Page 47

I nod, letting my eyes drift shut as bliss swells warm between my legs. “Harder. Faster.”

With a low growl of determination, he quickens his rhythm. “Cathy…god, Cathy, I—”

A heavy groan rolls from him, and I feel goose bumps break out all over his body as he comes, but I barely notice because he’s still going, still pumping, and I’m clutching him frantically, nails sunk into his back as the swelling pleasure crests suddenly—a cord snapped, a wave of bliss released.

I want to scream, but I fight it with all the force of my will. The last thing we need is a banshee scream echoing through the woods beyond the church and calling attention to our presence.

So I bite Heathcliff again—his neck, his shoulder—not hard enough to draw blood, but he’ll have marks for days. My marks.

The orgasm is slowing, and my eyes fly open, meeting his in startled amazement as I realize we’re pulsing in sync, our bodies joined in perfect rhythm. I’ve never experienced that with anyone before, and it’s euphoric on another level. Like we’re connecting soul to soul.

Of course we are. Because his soul and mine were cut from the same shimmering fabric, hewn from the same rock, dipped from the same pool.

Wherever souls come from, we share the same source.

I am Heathcliff, and he is me. Anger and arguments, terror and tragedy, chaos and pain—none of that will ever change what we are to each other.

Heathcliff is looking down at me with a torment of wonder and love in his brown eyes. I lift a trembling hand to touch his cheek.

And then a shout startles us both. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

I turn my head, and so does Heathcliff.

Edgar Linton stands at the entrance to the sanctuary, carrying a stack of books. He reaches for the dimmer switch on the wall and turns up the lights, flooding our faces and bodies with the bright glow.

His books avalanche to the floor and he nearly falls over, catching himself on a pew just in time. “Cathy?” His voice wavers. “Is that you? But you’re…supposed to be—”

I look up at Heathcliff, a hysterical giggle bubbling out of me. He chuckles too and tilts his forehead against mine. He rocks his hips, his ass clenching as he drives deep one last time. His breath huffs against my cheek. “You feel like heaven.”

“I’m calling 911,” falters Edgar.

“Go ahead.” Heathcliff shifts back, his big body moving away from mine. His cock slips out of me, and I cup myself instinctively, needing pressure to replace the thick wholeness of him.

Naked, Heathcliff saunters down the steps toward Edgar. “Go ahead,” he repeats. “Call the cops. Tell them how you murdered an innocent young woman and raised a god.”

“Raised a—what are you talking about?” Edgar retreats a step as Heathcliff paces toward him.

“We performed a ritual to seal the demon away. To keep him suppressed forever, so your kind can’t raise him.

My father says you Lockwoods have been a plague on this town for years, always trying to cause trouble.

Well, now we’ve won. It’s over. Except…” His eyes flick back to me. “How…how did she…”

“I resurrected her. Because I fucking love her.”

“But you couldn’t have brought her back,” Edgar protests. “You were away, you were…busy, and there were men to watch—”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. Heathcliff’s hand clamps around Edgar’s neck, lifting him right off his feet and shoving him against the nearest wall.

I leap off the platform and run toward them. The banshee inside me is restless, ready to scream, but I think Cernunnos is throwing off my perceptions. I can’t tell if Edgar’s death is imminent or not.

“I don’t usually use my full strength on people,” Heathcliff growls. “But I used it on those watchdogs you mentioned, and I’ve got a mind to use it on you now.”

“Heathcliff,” I say warningly.

“Cathy,” he replies through gritted teeth. “Don’t ask me to spare your murderer. How can I?”

“He may have agreed to it, but he isn’t the one who held the knife,” I say. “And we need answers. About Ian Holcum. Would you please loosen up before you crush his vocal cords?”

“Fine.” Heathcliff eases off on the pressure and allows Edgar’s feet to touch the floor. “Answer her questions, limp dick, or else.”

Edgar’s gaze twitches to me—and unfortunately for him, his eyes flick down to my naked body.

Heathcliff catches the glance and smashes a fist into Edgar’s face. He pulled his punch, thank goodness, or I’m pretty sure Edgar’s delicate facial bones would have all been smashed. As it is, he seems to have escaped with a bloody nose and some sore teeth. He chokes and drools blood.

“I’m going to put some clothes on,” I tell Heathcliff. “We both should. Then we can question him.”

“Question me?” sputters Edgar through the blood streaming from his nose. “I’m not your prisoner. I’m the pastor of this church, and…”

Heathcliff cups one big hand over Edgar’s mouth. “Go on and change, Cathy. I’ll take his phone and make sure he’s not going anywhere.”

***

We must form a strange scene, the three of us on the church platform. Heathcliff and I are dressed in choir robes, facing a bloodied Edgar whom we bound to a folding chair with some duct tape Heathcliff found in a closet.

I don’t know what Heathcliff said to Edgar while I was cleaning up and getting dressed, but it worked, at least temporarily.

Edgar speaks slowly, his bluster gone. “I met Ian Holcum at a coffee shop. He saw the books I was reading, about the occult and Irish folklore, and he came over to chat. Said he’d spent years studying all the lore.

He told me he had a master’s in folklore studies and a PhD in Religion, Psychology, and Culture from Vanderbilt.

We got to talking, and I felt like I could trust him. ”

“Why?” asks Heathcliff.

“I…don’t know. Whenever we talked, I got this feeling that he knew what we were dealing with, really understood it, you know?

I felt like he cared about me. Like we could be friends…

brothers. He called me ‘brother’ all the time.

And he said I was special. That I might be a prophet, sent to keep down the old gods and prepare the way for the Second Coming of Christ.”

“He talked you into killing someone ,” Heathcliff points out.

Edgar’s forehead furrows. “To keep the demon from rising—”

“No. The opposite. He’s a god , not a demon, and he rose already. He’s awake.”

Edgar’s eyes widen. “What? Where?”

“He’s…” Heathcliff clears his throat. “Inside Cathy.”

“ Inside her?”

“His spirit. Yes.”

Gancanagh , says Cernunnos suddenly in my head.

“Gancanagh?” I repeat aloud. “What is that?”

Heathcliff twists around, staring at me with alarm. “What did you say?”

“It’s not me saying it, it’s him , Cernunnos. He just said ‘gancanagh’ out of the blue. What does that mean?”

“Love-talker,” say Heathcliff and Edgar at the same time. And then Heathcliff says, “Oh shit,” and Edgar’s expression shifts to one of realization and horror.

“Gancanagh,” Heathcliff says, rising. “That’s what Ian is. The Love-Talker who can convince people to do his will. And he’s a púca, too, a shifter. Some kind of hybrid of the two. Shit, I gotta call Meemaw.”

“Meemaw?” I ask.

“Yeah, she’s one of the Coosaw Lockwoods, the family expert on all the old stories. I’ll get my phone from the truck and call outside—her hearing is uncanny for a ninety-year-old lady, and if she hears anyone she doesn’t recognize in the background, she won’t talk to me.”

He jogs out of the sanctuary, and I pace in circles around Edgar’s chair, wishing I had my phone to look stuff up.

The sex calmed my restlessness a bit, but the discomfort is starting to resurface.

Other than the word gancanagh, Cernunnos has been quiet, but it’s not the reassuring kind of quiet.

It’s the busy kind of quiet accompanied by weird pulses of energy throughout my body and vibrations in my bones.

I get the feeling that he’s learning me, adjusting, settling in…

maybe even changing me, deep inside, where I can’t see or stop it.

“Where did you go?” Edgar asks.

I pause and frown at him. He’s looking at me with desperate curiosity.

“When you died,” he clarifies. “Where did you go? Did you see anything?”

“You mean heaven or hell?”

He nods, fear and eagerness warring in his eyes.

“I didn’t see either of those places,” I say slowly.

“I don’t know if they exist. I was in a great void, right on the edge of this maze of crystals or mirrors…

It went on forever, as high and as low as I could see, and just as far in both directions.

Maybe beyond the part I saw, there’s more to it.

Some final resting place. But no…I didn’t see heaven or hell. ”

Edgar’s face crumples for a second, then hardens.

“I don’t believe you. You’re lying just to upset me because you’re angry.

And you have every right to be angry, but lying to someone about the afterlife is…

well, it’s beneath you, Cathy. Although after what I saw you two doing on this platform, maybe nothing is beneath you. ”

I’m about to tell him that he’s fucking right I’m angry, and several other things, but suddenly I’m turning away from him. Descending the steps, heading down the aisle.

Why am I going this way? What’s happening right now? When did I make the very mature decision to end the conversation with Edgar and leave him to wallow in his crisis of faith?

I didn’t make any such decision. Nor do I understand why I’m walking down the aisle with such purpose, as if…

Oh shit.

I’m not in control of this. Someone else is steering me. It’s like being in the driver’s seat of a car, but your passenger has reached over and grabbed the wheel.

Frantically, I struggle against the pressure of the god’s will. But he has grown stronger.

Relent, child , he says. I let you have your moment with the boy. Now you must yield, while I reshape your flesh to suit my needs and wishes.

“No!” I grab one of the pews, halting my progress along the aisle. I cling there, straining against the urge to stand up and walk out of the church. “Why do you want to leave?” I pant. “I thought you wanted revenge on the congregation who held you down for so long.”

I do.

“Well, this is the best place to get that revenge.” Sweat breaks out on my forehead, and a hollow chill traces along my spine and legs. “We’ll get Edgar to call everyone here for a meeting, and then you can…reveal yourself.”

The pressure eases a bit. How will he summon them?

“He can call, text, email—lots of options.”

Explain.

He’s not pushing anymore, so I sit down on the pew and start explaining modern technology aloud to the god in my head, while Edgar Linton watches me from his chair.