Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

“Shocked?” Dinah asked.

Gabriel sighed in defeat. “No.” He shook his head, then opened his eyes. “I wish I was, but I’m not. Have you discovered how many children they have? Ones like us?”

“Not yet,” Dinah said, and something in her strong demeanor seemed to soften, the armor she wore cracked, allowing Gabriel read her a little closer. She seemed hurt. She seemed defeated. But then she straightened her shoulders once more and said, “But we will. One day. I won’t rest until I do.”

“How do we take them all on?” Maria asked, her trepidation at the mammoth task before them evident in her tone. Gabriel’s brothers gathered around the table, listening.

“I can take out up to a hundred on my own in one go.” Bara sat on the edge of the table, arm resting on his bent knee. He smiled his usual disturbing smile. “And I wouldn’t even break a sweat.”

“You kill en masse,” Noa said knowingly. For the second time tonight, Gabriel studied Noa. There was a reason she understood the violent nature of his brothers without being told. He didn’t know why, but God had given him a way of seeking out people like them. He could just feel something dark within her too.

“The more the merrier, I say.” Bara reached over to the fruit bowl and took an apple. “Don’t worry though,” he said through a mouth of apple flesh. “Maria and Angel here are our token innocents. They keep the rest of our wicked souls on a leash.”

“Angel?” Dinah queried.

“He means me.” Gabriel ran his hand down his face. “I lean toward a pacifist’s life.”

“Then you’re in the wrong fucking line of work,” Candace said.

“I’m aware.” The still-raw stripes on his back burned in agreement.

“Where did you get this?” Maria asked, refocusing on the task in hand.

Dinah was trying to figure Maria out; he could see it in her confused expression. Maria must have seen too. “It’s a long story, but I was a nun who was used by the Brethren to try to capture Raphael. It failed, and I moved in here to be with Raphael when we fell in love. And to be with my new family.” Raphael wrapped his arm around Maria’s chest and pulled her against him.

“Where are you living?” Gabriel said, his mind ticking over at a million miles an hour. The Coven had knowledge of the Brethren, more than he and Maria had managed to discover. And the ledger … all of them were gravely at risk now they had such a thing in their possession.

“An abandoned tunnel system from the War of Independence,” Jo said. “Not ideal, but it has kept us safe so far.”

Gabriel frowned. “We own land. Acres upon acres. Government-protected. Off the grid. The Brethren will never find us here. To anyone outside of this place, we don’t exist.”

“Are you going to tell us why?” Dinah asked.

“Take a seat.”

Gabriel told the Coven of his grandfather and how he had left Gabriel an ever-filling well of money from his businesses. When he had told them of the Fallen’s most recent battle with the Brethren, he took a sip of the tea that Lynn, the housekeeper, had brought out, and the large room plunged into silence.

“Shit,” Dinah said, sitting back on her chair. “They’re going to be pissed. And they’ll be searching every inch of this globe for you all.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. The Brethren they had taken out at Purgatory recently were merely a scratch on the surface of their numbers. His heart fell when he thought of just how many other priests existed in the world, exorcising people they felt were heretics. And Dinah was right. They would be after the Fallen now. His brothers were more at risk than ever before.

When Gabriel opened his eyes, he saw the women before him. Women who knew how to live discreetly, and women who wanted what he and his family wanted too—the Brethren to be destroyed.

“We have housing here, on our land. Separate dwellings to the manor,” he said. Dinah met his eyes. “We have more to learn from you, and you have things to learn from us.”

“We need to help the children …” Dinah told Gabriel and the brothers of all the children they had recovered and hidden away. With every story of another example of Brethren abuse, his already ruined heart shed its final layer of protection until it was an exposed and unprotected mound of raw flesh.

“We have money,” Gabriel said, devastation running through his veins. “We have money and connections, and we can host the boys here on the land in one of the other buildings. Katie, their guardian, too. We can help them. Give them the help they need, help none of us ever got. An education. Food and shelter.”

Gabriel had always been tormented by the fact he had cast himself into a life of sin and murder. But this … this was a chance to help children who had been hurt like they had all been hurt, to help recover Brethren victims while they still had a chance at life. He felt something pull in his chest and knew that this was God giving him this duty. One laced with hope of salvation. A chance to help and offer kindness to those who had never experienced it. To save them before it was too late.