Page 151 of Lourdes & the Mafia
“Shh, let me heal you.” I tap into my infernal magic, letting it wash over her body, mending broken bones, a fractured skull, a wound to the chest. And yet… blood keeps coming, and her heartbeat feels faint.
What the fuck is happening?
My panicked eyes snag on hers, and she gives me a wide-toothed smile filled with blood.
“You can’t heal everything, Lorenzo.”
“I can and I fucking will.” I use my magic in a stronger wave now, forcing it against her. To heal her. To fucking get rid of all her aches. But it doesn’t matter how hard I try, the pain is still there, and her eyes are slowly blinking closed. “Lourdes!” I cry out, grasping her, pushing away her curls to look into her eyes.
Kane comes up to her side, silent, and yet I can tell there’s emotion clogged in the depths of his eyes. He stares at her, unable to take his gaze away. Shadows reach out tentatively like strong hands to touch her. She sighs into the touch.
“Still can’t touch me, Kane?” she teases through crimson.
He growls a sound of fury, using his shadows to yank her in an upwards position. “Do not close your fucking eyes, Lourdes,” he orders. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“So bossy…”
“Lourdes?”
She turns at the voice. At the woman with the Kraken MC jacket dropping to her knees beside me. Lourdes’ smile transforms and her lower lip trembles.
“I did it, Naomi. I stopped him all on my own.”
A sob lodges itself in the other woman’s chest. “You did good, Lourdes,” she whispers, and there are tears in her voice. “I’m proud of you.”
Lourdes sniffles. “I’m proud of me, too.” She turns away from her best friend, eyes on Ralgoron, who hovers above the scene with great flaps of her long wings. “Looks like we’re even now, Ralgoron.” And finally, her gaze finds Ramiel’s and she gifts my brother with the softest of smiles.
“Lourdes,” he growls. “Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare.”
But it’s too late. Even as I work and thread my magic through her body, it’s too fucking late.
We all feel it.
We all feel the moment Lourdes dies.
Kane
Deathisasilentfoe, sweeping down on quiet wings to rip what you love most from your very hands. Sometimes, you can try to fight it. Battle it. Dodge it.
In the end it always comes.
I just never thought it’d come for her.
And the moment it does, we all feel the tremble down to our bones. Like something is missing, and yet it is something I don’t want to accept is gone.
“No,” I whisper, shell-shocked at the sight of Lourdes on the ground. Vibrant, laughing Lourdes is still. Unmoving.
Dead.
So much happens all around me, so much that I know I will remember forever. The demons shifting on their feet, their tragic sounds as they begin to cry. The keeling wail of Naomi Queen as she buries herself into the chest of the nearest Kraken. Ralgoron’s distressed cries. The generals of hell, thumping their fists against their rock solid chests in solidarity of the moment.
Lorenzo’s tears.
Ramiel’s quiet breathing.
And the sound of rage and heartbreak that screams from my own mouth.
I push to my feet, rounding towards Ramiel. I grip his shoulders unkindly, shoving him away. “Bring her back,” I order. “You’re the angel of death. Bring her back now.”
