Nothing could destroy her.
Suddenly Gabriel was in front of her, pushing her, his hand over her mouth. In the dark, she couldn’t see his face, just his outline and the beam of the flashlight bouncing around the ground as his hand moved erratically, pushing her up against the fence. Then before she could process, focus in the dark, gain her balance, he had her completely around the side of the tomb.
“Stay still,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t move until I come back for you. I don’t want you getting lost in the cemetery.”
She wanted to ask what the hell was the matter with him, but his hand was so tight over her mouth, she couldn’t speak. So she closed her eyes and concentrated on projecting the words into his head. She had no idea if it worked like that, or if only he could enter her mind, but it was worth a shot. It was dark and she didn’t hear anything other than the sound of their breathing, and she hated not knowing what was going on.
Then she heard Gabriel whispering in her head, like he had before. He’s here, he said. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.
Cool air rushed over her as he disappeared, leaving her feeling bereft without his presence, missing the warmth of his hard body against hers, his towering masculinity hovering over her. Peering around the corner of the tomb, Sara wiped her hands on her jeans and tried to see in the dark. She could see Gabriel’s back and the light from the flashlight cutting through the inky blackness, shining straight down the walkway and hitting Raphael in the face.
Even in the dark and from ten feet away, his expression made her shiver. That didn’t look anything like the man she had known. This man was cruel, amused, manic, flat-out crazy.
“Have you figured it out?” he asked, his voice excited, hands in his pockets.
“That you killed Anne and Jessie?” Gabriel asked, holding the flashlight steady on Raphael’s face. “Yes. Or did you make Marguerite do your dirty work for you?”
“Oh, we did it together. Marguerite finds it sexually exciting, which is crude, but there it is.”
Sara clung to the side of the tomb, heart racing, eyes straining to see in the dark, knowing that Gabriel was pointing the beam on Raphael for her benefit, for her protection. She felt a little sick to her stomach and she wondered if she really wanted to hear everything Raphael might say. Up until an hour earlier, she had thought of him as Rafe, her mother’s devoted boyfriend. Even knowing he was immortal, a fallen angel, hadn’t altered the essence of her opinion of him. She had thought he was a nice guy. Now he was standing there and blithely saying that his real girlfriend found it exciting to slice women to pieces with him.
She felt a disgust, a hatred so profound that it overwhelmed her, kept her frozen to the wall she was leaning against, unable to look away.
Gabriel’s beam shifted to the left, and suddenly Sara realized Marguerite was standing there, beside Raphael. “Hello, Marguerite,” Gabriel said, his voice deceptively calm, but with a tightness Sara knew revealed his controlled anger. “It’s been awhile.”
“Hi, Gabriel,” Marguerite replied, with a sly smile and a wave. “I just want you to know it wasn’t anything personal with you—you know, Anne, and the trial. I did it for Raphael, that’s all.”
“Feeling guilty?” Gabriel asked.
Marguerite blinked. “No, not really. Of course not. Why would I?”
“Aren’t you going to ask why I did it?” Raphael asked, stepping in front of Marguerite and shoving her behind him so that she stumbled. She gave a cry of protest, but he silenced her with a look.
It was a look that sent chills down Sara’s spine. She didn’t know this man at all, had never seen that kind of patronizing dominance on his face, and it was disturbing, paralyzing.
“No, I’m not going to ask why,” Gabriel said. “You can’t possibly have any reason worth listening to.”
Sara didn’t want to hear it either. But obviously Raphael wanted to talk, because he spoke as if Gabriel had enthusiastically inquired.
“I know you’ll understand, Gabriel. I did it because these women were stuck here in this hell of mortality. Those women were whores and drunks and strippers, and I elevated them because they showed potential, a good heart. I took them out of this world, out of their frail, weak human bodies, and have kept them with me, in a better place. I’ve given them immortality, and doesn’t everyone want that? And I’ll admit it, I was angry. You were such a mess, a sloppy drunk, wandering around in an opium haze feeling sorry for mortals and yourself, and yet you managed to steal my mistress. It was a perversion, and poor pathetic Anne needed to be saved. It hasn’t been easy to do this, you know, to maintain the focus, to keep Marguerite in line, for all these years. But I couldn’t be selfish.”
Wondering if the ringing in her ears meant she was actually going to faint, Sara took deep breaths and struggled to stay standing, to not make a sound that would let them know she was there. Then again, maybe they were already fully aware of her. She had no real understanding of what demons could and couldn’t do. But she didn’t want to go down, no matter how sick and twisted and disgusting Raphael’s words were. She needed to hear the truth, wanted to take it in and let it go, wanted to show him and herself that she could stand strong.
“So you put them under a demon sleep so they wouldn’t be aware, wouldn’t fight back, and killed them?”
“Yes. And you have me to thank for getting you acquitted for Anne’s murder. I put my neck out for you.”
“Marguerite defamed my character.”
Marguerite spoke over Raphael’s shoulder. “That’s because I was worried they would pin something on Raphael. Sorry. If it was you or him that had to hang, I had to choose you.”
“Why the same family?” Gabriel asked Raphael.
Raphael smiled, the corners of his mouth turning up fully in the light of the flashlight. “Because it’s like the same woman over and over . . . I keep waiting, expecting improvement, and they always disappoint me. They’re all the same. I thought Jessie’s mother might be worth leaving here, but then I discovered she was hooked on pain meds. They’re all the same . . . such a shame. Again, I thought maybe Sara was different. But then came the sleeping pills, the absinthe, having sex with a man she hardly knows . . .”
And then Raphael turned right toward her. Even in the dark, Sara could feel the weight of his stare, the sting of his malice, and she knew he was speaking directly to her. Knew in that moment that it had been him in the window on Dauphine Street, him watching her from the strip club. She felt the same shock, the same skin-crawling invasion of privacy as he locked eyes with her. “Now it’s Sara’s turn.”