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A string of hysterical shouts left me as I flew around the table after Eddie.
Jacek and Sawyer blurred past me toward the open front door.
“Damn it, Eddie, get back here,” Sawyer roared.
A burst of hellfire singed the air before I made it outside, and I immediately imagined the worst. Would the devil kill Eddie out of self-defense? Or, you know, because he was a prickly devil bastard?
I flung myself onto the porch outside, then off of it as I tried to make sense of what was happening on the front lawn. Two of my vampires blurred together around the devil, who stood with his arm outstretched, holding Eddie out in front of him by his neck. A ring of hellfire flashed around the devil’s motorcycle boots and then exploded outward, taking all three of my vampires with it. Thick waves of smoke followed their trajectory as they smashed to the ground.
A war cry erupted out of me, a raw, savage sound fueled by the protectiveness for the ones I loved. I hurdled myself at the devil, armed with nothing more than my fists.
Sawyer must’ve had the same thought process because he surged to his feet, rushed forward, and slammed his massive fist into the devil’s face. The devil’s head snapped to the side, a bored smile stretching his mouth.
“Well,” he said, “hello to all of you too.”
“Don’t you ever touch them again.” I stalked up right into his line of sight so he could see my fist coming, too, and then let it fly, snapping his head in the other direction. My knuckles came away feeling like screaming, broken marbles, but whatever. I’d live.
The devil whipped around to face me like he might attack me, too, but then he stopped. A crack broke through his smooth, sharp exterior, one I could only describe as hurt, and not the physical kind either. Then it was gone as quickly as it came.
What the fuck had he expected from me? That I would just be okay with him flinging my vampires through the air?
“That was a dick move,” I told him, because apparently he didn’t realize it.
“They attacked me.”
“Oh, but the devil could never deserve that, could he?”
His jaw muscles bounced as if he were trying not to bite my head off. He stared at me, his sapphires as bright as starlight, while visions of murdering the slayer likely danced in his head. I’d bet I invoked that feeling in a lot of people.
“You fucking bastard, I’ll kill you,” Eddie was shouting. He was scrambling to get at the devil again, but Jacek held him back, an immovable wall. “She was my sister, already broken, but you chose her as the slayer and broke her even more.”
“Did you know?” Sawyer demanded. “Did you know the slayer power drove slayers mad?”
A pause while the devil looked at him, then, “Yes.”
Eddie’s rage-filled scream tore through the night, tightening sorrow into my heart like screws. Sawyer went to help Jacek hold Eddie back.
I stumbled away from the devil. “Why? Why choose someone so young to go through all this?”
The devil held out his hands, his expression stunned that I could even ask such a question. “So there’s more time to prepare, for slaying, for Paul, for all of it. I tried choosing people over the age of twenty-one as the slayer, but the power killed them, almost instantly. Besides, children are more resilient, and they learn fast. I don’t have any control over when the insanity hits since it’s not my power causing it. Look at you, Belle, at how far you’ve come, even though I chose you when you were—”
“This isn’t about me,” I snapped.
His gaze flickered over to Eddie and he frowned. “Like I said before, Eddie’s sister needed something to make her feel powerful, to distract her from her home life, and I gave it to her.”
I nodded. “Yeah, knowing that if Paul didn’t take her down, then insanity would.”
“It was either that or her own parents,” he growled, and it felt like a slap to my face. He was right. I didn’t know what exactly it had been like for Eddie and his sister, but from what I did know, the devil was right.
Stillness swept over the wintry night, quiet except for Eddie’s growls and Sawyer and Jacek’s soothing words to him. And then Detective Appelt started banging against the woodshed and yelling. The night was not quiet at all.
“What would you like me to do, Belle?” the devil asked. “The universe needs a slayer. Someone has to do it.”
Without one, everything is off-balance, helter-skelter, chaos, he’d said. Someone had to do it.
“If you can put slayer power in, can you take it back out?” I asked.
The devil frowned. “I would never do that.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I said.
“Yes,” he finally said. “Where are you going with this?”
Nowhere fast. Or...somewhere slowly with my flicker of an idea. But right now? “The graveyard. You have something for me?”
With a sigh and a roll of those sapphires up to the heavens, he reached inside his leather jacket. He pulled out a curved stake, white as bone. “A weapon to kill a god. I...had to ask one how to do it.”
I snapped my gaze up to his. “As in daddy goddy? I mean...” I heaved a hysterical laugh at my word salad. “Your dad god?”
He half smiled. “This is bigger than my daddy issues.”
“Those seem to be going around,” I said, glancing in the direction of the woodshed.
He held the weapon out to me. “Take it.”
Sudden apprehension quaked through me, cracking open all of my doubts and insecurities I didn’t do a very good job of hiding, because he was right—this was bigger than daddy issues. Bigger than anything, really. Especially this weapon that could take down a god.
I touched my fingertips to it, expecting a spiritual jolt or the “Hallelujah Chorus” to start in, but nothing like that happened. It was warm, smooth, plain yet perfect.
Jacek and Sawyer sidled up next to me, their gazes ticking between Eddie a few yards away and the god bone.
“Know what I’m going to do with this after I kill Paul?” I asked. “Stick it through my bun like a real Pebble’s bone.”
Jacek laughed. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
Sawyer palmed the small of my back and massaged my spine with his thumb. “Seems appropriate.”
“You know who Pebbles is, right?” I asked the devil.
He chuckled and nodded, sticking his hands in his jeans pockets. It was such a guy thing to do that it took me by surprise. “I think the reason that’s in your hands is because someone upstairs is a big fan of yours. All your rule-breaking doesn’t even seem to be an issue, which is...hugely unfair.”
“Upstairs.” I sucked in a breath. “You mean... Jesus Christ, you mean...”
“Oh, him too. Definitely.”
I stuck out my hand. “Stop. Please stop.” I already had enough pressure on me as it was, so I rejected the part about me having an audience from my brain. Except one audience member who was likely cheering the loudest and waving pompoms while I bumbled about, similar to that disastrous year in junior high when I accidentally made the track team.
My mom.
The force of her loss knocked into me all over again.
“Belle,” Sawyer said gently, but I slipped away from him, away from all of them.
A swarm of emotions tore at my throat as I looked at the graveyard next door, at where her body was buried. It had wrecked me to watch her fade away to nothing, and I hated for her to have to do the same to me. Which was why I had to win.
Which is why you have to lose echoed back, faint but there, deep in my subconscious, because death was the only way to see her again. Or be with her or...whatever.
But that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to beat Paul, and I knew she would want me to beat the big bad no matter what.
I marched into the house for my supplies and jacket, and then marched right out again. Cleo joined me with Night’s Fall in her mouth. She knew exactly where I was going.
“Slayer, what are you doing?” Jacek asked, taking steps toward me. “You don’t have to do this tonight.”
Tears burned down my cheeks as I met his amber gaze lit by moonlight. “I do.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I’m afraid,” I said, my voice cracking. “Because I’ll be afraid no matter when I do this, so I might as well get it over with.”
His face fell, no signs of that beautiful grin on his lips, and it just about killed me. All of them would follow me through the trapdoor without question if they could, but this battle was on me. Besides, Paul would use them against me by strolling through them, and we all knew it.
“Besides,” I choked out, “I have a god bone so I should be fine.”
All of them tried for smiles, even the devil, but they didn’t stick.
Sawyer stepped up to the bottom of the porch, still taller than me even though I was on the top step. “In the Brotherhood of Necron, we would walk our warriors to the edge of battle with the slayer and send the warrior off with our well-wishes in their ears so they wouldn’t be forgotten. I liked the sentiment. I hated the Brotherhood.” He offered me his hand. “But it would be an honor to walk you to the mausoleum.”
My throat was so tied up, I could only nod. I liked the sentiment too. And the vampire it had just come from. A lot.
From several yards away in the yard, Eddie caught my eye. “If there’s one slayer who can beat him, it’s my Sunshine.”
“Damn right it is.” My voice sounded much more confident than I felt.
The procession began with Cleo and me in the front, my vampires at my back, and then the devil himself, lagging a ways behind. At the back of my mind, I thought it was curious that he was coming with us when he didn’t have to. If I died, he didn’t need to be there to know that a new slayer should be chosen to take my place. At least, I didn’t think so.
Anyway, we were quite a mismatched, frightening group wandering down a Podunk City street toward the cemetery at night. The block was quiet, everyone holed up in their homes out of the bitter cold. Steam caught in the air from mine and Cleo’s mouths, and I reached down to stroke her back for warmth and comfort, both to give and receive.
Outside the cemetery gate, she looked up at me with her hell-no face and whined. Then once I unlocked the gate, she shot past me, a low warning rumbling her chest and her fur bristled along her spine. When we all passed through, I knew why she’d reacted like that.
The graveyard felt like sludge mixed with the darkest night imaginable. A black canopy blanketed the sky that had been star-filled just seconds ago. The already frigid temperature dropped by several degrees, making me shudder violently inside my thin jacket. A harsh wind had kicked up and rubbed sandpaper against my skin. Inhaling became a chore because the air was too thick, too burdened with Paul. I could feel his power, sucked from the bodies of dead slayers in his lake, and it was terrible.
Sawyer touched his hand to my lower back. “I feel it.”
“How could you not?” Jacek asked.
“Are you all right, Belle?” Sawyer asked.
I shook my head but continued onward anyway toward the fallen mausoleum near the back of the cemetery. The closer I drew, the heavier the air became until my breaths became wheezes. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, but despite the cold, sweat cascaded down my back like a wave of bullets. Either my nerves were fritzing or I was having a panic attack. Or both. Still, I pressed onward down the rocky path, past gravestones and statues, until I stood at the edge of the trapdoor. A black abyss waited down below, and just looking down into it sparked all sorts of ideas of things I’d rather be doing.
Cleo whined and nudged me away with her nose. When I didn’t move, she sat down on my boot to show me who was boss.
I leaned down to stroke her velvet ears. “I have to, girl. And you’re staying here. No arguments.”
She whined again, even more pathetic-sounding, and my heart couldn’t take it. She dropped Night’s Fall at my feet, seeming to finally give in. I stood upright and gently removed my boot from underneath her, then turned to face Eddie, who was already wrapping me in a hug.
And not just any hug. The kind I could feel with my whole body, desperate, clinging, and nothing but love in his touch. He’d come a long way from the vampire who hated contact. I clung to him just as hard.
He buried his face in my neck, glasses and all. “You’re my family, Sunshine. Please come back safe.”
A strangled sob left me as I nodded. I was his family, and he was mine, which made me so lucky.
He released me and then turned away, running his hands through his blond hair.
Jacek took his place and thumbed the tears from my cheeks. “You know what rises every morning, Slayer?”
“You mean other than your cock?” I barked out a tear-filled laugh.
He grinned and it lit up the night again, if only for a little bit. “That too. But also the sun. Without fail, it comes back and it comes back and it comes back. You will too. I have no doubt.”
I sucked in a breath, along with his words, and held them. His belief in me humbled me since he’d survived more than I could ever imagine with Roseff’s torture. I folded myself against him, and he embraced me as tightly as Eddie had.
Next came Sawyer who cradled my face in his large hands and kissed me, just a touch of lips powerful enough to warm my soul.
“You’re braver than any Brotherhood member I’ve ever known, Belle,” he whispered.
“I don’t feel very brave at the moment.”
“And yet I don’t think that will stop you.” He hugged me then, picking up my whole body and crushing it to his. Exactly where it belonged. But he put me down much too soon and then stepped back, his jaw muscles ticking.
I looked at the three of them, my beautiful vampires, and my heart flooded with love and gratitude that they were here for me when I needed them the most. That they would be here for me when I came back.
“Good luck, Belle Harrison,” the devil said from his perch on a nearby statue base. He was thankfully behaving himself at the moment in terms of last-minute marriage proposals. Could it be that he was finally catching on to the definition of no?
I nodded at him, and then with a shuddery breath, I picked up Night’s Fall, knelt by the open trapdoor to the Tunnel to Nowhere, and then sat so my legs dangled inside. The darkness below scraped prickles up my legs. Wiping my stray tears away, I looked once more at my vamps.
“I love you guys.” I shrugged at how simple that sounded, even though what I felt was so much more than that. Yes, I’d known them a short time. So what? My heart obviously didn’t play by anyone’s rules but mine. Besides, they needed to know, no matter what happened.
“I love you, too, Sunshine,” Eddie said.
Jacek nodded. “I love you right back.”
“I love you too,” Sawyer said. “Come back to us safely.”
They hadn’t even hesitated. It was just accepted, as easily as our avant-garde relationship, and it made me love them even more.
The devil stood and moved away from us, his head bent and darkened by shadows. His shoulders rose and fell in a deep sigh, and Cleo padded toward him with her soulful, let-me-help-you-work-through-your-issue eyes.
“Enough stalling, I guess,” I said.
“Come back soon,” Eddie said.
Jacek smiled. “Have fun with your god bone.”
“Not too much fun,” Sawyer said, frowning.
I tried for a snort, but my nerves were so taut, my face so numb, that nothing happened. A sure sign that it was time to go. I scooted forward, my stomach clenched against the direction when all it wanted to do was hurl and/or flee.
Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I dropped into the open trapdoor.