Page 40

ROMAN

“I’m thinking a Blood Eagle Ritual,” I say, and Remy groans from the back deck.

Margot sits beside him, looking ridiculous in a thick snowsuit, hat, and mittens.

She’s even wearing a balaclava. The back door of the garage is open so we can see each other, but only I’m subjected to the horrors I’m inflicting upon the demon within.

“Please just stop,” Remy says, and I set down the whip I’m using on the pale, slender man, and step out into the backyard. “I’m serious. I don’t want him here.”

“I thought you wanted vengeance,” I say, wiping my blood-covered hands on my jeans. The demon inside my garage laughs, and I pull the door shut behind me.

Margot sighs, setting her e-reader down in her lap.

She’d switched to it when she realized turning pages and mittens don’t mix.

She says she’s grumpy that she had to switch to something else, but I know the true source of her irritation is the fact she’s outside in January in Chicago.

No matter how many times I’ve reminded her that she’s a vampire, so it really can’t be that bad, she maintains that it’s entirely too frigid.

It’s only gotten worse since the sun set.

Remy looks comfortable in sweats and a hoodie, and he’s holding a mug of hot chocolate in one hand and Margot’s book in the other.

The light from inside the house is enough for him to read by easily, so the two of them have made themselves comfortable.

They look ridiculous, nestled together on the wooden swing she bought for me two summers ago in an attempt to decorate my ‘sterile serial killer pad.’

“I did want vengeance, sure,” Remy volunteers. “But at this point it feels gratuitous.”

Margot snorts. “Gratuitous is his middle name.”

I ignore her.

“I’ll stop then.” I say. “My bad.”

“I mean, it was…nice…last night. It helped!” he assures me.

“I’ve never beaten someone half to death with you before.

Thank you for that,” he says, and he gives me a little nod a beat later.

It’s a recognizable motion, an unspoken way of communicating that we’ve always had. I’m telling the truth—really .

“How sweet,” Margot says, widening her eyes at my brother, and he laughs. It’s the best sound I’ve heard in a long time, and it soothes over my discomfort at missing the mark. I should’ve known this would be too much.

“Are you jealous, Margot? Most people don’t have a designated torture buddy. Do you have one?” he asks.

“You’re looking at him,” she says, nodding toward me. “Although, I don’t think it’d be a buddy situation. He’d do it all, and I’d get bored pretty quick.”

Remy grins, but his smile fades as he takes in my expression. Too serious, I realize, and I try to adjust my frown. I don’t like that I’ve upset him by pushing too far with the vengeance.

He adjusts in his seat, tilting his head back to look up at me. He shrugs, explaining himself even though I’m not questioning him. “No amount of beating or Viking torture methods is going to bring back Kayla. She’s gone, and that’s all there is to it,” he says.

My little brother gives me a sad smile, before shaking his head and looking down at his book once more.

“Well, do you want to finish him off?” I ask, feeling stupid for splattering the entire inside of my garage in blood.

I thought I was helping. Why else would he hang out with me while I did all this?

Granted, he’d stepped out for the messier parts, but when I’d used a hammer on the demon’s fingers, plucked his fingernails and carved out his eyes, Remy had been beside me.

“I probably should,” Remy says. “And you’re sure the host is?—”

“For the hundredth time, yes, the host’s soul is gone. Asmodeus double checked.”

“I’d like to point out the irony in you trusting a demon’s information,” Remy says, giving me a wry smile.

He's been different the last day or so. Morose, certainly, but a calm has taken over him. It reminds me of the Remy who left the compound, exiled by my father but newly detoxed and eager to find his way in the world. Eager to prove himself. Melancholy but hopeful.

“This demon is different,” Margot says, helping me to reassure him. “Petra has him by his demon shadow balls. Do demons have balls?” Margot ponders it for a moment. “Balls are definitely a thing created in hell. So maybe demons don’t have them? Why would they torture themselves with balls?”

She’s laughing at herself, and Remy looks at her with a disbelieving smile lighting his features, and he leans over and tucks an errant hair inside of her balaclava.

Margot blushes.

Jesus Christ, that’s the last thing I fucking need.

Remy’s color has come back, and she cut his hair the other day. Not short, but not long, and she told him he looks like a male underwear model. But he just looks like Remy to me.

This is the Remy before Rose, and I hate what he went through—what we both went through—to get him back to this point, but a small part of me is grateful for it.

He stands, placing the book down on the bench behind him in a way that ruffles Margot because she swiftly fixes it. He stretches his neck as he approaches.

“I just want it to be done, Ro. She’s not coming back. Neither is Rose. It’s just me. Nobody is coming back, and I want him gone.”

“Yeah,” I say, not allowing myself to be caught up on the fact he said it was just him.

He didn’t mean it in a way that I should take offense to, I’m sure, but it stings.

He’s always had me and he always will. I just hope he understands that.

“Of course. I just wanted to give you dibs on the kill in case you wanted it. Oh, fuck, unless you shouldn’t—because of the blood. ”

Remy smiles, and the street light catches his green eyes, bright and vibrant, and it reminds me of our mother.

I think she’d be proud of him.

I hate that part of me thinks of Gwyn. She is the one who held him hostage, though he insists the torture was mild and didn’t last for long, but she’s also the one who gave him back to me—in a weird, fucked up way.

I’m truly mind-fucked when it comes to that woman.

“I’m good,” he says. “I’m not going to lose it and start licking blood off of your tools.”

“Licking tools, huh? There’s a joke there,” Margot says, and Remy rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t stifle his smile.

“Hey, man, I’m just trying to be cautious. You don’t have lunch with an alcoholic at a bar.”

Remy’s posture shifts, going tight. He turns away from me and crosses his arms.

“I haven’t done that shit in years. I’m fine. You need to relax. You’re like a helicopter parent.”

“I’ll relax when I’m dead.”

Remy looks past me at the garage door. “Let’s just get this over with. You have a coven to run.”

“It can wait,” I say.

Remy glares, then sighs, and walks past me. He’s turning the knob on the door when he looks over his shoulder. “You’re stalling.”

“Am not.”

“Are too,” he says, pushing open the door.

The demon strapped to the folding chair starts chanting in Latin as he stares up at us with a swollen, bloody face.

“Let me guess. You don’t want to be like Father,” Remy says, trailing his fingers over the various tools on my workbench.

“Or, you feel bad about him dying for your inheritance?”

I haven’t even thought to ask him how he feels about Bjorn and Emile being dead, but I think that’s the least of my worries when it comes to my little brother.

He picks up a large wrench. With enough force, a blow to the head will kill the host body.

Remy spins the heavy metal in his grasp before setting it back down.

“I don’t want it,” I say, not into his attempt at psychoanalyzing me. Sure, the fear of being like our dad is a niggling presence in the back of my mind, but that’s not why I’ve avoided the compound.

“You’re made for it, like it or not.” He shrugs. “If you’re stalling because of me, don’t. I’m fine,” he says, giving me a thousand watt smile. I narrow my eyes, but he jerks his chin in silent communication.

I’m telling the truth—really.

He’s silent for a minute, pulling open a drawer on my toolbox and digging through it. He pauses over different power tools and takes a long look at a hacksaw.

“It’s because she’s there, isn’t it?” Remy asks, trying out some gardening shears. They’re not very sharp, so it won’t be quick or painless if he chooses them. I’m silent despite my instinct to tell him that it’s not because of Gwyn—because I don’t like lying to him. She’s certainly part of it.

“I liked her,” he says, laughing as he tosses the shears back on the workbench when he sees my bewildered expression.

“I mean, like, think about it. Her dad fucking sucks, and I didn’t feel bad about killing him, don’t get me wrong.

But if you were a grown ass man when they killed Mom?

You’d bomb an entire city, pretty sure.”

“Would not.” I don’t like him making excuses for her. As much as I love my brother, and as much as Bill deserved his death, Gwyn’s reaction to take my brother and seek vengeance isn’t what pisses me off. Not anymore, anyway.

“An entire block, at least,” he says. “I know you can’t kick her out if she doesn’t want to go, since they’re sworn to her. But isn’t Hale almost done Ascending?”

I shrug, not sure. He seemed alright when I saw him the other night, but Gwyn’s Ascension felt never-ending. Nico hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with updates, and Margot has been staying with me while they fuck all over her apartment. I don’t know about Hale, and it doesn’t matter.

“She’ll leave soon, Ro. Listen, you can’t… You can’t let the fact she swindled your ass stop you from taking your birthright. Of all the people to be conned by, she’s a pretty perfect sell for you. More so now than before. No one could blame you.”

“Hello, Stockholm syndrome, can you put my brother back on the line?”

He snorts, picking up a giant crowbar I obtained for an annoying project on an old car of mine.

Half of the tools in here are one-off purchases that have only collected dust since the one time I needed to use it.

He palms it, tossing it in his hand and measuring its weight.

Satisfied, he takes a practice swing. He nods and rolls up his sleeves before turning to me.

“You know how addicts can spy addict behavior from a mile away? Same goes for people like me,” he says, and it’s clear he’s not talking about his addiction to demon blood. “It makes sense that you softened to her. She’s like me.”

“ You’re not a lying asshole,” I blurt, and I’m pissed off that it can be distilled into something that seems so simple. I’m not angry with her for her vengeance. In that regard, she’s like me. And as far as her likeness to Remy goes, he’s not wrong. Before I ever met her, she was familiar.

There’s something about being born into bloodlines carved out by death and violence that shapes who you are. The knowledge of our bloody history holds weight that seeks to crush and destroy—kill or be killed.

“She’s an asshole and she’s a liar, but no more than you are,” he says.

“I’m not a liar.”

“Yeah, you are,” he says before walking over to the demon responsible for killing Kayla.

Even though Remy had fulfilled his end of the bargain, this fucker didn’t free the girl.

Remy places the crowbar beneath the demon’s chin, tilting it up.

He recites the Enochian prayer, fumbling over a few of the words and having to restart, while the demon groans in pain.

“Hasta la vista, baby,” Remy says as he bashes the demon’s skull in with two devastating swings of the crowbar.

Black mist seeps out of the dead host, not forming together in an almost corporeal body like Asmodeus had, but instead dissipating in the air like dust. Off to hell or wherever the fuck to regenerate as Asmodeus had said.

“Did you just quote Terminator?”

“Terminator: 2, thank you very much,” he retorts, but his voice comes out watery.

I snort, backing up to lean against the wall as Remy hits the dead body again.

For someone who wanted it to be over with, he doesn’t seem ready to stop.

A sound tears up his throat as he hits the demon again, and I decide to give him some privacy.

Normally, I’d be fearful of leaving him alone in a state of sorrow, but I suspect this might be cathartic.

I stay close, shutting the door behind me and leaning against it. Eventually, the thud of metal against flesh slows, and I feel pressure on the door as Remy leans against it. Slowly, he slides down it, and instinct tells me to do the same.

“She fucking loved Arnold Schwarzeneggar. Me and Rose were feeling nostalgic one night and watched it, and Kayla lost her mind over it. Hearing a little kid repeat ‘I’ll be back,’ a thousand times in that accent is…

well at the time, it’s annoying as fuck, but now?

” He gives a soft laugh, and I wish there was something I could do to fix it.

“Thanks, Ro. I’m surprised it felt as good as it did. ”

“Yeah,” I say, and we sit like that in silence for a few minutes. I don’t want to push. He needs time, and I’m more than happy to give it to him. Eventually though, my phone rings, bringing me nothing but more bullshit.

“Hello?” I answer, wondering why the fuck the parking garage attendant from the compound is calling me.

“Hey, uh, Mr. Sauveterre, I’m really sorry to?—”

“Out with it,” I demand of the fledgling vampire.

“There’s a crowd of humans out here in the alley.

I keep compelling them to make them leave, but they just keep coming.

They keep seeing her and stopping, and I don’t know what to do,” he rattles out, sounding panicked.

I hear a few voices yelling in the background, and someone says something about calling the police.

“Wait, wait, what do you mean? Seeing who?”

Remy opens the door behind me, gently so I don’t fall, and I stand up while the vampire on the phone stammers.

“Uh, Miss Parsons, um, she’s outside. At first I couldn’t see her, but then she walked in front of one of the lights, and well, she’s freaking people out, and?—”

“Is she covered in blood or something? How is she ‘freaking people out’ just by being outside?” I ask, growing annoyed. Fuck Gwyn and fuck her for interrupting my time with my brother.

“No, sir, I’m sorry. I-I wasn’t clear enough. She’s on the roof,” he says. “She’s walking on the edge, and people think she’s going to jump.”

Remy’s brows raise, and I swallow. She won’t die, falling from that height, but it’ll certainly fucking hurt. She has a gun, and she could just kill herself that way if she really wanted to. I don’t know what the fuck her goal is.

But my stomach plummets all the same, and I hate myself for it.

“You should go,” Remy says, and dread settles deep within me.

“Keep compelling them,” I order. “I’ll be there soon.”