She came closer. “You’re here to save us.”
“Yes.”
Now the younger woman came closer too, just as stunning as the taller woman, her hair a darker, richer shade of brown. They were both in the white gowns with wings, their hair curled, their makeup heavy. There was a strict dress code here, apparently. “What do you want us to do?”
“Get all the girls here.”
“Some of them want to be here,” the older woman said. “They actually buy in to this bullshit. I’m Laura, by the way.”
“Rayna,” the shorter woman said.
“Get them here anyway,” I said. “We’ll tie them up and keep them out of our way.”
“Alright,” Laura said. “We’ll round everyone up.” They both left the church in a hurry.
I took a seat again, and Bartholomew hadn’t moved at all.
I just had to wait a few more minutes—and I’d see her again.
Three of the women really believed they were angels and they needed to help their demons ascend, otherwise, their sins would never be absolved. They were tied up at the front of the church, but that wasn’t enough for Bartholomew.
He taped their mouths shut. “Not gonna listen to this bullshit all day.” He tossed the tape back into the bag and took his seat.
The women sat in a circle together, their backs against one another, their wrists all tied to the statue at the altar. All they could release were a couple muffled words, so they eventually gave up and turned quiet.
Rayna hadn’t returned—and Constance wasn’t here.
I started to get nervous.
What if I was too late?
The door opened again, and Rayna returned.
But she was alone.
No. “Where is she?” I stepped forward, my chest cracking in fear.
Rayna rushed over and joined us near the altar. “She’s not in our cabin…so she must be with Forneus.”
Twenty-Four
Constance
I sat on the birch throne across from him, and just like old times, we sat there for a lifetime and didn’t speak. His hands curled over the armrests as he sat there, naked from the waist up, built like a brick house.
He must spend all his time lifting weights and doing acid.
“What are your sins?” I finally asked.
His stare hadn’t left my face, not for the last thirty minutes. He could stare at me forever, utterly fascinated by my appearance. His obsession was so deep, but not once had he tried to be physical with me. Perhaps my angel status made me off-limits in that way. I was too innocent, too pure.
Thank god.
“I have many.”
Yeah, I figured. “I know you killed those people at the market.”
“It was nec-ess-ss-sary.”
Nope. “Still a sin.”
“I did it for my an-gel. I had to.”
Now he’d killed in my name, and that made me feel worse.
I thought I could play along to stay alive, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be alive anymore. All those people died because of me. And then every day would be like this, listening to a maniac confess all his murders. We would take the acid, I’d hallucinate and feel like shit, and then I would do it all over again in a couple days.
What was the point?
There wasn’t one. “Let’s ascend.”
He was always the one to initiate it, and he seemed slightly surprised that I took the lead. But he didn’t hesitate to produce the paper and add the drop to the surface. He was about to place it in his mouth, but I stopped him.
“More.”
He stilled at my words.
“We can’t ascend with that.” It was an out-of-body experience, a complete disregard for my life. I just didn’t care anymore. I had no hesitation at all. This was how it was going to end at some point anyway. May as well just get it over with. “We need more.”
He added more to the paper then handed it to me.
“More.”
“An-gel.”
I didn’t press again, not when he used that tone. I took the paper, popped it into my mouth, and hoped it would be enough to get me where I wanted to go.
We sat there together for a while, staring at each other, and slowly, my heart started to pick up the pace. It was a slow start, a jog that turned to a run, and then turned into a sprint. Just enough would send me into cardiac arrest. It’d been over within seconds, not enough time for me to even feel pain.
My vision started to blur. My surroundings started to shake. Forneus began to change.
And then I heard it.
Gunshots.
Or at least I thought they were gunshots.
The demon seemed to notice it too because his head turned to the double doors of the black church.
It was all in my head. It was part of the hallucination. I’d seen things that weren’t real. I’d felt things that weren’t real. But I’d never heard gunshots, especially not ones so loud they made me flinch each time.
The horned demon left his chair, his long tail behind him, spikes all over his body, even his back. He opened a door and grabbed something, something with a handle, a weapon of some kind.
Then he walked out.
The gunshots grew louder.
I gripped the armrests as I felt my body shake. It was the tremors from the acid, or it was just the fear that surrounded me. I’d never crashed this hard, never put myself in a nonexistent war zone.
I grew restless, unable to sit and wait for it to pass. I had to move. Always had to move. Especially when the monsters crawled out of the shadows in the corners. I made it to my feet and stumbled to the door.
My body hit it, but it wasn’t a door anymore. It was a mountain, a solid mountain I couldn’t climb.
They were all behind me, snarling, their claws reaching for me.
“Not real…” I pushed against the wall, knowing it was the door, and found the handle.
The door swung forward, and I fell to the dirt.
The sunshine hit me hard in the face, and then the gunshots grew even louder. They came from all directions. The ground shook underneath me as I crawled forward, trying to flee the monsters that wanted to swallow me whole.
“Constance!”
I looked up, seeing the demon standing there with a sledgehammer.
And then I saw Benton…or at least I thought I did.
The demon gave a jerk and collapsed, the gunshot shattering my eardrum again.
“Baby.” Benton rushed to me on the ground.
I kicked him as hard as I could and let out a scream. “Don’t touch me!”
“Baby!” He grabbed me by the arms and forced me to still. “Look at me.”
I kept trying to fight, uselessly. The gunshots kept going, and I gasped in fear every time I heard them. My body spasmed, and I convulsed in his grip.
“Shit.” His arms scooped underneath me. “Baby, stay with me, alright? I need you to stay with me.”
I saw him. The demon rose once again, his hand reaching for the sledgehammer. I tried to get the words out, but I was too slow. “He’s coming…”
Benton didn’t have ample time to react. He turned, but then the weapon came down on him, and then he was gone.
“Ahhh!” This was real. “Benton?”