“There’s many dirty people I know of, but the whole child sacrifice thing might be a bit much even for the—”
“Take them straight from death row if you have to. We need six! There always needs to be six,” Father John hissed with exasperation before regaining some of his composure. “In the worst-case scenario we will get rid of the stand-ins and find someone better until the next conjunction.”
Martinez shrugged as if murder was just another Friday for him. “Fine by me. I’ll make it happen. I’ll be needed in Pittsburgh for the next two weeks, but let's stay in touch. Thanks for these. I’ll bring you more of the, uh, sacred tea next time I’m around.” He took the box of fruit with a grin and walked off.
Abaddon’s jaws tightened, making his teeth screech so violently that for a moment he was positive Father John would enter the shed to investigate. But the priest let out a growl of his own, raised his hands and walked off with aggressive footsteps.
Once the coast was clear, Abaddon relaxed, and the shears dropped onto the floor as he glanced Gabriel’s way.
The boy rubbed his face, but it wouldn’t help with the guilt painted all over it. “Are you okay? You’re bleeding,” he mumbled as if it wasn’t him who caused the wound. Abaddon stared at his thin gray pants, shocked to see a dark spot spreading at the side of his thigh. The adrenaline must have kept him from feeling pain, but now that he’d seen the wound, the pain was crashing into him with twice the strength.
“It’s okay. I surprised you.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Gabriel said and stroked Abaddon’s arm. “What can I do? I know where a first aid kit is. Should I go and get it?”
Abaddon rubbed his face and stepped closer, feeling faint. “That’s not important. You were going to attack them. I saw you.”
Gabriel lowered his gaze, staying silent for a while. “They would have deserved it. Did you hear them? They’re monsters.”
“Yes, they are, but letting monsters eat you is not the way they’re gonna be stopped, is it?” Abaddon asked and grabbed Gabriel’s arms, looking at the boy’s face with a rock growing in his throat.
Gabriel sighed and stepped close enough to put his cheek on Abaddon’s shoulder. “I just saw him for the first time since realizing that what they did was real, and after that argument we had in the morning… I wasn’t thinking. I get so angry sometimes.”
Tension flowed out of Abaddon along with the blood soaking into his pants. He put his arms around Gabriel and pulled him close, listening to the boy’s frantic heartbeat. Fury was pungent in the air, and Abaddon longed to once again sense the familiar aroma of vanilla that had become so erotic to him in the past week.
He wanted things back to normal. “You heard that Martinez is leaving the area. But he will be back, along with Benson, to attend the ritual, and when that happens I will extinguish them all on the same day. They won’t know what hit them.”
Gabriel slipped his arms around Abaddon’s waist. “And until then you’re all mine?” he whispered.
The sweetness of the question soothed the ache in Abaddon’s leg, and he leaned in, pressing his mouth to the loveliest lips anyone ever kissed. “Yes, my lamb. Will you do me the honor of visiting my place, so we can talk more?”
Gabriel nodded, sliding his hands up Abaddon’s back. “And I’ll bring the first aid kit.”
12
GABRIEL
Gabriel put the first aid materials into a small bag he’d found behind the reception desk, but when he stood up, ready to head off to meet Abaddon by the fresco, his heart might as well have stopped.
Father John’s gaze zeroed in on him, and his hooked nose made it seem as if the man was a hawk and Gabriel—the rabbit in the middle of an empty field. For a second, he considered the ridiculous notion of ducking back under the desk, but the second predator approached with a silly grin under his mustache.
The nearby stained glass window cast a red tint on Martinez’s glasses, which made his eyes seem to glow with hellfire when they met Gabriel’s.
“Playing the nurse, Gabriel?” Father John asked with raised eyebrows.
Gabriel swallowed, squeezing the plastic bag in his hand. “I was just…” His mind was too blank at the sight of Martinez to come up with an excuse.
The policeman adjusted his glasses and approached. Gabriel could smell his peppery cologne from afar, or was it just a phantom memory that had implanted itself so deep in his brain it felt current and real? “We hear you’ve been asking about your childhood friend.”
Dread filled Gabriel’s lungs. Of course Mrs. Knight would have asked Father John about Harry. She had no reason to withhold such information. He pushed back some hair off his face. “Y-yes, I was wondering how he was doing.” Or if he was alive.