He stiffened. This again. “I’ve already told you. I’m not doing anything with the Purgators.” He stared at her. “Do you think maybe you’ve become a little paranoid because your ex-boyfriend is a psychopath?”
She snapped her book shut, leaning toward him. “Jack isn’t the only psychopath. That could be a human being they’ve got locked up in the crypt. Thomas said the Purgators have been hunting witches since the Roman Republic. King Charles I and King James I were both Purgator kings, and they tortured thousands of people. They created the Malleus Maleficarum—the witch-finding guide. They burned and hanged thousands of innocents. And they might still be doing it. They’re worse than Jack.”
He tensed. No one was worse than Jack. “I’m not in league with them. Munroe has taken some kind of interest in me, that’s all.”
“Some kind,” she repeated with emphasis. She opened her book again, pretending to read. Clearly, the conversation was over.
Maybe she was furious with him right now, but he planned to stay as close to her as possible until the muddy riverbank covered Jack’s corpse.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Fiona
Dark clouds hid the moon outside. Fiona stood up from her bed, pulling on a pair of jeans and a tight-fitting pink sweatshirt with puffy hearts.
Mariana sat on the edge of her bed. “Are you sure hunting around in the attic is necessary?”
“They told us not to go there. So, obviously we should.”
“Either you’re paranoid, and we should just stay here. Or you’re not paranoid, and the Ranulfs kill people. In which case, we should definitely stay here. Ideally, I’d like to finish my junior year alive.”
“We’ll be invisible,” said Fiona. “They won’t know we’re there.”
“Don’t you think you might be imagining things? You’ve been extremely suspicious of Tobias. Maybe he’s hiding something. Or maybe Jack made you a little nuts. And are you sure this isn’t about all the stuff that happened with your dad when you were a kid?”
Heat warmed Fiona’s cheeks and ears. “How is that even related?”
“You were close with your dad, and then when he was arrested—”
Fiona’s throat tightened. “This has nothing to do with that. And I told you I never wanted to talk about it.” It wasn’t his arrest that haunted her nightmares. It was what she’d seen before, when she walked home along the beach. She shut her eyes, trying to clear the memory. “Anyway, Alan is going to meet us in five minutes, so we’re committed now.”
Through the open window, a floral breeze filtered through the curtains. Fiona pulled a hairband off the dresser and yanked her frizzy hair into a ponytail. “And Tobias was being weird again. Skulking around by the river. He’s keeping secrets from us.”
Mariana crinkled her brow in disbelief. “You think that because he was hanging out by the river, it means he’s in a cult. Maybe he’s homesick. I’m homesick.”
“You miss your parents?”
Mariana pulled on her jeans. “I miss my brother. My parents are always busy with work anyway. I spoke to my mom yesterday. She’s psyched that I’m here, but she wasn’t listening to a word I said. She was in Chicago on a business trip, and she kept interrupting me to argue with a cab driver. And Mrs. Ranulf was staring at me through the whole conversation, like she was monitoring me.”
“See? She’s creepy.” She was starting to seem more like a jailer than host.
“What’s her deal with Mellior, anyway?” Mariana squinted her black-rimmed eyes. “Do you think they have a… morally dubious relationship?”
“Well, Mr. Ranulf is never here, and someone’s got to firehose the lady.”
“Now that’s an image to haunt my nightmares.” Mariana pulled up her hood. “I’m ready to go. Do you want to chant Lady Cleo’s Cloak?”
“Sure.” Fiona exhaled, rattling off the Angelic words. The aura rippled over her skin, giving her gooseflesh a moment before her flesh disappeared.
“Do you hear that?” Mariana brushed past Fiona toward the window. The wind carried with it a distant wailing sound, and a banging noise along with it.
“Is that the crypt-prisoner again?” Fiona whispered.
“Sounds like it. Do you think she’s some kind of demon?”
Fiona leaned over the windowsill, listening to the faint howl. The last time the monster had started screaming, Tobias had been conducting a spell by the river. And this time, they had just chanted Lady Cleo’s Cloak. The spells’ magical auras must be drawing her forth, riling her up into a frenzy. “If she’s a demon, that would explain why she started screaming after we used Angelic.”
“And it would explain why she tried to come for us in the cemetery.”
“Maybe that’s what’s tipping off Mrs. Ranulf. That thing in the crypt is like an alarm system for whenever we use magic.”
Mariana crossed her arms. “Do you still want to go up to the attic?”
Fiona frowned. “Since we’re already invisible, we might as well take advantage of it.”