Page 126 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

Cisco quietly hands me Raven’s letter from Wesley. I glance at Raven as I unfold it, and she quickly looks away.

As I read it, I start to feel sick. It’s not Raven’s confession about knowing Dom’s secret. In fact, it doesn’t even mention Hell.

It’s a goodbye letter.

My heart squeezes. I now recognize the pain of loss I saw in Thea’s eyes earlier. I look at Dom and see the devastation behind his anger.

“What the fuck, Raven?” I breathe out.

She winces. “This is a pointless argument—I was wrong, anyway.”

“This is far from pointless,” I shoot back, lifting the letter.

“¡Vete a la verga!” she shouts, and then spins on her heels to stalk away down the driveway, rainbow-tipped braid swinging like a cat’s agitated tail.

“Go to Hell?” I shout after her expletive. “Oh yeah, that’s real mature considering the content of this letter!”

She flips her middle finger up at me and keeps walking.

“Don’t run away angry, Raven!” Tawny diverts her trajectory and chases after her, Jinx still in tow. “It’s not good to leave grumpy. We only—Gah! Stop wriggling, Jinx.”

But the little slippery ex-demon escapes Tawny’s arms, barking like a maniac, bolting down the driveway after Raven.

Raven stops dead in her tracks, facing the wrought iron gates. It’s not until Jinx streaks straight past her that I realize Raven must have sensed danger.

I feel it now too.

Thea shares a look with me and reaches for her staff. I tense, and eyes wide, I search for the sword. The last I remember seeing it was inside Cisco.

“What is it?” He asks.

“Here.” Thea tosses me the sword—it had been resting at her feet near the wall. I breathe a sigh of relief when the cool metal hits my palm and thrums with awareness, ready for action.

Still works.

“Mercy?” Cisco prompts.

“You can’t feel that?” My gaze gravitates toward the gates as clouds block the sun.

“What?”

“Evil.”

Forty-Four

Cisco

Ihave known only a few moments of peace my entire life. That time on the fishing boat with my uncle, falling asleep with Mercy in my arms, and everything after Thea healed me.

All the other times, I thought God had forsaken me. That was why he never answered my prayers. But from the moment I woke up, curse-free and at the abbey against all odds, I realized that he’d never left me. He led me here in the first place. He blessed me with the love of a woman like Mercy and, as I sat on the porch steps, I had faith He would return her to me too.

So I waited patiently. I listened to Dominic’s fear lurking behind his fury. I witnessed Raven’s pain behind her actions. I cared not for the change in my body, the lack of hair on my head, the way my skin appeared as blemish-free as a newborn baby’s. I wasn’t even concerned about Asmodeus or his big, protective fuzzy winged beast blocking Mercy from me. They’d saved our lives, and I trusted Mercy’s opinion of them wholeheartedly.

When she joined me on the steps, even surrounded by bickering and tension, and even with her missing hair a glaring sign of my failures, I thought, life can’t get better than this.

After everything—the grief, the guilt, the horror of losing myself and being helpless to stop it—I floated in a cloud of bliss, happy to sit wrapped in a blanket, with Mercy under my arm, to listen to a flock still in need of a shepherd. I was happy because I knew I still had a purpose in this world.

And then the sun disappeared behind clouds, a demon showed up at the gates, and I failed to sense the danger coming.