by Duncan, Lex
“To expand its territory, maybe?” Max suggested.
“Demons don't have territory, Maxie,” Aralia said.
Dante got a box of chalk from his desk and wrote something down on the board between the rows of pictures and letters. “Power. That's what it wanted. Demons draw their strength from other living beings, especially humans. Can you imagine the combined force of everyone in that church?”
“It would have been enough to sustain it for months.” Aralia pulled our blanket closer.
“How would that work, though?” I asked. “I thought demons got their power from possession.”
“They do,” Dante replied, “but sacrifice is another means of acquiring it, provided the energy is channeled correctly.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, needing a moment to process everything. “So Elias was possessed and the church was built because the demon possessing him wanted a bunch of sacrifices. And the church was a way to gather everyone together.”
Dante sat on the edge of his desk. “Correct.”
By that logic, the founding of the entire city was based on Elias’s sick herding. The church provided a springboard for the development of everything else. Stone Chapel wouldn't be Stone Chapel without it. But without it, none of this would have happened. It was a chilling realization.
I was born and raised in a city founded on literal sacrifice. Built on a foundation of blood and lies. Sixty-seven people died because Elias wished it. No wonder the demon infestation was so bad here.
“The settlers here revered Elias as a prophet,” Dante continued. He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “He coerced his followers into gathering at the church. Claimed God wanted him to do what he did. And then he killed them.”
I shivered. Elias Cromwell was a monster. And I had a feeling we'd only scratched the surface of his atrocities. “Why would someone try to cover it up as an earthquake? Why not a hurricane? Or a…nor’easter or something?”
“I wondered that, too, but it makes sense,” Dante said.
I waited for him to clarify. He didn't, too lost in his own thoughts to untangle mine.
“A mass sacrifice like that could have easily generated enough force to cause some sort of tectonic shift,” Aralia murmured, subdued by the depressing subject matter. “Sacrifice is similar to exorcism in that it causes the Veil to rip. Sixty-seven of them all at once would have created an energy so massive that an earthquake could have very well happened.”
I pulled my knees to my chest and hugged my legs tight, fighting back the nauseous feeling in my gut. I couldn't tell if it was from the concussion or everything else or both. “Whoever's doing all this clearly doesn't want me involved.”
“Yes, it certainly seems you've made someone angry,” Aralia agreed. “But who? That Gershom man is in jail and I doubt he's smart enough to orchestrate all this from there.”
“The mayor is our best guess,” Dante said.
Ugh. The mayor. With his stupid press conferences and his stupid hair and his stupid smile. He'd been weirdly unobtrusive lately, which only made me distrust him more.
A collective hush fell over the four of us. The fire popped and Mo came padding in through the door. He laid down next to me and let out the dog equivalent of a sigh.
I scratched him behind the ear. “Me too, Mo.”
“What about the kazraach?” Max asked. He kept glancing down at his phone.
Dante scribbled on the chalkboard. KAZRAACH. “Whoever put the book there summoned them. Let’s, for all intents and purposes, assume it was the mayor. Since he’s our only real suspect at the moment.”
I raised my hand.
Dante lifted a brow. “Yes, Beatrice?”
“Yeah, I have a question,” I said. I had tons of questions. This was getting more confusing by the second. “If the mayor’s our guy, who’s possessing him? Kazraach can’t get here without a really powerful summoner, right? Got to be a really powerful demon.”
Aralia coughed. A fake cough, a dry noise laden with deception.
I looked at her, suspicion aroused. “Something in your throat?”
She huffed and lifted her head off my shoulder. Instead of responding to me, she spoke to Dante. “Just tell her. This has gone on long enough and you know how I feel about lying.”
Oh, great. The Compiling Evidence game had turned into hide and seek. Let's see what we can hide from Beatrice this time. My favorite.
“One of you better tell me what's going on.” I looked at Dante. “You promised me.”
He shot Aralia a severe look and reluctantly, very reluctantly, returned his gaze to me. “I also asked you to give me a few days to sort things out.”
“We don't have a few days,” I said. “I'm tired of being lied to. I'm tired of being patient. I need to―”
Leave it to my phone to go off at the most inconvenient time. The generic ringtone chimed in my pocket and I would have ignored it had I not caught a glimpse of who was calling.
The Stone Chapel Sanatorium. Calling me at eight thirty at night. They never did that. They weren't allowed to nag me for money after six and Rosie had her phone privileges taken away after she attacked that nurse.
I swallowed hard. This wasn’t a courtesy call. “Hello?”
“Beatrice?” Pam's frantic voice said on the other end of the line. The thrum of the background noise, garbled conversations and high-pitched sirens, made it hard to hear her. “Beatrice, this is Pam. Something's happened. Your friend is gone.”
My mouth went dry. “Gone? What do you mean, gone?”
“We don't know the details yet, but she got out of her restraints, killed a guard, and ran.” She choked on the word killed. “The—the police are here. Please, Beatrice, you need to hurry.”
I stopped listening after she mentioned the police. I'd seen this scenario play out before. A possessed person escapes. Goes on a rampage. The police guns them down. The sore spot on the back of my head throbbed. I wanted to puke. I couldn't puke. I needed to do as Pam said. I needed to hurry. I needed to find Rosie before the police did. I needed to save her.
Ripping my tiara off, I ran for the door, knowing full well the others would follow.
***
Dante drove. The rest of us piled in the car and off we went. That his house was so close to the sanatorium was a blessing in disguise. It wasn't but five minutes until we pulled up. A flock of police cruisers gathered out front, lights flashing too brightly in the dark. Officers with muzzled dogs wandered the lawn, awaiting orders from their superiors. Pam was by a tree wiping tears from her eyes. Brother Luke rested a comforting hand on her shoulder.
I ran to them first. “What happened? Did they send anyone out yet? Where did she go?”
“Beatrice,” Brother Luke said, “you're here. Thank God. I was wondering if I should―”
“Where is she?” I didn't have time for this. I needed to find Rosie.
“She bolted for the woods,” he said. I turned to leave. He grabbed my wrist. “Beatrice, wait.”
I tugged against his grasp and pried at his fingers, a few hot tears dripping onto my hand. I'd held it together until now. But Rosie was out there somewhere. She needed me. “Let me go!”
Brother Luke’s voice turned soothing. A crust of red tinged his nostrils. His nose had been bleeding. “Beatrice, the police have already sent people out to look. They'll find her.”
That was the problem, jackass. “They’ll kill her, Brother Luke, I have to go find her right now before they do!”
Why didn't he get that? The police liked to pretend they were all about protecting and serving, but the reality was much different. They protected those they thought worthy of the service. The possessed didn't matter to them. Rosie didn't matter to them. They were going to murder her. My best friend. Murder her for something she couldn't control.
Dante came up behind me with Aralia and Max at his side. I felt marginally better with them there to back me up.
“Is there a problem here?” Dante asked coldly,
glaring Brother Luke.
He turned white as a sheet and his grip on my wrist weakened. I yanked it away and pondered whether or not it would be worth it to kick him in the balls in front of a bunch of cops who would probably charge me with assault. Given how freaked he looked by Dante's presence, it wouldn't be.
Sheer intimidation would have to do for now.
“Come on,” I told Dante and hustled toward the wall of trees behind the sanatorium. “Rosie went into the woods. We can still catch her.”
The distant wail of sirens got louder as we neared the trees. An ambulance came zooming up the drive and stopped in front of the sanatorium. EMTs in dark blue shirts jumped out. They had to have been going to receive the corpse of the person Rosie killed. I didn't want to think about it.
Chief Morales was speaking with another officer at the edge of the woods. Her jaw was tense, her eyes tired. She gave her associate a nod and sent them away.
I hurried over to her. “You have to call your people back.”
She blinked impassively, looking between me and the rest of my group. “What are you doing here?”
“The girl you're looking for is my best friend,” I explained quickly. “She didn't mean to hurt anyone, you have to believe me. She's sick. She has Faustian Syndrome. You can't kill her. You can't. Please, Chief Morales, she didn't know any better.”
My pleas didn't move her. “She killed someone, Beatrice. I can't let that go.”
I buried my fingers in my hair, tugging at the orangey strands. Frustration and fear stretched my nerves taut. This couldn’t happen, this couldn’t happen. I promised Rosie I’d always protect her and I couldn’t break that promise now. “I know, but you can't kill her. Let me find her first.”
“I already have people looking for her,” Chief Morales said. “If they can't find her, I'm sending in the dogs.”
Sending in the dogs. Like Rosie was an animal to be hunted. A bounty to be won. She'd done a lot of bad things in her life. She attacked me. She stabbed her nurse with a syringe. She murdered that guard. But I couldn't bring myself to hate her for it. I knew her in a way no one else did. I knew her before she'd gotten too sick to function.
What kind of friend would I be if I abandoned her now? What kind of sister would I be if I left her to die in those woods? It was supposed to be us against the world. Never had this been more literal until now. Standing face to face with Chief Morales, I knew I had to do something. For Rosie's sake.
“Give me twenty minutes,” I said, and ran.
***
I could hear Chief Morales yelling after me, but I didn't care. I couldn't stop until Rosie was safe. I crashed into the forest, the undergrowth snagging at my clothes, stray branches clawing at my cheeks. The darkness cloyed my senses. I slowed my pace to a jog to make up for my lack of sight.
“Rosie?” I yelled, tripping over an exposed root. I caught myself on the nearest tree and yelled out again. “Rose? It's Beatrice! You don't have to hide anymore!”
“Are you trying to alert the whole bloody police force?” Aralia's annoyed voice hissed from behind. A few loud snapping noises succeeded her. She groaned. “Ugh! I hate nature. It's so pointy.”
“You didn't have to follow me,” I said, though I was glad she did. Her night vision would come in handy.
“Any sign of her?” Dante's voice entered the fray, followed by Max's grunt. He didn't like nature, either.
At least the gang was all here.
I pushed forward. “Rosie!”
“Oh my God,” Aralia grumbled.
I ignored her. Kept my puny human eyes peeled for police officers or attack dogs. The trees were so tall and so voluminous that looking up offered no glimpse of the sky, just more blackness. The canopy allowed little moonlight through, so I had to rely on my other senses to navigate.
My other senses and Dante, that is. Every time I stumbled too close to a tree he grabbed me and pulled me in a safer direction.
“Thanks,” I said after the fourth save. My fingers ached with the cold. I flexed them into fists to keep them from getting stiff. Had to find her, I had to find her. “Rose―Hey!”
Without any sort of warning, Dante grabbed me and shoved me into a nearby bush.
I fell flat on my ass in the mud, spitting out a leaf I'd somehow eaten. “What the hell was that for?”
He ducked beside me and inclined his head to the clearing about fifteen feet in front of us. Yellow beams of light cut through the shadows, occasionally catching the stilted movement of something. Someone.
I gasped. Rosie. Had to be.
“We have you surrounded!” A voice said, sounding so much like every cheesy cop movie in existence that it was almost comical.
Too bad I needed them to go away. They couldn’t talk Rosie down like I could.
Abandoning reason, I lunged out of the bush.
“No!” Dante caught my hand and tugged me back. “Stop. It's dark. They're nervous.”
“So?!” I whispered fiercely. “They're going to shoot Rosie!”
“They'll shoot you if you aren't careful.”
“Don't be stupid, Beatrice!” Aralia said from behind a tree. Max crept around, looking for a place to hide. He accidentally found it when he tripped and fell behind a dead log.
The noise was enough to send the flashlight beams zooming our way. Shit.
“Max, you bloody idiot,” Aralia shoved him so hard that when he tried to get up, he fell down again.
The figures of no less than six police officers advanced forward. Some held flashlights, others held guns. One of them demanded we come out to where they could see us.
Dante went first, his hands raised above his head. “I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding.”
“Quiet!” The officer barked. He had a gun and a flashlight. The gun was pointed at Dante. The flashlight was pointed at me. “The rest of you! Out here! Now!”
“You have to let us go,” I begged. We were so close to Rosie. She was in that clearing somewhere, I knew it, I saw her. “Please―”
“Get your hands in the air!”
“But―”
The gun swung from Dante to me. I froze. That simple action was scarier than any demon I'd faced so far. Demons were made for killing. They were hunters. Predators. That they made it a point to attack me all the time wasn't surprising. It was what they were supposed to do.
To have another person―a police officer, no less―point a gun at me and essentially threaten me with death if I didn't do exactly what he said exactly when he said it was terrifying. Even more terrifying was that he could have gotten away with it all because he was wearing a badge. For the first time in my life, I truly thought I was going to die.
“Hands!” The officer screamed. “Now!”
“Beatrice,” Dante said quietly. “Do what he says.”
I wanted to. I really did. But I was the deer to the officer's headlights. And it wasn't because of the gun.
Another figure appeared behind the row of officers, and I knew exactly who it was long before my eyes could figure it out.
“Rosie,” I said hoarsely, moving to take a step. I'd forgotten the gun, forgotten the officer. She was there. Right there. “Rosie!”
“Beatrice, don’t—”
A shot rang out.
In that instant, everything went to hell. I expected pain. I’d never gotten shot before, but I had to assume that it hurt. Nothing hurt.
Nothing hurt because I wasn’t the one who got shot.
Gasping for air, Dante collapsed to the ground. Aralia rushed to his side.
The officers fell one by one, their ends coming in the form of sickening cracks as their necks were snapped. The man who pointed the gun at me didn't get such a merciful death. I watched on in terror as a branch was driven through his midsection. Blood erupted from his mouth. His eyes got so wide that I could see the light die from them when the branch twisted. His hands gripped it in one last attempt to save himself.
He failed. Joined his
fellow officers in the mud.
I breathed. Swayed. Someone caught me.
“Beatrice!” Max said. “Are―are you okay?”
I shook my head. Stared blankly at carnage in front of me. It stared back.
Max followed my gaze. Blanched. “Holy shit,” he choked. “Holy shit. They're dead, they're all dead!”
“It's all right, darling,” Aralia's soothing croon mingled with Max's panic. Dante kept gasping for air like he couldn’t get enough of it. “You'll be all right. Just breathe, try to breathe. I know it's hard.”
Max stumbled away to puke in a browning patch of undergrowth. His heaves snapped me out of my daze. I needed to move. I―...I needed to do something to fix the mess I created. Shaking, I crouched next to Dante. A dark red stain bloomed on his chest and blood ran from his nose. The muscles in his arms and legs twitched, clumps of scarlet foam bubbling at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh my God,” I pushed the hair from his eyes and took my jacket off, pressing it gingerly against his wound. He groaned. “O-oh my God. Dante, I―I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, I―I should have―”
“We don't have time for this,” Aralia said briskly. She shoved me aside and pressed down harder on my jacket. Dante’s groan turned into a scream. Sweat dripped from his forehead despite the freezing temperatures. “We need to stop the bleeding and get the bullet out as soon as possible.”
A goal. We had a goal. A tangible goal. Okay. “Wh―what do you need me to do?”
“Stop acting like you’re the one with the bullet in your chest and hold him down.” She grimaced. “This is going to hurt.”
Twenty-Eight
I took Dante's hand and leaned down to press my forehead against his, making an effort not to close my eyes. It was my fault he got shot. I needed to see his pain to make sure I never made the same mistake again.
“Shh,” I said feebly, brushing my thumb across his bloody knuckles. “It's okay, it's okay. You're going to be fine.”
Aralia removed my jacket from Dante's wound threw it in a bush. “Keep him distracted. Do everything you can to keep his mind off the pain. The bullet went in deep. We leave it in there any longer and it will kill him.”