Gathering of Angels
ONE
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Annie Sullivan tapped three sleeping pills out of the bottle and into her palm. After a short debate, she added another one. She set the bottle on the side table, dropped the pills in her mouth and chased them down with a long swig of beer.
It didn’t help any more than water, but it did make her head fuzzy a little faster. At least, that was the excuse she would give to Marcus if he ever found out.
He watched her like an overprotective brother. She wanted to slap him down for it, but she knew he was worried. Going into the fourth month after losing Claire, Annie looked like she was the one who fell into Hell.
She scrubbed at her face, then climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the pills to take effect. For the dreams to yank her in.
It didn’t take long before she was pulled under, slipping into smoke and shadow. Into a dream where she wasn’t alone.
*
Claire knelt on the rocky ground, both hands wrapped around the hilt of the knife buried between her ribs. There was blood on her hands, blood on her shirt, but she looked painfully, joyfully alive, firelight flickering over her uplifted face.
That light came from the torches set into an impossibly tall black gate. A gate that never stayed in focus long enough for Annie to see what was carved into the arched insets. Part of her knew she didn’t want to see.
Natasha stood over Claire—cousin, demon, murderer, and the reason Claire revealed who she really was. What she really was. To save the people she loved, Claire broke the wards that had protected her from herself, and let the demon inside free.
To Annie, she still looked the same. Bloody, ash pale, hair a tangled mess down her back, but still Claire.
Natasha leaned over and gripped Claire’s chin. “You may have dragged me down here before I was ready, but I still have all the souls I sent ahead of me. So I win, and you are the door prize.”
“We will see,” Claire whispered. Annie’s heart flinched at the pain in her voice. “And sooner than you expected.”
Claire just finished talking when the gate shifted. A figure appeared—and horror crawled over every inch of Annie’s skin. One second his face was so beautiful it hurt to look at. The next it morphed into a hideous goat’s head. Back and forth, like he couldn’t control the transformation. She wanted to run—her heart pounded so hard from the need her ribs hurt. But she was trapped by the pill-induced walls of her nightmare.
The figure stepped to Claire. Natasha let her go and dropped to her knees, bowing so low her forehead brushed the ground. He ignored her and laid one hand on Claire’s cheek.
“My beautiful servant.” His voice gouged at Annie’s soul. “Your presence by my side has been sorely missed.”
“Master.” Pain edged Claire’s voice—and a longing that made Annie realize this had been home first. Long before she became the loving, compassionate woman Annie knew, she had been here. Like him. “I have—”
She doubled over her hands with a sharp gasp. He knelt in front of her, and rage smacked Annie when he spotted the knife. “Who dares harm—”
“I brought her to you, my Lord Azazel.” Natasha lifted her head, a smile twisting her badly burned face. That damage must have been Claire’s doing; when Annie left Claire alone to fight her, Natasha had been stunningly gorgeous. “As a gift, a token. You have received the other souls I sent to—”
“I do not take the souls of innocents, demon filth.” Natasha cowered as that rage sliced across his voice. “As for your gift,” he turned back to Claire, and the constantly morphing face stabilized, leaving the terrifying, beautiful man in place. “It is one I am unable to accept.” With a gentleness that made Annie’s throat ache, he removed Claire’s hands from the knife hilt. “I would have you by my side for eternity, beloved.”
In one swift move he pulled the blade out and laid his hand over the wound. Claire clutched his wrist, blood trickling out of her mouth as she collapsed. His free arm caught her and lowered her to the ground.
Searing red light poured from his hand. Claire arched off the ground as the light engulfed her. A scream pounded the inside of Annie’s head while she watched her friend suffer at the hand of a monster even her imagination couldn’t create. The small part of her not frozen in terror knew that this was no dream.
An eternity passed before the light let Claire go. She gripped the rocky ground, her fingers shaking so badly Annie could hear her fingernails tapping against the rock. Azazel helped her sit, wiped at the blood staining her chin. Every injury was gone—even through the blood Annie could see healthy skin, the thin line of a new scar. Her terror shifted, and turned into an even more devastating emotion. Hope.