Costa replied with a burst of Greek that sounded as furious as he looked, and with his handsome features mottled from rage, that was saying something. Whatever his tirade was, it pissed Adrian off to a fantastic degree, too, because Zach had to catch his fist before he slammed it into Costa’s face.
“Was that a confession?” Jasmine cried, coming over to me.
The look Costa threw our way was more scalding than his response. “Quit acting, Jasmine! We both know it has to be you.”
“Fuck you, no it isn’t!” she screamed back at him.
Zach still had ahold of Adrian’s wrist, and when Adrian attempted to pull free, the Archon tightened his grip.
“Not until you are in control,” Zach said coldly.
“If you’d just confirm who it is, we can end all this,” Adrian snarled.
“No,” Zach replied. “Until you are able to figure it out for yourself, you are not ready to accept the truth.”
His cryptic response only made things worse, but when Zach didn’t want to reveal something, all the raging in the world wouldn’t make him. Plus, while we were fighting, demons could be descending on that former church site in France. As serious as the prospect of Costa’s betrayal was—and after Zach’s comment, I was 100 percent convinced it was Costa because that’s the only truth Adrian wasn’t ready to accept—getting the staff before the demons found it had to come first.
“Stop it, everyone,” I said, raising my voice to a shout. “We have a staff to get, so Jasmine, Costa, you two are waiting here. You’ll be safe,” I added with a hard glance at Zach, whose oblique nod confirmed that he was staying with them. Good, because now, I didn’t trust Costa around Jasmine. “When we get back, we’ll figure this out.”
Zach released Adrian’s wrist. He rubbed it while his gaze landed on the three of them, seeming to make silent promises that I couldn’t decipher. Then at last, he looked at me.
“Ready when you are, Ivy.”
* * *
IT FELT LIKE I had twenty pounds of rocks in my pockets. Good thing I’d worn jeans to the campus last night. If I’d had on a skirt, I wouldn’t have been able to store nearly as much. I still didn’t have on a bra, not having found it during our brief, former visit to Adrian’s loft. I did have knives, holstered and strapped beneath my thankfully baggy T-shirt. As for shoes, well, I hadn’t found mine in the trashed loft. If I hadn’t been so upset by the betrayal revelation, I might have remembered to ask Jasmine if I could borrow her shoes before we left.
I hadn’t been thinking about my feet, though. My thoughts had been split between Costa’s betrayal and the possible fight we were walking into. Those thoughts were briefly put on hold when we tumbled out of the light realm in Lyon, France, which was as close as we could get to the chapel’s original location of Chasse-sur-Rhône. We landed in a wooded area, with a huge, towering white structure that looked like a cross between a castle and a church looming above us. Amber-pink rays of sunrise highlighted the gorgeous Gothic building, making it appear to be a vision from the medieval past. If Brutus weren’t so afraid of the sun, the gargoyle would’ve looked perfect soaring around the high, pointed turrets.
From Brutus’s cringing, he wouldn’t be doing any soaring in the sunshine soon. The leafy trees kept most of those bright rays off us, but too much was getting through for his liking, and with the time jump, that would only get worse. I’d estimated it to be around midnight in Milwaukee when we left. Here, it was the beginning of the day.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the castle/church.
Adrian glanced up. “The Basilica of Notre Dame. I wasn’t sure where the light realm would spit us out, but I’ve been here before. Like Zach said, there’s a dark realm nearby, and the basilica is a tourist trap, so there should be lots of cars.”
I don’t know why I thought that meant we were going to rent one. Neither of us had our passports or other identification, and I certainly didn’t have any money. But still, I was surprised when Adrian snuck around to a parking lot, picked out an older-looking van and smashed out the back window.
Brutus shared none of my hesitation. He practically flew over and dove into the back door Adrian held open. I hurried over, too, but far more cautiously, looking around to see if anyone had seen and was now calling the police.
So far, no one was. I got in the passenger seat and Adrian got in the front. As soon as he did, he ripped some wires down from the base of the steering wheel, and in moments, had the van revved up and moving.
“How long have you known how to hot-wire?” I asked.
He flashed a sly grin my way. “Since the invention of cars. The newer models are harder, though. That’s why I picked this one. It’s big enough for Brutus and old enough not to have an alarm, let alone better safety measures beneath the wheel.”
I felt bad about stealing someone’s car, but consoled myself with the thought that if the person knew why we needed it, he or she wouldn’t mind. What was a little car theft compared to trying to stop a demon apocalypse?
“Here,” Adrian said, handing me Costa’s cell phone. “Pull up directions to Chasse-sur-Rhône. I don’t think it’s far, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been in this area, so I could be wrong.”
I did, feeling encouraged when I saw that it was only twenty miles away. Then I googled information about the chapel. Back in the fifteen hundreds, it had been called the Chapelle de St. Martin de Sayssul, and while I couldn’t find an exact location for the old site, it said that it had been along the Rhône River Valley. Since Chasse-sur-Rhône was only three square miles in total, my plan was to start by the river and keep walking until I felt something hallowed. With luck, we’d grab the staff and be back in the nearest light realm before the owner of this van even realized that it had been stolen.
If we weren’t lucky, then the police coming after us for a carjacking would be the least of our concerns.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian suddenly said, giving me a guarded look. “Are you okay?”
I took in a deep breath, knowing he wasn’t talking about traversing through the realms. “No, I’m not okay that we were sold out by a close friend, and I’m even less okay knowing that you still think it was Jasmine. She wouldn’t do that, Adrian. No matter how much she doesn’t like you, she’d never risk my life that way. I know her.”
He let out a short grunt. “I know Costa, too. If he wanted me dead, he’d come at me head-on, not sneak behind my back, and if it’s not him, then it has to be her.”
“It’s not,” I said, my tone sharper. “I’d bet my life and yours on that, and since you know how I feel about you, you should know I wouldn’t say that unless I was sure.”
The look he gave me was gentle, and when he spoke, his voice was soft. “I believe that’s true of the Jasmine you’re remembering. But this one spent several weeks being tormented by Demetrius. That would break anybody, so the person she is now isn’t the same person you grew up with. This Jasmine is hard, or she wouldn’t have survived. This Jasmine might even think she’s protecting you by getting rid of me, and she might have rationalized the danger she put you in by betting that I’d sacrifice myself to save you, and in that, she’d be right.”
Some of my anger drained away as I looked at him. Yes, Adrian had proved more than once that he’d sacrifice himself to make sure I was safe. It didn’t mean I agreed with him about Jasmine, but it meant I’d forgive him for doubting her.
And, when he finally realized that it had been Costa, I’d be there for him. That kind of betrayal bit deep, especially given Adrian’s absolute belief that it couldn’t be his friend, but simple numbers meant that if it wasn’t Jasmine, it had to be Costa. After all, I knew it hadn’t been me, and of course it hadn’t been Adrian...
A dark thought teased my mind. I rejected it at once, mentally slamming the door shut on it. Adrian would never do t
hat, destiny be damned. I’d been willing to bet my life that it wasn’t Jasmine, and I’d bet it again that it couldn’t be Adrian.
Yet that nagging thought continued to worm its way through my subconscious, returning as fast as I kept rejecting it. He’s half-demon, it whispered, and he’s betrayed you before. With 50 percent of his nature contaminated by evil and 100 percent of his destiny predicting that he’d be the one who would deliver me to demons, could I really be sure that it wasn’t him?
Yes, I thought fiercely. And in about twenty minutes when we got to the former chapel site, I’d prove it by hopefully finding the staff and letting Adrian remove it from the ground. That’s how sure I was that he would never betray me again.
Just like your ancestors, that thought mocked. They’d been sure, too. So sure that they’d bet their lives, and lost them.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I HAD NEVER been to France before, but if I didn’t die and the world didn’t get splattered with demon realms, I’d love to come back. The tiny commune might not be nearly as popular as France’s other cities, but it reminded me of a secluded glen, and the river we walked along only made it more picturesque. Adrian had his arm around me, and the relative silence of the early morning cast a hushed, peaceful lull over the area. If not for our circumstances, it might have been romantic.
“I’ve been here once before,” Adrian remarked.
I was surprised. Had he been everywhere? Probably, I reminded myself. Adrian had had at least two normal life spans to travel, plus with access to realm vortexes, I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that he’d gotten around. “When?”
He gave me a sardonic smile. “The first time I slipped Demetrius’s watch and explored the human world. I couldn’t do it near my realm because too many people would recognize me, so I went through a vortex and it spit me out by the basilica. The sunshine, the cars, all the people... I’d never seen anything like it before. It freaked me out, so I started running and didn’t stop until I reached this town. It was quiet here, so I stayed for a day, just taking it all in with amazement.” Then his smile vanished. “Demetrius had such a fit when I went home that it took me a year to risk exploring this world again.”
Brutus snarled as he darted from tree to tree, and that shattered my fascination with Adrian’s story. Adrian whirled, looking for danger, and I pulled out a knife while I checked my arm. My slingshot wasn’t glowing and no one seemed to be around. When Brutus snarled again, I realized he was doing it in general grumpiness about being out in the sun. He’d wanted to stay in the van, but we didn’t know if we’d need a quick aerial getaway, let alone the protection of his lethal wings. Now those snarls, combined with his baleful looks, were his way of letting us know what he thought of that plan.
“Feeling anything yet?” Adrian asked, relaxing when he saw that Brutus was just expressing his displeasure.
“Just my toes getting cold,” I replied.
Adrian glanced down, as if just now remembering that I didn’t have on any shoes. “Aw, crap. Here, you can wear mine.”
I stopped him in the process of kicking his off. “Don’t bother. Your feet are twice as big, so I’d only trip.”
He began to walk faster, his gaze darting around. “If we’re lucky, this won’t take long.”
As if on cue, my senses began to perk up. A low, dinging vibration felt like it hummed along my subconscious, picking up in intensity as we continued to walk. By the time we’d gone another hundred yards, those dings had turned into inner gongs.
“Something’s here,” I said, keeping my voice low.
Adrian’s hand tightened around the knife he had holstered in his jeans pocket. “Minions or demons?” he asked softly.
“Neither,” I said, with a quick look around to make sure that I wasn’t speaking too soon. “Something hallowed.”
I began to walk away from the river, letting the supernatural sensor inside me guide my steps. Adrian and Brutus followed me, the latter snarling even louder when I took us well outside of the shelter of trees that had hugged the riverbank. Up ahead, I saw a line of warehouses, but in the clearing before that, on the gentle rise of a small hill, there was a crumbling stone structure that looked to be several hundred years old. Next to that, on a flat section of earth, I felt the ground beneath me change from grass and dirt to something harder. And the hardened ground sent my hallowed radar into overdrive, although it didn’t physically knock me over or hurt to be near it the way it had when I’d walked into the crypt under the chapel at the campus.
“Here,” I said, my voice a little hoarse from the mystical energy pouring into me.
Adrian knelt beside me, pulling at the grass. It didn’t take long before he revealed large, flat stones. Judging from their size and placement, these weren’t natural formations. They were the base of a structure that was no longer here.
And the hallowed item contained somewhere beneath these stones felt like it was calling out to me.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Adrian said with obvious relish.
I looked around, realizing that in our haste to get here, we’d forgotten something very important. Namely, any tools that we could dig the staff out with.
“Um,” I began, hoping that there was a French version of a Home Depot nearby, but Adrian just started talking to Brutus in Demonish. When he was finished, the gargoyle went over to the slab and pounded his broad, leathery heel onto it.
The impact shook the ground. Brutus beat his wings to increase his momentum, and his foot repeatedly slammed down to the accompanying sounds of stone breaking. He used so much force, I was worried that he’d hurt himself, but his apelike features actually looked like his version of happy. Maybe he was. He now had something to take out his frustration on, and he was making that stone slab pay for his being out in sunlight.
But when Brutus had stomped his way down about three feet, I caught a flash of purple among the pale gray stones. Then shards of the same color flew out, and when one of them hit me, the supernatural vibes coming from it made me realize that it was different from the other stones in more than color.
“Stop!” I said, and Brutus paused with his thickly muscled leg still in midstomp.
I went over to the slab, looking down at the small crater that Brutus had made. Most of the shattered rocks inside the hole were pale gray to match the slab. But a few shards of purple remained at the bottom, and I followed their trail to a hollow purple rectangle embedded inside the stone blocks. When I touched it, power sizzled through my veins.
“Is that it?” Adrian asked, crouching next to me.
I jumped into the hole for a better look. Then, even though it hurt, I stuck my hand inside the rectangular purple casing, sliding it in until I’d gloved my arm almost to my shoulder.
“No,” I said, glad that the pain wasn’t as bad as when I’d touched the cloth back at the campus chapel. “But I think that this used to be its casing.”
Considering its location and the power coming from it, it had to have been in contact with an extremely hallowed item. So, why did the power coming from it feel far fainter than the power that the cloth had given off? If not for the long, rectangular shape of the casing and the inlaid gold etchings in the form of locusts, frogs and a large river or sea, I’d think that the casing had once contained another hallowed artifact instead of the staff. But the shape and etchings were too specific to be anything else, not to mention that this was where the former chapel that had housed the staff used to be.
Maybe time made the difference, I mused. It had been almost a hundred years since the chapel had resided here. If it had been that long since the staff had been in the purple casing, that could account for the lessening of the supernatural imprint it had left.
But the staff had been here. I knew that as surely as I’d known that I’d found David’s slingshot when I touched it for the fi
rst time, but it wasn’t in the box now. I withdrew my arm, and while the pain lessened at once, trepidation replaced it.
Only Adrian and I knew that the staff was no longer here. If Blinky or another demon had managed to translate the runes on the tablet, they could show up any second, and they wouldn’t be in a talking mood. We’d beaten them here, but that didn’t mean we were safe.
“Ivy,” Adrian said, and the urgency in his voice told me that he’d come to the same conclusion. “We need to leave. Now.”
* * *
ADRIAN DROVE LIKE a proverbial bat out of hell back to the basilica. We had sirens blaring behind us for the last five minutes, but Adrian drove the van right into the wooded section that led to the gateway. When the van could go no farther, he had Brutus fly us the rest of the way. We’d marked the tree closest to the gateway, not that I needed the big X to know where it was. Being in contact with the staff’s casing had put my hallowed senses into overdrive. I could’ve found the gateway blindfolded and with both hands tied behind my back.
“Come on,” I said when we reached it, and held my arms out. Shouts in French plus the sound of crashing through the woods meant that the police were almost upon us.
Adrian ducked under my right arm and Brutus hunched to fit under my left, but when I was about to pull them through the gateway, Adrian stopped me.
“Don’t go back to the realm where Jasmine and Costa are. Think of New York City instead.”
I didn’t ask why. There was no time. The last thing I saw before I pulled everyone through the gateway was a group of policemen bursting out from the trees, but by the time the officers reached us, me, Adrian and Brutus were long gone.
We tumbled out on the other side of the gateway to land with a splash into foul-tasting, chilly water. I coughed, trying to expel what I’d inadvertently swallowed, and Brutus let out a howl that blasted my eardrums. He shot out of the water as if fired from a cannon, flying around in mad dips and turns. It was night here, but Brutus was easy to see against the huge, lighted bridge above us, not to mention the wall of brightly illuminated buildings on either side of the waterway.