Last Rite (13 page)

I shake my head. “Mages don’t have corporeal form. They can’t exist that way in the physical world, so they can’t carry anything solid.”

“So, if it wasn’t the Mage…” he looks at me through eyes full of trepidation, “… He’s found her.”

“But if He’s only found her through the Mage, He may not have seen enough to figure out where we are.” I want this to be true, but the hope in my voice rings hollow.

Gabriel fixes me in a hard stare. “Even so, it’s only a matter of time. Days at best. Maybe hours. If I’m going to have any shot at destroying Him, it has to be now, when it’s just Him in this form—before He sends His legions.”

Dread sits like a burning stone in my gut as I right the chair and slide back into it. “So this is it.”

He nods gravely.

“Will she be ready?”

He just stares at me.

I glance toward Frannie’s door and bound to my feet again when I hear her scream.

9

Hell’s Angel

FRANNIE

I pull on my jeans under my Hendrix T-shirt, thinking about what happened with Gabe. I remember every bit of it, but in my mind, it wasn’t Gabe I was kissing. It was Luc. It was the strangest dream. He was still Luc, but lighter. An angel.

I felt too ashamed to tell Gabe, though, so I just apologized, like that’s gonna fix anything.

A shiver ripples over my skin at the memory of his body against mine, his breath in my hair … but I turn off my mind and toss out the thought. ’Cause it can’t happen again. There’s nowhere in the world that feels as safe as Gabe’s arms, and now I’m afraid I’ve ruined it.

I stand and move to the window. Pushing it all the way open, I lean out into the damp morning air and breathe deep.

I am so totally losing it.

I shift my hip onto the sill and just sit here, afraid to follow Gabe into the family room, not sure what to say to him. I look across the way and see Faith has gone from the window. For an instant it occurs to me that I don’t know if Grigori need to sleep. It’s not something I ever thought to ask my dad.

I pull myself off the sill and close the window behind me, but I’m not halfway across the room when there’s a loud tap—or more of a scratch, like fingernails on a blackboard. I turn and scowl out the window, expecting Faith …

And scream when it’s Matt that I see standing there. Solid. Real. Black wings tucked neatly behind his back.

An instant later, there’s a crash of the door against the wall, and Gabe and Luc are standing inside the opening to my room, both wild-eyed and breathless.

I spin back to my window and find nothing but beach. Where I was sure Matt was standing a second ago, there’s nothing.

Am I losing my mind?

Gabe rushes to me, but Luc holds back, hanging in the doorway. His gaze falls on my shocked face, and I see the question in his eyes. He doesn’t miss anything. That’s the one thing I can always count on.

Gabe guides me to the armchair in the opposite corner of the room, where he kneels in front of me, cautious not to touch me. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I just thought I saw someone outside my window.”

Luc moves to the window and peers out.

“Who?” Gabe asks.

That’s a question I’m not prepared to answer. Partly ’cause, if it was truly Matt I saw, that scares the snot out of me. But, if it wasn’t, that’s almost as scary. “It was no one. Just a shadow or something.”

It’s obvious Gabe doesn’t believe me. Luc looks back over his shoulder at me as he stands in the window and I can’t read his expression. Does he know?

“Matt,” I say, lowering my eyes. “I think I saw Matt.”

GABE

My heart stalls in my chest. “Was it a dream? Did you see the Mage?”

She scowls at me. “No, Gabe. I’m wide awake.”

With a glance out the window, I grab her hand and pull her to the family room, sitting her on the couch. “Tell me everything.”

“I have,” she says, exasperated. “I looked out the window and thought I saw Matt standing on the dune. When I looked again, he wasn’t there. That’s it.”

I’d believe her, but she looks as if she’s trying to convince herself. And, with the Udjat showing up out of nowhere … “Frannie, I need to…”

Mercifully, she nods, so I’m not forced to finish the thought. I overstepped physically already this morning, and now I’m asking to do the same thing mentally.

But I need to know.

I slip into Frannie’s thoughts, and under the pervading confusion and fear, there are images. I understand her confusion when the image of Matt surfaces—ethereal, without substance—floating over the dune. From just her memory, it’s hard to tell if he was really there at all.

Behind that image, others start to surface. There’s something shadowy, just at the edge of perception—the Mage, maybe? Then the Udjat, without a sense of where it came from.

And then
me
.

The image of me in her arms is strong and laced with conflicting emotion: shame, love, guilt, and the strongest: desire. Heat prickles up my neck to my face as my own desires flare at the memory.

Desires of the flesh are a tricky thing, I’m discovering. Once they wax, it’s hard to make them wane.

“Push me out,” I say to Frannie.

“What?”

“Push me out of your thoughts. You need to learn how.”

I wait, and feel her train of thought shift to me, here on the couch, right now. But it’s only a second before it slips back to us, in her bed.

“Try harder, Frannie. Focus on grounding yourself,” I say. “Clear your emotions and feel your physical body.”

This doesn’t help. Her thoughts
do
shift to a physical body.

Mine.

I can almost feel her hands gliding over my skin. My heart throbs painfully in my chest and my breathing is erratic.

I snap myself from her thoughts just as the front door slams. I look around the room and Luc is gone. Through the window, I see him stride to the edge of the water and stand, staring out over the waves, with his hands laced over his head.

“I’m sorry,” she says, rubbing her red face with her hand, too embarrassed to even look at me.

“It’s going to take some practice, but we’re short on time. Lucifer has found you, Frannie. He may not know exactly where you are yet.” I shake my head. “Or maybe He does. Maybe that’s why Matt’s here. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that He’s in your head.”

“He’s not in my head, Gabe,” she says, and there’s a defensive edge to her words. “I remember what He looks like … what He
feels
like,” she adds with a shudder. “If He was in my dreams, I’d know it.”

I pin her in my gaze. “Then how do you explain the Udjat?”

“The what?”

“The pendant.”

At the mention of the pendant, her face changes—hardens. “It didn’t come from Lucifer, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Frannie…”

Her jaw grinds and she folds her arms tightly across her chest. “Seriously, Gabe,” she says, looking like she wants to slap me. “I’ve been in the same room as Lucifer. He’s touched me. I know what He is.”

I sink deeper into the couch and scrutinize her. “Either way, I need something from you. If this plan is going to work, I need to know His vulnerabilities. When Lucifer shows up in your dreams, I need you to find His weakness.”

“Weakness?” she asks. “Does He have one?”

My insides clench into a tight ball. “Everything depends on it.”

“So what do I do? How am I going to find it?”

“First, you need to learn to block Him from your mind. You won’t be safe until you do. He can do the same thing you can. He can influence people to do things they might not do otherwise. If you let Him into your mind, there’s no telling what He could convince you of.”

“So I block Him. Then what? How am I gonna know what His weakness is?”

I feel sick at the thought of Lucifer anywhere near Frannie. But I dig deep and remind myself that this is the only way. She’s a soldier. “You’re going to have to get Him to tell you.”

She turns white. “Why would He tell me?”

“That’s where your Sway comes in. You’re going to have to master it. In the battle of wills, you’re going to have to be stronger than Him.”

“Okay,” she says, taking a deep breath, steeling herself. “Try to get into my head again.”

I nod, then let myself slip back into her thoughts.

Her fear is still there, but there’s also a sense of determination. I press deeper and the images are fuzzy, no one specific thought springing to the forefront.

“Better,” I say.

But at my voice, her thoughts slip back to this morning. A shudder runs through me and I pull out of her mind before she takes me there again.

The front door snaps open and Luc steps through, sand stuck to his bare feet. Frannie looks up at him, her eyes pleading, and my heart contracts.

She loves Luc. I can see it clearly on her face every time she looks at him. And he loves her—so much that he’s rejected everything he’s ever known to be with her. I know that her feelings for me aren’t the same. What we share is different—more seated in necessity than love. She wants me for how I make her feel, not because she loves me. I have to get myself under control—remember my place.

But it’s so hard not to love her … or hate him.

10

Harbinger

FRANNIE

Luc strides across the room with only a cursory glance in our direction. His eyes scan the table before he looks at Gabe. “Let me see the Udjat. There’s a way I can tell if it’s one of His originals.”

“It’s there,” Gabe answers, jutting his chin in Luc’s direction.

“It’s not,” Luc says, alarm in his expression.

And I can feel his alarm pulling at my chest, a raw, sucking feeling bordering on panic. When Gabe mentioned the pendant, for a split second, a piece of me hated him for taking it from me.

That same piece wants it back.

Gabe stands and crosses to the table with a sense of urgency. “I didn’t touch it.” He looks up at Luc with wide eyes. “I can’t.”

My heart kicks as I realize, just at that instant, that I can feel the weight of it in my pocket, pressing against my thigh. My pulse pounds in my temples as I try to make sense of this.

Luc and Gabe exchange a wary glance and I feel goose bumps prick my skin.

“It seemed solid, though I couldn’t actually touch it. But the strap was leather. Could it just vanish?” Gabe asks.

Luc’s head shakes pensively. “Maybe … if He called it back.” He rubs his chin, still thinking. Then he turns to me. “Where did it come from, Frannie?” His voice is insistent, and I can’t look at him, because I know now. With it on me, in my possession, I can see him—the boy who gave it to me.

“I don’t know,” I lie.

“Keep me out,” Gabe says, and I know this is more than a training exercise. He knows I’m lying and he wants an excuse to go in looking for my green-eyed angel.

But I’m not ready to share him.

I feel Gabe rooting through my head and I try to do what he said: focus on my body, the physical world. I imagine a wall in my mind, rough, dark stone with a thick iron core, rising high, surrounding me and protecting me.

After a minute, he sighs. “That was better,” he says, and I’m instantly relieved. But then I catch the edge to his words as he adds, “But that wall looked a little too familiar.”

Both his gaze and his voice are hard and I don’t know what to think.

“What do you mean?” I ask cautiously.

He turns his sharp gaze on Luc. “She’s using the Walls of Hell to defend her mind.”

The only sound in the silence that follows is the beginnings of a summer shower, tapping on the roof—then a knock at the front door. And that’s when I remember Faith.

I leap from the couch, thankful for the interruption. “That’s Faith.” I run to my room as Gabe moves to the door. “Tell her I’ll be ready in a second.”

I duck into my room and stand with my back against the door for a minute, trying to catch my breath. When I can think, I rifle through my stuff and pull out my warm-ups. Not perfect for judo, but I didn’t bring my workout stuff. I tie my hair back into a knot and wrap a ponytail holder over it. When I come out of my room, Faith is standing in the family room with Gabe.

“… not letting her out of my sight,” Gabe finishes, his voice raised.

“You said I could go, Gabe,” I say, trying to forget the only reason he said it in the first place was ’cause I accidentally Swayed him.

“He can only find her while she’s sleeping, right? I can guarantee you she won’t be sleeping.” Faith shoots a smirk at me. “It’s impossible to sleep when you’re getting your butt kicked.”

“Dream on,” I say, feeling lighter already.

“She needs this. Let her go.” Luc’s voice comes from the table, where he’s leaning, his arms crossed over his chest.

Gabe looks me over, then Faith. “Fine. I’ll come with you,” he says.

Faith lifts her eyebrow at Gabe in a challenge, as one corner of her mouth pulls into an amused smile. “You go, you better be ready to fight.”

He leans onto the back of a chair and folds his arms, and I can tell he’s not giving in.

So I do it again.

It will be fine.
I push the thought with my mind and watch Gabe’s face.

“You can work out on the beach,” he says, demonstrating just how useless my Sway is when I’m trying to use it on purpose.

“She needs a real workout,” Faith argues.

Let me go. I’ll be fine
, I push again.

Gabe looks hard at me for a long minute, fighting some internal battle. “One hour,” he finally concedes. “But any sign of Lucifer’s crew and you’re out of there.”

Faith gives me a knuckle-bump.

“Kick some ass,” Luc says, pushing away from the table.

A smile tugs at his lips and my heart flutters, remembering our judo lessons and where they usually led. I almost ask him if he wants to come, wanting the excuse to touch him, but decide that would probably be a bad idea. “Okay. See you later.”