Page 98 of A Serpent in the Garden

The chanting from the church surged, arms lifting now as well as voices. “I can hardly blame them for worshiping him like a god if he’s given them so many blessings.”

“You see that?” Finn’s heart beat against my back as the light around the stage set bent and flashed. “He’s not far off. I’m sure he’s planned a grand, protracted entrance.” I suppose he felt my chest lift with a deep, shaky breath, because he tightened his arms around me, swaying us where we stood. “Not yet.” His searing cheek was pressed against mine, the heat from his chin seeping into my shoulder. He was bent nearly double, curved around me. “Wait until he shows himself to them. No man, angel or demon wants to look the coward in front of scores of people. Let them see him, know he’s here, before calling out for help.” I felt the thunder of a laugh in his throat. “You’re a sweet young maiden taken hostage by a beast. How could he not help you?” His cheek lifted against mine with a smile. “Imagine the embarrassment if he doesn’t even try? No more festivals, surely. Luceric the Craven, they might call him. That might almost be as good as killing him, come to think of it.”

The air above the church churned strangely, like a boiling sea. As if it might split apart at any moment. The churchgoers had risen to their feet. Hands found mouths, pews rocked.

“Scared?” Finn asked when I said nothing. My blood was buzzing beneath my skin. “You’re trembling.”

“I would be very foolish not to be scared. I’d rather not burn to death if I can avoid it.”

“They say fire has a will of its own, but mine doesn’t. Its will is my will. If I don’t want it to burn you, it won’t.”

The light turned strange, the sky above the church aswirl with color, gold and yellow and rusty red.

Finn’s breath played through my hair as a gasp strangled in my throat. “Almost. Will you faint with awe when you see him, so glorious and golden?”

“You’re gold too,” I said, in a voice much steadier than I felt. “And I haven’t been terribly impressed by it.”

He laughed into the crown of my head. “I have plenty of time to impress you yet.”

A tongue of white lightning hit the earth. I felt Remy pressed up against his window, his heart quickening just like mine. I felt him so acutely it was as if he’d done away with the thin boundary that normally separated us.

Lips against my ear. “Do you remember where you’re going?”

“Yes.”

The sky split open with a sound like tearing fabric, sunlit lances slicing through the bellies of the clouds. The churchyard had gone still and silent, as if everyone held their breath. And when something huge and gold and winged burst from the heavens, a few white-clad revelers toppled over, as if they’d fainted. If Finn hadn’t had his arms around me, I might have fallen right along with them. It was as if the universe had ripped the scales from my eyes.

From my vantage point I saw nothing but his back, but it was enough to leave me reeling. Was the sight of him beautiful or horrifying? I couldn’t decide.

That first glimpse of otherness, a grandeur not of this world—it was amazing to behold, in the most terrible way. No demon had ever struck me like this. Like Finn, he was gold, but unlike Finn, he was freakishly tall, at least as large as that water demon I had met in Hell’s wood. Or was it those wings that made him seem so enormous? Feathered and iridescent, they rippled in the breeze. What was his wingspan? Twelve feet? More? A leather quiver hung between them, long dark curls covering whatever protruded from it. I found no blade at his back or hip.

He seemed to distill and crystallize all the energy humming in the atmosphere. He stained the air around him, gilding the stage set, the priest who trembled in his robes, the first few rows of pews and parishioners who cowered before their idol. The light pouring off of him could power up the sun. Would his voice boom like a clap of thunder or roll over fields and hollows, toppling towers, filling roads and alleys like a flood?

Luceric moved toward his congregation, hands aloft, as if embracing their wonder.

“Ready?” Finn’s voice was both silken and raspy as it filled my ear.

No, I wanted to say. The lot of you are mad, mad to provoke the rage of this creature. It descended on me in a rush, a sick swirl of panic, the dumb fucking situation I’d volunteered myself for, I hadn’t even been forced—

I nodded despite myself.

You don’t have to do this, Remy croaked. Leave him to Finn and Valic. Finn might be able to reach him with his flames from right here, or else we can leave, we can go home and try this another time, just tell Finn you want out—

But when would there be another time? To hear Finn tell it, they were lucky enough to find him here.

Perhaps Finn could smell my fear. “Luceric may be made of stronger stuff,” he said, “but he’s still meat and bone, like anything else.” Both hands at my waist, squeezing hard for half a heartbeat. “Scream for me.”

So I did, in a voice that felt about twenty times my size. The cords in my throat bulged against it, though who would hear it through their daze as they stared at Luceric?

“Run, now.”

I tore off across the field, though I didn’t think my legs could bear my weight. The dress caught around my ankles. More than once I stumbled, the grass rising perilously close to my face as I almost fell. I could feel Remy forcing himself not to help me, grimacing in his cell, but I couldn’t run with inhuman speed. I had to move like a lurching damsel, tangled in my stupid dress, Luceric’s symbol glinting at my breast.

I was almost at my mark when footsteps pounded up from behind. My ankle slid out from beneath me as I twisted in midair. Finn caught the back of my head in his hand before it slammed against the earth. He’d cast off his white cloak so he shone like a beacon, veins of deeper gold bulging in his arms as he pinned me down.

“Fight me,” he said, and I tried, though it seemed the most fruitless thing in the world. “Harder than that.” But I had the strength of a cloth doll compared to a demon. I kicked and writhed but barely budged beneath him. “Make me believe it, now. We need you scared and struggling. I’m not some handsy stableboy, I’m a demon come to rip your throat out.”

Then the grass not three inches behind my body burst into a roaring wall of flame. I felt my eyes go wide with terror; they found the gold pair inches above them.