Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (5 page)

But if his words were anything to go by, he was desperate to keep going.

“You’re doing enough,” I told him. “There’s no point in sending you off to shakedown demons. Whatever Lucifer and the Blood Thorns are planning, they’re going to make sure we know about it soon.”

I looked at the street, but Sephiel was still watching me. “You sound certain.”

I stilled my hand on my hatchet. “I am.”

I pushed away from the window and let the curtain fall back into place. The darkness seemed thicker than I remembered.

“Stay by the window. I’m going to check on Dro and the guys.”

Sephiel didn’t reply, so I assumed he was going to agree. Deep down, he likely knew that I wasn’t actually going to check on Max and Warrick. It had been too long since me and Dro had talked, and I was sick of this fight we were stuck in.

After a couple minutes of squinting until my eyes were sore, I made my way up the stairs to the room Max was sharing with Dro. They’d taken the larger master bedroom, since I didn’t care where I slept, and I might have threatened Max with bodily harm if he thought about putting moves on my sister. He’d only flinched once before assuring me he wouldn’t touch Dro that way unless she wanted him to.

I felt out with my hand and found the door. I rapped on it gently. After a moment, I heard something shifting beyond the wood. Footsteps padded toward the door and it opened inward.

In the pitch black, I could make out the edges of Dro’s snow-white hair, but it was too dark for me to read her face.

“Is the power out?” she asked after a long minute.

“Yeah,” I replied. “Can I come in?”

Another long pause, but she pulled open the door and stepped inside the room. I followed and let her close it behind me. I spotted a crevice of light coming from the curtain on the far side of the room. I hurried for it and pulled it open just enough to look out into the backyard. No one was in it, and there were no other peering faces in the windows of the surrounding houses. Hoping that wouldn’t change, I drew the curtain back so light from the hazy sun could pour into the room.

Satisfied that we wouldn’t be watched, I turned and sat cross-legged on the floor and looked up at my sister.

She was still standing by the door, her long braid tumbling over her chest. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, like she was either nauseated or protecting herself. This didn’t bode well for me.

“You might as well just say it,” I prompted.

“Say what?” Dro muttered.

“Whatever it is that’s keeping you five feet away from me.”

Dro sighed. Her arms circled her elbows. She kept her eyes on the floor. “I don’t want to fight, Con.”

“Neither do I. That’s why I came here. So sit down and let’s talk.”

She was reluctant at first, but some of her anger must have melted into guilt, because she crossed the distance between us and sat on the floor across from me. I wished she would look me in the eyes.

I waited patiently, not willing to make the first move. Yeah, maybe that was cowardly of me, but anything I’d planned to say evaporated the moment I saw the tired rings under her eyes. I didn’t want to drive Dro into more guilt and anger. I just wanted to let her know I was here, and to figure out what was wrong.

“Why aren’t you letting me help?” Dro whispered.

“You do help,” I countered.

“How?” Her temper was beginning to rise. “By giving you a supernatural bandage when one of you is hurt?”

“And keeping Lucifer off our backs by
not
broadcasting yourself,” I defended.

“I’m the only supernatural we have. I’m the only one strong enough to stop Lucifer. You promised to let me fight him on my own.”

“And you promised me that you wouldn’t strain your powers,” I snapped. Dro’s eyes turned sharp and tense, like the line of her mouth. I took a deep breath and told myself to calm down.

“Dro, listen to me. Most of your powers are on the demon side now.” I paused, then added, “I can’t help but think that it’s doing something to you.”

Telling her that didn’t make me feel very spectacular, but the thought must have crossed Dro’s mind. I saw the conflict, the understanding, and then the reluctant acceptance. My little sister swept a hand over her head. Her hair had been braided for about three days now, and pieces of it were starting to fall out of the ties.

“I know,” she agreed quietly. “But my angel powers aren’t what they used to be, Con.” She bowed her head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to hear the angels. All I have in my head now is silence, and I’m willing to bet it’s the same for them. If I can’t get used to it, they must be going insane.”

She could have asked Sephiel to find out, but I didn’t think Dro would be able to bring herself to ask something so personal of a man whose heartache she probably felt responsible for.

“They’re just going to have to learn to be human. There’s no way around it.”

Her eyes met mine. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Maybe not, but that’s just the way it is.”

We sat there in silence for a long time, both thinking about the same thing. The tall, luscious trees of the Heaven Gate, its bubbling streams and crisp air, glowing flowers and comforting warmth.

The heat of the fire as we burned it to the ground. The screams of Sephiel and Dro as their angel powers were stripped from their souls.

“Why hasn’t he made a move yet?” she asked suddenly. I looked at my sister. “Lucifer was so angry at us for closing the Heaven Gate right in front of him. He could find me if he really, truly wanted to. But he hasn’t. Why do you think that is?”

That was a question I wasn’t in the mood to answer, since I didn’t want to know. Beings like Lucifer were too complicated and dangerous to understand. But Dro had a point. He could have shown up at any time and obliterated us. Instead, we were waiting for him to make a move.

I thought back to the battle we’d been caught in the night we destroyed the Heaven Gate. The angels charging forward to fight the demons spilling out of the portals Lucifer created, despite their rapidly fading powers. The amount of strength Michael had when he started a fight with Lucifer. The way the Devil looked at me before we escaped, his lips mouthing a single, terrifying promise:

I will destroy you.

“We’ll worry about it when we cross paths again. He won’t sit back if we walk up to the Hell Gate and shut it.” I shrugged, “Who knows, maybe he’ll even disappear once we close the Gate.”

I wouldn’t have been so stupidly optimistic if my sister hadn’t needed to hear it.

She didn’t believe my statement anymore than I did, but the ghost of a smile crossed her face. I didn’t like how weary and depressed it made her look.

“That would be nice and simple, wouldn’t it?” The smile widened a little more, then faded away.

“Con, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been myself lately, and you didn’t want to come back here. I just... I wasn’t thinking, because I’m tired of this. I’m tired of being afraid and running all the time. I just want it to be over.”

I couldn’t fault her for that, since it was exactly what I wanted too. It had been so long since I’d felt true safety. Sleeping under a roof or having dinner with my sister or being held by Warrick never took away the stress and panic. It merely dulled it. I was ready to leave it all behind, to remember what it meant to feel alive instead of lucky to be breathing.

If wishes were horses...

“Are we okay?”

Dro’s voice was tentative, as if she didn’t think I would say yes. Truthfully, I could have kicked myself for the bit of hesitation I showed. Dro was a good sister and she would never hurt me, but I hoped she would see that her demon blood was making her slightly aggressive, something she had never willingly been. I knew my sister was growing stronger in every way, but there was a difference between her arguing with me and threatening to immolate a dying man.

“Yeah,” I said, shoving the memory of the man she’d tried to interrogate into the back of my mind. “You just have to control yourself. Don’t use your powers unless we’re seconds away from dying.”

“Or if Lucifer shows up.”

I bit my tongue. “Or if Lucifer shows up,” I mumbled. I
hated
that promise.

Dro looked at the floor. “Thanks for looking out for me, big sister. I know I’m not... easy.”

I reached over to take and squeeze her hand. “You’re fine, Dro. You always were.”

She nodded, but didn’t smile. “I’m gonna go find some food. Max is awake and moving around, so he’s probably hungry.”

I stifled a laugh and let her get to her feet. Dro walked to the door in the dark, then stopped and half-turned back to me.

“I miss being part angel,” she confessed. “It made me feel like a good person.”

Before I could tell her she was the best kind of person in the world, she turned and walked out of the room. Dro had never thought very highly of herself, which was something I would have given anything to change. Yet as much as I loved her, I couldn’t help but think that Dro’s change would make her into something neither of us wanted her to be.

Chapter 5

The rest of the day passed without incident. The power didn’t come back on, so we decided to stay in the house for a little longer and move to another one when it was dark. We’d been fortunate in choosing a block of houses that had been mostly empty. Downtown seemed to be the most dangerous area, but I wasn’t expecting to go back there any time soon.

Then again, I had a bad habit of expecting anything to go the way I wanted it to...

“I don’t get it,” I said for the third time, my eyes flicking over the box of black hair dye. “It says it’s supposed to be permanent. Why the hell isn’t it holding?”

Dro looked at me from the motel’s bathroom door, rubbing the strands of her pale hair. The hotel towel was greasy and black, completely ruined from the hair dye that leeched onto it.

“I dunno,” she muttered, sounding almost guilty. “But maybe we should stop trying. I don’t think we can change how I look.”

I sighed and roughly threw the empty dye box into the trashcan by the table. It hit the other five hair dye boxes and tumbled onto the stained carpet. I sighed and flopped down on the bed, running a hand over my face. Dro put the towel into the bathtub and came into the room to sit down on the bed beside me.

“Do you think we should cut it?” Dro asked softly.

I glanced at her. She was toying with the edges of her hair, brushing it with her fingers as if she wasn’t going to be able to do so again. For a second, I considered it. Dye wasn’t holding and I couldn’t spend money on a wig, but cutting Dro’s hair wouldn’t make her look less unique. She had a look that was all her own. Beautiful, marble pale, snowy hair, icy eyes. She was impossible not to notice, and even harder to forget.

“Nah,” I said, turning my face back to the water-spotted ceiling. “We’ll just have to find a way to put it up and hide it that way.”

I could feel Dro smiling at me. She always thought she looked like a freak, but like all fourteen year old girls, she loved her hair.

“So what are we going to do now?” she asked.

Pray for a fucking miracle.
“I dunno. Look for jobs, I guess. We can do that tomorrow. Odessa is pretty big. I’m sure they’ll have something.”

Though my skills were pretty limited. I helped out around the house with chores, but I damn sure couldn’t be a maid. I wasn’t very good with people, so retail was out. I was wary around people with knives, so kitchens weren’t going to work. The only thing I knew how to do was fight, but that was sketchy, too.

I was a damn good fighter, but I was also a felon. I didn’t want to advertise myself by getting into professional boxing or something like that. Being a bodyguard was an option, until I remembered that they required a background check, so I couldn’t lie about who I’d worked for last.

That would be an interesting conversation. They’d call up the Blood Thorns and ask to speak to my employer, who they would find out I had killed.

The fallback was the criminal lifestyle. At least I could work underground, assuming another gang would accept me. I didn’t want to do that, but nothing else was open to me. And even that was dangerous, and not just for the obvious reasons. News traveled at the speed of sound in the gritty underworld, and the tattoo behind my ear would be a dead giveaway. Someone would know I’d worked for the Blood Thorns. Someone would know I’d killed my boss. Then that same someone would probably tell Mateo, who would put me in the ground faster than a bullet.

My heart ached again. I told myself I wasn’t missing him. I was just hurting because he’d chosen to give up Dro to a woman who wanted to use her for God knows what. He assumed I would stop loving him, and had been jealous of Dro. She’d never liked him, but I’d hoped that we would have found a way to live together. I’d loved him, and he’d burned me worse than any fire.

“It’ll get easier, Connie,” Dro’s whisper came from the other bed.

I turned my head. Dro watched me with anxious eyes. She could tell I was deeply wounded from what Mateo and his father had done to me. They’d left scars on me inside and out, tortured me, wanted to see me dead. I would second guess everyone, never let anyone but Dro get close to me. I would jump when someone was too close, have horrible nightmares, and never be able to take a bath again.

“Maybe,” I said. My entire being was suddenly exhausted: heart, body, and soul. “We should get some sleep. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

I crawled up to my bed, placing my hatchet and throwing knives on the nightstand. I dragged the covers over my body, too tired to take off my clothes. I put my back to Dro and pretended to sleep, though I felt the weight of her gaze on me for a long time before she followed my lead. In a few minutes, I could hear her steady breathing. The heaviness of sleep eventually came over me, and thought that I might actually be able to rest peacefully for a whole night...

***

The first thing that woke me up was the smell. A thick, smoky smell pushed down my nose and swelled in my throat. Then it was the heat. My clothes and hair were plastered to my body, though the air so dry I was choking on it.

Then it was the screams. The ones that didn’t belong to me. I hastily opened my eyes and shot upward. I turned my head to see why Dro was screaming.

She was burning.

Blinding white flames were shifting around her body. I squinted like I was looking at the sun. The flames had turned the sheets to dust. They crawled up the cheap wallpaper and incinerated it.

Dro’s half of the hotel room was completely destroyed. The walls were curtains of white and orange flame. Smoke curled on the top of the groaning ceiling. The sprinklers were on, but the water was dissolving as soon as it hit the fire.

Dro barely stopped to breathe. It was like she’d turned into a siren that was signaling the end of the world.

I’d seen this once before, and knew I had to move. I tossed the sheets off the bed and went to grab my boots. I yanked them up, just as the carpet caught fire.

Shit shit shit!

I looked back at my sister, who was lying on a bed of white fire. How was I going to wake her up?!

I forced myself to focus. Calming down was impossible, but I pulled on my boots and grabbed my weapons from the nightstand. I glanced at my backpack, which was sitting on the table. Or it was, until the flames engulfed it, cracking the wood and disintegrating everything that had once covered it.

It was getting hard to breathe. I was trapped on the bed. Smoke and heat dried out my eyes and dehydrated my throat. I looked at the window across from me and then at the nightstand. It was still fairly intact, though the bottom was beginning to catch fire. I grabbed the cheap but fairly heavy nightstand and hurled it at the glass. Its half burned shape crashed through the window, flames licking curtains. Smoke flushed out and revealed an exit.

Now we just had to get to it.

“Dro!” I half screamed, half coughed. “Dro!”

Her screams were lessening, but she still wasn’t awake.

“Andromeda!”

She stopped howling. Her bright eyes snapped open, and she saw the disaster around her. Dro tried to scream again, but her voice was too hoarse. Her eyes met mine, wider and more terrified than I’d ever seen them.

“The window!” I managed to yell and point.

Dro nodded and leaped off the bed. I was about to warn her that the floor was burning, but she seemed to be walking around just fine. Dro moved around the beds and crawled out of smoking window, completely gone from my sight. The fire didn’t seem to have hurt her at all.

I didn’t think I would be as lucky. Before I could think too much about the consequences of what would happen if I failed, I made the jump. My bed was close to the window, so I nearly got out unscathed.

Part of the ceiling collapsed as I was soaring. It landed behind me and singed the back of my leg. I cried out and caught myself in a roll when I went through the window. Heat flared along my back and right side. I landed hard on the metal landing. Someone shrieked and started patting me down. A searing pain filled my body. I smelled something that reminded me of overcooked pork. Whoever was patting me down was probably getting rid of the flames, but they were also slapping raw blisters and burns. I gasped and coughed, tears from smoke and pain blurring my eyes.

I was faintly aware of what was going on around me. The fire must have spread, because other people were screaming.

My arm was grabbed and lifted. I bit my tongue and shifted to get to my feet. I buckled when I put pressure on my right shin. Whoever was carrying me kept me upright.

“Come on, Connie, we need to go.”

Hearing Dro’s voice calmed me down and got my head back on a swivel. I took my arm off Dro’s, though she was reluctant to let me go. I hobbled well enough on my own, taking a long second to make sure we could get away.

We were on the second floor and thankfully close to the stairs, which weren’t on fire yet. I could feel the heat on my back and moved down the creaky metal steps as fast as I could. Dro was beside me, moving at a good pace but never pulling too far ahead. The roaring fire and the terrified cries made her flinch repeatedly.

We finally got down the stairs when my body chose to remind me of the pain it was in. My leg, back, and right side throbbed violently, like someone was continually smacking me with a yardstick. Sweat beaded down my temples and neck. I looked up as the ambulances and fire trucks arrived. Their sirens blared wildly as the firefighters jumped out. Their eyes widened when they saw the blaze. I knew we had to leave, but I wanted to look back and see what I had survived.

Half the motel was crumbling into flaming rubble, looking like an orange bonfire and nothing else. Another quarter of it had smoke and flames climbing out of every window and door. The last quarter was catching fire quickly. The heat was intense, the light from the torched building strong enough to signal an airplane. Smoke blanketed the night sky, blotting out the stars.

Maybe it would have been beautiful, in its own destructive way, if I’d been able to ignore the people.

Everyone who made it out of the motel was standing in the parking lot panicking. Paramedics and EMTs were running back and forth to help as many people as they could. Firefighters dragged water hoses into the parking lot and hurried to put them to use. The motel residents were huddling together and staring at the blaze with horrified awe. Their shouts were panicked and heartbreaking.

“What are we gonna do?!”

“What happened?!”

“Has anyone seen my son?! Where’s my son?!”

There were about seven people who couldn’t speak properly because they were in agony. Charred bodies were lifted onto stretchers and hauled away quickly. Others were being tended to on the ground, begging for something to take away the pain. There were a couple of bodies that weren’t moving at all. The paramedics walked to them with body bags.

I’d been around burning flesh before. I’d seen the damage fire could do. I was grateful not to be any closer.

Something brushed along my right arm. I jumped from the tingling pain. I looked over my shoulder and immediately regretted my reaction.

Dro was standing behind me, staring at the fire she’d created. She was shaking as she moved closer to me. I’d nearly forgotten she was there. Tears filled her eyes. Dro watched the fire again, breathing in shivers.

Red and blue lights flashed, and I knew the cops had arrived. My mind snapped out of shock, and I was able to concentrate again.

“Come on,” I said. My voice still sounded raspy from the smoke I breathed in.

I turned and limped toward the farthest end of the parking lot. I needed to sit down and do something about these fucking burns. I wandered behind a car at the end of the lot and was about to get in when the burning, throbbing pain made itself known again. I had to prop myself against the car to breathe through it.