The angel backed off into the shadows, vanishing amid the towers.
Yes—it was working.
Kim pushed onto his feet, laughing a little. This would be easier than he’d thought.
More wind. He pitched backward onto the street, crushed beneath the fury of two white wings hammering the air above him. This time, a female face broke through the sheets of water between them, her eyes a perfect match for the male’s, green with venom. He swiped at her with the knife, cutting the side of her shoulder. “Libera me a malo! Averto absum!”
She screamed back at him, more enraged than hurt.
Then, with an infuriated shiver of her wings, she fought through the needle-sharp pain of his words. He aimed his blade at her throat, but before he could touch the angel, her fingers wrapped around his neck. Kim coughed, straining to wrench her hands away, his back arching up from the stones. They struggled, rolling on the ground, but the angel held tight and already the world was fading into a giant swirl of gray, every bit of his pain lifting like a fog before morning. His body began to numb over. He relaxed and stopped clawing at his murderer’s perfect face.
Another surprise. He’d never imagined Angela would be his final thought.
The slow, sarcastic clapping from the side entrance of the altar sounded suitably horrific.
Brendan appeared seemingly out of nowhere, marching through a rank of novices who parted like twin waves. Hideous bruises bloomed on his face and neck. Sophia glanced at Angela for the first time since she’d entered the cathedral, biting her lip, visibly nervous. Beside Sophia, Naamah frowned, flexing the knives buried beneath her nails.
Brendan doesn’t know about the demon. If nobody does anything—he’ll die.
“Oh, it’s you,” Stephanie said, letting him get close. Too close. “Good timing, Brendan. You can do me a favor and join your sister.”
Brendan laughed, the noise abrupt and harsh, ringing against frescoes and stone. “Really, I’m impressed. You’ve done it this time.”
“And you sound—and look—as ridiculous as I expected.”
“I just find it ironic that you’re threatening my sister, when you’re the one about to burn.” Brendan pushed the greasy curls from his head, appearing unwholesomely careless. The expression on his face was disturbing. Older, more mature, but in the way of a person who’d sunk his teeth into forbidden fruit, losing all his innocence the more he tasted it. The sight was a terrible one, but Angela knew better than to open her mouth. She’d have her chance to act.
Besides—this wasn’t her brother anymore.
“Remember when I said, ‘nice knowing you’?” Stephanie folded her arms. She beckoned to Naamah, encouraging her nearer. “I lied.”
“One of your friends from Hell, I’m guessing?” Brendan’s lazy grin hadn’t changed.
Naamah stepped up to the altar, unperturbed by the closeness of any holy objects, people, or pictures. But it was fast becoming apparent that only part of what Angela knew about angels was the actual fact. Latin hurt them, yet a holy object seemingly had no effect whatsoever. Darkness oppressed the cathedral as Naamah climbed the stairs, and the priests cringed, some pressing against the walls. They could sense the wrongness of her.
She glared at them, her eyes blacker than two pools of oil.
Then the head priest made his mistake. “Vade, daemon.” Despite the thunder, even murmuring the Latin sounded louder than a trumpet blast in the quiet cathedral. “Anima vestras ad infernum remittite . . .”
Naamah flinched, like he’d stuck her with a needle.
She rounded on him, teeth gritted. Those nightmarish blades slipped out of her fingers.
The archbishop blanched whiter than death, still mumbling under his breath while she advanced on him. Her braids resembled a coil of miniature snakes attached to her head, and she loomed over the novices, tall and perfect and completely lethal.
He tried to speak, but she snapped her fingers, their metal clanking together.
His mouth sealed shut.
“That’s funny.” She leaned into him. “You’re suddenly speechless.”
Stephanie sighed in the background, impatient and unsympathetic. She folded her arms, leaning against a stone column with her ponytail swinging against it, ropelike. “Get on with it.”
Naamah’s mouth twitched, and she stiffened ever so slightly. Stephanie’s tone of voice had bothered her.
There was a tense silence.
The demon swung her arm.
The priest’s head rolled down the altar steps, its face staring at her in disbelief. It seemed to take forever for the archbishop’s eyes to glaze over, for Angela to catch her breath again.