Outside the house Rodrigo and the girls had been sheltering in, waiting in front of Adena’s armored SUV, was someone he wasn’t expecting to ever see again. With everything that had happened since, he couldn’t recall the name of the police officer who had taken his report after the fire. He had traded his uniform for snow camouflage, more fitting for a soldier or hunter, and had an ivory sniper rifle slung over his shoulder.
When he saw Adena, he tossed her the car key, and she snatched it out of the air. “You’ve been asking a lot of me lately, Dena. This makes four you owe me.”
“I appreciate it, Craig, but I was told you would be at my disposal.” Adena cocked her head at him and there was such coldness in her gaze that the man, about a decade her senior and nearly a head taller, tightened his grip on his rifle sling. “Besides, you don’t want to get into who owes who more.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Rodrigo said, as much to break the tension as voice his confusion. “Maybe all the trauma I’ve been through in the last few days is finally catching up with me, but aren’t you that cop from the hospital?”
As Craig noticed his missing arm, Rodrigo registered the slightest hint of pity in his eyes, but it was gone as he asked, “Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t?”
“Not really.”
“Okay then.”
Rodrigo waited several seconds for an explanation, then when it became clear one wasn’t coming, snapped, “No, not okay! What the hell’s going on here?”
“Relax,” Adena said. “I didn’t need you spilling your guts about what happened and ending up in a mental asylum, so I sent the only other Blight I could trust to take your report.”
“The Blight of Erodis, I suppose,” Resent said. “Ose did mention that our Blights were working in tandem, though their alliance seems as strained as ours.”
“A Blight? Is this guy even a real cop?” Rodrigo asked, unsure whether he was more annoyed or impressed that there were still layers to Adena’s plan he had been oblivious to.
“Christ, all you teenagers are so damn nosy,” Craig said. “Everybody needs a day job, right? I did my time at the academy, same as the rest.”
“Craig kept an eye on you when I couldn’t,” Adena said. “I had him distance himself from our group so anyone watching us wouldn’t account for him.”
Craig nodded. “Didn’t count on the storm, though, or just how many of these bastards would be pouring in. I lost track of you lot a few blocks from the Bloodstone, and finding you again was a pain in my ass.”
So Adena didn’t trust him enough to disclose the location of her warehouse. But then Rodrigo realized something. “Those imps outside the hotel...that was you?”
Craig paused, mulling it over like he had killed so many demons recently that it was hard to be sure. “Oh, yeah! Nothing sends demons scurrying back to Hell faster than seeing their buddies get shot down by angel radiance.”
“Um, sir, if you have the car, where’s Jett?” Raquel asked, squinting to try to peer through the SUV’s tinted windows.
“Back at the hospital. Even as he was passing out in the backseat, he was going on about being around to pick you guys up, so I told him I’d handle it. By the way, according to that fidgety doctor, seems that girl’s surgery was a success, and she’ll pull through.”
Rodrigo had to force the corners of his mouth up into a parody of a smile. He was happy to hear Leila was alive, but after losing his brother, her surviving felt more like a small mercy than a victory.
“Well, that’s my good deed for the year. I’ll be going.” Craig was striding off, then stopped, glancing over his shoulder at Rodrigo and Raquel. The stern expression on his scarred face softened. “My condolences about your baby brother. He seemed like a sweet kid.”
Rodrigo’s throat tightened, the loss crashing down on him all over again as he could barely bring himself to choke out, “Yeah.”
“Shouldn’t we stick together? The demons are still out here,” Raquel called after Craig, though the few Rodrigo had seen since coming back through the portal were all headed toward it. He wasn’t sure whether that was because the ones with no intention of retreating were lying low, or if a neighborhood devoid of life simply held no appeal for them.
“Leave him be. He knows what he’s doing,” Adena said.
When Craig was out of earshot, Raquel asked, “So, what’s the deal with you and him?”
“Let’s just say...” Adena began, and Rodrigo felt like ripping his recently regenerated hair back out at the telltale of another of her half-truths. But Adena surprised him, seeming to catch herself about to gloss over the issue, and sighing. “I guess we’ve been through enough together for you two to deserve some honesty. First, have either of you figured out the full extent of what it means to be a Blight?”
“Going by what that loudmouth from the arena said, y-you’re an assassin,” Raquel stammered.
“One that works in the interest of demons,” Rodrigo added, not bothering to hide his disgust. “And having worked for the king himself, you seem the most influential.”
Adena nodded, ignoring his accusatory tone. “What I told you about there being six Blights is true. One for each great city. It was a program initiated by Misery a few years before he became king, recruiting capable humans to eliminate external threats to Hell. The demons were already doing it themselves, but sloppily, which is why possession is their most well-documented Flair in our world, despite its rarity in theirs. Typically, targets included demons who were deserting or humans with hard evidence of their existence.”
“But why?” Raquel asked, clenching her fists at her sides. “How could anyone willingly join the demons like that? How could you?”
“Not everyone cares about the welfare of mankind. I certainly didn’t. Likewise, the initial recruits were all solitary or down on their luck, and rewarded before the work even began.” Adena held up a gloved finger. “One wish. Anything within the recruiting demon’s power. My father, Lucas, was the ideal candidate, with an easily fulfilled desire for wealth. When Jezebeth approached him, he had been living on the streets for months after accidentally burning his own house down in the fire that killed his parents.”
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Raquel gasped, but Rodrigo had heard as much before, and was more focused on not letting mention of Jezebeth taint the entire story. His thoughts were being pulled in a hundred different directions, and even without having a face to put to her name, Jezebeth occupied many of them. Part of him hoped he’d never find her, because it would be the moment he lost something of himself.
Adena noticed Rodrigo’s aggravation, but continued, “Lucas was the original Blight, and the most successful, going ten years before making his first major mistake. And that’s where Craig came in. He’s only alive today because of my father’s poor decision to spare him, a witness to his work. And so Misery gave my father an ultimatum. He was to kill one of his children to make amends for his failure, or he and everyone he cared about would be slaughtered.”
“Not much of a choice,” Rodrigo said, then cursed himself for stating the obvious.
Thankfully, Adena didn’t seem to hear his stupid comment as she stared into the distance. “I heard my father creep into my room well past midnight, his footsteps unusually heavy. He loomed over my bed for what felt like hours as I pretended to sleep. Eventually, he left for my brother’s room down the hall, and after a moment, I followed him.” Adena closed her eyes, and for a second Rodrigo thought she was going to cry. The thought unnerved him more than any of her glares or scowls. But when she continued, her voice was even, if quieter. “I found my father hunched over Flint’s lifeless body, still pressing one of his oversized stuffed bears to his face. The shame in his eyes as he saw me was all the explanation I needed at the time. I stuck my hand out...and burned him alive.”
God. No wonder Adena was so ruthless. Misery must have been salivating at the justice of his disobedient Blight being killed by his own daughter. So much so that he made her his replacement. And after killing someone she loved, the next person must have been easy. Though Craig wasn’t to blame for the fallout from Lucas’ actions, Adena no doubt saw his survival as the catalyst for her family’s destruction. As much as Rodrigo wanted to argue that none of this justified her role as Misery’s Blight, in the pit, he had been ready to toss his morals aside so long as it meant avenging his brother. To criticize her for actually going through with it, and at a much younger, impressionable age, smacked of hypocrisy.
A long silence stretched between them as they stood there. Where he wasn’t covered in the armor he hadn’t yet removed, Rodrigo felt the cold nipping at him. He reached for the car’s passenger door, but Adena gently caught his wrist. “On the phone, Craig told me the hospital’s morgue was overflowing.” Rodrigo must have had a blank look on his face, because Adena continued, “Carlito’s still in there.”
Rodrigo twisted out of her grip and stumbled back, his heart pounding. Somehow, that Carlito’s body was just on the other side of that door hadn’t occurred to him. He imagined the others had left his brother where he fell, or buried him somewhere near there. Now the responsibility was on his shoulders. Rodrigo drew a deep breath, grabbing the silver door handle again. “Give me a minute.”
He opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. There was a foul odor trapped in the car which he at first mistook for decay, but then recognized as the reek of burned flesh. Probably from Adena cauterizing Leila’s stab wound. But when he saw the shape under the pristine white sheet resting on the bench seat, his offended sense of smell ceased to matter.
Rodrigo’s left hand was shaking as he slowly peeled the top of the sheet back. Even with knowing what he’d find, he inhaled sharply at the sight of his brother, his best friend, his whole world, lying motionless in front of him. He was so small and fragile, more so than Rodrigo had been at his age. Someone had gone to the trouble of cleaning the blood from his face, but with crystal clarity, Rodrigo could still picture him bleeding out of his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
Rodrigo turned away, pressing the thumb and index finger of his cold gauntlet against the back of his eyelids to stem the building tears.
“Weep if you must, but don’t you dare dishonor him by averting your gaze,” Resent ordered. “He died for your sake, refusing to be Jezebeth’s pawn against you, and fighting her to the last. Engrave his sacrifice onto your very soul, and the next time you think of slacking off before training yourself to the point of exhaustion, remember...this is what weakness begets.”
Rodrigo forced his eyes open and found his vision clouded with tears. He looked down upon the blurry outline of his brother’s face, and let out a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, bro. I promised to protect you. And I failed,” he said, his voice cracking, and at last he broke down entirely into a mess of blubbering and snot, resting his forehead against his brother’s chest. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry...”
After the worst of the sobs had passed, and Rodrigo regained enough of his composure to think coherently, he asked, “Tell me something, and don’t lie to me because you saw him as a burden. These angels that can heal you. C-could they bring him back?”
“No,” Resent said, and Rodrigo could feel his heart breaking all over again. “Complex as it is, creating a body from the memories of a soul is well within the realm of possibility. Recreating a soul from scratch? The most accomplished of necromancers couldn’t do such a thing.”
If not even the supernatural offered a way to revive him, Rodrigo knew what the next step needed to be. He yanked the sheet off Carlito completely and placed his left arm under his back. “Help me carry him, will you?”
To Resent’s credit, he had the decency not to argue the request, generating the nebulous arm, and wrapping it under Carlito’s legs. Rodrigo pushed the door open with his foot and carried his brother’s body outside. His cries must have been louder than he realized, because now Raquel was sobbing, too. Adena had her arms crossed, looking decidedly uncomfortable with all the emotion.
Rodrigo jerked his chin toward her. “I need you to cremate him.”
“What?” Raquel squeaked, wiping the tears rolling down her face on her sleeve. “In the middle of the street? Are you crazy? We need to have a funeral and send him off properly. Mom, Dad, Jett, Geo, Uncle Antonio. The whole family needs to be there.”
“Why?” Rodrigo asked, his voice hoarse with grief. “To make some sad spectacle of someone who was one of the few bright spots in this world? Do you actually think he would have wanted that? To prolong the suffering of everyone who cared about him?”
“It’s not just about him!” Raquel screamed, her eyes puffy and bloodshot. “What about the rest of us? We need closure.”
Rodrigo barked a harsh, broken laugh. “I don’t know about you, but I won’t be getting closure for this for as long as I live. And having a bunch of people who barely knew him singing hymns and chanting prayers over his casket won’t help matters.”
“It could be a small service. Just immediate—”
“Enough!” Rodrigo snapped, and Raquel flinched. He wasn’t about to throw it in her face now, but they both knew she had treated Carlito like garbage most days. Bullying him because he made her feel intellectually inferior. It was as much her place to decide what to do with him as it was that deadbeat Edward’s. “I’m not going to have my little brother lying there, rotting away before my eyes, okay? I can’t!”
“Are you sure?” Adena asked, as Rodrigo laid Carlito’s body in the snow.
He swallowed the heavy lump in his throat, and gave her a curt nod.
“Stand back.”
When Rodrigo had given the body some space, dragging a kicking and shrieking Raquel with him, Adena raised her right arm to the sky. A small column of fire erupted from the ground, engulfing Carlito from head to toe.
Raquel had stopped struggling and refused to watch, crying into Rodrigo’s shoulder as he held her absently. He was in a dreamlike trance, his eyes glued to the scarlet flames as they melted the surrounding snow, then reduced Carlito’s body to a pile of bone fragments and ash. The instant the flames died down, Rodrigo ripped a piece of cloth from his fauld and approached his brother’s remains, not waiting for them to cool. He knelt and scooped up a handful of the ash and crumbling bone, grinding them into a fine gray powder in his fist before wrapping them in the cloth.
“Never again, bro,” Rodrigo vowed over the ashes. Then he rose, leaving the rest of what had been Carlito to scatter to the winter wind.