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Kent’s expression was immoveable, frozen solidly in a state of distaste. Then the gun moved imperceptibly, to be aimed at me.
“Fuck, Mr. Hadleigh, wait—” I held up my hands, flushing hot then cold. I couldn’t die like this. Not here. But Kent wasn’t even looking at me.
“The girl will die from a single bullet,” he said calmly. “Not the most ideal way to make the sacrifice, but dead is dead.”
“Sacrifice,” the word slipped past my lips like a prayer, disbelief and pleading wrapping themselves around it. “I’m...I’m not...not a sacrifice...I’m not…”
“You care for her, don’t you?” Kent chuckled, shaking his head. He was still focused on Leon, and whatever he saw in him seemed to amuse him greatly. “How funny. To think, the demon doesn’t want his toy broken. Had I known you could be controlled so easily, I never would have bothered with all the effort of punishing you with magic. But of course, the toy you want is the one you can’t keep.” He sighed, as if dealing with petulant children, and slowly, his eyes slid back to me. “I understand the inevitable can be shocking, Miss Raelynn. It can be horrifying. And no doubt this demon has been feeding you lies about us. About our God, our purpose. Corrupting you.”
“He’s been protecting me,” I gasp, and dare to step closer to Leon. His arm wrapped around me immediately, pushing me firmly behind him.
“If you kill her,” he growled. “Youseal your own death.”
Kent smiled slowly. “Then we are at an impasse. What a twist of fate. The killer becomes the protector. Why?” He chuckled, puffing the cigar as if it was all just a grand game. “Is her cunt so enjoyable? You could still use it once she’s dead. What a thought: you, down there in the mine, rutting against her corpse like a rabid dog.”
I felt sick. Leon’s claws were distending, and the heat rolling off him was almost too much to bear. The door was so close, only a few steps away.
A few steps and a gun.
“All in due time,” Kent said, still chuckling at his own little inside joke. “Today, I’m afraid, is not the day you die, Miss Raelynn, although my childrendidthink they would be successful.” He tapped at the cigar. “Impatient, those two. Always competing. A healthy coping mechanism, in my opinion. They are facing the inevitable too, you know. Three lives once spared is now three souls that must be given. Our God is clear. A Lawson, a Kynes, a Hadleigh. Three lives, three souls.”
“You’re going to sacrifice one of your own children,” I whispered, realization dawning. Kent solemnly nodded and took another puff on his cigar. As if it was nothing. As if it was normal.
“My father prepared me for such an eventuality,” he said. “I’m sorry yours didn’t do the same for you. Your father, paranoid as he was, always preferred to keep his beliefs firmly planted in logic. Never allowed himself to think there was a bigger picture. But there are things that defy logic. Things that defy all human knowledge, all science.” He stubbed out his cigar, and stood without lowering the pistol. Leon jerked me to the side, closer to the door, and Kent held up his hand. “I’m not through here. We may be at an impasse, demon, but I still have something to say to Miss Raelynn. Something she deserves to hear.”
“She doesn’t deserve your lying words,” Leon snarled. But the gun was still cocked, still aimed, and not even a demon could stop a bullet.
“My children tell me you have an interest in the occult,” Kent said. “A fascination for it. So I knew—Iknew—you would see the wisdom your father refused.”
“What wisdom?” My voice felt so hollow, my body like a shell. As if I could vacate it and leave this nightmare, go back to a world where things were so much less dangerous and made so much more sense. My father would have laughed at all of this, shaken his head, called it nonsense. He would have come up with a perfectly logical explanation for everything.
Except there were no logical explanations here. Logic had flown out the fucking window, crashed into a telephone pole, and gone down in a flaming blaze.
“These sacrifices are not in greed, Miss Raelynn,” Kent said. “They are merely a necessity. It is natural for humans to resist their own death, to fixate upon survival, but this is much bigger than merely three lives. The Deep One is waking up.”
Raelynn.
I jumped. It was as if the name had been whispered right in my ear, as if the syllables slid over the interior of my skull and nestled against my brain. Kent was nodding.
“You hear Its call. All those meant for It do. For years my children have dreamed of It. They understand that, when one of them is eventually chosen, their fate will help procure mercy for all of humanity.”
“Bullshit,” Leon hissed, but Kent was unperturbed.
“The God will wake whether we help It or not. And when It does, when It reclaims dominion over Earth, It will know that we humans keep our promises. That we are good servants. That we are worthy of mercy.”
“Ask any Archdemon what it was like to live in a world ruled by the Old Gods,” Leon snapped. “Every one of them will tell you they are not beings capable ofmercy.”
“The demon lies. How typical.” Finally, slowly, Kent was lowering the gun. “You will not go to the Deep One tonight, Raelynn. But soon. Soon you will, and I ask only that you consider my words: your sacrifice secures mercy for all people. The world is changing. The great awakening is about to occur. And there will be pain, and bloodshed, but in the end...there will be peace. Peace through your sacrifice. So when you come to die, Miss Raelynn, know that you were meant for it.”
The gun was lowered, the hammer relaxed, and without another word, Leon snatched me up and rushed me out the door.
We found a back way out, a glass door that led to a deck. Leon carefully lowered me over the side of before jumping down himself. Then into the trees that nestled close around the house, he dragged me breathless through the dark, my chest aching with panic and the cold air, until finally I had to beg him to stop.
“We have to move quickly,” he insisted, pacing as I doubled over, kneeling on the ground, unsure if I was about to vomit or pass out or both. “You need to get out of Abelaum, Raelynn. Somewhere he won’t look, somewhere they can’t find you.” Still pacing, fists clenching and unclenching, teeth clipping together furiously, he muttered, “He thinks he can take you from me. I’ll rip off his hands before I ever let him—”
“Leon…” I swayed to my feet, panic still clenched so tightly around my heart that it hurt. “Don’t leave me again...please...please don’t...I...I can’t…”
“I’m notfuckingleaving.” He grabbed me, half gentle, half vicious—as if he could force what he was saying to be believed, the tighter he gripped my arms. The whites of his eyes were darkening, the gold in them like fire in the night sky, and even the veins on his forearms were running black now. “Nothing is going to take you from me.Nothing.”
