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I opened my eyes and my room was silent, Jake's arms still around me.
Sunlight was creeping through my window and I realized that I must have passed out.
Jake stirred.
"They're gone." He mumbled, sounding tired.
"Are you okay?" I asked. He must have used too much strength to still be so exhausted.
"Fortunately."
Our heads both turned to the speaker. Gabriel was lounging in a chair across the room. His arms folded tightly across his chest. He looked like a mad parent confronting his children for sneaking out.
"You're lucky." He eyed Jacob. Then he turned his rage on me.
"Why didn't you stay with me?" he asked, a sadness emerging in his eyes.
"I didn't mean to. I just lost you somehow, I wasn't looking. But, I'm…okay…now." Gabe always made me feel like such a child when he scolded me.
"And why didn't either of you call me?" he was angry again.
I shook my head. "I don't know Gabe. I was too, overwhelmed to think straight."
He frowned and glared at Jacob again. "What about you?"
Jacob shrugged. "I knew I could handle it."
Gabe's knuckles turned white, but then he closed his eyes and breathed, calming himself.
"Anna, what made you leave like that? When that guy started to throw a fit, why didn't you come find me?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. A guy asked me about my mom and he got upset, and I saw…" I closed my eyes and rubbed them. "so many Temperos around him and could hear them." I moaned, the fear building again. "It was so terrifying, then something told me to run. I had just to get out of there."
Jacob rubbed my shoulders and I looked at Gabriel. His expression had fallen from anger into shock and a bit of horror, then he was suddenly serious again.
"You have to see something." He came forward and held his hand out to me, and I gave mine to him.
Gabriel parked the car in front of the chapel that my mom used to take me to. I hadn't been here since she died. Jacob looked grim.
We went straight into the chapel and the father greeted us from behind the pew. Then, upon seeing Gabriel, rushed forward and grasped his hands.
"Praise the Lord. It is a blessed day to see you again." He said. Gabriel smiled kindly at him.
Then the father turned his attention to Jacob and I.
"Who's this?" He smiled.
"Jacob Arthur Jareth," Gabe said gesturing to Jake, then put his arm around me. "And this is Anna Rachel Grace."
He looked at Gabe and Gabe nodded then the father's eyes widened as he looked at me and I felt the urge to hide from his stare. He looked scared.
The father blinked and threw on a grin. "It's a pleasure to see you again young lady." He said, but didn't offer me his hand. "My you have grown well."
"Um, thank you." I answered, biting my lip, feeling awkward.
"Amy sure did one hell of a job raising you."
All of us turned to the sound of the voice. The man from the club was sitting, legs crossed, on top of the alter. His face set in a firm grimace.
I almost didn't see him move as Gabriel threw me behind him.
"GET-" I heard the father begin, but then he seemed to choke.
I glimpsed behind Gabriel to see what was happening. The man was now closer and had his hand around the father's throat, his other twisting his wrist that held the cross around his neck.
"Don't even think it." The man seethed at him. "I still haven't forgotten last time."
He released him with a shove. "Besides, I mean no harm." His eyes turned to me, familiar, but aflame in a way that seemed forbidding. "I only wish to speak with my daughter."
Gabe tensed, along with everyone else in the room. I felt all of their eyes on me, but I couldn't look away from this man claiming to be my father. I was trying to find something to discredit him, but it was clear in his eyes, in his expression, and the features of his that were so similar to my own.
He began to walk toward us and Gabe didn't move closer to me, but he didn't move away either.
"You keep some shitty company, baby girl." he indicated Gabriel with a nod of his head, keeping his eyes on me.
"You keep some shitty company, baby girl." he indicated Gabriel with a nod of his head, keeping his eyes on me.
When he was close enough and Gabe didn't move aside, he glanced at him. "Step aside, young Gabriel, if she truly is of me, then I have no reason to harm her." His voice seemed almost gentle.
"Gabe, it's okay." I muttered before I could stop myself.
He hesitated, but then he moved and stood at the ready no more than three feet behind me. I looked at Gabe's face and he looked at me in horror, but not for me, he seemed to be horrified of me.
The man instantly came forward and took hold of my face in one hand under my chin. I gasped, his hand was ice cold on my skin. He moved my face around somewhat forcefully, staring into my eyes, checking every inch of my features. He released my face and started to walk around me, studying.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Nineteen." I answered hesitantly.
"Hmm."
He then grabbed my hand just as fast as Gabriel sometimes moved, if not faster.
"Do you feel that?" he asked. Indicating his hand in mine.
"Yes." I answered. "It's…cold."
"Really?" he asked. His face softening as he looked down at our hands. "You feel warm to me."
I heard someone gasp and before I could say anything else he released my hand again and began pacing around, his hands behind his back.
"Who…are you?" I stammered.
He spun around again quickly. "You don't know?" he asked.
I shook my head. A sudden dread filling me.
He laughed darkly. "No one told you that your father is the devil?" his laugh became louder. "Don't you think that's rather cruel young Gabriel? You knew didn't you?"
My heart was racing in my head, and I could hardly find my breath as I turned to Gabe.
"Not exactly." He said through his teeth. "I knew the means by which she was conceived weren't normal." Gabe wouldn't look at me and I seemed to be shrinking by the second. "Her mother was no Virgin Mary either."
"It's…not-" the father began to shake. "It's not possible."
"It happened Priest." My…father said with a laugh, a look of triumph on his face.
"You don't have a body!" he yelled at him pointing his finger, his face turning red.
"I did." He answered. "For one…" he held up his finger. "ONE night! And she is the result of that!"
His finger jutted toward me as his voice echoed throughout the chapel.
I was shaking my head, but I didn't understand why. With everything that I had been going through the past few months, everything that was being revealed to be true, possible, this seemed utterly impossible. But maybe I just didn't want to believe it, because if my father was Satan…what did that make me?
"Now why'd you go and scare her Nick?" A young man had entered the chapel behind us. "That doesn't seem like a very fatherly thing to do."
Nick…I could…handle that.
Nick was suddenly in front of me, frowning, but serious. "I don't care if it scares her. Just as long as she knows whom she belongs to." He tilted his head at my expression. "Which it appears she does."
He moved away from me and my vision blurred as water flooded my eyes. My knees gave out from under me as tears began to fall down my face. "Anna." Gabriel said, sounding frantic as he caught me. "Anna, you're okay. Listen to me. You-are not-evil."
"Perhaps not." Nick said, farther away now. "But she isn't human either."
With that I sobbed even harder into Gabe's arms.
“She has a purpose.” Gabe said, speaking to Nick. “She wasn’t just an accident.”
“And what purpose would that be?” the tone of his voice made me want to shudder.
“She is the key to defeat you, brother.” Gabe said gravely, his voice manifested.
“Is that so?”
In the next instant I found myself in the air, held up by the very man said to be my father, killing intent clear in his face.
“And WHAT POWER DOES SHE HAVE THAT I SHOULD FEAR?!”
My hands grasped at his arm trying to get him to loosen his grip on my neck. He squeezed tighter and my power was released.
I looked down at him, my eyes glowing.
He chuckled. “So, this is it, huh? Tell me, what do you See?!”
Everything. I thought to myself.
I could see his fanged teeth and clawed hands, the true strength waiting to burst in his arms, and his heartless chest.
His eyes showed me everything else. Black surrounding their fire-blue irises I saw everything and more. “Mom.” I mumbled.
The anger in his face broke for one second, and he dropped me. Jacob ran to my side and helped me up, Gabriel faced Nick.
“So, it was YOU?!” he screamed at all of us.
“I came back here because I was told someone was interfering: driving my followers away from their targets against the targets will. And I find that my own DAUGHTER is the one making it all possible?!” The room seemed to shake with his rage.
He turned on Gabriel. “Why would He sink so low? HUH?!”
No one answered him. He screamed and it sounded like the roar of some beast, suddenly plowing through a few pews, sending them flying to the wall, and then he was gone.
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