Page 109 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

“The cursed apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” He gives a little shrug, half to himself. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that two of my brothers have fallen to your little sisterhood.”

“Pretty sure that’s not what it means.”

“Pestilence, and then War,” he continues. The waxy skin on his cheeks lifts, bunching in a parody of a smile. “The third is being born, right here, right now, at the end of this path. And then . . .” He spreads his small pale hands. “Then I ride.”

Wait . . . is he saying he’s actually Famine? Or is he saying that whatever’s left of Cisco or Hannah, whoever is the original Saint or Sinner, Beelzebub will control them.

It doesn’t really matter.

“Not if I stop you first,” I grind out.

“You won’t have to,” the demon prince goes on before I can answer. “Oh yes, you’ll reach them. But when you get there, you’ll find only two mercies are left in all the world. Kill him, and carry him the way you carry your father.” He pauses for a beat, self-satisfied smile still frozen as if the wax hardened that way. “Or kill her. And watch him look at you for the rest of your life the way he used to look at me.”

“How about I just kill you now?” I pivot and swing the sword, putting my whole body into it. The flaming edge should rip him open from hip to shoulder, but the blade sails right through as if he’s made of smoke.

He laughs, and flies explode from his mouth, spilling up and out to join the storm surrounding us.

I shield myself with the sword. When I look again, the boy is already fading.

“I’m not really here,” he says. “Not yet. That’s the point, piccola. It’s why you lose either way. But for me? It’s a win-win regardless.”

His form completely redistributes into the swarm until all I see are black swarming walls and the clear path ahead.

Fuck this shit. Fuck the things he’s saying. Fuck that my soul is afraid he’s true.

Gritting my teeth, I lock onto the open heart of the storm and run until the corridor spits me out at the center on the steps of the obelisk.

The world goes still.

Two figures still can’t seem to hear or see me despite being only a few feet away.

Everything in me wants to lunge for Cisco, but my training locks my knees. Assess before you enter a kill box. Who is the angel, who is the devil? I force myself to take a few steady breaths, and to really look at him, but looking is its own kind of dying.

His shirt is in ruins and sticking to his skin in patches that can only be blood. The collar is open, buttons ripped off to the sternum, and his shadows are peeling off his skin and reaching for Hannah. But the worst of it—Cisco’s usually warm, sun-kissed olive skin is gray. Like dead-gray, wrung-out, and hollow-cheeked. He’s a man with nothing left in the tank and somehow still running. I’ve seen him hungry. I’ve seen him feed on sin.

I’ve never seen this scraped-empty thing wearing his face.

And across from him, Hannah is dressed in all black but full of life. Her severe bob whips in a wind that doesn’t reach me. Her chin is up, and her shoulders are squared in triumph.

Except.

For half a second her expression isn’t victorious at all. It’s the one I saw in the food warehouse, the one I felt sorry for. She doesn’t look like a devil. She just looks torn, tired, and like someone who wants to be loved. Then the expression is gone, and she’s just my enemy again.

Neither of them notices me. I’m nothing but a flickering blur at the edge of their war.

Fuck.

My gaze ping-pongs between them. Which one? Who do I save, and who do I . . . ?

Their voices rise again, repeating the same words I heard while deep inside the dark corridor. It’s as if no time passed, and I’m now witnessing the very words and who is speaking them.

Cisco roars at Hannah, “You stole everything from me!”

And she—spine straight, tears streaming down her face—shouts back, “I just wanted to protect you.”