Lindsay Rosen made the sign of the cross. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last confession.”
“And what are your sins?” the priest asked in a gentle voice from behind the screen.
She wasn’t used to making confession in a small booth like this. In her own church—the one in the neighboring town where her parents had gotten married and she had been baptized—she normally sat in a room across from Father Paul. She’d heard that some people found it embarrassing, but Lindsay liked being able to see his eyes when he told her that her sins were forgiven. Because then she knew for sure that he meant it. Inside the confessional in this church, she could only see the outline of the priest’s face through the screen. It felt like she was talking to a shadow.
Lindsay told herself for the bazillionth time that her imagination was running away with her again—as her mother often said it did. The priest was not a dark shadow. She was not being watched. The man with the red hair who had been walking behind her on the sidewalk had not been following her. No one wanted to hurt her.
But for the bazillionth time, it didn’t help. This wasn’t like the night after she’d watched Poltergeist at Stephanie Hamilton’s house, when she’d been afraid that a ghost was in her bedroom. Somewhere in her heart that night, Lindsay had known that the white shape in the darkness was just her coat hanging on the back of her door. She’d known that the howling that made her skin break out in goose bumps was just the wind. Over and over, she’d repeated, “It’s only my imagination,” and she’d been able to chase her fear away. Now, no matter how many times she told herself that the eyes she felt on her weren’t real, that no one was after her, that the person who had cut off her hair was just a regular man who would be stopped by a lock and an alarm system, Lindsay didn’t believe it.
She blinked and she saw his eyes again—the red-haired man’s eyes—and she trembled. They hadn’t been red, as she’d always imagined the Devil’s eyes would be, but they had been so bright and shining and green. Greener than the emerald ring Lindsay’s mother sometimes wore. Greener than the field of grass behind her house in the summer. Greener than the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck on the ceiling in her bedroom. It wasn’t normal. It wasn’t natural. God had never created a color like that.
After Lindsay had turned away from the man, she’d noticed the steeple of St. Michael’s Church up ahead of her, and she couldn’t help coming inside. It wasn’t her church, but it was still a house of God, and she’d needed to feel safe. The next Mass wasn’t for another hour, but she’d gone into the confessional to talk to the priest. He would help her feel connected to God again, to know that He was watching over her.
As Lindsay looked around the tiny booth now, she only felt like it was the man with the red hair who was watching her. “I’m really scared,” she whispered to the priest.
He laughed softly. “Being afraid is not a sin, little one.”
“I know,” she said sheepishly. “But my dad says that God has a plan…and I’m scared of it.”
“Please, go on.”
“Something has been spying on me. I think it’s something evil.” Lindsay couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she believed it was Satan. The policeman this morning had made fun of her, and if this priest made fun of her too, she didn’t think she could bear it.
“Why do you think that is part of God’s plan?” the priest asked curiously.
Lindsay faltered. “Isn’t everything?”
“No, not necessarily. God grants good things for those who follow Him, but when one of His followers goes astray, God will wash His hands of him—or her—and let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.”
“That’s not…that’s not what Father Paul told me,” Lindsay said, her throat closing. “He said that God loves everyone—even those who turn their backs on Him. We can’t know what His plans are, and sometimes people suffer, but they’ll get to go to Heaven.”
The priest was quiet for a moment. And then he suddenly asked her, “Do you like to show off, little one?”
Her mouth fell open and her cheeks burned. “No,” she replied in shock. “Of course not.”
“Do you like knowing all the answers? Having the other students in class look at you with your hand raised?”
“No.”
“You can lie to yourself all you want,” he said coolly, “but you can’t lie to God. Are you swearing to Him that you have not practiced the sin of pride?”
Tears stung her eyes. It was Lindsay’s worst fear—that she was as proud as this priest seemed to believe. She hated the spark of glee she felt when she got an A on an exam or when she read the notes of praise the teachers wrote on her report card every quarter. It felt too good, and she knew that it was wrong. She’d even stopped volunteering answers in class for a while, but she hadn’t been able to keep it up. When teachers called on her, she couldn’t help answering them. And her hair—the rush of pleasure she felt when people admired her hair—she knew that was wrong, but she hadn’t done anything about it. Even though she’d prayed for forgiveness every night, it didn’t really count because she’d known that she was not going to change.
“Do you know the First and Second Commandments?” the priest asked her now.
Lindsay sniffled. She knew all of the Ten Commandments. Her catechism class had learned them before making their first Holy Communion, but she’d actually memorized the passage from the Bible. Her teacher had been very impressed with her and Lindsay had glowed inside. Now she only felt sick.
“I am the Lord your God,” she whispered, “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
The priest laughed softly. Smugly. As if he had won an argument. “Very good. So you see, God is God, and you are nothing, little one. When you practice the sin of pride, you are putting yourself above Him. And if there is something evil stalking you, He is letting it happen because you deserve it. Why should God protect you when you don’t abide by His rules?”
“I’m sorry!” Lindsay cried, her voice too loud inside the small booth. Her body shook with a silent sob. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Yes, yes,” the priest said impatiently. “Finish it now.”
At first Lindsay didn’t understand what he wanted, but then she remembered how she was supposed to end confession. “For this and for all the sins of my life, I am sorry.”
“The Act of Contrition, now, please,” the priest prompted.
She was crying so hard that she had trouble saying the words. And she couldn’t stop shaking. “O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee. I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they have offended Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.”
The priest began the prayer of absolution, but Lindsay barely paid attention. She could only focus on how bored he sounded. He wasn’t actually forgiving her. And if he didn’t, how could God? “Through the ministry of the Church may God give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
“Amen,” she whispered in response.
An arm suddenly tore through the screen that separated her booth from the priest’s, knocking it aside. Lindsay screamed as a hand grabbed her butchered hair, yanking her head into the open window where the screen had been. She tried to break free, but her hair started to rip from her scalp and she screamed again. It hurt—so much. The hand pulled her into the priest’s side of the confessional, and she yielded to it willingly. Anything to stop the pain.
Once she was inside his booth, the hand abruptly let go of her hair. She fell to the floor inside of the tiny space, her head banging into the side wall of the confessional. “It seems that God hasn’t forgiven you after all, Lindsay,” the priest said.
She looked up at him and her blood ran cold.
Perfect, pale face. Neatly trimmed dark hair. Pink lips. White teeth glinting. Black eyes. He looked like an angel, but Lindsay knew that he was the Devil. Satan. Lucifer. Beelzebub. The Fallen Angel. So many names for the same evil, but one thing was clear: this was the person who had been watching her, who had stood over her bed last night, who had cut off her hair. And he was right—she hadn’t been forgiven. God was letting this evil have her. No bolt of lightening would save her. No rain of fire. It was just Lindsay and the Devil, alone together.
He reached one long arm down and grasped the fabric of her coat, lifting her to her feet. In her terror, she allowed it to happen, but she squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look at him. If she did, then she was afraid that he would hypnotize her somehow. And then she would turn to salt or to stone.
Cold fingers held her face. Her cheeks were still wet from her tears. She felt his body shudder against hers as he breathed in deeply. “You smell so good,” he said in a way that made her gag.
Still holding the collar of her coat, the Devil kicked the door of the confessional open with one foot. While he was in motion, Lindsay slipped her arms out of her coat and, free from his grasp, she tumbled out of the booth. She scrambled back until she came up against the first row of pews, and then let out an ear-piercing screech.
The Devil stepped out of the confessional languidly and let her coat drop to the floor. He didn’t seem worried about her screams, and somehow that left Lindsay more terrified than ever. She started to pray. “Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven—”
“God won’t save you now, little one,” the Devil interrupted, his voice as gentle as it had been through the screen. “He’s turned His back on you, as I said. You are mine now.” He took another step closer and looked down into her eyes.
Suddenly, Lindsay knew that there were worse things than death. Far worse. And she was about to face them.
Reece ran up the steps of the church and burst through the heavy wooden door. Inside, silence and the heavy scent of incense greeted him. He walked up the aisle in the eerie stillness, taking in the layout of the building. It was shaped like a “T”, with the pulpit positioned at the intersection of the three wings. There were several dozen rows of pews on the ground floor, and a few more rows in the balcony that lined each wing.
All of them were empty. There was no sign of Lindsay Rosen. But he’d seen her come inside here, which meant that she was hiding or she had exited through one of the side doors. Clearly he had, indeed, spooked her. She’d known that he’d been following her and she had come inside the church to lose him.
It was a little strange, having someone instinctively fear him. Reece was far more used to people trusting him on sight. It had something to do with his appearance, but far more to do with the calming aura that he usually possessed. However, he supposed that he hadn’t been calm in several months. Agitation, frustration, and exhaustion ruled him now. He couldn’t help wondering what Lindsay had seen when she’d looked at him.
Walking down the side aisle, he dipped his head, checking for her underneath the rows of pews, but there was nothing except for dust bunnies that seemed to have been growing since the church was first built. After he had checked all three wings, Reece walked back to the front of the church to find the stairway up to the balcony. This is where he would have hidden if he were Lindsay. She could watch him from up here without him seeing her. Then again, maybe she knew that if he caught her up here, she would be trapped. She would have to sneak by him to get back to the stairwell, and in this silence, the rustle of her clothing as she moved would seem as loud as a tornado. The sound of her shoes clicking against the tiled floor would echo off the walls and the high, arched ceiling.
Reece himself was beginning to find the silence unnerving. If it hadn’t been so quiet, though, he might have missed the muffled scream that drifted through the air as he was making his way around the balcony. Immediately, he pinpointed the origin of the sound as the right wing of the church.
But that couldn’t be right, he had already checked there, damn it!
Another scream rang out, louder and sharper this time, and Reece was running toward the sound before he even realized it. As he rounded the corner, he noticed for the first time the confessional in the back of the wing. He cursed himself for missing it. It had been too long since he’d last slept. It was a foolish, rookie mistake, and after all the years he’d spent working for Circle Daybreak, he should have known better.
When he finally caught sight of Lindsay, she was cowering on the floor in front of the confessional, trying to claw her way back. She didn’t look anything like the self-possessed girl he’d seen outside the elementary school. Terror had stolen her poise and her confidence. In that moment, she was just another petrified ten year-old girl.
As soon as the tall, dark vampire stepped out of the confessional, Reece nearly forgot Lindsay’s existence. The vampire was dressed in a black shirt, black pants, and the white collar of a priest, but Reece could not tear his eyes away from that face. He knew every inch of it. He’d seen it laughing and snarling and cold. He knew the coldness of his skin, the darkness of his eyes.
“God won’t save you now, little one,” the vampire said. His voice was as soft as Reece had heard it in Alexandra’s mind, and he instinctively wanted to recoil. A glance at Lindsay told him that she was feeling the same thing. “He’s turned His back on you, as I said. You are mine now.”
The hell she is…
Reece vaulted over the balcony wall as rage boiled away the last of his rational mind, and he threw himself at the vampire he’d been hunting for so long.
Zarek must have heard his thought or sensed his movement, because the instant before Reece collided with him, he took a single step to the side. The witch slammed into the floor at Zarek’s feet.
Bones had shattered, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t hesitate to think about the pain. In the next second, Reece swung his foot out, sweeping the vampire’s legs out from underneath him. His long limbs flailing, Zarek gracelessly toppled to the floor.
“Lindsay, run!” Reece shouted at the girl, and then he got to his feet in one smooth motion. He couldn’t afford to look at her because he needed to keep all of his senses trained on Zarek, but he could see in his peripheral vision that she didn’t move. “Go! Now!”
The vampire was up again, standing between Reece and Lindsay. With his heart pounding, the witch watched him, ready to counter-strike if Zarek made the slightest movement. Instead of attacking, though, the vampire’s black eyes fixed on Reece searchingly.
Adrenaline had clouded the witch’s mind and it was a moment before he realized what Zarek was doing. As soon as he did, he started to panic. He should have known. He should’ve been prepared. He should have cast the spell back in the car—he’d known that he could run into Zarek at any moment, but he’d been dense and rash and reckless and stupid.
In the midst of his hysteria, the words of the spell spilled from his lips almost unconsciously. It was the spell he’d used back in Washington to cloak his and Lex’s mind from Angie Catellini. Lex had told him that Angie’s power was similar to her own—and hopefully that meant it was similar to Zarek’s as well. It was the only weapon Reece had against him.
He felt a cold sensation radiate from the back of his head as the spell took effect, but from the sudden iridescent light in Zarek’s eyes, Reece knew that the vampire had already gleaned too much from him. His moment of hesitation had cost him everything.
“Of course,” Zarek whispered. His breath came faster as he reached the brink of discovery. “I would know that rage anywhere.”
A stake shot into Reece’s right hand from a spring-loaded device strapped to his forearm. In the next instant, he threw it at the vampire, his aim dead-on, but Zarek moved like lightning, dodging the stake and advancing upon Reece before the witch could retreat. By throwing the stake he’d left his body open, and with one devastating blow, Zarek knocked him to the ground. His head smacked into the floor and his vision went dark.
When Reece could see again, there was a black boot pressed against his throat, pinning him to the ground. With one small push, Zarek could crush his windpipe.
“Where is she?” the vampire asked. His voice was still soft and pleasant, but there was something ugly in his face that Reece recognized all too well. “How is she still alive?”
“You’ll never know.” As Zarek increased the pressure on his throat, Reece let his power flow into his hands that were lying lifelessly on the floor. Once enough of it had gathered, he discharged two balls of orange witchfire from his open palms.
The fire slammed into the vampire like a freight train, lifting him off his feet and plowing him back into the wall. The crushing weight off his throat, Reece coughed and choked. As soon as he had gotten a full breath of air, he ran over to Lindsay, grabbing her arm and tugging her upwards. “Move,” he ordered urgently.
She didn’t need any more prompting than that. Once she was on her feet, she ran like a deer down the aisle, back toward the main entrance of the church. When they had gotten down the flight of steps and hit the sidewalk, however, she tried to tear herself away from him.
Reece tightened his grip on her arm. “Come on,” he said.
Lindsay made herself a dead weight as he tried to pull her forward. “No!” she screamed. “Stranger! Stranger! He’s trying to kidnap me!” Evidently, even though she might have been thankful that Reece had gotten her away from Zarek, she still didn’t trust him. Now that she saw the opportunity to get away from him as well, she was going to take it. Honestly, Reece was impressed. This girl was smart.
But Goddess, she was loud. Every person in a five-block radius could probably hear her, and her screams were effective—a few people were already starting to approach him, looking at Reece murderously. They couldn’t hurt him, but they could easily slow him down. And up the steps behind him, he heard the church door open. Zarek was coming…
Letting go of Lindsay, he held his hands out and fired a surge of magick that shot out from him in all directions, like a seismic wave.
The world froze. The wind ceased. The humans who had started toward Reece, alerted by Lindsay’s screams, had stopped mid-stride. Zarek stood like a statue at the threshold of the church, one of his arms still thrust outwards from the way he’d thrown the door open. Wisps of snowflakes that had been lifted by the breeze from the drifts on the side of the road were suspended on the air.
Of course, the spell hadn’t truly stopped time. It had merely slowed it down. The people who seemed frozen were actually moving, but they were moving so slowly relative to Reece that he would have to watch them for a while to really notice it—like the hour hand on a clock.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have that long—if he did, he would stake Zarek here and now. Once the wave of magick had passed, time would resume its normal pace. Reece had never cast a spell like this before, but he estimated that it would last for maybe ten seconds. Fifteen tops. Running back to stake Zarek would be too risky and—Goddess damn it all—he had left his fucking crossbow in the fucking car along with his brain.
Reece just hoped that the few seconds he’d bought himself would give him enough of a head start to get Lindsay to his car safely. He picked her rigid body up off the ground and sprinted down the sidewalk as fast as he could. No looking back.
Time sped up again as he was crossing the street to the next block, just as he was passing in front of an oncoming car. To the driver, Reece had literally appeared out of nowhere, and even though he tried to slam on his breaks, it was far too late. Reece jumped and by sheer luck and force of will, he was able to hurdle over the corner of the car’s hood without slowing down.
Lindsay was still and silent in his arms, her face turned into his chest. Dazed, probably. She couldn’t understand how she’d been screaming out in front of the church one second, and the next she was over a block away in a stranger’s arms. Reece would deal with the explanations later. For now, he was just glad that she wasn’t fighting him any more.
When they reached his car, Reece wrenched the driver’s side door open and shoved Lindsay over the console and into the passenger’s seat. Ignoring the tremor in his hands, he got the key in the ignition. Tires squealing, he drove over the curb and a small row of snow-covered plants and pulled out onto the street. Slamming the pedal all the way down to the floor, he raced through the downtown area.
It wasn’t until he was past the town limits that Reece checked his rearview mirror. He was half-expecting to see Zarek clinging to the back of the car, but there was no one behind him. There was nothing back there but empty road. They were safe, for the moment at least. That would have to be enough.
Lindsay was staring at him. Reece could feel it even with his eyes locked on the road ahead. When he finally glanced at her, she seemed…all right. Scared and small, but also curious. Amazed. And she was certainly calmer than he was.
“Are you an angel?” she asked in a small voice.
Reece almost laughed, but he didn’t want to embarrass her. He just smiled. “No.”
“A demon?”
“No.”
“So what are you, then?”
He would have to tell her at some point, but Reece didn’t want to do it now. Learning about the Night World might be too much for her at this point. It might shatter her fragile composure. He just said, “I’m not going to hurt you, Lindsay.”
Then he wanted to laugh again because he’d said the exact same thing to Lex when he’d first met her. He hoped that Lindsay would be easier to convince than his soulmate had been.
“How do you know my name?” the girl asked. “Have you been watching me too? I saw you out on the street.”
Reece paused, choosing his words carefully. “I haven’t been watching you, exactly. I’ve been trying to track down the guy who attacked you in the church.”
“How come?”
So many questions. He sighed and adjusted his rearview mirror. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he was starting to feel a painful throb in his knees, his wrists, and the heels of his hands. His neck ached. Suddenly, Reece was beyond drained, beyond exhausted. His body was battered, he’d put his soulmate in danger, and the spell he’d cast on the street had burned through every last trace of his power, and then some. His only consolation was that he had saved Lindsay’s life.
“Put your seatbelt on, okay?” he asked her.
She did it quickly, almost as if she were scandalized by having forgotten in the first place. Then for a short while, she was quiet. Somehow that was worse. Reece was almost thankful when she spoke up again. “Can I go home?”
“Not right now, no. It isn’t safe.”
“What about my family?” she asked softly.
Reece sighed again. “I think they’ll be safe. Zarek has other things on his mind.” Like the fact that Lex was still alive. Alive and well and almost whole—practically begging for him to destroy her all over again.
“My parents will be worried about me.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he replied hoarsely.
“What’s your name?” Lindsay asked.
“Reece. Cahill.”
“Okay. And you promise that you won’t hurt me?”
He took his eyes from the road and looked at her directly. “I promise,” he said almost fiercely. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. And I’m going to get you back home as soon as I can.” His words were strong, but as soon as he said them, Reece remembered how well the last promise he’d made had turned out.
As he pulled onto the highway, he knew that there was no way to deny it any longer: he was in over his head.
Part 7
Part 8
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