Page 95 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part Two

She folds her arms and cocks her hips. My skin prickles with goosebumps, and then I feel it—the blessing. The sense of the divine, the Beatific Vision or whatever it is that we got from Mary’s Gospel.

Something evil lurks nearby . . . and it’s not coming from Hannah. It’s bigger, beside her, around her, in the air. Invisible. The more I focus on it, the more I feel its malevolent power.

For a moment, I think I glimpse the shape of a man beside Hannah, swarming in the shadows, but then it moves. One by one, flies start to gather on the wall behind her, coating the mural with writhing black and iridescent blobs.

This is not good.

Shit.

Fuck.

Don’t panic.

Stay calm.

Is Hannah influenced by a demon like Jasmine was? Or is Hannah the one possessed? Fuck. Is she the one behind all this?

I don’t see any sign of possession. It’s just that sense of evil around her in the air, but my sixth sense doesn’t work like Cisco’s. It usually just shows us the true face of a demon possessing a human.

“Where did you go?” I ask. “After Jasmine.”

The sound of heavy metal meeting concrete rings out behind me. Something dropped. I try to twist and see.

“Here, let me help you with that.” Hannah slaps her hands over my wrists, piercing my skin with her fingernails. She spins my chair to face the opposite direction. Wooden legs shudder across the concrete, echoing through the warehouse.

When we stop, she steps aside to reveal two men standing beside a small, portable table. One is tall and gangly, wearing a leather jacket despite the heat. His skin peels from either sunburn or a skin condition. The other man is stocky, also wearing a jacket. He has a monobrow and an overgrown mustache, and he wears no socks with his sneakers. That’s gotta smell. Definitely untrustworthy.

I glimpse a firearm inside the gangly man’s jacket when he reaches out to straighten the single item on the table—Joan of Arc’s sword.

I glare at Hannah. “Start explaining, bitch.”

“Oh, come now,” she croons, lips twitching into a smile. “I always knew you were dumber than you looked, but you can’t be that blind.”

She sees the moment it clicks in my mind.

She’s a Sinner. For a brief time, I even trained her. Lilith already tried infiltrating our sisterhood by having the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, Leviathan, possess Prue. Why wouldn’t she try again? Why wouldn’t she pick the two Sinners who hadn’t been at the abbey for a while, whose personality changes she could explain by the distance and passage of time?

The only problem I have with that theory is that Hannah isn’t possessed. Something still feels off, but there’s no point playing games, so I guess it’s time to go fishing.

“You were responsible for Spain,” I note, voice flat. “And Jasmine.” My gaze dips to the sword. “So this was all about the relic?” I look around for the evil presence. “Beelzebub is the third Horseman, isn’t he?”

Thirty-Three

Mercy

Hannah bursts out laughing. She laughs so long and hard that I start to worry for her mental sanity. Maybe it’s too late for her, like it was for Jasmine. That fly I squished was like the one on Jasmine and on Lucia. I couldn’t have had it on me for long, but I felt my mind unraveling by the second.

If Hannah has one of those flies attached to her, it would explain the insanity.

“To think I almost thought I was wrong about you.” She wipes tears from her eyes and then trails her finger over the sword’s length. It leaves a trail of smoke in its wake. With a heavy sigh, she mumbles, “It’s sad, really, how easy this was.” Her brown eyes meet mine, and she scoffs. “I can’t believe for a moment there in the States, I was afraid you two would figure it out and ruin everything.” She rolls her eyes and gestures to no one at her left. “He wanted to play games with a holy man’s lust. Said it would help our cause, not break it.” Her eyes grow distant. “I didn’t believe him. The prophecy seems to have found a way of coming true, regardless of what they’ve done.” A shiver racks her body, and she snaps out of it, turning to me with a victorious smile. “Clearly I needn’t have been so worried. You still have no clue.”

Something cold and hard settles in my stomach.

“What have you done with him?” I growl, yank at my bindings. The chair judders at the force, deceptively drawing their attention to the sound rather than the tape, how I managed to twist my wrists because of my sweaty skin.

It’s so hot in here; the plastic tape has virtually melted. I’ll get out of this in no time. Hannah should know better . . . unless she actually believes I’m stupid and has underestimated me.

Nah.