Chapter 19

ChapterNineteen

EDEN

I’ve been sitting in my car for an hour, staring at the envelope the Cinders gave me. I have a mission. The closest I’ve ever come to my goal is lying in this envelope. I should’ve opened this and hopped on a plane. But here I am back at the church.

There’s no logical reason for my choice. When I saw them at the club, I was pissed. I was determined never to see them again. Drove around the city for an hour before I ended up here. A creepy forest surrounding a decrepit cemetery and a rundown church. Of all the roads I could have taken, I chose this one—the twisted road that leads to them.

Stepping out of my 1999 Toyota Corolla with rusted doors and broken air conditioning, I grip the envelope and head for the church.

“You’re fucking insane!” a man bellows through the lush trees.

An electric chainsaw reverberates through the night, and my feet hit the ground, running toward the harrowing screams.

Two figures loom in the darkness, dimly illuminated by a small fire beside them. One bound and the other drenched in blood. Abaddon. Terror floods my body as I watch Abaddon saw through flesh and bone.

“Oh, God!” the man screams as blood seeps from his shoulders.

“God is the illusion of people who lack vision.” Abaddon proceeds to saw at the man’s flesh with the precision of a surgeon. “Do I appear to lack vision?”

The chainsaw slicing through muscle and bone comes to a halt, and Abaddon discards the amputated arm. He turns toward the fire and stirs the embers with a metal poker, his sinister smile on full display above the blazing flames.

“Vision isn’t torturing someone like this,” I whisper into the night.

Abaddon’s head snaps up, and even in the darkness, I sense his eyes slicing through me. “Say it with conviction, Eden.”

I stare at him blankly. “Say what?”

“Any fucking thing you’ve got to say. You’re always whispering, like if you make any noise, you’ll cause Armageddon.” He steps toward the man, who screams as Abaddon plunges the hot poker into his wound. “Speak, Jophiel. Claim the flaming sword.”

I straighten my shoulders and stare at the only visible attributes on his face not hidden by the mask—his ice-blue eyes. “Sawing up bodies is fucked up.”

Abaddon’s laugh is sinister and eerily calm. “I never claimed I wasn’t fucked-up, Jophiel. I credit my maker for my madness.”

He pulls one booted foot back and kicks the man, forcing him to plummet forward and shoving his bare ass in the air. My eyes widen, and shock runs rampant through my bloodstream as Abaddon picks up the amputated arm from the ground. He uses the man’s middle finger to poke his asshole before shoving the hand in.

The man screams in agony, worse than the previous heinous acts committed against him. But it’s not enough for Abaddon. He shoves until he’s fucking the man with his severed arm up to the elbow. “I warned you not to touch what’s mine. I told you I’d fuck you with the same arm you touched her with. If I’m nothing else, I’m a man of my word.”

This was a mistake. I step back, ready to fling myself into my car and drive away from here, from them, from the madness. My hand is on the handle of my car when a rough palm covers my mouth and nostrils, restricting my breath.

I drop the envelope, kicking against the warm body pressed against me. I’m so fucking stupid. A fucking idiot. I should have forgotten them. I should have run when I had the chance.

“Take it easy, Lamb,” Iblis says as he turns me. “No one’s gonna hurt you.”

“Tell that to the lunatic chopping off limbs and fucking people with them,” I shout.

Iblis shrugs. “Why don’t you come up to the house and relax? You don’t need to witness the rest.”

“She does if she wants to know what and who we are. We can’t keep her in the dark,” Asmodeus says, appearing behind him.

Iblis carries my kicking body back to the scene. Abaddon’s focused on the task and doesn’t seem to notice our presence or simply doesn’t care that he’s got an audience.

The man from the club screams. His anguish is far worse than a moment ago. I glance down and understand why. Abaddon has his foot on top of the guy’s penis, pushing down, crushing it against the soil while blood seeps from the man’s rectum, dripping onto the forest floor as his arm violently pummels his ass.

I turn away, not needing to see any more brutality. But it’s not the horror I’m witnessing that makes my heart stop. It’s not the screams of agony or the sinister laughter.

What makes my whole world stop is the sound of paper tearing.