Last Rite (16 page)

“Thanks,” I say over the top of the car as Faith pulls herself out.

She holds my gaze. “I won’t say anything for now. But if I see that demon anywhere near you again, that’s it.”

I nod as a plump raindrop splashes in my hair. “See you later.”

I jog across the dune between Faith’s cottage and ours, and when I reach the porch, I see a dark form moving toward me over the gray beach, coming from the other direction. I push through the door into the empty living room, afraid to wait and see who that form turns into as it approaches.

Matt? Rhen?

I head to my bedroom and reach for the handle just as Luc bursts through the front door, breathing hard. He presses it closed against a gust of wind and turns to face me. His bare feet are caked with sand and his black athletic shorts and gray T-shirt are plastered to his body and dripping puddles on the hardwood floor.

“You went running in the rain?” I ask.

He smiles, but it’s strained. “Why not?”

I shrug. “No reason, I guess.” I point to the bathroom. “Do you want to shower first?”

He looks down at his drenched clothes and pulls his T-shirt away from where it’s stuck to the contours of his chest. “That’d probably be a good idea, if you don’t mind.”

“No problem,” I say. “Just knock when you’re done.”

He grabs a pair of jeans off the chair in the corner and hesitates as he passes me on the way to the bathroom. He lifts his hand and loops a lock of stray hair behind my ear, his eyes storming as he looks down into mine. “Where’s Gabriel?”

I shrug. “He wasn’t here when I came in.”

His eyes scan the room once then fall on mine again. “I need to get you out of here.”

“What?” I couldn’t have heard him right.

“We’re leaving.”

“Leaving?”

“There’s something … not right with Gabriel. It’s not safe for you here anymore.”

My heart throbs in my throat. “You want to ditch Gabe? But…” This isn’t making any sense.

“I know it’s dangerous, but Gabriel’s plan, it’s insane. I can’t let him…” He trails off as his face twists into a pained grimace.

“But you said he was my best chance.”

He shakes his head slowly. “I was mistaken. He’s not … himself.”

I can’t think. Gabe … Luc … how do I decide what’s right? “So what are we going to do?”

“Pack your things while I’m in the shower,” he says. “Then we’ll figure it out.”

My heart pounds at the thought of leaving with Luc. But how can I leave Gabe? He’s kept me safe all along. He doesn’t want anything to happen to me.

Luc lifts his hand again, threading his fingers into my hair, and for a second I think he’s gonna kiss me. But he squeezes the back of my neck gently and gazes down at me with fire in his eyes. “Trust me, Frannie. Please.”

I reach for my doorknob as he slips through the bathroom door. He pushes the door shut, but the latch doesn’t catch and the hinges spring open an inch. The showerhead hisses to life as Luc turns the water on, and I wait for him to push the door closed.

He doesn’t.

My hand is still on my doorknob, but I can’t take my eyes off the bathroom door.

I know I told him I couldn’t be with him. I know I was right when I said it. But my heart aches more every minute that we’re together, but not together. I want to feel his arms around me. I want things to be how they were.

I think of Faith. To love someone so much for so long, but not be able to be with him …

I’m still an emotional wreck from everything she told me. I know that’s what the tear trickling over my lashes is about as I pace slowly across the room. I slide up to the bathroom door and hear the change in the pulsing water as Luc steps into the shower. I think I mean to close the door for him, but instead, I just stand here, wanting so badly to push it open and join him.

What would he say? Would he be embarrassed? Ask me to leave?

Wrap me in his arms and love me?

Adrenaline thunders through my veins as I stare through the crack in the door and pull my sweatshirt over my head. I can make out Luc’s form, moving behind the shower curtain, and my pulse pounds deafeningly in my ears. My hands start to shake as I slide off my warm-up pants. I take a shaky breath, grasping the hem of my tank top, and lift it off.

My heart slams like a caged animal against my ribs as I push open the door.

12

Silver-tongued Devil

FRANNIE

The burning sensation in the center of my chest takes me by surprise and I gasp. When I reach for the spot, the pendant lying on my sternum buzzes with electric heat.

I grasp it tightly in my hand and glance at Luc’s outline through the thin curtain, my heart aching. With one last longing glance at Luc, I back out of the bathroom, pulling the door shut, and scoop my clothes off the floor. I slip through the door to my room and drop into the armchair in the corner, clutching my clothes to my chest, my heart still hammering, just as the front door swings open.

“Frannie?” Gabe calls.

“I’m changing!” I call back from the safety of my room. “I’ll be out in a minute!”

I draw a deep breath and hold it for a second, waiting to see if he knocks. He doesn’t. I let out the breath and realize my hand is still curled around the metal object. There’s a momentary pang of guilt as I pull it up by the leather strap and rub the pendant between my fingers for the hundredth time. I should tell Gabe it’s back. But I’m desperate for him not to take it away again.

It’s electric. I don’t know how or why, but I can feel the buzz under my hand. It feels good. There’s something comforting in it, and I feel safer just holding it—like I’m connected to something powerful.

I tug on my jeans from this morning, lying where I left them in a heap on the cool wood floor, and pull my tank top on, then sink back into the armchair and try to think.

I dangle the pendant in front of my face and poke at it with my finger. It twirls at the end of the strap, catching the few rays of muted afternoon sun managing to trail through the heavy cloud cover. Despite the dark, worn metal, it reflects the faint light with every turn, mesmerizing me.

I run my finger along the edge, which cuts through my skin like butter. Something in me knew it would—wanted it to. I watch, fascinated, as a bead of blood seeps onto the metal. I press my cut finger to my jeans as, with the other hand, I try to smear the blood off the pendant with my thumb. But before I can, it seems to absorb into the metal—as if the metal is drinking it in. And then there’s a sound, so faint I can barely hear it, like the hum of a tuning fork. I cradle the pendant in my palm, feeling the hum, and bring it up to my ear, listening.

There’s a noise outside my door, and I glance in that direction, feeling suddenly defensive. I listen to the sounds of the house—the creaking pipes and the beating water of the shower; the quiet drone of the TV that Gabe must have turned on. My senses are humming right along with the metal of my pendant, wary of any threat.

Gabe wants it.

But he can’t have it.

I’m so dialed in, tuning into the faint sounds coming from outside my door, that the tap on my window makes me jump out of my skin. I loop the strap over my head and tuck the pendant quickly under my shirt.

I wait for a minute without breathing. Listening.

Nothing.

The rain.

It was just the rain on my window.

My heart is pounding, adrenaline sending it into a frenzy. I lean back into the chair and breathe, slow and deep. Just as I’m starting to relax, the second tap sends my heart leaping into my throat. I stand and inch slowly across the room to the window.

At first I see nothing, but the next instant, Matt’s face is pressed up against the glass.

“Oh my God!” I gasp.

I rush the last few steps to the window and throw it open. “Matt!”

“Don’t be scared, Frannie,” he says softly, backing off a few feet.

Rain pelts my face as I lean out into the swirling darkness of the diminishing storm.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

“You never asked before,” I say, a shake in my voice.

“I have to now,” he answers, and something dark passes over his face.

“Um … okay.” I back away from the window, but it turns out he’s not coming through the window. He disappears from the dune, and then I hear him clear his throat behind me. I jump, my nerves totally shot, and spin in his direction.

“You’re really here?” I breathe, unable to get any air behind the words.

“I am.”

“What happened? Where have you been?” I’m pretty sure I know the answer, but I can’t help but hope I might be wrong. In the dim light, I see those glowing red eyes regard me and I feel something cold claw up my spine.

“Hell.”

Even though I expected it, I still gasp. I think about Luc in the bathroom and Gabe on the couch. One scream would bring them both.

I open my mouth, but then I feel the cold press of guilt.

Matt stares at me, his gaze intense and his smile angelic, and I’m suddenly crushed by what I’ve done to him. An image flashes in my head: seven-year-old Matt, twisted on the ground under our climbing tree, and it’s like a dull knife is carving its way through my insides. I wrap my arms around myself and groan.

I can’t scream.

I have to help him. There has to be something I can do—with my Sway, maybe—to help him get away from Lucifer.

At best, Gabe and Luc would scare Matt off. At worst, Gabe would blast him into oblivion.

“Wow,” he says. “That’s a whole lot of guilt.”

I look up at him, still squeezing myself against the pain. “What?”

“I can sense it—your guilt,” he says, and I get the feeling there’s more to it. “It’s a handy talent that I just found out I have.” He looks hard into my eyes. “Don’t feel guilty, Sis. Everything has worked out.”

But as he says it, I see him with Lilith and the knife cuts deeper. I double over and hear a cross between a whimper and a gasp leave my throat. He lowers his gaze and the pain stops instantly.

I stare at him as I catch my breath, trying to figure out what just happened.

“It’s okay, Sis. It wasn’t
all
your fault.” He reaches for my hand, but when he touches me, he’s a thousand degrees.

My elbow cracks sharply into my dresser as I jerk my hand away, sending a jolt of zinging electric pain down my arm into my hand, which instantly goes numb. I rub my elbow and flex my fingers, slowly realizing that stuff like funny bone pain doesn’t happen in dreams.

This is real. Matt is really here.

I wasn’t sure until just this second.

I look back up at Matt, feeling a new kind of fear creep through my gut.

He moves closer. “Please don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“How did you find me?” My voice is stronger, but it still shakes.

He quirks a cocky smile. “I’m your brother. Your twin. I did what any brother would do. I spied on you.”

“Spied on me?”

He nods. “How else was I supposed to follow you?”

“You followed me? Here?” And then I remember. In my dream … or at least what I convinced myself had been a dream, when I saw him here in my room and out on the dune, I’d thought I’d seen black wings.

“You can fly,” I whisper.

He nods.

The image of a shadow gliding over the surface of the clouds below our plane skitters through my memory. I remember thinking it was our shadow, but it seemed too small. “You got your wings back?” I breathe.

His face darkens. “Not how you mean.” When his eyes connect with mine, they’re hopeful. “But I want to.” He holds his hand out to me again and I take it lightly, getting used to his heat. “I really want to come back—to earn my real wings back.”

“Faith said that once you chose—”

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy,” he snaps.

I breathe deep. “How?”

“Maggie needs our help. She’s in … trouble.”

“What’s wrong with Maggie?” The words slip out of my mouth, but I barely hear them, ’cause suddenly there’s a cyclone in my head. Whirring thoughts swirling with panic and fear and dread.

“It almost worked last time…” Matt trails off, his eyes troubled.

“
What?
What almost worked?”

“Marchosias,” he says simply. “And Lili is helping him.”

The image from my dream, Maggie and a boy, cuts through my out-of-control emotions. “Marc has Maggie?” I hear the hysteria in my voice and know I’m on the edge of losing it.

Matt nods, his face solemn.

Oh, God. My baby sister.

Panic knots my chest. I can’t breathe as the image of Taylor, bloody and dying in my arms, slaps my senses. “No,” I whisper.

“She needs our help,” Matt says, studying my reaction but making no move toward me.

“I need to go.” The words are choked as they leave my mouth. “I have to help her.” Maggie can’t die.

“We both do,” Matt answers.

“Gabe,” I say, finally able to pull some air into my lungs.

“No, Frannie. He won’t let you go.” There’s an unmistakable current of panic in his voice.

“We need his help, Matt!”

His eyes flare, bloodred. “He’s known all along.”

My stomach drops to my knees. “About Maggie? I don’t believe you.”

“Think about it. His job is to keep you away from danger.” His eyes lock on mine, intense. “He won’t let you go back. Now that I’ve found you, he’ll drag you off to some other hidden place and keep you locked away.”

“He wouldn’t…” I start. But I trail off as I remember him saying he’d do exactly that. I drop my face into my hands and try to think. Gabe can’t lie, but I’ve never asked him directly about my family. I’ve never asked if they were safe. And when I’ve asked him to look out for them, he’s always said he would do what he could. No promises.

I start to move toward the door. “I need to talk to Gabe.”

Matt’s eyes flare again and his gaze becomes unbearable. “He can’t know I’m here.”

I look harder at Matt. He’s different now. His blue eyes are dark, and he just seems coiled so tight. He’s not an angel anymore. He’s a demon. Demons lie. What if he’s trying to lure me away from Gabe?