Page 80 of The Sinner and the Scholar
Is it just about the gospel, or is it about Thea and me? Is this all connected?
My eyes drift to Thea as she climbs back to her feet. She reaches for the staff, but the demon hits her again with its tail and knocks her into a wall. The sound of air leaving her lungs is heart-wrenching. Her eyes search me out, but the demon is there, hissing in her face, “He can’t save you. He only used you to get what he wanted. Everything you ever shared is a lie.”
My eyes burn. I shake my head.
“She’s lying,” I mouth.
Doubt flickers in Thea’s eyes as she opens to the influence. Anger sparks in my soul. This nasty thing has always been in my ear, trying to keep me from finding someone to love, telling me I’m wrong, and that’s why this shit happens to me. It’s now telling her the same thing.
Keep the hands working together.
Now I know what it means. I know why Vepar tried to kill me, and it has to do with her master—Lilith, the perpetual hater of men. Lilith doesn’t want Thea and me to work together. She doesn’t want us to love each other. She wants discord between the sexes, to divide the world.
We are the hands. One big and one small, but both equally important in the function of the watch. Keeping them working together will stop the cracks. Keeping love in the world will save it.
When Thea stabbed me, she widened the divide between us, allowing Vepar to step into our realm and will probably let Pestilence do the same.
I have to prove to Thea that we’re on the same side.
She wipes blood from her lips with the back of her hand and glares at the demon. Even without the holy light shining through her, she’s a goddess. I should have confided in her from the start.
My hands are too damaged to use the arcane spells. Sores cover my tattoos everywhere, blocking more spells. I keep trying to activate them but nothing works. Parts of my abdomen are clear—I keep searching until I find a complete tattoo of a spell I would never have thought to use, but it might distract Vepar so Thea can reclaim her relic. It’s still lying in a puddle out of her reach.
Blood.
I need blood for this spell to work. Fortunately, I have a dagger protruding from my stomach; all I need to do is pull it out.
Don’t pull it out.You’ll only make it worse.
Worth it.
She’s worth it.
I wrap my bandaged and agonized hands around the hilt and grit my teeth. I fill my lungs with air a final time. I pull the dagger—pain blinds me. A gurgled grunt leaves my lips. Blood wells anew.
“Wes!” Thea shouts. She runs toward me, but Vepar seizes her lapse in concentration. The slithering tail wraps around Thea’s torso like a serpent.
Thea’s eyes widen as the tail tightens, crushing her.
“This is for you, Thea,” I rasp as I wipe the blood over the arcane tattoo. “Don’t listen to her. She’s keeping us apart.” I pant. “S’how Lilith sows chaos. S’how she’s paving the way—” My vision darkens. “Way for the antichrist. How… cracks… gates… hell…”
Thea knows this is my last stand. Her eyes bulge as the tail tightens. Her face turns purple, dark, and bruised, but defiance fortifies her expression.
I finish smearing blood over my tattoo. I locate Vepar and think of when I bumped into Thea in the hallway after her swim. Of how she smiled at me. I think of her hand on mine as she asked about my past—of her apology for my pain. I think of that wistful tone in her voice when she reminisced about Prue on the plane, and I pray that one day, she’ll sound the same when remembering me.
Then I mumble the words to activate the spell. I chant until every ounce of water around me turns into red wine. Puddles on the ground go dark—burgundy water bubbles from the grates. Merlot falls from the sky. Every drop of fluid on Vepar is dark and viscous. It’s almost like blood.
It burns her—she hisses and recoils and probably dehydrates. Her tail loosens, and Thea fights her way out, coughing and catching her breath. But she crawls to me, not the demon.
“Kill it,” I rasp. “Use the staff.”
Her wild eyes search around. She pulls the staff from a wine puddle but continues crawling toward me. Fierce determination is in her eyes. That familiar defiance flashes. But she’s not using it against me this time. She’s using it against forces keeping us apart.
Because she cares.
Because she’ll smile when remembering me.
“Thea, there’s no time. Save yourself,” I chatter. I’m no longer numb. I’m cold. Weak. Can’t even hold my wound. Can’t stop the bleeding.
