Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Gabriel staredat the door that Diel had fled through with Noa quickly following behind. The room was thick with tension, with anger on their brother’s behalf.

Diel had a sister. Finn and Cara Nolan. Gabriel’s gut squeezed in sympathy for his brother. To have gone this long repressing his past, only to discover the truth, the sad and tragic truth of who he used to be. It had broken him; Gabriel had seen that in his devastated expression.

He closed his eyes, breathing through the heaviness in his heart and his soul. Later, he would go to the chapel and light a candle for Finn Nolan, the boy born into such dire conditions. He would light a candle for Cara Nolan, another little girl lost to the sinful labyrinth that was the Brethren’s organization.

“Friday can’t come quick enough.” Gabriel opened his eyes as Raphael spoke, his tight voice echoing the feelings of everyone else in the room. Gabriel caught Maria’s eyes. She was pale; the regression had clearly impacted her too.

“I’ll study the ledger harder,” she said. “I’ll study everything we have on the Brethren, try to find something out. There must be some trace of her somewhere, some record of them being taken.”

Gabriel nodded, but he knew there was nothing in the few files they had. They needed more information. They needed more on the Brethren. He just had no idea how to get it without risking everyone he loved.

Movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Naomi was placing the flashlight back in her bag. She had done this for his brother. Gabriel felt anger stirring inside him. He tried to quell it. But when he recalled how Naomi had sounded when she spoke, how fearful and embarrassed she had been to speak aloud in front of them due to her tongue being cut …

The Brethren had done that to her too. They had taken from her the ability to speak clearly. Why? How could they do such things? How did they call themselves priests of God when they did such ungodly things?

Naomi walked silently back toward her sisters. Gabriel opened his mouth to thank her for all that she had done, but before he could, Bara was on his feet and stepping directly into her path.

Bara towered over the petite redhead, the impressive breadth and height of his body shadowing hers. Gabriel tensed. Nothing good came from Bara confronting anyone. Out of all his brothers, Bara was the one who caused him the most restless nights.

Naomi stopped dead. She slowly lifted her bowed head to see who had blocked her path. Gabriel noticed that Dinah’s face fell, and she stepped forward to intervene. Dinah was the heart of the Coven. He wasn’t sure if she knew it, but she was. She was their fiercest protector.

Naomi’s body was statue-still when her eyes met Bara’s. She clutched her bag to her chest like a shield. He unnerved her; that much was clear. But then Bara took her hand and, looking her dead in the eyes, said, “Thank you, fire witch.” There was no smirk on his face, nothing disturbing in his green gaze. “You gave my brother his past back.”

Naomi exhaled a shuddering breath at Bara’s obvious honesty, and she lowered her head, silently accepting his gratitude. It took a few seconds for Bara to let go of her hand.

Bara went to stand next to Uriel and Michael. Uriel was frowning at Bara, but he didn’t say a word.

Dinah released a loud sigh. “I fucking hate those pricks.”

“He has a sister,” Sela said. As the brother closest to Diel, Gabriel could see that the revelation of who Diel was, the fact that Diel had a sister who was abducted too, was hitting him hard. Sela looked at Gabriel. “His fucking voice as he talked us through what he was seeing.” Sela grew stone-faced. “The fucking pain in his voice when he realized that starving kid was him. When he realized Cara was his own flesh and blood.”

“That bitch let her go blind,” Uriel said, the fading light in the room reflecting off the piercings in his body. “Her own fucking mother let her go blind in one eye, hid her away because she had what sounds like a fucking port-wine birthmark?” Uriel vibrated with untapped violence. “And what the fuck would the Brethren do with her? Why the hell did they think she was evil too? She didn’t hurt anyone. She was fucking neglected, abused.”

“We’ve only scratched the surface of them,” Jo said. “The Brethren have been doing this for years. Taking vulnerable people, people they believe are sinners, from their everyday lives. Yet in all this time, out of all the people they have abducted, we’ve only just found each other. Fourteen of us including Priscilla. That’s all we know of.”

Candace watched her girlfriend’s obvious exasperation and added, “Who the hell knows what else they have punished others for, or even if there are other groups in the world who have the same mission as we do.”

“We fucking know nothing.” Raphael squeezed the string around his finger so tightly that his finger turned deep purple. “Do we?” he said to Gabriel. “We know nothing about them. Not really.”

Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. Raphael was right. They didn’t. “Then we must learn,” Gabriel said. “Somehow, we must learn more. We must become academics on the subject.”

“Are we still on for Friday?” Sela said. His arms were crossed over his chest, and Gabriel knew that was to keep composure, keep from letting his wrath loose.

Gabriel met Dinah’s eyes. She nodded. “We’re ready,” she said. “More than.”

“Then yes.” He felt the tug of his cilice biting into his thigh. Gabriel was sanctioning death. Encouraging his brothers to kill. The flicker of grace he still possessed was draining from him like sand from an hourglass. With every agreement to go after the Brethren, he feared he was losing more and more of himself.

But he’d do it. He’d happily sacrifice himself for his family. He ate their sins. He took their deficiencies from his own flesh. He just had to endure a little more pain.

Gabriel nodded at his family. “Then Friday, we launch our first attack.” His brothers practically vibrated with delirium. This was their calling; murder was what sang to their souls.

Gabriel couldn’t be in the room any longer. He could feel his faithful resolve dying, feel the devil’s hot breath on the back of his neck. It had always been his biggest personal battle—weighing his pacifist beliefs against his brothers, who took the utmost pleasure in ridding people of their lives. And although they had only killed people who hurt others, people that it could be argued “deserved it,” Gabriel knew that for most of his brothers, when their innate need to kill became too much, whether a person deserved it or not wouldn’t even be a factor.

“Rest,” Gabriel said to the Fallen and the Coven, forcing a soothing smile, being the older brother they needed. “Prepare.”

He nodded at them in goodbye, then left the room, going straight down the stairs and outside into one of the waiting cars. He drove through the grounds until he reached the groundskeeper’s cottage they had been renovating for weeks now. When he walked through the front door, he smelled freshly cut wood, and new paint on the walls. As always, he had been using his grandfather’s network of discreet organizations to do the work.

Gabriel cast his eyes around the newly laid floors, the vast industrial kitchen, and the many tables that could seat dozens of people.

This would be his penance. A safe house for children rescued from the Brethren. The orphanage that Holy Innocents should have been. A refuge for broken souls. A safe place to save them from themselves, from the anger that would no doubt live inside them.

Gabriel may be damned, but he would see others saved. He would battle the Brethren in his own way. He would see their so-called sinners survive.

He would see them thrive.

Gabriel hadn’t heard another car pulling up to the house. He hadn’t heard the front door opening, but suddenly, Maria was beside him. She took a few steps forward into the hallway, surveying the open-plan design. She nodded as she looked around the vast space. “This will work nicely.” She ran her hand over the newly carved banister of the sweeping central staircase.

Maria turned and regarded Gabriel empathetically. “I know you love your brothers more than anything else in the world. You want nothing but happiness in their lives.” She came to stand before him, smiling sadly. “But more pain will be uncovered. More tragedies will be unearthed within our family.” She sighed, and Gabriel knew she felt what he felt too. The Fallen had become her brothers too. She was one of them. Raphael’s soulmate, and to the rest of them their beloved sister. “Many of them are still closed off. They have much growing to do, much soul-searching to go through.”

Gabriel nodded. She was right. He wished it wasn’t so. But he knew it was true. He just wished he could protect them all from it.

“War is hard,” he rasped, clutching his treasured rosary. He had been gripping it so tightly through Diel’s regression session that the beads had left angry red imprints on his palm.

Maria laid her hand on his arm. The physical contact felt good. Comforting. Sometimes Gabriel wondered if his life devoted to God, to being celibate and alone, was the right decision. He saw the impenetrable bond between Raphael and Maria, the happiness, the peace that eros brought them. And Diel … he would never have believed that Diel would be where he was now, no matter how broken he was after today’s revelations. In love, because he was. He didn’t know if Diel recognized that, but the way he looked at Noa screamed it to be true.

A floorboard creaked behind them. Maria looked over Gabriel’s shoulder and smiled. Gabriel turned and saw Raphael waiting in the doorway. He held a rose in his hand, turning the stem in slow circles, a small smile on his face. Maria made a move toward her lover, but she stopped beside Gabriel and said, “There is a widely held belief in modern theology that Jesus was actually married to Mary Magdalene.” She laughed gently. “I’m sure you know that, as well read as you are.”

Gabriel’s heart beat faster at that. He wasn’t sure why. He nodded. He had read several arguments for the theory. Maria shrugged. “If that were true, it would make the need for priests to be celibate and unmarried to another person moot, no? It could perhaps allow them not to be so lonely. Perhaps allow them to fall in love, to be happy.” Maria kissed Gabriel’s cheek. She was the sister he’d never had. She had become his best friend.

Gabriel watched as Maria went to Raphael. His brother’s handsome face lit up when she sank into his arms as if Raphael’s hold had been made just for her. Raphael kissed her lips, then tucked the rose behind her ear, and together they made their way outside.

Gabriel remained staring at that doorway for quite some time after they had left, Maria’s parting words still circling around his head.