Page 49

About halfway up the aisle, something’s hunkered down between two pews.

Something wreathed in twining black shadows that leak from it like ink into water.

Some of the shadows flow along the tops of the pews, while others creep like tentacles along the floor, out into the aisle, where they join together in a shifting pool.

The shape hunched between the pews has shoulders and a head…and antlers. Antlers with thin, needlelike prongs that are still growing, still forking into new spines of slender, gleaming black.

I’m locked in place. My chest feels heavy, lungs fighting to haul in breath.

I don’t want to walk up that aisle and look at the thing between the pews. I already know what it is. If I don’t look, I don’t have to believe it.

But love—love is a monster, a sick compulsion, a ferocious loyalty that won’t let me back down. It drags me forward, foot by foot, until I’m nearly standing in the pooled shadows. I force myself to rotate to the left. To look down between the pews, into the swirling darkness. At the horned thing.

“Cathy,” I croak.

She turns. Her face is still hers—pretty features, that sly pouty mouth, big eyes looking up innocently at me.

“Heathcliff.” The voice is hers, too. But there are naked brown vines twining around her throat, crawling along her temples, slithering into her hair.

The choir robe she wore has been shredded.

Vines and shadows encircle her body instead, gaps of bone-white skin showing between them.

The antlers spring from her curly brown hair, forming a delicate, lethal crown.

Her voice is light, unworried. “I was just explaining modern technology to Cernunnos. He doesn’t quite understand it yet, but we’re getting there.”

The god is messing with her mind somehow. She has no idea what’s happening to her.

“Cathy.” I move closer, daring to shuffle through the shadows. They shift and swirl around my feet. My voice breaks. “Baby, he’s distracting you. Changing you.”

“Changing me?” She frowns, lifting her hand, and I almost gag. Where her slim fingers used to be, five impossibly long claws twitch and gleam. They’re black and spiny like the antlers. Around her arm writhes a complex network of tiny vines in a pattern like Celtic knotwork.

I was outside maybe twenty minutes. And in that time, the god accomplished all this. If I hadn’t come back when I did, he might have swallowed her entirely.

Through the horror and the bile in my throat, I choke out words. “Cathy, you have to fight it. Fight him. ”

Pain quivers across her features. “We were getting along. He doesn’t seem cruel.”

“That’s what he wants you to think.” I reach for her face, trying not to flinch at the chill brush of the shadows and the rough texture of the vines against my knuckles. “See the truth, Cathy. You always do.”

Her brows bend, and she grimaces, like she’s straining to lift a heavy weight. Alarm wakes in her eyes, and they widen, flooding with shocked terror. “Heathcliff…Heathcliff, what’s happening to me? Oh god…help me, Heathcliff…”

“I will,” I gasp. “I will. I’ll help you. Can you stand up?”

She shifts and tries to stand upright. Her body unfolds, then stretches, higher, higher.

She’s towering over me, eight feet tall at least, shrouded in vines and shadows.

I glimpse pieces of her here and there—legs, shoulder, breast—but they’re not where they should be, not her normal proportions.

Her hair is longer, too, tumbling in a rich brown cascade and merging into the twisting shadows.

She is horrific and beautiful. A nightmarish goddess.

Edgar Linton screams. A howl, a shriek of terror, but there’s a note of grief in there, too.

I hate him for grieving her. He has no right when he consented to her death the first time. I’m the one with the right to grieve. I’m the one she saved by turning herself over to this monster.

My whole body is hollow, shaking. Even my reserves of strength aren’t enough to bolster me in this moment.

“You—” I almost gag, but I resist the impulse. “You have to keep fighting, Cathy.”

She looks down at me, remote, despairing. “It’s too late.”

“It’s not,” I grit out. “It’s not. Use your banshee. You’ve got power, Cathy, you’re stronger than anyone else I know.”

“I can’t scream,” she whispers. “He’s in my throat, in my mind. I am silenced, Heathcliff, I am stolen. But even if all of me disappears, I will still—”

Her mouth stops moving midsentence, and her eyes fix on something in the distance. And then it’s like all of her personality drains out of those eyes until they’re blank and glassy. Void of her fire, her passion.

That blankness guts me. I want this to be a nightmare. I have to wake up .

Cathy blinks. Swivels her gaze down to meet mine…

but there is something else looking out of those eyes at me, and another voice issues from her lips.

“A valiant effort but ultimately pointless. To regain my power, I require full control of this body. But do not fear, boy. I will ensure she is comfortable. I find her pleasant company. She and I will commune together often within ourself. She will not be alone…but she will be mine alone.”

Tentacles of shadow thrash outward from the god, accompanied by a blast of icy wind. I’m thrown backward, through the doors of the sanctuary into the lobby. My spine slams against the floor, the impact paralyzing my lungs.

As I flip over, struggling to breathe, the doors of the sanctuary slam shut, blocking my view of the god.

Get up, Heathcliff, get up, get up!

I climb to my feet, but my stomach lurches. I stagger outside onto the church’s narrow porch, crashing against the railing and vomiting over it.

Dimly I register Hindley’s truck, Edgar’s car…and two more vehicles. They must have just pulled in.

I try to calculate how long it’s been since Cathy called Daisy.

I was still unconscious at the time, so I can’t be sure…

but it’s been a few hours, I think. Possibly enough time for Daisy and her group to get here.

Either it’s them, or it’s someone from the congregation.

At this point, I’d welcome anybody, whether they’re here to help or to fight.

I could use some support or something to punch.

I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my choir robe and wait, gripping the railing. It’s wet, and the peeling paint is rough against my palms.

The driver’s side door of the BMW opens, and a long-legged blond man gets out. He’s well over six feet and skinny, like some kind of male model. The bones of his face look especially crushable. He reminds me of Edgar Linton—except more vivid. More intense and alive somehow.

He saunters toward me, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks. Looking me up and down, he smirks. “Aren’t you a little old to be a choirboy? Or is this just a bold fashion choice?”

“Dorian, stop.” A tattooed girl with pink-and-black hair runs up behind him, grabbing his arm. “Sorry,” she says to me. “He’s still learning to be nice .”

“I can be nice,” Dorian mutters. He reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a flask, like guys in old movies carry. Unscrewing the lid, he holds it out to me. “You look like you need this.”

If there’s alcohol in there, then hell yes I need it. I descend a couple of steps so I can grab it from him.

“See?” Dorian shoots the girl a saucy look. “I’m helping the traumatized choirboy.”

I relish the burn of the drink. Rum, I’d guess, but a fancier kind than I’ve ever sampled. Rich and syrupy, with a hell of a kick.

Four more people have climbed out of the other car and crossed the parking lot.

One of the guys is as tall as Dorian but broader.

He mounts the lowest steps and reaches out to shake my hand.

There’s a casual dominance about his stance that tells me he’s the boss of the group—and the boss of this whole church and everything in it for as long as he wants to be.

Maybe it’s stupid to feel instantly relieved, but I am.

I may have walked beyond death, but I’m out of my depth here.

This guy looks like he’s met with a lot of shit during his life and shoveled his way out of it every time.

“Jay Gatsby,” he says. “You must be Heathcliff. We came as fast as we could.”

Mechanically I shake his hand, then take another swig before handing the flask back to Dorian. My voice is a haunted rasp. “I think you’re too late.”

I hate the words even as they come out. Feels like I’m giving up on Cathy. I want to fight for her, and I will. I’m just not sure how these strangers can help me.

Two more men stand just behind Gatsby. A redhead with an upturned, freckled nose. A Korean guy with a shock of black hair. But it’s the young woman moving quietly into place beside Gatsby who catches my eye.

Her golden hair shines faintly in the morning light, and there’s a silken grace in the way she moves, but it chills me too, like my body recognizes her as a predator.

“Where is Cathy?” She keeps her tone light, but there’s a honeyed warmth underneath it.

Like if you could hear rum, that’s what it would sound like.

“She’s in the church,” I tell them. “That thing inside her, the god—it’s changing her. Breaking her.” I fight the impulse to vomit again.

Gatsby reaches for Daisy’s hand, then glances back at the two guys. “Fangs out, boys. Baz, you hang back a little. Dorian, try not to make it angry.”

“Don’t pretend like you’ve faced a god before,” Dorian retorts. “Of the six of us, Baz is the only person who has actually spoken to one.”

Gatsby ignores him and turns back to me. “Show us where she is. We’ll go in, take stock of things, and devise a plan. Baz, you have your supplies?”

The girl with the pink-and-black hair pats a leather satchel she’s carrying. “Got ’em.”

That sounds promising. Sounds like hope, like a fighting chance. And even if there ain’t a snowflake’s chance in hell of saving my girl, I will die trying to finally get her that freedom she’s wanted for so long.

Clenching my fists, I lead the way into the lobby. “I know I said you’re too late,” I mutter to Gatsby, “but I appreciate you coming here so fast.”

“We were speeding,” he says casually. “We were stopped a couple times, but Daisy talked the cops out of giving us tickets.” He nods to the blond.

I meet her eyes. “What are you exactly?”

“A blend of merrow and Leannán Sídhe,” she says. “And most recently, a vampire. I can persuade humans, to a certain extent, and when it comes to my fellow vampires like Gatsby, Nick, and Cody, I can force them to do whatever I want. My voice compels them.”

Vampires. Abhartach, from the old legends. But Meemaw told me they had died out. I have about a million questions, but most of them will need to wait until I get Cathy back. One question, though, seems important enough to ask now. “Would your voice work on me?”

“I’m not sure. I haven’t tried it on many other kinds of supernaturals.

” She glances at Gatsby. “We’ve learned a lot since I became a vampire, and we’ve gained even more insight since Dorian and Baz found us.

My voice is more effective on Dorian than Baz, but both of them seem more susceptible that regular humans. ”

“What matters most right now is figuring out how she affects Cathy,” Gatsby interjects. “When we first met Cathy and Daisy said her name, Cathy had a strong reaction.”

“And I wasn’t even using my compulsive voice,” Daisy adds. “She reacted to a completely different tone. It seemed to cause her pain.”

The black-haired guy, Cody, is leaning against the wall, inspecting a set of claws that definitely weren’t there a second ago. His canines have elongated, too. “The real question is, how will Daisy’s voice affect a god?”

I grip the handles of the sanctuary doors with both hands. “Let’s find out.”