29. SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE

I stared out the window as the winding back roads led us closer to the coordinates etched in the sledgehammer. I tried to lose myself in drawing, anything to forget Jared’s arms around me inside the wall, or how easily he had given me up outside it. We hadn’t spoken a word to each other since I left him standing in front of Hearts of Mercy.

There wasn’t anything else to say.

Lukas had spent most of the ride searching websites on his cell phone, so he didn’t have to talk to his brother. When he finally lost the signal, he went back to studying the map.

He drew a line connecting the red circles, while Jared scanned through the static on the radio.

“There’s probably no reception out here.” Priest looked up from his own sketch, some kind of tube loaded with canisters.

“That’s because this is the edge of the world, and we’re about to fall off,” Alara said.

Jared turned the dial again and this time a voice cut through the static. “The shooting occurred at eleven fifteen this morning at the Walmart in Moundsville. Three people were killed and two others injured before the gunman exited the store, turning his weapon on police.”

“We must be getting close,” Priest said.

“I found something else.” Lukas held up the map. He had added blue Xs inside the boundary line.

Alara frowned. “You’ll have to elaborate.”

“The circles represent the places that had major surges in the last month, the cities and towns where we looked for Kennedy.” He traced the line with his finger. “The Xs are the locations where we found pieces of the Shift.”

Priest froze. “They’re all inside that red line.”

“So what does that mean?” Alara asked.

“I think the Marrow is in there, too,” Lukas said. “And if I’m right, Andras is closer than we thought.”

Alara nodded. “Then we need to find the last piece.”

Another newscaster’s voice replaced the first. “Eastern West Virginia is still under tornado watch. Two tornadoes touched down in Westover yesterday, destroying three homes and a community center. The National Weather Service is working to determine the cause—”

“It’s like we’re heading into it,” Priest said.

Alara stared at the black clouds looming in the distance. “Or we’re already there.”

MOUNDSVILLE, WEST VIRGINIA

POPULATION 9,835

Jared glanced at the sign as we passed. “Only a few more miles.” They were the first words he’d spoken since we left Hearts of Mercy.

The road curved and the sky turned black, but this time it had nothing to do with the clouds.

Alara leaned over the front seat to get a better look. “Please tell me I’m seeing things.”

Hundreds of crows perched in the trees, crowded the telephone wires, and circled the sky.

Alara didn’t take her eyes off the birds. “Black rain. That’s what it’s called when murders of crows gather in one place like this.”

“Because they turn the sky black?” Priest asked.

“Because it’s just as unnatural.”

We moved closer to the birds churning purposefully over a spot in the distance. I didn’t need to see the words etched in the sign we passed to know it was the West Virginia State Penitentiary.

The Gothic facade was flanked by high stone walls, and the building looked more like a cathedral than a prison. Tangled razor wire littering the grass was the only clue that murderers, rather than holy men, once resided inside.

Lukas pointed at the arched entrance. “The coordinates are on the other side of that wall.”

Alara shook her head. “I don’t like this. My grandmother believed that crows could carry evil spirits to hell and back.”

I looked up at the dark sky moving to the rhythm of thousands of black wings. “Then there were a lot of evil spirits in this place.”

“Or they’re still here.”

We parked the van and stood in front of the concrete wall. ARE YOU BRAVE ENOUGH? was spray painted above a cracked hole that reminded me of the one in the basement of Hearts of Mercy. The names of people who had accepted the dare surrounded the opening. It was probably a rite of passage in a small town like this, something Elle would’ve convinced me to do with her before all this.

Now I was checking my pockets for paintball cases filled with holy water and kitchen spices, and a marker in case I needed to bind a spirit with a voodoo symbol.

Alara watched the crows, transfixed, as though she saw something more than their glossy black feathers and sharp eyes. “I have a bad feeling.”

“Of course you do,” Priest said, checking the pocket of his hoodie for batteries and ammo. “We’re about to break into a prison where hundreds of criminals died. This is the definition of a bad feeling.”

“Are you saying we shouldn’t go in?” she asked.

“I’m saying my granddad is dead because of Andras, and the Shift can stop him. I’m not leaving without it.” Priest sounded older than when I first met him a few days ago.

Alara took one last look at the world on this side and followed Priest through the hole. “May the black dove always carry us.”

Lukas glanced back at me before he climbed through, his eyes full of questions I knew he wouldn’t ask. Questions that had been lurking around the edges of every look since the moment he broke through the boards at Hearts of Mercy and found me in his brother’s arms.

I made a choice inside those walls, and there was no way to take it back. Because even if it was the wrong choice, how could I say that to Lukas when I had feelings for Jared?

“Kennedy?”

I didn’t turn around.

Jared put his hand on the stones above my shoulder, his breath warm against the back of my neck. “I think we should talk before we go in there.”

“We’ve talked enough.” I slipped through the opening without looking back.

I couldn’t afford to give him the chance to hurt me again.

Lukas waited on the other side with his hand outstretched, offering to pull me up. I didn’t look back at Jared when I heard him behind me.

The five of us walked across the cracked concrete basketball court, the only break in a sea of dead grass and twisted silver razor wire.

“Which way?” Priest asked.

“Northeast.” Lukas pointed to the far corner of the building.

“Is there anything we should know before we go in?” I asked.

Other than the fact that we’re walking into a haunted prison?

“Between the murders, suicides, and executions, hundreds of men died here. And Moundsville was the only prison in West Virginia with an electric chair.”

“That’s a serious body count.” Priest examined the heavy double doors in front of us.

“That doesn’t include the six people Darien Shears murdered,” Lukas said.

“Who?” Jared watched the crows pecking one another on a broken picnic table.

“A couple of websites mentioned that Moundsville had its own serial killer.”

Alara waved a hand in the air. “I’ve heard enough. This is a paranormal minefield. Be careful where you step.”

I never expected to see the inside of a prison.

The rows of thin rectangular windows didn’t provide much in the way of light, for which I was secretly grateful. I didn’t want a closer look at the dark stains on the concrete floors. Knowing people died here and seeing the evidence were two different things.

At the end of the narrow hallway, the metal door marked CELL BLOCK A stood wide open. Four floors of barred cell doors rose above and around us. Chain-link fencing covered the walls and the ceiling, creating one enormous cage. Trash, torn strips of bedsheets, and scraps of orange fabric littered the floor.

Something flickered at the end of the room—a blurry man in a jumpsuit the same fluorescent shade of orange. He was pushing a mop along the floor, when his head jerked up like he heard a sound from above. A second later, another hazy form fell backward over the top railing. The man with the mop screamed silently and tried to shield himself, crumpling beneath the weight of the falling man.

They both disappeared, and within seconds the man was pushing the mop again, the gruesome scene repeating itself in a never-ending loop.

I squeezed Priest’s arm. “A residual haunting?”

“See, you’re a pro now.”

Even though I knew the men were nothing more than energy—handprints on a dirty window—the sight of the fall still made my pulse race.

Empty cigarette packs and burnt paper crunched under my boots as we followed Lukas to a door at the north end of the cell block. It opened into a hallway, part of the labyrinth of concrete tunnels burrowing through the guts of the prison.

Lukas found the northeast corner easily, a laundry room with industrial washers and dryers lining the back wall and a few wheeled laundry carts. More blood stained the floors beneath the rusted white machines.

Alara closed her eyes and ran her hand along the wall. “I don’t think the Shift is in here.”

Priest lifted an eyebrow. “Since when can you tell that from touching the wall?”

“It’s just a feeling.”

Lukas checked behind another washer. “I’d feel better if we checked the machines anyway.”

Alara rolled her eyes and opened one of the dryers. She seemed more intuitive since the mark had appeared on her wrist, the same way Priest seemed braver after he earned his.

Did the marks change them, or did they change because of the marks? I wanted to ask, but the sting of envy stopped me.

“There’s nothing here,” Jared said. “We should go up to the second floor. I saw a stairwell at the end of the hall.”

Priest jumped onto the first grated-metal step. “We’re getting warmer.”

“I’m not.” My breath came out in white crystalline puffs.

The temperature continued to drop dramatically every few steps. When we reached the second floor, I understood why. The words Death House were spray painted in red on a windowless white door directly above the laundry room.

I rubbed my hands over my arms. “What do you think it means?”

“It’s the room where they keep the electric chair,” Priest answered. “In some prisons, electrocutions were held in a separate building. They called it the Death House.”

“Look.” Alara pointed at the gray metal door next to us. Words were written on this one, too:

Darien Shears

“That must have been his cell,” Lukas said.

“Who?”

“The prison serial killer. A local war hero who was convicted of killing a girl who turned up dead after she left a bar with him. Shears swore he didn’t do it, but the jury didn’t believe his story and sentenced him to life. After a few weeks, prisoners started dying—stabbed in the shower, strangled on the yard, suffocated in their sleep. Shears confessed to all the murders even though there were no witnesses.”

Alara raised an eyebrow. “A serial killer with a conscience?”

“Who knows?” Lukas nodded at the white door. “But they executed him in the electric chair right there.”

Shears’ cell faced the Death House. If he looked out the tiny square window of his cell, the only thing Darien Shears could see was the room where he would take his last breath.

Jared peered through the square cut into the metal and froze. “No way.”

“What?” Alara angled for a better look.

He unbolted the door, and the hinges groaned. The room was empty, but it didn’t feel that way because every inch of the walls was covered with words, symbols, and pictures, overlapping in a dizzying pattern. In the center of the madness, one drawing stood untouched by the edges of the others.

The Shift.

It looked exactly like the one in Priest’s journal, though clearly drawn by a different hand.

Priest pushed his way past Jared and stood in front of the enormous sketch. He reached out and held his hand over it, without touching the smooth concrete on which it was rendered. “It’s not possible.”

“Maybe Shears found the casing hidden in the prison,” Lukas offered. The fifth and final piece of the Shift was the casing itself, the cylinder the four disks slid into.

Priest wasn’t convinced. “But how did he know what the disks looked like? This sketch shows the Shift assembled.”

As I scanned the walls, my mind memorized the pictures and symbols automatically. My eyes rested on the words scrawled over and over above the drawing of the Shift, words I knew I’d never forget: THE SPIRIT IS NOW AT WORK IN THE SONS OF DISOBEDIENCE.

Alara read them, too. “That’s not crazy or anything.”

“It’s a verse from the Bible.” Jared studied the wall. “But it should say, ‘the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.’ It’s a reference to the devil. He’s the spirit at work.”

Demons were bad enough. I didn’t want to deal with the sons of disobedience.

“There was something else in the article about Shears.” Lukas hesitated. “When he confessed, he told the warden he was just a soldier following orders.”

“You think the devil was giving him orders?” I couldn’t hide the shock in my voice.

“I was thinking more along the lines of a demon,” Lukas answered. “One that doesn’t want us to find the Shift.”

The hinges creaked again, and the heavy door slammed shut behind us.

A tall man stared wide-eyed like he had caught us breaking and entering. His hair was buzzed down to nothing, pale eyes lost in the shadows of his gaunt face. A dark band of scarred skin cut across the man’s forehead and circled his skull.

Every muscle in my body urged me to run, but there was nowhere to go. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him.

“I’ve been fighting this war too long to lose now.” Darien Shears was still in the orange jumpsuit he was probably wearing when he died.

“There’s no war.” Lukas kept his voice even. “Nothing to lose.”

We all knew it was a lie. The spirit stepped away from the door. It was covered with more writing: YOU DO NOT KNOW THE DAY WHEN YOUR MASTER IS COMING.

The spirit pointed at Lukas. “I sacrificed my life to protect it. Don’t tell me there’s nothing to lose.”

It’s still here.

My eyes darted around the room. There was nowhere to hide a cylinder the size of a coffee can.

Shears straightened. “I’m a good soldier. Stopped everyone who tried to take it. The same way I’m gonna stop you.”

Priest raised the paintball gun. He fired off round after round, but the balls burst against the vengeance spirit’s chest—holy water, salt, and cloves spraying onto the walls. I waited for the spirit to explode, but he only flickered for a second and vanished.

I stared at the paintball casings lying on the floor. “Why didn’t they destroy him?”

“He’s stronger than the average vengeance spirit.” Lukas ran his hands along the walls checking for cracks. “The rounds weakened him, but I’m not sure how much. We need to find the last piece of the Shift before he comes back.”

“It’s not here,” Jared said. “The walls are solid concrete.”

“Then where is it?” I asked.

Alara stood in the doorway, staring at the view from Darien Shears’ cell. “I think I know.”