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“What if you can’t help her?” she whispered. “What if the Lord sent us his messengers and that fails too?”

“His messengers do not fail,” Ivy said calmly. She produced a black hair tie from her pocket and methodically pulled her curtain of golden locks into a ponytail. It was a small gesture, but I knew it meant she was preparing for a violent struggle.

“There’s so much darkness in there.” Sister Faith’s face was creased in pain. “Living, breathing, tangible darkness. I don’t want to be responsible for the loss of life—”

“Nobody is dying tonight,” Gabriel said. “Not on our watch.”

“How can I be sure?” Sister Faith shook her head. “I’ve seen too much now … I can’t trust … I don’t know how I’m supposed to …”

To my surprise, Xavier stepped forward. “With all due respect, ma’am, there’s no time to waste.” His voice was gentle but firm. “You’ve got a demon tearing apart one of your sisters and we’re on the brink of an apocalyptic war. These guys will do everything they can to help you, but you need to let them do their job.”

His gaze went blank for a moment as if he were remembering something that happened a long time ago. Then he refocused and put a hand on Sister Faith’s shoulder. “Some things are beyond human understanding.”

If my spirit form had allowed it, I would have cried at that moment. I recognized those words as my own. I had spoken them to Xavier that night on the beach when I’d taken a blind leap of faith and thrown myself from a cliff, letting my wings break my fall and revealing my true identity. When I had convinced Xavier it wasn’t all a bizarre prank, he’d been full of questions. He’d wanted to know why I was there, what my purpose was, and if God really existed. I’d told him: Some things are beyond human understanding. Xavier hadn’t forgotten.

I remembered that night as if it were yesterday. When I closed my eyes, it all came flooding back to me like a tidal wave. I saw the cluster of teenagers around the crackling bonfire, embers spitting from the flames like fiery jewels until they sank into the sand. I remembered the sharp smell of the ocean, the fabric of Xavier’s pale blue sweatshirt beneath my fingers. I remembered the way the black cliffs had looked like looming puzzle pieces against the mauve sky. I remembered the exact moment I had tilted my body forward and left gravity behind me. That night had been the beginning of everything. Xavier had accepted me into his world and I was no longer the girl pressed up against the glass looking in on a world I could never be a part of. The memory of it made me ache with longing. We had thought facing Gabriel and Ivy after I’d exposed our secret was a challenge. If only we’d known what lay in store for us.

The sound of the key turning in the lock drew my attention back to the present. Xavier’s words had encouraged Sister Faith to reveal what lay behind the closed door. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as the smell of rotting fruit grew stronger and a ripping snarl shot though the air. It seemed that time stood still as the door swung open in slow motion.

The room was rather ordinary; sparsely furnished and only somewhat larger than the cubicle-size bedrooms on the second floor. But what we found crouched inside the room was anything but ordinary.

26

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

AT first she looked like an ordinary woman, tense and wary of the strangers standing in her doorway, but a woman nonetheless. She was wearing a cotton chemise that reached her knees and would have been pretty had it not been torn, blackened, and stained with blood. Her long, dark hair was a tangled mess around her shoulders and she crouched by the grate of the fireplace grabbing fistfuls of soot and spilling it onto the bare boards. Her knees were scuffed and cut as if she had dragged herself across the floor. Had I been physically present my first instinct would’ve been to go to her aid, help her to her feet, and comfort her. Instead I looked to Ivy and Gabriel, but they didn’t move. I realized why when I focused on the eyes looking back at us and saw that they no longer belonged to Sister Mary Clare. The others saw it too, and Molly let out a stifled cry and edged behind Xavier, whose face reflected mixed emotions. His expression shifted from pity to disbelief to disgust and back again in a matter of seconds. This was something he’d never had to deal with before and he wasn’t sure what the appropriate response was.

The young nun, who couldn’t be more than twenty, was crouched on the floor, looking closer to an animal than any kind of human. Her face was twisted grotesquely, her eyes huge, black, and unblinking. Her lips were cracked and swollen and I could see the points where her teeth had pierced right through the flesh. A row of intricate symbols had been branded into the skin on her arms and legs. The room itself was in no better shape. The mattress and linen had been torn to shreds and scratches were gouged into the floor and ceiling. Words were scrawled on the walls in an ancient script I couldn’t decipher. I wondered for a moment how the walls had come to be smeared with coffee until I realized it wasn’t coffee, but blood. The demon cocked its head to one side like a curious dog, and its gaze lingered on the visitors. There was a long, deep silence, until the demon snarled again, gnashing its teeth. Its head darted rapidly from side to side, looking for a point of escape.

Ivy and Gabriel moved in tandem, ushering the others back and sweeping into the room. The demon’s eyes widened as it spat viciously at them. The saliva was tinged red from having bitten its tongue. I noticed that it didn’t need to blink and could focus with frightening precision. Ivy and Gabriel joined hands and the demon screamed as if this gesture alone caused intense pain.

“Your time on this earth is over.” Gabriel fixed his steellike gaze on the creature, his voice full of righteousness and authority. The demon stared for a moment before recognition dawned and its face cracked into a hideous smile. I saw that Sister Mary Clare’s teeth had been ground into uneven stumps.

“What are you going to do?” the demon jeered, its voice singularly high-pitched and scratchy. “Vanquish me with holy water and crucifixes?”

Ivy’s demeanor did not change. “Do you really think we need toys to destroy you?” she asked in a voice like water flowing over river stones. “The Holy Spirit is alive in us. It will soon fill this room. You will be cast back into the abyss from which you sprang.”

If the demon was alarmed, it didn’t show it. Instead, it deftly changed the subject. “I know who you are. One of your kind belongs to us now. The little one …”

Xavier looked as if he were about to step forward and take a swing at the creature, but Molly gripped his arm and with some effort, he turned his face away. “It knows our weaknesses,” I heard him murmur to himself like a mantra. “It plays on our weaknesses.” Xavier may not have had any direct experience with possession before, but he’d learned enough from Sunday School to know how the Devil worked.

“It’s funny you should mention that,” Gabriel said to the demon. “It’s exactly what we wanted to talk to you about.”

“You think I’m a whistleblower?” the demon hissed.

“You will be,” Ivy replied pleasantly.

The demon glanced over her shoulder and its eyes flashed. Suddenly, a blast of wind lifted Xavier off his feet and threw him against a wall. He slid onto the ground and to my horror an invisible force began to drag him across the floor.

“Stop it!” Molly screamed, reaching for him.

“Molly, no!” Xavier yelled and gritted his teeth as he was flung against the steel bed frame. “Stay there.”

“You threaten, I threaten,” the demon taunted as Xavier struggled against its hold.