Free The Beautiful and the Damned by Jessica Verday Page B

found herself smiling as she stepped out into the cool morning air. I might actually miss those guys.
    “Steel trap!” she could still hear him saying. “A goddamn steel trap!”
    It wasn’t until she was three blocks from her place that she saw the glow of a cigarette
     in the darkness behind her and realized she was being followed.

C HAPTER S IXTEEN

    A s soon as Avian came back from following the cop and stepped into Father Montgomery’s
     house he knew something was wrong.
    The lights were off, and the house had a cold feeling to it. Empty and barren. Earlier,
     the priest had told Avian his plans to go make his rounds to visit the sick, which
     would explain why he wasn’t home. But it didn’t explain the creeping stillness that
     hung over the house.
    Avian was well acquainted with that feeling. It was death.
    Drawing his sword, Avian stalked through the living room to the kitchen. “Father Montgomery?
     Are you here?”
    Father Montgomery’s coat was hanging neatly on the rackby the fireplace, slippers waiting next to the chair he always fell asleep reading
     in. But Avian didn’t smell the lingering odor of the evening coffee Father Montgomery
     liked to indulge in. The kitchen was just as vacant as the living room.
    He moved toward the priest’s bedroom next.
    The door swung open, revealing a small room with a neatly made bed, an armchair, and
     a reading table. The sheets were still tucked up under the pillow, not turned down
     like Father Montgomery always preferred to do right before he went to sleep. He clearly
     hadn’t been there since morning.
    Resuming his search, Avian checked the other rooms of the house. They were empty too.
     Silent as a grave. It wasn’t until he went back outside that a faint light from the
     church caught his eye.
    As soon as he took the first step in that direction, he felt the wrongness emanating from the building. The pallor of death hung over the gabled roof like a
     storm squall.
    He quickened his pace, and with every step he took, steam rose up from his skin. His
     horns lengthened. And the scars on his back burned.
    It was going to hurt like a son of a bitch to actually step foot inside the church—the
     demon side of him always reacted most strongly there—but if Father Montgomery was
     in trouble, then there was no question he was going inside.
    A single beam of light spilled feebly onto the ground, as if pointing the way. But
     Avian could have closed his eyes and kept moving. The darkness trying to pull him
     back was like a reverse compass. It showed him exactly where it didn’t want to go.
    Fighting every natural instinct he had, Avian stepped into the church. The light was
     coming from the pulpit. The pews lining both sides of the room were covered in darkness,
     and the irony of moving out of the dark and toward the light was not lost on Avian.
    A forgotten memory of Father Montgomery trying to teach him the Lord’s Prayer rose
     in his mind, but he would not say it. That prayer was for those who needed it.
    Those who needed Him .
    As the bastard child of two Revenants, Avian had sworn long ago that he would never
     ask for help. It always came with strings.
    The scars on his back—a permanent reminder of his heritage—tightened again, and the
     ones covering the rest of his body rose to the surface. Breaking through his skin.
     Burning him from the inside out. Hellfire and damnation rode him hard, screaming for
     him to turn back. But Avian kept going. Lunging toward that single light.
    It was only when a whisper of a psalm reached him and theshape of a body draped over the pulpit came into view that he staggered to one knee
     and dropped his weapon.
    “Father . . .”
    The frail priest was covered in blood, the life force draining out of him with every
     slow beat of his heart. A trail of droplets showed that he’d been attacked nearby
     and had tried to crawl to safety, but only made it to the pulpit.
    As Avian rushed toward him, he could see