Grim Rites (13 page)

Lily grabbed my head and pressed her forehead to mine. “Tell me where it is,” she said.

“No.” But it was already too late, I could feel her fingers sifting through my head as she searched for the place where I’d hidden the blade. Fighting her grip sent black sparks flying in my vision and the sound of Sonia screaming once more broke my concentration.

“She wasn’t pregnant,” Lily whispered before she released me.

Her words didn’t make sense and I pushed them aside as she tried to move away. Grabbing her ankle, I jerked her leg from underneath her, driving her into the ground. Lily’s frustrated cry gave me a momentary jolt of satisfaction.

Magic coiled within me. This time I knew her weakness, the connection she’d created between us would act as a conduit and no amount of attempting to deflect me would work this time.

“Amber!” The panic in Nic’s voice drew my attention and it was then I realised what I was listening to.

Sonia’s screams had cut off; her bubbling sobs filling my head with images I didn’t want to witness. There was only one thing that could make that sound.

Releasing Lily, I flung myself back across the room in Sonia’s direction. She wasn’t even trying to fight Steve off anymore, her hands scrabbling uselessly at the floor as her eyes stared, unseeing, up at the ceiling.

Nic had wrapped his body around Steve and from where I stood, I could see Steve’s dismembered arm lying next to them on the floor. Nic hacked at him with the small blade he had, but it wasn’t enough.

Dropping onto the floor next to Sonia, I dragged her out from underneath Steve. Her lower half was a complete bloodied ruin that brought stinging tears to my eyes. I’d done this to her. I’d caused all of this.

“Jesus Christ, Sonia,” I whispered, dragging my jacket off and pressing it against the blood that bubbled from her midsection.

Steve, by the looks of it, had tried to eat her; there was a clear bite mark on the inside of her arm, the flesh ragged and torn, but that was the least of her problems.

My magic still coiled within me as Sonia’s breaths became more and more laboured.

“Cut the head off, it’ll help,” I said to Nic as my heart hammered in my chest.

Sonia’s was slowing; I could hear it through the wet gurgling of her breaths and I knew she wasn’t going to last long. Even if an ambulance had been standing outside the door, I was pretty certain there was nothing on this Earth that could bring her back from the injuries she’d sustained.

Sonia grabbed my arm, her fingers digging into my flesh, and for one stupid moment I imagined all the zombie movies I’d watched down through the years were real.

Lily screamed, the sound echoing around the room, and I lifted my face in time to watch her send Jon and some of the other Elite guys crashing out into the hall. Sonia’s fingers spasmed and she coughed, blood spraying up onto her face as her eyes focussed in on my face.

The accusation in her eyes tore at me. I was to blame and she knew it. She blinked and one tear trickled from the corner of her eyes. Turning her head, she stared at Nic as he struggled with Steve’s reanimated corpse.

“You can stop him, you can give him rest…” she said, her voice little more than a whisper and almost impossible to hear over the wheezing, wet gurgling of her breathing.

“Yes,” I said honestly.

“Do it,” she said, a shudder of pain racing through her body as she convulsed in my grip. “I don’t want to die knowing I left him in this torturous limbo….”

“He’s not really in there,” I said, glancing up as Nic grunted in pain. Steve fought with the relentless power of those who didn’t feel pain, of those who knew nothing but an all-consuming hunger, one that couldn’t be quenched.

“You didn’t look into his eyes. She brought his soul back, it’s in there, but he’s trapped….”

I stared down in horror at the truth in Sonia’s eyes. “How do you know?”

“She did it before you got here….” Another spasm of bloody coughing wracked Sonia’s body and I tightened my hold on her.

“That’s not possible, she would have needed a sacrifice, a life for a life….”

“She said she could use the baby, that it would be enough, and I agreed….”

“Sonia….” I trailed off my words trapped in the back of my throat as I realised what she was saying. She’d given up her unborn child’s life to bring back this monster.

“But I lost the baby when they told me Steve was dead … I miscarried and….” She cut off and tears clouded her eyes. “I thought it wouldn’t matter….”

I didn’t answer her; there was no answer for the things she’d done. Grief could drive a person to desperation and I knew that. And maybe the piece of her memories I’d taken had contributed to her decision. But it suddenly became clear as to why Steve had turned on her. She was the life—it was her soul in exchange for his….

“Oh, Christ,” I said, suddenly realising the extent of the mess we were in.

Steve would live, truly live, but only when Sonia was dead.

Horror washed through me, turning my blood to ice in my veins as I watched Nic struggle with the reanimated corpse.

Laying Sonia out on the floor, I scrambled towards Nic and caught his hand as he attempted to bring his blade down on Steve’s neck.

“You can’t!” I said, terror doing its best to claw its way out of my throat.

Grabbing Steve’s face between my hands I pulled his face towards mine and stared down into his eyes. It was there, lurking beneath the surface of his death-glazed eyes. His soul swam inside him, the smell of terror and horror suddenly overwhelming the stench of his rotting flesh.

“Rest,” I said, my voice echoing with power, a power that tasted different on my tongue.

He struggled in my grip for a moment longer, his soul suddenly surfacing as his eyes cleared and then, just as quickly as it had appeared, he went limp in my grip. His flesh felt slimy beneath my touch and I laid him gently back on the floor.

I cast a glance in Sonia’s direction, but her chest was no longer rising and falling with her laboured breathing and the terrible gurgling noises she’d been making had ceased. They were both gone.

“What the fuck is going on, Amber!” Jon’s voice cut through the static buzzing in my head and I turned to face him, but whatever he saw in my eyes had him stumbling backwards out through my apartment door.

“Amber, your eyes…” Nic said, fear in his voice, but he wasn’t afraid of me—I was certain of that. He was afraid for me.

“Crap,” I muttered and scrubbed my hands over my face. “Well, I guess if the cat is out of the bag, then there really is no point in hiding what I am,” I said with a sigh before I pushed up onto my feet. “But before the shit well and truly hits the fan and Jon tries to kill me, there’s someone I need to help.”

Jon peered around the door, his gun raised and pointed in my direction. “I know what you are!” he shouted; the fear in his voice told me just how dangerous he truly was.

“I don’t have time for this, Jon,” I said, raising my hands in surrender as the first gun shot rang out, the sound deafening in such close proximity. Pain burned in my arm as the bullet grazed it and I swore beneath my breath when I heard the sound of other gun-toting Elite preparing to fire through the walls.

Nic barrelled into me, taking us both to the floor, the force of his body hitting mine and knocking the air from my lungs as the roar of gunfire blew through the apartment. We rolled across the floor as the gunfire ceased as quickly as it had started.

“Go, I’ll keep them busy,” Victoria’s voice called to me from the doorway, and I didn’t need to be told twice.

I was on my feet before Nic was on his knees and I held my hand out to him but he shook his head.

“You need to go, Jason is coming here, we both know it, and someone has to head him off in the pass….”

He was right, Jason would be coming, and if I was still here … well, we both knew how it would end.

“Be careful,” I said with a smile before I turned away.

“You too,” Nic said.

I took off at a run, my legs a little unsteady beneath me as I crossed the apartment and raced down the hall to the window that led out onto the fire escape. There wasn’t a chance in Hell that Jon was going to catch me and accuse me of being a witch. That was one victory I wouldn’t ever give him.

S
t Anne’s
was quiet as I crossed the street and reached the locked gate. It seemed unusual to find the gates locked; I’d always imagined churches to be open at all times. After all, sin didn’t have a watch and absolution could be given at any time.

Grabbing the railings, I hooked my leg up across the middle bar and hoisted myself over the top, flipping my body over the sharp spikes carefully. My bullet-graze burned as my muscles strained against my arm and I dropped down onto the ground on the other side of the gate.

Keeping low, I crossed the parking lot as silently as I could. Demons, like vampires and shifters, had incredible hearing and getting caught out here just wasn’t a good idea.

Spotting one of the side doors that led into the church, I crept towards it and tried the heavy iron door handle. It popped open easily and I slipped soundlessly inside.

The church was silent but it wasn’t the kind that usually brought peace. Closing my eyes, I let the atmosphere wash over me, and I shuddered. I was so used to the churches back in Ireland being a place of peace and contemplation. Hell, I didn’t even remember it feeling so claustrophobic when I’d been here earlier; something had obviously happened to change things, but what that was….

Creeping up the aisle, I paused as I realised what it was that had changed so drastically.

The older priest that had welcomed me earlier lay across the altar, his eyes wide and unseeing as he stared at me. The altar cloth that was usually white had dark bloody patches decorating it now instead.

Staring up at the cross that hung overhead, I tried to imagine what He thought of all of this. Did God even have a plan? Or were we really just put on earth and cut loose from His care to get on with living ourselves? Survival of the fittest, but then, how was a human supposed to compete with something like a demon?

“So many conflicting thoughts, Amber,” Mia’s called to me, and I jumped.

She stepped out through a concealed doorway to the right of the altar, her expression neutral as she let her gaze drift over the dead priest. There had been a time when something like this would have bothered her. But not now….

“Mia, what happened here, what happened to Father Bailey?”

“I didn’t think you were the empathetic sort; you always gave the impression that nothing touched you. That deserting others, leaving them broken in your wake, was just something you did. And yet, here you are, actually upset over the death of a man you didn’t even know….”

“Mia, just tell me who did this.”

Throwing back her head, she laughed, a long, raucous sound filled with joy and light. In all the time I’d known Mia, I’d never actually heard her laugh before. Everything was always far too painful, there was always too much going on inside her head, too many feelings belonging to everyone around her to process.

“This isn’t you,” I said, taking a small step forward.

The laughter stopped and Mia returned her gaze to mine. I watched as the colour in her eyes disappeared to be replaced with a darkness that caused my stomach to clench. This was definitely not quite what I had in mind. If Mia was possessed, then that made life a hell of a lot more complicated.

“That’s where you’re wrong, this is more me than I’ve ever been. No more suffering, no more pain. I don’t have to cower in the shadows because my
gift
is overwhelming me. I can finally live my life and I don’t have to give a damn what anyone else thinks or feels.”

“And that’s still not you. I wish you knew how to control your power but not like this, not at the expense of who you truly are….” I took a step towards her and Mia let her head drop to one side, her eyes assessing me the way a hawk watches a mouse scurrying through the grass seconds before it drops from the sky on wings of death.

“You do realise I know exactly how you feel about me and my gift, right?” she said, a cruel smile twisting her lips.

“Yeah, I do. The part you forget is that my feelings are centred around getting that crazy-ass demon out of you before it makes you do something you’ll regret,” I said, flexing my hands as my power surged within me.

“Oh, I dunno, I think we’re pretty much past the point of no return,” she answered with a small flick of her eyes in the direction of Father Bailey’s body.

It was enough of a distraction, my attention crossing to the dead priest for a second. It was all Mia needed as she launched herself across the space between us, time folding in on itself as she moved, and before I could react, she was on top of me.

I went down, taking the hit of her body and rolling with her to absorb the impact of hitting the marble floor. Pain flared through me, stealing my breath as Mia’s hands scrabbled at my face as though she had claws.

That was the only good thing with demon possession: they forgot the human body couldn’t adapt the way an actual human body could. They could take extreme amounts of damage; wounds that would normally kill a human could be absorbed and healed. Of course, in situations like that, the second they weren’t possessed anymore, the body would die, sending the human soul on its merry way.

All I needed to do was make sure Mia didn’t get the upper hand, and stop her from getting an injury that would kill her if she wasn’t possessed. Easy-peasy.

However, breaking bones was so not off-limits.

Ramming her arms back, I wrapped my legs around her waist and flipped her over until she was beneath me.

“I command thee, demon, leave this poor soul,” I said, forcing as much authority into my voice as I could.

Mia writhed beneath me, her black eyes filled with rage, but it had absolutely no effect on her demon half.

“In the name of God, I cast you out. You cannot have this woman,” I said again, panic swelling inside me as Mia started to laugh.

“Lost your touch, Amber?” she said. “Or is it because you’re a witch? Maybe God has deserted you after all….”

Fear clenched my heart; it certainly wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. Since everything had happened, I hadn’t tried to exorcise any demons, I’d just assumed I could still do it. It was, after all, just a straight forward possession and anyone with a little training and the right attitude could perform one.

Except for me….

Sound fluttered near my ear and I turned my face in time to see something black and heavy slam into my head. Pain exploded behind my eyes, bright lights erupting in my vision as I rolled off Mia and dropped to the marble.

I fought to get up, but my head spun and it was an effort just to keep the contents of my stomach in place. Lifting my head, Mia grinned down at me as she lifted her booted foot and brought it down on my head, driving me into the ground.

Darkness tried to swallow me, but not before another voice caught my attention.

“Take her to the back room and prepare her,” he said.

Whatever they were going to prepare me for, when my body stopped trying to spill its guts everywhere, they were going to be in for a world of hurt…. I just needed a second to close my eyes.