Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (26 page)

She pretended not to see him. She focused solely on me.

“That was the last time, Constance,” Dro said. “Don’t come back.”

I lost all of my senses again. I forgot to breathe. I forgot what I was holding. I didn’t know where I was, or why someone was grabbing onto me. I barely heard the roar of the magic cracking over my head. I stared at my sister until the golden light obscured my vision, and wished I’d seen just a trace of hope in her eyes.

Chapter 21

Maria wasn’t in her shop when we crashed into the middle of it. We landed in the front of the shop, all of us stumbling or landing in a heap. I managed to stay on my feet, but I felt weightless. A piece of me was missing, and I couldn’t find myself without it. I moved off to the side and looked down at the scrambling humans and the dying archangel.

Warrick and Max were hovering behind Sephiel while the remaining two angels tried to cover the wounds on Michael’s chest. The two angels, a brunette woman and an Asian man, pressed their hands to the gory mess spilling from Michael. Whether they were applying pressure or attempting to use their non-existent healing magic, I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t going to matter soon. Michael was the only one with the power to heal himself, and he wasn’t moving.

“Seph, what can we do?” Warrick asked.

Sephiel tossed his head over his shoulder. “Find herbs of grace and archangel root. They should respond with his nature and progress his healing.” His face was drawn. “I do not know how much time that will buy before the blood loss completely hinders his consciousness.”

Meaning that if Michael didn’t wake up soon, he was going to die.

I hurried around the shop with Warrick and Max, who were working together to find the herbs and powders Sephiel had told them to find. Well, it was more like Warrick shouting that nothing was where Max said it was, and Max shouting back that he was looking as hard as he could. Their panic was keeping them from finding what they needed, and none of the angels could think clearly.

Quickly walking to where he was lying, I shouldered in between the angels and touched Michael’s neck. His pulse was steady, which meant he was still fighting to live. I slapped him across the face.

Michael’s angels gasped in shock, but I didn’t look at them, because he groaned. I placed his hands onto his chest. There was no glow coming from them. I glared at the archangel.

“Seriously? This is how you want to go out, Michael? Dying on a floor in an occult shop? You seemed like you wanted to die fighting Lucifer. Guess I was wrong about how tough you were.”

I could feel everyone’s eyes but Michael’s on me. I ignored them all. Still trapped in my grip, Michael’s hands began to glow with healing light. I watched as it illuminated the crimson stained white shirt, fresh blood making it stick to the ridges of his muscles. There was a lot of damaged flesh, but I watched intently to see that every hole was closed and all the blackened, blistered skin returned to a healing pink.

Confident that Michael would be able to heal himself, I stepped back. The angels rushed into the place I had been to fuss over their wounded leader.

I wondered how Michael would feel when he was back to his strength. He wasn’t the sort of person who wanted to be coddled, any more than he was the type to accept defeat. Lucifer had nearly killed him. Something told me that never would have happened a year ago when the Heaven Gate was still intact.

I slinked back into the shadows, wanting to be alone. I could feel Warrick watching me, but I was moving too quickly for him to follow. I walked through the curtain into the back room, closed the door and locked it behind me. If he didn’t get the message before, he would damn sure get it now.

I pressed my back to the door and let my weary body slide down it. I was bruised, sore, exhausted, and heartbroken. It didn’t really feel like I was falling on my own. It felt more like someone was pushing me down, dumping weight after weight onto my shoulders until I was trapped under a pile of depression.

Getting my heart broken wasn’t new. Feeling overburdened was a daily routine. Hopelessness was as common as despair.

Yet all these familiar emotions were different now. They weren’t dull throbs that ached my heart. They were knives that stabbed into my chest whenever I breathed. They were maggots burrowing into my soul to devour me. They were a current that forced me out to sea, shoved me back to shore, then dragged me out again.

Lucifer told me I had lost Dro. I never bought it because I was certain he was just trying to goad me, provoke me into doing something stupid. I was so used to the idea of Lucifer lying to me that I never imagined his telling the truth would hurt me more.

But he wasn’t trying to hurt me. Not really. He was warning me, because he knew I wouldn’t listen. He knew I would find Dro, and she would hurt me worse than he ever could.

I will destroy you,
he’d once promised. Was this what he meant? Had he seen how far apart Dro and I would become? Had he planned this from the beginning, knowing she’d eventually break and go to him, leaving me to suffer in her absence?

Did it matter? After everything Dro had told me, how much she’d been holding back, the distress it was causing her, should I have been surprised that she couldn’t hang on anymore?

Yes.
I still couldn’t process it. Dro wasn’t responsible for me. I was the older sister. It was my job to keep us both safe.

But I never did. No matter how dangerous she was, I made it worse every single time. I took the easy route because it was disguised as the tough one. I went to criminals because I wanted human monsters to protect us from demonic ones. I ran when I should have gone straight to demonologists for the answers. I never let Dro get the release she desperately needed, because I refused to believe things were as bad as she claimed. I was so damn certain I could save her from the world. I never imagined I should have been saving her from herself, let alone allow her to save me.

Dro ran from me once. When I found her again, I never asked how it felt for her to be unrestricted by me. Had she felt freer? Had she been happy, if a little guilty? Did she care that I was being selfish in bringing her back to me?

I used to think I knew my little sister like I knew the back of my hand. I began to realize that I never really knew her at all. Pretending to make her human wouldn’t change what she was. She had free will, but I had made all the choices for us. She had never been able to make ones that mattered, and I had freaked out whenever she tried. One way or another, I had driven her to Lucifer.

One way or another, I had lost her.

Maybe this was the way it was supposed to be. She had been smiling when she was with Lucifer. He hadn’t been hurting her. I would have seen it in her eyes if he were. I still had a chance to run. Michael and his angels wouldn’t go, but I could take Warrick and Max and Sephiel with me. We could find a piece of isolation and watch the world fall apart from a distance. A front row seat to the end of the world with my friends didn’t seem so bad.

But Dro wouldn’t just be missing from the picture. She would be the one burning it.

Deep down, I knew I couldn’t stand back and watch the destruction Lucifer would create. I had started this when I hadn’t protected Dro from the ritual that summoned Lucifer. I’d made too many mistakes. I was suffering from them now, but I had to make it all right before I died. And now I knew that I would die. When I met with Lucifer, Mateo, Drake, and Dro again, it would be for the last time. Three of them hated me, and one of them had been turned against me. They wouldn’t let me walk away again. One of them would kill me.

I didn’t really want to die. Missing out on a life with Warrick and seeing Max and Sephiel find peace were huge sacrifices I didn’t want to make. But as much as I tried to admit that I could let Dro stay on her dark path, I knew I would never leave her to that fate. Not when I remembered every time she told me how she wanted to live a normal life. Not when I’d seen how happy and in love she was with Max. Not when I knew she was tired of being hunted and being hated for what she was. Not when I knew her smile was the biggest when she was listening to bad jokes or wandering in forests or helping someone or trying out a new style for her hair.

I’d seen the person Dro really wanted to be. That young woman had surrendered to a demon. She deserved to be free.

That was something I was ready to die for.

Muffled shouts skirted into my grim, resolved thoughts. I caught Sephiel’s voice and another woman’s, but it didn’t sound like Maria. My body protested stiffly as I got to my feet and turned around. I took a deep breath and wiped my cheeks. I hadn’t expected them to be as wet as they were.

I hated surprises.

I unlocked the door and walked out of the backroom. To my complete un-surprise, Warrick had been sitting on the floor by the door. He drew himself up quickly, trying to catch my eyes. I shook my head, signaling him that we would talk later. It wasn’t going to be a talk we’d enjoy, even though I would be lying through half of it.

“It is pointless, Sephiel!” the female angel cried. I pushed back the curtain and went back into the front of the store. Max was standing by the curtain, his arms wrapped around his middle, his face a sad mix of heartache and worry. I saw it from the corner of my eye, because I wasn’t strong enough to look in his face yet.

In front of me, the two angels stood by the door. Michael was still lying on the floor, hands pressed to his chest but breathing deeply from sleep. Sephiel stood next to him, hands open in a pleading gesture.

“We knew this would be a challenge for our kind,” he reasoned. “But it is not impossible to defeat Lucifer. Only two fragments remain, both in mortal bodies that have likely fused with their bloodstream. As long as he has one, his power remains insurmountable. If those bodies are destroyed, the Hell Gate can be closed. Lucifer can still be defeated.”

“Did you not see the forces Lucifer called with a crook of his finger?” exclaimed the male angel. “Who knows how many more Knights he can bring forth in the next battle! We cannot defeat them as we are, Sephiel. We are human now. We are as breakable as glass.”

That stung, mostly since I was crushingly aware of how right he was.

“Humans have done the impossible before,” Sephiel insisted. He looked over his shoulder, pointed, and made me wish I had stayed in the backroom. “Constance has been fighting demons since she was a child. She helped keep the demons out of Heaven. She resisted the fragment. She has continually stood up to Lucifer. She thought quickly and saved Michael’s life.” He stopped pointing at me, but I still felt liable for anything Sephiel said.

“Humans have always been stronger than we gave them credit for. This city has fallen, but we have not. Maybe it is too late to save the souls residing here, but we can cease Lucifer’s corruption from spreading.” He took a step closer to the two angels. “This is what we were trained for. Defending those who could not defend themselves. Keeping the fiends of Hell locked in their fiery prison. None of that should change now that we are mortal.”

Sephiel stood as straight as he could, looking taller and more confident.

“I am staying. Michael shall be staying. What shall you do?”

His speech had been strong. Uplifting. I would have listened to him with rapt attention and followed him through the Gates myself.

But I had been born a human. I hadn’t been diminished into a fraction of what I used to be. At least not physically.

The male angel gave Sephiel a sympathetic look. The woman seemed resolved.

“We shall leave,” she said. “And we shall live.”

When they turned and walked out of the door, no one stopped them. The door slammed closed with a terminal bang. All the height and certainty Sephiel had fell off him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped to his chest, and he let out a weary sigh. He turned toward us, and this time I was certain I could see new grey streaks in his dark red hair. His steps were heavy and slow as he crossed the room.

“It appears that the term ‘Heaven help us,’ does not apply to our situation,” he said dejectedly.

“You did what you could, Seph,” Warrick said from behind me. He was close enough that I could feel traces of his body heat against my back. “This isn’t the first time the odds have been against us.”

I loved Warrick for his optimism, but we all knew it was a lie. Things had never been worse for us than they were now.

“But she left,” Max whispered. We all turned to look at him.