Page 89 of Sleeping Redemption
Looking around, everything was quiet. There wasn’t even the soft fluttering of bat wings in the sky or the rustling of leaves inthe trees. Above me, the moon’s eerie glow was dampened by the thick cloud coverage. I was left with only the scent of dirt and decay all around me.
Stopping at the indicated meeting point, I stared up at the large stone angel looking down at me. Despite it being nothing more than an inanimate statue, I could still feel its judgment weighing down on my shoulders. The female angel’s wings were partially spread, with long curls framing the face and a bouquet of roses sculpted into her dainty hands.
“Kinley,” a voice spoke up from behind me.
Turning, I met an unfamiliar face. My brows pinched together in confusion. The man standing there had a rich olive complexion with neatly styled hair so dark it reminded me of the bottomless pits of the universe. The facial hair around his mouth was slightly lighter, but not by much. Looking into his eyes, there was no sign of Lucifer but all the presence of evil and pity.
He smiled at me, but it lacked any warmth. “I have your sword.”
“What? Did Lucifer send you?” I straightened, my body going rigid, as he immediately captured my attention.
As he took slow steps in my direction, my feet remained planted where they were.
“Christina was so kind to tell me where I could find it before I left her vessel on the train tracks.” His steps ceased a foot from me, enough to be within arm’s reach but far enough to breathe.
It was me who closed the gap between us the second he brought up the name of my human minion. My lips curled at the start of my anger flaring. “Nicodemus…” Disgust rolled off my tongue at the name of the demon who had haunted my past and now my present.
Now I could see it, I could see beyond the color of the host’s eyes and into the demon that animated the body it had possessed. It was a sight I wished I could unsee. The ugliness,the pathetic spawn, and the hatred that lay underneath the façade were all plain as day.
“Return my sword, and it will be a swift death.” Perhaps.
He tossed his head back as he laughed up into the murky sky above us. His hand rested on his stomach as the vigorous laughter was seemingly enough to prompt belly aches. “Oh, my dark little vixen,” he began.
What he had to say next? I didn’t give a shit. My hands shot forward and grabbed him by the shirt, tossing him at the wide trunk of a rotting tree. His back made an impact with the dying oak, but it seemed to do little to unsettle him.
“My sword, where is it!?” I screeched out, pained by the reality that killing him would get me no closer to having it back in my possession.
He withdrew a dagger; it couldn’t have been more than eight inches long. Laughable, really, that he was going to bring a knife to an angel fight. My unholy strength already rippled through my muscles in coordination with my rage.
“Did you not learn your lesson, Kinley? I know I have learned mine.” He charged at me, his body making contact with mine. We both stumbled as my hands fought to control the direction he wielded his dagger.
Nico’s eyes began to bleed fully black as he tapped into his powers. The last time I had seen his eyes fill with darkness like this, he had murdered the half-demon who had taught me how to love—using my own fucking sword.
Struggling to gain control, I growled in anger at his persistence.
A demented smirk pulled at his mouth. “I hope our children have half the spirit you do.”
The statement threw me for enough of a loop that I missed his foot, kicking my legs out from underneath me. I landed onmy back with an aggressive thud, and the weight of his body landing on top of me equally knocked the wind from me.
Quickly, I learned I had made a horrible mistake. The tip of the blade in his hand made a small slice into my upper arm in what became a flash of blinding pain. A scream erupted from my throat, my mind overwhelmed by the onslaught of the agony. A typical blade should have been nothing more than a tickle.
My mind struggled to focus on the fight at hand. Even as Nico spoke, his words sounded distant over the roar of the fire, overwhelming each of my nerves.
“Burns like a bitch, doesn’t it? A little brugmansia and nightshade extracts combined with the saliva of a hellhound as a binding agent, and I’ve made quite the toxic serum.”
The scratch itself was nothing; it was what tainted the blade’s edge that annihilated every pain receptor in my body. All I could do was pray it would be short-lived and keep Nico at bay until it had run its course. Mustering all my might, I struck him across the face and rolled to pitch him off my body.
Successfully, I scrambled to my feet, still unable to see straight from the poison escalating to its full potency in my bloodstream. My steps forward were crooked as fuck as the earth felt as sturdy underneath me as a piece of driftwood caught in a riptide.
Nico’s grasp found me far too quickly, and he took advantage of my diminished strength as he tossed my body forward. I crashed into the unforgiving stone of the angel statue I had admired earlier. On impact, my body blew through the sculpture. Pieces of stone fell to the ground alongside my body as I landed face down in the dirt.
My hands pushed me up onto all fours, only for Nico to use his boot to shove me back down again. No matter how much I willed my lower body to find footing, there was nothing more than the searing sensation running through my muscle fibers.
Feeling the piece of shit lowering himself down to straddle my back, I had assumed death was rapidly approaching. Instead, it was so much worse. His knife had zero regard for my shirt as it sliced through it with ease and into the flesh on the middle of my back. I couldn’t hear myself screaming but was certain by the hoarseness in my throat that I was.
Six strokes. Six unimaginable strokes into my skin, all tainted with the poisonous concoction.
He leaned over, hissing into my ear, “Now everyone will see my name on you and know you belong to me.”
