bad. At least I didn’t continue to love him after I knew he signed with the Devil.”
“Whoa, hold up. First, I couldn’t get away from Darrton. He threatened to kill me. Second, how do you know he signed? I thought he had to obey Warren and Caden.”
She seemed to be mellowing out a little. “Yeah, they all signed with the Devil. That’s the sign of the beast. I saw him show it to you. Warren and Caden are in charge so he has to do what they say. Caden and Warren get their orders from Satan. They have all taken an oath. There is no stopping it now. That is one tattoo that can’t be taken off.”
”I don’t understand why he would do this,” I said.
She nodded. “I’m not sure why he signed, if they threatened him or what, but something happened. He wasn’t always like that.”
“So what does that deal include? I mean, what is his part of the bargain?”
Shrugging, she stepped back from me. “It could be a bunch of things. But all the deals end with their souls being his.”
“His as in the Satan’s?”
“As in Satan’s.”
Bile began to come up my throat. “Darrton is stuck in his own personal Hell and he can’t get out?”
“No. Would you try and break that deal?”
I shook my head. “Why haven’t I seen the sign of the beast on Darrton then?”
She shrugged. “Have you looked?”
I shook my head. “No.”
Sam hadn’t said anything since we’d started talking about that. She stood by the window. Her long curled hair was lying almost flat and a tear trickled down her naturally blushed cheek.
“Everything will be okay, Samantha.”
She didn’t even look at me. “I sure as hell hope so.” She walked past us and started down the steps. “Going to take a shower.”
“There is a shower here?”
Samantha nodded. “Yes, it’s open and in the pastor’s study.”
“Let me come with you!” I said, protectively.
“I can take my own freaking bath!” she yelled down the hall.
Ariel sighed. “They can’t get in here, Lizzie.”
“Why not?”
“It’s holy ground. They can’t.”
Relief flooded me. “But wait, how are you in here?”
“Nephil, remember?”
“Yes, I remember.” Taking a seat I tried to clear my mind, but all I could see were their faces, so close to mine, so menacingly beautiful. There was something happening soon. I could feel it in my bones. Darrton had to be here. He had to come.
Ariel stood up. “Heads up.” She threw something my way. I barely caught it. A long silver sword was held in my good hand. “What is this?”
“A sword.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know that. But why did you give this to me?”
“In case we have to fight.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Unless you would like me to give that to Samantha?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t even know they could be killed.”
Ariel nodded slowly, running her finger along the sharp edge of her own sword. “You can’t just stab them. That won’t do.”
“Then how?” I put the sword down. It felt heavy and unfamiliar in my hands.
“You have to cut off their wings.”
I sucked in a deep breath of chilled air. “Wings?”
She nodded. “It’s pretty simple, the things growing out of our backs.”
“Are you ever nice?”
“Rarely.”
“Is it easy? Darrton wouldn’t let me touch his. I tried once but he stopped me.”
She smiled. “Our wings are sensitive. It’s the one place that you can feel how we feel. It’s the one place where we keep our secrets. It’s where we can face Death.”
That sent shivers down my spine. “So I could kill an angel or horsemen? All I have to do is cut their wings off? That’s it?”
She nodded. “The wings are easy to cut through. You could pull the wings out, too, but I doubt you would want to do that. That is the cruelest way to kill them. It is also harder to keep the angel still to pull the wings out. Either way, it’s going to work. Either way, it’s going to kill them. But it’s just cruel to do it that way.” Ariel threw the sword up and caught it. “That is how they were killed when damned to Hell at the beginning. Lucifer would pull their wings out, nice and slow, letting the other angels that wanted to go back to Heaven, feel every single inch of the pain. That’s why we normally don’t do it that way. We normally just cut them off. I’ve never killed an angel, but we all know how angels are killed. We all