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Carnage moves immediately, hauling me tighter against him as he turns his body between Sentinel and me, but I barely notice.
I’m staring at Sentinel’s hand as the dark flame is already disappearing, breaking apart before it reaches his wrist, but wherever it touched him, his Grace flickers beneath his skin like it can’t decide whether to fight back or retreat.
Sentinel stares at it too. “What in the fuck?”
I jerk my hand back. “I swear I didn’t do that.”
His eyes snap to mine. “I know.”
Somehow, his certainty gets to me more than blame ever could.
Sentinel slowly opens his hand, and the center of his palm is burned. Not blackened flesh, but the skin is red and angry, while the gold beneath it keeps trying to flare and dies out almost as quickly.
Sentinel’s face changes. “My Grace touched something.”
I swallow. “Inside me?”
His eyes lift to mine. “Not inside you, whatever you are listening to, and whatever the fuck it was…” he looks back at his palm, “… it didn’t want Heaven anywhere near it.”
Carnage drags me tight against his chest and turns, putting himself between Sentinel and me while his hellhound surges so hard his eyes flood black.
“Wait.” I grab Carnage’s arm. “He didn’t do anything.”
Carnage’s grip tightens around my waist as Sentinel cautiously lifts his hand again, but this time he keeps it several inches away from me.
Gold gathers across his palm.
The hum inside my chest answers.
My breath catches, and it gets louder.
Not enough for anyone else to hear, judging by the confusion around me, but I hear it perfectly. That same deep sound I found buried beneath Malgrave’s power suddenly pushes harder against my ribs.
Sentinel’s Holy Light flickers, then recoils.
His hand drops. “Echo.” Whatever color was left in his face disappears. “What the fuck did you hear?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out because I’m starting to understand the question isn’t whether I heard it.
But that it heard me too.
“Three frequencies.” My voice comes out thinner than I want it to. “Hellfire, Holy Light, and something else underneath both of them, doing the actual extraction.” I look up at Carnage and find him staring at Sentinel’s hand, his jaw clenched so hard the muscle jumps beneath his skin. When his eyes finally meet mine, there’s no shock waiting for me. “It isn’t Malgrave’s. It’s too fucking powerful. Malgrave might be the bastard doing the dirty work, but he’s not the one pulling at Carnage. Something else is using him to get inside.”
Sentinel’s wings twitch hard enough to tent the fabric over his shoulders. “That’s what I felt. That’s exactly what I felt.”
Boots hit the floor behind us, and Raze steps up with Roxy close behind him. One look at Sentinel’s burned hand, my face, and Carnage practically wrapped around me, and his expression hardens. “What the fuck is going on?”
Carnage’s hand finds my back, and I lean into it without thinking twice about how easily I let him hold me up these days.
“Something older than Malgrave is running the extraction,” I say. “I don’t know what yet. But I know what it feels like, and it feels ancient, patient, and hungry in a way that has nothing to do with wanting Carnage’s voice for itself.” My throat tightens around what comes next, the thing I’ve been circling since the second that current brushed against me. “It feels like it’s been waiting a long time for something bigger than one hellhound’s roar. And when Malgrave finishes pulling that roar apart, I don’t think we’re going to like what walks through whatever door that opens.”
The conversation stops there. Nobody seems willing to be the first one to say what we’re all starting to think.
Raze’s jaw sets, and for one long moment, he doesn’t say anything at all, his eyes moving to Carnage, to the place where hellfire and Holy Light are still bleeding slowly apart inside him, unseen by everyone but me.
“Church,” he says finally, his voice low and final. “Now. Everyone.”
Carnage’s arm tightens around my waist, and his hellhound pushes hard beneath his skin, reacting to something none of us can see, but all of us are starting to understand.
