“He means herbs and wards, not magic,” she said.
Dimitri examined them cautiously.
Priest stifled a smile. “I thought you Illuminati guys were badass, with your SWAT gear and bone whip.”
“I value my eyesight,” Dimitri said.
Alara rolled her eyes. “I’m wearing a pair right now. So is Priest.” She tossed Lukas, Elle, and I plastic cases of our own.
I caught mine. “Thanks.”
Dimitri held his eyelid open and positioned his finger in front of his eye, with the contact lens balanced on the end. “You’re positive these will work?”
Priest slipped on his huge headphones. “Only one way to find out.”
25. LOST BOY
Dimitri wasn’t willing to take Priest on his word, without some evidence the contact lenses worked. Instead, everyone had trekked down to the Mech Room so Priest could explain how he engineered them.
I stayed behind, staring out the warehouse window. I missed the rain—my rain—because that’s the way I thought about it now. It was comforting, the only constant in my life since the night I assembled the Shift.
Where was the Shift now? Buried in the mud under the prison rubble?
I imagined taking it apart. Going back and undoing all the damage it had caused.
Some things wouldn’t change—my mother’s death and the secrets she’d kept from me; a world full of angels and demons, vengeance spirits and secret societies, and my place within it.
But the rain would never have started.
Faith wouldn’t be dead.
The human race wouldn’t be on the brink of destruction, or enslavement.
Jared wouldn’t be possessed by a demon.
Boots scraped against the concrete floor behind me. When I turned around, Gabriel was leaning in the doorway. A day’s worth of dark stubble made him look younger and less intimidating, but it didn’t change how I felt about him.
“Need something?” I pulled my hair into a ponytail to avoid making eye contact.
“If you want to go down to the containment area, I’ll take you.”
My eyes flickered from his face to the tail of the whip curled behind him. “Why?”
“Because I know you want to see him, and I’d rather you go with me than sneak down there alone.”
He was smarter than I thought.
“Why?” I asked again.
“I just told you.”
“I mean, why do you care?” It was a fair question. Gabriel had shown no interest in helping us before now.
He didn’t respond right away, and I could almost see him weighing the pros and cons between lying and telling the truth. “Your mother and I were friends for a long time. And she loved you more than anything in the world, even if she hid her past from you.”
“She hid more than her past. If she was a spy from some rogue order of Illuminati, then she wasn’t the person I thought she was.” I tried to sound indifferent, but the pain in my voice betrayed me.
“I don’t know why she lied to you. But I know she’d want me to keep you safe.”
“What was the deal between you and my mom, Gabriel? Because you seem way too worried about what my mom would want, for a guy who was just her friend.”
Gabriel started to say something, then stopped. After a moment, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Our relationship was none of your business. But since you seem to think it is, I’ll say it again. Your mom was my friend. She saved me when I wasn’t strong enough to save myself. And I owed her for that, a debt I never had a chance to repay.” He walked toward me. “So I’m not going to let Elizabeth’s only daughter get herself killed.”
“Fine.” I shouldered past him and stood in the doorway. “Take me down there.”
Gabriel didn’t say a word until we reached the metal door that led into the tunnel. A row of winter jackets hung on pegs next to the door. He slipped one off a nail and handed it to me. “Put this on.”
“Are we going outside?”
“Do you ever cooperate?” He held the jacket between us.
“No.”
Not with you.
He sighed. “Are you wearing the contacts your friend made?”
I nodded.
“Remember, Kennedy. That isn’t the boy you know in there. Andras is one of the most powerful demons in hell. He might look like your boyfriend and sound like him, but he’s not Jared.”
A knot formed in my throat.
My boyfriend.
Did Jared think of himself that way? Would I ever get the chance to find out?
“One more thing.” Gabriel took a glass baby food jar out of his pocket and unscrewed the lid. He dipped his finger in the jar and scooped out a thick, black paste. “I need to spread some of this on your cheeks.”
I took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“I’m going to use it to draw protective sigils on our faces. It’s ash.”
I tucked my hair behind my ears and turned my face toward him. “From a fire?”
“You could say that.” Gabriel drew a circle on my skin. “Incinerated demon bones.”
I jerked away, disgusted. “I feel sick.”
He grabbed my chin. “You’ll feel sicker if Andras possesses you.”
“How do you know about this stuff?” The jar of ash seemed like the kind of thing Alara might stash in one of her pockets.
“Metaspiritual warfare is my specialty, to use Legion terminology.” He worked fast, drawing what felt like circles and swirls on my cheeks. When he finished, Gabriel traced the sigils on his own skin from memory. They resembled the tribal markings of a warrior heading into battle.
Gabriel opened the iron door, and a blast of freezing air burst from the tunnel. A sudden drop in temperature was a sign of demonic activity, but it felt like a meat locker down here. It wasn’t nearly this cold last time I was down here. I zipped the coat and followed Gabriel, my breath coming out in white puffs.
“There are gloves in the jacket pockets,” Gabriel said.
“I’m fine.” I didn’t like Gabriel telling me what to do like I was a child.
All I could think about was how close we were to the cell door. The gray metal glistened in the dim l
ight, and a layer of frost coated the bars.
The chains running from the wall to the shackles binding Jared’s wrists and ankles were longer now—long enough to allow him to walk around the tiny cell, but short enough to keep him from escaping. Words were scrawled across the back wall, some horizontal while others were vertical, diagonal, or backward.
Not words. Names.
The names of the dead girls.
I gasped.
Gabriel rubbed the stubble on his jaw, studying the writing. When he realized what he was looking at, he shook his head. “Great. Now he’s got a hobby.”
Jared sat on the floor with his back against the wall, wearing jeans and white undershirt. His clothes were soaked.
“He’s going to freeze to death,” I said.
“Demons don’t get cold.”
At the sound of Gabriel’s voice, Jared lowered his chin, his eyes still closed. “He’s right.” The voice wasn’t Jared’s or the demon’s but a blend of the two.
My hands trembled, and I reached for the bars to steady them. The icy metal burned my palms.
“Ow.” I winced and pulled away, trying to ignore the pain.
“You should be careful. You could get hurt down here.” The demon’s voice was softer now, more like Jared’s. Hope swelled inside me. He opened his eyes and Jared’s blue ones stared back at me. “I forgot. It’s the people around you who always get hurt. Isn’t that right?”
Gabriel pointed between the bars. “Shut your mouth, or I’ll show you what it feels like to hurt.”
Andras rose and cocked his head to the side. His movements were slow and deliberate, like he was trying out a new body that didn’t quite fit. “Are you going to take out your whip, Gabriel? Beat me with the bones of my soldiers?”
“Maybe I’ll add your bones to them.” Gabriel unhooked the whip from his belt and let it pool around his feet like an ivory snake.
“You’re wearing your war paint. Are we going to war today?”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” Gabriel said.
The demon stepped closer, his feet bare. Holy water dripped onto the floor around him. “Are you certain, Champion of God? The only man ready to face the Maker of Nightmares is a man with no fears. You are not one of those men.”