The Sinner

I started to shake my head when there came a buzzing sound under the din of the storm. It grew louder and I turned to see a cloud of flies hovering behind us.

The cloudy mass became distinct and then Deber and Keeb were there in their demonic bodies. Deber smiled a ghastly smile through stringy gray hair and then stuck her tongue out at me. It was covered in flies. Keeb shuffled beside her sister in her shapeless gray dress, giggling obscenely. Their wings weren’t black feathers but veined and clear.

“Our sweet boy,” Deber cooed, cocking her head at Casziel slumped at my feet. “What a delight you’ve been.”

“Yours?” I stared. “What do you mean?”

“Aye, he’s ours. Like you,” Deber said, and Keeb snickered behind her hair. “How else do you think we’ve managed to convince him how unworthy he is for all these years? He’s so beautiful…beautifully hopeless.”

I felt sick at the torture Casziel endured for so long. My love for him grew fiercer when I didn’t think that was possible.

He struggled to sit up. “Lucy, don’t…”

I scrambled to my feet and pulled his sword out of his broken grip. I struggled to raise it with both hands—it weighed at least a hundred pounds—but I put myself between Cas and the twins.

The three demons laughed at my struggle, my wet hair streaming into my face, drenched to the bone and covered in mud.

“Pestilence,” Ashtaroth said to Deber like a proud father. “Smiter.” He inclined his horned head to Keeb. “Send Casziel back to the Other Side.”

“No!” I cried. “No one touches him!”

“Fear not, pet,” Ashtaroth said. “He can’t very well stay here in that state. We’ll sort it all out on the Other Side where he can heal—”

Movement behind me drew my attention.

A wickedly curved dagger had materialized in Keeb’s hand. With a murderous shriek, she lunged at Casziel, intending to slice his throat. Sheer desperation gave me strength. I swung the heavy sword and cleaved Keeb’s head off her neck. It flew to splat in the mud and her body collapsed with it. Both dissipated to flies and then nothing.

“Sister!”

Deber stared with black eyes where Keeb had been, then turned them on me, rage burning hot. With an inhuman shriek, she opened her mouth and a stream of flies surged out. I squeezed my eyes shut against the frenzied swarm and bit back a cry as Deber’s fingernails raked across my cheeks, my arms.

With a grunt, I hefted Casziel’s sword and blindly thrusted it forward. A heavy jerk shuddered up my arms and a cry tore from Deber. I peeked my eyes open. The demon was impaled on the blade, black blood gushing from where the sword pierced her midsection.

She glared at me with shock, then dissolved into a cloud of flies. They buzzed for a few seconds then disappeared too.

“Interesting,” Ashtaroth mused. “Perhaps there is more to you, girl, after all.”

I couldn’t hold the sword anymore. It fell from my hands as I collapsed to the ground beside Casziel. He shook his head; black tears streaked his pale white cheeks. I curled my fingers around his good hand.

“I can make you…forget,” he whispered. “All this terror. This nightmare. One word…”

“No. I don’t want to forget you. I will never forget you.” I bent my head and kissed him. “I love you. I have always loved you and I always will.”

I started to rise, to go to Ashtaroth, but Cas took my arm with a shockingly strong grip, pulling me back to the muddy, snake-infested ground. He struggled to his feet, a grimace on his face, and gripped his sword in his weaker left hand.

He raised the blade to Ashtaroth. “You…will…not…take…her.”

Uncertainty and a twinge of fear at Casziel’s tone flashed over Ashtaroth’s face. Then he snarled. “This ends now. You will watch her willingly walk to her fate, the same way you watched her die in the bowels of your temple—helpless to stop it.”

With a roar of rage, Cas lashed at Ashtaroth. The clang of steel rang out in the relentless rain. Casziel swung again in a deadly arc. Ashtaroth dodged and fell back, but Cas was relentless, even with a broken right arm and useless wing at his side. Another swing. Their blades clashed and the power in Cas’s blow drove Ashtaroth back. Another. And another. It was all Ashtaroth could do to keep the silver frenzy of Casziel’s swo

rd at bay.

But it couldn’t last. My heart was tearing in half, knowing every second was bringing Casziel closer to death. Worse than death—a return to the Other Side where he’d be enslaved to Ashtaroth for eternity.

Finally, with a thrashing of wings, Cas knocked Ashtaroth down at the edge of the pentagram, winded but unhurt.

Casziel turned to me. Even in his bloodless expression, even amid the dread blackness of his eyes, I saw and felt his love for me. It was pouring out of him like rain.