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For all the cars parked outside, the interior of the church was eerily devoid of people. I followed Sera with caution, the press of power giving way before our combined energies. Everything felt thick, as though someone was trying too hard either to impress us or to keep us in the main sanctuary—someone who had never met the Delante sisters. It would take more than a few sticky parlor tricks to get us to leave.
I caught up to Sera at the end of the aisle, standing at the foot of the dais. On the simple raised flooring sat the most ornate altar I had ever seen in a Christian church. Its legs were heavy spirals of luminescent gold, each one ending in well-crafted talons. The entire surface lay bare, the usual vestments conspicuously missing—no cup, no incense burner, not even a table runner thing.
I blinked.
“Don’t go up there.” Sera jerked on my hand hard enough to make me stumble.
“Hey!” My sister was standing behind me, and I was on the dais, fingertips stroking the heavy, red velvet ropes in front of the crazy altar. This close I could see that the top was covered in carved symbols, almost runic, but their position and strokes were twisted and misshapen. They seemed almost alive, slithering across the altar. I stepped back down. “I don’t remember walking up here.”
She shook her head and shuddered. “It’s not you. It’s this place. Can you imagine taking the Eucharist here? Everything here is distorted, if you pay attention—just a little off-kilter from a normal Christian church. Even Him.” She nodded, her gaze drifting behind me.
I turned around. The typical crucified Jesus hung above the altar, but the face was wrong. I had been in too many churches, read far too many books, seen too many cultural ‘options’—Korean Jesus, anyone?—to be mistaken.
The figure on that wooden cross was not the Christian Son of God.
His deep forest green eyes pulled at me like a dark tide, and his brown hair, almost auburn, framed an olive complexion. Those details alone, even as extreme changes from the norm, didn’t bother me, yet the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rose.
The expression on his face did it—the way he smiled, almost joyful, from beneath his crown of thorns, as if he derived pleasure from having nails driven into his hands and feet and a spear-induced side wound. What a sick mockery of a benevolent religion.
I forced my eyes away and took slow breaths. “We have to finish what we came here to do and get out of this place.”
Sera nodded. “Where to?”
To the left of the stage, the bright red light of an exit sign hung over a wooden door. To the right, an empty corridor swam with endless pitch.
Had we given Heath enough time to alert any other followers lurking in the building? Were they waiting for us to enter that hallway? I grimaced. We’d done nothing wrong, so ambush seemed a little extreme, but there was only one way to find out.
I sighed, and Sera squeezed my hand again as we stepped away from the dais and into the darkness. The temperature plunged, and we gasped in unison. My breath billowed in a delicate cloud.
“What now?” My hands went frigid, so I could hardly feel my sister’s hand. “Sera?”
“Yeah, I feel it too.”
The darkness swirled in front of us.
That’s new. I blinked and refocused, and yep, it was moving.
The ebony entity continued its curvaceous dance, sending foggy fingers over my bared skin. It crept up to my head and tugged at my hair, draping the ends over my shoulders like a dozen hairy tentacles. The unnerving sensation sent icy fear down my spine as it encircled us, blocking off the light from the sanctuary.
“Zoë!” Sera called out.
I squeezed her hand. “I’m right here.”
“I think it’s sniffing me.” She stepped closer until we were snuggled shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
My face and neck sprouted goosebumps from the minute breath of the airy darkness around us. It pulled at my clothing with tiny, invisible claws, nicking at the skin beneath with careless abandon. It emitted a series of soft sighs, almost erotic, as if the creature was gaining some crude, intimate pleasure from its nitpicking.
“Any clue?”
“Uh....” I thought for a second. “Not a one. Could be an untamed air elemental.”
“A what?”
I rolled my eyes. “Either you accept that things are about to get weird—”
“Er... weirder.”
I sighed. “Sera.”
“Oh, fine. Do your thing.” She couldn’t keep the involuntary resignation from her voice—Delante stubbornness.
I swallowed a chuckle. “It’s big and strong, but it’s invoked. It doesn’t live here.” I reached out, and it pulled back. I moved forward, encircling us with my magick, and it met my movement.
Its energy touched mine, and the weirdest cacophony of coos and shrieks erupted, like a million separate high-pitched voices singing a sharp, electric harmony.
Great, a sadomasochistic parasite. Or a siphon. Whoever controlled this creature held demented intent and gained something through the vicarious sampling. I didn’t like voyeurs, and I sure as hell liked them less when they used magick against their victims.
“Enough!” My voice should’ve echoed in this hallway, but the living wall of pitch just absorbed it. “I don’t care who you are, but if you don’t knock this shit off right now, if I have to break through your pet of my own volition, I will make you regret it. I know you know what I am, but I promise you’ve only gotten a sneak peek at what I can do. Drop the damn nonsense, or I’m going to make your little invocation look like some cheap online spell kit!”
I was bluffing my not-so-little ass off. No way in hell did I possess enough magick on my own to break this casting, much less launch a counteroffensive against the caster, but of the three of us in this stalemate, did anyone know that but me? Probably not.
A shaft of yellow light pierced the wall, and the entity scurried into the shadows behind us.
I raised one arm to shade my eyes, and with the other motioned for Sera to remain behind me. “Wait,” I whispered. “Let’s see who we’re up against.”
She stilled.
The yellow sliver spread into a wider ray of light, broken only by a man’s shadow. From the cover of my arm, he looked angelic—not in that silly teen girl kind of way, but how I’d always imaged an actual angel of God. A ring of light, brighter than the saving shaft of yellow, covered him from mussed curly hair to the end of his long legs. His mouth was parted, his breath strained, like he’d been running. He dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.
I couldn’t make out any further details in that light, but his mere presence made me blush. His magick held heat against the exposed parts of my skin, and I fought against the happy sigh sitting on my tongue.
My beast answered my confusion with a familiar wanting whimper, like the man in front of me was a tasty treat instead of the enemy. I shook my head. I didn’t have time for this nonsense.
“Is that...?” Sera whispered.
I nodded. “Hello, Jareth.”
