

“I never intended to,” Lucifer replied.

The King of Hell raised his right hand, snapped his fingers, and let the demons off their leashes.

They charged forward like horses on the racetrack. The angels didn’t need Michael’s permission to confront them. Dro filled her hands with white-hot hellfire and swept both arcs at the approaching angels. Gabriel suddenly appeared on the frontlines, pushing against Dro’s hellfire with his own heavenfire. The white and gold lights slammed into each other, creating a burning explosion that nearly blinded me.

When it faded, Dro was staggering back, scowling and rubbing her eyes. I broke out of Warrick’s grip and raced for her. Lucifer was charging for the frontlines, and Michael overtook me. I got in his way before he could do anything to hurt Dro, but it wasn’t until I stood in front of her that I realized I might have made a mistake.

Dro’s eyes blazed with anger, her beautiful face twisted into a terrible snarl. I couldn’t see a trace of the sister I was trying to save, but I knew she was in there. I had to find a way to get her out without really hurting Dro.

Not that it would keep her from hurting me.

Something in Dro must have sparked when she saw me, because she didn’t burn me to a crisp. Instead, she fired a punch at my face.

I raised my arm to block her, the force of her strike sending a huge shock through my arm and pushing my block toward my head. She had become incredibly strong thanks to her time with Lucifer. If Gabriel hadn’t healed me, Dro would have pounded me into the dirt by now. There were openings I could have taken to turn the table of the fight, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. If anything, I was more cautious about my hand holding the hatchet.

Yet my eyes kept flicking back to her stomach. I had to see if the fragment was in her. If it was, I wasn’t going to have a choice. I would have to hurt Dro to save her.

During my distraction, Dro punched up and caught me in the chin. My head rocked back and she kicked me in the chest. For a girl fighting in a dress, she moved with shocking ease.

“Give up, big sister,” Dro taunted. Her smile was as cold as her eyes. “We both know you aren’t going to hurt me.”

Unintentionally, I remembered the first and last time a Possessor had taken control of me. I’d been locked inside my body, struggling and suffering, but never giving up. Dro had known I was in there, and she’d told me to keep fighting. She’d believed I could break free. Being under the influence of a fragment was the same thing. Your soul just didn’t know it.

I couldn’t let that nightmare come true. I wouldn’t let her live with knowing she killed us.

I held my hatchet tightly, meeting Dro’s eyes sadly.

“I’m sorry about this, little sister.”

Dro scoffed and launched herself at me again. This time I struck first. My fist jabbed into her face, just enough to daze her. Being very careful, I sliced my hatchet along the leather belt at her stomach.

The blade just nicked her skin, but completely ripped open the leather. Beneath it, Dro’s flesh was black and corrupted, just as mine had been. She was moving a lot, but I could see the outline of the fragment pressing against her skin.

It was there.
Right there
. If I had been fighting anyone else, I would have already lunged in for the strike.

But I wasn’t fighting just anyone. I was fighting my sister.

I hesitated, and it cost me.

Dro roared furiously and pushed a handful of hellfire at me. I dove out of the way, feeling the heat of the white-hot flames rush past me. I caught myself in a roll and kicked back, sweeping her feet from under her. Dro landed on the ground, and I pounced on her before she could get up. She thrashed and screamed and clawed at me, but I took the hits and pressed down on her chest.

Then one of her punches connected with my jaw. It was a hell of a hit, and it knocked me off my sister. I was still recovering from it when Dro pinned me and wrapped one hand around my throat. She splayed her other hand on the ground next to me, white flames creeping along the grass and hovering next to my skull.

I grabbed her wrist with one of my hands. The other held my hatchet. Yet my entire body was frozen.

Oh, God, I can’t do it. I can’t.

“Dro,” I rasped out. “Stop.”

“Stop?” she repeated in a dark, mocking voice. “Why should I? You had your chance to run. You didn’t listen to me. If you had, it wouldn’t have come to this, Constance.” Her eyes glowed a shocking blue, the rage in them as alien as the twisted smile on her face.

My sister had truly become a demon.

The heat and flames crept closer, singeing the edges of my hair. I smelled the sharp scent, knew how horrifically close I was to dying, but I couldn’t look anywhere but Dro.

“Andromeda,” I begged, digging my nails in, trying to reach her one last time. My hatchet was a weight in my hands. “Don’t make me…”

“Don’t make you what?” she sneered. “Kill me?” She shook her head. “We both know you won’t do that, Constance. You should, but you won’t. You imagined it differently, didn’t you? You really thought you could win.”

A tear slipped past my eyelids before I could stop it.

“I didn’t want to win,” I whispered. “I just wanted to save you.”

Dro shook her head, lips twisted between a snarl and a smile.

“That was always your problem, big sister. You always assumed I needed to be saved.”

Her grip tightened on my throat. She lifted her burning hand rose from the grass and hovered over my face. I could hardly see her past the heat searing my eyes.

“What I needed was to be let go.”