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I hadn’t been taken to one of the families. I’d been taken to Archbishop Alarich Lisk.
I knew what I should do. I should inject my magic into his veins. I should instruct him to cut off his penis and swallow it whole so I could watch him choke to death. Then I would finally know what it meant to feel safe. Except facing him now, it was as if my power had frozen in my veins, unwilling to mingle with the sickening energy of his lust. I ground my teeth so hard, my jaw hurt. I hated him in a way that made me want to crumble, but I wanted to hate him in a way that made me rage.
Past SA from him?
The archbishop had given me something to hang over his head, though I didn’t think he was aware just yet, but it was clear to me that the dagger Lilith had come into possession of had been in the care of the church.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. “I want you to find those men. I want justice.” “For you or for Tori?” he asked. “Why not for both of us?” I asked. He studied me in the quiet that followed and then lifted his hand, looping a stray piece of my hair around his finger as he brushed it from my face. “They won’t survive the week,” he said.
“Thank you.” He didn’t speak, but beneath me, he felt tense, building a wall between himself and my gratitude. I could hear the words he didn’t speak—don’t thank me. They were words he’d said hundreds of times. I’m not just saying it, I’d said, recognizing that the expression had little meaning given our backgrounds. All our lives, we’d been taught to express thanks—to our parents, to the church, to God, none of which had given me a fraction of what Zahariev had. I know, but I don’t need it. Not from you.
The problem was Zahariev wasn’t for me because I wasn’t for him. Untouchable.
There, gemstones gleamed in a golden hilt, its blade buried deep in the springs of my mattress.
“Do you ever wonder why Zahariev drops everything for you?”
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you, Lilith,” said Coco. “He looks at me because he’s watching, probably to see if I’m going to steal.” Coco shook her head. “No, Lily. That man wants to fuck.” I almost laughed. “Coco, I know when men want to fuck me. You know what radiates from Zahariev ninety-nine percent of the time? Annoyance.”
I think he has magic too! He can shield his feelings somehow and that’s why she can’t sense them. Cause he definitely wants her lol
“What are you doing here?” “I brought you a gun,”
True love! 😅
“If you decide to go, I’ll take you,” he continued. “Lisk will be there, and I want him to know you’re with me.”
Date!
“Keep the cat,” he said. “Learn to let someone love you.”
Oooh 😮
“There’s a belief that the unworthy cannot behold truly sacred things,” he said. “But what makes something sacred other than the human belief that it is important?”
“You have an excellent familiar,” she said.
What is a familiar?” I asked. “Your church calls them demonic spirits,” said the woman. “Creatures controlled by the evil behind the Seventh Gate, but they are just guides, only harmful to those who threaten their charge.”
“I heard you touched my girl,” I said. She wasn’t mine. She wasn’t anyone’s. But I was the dealer of her justice. Her vengeance was mine.
I turned in time to see Cassius poke his head into the room, but I already knew what he was going to say. I knew because I could hear Gabriel’s deep wail from the other room. “Liam made his arrival. They’re stabilizing him,” said Cassius. My mouth quivered. “Esther?” Cassius just shook his head.
Oh nooo! 😢
He was either going to hold me back if I ran or catch me if I fell. It was always one of two.
“Any normal person would need a fucking cigarette after dealing with you,” said Cassius. “Why do you think Zahariev smokes so much?”
“Oh, little love,” he said. “You have so much to learn.” I felt like he was laughing at me, and the desire to make him suffer coiled tightly within me. I slid my hands around his neck and pulled him to me, our mouths colliding in a hot, too-simple kiss before parting for a few breaths. At the same time, I tightened my legs around Zahariev’s waist and drew him closer. He was exactly how I’d imagined, hard and thick. I almost moaned.
You act like this has to mean something. Fucking brat. She meant everything.
“I didn’t become a heathen until my magic surfaced,” I said. “What’s your excuse?” “I was born this way,” he said.
“Forgiveness is overrated. It’s just something churchgoers shove down your throat so they can beg for it when they sin.”
“No one is expecting you to go back to normal,” he said. “You go home, you sleep. You wake up in a different world. People will tell you it gets easier, but it never does. There are good days, and there are days when the pain hits like a fucking freight train.”
“Promise me something,” he said, still watching me. “What?” “If you ever feel like you don’t want to do this anymore…tell me. Give me the chance to bring you back.”
“You know that’s why Southgate got destroyed…too many people started believing in other gods.” I frowned. I hadn’t actually known that. “Who are these other gods?” I asked. “They’re just stories that didn’t make it into the Book of Splendor,”
The gist is what you’ve already heard. People believe there is more than one god and that they are trapped behind the Seventh Gate. They claim there are signs the gate is weakening, that their magic is slipping through the cracks, making the weather harsher, the people sicker and more violent,
“Because I’ve seen this before,” he said. “Right before the fire that took out Southgate.” Abel downed the rest of his beer, letting out a wet sigh as he stood. “I’ll get your tab, firecracker,” he said, throwing a handful of dollars on the table. “Keep your head down and your eyes open, and watch the rich.” “Watch the rich?” “They’ll abandon the area,”
I stumbled back, raising the stun gun as the demon launched itself at me, black limbs bursting from its pulsing body. I pulled the trigger, but only one of the darts hit my mark, sinking into the demon’s gelatinous body.
Like the blob!
Then I looked at the knife. It had basically melted that creature. Like it had been made to do so.
“I know you’re angry with him right now, but don’t let that get in the way of accepting a perfectly new dryer.” “A dryer?” “I’ve already done four loads of laundry in record time,” she said. “And warmed my towel for my bath.”
Lol
I turned my head, but I could not see the man’s face. The light did not touch him, but I knew him. He felt familiar, like the darkness I had woken to in the womb.
Zahariv?
Give me your venom, your holy blood. I will take your poison, your silver tongue. Drink deep from my body, taste darkness on my lips. Worship me within my temple, on the steps of my altar. Bring forth my rapture, my violent end.
“This blade is one of seven.”
“Yours is the only one floating around,” she said. “Three are with the church. They used to have four. I suspect the one you possess now was stolen from them.”
“They were once one blade,” she continued. “A sacred sword of fire called the Deliverer.”
“In the context of the Deliverer? It means the sword was made by the true gods.”
“The Elohai are descendants of the Elohim,” she continued. “The Elohim are Eryx and Ashur, the creators of humankind and the true gods of our world. They are trapped beneath Mount Seine, behind the Seventh Gate, and have been for thousands of years.”
“The god your church worships, the one they call the Messiah, he is an invader.”
“He saw what Eryx and Ashur had created and wanted it for himself. There was a battle, and the Messiah was bound in chains. As his execution neared, the Messiah promised knowledge if humankind would aid in his rescue. They conspired and forged a blade, the Deliverer, which cut through his chains and burned with fire. He used it against Eryx and Ashur and drove them behind the Seventh Gate, where they were trapped beneath a net over which the Messiah summoned peaks of great stone. With the true gods defeated, the Messiah ruled, but the knowledge he had promised was never given. Over time, he
...more
“The Deliverer,” she said. “It is relevant because reforged, the sword can open any of the seven gates.”
“It was broken by the prophets who shared the seven pieces,” she said. “As the Deliverer, it posed a threat to their power.”
“They are with the Order of the Serpent,” she said. I raised my brows. I’d never heard of such a group. “And who are they?” “Your church would call us witches, but the magic we practice is no different from the magic they steal from the Elohai. It is only witchcraft when it does not serve the archbishop.”
“If we remake the Deliverer,” she said, “we can free the true gods.”
“Because they have promised to serve us if we can open the Seventh Gate.”
“I’m not interested in the belief required for faith.” “Then believe in a world where we are not subservient to men.”
“Why must we rely on gods to create that world? Why can we not do it on our own?” “If women believed in their power, perhaps we could,” she said. “But you cannot rouse the downtrodden without a show of great power.
He kissed me like he owned me, something I’d never wanted before but suddenly realized I could live with, especially if it meant feeling like this every second of every day—high out of my fucking mind, on fire from the inside out, and not a single goddamn drug in my system.
“What are you thinking?” I whispered. He shook his head once. “That you’ve fucked me up, little love.”
“For you, I have all the time in the world.”
