“Don’t listen to him,” Cain said. “He can’t kill you if you haven’t given in to your darkness.”
Lupien pressed the gun under Erwan’s chin. “We’ll see how dark she gets when I do some wall art with her old man’s brains.”
“Keep your eyes on me,” Cain said to her. “Don’t look.”
Cain had already accepted Erwan’s murder as fate. She started shaking. “I can’t let him kill Erwan.”
A movement at the door caught her eye. Her heart slammed into her ribs when Joss entered, his expression one of calculated murder.
“Ah!” Lupien exclaimed. He did a crazy tap dance. “Welcome home, Joss. Now you can tell us exactly where your mother’s organs were draped when you found her, so I can reconstruct it accurately when I rip your whore’s insides from her belly.”
Joss launched up the stairs like a demon. His coat trailed behind him, flipping open to reveal the body holsters with weapons.
“Joss, no!”
Her call wasn’t enough to penetrate Joss’s state of rage. He was going for the kill. Fear knotted her insides together as Joss passed Cain. When he reached the top of the stairs, she reached out to grab his arm, but his coat burst into flames.
“Joss,” she cried out.
Joss peeled the garment from his shoulders without acknowledging her, dropping the coat to the floor. The flames smothered under the cloth. Smoke rose from the fabric.
Lupien giggled. “Coming with knives and guns, Joss? All right, let’s have some fun first.”
The strands of Joss’s hair caught fire. She stared in horror at the fast-melting ends. Coming to her senses, she ripped her sweater over her head and beat at the tendrils. It wasn’t hard to put out. Lupien was playing with them. The smell of burnt hair hung in the air, a mocking warning.
“Fight me like a man,” Joss said.
“And spoil all the fun?” Lupien smirked. “I don’t think so.”
A fire sprang up around Joss, surrounding him with white tongues of heat. Somehow, they seemed more menacing than orange or blue flames. Joss seemed to sense it too, because instead of jumping through it, he stayed put.
“The heat will melt your bones to ash in a second,” Lupien said. “Do you like my pretty prison? Now, stay, like a good dog, and watch your witch die.”
For the first time, Joss met her eyes. Emotions flickered in his—fury, possession, and fear.
Joss unclipped a clasp on the weapon harness and lifted a strange gun. It looked like a shotgun with a cone-shaped barrel. He aimed it in front of him and pressed the trigger, which released a stream of white foam. The flames disappeared instantly, and even as he moved forward to exit the burning circle, he already had his free hand on a gun. Before his foot was outside of the danger zone, the flames jumped back into place.
“Not so fast,” Lupien said. “Another move from you and I cremate her now.”
Joss looked at Clelia, helplessness and rage etched on his face.
“I want to have some fun first,” Lupien said. “I’ll start with the old man and my rival Cain, and then I’ll do her.” He pointed the gun at Clelia. “I’ll have you last,” he said to Joss, “so that you can benefit from the show.”
“Let them go,” she said, “and I’ll give myself freely.”
Joss reached out, not able to touch her through the flames. “You won’t give yourself to that monster, do you hear me? You won’t die.”
Biting her lip, she held her husband’s gaze. “I want it to end.”
“Good girl,” Lupien purred. “You make your daddy proud.” He licked his lips. “I’ll give you one chance to hurt me before I kill you.”
“Don’t do it,” Cain said behind her. “That’s what he wants.”
“Be a good naughty girl and do like daddy does.” Lupien grimaced. “Or watch them die.”
The white flames flared around Joss.
Clelia cried out. “I’ll let you have what you want, just let them go.”
“He won’t let us go,” Cain said. “You can’t give him what he wants, no matter what he does to us. We’re a small sacrifice in the greater scheme of things.”
The words rang like a distant echo in her mind. Not so long ago, she was the sacrifice Joss was willing to make for justice. She looked at him, the man she’d once loved. No, still loved, no matter everything that had passed. Her heart was still beating, and her feelings with it. As long as she had a pulse, those feelings would always be there. Her heart would always be beating for the man she married.
The longer she stared, the closer the flames crept to Joss. She’d rather die than let Lupien kill him, but no matter what she did, Lupien was going to kill them all anyway. His word had no honor.
She pushed her body against the staircase rail. The fire from the end of the corridor was approaching. If she didn’t act, they’d all burn alive, and soon. She looked down from over her shoulder. It wasn’t high, but hitting the marble floor headfirst would be fatal.
Joss’s eyes widened. “Clelia, no.”
Cain followed her gaze. “Joss is right. Taking your own life would be just the same as taking another. You’ll give in to the darkness inside you.”
She shook her head. “Sacrifice isn’t the same as murder.” She knew it instinctively, grasping a natural law about her kind that had always been imbedded in her but that she’d been blind to before.
Feeling strangely calm now, she turned her face toward Lupien. “Isn’t that so, father?” From the worried look that flashed in his eyes, she saw her victory. “An eye for an eye. It’s the law of our kind, the answer to salvation. My life for my mother’s.”
“I’ll kill them all,” Lupien said. “I’ll kill everyone you love.”
Joss wasn’t acting because he didn’t want to risk her life, but if she was out of the way… “If I’m dead, so is my gift, and then Joss will be free to kill you.”
The circle of flames encroached on Joss. Lupien
