“You can’t do this.”
Aidan’s words echoed in the too-empty room. Too empty, too white, too sterile. Maybe this place had once been an office. No longer. Candles dripped like blood from the shelves, casting flickering light over the laminate table and the silver tools glittering there.
The table dripped, too, but not like blood. With blood. A thick, heavy sap staining the tiles at Aidan’s feet.
Not all of it his.
Aidan’s head swam as he tried vainly to stay awake. Conscious. He’d given up struggling against the ropes holding him to the chair long ago.
“It is my charge, my son,” Jeremiah said sagely. “I must cleanse the world of evil. I must cleanse you of evil, and to do that, you must pay for your sins in blood.”
He paced back and forth before Aidan’s chair, scalpel loose in one hand, his fingers tipped crimson.
“I didn’t realize your God condoned torture.”
Aidan couldn’t tell if the warm liquid dribbling from his lips was saliva or blood. What did it matter? The guards had punched him a few times to get him to settle down; Jeremiah’s touch was far less blunt, but all the more painful for its precision.
Now, the guards were gone. Just him and Jeremiah and all of Jeremiah’s toys and a dozen candles reminding him of the power no longer his to control. The power that had, in a way, been the cause of all this pain.
“This is not torture. This is salvation. You may be free of magic, but it will take conviction and strength to bleed the last remnants of the Dark Lady’s sin from your soul.”
For a moment, Aidan tore his eyes away from Jeremiah, focusing instead on the welt covering his Hunter’s mark. A cross in a circle, its points crossed by arcing lines. It scrawled red and raw over the looping circles and sigils of his tattoo. Breaking it. Disconnecting him from something that should have been as close to him as breathing.
A sob caught in the back of his throat. No matter what Jeremiah did to his body, he’d already done the worst thing possible.
Aidan couldn’t even find the rage to hate the man for taking Fire away.
Jeremiah stepped closer then. And when he gently pressed his thumb to the scar, Aidan cried out as lightning burned his vision white.
“What I could do and have done to your physical body is nothing compared to what awaits you in the afterlife,” he said through Aidan’s pain. “I am saving you, my son. Magic has brought Hell to this earth. In renouncing magic, you give in to divine mercy. In bleeding out your sins, you prove your love to our God. Only there will you find mercy. Only in His embrace will you find forgiveness for all you have done. For all the sin you brought into our world.”
Jeremiah let go of Aidan’s forearm; the pain subsided and the room inked back into focus.
“I don’t believe in God,” Aidan managed. He’d been raised atheist, and if anything, the last few years had taught him that the gods—if they were real—didn’t give a damn about humanity. No caring god would have let the Resurrection happen.
“God is very real,” Jeremiah said. “As are the many false idols who oppose him. One of whom, I believe, has chosen you to bring her shadow into the light.”
“What are you talking about?”
Aidan’s head lolled. Yep. Definitely blood trickling from his lips.
“The Dark Lady works through you,” Jeremiah whispered. “She has chosen you, Aidan Belmont. She has chosen you, but you are not past saving. Not yet.”
Truth echoed in Jeremiah’s words, a fear whispered into life.
The Dark Lady had chosen him.
Did Jeremiah know? Or was this his usual tirade?
That was as far as Aidan’s thoughts could go. The further he pressed them, the further they contracted, sinking back to the sensation he would never voice.
Jeremiah was right.
Jeremiah was wrong.
The Dark Lady had chosen him. He had sinned. Gladly.
And even if he believed in the Church or a God, he knew in the pit of his bloodied heart that no amount of pain or repenting would ever save his soul.
“I have waited a long time for you to fall into our care, Aidan Belmont. We have followed you for years, and we know what you have done.” Calum’s throne room flashed through Aidan’s mind, the throne and the blood and the burn of his comrades, the screams and the fear in Trevor’s eyes. The sins racking up, one by one. “You’ve tasted her power. You’ve heard her words. She speaks to you, doesn’t she?”
Aidan didn’t answer, but the stutter in his heart spoke the truth. How does he know?
“This is why you are here, my child. You serve a greater purpose than those around you. If the Dark Lady speaks to you, through you, then perhaps, by purifying her from your veins, we may find her source. We may find a way to purify our entire world.”
“You’re mental,” Aidan said. Coughed blood. How does he know?
How does he know?
If Jeremiah was right about the Dark Lady, what if he was right about the rest? The damnation and sin and... Get a hold of yourself!
“If you want to know about the Dark Lady,” Aidan managed, forcing the fear away, “why not interrogate a necromancer?”
Jeremiah smiled.
“Because she hasn’t spoken to them since the Resurrection. Not since she was killed by our illustrious order. Even her followers thought her dead. Until you came along. You have heard her voice. Of all people in the world, you are the one she has chosen to continue her work. It is my charge to discover why you are her conduit, and how to end her for good.”
“She is dead.”
It had to be true. She couldn’t be speaking to him. He couldn’t be chosen for anything, let alone this.
“Evil never dies. It merely changes form. And now, it seems, it has chosen you.”
“I liberated Scotland. I can’t be evil. I can’t be hers.”
“You liberated Scotland with magic,” Jeremiah said. “And with her orders simmering in your veins, those victories were never for the glory of God. You are not an altruistic man, Aidan Belmont. Pride, perhaps, is your greatest sin of all.”
He placed his free hand on Aidan’s forehead, as though blessing him. Or preparing to drown him.
“The road to salvation is long and fraught with terrors,” he said. “It is not with pleasure that I wield these tools against you. But it is God’s will. And I am but a pawn. Together, we will learn why the Dark Lady has placed her mark upon you. Together, we will walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Perhaps, if your soul is strong, and your heart pure, you will reach salvation on the other side. After all, my own road was long and shadowed, but I endured. It is only fitting you pass the same test.”
Jeremiah smiled. Aidan’s heart stopped in that gaze. Whatever charade of righteousness Jeremiah paraded under vanished. He wasn’t a pawn of some benevolent God. He was a maniac hell-bent on revenge.
The trouble was, he seemed to be right. The Dark Lady had chosen Aidan. She’d spoken to him. Commanded him. And he’d agreed without question. He’d convinced himself it was so he could get his family back. So he could see his mother again. So he could make everything right. When that was done, he’d defy the Dark Lady and punish her for causing this hell.
But without Fire burning away his doubts, he knew the truth.
He’d agreed to help her because he wanted to rule, no matter the cost.
Jeremiah’s blade dug a channel through Aidan’s arm, and as his world went red, as the room filled with Aidan’s screams, Aidan knew no amount of repenting would save him.
Not when the Dark Lady had already taken him as her own.
No matter the reason, his soul was hers.