“Look at me!” Cavenaugh shouted. “You killed my little sister. Why? For the love of God, tell me why, or so help me, I’ll let you stand there and burn to death. Tell me and I can make the pain stop.”
A pair of milky eyes rolled upward to meet his.
Cavenaugh gasped and took an involuntary step away. He shook his head in disbelief.
Gabriel saw the flash of the knife in the flaming hand a heartbeat before the figure thrust it into Cavenaugh’s abdomen.
***
Cavenaugh fell to his knees. He held his attacker’s wrist in a firm grasp, and dragged the figure down in front of him, their faces a breath apart. Gabriel heard Cavenaugh whisper a single word.
“Jenny.”
Gabriel dashed to where Cavenaugh had dropped the rifle and leveled the barrel at the scorched face. All of its hair had burned back to its skull and the cracked skin wept blood and pustulates. The clothes still crackled, but the flames had diminished. The figure’s black features tightened and there was a sucking sound as it jerked back the knife and stabbed Cavenaugh again.
“Let go of the knife!” Gabriel shouted. The rifle trembled so badly the barrel tapped against the thing’s temple. “Do it now or I shoot!”
The eyes rose and looked at Gabriel.
Shamrock green eyes.
Suddenly he understood.
“Why are you doing this?” Cavenaugh asked. His voice faltered and a rivulet of blood drained from the corner of his mouth. His brow crinkled and his eyes narrowed as though trying to read the answer in her face. “I’ve been looking for you for so long….and now I…. What have I done?”
Cavenaugh’s shoulders shuddered and tears streamed from his eyes. Despite the blade embedded in his gut, he wrapped his arms around his sister’s shoulders and drew her into his embrace.
Jenny’s screams turned to sobs as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.
“Please forgive me,” she whispered. Her voice was garbled by the pain and her closing windpipe.
Gabriel didn’t know what to do. A moment prior he had been prepared to blow a hole through the side of her head, and now…. If Jenny was still alive, was it possible that…?
“No one can ever know,” Jenny whispered. “None of us can ever leave here.”
She withdrew the knife and stabbed her brother again.
“Anything can be forgiven,” Cavenaugh whispered. “You…you were the one who told me…God forgives everyone.”
“That’s the problem.” She started to cry harder. “There can be no forgiveness. There can be no more—”
Gabriel stepped forward and pressed the barrel against her head behind her ear.
“—hope.”
He stared down at Cavenaugh, whose jacket had already begun to burn. Tears streaked through the soot on his cheeks and blood trickled from his mouth and down his chin. The expression on his face reflected a level of pain the likes of which Gabriel had never seen before. Cavenaugh turned his attention back to his sister and stroked her cheek softly.
“I love you,” he whispered, then turned and gave Gabriel a single nod.
Gabriel squeezed the trigger.
***
The report echoed through the cavern, and beneath it Cavenaugh’s gut-wrenching cry. Gabriel could only stare at the body lying on the ground beside Cavenaugh. The entire upper half of Jenny’s head was gone, replaced by a sloppy mess of tattered skin, bone fragments, and gray matter, from which blood poured into an ever- expanding pool. Flames spread from her shoulder over the side of her face, where they took root and began to consume her.
As Cavenaugh watched, his features twitched and twisted while he ran the gamut of emotions. His hands worked at the hilt of the knife until they were finally able to pull it free. He wavered in place before finally toppling onto his side. He reached for his sister’s hand, and closed it within his.
Gabriel grabbed Cavenaugh’s other hand and tried to drag him away from the fire, but the stronger man jerked it away.
“Get up!” Gabriel yelled. He looked to Jess for help, but she just stood there, paralyzed by shock.
A shadow separated from the smoke and flames behind her.
“Jenny!” it shouted. The figure shoved Jess out of the way and threw itself to the ground beside the smoldering corpse. It tried to lift her head, but only succeeded in dumping the remaining contents onto the ground. With a pitiful moan, it whirled to face Gabriel. The firelight exposed a face masked by a scraggly beard and wild hair. The man’s eyes narrowed to slits and he bared his teeth.
Gabriel stumbled backwards and aligned the barrel of the rifle with the man, whom he recognized with a start.
Levi Northcutt. Kelsey’s son.
He had slit his own father’s throat.
“Stay right where you are!” Gabriel yelled. His mind was reeling. Levi and Jenny had been alive all this time. Was it possible that his sister was somewhere nearby in the darkness? But there had been so many bones…and her cross was hanging from the wall over the pallet where the carcasses were butchered. What could possibly have transpired that would have led Levi and Jenny to kill all of their friends, and then the family members who had come to search for them? What could have happened that would have forced Levi to kill his own father and Jenny to repeatedly stab her brother?
No one can know, Jenny’s voice repeated in his head. None of us can ever leave here.
What did they find in this cavern?
There can be no forgiveness. There can be no more hope.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Levi said. He rolled to a crouch and tensed in preparation of launching himself at Gabriel. “You don’t understand. No one can find out about this place. Ever.”
Gabriel didn’t want to ask the words that came out of his mouth next, but he had to know. He needed to hear it.
“Did you kill my sister? Did you kill Stephanie?”
The expression of anger on Levi’s face never faltered.
“She would have told.”
Gabriel felt his heart break, and in that instant he wanted nothing more than to shoot Levi in the face. Not just shoot him, but destroy him, obliterate every last inch of him.
“For God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,” Levi said.
Jess drew close to Gabriel and stood at his side. She raised her rifle and pointed it at Levi.
“Do you think we wanted this burden?” Levi asked. “Without faith there can be no God, and without God there can be no hope. What would happen if you stole the hopes of millions, the hope for the entire world?” He pulled a long, serrated hunting knife from his jacket pocket. “There would be no reason to exist.”
“Don’t move!” Gabriel shouted.
“If you kill me, the responsibility falls to you.”
Levi adjusted his grip on the hilt of the knife. The blade pointed downward from his closed fist.
“Don’t,” Jess said. Her voice quivered.
“Once you’ve looked upon the face of God, there’s nothing left to live for but the perpetuation of the lie. The lie upon which all of our lives are built. Everything’s a lie! The bible?” He scoffed. “That’s what led us here. To the fallen angels. They were right where it said they’d be.”
“You’re insane,” Gabriel said. Something had broken inside Levi’s mind, splintered into incoherent pieces. There were no angels and this had nothing to do with God. This man had killed his sister and her friends. His own father, for Christ’s sake!
“Drop the knife,” Gabriel said.
