Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (2 page)

My adopted sister turned her head slightly at the sound of my voice. Her eyes locked on mine, and I was amazed at all the anger she was holding back. It softened when she saw me, but not nearly as much as I wanted it to.

“He doesn’t know anything,” I told her. “We’re done here.”

Dro twisted her head back to the dying Possessor, white hair swishing against her back. The hellfire dulled and evaporated from her fist. She looked at the bloody knife in her hand, then went still.

This was the first time Dro had ever killed a human on purpose with her bare hands.

I walked to my sister. I gently placed my hand on her shoulder. She jumped under my touch, glancing back at me. I saw the terrified, ashamed little girl who would never forgive herself for this. I wasn’t happy with that, but it was better than seeing the look of a cold-blooded murderer.

These days, I took what I could get with Dro.

“Go outside with the guys. Make sure Drake’s not waiting to trap us, and that Warrick doesn’t chase after him.”

Dro’s light eyes held my dark ones. “I don’t need to go outside. I can do that from in here.”

I clutched her shoulder just a little harder. “No. You don’t need your powers for this.”

“But–”

“No.”

One look at her narrowed eyes and harsh frown told me that we were going to fight about this later. Probably the moment I saw her again outside.

Regardless, Dro put her knife on her belt, glanced at the dying Possessor one last time, and stormed to the front door. Her guardian and ex-angel Sephiel gave me a small nod. He would protect her from anything while I wasn’t there. As he followed my aggravated sister, I watched Max hesitantly show Warrick the front door. He was smart not to touch him. Warrick looked ready to punch the lights out of the first person that crossed him.

Once they were gone, I picked up my silver throwing knife and sheathed it in my jacket. The other Possessors had vacated their human vessels, leaving behind their dead bodies. Usually Possessors put up more of fight than this. I couldn’t help but remember that they were fodder for something much more sinister. I stood by the dying Possessor, who was now flat on his back and choking on his own blood. Possessors hated to leave their vessels, but I wasn’t going to exorcise him. I didn’t have the time, and even if I did, he was a dead man. The wound in his throat was too grievous. The Possessor was the only thing keeping him “alive.”

I knelt beside his head, dangling the hatchet in front of my knee. When my eyes locked onto his, they weren’t filled with the pain I’d expected them to be. If anything, he seemed proud. Whatever his goal had been, he appeared to have accomplished it.

“Tell me something useful, and I’ll end it,” I told him.

The Possessor made a noise between a rasp and a gurgle. It took me a moment to realize he was laughing.

“Not... long... now,” he choked out. “She’ll be... his... soon...”

He grinned, blood staining his teeth. I decided against the mercy killing. I slowly pushed myself up, ignoring the aches and pains in my body. I walked around the shop, looking through the cabinets and drawers to salvage anything I could. I found some packets of dried and canned food, as well as some bottles of lukewarm water. I never once looked back at the dying Possessor, knowing it couldn’t take me over since I had an anti-possession sigil tattooed over my heart.

Yet I couldn’t shake the foreboding words the Possessor had given me. As I walked out of the store and back into the dark, bloody streets, I recalled what Drake said.

See, I found something really, really special. It’s the last thing we need. But don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll get introduced to it very, very soon.

There was only one reason Drake, Mateo, and Lucifer himself would target me.

They wanted to capture my sister.

Chapter 2

Nobody was in a good mood when we got back to our current “safe house.” It was a place where I’d once done a job during my time with the
Espanis de Sangre– 
the Blood Thorns. I’d kicked in the door of the house, scaring the fuck out of the man and his family. I remembered the way his wife tried to defend him, raising a frying pan to hit me with. I’d stopped that by grabbing her hand in one fist and breaking her nose with the other. The children cried when I took their daddy away. That had been the worst part, because I knew their father was never going to come back.

I locked the door behind me and placed a chair under the doorknob. It was a pitiful form of defense against demons and psychotic drug lords, but now that Sephiel was human and unable to make protective wards, cheap solutions were all we had.

I turned around and looked at my friends. All of them were slumped in various positions across the living room. Sephiel stood vigilantly in the corner closest to me. He was dressed in his white leather trench coat, white shirt, white pants, and boots. His wavy auburn hair was flatter now, and I thought I saw hints of grey at his temples. His blue eyes were slowly losing their brightness. I noticed the bags underneath them.

Brooding in the left corner was a professional demon slayer, and my new lover, John Warrick. Broad shouldered and tall, Warrick was the definition of ruggedly handsome. His thick, dark oak hair was almost past his ears now. He was starting to grow some stubble around his mouth and cheeks. He wore dark blue jeans, a grey T-shirt, brown leather jacket, and black boots. Warrick’s arms were folded over his chest, and I started to wish they were around me instead. Then I caught a glimpse of the angry twist of his lips, and figured this might not be the best time for some cuddling.

Sitting on the patchy olive green sofa directly across from me sat Max, who was working on honing his psychic abilities. He was able to sense things about people, like emotions and intent, though it was more powerful when he touched them. He was trying to use his gifts to discover what the demons were planning, but they were much stronger than he was. He’d be turning nineteen soon, though he looked more like an unpolished sixteen year old. Like Warrick, the young psychic was growing a small goatee. His skin was a dull gold like mine, and his eyes were a gentle, dark brown. Max didn’t have much in the muscle department, but he focused on keeping us optimistic and looking out for Dro. He was the kind of person who didn’t need physical strength to be strong.

Max was nestled beside my sister, holding her pale hand in his bronze one. I wondered if his ability was on, if he could feel the emotions rushing through my sister.

I hoped not, because she wasn’t happy.

Dro stared at me with resentment, disappointment, and guilt. I wondered how much of it was directed at me, or if she was trapped with dark reflections of herself. In the nearly seventeen years since I had found her alone in the forest, crying in patch of scorched earth, Dro had rarely ever looked at me with disappointment this obvious. Sure, I had screwed things up for both of us, but she always found a way to forgive me.

This seemed like a last look, as if I was finally drying up all of the patience she once had for me. And if she directed all these dark emotions at herself...

I matched her stare. I’d told her over and over again that what was happening to us wasn’t her fault. Dro and I wanted nothing more than to live normal lives. We hadn’t asked to be tangled in a pissing contest between Heaven and Hell. Dro hadn’t asked to be the Key to unleashing it all. She had just been born.

Being alive shouldn’t have been a burden.

“So,” Max finally said, attempting to break the awkward silence. “Are we going to talk about what just happened?”

I marched through the room, taking out the slim pickings for food and placing them on the scarred coffee table.

“What’s there to say?” I muttered.

Max blinked at me. “Oh, gee, Constance, I don’t know. Maybe we can talk about how we walked into a trap with Drake
fucking
Talbot, and none of us knew it.”

I raised my eyes to Max’s. For whatever reason, he had never been very afraid of me. I respected that. I also respected his desire to see Drake’s head fall off his shoulders. Drake had killed Max’s father, Manny, in front of us because he’d been looking for me. Manny’s cruel murder was something I would never forgive myself for, even though Max held no blame over my head.

He did hang onto a lot of rage, however.

“If you’d known, you would have told us,” I said.

“Well,
duh
,” Max snarked, testing the limits of my patience. “But it was just a stupid convenience store. What the hell could he have been doing there?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, backing away. “I didn’t find out.”

“You should have let me chase him,” Warrick said from the corner. His voice was deep and rumbling, which usually made him sound sexy, but right now was making him sound dangerous. “I’d have found out why he was there and what he was taking.”

Of all of us, Warrick had the most cause to hate Drake. He’d raped and murdered Warrick’s sister because of money, and had been eluding Warrick ever since. He’d been furious when he was forced to abandon his fight with Drake and run from a full-scale battle between Heaven and Hell. His temper wasn’t getting any better now that I’d been openly threatened by his archenemy.

I looked at Warrick directly. “He would have expected that, and he would have killed you.”

Warrick’s head lifted, sharp green gaze locking onto my dark one. I hated seeing the bags under his eyes, illuminating the scar under his left eye that Drake had given him years ago. Warrick wouldn’t hurt me, but pushing his temper wasn’t going to win me points with him.

Which was bad, since pretty much everyone in the room was pissed off at me right now.

“You’re one to talk,” he snapped bitterly. “You charged a room full of armed thugs.”

“Who weren’t going to shoot me,” I pointed out.

“Really? I thought all the Blood Thorns hated you.”

Now I was the one who was getting pissed off. “They do.” My tone warned him to drop the subject.

“But you attacked them anyway.”

“I thought I could get Drake before he got out of the door,” I told Warrick. “I figured if everyone was focused on me, they wouldn’t try to kill the rest of you. Besides, you heard what Drake said. They aren’t going to kill me anymore than they will Dro.”

“That is what perplexes me,” Sephiel commented from behind me. I was grateful he intervened, because I liked arguing with Warrick about as much as I liked arguing with my sister.

“Why is it that they wish to draw you out, Constance? We have been moving through the city for weeks, staying in the shadows to keep safe and obtain information to close the Hell Gate, but what has prompted them to expose this new plan now?” Sephiel’s eyes went dark. “Lucifer has not been seen since we entered the city, and he should be ecstatic at the return of his child.”

Warrick hated Drake with every fiber of his being, and even that hate paled in comparison to the fury Sephiel held for Lucifer. Their feud began when Lucifer kidnapped Everiel, the love of Sephiel’s life, and forced her to bear him a child in Hell.

That same child I had found in the forest sixteen years ago.

Sephiel might not hold any ill will toward Dro, but it was impossible to miss the sadness in his eyes when he saw the similarities between my sister and the woman he loved, but wasn’t able to save.

“He has a plan,” Dro muttered. We all looked at her.

She stared at the food on the table without seeing it, holding Max’s hand tightly in hers.

“I know he has a plan.”

A warning flag went up in my head. “How?”

She paused. “I just do.”

That flag started snapping in the wind. “Dro, did you...?”

My sister’s frosty blue eyes rose to mine. “Did I break my promise and use my powers to find him?” She heard the sarcasm in her tone, and dialed it back. “No. But we’ve been running in circles since we got here, Constance. We’re going to have to take the fight to Lucifer eventually.”

“Then we’ll find out what Drake stole for him and what they plan to do to me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “We’ve tried doing that for the Hell Gate. It hasn’t worked. No one is talking, because no one knows anything. Lucifer hasn’t been seen since the Heaven Gate was shut, and the Blood Thorns are loyal to Mateo. We’re running out of options.”

Dro wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t just options we were running out of. It was places to hide. I knew this city like the back of my hand, but so did Mateo. He was born and raised in Ciudad Juárez, the son of the most powerful drug lord in all of Mexico. As leaders of the Blood Thorns, Mateo and his father Emilio were untouchable.

Then I came around. I entered the gang, stupidly fell in love with Mateo, learned of their plan to betray me and Dro, was tortured by them both, only to finally escape and kill Emilio right in front of his son’s eyes. As a result, Mateo was hunting me to the ends of the earth, and he would find me eventually.

All of us were involved in some sort of revenge scheme that just wouldn’t go away. But that was no excuse to walk into the hand of the Devil himself.

“Then we’ll just have to wait until we’ve got absolutely nothing left,” I stated. “That means Max is still the only one who uses his powers.”

I sounded like a scolding parent, and Dro reacted like the accused child.

“They don’t always work,” she shot back, regardless of Max’s hurt expression. “We’ve already figured out that Lucifer is blocking him on purpose, only letting Max see what he wants him to see. That’s why we walked into that trap today. You think he won’t set up another trap if he can?”

“Dro, you lost some of your powers when we shut the Heaven Gate. Whenever you push them, you damage yourself. You don’t know how far you can go, and it’s too risky to try.”

She yanked her hand from Max’s and got to her feet. Her fists were balled at her sides. I couldn’t remember her being this angry with me before.

“Then I better go get some sleep so I can take a watch,” she bit off. “It’s the only useful thing you’re going to let me do.”

I blinked, unable to think of anything to say, or to stop the hurt digging into my heart. I tried to tell her that she was useful, that I just didn’t want her to get herself killed, but Dro was already storming for the stairs. Nothing I could say now would bring her back. For the first time in my life, I didn’t understand my sister. I didn’t know what to say or do to make her believe in me again.

That hurt me worse than the punches I had taken tonight.

No one dared say anything to me. Max slowly got up from his seat on the couch. If my sister hadn’t left in such a dark mood, maybe he would have cracked a joke. Something about having to clean up my mess again, that he had to literally play kiss-and-make-up, or that if I kept fighting with Dro, he would get more time alone with her.

Max wasn’t afraid of me, but he knew when to stay back.

“I’ll talk to her,” was the only thing he whispered as he passed.

I didn’t even nod. I imagined they would have their own making up to do. I wasn’t worried about them. Max nearly always took Dro’s side, so it was hard for her to stay mad at him for long.

I was less easy to forgive.

“I shall remain on watch,” Sephiel said gently. “You are tired, Constance. You need to rest.”

More words I didn’t want to hear. Being scorned by Dro made me want to do something to prove that we weren’t stuck in quicksand, with every little problem leading us to one giant suffocation.