Passages were opened between Hell and Earth. Brief ruptures in reality that allowed the infernal to pass through. The preparations began . . .
For their exodus.
It was too much, and Theo feared for her sanity. It would not be long before she was no more, merged with the minds of the demonic that infested hers.
But she was so close. Just a little more, a peek to say that maybe she now understood.
Their plans involved a human soul . . . or the lack of one.
A baby, born dead—soulless—allowing the masterminds of this hellish scheme to work their foul deeds.
Something was put inside the child as it was returned to life . . . something that allowed them their chance to escape.
The child would be their doorway.
And all the door needed was a key.
The key.
The demons were wild in their excitement, and she was drawn even deeper into their frenzied state.
The angel that had been slain was put to use, its body skinned and worn like a suit.
That was why the infernal didn’t react the way they should to the “angel.”
A wolf in sheep’s clothing. She wanted to laugh, amused by her observation.
The wolf was given an important job, to cross over with the babe that held the source of their continued survival.
The wolf needed to be allowed in.
The wolf in the guise of the sheep needed those upon the other side to trust him.
It was all too much for her to stand. She wanted to pull away, to hide herself from the others—to collect herself—to become just Theo again.
But she continued to see.
Through the eyes of the wolf she saw.
Clutching the now-crying babe to its boney chest, the wolf—the angel—crossed over through a special passage made for them by the inhabitants of the world the infernal wished to possess.
The angel passed through with his special package . . . his wailing vessel for the future, to find that someone was waiting.
Someone of power.
Someone who could aid the infernal in their complex plans.
Theo knew this someone waiting on the other side, younger and filled with fight.
Someone who could easily hinder Hell’s plans or unsuspectingly aid them.
Theo then understood how complex it all was.
And likely how close Hell was to succeeding.
Elijah had been on the other side.
Waiting.
Ready to embrace the wolf.
• • •
They had arrived to wherever it was that they were going.
Her leathery, bat-like wings opened to release the demon wearing his angel suit to spill out onto the floor.
Theo’s body started to return to its normal shape, bones popping as skin receded, pulling back to its human form.
She tried to regain control, but . . .
The wolf—that was all that she could think of him now—picked his pale, thin, blood-marked body off the hardwood floor, looked at her, and smiled.
“I see you in there,” he said, and she knew he was specifically addressing her. “I felt you with the others . . . inside my mind . . . taking it all in.”
The wolf stood, stretching his foul form.
“They always suspected you and your mate would be a problem,” he said, wagging his finger. “Which is why on more than one occasion they attempted to remove you from the big picture.”
The wolf paused.
“We thought we had succeeded, too,” he said, and snarled. “But you surprised us even then.”
He looked her up and down, her body having returned to its human state.
“I have to admit, I was impressed by your tenacity,” the wolf said, almost amused.
What the demon was saying filled her with rage and hopelessness.
They—she and her husband—had been made part of the plan.
“Hearing of your condition, I suspected you might be useful,” the wolf said. “And look at you now.”
The wolf walked around her, admiring her form.
She had never wanted to kill anything quite so bad.
“I was so very happy when Elijah asked me for assistance, allowing me the opportunity to contribute to the sigils that gave you control over my brothers and sisters trapped inside you.”
He stopped before her, reached out a spidery hand, and caressed her cheek.
“I also allowed myself some control as well.”
The demons yowled so loudly inside her skull that she thought it might explode.
“What was seen as a failure by my masters is now working out to our advantage, imagine that,” the wolf said.
He looked around the room, and for the first time, she saw where they were. It appeared to be a grand ballroom of some kind, like something from an old hotel or mansion.
“This is where it all began,” the wolf said, looking around, dark eyes twinkling wetly.
“Where it will continue, and where it will end.”
He looked at her square in the eyes.
“For humanity.”
24
The closer Emma Rose got to Scopa House, the more familiar it felt.
“Are you all right?” she heard Elijah ask her, but it sounded so very far away.
The mansion loomed closer, the pillared front, large windows, and red double doors of heavy wood reminding her of an old woman’s face, her lips slathered in brightly colored lipstick.
Emma Rose had no memories of ever having been here, but for some inexplicable reason she felt as if she were coming home.
Miller, up in front, raised his hand for them to stop upon the twisting walkway leading to the front entrance.
“We’re going to deactivate the deterrents now, if it’s all right with you, sir,” he said as he turned to speak to Elijah.
“That is perfectly fine, Mr. Miller,” he said. “Proceed.”
She had heard them talking on the helicopter about how sorcery had been used to put up magickal barriers around the mansion, barriers that would drive any unwelcome guests away.
Emma Rose stepped carefully away from Elijah’s side, curious about the barriers. She wanted to feel them, she wanted to experience what they did.
“Miss,” Miller warned as she put her hand out.
The terror that struck her was all-encompassing, fearful emotions yanked from the recesses of memory from her brain.
Every time that she’d ever felt scared—terrified, reexperienced in a single devastating flood of recollection.
She let out a squeal of surprise and shock, and rushed back to Elijah, her entire body trembling.
The Coalition agents grabbed each other’s hands and began to mutter beneath their breaths: incantations of some old and powerful magick being summoned to shut down the existing security barriers around the property.
Still feeling the effects, she hugged herself as if cold, both she and Elijah watching as the invisible fence of magick was deactivated.
Emma Rose felt it almost immediately, the force erected to keep people away coming down, but as that feeling receded, she experienced something else, a sensation totally new, something that hadn’t been there before.
The new sensation rolled down from the building to greet her. Like a friendly pack of dogs it flowed from the mansion toward where she was standing.
It embraced her. Greeted her.
And welcomed her home.
• • •
Elijah noticed the change in the girl almost at once, the way she was standing, the sudden stiffness in her spine.
He didn’t say anything but kept a careful eye just to be sure that . . .
Emma Rose was suddenly on the move, pushing past the Coalition team to be the first at the door.
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“Emma?” Elijah called to her, as she raced up the front stairs and grabbed hold of the doorknob, trying to pull open the door.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Mr. Miller reassured him. “The place has been locked since the last time we were inside.”
Elijah saw the flash of light up ahead where Emma Rose was standing, and one of the large double doors swung open, and the girl disappeared within.
“That’s not possible,” Miller said, going to join his people.
Elijah felt a serious wave of unease pass over him as he clasped his hands behind his back and moved toward the entrance.
Something had begun.
And since he was here, he might as well see to finishing it.
• • •
The angel—the wolf—was talking directly to Theo now, looking deep into her eyes to pull her to the forefront of her psyche.
“This was where it began,” the demon disguised as divine said, moving about the ballroom. “And where it will finish.”
He started to do a bizarre dance as he spoke.
“These walls . . . these floors . . . the very foundation of the structure . . . all has been changed, altered by the sacrifices performed here that day.”
The wolf spun around, his body strangely—grotesquely—graceful as he looked at her.
“The energies are still here, a powerful pool just waiting to be tapped.”
He rubbed his long-fingered hands together.
“All we require now is for the Vessel to make its appearance.”
The doors into the ballroom exploded inward, and a teenage girl stumbled inside, looking as though she was in some sort of trance.
“And here it is,” the wolf said gleefully. “Right on cue.”
• • •
Brenna checked her cell phone while driving.
“Still nothing back from Elijah,” she said, dropping the cell back onto the seat beside her.
Something wasn’t right, John thought. He could feel it in his gut.
After all the years of dealing with the supernatural, the paranormal, the preternatural, he’d developed quite the sixth sense for bad shit on the horizon.
And he was sensing some really bad shit.
John’s thoughts immediately went to Theo and what the future held. Maybe there was something more that could be done for her, the markings upon her flesh made more powerful. He then thought of all the Demonist texts and writings in every shape that he had yet to read, considering that a solution to his wife’s affliction might have been there just waiting for him to discover.
Or not.
He considered his wife, forever locked away in a Coalition holding cell, no longer able to control the monsters that possessed her.
“Hello, Earth to John!” Nicole said from the backseat.
“Excuse me?” John said.
“I was asking if you thought this was a wise thing to be doing,” she said. “Going up against these freaks on our own, not really knowing what their plans are.”
“Seriously, I don’t think it’s very smart at all,” John said, turning his attention to the dark, winding road spread out before them. “But I don’t think we have a choice. I think that something is all too close to happening, and if we’re not there to try to deal with it, it might very well be too late.”
“Too late too late?” Nicole asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” John said, feeling his apprehension on the rise once more.
“Remind me why I got involved with you again?” Nicole asked him.
John managed a smile, remembering the attempts he’d made to deter Nicole’s stubborn decisions but to no success. She’d made her bed now, he thought.
“I think we’re here,” Griffin said then. John had thought the man was asleep, but he was just very quiet.
“Why do you say that?” Nicole asked.
He didn’t say anything as the car came around a bend, and they were able to see through a thick section of trees, across the smooth, almost glass-like surface of a lake, to a large mansion on the other side.
Through multiple sets of windows, an unearthly, pulsating light could be seen.
“Oh, I get it,” Nicole said.
“Think you might be right,” John added, continuing on to Scopa House.
25
Emma Rose did not know why she was doing what she was doing.
It was as if she was following some long-hidden command, from somewhere buried deep in the back of her mind that had risen up to present itself as she’d grown closer to the mansion.
She was like an observer in her own body, terrified that she could not stop herself as she ran into the building.
Suddenly knowing where she going.
Where she was supposed to be.
She found the ballroom and threw herself at the doors, barging inside. Emma had no idea what to expect other than this was where her body told her to go.
There were two people already inside, a pale, nearly naked man that looked like he’d been painted with blood and a beautiful woman with long dark hair. She was tempted to ask them if they knew what was happening.
Did they know what might be going on?
She crossed the room toward them, hands out in front of her beckoning, but she could not speak. Her voice had been taken, and she felt a warmth in the center of her body begin to intensify.
And then her body began to glow.
• • •
Theo’s gaze went from the glowing girl to the door. Six more people entered, and she knew at once that they were Coalition.
They’d been chasing the girl.
They came into the room, their bodies already crackling with defensive energies, ready for conflict.
Elijah entered behind them, the expression on his disfigured face becoming even more ugly when he saw them.
“Take care of them,” the wolf commanded.
And before she could argue, she found herself moving, bounding across the ballroom on all fours.
A runaway freight train of savagery.
• • •
Elijah knew that something was—off as soon as he came into the ballroom.
The sight of the Messenger was startling enough, but to see Theo standing there beside him, something was most definitely awry.
“Take care of them,” he heard the Messenger say with a wave of his pallid hand.
He didn’t even have the chance to react before Theo was moving, bounding across the ballroom floor toward his agents, and him, like some sort of predatory beast.
Elijah had faith in the Brimstone Team, they were the best of the best, some of the most powerful magick users gathered. They would have a chance, they would stop her, or at least halt Theo’s advance to allow him the opportunity to . . .
The screaming was ear-piercing.
She was like something out of the worst of nightmares, claws slashing, powerful jaws snapping away, fingers crackling with mystical discharge before their magick could be unleashed.
All he could do was watch and revel in the horror of her savagery. Elijah knew that this wasn’t her, that Theo had not the least bit of control, but it did not change the fact that it was her physical form that was performing these atrocities.
The last of his team were trying their best, their spells of defense and offense flashing from their hands.
It was all for nothing. She was unstoppable, the demons inside her set on their total destruction. Theo took one of the blasts square in the chest, and for a moment, he thought that they might have a chance.
But it had all been part of her strategy, taking the punishment so that she could get closer to strike. And in an instant, the two remaining Brimstone agents were down, and likely dead, or nearly so, leaving only him to fight.
Elijah thought he was ready, believed he was prepa
red.
Nothing could have been less true as she was suddenly before him, her face mere inches from his.
“Elijah,” she said, the sorrow coming from her palpable. It was enough for him to let his guard fall, but only for an instant.
An instant was all the possessed woman would need.
Razor-sharp claws lashed out, and he moved in such a way that he thought that maybe he had avoided them, but then he experienced the sudden warmth across his chest and down onto his belly, and he looked to see his tattered shirt turning crimson.
His hands instinctively went to the wounds, and he realized how bad they were as he applied pressure to stem the bleeding and keep his internal workings inside his body.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice still filled with sadness
And he wanted to tell her that he was sorry, too, but he could not find the words as the ballroom floor seemed to go out from beneath him, and he found himself falling.
• • •
The Messenger watched his instrument perform. She was certainly something to behold and he wondered about the possibility of excising her oh-so-bothersome humanity, and letting the infernal have her body.
It was something to think about when all was said and done.
He watched her take Elijah down, her claws raking across his front in a shower of blood, and was almost tempted to applaud. He’d had more than enough of the Coalition leader and his holier-than-thou attitude and obsession with saving the world from evil.
He’d been just too easy to manipulate.
The Messenger sensed a presence close behind him and whirled about, ready to command Theo to his side to dispatch this latest threat, but instead he smiled, recognizing the demonic aura coming from the bloody figure clad in a cloak of flesh.
The Cardinal had arrived.
“My liege,” the Cardinal said, bowing its cloak-covered head. “I didn’t recognize you wearing that loathsome disguise.”
The Messenger held out his hands, looking at the skin it wore.
“It’s sad to say, but I’ve almost grown attached to this disgusting visage,” he said. “But it isn’t needed anymore.”
The Messenger then proceeded to disrobe, tearing away the pale skin of the angel that he’d worn for so many years to reveal the true form of the demonic entity beneath. It was as if he were taking off an extratight jumpsuit, pulling it down over his shoulders, down the thinness of his waist, and finally down his spindly legs. He kicked the wrinkled angel flesh aside and stood revealed to his followers.