Page 76 of Infernal

“Not suppressing them,” she said as she gathered her hair back it into her hand. “Harnessing them.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, watching as she tied a black elastic band around the ponytail.

“Suppressing your emotions pushes them into places they’re not meant to be. The minute you get worked up, bam! Everything comes out backwards. But harnessing them is understanding your emotions, its filing them away in exactly the right place so you can pull them out at exactly the right time.” Her eyebrows waggled with excitement. “The rage, the sadness, the fear… they fuel you, and that’s a good thing. You just need to figure out how to drive them. Visualize the act, own the emotion, and your body will do the rest.”

My mind flashed to my fight with Nikki at Temple. I’d been so furious with her that I was somehow able to push through Nikki’s magic even though it was forcing me back.

“The sword works pretty much the same way,” she said as she knelt to the ground and pulled her pant leg up. She was wearing what looked like a gun holder around her calf, but I knew it wasn’t a gun. No, this weapon was so much deadlier that a gun could ever hope to be.

“The Sword of Angelus was forged from the bone of a Gargoyle and the essence of an Archangel,” she said as she released the weapon from its sheath. It was much smaller than I had anticipated, closer to the size of a dagger than a sword, but something about its silver gleam let me know its size had no bearing on its power.

“There’s nothing on earth that can destroy it,” she said and met my eyes briefly. “It’s existed almost as long as we have and will be there long after our people are gone.” She maneuvered it through the air with ease, twisting it around and then transferring it to her other hand in the same fluid motion.

I was mesmerized, not only by the sword but by the graceful way she handled it.

“This sword right here is the only thing we know of that can vanquish Lucifer, and there’s only one bloodline that can ignite its power—the Morningstar bloodline.” She flipped it over once more and then extended it out to me, hilt first. “Your bloodline.”

My hand shook as I inched my fingers toward the handle, both afraid and curious of what would happen once I picked it up. Obviously, I knew that my blood would ignite its power—Tessa had just said as much—but I had no actual idea what that meant.

Ignoring the erratic pounding in my chest, I wrapped my fingers around the grip and then gasped as the sword lit up in my hand. I couldn’t tell if the strange blue glow was coming from the inside of it or just emanating all around it. The only thing I knew for sure was that it didn’t look remotely natural. Frightened, I dropped the sword and gawked as the unearthly light disappeared the moment the weapon left my hand and hit the ground.

“What the hell was that?” I asked and gaped at her.

She quickly bent down and picked the devil-sword back up. She seriously couldn’t stand to see the thing on the floor. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It just means you were the one meant to do this.”

Easy for her to say. She wasn’t the one that had to do it.

Flipping it over in her hand again, she pushed it back out towards me, urging me to take it again.

“You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” I accused, crossing my arms.

“Not exactly. I mean, I’ve heard stories, but I’ve never actually seen it light up like that,” she said and shrugged her shoulders as though it were no big deal. As though my blood didn’t just light up a freaking devil-killing-sword.

“How about a head’s up next time?”

“Right. Sorry,” she said, her eyes looking a lot more excited than remorseful. “This is new for me too.”

I eyed the sword curiously, but I never moved to take it from her. “Why did it do that?” I asked instead. Maybe if I could understand the mechanics behind it, it wouldn’t be so frightening to me.

“Its power is based in the purpose it was created with. Your blood, the very existence of it, awakens that power and calls it to action.”

I blew out a heavy breath. That didn’t help in the slightest.

“Just trust the sword, Jemma. It would never hurt you,” she said, nodding into it.

I didn’t particularly like the way she kept referring to it as though it were some living, breathing entity. It was weird and just plain wrong.

And yet as creepy and unsettling as it was, I knew there was no way out of this. I had to take the sword, knowing that there was no going back from this. I would learn to yield the weapon, and if all hope vanished, I would have no choice but to use it. If I didn’t, Lucifer would destroy us all, one by one, city by city.

Relaxing my tense muscles, I took the sword in my hand and slowly brought it in towards my chest. Once again, the sword lit up, though this time, it didn’t scare me.

Okay, maybe this isn’t the worst thing ever, I thought as I carefully turned it around and admired the blue glow as it radiated in my hand.

“Do you feel it?” she asked, speaking softly now.

I turned it again, tossing it gently in the air and then catching it—testing its feel against my skin. It felt right holding it, almost as though it had been crafted to fit perfectly in the palm of my hand.

“It’s a part of you as much as you’re a part of it. Allow yourself to accept its power, to be at one with it,” said Tessa as she watched me maneuver it through the air, each time catching it by the hilt.

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