Page 69 of The Curse of Blood and Silenc

“No,” I whispered, the word catching in my throat. A vision slammed into me—Rose and I lying broken on the stone floor, our blood pooling together, Louis standing over us with that terrible smile. The same smile he’d had after torturing Joy.

My mouth opened in a silent scream, but terror froze the warning before it could escape. The scrape of metal against stone as she pulled the door open was the sound of a coffin lid closing. Because that’s what this crypt was about to become—our tomb.

My legs shook so badly I nearly collapsed. We were going to die. Rose was going to die. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.

The darkness beyond seemed to breathe. I wanted to race in there and get out of the terror around me, but something told me the real horror was waiting inside that crypt.

It was as if the thing could read my mind. “You’ll never make it,” Louis said as he lifted a strand of my hair with his claw, the sharp point grazing my scalp. “Though watching you try might be…fascinating.”

I placed my hands on his face. “Louis, fight it, come back.” Something slithered underneath my palms, like snakes writhing beneath his skin. I fought back the urge to recoil.

Power flooded through me, the familiar warmth turning into a burning river. I poured it all toward him, trying to bring back my father, trying to burn out whatever darkness had nested inside him. Light blazed from my hands, illuminating the tombstones around us.

Anger and hate flashed in the creature’s red eyes, turning them into pools of blood. The things under its skin moved faster, agitated by my power, and its face contorted into something that had lost all humanity.

Every ounce of power poured through me, light burning beneath my skin until I thought I’d burst. I searched harder, looking for any trace of the real Louis beneath the corruption. There had to be something left—some ember of the detective who’d protected Joy, who’d always risked everything to keep her safe. My power probed deeper, my fingers clawing through ashes for a spark.

But instead of finding the true Louis, I only ignited the anger of the darkness inside him. It writhed against my light, slipping away like oil on water. Where my power should have cleansed, it just made the evil more obvious—the way his soul had been hollowed out, only to be stuffed full of something ancient and cruel. Angelo’s warning echoed in my head: once Balthazar corrupted someone this deeply, there was no coming back.

I kept searching, desperate for even a flicker of the man who’d been Joy’s protector. But each pulse of power only revealed more emptiness, more proof that Angelo had been right. The thing wearing Louis’s face wasn’t him anymore. It hadn’t been for a long time.

He stuck out a hand and grabbed my neck, his claws digging into my flesh like ice-cold needles, squeezing tighter and tighteraround my throat. I choked and beat on his wrists, my lungs screaming for air. My fingers scraped against his skin, my stomach heaving when I felt those things squirming underneath it. Tears filled my eyes, and I kicked at him, but my movements grew weaker with each passing second. Black spots danced at the edges of my vision, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears.

He only chuckled and opened his mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth where Louis’ warm smile should have been. The teeth kept growing, multiplying, his jaw unhinging like a snake’s. “You shouldn’t have tried to heal us. Balthazar will lose his prize now. He will be most displeased.” His breath smelled like rancid meat and sulfur.

A loud snarl rippled through the night, something from humanity’s oldest nightmares that vibrated in my chest and made my heart stutter. Louis turned, and a massive black wolf plowed into him with the force of a freight train, forcing him to loosen his grip. His claws raked across my neck as he released me. I collapsed onto the ground, desperately sucking in air.

The black wolf and Louis battled each other, a dizzying blur of fur and flesh and spraying blood. When the wolf’s teeth tore chunks from Louis’ body, black smoke leaked out instead of blood, curling into the air like living shadows.

Louis’ eyes filled with fear as he backed away—the first real emotion I’d seen in those hellfire eyes. For one horrible moment, I saw my Louis there, the man who’d protected me and Joy, trapped inside his own body as it was torn apart. But then that writhing darkness poured from his wounds, and I knew the real Louis was long gone. The wolf’s jaws clamped down on his throat and ripped it open. Blood gushed out like a crimson waterfall, but it was dark, thick, moving like oil.

I pressed my hand against my mouth, caught between relief and horror. Relief that the thing wearing Louis’ face was dying, horror at watching the death of the good man he’d once been.Bile burned in my throat as twisted darkness poured from his ruined neck, taking with it the last traces of Detective Louis DuPont.

The wolf shifted into Angelo, the transformation fluid and violent all at once, bones cracking and reforming in the space of a heartbeat. He’d found me like he always did, appeared exactly when I needed him most. But he wasn’t—he couldn’t be—he was powerful like no other vampire, but this? My breath caught as I watched him straighten up, deadly grace in every movement, Louis’s blood still staining his mouth crimson. Everything I thought I knew about him changed in a heartbeat, but one thing remained constant—he’d come for me. He always came for me.

In one brutal motion, Angelo plunged his hand into Louis’ chest and ripped out his heart. The sound was wet, horrible—one I’d hear in my nightmares forever. The heart in Angelo’s hand was black and pulsing, covered in runes and symbols that moved like living things.

He crushed it in his hand, and black ooze burst through his fingers.

Louis screamed, but it wasn’t his voice. It was that choir of the damned again, shrieking in collective agony, the hellish sound shattering the stained glass in nearby tomb windows. Black smoke poured out of him like living darkness, then spun out of control, hurtling toward the church, back to Balthazar. It left Louis an empty, discarded husk that crumpled to the ground, face frozen in its last moment of fear.

“I’m sorry, Louis! I’m sorry, Louis.” The scream tore from my raw throat, tasting of blood and salt. My vision blurred with tears as I stared at his body lying there like garbage, destroyed by evil.

Angelo grabbed me, his grip iron-strong but gentle, careful to avoid the claw marks on my neck. Bloody scrapes ran down his face and his usually immaculate suit was shredded, soaked inblood that wasn’t his own. Long cuts across his chest were still healing, the flesh knitting together only slowly—whatever he’d fought to get to us had been profoundly powerful.

“I told you not to come.” His voice was harsh, but his eyes held ancient sadness. He’d seen this before, I realized. How many times had he seen people lose the ones they loved to darkness? “You couldn’t have healed him. Louis was gone. Only the demons inhabiting his body remained.” He pulled me against his chest, trying to shield me from the reality of what I’d lost. “He was gone the moment they took him. What you saw wasn’t him anymore.”

I tangled my fists in his bloodied shirt. “I should have listened to you. It’s my fault he’s dead.” Grief and rage and guilt crashed through me like a tidal wave and my voice broke as I sagged against Angelo while the sounds of battle continued around us.

Chapter

Thirty-Six

Angelo

Serenity clung to me,heartbroken, sobs wracking her small frame. I wrapped my arms around her, wanting to shield her from the horrors around us. The marks Legion’s claws had left on her throat made my ancient blood burn. I’d dealt with Legion before, back in Italy in 1742. That time, they’d possessed a cardinal. I’d handled it the same way: quick, clean, final.

Luigi would wish he was dead when I got through with him. He had one fucking job: keep Serenity locked up in the bedroom. His failure nearly cost me something irreplaceable. The moment this was over, he and I would have a long, painful conversation.

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