Magic. Twin currents of light and dark, their silver-blue shimmer as familiar to him as the scent it’d unleashed on the air—raw earth and black pepper. Cloves and cinnamon.
“So,” Malcolm said, stepping up beside him. “Mind telling me who the fuckthatmight be?”
“That,” Gabriel said, his voice full of awe, “is the woman I was going to marry.”
The moment the words were out, Gabriel realized they were true.
Hewasgoing to marry her. Was planning to spend his life with her—a life that felt like it hadn’t even existed before she’d crashed into it.
But that was all in the past now.
“A witch?” Malcolm laughed. “You fell in love with a witch?You?Impossible.”
“Witch-demon hybrid, if we’re going for accuracy.”
“And necromancer. Leave it to you to omit the most interesting detail.”
Gabriel shook his head. “That was a long time ago.”
“Seems like she’s revisiting an old hobby, then.”
Gabriel lifted his hands, trailing his fingers through the silver-blue mist as if he were skimming an ocean wave. His skin tingled where the magic touched him.
WhereJacindatouched him.
He gasped, suddenly breathless in a way that had nothing to do with the brimstone and hellfire. “How is this… how is this possible? I died. I… I’m ash to her now.”
“Not necessarily,” Mac said. “Time moves in strange, unfathomable ways here. Topside? You might’ve only just died.”
“But—”
“There’s that second, Gabriel. The last heartbeat before we turn to ash.” Mac touched his shoulder once more, gentle this time. Then, his voice barely a whisper, “Opportunities like this don’t come around more than once. Best not miss it, brother.”
Gabriel met Malcolm’s eyes. Saw his own tears reflected there, a moment as fleeting as that final heartbeat before the ashes.
They said time moved more slowly in hell, but now Gabriel felt it all slipping through his fingers like water. How long had he been trapped in hell? How long had he sat on the edge of the abyss with the brother he’d long thought dead? How much time had they wasted talking about weapons and wars, the misdeeds of the past?
Now, all Gabriel wanted was more time. A minute. Just one more fuckingminuteto talk to his brother.
But Malcolm had already turned his back. Was already walking away, no goodbyes, no explanations, just as he had in life.
Gabriel blinked once more, and Malcolm was gone, nothing more than footprints in the ash.
A hot wind blew across the wasteland, erasing them as if Malcolm had never been there at all.
The sky flashed, one bolt then another, thunder making the ground tremble beneath him. Fire rained down, sizzling on the ground, eating up all the air.
Gabriel tilted his head toward the sky, fire and blood and brimstone, the end of all things, and closed his eyes. In every flash of lightning, he saw his demons.
Augustus Redthorne waiting for him in the stables, boots awash in the blood of the blind, deaf goat Gabriel had loved.
Be merciless, Gabriel Redthorne, or you will find yourself at the mercy…
The witch he’d murdered in the woods.
I can’t help you, vampire. Accept your fate and embrace your immortality…
The demons he’d tortured, the vampires, the rivers upon rivers of blood he’d spilled. Consumed.
