by Tara Brown
“Where do you think they took her?”
I shake my head and look around. The church is actually a cathedral. It's several times the size of the churches I never went to back home. Willow has a thing with churches. Obviously, finding out she is a witch makes that more clear. She always came up with some story about the priest or minister. I always believed her. Even now I cannot doubt her.
But now I see that the burnings and hangings and torture of the witches pretty much guaranteed I would never be allowed to go.
I walk in front of Mona and climb a set of stairs I had seen from the corner. The red carpet and weird smells creep me out. It's overly warm in decoration and temperature. Part of the sales package, no doubt.
I can't help but notice the carving of Jesus in the hall when we reach the top of the stairs. He looks exactly like the girl in the book.
My skin shivers. It remembers what it felt like to hang by my arms.
We walk around the balcony, but I don’t see Michelle or Wyatt.
I mutter, looking over my back, “I'm getting worried.”
Mona nods. “What if they took her and are torturing her. He sensed the devil in her. What if the nun did too?”
I don’t want to imagine what a church would do to a girl who used to be a boy and sold her soul to the devil. It's pretty much everything they hate, all wrapped in a pretty Barbie-esque package.
I look out the balcony window to my right and see a garden. It's in fall bloom. Leaves of every color are everywhere.
“There's the garden.”
We turn to go down the stairs but my stomach twists.
“So, did Wyatt know where they were keeping me?”
Mona shakes her head. “No. I don’t think so. He said he could—” Her eyes widen. “Damn.” The color is gone from her cheeks. “He said he could sense you. The handfasting.”
I wince. I knew it. I should have known it.
“Warwick.” The word tastes bad in my mouth.
She looks confused. “What?”
I sigh. “When I was in Warwick, he knew I was there. Somehow. The nixie swam me far from him. Like a two-hour swim. There was no way he could have known that I was there, and yet I was walking down the road and felt this twisting feeling in my stomach. I ran and hid, just as he drove by me.”
She looks at my hand resting on my belly. “You feel that now?”
I bite my lip. “I do.”
“Damn.”
I nod.
We look around and creep up to the wall where the overlook is for the balcony. My stomach lurches when she points discreetly. “There.”
He is trying the handle on the priest's door. He is not alone. There is a man and another girl with him.
“Damn,” I whisper. He turns and looks around. I pull her away from the wall. We are both shivering.
“He wanted to save me, right? He didn’t want me chained to the wall? It was genuine?” I whisper into her clenched body.
She nods. “I believed he was devastated. His mother and everyone wouldn’t talk to him. He was screaming and saying that it wasn’t time. They told him it was for the best. I have no idea what it meant, but I know he was outraged.”
I pull her back from the wall and we duck and run. There is another stairwell. We creep down the stairs.
I run. I don’t know where to run, but I do. Mona pulls out her phone and starts texting.
“Really?” I almost shout, but contain myself. I'm trying every door handle we pass but they're all locked. Damned untrusting religious people.
“Michelle says leave. She sent me a text saying she's staying. She wants to stay and find herself.”
I roll my eyes. “Damn. They're going to take her and torture her.”
Mona frowns. “I sent her a message that he's here. She said she's going to the women's-only section now. It's strictly forbidden for him to enter.”
I laugh. It's funny. “Hopefully God doesn’t remember who she is, or was.”
The only door that opens for us leads down into the dark. The stairs are old and decrepit. We slip in and I look out into the hall as I close the door. I turn the latch on the door.
“I can't see,” she whispers and reaches back for me. I slip past her and hold her hands. I can see clearly.
“You don’t want to. It's friggin’ creepy in here.”
She tenses. That was probably the wrong thing to say.
The stairs bring us to a large cement room.
“It's like an unfinished basement. Nothing down here,” I whisper into the silence. I see a door in the corner. I pull her along. She walks like she's impaired, tripping over nothing.
Her hands are trembling.
“It's okay, dude. There is nothing down here. I'm not kidding. It's just us and a concrete room.”
“Okay. You can see for real, right?”
“For real. There is a door over here. Just a sec.” I let go, but she holds my shoulder with a grip that feels like it's ripping my skin open.
I turn the old-fashioned door handle.
I push my weight into the thick wood.
The door scrapes along the old floor.
Her fingers dig into my skin.
“Easy. That hurts.”
“Sorry.” She is shaking brutally.
The door opens into a tiny tunnel. It's skinny and looks as I imagine the Underground Railroad would have. I pull her through the narrow opening. “It's small, but it seems like it's a tunnel. It must lead somewhere.”
I close the door behind us. My stomach twinge is worsening.
“He's following us, I think. Or he's directly above us.”
She grips my hand so tightly I can feel the sweat on her palm. I want to pull my hand away, but I too would be crapping my pants if it were her leading and me following.
I wipe old cobwebs out of the way. “No one comes down here. The cobwebs are older than us.”
“You're really bad at this stuff, dude. Try telling me cheery points of observation.”
I laugh quietly and pull her through the thin tunnel. The walls are made of old bricks and crumbling mortar.
“We are going to die in here,” she whispers.
I squeeze her hand. “Stop being a baby. This leads somewhere. It has to. No one digs out this much dirt without a reason.
The tunnel twists and turns without any actual corners, just meandering like a river would. Finally, after what feels like hours, I see light ahead.
“Look.”
“I can't see anything, dick.”
I laugh. “Light up ahead. You'll see it in a minute.”
The light floods the tunnel. I don’t feel good about the end of the tunnel. I am sick with nerves.
She stops gripping me, like she is going to peel the skin off of me, as we get closer to the light.
“What is that?” she asks.
I can see it clearly. “A grate.”
She is looking around, horrified. “Is this what it looked like the whole way?”
I laugh again. “No, this is worse.”
The cobwebs are thick and new, and I am freaking out inside. I lean back and strike at them with my foot, kicking and flailing.
“This is like one of those horror shows.”
I pause. “Just a sec.” I close my eyes and take a breath. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah?” I shush her and swat at her.
“Can you hear me? Is he near?” The air isn’t sparkling or whispering. I strain but still can't hear them.
“Damn.” I look back. “I can hear the dead, if I listen hard enough. They can't come on holy land though. We're still at the church.”
She grimaces. “The graveyard. I guarantee it.” She looks up and starts to panic. “They're right above us. The dead. I bet they are.”
I grab her shoulders. “Calm down. The dead aren’t so bad. Trust me. It's the living who suck.”
We get up close to the door. It looks like a grate, but it has hinges. It has a latch on our side. I open the latch and
push. The door doesn’t move. I push harder, but nothing.
Mona pulls a tube from her pocket and starts squeezing it onto the hinges with a huge grin, “Lip gloss.”
She rubs the hinges with her fingers, spreading the gloss everywhere.
She slams into the door and rocks it back and forth. The metal makes a screaming noise when she pulls in.
I frown. “Pull, not push.”
She pulls the door. The metal doesn’t scream again, thanks to the lip gloss.
We step out into the light of day. She squints, but my eyes don’t need to.
We have stepped out into the graveyard, literally from a hobbit hole in the side of the hill.
I pull the grate shut and look around. The grounds are stunning. Colorful trees and headstones line the leaf-covered grass.
I look behind, up to the cathedral. “Wow, I have no idea how to get to the parking lot.”
It looks Gothic and cool from this distance.
I look at the stream to the right of us that leads into the forest. “We're going that way.”
She looks at me and shakes her head. “I hate you right now.”
I glance at her ballet flats and nod. “It's cool. I get it. I hate me most days.”
We crunch along the trees and rocks. The church gets farther and farther away.
She breaks the silence after a few moments. “I don’t really hate you. I just wish you were normal.”
I look back and smile. “I know. Me too.”
My stomach still feels him. He isn’t close, but I know he's coming. Tracking me like a bloodhound.
“So you can feel him?”
I nod. “Yeah. I guess so.”
She nudges me. “This sucks. You okay?”
I shake my head. “No. No, I don’t think I'll ever be okay. My brain says this is all fake, for sure. None of this is real. My body believes, but that’s from the torture. My heart knows it's real, but wants to go back to the old way. I know my parents were evil and broke the rules, but I don’t understand why God hates me so much. I don’t even believe in God, and yet he is ruining my life.”
Her words come out like she's talking to herself, “It's heavy. I want to say I don’t believe, but I do. God help me, but I do. The stuff the priest said made sense though. The torture was for a reason.”
I furrow my brow. “That doesn’t take away from the fact that it happened.”
She shakes her head defensively. “I'm not saying that. At all. I know it happened. I can't get the image of you in that room out of my mind. It's burned there. Scarred in my brain.”
I look at her. We match. Immense amounts of pity cover both our faces. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I dragged you into this.”
She ups the ante and lets a tear slip from her eyes. “No. No one should have to go through something like this alone, Rayne. We are the loser-nerd girls who will go unnoticed and not be the pass-around girl in the frat. We joined that crap together. I'm in till the end.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I laugh. We pick up the pace and run the rest of the way out of the huge park we are in.
Chapter Eighteen
The warmth of the restaurant and the coffee in my hand aren’t enough to remove the feeling of the huge spider I found roaming in my hoodie. Terror and anxiety are still crawling around on my skin where it was.
My skin is crawling, and I can't shake the heebie-jeebies. Mona's screaming face is about the only thing that has gotten me through it.
I shove the last of the Subway sandwich into my mouth. I'm so hungry. I could kill everyone in here and still be hungry. Well, except for Mona.
I glance at her and point at her face. “You have dirt on your eyebrows and forehead.”
She scowls. “Dude. How long has it been like that?” She wipes with the napkin, but it doesn’t come off.
I smile. “Still there.”
“Gross. Graveyard dirt.” She stands and walks away. Her perfect little outfit is ruined from the day's adventures. Running in a park and slithering through a tunnel. I shiver again and remember the way the horrid black beast crept out of my shirt, its eight legs tickling me. I almost gag, but I take a deep breath and smell the bread, and the guy sitting behind me.
We stole a car in downtown Boston and drove here—New Hampshire.
If I ever speak to Wyatt again, I will have to get him to give the owners of the car some money. Just like I did with the last people I stole from. I had him mail one thousand dollars to the old people from Newport. He owed me that, at the least.
I probably owed them more. The ham sandwich and the shower had to have been worth a million dollars. Not to mention, the three hundred dollars I found taped to the lid of the cookie jar.
Mona comes out of the bathroom looking remarkably better. Her outfit has been cleaned up and her hair is straight and smooth. The dirt is gone.
“You made good use of the bathroom.” I laugh.
She smiles. “I can't stand looking like that. It's a good thing you don’t mind. I have a feeling this is all about to get more interesting.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
Her eyes dart to the window. A tall man with dark hair and a charming smile is looking at us through the glass. I jump when I see him.
“Who is that?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Not sure. He came into the bathroom when I was there and asked if I had somewhere to stay for the night. I told him to screw off, obviously. He smiled that exact smile, and then said if the Van Helsings catch you, I bet they'll clean that mouth of yours up. Then he was gone. I actually thought I might have daydreamed it, but there he is.” She sighs and covers her eyes for a minute.
I get up from the table and feel my palms instantly sweat. “He came in the bathroom? Who is he? Why are you so calm? That’s creepy.” He looks familiar.
She gives me an incredulous look. “How should I know? He told me that I should stay really calm. So I did.”
I frown. “That doesn’t even make any sense. Great. He could be my dad.”
She nods. “I thought that too.”
I give her a skeptical look. “Well, doesn’t that make you want to freak out?”
She smiles at me with glossy lips. “Yup.”
I turn and watch him, just as he watches us. No one makes a move. My stomach tingle starts. I groan, “Great.”
“Wyatt?” she whispers.
“Yup,” I whisper back.
She looks around and sighs. “Take a chance with the stranger?”
I look around. “There is probably a back entrance. We could run.”
The man outside the window laughs as if he is in on the conversation.
She shakes her head. “He vanished in the bathroom. Vanished. I don’t think running is a good option.”
I am weak and exhausted. I need to eat, but I want the devils to come for me. If I get hungry enough, they will sense me and then we can kill them.
I look into the dark eyes of the stranger outside the window. His eyes meet mine and he nods. “Trust me.”
The air sparkles as the dead agree. They want me to go with him.
I take the first step, but it feels forced. I push myself to take another and another until I am at the door. I push on it and shiver when the cold air hits my face.
“The sin eater at Subway, imagine.” His voice is deep and sexy. His movements are confident and relaxed. I know him. It's stuck in my brain.
“Are you my father?” I ask, starstruck.
He looks lost. “What? Lucifer? No. That's an odd question.”
My movements feel jerky and tense.
His eyes dart to Mona. “Do you always bring food with you?”
Horror crosses my face. I gasp and take a step back and bump into her.
His eyes widen and his hands lift. “I'm sorry. I never meant to offend you. Is she your lover?”
I look back at her and laugh.
He smiles along, but is clearly confused.
A horrified look takes over my face. “Sh
e is my friend.”
He tries to swallow his confusion down but he can't. “You have friends—friends who are human? Without—well, you know.”
I look at Mona and cock an eyebrow. “Yeah. I'm a human too. Well, I was, like two months ago.”
He looks completely lost. “I don’t understand.”
I laugh. “Welcome to my world. Who are you? Or should I ask, what are you?”
He chuckles and points to a long black car that resembles a hearse. “I'm a friend of your mother's. At least, I was once.”
The feeling in my stomach is getting worse but I'm terrified. “Are you my father? Tell me the truth.”
His face grows cold. “No. No, your father is a bad man. I am indifferent to humans as they are fodder for most of us, but I am not like your father. His intentions have always been focused on revenge and suffering.” He sniffs the air. “I suggest we move this conversation to a safer place.”
He walks to the car and opens the door to the backseat. Mona is gripping my shirt. I look across the parking lot to the car speeding toward us. My heart nearly stops. I run to the backseat of the car and jump in.
I shout, “It's him!”
The man climbs in the backseat and the car starts. I can't see into the front to see the driver. The dark glass all around the car prevents us from seeing him outside and in. He drives like a pro. He backs up and spins the car in a half circle. When the white car pulls into the parking lot, our black car speeds past it. Through the tinted glass I can see Wyatt and the woman and man from the church.
Our driver speeds away, skidding and peeling out at every possible moment.
We are flung about and smashed into the windows.
The man on the seat across from us sits perfectly still. The movements of the car don’t move him.
We drive this way until the car hits a bumpy area. Then we drive slowly. I look out into the night at the forest around us.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He smiles. “My home. The Van Helsings will not come there.”
I frown. “You don’t know Wyatt very well, do you?”
He shakes his head. “The youngest of the sons? No, I do not. They fear my lands. Have since we left the old country. They lost a lot of family at my hands. I don’t believe they will want to run the chance of that happening again.”
