The Beautiful and the Damned (10 page)

Cyn found herself smiling as she stepped out into the cool morning air.
I might actually miss those guys.

“Steel trap!” she could still hear him saying. “A goddamn steel trap!”

It wasn’t until she was three blocks from her place that she saw the glow of a cigarette
in the darkness behind her and realized she was being followed.

A
s soon as Avian came back from following the cop and stepped into Father Montgomery’s
house he knew something was wrong.

The lights were off, and the house had a cold feeling to it. Empty and barren. Earlier,
the priest had told Avian his plans to go make his rounds to visit the sick, which
would explain why he wasn’t home. But it didn’t explain the creeping stillness that
hung over the house.

Avian was well acquainted with that feeling. It was death.

Drawing his sword, Avian stalked through the living room to the kitchen. “Father Montgomery?
Are you here?”

Father Montgomery’s coat was hanging neatly on the rack
by the fireplace, slippers waiting next to the chair he always fell asleep reading
in. But Avian didn’t smell the lingering odor of the evening coffee Father Montgomery
liked to indulge in. The kitchen was just as vacant as the living room.

He moved toward the priest’s bedroom next.

The door swung open, revealing a small room with a neatly made bed, an armchair, and
a reading table. The sheets were still tucked up under the pillow, not turned down
like Father Montgomery always preferred to do right before he went to sleep. He clearly
hadn’t been there since morning.

Resuming his search, Avian checked the other rooms of the house. They were empty too.
Silent as a grave. It wasn’t until he went back outside that a faint light from the
church caught his eye.

As soon as he took the first step in that direction, he felt the
wrongness
emanating from the building. The pallor of death hung over the gabled roof like a
storm squall.

He quickened his pace, and with every step he took, steam rose up from his skin. His
horns lengthened. And the scars on his back burned.

It was going to hurt like a son of a bitch to actually step foot inside the church—the
demon side of him always reacted most strongly there—but if Father Montgomery was
in trouble, then there was no question he was going inside.

A single beam of light spilled feebly onto the ground, as if pointing the way. But
Avian could have closed his eyes and kept moving. The darkness trying to pull him
back was like a reverse compass. It showed him exactly where it didn’t want to go.

Fighting every natural instinct he had, Avian stepped into the church. The light was
coming from the pulpit. The pews lining both sides of the room were covered in darkness,
and the irony of moving out of the dark and toward the light was not lost on Avian.

A forgotten memory of Father Montgomery trying to teach him the Lord’s Prayer rose
in his mind, but he would not say it. That prayer was for those who needed it.

Those who needed
Him
.

As the bastard child of two Revenants, Avian had sworn long ago that he would never
ask for help. It always came with strings.

The scars on his back—a permanent reminder of his heritage—tightened again, and the
ones covering the rest of his body rose to the surface. Breaking through his skin.
Burning him from the inside out. Hellfire and damnation rode him hard, screaming for
him to turn back. But Avian kept going. Lunging toward that single light.

It was only when a whisper of a psalm reached him and the
shape of a body draped over the pulpit came into view that he staggered to one knee
and dropped his weapon.

“Father . . .”

The frail priest was covered in blood, the life force draining out of him with every
slow beat of his heart. A trail of droplets showed that he’d been attacked nearby
and had tried to crawl to safety, but only made it to the pulpit.

As Avian rushed toward him, he could see the blood on his head and clothes was already
stiff. The priest had been lying there for hours.

Gathering him as gently as he could in his arms, Avian flinched when Father Montgomery
didn’t recognize him.

“Demon,” he whispered feebly.

Avian had never thought he had a heart to break. Even after Shelley died right in
front of him.

But when he heard that, he knew he was wrong.

Realizing what he must look like, he bowed his head and willed his eye color to change
back to brown. It was the least he could give him; the scars and horns wouldn’t recede.
“Father, I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

The priest closed his eyes, and when he opened them again recognition was there. “Avian?
My boy . . .” A tear rolled down his cheek. “I didn’t think I’d get the chance to
say good-bye.”

“There’s no need for that. This isn’t good-bye.” Avian smoothed back a wisp of bloodstained
hair that lay across Father Montgomery’s forehead. “Who did this to you?”

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil”
were the priest’s only words.

“You’re not walking through death’s valley. I won’t let you.”

Father Montgomery chuckled, and it turned into a wheeze. “Avian, I haven’t told you . . .
how proud I am of you. . . .” His eyes widened, and he started coughing.

Avian wiped the blood away from the priest’s mouth, but it kept dribbling out like
a slow leak of air. “You can tell me tomorrow. As you practice one of your sermons
that always turn into a theological debate between us. You’ll have lots of time to
tell me whatever you want, and I promise to be there for all of it.”

“I won’t . . .” The light in Father Montgomery’s eyes started fading.

“You can’t die,” Avian demanded. “You
aren’t
dying. I can feel when that’s about to happen, and I don’t feel it with you,” he
lied.

“A . . . gift,” Father Montgomery said slowly. “From our . . . heavenly Father. The
gift of . . . peace.” He shuddered and then said, “The angels . . . are . . . singing.
My . . . favorite Christmas song.”

Father Montgomery’s favorite song was “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” It was the only
thing he ever requested Avian play for him on the cello.

The crack in Avian’s heart deepened. And the black wings that he kept so tightly bound
suddenly ripped through his leather jacket and wrapped gently around them.

Taking a final breath, the priest looked up into Avian’s eyes. “The angels are beautiful.
But none are more beautiful than you.”

C
yn ducked behind a Dumpster to try to lose whoever was following her and waited for
the footsteps to pass. Her gut instinct told her that it was Declan. She’d seen him
with a cigarette that first night in the diner, and he had plenty of reasons to want
to question her, since he knew she’d been involved with his brother.

When it sounded like the footsteps had finally passed, Cyn peeked her head out to
scan the area. It looked clear. But her wig got snagged on the bottom hinge of the
Dumpster door when she tried to stand.

“Son of a bitch,” Cyn said under her breath.

Delicately trying to untangle the short black strands, she
almost had it free when Declan’s voice came from behind her.

“Need any help?”

Cyn frantically pulled the wig loose and shoved it back onto her head. Smoke drifted
past her, and she turned around. “Nope. I got it.” She could feel the edges of her
forced smile wavering.

“Shouldn’t you be back at the diner?” Declan asked, tapping the edge of his cigarette
so that the ashes floated to the ground. “I thought you worked the night shift.”

“I do. I was just taking a walk.”

“Taking a walk.” He gave her a hard look. “I thought maybe it was something I said.”

He took a step closer, and Cyn willed her legs not to shake. When he glanced down
at her ring, she couldn’t stop her thumb from rubbing the back of it nervously.

“You know, when they found my brother’s mutilated body, I asked if they’d also found
a knotted gold ring. I didn’t think he’d had the chance to give it to you yet.”

Declan brought his cigarette up and held it right next to her cheek. The glowing red
end hovered an inch below her left eye, growing brighter and brighter until he suddenly
pulled it away.

Cyn flinched, and he laughed. “Guess I was wrong.”

The look in his eyes was something Cyn had never seen
before. A chill ran down her spine, and the back of her neck tingled. Why didn’t she
see the danger in front of her sooner? She’d thought he was just flirting with her,
maybe looking for a date. . . . How could she have been so stupid?

Declan’s expression suddenly changed again. The wild look disappeared, and he was
nothing more than a charming young man. He dropped the cigarette and then stepped
on it. “You should be careful out here all alone, Cyn. You never know what might happen.”

~  ~  ~

Cyn didn’t go back to her apartment, just in case Declan was still following her.
She didn’t know what legal rights he would have to enter the premises, but she didn’t
want to chance it. As soon as the sun came up, she would return for her stuff. Then
it would be time to steal another car and leave town.

She found herself heading toward Father Montgomery’s house. She might not be able
to tell him
why
she was leaving, but he deserved to know that she wouldn’t be coming back. Rubbing
her hands over her arms as she walked, Cyn was glad to see the glowing light of the
rectory finally come into view.

But it wasn’t Father Montgomery’s house that had all the lights on. It was the church.

Candelabras lined the pathway leading up to the open
doors, and she could see candles dotting the windowsills inside. It reminded her of
a Christmas Eve candlelight ceremony that she went to once when her mother was dating
a Methodist.

Wondering why the church was all lit up at four o’clock in the morning, Cyn cautiously
stepped inside. A large white shroud covered the pulpit. A shadow caught her eye from
the left, and she slipped into the dark recesses of an empty statue alcove, watching
as a red-robed figure walked up to the pulpit.

The robed figure pulled back the shroud, and as soon as Cyn saw what was beneath it,
she couldn’t stop herself from running to him.
“Father Montgomery!”

Her voice broke as she said his name. With the exception of several dark bruises that
marred the side of his face, he could have been sleeping as he lay there.

But Father Montgomery wasn’t sleeping. He was dead.

“What did you
do
?” she screamed, launching herself at the robed figure. She began to pummel his chest.
The blows didn’t seem to faze him, but as her fists made contact, hazy memories of
a bar fight came flooding back. She slowly looked up. “You’re the guy from the bar.
The one who had red eyes and horns and smoke coming off of him. You killed that octopus-arm
guy.”

His eyes weren’t red now, but brown.

She stopped hitting him. He was the one to turn her away
from Father Montgomery’s house too, the first time she went to tell him what was happening
to her.

“What happened to Father Montgomery?”  The church was silent except for the faint
echo of her voice. But he refused to answer.

Cyn widened her eyes, pupils dilating, and looked straight at him. “You
will
tell me what happened. You’re going to tell me why Father Montgomery is—”

He just crossed his arms and shook his head. “That doesn’t work on me.”

“Please?” she whispered, leaning forward to put a hand on Father Montgomery’s arm.
He looked so very much like he was just sleeping and would wake up at any moment.
“Please tell me what happened.” Tears clouded her vision, and she scrubbed a hand
across her face to wipe them away.

“I found him, but I was too late to save him.”