Leon had Jeremiah pinned on the floor, his veins bulging thick in his arms, his sharp teeth bared as they grappled. Grappled. Jeremiah was matching his strength, somehow holding back those claws from going through his throat. It should have been impossible. It was impossible. No human could match a demon barehanded. I’d seen what Leon could do.
But something was wrong with Jeremiah.
His eyes were glazed, like fog had seeped over his irises. He was expressionless, the only real sign of his struggle being the bulging muscles in his arms and twitching in his legs. As Leon leaned down with his jaws open wide to bite, a drip of dark, thick liquid seeped from the corner of Jeremiah’s mouth.
They tumbled, a sudden flurry of movement before they clashed again and skidded apart. Leon rose slowly, his eyes narrowed, as Jeremiah remained crouched on the ground, panting.
Jeremiah was laughing.
Leon pushed me back, toward the ruined metal security gate. Jeremiah raised his head, coughed, and more thick black goop dripped from his lips. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and stood, clenching and unclenching his fists, gazing at his arms as if in wonder.
“Goddamn,” he said softly. “Oh, that is a gift…”
His eyes darted over to us, slowly deepening to their normal color. I was torn between running outside, and staying close to Leon, but then Jeremiah spoke. So softly I could barely hear him, he said, “God chose me. It chose me.” He laughed again, nearly hysterical in pitch. “I made my sacrifices. Two, two in my name.” He held up two fingers as if to drive the point home. “God rewards sacrifice. God rewarded me.”
“Get to the truck, Rae,” Leon said. “Now.”
I backed away, stumbling and nearly falling on the ruins of the security door, my shoes crunching on broken glass. The cold air outside smacked reality into me as I jogged toward the trunk, trying not to stare at the torn, broken body lying on the concrete, or the second corpse splattered against the side of the market.
What the hell just happened? How could Jeremiah be that strong? How?
I climbed into the truck, clutching my head in my hands, and jumped when only seconds later, Leon was getting into the driver seat. The tires screeched as he backed out and he slammed on the gas as he hit the road, pushing the truck to its limit. He avoided Main Street to take the long way home that curved along the bay.
“What happened?” I gasped, trying not to scream — or cry — or keep replaying the gore I’d just witnessed again and again. “Leon, how…how —”
“Jeremiah gave himself over to the God,” he said grimly. The words didn’t make sense, but they tightened that knot of anxiety inside me until I thought I might vomit. “That strength isn’t his. It’s God’s.”
I really wanted those chips and cookies.
But Thomas’s screams, and the decapitated body of the nameless man, lingered in my mind and curdled in my stomach until it was all I could do to hold down the little I’d eaten that day. Just as haunting was the memory of the cold, pale fog in Jeremiah’s eyes, the black liquid seeping from his mouth. It was as if something was rotting him from the inside out.
Jeremiah’s reward for the sacrifices he’d made was supernatural strength that his mortal body could barely contain.
“A human isn’t meant to have strength like that,” Leon said. “Mortal bodies begin to break down from the effort of maintaining it, so Jeremiah won’t survive like that forever. But that doesn’t make it any less of a problem.”
“Who was the second sacrifice?” I was pacing in the house, unable to sit down, afraid that if I didn’t keep myself distracted, I’d break down entirely. I’d seen Leon kill monsters before, but never humans. Watching humans die was something else entirely, even though it was for my own protection.
I could watch horror films all day and love them. I could revel in gore when I knew it was fake. But this was real. Far too real.
“The sacrifice must have been Victoria,” Leon said. He was in the bathroom, washing the blood splatter from his hairline. It was only at my prompting that he was bothering. He didn’t really seem to notice when he was spattered with gore. “One of the Hadleigh children is destined for death. Considering Jeremiah is walking around with the God’s favor, I’d say he made quick work of his sister.” He shrugged and turned off the water. “The only thing left on his list is you. You’ll get his full attention now.” He frowned, prodding curiously at his tattooed arms. They couldn’t be seen through the ink, but I’d heard him grumbling that Jeremiah had bruised him.