Raphael raced down the stairs faster than he’d ever run before. His heart was pounding in his chest, which was pulled tight. So tight he could hardly breathe. Reaching Gabriel’s door, he shouldered into the room. Gabriel and John Miller looked up from the desk. “We have to go get her,” Raphael snarled, the anger that was building in him threatening to take control.
Gabriel got to his feet. “What? What’s wrong?”
“She left. She fucking left!” Raphael slammed Maria’s letter down on the desk. He had woken up to find her gone. The enraged feelings that had swept over him were foreign to him. He didn’t know how to handle them. Pain and rage. That was all he was made of in that moment. He hadn’t even bothered to dress; he’d just ripped through his doors and stormed into Gabriel’s office, needing only Maria, needing to find Maria. He didn’t give a fuck about modesty. His rose was gone.
Gabriel’s eyes scanned the letter. Raphael paced the room. Miller was watching him; he could feel it. But he didn’t care. He needed Maria back. His mind raced to the previous night. He had told her she would never leave him ever. Her in the coffin . . . in the bath . . . in his arms . . .
He squeezed his eyes shut and saw each word of her handwritten letter in his head.
Raphael,
I will return to you. I want to say that first. I am not running away. I have gone to inform the bishop about the Brethren. As a novitiate sister of the Catholic Church I cannot have their atrocities on my conscience. The right people need to be told so they can be stopped.
I have seen what they have done to you and your brothers. No one should have to endure what you seven have—especially not innocent children.
When you read this I will hopefully be with the bishop. I will return to you as soon as I can. I will memorize my way back to the manor. I will not tell anyone where you live or anything about your way of life. You have my word.
Always,
Your Little Rose.
Gabriel placed the letter on the desk and ran his hand down his face. “What was she thinking?” He sank into his chair. Miller read the letter.
“We’re going to get her,” Raphael said. “We’re going to Boston and we’re bringing her back here.” He was fire lit from within. A burning effigy of rage.
“Let me make some calls. We’ll find out if she made it to the bishop’s residence.” Gabriel picked up his phone.
Raphael burst from the office and went to dress. He threw on sweats and a shirt. When he came back down, his brothers were in the dining room. “What’s happening?” Uriel asked.
“She went to tell the bishop about the Brethren.” Raphael poured himself a strong black coffee. He drank it like a parched man drinking water, ignoring the scalding of his throat as he drank the caffeine down.
His hands shook. He launched the mug against the wall, the china shattering on impact. Raphael paced the floor. But with every step, he grew more and more agitated. Something was wrong. He knew something was wrong.
“Have you told Gabriel?” Diel asked. His neck cricked from side to side under his heavy collar.
“He’s finding out where she is.”
The room plunged into silence, until, “You told her?” Raphael stilled and looked up. Sela was watching him. “You told her what they did to us? The Brethren?”
Raphael opened his mouth.
“I did.” Gabriel entered the room. “I told her what they had done to me. I didn’t say anything about you six.” Raphael stared at the floor. She knew. She knew what Father Murray had done to him. The scars, being pinned down . . . why he needed pain.
He struggled to breathe.
She knew, and she hadn’t turned him away. She hadn’t been repulsed. She’d held him, kissed him . . . let him inside her.
He was lost to his heavy, racing thoughts when Gabriel stopped in front of him. Raphael raised his head.
“I got copies of the security camera footage from Bishop McGuiness’s house.” Gabriel turned and headed back to his office. Raphael followed, as did his brothers.
Miller was beside Gabriel’s large computer screen. His face was pale. He turned the screen and pressed play. Raphael’s body was stone as he saw Maria, dressed in his clothes, enter the bishop’s home. Then there was nothing . . . until two familiar men walked through the gate.
“Father Murray,” Diel growled.
“Father Quinn,” Michael echoed.
Raphael’s heart thumped as he watched the screen. The van the priests had arrived in moved. “Where is she?” Raphael snarled, focusing on the screen. The screen switched to another camera.
“These cameras are protected. Someone had paid off the city to turn a blind eye to anything that happens there. Luckily we have people who can hack into anything,” Miller said, and the screen came to life. It showed the back of the bishop’s home. Nothing happened for several minutes, until the back door opened and Father Murray walked out, something in his hands. No, not something. “Maria,” Raphael snarled on seeing her in that cunt’s arms. Maria, his Maria, unconscious, being taken by the man who had made his life a living hell for so many years.
Raphael couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand the blood rushing through his veins, making his muscles ache. He couldn’t stand the tightness of his breath or the inability to fucking breathe. His hands rolled into fists, but they were shaking as he watched footage of the van moving through downtown Boston, all the way to—
“Holy Innocents,” Bara said, and the tension in the room thickened.
“Purgatory,” Uriel added. “They’ve taken her to Purgatory.”
Raphael stood back and let the rage of seeing Maria unconscious, of seeing that cunt holding her and taking her to Purgatory, devour him, consuming every cell in his body until he burned like the depths of hell. Releasing a roar, he threw the screen off the desk, but the shattering of it against the wall did nothing to calm him down. He ransacked the office while his brothers stayed quiet.
They had Maria. They fucking had Maria! His Maria!
Sela stood in front of him, blocking his path. “Calm down, Raphe.”
“I can’t,” he snarled. His body was too pumped full of fury for him to calm. “They have her.” Raphael looked at Gabriel, who was watching him closely. “We’re getting her back.” Raphael hit his chest. “We’re fucking getting her back.” His voice dropped dangerously low. “And I’m killing Father Murray. Finally, I’m gonna kill that cunt for taking Maria from me. For touching a hair on her head.”
Gabriel held out his hands. “We have contacts who can go in and get her—”
“No!” Raphael said, cutting him off. He shook his head and pulled at his hair. He was coming out of his motherfucking skin. In that moment, he was death. He was the evil the priests had accused him of being every single day for years. And he embraced it. Devoured the darkness flooding his veins. “I’m getting her.”
“Raphe, listen—”
“No!” Raphael stepped forward and pointed at Gabriel. “I’m sick of hiding from the Brethren. This time they’ve fucked with what’s mine, and I’m going in and getting her. Not your contacts, not the men, not the mercenaries who got us out years ago. Me. I’m going in.” Raphael took a deep breath and felt a vicious smile pull on his face. “And I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill as many as I can . . . then I’m killing Father Murray, slowly, staring straight into that motherfucker’s eyes.”
“Raphe—” Gabriel began.
“He’s right.” Bara came to stand beside Raphael. “They deserve to die. I’m going with him.” He smirked and licked his lips. “You have no idea how many times I’ve envisioned walking into that place with a flame thrower and going to fucking town on those sadistic fuckers. They love all that fire-and-brimstone shit. I’m happy to deliver it.”
“I’m in too,” Diel said, and looked at Gabriel. “Collar off.” His eyes shone. “I’m about due for some uncontrolled fun.”
One by one Raphael’s brothers stood beside him, creating an army of killers. Finally, Michael came to stand by his right side, his arm brushing against Raphael’s.
Raphael’s chin lifted as he looked at Gabriel. “We’re going in.”
Gabriel inhaled a deep breath, then slowly came to stand beside his brothers. Raphael tracked his every move. When Gabriel was standing beside Uriel, he looked at Miller. “Get transport ready. Extra cars too. If they have kids in there, we need to get them out and take them somewhere safe.”
“You’re going too?” Miller asked him.
Gabriel met Raphael’s eyes. “We are the Fallen. A brotherhood. Where one goes, we all go.”
Raphael felt that unfamiliar tightness in his chest again as he looked at his brothers beside him. They’d been with him in Purgatory. They’d lived side by side in hell. Now they were following him back into the dark.
Gabriel turned to them. “Get whatever weapons you want. And get plenty. We have no idea what we’re walking into.”
Bara rubbed his hands together. “This day just got a whole lot more fucking exciting!”
Before they went to the arsenal in the basement, Gabriel said, “You know there’s a chance we won’t all come back.”
“We will,” Uriel said with a knowing smirk. “Your God surely wouldn’t deny us the right to fuck these assholes up once and for all. Not after everything they’ve done. He can be wrathful too. Maybe he needs a bit more violence in His life. All that holier-than-thou shit is just boring.”
“Don’t worry, Angel,” Bara said, smiling. “I’ll have your back if it gets messy.”
They raced down to the arsenal. As Raphael strapped knives and guns to his body, he kept Maria’s face in his mind. He’d get his little rose. He’d get her and bring her back to their home. And maybe the tightness in his chest would disappear. He didn’t like it. He didn’t understand it. All he knew was that he wanted her back. Needed her back. Had to have her back so he could once again fucking breathe.
Then he’d kill her. And he’d keep her in his room forever in the coffin that made her look so, so beautiful . . .
Then she would never ever leave him again.
*****
The Fallen waited in the shadows until night was at its darkest. From the cover of the trees, Raphael watched the entrance of Purgatory. There was a strange buzz in his blood. A heady tension in his veins. He felt someone watching him. Turning to his right, he saw it was Gabriel.
Raphael didn’t understand the strange feelings that were dominating his body. Every time he thought of Maria being with Father Murray, him hurting her and fuck knew what else, the tightness and breathlessness consumed him until he didn’t think he could stand it. Raphael closed his eyes. When he opened them again, just needing to get the fuck going, to storm through the metal door that they’d left through so many years ago, he felt Gabriel still watching him.
“You good?” Gabriel whispered to Raphael.
When they’d first left Purgatory, Gabriel had told them that Raphael, Bara, Uriel, Michael, Sela, and Diel didn’t see the world the way everyone else did. The six of them felt things differently—or, most of the time, not at all.
But Raphael was feeling things now. When he thought of Maria’s smile, of her touching him, warmth spread in his chest. And when he thought of her being hurt, a wave of such evil came over him he felt like the devil himself.
Raphael nodded at Gabriel. Gabriel sighed, then said to his brothers, “We won’t know how many are in there until we get inside.” Gabriel was dressed in black. They all were. But Raphael found it strange not to see his older brother in his usual dog collar and slacks. “From what I remember, there could be up to thirty, thirty-five members in the different rooms.” Raphael’s mind took him back to the candle room. The one where they were lined up and forced to suck Brethren cock, where they were pinned down and raped over and over until it became part of their everyday life. His lip curled in disgust, and the thick black tar of revenge clogged his every cell.
“I’ll go for the dorms,” Gabriel said. “If there are any boys in there, we need to get them out. Miller will have men waiting for them at the entrance once we’re inside. We’ll need to get them far away from this place.” The Fallen all nodded. Gabriel’s stare was steel as he met each of his brothers’ eyes. “No one goes anywhere alone. We don’t know what we’ll face, and we’ll need numbers. Understand? We’re not losing anyone tonight. Yeah?”
“Yeah,” the brothers answered.
One of Miller’s contacts moved across the lawn and to the door of Purgatory. Raphael’s muscles twitched as the ex-military guy Gabriel had paid off silently opened the door. The Brethren wouldn’t even see them coming. Tonight, the Fallen would become the demons they had accused them of being.
“I’ve been waiting for this for years.” Bara got to his feet. He arranged his gun and flame thrower over his chest and shoulder. One by one the Fallen got to their feet, following suit.
Diel cricked his neck slowly from side to side. He turned to Gabriel. “Turn the collar off.” Gabriel hesitated, but he reached into his pocket and switched the power down to zero. Diel closed his eyes and took a deep breath at the sudden freedom. “Don’t turn it back on until it’s finished.” Diel smirked, and his eyes opened, lit with uncontained excitement for the kills he was about to make. He hissed in ecstasy as he shed his control. “Mmm . . . that feels fucking good.”
Gabriel stepped forward, still under the cover of the trees, and faced his brothers. “We don’t leave anyone alive. If we do, the repercussions could be dire.”
“No one will survive.” Michael spoke from beside Raphael. His brother was laden with knives and a belt of spare vials for the collection of his victims’ blood. These kills would award him a feast.
“No one lives,” Raphael echoed his best friend. Michael looked at Raphael, and in a rare occurrence he smiled, showing his pristine, sharp white fangs.
Fangs that wouldn’t stay white for long.
Miller’s contact moved away from the door and signaled to Gabriel and the others that the door was unlocked.
Raphael took in a long inhale and forced his breathing to calm. His heart was spurring him on, the beat fast and erratic with the promise of death.
“Ready?” Gabriel said. Raphael clutched the guns in his hands, knives ready in the waist of his pants.
Following Gabriel, they cut over the grass as one unit. Gabriel paused at the door, his eyes closed and his head bowed. Raphael knew he’d be saying a prayer to his God who never gave a fuck about them. Raphael’s eyes landed on that familiar metal door. Even with the heat of fury consuming his body, he felt as though he were being plunged into a vat of ice-cold water, knowing what was beyond it. The scars on his back pulsed, and he felt Father Murray’s phantom hands rubbing over his skin. Pinning him down and crowding his back. He shook. He shook with such a need for revenge that it was all he became.
Open the door. Open the motherfucking door!
When Gabriel’s head lifted, he opened the door. The burning smell of Purgatory, one that Raphael smelled each night in his sleep, assaulted him. Vomit crawled up his throat, but Raphael pushed it down and kept Maria’s face in his head. The bulbs flickered, and Raphael used the distraction to remind himself that death awaited them inside. Not their own, but that of their tormentors. The burning smell quickly changed from an offense to his fuel.
Raphael rocked on anxious feet as adrenaline soared through his body. His hand tightened around his gun. In the suspended silence, the Fallen met one another’s eyes. They were back. In a place they vowed to never return to. Energy pulsed between them as they gathered in a loose circle. Seven sinners ready to wreak havoc on the godly pretenders.
Bara smirked and readied his flame thrower, signaling that they were ready. That the Brethren’s day of judgment had come.
With a slow nod of Gabriel’s head, they began to walk through the hallway as one brotherhood. Careful walks turned into impulsive jogs, the jogs morphing into flat-out runs. And with every step, Raphael felt the lost screams he had left in this place track him down and join his crusade. Gabriel followed the hallway to where the old dorm used to be. The hallway to the dorm always felt colder than the rest. When goosebumps devoured his skin, Raphael felt thirteen again, staggering back after being stuffed with Father Murray’s cock. The image was almost his undoing. It was only Maria’s face in his mind’s eye that kept him focused. Kept him centered. Raphael’s eyes were wide and assessing as Gabriel opened the door. He heard Gabriel’s quick inhale.
“Move,” Gabriel ordered. Raphael peered over his shoulder. Nine sets of dead eyes stared back at him. Raphael’s stomach began to boil. His limbs shook at the sight of the half-starved, gaunt boys, sunken eyes staring at them from blank, untrusting faces. The boys were them ten years ago. Raphael felt his brothers around him, pulsing with uncontained hatred for the Brethren too. But Raphael couldn’t take his eyes off the boys. Was that what they had looked like when they were here? Sela rushed forward and carried one who had collapsed on the bed, who looked like he couldn’t walk. He had blood staining his white pants at his rear . . . Raphael felt the vibrating surge of fury begin at his feet and travel through his body when the boy’s vacant eyes latched on him as he passed.
“Move!” Gabriel repeated and charged into the room. He dragged each boy to his feet. Each one was a living ghost of the Fallen from the past. He heard his brothers hissing and cursing around him. They must have been thinking the same thing.
“Die,” he heard savagely snarled from the back. It was Diel. “Die. They will all die.” Raphael was paralyzed, watching Gabriel lead the boys to the entrance. The boys ran outside. The minute the last one had fled, Raphael came back into his body and let the fire consume him.
Just as Gabriel closed the door, a gunshot rang out down the hallway. Raphael spun, gun out. But Diel pushed past him, a dark smile covering his face. “Finally,” he growled. Diel charged, a twenty-inch knife in each hand. Raphael caught a glimpse of the red and black Brethren colors the priest wore. It was a flag to a bull. The priest who had fired didn’t even get a chance to re-aim at Diel; Raphael’s brother stabbed a blade straight through his forehead. Diel pulled the blade out of the priest’s head, and the priest’s body dropped to the floor, eyes wide open. Diel hissed in pleasure, then took off.
“Diel!” Gabriel hushed out. But the red mist he treasured descended over Raphael’s eyes, and Gabriel’s hissed orders became a distant hum as he gave himself over to his urge to kill. Blood rushing through his ears, Raphael ran in the direction Diel had gone. He didn’t feel anything. The fire inside him burned through any recognition of anything but the search for Maria and the Brethren. A blanket of gunfire sounded. Bara was beside him in seconds, flame thrower at the ready and a maniacal smile on his face. As they rounded the corner, Raphael fired as a line of priests dressed in black with red dog collars came at them. Diel attacked one after the other in quick succession. Michael followed Diel, stabbing and slitting throats as he went. Sprays of blood spattered Michael’s face—his best friend licked at the crimson-coated knives and the drops that ran onto his lips.
Another group of priests ran at them from the left. Bara turned and laughed as his flame thrower doused them all in fire. The priests screamed, the smell of burned flesh filtering through the stagnant hallways. The screams were a blissful symphony to Raphael’s ears, a salve to some of the gaping wounds that had never healed. Torn fibers in his chest began knitting together as priest after priest hit the ground. Finally, it was them prostrate at the Fallen’s feet.
Uriel ran through to the burning priests, stabbing and crowbarring their knees. Even through the cacophony, the sound of bodies hitting the ground was better than any hymn he’d ever heard sung at church. “Let them die slowly,” Uriel snarled as the priests began to beg for a quick death.
Raphael watched them screaming and begging for mercy. Their pain energized him, made him reborn. Raphael gave himself over to darkness. Bullets rained from his gun, and Raphael grew harder and harder as priest after priest dropped to the floor. It was carnage, and Raphael was a savage as he shot through skulls and hearts and heads, blood spraying his face—the most addictive warmth. Sela dropped down to the falling bodies, stripping them of ears and tongues and fingers with his sharp blades.
But Raphael broke from the pack and ran down the hallway that led to the staircase. He descended the steps. The familiar route caused images to flash through his head like a movie reel—candles, the smell of burning, sweat from the priests, cum and screams . . . Raphael ran to the candle room, the need to kill guiding his feet. As he slammed through the door, his feet ground to a halt.
Kids. Kids on the ground, naked priests above them. He saw red. Raphael raised his gun, about to shoot each of the priests, when he heard, “Let me, brother. These fuckers deserve to burn.”
Bara came from behind him, stalking toward the priests trying to escape. Before they could even take a step, Bara sprayed their naked bodies with fire, the flesh instantly starting to boil. Raphael heard Gabriel ushering the naked boys to their feet and rushing them from the room too. This time his eyes stayed on the priests. They screamed as they were set ablaze. They hit the walls and the ground, trying to put out the flames, but Bara doused them and doused them until their bodies were charred and unable to do anything but be eaten alive by Bara’s flames.
Uriel picked up a can of the gasoline Gabriel’s mercenaries had begun bringing inside. He uncapped the can and poured it on the ground. Raphael’s eyes stayed on the priests. He couldn’t tear himself away from their hair burning away and the flames ravaging their skin. His muscles twitched in satisfaction when he saw their cocks begin to burn. Their rapist, sinful cocks.
A flash of Maria’s face in his mind snapped Raphael back to the here and now. He raced back up the stairs and headed to the room he knew all too well—that they all knew far too well. The door was shut. He didn’t glance behind him to see whether any of his brothers followed. He didn’t care.
Adrenaline and anger leading the way, Raphael burst through the door. At the sight of the devices and torture machines, his skin went ice cold, but his blood was still scalding hot. He clutched his gun, ready to fire. But the door slammed shut behind him, and Raphael spun around.
Raphael felt bumps break out over his skin. He knew exactly who was behind him. His lip curled when he turned and met the eyes of the priest who had barricaded him in. But instead of rage, Raphael’s feet ground still on the spot and his heart began to beat too fast.
He was here. Father Murray was before him. Raphael began to drown in the memories of the past. As he stared at the face that was the star of his every nightmare, his body began to shut down. He couldn’t move. Could only stare at the man who had been his torturer. Who had pinned him down and fucked him over and over again. The priest’s brown eyes were locked on his. Raphael’s breathing came faster and faster, making him light-headed as Father Murray slowly bolted the door.
“You came,” Father Murray said. Daggers stabbed down Raphael’s spine at the sound of his deep voice.
“Take my cock.” Raphael flinched as the memories devoured his mind. “Beg, heathen. Repent, and I’ll stop.” But Raphael didn’t. Father Murray threw him on the ground and flipped Raphael over to his stomach, the priest’s hard cock scraping over the back of Raphael’s thighs . . . Raphael wouldn’t cry out even though his jaw clenched. As the pain of Father Murray thrusting inside him threatened to tear him apart, Raphael vowed he would never submit to this man.
Never.
Raphael blinked, tearing himself from the memory and back into the room. His chest heaved at the flashback. Hand shaking, he began to raise his gun, keeping Father Murray in sight. But as he went to fire the bullet that would finally rid him of his life, Father Murray said, “You came for her.”
Raphael froze, his finger stalling on the trigger. Raphael’s eyes narrowed. Father Murray smiled. “I knew you would. She’s your greatest fantasy come true.” He moved from the door and across the room, sticking close to the walls filled with knives and hammers and a thousand other weapons of torture. Raphael knew each one all too well. Knew how each one felt on his skin and stabbing into his flesh.
“When I saw her in the monastery, I knew she was the one for you.” Father Murray stopped beside a closed iron coffin. “You told me, remember?” Raphael felt the blood drain from his face at the coffin . . . at what Maria had told him about William Bridge. “After I fucked you for the fourth time. After . . .” Father Murray pulled the metal baton off the wall and held it out to Raphael. Raphael sucked in a shuddered breath. “After I fucked you with this.” Father Murray tilted his head. “Do you remember, Raphael? Do you remember how you told me who you wanted to kill and why?” He smiled. “Because that’s how your mommy died.”
The gun shook in Raphael’s hand. He unlatched the safety and re-aimed. “You haven’t asked where Maria is.” On cue, muffled noises came from inside the coffin Father Murray stood beside. Raphael’s eyes slammed to it. He heard her nails scraping against the metal, clawing to be freed.
Father Murray pointed to a combination lock on the coffin. “Drop the gun, Raphael. You won’t get inside the coffin unless you keep me alive. Drop the gun and I’ll let her breathe.” He shrugged. “There’s not much air getting in to the sinful novice nun.”
Raphael gripped the gun harder. He wanted to shoot him, to end him and free his own body from the traitorous paralysis that seeing the priest caused . . . until Maria started screaming again, and he dropped it to the floor without even thinking. Father Murray’s eyes flared at the act of submission. Raphael gritted his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. He didn’t submit. He didn’t motherfucking submit!
“Get on your knees.” Father Murray’s voice grated on his nerves, the order that echoed in his mind every day the worst torture of all.
Raphael stayed on his feet. He needed to see Father Murray bleed. Needed to see his eyes frozen in death. And he couldn’t submit. He wouldn’t get on his knees for this fucker. Not anymore. Not again. He wouldn’t let himself—
“She’s running out of air,” Father Murray said, cutting through his thoughts. The priest covered the tiny holes that were drilled through the metal lid, depriving her of any air inside.
Maria’s screams faded, and Raphael knew he wasn’t bluffing. Every part of him screamed not to obey. Then he heard pained sobs coming from the coffin. The ache in his chest returned as he thought about Maria trapped in the dark, trapped back in her very own hell. He was trapped in his. They were in hell together.
At that realization, Raphael dropped to his knees.
Father Murray moaned at the sight of the submission, but making sure Raphael was watching him, he entered the combination on the coffin’s lock and pushed the heavy, suffocating lid aside. Father Murray reached inside, and it took Raphael all the strength he had not to jump to his feet and charge, a spark of life slicing through his numb limbs at the thought of this cunt touching Maria. Raphael felt his muscles fill with blood. He readied to attack, readied to pull his knife from his waistband and run at the priest. But Raphael aborted the plan when Father Murray pulled Maria from the coffin, his hands under her limp arms. Her body was slumped over and unmoving. Maria’s eyes rolled in her head, but she fought through her fading consciousness to find Raphael. The minute she did, a heavy sob slipped from her mouth.
Raphael felt a fissure crack through his chest, so profound he gasped for breath. Seeing Maria limp and racked with pain destroyed him. He shook with fury, with unconcealed rage. Then he saw it, and everything moved into slow motion. Maria’s blanket of hair slipped from her front, and her chest was exposed. There, on her naked and bruised body, was an upturned cross, just like his, just like his brothers’. Her perfect skin was red and blistered, white where infection was starting to take its hold. She was deathly pale, and her lips were blue from lack of air.
Raphael hadn’t known he could have harbored more hate than he already did for the priest who had been his tormentor all his life. He was wrong. He was dead wrong. Father Murray had hurt Maria. He had inflicted on her pain so great she could barely keep her eyes open.
The priest had touched what what his.
Maria was fucking his.
Then the priest ran his hand down Maria’s naked front until he reached her pussy. With eyes locked on Raphael, he slipped his finger inside Maria. She didn’t even make a sound.
Fear from the past fell away like rain off a tin roof. Raphael was on his feet in seconds, lit with the wrath of hell itself. He charged across the room. But Father Murray dragged Maria around the coffin, using it as a shield, and placed his hands on her neck. Raphael’s feet ground to an abrupt halt. “I’ll snap her neck. Come any closer, and I’ll snap it in two. I’ll destroy your dream kill.”
Raphael tried to think what to do. But Father Murray said, “I told you to get on your knees.” Raphael did, every part of him screaming at him to fight back. His eyes were fixed on Father Murray as he walked toward Raphael, still holding Maria in his grip. Her feet dragged along the floor, body broken. When he stopped before Raphael, Raphael promised the priest death with his glare alone.
Father Murray smirked. “Pull down my zipper.” Raphael’s heart felt like it had stopped. Father Murray’s face morphed with ire. “I said pull down my zipper, demon!” His yell echoed off the walls, bringing the past to the present. His hands tightened around Maria’s neck as a warning for Raphael to comply.
Maria’s unfocused blue eyes managed to find Raphael’s. “No—” she whispered, her face contorting in sadness.
Father Murray cut off her words as he began to squeeze her neck. Raphael didn’t even pause as Maria’s face reddened at the priest’s pressure. He reached out and pulled down Father Murray’s zipper. Maria didn’t move her gaze from his. Raphael didn’t move his from hers. He wouldn’t let her die. He wouldn’t let this cunt take her from him.
Her gaze made him feel different from the last time he was in this room, in his position. She made him feel less alone.
When Father Murray’s zipper was down, Raphael saw his cock was hard. “Pull it out,” he said, his voice growing hoarse. Raphael’s hands shook, but he did as Father Murray said. Maria whimpered and tried to break away. But Raphael stared at the brand on her chest. She needed help. He needed to get her out of here.
Movement from behind Father Murray caught Raphael’s attention. He never averted his eyes. But when he saw long dark hair and dark eyes close in on the priest, Raphael attacked. Reaching to his waistband, Raphael pulled out his knife, and in one swift swipe he castrated Father Murray, his severed dick falling to the floor onto which Raphael’s blood, sweat, and cum had once dripped. Father Murray screamed and dropped Maria, but Sela was there to catch her.
Raphael’s vision shivered with darkness. Grabbing Father Murray by his hair, he dragged him across the room and slammed him against the wall. Teeth bared, he wrapped his hands around Father Murray’s neck. Raphael snarled in the priest’s face as he squeezed. Father Murray clawed at Raphael’s arms. But Raphael wasn’t aware of anything except Father Murray’s slowing pulse and his mouth gaping, trying to gasp for breath. Breath that Raphael was stealing, coveting as his own. He squeezed harder and harder, watching Father Murray’s face turn from red to blue. His brown eyes bulged and his hands grew weak, his body growing heavy.
Raphael didn’t speak as he drained the priest of life. He didn’t think of all that had been done to him as a child. He just relished the sensation of imminent death coming to an abusive cunt who deserved it. Raphael’s fingers were iron as he squeezed for the final time, feeling Father Murray’s trachea crush and his bones snap under Raphael’s incredible force.
Father Murray’s eyes were locked on Raphael, his head distorted to the side. Raphael threw back his head and screamed. He roared out every fucked-up thing that the priest had done to him. What he had done to Maria—
Maria.
Raphael dropped Father Murray’s body to the ground. Blood spurting from his groin pooled beneath him. Raphael moved to Sela and took Maria from his hands. Raphael saw his other brothers watching, all except Gabriel. Uriel began to pour gasoline on the floor.
“We need to leave,” Sela said. Raphael held Maria close to his chest. He grabbed a towel from a hook outside the torture room and wrapped it around her, then he raced for the door, following his brothers to the exit. But just as they reached the final hallway, a gunshot sounded.
Diel hit the floor.
Fear at seeing his brother torn down caused dread to cut through Raphael’s body like a bolt of lightning. He spun around to see Father Quinn. The exit lay just beyond where he stood. Father Quinn’s eyes were filled with thunder.
“Demons,” he snarled in their direction. Diel lifted his head, blood seeping from his shoulder. But the brother laughed a hysterical laugh. He stuck his finger into the hole, pulled out the bullet, and flicked it at the priest’s feet. Diel sucked the blood from his finger, leaving a stain around his mouth.
“I didn’t think it would be possible for you to become more evil, but here you are, before my very eyes, demons in the flesh.” Father Quinn raised his gun again. Raphael and his brothers did the same, but the priest froze, his face still with shock. As the priest dropped to the ground, Raphael saw Gabriel standing behind him, a knife in his hand. A knife coated in blood. Father Quinn’s gun clattered to the floor. Bara kicked it out of his reach. The old man’s eyes filled with horror.
Ignoring the priest scurrying along the floor, Raphael moved for the exit, Maria tightly in his arms. Uriel poured the final can of gasoline in the hallway and all over Father Quinn. Raphael flinched at the heavy smell. His brothers stopped on the threshold of Purgatory, and he surveyed their childhood hell for the last time. This time there was nothing left in him to feel. Father Murray was dead, and the place was about to be an inferno.
Bara lifted his flame thrower. “Shall I?”
Raphael nodded. But just as Bara went to light the gasoline and set the place ablaze, Gabriel held out his hand. “Wait.” Gabriel walked to Father Quinn. The old man looked into Gabriel’s eyes, pure hatred in his stare.
“You,” Father Quinn spat. “The worst of them all.”
“You tried to ruin our lives. You tried to tear us down and make us into nothing.” Gabriel took a long inhale. “But you only made us stronger.”
“You are killers. Murderers. One day soon, you will be punished by God.”
“That may be true,” Gabriel said. “But at least we won’t have to explain why we raped innocent little kids in His name.” Gabriel got to his feet, hovering over the high priest bleeding, on his knees. “You’re a sinner of the worst kind. The most un-Christian Christian I’ve ever met.”
Gabriel walked to the exit, his brothers standing by and waiting for him to lead them home. They were a true brotherhood, unlike the cunts in this damned place.
“You have no idea of the wrath that is coming your way,” Father Quinn hissed.
Gabriel stared at the priest, pulled a box of matches from his pocket, and lit one. Meeting the high priest’s widening gaze, Gabriel smiled, but it was anything but holy. “Go to hell, Father.” Gabriel flicked the match to the floor, igniting the gasoline into a raging line of fire. The Fallen walked from Purgatory, locking the door for the final time.
Smoke and the stench of burning flesh followed them as they fled across the fields to the waiting vans. As Raphael crawled into the back of the van, he cradled Maria into his body. Her blue eyes looked into his, and even through her insufferable pain, she smiled.
His chest had never felt so warm.