Page 20 of The Sinner and the Scholar
“We’re the ones sacrificing our eternal souls.” Tawny scowls.
Mercy folds her arms. “I won’t let them take the glory.”
“Then it’s decided.” I close the tome and wrap it in a cloth. “I’ll keep studying it in secret, minus Team Saint.”
“Saint,” Raven snarls the word. “What exactly can he do, anyway? Act all devout and scare the demons with his bulging muscles?”
We chuckle.
“The priest, I get,” Leila adds. “He can exorcise them. But is the Saint even ordained? What’s the deal with that? And the weapons expert—” She cuts herself off with a frown.
“Who gives a shit? They’re all sexy.” Mercy smirks. “Father Angel-hottie can take my confession any day.”
“Team Saint,” Raven considers. “Onlyoneis righteous enough to hold that title. And that goody-two-shoes won’t be able to get the job done. No way. This is dirty work. It’s why they need us.”
“Goddamned virgins, the lot of them.” Mercy folds her arms, completely serious. “You can’t trust them.”
“They’re up to something.” Leila cracks her neck. “I’m not giving anything away.”
“I give them a week,” I say, despite what Wesley told me about them having already worked around Europe. I shake my head, laughing under my breath. “One Saint. Four supporting him.” Another snort. “How many men does it take to support a Saint?”
“How many to change a lightbulb?”
“How many monkeys to give his banana a—” Mercy cuts off mid-sentence.
“A peel?” I finish with a chortle.
No one answers. When I glance up, they all exude stillness from their bones, except for Tawny, who blushes and glances over my shoulder toward the stairs.
“They’re behind me, aren’t they?” I tense.
Raven gives a curt nod.
Fuck.
Eight
Thea
Islowly turn, keeping the cloth-wrapped manuscript hidden behind me. Four men stare at us from the landing of the archive’s staircase.
Zeke in his worn clothing. Wesley with his wrinkled suit. Father Angelotti in clerics. And Saint Dominic, venerable in Versace. They sicken us.
From the looks on their faces, the feeling is mutual.
Oh, it’s on.
Wesley’s eyes snag on his open trunk, and then he glares at me—me, no one else. Me, like he assumes I’m the worst thief of us all. “You’ve been snooping through our privates?”
Mercy opens her mouth to, no doubt, let out smutty innuendo, but Raven steps forward. That’s all she does, and the world holds its breath. I’d run away screaming if I didn’t know her and met her in a dark alley. She has this look in her eyes: a glint, the spark of a maniac. You never know which way she’s going to move. Will a switchblade materialize in her hands or a cigarette lighter? The rainbow streaks in her hair are the only bright thing about her. I sometimes wonder if it’s her cry for help, the hand waving above water before she drowns and disappears altogether.
I wonder this because I sometimes feel the same, except I am too cowardly to stick up my hand. Instead, I tell people to fuck off and that I can take care of myself.
Holding Raven’s stare, the Saint casually walks toward her. Their boots go toe to toe as they meet in the middle by the open trunk. He might be a head taller and twice as broad across the shoulders, but Raven doesn’t cower. Her stature comes from someplace deep within that I envy. I might pretend to be confident, but I take my lead from these women. She reminds me a little of Mary Lazarus, the Sinner who rescued children created in a lab to sense deadly sin. She sacrificed everything to raise them as her own, teaching them how to fight and love. Those children are now the heroes and saviors of Cardinal City: the Deadly Seven.
My fingers twitch for a dagger, a weapon,something… and then Dominic leans over and shuts the trunk lid.
Wesley touches his spectacles and strides over, a challenge in his eyes. I had wondered if that touch was a nervous tick, but I think it might remind him to keep his scholar’s disguise in place because I no longer believe that’s all he is. It’s just what they want us to see.
