The Sinner

“You were right, Lucy,” he said, his voice breaking. “Love saved me. Yours. It won’t end with my death. I’ll carry it with me…”

“Please,” I cried, tears streaming. “Don’t go…”

My words choked off in a scream as Ashtaroth rose up from behind. With one smooth stroke, he plunged his sword through Casziel’s back. I watched, horror-struck, as the blade burst out of his chest.

Casziel’s human chest.

In the split second before the blade touched him, Casziel had morphed into his human body.

Time seemed to freeze as Cas hung suspended off the sword, and then he slid to his knees. I caught him as he fell and cradled him against me. Red blood poured instead of black, staining Casziel’s olive-toned skin. He turned his gaze up to me. Human eyes full of love. His bloodstained lips curled in a trembling smile. Somewhere distant was Ashtaroth’s scream of defeat.

“No, Cas,” I breathed. “No, don’t… Oh, please, no…”

I put my hand over the gushing wound where the scar had been. Hot blood pumped under my palm. There was so much of it. Too much…

“No!” Ashtaroth cried and then put on a horrible, forced smile, reaching for me again. “Come, my pet. You don’t have to stay here. Your grief…I can make it go away. I can show you how to use it. To take vengeance on a life so cruel. So unfair…”

“No.” I stroked Cas’s cheek as his chest hitched in horrifying spasms. I put my mouth to his ear, my tears streaming with the rain. “Listen to me. I saw everything. You couldn’t have saved me. Do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault. I’m grateful. So grateful to love you and be loved by you. I wouldn’t trade one minute of it. Not for anything. Okay?”

Casziel was staring at the sky, his hiccupping breaths slowing. A tear brimmed in the corner of his eye and journeyed down his cheek. I kissed it, tasting the salt on my lips.

“Let go, baby,” I whispered, my words choked by tears. “It’s okay…to let go.”

Ashtaroth loosed another roar, mad with fury. “She will know unending pain; I promise you, Casziel. I will send my servitors… Legions of them. You will go to your precious Oblivion knowing you have consigned her to infinite torment!”

He raised his sword, and I had a moment to wonder if Ambri had lied—that I was about to die. Then the lot was flooded with pure white light and the unmistakable whiff of pipe smoke.

Unfinished business…

Ashtaroth’s agonized scream ripped the air. I squinted to see the light tear through the demon, ribbons of white flame burning through him and streaking on the ground like a fuse to destroy every writhing snake until there was nothing left. Ashtaroth’s cry echoed through the ether. Then the light faded, leaving nothing. All was quiet, the rain pattering around me the only sound.

“He’s gone,” I told Casziel with a tearful laugh. “You’re safe. You’re—” My words choked off in a little cry. His eyes were staring, his body still. “Oh, Cas. No…”

I grasped at his bloodstained shirt, jostling him. His fixed gaze didn’t move. I pressed my cheek to his chest and heard nothing. A low moan issued from somewhere deep inside me. From the bottom of my soul. For long moments, I just held him, rocking him in my arms, my tears soaking his shirt to mingle with the blood. I squeezed my eyes shut while the rain fell.

I don’t know how long I’d been holding him when I heard gentle footfalls. The scent of pipe smoke grew stronger, sweet and familiar.

Slowly, I raised my head. “Daddy?”

The lot was empty, but Dad was there. I could feel him all around me.

“It’s time to go, Lucy.”

“No, I can’t. Cas…”

I looked back down, Casziel was gone.

“No…” I clutched fistfuls of mud as the sobs wracked me, turning me inside out. “I thought I was ready. I’m not ready. I can’t give him up again. Not yet. Please…”

The white light returned, this time less like fire and more like clouds or cotton. Soft and gentle and edged in pale blue. It wrapped me in a kind of peace I shouldn’t have known, not when the grief for Casziel was still a piercing agony in my chest. The light didn’t soothe the pain completely, but there was so much love in me, it suffused me until nothing was stronger.

Because nothing is.

The light grew brighter and brighter, forcing me to close my eyes again. As the air flooded with it, I saw a single black feather, stark in the white light. I grabbed it, clutched it tight, just as I was enveloped completely.

“Come on, pumpkin.” Dad’s voice was soft and warm and full of love. “Let’s go home.”

Twenty-Five