Xavier and I fell silent as Jake led the next victim forward. But I was not prepared for what happened next. When he pulled back the hood, I saw a familiar cascade of russet curls and wide, frightened blue eyes.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” said Jake, tracing his finger lightly across Molly’s neck and down to her chest. “It won’t hurt much.”
I gripped Xavier’s arm. “We have to stop him,” I said. “We can’t let him hurt Molly!”
Xavier’s face was pale. “I want to bring Jake down too, but if we intervene now, we don’t stand a chance against all of them. We need your brother and sister.” He shook his head, and I realized he was finally accepting that he couldn’t defeat Jake alone.
Overcome with jealousy and desire, one of Jake’s followers threw herself on the ground and began to writhe. Her eyes rolled back so that only the whites showed, her mouth opening and closing in silent moans. I recognized her immediately as Alexandra from my lit class. Jake bent down and stilled her thrashing by grasping her hair in one hand. He ran a finger suggestively along her exposed throat and let it linger over her mouth. She was breathing heavily and seemed to arch toward him in ecstasy, but he moved away from her and used the tip of his boot to trace a line down her body.
“We should leave,” Xavier whispered. “This is more than we can handle.”
“We can’t go without Molly.”
“Beth, we can’t let Jake know we’re here.”
“I can’t leave her, Xavier.”
He sighed. “Okay, I think I have an idea for getting her back, but you have to trust me and listen to what I say. A wrong move could cost her safety.”
I nodded and waited for Xavier to say more, but a blood-curdling scream commanded my attention. Molly was on her knees, Jake’s hand gripping the back of her neck. Her own hands were tied behind her with rope. The black fog was erupting from the stone angel’s mouth. Molly’s face was white with pain and confusion, but her eyes fixed intently on Jake. I couldn’t stand to see it. I stumbled out from behind the tombstone, ignoring Xavier’s yell of protest.
“What are you doing?” I screamed. “Stop this! Jake, let her go!” When I looked at Jake’s face, it was distorted with anger. I felt Xavier’s presence by my side. He positioned himself protectively between me and Jake.
Upon seeing him, Jake’s anger seemed to dissipate, and he folded his arms and cocked one eyebrow in an expression of amusement.
“Well, well,” he said. “What have we here? If it’s not the Angel of Mercy and her . . .”
“Molly, get down from there,” Xavier called out, and she obeyed dumbly, too stunned to argue or formulate any sort of response. Jake snarled.
“Don’t move,” he commanded her and Molly froze.
“You!” I pointed a finger at Jake. “We know what you are.”
He clapped his hands slowly and mockingly. “Well done. What a first-rate detective you are.”
“We’re not going to let you get away with this,” Xavier said. “There are four of us, and there’s only one of you.”
Jake laughed and waved a hand around him. “Actually there are many more of us, and the numbers increase daily,” he snickered. “It seems I’m quite popular.”
I stared at him in horror, feeling any confidence I’d had trickle away.
“You and your good deeds don’t stand a chance,” Jake said. “You might as well give up.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Xavier growled.
“Oh my, how sweet,” Jake said. “The human boy thinks he can defend the angel.”
“Believe me, I can and I will.”
“Do you actually think that you can hurt me?” Jake asked.
“You’ll find out if you try and hurt her,” Xavier replied.
Jake’s lip curled back, revealing his small, sharp teeth. “You should know that you’re playing with fire,” he smirked.
“And I’m not scared of getting burned,” Xavier spit out.
They glared at each other for a long moment, as if one was daring the other to act. I stepped forward.
“Just let Molly go,” I said. “There’s no need to hurt her; it doesn’t gain you anything.”
“I’ll gladly release her,” Jake smiled. “On one condition . . .”
“And what’s that?” Xavier asked.
“Beth must take her place.”
Xavier’s body tensed with anger, and his blue eyes flashed.
“Go to hell!”
“You poor, helpless human,” Jake taunted. “You’ve already lost one love, and now you’re about to lose another one?”
“What did you say?” asked Xavier, his eyes narrowing. “How do you know about her?”
“Oh, I remember her quite well.” Jake smiled sickeningly. “Emily, wasn’t it? Didn’t you ever wonder why her whole family made it out alive, but not her?” Xavier looked like he was about to throw up. I gripped his hand as Jake continued. “It was almost too easy—tying her to her bed, while the house went up in flames. Everybody thought she slept through the alarm, they didn’t hear her screaming over the roar of the flames.”
“You son of a bitch.” Xavier took several strides toward Jake but didn’t get very far. Jake smirked and his fingers twitched and before he could reach him, Xavier doubled over in pain, clutching his abdomen. He tried to right himself, but Jake sent him to the ground with a flick of his wrist.
“Xavier!” I cried, rushing to his aid. I felt his shoulders shuddering in pain. “Leave him alone!” I begged Jake. “Stop, please!”
In my head I tried to silently invoke God’s help by issuing a mental prayer: Almighty Father, Creator of Heaven and Earth, deliver us from evil. Send your spirit to help us, and call forth the angels of salvation. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and forever. . . .”
But Jake’s powers clouded my prayer like a thick, black fog descending on me, forcing the words to stick in my mind until I felt my head might burst. Jake Thorn thrived on misery and pain, and I knew I couldn’t defeat someone like that alone. Xavier had been right. I wished I had listened. And, since no one was coming to my aid, there was only one way to help him and Molly, the only way I knew how.
“You can have me!” I shouted, opening my arms.
“No!” Xavier heaved himself to his feet, but he was no match for Jake’s dark strength, and he crumpled once again.
I didn’t hesitate; I ran forward, propeling myself into the circle. The group pressed forward, chanting in crazed voices until Jake raised a hand indicating they should retreat.
I reached out to Molly and managed to pry her away from his grasp.
“Run!” I gasped.
I felt the air being squeezed from my lungs as Jake closed in on me. The black fog overwhelmed me, and I slid to the ground, hitting my head hard on the corner of the stone angel’s plinth. I must have cut myself because I felt a warm trickle of blood on my brow. I tried to get up, but my body refused to comply. It was as if every drop of energy had leaked out of me. I opened my eyes and saw Jake standing above me.
“My brother and sister will never let you get away with this,” I murmured.
“I believe I already have,” Jake snarled. “I gave you the choice to join me, and like a fool, you declined.”
“You’re evil,” I said. “I’d never join you.”
“But naughty can be oh so nice.” Jake laughed.
“I’d rather die.”
“And so you will.”
“Get away from her,” Xavier yelled, his voice thick with pain. He was still crippled on the ground and unable to move. “Don’t you dare touch her!”
“Oh, shut up,” Jake snapped. “Your pretty face can’t save her now.”
The last thing I remembered before everything went dark was the greedy glint in Jake’s snake-green eyes and Xavier’s voice calling out to me.
Deliverance
I woke up in the backseat of a long car. When I tried to move, I realized some invisible force was pinning me
down. Jake Thorn was in the driver’s seat and on either side of me were Alicia and Alexandra from my literature class. They watched me with chalky, expressionless faces as if I were a specimen in a laboratory. They kept their gloved hands folded in their laps. I struggled to move and almost succeeded, my elbow hitting Alexandra in the ribs.
“She’s being difficult,” she complained, and Jake tossed her a small package wrapped in foil.
“One of these should do the trick,” he said.
Alicia forced open my mouth with her gloved hand while Alexandra dropped a pale green pill down my throat, washing it down with liquid from a silver flask. The liquid burned as it coursed down my throat and spilled out my mouth. It choked me until I had no choice but to swallow. I gagged and spluttered, and the two girls exchanged a satisfied smirk. Their white faces and hollow eyes started to blur into a haze of misty blue, and a ringing began in my ears that drowned out all other sound. The last thing I was aware of was my heart beating much faster than normal, before I sank down into their bony laps and everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting on a faded rug on the floor with my back propped against a cold plaster wall. I knew I must have been slumped there for a while because the cold of the room had seeped through my clothes and into my skin. My hands were bound, and my fingers tingled when I wriggled them. My arms were aching from being in the same position for too long. Someone had wound a rope tightly around my waist and gagged me with a dirty rag, making it difficult to breathe. I thought I could smell gasoline.
I peered around the dim surroundings, trying to make out where Jake had taken me. It wasn’t a dungeon as I had first imagined. Instead I appeared to be in the formal sitting room of a Victorian house. The room was large and airy and had high ceilings and light fixtures in the shape of twisted rosebuds. The rich tones of the carpet suggested it was Persian, but it smelled musty. The stale odor of cigar smoke also hung in the air. Two wide chesterfield couches, which had seen better days, sat opposite each other, with marble-topped side tables nearby. A deep mahogany sideboard held decanters so dusty you could barely make out the amber and plum liquids inside. In the middle of the room stood a long, polished cedar dining table with elaborately carved legs. The high-backed chairs positioned around it were upholstered in burgundy velvet, and in the center of the table sat an immense silver candelabra, its lighted candles casting elongated shadows across the room. Strange markings and symbols were scrawled on the walls, which were covered in peeling striped wallpaper. Portraits in heavy gilt frames hung above the marble mantelpiece, and their faces watched me archly as if they were in on a secret I had yet to discover. There was one of a Renaissance-looking gentleman in a ruffled collar, and another of a woman surrounded by five nymphlike daughters, all with Pre-Raphaelite hair and swirling dresses.
A film of dust lay over everything, including the paintings. I wondered how long it had been since anyone had lived in the house. It seemed to be frozen in time. A giant spider’s web swooped gracefully across the width of the ceiling like a sheet of muslin. When I looked more closely, I saw that everything reeked of decay. The dining chairs looked moth-eaten, the picture frames were lopsided, the leather sofas sagged, and there were patches of damp on the ceiling where water had seeped through. Everything was still in place, as though the owners of the house had left in a hurry and never come back. The windows were boarded up so that only a few bars of natural light filtered into the room to fall in random beams across the carpet.
My whole body ached, and my head felt leaden and foggy. I could hear distant voices coming from somewhere, but no one appeared. I sat there for what felt like hours and started to realize what Gabriel had meant about the human body having certain requirements. I was feeling faint with hunger, my throat was dry and parched from lack of hydration, and I desperately needed to use the bathroom. I drifted into a semiconscious state, until eventually I was aware of someone coming into the room.
When I focused my eyes and sat up, I saw Jake Thorn seated at the head of the dining table. He was wearing a smoking jacket of all things and had his arms crossed. On his face he wore his trademark sneer.
“I’m sorry it had to end like this, Bethany,” he said. He glided over to untie the gag from around my mouth. His voice was like honey. “I did try to offer you a chance at a life together.”
“A life with you would be worse than death,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
I saw Jake’s face harden. His cat eyes, which were black again, seemed to glaze over.
“Your stoicism is admirable,” he said. “In fact, I think it may be one of the things I like best about you. However, in this case I think you will come to regret the choice you have made.”
“You can’t hurt me,” I said. “I’ll only return to the life I knew.”
“That’s very true.” He smiled. “What a shame your other half will be left behind. I wonder what will become of him when you’re not here.”
“Don’t you dare threaten him!”
“Struck a nerve?” Jake asked. “I do wonder how Xavier will react when he finds his precious one dead. I hope he doesn’t do anything rash—grief can make men behave in strange ways.”
“Leave him out of this.” I struggled against the rope. “We can settle this ourselves.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to bargain, do you?”
“Why are you doing this, Jake? What do you think you’ll gain?”
“That depends on your definition of gain. I am but a servant of Lucifer. Do you know what Lucifer’s biggest sin was?”
“Pride,” I answered.
“Precisely, so you really shouldn’t have wounded mine. I didn’t appreciate it.”
“I didn’t mean to wound you, Jake . . .”
He cut me off. “That was your mistake, and this is the part where I get even. It will be quite a show watching the perfect school captain take his own life. My, my, what will everybody say?”
“Xavier would never do that!” I hissed, feeling my heart skip a beat.
“No, he wouldn’t,” Jake agreed, “not without a little help from me. I can get inside his head and offer some useful suggestions. It shouldn’t be hard. He’ll already have lost the love of his life, right? That ought to make him very vulnerable. What shall I make him do? Throw himself onto the rocks at Shipwreck Coast? Wrap his car around a tree, cut his wrists, walk into the ocean? So many choices to consider.”
“You’re doing this because you’re hurt,” I said. “But killing Xavier won’t make you happy again. Killing me won’t bring you satisfaction.”
“Enough tiresome talk!”
He drew a sharp knife from inside his jacket and bent to slice through the ropes that held me with small, deft movements. My arms and hands ached even more once they were free. Jake pulled me up so that I was kneeling at his feet. I saw his polished black shoes with their pointed toes, and at that moment, I didn’t care about the pain in my limbs or the pounding in my head or about feeling sick and weak from lack of nourishment. All I cared about was getting to my feet. I would not bow before an Agent of Darkness. I would rather die than betray my Heavenly allegiance by surrendering to him.
I put a hand out to the wall and used it to haul myself to my feet. It took all my energy, and I didn’t know how long I could keep it up. My knees wanted to buckle beneath me.
Jake looked at me with mild amusement.
“Hardly the time for loyalty,” he jeered. “You do realize I hold your life in my hands? Worship me if you want to live to see your Xavier again.”
“I renounce you and all your works,” I said calmly.
This seemed to enrage him, and he lifted me off my feet and threw me across the dining table. My head hit the surface with a crack before I careered onto the floor and landed in a heap. Something sticky was snaking its way down my forehead.
“All right down there?” Jake asked smugly from his position, leaning against the side of the table. He roughly stroked the wound o
n my face and his hands radiated heat.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he purred. He waited for a sign of agreement, but I remained mute.
“Well, if that’s your answer, you leave me no choice. I’m going to have to rip every shred of goodness out of you,” he said softly. “When I’m done there won’t be a scrap of honesty or integrity left.”
He bent over me so that his hair fell over his glistening eyes. He was just inches from me, and I could see every feature, the curve of his prominent cheekbones, the thin line of his mouth, the stubble on his chin.
“I’m going to blacken your soul and then claim it as my own.”
My body began to shudder at his words. I grasped desperately at the table legs, looking for leverage, a way of escape. Jake ran a hand slowly along the length of my arm, savoring the contact. My skin burned and throbbed, and when I looked down, I saw a ribbon of red where his touch had scorched me.
“I’m afraid you won’t be going back to Heaven, Bethany, because by the time I’m finished with you, they won’t let you in.”
He stroked my face with a single finger and then traced the outline of my lips. I felt my face turn into a burning mask.
I turned away and thrashed furiously, but Jake held me and forced me to look at him. I felt as though his fingers were boring right through my cheeks.
“Don’t fret, my angel, we are very hospitable in Hell.”
He kissed me roughly, the weight of his body pressing down on me before he pulled away. Spasms of heat seared through my entire body.
“It’s time to say good-bye, Miss Church.”
Jake closed his eyes and concentrated so hard that I saw beads of sweat appear on his brow. A vein pulsated close to his temples. Then, slowly, he straightened, reached out, and clamped his hands around my head.
That was when it happened—an onslaught of tearing, hot needles pierced my mind, and in a single moment, I saw all the evil perpetrated since the dawn of time concentrated in single moment. Every calamity known to man spliced into single disconnected images, a series of flashes so intense I thought my brain would shatter.