The world turns to screams in darkness and blood rushes through my ears as Luke zappities us somewhere, presumably Lisbon.
When the seemingly endless shrieking nightmare ends, I want to either throw up or shove Luke.
I am gutted. Gutted.
I couldn’t keep the Holy Lance out of the hands of the Order. Some guardian I’m turning out to be. Now here I am, half-trusting Luke again already—because he was nice to me and told me I’m not a screw-up. And also because if he’s telling the truth, maybe I can salvage my inability to hold onto the spear. That part of it, at least. If only I’d ever read a handbook for a night like this …
“You okay?” The concern on his gorgeous face seems real.
I force myself not to soften. “Do not do that again. Give me a little warning, please.”
“We had to come here sooner or later,” he protests. “It was a dramatic exit for effect.”
I suppress the renewed urge to shove him. Or grab him and hold on tight. I’ve been trying to avoid touching him, because despite the betrayal my brain is teaming up with my body to threaten a mutiny.
I briefly close my eyes and take a slow breath to get my focus back. A new question, one I probably should’ve already asked, occurs to me. “How do I know that you won’t just give them this part too? Why isn’t your deal still going?”
“Our deal was for them to get the spear and technically they have a part of it. Deals with Hell tend to favor us meeting the letter of the law, not the spirit—or the other way around if it works better for us.”
“Typical,” I say as if any of this is.
We’re on a quiet street, that nearly full moon still above us. A calico cat slinks along the top of a high stone wall that stretches in either direction, interrupted only by a closed iron gate. What I don’t see is a single tombstone or grave marker. Did he lie to me?
My hands go to my hips. “Where’s the cemetery we’re going to?”
“Cemitério dos Prazeres—the Cemetery of Pleasures—is just beyond the wall.” Luke punctuates this with a sweep of his hand. More dramatics.
I channel my body’s dumb attraction to him into a healthier emotion: frustration. “And how are we supposed to get in there, MacArthur genius of Hell? Climb?”
The smile he’s giving me dims, and I almost feel bad. Almost. “Have you no faith?”
“In you? No. I thought we covered that.”
A hint of the pout he wore earlier returns. “Fair enough. But I’ll show you.” He walks toward the entrance. “It’s not like this is how I planned my evening either, you know,” he says over his shoulder.
My interest spikes, despite my knowing I should stop being interested in Luke. I catch up. “What did you have planned?”
He hesitates. “Forget I said anything.”
“Something demonic, I take it.”
“I’m under a lot of pressure too,” he says. “Believe me or don’t. Either way, we’d better get a move on. I zapped us outside rather than inside in case Solomon’s smarter than I think and they’ve somehow beaten us here.”
Much like the entire evening since Solomon Elerion showed up at the Great Escape, I have no idea if I’m doing the right thing or not. But something in Luke’s voice makes me think he’s telling the truth. Besides it’s not like I can afford to get abandoned in Lisbon or let the cult win.
Once we reach the gates, I see a broad tree-lined avenue inside that ends at what looks like a small church. Fancy mausoleums surround it on either side, casting toothy silhouettes in the night. So we are at the oddly named Cemetery of Pleasures. But …
“Can you go inside here?” I ask.
His pretty forehead creases. “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”
“Sacred ground.” The idea of being sent to possibly face Solomon Elerion alone again isn’t a good one.
Luke takes a moment to process, then waves away my concern. “Oh no, cemeteries aren’t sacred ground. Not unless it’s people buried inside churches. The living made that one up to comfort themselves, but as far as reality goes the only things here are old bones and bodies. The souls are what matter in the after. The only place I can’t go inside here is that chapel.”
“Oh.” He might actually prove useful this time. I reach out and rattle the locked gate, the iron cool against my fingers. I consider trying the key I found in the altar, but something makes me keep it in my pocket. “We get in how?”
“I told you—easily.” He flicks his hand and smoke emerges from it, shaping into the form of a key not unlike the one I have.
I know I’m supposed to be impressed, so I school my expression into boredom. The smoke key flows into the lock and then, voilà, presto, just as Luke claimed, he reaches out and lifts the catch open.
“After you,” he says, pushing it wide enough for us to enter.
I ignore his smug look and walk in. He closes the gate behind us.
This is no potter’s field for paupers. It’s far too grand for that.
The dead are quieter than my chattering mind and we both follow their lead as we walk farther in. At the boundary of the church, Luke turns us toward the left. This is a cemetery unlike any I’ve ever been to—the signs make clear it’s arranged into streets. Most of the graves are aboveground mausoleums and we pass one with a glass door that allows us to see two shadowed coffins inside.
A dozen escape room ideas pass through my head. I think of Mom and if she knows I’m gone yet or what happened. Of how upset Mag and Jared must be if they told her already.
Focus, Callie, don’t freak yourself out. More.
“Where’s the tomb we’re going to?” I whisper to break my uneasy train of thought.
“Right over here,” Luke says. “Looks like the coast is clear from cultists.”
I should’ve guessed which tomb. Monteiro, true to form, has an elaborate mausoleum covered in Masonic symbols and more of his occult bent in the design. I check with the compass on my phone and confirm it faces east, like a good Masonic Temple would. There are grandly carved, if aged, columns and statuary.
A pale, dirt-flecked angel with a sword towers above us from the top spire, wings stretching out into the night. Directly in front of us is a black door, half-concealed by bare tree branches that have grown to stretch across the front. I scrape them aside.
I try to sense something holy, or even good, beyond it, but come up empty. I can’t shake the suspicion that Luke is playing me. Speaking of which … “What are we going to do when we get the spearhead?”
Do we destroy it? Hide it again?
“Shouldn’t we worry about that once we have it?” he asks.
“Okay.” But I’m worrying about it now. I already lost one half of the spear to the bad guys, and I don’t want it to happen again. “I take it that means you have no idea.”
I hold my phone—at 20 percent and fading—up to the door to take in the detail. A beehive is carved into the surface, and the door knocker is a bee toting a skull. This guy’s sense of drama makes Luke seem reserved. The bees are more Masonic stuff, a symbol of industry, busy bees. There’s another old-fashioned keyhole, flourishes in the metal around it.
“The house key of the mansion opened this too,” Luke says. “Same architect.”
Interesting. I put my hand in my pocket, and touch the key there. But I say, “You got it on you?”
He shakes his head.
“Then smoke key, please.”
Luke almost says something else, but then closes his mouth and extends his hand again. I want to see if his magic skeleton key trick works here. The smoke flows into the lock, but Luke frowns when nothing happens.
“It must be protected against magic,” he says, grim. He squints. “I can try to find the key…”
“No need,” I say, and finally remove the one I found in the basement at the chapel. “I’m pretty sure I have it. You’re not the only one who can keep secrets.”
His mouth opens, and I’m not sure if I’ll answer his questions or not. He must not be either, because he doesn’t ask them. He steps aside to give me clearer access.
“I’m impressed,” he says.
I press away the need to bask in the compliment. My body suddenly becomes aware of how close we’re standing and my heart flutters.
Please let this work. I fit the key into the lock and—
The door to the mausoleum opens.
“Even I almost said a silent prayer that time,” he says.
Despite what Luke said about cemeteries not being sacred places, I can’t help saying one for forgiveness before following him inside the dark mausoleum.
The odor of an old, undisturbed place hits my nose, and I breathe it in. The same scent as opening a long-shut closet at an estate sale. A treasure hunt of a different sort.
Luke holds up his phone to light the relatively tight quarters inside. Two large stone sarcophagi carved with more symbols are inside, presumably holding the bones of Monteiro and his wife.
“Do you think he’s buried with it?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” Luke pauses. “You going to be okay in here?”
“I’m not afraid of the surface.” I make it sound like he’s being ridiculous. But I stay within reach as we go farther inside.
“Can you tell where it is?” I ask.
Luke shushes me. “It’s here, but I’m trying to sense where.”
He circles the sarcophagi, brushing a hand over the top of each. I force myself to stay quiet and try not to examine any shadows too closely. My phone vibrates and I discover the battery is draining fast, just 10 percent left. I’ve got no service here, of course. I switch it off and stash it in my pocket.
“It’s you,” Luke says, half accusatory.
I sigh. “What’s me?”
“You’re why I can’t tell where it is.”
Great, yet another way I’m failing. Only why would I take his word for it? “I’m not some easily fooled security guard.”
“No,” he says. “It’s because you’re too distracting. Go stand outside.”
“Wha—” I sputter. “You go stand outside.”
He walks in close to me. So close I can see how big his pupils are in the reflection from his phone. His free hand glides forward and lightly rests on my hip. I can hardly breathe.
“I’m trying to sense good,” he says and I can’t help but watch his lips. “You are good. And unfortunately I seem a lot more interested in you than anything else in here. I don’t like that you’re upset. With me. So it’s hard for me to see past you and find what we’re looking for.”
I am struck dumb as that security guard. He removes his hand. I go to stand outside without a word and shut the door behind me.
A black cat meanders along the cemetery street outside, and I barely notice.
I’m good. I’m good and Luke is interested in me? He’s not just being a flirt? My heart beats too hard in my chest, and I will it to stop. Well, not stop. Slow down. Heart stoppage in Lisbon in the middle of the night would not be good.
Like I am apparently.
I shake my head. The cat has circled back to me and meows.
“Tell me about it,” I say.
The thing is? I wouldn’t have been surprised if the cat started to talk. Instead it rubs against my legs and then bolts into the night.
What was it Luke said earlier about having problems of his own? Suddenly I can’t help wondering what they are … Who is he, really? What were his plans for tonight before all this?
I’m completely aware of how dangerous these thoughts are. But there’s so much comfort in knowing for sure that while I may be a mess, I’m a good person. And that I’m not the only one who feels this strangely compelling attraction when we’re near each other.
The door to the mausoleum creaks open. I jump.
“Callie?” Luke asks.
“Uh, present,” I say. “You find it?”
Luke steps out and pulls me around to face him. “I did, but I knew better than to try retrieving it solo.”
I’m watching his lips again. They’re full of danger, those lips. “Would you burst into flame or something?” I ask and hear how breathless I sound.
The slightest frown, like an injury. “No. Well, maybe. Or it might be like before. But I knew you’d want to do the recovering.”
“Oh.” There he goes—being thoughtful again. Was I too harsh earlier? I can be sometimes. I know that about myself.
“We better not waste time though,” he says, and I nod and step past him. My arm brushes his chest as I pass, and there’s a catch in my breathing, an awareness of how close we are. My ears burn hot with embarrassment, and I reach up to make sure they’re safely tucked underneath my hair.
Not that he’s likely to be checking out my ears. Especially in darkness, Callie. Get it together.
“It was, in fact, buried with him,” Luke says.
I inhale deeply to reset my breathing and roll my eyes. “This guy.”
“A little much, even for my taste.”
Luke holds up his phone and I see he’s pushed aside the top of Monteiro’s sarcophagus. I hesitate. “Is it…”
For all my reading, my only experiences with things truly dark before tonight have been either in books or constructing the fake version of them for the business. I’ve been to funerals, but sterile, brightly lit ones. The people pumped full of chemicals that make them look exactly as they did alive, only more soft-focus and formal. If they really wanted to give the impression of sleeping, why dress people up?
“Callie?” Luke asks.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever get buried in pajamas? No, seriously, I can’t believe that’s never been a cultural thing. I want to be buried in pajamas.”
Luke shakes his head on a quiet laugh. “That is not what I expected you to say right now.” He moves in closer. “Which is what makes it so delightful.”
I let out a nearly hysterical laugh of my own. “Ha. Delightful.”
Luke takes my hand in his, and I think maybe he’s going to kiss me. I broke up with my last boyfriend, Jeremy, in May. We were both always awkward about this kind of thing even after we’d been together a year. He got a job in California that started right after graduation. We said good-bye over pizza. I was … relieved. Since then, I’ve been too consumed with figuring out how to get my life together to date anyone.
The thing is no matter how much I liked the guys I’ve been with, I’ve never had a true fireworks experience, the swell of phantom music, and definitely no heart-shattering emotions. My brain won’t stop observing instead of letting me be in the moment. So it hasn’t been hard to put a pin in romance.
But now, right now, all I’m thinking about is kissing Luke.
I realize how weird this is given that I vowed never to trust him. But he said I distracted him because I was good.
He reaches up with his other hand and tucks my hair behind my ear. I see him study it. Damn him, he did look at my ears.
Then again, he’s already damned.
“I thought so,” he says. “Callie, are you embarrassed? Am I missing something?”
“Yes.” Before I can talk myself out of this colossally, epically, biblically bad idea I lean in. “Kiss me.”
“What?” he asks.
My ears are on fire. “Never mind.”
“Not on your life. You asked me to kiss you.” He sounds as surprised as I feel. “I’m happy to—”
I press my lips to his.
He’s surprised, midsentence, and doesn’t react right away. I am mortified. Did I misread his consent? I start to pull back and apologize … Until he slides his hand around to touch my cheek and kisses me back so gently I think I’m hallucinating. The kiss lasts more than the ten seconds I count in my head, and then I realize I shouldn’t be counting and tell my brain to shut up and sink into the sensation.
It works.
The only thing that exists is me and Luke and the places where our bodies and our lips touch. My heart thumps hard in my chest and my skin electrifies and I want to climb inside him to get closer and closer. He deepens the kiss with a groan, and I’m pretty sure I moan, and I don’t care. His hands drop to my waist and he easily lifts me and turns to place me on the closed sarcophagus without missing a beat.
He steps between my legs and I sink into him and definitely moan again and there may not be music but there are fireworks because my entire being feels like I’m exploding. His hands roam my back and one slips under my T-shirt across my skin and then …
Then Luke ends the kiss, puts his hand back on top of my shirt, rests his forehead on mine, and sighs.
“I don’t want to stop,” I say.
I can’t believe I said that.
“Me either. But the cult could show up here. We shouldn’t linger, no matter how tempting.” He leans back enough to hold my gaze. “This night is the furthest thing from boring.”
“Understatement.” I smile at him. Heat crackles between us. It is not boring. In the least.
The temptation to keep going is there. If I move toward him even a fraction, I sense he’ll go along, despite his objections. My body is in favor of it. But my brain kicks back into its usual mode—worry that I’m messing this up. Not to mention, he’s a demon. What am I doing? And why do I like it so much?
“We should though. Stop. You’re right.” I press Luke away and reach up to put my hair back over my telltale ear. I slide off the sarcophagus. “Saving the world and all. Let’s dig around in some old bones.”