Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(3)

As the commandments fell from Raphael’s lips, he fought the need to flee to his room, for privacy. To begin the preparation for the takedown. He smiled to himself.

It was time to begin the hunt. It was almost as fulfilling as the kill. Almost.

Gabriel walked to the ceremonial bell’s rope and pulled it down; the bell rang out, its tone vibrating through Raphael’s bones. He stared at the rope, and his smile widened. If he closed his eyes, he would be taken back to the genesis of his fall. To being a twelve-year-old child who thought nothing of watching someone die. And was no longer able to hold back the need to do so.

Raphael could still remember every detail of wrapping the red rope around Gavin’s slender neck. After months of studying every student at Holy Innocents school, he had finally chosen Gavin to be his first. The one to break Raphael’s virginity—his strangulation virginity. If he closed his eyes tighter, Raphael could still feel the rough fibers of the church bell’s rope under his fingers, the crimson strands caressing his palms as he wound it tightly around Gavin’s throat. Around and around and around, the bell signaling Mass ringing in his ears. Raphael sucked in a sharp breath as his cock swelled inside the cage. Replaying Gavin’s chokes and stuttered breaths in his head brought him to rapture. He remembered every detail of Gavin’s battle to hold onto consciousness as Raphael pulled the rope tighter and tighter, pulling it just enough that it drained Gavin of life but didn’t crush his trachea. Raphael needed the neck to remain perfect, no breaks or snaps. The true beauty of the kill lay in the remaining perfection in the aftermath. The elegance of the slow death without mutilation.

A most perfect asphyxiation.

Raphael was suddenly consumed by the need to begin his hunt. The memory of Gavin’s strangulation had awakened his senses, stirred to life the demonic beast that owned his blackened soul. The minute the final bell rang out, he rushed back to the change room to hang up his robe and made for the stairs. The winding of the stone steps only made the kindle of anticipation flare more strongly. The twisting, circular movements made his breath come in sharp puffs of strained inhales and exhales.

Raphael stopped when he reached the Nave. He opened the file on the vast wooden table at which the Fallen ate their meals. The bitch’s face in a photograph was the first thing he saw. Angela Bankfoot. A slim, tall blonde, pumped full of silicone, Botox, and fillers. But he didn’t gave a shit about her face or even her figure. It was her neck his eyes focused on. His head tilted to the side. Her neck was of adequate size. Not slender enough to make it the most exciting target yet, but sufficient to make the kill sweet enough to sate the darkness that roared inside his heart.

Raphael’s lip curled in disgust when he looked at her hair. Peroxide-blond hair that fell to the tops of her shoulders. Not as long as he craved. Raphael’s hands balled into fists on the tabletop, his eyes closed, and he breathed deeply though his rabid disappointment. Pulling himself together, he refocused on the file. He smirked when he saw where the bitch liked to go for pleasure.

A place Raphael knew all too well.

Angela Bankfoot liked fucked-up play. Unluckily for her, so did Raphael. The bitch had no idea what was coming.

“Well?” Sela asked.

Raphael stood, and his brothers gathered around him. At least, five of them did. Gabriel would still be in the Tomb, no doubt praying to God to forgive his soul for giving Raphael the mission. The self-hatred would be eating him alive, the agony of being judge and juror of someone’s soul.

It was a fool’s move. God had no place in their lives, in the manor. He’d abandoned them all a long time ago, letting his agents of sin fuck them and hit them, making them more fucked up than they’d ever been before.

A hand waved in front of his face. When Raphael’s vision cleared, it was to see Bara and his flame-red hair. His green eyes were alight with excitement. “Good target?”

Raphael pointed at the photograph of Bankfoot.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Sela. “Too bad she isn’t the one, brother,” he said. Sela leaned in closer for a better look. His long brown hair fell on the picture and, for a moment, made it look as though Bankfoot’s hair dropped all the way below her big, fake tits. Raphael hissed at the sight. Bara smirked, knowing exactly what had made him temporarily lose his shit.

“Maybe next time.” Sela stood back, moving his hair, ripping the fantasy away. He studied the photograph. “But she’d be easy to recreate. All that surgery makes for an easy death mask.” His eyes flared. Sela made masks of all his victims. Hung them in his room, so they would look down at him as he slept. “And those rubber lips would feel wicked good around my cock.” He shrugged. “At least until I cut them from her face and put them in a jar.”

“Where will you find her?” Diel asked. The black-haired, blue-eyed brother pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. His head twitched every few minutes, the tell that he was fighting for control of the killer inside. The part of him that would throw him into a killing spree. His collar buzzed, the telltale sign that Gabriel had it switched to automatic control. The minute Diel moved too fast, pulse increasing, feet picking up, switching from a walk into a run, it would activate, shooting in excess of fifty-thousand volts into his body and bringing him to his knees.

Raphael went to reply, but he was interrupted.

“Her blood would be vile.”

The men all looked to Michael, who rarely spoke. If he ever did, it was mostly to Raphael. For whatever reason, Michael had always been more drawn to him than to the others. Michael’s ice-blue eyes showed nothing but repulsion toward the target. He pushed back his black hair from his eyes. “All that Botox and shit takes the refinement from the flavor.” Michael flicked his tongue along his sharpened teeth, along the fangs he’d had made that were now permanently attached into his gums. Michael shrugged, then addressed Raphael, meeting his gaze. “If you choked her hard enough, you could always make her eyes bleed.” Michael’s nostrils flared. “That would be a sight to see.”