Page 158 of Decimation

“You are ready now,” he murmurs. “Ready for the final rite. Ready to become what you were always meant to be.”

“And what is that?” I whisper, though I have no idea if I’m even forming coherent words or not.

His smile widens. “A true sacrifice.”

The word hangs in the air between us, heavy and dark. I feel the women tense around me, their colours flickering with something that might be fear or might be anticipation. The drug is still in my veins, still clouding my thoughts but I force myself to focus, to remember.

Ezekiel steps back, raising his hands once more. The women begin to chant again, their voices rising in a crescendo that fills the chamber, that shakes the very stones. The colours around them blaze with renewed intensity, and I feel the drug in my veins respond, sending fresh waves of heat through my body.

“Behold our blood sacrifice.” Ezekiel intones. “Behold the Bride who will die so that the Covenant may live.”

Die.

The word echoes through me, and for a moment fear rises up to choke me.

The chanting reaches a fever pitch. The women are swaying now, their bodies moving in unison, their sheer dresses clinging to their sweat-slicked skin. One of them produces a blade, long and curved, its edge gleaming in the candlelight, and I feel my heart stutter in my chest.

This is it.

This is the moment.

But before the blade can fall, before the ritual can reach its bloody conclusion, the great doors of the chapel burst open.

Light floods the chamber, not candlelight, but something brighter, something harsher.

The doors to the chapel explode inward before I even register throwing my weight against them. The sound is deafening, a thunderclap that reverberates through my skull, but it’s nothing compared to the roar of blood in my ears.

Ancient oak splinters. Iron hinges scream. The sound ricochets off stone walls that have witnessed centuries of secrets, of rituals, of blood spilled in the name of power. The air is thick with the scent of decay and incense, a heady mix that makes my stomach churn. My boots crunch over debris as I step inside, my body moving before my mind can catch up. I don’t think, I don’t plan. I act. Because if I stop to think, if I let myself feel the weight of what’s happening, I’ll shatter.

The chapel is lit by torchlight, dozens of flames mounted in iron sconces that throw dancing shadows across vaulted ceilings. The shadows twist and writhe, alive with malice. As if the chapel itself is a living thing, watching, waiting. The air is thick with incense, frankincense and myrrh, the same combination they use at funerals. The same combination they used at my father’s ceremony when I drank his blood, ate his flesh and told myself it was duty stopping me from usurping my brother. The memory claws at me, sharp and unrelenting, but I push it down. There’s no room for it here. Not now.

And there, in the centre of it all, I see her.

Leandra.

She is bound to a stone altar. Her arms are stretched above her head, her wrists lashed with leather cording that has already cut into her skin. Her ankles are similarly bound, forcing her legs apart in a mockery of surrender. She is naked, completely naked. It makes her look like a sacrifice from some ancient text. Her dark hair spills across the grey stone like ink bleeding into parchment.

My breath catches in my throat. My chest tightens, a vice squeezing the air from my lungs. She’s so still, so pale, like a statue carved from marble. But then I see the rise and fall of her chest, the faint tremor in her hands, and the relief is a knife to my heart.

She’s alive. She’s alive, but she’s not safe. Not yet.

Five women surround her. Their faces are hidden behind veils of white gauze, their bodies draped in white dresses, and they are chanting. No, not chanting, singing. A low, melodic hymn that curls through the incense smoke like something alive. The sound is wrong, unnatural, a discordant harmony that sets my teeth on edge. It’s a song of death, of sacrifice, and it’s meant for her.

And standing above her, at the head of the altar, is Ezekiel.

He has not changed since I last saw him. The same sharp features, the same hollow cheeks, the same eyes that burn with the certainty of a man who believes God speaks directly into his ear. He is wearing ceremonial robes now, gold thread so fine that it catches the torchlight as if he were actual divinity. In his hands he holds nothing yet, but I see the anticipation in the way his fingers curl and uncurl.

Something cold settles in my chest. Something that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the kind of rage that makes men do terrible, irreversible things. It’s a fire, white-hot and consuming, and it threatens to burn me alive from the inside out. I want to tear him apart, I want to make him suffer. I want to make him pay for every second she’s spent in his clutches, for every mark on her skin, for every ounce of fear in her eyes.

“Ezekiel.”

My voice comes out as a snarl. It doesn’t sound human, it doesn’t feel human. It feels like something dragged up from the depths of me, from the place where I keep all the things I’ve done and all the things that have been done to me. It’s raw, guttural, a sound that belongs to a beast, not a man. But I don’t care. I’m not a man right now. I’m a weapon, honed and sharpened, and I’m ready to cut him down.

Ezekiel turns. Slowly. Deliberately. As if he has all the time in the world, as if I am merely an interruption to his evening’s entertainment rather than the Grand Master of the Brethren standing before him.

His lips curve into a smile.

“Lazarus,” he says, and the way he speaks my name makes my skin crawl. There is ownership in it. Possession. As if he has been waiting for this moment, counting on it, planning for it. “How good of you to join us. We were just getting started.”