Kent didn’t look angry, he didn’t even look surprised. He sat in a thickly-cushioned leather chair, puffing his cigar, the vanilla-mahogany scent of it wafting around the room. His pale gray suit was unbuttoned, as if he’d just settled in for a relaxing evening.
He wasn’t even supposed to be here. The smile he gave me was like ice sliding down my spine. My heart began to thump painfully hard. I glanced back, just to reassure myself of where Leon was: close, just to my side, still as stone.
The ice running down my spine settled solidly in my stomach. My palms began to sweat. The knife I’d stolen was digging into my hip and I was certain the guilt would show all over my face.
“Miss Raelynn, my, my, what a curious little lamb you are,” Kent mused, carefully ashing his cigar in a small stone tray on the table beside him. He must have cameras in here. He must have been watching the whole thing. “And you…pull the mask up, boy.”
Leon didn’t move. His tension was palpable, a physical force emanating from beside me. Kent tsked in disapproval, and spread his hands innocently. “No one’s in trouble here. But considering you both snuck into my private quarters, it’s only polite that I know who you are. Now…” There was a glint, a flash of steel — and Kent had a pistol in his hand. My pounding heart stilled completely, aching in my chest. “The mask, boy. I’m not playing games.”
This time, Leon moved. I didn’t need to look at him to know he’d uncovered his face: Kent’s expression told me everything. For the first time, he did look surprised.
Then angry. So angry that his finger twitched on the gun, and a sound somewhere between a sob and choked gasp was wrenched out of me.
“Demon,” he nodded slowly. “And here I thought you would have left Earth after you nearly killed my son, but no. Still here, still meddling in my affairs.” Leon had tried to kill Jeremiah? For a brief moment, my curiosity tried to override my fear, only for the ominous click of the gun’s hammer cocking back to slam my terror back into place.
“It won’t kill me,” Leon said quickly. My head felt light, and I desperately wanted to lean up against something so I wouldn’t fall. But I felt certain that one wrong move would result in a bullet through my brain. “How many bullets do you have, Kenny boy? Five? Six? Enough to slow me down before I rip you apart?”
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. “You seal 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 children did think 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 — I knew — 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 of mercy.”
“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.
