Page 35 of The Sinner and the Scholar
Our blessed knives and weapons are downstairs in the training room. Options run through my mind as I survey the hallway. We have a priest living on this floor. But which cell?
Not the one opposite me. That’s Wesley’s. I run to the next door and slam my fist on it.
“Father Angelotti!” I shout. “Wake up.”
I dart to the next door and do the same in case Father is in there. I bang on each Team Saint door, raising the alarm until they all open. Out stumbles a myriad of half-dressed, sleep-disheveled men. They’re not the only ones shaken awake by my alarm. My sisters open their doors.
Everyone stares at the person opposite them. Man to woman. Saint to Sinner.
Zeke adjusts his boxer shorts as he faces Leila. His eyes widen at her crop top and sports underwear, then promptly crinkle with male appreciation. Leila aims her Smith & Wesson at him, her expression hard and impenetrable.
“What is it?” Mercy’s alarmed eyes land on me. Her long red hair is messy, and the silk strap of her nightgown falls off her shoulder.
Lilith.
She’s not Lilith. She’s—
The doorknob to my room jiggles, and I point at it. “She’s possessed.”
“Who?”
“Prue!”
“Are you sure? She looked fine earlier.”
“Trust me. She’s possessed.” I point at my face. “She has black holes for eyes and rotting, diseased skin. I’ve never seen this sort of thing before. Even that man who vomited on me looked normal.”
Call her a floozy, a nympho, or whatever you want, but there is one thing Mercy always is: Dependable. A leader. She clicks into Sinner mode. “We need something blessed. Tawny?”
“On it.” Tawny spins on her heels and jogs to her room.
Raven wraps her rosary around her knuckles and then shoves the big, muscled Saint Dominic out of her way so she can pad over on bare feet. The look she gives me says,I’m ready.
Leila checks her gun, then realizes it will be useless against possession. It’s not blessed. Even if it was, blessed bullets might do nothing but harm the innocent meat suit the demon spirit occupies—Prue. Leila puts it back in her room before joining me.
Sinners surround the jiggling door to my cell. What do we do when it opens? We can’tstabPrue with a blessed weapon.
“Ready?” Mercy asks. “On my count, we open and restrain her.”
“Then what?”
“We work it out.”
“Wait,” Wesley barks. He finds his spectacles and puts them on. “Shouldn’t we assess the situation? I mean—”
“Three!” Mercy opens the door.
Demon Prue stumbles into the hallway, dazed, and then stops. My sisters gasp. Their faces go pale. Prue’s rotting flesh is worse. Hideous insects and worms crawl along tendons glimpsed through gaping sores on the skin. Vomit rises in my throat.
Zeke leans casually against his doorjamb and gives us a disparaging look. “She looks fine to me, and you bitches clearly have a few screws loose.”
Bitches? I glare at him, then realize he spoke in English, not Italian. He, too, realizes his slip with an irritated look. A week. That’s all it took, and their lies are showing.
Father Angelotti folds his arms, annoyed—at us! That, or he is trying to hide the myriad of tattoos on his bare, muscled torso. Even Dominic, the unemotional Saint, shoots us a pitiful look—the kind you give a person in the middle of a psychotic break.
Wesley steps toward Prue and dips to look into her eyes.
“She’s probably sleepwalking,” he mumbles and reaches out—
