Torn(9)

“So it would seem.”

“So we have to believe him,” I said, nodding toward the body on the floor. “Until I can figure out a way to get Rose free”—I turned to face my sister, who was crouched on the pillows—“and I will figure out a way, then Johnson’s body stays alive. Tie it up.”

“My pleasure,” Deacon said, taking his knife to the pull cord for the curtains, then using the cut strands to bind the Johnson-body’s hands and feet.

While he did that, I turned back to Rose. To Johnson. To the thing that had invaded my sister. “You,” I said. “Talk. What are you doing, and what exactly do you want?”

“Why, Lily,” Johnson said in a singsong Rose voice. “You sound so serious. And here I thought we were having a nice little family reunion  .”

The urge to lash out threatened to overwhelm me. I wanted to bloody up that sweet face. To make him shut the fuck up. Because the more I talked to him, the more I forgot that Rose was in there, and I couldn’t forget. Couldn’t sacrifice my sister. There I was—trained, bred, created, whatever—to fight.

But right then, I had nothing to fight against.

“I want you out of her.” Yet another understatement.

“We all want something,” Lucas countered.

I seriously considered ripping my hair out. “In case you haven’t been paying attention, I don’t know anything about your damn key. So how the hell am I supposed to find it for you?” It pissed me the hell off that he was tying my sister’s safety—hell, her sanity—to me handing over some stupid thing that I’d never even seen, much less had my hot little hands on.

“Patience, Lily,” he said. “You don’t have it now, but you will soon.” Rose’s perfect Cupid’s bow of a mouth stretched into a distended grin. “It’s why they made you.”

I shook my head. “No. They made me to kill a priest. To keep him from closing and locking the Ninth Gate. And in case you missed the memo, they got what they wanted.”

“Well, there’s the thing, Sugarlips—you’ve only fulfilled the first stage.”

“What are you talking about?” Deacon asked.

My sister might never have been a drama queen, but the same could not be said of Johnson. He crawled to the center of the bed, then sat cross-legged, back straight, arms balanced over her knees.

“And lo, it came to pass that the Ninth Gate of Hell burst open, and those who dwelled below crept forth, bringing desolation and darkness to the land. To the righteous shall fall the task of sealing the gate, and woe to those who seek to secure the maw, for their champion is neither alive nor dead, neither friend nor foe, neither wicked nor pure, not thus until her allegiance be claimed, making fealty sworn, and bound until the end comes nigh. Great shall be the power of her blood, with power to see the hidden and the lost, and she shall consume her enemy and become one.”

He bowed his head, then slowly looked up at me. “Nice to know they got you by the balls, isn’t it?” Johnson said. “And they do now. They really do.” He spread his arms wide. “Fealty sworn, babe. You’re one of us now.”

I shook my head, refusing to believe, even though so much of the freakish words rang true. A champion—that was what Clarence called me. Neither alive nor dead—and wasn’t I immortal, not to mention that I’d died, and yet I lived? And oh, yeah, there was that little bit about consuming my enemies. Didn’t much like it, but couldn’t avoid it.

And, yes, my blood had led Clarence straight to Father Carlton.

And let’s not forget that “hidden and the lost” part. Because hadn’t Clarence used my very skin to find the location of the Box of Shankara? Hadn’t the location of Father Carlton’s ceremony been seared upon my forearm?

It described me, all right. The prophecy described me to a T.

I’d always known I was Prophecy Girl, but I’d never known what the prophecy said. Now that Johnson had recited it for me, I can’t say that I was particularly happy with the knowledge. Especially not the knowledge that I was someone karmically locked on the demon side of things. “No,” I said, not willing to believe it. “I never made the choice. They tricked me. It can’t possibly count if they tricked me.”

“Tricked you?” Johnson repeated, only this time he spoke in Rose’s voice. “Is that what you tell yourself so that you can sleep at night? Poor little baby was tricked. Poor you, how horrible.”

“Dammit, Johnson, I never made the choice.”

“The hell you didn’t. You made the choice every time you embraced the rage. Every time you clung to the darkness. You made the choice, bitch, the day you tried to kill me.”