The Sinner
But he’s already dissipating before my eyes.
“No!” I scream and thrust my arms forward. “Ma ki-ta!”
The gale-force wind wrecks what’s left of the tavern that is now empty, the stragglers feeling my fury.
I stare at the silent ruins.
“Lucy…”
Twenty-Four
“Eternal sleep?” My tears dripped onto the page, blurring the words on Cas’s letter. “No,” I whispered. Then louder. “No. No.”
I tore off my bed, put on a long T-shirt and sweatpants, and threw open the front door. Rain fell in torrents. Though it was only a few hours past noon, the sky was leaden and dark as if night were about to fall. Lightning crashed, and I turned my face into the storm.
“Casziel!” I screamed.
It was his true name. We were bonded. He had to return to me; he had no choice.
Nothing.
My tears mixed with rain on my cheeks. I inhaled deep to call again. To command him to come back to me.
“It won’t work,” said a low, smooth voice. “He’s a bloody stubborn fool but powerful, nonetheless.”
A little cry fell out of my mouth to see a beautiful man in a bloodred jacket of rich velvet leaning against the banister at the bottom of the stairs, a sword strapped to his slender waist. Black feather wings were folded tight, the rain streaking off them in silver droplets. His arms were crossed, casual, as if there wasn’t a storm soaking him to the bone. Black eyes in a perfect face watched me.
“Who are you?”
“Ambri, at your service.” He bowed low, his golden hair dripping. He straightened, studied me. “I can see why he loves you, following you throughout the centuries like he has. Truly, you are blinding.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone to meet Oblivion.”
The word had scared me down to my soul when I read it in Casziel’s note and again when this demon spoke it.
“What is Oblivion?”
“Death for the dead.”
“I thought demons couldn’t be killed. They’re immortal.”
“All souls are immortal,” Ambri said, “until they choose not to be. Oblivion can be had in a variety of ways. A demon slaying another demon while in his human form, for instance. Our mutual friend has gone to pick a fight with the only demon powerful enough to send him to Oblivion. If you wish to stop him, it’s not Casziel you need to summon.”
“Ashtaroth,” I murmured.
“Indeed. But this is not child’s play, dove. To save your beloved, Ashtaroth will require…an exchange.”
But I already knew what Ashtaroth wanted for Casziel’s freedom. I shivered in the cold rain, then set my jaw and ceased my teeth’s chattering.
“How do I summon him? Saying his name won’t be enough.”
“Quite. You’ll need to perform a true ritual.”
Despair gnawed at me as the minutes slipped away with every falling rain drop. “How? I don’t know what I need or what to do…” I stopped, thinking. “Ashtaroth’s sign.” The image of it was burned into my memory just as deeply as it was burned into Casziel’s back.
“Clever girl. And this will help lock him into the sigil.” Ambri rummaged into his jacket and withdrew a slender black candle. “I swiped it from the old man. You’re welcome.”