“All of you stay here,” Dee whispered, making eye contact with each of the angels to ensure they understood. “If they see you, they will know Luce is with you.
Wait here.” She pointed to the columns, thick enough for three angels to hide behind. “I know how to handle my sister.”
Without another word, Dee strode into the chapel, her heels slapping the black-and-white tile floor.
“I’d say you’ve been given quite enough rope, Sophia,” Dee said.
“Who’s there?” Vivina yelped, startled in mid-genuflection.
Dee crossed her arms over her chest as she walked around the altars, clucking in mock disapproval of the Elders’ work. “Very shoddy dressing. Leave it to Sophia to bring her B game to a sacrifice with cosmic and eternal implications.”
Luce was desperate to study the reaction on Miss Sophia’s face, but Daniel held her back. There were a scraping sound, a melodramatic gasp, and a cruel soft cackle.
“Ah yes,” Miss Sophia said. “My tramp sister returns, just in time to witness my finest hour. This will trump your overrated piano recital!”
“You’re really very dumb.”
“Because I don’t have the recommended brand of rope?” Sophia snorted.
“Forget the rope, dope,” Dee said. “You’re dumb in many dozens of ways, not the least of which is thinking you might get away with this.”
“Do not condescend to her!” hissed the third Elder.
“There’s really no other way to approach her,” Dee instantly replied.
“Thank you, Lyrica, but I can handle Paulina,” Sophia said without looking away from Dee. “Or what do you have people call you now? Pee?”
“You know very well it is Dee. You only wish you knew why.”
“Ah yes, Dee. Biiiiiig difference. Well, let us enjoy our brief reunion as best we can.”
“Let them go, Sophia.”
“Let them go?” Sophia cackled. “But I want them dead.” Her voice rose and Luce pictured her hand sweeping over the angels bound upon the altars. “I want her dead most of all!”
Luce couldn’t even gasp. She knew whom the librarian meant.
“It won’t stop Lucifer from erasing your existence.” Dee’s voice sounded almost sad.
“Well, you know what Daddy always used to say:
‘We’re all Hell-bound, anyway.’ Might as well try to get what we want while we’re on this Earth. Where is she, Dee?” Sophia spat. “Where is the mewling child Lucinda?”
“I wouldn’t know.” Dee’s voice was smooth. “But I have come to keep you from finding out.” Now Daniel let Luce press a little closer to the first chapel’s entrance.
“I hate you!” Sophia shouted, pouncing on Dee. Roland turned to look at Daniel, asking with his eyes if they should interfere. Daniel seemed confident in the desiderata’s abilities. He shook his head once.
Sophia’s assistant Elders watched from their altars as the two sisters rolled across the floor, moving out of, then back into Luce’s view. Dee on top, then Sophia, then Dee on top again.
Dee’s hands found Sophia’s neck and squeezed. The old Sword & Cross librarian’s face glowed red as her hands strained against Dee’s chest and she struggled to survive.
Slowly, Sophia worked her knee up until it pressed deeply into her sister’s stomach to push her back. Dee’s arms were fully extended, reaching to keep their hold on Sophia’s neck. She gazed down on her sister’s rage-distorted face, her eyes on fire with hatred.
“Your heart turned black, Sophia,” Dee said, her voice soft with something like nostalgia. “It was like a light went off. No one could turn the light back on. We could only try to stop you from running over us in the dark.” Then she released Sophia, allowed her to draw a huge and panicked breath into her lungs.
“You betrayed me,” Sophia gasped as Dee took her sister’s collar in her hands, closed her eyes, and moved to slam Sophia’s skull against the tiles of the mosaic floor.
But instead there came a long shriek as Dee was launched into the air. Sophia had kicked her with a force Luce had forgotten the old woman possessed. She leaped to her feet. She was sweating and red in the face, her hair white and wild, as she ran to where Dee had come to rest several feet away. Luce rose on her toes and winced when she saw Dee’s eyes were closed.
“Ha!” Sophia returned to the altars and reached beneath the one binding Cam. She pulled out a sheath of starshots.
Back in the alcove Roland glanced at Daniel again.
This time Daniel nodded.
In an instant, Arriane, Annabelle, and Roland flew from their hiding places into the room. Roland drove toward Miss Sophia, but at the last instant, she ducked and deftly avoided him. His wing slapped her across the face, but she had eluded his grasp.
In the face of angel wings, the two other Elders cow-ered, shrinking in panicked fear. Annabelle held them back while Arriane flicked open a Swiss Army knife from her pocket—the pink one, the same one Luce had used to cut the girl’s hair months earlier—and sawed at the ropes binding Gabbe to the altar.
“Stop or I’ll kill him!” Sophia shouted at the angels as she tore out a fistful of arrows and leaped on Cam.
Straddling him, she raised the silver shafts above his head.
His dark hair was matted and greasy. His hands were pale and trembling. Miss Sophia studied these details with a smirk.
“I do so love to see an angel die. ” She cackled, holding the starshots high. “And such an arrogant one to kill.” She looked back down at Cam. “His death will be a beautiful thing to behold.”
“Go ahead.” Cam’s voice came for the first time, low and even. Luce nearly cried out when she heard him mutter: “I never asked for a happy ending.” Luce had watched Sophia kill Penn with her bare hands and no remorse. It would not happen again. “No!” Luce shouted, struggling to break free from Daniel’s grip and dragging him with her into the chapel.
Slowly Miss Sophia craned her body around toward Luce and Daniel, clutching her fistful of starshots. Her eyes gleamed silver and her thin lips curled in a ghastly smile as Luce tugged Daniel forward, pulling against his relentless grip.
“We have to stop her, Daniel!”
“No, Luce, it’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, there you are, dear.” Miss Sophia beamed. “And Daniel Grigori! How nice. I’ve been waiting for you.” Then she winked and whipped the starshots over her head in a dense cluster straight at Daniel and Luce.
TWELVE
UNHOLY WATER
It happened in the broken fraction of a second: Roland tackled Miss Sophia, knocking her to the ground. But he was half a heartbeat too late.
Five silver starshots sailed silently across the empty space of the chapel. The cluster of them loosened as they flew, seeming to hang in midair for a moment on their path toward Luce and Daniel.
Daniel.
Luce pressed herself back against Daniel’s chest. He had the opposite instinct: His arms pulled tight against her and dragged her down hard against the floor.
Two great pairs of wings crossed the space in front of Luce, erupting from left and right. One was a radiant coppery gold, the other the purest silvery white. They filled the air before her and Daniel like enormous feathered screens—and then were gone in the blink of an eye.
Something whizzed by her left ear. She turned and saw a single starshot ricochet off the gray stone wall and clatter to the floor. The other starshots were gone.
A fine iridescent grit settled around Luce.
Squinting through the mist of dust, she took in the room: Daniel crouching beside her. A roused Dee struggling atop a writhing Miss Sophia. Annabelle standing above the other Elders, who lay lifeless on the floor. Arriane holding an empty length of rope and her Swiss Army knife in trembling hands. Cam, still bound on the altar, stunned.
Gabbe and Molly, just freed from their altars by Arriane—