“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I nod quickly, and with those parting words, I turn around and sprint out of the library. I don’t stop running either. Everything is a blur of movement and colors as I try to put space between me and the suffocating place that’s supposed to help me be a man of God. The holy place that’s supposed to shape me and bend me until I break, just so they can put me back together inHis image. I don’t stop until I’ve shoved my way past the double doors of the abandoned chapel ruins, then once I realize what I’m doing, I close them and press my back to the wood, as if it will keep everyone else out.
It’s midnight now, on all Hallow’s Eve, and I shiver at the thought. Demons are on the loose at this hour, so I really need to hurry. I take the folded page out of my jeans pocket, properly looking at it for the first time. The text itself is damaged, words clearly redacted, others written in Latin. It’s a prayer with very specific instructions, and I start walking toward the altar to get everything ready for it.
“If I say this prayer, I’ll be pure again,” I say to myself as I gather matches, candles, and a bible.
I look up at the sky, the full moon blinding me, stars nowhere to be found. The chapel is half collapsed. It’s a miracle they haven’t demolished it yet, but I’m grateful for it because it feels like my own little sanctuary. Even with vines climbing the altar and rainwater pooling in the old baptismal font, I feel at peace. At ease. Something I don’t feel anywhere else. Maybe this is where God speaks to me the loudest. It has to be.
I read the paper quickly once more, then light a match, opening the bible and setting the pages on fire. I flinch, because surely I’m not desecrating a bible for no reason.
This better work.
He comes only to the untouched, the unspoken, the ones carrying a burden bigger than themselves. That’s what the words on the page say, so obviously he’s going to come to me. I am all of those things and more. Hope, the fleeting feeling, blooms within me like a flower being caressed by the sun. It puts a spring in my step and a smile on my face as I gather the ash on the floor and toss the destroyed bible to the side.
“Mark the hollow circle.” I read under my breath. “Leave the center open so he can touch the world.”
I frown, using the ash to form a circle around me and draw a symbol in the middle of it. I’m trapped within it, and I begin lighting candles around it, hoping to cast some light within this deserted space.
Grabbing the athame from the ground inside the circle, I read the words on the page over and over. “There must be blood. Not taken in pain but given in desire.”
I cut my palm, flinching at the sting and burn of it, and press the blood to the symbol I drew on the tile with the ash. Ash sticks to my skin when I lift it, and I wipe it on my pants. Then do a double-take. Because there, on the page, it says I have to bare my chest and throat as an act of submission. As an invitation. An offering.
My body is the altar.
The next step is to write the Angel’s name into the tile. With blood.Myblood. Why couldn’t they just instruct me to whisper it or something? This feels vile. Like witchcraft, or something. But I still do it, recalling the angel from the other night.
Azriel.
That’s the name I write within the circle, yet the one I don’t dare speak.
I light the final candle, the one in the circle, and speak the truth I’m commanded to from the page of a book I never should’ve picked up. This is harder to do because it’s the one thing I’m most afraid to admit. The one thing that will dismantle my soul. My beliefs. My carefully crafted stories.
“I am unholy,” I say softly, closing my eyes. It sounds like a confession. A temptation.
With eyes closed and head thrown back, I take a deep breath and bare my throat. The room feels colder, then warmer. Warmer. Warmest. It feels like I’m burning from the inside out. I open my eyes, and the candles begin to go out on their own, oneby one, snuffing before my eyes. I tense, my breathing shallow, and look around frantically.
Mistake.
Definitely a mistake.
What in the world was I thinking?
The ash circle glows from within, pulsing like a heartbeat. My eyes widen when I see the symbols glowing beneath my skin, and I shiver at the classical music playing in the background. Music that wasn’t there seconds ago. Music that I’m not even sure exists outside of the boundaries of my haunted mind.
I sense a presence in the room with me, and my temperature continues to spike until I feel feverish. But I close my eyes and tell myself everything is okay, that none of it is real. I should’ve never given in to my curiosity. This was clearly a bad idea—definitely not a prayer. No, this is worse, much worse. I should’ve stayed in my room tonight, not gone to the library. Even better, I should’ve listened to Gemma when she warned me not to summon him. But I didn’t know that’s what she meant, right? I couldn’t have known and still did it. That’s absurd.
If there’s a price to pay, I wonder what it is. I like my soul. I want to keep it. So I definitely won’t be giving it away, if that’s what this Azriel wants. But it also feels like there are worse things to hand over. My body, for example. I think I’d rather give up my soul in that scenario. Because if I give up my body, I’ll never recover from it.
Someone touches the boundary of the circle behind me, and it feels like a physical caress. Fingers trailing down my spine softly, stopping at the curve of my lower back. Then a tap. I turn around slowly, taking deep breaths, and shiver. I don’t dare look at the rest of him, but I do make eye contact with the brightest golden orbs I’ve ever seen.
“Elijah.” Azriel’s voice booms, and I straighten. His eyes look intense, and he sweeps them from my head to my toes. “You called me, and I have come.”
I gulp, closing my eyes.
He waits me out though, and when I open them back up, he’s still staring at me intently. He’s towering over me, several inches taller than my five-foot-ten. He looks otherworldly, and I guess in a sense he is. Not of this world. His eyes dip down to my exposed throat, my bare chest, and linger there. He smirks softly, and my balls tighten.
No.
