She saw her mom, sitting in her kitchen in South Boston. Two men in black suits sat across from her, and as Mom’s jaw dropped open, one of the men pulled a gun and squeezed the trigger. Mom lay on the beach—her face was gone. What had done this? She couldn’t remember anymore.
Another image flashed before her. It was herself, holding a shotgun pointed at another Fiona—a phantom Fiona who didn’t know how to fight. She pulled the trigger and shot off the front of her own head. She watched as her body crumpled into the sand. Had she killed all those people? There was something wrong within her. Darkness poisoned her blood.
Dagon’s tentacles tightened around her, and she saw herself wrapping her hands around Nod’s neck and choking the life out of him. What sort of an animal—
Lir said we’re were all animals.
We’re all animals.
She couldn’t breathe. She’d run out of air, and her legs began to convulse. Her own death lay below the waves. She’d always known it, always seen her own faceless corpse.
It was all over now. Gods, she needed breath.
Mariana’s face flashed in her mind, then Mom sitting at the table, grading papers. Tobias’s dark eyes. She longed to touch his face again, to smell the rain on his neck. She’d never see him again, never hear that strange, lilting accent or run her fingers over his skin, or pull him close and feel the heat that blazed off his skin.
Seawater began to fill her lungs, and just as her throat convulsed, it hit her. If she loved anyone, she was nothing like Danny.
* * *
There was nothing now—no tentacles pulling her under, no water in her lungs. No up or down. She drifted in an abyss, utterly alone. Her life had been but one quick burst of flames in the darkness, and now it was over.
She’d have given anything for one more day. If she’d really taken in every moment as she should have, she wouldn’t have spent so much time thinking about death.
Here, the isolation was painful, devouring her from the inside out. This was it. This was her death. Even the worst day of her life she would relive, if she could just live again and see the light and feel the rain on her face.
A deep, rumbling voice spoke in the chasm. “You’re not one of mine.” Dagon, rejecting her as a Guardian. “You belong to Nyxobas.”
Wait. What?
Something glimmered in the distance—a pinpoint of silvery light. And out of the glimmer, someone moved swiftly through the void. She felt so relieved at the presence of something else—anything else—she wanted to cry with joy.
The cloaked figure stalked closer, a silver scythe in hands. She couldn’t see his face, and something about him was terrifying. Still, she wanted to embrace him. Anything to pull herself from this agonizing isolation.
But as he neared her, he raised his scythe, and Fiona’s stomach clenched. He swung for her neck and she felt a flash of pain, and then coldness surrounded her.
Icy water enveloped her, and she gripped something hard in her fist. Dagon was gone, but a delicious, dark power flooded her body, ancient and cold. Only one word howled in her mind. Nyxobas.
47
Jack
The succubus rubbed her legs together, luxuriating in Nyxobas’s power. She whispered in Angelic, and the golden circle that bound her hands disappeared.
She sat up straight, licking her lips, and fixed her dark eyes on Jack, immobilizing him. With her prey under control, she dropped her glamour, transforming from a beautiful young woman into a shriveled hag. Edging closer, she gripped his hair and pulled his face to her dusty, cracked lips.
Every fiber of his being compelled him to run, but he could no longer control his muscles. She clamped her desiccated mouth on his, like a lamprey seeking blood. His chest filled with gnawing emptiness, and he saw Fiona leaving him behind in the burning Purgator temple. She’d left him utterly alone.
Dying from the inside out, such exquisite agony, a gaping void—this was what it would feel like to live eternally in one of the shadow hells. For mortal demons like him, death would not bring a quiet sleep. It would be an unending nightmare.
As the succubus drew his memories from him, Elizabeth’s body flashed in his mind again, walking through Salem’s streets. But this time she was tied to the back of a cart on a cold January day, stripped to the waist. Teeth chattering, her lips had turned blue. This was a different sort of nakedness, one that made his stomach clench with rage. Jack’s father had walked behind her, flaying her with a switch. Blood poured from her wounds, staining the dress that hung at her hips. Even her perfect breasts were ripped apart.
Jack had been able to do nothing but stand limply by on broken legs.