The First Sacrament (The Demons of Stone Chapel Book 1) (11 page)

“Dis?” I mouthed to Max.

He shook his head.

Gershom opened his arms up wide. Like he was welcoming an old friend. “Tonight, you will learn what true power is!”

The flames on our candles surged to frightening heights. For some ungodly reason, it seemed that Gershom was able to control fire.

This was wrong.

So, so wrong.

“Screw this,” I said. I wasn’t dying because Max wanted to be an idiot. I stood up to leave, and when I did, Gershom sneered.

“Our first volunteer!” He announced to the crowd. “Excellent. Come here, my girl.”

“What are you doing?” Max whispered.

“I'm not volunteering for anything.” I dropped my candle and crushed the flame with my shoe. “I'm leaving.”

Just as soon as it went out, the flame roared back to life underneath my foot, nearly catching my leg on fire. I yelped and kicked it away.

“Leaving is not an option.” Gershom held out his hand. “Come now, my girl. This won't hurt a bit.”

That's what doctors said, too. Right before they jammed a giant needle in your arm.

I wasn't taking any more chances with this guy
or
this messed up club. What he was doing was
really
unsafe. Borderline evil. And since Max was set on going through with this whole stupid thing, I took it upon myself to call for backup.

Well,
text
for backup.

I slipped my hand in my coat pocket and felt around for my phone. When I found it, I took it out and scrolled to Dante's number in my contacts list.

“What are you doing?” Gershom asked. He cut the theatrics, realizing that his hellish focus group meeting was about to come to an end. “Put that away!”

A strained note of panic soured his voice. Uh-oh. Better keep this short.
SOS
, I typed.
Infer
―

“I said,
put it away!”

I typed the rest of the message as fast as I could and pressed send. I think. God, I hoped I pressed send. I couldn't exactly check because my phone was wrenched from my hand at the exact moment I may or may not have pressed that button.

“You
stupid girl!
” Gershom screamed. My phone dangled uselessly mid-air, its screen flickering on and off in increasingly rapid succession.

He could snap his fingers to make fire
and
he had telekinetic powers. Nothing could ever be simple, could it?

The cruel Fates then decided to answer my rhetorical question by having Gershom flick his wrist, thus sending my phone careening off the roof.

“No!” I watched as it fell nine stories to the ground. It took me three months to save up for that thing. Three months of minimum wage and crappy tips, all for that phone. It was the
only
nice thing I owned and now it was pile of rubble on the street.

Gershom threw his cane aside, bristling like an angry cat. “I told you to put that blasted thing away and you didn't listen! And now you've ruined the fun for everyone else!”

“The
fun?
” I had more fun breaking my arm in third grade. “This isn't fun for anyone!”

I looked to the crowd for validation and got blank stares and even blanker faces in return. The realization that something really, really bad was about to happen hit me like a bullet in the back. We were gathered here like cattle for reasons I really didn't want to think about and no one seemed to care but me. Even
Max
had that complacent look in his eye.

“What did you do to them?” I demanded, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. Whether they knew it or not, every single person on this roof was counting on me. They were counting on me because Gershom stole their ability to count on themselves. I didn't know why whatever he did wasn't affecting me, but I didn't care. It didn't matter. It didn't matter because
I
was going to be the hero this time.

And I was going to save these people.

“I didn't do anything.” Gershom folded back into Mad Hatter mode, picking with nervous fingers at his coat. “
They
just know how to behave at a party, unlike
you.
”

That wasn't the answer I was looking for. “
What did you do to them?
”

“Stand there like a good girl and I'll show you.” He pointed to a woman in a purple corset in the back of the crowd. “You. Come here.”

She did. I gaped at the lack of hesitation in her movements, the dead look in her eyes. There was nothing there, just a horrifying mindlessness I remembered all too well. The same thing that happened to me at the church was happening here.

“Wait!” I grabbed the woman's arm as she passed. I didn't want to find out what Gershom had planned for her. “Stop! You don't want to―”

The woman's elbow connected with my nose, cutting me off mid-sentence and sending a blinding flash of pain between my eyes. I staggered back, reeling from the power of her blow. Blood dripped from my nostrils to my feet.

Gershom clapped his hands together. “Ooh, this one has fire! I
like
that. Come here, my dear. Yes, that's it.”

Through a bleary haze of nosebleed induced tears, I saw him take the woman by the hand. Bring it to his lips for a kiss. Ew. “Leave―leave her alone.”

“Hush, girl,” Gershom snapped. He slipped something into the hand he'd kissed, whispered into the woman's ear, then stepped back to address the crowd. “Tell me, friends, would you
finally
like to have some fun?”

The crowd nodded.

He grinned another too wide grin. “Excellent!” He took the woman by her shoulders and pushed her to the edge of the seal. No further. “Go on, my dear, show them what you can do!”

The woman didn't argue. Didn't fight. She simply obeyed. She lifted her hand―the hand Gershom had kissed―and drew a blade across her throat. The knife winked in the moonlight as it carved a wide, red slit against her skin. From that slit sprang forth a geyser of blood that spattered the ground and the faces of the people unfortunate enough to be sitting in front. Max included.

I tried to scream. Tried to move. Tried to make my brain function at a level beyond breathtaking terror. But I couldn't. I'd been frozen. Again.

“There's a good girl!” Gershom cradled the dying woman in his arms. He stroked her hair like he would a daughter's. “You did well. You may rest now. That's it. Rest, rest. You'll be home soon.”

My knees trembled. My nose bled. My breaths came in shallow gasps. I stared at the woman Gershom had murdered, the woman he now arranged in the seal like the Vitruvian Man―limbs spread wide, throat gleaming with her bitter, bitter end. Then I forced myself to look away. To the crowd. To Max, who was not Max but a living corpse made so by Gershom's demonic power. Back to everyone else. The people I was supposed to be protecting.

Back to the woman. Murdered. Right in front of me.

I hated demons.

I hated Gershom.

And I
really
hated losing.

I decided then, as Gershom crouched at his victim's side, that I wasn't going to lose anymore. That no one else was going to die. That I was going to stand up, take a deep breath, and run.

Straight into the seal.

Straight into Gershom.

Eleven

I've always been an angry person, but Gershom provoked something primal in me. Something pure and instinctual, something furious and reckless. Something that drove me to charge at him unarmed and untrained, something that didn't give a damn about the consequences.

He needed to pay for killing that woman.

So, I did what any sane person with a conscience would do. I tackled him.
Hard.

We hit the ground and rolled a few feet toward the edge of the roof. I tried punching him, biting him, kicking him, but the demon that possessed him was powerful. Much more so than a severely anemic teenager with fighting skills she learned from comic books and old arcade games. It wasn't long before he gained the upper hand.

“How dare you!” Gershom seized me by the shoulders and slammed me down so hard that the wind rushed from my lungs. His hands curled around my neck, squeezing. “How dare you!”

I should have relaxed. To conserve what little oxygen I had left. But when shoved toward the precipice of death, I realized I had two choices: Fight and die knowing I'd at least
tried
to help these people, or
relax
and die, give in to the velvet shadows that lapped at the periphery of my vision.

As I stared up at Gershom's blurring face, at his demon-black eyes, I remembered Rosie. She'd been shoved on this precipice, too. And she still lived. If she could do it, so could I.

I made my choice. I fought.

Gasping for precious air, I flailed my arms and kicked my legs, hoping I'd somehow make a connection. Gershom's grip tightened. My movements grew weaker. My lungs screamed for relief. The shadows thickened.

No. No, no, no. I couldn't die. What would Rosie do without me? What would happen to Max and everyone else? If I died, they would surely follow. No. No, no, no...

“That's it,” Gershom said, smiling faintly. His voice sounded far, far away. “That's it. Give in. Let the darkness take you.”

I couldn't see him anymore. I couldn't see anything. The darkness he spoke of, the darkness I'd tried to fight...It was everywhere. And it was calling to me.

I don’t remember what happened in those shrouded moments. All I remember was the pressure from Gershom's hands falling away. An explosion of noise. Screaming. A deep voice telling me that everything was going to be okay. The smell of woodsmoke and spice. Movement.

And then...

Nothing.

***

When I came to, I was still on the roof of The Inferno. The crowd was gone and only a small group remained. Gershom, Dante, Aralia, and me. I breathed a sigh. He got my text.

Gershom sat away from everyone else, his hands cuffed behind his back, a sullen expression on his face. He'd lost his hat and his blazer was stained red from where a bullet had entered. “You won't be able to save him,” he said, rolling his thin shoulders. “The demon is already in him and we all know those silly exorcisms don't work.”

Save him? Save
who―...
Oh. Oh, no.

“Max?” My voice scraped in my throat. Shaking, I stood up and took a few wobbly steps toward where Aralia and Dante were huddled. Turns out, getting strangled to near death made you a bit clumsy. I grabbed onto Dante's arm to steady myself. “What happened? Is Max okay?”

He took off his coat and draped it over my shoulders, then rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. “Aralia, please get Beatrice back.”

Aralia didn’t move. “Dante, you can't.”

“I don't have a choice,” he replied. He spared a glance in my direction. “Go sit down, Beatrice. You've done enough.”

I shook my head, feeling tears well up at the corners of my eyes. Max was on his knees, his hands behind his back like Gershom's, face obscured by shadow. He was still, he was silent, he was
lifeless.
“Dante, please.
What happened?
”

He lifted his gaze to the night sky, took a breath, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a knife. With a soft click, the blade appeared, curved and deadly.

Seeing it was a swift punch to the gut. A knife. Sickening images of what Gershom had done flashed before my eyes. “What are you doing?”

“
Aralia
,” Dante said again.

This time, she followed orders. She took me by the arm and pulled me back. “It's all right, Beatrice. He's doing what needs to be done.”

“No!” Tears rolled freely down my cheeks, hot and furious. I clawed at Aralia's fingers. “You can't!”

“Beatrice,” Aralia stepped in front of me, blocking my view. “I know you've been through quite the ordeal, but you need to calm down.”

“I
can't
,” I sobbed, feeling my knees buckle. Max was possessed and Dante was going to kill him like Gershom killed that woman. “Dante is going to―”

Aralia took my hands in hers and squeezed them tight. She was...smiling? “
Save him
, Beatrice. Dante is going to save him. Not kill him.”

I blinked. “Wh—what?”

She let go of my hands and stepped aside so that I could see for myself.

As per her reassurance, Dante wasn't cutting Max's throat. He was cutting
himself
. He drew the tip of his knife across his right palm until blood seeped to the surface of the wound in a thin, scarlet line. Then he put the knife away. Approached Max like how you'd approach a trapped animal. Slowly and very, very carefully.

“What's he doing?” I whispered, drying my tears with the sleeve of Dante’s coat.

“What's he doing?” Gershom echoed, except much more loudly.

Aralia and I turned to look at him and said
exactly
at the same time: “Shut up.”

He glared at us.

Dante crouched to Max's level. His fingers closed against his wounded palm while his free hand inched toward Max's head.

As the distance between them grew shorter and shorter, Max began to twitch. A noise like bottled thunder built in his throat. Dante proceeded unperturbed, reaching, reaching,
reaching
, and then grabbing with blinding quickness, forcing Max's head back by his hair.

Max roared and thrashed against his constraints, but those cuffs wouldn't come off and Dante refused to go away. He held on, lifting his wounded hand to Max's mouth and letting the blood drip inside.

“What's going on?” Gershom asked.

“Shut up,” Aralia and I snapped.

His upper lip curled in an offended snarl. “This is an outrage! You can't keep me here! I didn't do anything―”

“Shut! Up!”

He did.

Dante stood. Max threw himself on the ground, screaming and writhing, mouth stained with Dante’s blood. I couldn’t look away. This…this wasn’t normal. This was something that transcended the standard banishing ritual. This was something derived from a deeper source of power, a deeper shade of evil.

Public perception of demon hunting, summoning, and even banishing was that it was the Devil's work. If that was true, what was this?

Dante pulled his knife out again, rolled his right sleeve up past his elbow. Aralia tensed at my side.

“I hate this part,” she murmured.

With that same measured calmness I'd come to admire in him, Dante took the blade and buried it into his upper arm. I gasped, hand flying to my own arm in sympathy.

The blood came shortly after. It spurted between his fingers and hit the ground in steaming specks. Max’s lips peeled back against his teeth, a horrible scream ripping from his throat. He was going to need a ton of cough drops come morning.

Dante looked back at Aralia and I. “Aralia,” he said.

They must have practiced this before because Aralia knew exactly what to do when he called on her. She ripped a long piece of fabric off the bottom of her shirt and tied it tight around his bleeding arm immediately after he lifted his hand. When that was done, the two of them shared affirmative little half-smiles, then Aralia retreated back to her spot next to me.

I didn't think Dante was capable of smiling―
really
smiling―at anyone but his dog.

“Right,” Aralia said, squaring her shoulders. Her gaze lingered on Dante's kneeling form. I noticed something different about her, then. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on. But it was definitely different. Softer, maybe.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Of course,” she replied.

I was ninety-eight percent sure that she was lying, but we had bigger things to worry about right now. Like how the
hell
we were going to get Max back to normal.

Gershom was certifiably insane, but he was right about exorcisms. They didn't work. Priests and pastors everywhere tried getting them to and failed miserably with each unfortunate death. As with so many demon related things, no one knew
why
they didn't work. We just knew they didn't. They were performed as last resorts by desperate people, and if the victim was alive afterward, they were shipped off to a maximum security hospital somewhere, never to return. An all too common story these days and I hoped it wouldn't be repeated here.

Max went from thrashing and kicking and screaming to a whole lot of nothing. His body stiffened like a board and the veins in his neck bulged against his skin in a startling shade of blue. Too blue. Like Rosie's.

Dante smeared his fingers with the blood soaking through Aralia's tourniquet. His lips moved with words I could neither hear clearly nor understand fully. Taking another breath, he knelt to the ground and began drawing the shape of diamond with the blood. When that was done, he drew a circle inside of it. Big enough to accommodate Max’s entire body.

“What kind of banishing is this?” Gershom whispered.

Good question.

Inside the circle, Dante drew an inverted triangle, then inside it, another circle. A triquetra went in the middle, but he didn’t stop there. He dragged his fingers down from the inner circle to the apex of the inner triangle, then connected the adjacent angles with another horizontal line, creating something that looked like the Venus symbol.

I'd never seen this sort of seal before. It was drawn like a normal banishing seal, counterclockwise, but the diamond, the blood? Why couldn’t he have just used chalk?

Tonight, like a lot of nights I'd had recently, was full of surprises.

Finished with his seal, Dante turned to Max, wounded arm streaked red. With a stern grimace, he grabbed Max by the collar of his coat and dragged him into the seal. Max snapped out of his stupor and screamed the entire way, but Dante ignored him, wielding his knife in one hand and shoving Max to the ground with the other.

Dante bowed his head. He positioned his feet equal lengths apart, held his knife with both hands so that the blade pointed to the ground. His lips stopped moving. Max’s eyes widened, gaze reflecting both hatred and fear so deep that it didn't appear to have an end.

Then, without further ado, Dante began the rite. More foreign words with sharp syllables and hard consonants, every one raising the hair on my arms. This wasn’t Latin. It wasn’t English. It wasn’t Russian or Spanish or French. It was nothing we spoke here on earth. Demonic. Had to be Demonic.

The effect it had on Max was awe-inspiring in the way a car wreck was. So devastating and so shocking that you found yourself unable to do anything but stare from a safe distance while the braver people did their jobs.

But this wasn't a car wreck. This was possession. A fate worse than death. This was Dante, trying to correct it. This was Max, who fought against his saving grace with everything he had. His body contorted itself into grossly misshapen angles, back arching, muscles straining with the effort. He threw himself to the edge of the seal, screaming as he realized he couldn’t get out of it.

Despite Max's best efforts to resist, Dante kept on, his incantations growing louder as he lifted his knife. I felt the same shift in the atmosphere I did when I banished the demon from that dog, though
this
shift was anything but subtle. Whereas my banishing was a tiny tear in the space-time continuum, this one was a gaping rip. A gaping rip that manifested itself in the blowing winds, the gathering clouds, the shadows that pressed in like living things. They slithered across the ground to lap at my feet.

“What the―” I jumped backward, tried to kick the shadows away. They swarmed the space where my foot had been, swallowing every inch of surface in their inky blackness. “What the hell is this?”

“The Veil ripping,” Aralia said. Just before the shadows consumed her.

And then, they consumed me too.

Nothing like the complete and total absence of light to make you realize just how dependent on it you were. Light was nice. Light didn't rob you of your senses or fill you with gut-crushing, soul-twisting dread. Light didn't crawl up your neck like a cold fingertip, chilling you all the way down to the marrow of your bones. Light didn't threaten. Light didn't deceive. Light was light. Until it was gone.