Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(2)

Raphael tightened the string around his finger and breathed in deeply. He thought of roses. He thought of red and pink and yellow roses. The familiar song he always hummed under his breath poured from his throat, filling the Tomb with its low notes.

This was Gabriel, he told himself. These were his brothers. It was a Revelation . . . and a Revelation led to killing. Raphael placed his hand on the stone floor beside his one bent knee. Felt the smooth hardness of the stone on his palm. Recalled the many times Gabriel had called his name and the lightness he would feel in his chest when he knew he had been given the kill.

Fighting every rebellious instinct in his soul, Raphael placed his second knee to the floor. The stone was cold under Raphael’s jeans as he kneeled. The hood caused his labored breathing to echo in his ears, his breath swirling around the confined space. He waited, muscles tense, for Gabriel to begin. He needed to get to his feet. He needed to be off the floor, off his knees. Memories flashed into his mind, memories of his neck being held and his mouth being fucked against his will. He shook his head, forcing them from his mind.

Roses . . . He focused on roses . . .

Gabriel turned down the music until the monks’ chants were no more than a distant hum. Under the lip of his lowered hood, Raphael watched Gabriel reach for the scroll that rested on the gilded plate on the center of the altar. The parchment, as always, was wrapped in a red ribbon. Red for the blood that would be spilled. The sin that would be committed.

Then there was silence.

Raphael watched Gabriel’s feet move along the six of the Fallen. Past Bara, past Uriel, past Sela, past Diel . . . then finally past Michael. Gabriel stopped before Raphael. “Rise,” Gabriel said in an authoritative voice. Dark-tinged adrenaline rushing like lava through his body, Raphael drew back his hood and looked up at Gabriel. His brother was staring down at him, Gabriel’s blue eyes boring into his. Raphael’s nostrils flared as his attention dropped to the scroll. The scroll that held the name of his next kill. Gabriel waited as Raphael slowly got to his feet. From the minute the Fallen were brought to the manor, Gabriel had made them practice restraint. Made them prove to him that they could control their murderous urges enough that they could be set free to kill outside of the manor’s doors when ordered. It was torture. The waiting, curbing the compulsion to flee the seclusion of the manor and kill and fuck whoever they wanted.

None of them had to obey Gabriel, of course. At any point they could leave. But they wouldn’t. They shared a covenant with their pure brother. As kids, Gabriel had saved them from the Brethren. He’d sacrificed his destined future as a Catholic priest, had attacked Father Quinn just to follow his little brother into the depths of hell. Was raped, fucked by priests, tortured, stripped and branded and torn down . . . all to save their already damned souls. The adoptive brothers he would never have wanted, but always kept close.

The guy was a living saint. And Gabriel had the Fallen’s allegiance . . . no matter how much it tested them to restrain their basest desires. Their self-restraint was their thanks to their brother for everything he had done. Without Gabriel, they would all be dead.

When Gabriel handed Raphael the scroll, Raphael saw what he always did in Gabriel’s eyes. Something that looked like pain. Raphael didn’t understand it. He would never understand what Gabriel felt in these moments. In Raphael’s opinion, their leader felt too much, period. He was too innocent. Gabriel couldn’t have been more different than the rest. Bara, back in Purgatory, used to tease him and call him “Angel.” The moniker couldn’t have been more accurate.

The angel willingly living in a den of demons. Unrepentant, soul-stealing demons.

“The Revelation has been given,” Gabriel announced. One by one Raphael’s brothers rose to their feet. Hoods were pushed back as Raphael unlaced the red ribbon that held the scroll closed. Dropping the ribbon to the ground, where it pooled like the blood he would spill, he opened the parchment and read the name written across the center in Gabriel’s perfect calligraphy.

Angela Bankfoot.

“Trafficker of young girls,” Gabriel said. “Made millions kidnapping teenagers from their homes then selling them to the sex trade.”

Raphael smirked.

Angela Bankfoot would be fun to kill.

Raphael walked to the stone font engraved with the Fallen’s sword-and-angel-wings emblem. The font wasn’t for holy water, as the fonts at Holy Innocents had been. This was an inferno. And rather than being used to bless a congregation or to baptize a child, the Fallen’s font consumed the names of the soon-to-be dead, preemptively sending their names to hell, to where the prey’s soul would soon follow. Mesmerized by the orange and red flames, Raphael let the fire heat his face. He relished the burn on his skin.

Raphael dropped the scroll into the fire. He watched as the blaze devoured the paper, swallowing up the letters that formed the bitch’s name. When he turned, Gabriel handed him a brown leather folder. It was filled with information on the target. Each brother was given one when they received a Revelation. All the intel they would need to seek out and toy with their deserving victim before bringing them their demise.

One by one, his brothers nodded in his direction. An act of silent congratulation. But Raphael saw the envy on their faces, the disappointment that it wouldn’t be them who got to elicit pain from another fucked-up soul and savor the symphony of their screams. Gabriel moved back to the altar. The Fallen all looked his way. When Gabriel nodded, they lowered their heads and began reciting the Commandments of the Fallen: “Thou shalt not kill an innocent. Thou shalt not stray from the Fallen’s path . . . Thou shalt not bring prey back to Eden Manor. . .”