“Wh-who are you?” I whispered.
“My true name is Constantine, but you may still call me Sebastian.”
A thousand inconsequential things flooded my mind, as if my body’s only mechanism of defense was to drown out the reality of what I was seeing, of what I knew to be true, with minutia.
“Constantine,” I repeated dazedly. “But you’re dead.”
He laughed, a malicious snarl that made his beautiful face suddenly ugly.
“That’s what they say,” he muttered nonchalantly. “That’s what I wanted them to say.”
“But- but…” I couldn’t even formulate an intelligent question. I was desperately trying to recall everything I’d heard about Constantine, to glue all the bits and pieces together into some kind of discernible picture.
Sebastian cocked his head to one side and flexed his shoulders, the shadow of wings behind him disappearing. He rolled his eyes back to me.
“Well, I was going to explain it all to you, but why not just wait for our next guest to join us?”
As if on cue, I felt the familiar tug of Bo’s nearness, and while part of me was thrilled to feel his presence, the rest of me was terrified for his safety. I had to warn him.
Before I could lose my nerve or tip them off as to my intent, I lunged toward the door, surprising Heather, who lost her grip on me.
“Bo, get out of here!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.
That was all I managed to get out before a hand clamped painfully over my mouth. But it was enough. I knew Bo had heard that. His hearing was too sensitive not to have picked up on it.
“Bring her here,” Sebastian commanded. “He’ll come. Nothing she can say will keep him away. In fact, her shrill warning will only make him hurry, make him sloppy. I couldn’t have planned it any better.”
With one hand over my mouth and the other across my waist, Heather pulled me back against her, picked me up and carried me across the room to Sebastian. He tipped his head, gesturing to a place against the wall. Heather continued past him to the spot where Sebastian had been, near the stairs. She stopped, but didn’t release me.
Sebastian turned back to the door, reaching behind him and pulling a long thin blade from a sheath I hadn’t seen strapped to his back. He held the blade out in front of him, twisting it slightly in his grasp, the razor sharp edge catching the light and reflecting it.
I was strangely captivated by the play of the candles’ flames in the gleaming silver. It was the flicker of those lights that shook me from my fascination.
A gust of wind threatened the flames and pushed the hair back from my face.
I looked up and Sebastian was gone.
Next, I saw blurry streaks darting across the room, like cyclones stirring the air. I heard grunts and sounds of struggle, grappling, but still I couldn’t make out any distinct shapes.
The ache in my chest and the tethers tugging at my soul assured me that Bo was in the room. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see him. I felt him like I felt the hand across my face. My heart raced in fear for him, in fear for us all.
But then, with a thump that rattled the rafters and shook dust from every crack in the room, Bo appeared. He was affixed to one of the exposed wooden beams that supported the ceiling. The silver hilt of the knife was protruding from his chest—right over his heart.
Sebastian appeared next, only a fraction of a second later, standing right in front of Bo. With one quick movement, he tore Bo’s shirt front open and turned to walk casually back to the center of the room, dusting his hands off as he went.
I couldn’t stop the scream. It bubbled in my throat, burned in my chest, trembled on my tongue, but ultimately, it was smothered by Heather’s hand.
“That ought to release some of that poison. Nasty stuff, isn’t it, Bo?”
Bo was gasping and pulling at the blade, to no avail. There was no doubt that the metal had pierced his heart. As I watched, the telltale gangrenous blackness crept out from the handle and spread across Bo’s chest, assuring me that there was no doubt about the poison either.
“Now,” Sebastian began amicably. “Shall I make some introductions?” He looked from Bo to me and back again. No one said a word. I suspected that no one probably so much as breathed. We all waited to see what bomb Sebastian would drop.
“My name is Constantine. I am your father and you are my son. Boaz, the son of the angels.”
My heart, my very soul, dropped into my shoes. Remembering the wings that had arisen from Sebastian’s shadow, it made much more sense now. He was a dark angel, a fallen angel.
It’s true! It’s true! Dear God, help us, it’s all true!
Bo and Boaz were one and the same. Bo was the son of two rebellious angels. Bo was the boy who can’t be killed. He was the boy destined to kill his father.
Beneath the thin sheen of sweat that covered Bo’s face and the cracks that marred its perfect texture, I saw him pale.
“My father?” It took Bo only a fraction of a minute to put it all together and, in him, I could sense a storm building. “So, you’re the one…” Bo trailed off, his eyes darting toward me, only they didn’t look at me. They looked behind me. “And you must be Heather.”
She said nothing, though I imagined that she was smiling. She seemed devilish that way.
“Ah, is that the click-clack of puzzle pieces I hear, finally falling into place?”
Sebastian mocked.
“But how? Why? Why would you hurt innocent people?” Bo managed.
“Don’t be naïve. No one’s innocent. The people I chose to be your ‘parents’
were simply the most convenient choices to fill the position, as they all have been.
And the how, well, if you must know, my blood is more powerful than anything you can imagine. Feeding it to you was ridiculously easy and it made controlling your memories like child’s play. And humans? Even more so. Isn’t that right, Ridley?”
He looked back at me and I could do nothing but stare in astonishment, mouth agape under Heather’s fingers.
Sebastian turned back to Bo. “She had no idea that she was drinking my blood. You’d think that losing hours of her life might’ve made her suspicious, but she’s just as adorably oblivious as you always have been.”
I felt blood heat my cheeks as it flooded the skin of my face. I’d wondered about those couple hours I couldn’t remember that night, when I’d awakened on the couch downstairs. Naively, not once had I considered Sebastian might have had something to do with it.