Page 79 of The Sinner and the Scholar
But… maybe… maybe I needed to hear it.
There is no sin… only you.
Maybe it’s time to take responsibility for my actions and words. Blaming the Sisterhood for who I am is only half of it. The rest of it is me. It’s the guilt I lay at my own feet. It’s the walls I build around my heart. It’s the voice in my dreams telling me I’m going to hell because what they say is true—I’m worthless, good for nothing, a whore, unlovable.
I’m my worst enemy.
I straighten as a line from the prophecy hits home—the enemy is within. To sin is human. To forgive is divine. Or some shit like that. We all make mistakes. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it. But to forgive… that’s where the real power lies. No one has more power to forgive me than myself.
It releases me from my chains.
The staff thrums in my hand as though it agrees.
“He’s mine,” I say to the demon, pointing at Wes with the staff. “If you want him, you’ll have to go through me.”
“That can be arranged,” she laughs. It comes out a gurgle. Like water lives in her throat. “I went through his uncle, after all. Oh, poor little lonely uncle. He thought he was saving his nephew. Thought he could bargain with me because I killed the boy’s parents. But it was always about the boy.”
Wes’s pale and clammy face turns hard as he takes in the demon’s words. Then hard determination flashes in his eyes. His hands move secretly, and I know he’s preparing to use one of his spells. If I keep the demon busy, I’ll give him time. I might even kill it first.
I stroll forward and ask, “Why him?”
Vepar laughs again. “Because he’s the first to mend the cracks. And she likes her cracks. She wants thembig. She wants them on one side and us on another. She wants the crack so big it’s a gaping chasm no one can cross. If we stop the first, then we stop them all.”
“The cracks…” I cant my head. There goes that term again. It was in the gospel. It’s on Wes’s watch. “There’s more, isn’t there? More to why you want him stopped?”
Vepar’s eyes narrow. She hesitates. But then spits and hisses angrily, pointing at him while looking at me. “He resurrected Mary’s gospel, and we wanted it dead. Out of the Bible. Out of the world.”
“Dead,” I say. “Where women can remain in the dark. Where conflict can grow. Where there is no place for love in the world.”
“And the cracks get bigger and bigger.”
“You’ve manipulated the church all this time,” I gasp. “Wars have been waged in the name of the Bible. Murders. Rapes. Divisions. Sin!”
“I know.” She cackles uncontrollably. “Even from you.”
Maggots start popping from the demon’s sores, falling to morph into the same grotesque fish creatures I fought before. Their gaping mouths appear to struggle for air, but then I glimpse the fangs inside. The first one slithers up to me on tadpole legs. It almost looks sad. As I swing the staff, I feel bad for it—it probably didn’t ask to be a minion of evil. I feel compassion as the staff connects. But it’s gone by the time the minion flies across the street and lands on the dirt beneath a council tree. Another has latched onto my boot with its fangs—foul thing.
When I knock it with the staff, I remember what Asmodeus said.Think healing thoughts.But what if there’s no soul to heal?
So I think about smiting evil, protecting the innocent, and healing the world. The relic lights up, approving of my mission. The minion bursts into water.
I blink and look at the staff. Water drips from my face. The pure, angelic power is enough to obliterate the minor demons.
More come at me, snapping their fishy fangs. One by one, I strike them, keeping the same thoughts at the forefront of my mind. Soon, I don’t think. I do. The relic is an extension of me. Balls of water pop everywhere. Maybe I’m having too much fun, maybe I assumed the demon was possessing a human body, but I dismiss the massive mermaid tail flinging through the air toward me.
It knocks the wind out of me. I fling to the side. Wheeze. When I land, the staff skates from my hand. The warmth and invincible feeling vanishes. Everything is cold, wet, and miserable—the air stinks. And a flesh and blood demon covered in sores is coming at me.
Twenty-Six
Wesley
My heavy eyes barely open to see Vepar cut Thea down with her tail. She shouldn’t be able to do that. She possesses a human… doesn’t she?
I thought maybe I saw the true demonic form because I’m close to death. The veil is thinner, and I see the true face of hell. But perhaps this is real. Perhaps the cracks in the gates of hell are big enough for Vepar to come through completely.
I rack my brain to think of what changed between now and the last time, and when I land on Thea stabbing me—her loss of trust—everything hits at once.
Vepar tried to kill me when I was young. My mother was pregnant with me at the time of the car accident, but I survived. Vepar wantedmedead. Me. Why?
