Page 54

Father fucking Callum.

Callum is—

“He came to me one day for confessions.” He saunters up to June, and the fight in me is once again rejuvenated. I struggle to pull my hands off these nails, but my limbs are weak from blood loss, my strength depleted. “Told me how badly he wanted you. How he’d sometimes peek in on you at night. How’d he go through your room when you weren’t home. How he dreamed of forcing himself on you when your mother was asleep in the next room,” Callum says to June. “And it brought a smile to my face. Like him, I always knew there was more to you, June. I knew there was a little demon ready to break free from her mother’s overbearing gaze. It’s part of the reason I forced those little bouts of horniness on you—just to see what’d you do.”

June is frozen below me, the mask obscuring her expression. I can’t tell if she’s more shocked or afraid right now, but both are bad—both will slow her reaction time.

“Saint Michael, defend us in battle that we might not perish at the dreadful judgment,” I pray quickly, my lips moving as I’ve trained them to, as if it is second nature rather than practiced effort.

A sharp stab erupts in my chest, and I swear there is a knife carving me open. My yell echoes around the convent as Callum tuts. “Oh, Marcelo, you’re quite the eager one!” He chuckles. “Though, I didn’t think it’d take you this long to figure everything out. I guess you were busy falling under this one’s spell.” Callum flicks his hand toward June, smirking. “You heathens really took advantage of the little lust spell I put on her. Fucking in the confessional booth? Licking her pussy between the pews where anyone could see you? Down right satanic if you ask me. And you—you’re supposed to be a priest.” He tuts again, and I feel the invisible knife twist.

Fuck!

“I was told you were the best exorcist, and then I waited and waited. But you never found me.”

He wanted me here. He still wants me to exorcise him—to send him back to Hell.

“I was always going to use June to get home. The moment I met her, I knew she’d be the one—like I’d been drawn to this godforsaken town because of her . But once you came”—he grins again, raising an eyebrow—“once I saw the look in your eyes as you fell for her, I knew it was . . . ah—you’d call it divine intervention , I believe.”

As one, the hooded figures begin to hum. It’s quiet at first, but grows louder and louder too fast.

“I have to admit,” Callum continues, ignoring them, “it upsets me that you thought I was possessing Daren.” He walks up to the body still squirming on the floor. Daren grabs Callum’s leg, pulling himself up and gurgling something incomprehensible. “This filth unfortunately is just that rotten, dear.” He looks up at June, flashing her what is supposed to be a comforting smile. “Your mother too. I’ve never had to influence her. She’s always just been that vile. For that, I am truly sorry. Before I was condemned to be stuck here, I had forgotten just how evil humanity can be. How, often, they outshine even the nastiest of demons.” He shrugs nonchalantly, as if he didn’t just confirm every hard truth June has ever felt. She didn’t say so earlier, but I knew there was a level of hope in her that maybe Jill and Daren weren’t actually that bad. Maybe they were just being made worse by the demon’s influence or by a demonic possession.

But, no. Jill was just Jill—a rotten mother through and through. And Daren was just Daren—a pig of a human, evil in heart, soul, and body.

“What do you want?” June demands, and I’m so fucking proud of her as she stands her ground, as her voice doesn’t stutter.

Callum smirks. “Tell me what you want, dear, and then I’ll tell you what I want. Deal?”

June clenches and unclenches her fist. “I want you to let him go. You said you wanted me. So take me and leave him.”

Let him go! Take me.

“No!” I yell, jerking against the wood. “No, don’t.”

Callum smiles up at me. “Damn, Marcelo. How do you do it? You’ve got two for two ladies sacrificing themselves for you.” He clicks his tongue and continues to pace in front of the altar, kicking Daren’s hands away from him and leaving him in the center of the circle as no one helps him. “See, I would. But, unfortunately, June, you both are part of my equation to get the Hell out of here.” He runs his hand through his hair, like the bastard doesn’t have a care in the damned world. “See, I take you, then Father over here does everything he can to save you—exorcising me and sending me right back down to Hell.”

“I can exorcise you without her. Just let her go,” I grunt.

“Unfortunately,” Callum huffs. “Ya can’t. I’m tethered from body to body. So, I need to un tether myself from this guy and go into little June’s body.”

“What did you do to the real Father Callum?” she asks.

“Oh, this guy?” Callum points at himself before shrugging. “He was some bum two towns over. He was a no one.”

June startles and Callum chuckles again, pausing in front of the altar.

“Little June, you’re still not getting it. Your Father Callum isn’t possessed by the demon Valac. I am Valac. I have been, all along.

“Anyway. That’s enough yapping. I’m tired of this damned place, and I’m ready to see exactly how this lovely little lady feels inside. Grab her,” he commands, and immediately the humming intensifies, and the shapes move. Figures dash around Valac and Daren, running at June in full force.

So many things happen at once.

So much, I can barely see any of it.

A flurry of velvet black brushes past my body. A large, slender pair of hands wrap around one of wrists, pulling a nail free. The humming crescendos as ritual blades are pulled from hidden pockets, from billowing sleeves. A scream erupts from June’s lips as her arms are grabbed. Valac chuckles loud and clear through the chaos. The ghostly organ music picks up once more, the soundtrack for the horrific scene.

Then, my body is falling till I slam on the stone below me. Every bone feels like it’s shattered on impact, and I curse as I try to lift myself. This is going to fucking hurt tomorrow.

“Marcelo!” June calls, and her voice is like Heaven to my ears as her soft hands wrap around my arm.

“Get up,” another voice says—a new voice. A hand firmly grabs my other arm, lifting me to my feet and as I stagger to regain my footing, I’m forced to look up. And up. And up.

A third demon stands before me, grasping my arm with long fingers and even sharper nails. As my eyes slowly take in the figure, I realize his skin is pitch black with a velvety soft texture all over. He’s incredibly tall with an inhumanely thin waist and a vibrant white tattoo on his chest in the shape of another sigil.

But what makes me pause isn’t the fact that there is yet another demon here, nor the fact that this one seemed to have gotten me down.

No, it’s his eyes.

They’re a golden yellow, with a hint of distaste.

“Diablo . . .” I mutter, and the demon grins, flashing sharp, white fangs.

“Bael, actually. But yeah.”

June stands next to me, her hands still propped on my arm as though she’s helping me stay upright. “Our Diablo?” she asks, complete confusion in her tone.

This demon’s features are more catlike than Asmodeus. His eyes are sharp, his nose is small and buttoned, and his jaw is incredibly pointed. But more than that, atop his head are short, thick horns shaped likewhat appear to be two large cat ears.

Fuck. My cat is actually from Hell.

How many times have I fucked June in his presence?

“Bael!” Valac calls. “There you are. I’d been wondering when you’d show up.”

The cat demon grabs my hand and yanks it toward his mouth. “Save June,” he demands. And then I feel my soul leave my body as he licks my wound, his tongue just as rough and dry as an actual cat’s. “Yuck,” Bael spits, but as I pull my hand away, I notice the stigmata hole in my hand is knitting itself back together. Actually, they all are. Each of the wounds on my back, the knife-like wound in my chest, the stigmata on my feet—all of it, healed.

And with it, so is my energy.

“For the record,” Bael snarls, “I like June more.” Bael dashes into the crowd of figures, pulling them apart.

That makes two of us .

I turn to June and grab her hands. “We need to get you out of here.”

But the moment I start to pull her along toward an exit, our hands are pulled apart. I’m pushed back by an unseen force.

“Not so fast, the party hasn’t even begun.”

Valac stands between us—but he isn’t in the familiar facade of Father Callum. It is the demon from the painting at the forefront of the sanctuary. He’s as tall as Bael, but his skin is a brutally vibrant crimson. Huge, spiraling horns protrude from his head, as he currently hovers over June, cupping her cheeks and forcing their faces so close to each other.

“Get the fuck away from her,” I grit out, throwing myself at them. I’m grabbed from behind, but Bael is there to rip the cultists hands away from me, to continue challenging them as I focus on June and Valac. But just as I reach them, Valac grins, his smile unnaturally wide as black ooze slips between the millions of small, sharp teeth—just like the imps had—and drips from black lips onto June.

The moment the black touches her, June screams, her entire body going so taut, it looks like a simple breeze might break every bone in her body.

“June!” I yell, trying to pull the demon away from her, but it’s useless. Valac is literally melting onto June, just like the candles from earlier. In a matter of seconds, the demon is completely gone, and all that’s left is the black substance covering my songbird, like oil caught in her wings.

“Marcelo,” she chokes out.

And then her spine audibly snaps as her back bends to be parallel to the floor.

I freeze, Ana’s death playing over June’s, an overlay of my past colliding with my present.

But I won’t let June go. I won’t let him take her. I won’t let her end up like my family.

I carefully grab her, pulling her body into my arms as I kneel to the floor. Her chest is moving rapidly, and I see the slightest trail of steam coming off the rosary resting atop it as it actively works to fight what’s inside of her.

“June,” I whisper as I untie my mask from the back of her head and slide it off her. Her stunning doe eyes are wide and vacant. “June, stay with me. Fight him.” I caress her cheek, rubbing my thumb along her lip.

She fidgets in my arms, and I can feel her fighting. Her will battling that of Valac’s. I grab her hand and place it over the rosary. Immediately, her fingers tighten around the cross, and she turns her head into my chest, taking deep breaths.

Carefully, I choose my prayer, and begin in a hushed whisper. “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,” I pray, my fingers tightening around her hand, pulling her cold body in closer. “And let them that hate Him flee from before His face.”

June whimpers, her body convulsing in my arms. “No, no!” she screams—but I know it’s at Valac.

“As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish away. As wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked perish—”

June screams again, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as her back arches against me. But I don’t let up, I can’t.

“So let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”

She convulses again, coughing hard.

“So let the wicked perish at the presence of God,” I repeat, and June’s coughing turns into choking as she spits up the black ooze. I quickly turn her on her side, rubbing her back as she chokes out more.

“So let the wicked perish at the presence of God!”

June gags, and a final stream of what’s left of Valac finally spills out onto the convent floor.