I really hoped Fabrizio had something for me. Because I had no idea where to start.
I also thought a lot about Solomon’s Temple itself, if it might be the solution to finding my own purpose. It allegedly held all manner of wonders. Probably answers. I realized I was like those people who bought lottery tickets when the jackpot grew ridiculously high, fantasizing about what they would do when they won. I let out a sigh. Real rewards came from work.
And somehow, some way, I really wanted to outwork these Sons of Solomon.
Their very name was a lie. I was the heir to Solomon’s Temple. I had the Seal to prove it. I didn’t care how many books they had read about him. I realized I was breathing heavily, so forced myself to calm down.
“Put your toys away,” Roland said from behind me in a stern growl. I glanced back at him, realizing I had both the Seal of Solomon and the silver butterfly Nate had given me in my hands, like I was subconsciously considering asking him for help—a place to start.
He did have a lot of archaic knowledge, and I would prefer asking him to Fabrizio. But…what if Nate asked to join me?
I didn’t want that. I couldn’t explain why, but this felt personal, and not just because of my relation to Solomon. No, something else about this whole thing seemed to stoke a fire deep within me. Perhaps it was my fear of Last Breath. Perhaps it was the challenge. Perhaps it was greed, not wanting to potentially have to share the prize with Nate Temple when I won.
I smiled absently, realizing I had phrased it as if it was a foregone conclusion, even though I had no idea where to start.
“You called Fabrizio?” I asked Roland, tucking the Seal and charm into different pockets.
Roland glanced down at his phone, grunted, and then pocketed it. “Yes. He’s waiting.”
“Good. I guess. Any words of advice? I don’t want the Vatican involved.”
Roland cleared his throat. “There’s something you should know about Fabrizio, Callie…” Roland’s eyes grew distant, perhaps respectful, but I also sensed a healthy dose of fear, as if Roland had only just now considered that he and Fabrizio stood on opposite sides of a line in the sand, whether they wanted it or not. That Fabrizio’s apparent reputation was now a threat to him personally. “Fabrizio currently has the most kills of any Shepherd. And before you dismiss that, we were very, very close.”
I arched a brow. “Oh.”
“If anyone knows about Last Breath it would be him. And I really think you should press him on the Doors below the church. As Head Shepherd, he might know something I was never told. But remember, he stands for the Vatican, first.”
He didn’t sound frustrated or upset. But crimson fire was suddenly crackling over his knuckles, and he didn’t seem to realize it. Was he being…protective of me?
“You do care about me, you filthy bloodsucker!” I teased.
He grunted, releasing his power immediately. I sensed a flicker of a smile on his cheeks, but it was soon replaced by frustration. I didn’t even have to ask. He wanted to come with me, but knew he couldn’t. He might be a liability, having to sleep all day. And he hadn’t been to the magic fountain. Barring all that, he had vampire drama to deal with, even if he denied it to me.
I had known him long enough to realize when he was hiding something.
Cain strolled up, studying us with a suspicious frown. His hand rested on the hilt of the long dagger on his belt, but sensing my attention, he flipped his shirt over it and lowered his hand to his side.
I realized they were both staring at me, waiting for my Gateway to Abundant Angel Catholic Church, where Fabrizio had moved in.
I slowly shook my head. “We should probably call an Uber a few blocks from here, because I think Last Breath can sense travelling.”
Cain looked uneasy at the thought of walking the streets or taking a car, but he gave a resigned nod after a moment. “Even if you’re wrong, the risk of you being right is too high. He did show up immediately after you tried Shadow Walking.”
I nodded. “If I’m wrong, you can tease me about it later. Plus, it’s daylight. How scary can a walk be?” Cain gave me a frank look, but I ignored it.
Roland pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it over to me. “I’ll pick it up when you return. It’s got the Uber app on it,” he said.
And I wanted to kick myself for not even thinking about that. My phone had drowned. Duh.
Roland looked suddenly awkward, dry-washing his hands, and I saw Cain’s face stretching into a wide grin. That’s when I realized what the situation looked like—a dad sending his daughter off to college, trying to make sure she had everything she needed, and…
He didn’t quite know how to say goodbye. It was…cute.
Then he suddenly wrapped me up in a tight hug, which was extremely unlike him. “Be safe, Callie,” he grumbled. “I don’t know how I would react if anything happened to you. If you don’t come back…I may just drown Kansas City in fountains of blood,” he promised in a very cold tone. Then he released me and took a step back.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t smile for so long that my own smile faltered and died.
Cain chuckled. “Maybe I’ll just stick around here, then. Papa Roland isn’t half as bad as you made him sound. He’s positively delightful.”
I shoved Cain towards the doors. “Don’t joke about that, Roland,” I warned him, turning to walk backwards out of the church. “I’m supposed to be the scary one.”
Roland didn’t apologize or take back his comment. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t smile. He just stared at me with those damning crimson eyes, and I knew that inside, his soul was screaming. That he had meant every word. I pretended not to feel the shiver that danced down my spine as I stepped outside and the door closed with a solid thud.
“Remember that look I told you he had on his face after you disappeared from the party?” Cain asked cheerfully. “That was it.”
Chapter 22
We had walked a few blocks in the early morning light, and as a testament to our crap luck, the sky had opened up into a steady drizzle, getting us wet all over again. At least I was no longer wearing a dress, much more comfortable in my dark jeans, tank-top, and jacket. It was a relief when we climbed into the Uber, because every loud shout, engine backfire, or general street-ruckus had made us flinch, waiting for Last Breath or a Son of Solomon to jump out at us in the middle of broad daylight. Mainly because Cleo had remained unseen at the party, blending in so fluidly that there had been no way to discern her from any other guest.
So, any casual pedestrian could be a threat.
I leaned back in my seat after a few minutes of directing the driver to ignore his GPS unit and take side streets. I realized I had been checking behind us, watching our fellow drivers for a tail. I would have been embarrassed, but Cain looked just as concerned—like we were bugs trapped in a box. We definitely didn’t let our driver feel very safe, what with the thick paranoia we brought into the car with us, and I think he was relieved when we suddenly shouted for him to stop by a random laundromat. I hopped out first, but Cain lingered for a few moments before climbing out.
The driver didn’t even ask for a good review before he took off.
We leaned against the wall of the laundromat—only a few blocks from our destination—trying to blend in with the foot traffic and get a read on the street life. Cain even lit a cigarette, watching the pedestrians across the street in apparent boredom.
“When did you start smoking?” I asked absently, keeping my eyes on the street.
He grunted. “Off and on for a few hundred years.”
I frowned. “Why aren’t they dripping wet?” I asked, remembering our plunge in the fountain.
He grinned. “I swiped these from the driver while I was threatening his dog’s life if he ever mentioned our fare to anyone,” he said in a peppy tone, puffing on his cigarette. “Cigarettes are great camouflage. People see what they want to see. Watch.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke towards a couple walking past us.
They took one look at Cain’s cigarette and the smoke, frowned slightly, and stepped wide of us, not even actually looking at us. Cain shrugged, his point proven. “A smoker is obviously smoking, whereas two people leaning against a wall with their hands in their pockets are doing something nefarious.”
I nodded, folding my arms across my chest dramatically. “I thought you were quitting that nasty habit?” I snapped, loud enough to earn an approving smile from another woman walking with her significant other in the opposite direction.
Cain smiled, extinguishing his smoke. “There you go. Quick learner.”
I rolled my eyes and began walking, making my way towards Abundant Angel a few blocks away. Almost there. We weren’t far from Darling and Dear, but I didn’t have time for their nonsense. I also didn’t want to run into Phix. The Sphinx thought it was her job to treat me like her pet. If she showed up, everyone would run screaming in fear, and we probably wouldn’t be able to talk her out of tagging along…wherever we ended up going—which could be a problem, depending on what Fabrizio said. She was probably still out on her errand for Darling and Dear anyway, or she would have already ambushed me.
“What if Fabrizio can’t help us?” Cain asked. I sighed, not having an answer. Cain patted me on the shoulder reassuringly. “It needed to be asked. I’m sure we would hear from the Sons of Solomon at some point or another,” he said jovially. “Then we could just keep killing them until we learn what we need.”
I arched an eyebrow at his ridiculous plan. “Let’s make that our last option.”
He shrugged. “Just spit-balling.”
We rounded the corner, coming into more familiar territory. I glanced at Cain, pointedly. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he muttered darkly, recognizing the area.
“You know, when I first met you, around here, now that you bring it up,” I said, pretending not to have heard him, “you seemed to have a lot more skills. You disappeared right before my eyes at Dorian’s house, you could conceal yourself, even use a little bit of magic. But back at the fountain…” I trailed off suggestively.
Cain cursed under his breath. “I haven’t been killing as often. It…powers me up. And I may have had a toy or two from Darling and Dear for some of that. Maybe.”
I turned to look at him. “Really?”
“Some idiot girl talked me out of killing things. I’ve been reconsidering lately, since I’m learning she hasn’t been practicing what she preaches…”
I scowled back at him. “Point taken,” I finally admitted. Then I patted him on the back. “I’ll keep you safe while you figure out how to get your mojo back.”
We walked on in silence, and I found myself thinking back on the time I had chased Cain through a nearby alley. It was one of the first times I had used my Silver magic—granting me a strange, wondrous chromatic hue of the world before me. It had broken through Cain’s concealment spell, and I’d been able to see a few milliseconds into the future—seeing Cain’s avoidance tactics a moment before they had actually happened. I wondered if that form of sight could come in handily now, maybe pick out any Sons of Solomon in the crowd. Maybe even give me a clear vision of Last Breath’s true form.
Pedestrians filled the street here, and I realized one was staring directly at me, smiling crookedly as if someone was using him as a puppet. My boots abruptly began to tingle.
I hadn’t even noticed that I’d gripped the Seal of Solomon at some point in our walk. Cain hissed at me. “Whatever you’re doing, I can feel it,” he growled in a low hiss. “And if I can feel it, someone else probably can, too!” he warned.
I released the Seal rapidly, but it was already too late. The creepy guy smiling at me suddenly touched the shoulder of a woman beside him. He then promptly shuddered, lifting his head and frowning at me as if wondering why I was glaring at him.
The woman looked up at me sharply, cocked her head, and began to laugh as she strode right for me. “Hello, Callie. I’ve missed you,” she said. My boots were tingling as they faced her, but no longer when they faced the previous guy—who now looked creeped out by the woman he had just touched.
Cain snarled at the woman, shoving me back as he jumped between us.
I wanted to crawl out of my own skin because the toes of my boots pinched when facing a Demon. But they had never tingled before.
“Samael,” I breathed, more for Cain’s benefit. The Demon I had freed from the Seal of Solomon had found me. But how? Was it from me fondling the Seal or something else? I’d touched the Seal a few times today with no consequence, so what had changed?
The woman continued smiling at me, head cocked oddly as she touched another pedestrian. He instantly reached out, walking through a crowd, and touched someone else.
Who touched someone else.
Then someone else.
Like a line of dominos, everyone began touching a fellow commuter in a dizzying blur so that I couldn’t tell where Samael had ended up. I turned from person to person, searching for that grim smile. But everyone seemed confused at their subconscious decision to touch a random stranger, and then confused further to see everyone around them wore equally confused expressions.
To find yourself in a crowd of alarmed, confused strangers was definitely unsettling. And the crowd was growing as more and more people stopped to see what the traffic was all about.
A small child suddenly lunged out from her mother’s side and tackled Cain, hurling him into the glass window of a nail salon behind us with obviously possessed force. Then she ran up to a pair of old men staring incredulously at the broken window and the sounds of the man cursing and growling within. The child tapped the man on the leg, looking for all the world like she was trying to get his attention.
Then she collapsed in a heap, and the old man looked directly at me, winked, and touched his buddy. You get the picture. A whole lot of bad touching was going on.
The child’s mother shrieked in horror, scrambling up to her daughter and snatching her up. She ran headlong into another growing swarm of startled onlookers, begging for their help.
The crowd stared from the sobbing child, to me, and then to the broken window, like I’d had something to do with any of it. If I had been feigning confusion like everyone else, I might have fooled them, but as it was…they were suddenly a concerned mob, and they looked on the verge of making a terrible mistake. Attacking me.
All because Samael was a prick, possessing their bodies just to toy with me.
Cain chose that moment to jump back through the window, glass shards falling from his shoulders, his hands and cheeks cut up from the attack. He locked eyes with me. “RUN!”
I did, hating myself for it.
I lowered my shoulder and barreled through the crowd, disgusted at the thought of any of them possibly being Samael in disguise, but I paid close attention to my boots, begging not to feel them tingle—ready to change course at even the slightest sensation. I glanced back over my shoulder to see Cain fighting a crowd of angry men, shouting at them to back down before they hurt themselves. Random outbursts of laughter sprang up from the crowd as Samael hopped from body to body, using them like sock puppets.
I flung a hand back, using the crowd around me to conceal my gesture, and flung magic backwards. A blast of air pummeled everyone to the ground, including Cain, but I knew he would be fastest back to his feet. “Stop fighting and run, Jackass!” I shouted. I saw him jump to his feet and run in the opposite direction from me, fleeing a crowd of angry men climbing to their feet to pursue him.
I heard sirens as a cop car skidded to a stop, two armed officers jumping out to demand what the hell was going on with the brawling pedestrians. One used a bullhorn to order everyone to stand down.
I ignored them, darting through the crowd, flinching at every touch, my heart racing as I studied faces for any smiles. My boots didn’t tingle or pinch, but I knew Samael could simply start another chain of touches and end up ahead of me in an instant.
I slowed my pace as I reached t
he back of the growing crowd, brushing shoulders stiffly against anyone in my way, but doing my best to not draw attention since the police were obviously searching for someone suspicious and I didn’t want the crowd turning on me. I finally broke free and settled on a brisk pace, heading towards the church as fast as I could while appearing casual.
“You can’t run from me, Callie,” a voice said from behind me. I spun, hands out to fight, but the little old lady staring at me from the edge of the crowd didn’t move. Just grinned at me with a mouth of missing teeth. The toes of my boots throbbed as they faced her, and I walked backwards as fast as possible, keeping an eye on her hands. “We are family, and blood calls to blood,” she said. “But don’t worry. I don’t want you dead. I want to thank you. I also wanted to wish you good luck on your little game. Because if you ever want to face me in the future, you desperately need to win. And I so desperately want to face off against you in the future…” The woman rubbed her gnarled hands together excitedly, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. “Just think of what good you could do with all that power. The power of the Doors at your disposal. I would offer you my assistance, but you’ve already got an associate of mine wrapped around your finger. Maybe I’ll relay some advice to him now and then…” She cackled loudly, and then turned away, dipping back into the crowd.
I shivered, continuing to walk backwards, keeping an eye on any potential chain of pedestrians that would allow her touch to get ahead of me. It made me look like a crazy person, flinching from person to person as I practically ran backwards down the street.
I bumped into someone and spun with a squawk of terror, ready to rip their head off.
Cain gripped me by the shoulders, having exited from an alley directly beside me. “Easy, Callie. It’s just me.”
I wrapped him up in a hug—but only after verifying my boots didn’t pinch when facing him—and let out a sob.
He draped an arm around my shoulder protectively and half-jogged me towards Abundant Angel Catholic Church down the block. His other hand rested on the hilt of the dagger at his hip. “How dangerous could a daytime walk be,” he muttered sarcastically.
Sinner: Feathers and Fire Book 5 Page 12