Damnation's Door: A Cursed Book (7 page)

I knew Dro was in there, but I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything.

Come on, little sister. I know you’re in there. Wake up.

Just as I finished the thought, the blaze began to dull. It receded inward, getting smaller and drawing back to its source.

Dro pitched forward, slapping her hands on the ashy floor and dipping her head. She was shaking. I started crawling toward her, trying to get her to snap out of it.

Dro lifted her head, and I stopped.

Her eyes glowed brighter than I could have ever imagined. Even in the drowning red, orange, and black world around us, there was no avoiding that electrified blue gaze.

Just like there was no missing the anger in it.

“Dro.” My lips mouthed her name, though my voice couldn’t speak it. Whether that was because it was too cracked, or I was too scared, I couldn’t tell.

I had never seen Dro look like this before. For the first time in my life, I couldn’t see her as human.

But it only lasted an instant. The glow began to fade, and soon I was looking at my sister again. She blinked, eyes fading back to the shade I knew.

I must have looked awful, because Dro’s eyes widened to saucers. She scrambled to her feet, oblivious to the ash peppering her hair or the scorched holes in her clothes. She grabbed my arm and looped it over her shoulder, rocketing to her feet.

I choked on another cry when my broken ankle touched ground, but I limped with Dro anyway. I trusted her to get us out, because I couldn’t see a fucking thing. My vision was swimming in tears and ash. Every time I stumbled, Dro tightened her grip and kept me upright.

It seemed like forever before we made it outside. Fresh air rushed into my lungs, fighting against the smoky tar inside them. It was summer, but coming outside after being trapped in a bonfire sent a vicious chill down my spine.

I saw someone running toward us from the corner of my eye. I had barely lifted my head by the time Warrick crushed me into his arms for a backbreaking hug. He wasn’t even aware that Dro’s arm was tangled in his embrace, or that he was getting soot on his face every time he buried it in my hair.

“I thought you were trapped,” he whispered in my ear. “When we heard the house breaking apart...”

I ran my hand up his back, soothing him. He tightened his embrace. I patted him roughly.

“Warrick,” I rasped. “I can’t breathe.”

He backed off instantly, giving Dro the chance to free her arm. She stepped back and gave us space. Warrick took up the rest of it. His hands smoothed down the hair on either side of my head, his thumbs cleaning away grime while his eyes looked for injuries.

“Are you okay?”

Broken ankle says no.
“Let me sit down.”

He didn’t argue. He looped his hand around my waist and eased me onto the ground as gently as possible. I still winced, and he finally pulled off my boot to reveal my fucked up foot. The bone hadn’t broken through the skin, but my ankle was ruthlessly swollen and bulging too far left. It looked like I’d been stung by a fat, furious bee. Just looking at it sent a sharp bolt of pain through my entire leg. I rested my hand on my shin and looked up at my sister.

“Dro, can you...”

She was staring at me, but it was like she was looking down at me from the moon. She was completely lost.

“Dro,” Warrick tried, barely holding in his anxiety. “Please.”

She still stared.

That was when Sephiel took a step forward. His white coat was covered in black dust, his auburn hair rumpled and wild. But as bad as he looked, Max was a million times worse.

He stood frozen a couple of feet behind the ex-angel, clutching his arm to his chest. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. It looked like it had been ripped off him and used as a bandage. I couldn’t see the extent of damage to his forearm, but the bits I did see were blackened with cracks of red. He looked awful, and I could see him trembling.

Max looked seconds away from screaming.

“Andromeda,” Sephiel said, getting my attention. “You must heal your sister. She cannot run, and we do not have long before demons and the corrupted seek out this flame.”

My sister snapped out of her trance. Before she could walk to me, I shook my head.

“Heal Max first,” I told Dro.

She whirled around and saw her boyfriend. The gasp that escaped her lips was sharp and hurt. She rushed for him.

Max flinched.

Dro froze in place, looking at her boyfriend like he’d slapped her.

Max backpedaled immediately, guilt crossing his face. But the damage was already done, and we all knew it.

“I just...” he tried. He swallowed nervously. “I need a minute, Dro.”

I wanted to sympathize with him, to say I understood his nerves, but the look on Dro’s face was too heartbreaking. Max quickly dropped his eyes to his feet.

None of us spoke. We stared at Dro like she was a powder keg. The very thing she always feared she would become. I kicked myself for being so insensitive.

“Thanks for letting me take your place in the waiting line, Max.”

He didn’t snark or joke. He didn’t even look at me
. Shit.

“Dro,” I tried. “I hate nagging, but my ankle really fucking hurts.”

Warrick’s hand squeezed my shoulder. She turned away from Max, dropping her head. It didn’t hide her tears. Dro knelt by my ruined ankle and raised her hands, but didn’t touch it. She was scared to.

So I lifted my leg and forced my ankle into her hands.

The moment she touched me, the golden healing light filled her hands. She curled her hands around my ankle and soon the familiar pins and needles sensation filled my foot.

Normally I flinched away when she healed me. It was an uncomfortable prickling that I never liked, but already the swelling was going down and the bones were shifting back together. This time I stayed as still as possible, even when she turned my foot back in the right direction, and my bones were forced to grind together.

In a couple minutes, my foot looked no different than it had earlier tonight. The light faded from Dro’s hand and she cowered back. I pushed forward, out of Warrick’s hands, and pulled Dro into a tight hug. She stiffened, then began to sob into my shoulder. I stroked her hair, trying to calm her down.

“I’m sor–”

“Don’t be,” I interrupted. “You didn’t know it would happen.”

Dro’s arms tightened around me. Her next words were a whisper I barely heard, yet would never forget.

“Yes, I did.”

Chapter 6

After a fair amount of coaxing, a free jacket from Warrick, and many harsh glares from me, Max finally allowed Dro to touch him.

She healed his arm until the only remains were tiny flakes of ash on his skin. She swayed for a moment, and that was when Max snapped out of his trance. He hugged Dro tight to his chest and repeated how sorry he was.

She forgave him, but would never forget his hesitation.

Neither would I.

As soon as Max and I were fully healed, we started to move. Sephiel had managed to get together some last minute supplies when he smelled the smoke. Smart man, knowing we would need them since we didn’t know where our next “safe” place would be.

As we walked on the dusty road lining the edge of the slums, Dro fell out of step with us. She drifted to the side of the group. Sephiel turned his head to look at her, making sure nothing would jump out of the crumbling houses or their shadows to grab her. Warrick, Max, and myself huddled together, unable to think of anything to say.

Max looked the most uncomfortable. Warrick had given him his leather jacket so he wouldn’t need to walk around shirtless, and even though it was perfectly fine now, he was clutching his once burned arm to his chest.

There was a lot to say, but no one knew how to start. I wanted to be angry with Max, but that was the first time he’d ever been fully exposed to one of Dro’s nightmares, and he had gotten hurt by it. I’d never been burned by Dro’s fire. At least not directly.

Then there were the words my sister had whispered in my ear. How she’d known she was going to burst into flame. I glanced over my shoulder at her.

Dro seemed to be slumped and broken. I wanted to respect her privacy, give her space, but Dro had never felt comfortable on her own. And patience was never my strong suit.

Ignoring the stares from Warrick and Max, I crossed from their side to my sister’s. Dro turned her head ever so slightly, but didn’t lift her eyes from the ground.

“I’m all right,” she muttered.

“Okay,” I told her. I didn’t care if she believed me or not. I just stayed at her side.

Dro sighed and tilted her head back. “What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing,” I replied honestly. “I was getting bored with the Testosterone Team.”

I looked at her with a stupid grin on my face. It didn’t make her smile. I sighed, and gave up on the effort. Dro would talk when she was ready to.

After another hour of silent walking, Sephiel came to a halt in front of us. I had shut off my mind, so I wasn’t paying attention as much as I should have.

“Seph? What’s up?”

That was when I heard the distant screeches on the main street. We were about twenty feet away from it, still hidden behind the boxy houses. We hadn’t seen any demons or Possessors or maniacal citizens, and while I was grateful for that, hoping that they were all checking out the bonfire Dro had made, the lack of monstrosities made me uneasy.

I felt like I was walking into a trap.

“It does not appear the main road is safe,” Seph stated.

I looked around the houses. They were all dumpy half painted boxes with torn roofing and shuttered windows. The area we’d stayed in before was a little classier, but anything resembling class seemed to disappear entirely when the demons arrived and started plaguing sin on everyone. There had been good people here. Decent people.

Now they were probably all dead.

Tearing myself away from dark thoughts, I looked at Max.

“Any of these houses safe?”

The kid blinked slowly, letting my words sink in. I’d never thought Max would be able to brood. Shows what I knew about him.

He took another deep breath and closed his eyes. After a long minute, he opened them again and turned around. He pointed to a grim, pale grey stucco house with a dark grey roof.

“Yeah. We’ll be good there,” he announced, already walking for it.

We followed him off the road and up the concrete path. He stood in front of the screen door and carefully wrapped his hand around the doorknob. Sephiel moved past me to stand by Max, his hands reaching in his coat for the hilts of his short swords. Max pushed the door open and tried to walk inside, but Sephiel got in front of him.

“You know I wouldn’t have opened the door if there were monsters or murderers inside, right?” Max told the ex-angel impatiently.

Sephiel didn’t turn, his head moving from side to side as he did his own assessment.

“I do not doubt your gifts, Max, but I would prefer to err on the side of caution. Warrick, will you assist me in confirming the security of his location?”

“Sure,” was Warrick’s simple reply. He didn’t look at me, but his presence when he brushed past me was impossible to ignore. I was tempted to follow them, but changed my mind when I realized that would leave Dro alone with Max, something I wasn’t sure either of them was ready to be yet.

It doesn’t matter what you think,
my brain told me in a rare, rational moment.
They need to work it out themselves.

“I’ll check the left side,” I said, already moving into the foyer. I didn’t plan on going far, but I was going to give the two kids some space.

The house was a mess. Dirty newspapers and crumpled heaps of clothing were strewn over broken plates in the kitchen. Pictures were knocked off the walls and chairs were tossed over the upturned table. All the destruction looked recent, a raid or a fight gone wrong. When I saw the blood splatter on the tile floor, I was guessing which was more likely.

But there were no screeches or clicking claws of a demon. There were no hooting or hollering sinners. It was eerily quiet, and that made me even tenser. Certain that nothing would jump out of the shadows at me, I stepped back toward the foyer. I stopped when I heard the edges of Dro and Max’s conversation beyond the doorframe.

“I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “I was trying to wake you up.”

“You should have run,” she told him. “I’m too dangerous when I’m like that.”

Max sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry I freaked out after, but... Dro, when I touched you, I saw what you were dreaming.”

The silence following that statement was a weight. I edged closer to the corner of the wall.

“I didn’t know what I was going to see,” Max went on. “I just wanted to know you were okay.”

“Well, I’m not,” Dro replied. She sounded bitter, but also a little scared.

There were some footsteps. I was betting they were Max’s.

“You have to tell Constance. Lucifer must have given you that dream. He must have been manipulating your mind until–”

“Lucifer wasn’t doing anything,” Dro interrupted. Her voice was sharp, but when she spoke again, the anger was dialed back. “Or if he was, I couldn’t tell. I was in control in that nightmare, Max. I was the one standing back while the rest of you were murdered. I was the one who... I was the one who went after Constance. It was all me. Lucifer was never even there.”

She took a shuddering breath, the way she did when she was about to cry.

“And the worst part was that I
knew
it wasn’t a dream. Not really. It felt too real. I can still taste the smoke. And I just didn’t care. I loved how powerful I felt. Like I was actually free, and didn’t need to hide anymore. It wasn’t a nightmare, Max. It was a premonition.”

Max must have moved closer to her, because I couldn’t hear his reply. That or I was in denial-laced shock.

Precognition was one of Dro’s weaker powers, so I assumed that Lucifer was playing some sort of telepathic role in her nightmare. But my sister wouldn’t see it that way. Dro thought she was going to be the death of us all.

Before my heart could strain at the thought, I heard a low thumping noise coming from the back of the house. My senses went on high alert, my hand flipping down to grip my hatchet. I turned around the corner of the wall to check on Dro and Max.

They were standing in front of each other, his hands curling around hers and holding them to his chest. Both of them were looking in the direction the noise had come. I glared at Max.

“I thought you said this place was safe,” I whispered angrily. “That there were no monsters or murderers here.”

He matched my glare. “There aren’t.”

The idea didn’t relieve me as much as I wanted it to, especially when neither Warrick or Sephiel came back. I spun on my heel, yanked my hatchet from its sheath on my hip, and stormed toward the back of the house. I slowed down when I got to the living room, as there were two square windows that opened to reveal part of the backyard.

It was a two story house, but the sound hadn’t come from upstairs, and neither the demon slayer or the ex-angel had gone up that way. The backyard it was.

I slid along the walls, hoping I wouldn’t be seen through the windows. The living room was the same mess as the rest of the house, all the furniture thrown carelessly around the room, making it difficult to maneuver when I finally crossed the room to the back door. Broken plastic crunched under my boots as I moved forward, kicking aside clothes and white padding from the punctured sofa.

Finally, I made it to the back door. It was already open. Just a crevice, like it had forgotten to be locked, but it only worried me more.

There was no way to sneak outside. It was all or nothing now. I pushed open the door with the toe of my boot and stepped outside.

It was definitely a trap, and while it might not have been meant for me, the insult was all the same.

Warrick and Sephiel, looking a bit battered and bruised, were on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Both men were held in place by swords lying across their necks.

Behind them were three men and one woman in long white trench coats. They were human, but still ethereally beautiful and perfect. The two men on the sides stood out more than the others.

One of the angels was a large man with flawless mocha skin and a strong face. His dark eyes were focused on me as he was gripped Warrick’s shoulder with one hand and held a curved blade to my lover’s throat with the other.

Holding Sephiel in place was an angel even bigger than the dark skinned one. He was impossibly beautiful, like Lucifer, though it wasn’t desire mixed with fear that made my pulse pound at the sight of him. Despite the curling golden hair spilling down to his shoulders, the chiseled features of his face, the piercing azure eyes, there was no mistaking the danger he posed. He was wearing a white metal chest plate over his white coat as if he were a saint fighting in Roman armor.

I knew better, just as recognized him the moment I saw him. If I hadn’t, the gold sigil engraved on his chest plate would have given him away.

The exact same symbol was tattooed over my heart to protect me from demons.

But there was nothing in the world that would protect me from the archangel Michael.

A wave of panic went through me for a moment. Even without a connection to Heaven, he was strong enough to blast me into a red stain on the walls. Especially since Michael had made it very clear that we would pay for shutting the Heaven Gate and condemning him and the entire Heavenly Host to spend the rest of their lives as humans on earth.

I was terrible when it came to making supernatural allies.

I did my best to look unimpressed. It wasn’t the first time I’d been witness to an execution setup, but all those times before, my friends had never been on the chopping block. And I had usually been the one holding the axe.