The Sweetest Burn

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Costa muttered.

From her expression, Jasmine agreed, but she stayed silent. Adrian gave them a quick, measuring look before replying.

“Once again, anyone who wants to can stay back at the bus.”

“As soon as I make sure that Ivy’s really safe, I’m out of here,” Jasmine said briskly. “Until then, I’m staying.”

This time, Adrian’s silvery-blue eyes lingered on me. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but it should be as safe as regular target practice.”

“Sure, if you ignore the part about the target being a living, bloodthirsty demon,” Jasmine said under her breath.

I had to admit, that had given me pause the first time Adrian had told me his plan, but I knew as well as he did how important it was to train for the staff. Jasmine didn’t, so she’d reacted as though Adrian were trying to fulfill his destiny by betraying me. By the time she’d calmed down enough to hear him explain the safeguards, we were halfway to Milwaukee.

Now that the moment had arrived, however, I felt more than a little nervous. Not because I thought that Adrian was about to pull a Judas, but because I was dreading the pain to come. As we walked into the chapel, my right arm began to tingle as if the sling was beginning to wake up. Made sense; according to Adrian, the demon was about thirty feet below where we were standing.

The interior of the chapel wasn’t heavily decorated, but what was there was beautiful. Wooden chairs contrasted with the ancient stone walls and stained glass window mosaics. The ceiling was surprisingly low and flat until it neared the altar, and then it arced upward a full story and became shaped like an octagon that had been cut in half. The chapel was now empty of students, but a priest in full vestments stopped Adrian when he started to go behind the carved altar.

“My son, what are you—?”

“It’s Adrian, Father Louis,” he interrupted him, smiling wryly.

“Adrian!” the priest said with obvious happiness. “What an impressive new disguise. I’m so glad to see you. It’s been so long, I was beginning to grow worried.”

“This is no disguise. For once, you’re seeing the real me, and as for being away,” Adrian replied, reaching out to draw me forward, “you’ll understand once you meet the reason why. Ivy, this is Father Louis. Zach brought me to him when I was fresh out of the realms, and he took me in and gave me a crash course on humanity. Father Louis, this is Ivy.”

I said hello and shook hands with Father Louis, but when it came time to let go, the priest didn’t. Instead, the white-haired father began to tremble as he stared at the tattoo snaking from my finger to my forearm.

“Adrian,” he whispered. “Is it... Is—is she...?” He seemed too shocked to finish the sentence, so Adrian did.

“Yes, she is the last Davidian, and yes, that is David’s slingshot embedded inside her skin,” he said almost gently.

To my great consternation, the priest dropped to his knees, mumbling prayers in Latin. He kept hold of my hand, though, and for an old guy, he had a good grip. Then he pressed a kiss to the tattooed loop around my finger.

“Sanguine David, armorum Dei,” he breathed, finally releasing me. “Blood of David, weapon of God.”

I backed up as soon as I could, unnerved by the misplaced worship. If this priest knew me, he’d haul me over to the nearest confessional booth and then bolt it shut until I’d disclosed all my sins, which would take a while.

Adrian flashed me a grin. “Don’t let this bother you. Father Louis is an emotional guy. You should’ve seen his reaction when Zach told him who I was. He dumped a vat of holy water over my head and began reciting the exorcist’s prayer.”

I couldn’t help but snicker at the mental image, which lessened the awkwardness of the moment. After crossing himself, Father Louis rose, smiling at me with a sheepish expression.

“My apologies, miss. I was unprepared. Believing in something is not quite the same as seeing it in the flesh.”

I reassured him that all was well while I mulled the truth of that statement. Months ago, I had believed the slingshot would work because everyone had told me it would, but still, I’d been blown away by actually seeing demons and minions fall by the hundreds from it. No wonder the good father had lost a little of his cool after Adrian told him who I was. Seeing and believing were two different things.

And sometimes, believing and trusting were two different things, too. I knew that God was real because of everything I’d been through, yet I still struggled to trust in Him. After all, it seemed reckless at best to hinge the fate of the world on a twenty-one-year-old who was far from the smartest or bravest that humanity had to offer. Any divine being that thought that was a good idea was deserving of a few doubts, if you asked me.

“You remember Costa, and this is Ivy’s sister, Jasmine,” Adrian continued the introductions. “We’re here so Ivy can build up her tolerance to the staff. The sling comes out in the presence of demons, which is why we need to see Blinky.”

“The demon’s name is Blinky?” Jasmine asked in disbelief.

Adrian snorted. “He refused to tell us his real name and I don’t recognize him, so we had to call him something. You’ll understand why we picked that when you see him.”

“Please, allow me to watch the sling’s manifestation,” Father Louis said, his voice almost trembling with excitement.

Adrian clapped him on the back. “Get me a bag of a hundred percent, hand-tossed grave dirt, and you’ve got a deal. The last priest I went through must’ve mixed regular soil in with the batch since it did nothing but piss off the demon it landed on.”

Father Louis beamed. “Done.”

I now knew why the grave dirt we’d used hadn’t worked on Oblivion. Father Louis hurried to the front of the chapel. I thought he was leaving to get the agreed-upon hallowed dirt, but instead, he locked the chapel doors and came back.

“You never did explain how Blinky managed to be on hallowed ground without exploding or something,” I said to Adrian.

He smiled, and for the briefest moment, he reminded me of Demetrius. The demon was the only other person I’d seen who could convey such dark expectancy with a mere curl of his lips.

“You’re about to find out, but I’ll give you a hint—if hallowed objects exist, then so do their counterparts.”

With that, Adrian grabbed one of the four pillars that flanked the altar and turned it on its axis. With a grinding sound, the entire altar and part of the stone floor beneath lifted up on its side, causing the candlesticks and velvet cloth to crash onto the floor. The new position revealed a square, open space beneath the altar, with stairs that led down.

“You’ve heard of trap doors, well, this is a trap altar,” Adrian said, his grin turning challenging. “Follow me.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FATHER LOUIS TOOK one of the altar’s fallen candles, lit it and brought it down with us. Without that single flickering flame, we wouldn’t be able to see anything. Well, most of us wouldn’t. My eyes were already adjusting to the dark. As I’d told Costa, my abilities were like a muscle; the more I used them, the more they were there when I needed them.

“What kind of a church is this?” Jasmine whispered as we descended the stairs. The tunnel around us was so narrow, if I stretched out my arms, I’d hit the wall. That’s why Brutus had to stay up in the chapel. Even though the staircase descended only about fifteen feet, there was no way Brutus would fit in this tiny space. I hoped no one in our group was claustrophobic. Even I was starting to feel twitchy from our cramped quarters.

“A very special one,” Father Louis replied. He didn’t sound unnerved by our surroundings. In fact, the old priest sounded almost giddy. “It originally came from the French village of Chasse-sur-Rhône. No one knows how old the chapel is. Some say five hundred years old, some say a thousand.”

I was more surprised to hear of its original location than to hear of its age. “Someone moved an entire stone chapel all the way from France to here?”

“Oh, it didn’t come here first,” Father Louis said, further surprising me. “Its first destination was New York. It stayed there forty years and miraculously survived a fire that leveled the castle next to it. Then the chapel was inherited by another family, and they had it transported stone by stone to here.” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">