Personal Demons 2 - Original Sin (28 page)

“Thanks, Riley,” Gabriel says, and she and Trevor head for her car.

I watch them pull out then I turn to Gabriel. “I'm going out to see if I can pick up on Lilith. The Shield doesn't seem to work both ways. They're in my head again. You should check Marchosias's apartment.”

“Call if you find anything.”

“Got it.”

I can't help driving by Frannie's on my way out of the neighborhood. She's standing at the open door, letting Riley and Trevor in as I pass. Her eyes connect with mine and I slow to nearly a stop, savoring the crackle of hot electricity that plays along my skin when I'm anywhere near her. Her Shield is supposed to hide her from Infernals, but it's never worked with me. That's why I found her in the first place when others from the Abyss couldn't. If she's within a city block, I know it.

And now that I have my demon's sixth sense back, her pull on me is stronger than it ever was before. I breathe deep, pushing the images of things that were—but can never be again—out of my head, and step on the accelerator. My job now is to keep her safe. Period. And with Lilith gone, she'll be that much safer.

A half hour later, I'm cruising near the quarry, frustration doing battle with dread in my black core. I gun the engine and crank the wheel. The car spins a 180 on the narrow dirt road as rocks pepper the wheel wells. I'm fishtailing away from the quarry, on my way to the KwikMart, when the phone rings.

“We've got Taylor,” Gabriel says. “She's at the Cove with Marchosias.”

Frannie

I left Riley and Trevor in my room a half hour ago. They think I'm in the bathroom. If my Sway is worth crap, they'll keep thinking it. Where I really am is parked on the side of the road behind the Gallaghers' house, waiting. It's nearly dusk when I speed-dial Gabe and raise the phone to my ear with a shaking hand.

“Frannie? Is everything okay?”

“I just talked to Valerie Blake. She said Taylor is over at the Cove. I think Marc's with her.” About as far from the Gallagher house as you can get before you're in the Atlantic Ocean. And crowded on a Saturday evening in August. “I'm gonna send Trevor over to check it out,” I say, hoping he thinks my shaking voice is my worry for Taylor. I hold my breath and wait for the answer I need.

“No. Tell Trevor to stay with you. I'll go for her. If she's there and Trevor approaches her…she's a succubus, Frannie. Even though she's Trevor's sister, it'd be dangerous for him.”

That's only half the answer I need. “Will you be able to handle Lilith and Marc by yourself?”

“I'll get Luc over there too.”

There's the other half. A shaky sigh escapes my chest. “Fine, but hurry.”

“On my way,” he says, and clicks off.

I sit, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. It worked. I'm on my own.

I can't do this. What was I thinking?

I shake my head and push back the doubt.

No. This is right—the only way to get close to Lilith. Gabe and Luc would scare her off, or if they didn't, they'd never let me close enough to her to help Taylor. It's gonna work.

It has to.

I breathe deep, repeating the mantra in my head. I worked it out so that there shouldn't be any loopholes. I step out of the car and into the woods, moving as quickly as I can, but from where I am, there's no real path, so my progress is slow. I start to panic, sure I'll be too late. But the faster I try to go, the more I seem to trip. Adrenaline starts my heart pounding and I try to run, but my flip-flop catches in a tangle of vines and I go down hard.

Just when I'm sure that I must have taken a wrong turn, I make out the shed through the trees, a gray slab framed by green foliage. I claw my way through the bramble to the small clearing, out of breath and bleeding from a zillion scratches and scrapes, and pull up short.

Crap, I'm not alone.

The shed is about fifteen or twenty yards into the woods behind the Gallaghers' house, so I can't see the yard or house from here. Which is exactly why this is the spot couples disappear to when they want some privacy during parties. Taylor's spent plenty of time here, and I caught Riley and Trevor on their way out of the woods during the graduation party.

And now Angelique and Brendan are here. He has her pinned up against the side of the shed, jeans around his knees.

I duck behind a tree in the shadows at the edge of the clearing and try to slow my rasping breath.

What now?

I stand absolutely still, swallow back the panic rising in me, and try to think. But then the noise from the couple stops and everything goes still. I wait a second longer and then peek cautiously around the tree in time to see Brendan chuck the condom onto the ground and zip his jeans. He walks off toward the Gallaghers' backyard without a glance at Angelique, who's tugging her skirt back into place.

She runs after him. “Wait up!”

But he doesn't.

And then I'm alone. I step slowly into the clearing and exhale a shaky breath.

The woods are deceptively calm. The low din of chatter from the crowd gathering in the Gallaghers' backyard filters through the trees to where I am, muffled by the soft hush under the thick canopy of summer leaves. But, as I take in my surroundings, I feel my skin start to crawl. It's the exact image from my head—except without Taylor's bloody body.

I look around wildly for any sign of her and almost have a heart attack when a squirrel bounds out from behind the shed. I brace my hands on my knees and breathe deep to settle my nerves—and nearly jump out of my skin when music starts. But it's not Jackson's car stereo. It's Roadkill. They must be set up at the party.

Suddenly, I'm confused. The music in my image wasn't live.

Oh, God. Did I get this wrong?

Frustration rips from my chest in a growl.

Between my yell and the music, I don't hear anything else, so I cry out in surprise when I turn back to the shed and find Taylor standing there.

Luc

I'm halfway to the Cove when I feel it. Frannie isn't at her house. I pull my phone and dial her. No answer. I call Riley.

“Hey, Luc,” she says in answer.

“Riley! Where is Frannie?”

“In the bathroom.”

“The truth, Riley. It's really important.”

“I'm telling you the truth. She's in the bathroom. Promise.”

“How long has she been in there?”

There's a pause. “Just a few minutes…I think.”

“Go check on her.”

I hear the door click open and a knock. “Frannie,” comes Riley's muffled voice. Another knock.

“Um, I think she's in there….”

“Open the door, Riley.”

“It's locked.”

I swallow my panic. “You're sure she didn't go out?”

She sounds anything but sure. “I don't think so….”

I disconnect and try to focus. She's not very close, that much I know. My demon's sixth sense isn't strong enough yet to get a solid feel for where she is. But the fact that I can feel her at all means she's not all the way across town at her house. Wherever it is, I have to gamble that she'll have her car so I can get her the Hell out if I need to.

I pull to the side of the road and phase behind the Cove. I look in the window of Ricco's, but I already know she's not here. I've lost the buzz.

I try the quarry again. The buzz is stronger, but only a little.

But when I hit the road in front of the Gallaghers', I know she's here, and I catch the thread of Lilith's thoughts. Frannie's car is among the multitude of others parked at the edge of the woods.

Unholy Hell.

I take a sweep of the Gallaghers' backyard, but she's not here. I turn to head into the woods when Chase and Kate see me.

“Hey!” Chase says as they approach. “Flying solo tonight?”

“I was looking for Frannie. Seen her?”

Kate shakes her head. “Not here. She was at home when I left a while ago.”

“Thanks,” I say, already jogging for the road.

Once I'm out of sight of the partygoers, I cut into the woods and try to home in on Frannie. The trees are dense, and I can't see very far into them, but she's in there. I can feel it. I could phase blindly around the woods searching for her, but with the gathering crowd, I run the risk of someone seeing me. And I might never find her. I'm better off zeroing in on Lilith's thoughts and Frannie's energy.

The golden shadows of dusk make picking a path through the trees and low shrubs a slower process. I trip several times as I weave through the trees at a jog, because I'm focusing on Lilith—targeting her. My foot catches on a tree root and I skid to the forest floor.

And I don't get up.

Because, in the next heartbeat, Rhenorian is on top of me.

“Hey, loverboy,” his voice rasps in my ear.

I try to shake him off. “Rhen, this really isn't a good time.”

He backs off and rolls me to my back, his knee buried in my chest. “He wants you dead. He doesn't even care that whatever soul you still have is tagged for Heaven.”

“Then stop wasting my time and kill me. Either that or get off.”

“How'd you pull it off?”

My brimstone heart pounds in my chest. “What?”

“Defying King Lucifer. Slipping out from under His nose?”

“I really don't have time for this.” I kick up and wrap my leg around his neck, twisting him into a necklock and slamming him to the ground. “Can we talk about it later?”

He raises his glowing fist and points it at my chest. “Now.”

I shove my own glowing fist into his face. “Why all this interest?”

He hesitates. “You've got some of us thinking.”

“Thinking? Aren't you afraid you'll sprain something, Rhen?”

He looks nervous, but doesn't back down. “We want to know how you did it.”

I roll my eyes. “So, are you going to kill me or what?”

“Probably not.”

“That's an act of treason.”

“I know.”

I let him loose and pull myself out of the dirt.

And hear Frannie scream.

I take off, running deeper into the woods, heedless of Rhenorian.

Frannie

I stare Taylor in the eye, unable to breathe.

She leans against Marc, who's propped against the shed. Her lips pull into a lopsided smile. “Hey, Fee. Fancy meeting you here.”

I don't know what to call her. Taylor? Lilith?

“Hey.” I can barely get the word out.

“Glad you could make it.”

I almost forget what I'm here for when I look into her eyes. They're Taylor's, but not Taylor's. As I stare into them, tendrils of some dark force start to creep through me, making me wish for the vision from my head to come true.

She smiles. “You feel me, don't you?”

Behind her, Marc feels her too. His eyes are hungry, predatory, as he yanks her into a kiss, but she shoves him away. He lets out a moan, somewhere between pain and pleasure, when she leaves him standing there and glides across the clearing to me.

“I feel you too. Are you ready, Fee?”

Marc leans back into the shed and just stands there, arms folded across his chest, anticipation in his eyes.

Run!

But I can't make myself do it. In some little corner of my mind, I remember I had a plan.

What was it?

I just stand here, rooted to the ground, unable to move, as Taylor glides closer, slow and smooth as a rattlesnake. She stops just a few inches from me, and I can feel heat radiate off her along with other, darker things. Her smile's gone as she glides her fingers down my cheek. I press into her, unable to stop myself.

“You want me as much as I want you. I can feel it,” she purrs.

And she's right. I'm overwhelmed by the thought of being with her.

She continues to hypnotize me with her deep green eyes as she traces a finger slowly along the lines of my lips. When I don't pull away, she trails her finger down my neck to my chest. At her touch, the tingling ache low in my belly explodes out into every part of me, making me gasp.

And that's when she pulls the carving knife from the back pocket of her jeans.

The sight of it snaps me out of my trance. This was the plan. I need to be touching her when I convince Lilith to leave Taylor and enter me. I breathe deep and start the mantra slowly in my head; then I say it out loud. “My soul is tagged for Hell. You don't want Taylor. You want me.”

Her body goes rigid and she starts to back away, but I grab her hand and pull her back to me.

“You're not—” she starts.

“I am. I'm tagged for Hell.” I wrap her in an embrace, feeling the cold steel blade between our bodies.

She presses into me again and I have to fight to keep my senses. “You're tagged for Hell,” she repeats.

“I'm tagged for Hell,” I confirm.

Then everything happens all at once.

Taylor pulls me into a kiss just as Angelique steps out from behind the shed. She looks up and sees us, locked in our embrace. Her jaw drops and her eyes pull wide before her face settles into an incredulous smirk. “You've got to be shitting me.” She steps toward us. “You two are bi! Unbelievable.”

Marc clears his throat, and Angelique's head snaps around. He leans against the shed and raises an eyebrow with a suggestive half smile. “Care to join us?”

Angelique's jaw drops and her eyes dart from Marc to us then back. “Oh my god! Are you guys—? Is this, like, a three-some? Holy shit!”

I keep my grip on Taylor. I can't risk letting her get away. My pulse pounds in my ears, so loud I can barely hear my own voice. “Go away, Angelique.”

“Don't get your panties in a bunch, Cavanaugh. I just lost my necklace.” She bends down and picks a thin gold chain out of the bracken near the shed, barely taking her wide eyes off us. “Brendan is gonna love this!” she says, leering at Taylor. And then Taylor locks Angelique in her gaze.

“Go away!” I say again.

But it's too late.

Before I can stop her, Angelique is closing the distance between us. She pauses midstride when she sees the knife in Taylor's hand, but then her face changes, the smirk gone. In her face I see her need—raw lust—and she can't get to Taylor fast enough. She stumbles as she reaches us. I put my arm out to hold Angelique back just as Taylor pushes me with her free hand. She grabs Angelique and, at the same instant, plunges the carving knife into her own stomach.

I stand, stunned, for just a second as Taylor's body falls to the ground at my feet.

I hear myself scream, and then I'm on the ground over Taylor, pressing my hands over the bleeding wound in her stomach.

My mind, struggling to preserve my sanity, keeps trying to check out. But I fight to stay focused on Taylor. She looks up at me, confused, and a wet moan leaves her throat as her eyes flutter shut. I look around in panic, hoping for help, and instead find Angelique standing near the shed, wrapped in Marc's arms, with the bloody knife in her hand.

“Go get help!” I scream at her.

She shakes her head. “This was the only way, Fee. You didn't leave me a choice.”

I'm hyperventilating as I struggle to keep pressure on Taylor's wound. But she needs more than pressure. I look down at the blood starting to pool on the ground at her side. “Oh, God.” Tears stream hot down my cheeks and onto Taylor's pale face. She coughs and blood spews from her mouth.

I fumble my phone out of my pocket with a bloody hand. It slips from my grasp and onto the dirt twice before I manage to hit 911 with shaking fingers.

“My friend has been stabbed,” I sob into the phone when they answer.

They want more information, but I never get a chance to give it to them, 'cause the phone is pulled from my hand.

When I look up, Marc is standing over me. He smiles and shrugs at me, then turns my phone off and throws it into the woods.

“Oh, God,” I say again. “Taylor, you're not gonna die,” I whisper through my tight throat. “Help!” I yell with the most strength I can muster. But it's like that nightmare where, no matter how hard you try, you can't find your voice. My scream sounds strangled and dry.

“They're not going to hear you. Not with that music,” Angelique says.

And that's when the song catches my attention. The Fray, “How to Save a Life,” plays from a stereo.

I can't stop the whimper that escapes my throat. It sounds so pathetic and weak—like some kind of useless, feeble, wounded animal.

I'm so weak.
And so
stupid
, to think my Sway was anything. It's nothing.

“Oh, God,” I whimper, watching my tears mingle with the blood on Taylor's shirt.

And that's when I realize her wet, sputtering breathing has stopped.

“No! You're not gonna die.” I repeat it over and over as I press on her chest, and then breathe for her, tasting her hot, metallic blood. Each time I raise my head, I scream for help.

“Yes, she is.” Angelique sounds almost sad as she gazes down at Taylor, looking more human than she ever did before Lilith possessed her. She takes a step forward. “I feel your rage. You want me dead, don't you?”

And suddenly I do. Rage tears through me and a primal scream rips from my throat as I launch myself at her and flatten her to the ground.

She squirms under me, but her soft body is no match for eight years of judo training. I don't even have to work to keep her in the necklock.

The knife.

A hand holding a knife hovers over Angelique's chest.

Mine?

Is that my hand? I can't tell. The images are fleeting and my mind can't process them.

But then I hear Angelique's voice whisper, “Do it, Fee. Just do it.”

I shake my head to try to clear it, then look down at Angelique. She's not squirming anymore. She's smiling up at me, her hand over mine on the hilt of the blade. I untwist my legs from around her neck and shift my weight onto them, watching as the blade breaks the skin. The bead of blood at the tip of the knife grows, then rolls down her chest in a crimson rivulet. Her hand grasps tighter around mine on the knife and I feel a thrill race through me as I imagine thrusting it into her.

With her other hand, she reaches up and grabs a fistful of my hair. I start to pull away, but then I realize she's not fighting me. She pulls me closer and I think she's trying to say something, but when my face gets close to hers, she lifts her head and kisses me. An electric burn fills me. My lust for her is sudden and overpowering. I shift my weight onto the blade, feeling the tip slide off bone and into the softer tissue between her ribs. Her hands are pulling—on my neck, deepening our kiss, and on the knife, deepening the wound.

When I pull away, my lust for her blood overwhelms me. I straddle her hips and grip the knife in both hands high above her heart.

She moans, but it's not in agony or fear. Her eyes flash as her hands reach for me. “Do it,” she cries.

A jolt of indescribable pleasure crackles through my body. I close my eyes and swing the knife down in a long arc. But before it finds its mark, I'm knocked to the ground from the side. The knife flies out of my grasp and skitters across the bracken into a stand of low shrubs near the shed.

“No!” I scream. And I hear Angelique's cry echo my own over the pounding rhythm of the music.

Luc's voice, soft in my ear, breaks through the haze. I slowly become aware of my surroundings. The earth's chill soaks into my body from below as Luc's heat burns through my clothes from above, his weight on top of me, pinning me to the ground, pressing my face into the dirt.

“Get off!” I scream. My bare toes dig into the damp, earthy bracken as I struggle to get out from under him. But even with the strong must and rot of the forest an inch from my nose, the salty copper of Taylor's blood cuts through, making my stomach lurch, and I swallow back bile.

An animal groan works its way up from my core. “Get the hell off me!” I scream, bucking against him.

“Frannie, stop! It's what Lilith wants.” His hand sweeps my wild hair out of my face, and his cheek is next to mine. “She wants you to kill Angelique. She's trying to reverse your tag.”

“No!” I push harder, struggling out from under him. When he doesn't let go, I twist and lock my legs around him, rolling and snapping him to the ground.

He looks up at me where I perch over him, his eyes soft. “Listen to my words, Frannie. I need you to hear me.”

The world seems to spin back into focus. My breath rasps, but I'm unable to find air.

He continues to stare up at me, as if nothing else matters. “If you do this, she wins. If you kill Angelique, your soul will be tagged for Hell, and Lilith will be free to enter your body. You'll be hers.”

It's the scent of Luc's cinnamon that finally pulls me out of the haze. I blink and look around. Two demons stand on either side of the shed, their glowing red fists targeting each other. Marc and Rhen. I can't make sense of the scene, but it doesn't matter. Taylor lies on the ground, her shirt soaked in crimson blood, the smell of it heavy in the dusk air.

I let go of Luc and roll over to sit next to him. My stomach lurches again and I vomit into the bracken between my feet.

“I couldn't save her….” My voice is a shaky whisper, barely audible.

“There was nothing you could do, Frannie.”

“My Sway. I should have been able to bring her back.”

“Not from Hell. Not yet, anyway. Maybe eventually your Sway will be strong enough….”

I stagger to my feet as I think about the last thing I said to Taylor, and then fall back into Luc, who holds me around the waist.
Go to hell
, I'd said. I told her to go to Hell.

I bend over and vomit again.

Then I hear rustling in the leaves and turn to see Angelique sitting, back against the shed, shirt drenched in blood, staring at me with a tortured smile. “He doesn't understand, Fee. He doesn't get that we need each other.” She crawls a few feet into the shrubs and comes out with the knife. “We belong together. You're one of us, Fee.” She slowly pulls herself to her feet and holds the knife by the blade, hilt out to me.

Luc's arms tighten around me. “No, Frannie.”

But her draw on me is voracious. I step toward her.

“Frannie.” Luc turns me in his arms and locks my gaze with his. “Just look at me.” I start to crane over my shoulder for Angelique, but Luc's fingers on my chin pull me back. “Right here, Frannie,” he says, the index and middle fingers of his free hand pointing to his eyes.

I lose myself in his deep black eyes as he starts leading me back toward the music in the Gallaghers' yard, away from Taylor. In my peripheral vision, I see Rhen, glowing fist in the air, covering our retreat, and I'm confused.
Why is he helping us?

Angelique calls from behind us. “Frannie, don't let him take you from me. We belong together.”

I moan and fold in on myself, my legs refusing to carry me. Luc sweeps me into his arms and he walks out of the woods into the backyard. I drop my head onto his shoulder and try to tap into his strength.

Someone screams. Kate? But I just keep breathing in Luc's cinnamon, blocking everything else out.

I hear Luc tell someone to call the police. People are all around us. I'm jostled in Luc's arms. Someone tugs on my arm, trying to pull me away from him. I grip him with the little bit of strength I can find.

“Oh my god!
What did you do to her?
Give her to me!”

That voice—Reefer. Reefer is yelling at Luc. I try to lift my head to tell him to stop, but it's too heavy—too hard to move.

Leave him alone
, I think.
Please.

And then I'm curled in Luc's arms, sitting on the stairs of the porch. Luc is so hot, and I try to draw on that, but I'm so cold that I can't stop shivering. I'm finally able to force my eyes open. And that's when I notice the blood—Taylor's blood—all over me. My hands. My clothes.