“Wonder if you’ll taste as good as you smell.”
And he prepared to take a bite.
Delilah opened her eyes to the sound of a child’s screams, and the world had changed.
She looked around, realizing she was not in a place she recognized. Moments before she had been in her home, but now. .
It took her a moment to get her bearings as she tried desperately to recall what had happened and whether she had turned off the oven.
And then she remembered the strange child in her dining room.
“Sam!” she cried out for her husband, her eyes scanning her surroundings for a sign of something—
There was a man standing beside her, and as she looked at him, he began to sob. She recalled suddenly that his name was Mathias, and that he loved her more than anything because she made him that way.
The man was crying as she reached out.
Mathias grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing it over and over again, drenching it with his plaintive tears.
“I want it back,” he said through trembling lips. “Please let it come back to me. . Please. .”
And little by little, bit by bit, Delilah remembered.
She remembered what the truth was.
A powerful rage filled her as she realized she had been manipulated, entranced by a power that had shown her what could be.
There was a man—not quite a man anymore—with a rather large knife standing over the body of the fallen woman he’d just stabbed. He looked ashamed at what he had done.
The little girl had gone to her mother, pulling her dying form up onto her lap, rocking from side to side and repeating over and over, “
Delilah had no idea if the woman would be all right; nor did she care. All she was concerned with at the moment was what was inside that little girl, and how she needed it to give her back a world denied to her.
She sensed a moment at hand; a moment that she must seize with both hands, and throttle the life from, if anything beneficial was going to come from it.
“You,” she said, looking toward the still-crying Mathias.
He responded with red, watery eyes, barely able to contain his emotions.
“You want your fantasy back?” she asked him. “Bring me the girl and we’ll see what can be done about making your dreams come true.”
The expression on his face became rapturous, as if he could never hope to bring what he had experienced back, but she had shown him otherwise.
She had shown him the truth. It could be so.
Mathias went to work, making his move toward the little girl.
The child’s father seemed to be in a sort of trance, gazing down at his former wife bleeding in the arms of his daughter. It was as if he were trying to make some sort of sense of what had happened.
Of what he had done.
It was obvious the poor soul had yet to understand that he was not in control of himself any longer, that a darker, more malevolent force now controlled his puppet strings.
Mathias saw his objective and went for it, reaching for the child to claim her.
The man became like a thing possessed, lashing out with his knife, slashing across Mathias’ arm.
“You will not touch the child,” the man said with a slow shake of his head, his eyes so dark they looked like dollops of tar hardening in his deep sockets. “She belongs to Dagon.”
Mathias jumped back, the sleeve of his sweat-dampened shirt cut, blood dribbling freely from the gash in his arm. He reached into his back pocket and removed the Swiss Army knife he’d used earlier to pick the lock to the building. He briefly gazed at the tool, selecting what was needed for this particular job and unfolding the five-inch blade.
“Remember what you saw,” Delilah said aloud to inspire her champion. “It can only be that way if the child is mine.”
The words were just the catalyst required. Mathias sprang like a predatory beast, the small blade darting through the air, finding its prey multiple times, before falling back.
Carl was bleeding from many places as he maneuvered himself between his attacker and the child, who was cradling his dying wife.
Delilah was growing impatient, wishing the two would just kill each other and be done with it as she glared at her prize. She began to move around the men, as they continued their dance of death, moving closer to her objective.
She was close enough to speak to the child.
“Zoe,” Delilah whispered, flexing the power of her voice. “Zoe, I was a friend of your mother’s.”
The child didn’t seem to hear, hugging her mother and kissing her face and the top of her head, telling her over and over she was not dead.
“Zoe,” Delilah said, trying again, flexing her vocal muscle.
This time it worked, and she caught the child’s attention. Zoe looked up, her face flushed scarlet, her eyes swollen with tears.
“Come with me, child,” Delilah said, holding out a hand. “I’ll take you somewhere you’ll be safe.”
And as the words left her, Mathias screamed, lunging at Zoe’s father. The two stumbled backward, crashing into the classroom desks that had been pushed to the side of the room.
The screams were wild, inhuman, like two savage beasts.
Zoe became distracted, staring in terror at the battle being waged across the room from her.
“Zoe,” Delilah demanded, cautiously moving closer.
The child’s attention snapped back to her.
“Take my hand, and everything will be all right,” Delilah said as she willed the child to her.
Zoe looked about to do as Delilah wanted, when the damnable Deryn York fitfully twitched and let out a guttural moan.
Delilah rolled her eyes, furious that the bitch hadn’t yet died.
Zoe’s attention was back upon her mother.
“The specialness says I can fix her,” Zoe said, patting her mother’s hair.
“Perhaps we can,” Delilah said, “but you’re going to need to come with me before. .”
The men thrashed upon the ground in an expanding puddle of gore. Whose blood it was exactly was not known, but Delilah guessed it was likely from them both.
“It says I have to take it back. . take it back from the monster,” the little girl squeaked, obviously afraid.
“Then let me help you,” Delilah said. She’d dropped to her knees, sliding closer to the girl.
Close enough to grab her.
Delilah reached out, taking hold of Zoe’s wrist and attempting to draw her near. She couldn’t help herself, being this close to the force that would free her from her punishment and allow her to shape the world as she saw fit.
“You’re mine now,” the woman said.
Zoe’s eyes grew wide, and a light began to fill them, growing so intense that it illuminated the child’s entire head, making it appear on fire from the inside.
“I’ve got to take it back,” she said in a voice no longer her own. “It must be whole again.”
And there came a deafening silence, followed by a roar so loud that it could have been heard the day the universe was created.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Even at the height of his power, Dagon had never felt like this.
The power of creation flowed through his veins, charging each and every muscle in his body with the power to transform the world.
It was what he’d always wanted; to take the world and bend it to its knees and make it learn who was its true master.
The old god had returned, filled with vim and vigor, and ready to challenge any and all for the domination of all things.
This was what he had been created to do, and soon the people of the world would awaken from their sleep, his name upon their lips.
But first he would have a snack, feasting upon the flesh and blood of one of Heaven’s born.
Dagon found this one squirming in his grasp to escape, curious.
He wore the form of a mortal, but deep inside, locked and hidden away, was the power of Heaven.
Curious, yes, but not curious enough to stop him from dining upon the holy flesh of one of the Christian God’s soldiers.
He brought the squirming angel closer, imagining what the taste of his flesh would be like. Sweet, he guessed, opening his mouth wide so he could bite. Dagon could smell the blood; he could feel the life and the power pulsing through the man’s body.
And his mouth was filled with the blood of angels.
As much as he struggled, Remy could not free himself from the ancient god’s clutches, but it did not stop him from trying.
It was all that he had now, the struggle. . the fight.
All that he’d had for most of his existence.
He was created as a soldier to the Lord God, serving the Almighty in every manner, but it had become too much, and he had walked away. From one battle to the next; abandoning his true self, to wear the guise of humanity.
Every day was a battle, but every day, as he moved closer and closer to gaining that spark of humanity, he realized it was a battle worth fighting.
