He presses his hand against the wall next to the door through which we entered. A panel slides open to reveal a storage room filled with wooden boxes. They’ve been knocked over, and coins of all sizes and colors are spread over the floor.
“That must have been the work of the troll. It got greedy and robbed its own boss.”
“The sin of the sixth circle,” Vicky whispers.
Charlie doesn’t say anything. He stands there in the doorway frozen, as if someone put a spell on him. Then he sucks in his breath with a choking sound.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, hurrying to cross the distance between us.
I place a hand on his shoulder and try to look him in the eye. “Charlie? Talk to me. What happened? Are you in pain?”
Gisella runs to his other side, with an equally worried look on her face. When Charlie doesn’t respond, her gaze moves through the hidden room. She freezes too. Her eyes grow wide. “Eh… Dante?”
My heart beats unnaturally loud and fast when I turn my head. All strength floods from my limbs, and I collapse onto the floor. I can hear my own breathing, unsteady and wheezing. I want to look away, but I can’t. Behind the fallen crates, the shape of two giant wings are burned into the wall. And although I’ve never seen anything like this before, I instantly know what it means.
An angel was killed here.
CHAPTER 28
“Quinn.” His name comes out choked, and I swallow.
“You don’t know that,” Charlie says, but he doesn’t sound convinced. “Do you have any idea how many angels there are?”
“No,” I answer.
He lowers his head. “Me neither.”
Gisella squints at the burn marks on the wall. “Call him.”
I bite my lip. Quinn hasn’t answered my calls for a while. He said he was busy restoring the balance in Heaven. What if he needed us? What if he died because we didn’t help him?
“Quinn?” Charlie calls out so loud I jump.
I wipe my hands on my pants and look up at the ceiling.
There’s no answer.
“Please no, please no,” I whisper.
Vicky grabs my hand and kisses it. I ball the other one into a fist.
“Quinn?” Charlie repeats. “Please answer us.” His voice almost breaks. Tears form in my eyes.
A long silence follows, and I think of all the great times I had with Quinn. Playing basketball, poker, singing karaoke… it all feels like another time, another life. Another world even. And it is. I lived in the non-magical world then with no idea of what was hidden right under my nose. Another world, a magical one, that gave me power, friends and a wonderful girl. But also a world that took away both of my parents and showed me so many ugly things. And now, it took─
“Dante?”
My head snaps back up to the ceiling. “Quinn?”
Charlie breathes in sharply. “Do you hear him?”
I nod. “Yes, but he sounds far away.”
“Dante, can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you!” I call back. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but I cannot enter the house you’re in.”
“What is… where… why didn’t you answer us sooner?” I stutter.
“I’m sorry, it has been crazy in Heaven lately. Before you restored the balance of the universe, something broke into Heaven. It took us some time to track it.”
“But you found it?”
“Yes, it was a demon. We killed it.”
My eyes grow wide, and the others send me questioning looks.
“What?” Charlie asks. “What is he saying?”
I give them a recap, and they all gasp.
“What kind of demon was it?” I ask Quinn.
“A golden one.”
I bite my lip. “He was sent by Trevor. I’m sure of it.”
“We don’t know that,” Vicky says.
“Well, we saw Trevor leading the wolf demons of the sixth circle. They were all killed, so it makes sense that he’d be in charge of the demons of the fourth circle now. And Shelton Banks is probably helping him.” I rub my face hard. “I think the Devil has broadened his plans for domination.”
“You think Lucifer will also try to take over Heaven?” Quinn sounds stunned. “That’s a bit ambitious.”
“Is it?” I retort. “I mean, how many demons have you seen in Heaven in your time as an angel?”
“Only this one.”
“Exactly.”
“Anyway,” Quinn says. “I need to get going. I’d better report this, and we’ve got a missing angel to find. I hope that has nothing to do with this.”
I clear my throat. “Eh… Quinn? I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
“More bad news?”
I glance at Charlie. Is this the way to tell Quinn? He shakes his head.
“Can we meet outside in the garden?” I signal to Charlie to take a picture of the burn marks, and he takes out his phone.
“I really don’t have much time, Dante. Just tell me.”
I hesitate. Vicky squeezes my hand. “Trust your heart, it knows best.”
Another look at the shape of the wings on the wall tells me enough. “We’re going outside. I want to tell Quinn in person.”
We walk back to the stairs in a silent, solemn procession. Quinn is waiting for us on the other side of the pool in his human form. He looks tired and worried. I walk up to him with Charlie while the others keep a respectful distance.
We bump fists as if we’re in the schoolyard waiting for the first day of school. If only things were still as simple as they were in those days.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Charlie says. “You scared us, you know.”
Quinn slaps his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” He turns to me. “What’s the bad news?”
Charlie grabs his phone, but I stop him. “Not yet.”
Quinn’s dark eyes flick from Charlie to me. “What is it? Tell me already.”
The air around us gets colder when Quinn reads our thoughts. “An angel was killed.”
“Yes, in the basement of this house. By demons.”
“How do you know?” Quinn asks softly.
Without a word, I gesture at Charlie, who hands Quinn his phone.
Our friend gasps and stumbles.
I place a hand against his shoulder to steady him. “I’m sorry.”
“Did you know him? Was he a friend?” Charlie asks.
Quinn closes his eyes for a second and hands the phone back. “I am God’s right hand. I know all the angels.” He doesn’t answer the second question, but the look on his face tells us enough.
I’m not sure what to do, so I follow Vicky’s advice and listen to my heart. It tells me to hug him.
Quinn lets me. I feel his chest contracting as he holds back his tears.
“Is there anything we can do?” I ask when we let go.
Determination takes over his face. “Do what you were born to do. Finish your mission. It will save us all.”
He vanishes before I can respond.
Charlie lets out a deep sigh. “I’ve never seen him like that.”
“He never lost a friend like this before, and I think he never witnessed an attack on Heaven before either.”
My best friend looks up at the sky, as if he can find a trace of Quinn there. “This wasn’t an attack yet, you know. This was a scout. The attack is yet to come.”
I turn to look at the mansion. “Then we’d better start turning this place upside down. There’s a reason the angel was killed in there.”
We split up in twos and threes again and each take a floor to search.
Me and Vicky start in the basement, where we search for any more hidden rooms. It’s hard not to look at the wing marks.
“I think that angel was supposed to take the Cards of Death to us,” I say when I turn over the last crate of coins and find nothing interesting in it.
Vicky stares at me through the doorway. “You think Heaven has been helping us in secret?”
I nod. “They’ve seen my grandfather and my father lose. I guess they figured I could use a little help.”
“Well, they were right. But now the Devil knows about it. Maybe that’s why he wants to attack Heaven too.”
I kick an empty crate and head for the door. “Come on, there’s nothing else to find down here.”
The kitchen and dining room don’t hold any surprises for us either. We turn all the cupboards upside down, take everything out of the china cabinet and inspect loose tiles on the floor. There’s nothing there. We move on to the bottom floor of the tower.
“Now it gets interesting.” I throw Vicky a smile over my shoulder as we walk into a giant library. It spans all three floors, and it’s filled to the rim with old books.
Vicky presses her hands against her temples. “How are we going to find anything in here? This will take weeks to go through.”
Charlie and Gisella appear in the doorway above us.
“I agree,” Charlie says. “There are so many books here, and we don’t even have an idea of what we’re looking for, you know.”
Silently, I take in the rows and rows of books.
“I’ll cast another spell.”
Charlie pushes a stray lock of blond hair from his eye. “How? You don’t know what we’re looking for.”
“No, but magic will. I already put something about it in the spell I cast outside, but it probably wasn’t strong enough. There must be some extra protection on these books, because we did find the secret room in the basement. Another spell on top of it might do the trick, though.” I turn to Vicky. “Right?”
She puts the book in her hand back on the shelf. “Maybe. It can’t hurt to try.”
I take out my Book of Spells and sit down in the armchair next to the winding stairs in the middle of the tower.
“We’ll check for hidden doorways and such while you write a spell,” Vicky says.
With words already spilling into my brain, I only nod. I pull out a pen and start writing.
Once the spell is done, I flip through my notebook and Dad’s to choose the ingredients.
I beckon Vicky and prepare everything with her before calling out to the others. “Get ready to grab whatever the spell reaches out to.”
They nod, and I step inside the circle of salt I drew on the floor.
“Need candles?” Vicky asks from my left, holding out different colors.
“Of course, I almost forgot.” I grab the one in her right hand. “Orange for attraction please. Four of them.”
While I place the candle on the east, Vicky takes three more from her pocket and puts them in the right spots.
“Thank you, babe.”
She blows me a kiss and steps aside. “The stage is yours.”
I pick up the incense stick and light it. Once the smoke reaches the next floor, I start turning.
“Let the smoke spread high and wide.
And cover every inch inside.
Let it show me what I need.
Give me what I need to read.”
After the third turn, I light another match and ignite the four candles. Then, I drop the incense stick into the herbs I mixed together.
As soon as the stick hits the herbs, the candles burn brighter. The smoke in the room thickens. I can no longer see anything, not even my own hands or the flames of the candles. That is, until the flames grow higher and higher. Sparks fly everywhere and connect with the smoke. It whirls around the books, searching. Now and then, there’s a bright flash, and the smoke halts at a book, but then it moves on.
After several minutes, I’m starting to worry. “I don’t think it’s working. I’m not strong enough to compete with Shelton Banks’ powers.”
Vicky’s voice comes from my left. “Patience. There’s a lot of books here.”
Another flash, bigger and brighter than the previous ones, lights up the whole tower. The smoke starts to gather in three different places. One cloud hovers next to the highest shelf on the top floor, one close to where Gisella is standing and one to my right. Vicky walks over to it but keeps a safe distance. I stay inside the circle, afraid to disrupt the spell.
All three smoke clouds dive between the shelves and pull out a book. Three books tumble down while the smoke disperses. Charlie, Gisella and Vicky each catch one of them. The last of the smoke tumbles down like ash and dissolves on the floor. The candles are blown out by a gust of wind.
I walk over to Vicky, who has opened the book in her hands.
“Look at this,” she says, pointing at a page in the middle.
Quickly, I read a couple of lines. “Is this the book your grandmother read before she was killed?”
She shivers. “I think so.”
“Then the spell definitely worked.” I look around for a bag but can’t find one. “Do you have a bag in your pocket? Or three? Those books look heavy.”
“Sure.” She digs up three sturdy bags and hands two of them to Charlie and Gisella, who have come down the stairs.
“You want to take the books with us?” Gisella asks with a frown.
“Of course. There’s no time to read them now.”
She shakes her head. “If we take them, Shelton Banks will come and find us.”
“He won’t know it was us,” I counter.
She snorts. “Sure he will. He’s a powerful Mage. He has ways of getting information, just like we do.”
I start pacing the room. “So, what do you suggest?”
She holds the book out to me. “Use that spell again. The one we used on my aunt. Make it look like no books were taken.”
Charlie nods enthusiastically. “Great idea. And then we make it look like something chased us away before we had a chance to check out this tower. We block all the doors from the outside, or something, you know. Make him think we never entered his library.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” I say. I gather the three books and turn to Vicky once again. “Do you remember what I need?”
She smiles. “Of course.”
CHAPTER 29
Several minutes later, I’ve got three fake books in my hands. I put them next to the real ones and squint to find something that doesn’t match.
“They’re perfect,” Vicky says. “He won’t notice until he grabs one of them.”
I sigh. “I hope so.”
Vicky apparates from one floor to another to put the three fake books in place. Then she helps me clean everything up.
Gisella and Charlie go back to the upper floor to see if the others found anything, and we follow them, after putting another spell on the library to make it look like we left without entering it.
My feet are itching to check out the rest of the house, but we’ve been here for far too long already. If Shelton Banks comes back and finds us here, we’ll lose a lot more than the three books we confiscated.
Taylar, Maël and Kessley are leaving a ballroom-sized bedroom when we reach the top floor. I’m relieved to see that Taylar still looks like his normal, transparent, pale self. No dark eyes or gray skin.
“Did you find anything?” I ask when I take in his content expression.
“A note with me and Lleyton’s name on it.” He holds it up. It’s a list of names. Some have been crossed out with red ink.
“Good,” I say. “We can hand that over to the police. Anything else?”
He puts the hit list in his trouser pocket. “Not yet, but we’ve got one more room to go.”
When we reach it, Charlie and Gisella are already collecting all kinds of dark stuff from a room that looks like a shrine to the Devil.
“Holy crap!” I call out. “Was this room unlocked and in plain sight?”
Charlie looks up with a grin. “Nope. Gisella removed the shadows that hid the door and used them to open it.”
“Nice job.” I enter the room a
nd look around. “Can someone take pictures of this room? The police might be able to use them.”
Charlie holds up his phone. “Already did. They’ll think he’s insane.”
I hold up my thumb.
Vicky passes me and looks around. “We should take all of this. There might be something valuable here, and even if there isn’t, it will slow down his plans.”
“I agree, but how do we hide the fact that we took his stuff?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Taylar comments.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “You want to leave an open invitation for an attack?”
He picks up a black cup, decorated with inverted crosses and eyes. “I think he’ll find out it was us anyway. Covering our tracks sends him the message that we’re scared of him.”
I throw my hands in the air. “I am scared of him!”
Maël steps between us. “Taylar makes a good point. Whether we are afraid of this man or not does not matter. Eventually we will come face to face with him. It is best if we make a good impression, now and later. Show him we are strong and confident, even if we are not.”
Taylar smirks at me over her shoulder.
I sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”
“So, we take it all?” Taylar asks eagerly.
“Yes. See if you can find any boxes to put it in.”
“This will never fit into your car,” Vicky says. “It’s too small.”
“She is fine the way she is,” I retort. “And you can all blink home carrying three boxes each.”
She chuckles. “Of course, master. And I can put the small stuff in my endless pocket.”
I grab her hand before she gets the chance to drop some knives in it. “Don’t. All of this emanates evil. I don’t want you carrying so much of it close to your body.”
She kisses me on the lips. “You’re so sweet.”
A loud rumbling makes us both look up.
There’s a hiss followed by the moaning of an animal.
Charlie stumbles back and bumps into me. “I opened the door to another secret room.”
A hidden room within a hidden room? This can’t be good.
We all back up, and I grab Vicky’s hand again. In the other, I conjure a lightning bolt.
The Sixth Ghost: a supernatural urban fantasy action adventure (Cards of Death book 6) Page 20