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Fuck, fuck,fuck.
I throw my head back and roar, the sound multiplying to deafening levels in this room. The room where the disciples sought punishment. A testament to the universe’s sense of humor that Rose and her ghost would go straight here of all places. Then again, it was the ghost of the boy we just killed. I suppose it was an act of revenge to make all of this unfold, to torture us in retaliation.
And then there was this damn lightning. Rose did that. I saw it with my own eyes as the ghost had a hold of her. Yet I’m inclined to believe her when she says she doesn’t knowhowshe did it. Dahlia had been a witch, that much I knew (a witch sent to kill me, I know that part too). Is it possible that Dahlia’s magic got reincarnated as well? Or has Rose been a vampire witch from day one, just like Lenore?
Lenore. The key card in San Francisco. Is it possible that Rose knows her? Was she visiting her and Solon before she came here? Is that how she really found me, or Abe? And why did she wait until she was a vampire to come and meet me? Why not earlier?
I have so many questions. Too many questions.
The biggest question of all is: if Rose really is a witch and has innate powers, is it possible she can read the rest of the book, the parts that I can’t?
But I won’t get any answers to my question if the demon finds her. I don’t know what it will do if it sees she’s no longer under my command. Will it possess her for itself? Or will it kill her because it finally has permission to?
She had called it thebad thing. She had seen it before.
Does that mean it knows who she is?
Thinking about it won’t do shit. I can let it take her or I can do what I just told her I wouldn’t do, which is save her.
Fuck me.
I used to be a man of my word.
I snap into action and bolt out of the room and down the stairs, moving so quickly that I’m passing through walls. In seconds I have searched the house and the demon isn’t here.
Then I’m outside, into the whirl of the winter storm, and I see them.
The demon is a blackened blot in the snow, an alien perched on the edge of our world.
My heart leaps inside my chest.
In his arms is Rose.
One long bony black hand is spread across Rose’s face like a cage, its claws curving over her chin and into her throat. The other hand is wrapped across her chest, gripping her hard enough that blood is soaking through her coat.
He’s seconds away from tearing her head right off.
“Stop!” I yell. I want to run to her, I could be at her side in the snap of my fingers, but I’m afraid any ambush would result in her death, so I stay where I am.
The demon raises its oblong head and fixes its beady crimson eyes on me.
“She is mine!” I boom, though the storm seems to swallow the sound. “Release her!”
The demon continues to stare at me.
It’s thinking.
“She is mine,” I repeat, my voice louder, steadier. I raise out my arm as if to smote it. I have tried in the past to use the book’s magic on the demon, to destroy it, but nothing has ever worked. “She belongs to me and only to me.”
I add, “She always has.”
I can barely see Rose’s eyes through the cage of claws but they widen at my words. I may not remember her, I may notwantto remember her, but the truth is the truth. This is a woman who has belonged to me during various points throughout my life, and if that doesn’t lay claim to her, then I don’t know what does.
But the demon continues to stare. It tilts its head, seeming to consider.
Let her go. Let her go.
It has a mouth of tiny shark-like teeth that seems incapable of smiling and yet I swear it’s grinning at me. The kind of grin that only means one thing.
