Page 1 of Saint, Sorrow, Sinner
Chapter one
Sophia gripped the edgeofthe vanity, staring at her distorted reflection in the steamy bathroom mirror, and listened to the house on Staghorn Way erupt. Someone huffed, exhaling through a frustrated groan. Another person rambled, out of breath and strained—wait, wait, Bishop, put that down. Hold on, so ...
The witch spoke like a seedy politician. “Look, I don’t expect you to bethrilled, but it’s done, okay? I did what I did and—”
“Lincoln integrated with a demon, Tehlor! ¿Qué chingado?”
“And he’s my problem now,” she snapped. “Put on your big brujo pants, because we’ve got wolves sniffing at our door and they’re a lot meaner than that one.”
“Don’tpointat me.” Sophia recognized his voice: the wolf-man who conjured fire. She tipped her head toward the open doorway, listening. “If you kill me, you kill her,” Lincoln said. A chair scraped the floor. Footsteps beat, slow and steady. “Your call, Bishop.”
“Okay, that’s enough.”Stranger.Sophia narrowed her eyes and held her breath, straightening in place. “Can we—”
“You crossed the line,” Bishop interrupted.
Tehlor barked out a laugh. A singlehah.“Oh, please. Get off your high horse, sweetheart—”
“Enough.”Palms connected. The sound cracked like thunder.
The celestial gong rattled Sophia’s skull, panging in her chest, dizzying her. She flattened one hand on the countertop and caught herself on the doorframe with the other, enduring a harsh ripple of nausea. Blazing, hellishheatscorched her throat and sizzled the base of her spine. She shifted her focus to the blurry outline of her upper half. That noise, whatever it’d been, shot through her body like an arrow, reverberating from her forehead to her ankles. She inhaled deeply, staring at her button nose, heart-shaped face, cutting cheekbones, slender throat. Shared things. Points of recognition she’d once found in lost places. The longer she looked, the more she uncovered—Amy De’voreaux’s bright eyes, straight teeth, perfectly plucked brows—and the more she saw, the harder it was to tear her gaze away.
The strange church bell faded, and the pain did, too, leaving whispers behind. Ghostly voices chittered between Sophia’s ears. They surfaced when she slept, coasted through her mind on quiet mornings, and refused to let her rest. Right then, she caught the tail end of a tortured howl and the featherlight tickle of her sister’s laughter on the edge of her jaw. She swallowed bile and hot saliva.
Downstairs, one of the newcomers said, “Now, tell us what happened.” He paused to sigh. “In great detail.”
The steam cleared and the muggy bathroom cooled. Sophia watched her fair beige skin appear, freckled and wholly plain, and tried to ignore the soft, purplish dents beneath each eye. So much like their mother, an unrefined version of her sister. She let go of the doorframe and brought her hand to the glass, watching familiarity bend beneath her fingertips.Me,she thought, convincing herself,that’s me, right?
The witch, Tehlor, told the story, and the wolf-man, Lincoln, interrupted every fourth sentence.We infiltrated a cult,she said.Haven,he added. Sophia’s skin reached for bone.
They described a mockery of worship. Pretending to praise God at church, casing the congregation’s rental at the barbecue, and finding a young woman locked away on the second story.The Breath of Judas.Tehlor’s voice darkened.They were killing women, Colin.The conversation muddled.They were going to use her to—
Each person became interchangeable, warped under an onslaught of sudden lightheadedness.What’re you talking aboutandTehlor’s not lyingandwhat the hell did you two do?Sophia’s heart drummed hard.You don’t get it; you’re not hearing me.She pawed at a drawer, yanking it open.Of course we wanted it for ourselves, but everything changed ...Her reflection shifted. She did not turn her head, but the thing trapped inside the glass did. Sophia choked on a sob. Willed herself to stay present, to remain in her body.This wasn’t some Heaven’s Gate bullshit.But the woman in the mirror had Amy’s eyes, her blood-slicked smile, and wore their father’s crucifix. Sophia grasped the handle on a pair of shears she’d found in the primary bedroom.Don’t look at me like that, Bishop. You weren’t there.
“One,” Sophia’s reflection sang. The poor rendition of Amy was stitched together by the chaotic energy shackling Sophia’s soul. It was a puzzle upended and remade. Pieces missing. Not quite complete. “Two.” Her cracked lips spread into a grin. Black streamed from the corner of her mouth. “Look at you.”
Rose and Phillip were drowning them. Raping them, they were—
“Three, four ...” Her raspy voice distorted, turning wicked and slow, like a sun-ripened record. “Baptize the whore.”
Sophia brought the scissors to her long brown locks and snipped. She steadied her trembling hands, tried and failed to keep an ugly sobfrom echoing through the bathroom, and cut, cut,cut.The blade ran across the shell of her ear on a clumsy snip. Panic warred with the magic festering inside her. Somewhere deep; somewhere she couldn’t reach. She exhaled through gritted teeth and aimed another harsh snap at her hair.
Get rid of it,she thought.Gone, go, get it off me.
Tehlor Nilsen, quiet as a wraith, appeared in the doorway and snatched her wrist.
Sophia froze. She thought ofWatership Down, destruction and homemaking. Foxes, wilderness, and rabbits raised in hutches. She’d never met a woman like Tehlor before. She strained against the witch’s hold, but Tehlor simply narrowed her eyes and squeezed.
“Where the hell did you find those?” Tehlor asked.
Fright sharpened into something else. Sophia tried to jerk away—mistake—and yelped when the taller woman pushed her backward, wrangling the shears out of her grasp.Get away, run, stop.She growled and squeaked but couldn’t speak. Considered sinking her teeth into the soft, pale skin above Tehlor’s sweater. She hissed instead. Clawed the same way she had when Haven initiates had taken her. Remembered calloused palms around her thighs, her sister’s fingernails on her biceps, and Rose’s perfume. She thrashed and swatted. Swore she was breathing but couldn’t find any air. She gasped and swallowed, sucking in breath after breath, and still couldn’t breathe.
“Hey, hey, whoa—okay, look at me,” Tehlor said.
Metal on porcelain,clank-click.Soft hands. Warm too.
Tehlor gripped Sophia’s wet cheeks and held her still. “Stop,” she whispered, then again, pulling her full mouth around the word.Stop.“Breathe, Sophia.” Tehlor inhaled deeply. Sophia followed. After three breaths, Sophia’s vision stabilized. “Again.” Tehlor exhaled. Sophia’s heart rate refused to slow. She swallowed, trackingthe glide of Tehlor’s bony thumbs beneath her eyes, swiping at stray tears. “You’re a fuckin’ mess, you know that?”
“And you’re a bitch,” Sophia muttered, waterlogged and embarrassingly weak.
