Page 60 of Love At the Gates of Hell (The Seven Sinners Trilogy #1)

forty-one

Luke

Shooting Frank Markos was not part of the plan.

At least, not before the ritual was over.

Gideon was the planner.

He was the one who was always thinking twelve steps ahead.

He found the holes in Luke’s grand ideas and packaged them up as something achievable.

He could navigate every possible outcome, every possible roadblock.

When they were kids dealing with overdue bills and homework.

When they worked as errand boys for Frank.

When they made the move to work on their own.

Even when Luke was in the throes of his rebirth as a vampire, Gideon always had the answers.

But from the moment Benedetta Russo entered their lives, Gideon had been working off-book.

“Are we improvising?” Luke asked as he ducked a swing from a sledgehammer.

“We’re improvising,” Gideon grunted as he punched a vampire coming his way.

The cathedral had devolved into mayhem.

Every single one of Frank’s men was descending upon the two of them, and Luke was weighing his options between dodging and shooting as a particularly brawny vampire came hurtling toward him.

But he didn’t have much time to decide as another rumble shook through the church.

Like it was hungry for the ritual that had yet to be completed.

Tough fucking break, Lucifer.

He took the distraction to land a clean shot to the vampire’s chest, the wooden bullet immolating him from the inside out. The ash almost made him sneeze. He wrinkled his nose as he rubbed at his face.

He could see that Gideon was a man on a mission, moving down what was left of the aisle at a surprising pace amidst the flying fists and bullets. But he hesitated, his head twisting back to look at Luke with a furrowed brow. “Are you gonna be okay?”

“Oh, please,” Luke replied. “Like I need your help.”

“About Dad—”

“Later,” Luke said, trying not to think too closely about it.

He couldn’t afford the distraction.

Still, his brother hovered.

“Gideon, go get your girl.”

“Luke,” he started, but Luke shook his head.

“I’m the one with the superhuman strength, remember?”

“Fucking egotistical pain in my ass,” Gideon muttered with a begrudging smile before darting down the pew to the other side of the church.

Luke chuckled just before he took a surprise punch to the face.

His head whipped back as his jaw cracked a little under the force of another vampire’s fist. He growled, his skin growing hot as he settled a heavy stare on the offending party.

He wasn’t much bigger than Luke, maybe a little bit bulkier, and he was ready for the fight.

Luke loosened the collar of his dress shirt as his eyes turned red, his tongue running across his fangs.

“Fucking traitor,” the vampire muttered. “You’re not a human anymore, Crawford.”

Luke rolled his eyes.

“This old argument? You’re literally working for a human.”

“Not for long.”

He stifled a laugh as he landed his fist on the vampire’s cheekbone.

The doors to the cathedral banged open. He didn’t have to turn around to know that the others had arrived.

He could feel Tefi’s presence, could feel the adrenaline rushing through her veins just like his own.

He still didn’t trust her. He wasn’t sure he ever would.

But she was here, as promised.

“You’re never going to be one of them again,” the vampire taunted as he landed a heavy blow to Luke’s stomach.

Luke was quick to rebound. He snarled as he grabbed the man’s shoulders and drew his knee into his gut.

The vampire doubled over, and he smashed his elbow into the side of his head, causing the vampire to stagger back into the nearest pew.

Luke wasted no time in brandishing his gun again, firing another wooden bullet.

“And you’re nothing at all,” he said with a smirk.

“Wow, about damn time someone shot Frank—”

Luke wiped the blood from his split lip.

He couldn’t help his smile as he found Cleo staring up at the altar with an impressed nod of her head, watching as Frank struggled to stand up, his palm pressed flat against the gunshot wound.

She readied the shotgun in her hands, taking careful aim for one of Frank’s men approaching from the side.

She tossed Luke a bright smile, and it nearly dazzled him, as she landed a shot in the man’s leg, taking him down to the ground.

“Where’s my crossbow?” he asked her, adjusting the lapel of his jacket.

“Right here.”

Tefi gingerly stepped over one of Frank’s men, leveled out by Gideon on his quest to find Benny, with a crossbow in one hand and a mace in the other. Luke shook his head. She always had a flair for the dramatic. He pitied anyone who got in her way.

Tefi would always be a force.

He grabbed for the automatic crossbow with a nod.

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he said. “Frank isn’t going to stop the ritual.”

“He will if we just keep shooting him,” Cleo offered.

“Be my guest,” Luke said as he took in the room around them.

Harker was trading blows with two vampires near a large shrine to the Virgin Mary, his long locs swinging behind him as he took out one of them by the knee.

Angelo Torretta had arrived with more than a dozen of his own men, all of them taking ground within the cathedral, guns firing.

Gideon had made the call late last night after Luke sobered him up after that little visit with the angel, plying him with enough water to make the phone call understandable.

Torretta deserved to know. And they needed the firepower.

Luke was grateful the man had come through as quickly as he did.

His eyes scanned the cathedral again.

He had lost track of his brother.

But he had to hope that Gideon was getting Benny to safety.

His ears were ringing with the blows of Cleo’s shotgun on his left, strands of her red hair falling loose from her ponytail with every recoil. But she was intent on plowing through what she could, her eyes focused on Frank Markos.

Maybe she was serious about shooting him again.

Tefi let out a hell of a battle cry as she swung her mace into the face of a vampire to his right. There was a sickening crack as it knocked him back, his body flipping over the wooden pew. She peeked over to glance down at him, a proud little smirk tracing her lips.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve fought,” she said.

“Well, I’m definitely glad you’re on our side.” Cleo grimaced as she caught sight of the vampire’s face. “Because yikes.”

Another of Frank’s nameless men joined Luke’s current sparring partner, the two of them taking turns trying to land a punch.

Some of them hit. Some of them missed. Luke landed as many as he could while still trying to keep an eye on the women fighting on either side of him.

But it was proving to be a fucking complicated task.

A gunshot narrowly missed Cleo’s shoulder, the redhead twisting to the right to avoid the bullet.

It landed her right in a vampire’s line of sight, and Luke cursed under his breath as he knocked out one of the men lunging for him in order to get to her.

But it was too late because the vampire grabbed at Cleo’s shotgun and used the weapon to toss her to the ground.

She landed with a rough thud on the concrete.

“Why don’t you try me next?” Tefi asked, her mace swinging deftly from her fingers, a wild look on her face.

The vampire took the bait and stalked across the aisle toward Tefi, tossing the shotgun to the ground casually.

It went off with a loud bang, a wooden pew thankfully the only target.

But it was too fucking close, and Luke’s patience was running thin.

His remaining assailant took advantage of the distraction and burst forward with a wooden stake clutched in his hand.

Luke grabbed at his wrist, squeezing the man’s arm tightly, forcing the stake from his grip.

It clattered lamely to the floor at his feet.

He hissed before he twisted the man’s arm behind his back, drawing his back to Luke’s front.

Even among the noises of the shooting and fighting, he could hear the man’s whimpers and apologies as Luke sank his teeth into his neck.

But his blood tasted bitter and salty, nothing worth enjoying, and he only held on long enough to render him unconscious.

He needed to get to Cleo, to see if she was alright.

Once the man went limp, Luke dropped him to the ground, nudging him out of the way with his foot.

He wiped his hand across his mouth, his eyes meeting Tefi’s briefly.

An unspoken questioned passed between them, sire to child.

She was leading the other vampire back toward the atrium, baiting him with the mace.

When she gave Luke a nod, he darted past them and came to his knees where Cleo had tucked herself behind a pew.

She was clutching her right arm, teeth grit harshly, and he could see the awkward angle in which it hung from her T-shirt sleeve.

He grimaced as he reached for her, brushing a stray lock of hair off of her face, trying to get a read on her pain levels.

“What happened?”

“It’s dislocated,” she bit out.

A sudden and aggravated roar came from the altar.

Frank was back on his feet.

“The stone heart of the sun” came the man’s gruff voice, booming over the gunshots, doing his best to continue the ritual as the church went to shit around him.

Frank was leaning against the table, his body putting all of its weight on the marble, his knife in one hand and the ruby necklace in the other.

The gem seemed to radiate with some kind of energy, the red glowing in the same pulsing pattern as the light beneath the rubble of the cathedral floor.

Frank yanked the ruby from the chain, letting the gold fall to the floor at his feet.

“Luke, put it back,” Cleo said, drawing his attention back to her.

“What?” he exclaimed, not sure he heard her correctly.